“I bet you’re a real good teacher,” he said, drizzling syrup on each of the arms of the snowflake.
She pressed a hand to her chest, where an odd, warm pressure seemed to fill the space around her heart. “Why’s that?”
“Because you make even the littlest things special.”
“I try,” she said, moved far beyond those words. The minute he finished the pancake, she grinned. “Ready for a little surprise?”
He gave her a skeptical look again. “Sure.”
She laughed. “Come on, then. It’s time for presents.” He rose slowly, and she took him by the hand. She grabbed her laptop off the dining room table as they passed it by, and then she led him to the blanket again.
“Emma, I don’t have…” He shook his head, discomfort so plain on his face it made her ache.
She kissed him and stroked her hand from his cheek into his hair. “You already gave me you, silly. Your time, your protection, your company. Without you, I’d be completely alone in this. So you gave me exactly what I needed.”
She thought his eyes couldn’t blaze at her more, and then she handed him his gift.
“What’s this?” he asked, his voice near to a whisper.
She set a new chew toy in front of Chewy, and then she pulled a present in front of herself. “Our presents,” she said, grinning. “Santa left one for each of us.”
“Emma—”
“Trust me, it’s just something little.” She gestured for him to open it.
Finally, he pulled the tissue from the bag, then lifted out its contents—the tin of cookies and six-pack of bottled orange soda.
“I wanted you to have something to open,” she said. “And I thought that you could take a little taste of me home with you.”
His brow furrowed as he stared at the things on the floor in front of him. He swallowed thickly, and finally nodded. “Thank you,” he said, finally lifting his gaze. Were his eyes glassy?
The possibility that she was really seeing what she thought she was made her heart hurt. Because none of the reasons that she could imagine for why such a hastily thrown-together present would affect him so much were good. “Okay, my turn,” she said, pulling her wrapped package to her. “When my grandmother died, I started two new traditions. This one’s kinda silly, but it gives me something to look forward to.”
“Tell me,” he said.
She smoothed her hands over the colorful paper. “Early in the year, I find something I really want, something that’s kind of a splurge. And then I save money from each paycheck until I can afford it. Then I wrap it up and give it to myself for Christmas.”
He looked at her like she was maybe a little crazy. “What did you get?”
Grinning, she pressed the metallic green bow to the side of her hair and then tore open the paper, shreds going everywhere, until finally her new baby was revealed before her. “A new MacBook. Fifteen-inch screen. With all the bells and whistles. My current laptop is more than three years old and freezes up all the time.” She hugged the box awkwardly to her chest. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long.” She laughed. But at twenty-five hundred dollars, it was a big deal to have finally gotten this for herself. “I know, I’m a huge dork.”
Just watching her, Caine shook his head.
“I have one more present to give. Want to help me?” she asked, setting up her old laptop atop the box for her new one.
“How could I help?”
Her fingers moved over the keyboard as she pulled up the three websites. “I put away part of every paycheck throughout the year so that I can make a Christmas Day donation to a local charity. I usually try to pick something that has to do with kids, but it’s so hard to choose. What do you think?”
She clicked through the three sites, and Caine leaned in to view them with her. One foundation worked to help children of working-class families that made too much for government assistance but too little to fully provide for their kids. Emma saw this with many of her children at school, kids whose families didn’t have enough money for school supplies or new backpacks or even new shoes to fit growing feet. The second organization was a center and shelter dedicated to helping LGBTQ homeless youths, who were disproportionately likely to face homelessness and, once they ended up on the street, experienced greater levels of violence than other youths. And the third organization was the county’s CASA program, which assigned court-appointed special advocates for abused and neglected children who otherwise might be lost in the over-burdened child welfare system. Emma had worked with a few volunteers from this program over the years, and knew they did good work.
“I have a little over three thousand dollars saved,” she said, turning to him. “What do you—”
His eyes were brimming with unshed tears. And his effort to restrain them highlighted every sharp angle on his face.
“Caine?”
“Don’t,” he rasped, his eyelids closing like he was in pain. A single tear streaked from the corner of one eye.
“I’m going to hug you,” she whispered.
“Emma,” he said, his voice like it’d been scoured with sandpaper. He dropped his head into his hands.
Slowly, she crawled so that she knelt behind him. She came in close, her thighs around his hips, her arms around his stomach, her head laying on his broad back. She felt the hard outline of the holstered gun against her belly, but she didn’t care. “I’m here now, Caine. Okay?”
He didn’t answer for a long time. And she wasn’t surprised, given how hard he worked to rein in the emotion trying to break free. She felt his effort in the clenching of his stomach muscles, in the shudders wracking through his back, in the unevenness of his breathing. In the end, Emma wasn’t at all sure whether it was better that he’d fought it back, or if it would’ve been better if he’d let it out. Whatever it was.
Finally, he threaded his fingers through hers against his chest. “Do you still want my opinion?” he asked, his voice raw.
She stroked the back of his hair, noticing up close for the first time that black tattoos filled in the two most noticeable places near his hairline where scars kept his hair from growing. “Absolutely.”
