Mistletoe & Kisses Read online

“I don’t have a yard. That pile of shit is a hide-a-key.”

  He stalks over to it in the dark. “I’ve been doing this for ten minutes and you tell me now?”

  “Ten minutes?” I ask, not believing it’s been that long. Didn’t we just get here?

  “Jesus Christ,” he growls, throwing the plastic crap over his shoulder and walking past me to the door. He walks right into my house, and I follow. I watch him put in my security code.

  “What the fuck?” I ask, some life coming back to me as I watch him.

  He turns back to me, again walking past me to the kitchen. “I’m not blind. You put in the code right in front of me. Should probably change that shit.” He’s slamming cabinet doors. “Don’t you have any booze around here?”

  I shake my head. “I’m an addict.”

  Batty stops and looks at me. “You aren’t an addict.” He says it like he knows for certain.

  “Yes I am. Have the rehab graduation certificate to prove it.” I lick my lips and look around the room, not really seeing anything.

  “Sadie?”

  My head turns but he doesn’t say anything else except my name. I raise my eyebrows. What does he want?

  “Well, I was going to give you a shot to bring you out if it, but it looks like I don’t have a choice?” he says as he stalks over to me. I have enough sense to back up. The side of the stairs stop me.

  “Choice?” I ask

  He reaches for my wig, the tiara clattering to the ground when he takes it off. Next is my mask, but it gets caught in my hair, since the band holding it up was put on before I put my hair up. He patiently unbinds my hair.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper.

  Those eyes. They meet mine, and I’m swirling in them, instead of my own thoughts. “Finding you.”

  His lips move against mine, closed, but only briefly. He opens them, effectively opening mine with them and slips his tongue inside. Batty’s tongue coaxes mine out, lifting it, sucking it until I come to play. When his hands grab my face, then move into my hair, pulling on that edge of pain, I stop seeing Rachel for the first time.

  I lunge for it. Desperate to leave the day’s events, I twine my fingers through his hair and return the favor. He groans into my mouth and I catch it, swallowing the sound deep in my throat. One of Batty’s hands stays in my hair, pulling hard while I fight against it to keep the sting. The other goes to my ass, gripping hard, pulling me into his erection. I grind against him, frantic to keep this feeling.

  I feel the digging of the stairs fall away when he pulls me deeper into the house. I don’t know where we’re going, and I don’t care.

  He picks me up with that one arm. I fully appreciate the gesture, wrapping my legs around him seconds before he sits. I open my eyes, first seeing his lips, a brief glimpse of his tongue as it tangles with mine before I take in the fact that we’re sitting on my couch.

  He pushes my head to the side for a better angle, lifting as I rock my hips against his. My neck as been straining to keep the tight pull he has on my hair, but he pulls harder, and I have no choice but to tilt my head up. He sucks on my neck, I can feel his tongue laving at my pulse. Batty pushes my shirt up with the hand that was on my ass. I let go of his hair to shed the red shirt and am rewarded with his mouth moving down my chest. My bra is gone. Then his mouth. He sucks me in and the tornado dies to create another something that sets me on fire.

  When I feel his teeth on my nipple I cry out, the pleasure/pain shooting straight to my pussy. I grind harder.

  “Off.” His voice is deeper. It ignites me. He’s pulling at the button on my jeans. Then he’s gone, forcing me to stand on legs that want nothing more than to be bent around his frame. But he stands with me.

  He moves to his shirt as I watch. I try to back up to take in the view, but my knees hit the coffee table and I go down with my jeans halfway down my thighs. He unbuttons his pants, kneeling down to maneuver my tight jeans off of me.

  “Don’t think I’m doing all the work tonight. You’ve got shit to do,” he says, freeing my feet. I didn’t wear panties because the jeans were so tight, so I’m left naked on my white coffee table when he spreads my legs and takes in the view.

  He lets go of one of my bent legs to move his hands down the center of me, then into me. First one finger, then two, making my eyes roll back in my head. Making me moan.

  My eyes shoot open, dazedly seeing the ceiling fan above me before I lift my head to watch his tongue lick my clit. “Oh fuck, Batty,” I say as he does it again.

  “Mmm, you taste better than I thought you would.” I feel him say the words against my core as his hot breath hits me, then reach my ears. I raise an eyebrow and look at him.

  “I’ve been thinking about this pussy since I left here,” he explains.

  “You like?” I ask lightly.

  “Fucking better than peach cobbler, I’ll tell you that.” His tongue flicks several times, preventing me from going back there. “Where did you get the tea set?”

  “Ah, don’t stop,” I complain. Why does he keep talking?

