Collins looked amazing with my cum all over her.

She was currently on her back, her heavy breaths matching mine as she watched the last bit of my release drip onto her tits. When she finally wrenched her eyes away from my cock to look at my face, it was to stare me in the eyes while she flicked her tongue out to lick the little bit of cum that had accidentally landed near the corner of her mouth. Then she smiled.

I was going to be hard again in no time.

"You are..." I shook my head in disbelief. "Something else."

The understatement of the century. The enthusiasm in which this girl just let me fuck her throat...oh my motherfucking God.

Collins' gaze unashamedly roamed over me. "So are you."

A small part of me wondered if this was a dream. This couldn't be like a real-life thing that was happening, could it? Fuck it. I didn't care. If this was a dream, it was about to be a really fucking good one.

"Spread your legs, baby girl."

Collins obeyed without hesitation, eagerness and fire in her eyes as she watched me lower myself between her thighs.

"I promise I'll clean you up," I muttered, "but it's going to have to wait a few minutes. It's my turn to get messy."

—

I'd worked up this image in my head of what it would look like when I surprised Collins on Christmas. Okay, if I were being honest, I had worked up a few different images of what it might look like. It was a long drive here from Sacramento, after all.

The best ones, of course, were the ones where she dropped everything that she was doing when I walked in, ran to the door, threw herself at me, and then let me kiss her until we both forgot our names. Yeah, that was a pretty good image I had going on up in my head.

The more realistic ideas were still pretty good, though. Honestly, I was just hoping for some semblance of happiness. Maybe a friendly hug. A smile. A laugh and a roll of her eyes when I saw what I brought.

Never, not in one single scenario that I'd conjured up, had I imagined that I'd pull up outside to hear yelling. Never did I imagine that I'd walk inside to find some other guy cornering her in the living room as she stood there, wearing my clothes. Fuck, she looked good in my clothes. Possession whipped through all my muscles as they tightened painfully at the sight in front of me.

Who was this Emperor penguin-looking motherfucker in his little black and white tuxedo that was bursting at the seams, and what the hell was he doing in my apartment standing that close to my fucking roommate? I told him to leave. Why the hell wasn't he leaving?

"I'm Denver Bailey," the penguin said, "of Bailey Investment Corp."

Why did that name sound familiar? And why was he standing there like I actually gave a damn? The critical part of my last sentence was how he needed to get the fuck out. Not that I didn't know who the hell he was.

"Who the fuck are you?" he asked, squaring his shoulders. He took a step toward me, which was good since it was a step away from Collins and that much closer to the door that I intended to throw him out of. But the idea that he had the right to demand anything from me? Self-importance was rolling off this guy in waves, and it made me sick.

"Beau Martin," I said, mimicking his tone. "Of Martin Property Management." Then I added, "And I live here. You do not, so I recommend getting your ass out the door."

The penguin—Denver—snorted and threw his hands into his tuxedo pants pockets. "You can't tell me what the fuck to do."

My hands clenched into fists. I chanced a look at Collins, wondering how much this guy meant to her and how much she would care if I broke his nose. The thought made my stomach churn, though. I didn't like the idea of guys meaning shit to her. In any capacity. Did I realize that made me a jealous fuck who had no right feeling that way? Yeah, but did I care? Nope.

I couldn't read Collins' expression, though. Her wide eyes flashed between the penguin and me, her lips parted like she wanted to intervene but didn't know what to say. Shock. She was in shock.

"She was telling you to leave." A nod toward Collins. "Now leave."

Denver's expression turned stony. "We were having a conversation."

"No, you weren't." I matched his look. He wanted to see what stone looked like? I'd show him. Maybe I'd even show him how it felt, too. "You were saying the fuck goodbye is what you were doing. So, see ya. Too-da-loo, asshole."

Rolling his eyes, he walked to his coat. It was lying over the back of the kitchen stool, and my eyes dropped to the present sitting on the counter next to it. Collins' name was scribbled on the top. I felt my lip curl up.

"Martin Property Management, huh?"

At the sound of his voice, my gaze flicked up to Denver's again and narrowed. "Yeah, what's it to ya?"

