Wreck the Halls: A Novel

Melody had been sitting on the edge of the guest room bed for twenty minutes, staring at the wall. Beat was right, they needed all the rest they could garner, because, to put it mildly, tomorrow was going to be a challenge and a half. But she couldn’t seem to make herself lie down and close her eyes. Not with Beat’s words lingering in her head.

But I have a way to manage it.

Pushing him once for a more detailed response had been overstepping. Hadn’t it? When they were alone, though, like they’d been in the kitchen, nothing felt off-limits. It was like they could finally let down their guards and just . . . be. A sort of magic she didn’t have with anyone else. But he’d stopped short of sharing his secret with her—and now she couldn’t stop picking up theories and discarding them. Not out of sheer curiosity, although there was some of that.

But more because she could sense the answer was a huge part of him that he held back.

Melody didn’t have a claim on all Beat’s secrets and intricacies, obviously. She only wanted him to know that he could lay them on her. That she would understand. That he didn’t have to shoulder something difficult alone.

A muffled sound reached her through the wall. It was brief and could have been a plane passing in the distance, perhaps lowering its equipment to land at JFK or LaGuardia. She knew that sound well. So why was her pulse galloping in the wake of it?

She’d almost convinced herself that she’d imagined Beat having what felt like an erection when she stumbled coming out of the SUV. That hard ridge against her thigh was his phone, right? But in general, people didn’t carry their phone front and center. Nor were phones so large. There was also the matter of him hissing a breath when she pressed against it . . . and maybe she hadn’t imagined his arousal?

What if it hadn’t been for her, though?

It was totally possible that Beat’s erection was basic anticipation of blowing off the day’s natural steam? Did men get hard thinking about masturbating? Was he masturbating right now?

Melody shuddered through an exhale and squeezed her legs together. Exhilaration trickled down to her toes, her head falling back. Heat bloomed between her thighs and an invisible feather tickled the inside of her belly. She tried to separate the sensations from Beat and just enjoy them for what they were, but without his image, the memory of his touch, his lingering energy, the need began to subside.

“No,” she breathed, the need starting to rekindle when a gruff sound slid beneath the door. It would be a violation of privacy to go inspect that sound, but she found herself balanced on the balls of her feet nonetheless, her ears hunting the air for another one of those deep burrs of sound. When another one finally came, her skin grew so sensitive that the mere act of breathing was nearly unbearable.

She would just go out into the hallway. Maybe she could hear him better there and when would she get this chance again? To be near this human being who attracted her so intensely? To memorize his scent and sound?

Sucking in a deep breath and holding it, Melody eased open the guest room door and stepped out into the dark hallway. The apartment was silent, dead silent, for long moments. Then she heard an unsteady gasp from the other side of Beat’s bedroom door and her knees almost buckled. She pressed the flat of her palm to the wall for support and took one tiny step closer. Thirty seconds. She would give herself thirty seconds.

The creak of a bedspring tightened something in her core so brutally, her toes curled into the carpet runner, her free hand lifting to twist in the front of her nightshirt—

Beat’s bedroom door opened.

He stood there shirtless in the lamplight, his chest rising and falling in great heaves, sweat dotting his brow and upper lip. A thick curve shaped the front of his sweatpants, pulling the material away from his body in a way that was . . . sexual and private and not for her eyes. But she couldn’t stop looking at him to save the world, because he was the most beautiful person on the planet, his eyes cloaked in shadows, hair finger fumbled, body carved with muscle.

“You made a sound,” he rasped.

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“Maybe it was a plane getting ready to land . . .”

Her words trailed off into hard breathing, because he emerged from the room, coming toward her in a prowling, purposeful way and she was so overcome by being his destination that she started to shake. She was shaking, head to toe, when he flattened her between his strapping body and the wall. “Mel.”

“Hold on,” was all she could think to say. “I just . . . y-you have to stop touching me.”

Immediately, he pressed his palms to the wall beside her head and shifted so they were no longer touching. But his nearness set off eruptions in her nerve endings anyway. Not a phone. That was definitely not a phone. There weren’t even pockets in those sweatpants. “Because you want me to stop?”

