Christmas Is All Around

Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

There were two beds, at least—but there was only one room.

“How is this even possible?” Charlotte asked incredulously as they unlocked the door and stared, unimpressed, at the two twin beds that beckoned them.

“It’s Christmas in England—peak season for a bunch of tourists trying to live out their Downton Abbey fantasies,” Graham said grimly, ushering her into the room with a hand at the small of her back so that he could close the door behind her. “We’re lucky there’s a room available at all.”

She sighed dramatically, flinging her purse down onto one of the beds. There was nothing to unpack, of course—she hadn’t packed anything, not having expected to be gone for more than an afternoon.

“I’m going to run to the shop down the street and get toiletries,” Graham said, hands in his coat pockets. “Do you need anything else?”

She shook her head, already internally grimacing at the thought of how she’d look the following morning, in today’s clothing, sans makeup. As soon as he had vanished out the door, she sank down onto the bed, pulled her phone from her bag, fired off a quick text to Ava, and then texted Padma.

Charlotte : tl;dr but there was a sheep traffic jam and now I’m spending the night with Graham, in a hotel room, in a quaint English village

Padma :…..

Padma : With only one bed?????

Charlotte : No there are two

Charlotte : How did I know that would be your first question

Padma : Andrew wants to know if the power has gone out

Charlotte :….. no?

Padma : Apparently he thinks that a power outage could cause the room to get cold enough that you and Graham have to cuddle for warmth

Charlotte : Have you been having him read your romance novels

Padma : Yeppppp

Padma : Please send me hourly updates, my life is very boring!!

Charlotte started to type, That’s what you get for moving to the suburbs , then deleted it.

Charlotte : I’ll do my best

That sounded friendly! That sounded normal! That didn’t sound bitter, or lonely, or like she resented her best friend for living her life and doing something perfectly normal like marrying a nice guy and buying a house and doing adult things, even if those adult things took place an hour away in New Jersey instead of a block away in Brooklyn.

She set her phone aside, and her stomach growled; she was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that “lunch” had consisted of an apple and a handful of almonds that she’d scrounged from the kitchen at Ava’s. Fortunately, it was only another five minutes before she heard footsteps in the hallway, then a key in the lock.

“I think I could eat an entire cow,” she informed Graham as soon as he entered the room.

“If we head back to that pasture where we were waylaid by sheep, we might be able to find you a particularly fresh one,” he said, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek not to laugh.

Downstairs, the pub offered everything a cranky, hungry traveler could hope for: a roaring fire, cozy booths, a menu full of potatoes and cheese, and a wide selection of local beers. After they’d claimed a table and perused the menu, Graham ordered for them at the bar, accepting the credit card that Charlotte thrust in his face with possibly unnecessary aggression.

“I wasn’t going to refuse, for Christ’s sake,” he said mildly, plucking the card from her fingers before she could accidentally maim him with it.

“You never know, with men,” she said darkly, watching with satisfaction as he trotted off to procure them sustenance. He returned with a beer for him and a cider for her, and they sipped contentedly in silence for a minute, surveying their surroundings. There was a Christmas tree in one corner, strung with lights and tinsel, and bunting in red and green was hanging cheerfully above the bar. There were stockings above the fireplace, classic Christmas songs playing in the background, and paper snowflakes hung above every table. All of this should have made Charlotte extremely grumpy, but sitting there, after a day derailed by livestock, drinking her cider and awaiting the arrival of potato products, she mainly felt… cozy.

Was this why people liked Christmas?

She snuck a glance at Graham, and saw that he was leaning back in his seat, his index finger tracing an idle circle around the rim of his pint glass as his eyes scanned the room. He’d rolled back the sleeves of his green cable-knit sweater, and the same battered watch that she’d noted on previous occasions gleamed at his wrist. He wasn’t glancing at it, though—she hadn’t realized how often she’d noticed him doing this, on many of the afternoons they’d spent together, until he’d stopped. Despite the fact that they found themselves unexpectedly, if not quite stranded , then at the very least detained, in a small village with a single room to share, he looked remarkably relaxed, missing the invisible weight that he so often seemed to be carrying.