He matched my stare for a long moment, looking me up and down with a scrutiny that made a chill run through me. My name must have sounded as familiar as his, and I didn't like that one bit. Suddenly, he twirled to face Collins with an intensity that had me crossing the room in alarm.

"So that's what this is, is it?" he said, eerily soft. "You don't need me because you rolled right along to find someone else's family to leech money from. What a fucking joke, Collins. You were that desperate, huh?"

I could only see the top of Collin's face, but I watched her eyebrows twist, her eyes light up with barely hidden anger.

Denver reached out toward her, grabbing her wrist, and I saw the color red close in on my vision from all sides. That was enough of that.

"Don't fucking touch her." Grabbing Denver by the collar forcefully enough that I heard him make a little choking sound of surprise, I dragged him toward the front door and thanked the heavens when he didn't actually resist because, let's be honest, dude was a hell of a lot bigger than me. "Get out. And stay the hell away from this apartment."

Denver straightened when his feet hit the porch, shrugging off my touch like I'd dirtied his suit. He rolled his eyes, looking past me to Collins, but before he could say anything, I slammed the door in his face.

Eh, on second thought...

Throwing the door open again, I threw a punch, landing it solidly on the side of Denver's face as he was in the process of turning. It threw him off balance a bit, and he careened down the front steps before landing in the front lawn, still on both of his feet, but shakily.

He lifted his head with a glare, and that was when I once again shut the door. And locked it. In an instant, I whirled around to face Collins. And what I saw broke me.

Her expression was stricken, on the verge of crumbling. It was like the second after a wrecking ball made its mark, the moments before the bricks started to shift and fall.

In a blink of an eye, I was across the room, ready to catch her.

"It's not like that, Beau," she said, her voice croaking on my name. She kept shaking her head as if the faster she shook it, the more likely I'd believe her. "What he said, about money and—"

"I know," I said before wrapping my arms around her waist and hoisting her up—a split second before I felt her knees buckle. "You won't even let me buy you boots without throwing a fit. Trust me, I know it's not like that."

Collins didn't hesitate before flinging her arms around my neck, holding onto me for dear life. "You're mad, though," she whispered in my ear as I walked us over to the couch.

"I am," I answered honestly. My entire body was vibrating with a mountain of emotions that I struggled to place. But mad was definitely one of them. "I didn't like that you refused to come home with me, but at the very least, I thought you were safe here."

It was bad enough that she was alone on Christmas. But now this ass had been here too, harassing her before Santa had probably even made it back to the North Pole. I'd bet my trust fund that the Santa tracker was still hovering somewhere over the Arctic Ocean.

She sniffed, and I realized there were tears. Fuck, I hated tears. I hated her tears. I hated anyone's tears.

"I was safe," she said as I sank into the couch. Collins tried to pull out of my lap, but I tightened my grip around her waist. She relented, hiding her face in my chest. "He wasn't going to hurt me."

"Bullshit." The audacity she had to fight with me after the scene I'd walked into and the tears she was crying. "He clearly hurt you. Being physically safe is just the half of it, Collins."

She didn't answer, and for some reason, her silence feels like a defense of that asshole. I clenched my jaw in frustration. "Who the fuck is he?"

"Denver's an...." Collins sucked in a breath. "He was my friend."

"Just a friend?" I asked before I could stop myself. There were far bigger problems right now than the answer to that question, but I didn't think the tension would release from my chest until I knew.

Collins looked up, and her brown eyes saw right through me. "Just a friend," she confirmed.

That should be enough for me, but... "Like how I'm just a friend?"

If someone off the street asked Collins who I was to her, she'd say we were friends, but I'd fucked her mouth until neither one of us could breathe and then watched her lick my cum off her lips. So yeah, I needed to know which category of friend Denver fell into.

Her voice lowered, and even though I was sure she hadn't meant to do it seductively, it did things to the pace of my blood flow. "No, not like we're friends." She swallowed. "And not like Bren and I are friends, either."

Well, fuck me. I could have done without the Bren reminder, but I got the point she was trying to make. There was a difference between our just friends' status and her and Bren's, after all. And it did clear up all the questions for me.