“No, because I’m going to embarrass myself,” she said on an exhale.

“No. I love the way you’re fucked-up over me.” He crowded in tighter again and dropped his mouth to her ear, his lips grazing her lobe in a way that made her see stars. “Mel, I like things a little fucked-up.”

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They were on the precipice of sharing his secret. It was so much at once. Having every line of his body corresponding to hers, that rough, intimate press, and his trust within reach. Melody’s heart hammered wildly, not sure if she could stand any more without collapsing under the weight of having so many pieces of him at the same time. Still . . . “Tell me.”

“I’d rather talk about what you like.” She felt, rather than saw, his brows knit together. “It sort of feels like I’m the only one who should know.”

A single word gusted out of her. “Oh.”

“Give me back permission to touch you, Peach,” he begged into her neck.

“Touch me,” she whispered.

“Good girl.” Very slowly, he suctioned the skin below her ear. Hard. Harder. Making her gasp, body liquefying between him and the wall. “I’m waiting to hear what you like.”

This. This all day. But he was looking for more. “I don’t think I know what I like yet,” she said in a rush. “I’m always too afraid to let my guard down. It just . . . maybe I’m imagining it, but I’m always worried they’re just taking notes so they can tell their friends.”

Beat lifted his head, studying her closely. There was total and complete understanding in his eyes. So powerful that a sense of belonging, a feeling of security crowded into her throat. “I get that, Mel. That’s why I . . .” He paused, gave a quick shake of his head. “God, I want to kiss you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my fucking life.”

“Then maybe you should,” she sobbed.

A grating sound rumbled in his throat.

He kissed her, then. Fully.

Beat kissed Melody.

Joy roared through her at the speed of light. Oxygen rushed in her bloodstream and her lungs became gluttonous for air. Beat’s lips slanting over the top of hers, his tongue begging hers to dance, was like having her life force doubled. Tripled. For once . . . she was comfortable in her own body. There were pulses in amazing places and her limbs felt the opposite of stiff. They were energized and languorous at the same time. Glorying in the hard angles of him where they moved and swelled against her curves with urgency.

“Jesus Christ, Mel. Your mouth.” He growled against it. “Of all the privileges I never feel like I’ve earned, you’re going to be the ultimate one, aren’t you?”

“You deserve everything,” she whispered.

“No.” He fisted the hem of her shirt, dragging it up to her throat, lust bracketing his mouth at the sight of her bare breasts, her panties. “But I’m going to rub and suck that gingerbread smell off you, anyway, aren’t I? Until you soak that tight thong they made you wear.”

Oh my God. The fact that he had a whole secondary vocabulary for these private moments was such delicious knowledge. “Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”

“I’m the one saying please.” He hooked an arm around the small of Melody’s back, drawing her high onto her tiptoes. The position curved her spine, the hard tips of her breasts lifting closer, closer to his mouth. Just before he could take her nipple into his mouth, he let out a shuddering breath. “Don’t let me come, Mel.”

“Okay,” she managed, a little confused. Maybe . . . because they hadn’t talked about birth control yet? But her thoughts scattered and she couldn’t focus on anything except for the hot, panting breaths against her nipple. The incredible tide of pleasure that rose when his tongue lightly grazed her right nipple, then again, more firmly this time, long savoring licks until his lips closed around the bud and sucked, a groan issuing from his throat.

An acute gathering started beneath her belly button. So fast. Too fast?

Her thighs jerked together to stem the tide of pleasure, but his hips blocked them from closing and she whimpered, worried, excited, disbelieving. Was she going to have an orgasm from having her nipples sucked? No, no. No, surely not.

He watched her with glittering eyes while trailing his tongue from one puckered peak to the other, his tongue batting the sensitive bud, then taking it into his mouth with a hard punch of his hips, a surge of need seeming to travel through his frame. Her back flattened to the wall once more and her toes hovered above the ground, the hard surface anchoring her while his left hand twisted in the side of her thong. She could sense a struggle taking place in him, as if he wanted to tear off the undergarment. The suction of his mouth ceased briefly, his stiffness so insistent now that she couldn’t help moving against it. Riding up and back on the tented seam of his sweatpants, moaning when he moaned, that gathering in her belly pulling tighter.

