“Mm,” Greta mumbled to his back before she took a nip of the flesh at his lat.
His hips pulsed into her hand.
“Come around,” he growled.
She slid her lips up to the side of his neck, pressing her tits in his back, and bossed, “Keep your hands to the headboard, Hixon.”
“Greta,” he warned, fucking her fist that she kept wrapped tight around his cock, her other hand cupping and squeezing his balls, the whole of her pressed to his back, her lips on his neck—it was too hot, he couldn’t take more.
“This feel illegal?” she asked.
No.
It felt phenomenal.
Fuck it.
He took his hands from where they were, curled around his headboard where he’d promised to keep them, and twisted, his movement making her lose hold and throwing her back.
He caught her at the waist, hauled her around to his front, then up. His other hand going to his dick, he pulled her down, the head of his cock slid through her wet as she wound her legs around his hips, and he found her.
He surged up as he yanked her down and her head flew back with her, “Yes.”
He walked on his knees until he had her back tight to the headboard and then he hammered her.
“This feel illegal, gum drop?” he asked.
“Yes, baby,” she gasped.
“Tit, Greta,” he ordered.
She took a hand from clenching his ass to put it to her breast and lift it to him. He kept pounding inside her as he bowed his back and sucked it hard into his mouth.
She jolted in his arms, he felt that jolt in his cock and not because her pussy spasmed around it, and she started shifting her hips to meet his thrusts.
He circled her nipple and muttered, “Other one,” against it.
She exchanged hands, one now in his hair, one to her other breast, and lifted it for him.
He took it with his mouth.
She ground into his drives.
“Baby,” she whimpered.
He let her nipple go, quickly slid his middle finger between his lips and out, wetting it. He then put his lips to hers and kept hold of her with one arm, the other hand he slid down her spine, over her ass, through the cleft, and he dug that middle finger up her ass to the second knuckle.
That did it.
“Hixon,” she breathed, bucked, cried out, and her pussy throbbed around him.
Her reaction took him over the edge and he drilled her against the headboard, shoving his finger all the way in at the back only to hear her moan and feel her legs wrap tighter around him as he exploded, thankfully now able to do it ungloved since she’d got her ass on the Pill, shooting deep inside.
Hix came down with his face in her neck, sliding his finger gently out but keeping her planted on his dick.
“No fair,” she muttered hazily into the skin of his neck.
“No fair?” he asked, grinning into the skin of hers.
“You hadn’t won the bed wrestling match of the millennium part two to earn your right to take my ass.”
He lifted his head, looked down at her beautiful, sated face and asked an unnecessary question, “You didn’t like it?”
She rolled her eyes and didn’t bother to answer his unnecessary question.
He pressed her into the headboard, tightening his hold on her with his arms, getting her complete attention.
“That wasn’t taking your ass, sweetheart. That wasn’t even fingering your ass. That was staking a future claim when I win our bed wrestling match of millennium part two.”
“I’m totally buying lube,” she declared.
“Good idea.” He grinned at her.
Her eyes narrowed. “For you.”
He busted out laughing.
“I’m so gonna win, Hix.”
“Right,” he snickered through his continuing laughter.
“You’ll see.”
He did his best to sober, was shit at it, so was still chuckling when he said, “You’re right. We’ll definitely see.”
“I should have spanked you when I had your hands to the headboard,” she snapped.
He put his mouth to hers and held her eyes, “Now we’re totally havin’ our rematch ’cause that’s a good idea, and you got a great ass, baby, but it’ll be pretty, takin’ my cock, all pink.”
Her eyes got big right before she nipped his lip and did it hard.
He took her mouth.
She smacked his ass.
He pulled her off his cock, tossed her to her belly on the bed and covered her, shoving both hands beneath her, each going separate directions, all this while burying his face in her neck.
And from there, Hix commenced proving to his woman he could still go all night.
They both had work the next day.
They both dragged their asses all day that next day.
