Under the Mistletoe
A/N: Hi guys! Apologies in advance for the length of this chapter. It's one beat, so I wanted to avoid splitting it into two parts. Feel free to stop and come back if you need a little rest ♡ Thanks for reading!
Sunlight on snow sliced through the cover of sleep.
It was like I'd been placed inside of a crystal, like light was piercing through any ounce of vision I had, covering it in a thick, impenetrable snow-white haze. It was so stark and so blinding that I could've sworn I'd woken up outside, that I was still trapped in the snow after colliding into James on my skis. I thought everything that happened afterward was simply a dream. God knew I'd had plenty of those. But I was too warm, I realized. Far too warm to be coated in snow. My body was covered, draped in blankets and quilts, though I suspected that it wasn't fabric setting my waking limbs on fire.
Slowly, my eyes began adjusting to the light. I felt my heartbeat steady as I took in my surroundings. I felt worry dissipate like mist and relief wash over me like the tide.
I wasn't in the snow. I was in my bed.
But that wasn't all.
James was in my bed. James was in my bed, cloaked in nothing but my silky red sheets. Which meant one thing.
It wasn't a dream.
I turned on my side, careful not to disturb him. He was still sleeping soundly, his back rising and falling in a slow, peaceful motion while snow drifted down from the blue sky outside. I could just see his face peeking through his blond strands, just see the closed eyelids that masked the ocean on the other side.
Before I knew it, a small smile was pulling at my mouth. I tucked my hands under my head, eyeing the lips that had spent the better half of the night wrestling with mine.
This wasn't the first time I'd woken up beside him. The first time was in his dorm room, and it was a total accident. I'd been so embarrassed that I'd practically jumped out of his bed, then raced around the room without giving myself the chance to enjoy how good he looked first thing in the morning.
He looked good first thing in the morning.
Then there was the time on the bus, too, when I'd felt so much guilt for wanting to drink in his sleeping face. A face I'd convinced myself I had no right to enjoy. Lips and skin I told myself I had no right to taste.
Now, there was no rush. There was no embarrassment, no guilt, no shame. There was only time.
I raised my hand, tempted to brush the hair from across his forehead. But my fingers hovered in the air as if scared to touch him, an automatic instinct I hadn't yet learned to switch off.
My heart hammered as I gave into temptation. I swept the hair away, needing to see every inch of what lay underneath. His features were soft, lazy and sweet and alluring all at once. His tanned skin and golden locks were a warm contrast to the cool space—my own personal source of heat in the frigid morning chill.
He stirred.
I hesitated.
He opened one eye. He squinted through the glimmering rays of winter sun, searching as I'd done just seconds before.
Finally, my face must have come into view.
A lazy smile lifted his lips as he blinked once, then again. His grin creased his eyes, his expression softening even more. The tension melted from his shoulders in something akin to relief, and any shred of composure I had flew from my body and into the snow outside.
"I'm sorry," I said bashfully.
His voice was just as quiet as he rubbed his eyes groggily. "For what?"
"For waking you."
"I'm glad you did," he mumbled, speaking more to his pillow than to me. "I was worried it was another dream."
Silence consumed us for only a second. Then, his eyes sprung open, wider than before.
His jaw clenched as though he were locking it shut. We were so close, I could practically feel the heat rising to his cheeks before it settled there in the faintest, sweetest hue.
James Bennet was in my bed, and he was blushing at something he'd said. At what it implied. I didn't think my heart could swell anymore, but somehow, it did.
I shuffled closer to him, pushing his ruffled hair off his face so that I could see it clearly. So that I could revel in that rare color on his cheeks and the embarrassment furrowing his features. After all, my subconscious wasn't innocent either.
"It was long overdue," I whispered, leaning closer to plant a light kiss on his lips.
He caught the back of my head to prolong the moment, lacing his fingers through my hair before following the strands down to my side.
"I won't argue with that." He chuckled, the deep sound decorated with the memory of sleep. I'd forgotten how raw and rough his voice was in the morning. I don't know how—it was mesmerizing. "Two misfires, third time lucky."
I frowned. "Two?"
His eyes—still droopy—darted between mine. That lazy smile still lined his lips, but it faltered the longer that he searched my face. It was like he was looking for something. Something that I wasn't giving him.
"You don't remember," he finally mused, caught between disbelief and realization.
But his realization only floored me more. "Remember what?"
"Halloween."
That didn't do the trick for me either. I peered back at him, stumped.
He smirked.
He knew what that smirk did to me. He had to.