“They’re all kids, so of course they’re all worthy. The Ravens work with CASA a lot so I know they’re good people. But, the LGBTQ homeless shelter. That would be my vote.”
It was personal to him, that much was clear. And that was all she needed to know. “That’s who we’ll give to, then.”
“We?”
“Yes, Caine. We.”
He heaved a breath. “Don’t you want to know why?”
“Very much,” she said, because she wanted to know everything about this man. “But only if you want to tell me.”
He didn’t respond. There were only so many reasons an organization like that might mean so much to him. Either someone he cared about could’ve benefitted from the services they offered and maybe hadn’t had the opportunity. Or he could’ve benefitted from their services himself. And if that was true, did that mean he was bi? Or another identity altogether?
She reached out, tugged her laptop closer, and pecked all her information into the donation form with one hand while she continued embracing him with the other. “The fun part is hitting the Submit button. That’s all you.”
He peered over his shoulder at her, like he was trying to see if she was for real. She nodded, and he clicked the button. The confirmation page came up with a row of kids’ beautiful smiling faces.
“You give good presents, Emma Kerry,” he finally said. How was it that he thought he wasn’t sweet again?
She smiled where she leaned against his back. “I just like trying to make people happy.”
“What other traditions do you have?” he asked, turning toward her.
“Christmas movie marathon with copious amounts of cookies and chocolate-drizzled popcorn as snacks.”
He peered up, and Jesus he was so freaking gorgeous to her. “Got any funny Christmas movies?”
&nb
sp; She grinned. “So many funny ones. Just you wait and see.”
And if that’s what it took to make Caine happy, it was only the beginning of what she would do.
Chapter 14
Caine couldn’t remember ever laughing so much. At the movies themselves, which ranged from funny to stupid to terrible. At how much the movies made Emma laugh. At how passionate she was in defending their humorous qualities.
All day, she’d kept things light and playful between them as they laid on a big makeshift bed of blankets and pillows on her living room floor. They’d never stopped touching and kissing, some part of their bodies always tangled up in the other. He’d been half hard for hours but hadn’t acted on it because this kind of closeness wasn’t something he’d ever had before, either.
To say nothing of how much he’d eaten.
Emma had just filled him up, heart, mind, and fucking soul.
And after the way he’d almost shattered this morning, he’d needed every bit of her lightness. Between the connection and the sex and the gift, he’d already been overwhelmed. And then she’d shared her tradition of giving to charities. All charities for kids in need. It made sense, of course. She was a kindergarten teacher. But then she’d pulled up that website for the LGBTQ shelter and it’d been one emotional brick more than his badly crumbling inner walls could support.
He’d looked for places like that when he’d gone on the run as a fourteen-year-old. And again before he’d found ways to use his body for food and shelter as a fifteen-year-old. And again when a pimp had tried—and failed—to pressure him with intimidation and ply him with drugs to work for him as a seventeen-year-old. But places like that shelter hadn’t existed fifteen years ago, at least not where he’d grown up in small-town Ohio. And once the wrong people knew you’d shown interest in someone of the same sex, or even if there were just rumors, they’d make sure your life was a living hell if you showed up at the shelters that did exist. Beds were scarce, after all, and not everyone who wanted one got one. They made sure you learned not to even show up. So Caine had run and hitched and done whatever he needed to survive.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Emma asked, tilting her head against his shoulder to peer up at him.
He was so relaxed—for once—that he was able to just let himself talk. “Your present was the first one I ever got that was meant just for me,” he said, knowing he wasn’t explaining himself well. “When I was a kid in the group home, the house parents got all of us the same exact thing—one year, it was a package of socks, a Pez dispenser with a couple packets of those little rectangular candies, and a new flannel shirt for the boys. And if someplace like a church sent a donation, we’d all get the same stuffed animal or the same set of dominos or the same deck of cards.” He twisted a length of blond around his fingers, still blown away that he could just touch her like this. “You actually thought of our time together and came up with a gift that you knew would mean something to me, personally.”
She burrowed in tighter against him. “Can I ask why you lived in a home?”
Caine sighed. “You can ask me anything, Emma. I mean that. I’m just warning you that I’m gonna suck at answering. And shit’s gonna catch me off guard like…like it did this morning.”
“I want to know you, Caine, however you are.” She threaded her fingers between his and pulled his hand to her mouth for a kiss.
“How are you so fucking perfect?” The question spilled out of his mouth, but in truth it’d been playing on a loop in his head for hours.
“I’m not perfect, Caine. And I think you need to take me off of the pedestal I fear you’re putting me on. I haven’t done a great job of building any kind of community around myself since my grandmother died three years ago, and I’m lonely a lot. I have two really good girlfriends, but they’re both married, and one has a young son. There’s only so much I can lean on them.” She kissed his knuckles again. “I started a graduate degree in teaching four years ago that I haven’t finished because all those evening classes were part of the reason why I didn’t realize my grandmother was as sick as she was. And I could’ve been spending those hours with her. After she died, I couldn’t force myself to go back, so it’s like I doubly wasted that time, because in the end I didn’t have her or the degree. So I’m not perfect. As best I can figure, we’re all just trying.”
