I hold him close as he drops down again and slips his arms around me, between my back and the bed. He drives into me, sending me higher up the mattress with each deep, pained grunt. I feel him let go, feel him surrender his body to mine as I hold him tight.
“Oh God, Gabby. Oh fuck—”
“I want it all,” I tell him through a hard kiss, sinking my hands into his ass, urging him on. “Give me everything.”
On a shout, he thrusts into me and spills, long and hot, frantic punches of his hips as he calls my name, until he’s spent. After a quiet moment and a dozen tender, breathless kisses, Jonathan eases off my body and tugs me into his arms. Content and dazed, we search each other’s eyes.
“Wow,” I whisper.
“‘Wow’ is right,” he says on a soft smile, his hand wrapping around my waist. He stares at me so intently, that soft smile deepening.
“What is it?”
He sighs happily. “You’re here.”
Now my smile mirrors his. “I’m here. We just had amazing sex. What did I do to deserve that? Have I been naughty? Or nice?”
He laughs deep and rich, drawing me closer in his arms, kissing me slowly. “Both.”
Pulling back, I slide my hands through his hair and examine him. “Do you know how lucky we are? That we found each other not once but twice?”
He searches my eyes, his expression serious. “The luckiest.”
“Why do you look like that makes you sad?”
He tugs me closer and kisses me again. “I’m too familiar with probability and statistics.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means one wrong move,” he says quietly, his forehead against mine, “one single misstep, and I’d have missed you. And I don’t want that world. I never want a world without you.”
“Jonathan.” I cup his face, searching his eyes. They’re wet. “Hey. It’s all right. I’m here.”
He crushes me in his arms and buries his face in my neck, breathing me in. “Sugar plums,” he whispers. “You smell like tart plums and cinnamon sugar, and it’s the best fucking smell in the world.”
I smile, sliding my fingers through his hair in a way that I hope soothes him. “You’ve been a little stressed, haven’t you? You’ve had all this knowledge and worry bottled up beneath that tough-guy surface.”
He nuzzles me and hides in the crook of my neck, kissing me there softly. “That last night at work, when you told me where you were meeting him—me—I wanted to tell you so badly. And so many times in those three days we were apart, I almost texted you, almost called, almost went on Telegram and told you everything, but…” He pulls away, holding my eyes. “but I just couldn’t do it. I kept freaking out, that I’d tell you and you’d truly despise me for what I’d done with the store, and then I’d lose you—”
“Never,” I tell him.
“I know that now,” he says quietly, almost to himself, playing with a lock of my hair. “That’s why I met Mrs. Bailey, for advice about how to finally get the courage to tell you.”
“You figured it out.” I smile at him. “We both did.”
“Yeah.” His eyes search mine. “We did.”
And for a long time, we lie there in the quiet, nothing but the soft dance of the fire’s flames, the sound of our breath and whispered voices as we touch and stare at each other, bursts of laughter and smiles, piecing together the past year, stitching every part of ourselves and our past into one glorious, promising whole.
After a sweet, slow kiss, Jonathan nods his chin toward the miniature Christmas tree nestled on the mantle of his fireplace, sparkling with tiny twinkly lights. “This is what you did to me,” he grumbles. “I have a Christmas tree. I’m an agnostic who, despite my business acumen, loathes the empty consumerist impulses of the season, and here I am, with a Christmas tree on my mantle.”
“I don’t think it’s tiny enough. And it’s definitely missing a fingernail-sized tree topper.” I kiss him softly. “It’s the sweetest thing, Jonathan, but just so you know…you don’t have to love the holidays. I love them enough for both of us.”
It’s quiet for a minute. He traces my breasts with a fingertip, turning my nipples hard and tender. “It’s not so much that I hate the holidays,” he says. “I just don’t…have many happy memories from them. My parents weren’t good together. They always fought badly, but they were at their worst around the holidays—screaming fights, slamming doors, driving off at night and not coming back until the next day.