  “I won’t stop, baby.” He moves his finger inside of me, in and out. “Tell me where you got it. It was china, hand painted.”

  I move my hand to point to the empty shelf as his mouth sucks my clit into his mouth, making my hand fist in the air.

  “You gave her your tea set?”

  I sit up and push him to the couch. “Stop talking,” I say with clenched teeth, grabbing his jeans and pulling them off. He helps by taking his wallet out before it’s out of reach and kicking off his shoes. “I need this,” I say as I palm his cock.

  “I know you do.” He hands me the condom, and I waste no time getting it open then rolling it down his length. I’m rewarded by a sweet inhale of breath as I sink myself onto him.

  His hand slapping my ass brings my own gasp, feeling the sting, and I move. His hands on my ass help to lift me, then bring me down hard. I bend my head to his neck, then shoulder. He moves his head out of the way, helping me to reach him as we fuck. My eyes don’t want to close anymore. The lights are on. For the first time I see all of him. I pull away, sitting up to let him do the work. He tunnels into me from below, and I watch.

  He’s got tattoos everywhere. How did I miss that? From his wrists, up his arms, and down his torso. His pecs flex as he lifts me. A massive angel is in the center of his chest, clouds or smoke swirl around in a vortex, the wings expanding to his collarbone and around his ribs. I groan in appreciation and set my tongue to the feathers that I can reach.

  He slaps the other cheek hard, pulling me onto him harder than before. He likes it. I move my hips onto his as he pulls my hair to curtain us in gold. It’s only us under here, our breaths gasping, our moans getting caught under the screen.

  I grind against him, where I need the friction. Batty lifts my ass in a rhythm that is ours, hard but smooth, building us to the point where we can’t help but explode.

  My head comes up as my back arches away from him. He keeps moving me as I splinter like a house that’s in the direct path of our force. My eyes move back to his as he shouts his orgasm loudly. The sound echoes in my near empty house. His eyes are on me, watching my hair, my chest, where we’re connected. He gets off on me, and he sees me. But which me? There seem to be a few these days.

  I leave him before he can leave me, pulling away to sit back on the coffee table. We catch our breath, our eyes locked, and I almost think we’re going to go again because of the look he’s giving me. But he looks down, stands then walks away.

  When he comes back from flushing the condom I’m fully dressed and ready, though still sitting on the table. He’s magnificent naked. His muscles shine with a sheen of sweat and his hair is in every direction from my fingers. He pulls his boxers on, then jeans silently. When he’s slipping his shoes on, he finally looks at me.

  “She didn’t get to see the lights?” I say abruptly.

  “The what?”

  “Rachel.” The name alone guts
me again. “She didn’t see the Christmas lights we hung today.”

  I watch his jaw clench, then his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “She sees them.”

  I study him, thinking about the angel on his chest, but his face is stone and gives away nothing. “Do you believe that?”

  “I have to,” he says before turning and walking out.

  My eyes follow his bare back as he leaves, his shirt fisted in his hand. He shuts the door quietly, but when the lock catches, I still flinch. I look around at my empty house, the house I always wanted, and think about how much happier I was with a dying girl.

  I walk over to the staircase and pick up the green wig and tiara, combing it with my fingers until it’s smooth. Moving back to the empty shelf, I position everything until it is fanned out, the tiara set just right.

  Then I turned off the lights.

  Chapter Eight

  MONDAY

  I feel hung over. My head is stuffed with cotton, and I’m nauseous. My stomach is growling, which just makes the whole thing worse. Plus I don’t have my keys, or credit cards, for that matter.

  I stomp down the stairs, my foul mood officially in the Popper zone of red as what I theorized last night is my barometer-of-self. Six days out of the week, I’ll ignore on a good day, terrorizing people on the bad. But for two Sundays in a row I’ve introduced myself as Sadie, answered to Sadie, and been more nice than I can remember being since I started middle school.

  Most of the time, I’m putting on an act for people, giving them what they want from the lead singer of a grunge band. But on Sundays I give them what they want to. Except at night. When Batty is in my house, in me, all of that is real. Is there a middle ground? Or is there an option where he can wear me like a top hat for the rest of his life?

  I snort, almost falling off the bottom step when my eyes land on the kitchen island. I run the short distance and rip open my purse. The purse that’s supposed to be at the hospital. The purse that should not have been inside of my securely locked house. I check my wallet, but everything looks to be there. I think I finally got him when I can’t find my phone, but it was just at the bottom of the bag.

