Christmas Kisses

25. Christian

25

CHRISTIAN

I won’t lie. Nerves I’ve never experienced tap dance in my stomach when Angel enters the living room. She went to the bathroom to freshen up after dinner. Our food wasn’t tainted with body-morphing chemicals. She just needed a moment to gather her wits. Since I needed time to do the same, I pretended I had showered between installing stabilizers in her apartment and helping the catering company Holt Industries paid out the eye to set up each apartment in this building with a feast fit for a king.

I stink, and I’m fucking exhausted, but I wasn’t going to let anything come between Angel and her neighbors coming home for Christmas—not even a measly ten-minute shower.

“Hey.”

Fuck me, that was an effort to speak. Bouncing wet curls, a barely there towel, and the admiring stare of a woman without a touch of makeup on her face but with a beauty that couldn’t be hidden under a wiry mess of green hairs make doing anything but drooling impossible.

“Hi.”

Angel’s one word is breathless. My ego wants to say it is because she knows what is hiding under my buttoned-up shirt and upside-down Santa tie, but that isn’t true. It is from her spotting my packed suitcase on the warped floor of the entryway.

Her eyes shoot back to me, wet and wide. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Isaac…” I groan before correcting myself. “ Mr. Holt offered me a suite at a hotel two blocks over.” My new business partner likes to keep things professional until a personal relationship is established. He said I could call him Mr. Holt or Boss until that happens. Since I consider myself the head of my company, I settled on Mr. Holt. “He added it to the perks when I signed on to remodel this building as per the industry guidelines Mr. Richler ignored while pocketing most of the construction funds.”

Angel gasps. “He didn’t.”

“He did.”

I laugh at her he’s-a-dead-man expression. I met Isaac in passing while helping the construction crew keep his promise. My first impression was that he isn’t a man to be messed with.

My assumption grew when I confronted him about the legalities he could face for ignoring his tenants’ ninety-nine-year leases.

It turns out it wasn’t solely Mr. Richler’s construction firm taking Isaac for a row.

His entire family was in the boat, steering its demise.

With most apartments revamped for a fraction of the money Holt Industries put up, the Richlers shifted their focus to other moneymaking deceptions. Increasing the rent on tenanted apartments netted them a cool thirty thousand a month. When that wasn’t enough, they commenced offloading apartments Isaac knew he wouldn’t profit off in his lifetime—if ever. Apartments like Angel’s were the equivalent of community housing for him. He didn’t care if they ran at a loss.

Understandably, Isaac’s trust was low when I presented him with an offer to purchase Angel’s apartment. He denied the ballooned price I gave in desperation in under a second, his verdict only altering when I announced my intention for the apartment. “I want to gift it to Angel for Christmas.”

“That’s an extremely generous gift,” he murmured, his interest piqued. “Some may say it is also a risky endeavor, considering you met only days ago.” His gray eyes bounced between mine. “What will happen if things don’t work out?”

“Nothing will change,” I answered, confident. “Angel’s apartment is her home, with or without me being a part of her life.”

That was clearly what Isaac wanted to hear. He mumbled something about wealth not being valued by money before he altered my proposal.

Angel’s apartment will be transferred into her name once I see through the construction we’d commenced only hours earlier. It will be a costly and timely project, but as I believed only last week, I strongly trust the benefits will outweigh the negatives, so I accepted it.

“Work won’t begin until early in the new year, so I figured it would be best to get out of your hair until then.” My arrogance breaks through a tension thick enough to slice with a knife. “All bets are off after Christmas, though. Most of the damage occurred here.” I point to the ceiling. “So it is only fair I spend the majority of my time in your apartment.”

Angel’s smile is minute but still noticeable. “Will there be set hours? I can’t have you nailing the floorboards at all hours of the night.” Now her smile is big. “What will Mrs. Roach think?”

“She’ll probably think you’re lucky.” I wish I were joking. Mrs. Roach isn’t as Goody Two-Shoes as her sweater-making makes out. Knitting needles weren’t the only things removed from her bathroom when it was cleared out to correct the mold. She could have restocked the merchandise Angel sold out of earlier this week. “But just in case, we moved her into apartment 4B until the rebuild ends.” My cock hardens when I murmur, “All the apartments surrounding yours are now vacant.” When heat flashes across Angel’s face, I correct, “ Temporarily vacant.”

I realize it isn’t anger inflaming her cheeks when she murmurs, “For how long?”

“A few weeks at least. Possibly longer if we don’t commence work here.” I wave my hand at the stabilizers holding up the ceiling.

It seems as if she wants to request that I start the work at the furthest location from her apartment. She just can’t force her heart to say the words. “Will you oversee the entire rebuild?” My hum of agreement causes her to squirm. She hides it well, though. “How long do you think it will take?”

I twist my lips. “At a guess, I’d say around a year.”