The words sank into his skin, as if they were looking for places they might stay within him forever. He wished they would. “Fair enough,” he said. “My mother died of a heroin overdose and my father decided taking care of a five-year-old was a pain in the ass. So I ended up in the system.”
Sadness hung on her pretty features, and he hated that he’d put it there. “Same age as my kids,” she said. “That breaks my heart. No wonder you’re so strong.”
Stunned, he shook his head. Half the time he felt entirely out of control. Half the time he threw up walls out of fear. And half the time he opted out of life before anyone had the chance to discard him. No matter that the math didn’t add up, it was just how he felt. “Eventually, I fell in with a man who wasn’t just willing to give me a job, but also to teach me and take me in. Jerry Tiller. I wouldn’t be whatever I am today without him.” Of course, he’d just skipped over all the most crucial years, but he couldn’t…not yet…
She searched his face, and her expression was so open to everything he was telling her. But she still didn’t know the worst of him, and all these hours of falling were going to hurt like hell when he woke up face-down on the concrete.
In the meantime, she kept surprising him. “And was Jerry your boyfriend?”
He blinked. Well. Okay, then. He supposed he should’ve expected that given the way he’d reacted to helping that shelter, except very few people he’d ever met were willing to confront the truth the way Emma did. And always in a way that made it safe to give that honesty right back.
“No,” he said, pressing a kiss against Emma’s soft hair. His heart suddenly hammered, because his next words weren’t ones he usually voiced. Or, like, ever. “I’ve been with men, Em, but I’ve never had a boyfriend. Mostly, I was just…” He shook his head, struggling to figure out how to explain his bisexuality to someone else for the first time. Hell, to explain it to himself, too. “My whole life, I’ve just looked for connection wherever I could find it. Does that…does that bother you?”
She brought her face closer to his, and Caine nearly held his breath. “I’ve had lovers before you, Caine. Does that bother you?”
He frowned. “The idea of someone else touching you right now makes me want to smash things with my head, but I don’t resent that you had a life before.”
“Then why would I resent the same for you?” she asked, expression totally sincere.
Could she really be so okay with this? He gave a bewildered little shrug. “I don’t know,” he said in a low voice. Then, stronger, “Jerry wasn’t a boyfriend. He was the first adult in my whole life who actually took care of me. No strings attached. I bought my first bike with money I earned at his shop, and when he died and his son sold off the business, I hit the road on my own and found the Ravens. That was a decade ago.”
With every new thing he shared, he felt like a thin filament stretched between them, anchoring them together. The connection between them was growing, strengthening. He could feel it like he’d never felt anything before.
Caine was getting attached. To that feeling. To Emma herself.
It was what he’d always wanted. It was the thing he feared the most.
But right now, he had it. He had her. And he wanted her…
“Stand up, Emma.” The questions in her gaze quickly shifted to understanding, and she rose above him. His hands went to her waistband and quickly bared her. Caine pulled her until she stood with her feet on either side of him where he sat leaning against the front of the couch. “I want my mouth on you again.”
The moan that spilled out of her at the first swipe of his tongue went right to his cock. He
unzipped his jeans and shoved them down his thighs. Then he held her open with his thumbs so that her clit was right where he wanted it to be. He sucked and flicked and nipped until she was thrusting against his face. He groaned his approval. Her hips became more frantic. “Caine,” she cried hoarsely, her knees going out such that she nearly collapsed into his lap, still shaking.
He took advantage and kissed her, wanting some part of him inside of her while her orgasm wrung every second of pleasure out of her.
“Jesus, your mouth should be illegal,” she said, chuffing out a breathless laugh.
“You say the nicest things,” he said, the playful words probably masking just how much he lapped up her praise. “Will you take me in you?”
She didn’t hesitate—she shifted to her knees. They both shucked their shirts. He pulled his last condom from his wallet and rolled it on.
She impaled herself on him, inch by soul-stealing inch. “You fill me up so good,” she said.
The echo of his earlier thought stretched a new filament of connection between them. “Ride me, Emma. Show me how you like it.”
Her fingers dug into his shoulders and she shifted so that she crouched on her feet instead of kneeling, allowing her to bounce faster, harder, deeper.
She pressed their faces together, her pants ghosting over his skin. “The way you took me this morning, Caine, that’s how I’ve always wanted it. But I’d never been able to find it before. That intensity is all you.”
Sensation squeezed his balls. “You telling me you like it rough, Em?”
“Yes,” she cried, her thrusts taking on a more frantic edge again.
“Fuck,” he gritted out. Grasping her hips, he forced her down harder.
She unleashed a high-pitched moan and tossed her head back, giving him a beautiful, orgasm-inducing view of her breasts bouncing with every thrust.
“How rough?” he asked, reaching between them to squeeze the base of his cock—hard. Just voicing the question had given him a shove toward the edge.