He basked in my curiosity, rather enjoying the fact that he held some kind of upper hand. Silence enveloped us, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was irritating, maybe, in the way that it teased me. The same way he teased me with that magnetic curve of his lips. If I wasn't so intrigued, I would have given in to the urge to close the distance between us and steal it from him as punishment.
He shook his head, his hair getting caught in my fingertips. "You were wasted, weren't you?"
I couldn't help but groan. "I remember that part. Kara kept plastering me with tequila. You know what tequila does to me."
"I do," he confirmed lowly, his gaze becoming dark. That tone, that look—it gave me the feeling that my insinuation meant something more to him than it did to me.
I groaned again in anticipation, feeling an urge to cover my face with my hands. But my fingers were having too much fun drawing patterns in his hair. "Oh, god. What did I do?"
Though I didn't think it was possible, he managed to edge closer. His bare torso grazed my skin, causing a small gasp to spill from my mouth.
"This." His lips landed on my jaw, trailing a path to mine while flutters unfurled in my stomach and crept down my thighs. "And this..." he mumbled before his mouth closed the distance, my lips parting instinctually before his tongue slipped inside.
His massaged mine for only a second before he reclaimed it completely, a wickedly cruel exploit that had my nails pressing into his arms in an act of silent protest.
"And then..." He moved back to meet my hooded gaze. "You whispered something to me. Do you remember?"
I couldn't speak. I didn't want to. I was completely trapped under his touch, under his lips, under him.
And he knew it. Because he'd been exactly where I was.
His voice was delicate, his glittering diamond gaze anything but. "You said, 'Don't give up on me.'"
My heart rate steadied, if only for a second. "I said that?"
He nodded. "You looked so scared, too."
"I was scared. I remember that. I was scared I was taking too long. That you'd find someone else."
"There was never anyone else, Madi. There never could have been."
Vulnerability was encasing me in a thick, overwhelming fog. I burrowed my head into his bare chest, planting my lips to his skin to remember how it felt. Firm and tense, but responsive to my touch. He laughed as he ran his fingers down my back, and I didn't bother to hide the shivers that rippled in their wake.
It sparked hundreds of images from the night before. Memories of everything we'd said and everything we hadn't. But they were stronger than flashes, because I could feel them as they happened again. Like I was simultaneously basking in the past while reliving it over and over.
I couldn't deny that it was perfect. That every second when we were just friends—seconds that once stretched into hours of torture—suddenly made sense. Suddenly became worth it. Because with time came appreciation. I knew him now, and he knew me. His colors were more vivid, brighter and nuanced. I could taste all of his red, see all of his blue. Feel his gold and silver and hear his black and white.
I wasn't just attracted to James. He wasn't just a person I'd kissed or a distraction to pass the time. He was my best friend, and I was his. There was something more between us, more than attraction and lust. Now, there was love. Pure. Unconditional. The kind of love that only grows between friends. That drives a person to do everything they can to keep the other one safe. I didn't know if I'd ever felt that feeling before, like I could get out of that bed, skip down the staircase, and still trust James to be waiting for me when I got back.
That was our foundation. Our friendship wasn't a curse, like I'd thought it was just the day before. It was a base we'd spent time constructing and months perfecting. It was the soil where something more—something even prettier—could grow.
We explored each other in silent captivation, though I was sure we'd seen and touched everything there was to see or touch the night before.
Actually, almost everything.
There was still one thing we hadn't quite gotten around to.
"How long until brunch?" I asked, calculating how much time we had left in that room. How long it would take to tick that last item off my new list.
"Brunch?" he repeated absentmindedly, his voice muffled against my chest.
"With your family," I reminded him.
I don't think he was actually listening. At the very least, breakfast was the last thing on his mind.
"We're having an early lunch before everyone leaves to set up for the festival tonight," I tried again, though the floored look on his face was making me wonder whether I made the whole thing up. "At eleven, right?"
"Okay." He nodded, but I could tell from his veiled expression that the affair had slipped his mind. He consulted the clock on my bedside table. "It's nine-thirty. Why? Did you want to—"
The force of my realization almost had me bolting upright.
"Oh, crap," I exclaimed, almost flinging the sheets from over me. I would have jumped out of bed, too, had James not immediately wrapped his arms around me.
"Nooo ..." he moaned, drawing me back before I could stop him. "Don't go yet."
He didn't have to ask me twice.
I settled into his grip, my lips lifting into a hopeless smile as he nuzzled his face into my hair. My almost-bare back molded to his exposed chest, the warmth radiating from him stealing the ice of the morning from my skin.
