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My dick swells, and Brad’s grunts intensify. Our sweat-slicked bodies slap together as we dissolve into a fevered mess of him rutting into me—or maybe I’m fucking myself back on him—the only thing I know for certain is that everything feels so insanely right and perfect.

Pressure coils at the base of my spine, and when I feel the way Brad jerks into me with less rhythm, how he’s thick and throbbing inside me, that’s the moment I let go.

I sob out unintelligible words, curses, his name. Cum spurts out of me in thick, pearly ribbons all over his fist, streaking up my lower stomach, seeming to keep going with no end. Brad makes the sexiest damn gasping groan, buries himself deep, and stills. Pulse after warm pulse jets inside me, painting me with his cum, renewing the truth … that I’m wholly his.

And as we both struggle for air after tumbling over the edge, the three little words I so desperately need to say to him thunder in my mind in time with my racing pulse.

I love you. I love you. I fucking love you.

CHAPTER 24

As I stretch out, limbs heavy with sleep, a sweet little purr greets me. Lily bumps my hand forcefully like the tiny ginger menace that she is.

“Hey, sweetie.” With a yawn, I groggily scratch behind her ears, my eyelids still half closed.

How is this real life? How is this my Christmas?

Flinn’s arm drapes heavy across my stomach, his hair disheveled and achingly sexy as he lies face-down on the pillow beside mine. His face is officially adorable when he sleeps, all relaxed and crumpled while he lingers in dreamland.

“Looks like you’ve got yourself a new home.”

Lily chirps and tucks her paws beneath her steadily vibrating chest, turning herself into a mini gingerbread loaf.

“Hope you like horses, because they kinda run the show around here. Although you can make yourself useful and earn your keep by catching mice for us. Just don’t bring us presents dropped on our doorstep, okay?”

Us.

Ours.

Him and me. Me and him.

I’m already talking about our life as a couple as if it’s a foregone conclusion. Here I am, with Flinn in my bed, fantasizing that he’ll want this. God. My clingy ass is mentally already moving him in here, unpacking his stuff into the drawers beside mine, without truly knowing if Flinn will wake up and see things differently in the cold light of day.

He said a lot of things last night—uncharacteristically so for him—but I wouldn’t hold it against him if that was maybe a concoction of adrenaline and infatuation talking. We were both giddy, drunk on the heightened emotion of the situation and our unexpected reunion—it’s easy to get swept up in the way we’ve had a whirlwind romantic fling, a few days spent texting and furtively calling at any opportunity. But Flinn is Mr. Practical. He’s got a job and a life, and what am I? I’m just the college grad, the guy who sucked his dick at a party, the eager fuck buddy who has given him a chance to learn a few things about himself.

But then, would he have made the effort to come here, to surprise me, to bring Lily …? Are those the actions of a cowboy who sees this as a casual, meaningless chance to screw and nothing more?

“I think I’m in love with him,” I whisper to Lily. Her eyes stay closed, despite my outrageous announcement; her tiny motor runs loudly enough to drown my confession out.

My phone vibrates on the bedside table, fortunately within arm’s reach, because I’m cat-trapped until further notice. When I lift the screen to squint at the text, it’s from my dad.

Dad:

Awake?

You know me.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Merry Christmas, old man.

Yeah. Bah humbug. Or whatever they say.

Are you texting me to let me know you’ve played Santa Rhodes and delivered a trailer load of gifts to my front porch?

Well, it involves a trailer, but the only gift is probably going to be of the horse shit variety.

Oh goody …