“The, ah… the sheets appear to be reindeer print.” Liam’s mouth twisted to the side. “Do you have a reindeer phobia or just a Santa phobia?”
“It’s not aphobia.” I scowled. “Did youseeits soulless eyes?”
Liam bit his lip, but his smile came through anyway. “I saw,” he agreed solemnly, coming back to stand in front of me again. “Soulless.”
“You’re humoring me, aren’t you?”
He grabbed the hem of my shirt and dragged it up just an inch so he could lay his other hand flat against my abs.
“Maybe a little bit?”
“Keep doing it,” I groaned.
He slid both hands up over my chest, leaving little trails of electricity in their wake, and pulled my shirt over my head.
I went to do the same for him, but he stopped me. “Look at you,” he said softly. He pushed me to sit at the edge of the mattress and his eyes roamed every inch of my exposed skin, but he didn’t lookhappy, he looked… tortured.
He leaned down and kissed my neck, right below the place where my pulse pounded, and his fingertips skimmed over my arms from my shoulders to my elbows and back again. He pressed a second kiss to the edge of my left shoulder, right above my armpit. He sank to his knees and pressed a third kiss to the spot just to the right of my right nipple. A fourth an inch lower. A fifth over the outside of my rib cage, just beside my elbow. And then a sixth to my right forearm.
“Liam,” I whispered.
“Shhh.”
He pushed at my shoulder until I was laying down on my stomach with my arms splayed to the side, then he made the same strange journey again. A kiss to my shoulder. Three sliding kisses down my shoulder blade. A long tongue-swipe along the column of my spine right where I’d gotten stitches when I … oh.
Oh.
“Liam,” I said again, turning over slightly and reaching for him. “Come here.”
“You got hurt,” he said, resisting my efforts to pull him on top of me. “So many times. So many little scars.”
“Nature of my job,” I reminded him. “But nothing serious, babe. Except the back thing. That was—” I cleared my throat. “That wasn’t awesome. But I’m here. I’m okay. I’m fine.”
I wasn’t sure if he heard me. His fingers were still trailing up and down my skin.
“I wasn’t here for any of these.” He whispered the words like a secret, and I wondered if he was talking to himself. “You could havedied, and I wouldn’t have known.”
“Well. I mean.” I swallowed. “Not exactly. You’re kinda the beneficiary on my life insurance policy, so.”
“What?” he demanded.
There were probably more awkward times to talk about shit like this than after you’d had a Santa-induced meltdown while trying to have sex, but I couldn’t think of any.
“Never mind. It’s just a technicality. Being my, ah, spouse and all.”
Liam’s jaw dropped. “But…but there are ways around that if you name someone else.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable. “I suppose.” But I hadn’t bothered with any of them. I hadn’t wanted to.
Liam bent his head and kissed me again, and I shivered.
“Babe, come here,” I repeated. But he pushed himself up, rolled me to my back, and covered my mouth with one hand.
“Shush, Gideon. Just… just be quiet and let me. Okay?”
I nodded slightly, helpless to refuse him, as under his spell as I’d ever been.
Liam started at my neck and worked his way down my torso again, this time kissing not only the scars but also the pleasure points. He dragged his teeth over my skin and worried at my nipple, then knelt between my spread legs and ran his tongue over each of my abdominal muscles, while I clutched the reindeer sheets like they were the only thing keeping me grounded in reality, because theywere.