"James," I groaned, trying my best to sound persuasive. "We have to. I promised your parents we'd help get everything ready for brunch. Remember?"
"Screw brunch," he said, moving my hair from my neck to plant his lips there instead.
The butterflies in my stomach were threatening to break free, threatening to animate every limb until I succumbed to him again. "We can't," I managed to choke out. But my last inch of resolve warred against every other part of me that begged to turn around. "I promised them—"
"We'll tell them we're sick. My throat is feeling pretty sore, you know."
"James..." I cried through laughter, my protest catching in my throat as his hands moved lower and lower, gripping my sides tighter than before.
Part of me still couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that I was in his arms after a night of doing almost everything that I'd wanted to for so long. I wanted to sink into the moment, maybe even to relive it. It would be so easy to. He was right there, begging me to stay. Showering me with kisses that made me giddy and sweet words that flipped my heart.
But I also wanted to follow up on my commitment.
"I want to make a good impression," I explained roughly, trying to ignore his fingers as they etched a circular pattern into my upper thigh.
He spun me around too quickly for me to resist, and I surrendered to silence under his wistful stare. He propped himself up on his arm to stare down at me, his sleepy eyes tracing my flushed face. "You already have. They love you. How couldn't they?"
It was getting harder and harder to fight. So damn hard when I didn't even want to. The memories from the night before were making me dizzy, the realization that he wanted it to happen again as much as I did sending a tingling sensation all over my skin.
But there was something else. Something that lurked behind the hypnotic sparkle in his eyes, that lingered behind the devilish twist of his full lips. He wasn't just a boy I liked—he was my best friend. With the walls down between us, I could read him like an open book.
Something was troubling him, and I felt sick at the thought of what it could be.
I jolted upright. I gripped the bedsheets to shield my barely clothed body, the fire scorching my limbs replaced with a numbing chill.
"Why don't you want to go?"
His eyes flashed for a fraction of a second. A second that revealed a truth that churned my stomach with toxic ache. It was everything that I didn't want to see. It was confirmation that something was wrong. That darkness still shrouded our light.
But he was quick to recover, blinking the expression away as he tried to pull me closer. "Because I have everything I need right here." His hand fluttered upwards to cradle my cheek, the other one tugging the sheet as if insulted that I'd hide myself from him.
But I knew that wasn't it. Rather, I knew it wasn't the whole truth.
I felt my body stiffen, felt my grip on the sheets war with his. Everything was supposed to be different now. We were supposed to be on the same page.
"Why, James?" I repeated, ice rippling under my skin, making me feel numb. Did he regret it? Did he regret what we did?
In his guarded gaze brewed a silent storm. A fight between the words on his tongue and the desire not to lose everything we'd found. But I prodded him silently, tilting my head. I wanted answers. I needed them. I'd come too far to give in to something fleeting.
He knew that. He knew everything.
So James sighed. I could practically hear the fear coursing through him when he did it. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, that same dread jumped from his heart to snake around mine.
"Because as long as we're here, nothing can change."
For just a second, the world stopped turning. Time stopped just long enough to let my brain latch onto his words, to hear them again and try to make sense of what they meant.
He didn't want things between us to change. I didn't want things between us to change, either. Why on earth did he think they would?
"Nothing will change," I assured him. "Nothing can come between us now. As long as I have you and you have me."
He didn't answer right away. He didn't look as comforted by what I said as I'd hoped he would. He only tilted his head, threading his brow timidly.
"Do I have you?"
I almost gave in to the urge to swat his fears away with a smile, to tell him he was being ridiculous like he would say to me. But he wasn't baiting me for reassurance, or fishing for sweet, sugary words. His expression was entirely genuine, the uncertainty painting his features matching the fear laced through his tone.
It hurt me. Hurt that he didn't know how very his I was. Hadn't he felt it last night? Hadn't he felt how much I wanted to be his? How much I wanted him to be mine?
But then something hit me—a realization that erupted like lightning. That flashed through my mind, pierced through my confusion, and jolted every part of me with a cutting reminder.
"We've been here before," I guessed.
Tentatively, he nodded.
Not here exactly. Not in exactly the same position. But we had bared our hearts to one another. We'd spent the better half of a night together, just like we had the night before. I'd fallen asleep in his embrace, happy and content and so sure that the tide was turning. That I was getting something I'd wanted for so long. He'd told me himself that he felt the same way.
"And then ..."
He nodded again, worry threading his brow. My heart cracked.