And they both thought it was totally worth it.
“Okay, I got the stocking stuffer candy and the stocking stuffers are all bagged in different bags to make it easy to stuff them tomorrow night after the kids go to sleep, but they’re not wrapped. Andy wants to help me do that. We’ll do it tomorrow while the kids are with Hope at Jep and Marie’s. But I got the tissue paper. Christmas plaid for Shaw, snowflakes for Corinne, candy canes for Mamie. I already wrapped Andy’s in star paper. Your paper, I’m not gonna say, you’ll see on the day, but that’s also done,” Greta prattled.
Hix was sitting at a stool at his kitchen island (Corinne, Mamie and Greta had chosen his new stools, Shaw, Andy and Hix had approved them, but it was Hix who bought them) watching his woman pace around the island.
She had a pen in one hand and a huge legal pad in her other that she was flipping through, back and forth, in what Hix would suspect Santa would do with his list if he used a pad and not a huge-ass scroll.
“Babe—” he tried to cut in to find a gentle way to tell her he didn’t give a shit what kind of tissue paper his kids’ stocking stuffers were wrapped in and they should also get a move on because the sun was setting and they needed to go get her brother.
“Nuts in their shells, check. Always have to have nuts with shells so you can use the nutcracker,” she declared. “We’re having Coke-glazed ham.” She opened the fridge. “Ham in fridge, check. Two-liter of Coke, check. Four more two-liters of Coke for you, Shaw and Andy. Check. Diet for us girls, check. Hash brown casserole.” She closed the fridge and opened the freezer. “Hash browns, check.” She shuffled to the pantry, tapping the end of her pen to the pad as she called it down. “Cookie stuff. Check. Roll mix. Check. Stuff to make Chex mix. Check.”
“Sweetheart—”
Still tapping her pad with each “check,” she went on like she hadn’t heard him, which she probably hadn’t. “Crackers. Check. Chips. Check.” Back across the room to the fridge she opened. “Deli meat. Check. Blocks of cheese for crackers. Check. Cheese slices for sandwiches. Check. Grated cheese. Check. Makings for cheese ball. Check. Philadelphia cheese. Check. Three types of bread—”
Christ.
There was more cheese in his house than all of Wisconsin.
“Greta,” he pushed out through laughter.
She whirled on him and abruptly changed subjects. “Where’s Mamie’s barre?”
“Like I told you three times, Tommy’s bringing it over Christmas morning, early. He’s gonna put it up when he gets here. If we’re still asleep, he’s got a key.”
“We won’t be asleep. It’s the law you don’t get up past five o’clock Christmas day. Will he be able to get here before five?” she asked.
“I know the law pretty well, baby, and I’m not sure that’s the law,” he told her through a smile he knew was immense because it was hurting his face.
“It’s a Christmas law, smokey, and only Santa gets to be sheriff of that.”
That was when his gut hurt from stopping himself from busting out laughing.
“Can Tommy show at, say, four?” she requested.
“Tommy’s a forty-three-year
-old, never-married, single guy who took a single’s cruise last Christmas, and by his report, nailed four broads during this cruise. Do you think a man like that is gettin’ up at three-thirty in the morning to drag a ballet barre across town and install it in his friend’s basement?”
“It’s Christmas, so yes,” she sniffed.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up on that, gum drop,” he warned.
“I wouldn’t call women broads again, Hixon,” she returned. “I’d take you to task for that but I’m in a Christmas mood.”
Hix could say for definite he hadn’t missed her Christmas mood.
“I didn’t think bitches was the way to go,” he teased, and she assumed a severe expression.
“You were right,” she shared.
“Or pieces of ass,” he went on.
“You’re right about that too.”
“Or asses he tapped,” he kept at her.
“Hix . . . the barre,” she pushed.
“He’ll get here when he gets here, but he said early and the man owns a farm. His early will be early.”
“If it isn’t early-early, she’ll hear the drill, Hix.”
