His guilty expression deepened. “Tomorrow night?”
“What?” Frisco choked out. “The day before Christmas Eve?”
“I don’t recall asking you.” Mike grunted. “And the day before Christmas Eve isn’t a holiday as far as I know. Plus it’s Monday. We’re usually closed, so it’s not like I’m losing money by shutting the place down.”
I shot Frisco a look. “What’s the big deal? I don’t mind. We don’t have any plans.”
“I don’t know, I just thought we’d be having a quiet evening at home.”
Confused by his furrowed brow, I tried to make a joke about it. “Well, now you get to live it up without me for the night.”
“I don’t recall saying I wanted to live it up,” he muttered. He walked away to where Val stood by the window, and they put their heads together and started talking.
“What’s that all about?” I asked Mike, who still held MJ. “What’re they up to?”
He snorted. “Who knows? Hopefully not another shopping trip. She’s running out of closet space.”
I laughed while still keeping my eyes on Val, who gazed up at Frisco with tears in her eyes, then hugged him tight. “He loves spoiling the people he loves.”
“Yeah? What do you think he’s getting you for Christmas?”
Frisco’s eyes met mine, and their startling, intense blue sent a shock wave of desire through me. I recognized that look, and my body responded.
“I have no idea, but it doesn’t matter.”
Mike took my arm and shook me out of my lust-filled stupor. “Stop it. You’re doing it again.”
“What?” I stared at him. “Doing what?”
“Making it like you don’t count. Being second in the relationship. It does matter. You matter.”
A bit surprised by his outburst, I blinked. “Uh, yeah, I know I do.”
“Well, you’re not acting like it by saying that crap.”
“Mike, dude, chill out. I never said I don’t matter. I said it doesn’t matter what he gets me for the holiday. He does so much for me during the year. I’m not obsessing over one day. Besides, he’s never had a real Christmas, so he doesn’t understand. Last year doesn’t count—our relationship was still so new, we decided to keep it low-key. I hadn’t even moved in here yet.”
“But you’re happy, right? I mean he and I talk mostly business, but I poke my nose in sometimes.”
“I can only imagine.” I leaned against the island. “And yeah, I am. More than I thought possible. Like how you knew Val was the one for you? Well, Frisco is it for me.”
Whatever Val and Frisco were cooking up between them had finished, and they approached us. Val took the baby from Mike, and Frisco slid his arm around my shoulders.
“Have a good evening. Do you need for us to call you a cab or help you downstairs?” Frisco asked, his fingers playing along my nape.
Mike smirked. “Not anxious for us to leave or anything, are you?”
“What was your first clue?” Frisco’s eyes gleamed, and we all laughed.
“You’re a real charmer, Frisco. But at least you’re honest. Torre, tomorrow night, brother. See you Christmas Eve, partner.”
“Yeah, yeah, good night.” Frisco slapped him on the back
Tina gave me a hug and a kiss and looked up at Frisco. He’d always been a bit stand-offish with his affection to her, giving a wave or a smile, but shockingly, this time he bent and kissed her cheek.
“We had fun, right, polpetto?”
“Yeah.” She gave him a quick kiss on his cheek, and then they were gone.
Immediately upon my closing the door, Frisco had his arms around me. “I thought they’d never leave.”
I turned to face him and kissed him in the hollow of his cheekbone. “Yeah? Why? You have someplace you need to be?”
Blue eyes alight, his wicked grin set my pulse spiking and my heart fluttering. He cradled my chin in his hand and brushed his lips to mine.
“Inside you. My favorite place in the world. Upstairs or downstairs. I don’t care. Pick one, because I’ve been waiting all day to have you alone. Patience may be a virtue, but I’ve always found the virtuous to be highly overrated.” He ran his nose across my cheek. “Sinners have much more fun,” he murmured.
I nuzzled into the warmth of his palm and kissed him. “Sofa.”
He pulled me close first and covered my mouth with his. Like always, the mere touch of him ignited a fire inside me. His tongue licked at my lips and I sucked on it, hungry and greedy.
“Bello,” he whispered, and I melted at the passion in that simple endearment.
“I love you.”
Frisco buried his lips in my hair and held me tight. “I love you too.”
Once in the living room we shed our clothes, and naked, fell onto the couch in a tangle of hot skin and grasping hands. I couldn’t wait, didn’t want to wait. I needed him right then.
Right now.
“Come on,” I urged, pulling him closer, loving the rasp of his hair against my overly sensitized skin. It had been like that between us from the first. That fire between us. His touch brought me to life.
Frisco reached for the lube and slicked his fingers, sliding one past my hole, with a second joining it moments later. His purposeful, unerring touch shattered me, and the sound of my groans rose over the frantic pounding of my heart.
“Please, now.”
“You think you’re ready?” Blue eyes blazed and he withdrew, hovering over me, his face taut and unsmiling. “You want me?”
“Yes, yes.” I was practically sobbing with need, my body empty and throbbing.
He entered me in one strong thrust, sinking in to the root, and I gasped at the stretch of his heavy cock breaching me.
“Too much?” He folded my legs to my chest and rocked, harder, faster.
“Never. Never enough.” I canted my hips, and the brush of his cock over my prostate buzzed electricity through me as if I’d imagined a lightning strike. Head spinning, my body on fire, I grasped my dick and at the first touch, I shot into my hand.
“Oh, God,” I cried out and tightened around Frisco.
His hands gripped my hips as he held me in place and drove into me. The throw pillows sailed off the sofa, and Frisco slammed into me one final time with a groan and came. I held on to his shoulders, feeling his twitching, shivering body stiffen, then relax. He released a gusty sigh, and I slipped my arms around his neck. It was my favorite part of making love. The closeness. A part of him connected to a part of me.
When he nuzzled my cheek and kissed my temple, I hummed, and Frisco’s lips curved against my face.
“Happy?”
I hadn’t imagined Frisco to be a cuddler, but then again, he’d broken every preconceived notion I’d had of him.
“How could I not be? I have you.”
“Yes, you do.” His breath hit my cheek, and I thought about what Mike had said earlier. My brother was wrong. Frisco didn’t need to give me anything tangible for me to know how much he cared. This, right here, told me everything. The languid slide of his fingers along my body, the gentle kisses to my cheek, meant more to me than any present.