Because then the next day happened. The day of our first and only argument. One so volatile and stupid that it almost broke us for good. If it wasn't for our meddlesome friends, that awful misunderstanding with Joanna might have actually shattered whatever connection we had all over the floor of our dorm building.
But if James had stayed in my room that night, then I never would have run into Joanna outside of his room. Maybe if he'd stayed in my room just a little longer, and maybe if I'd woken up his arms, then maybe things between us would have been different. Good different. Maybe we wouldn't have taken so long to get where we were now.
I shook my head, almost as though he'd beamed the question into my mind, like I was casting it away just as quickly. He had to know. He had to know the Joanna-misunderstanding wasn't his fault, that there was nothing he could have done to prevent what happened from happening.
Because what happened back then wasn't about external variables, about the thousands of what ifs and hypotheticals that could have made a difference. Back then was about one thing.
Me.
And I was so, so different now.
Deep down, he knew that. I knew he did. But, as a person who'd already made so many mistakes, it was my job to remind him. To try.
So I did.
I pressed a hand against his chest. It took him by surprise. It must have. Because it was either surprise or intrigue that caused his strong frame to surrender to mine. Whatever the case, he let me flip him so that he was the one pressed into our crumpled sheets. His eyes widened as I crept up from his torso, his mouth parting with a question that he couldn't quite force out.
Taking full advantage of the opening, I brushed my lips over his.
James and I had kissed so many times now. So many times after the previous night on the sofa, so many times before then, too. In the Bennet's guest house, at Rocky's, in my dorm room, and apparently even on Halloween. But none of that was like this.
This was reassurance. This was commitment. It was soft and gentle, slow but deep. It was our bodies melting together like they were designed to be whole, sparks of electricity and energy that clambered until they mixed as one. It was atoms bonding and chemicals compounding, it was a reduction of space until I didn't know where I ended and where he began. As I kissed him—as I kissed him, letting him be the one receiving reassurance—I was making him a promise. I was taking a vow. Telling him that he didn't just have me now, but that he always had. That as long as I could help it, nothing could ever break us.
I could have gone further. God, I didn't know how I was going to stop. It was only with a reminder to myself that I managed to pull away. A reminder that this wasn't the end.
That this was our beginning.
James' breath fanned over my lips in fast, sharp bursts, pulling me out from under my daze. When my eyes adjusted to the light once again, relief flooded my chest, filling it with warmth.
He felt it. He got my message. He must have. Because never had that sea of blue looked so calm. Never had it been so clear.
But, just to drum it home, I purred, "I'm yours." Then, twirling a bit of golden hair that had fallen over his brow, I told him, "You're mine."
His hand moved to cup my cheek. He swept his thumb across it, his gaze so soft and soothing that it could have lulled me back to sleep. "Well," he uttered, "okay then."
"Okay then," I repeated softly.
He kissed my forehead, and I rolled my eyes. Secretly, I loved it. I hoped he'd do it again.
"I'm going to have a quick shower before we head down."
I nodded simply. Though I'd been the one to initiate the kiss, it was like he'd sucked the air straight out of my lungs. So I just waited, catching my breath.
But he didn't move.
He couldn't.
Because I was still straddling him.
"Oh!" I gasped, tearing myself from him so he could escape.
He didn't get up immediately. He just peered back at me, shaking his head with a goofy, lopsided smile.
I turned away from that look—one that was far too tempting when we were in that much of a hurry. I scrambled about in my suitcase for my makeup and some clothes, making a very pointed effort not to be greedy, not to give in to temptation. Not to steal a glance at him as he finally rose from the bed and stretched himself out. Instead, I just imagined what that would look like.
Luckily, I had the visuals to work with.
"I'll be ready in ten," he said from behind me.
I nodded again before I heard the door creak open, then stop mid way.
"Unless ..."
"Unless?" I repeated.
"I'm just saying ..." His voice trickled away. But insinuation filled the silence. He was leaning against the doorframe when I turned, a tilted smile curving his lips. "The shower's a double."
I hesitated for only a second before throwing my makeup aside. Down to the floor it went, landing in the heap of my forgotten clothes from the night before. I stepped over them without a second thought, taking his outstretched hand and letting him pull me down the hall.
We'd missed too many opportunities to miss another one.
"No, I think it's been sealed with, like, steel."
Dex made a loud groaning sound as he tried to pry open the jar of raspberry jam. Noah rolled his eyes, reaching over and plucking it from his grasp.
But while I watched his forearms tense like the veins were about to explode, even Noah couldn't loosen that lid.