On the table, his phone buzzed, as if summoned by her thoughts; he glanced down at the screen, frowned, and flipped it over without unlocking it.

“Everything okay?” she asked, keeping her tone deliberately casual, taking another sip of her cider.

He looked across the table at her, his frown easing. “Fine. My mum’s worried about ticket sales for our New Year’s Eve masquerade at Eden Priory—I’ll ring her tomorrow.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “A masquerade,” she repeated. “That sounds elaborate.”

Graham shrugged. “It’s tradition. My grandparents started hosting one in the fifties, and we’ve been doing it ever since—it was initially for all of their posh friends, but eventually we opened it up to the public, started selling tickets. It’s a nice way to cap off the season.”

“Is it profitable?” she asked curiously; at some point, over the past few weeks, she realized that she’d gotten invested in the future of Eden Priory.

“Decently,” he said, taking a sip of his beer. “I’ve been wondering if we should do more events at the house, ticketed things—not something as lavish as this, but more… workshops and the like. We’ve an ornament workshop that we run each year, but I think we should do more in that vein, maybe some arts and crafts classes—make the house somewhere people go for something more than simply tours of a historic property.”

“What about the film screening?” Charlotte asked, remembering Eloise’s mention of the Christmas, Truly screening they were hosting on Christmas Eve.

“That, sure,” he said, suppressing a grimace, and Charlotte grinned at him.

“Oh my god, you can’t even pretend to think it’s a good idea,” she said, trying not to laugh.

“I do think it’s a good idea; it’s why I agreed to it,” he objected. “I just don’t like it.”

“Because it’s not artistic enough,” she said, in a god-awful attempt at some cross between an English accent and a Katharine Hepburn impression.

“I am going to refrain from pointing out the absurdity of you of all people objecting to my preference for hosting events focused on a famous artist rather than Christmas, Truly .”

“Touché.”

Their food arrived then—a meat pie and a side of chips for her, a salad (also with a side of chips, she noted approvingly) for him. She glanced at his plate as she raised her fork, and then paused, quickly mentally scanning through the other meals they’d eaten together.

“Are you a vegetarian?” she asked curiously, taking a bite of her pie.

He nodded, spearing a bit of halloumi and avocado on his fork. “Since I was at uni. Read a long-form article on factory farming and never ate another sausage again.”

She reached for a chip and sighed at the sight of the woefully small ramekin of ketchup she’d been given. Without missing a beat, he pushed his own ketchup ramekin toward her, reaching for mayonnaise instead.

“Only heathens put mayo on fries,” she said darkly.

“Tell that to the Dutch,” he said, looking unbothered. “I spent some time in Amsterdam a few years back, when my firm was working with a Dutch client, and I cannot express to you how much mayonnaise I consumed.”

“You shouldn’t sound so proud of that fact,” she advised him, and a grin crept across his face. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do, when you go back to work?” she added, since he’d broached the topic first.

He took another bite of salad, shaking his head. “Not too much. I think they’d hire me back at my old firm, if I let them know I was interested—we parted on good terms, they offered to just let me take unpaid leave, but…” He trailed off, his expression darkening.

“But?” she prompted; at some point, she’d stopped worrying that if she reminded him of her presence, he’d clam up. Had started to believe that he was sharing these things because she was there, not in spite of it.

“I don’t know if I can… do it. Anymore.” His voice was quieter now, and he looked down at his plate, the corners of his mouth turning down. “I didn’t realize how much pressure my dad was shouldering, worrying about the house while also working mad hours at a really intense job, and I just… don’t know if I can do both. Once I realized that the house was really losing money, I started trying to go down there at weekends, or call my mum every evening to discuss things—I was having to leave work early so I could meet with my parents’ solicitor, the accountant, and eventually it just got to be too much.” There was a faint note of guilt lacing the words, and he was still staring down at his plate.