“You can’t muffle a drill, Greta.”
Suddenly, she threw up her hand with the pen, her other hand with the pad, and declared loudly, “There has to be a big Christmas surprise! Corinne only wanted clothes, hair stuff and makeup, nothing big enough to make a huge to-do over, except her new phone, which we agreed with Hope that she could give her. Shaw wanted videogames and money, so ditto with the to-do. Andy never gives a crap what anyone gives him because he’s too excited for them to open what he got them. Your Christmas surprise is gonna be a Boxing Day surprise after the kids and Andy are gone because I don’t think I’ll be able to be quiet after you do what you do to me when you see me in it. Mamie’s barre is our only surprise!”
Hix wasn’t feeling amused anymore.
“Let’s go back to my Boxing Day surprise,” he suggested in a growl.
He had no clue what Boxing Day even was.
He still wanted to know about his surprise.
She looked smug, a look he felt tighten in his crotch.
She also sounded smug when she announced, “We’ll just say Santa has a variety of little helpers and you’re gonna be glad one of them is sleeping in your bedroom.”
“Sneak peek now,” he decreed.
She shook her head. “We have to go get Andy.”
“He can wait an hour . . . or two.”
“He always comes to me Christmas Eve’s Eve, Hix. Homemade pizza and viewings of Lethal Weapon to start the festivities. It’s tradition. And it’s getting late. So if we’re missing something, we have to drop by the store on the way home with Andy.”
“Babe—”
She interrupted him. “We need to make sure we have everything. The Christmas feeding orgy starts tonight and I’m not going to the grocery store if we’re missing something after we get home and you aren’t either.”
And thank Christ for that since she’d sent him on four runs the last three days to prepare.
He opened his mouth to say something, whatever that had to be to get him a sneak peek of whatever his present was going to be, when the doorbell rang.
He got off the stool, ordering, “I’ll get that. You get your ass upstairs and get in my surprise.”
She shook her head. “Not gonna happen, darlin’.”
So it was lingerie.
Please, Christ, make it a teddy.
She had three teddies. He’d seen them all. He liked them all. Enough he wanted another one.
He stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. “Thirty minutes.”
“Oh no,” she said softly, her eyes flaring. “That would be an impossibility.”
Fuck.
She smiled a wicked smile. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
The doorbell rang again.
So Hix muttered, “You knew exactly what you were doin’.” And he heard her equally wicked chuckle as he stalked to the door.
The lead glass panes in the door obscured who was behind it except for the fact whoever it was had big hair.
Hix didn’t have a good feeling about that.
His feeling was correct when he opened the door and saw Tawnee Dare standing on his porch.
She didn’t waste any time.
“I wanna see my daughter.”
Shit, he had her, they hadn’t yet served her, and he didn’t have the papers.
All his deputies had volunteered to find her in order to serve her but it was Donna who won that job in an epic scissors-paper-rock battle that took fifteen minutes.
This meant Donna had the papers.
Shit.
Before he could think of what to say, she kept speaking.
“I know she probably doesn’t wanna see me but it’s Christmas and I wanna see my boy.”
Probably?
“We’re not doin’ this,” he told her, beginning to close the door at the same time scanning his street, his hand going to his back pocket to get his phone.
“No!” she shouted, and his eyes sliced back to her as she opened the storm, stepped in it and put a hand up to press on his door.
“Stand back, Ms. Dare,” he warned.
“I get it. She’s done with me. But I wanna see my boy.”
“Take your hand off my door, Ms. Dare, and remove yourself from my property.”
“I got him a present. It’s in the car. I wanna see him. I wanna give it to him.”
“Do you honestly think she gives one shit what you want?” he asked and went on, “And trust me, your boy wants nothing from you either. Since birth, Greta’s given him everything he’s needed, you didn’t damage his brain so much he doesn’t understands that, so he won’t give a shit he gets anything from you now.”
