‘Oh, I remember.’
‘I remember you always covered for me. Telling Mama tall tales about boys that splashed mud on us even though we had stomped in the puddles on the way home.’
Chloe shrugged. ‘It wasn’t like we didn’t have plenty of shoes. Surely, we could ruin a pair or two.’
Their laughter died down. Maybe there were a few things Kira did miss about home, but it was all wrapped up in her sister. She was sure that wherever Chloe was would feel like home to her. But her sister was married to a Dane who designed those ubiquitous plastic toy building blocks for a living. And she wasn’t coming home anytime soon.
‘Kira, is that a Christmas tree?’ Chloe’s eyes grew in surprise.
‘Oh … yeah… Had to play the part of a Christmas-lover if I’m going to sell Christmas trees.’
Chloe was studying her again like she could tell that a sexy man had cut down that tree for her and helped her decorate it, and that they made love by the glow of its lights every night and that Kira felt like she was building a home with someone else who would leave her.
Instead, she just smiled. ‘I’m really happy you’re happy there, Kiki.’
‘Thanks, Chlo.’
‘Let me let you go.’
Kira smiled at the phrase. Another one from their childhood. ‘Okay, love you.’
‘Love you.’
Kira snuggled into the closest dog, trying to swallow the emotions that always bubbled up after talking to her sister. Her childhood had been cold and strict, in some ways, and incredibly permissive in others. Her parents, mostly her mother, had incredibly high standards for her and Chloe: the way they looked, the way they talked, the way they behaved. Appearances were everything. Which was why Kira had spent so much time and energy doing everything in her power to fight against those restraints. And when she fell, when she screwed up, made a spectacle, her father’s money had always been there to bail her out.
It was a toxic way to grow up.
She didn’t need a therapist to tell her that.
‘Is it safe to come back in?’ Bennett peered in through the blanket door. ‘Or are you still discussing my sexual prowess?’
Kira chucked a pillow at him and he laughed.
‘What?’ he said, rejoining her on the couch. ‘I can’t help it, if I make you glow.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
He grinned.
She grinned back.
Stupid and selfish to her very core.
She gave the dogs between them a gentle shove and they hopped down to find Elizabeth and their doggie bed.
Kira moved and straddled Bennett’s lap, his work put away for the day.
He raised his eyebrows.
‘I have a glow to maintain,’ she said.
He laughed a little, but the amusement didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Good thing your local hookup is here.’
‘That’s what this is, right?’ She hated the look of hurt on his face. This would be so much easier if she was the only one getting hurt here. ‘We agreed.’ She leaned forward, kissing his neck. His hands grabbed her ass and tugged her closer. He was already hard against her.
‘I know,’ he groaned a little as she sucked on his neck, letting her tongue run against the roughness of his stubble. ‘Sometimes … it feels like … more than that.’
‘It isn’t more than that. It can’t be.’ She ran her hands through his hair, giving a little tug. ‘Now let’s see that sexual prowess you were just bragging about.’
He hesitated for a breath like he might argue further but instead he slapped her ass and growled at her to strip, which she happily did, as quickly as her layers would allow. This was good, this was better. Just sex. A holiday fling. Something they would sweep away after Christmas along with the fallen pine needles littering her floor.
‘Come here,’ he demanded. He was still sitting on the couch and he’d shed his own layers so he was sprawled naked on the cushions. ‘I think I need some of that glow.’ His smirk was wicked, and Kira loved it when he was like this, when he shed his niceness and let his true desires show through.
‘Get on your knees for me, Peaches.’
A tiny part of her bucked at the command, but the rest of her reveled in it. She liked when he took charge here, during sex. It felt good to give in. To give to him instead of take.
But she also liked to torture him a little bit, so she stood in front of him a breath longer, letting him look his fill. And she did the same.
It would take decades or a head injury for her to forget the way he looked in the honey-gold light of the fire, spread out on her couch, long limbs, broad chest. His cock hard and heavy, his dark hair already mussed from her fingers, his storm-gray gaze locked on hers.
Merry Christmas to her.
‘Kira.’ Her name was a warning.
She grinned and dropped to her knees.
Bennett groaned and the sound had her pressing her thighs together, needing the pressure, already feeling like she would burst if he didn’t touch her.