“Graham.” Charlotte paused until he looked back up at her. “I think…” And here she hesitated, because she didn’t know what she thought. She thought too many things at once. She thought too much—far too much—about him.

But despite that, she said something that was utterly, entirely true: “I think that what you’re doing right now is enough.” And then, against her better judgment—against every practical voice in her head, telling her why this was a bad idea—she reached across the table and rested her hand on his.

He turned his hand palm up and interlaced their fingers, then held her gaze, his eyes dark behind his glasses. The room around them—cozy and warm and softly lit, full of the pleasant murmur of conversation—faded. She couldn’t look away—couldn’t focus on anything other than his eyes, the strong lines of his face, the warmth of his hand against hers, the spot where his thumb rubbed a slow circle against her skin.

And the electric current that seemed to sizzle in the air between them, growing stronger with each second of silence.

“Do you know,” he said softly, at last, “how often, lately, I’ve thought about kissing you?”

She swallowed, then said, just as softly, “How convenient, then. That we only have one room.”

They didn’t finish their dinner.

They were on the stairs, then walking down the hallway, and then her key was in her hand, fumbling with the lock—and still, still, it wasn’t fast enough. He was, suddenly, quite close behind her, the heat of his body against her back, his breath on her neck as he murmured, “Have you never opened a door before?”

She laughed, a little breathless, as she tried again, and then—miracle—the key turned, the door swung open. “In America, we have keys that were designed this century,” she said, turning to him as she entered the room, but she couldn’t say anything more, because in a single, neat movement, he was shutting the door, turning her, pinning her against it.

He braced one arm above her on the door, looking down at her, his eyes dark. She reached up for his glasses, but he used his free hand to catch her wrist, stilling her hand. “Don’t,” he said softly, keeping her wrist trapped tight in his grip. “I want to see your face clearly.” The heat of his body was a whisper away from her front. She tilted her chin up.

“Were you only interested in looking?” Her mouth curved into a smile—an invitation.

He took it.

He kissed her, she thought, like he knew her. There was no hesitation—none of the awkwardness that often characterized first kisses. There was simply his mouth on hers, his chest firm against her breasts. He dropped her wrist so that he could reach out to cup her chin, tilt her face to a slightly different angle, and she slid her fingers into the short hair at the base of his neck. She smiled against his mouth, and their teeth clicked.

“What,” he murmured, pulling back enough to speak, pressing his forehead to hers.

“Nothing,” she said, a bit breathless already. “Just…” She tightened her grip in his hair. “I stand corrected. We are romance novel–ing this shit.”

“Lane?”

“Mmm?”

“Stop talking.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but it was already covered by his again, his tongue tracing her lips, sliding into her mouth to tangle with her own. His stubble scraped against her cheek with a rasp, then against her throat as he moved lower. He was hard against her stomach, and she hooked a leg around his hip, angling her hips upward to try to relieve the pressure of the relentless pulse beating between her legs. The door was at her back, the doorknob an awkward, occasional bump against her hip, but she barely even noticed, all of her senses occupied by the warmth of his body, the feeling of his hair slipping through her fingers, the bare skin of his back where she slid a hand down to dip beneath his shirt. He pulled back, tugging his sweater and shirt over his head in one jerky motion, and Charlotte’s mouth went dry at the sight of his bare chest, his taut stomach, the lean muscle in his arms. His glasses had been dislodged in the shirt removal, and he raised a hand to straighten them, swallowing as Charlotte pushed off the door, reached for the hem of her dress, and, in one smooth motion, tugged it over her head.

Only at this point did it occur to her that she should have removed her tights first. “Ugh,” she said now, pushing off her boots, then hopping on one foot as she removed her tights, “this has to be the least sexy stripping in human history.” She transferred her weight to the other foot, and tugged the other leg of her tights down and off.