"Huh." He seemed surprised. But Noah wasn't one to be bested by a fragile male ego, not even in front of eagle-eyed Blair. He craned his neck in the direction of the hall off the kitchen of the Bennet's cabin and called, "James?"
"Give it to me," I directed, and just as he had from Dex, I grabbed the jar from his hands.
Noah folded his arms skeptically, leaning back against the counter while I ran the top of the jar under hot water. I wrapped it in the tea towel over my shoulder, tugging the fabric to the right until the lid popped right off.
"Ohh," Blair purred under his breath. "She's good with her hands. Noted."
I hid a triumphant smile, handing the jam back to Dex. "They loosened it for me."
"Hardly," Noah disagreed, scoffing as he taste-tested his third pancake from our freshest batch. "What's with the water?"
"The lid's metal," I explained. "The jar's glass. Metal conducts more heat."
I don't know why I expected Noah and Dex to do anything but blink back at me.
"Metal expands faster," I clarified. Or tried to clarify. That time, even Blair cocked his head.
Dex nodded slowly, his eyes as blank as a canvas. "Right. For sure."
I rolled my eyes as Noah swallowed a grin, pushing himself off the counter and swatting Dex gently with a stack of bamboo placemats.
"Alright, come on," he said, waving the mats at Blair, too. "Let's fix up the table before your aunt notices the staff used decorative peonies instead of roses."
"Heaven forbid," Blair gasped playfully, trailing both Dex and Noah out of the kitchen.
It was only as I turned to watch them leave that I noticed a fourth person hovering in the doorway.
James' arms were folded beneath his chest, his head propped against the plaster while his blue eyes seared into mine. He was dressed in black from head to toe, a cosmic force in the all-white kitchen that sucked me in like a black hole.
"How long have you been standing there?" I asked, tilting my head back at him.
He shrugged before kicking himself off the wall, following the invisible link between us that pulled like a magnetic force. "Long enough. I love it when you get all science-y."
He draped his arms around my waist, drawing me to him so quickly that a gasp broke through my lips.
"Oh, you do, huh?" I ran a finger around the neckline of his sweater, basking in the scent of his earthy cologne. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask—are you a compound of Beryllium and Barium? Because you're a total BaBe."
He laughed softly, the sound reverberating against my chest while his hands performed all kinds of magic on my lower back.
"I don't get it," he conceded quietly. "But I like it."
I shook my head and spun in his arms, resuming my work on the pastry his mother had prepared earlier. To my relief, he didn't truly let me go. He gripped either side of the counter instead, tucking his head on my shoulder as he watched me knead.
"You want to stretch and fold," he teased lowly, his cool breath dancing through my hair.
I pursed my lips, nodding thoughtfully. I allowed my movements to turn clumsy and untrained. "Like this?"
"No." He placed his hands over mine, guiding them down into the dough.
Just as I'd done to his the night before.
"Like this," he said, his voice only just audible. His hips rocked back and forth as we worked, causing mine to rock in the same rhythm. It's not like I could help it; he was practically nailing me into the counter.
Just as I'd done to him the night before.
I chewed on my lip and drew a deep breath. Did I deserve a taste of my own medicine? Yes. Absolutely. Did it taste all that bad?
No. It did not.
But the best part was I didn't even have to pretend not to enjoy it. Not anymore.
I thought James had touched me enough times last night. I thought our kiss that morning or our time in the shower would have satiated the two of us for the rest of the day. I didn't see how he couldn't be sick of me yet. But, somehow, he wasn't. And if the way my lower body was pulsing and flipping was any indication, it appeared that I wasn't sick of him either.
God, I was so hungry, but as he melded me into that counter, the pancakes and waffles were literally the last things on my mind.
The sound of footsteps cut through our private bubble, but neither of us really gave them a second thought. Neither of were really thinking of anything outside of the two of us; even the dough was turning to slush beneath my hands, almost as soft as my legs as they tried to hold me up.
"Hey, how's this?" James stepped back suddenly, his head disappearing from my shoulder and his hands moving to my waist. I could practically hear the pride dripping from his voice, like he'd been mulling over what he was about to say for quite some time. "If being sexy was a crime, you'd be locked up in prison and doing really hard—Joanna!"
"Joanna?" I repeated, screwing up my nose as I tried to catch the joke.
It was only when I whipped my head up and followed his eyeline that I understood.
Because Joanna Parsons was standing by the kitchen door, her arms folded beneath her chest and her eyes beaming fire.
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