“A year!” I can’t tell if she is excited or mortified. It could be a combination of both.

Again, I hum.

I lean toward excited when she asks, “Will you stay at the hotel the entire time?”

“Depends.” I shrug like I’m not dying to lower my eyes to the indecent length of her towel. “I had my eye on an apartment in the area.” Her miffed expression is her cutest to date. “But the advertisement I’d bookmarked for future use is nowhere to be found. Anyone would swear it had been taken down.”

Angel’s throat works hard to swallow, her throat as dry as mine when I discovered she had delisted her spare room on Airbnb hours before almost tripping me over with the lip of her front door.

When I arch a brow, wordlessly demanding answers, she swallows bitterly before blurting out, “My last houseguest was a real dick. He hogged the only bathroom for hours and wandered around half-naked as if he owned the place.”

Her fake eye roll halts halfway around when I murmur, “Can you blame him? It’s fucking hot here.”

“Florida—”

“Has nothing on the heat in apartment 17B,” I interrupt before finally granting my eyes permission to peek at her luscious thighs. “Hot. Enough. To. Burn.”

When my eyes return to her face, she murmurs, “Christian, I owe you?—”

“You owe me nothing,” I interrupt again, reading both the apologies in her eyes and the gratitude.

“How can you say that? You did all of this.” She waves her hand around her apartment. “You got back my things.” Her eyes glisten with moisture. “And brought joy back into my home. How can’t I owe you for that?”

I join her at the entry of her living room. “You owe me nothing,” I repeat. “But I’d be lying if I said you couldn’t own me.” I give her famous eye roll a trick when she appears shocked. “How can you be so willing to fight for everyone else yet be so bad at fighting for yourself?”

She considers my question before answering. “It’s a bad trait I inherited from my mother.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say it is a bad trait.” She gags when I murmur, “Though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little in love with your mother. Looks, smarts, and empathy. I hit the jackpot.”

Her eyes flare from the sheer ownership in my tone, but she maintains her cool. “You wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in the ring with my father, neither for his wife or daughter’s hand.” She’s lying, but I let it slide since it brings back the sassy, smart-mouthed woman I’ve been wrangling for the past few days. “He would have wiped the mat with your blood.” One push and plastic crinkles under my ass as fast as Angel’s knees hug my thighs. I can barely hear what she says next. I’m too busy calming the beast firing to life in my pants. Unlike the first time she pranced into the living room with a towel, she’s not wearing any panties. “And I would have clapped from the sidelines.”

I tilt my hips, connecting the most intimate parts of our body as if there’s no material between us. “Would that have been before or after you filled my underwear with itching powder?”

Her deliciously plump lips stop arrowing toward my mouth as she gulps harshly. She’s not devastated that I know about her ruse to have the residents of her building believing I have crabs. Learning that I’ve been commando for the last thirty-six hours is the cause of her dry throat.

As jealousy burns her alive, lust heats my veins. Only a woman disinterested in what I’m selling would act nonchalant to her neighbors being awarded possible dick imprints. “I need names and apartment numbers.”

I rock my hips upward, grinding myself against her naked pussy, before muttering, “Why?”

A thousand answers roll through my head. None are close to the one I get. After nudging her head to the box under her entryway table, Angel murmurs, “I’ve got ninety-three sex toys left to sell.” Another grind, another moan, and another droplet of pre-cum leaking from my cock. “And absolutely no intention to use any of them for at least the next twelve months, so why not pass them on to someone in urgent need of a rechargeable companion.”

She bites my lips while swiveling her hips, making the gap of her teeny-tiny towel dangerous. I can now see how wet she is. Feel it. I can also smell it.

Her delicious scent has me desperate to taste her again, but I refuse to be impatient this time around. I will take my time with her even if it kills me.

As my hand cups Angel’s breast through the towel to roll her nipple between my thumb and forefinger, she talks over my kiss-swollen mouth. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you have the first pick. There are a heap of strap-ons hidden between the bigger emasculating instruments.”

She giggles when I flip our exchange on its head so her back is flattened on the stiff plastic and I’m hovering above her. I wipe the humor from her face with a handful of grinds before switching it to lust by nibbling on the delicate skin of her neck.

Her response to my neck kisses sends hot sparks down my spine and hardens my cock to the point it is painful.

Even while burning up, Angel still fights for some control. “I’ll start slow. I promise.”

“Angel…” I drag my tongue up a vein pulsating in her neck, sending a wanton moan bouncing around her apartment.

“Yeah.”

Her one word is breathless, and it takes everything I have not to flop out my cock and drive home. The only reason I hold back is because she deserves more than a quick, hard fuck. She deserves to be devoured. Cherished. Wholly consumed.

So instead, I say, “Shut up and kiss me before I call the hotel and cancel my reservation indefinitely.”

Her reply is quick, and it exposes her desperation. “I’ve heard anal beads are a good starting point for a novice.”