“I beg to differ,” he said, his voice a bit hoarse; Charlotte glanced down, pleased to be reminded that—in a fit of inspiration—she’d worn her favorite black lace bra this morning, and the bent-over hopping was definitely doing her breasts some favors, as Graham’s riveted gaze was testament to.

She straightened, and then nodded at him. “Jeans off, please.”

“Are you always this bossy?”

“I said please,” she objected, hands on her hips, having to fight against the desire to reach out and rip his pants off herself, because the sight of him shirtless was causing some sort of horniness-induced short-circuiting in her brain, and she wasn’t feeling very patient at the moment.

“Fair enough,” he said, his mouth curving up into a half smile as he toed off his shoes, then unbuttoned his jeans and tugged them down to reveal…

“No.” Charlotte shook her head. “You are not doing this to me right now.”

Graham’s smile had widened, his dimple putting in an appearance now. “In my defense, I didn’t put these on thinking you’d see them.”

“You did,” she said definitively, crossing her arms. “You hired those sheep, all so that you could seduce me in a B and B—”

“No one is seduced in B and Bs, Lane.”

Charlotte ignored him. “—and then wait until I was practically naked to reveal that you have reindeer on your boxers .”

Graham shrugged. “The Christmas spirit moved me this morning.”

“You do not understand how deeply unsexy that sentence is to me,” Charlotte said, frowning, but unable to prevent herself from taking another, extremely appreciative glance at the sight of Graham Calloway, in nothing but a pair of Christmas boxers, his cheeks a bit flushed, his hair mussed, eyeing her with naked hunger.

And suddenly, she was no longer thinking about reindeer boxers—or about anything at all, really, other than the want that coursed through her, and her need to feel his bare skin on hers.

She reached a hand toward him, and in a moment he was there, his hands in her hair, his mouth on hers—then on her throat—then on her breasts, the lace of her bra going damp beneath his tongue. She could feel his erection against her stomach as he reached behind her to unclasp her bra, his hands coming up to cup her breasts the moment she tossed it aside. She gasped against his throat, then bit down, her teeth gently grazing the spot where his neck met his shoulder, and he groaned, his hips rolling against her almost helplessly. Her hands came to rest on his hips, and she urged him backward, crossing the tiny room in a breathless stumble, laughing against each other’s mouths, until he wrapped his arms around her waist and turned them in one smooth motion, easing her backward onto one of the beds. He settled over her, bracing his weight on his elbows as he gazed down at her, his expression softening. “This is why I kept my glasses on,” he said, in a low, hoarse voice unlike any that she had yet heard from him. He reached out a hand and traced a slow line down her throat, between her breasts, down her stomach, her pulse jumping in each spot that he touched. At last, his fingers latched into the waistband of her underwear, and gently pulled them down her legs. She kicked them off, and he settled into the space between her thighs, leaning down to kiss her again, more urgently now. Her arms twined around his neck and her breasts were crushed against his chest and she hooked her leg over his hip, trying to generate enough friction to ease the growing ache at her core. He drew back enough to allow a hand to slip between them, his fingers assured as they slid through the wetness between her legs; she covered his hand with hers, helping him find a rhythm, and then her hand fell away again, her eyes fluttering shut as her breathing grew more ragged, his thumb rubbing increasingly tight circles until she came with a cry muffled against his shoulder.

The sound of her own breathing was loud in her ears, and she opened her eyes at the feel of his fingers at her temple, gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ears. He was breathing heavily, his cheeks even redder, his eyes slightly glazed as he took in the sight of her, and she thought she must look absolutely wrecked, legs splayed, unable to catch her breath, but she didn’t care—she just wanted more . He leaned down to kiss her again, wet and messy and heated, and her hands went to the waistband of his boxers; he tore his mouth away from hers long enough to say, “One second,” then turned to fish his wallet out of the pocket of his discarded jeans, producing a condom with a triumphant smile.

