How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas

But I knew.

I knew her secret heart. Even without seeing it. Belief without proof was faith, and that was everything I felt for her.

I rubbed her nipples through the silk until they were hard beads against my thumbs. Until she was twisting against me. “Look at you,” I breathed.

“Take off your shirt.”

“I’m busy.”

She grinned and then grabbed the bottom of my sweaty T-shirt, trying to pull it up over my head, but there was nothing that would change the direction of what was happening like her getting a look at my chest.

Too many scars, too many memories. Too many narrow misses and things that went wrong in a heartbeat. I’d lost weight. Too much. And between that and the scars, I looked like an animal. Felt like an animal.

The perfection of her touch suddenly felt like an itch, like something crawling under my skin, and I twitched away from her. Out of range. I closed my eyes and counted to five in the ten different languages I knew how to count to five in.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

“Sam?” Her voice was quiet. Tentative.

“I’m okay,” I said and opened my eyes.

There were a lot of crossed wires in my head. Things that didn’t feel like they should. Emotions that got lost in translation and came out as anger. Touch that felt good, touch I craved, felt like something crawling under my skin.

It was hard to know what was true. But I felt naked. Exposed.

“Sam…” She hopped off the island and walked over to me, and I braced myself for her touching me. Braced myself for the terrible skin-crawling lie of her touch and blew out a sigh of relief of… bliss…when her touch was her touch. Exciting and sweet. A goddamn benediction when I’d never had one of those before. “Are you okay?”

“Sure.”

“Do you want to leave your shirt on?”

“Sure.”

“Does this hurt?” she asked, touching my ribs. My abs. Her fingers tracing the muscles under the damp T-shirt.

“No.” The word came out soundless but she heard me. Felt me, maybe.

“Does it feel good?”

“Yes. But—”

I felt weirdly like a toddler in my shirt. Like a kid in front of a woman. This was why I should go, because the second act of this particular play was a real downer.

“No buts.”

She unzipped my coveralls the rest of the way, the thick fabric falling off my hips and down my legs, and I stood there in my underwear. My cock was hard and she shoved down my thin boxers, damp with sweat, and she curled her hands around me. I gasped.

“Fuck, yes. Oh my God.” The words exploded out of me despite all my misgivings.

She felt so good. So impossibly good.

I stepped out of the coveralls, pulling everything off my body except my shirt. I just wanted her and her hands. She put both hands around me, squeezing my balls, rubbing her thumb across the tip. I watched, mesmerized, breathless. Numb and dumb to everything but her touch.

And then she sank to her knees.

“No,” I whispered. “Baby.” I didn’t know where that word sprang from but I tried to pull her back up. I’d been sweating and it didn’t seem right—her on her knees.

“So help me God, Sam. If you don’t let me suck your dick—”

The laughter barked out of me. Surprising. I mean…so fucking surprising. Like this woman who was grinning up at me, eyes sparkling, the devil in her grin.

Don’t say it, I thought. No good comes of you saying it.

And I didn’t. I didn’t say it.

Even when her lips closed over the tip of my cock and it felt like I’d been struck by lightning, and she sucked me into her mouth and I could have died.

I love you. I love you so fucking much.

Because there was something weird in me. Profane. I cupped my hand around her head, taking this holy fucking moment and rubbing it in filth. “Suck me,” I said. She moaned in her throat, her hand around my cock getting tighter, and she sucked me down until I felt the back of her throat with the head of my dick.

I put my fingers in her hair, the curls tangling around my fingers, and it must have hurt but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop any of this. And I’d tried so long. I was weak against her. So weak. So powerless.

I felt the orgasm coming. I felt it in my balls. My back. My brain. I felt it in my gut.

With the only strength I had left against her, I pulled her to her feet. Her lips were pink and swollen; I crushed them under mine. I crushed her against me. The silk of her pussy. The perfection of it was my utter undoing. My total undoing. And she knew it, the beautiful bitch. She knew and she rocked herself against me. Fucked herself against me. I grabbed her ass with one hand, her hair with my other hand, and I came.