Denver Bailey was literally just a friend to her, and always had been. But I still hated him.

"What did he want?"

Collins pressed her face against my chest again. "I don't want to talk about it."

Fuck. I didn't want to push her, but God, I wanted to know. I wanted to know everything about this guy, and then I wanted to eliminate him from the earth. I'd happily go all Avada Kedavra on his ass.

Eons passed before Collins pulled back, wiping at her cheeks. "I'm such a mess. It's all such a mess."

"Let me in," I said, and I struggled to keep my tone soft, to keep from speaking through gritted teeth.

Let me the fuck in, sweetheart. Involve me.

"It's all connected, isn't it?" I asked when she didn't say a word. "This and the other thing you won't tell me. The thing you're still not going to tell me."

Her reaction was slow, but she nodded.

"You told Bren, though." My thoughts were just flying out of my mouth tonight, inconsiderate and selfish. And I couldn't get them to stop. I bit down on my tongue.

Collins' eyes rolled up a bit as she glanced at me. "Bren was there," she said dryly. "We were in high school together when it happened. I didn't tell him. He just found out."

At this point, I was drowning in curiosity. Like getting caught in a riptide type of drowning. I couldn't escape it even if I wanted to.

"But—"

"Beau, please."

Shit. I liked it when she begged, but I didn't like that kind of begging.

I dropped the topic, knowing that I was on the edge of pushing too far, too much. Collins snuggled back down into my lap even though my grip had loosened, which at least told me she wasn't too upset with me for all my pestering. Her head rested against my chest, and I waited for her breathing to slow, her tears to dry. Her weight was pleasant and warm, and I tried to keep my thoughts from drifting from places they shouldn't.

When I thought she'd fallen asleep, she surprised me by whispering. "What are you even doing here?"

I shrugged, trying to sound casual. "It's Christmas."

"Exactly. You should be at home with your family."

A chuckle rose up in my throat. "But then I would have missed seeing how cute you look in my clothes again."

Collins stiffened in my arms, and I wasn't sure if it was because she didn't know how to take the little slice of a compliment or if she'd forgotten that she was wearing my shirt and sweatpants. "They're comfy, okay?" she said, but her voice came out higher-pitched than usual.

"Okay," I said with a laugh. "Feel free to wear them more often."

It would probably kill me, considering how Collins wearing my clothes made me think of the morning we'd woken up together at Mammoth Mansion, and more specifically, how I'd yanked those sweatpants off to eat her pussy for breakfast. But I was well-acquainted with the afterworld at this point.

"I was serious," Collins said softly, pulling me out of my memories. Probably for the best since she was on my lap. "You should be with your family. I know they mean a lot to you."

I shook my head with a smile even though Collins couldn't see it. "My mom practically pushed me out the door tonight. But I'll tell you about that after you wake up."

"Wake up?" she murmured. "I'm awake right now."

"Barely." I laughed, looking down at how she was slouched in my lap. Collins mumbled in response, making a sleepy noise that was undecipherable. "What was that?" I whispered against her hair.

"Thank you," she said on a hardly audible exhale.

Closing my eyes, I leaned back until my head hit the wall with a soft thud. Collins had no idea what I would do for her if she let me.

Or maybe she did. And perhaps that was why she wasn't letting me.

It only took a few more minutes for her to fall asleep entirely. When her heavy breaths told me she was out cold, I gently moved her to the side and went back out to my car, doing a sweep of the area to make sure no one else was around first.

Making quick work of my task, I grabbed the bag of presents before heading back into the apartment, not wanting to leave Collins alone for longer than a minute. Luckily, she hadn't woken while I was gone, so I got to arrange the presents beneath the tree for when she woke up. I turned on Elf, which it looked like she had been watching earlier, covered Collins with a blanket, and then settled back onto the couch on the other end, not wanting to wake her.

Whenever she did wake up, we were going to recreate Christmas morning. The proper way.

✨

santa beau is here

🎁🎁

thanks for reading and putting up with my cliffhangers! hope it was worth the wait.

xoxo amelie