From there, things moved quickly—he yanked down his boxers and rolled on the condom with a sure hand, and then he was on his side next to her, pulling her leg back over his hip as he slid into her; he pulled back, a slow, agonizing movement leaving friction in his wake like sparks, and then thrust forward again—and again—and again—and she was conscious of nothing except the warm, sure feeling of his hand flat against her back, holding her to his chest as he moved within her, the slap of their hips meeting, the groans that worked their way from his chest to fill the space around them. At one point, he pulled out entirely, rolling her onto her stomach, and she braced herself on knees and elbows as he thrust into her once again, and again, a fast race to completion now, his hands a warm anchor at her hips, her own hand working between her legs, and she bit into the pillow as she cried out again, his cries muffled in her hair.

She didn’t know how long they lay there, his weight a heavy, warm comfort above and around her, their breathing slowly evening out.

“Twin beds were not designed for this,” she murmured at last, and his laugh was a warm huff of air against her neck.

“Better a twin bed than against a wall, or the floor,” he said, his voice still in that hoarse, smoky register that was apparently his bedroom voice, which she didn’t think she’d ever be able (or want ) to unhear. “My back wouldn’t have been able to take it.”

“Very hot.” He poked her in the side, and she smiled. “I need a shower,” she added after another moment, and let it dangle there, an invitation to be picked up if he wanted to.

His mouth curved against her skin. “Shall we see how large it is?”

It turned out that it was large enough—though just barely—for Graham to prove to Charlotte that he had a very, very talented mouth. And when the water turned lukewarm, and then cold, and they yelped and swore and Graham hastily helped Charlotte rinse the shampoo out of her hair, she thought, ridiculously, that the sound of their laughter, echoing off the tile, was one of the best things she’d ever heard.

It was later—much later. The night outside their window was dark, the village streets quiet, their room full of shadows. They’d scrambled out of the shower, shivering and laughing, and dried off and tumbled onto her bed and picked up right where they’d left off, pausing only briefly for Graham to fumble for the box of condoms he’d apparently picked up on his toothpaste mission earlier that evening.

“Optimistic, were you?” Charlotte asked, arching a brow at him from her spot on the bed, resting on her elbows.

“Lane,” he said, crawling back onto the bed and placing a lingering kiss at the base of her throat, “how could I not be? It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

And then, laughing, dodged the pillow she aimed squarely at his head.

Now, hours later, they were still curled, spoonlike, in her tiny twin bed; she would have thought he’d fallen asleep, except for the occasional, slow stroke of his hand down the bare skin of her arm, leaving goose bumps in its wake.

“You can’t sleep here,” she mumbled, her voice slurring slightly from exhaustion—and quite possibly from some sort of postcoital drunken stupor, because good god —and he laughed silently, the only indication the warm huff of his breath against her neck.

“Not a cuddler?”

She wasn’t, actually, but didn’t want to tell him that, because she didn’t want him to move—not yet, at least. “There’s no way two of us can sleep in this tiny bed,” she said instead. “So… just don’t fall asleep here.” This was, in her own way, an invitation—and perhaps he realized that, because he didn’t move.

Silence fell, comfortable and sleepy, and Charlotte could feel her body growing heavy and warm. “This is nice,” she said, so quiet that she wasn’t sure she wanted him to hear.

“It is,” he said, his arm tightening around her waist. “I’d… forgotten.” He was silent for long enough that she didn’t think he was going to speak again, but then, finally, quietly, he said, “Since I broke up with my ex—before that, even—I think I’ve been a bit… lonely. And no one I’ve slept with since then has changed that.” She held her breath, waiting. “Until now.”

His body was warm and comforting against hers, and she reached up slowly, not thinking about it too hard, and laced her fingers through his. Silence fell between them again, their slow breaths the only sound in the quiet of the room, and their interlaced fingers felt like a promise, though she didn’t know what they were promising.

And, lying in the darkness with his arm around her—and even after he placed a last, lingering kiss on her neck and retreated to his own narrow bed—she realized that here, in this room with him, was the least lonely that she’d felt in a long, long time.