He couldn’t credit the wince his words got him, but before she could say anything or he could push the door closed, her eyes went over his shoulder.
“Greta. Greta, girl, I’m not here to cause problems,” she said quickly. “I just wanna see Andy.”
“Greta, move outta sight,” Hix demanded. “Call Donna, tell her Ms. Dare is here and tell her, she leaves before Donna gets here, the woman is driving a late model, blue Honda Accord. Colorado plates. Plates that are expired.”
Tawnee’s eyes shot to him. “What’re you talkin’ about?”
He didn’t answer her.
He ordered, “Step back, Ms. Dare.”
“Okay, just let me give you his present and I . . . I . . .” Her eyes went over his shoulder again. “I got something for you too, girl.”
“I’ll say it once more, step back,” Hix clipped.
Greta obviously wasn’t doing as he asked because Tawnee kept her attention over his shoulder and something came over her face. Something strange. Impossible to achieve. Pugilistic but defeated. Entreating yet stubborn. Sad but hopeful.
“I know you’re done,” she said quietly, all those things in her tone too. “You haven’t unblocked me, they haven’t put me back on the visitor list. But I got nothin’, Greta. Kavanagh ousted me. Got nothin’ and it’s Christmas. Not askin’ for much. Just to give you and Andy a little somethin’.” She tried an unpracticed smile. “And you love Christmas. Always did.”
“You’re wrong. I hated it,” Greta said coldly. “Until Andy was two and he could grasp a little bit what it meant.”
Tawnee’s face fell but she pushed, “Just let me drop your presents. You can give Andy’s to him.”
“Though,” Greta went on like Tawnee hadn’t spoken, “only way I could give him anything was to steal from you. But it’s miraculous how a three-dollar, beat-up teddy bear from the Salvation Army can light up a two-year-old kid.”
“I knew that was you,” her mother muttered.
“Yep, didn’t remember to buy us presents but you sure missed that three dollars from your purse,” Greta returned.
“It wasn’t just one year you did that, Greta,” Tawnee f
ired back. “And I never said shit. Did I? I never got in your face about stealin’ from me so you could give Andy a Christmas.”
“Are you serious?” Greta whispered.
Hix had the same question.
He just didn’t give a fuck about the bitch’s answer.
“This isn’t gonna happen,” Hix growled, pushing on the door, and Tawnee’s boots actually slid his welcome mat (Greta and the girls got it online so he didn’t have to buy that) across the porch as she put her weight into keeping it open.
“I wanna . . . I wanna explain. I wanna . . . I want you to understand why,” she stated urgently.
“Greta, call Donna,” Hix ordered.
“No, honey. I wanna know,” Greta said.
He looked over his shoulder at her.
Her eyes were pinned on her mother but she kept talking to him.
“She wants to explain, I wanna hear it.”
“Right, sweetheart, but I don’t want this woman in my house,” he shared honestly.
She looked to him and nodded. “I get that. So I’ll get my jacket.” Her attention returned to her mom. “Stand out there, I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Greta, it’s cold and—” Tawnee began.
“Mom, do that or spend Christmas in one of Hix’s cells. You’re trespassing. You have another arrest for that in this county. You also have a record. And you have a protection order as granted by a judge that you haven’t yet been served, but he knows you’ve been stalking me and taking pictures. And we’ll just say, you haven’t made a friend of local law enforcement. Stand on the porch. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Greta’s mom looked shocked. “A protection order?”
“You can’t follow anyone around and take photos of them with malicious intent, Mom. You did that. When you’re served, if you continue to do anything to harm me in any way you can, it’ll be handled as a felony.”
The woman’s face paled.
“You wanna explain, I’ll give you time,” Greta granted. “You have this. Then it’s over. No more chances. No more time. No more anything. If you don’t leave me and Andy alone, I’ll take it as far as I have to take it to make certain that you do.”
Tawnee’s hand came off the door so fast, the pressure Hix was putting on it meant it closed right in her face.
He didn’t think of that.