Oh God.

Oh no. Not yet.

“Is that how you want to get off? Grinding through our clothes?” He angled his hips for her, looking down, biting his lip and grunting over what he saw. The up and back drag of her sex, the probable wetness of the silky material. The way she couldn’t seem to help it, her hips and thighs flexing with the effort to writhe on top of his thickness. Faster, faster. “Or, Christ . . . do you want me to get a condom?”

How did he make that word sound so sensual? “D-do you always use them?”

“Yeah.” He exhaled roughly, forehead rolling side to side on hers, lower body moving, moving. “Although God knows I wouldn’t want to with you.”

“Me either. I’m okay to go without if you are, but . . . maybe not yet . . .”

“Yeah, Mel. More than okay. But we do what you want, when you’re ready. So don’t stop what you’re doing, baby. You’re so fucking beautiful. Don’t stop. We can keep it hard like this as long as you want.”

She cried out, palmed her breasts. She’d never done that before. Her breasts had never been this connected to the core of her, but they were now. The fiery tingle in her nipples was turning as unbearable as the one between her legs and all she could do was pinch them to lessen the pain, the strain, but that only made matters worse. More urgent.

She was so close. And the power of letting go with another person was almost shockingly intense, but letting go with Beat, specifically? A singular sort of happiness rose within her like a giant bubble, preparing to burst.

And then he tugged the elastic of her panties away from her mound, seeing her bare sex for the first time and gritting his teeth, chest shuddering. “Goddamn, Peach. Are you on the pill, just in case? Pulling out of that pussy is going to be torture.”

“Yes,” Melody gasped—and promptly lost her head.

The fact that Beat looked up the second she peaked only made the climax sharper, more concentrated. She whimpered, the sound breaking into a long, wailing moan while surge after surge of unimaginable pleasure ripped through her body, rattling her spine against the wall, the utter euphoria making her teeth clench painfully. The perfection of the orgasm stole her breath, and she couldn’t control her actions. Not for long, shuddering moments, as her breath sawed in and out. And not only hers.

Beat was still looking her in the eye, his expression one of . . . surprise? Dread? Awe?

She couldn’t think clearly enough to tell. Only knew she wanted him to leave the planet, too. She wanted—needed—him with her on the journey.

“I want you to come, too,” she whispered, panting. “Please.”

Conflict and regret seemed to weigh him down. With a whispered apology, suddenly Beat was lowering her to the ground with his own shaking hands, backing away from her with a perspiring, heaving chest. “I’m sorry, Mel. Fuck.”

Her orgasm-muddled mind struggled to play catch-up, but his words carried back to her from only moments before. Don’t let me come.

When he’d made that request, she’d been too overwhelmed by him to examine it.

Now, with him moving farther and farther away, she couldn’t help but feel like she’d been deprived of something. Rejected. Her stomach dropped to her knees, hands moving quickly to cover herself back up with the shirt. A jagged hiccup rose in her throat and she quickly swallowed it, lunging for the guest room door, loss and a lack of closure making her feel light. Too light. Untethered.

As soon as she closed the door, she heard his footsteps carrying him to the spot outside of the guest room. “Mel. Let me in.”

“No.” She worked to modulate her voice. “It’s okay.”

Something full, like his forehead, bumped the door.

“Everything is fine. I’m just ready for bed.”

“Everything isn’t fine, Mel.”

“It is. I promise.”

A few seconds ticked by. “I’m sorry I couldn’t . . . that I don’t know how to share that with you. If I could be with anyone when it happens, it would be you.”

Melody’s throat was too tight to respond. Feeling painfully exposed, she climbed into bed and wrapped herself in the covers, burying her face in the pillow. What had just happened? Had her orgasm turned him off? Had she been too eager? Had she come across as desperate? That last one made her cringe into the pillow.

A few seconds later, Beat’s heavy footsteps carried him back to his bedroom, the door shutting with a note of frustration, leaving them separated by more than one kind of wall.