How can you fall for someone you’ve just met? How can it feel as though they’ve taken every last ounce of your soul with so little time?
Pulling the ribbon loose, Adam brings my arms to my chest, wrapping them around me as he cocoons me with his body. The way he holds me, it’s like he feels it too. As though his heart can sense the panic beating through mine as it pounds into my back.
The only sounds breaking the silence are our ragged breaths, and I don’t know how long we stay this way or when I drift off, but when I wake up, he’s carrying me into the bathroom. The light is off as he steps into the bath and lowers me into the warm water with him without a single word.
It’s just darkness and silence as he washes my body, peppering my shoulders with kisses as I clutch at his strong, muscular thighs. And I realize that maybe it’s not just my body and soul he’s stolen from me. Adam has taken my heart.
7
Adam
The “Carol of the Bells” fills our darkened bedroom. With the curtains drawn and Amelia still lying naked over my chest, I ignore the buzzing from my vibrating phone on the bedside table. Instead, I continue tracing invisible doodles over her back, enjoying the feel of her hair tickling my skin.
“You can’t beat Home Alone. It’s got to be the best Christmas movie of all time.” Amelia peers up at me, resting her chin on my chest with a teasing smirk. “Don’t you think?”
“It could’ve been if Danny DeVito was cast in it. I think he would’ve made a great Larry Lime.”
“How is it you act as though I’m a crazy person for loving Christmas so much, but you refuse to admit that you’re a festive movie nerd?”
With her legs raised above her ass and her ankles crossed, she shuffles higher up my body until she’s looking down at me and her hand is tangled in my hair again.
“Because I’m not a festive movie nerd—I travel a lot, and I watch a lot of movies on my flights.”
“In your fancy private jet.” She sticks her tongue out at me, and I bite the tip before sucking it into my mouth.
Slipping my fingers into her hair, I kiss her as deeply as I can, savoring every hum. We’ve been holed up together for a week, but it feels as though I know her better than seven days would allow and dread parting with her as though we’ve only just met. Like I’m still trying to woo her, to give her reason to give me her time, even though she’s never withheld her attention from me or played me to get anything from me. It’s all so natural with her, nothing like any connection I’ve had before.
“I told you, you’re welcome to join me on my fancy jet. I can introduce you to the mile-high club.” I lick over her lips, twisting her hair around my fist while palming her ass with my other hand. “Think of all the ways I could make you come on a nine-hour flight. No stopovers. No weird passengers. All the champagne you can drink…”
“Probably served by an air hostess that will have me question why you would ever want to fuck me.”
“I don’t shit where I eat, Amelia. I have rules that I don’t break for anyone.” Except for her. She’s great at demolishing every barrier I’ve ever put in place to stop me from getting distracted and losing focus of the end goal. Great at making me forget what happens when you allow someone to get close.
Expectations, conditions, and demands. Betrayal.
I can’t go back down that road. Being a smart guy means I learn from my mistakes, but all the lessons that I’ve learned over time seem to be fading away the longer we’re in this bubble.
“But you do have a hot hostess on your jet.” She smiles, but it’s not her usual easy, bright one as she burrows her face into my pillow, her wild hair covering my face as I tell her, “I’m sure someone would find him hot.”
Stilling, Amelia whispers, “Oh.”
“I travel because I have to, not because I particularly want to. This is the longest layover I’ve had. Normally I head back home as soon as I’m done with business.”
“Why? If you have no one to return to…”
Turning onto my side, I hitch her leg over my thigh to keep her close. Our time is coming to an end now that my pilot has given me the go-ahead to return. The snow has stopped, and if the private runway is clear, it won’t be long until the commercial ones are too, especially in London.
I should have packed my shit and left last night after he texted me during dinner, but every time I think about leaving, I get this pang in my chest. Fear that I’ll miss something.
“I have my family,” I say, trying to ignore all the thoughts in my head. “My parents and Daphne.” And I used to have Christie, but even someone as career-driven as she is couldn’t deal with the long hours and all the traveling. Or maybe Nanna was right; I never had Christie. It wasn’t me she wanted…
“What are they like?” Amelia asks, a hand cupping my jaw while the other presses to my chest. “I like it when you talk about them—you actually smile. Not your ‘I’m a filthy animal and I’m about to tear your panties off’ smirk.”
“I’m not that dirty.” She pins me with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Need I remind you of the phone box and whose idea that was?”
“The first time we fucked you put your thumb in my ass.”
The flickering light from the television isn’t enough to make out her blush, but I can imagine it, and it makes my chest grow tighter.
“You loved it.”
“No comment,” she muffles into my chest, bashful. “So, your family…”
“My dad is retiring soon.”
“And you’re taking over his role.” Looking up at me, she strokes her thumb over my lip. “Family, Adam, not work. I know that’s your default, but…you’re not just CFO. You’re smart, right? Obscenely good on the ice. Major sweet tooth. You’re kind and funny. You care enough about people that you want to help them even when they’re strangers.”
“That’s my mom. She always pushed for us to be good to others. To treat people better than we want them to treat us. Ever since I can remember, she’s always been hands-on. When Daphne and I started applying for college, she found it so difficult that I ended up ditching Yale for Columbia.”
“Are you a mommy’s boy?” Amelia teases, but there’s a sad slope to her lips and eyes that makes me tighten my hold around her.
“Mom gave up her journalism career to have us. Not that you can’t have babies and a career—I mean, that’s not why she gave it up. It was her choice not to leave her children.”
“She sounds great.” A tear collects in the inner corner of her eye, and my heart instantly aches at the sight.
“Oh, she would be if she didn’t try and set me up with every nice Jewish girl she comes across.” I’m trying to make light of it all so that I can have my happy girl back to smiling, but it doesn’t work. If anything it makes her shudder with a silent sob. “We don’t have to talk abou—”
“You should talk about her more often. Don’t worry about me and my feelings—it’s actually nice to hear that there is a mother out there with the right priorities.”