  I fist the leather in my hands and walk to the keypad for the alarm. “Son of a bitch.” The alarm is still set, just like I had it last night. I’m so mad I’m shaking when I turn it off to leave. As soon as I get in my car, I call Brian to get a locksmith to my house right that fucking second. Then I pull up the house app on my phone and change the code.

  I have no way to get in contact with Batty. I’m not going to go back. My mind was made up last night. No way in hell I was going through that again. But it seems I would have to go one last time to rip his delicious face off.

  * * *

  Two hours later, I’m in band practice for the tour. We finish the song and go to grab some water while the guys keep playing to transition into the next song. “What the hell are you doing?” I sigh and put the cap back on the cold bottle.

  “Whatever do you mean?” I ask in a flat voice, looking over at Brian.

  “You aren’t even fucking singing the songs!” I roll my eyes.

  “Yes, that was actually what it was. Singing. Not screaming and growling the whole thing. I can’t do that shit anymore just for practice.” I move away from him before I miss my cue but Brian grabs my arm. It’s his favorite place to bruise me.

  “You go into practice pretending it’s the fucking Madison Square Garden.”

  “But I won’t have a voice for the rest of the day if I do that now. I barely speak on tour because it’s gone. I don’t know how much more my voice can take.” I lift my arm to try to get it away from him, but he doesn’t let go.

  “How do I know you can still do it if you don’t prove it in rehearsals? I can replace you with some young little thing in a second Pops.”

  My worst fear spoken from the man who’s supposed to have my back. He never has, though, and we both know it. Speaking of Pops, I’m fucking Popper, Goddammit. My hand holding the water bottle slams into the top of his head, splashing water everywhere, ruining his greasy comb over. But his sausage hands are off of my arm. I walk away with a smirk on my face. Yeah. It’s good to be Popper sometimes.

  I didn’t even miss my cue into the song.

  WEDNESDAY

  “Do you think you were hard on the parents?”

  I roll my eyes and pop my gum. I’m rewarded with an eye twitch. “No, I don’t. Those people just left her there in a fucking cold room alone. I was the last thing she saw.”

  We had been going back and forth about this for thirty minutes now. She wasn’t convincing me that I overreacted.

  “Was she happy when she died, Popper?” the doc asks me quietly. She’s solemn which is the only reason I answer.

  “She was laughing. I reached to grab another stuffed animal and the monitor went off. She just looked like she fell asleep.” I stare ahead, seeing it over again for the millionth time.

  “Do you think she was happy, if she died laughing? Do you think she was missing her parents and blamed them in that second her heart stopped?”

  I shake my head, barely a movement at all, but she sees it. I know Rachel wasn’t thinking about her parents not being there. That was the whole fucking point. To give them something their parents couldn’t or wouldn’t do for them.

  She lets me process for a minute before prompting me. “So you know that you are giving them something they won’t forget? A little peace, happiness maybe, when their world is worry and pain? Then what do you get from it, Sadie?”

  I don’t miss that she slipped the name in there, but I’m trying to think of something besides Batty that I get from going to the hospital. I think . . . and think.

  “Do you smile when you’re there?”

  “Yeah. Some.”

  “Do you laugh?”

  “Yeah,” I say softly.

  “How do you feel when you leave there?”

  Horny. It almost comes out of my mouth. Maybe Sadie comes with a filter? Not a bad thing.

  I take a deep breath and look at the ceiling. “I feel . . . too many things to count. They’re all jumbled together.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sad, angry, happy that they smiled, hurting for what they are going through, relieved I could do something, anxious that they won’t be there next time, anxious that they will.”

  “How do you process that?” I stare at her until she elaborates. “What do you do when you get home? Do you go for a walk on the beach? Eat ice cream? Take a bubble bath?”

  Well, shit. Imma try that whole list next Sunday, because I sure as hell am not bringing back my caped friend.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do that.” The doc’s eyebrows raise.

  “Which one?”

  I shrug and look at the clock. “All of ‘em.”

  Her shoulder’s wilt, and she sits back in her chair. “You’re lying.”

  I slap my hands down onto my bare legs. “Welp! Looks like time’s up. See ya next week.” And I get the hell out of there. Somehow I doubt fucking a stranger is what she wants to hear, and Popper shouldn’t give a fuck, didn’t until two weeks ago. Now I’ve got this chick in white on my other shoulder telling me that Dr. Pentir is genuinely trying to help me. And let’s face it, not a lot of people give two shits about me.

  Chapter Nine

  SUNDAY

  I park my car and pull the e-brake roughly. I’m ready for war. As I walk to the elevators, my knee high boots ring out sharply on the concrete.

  Where does he get off coming into my house? Touching my things? He violated my privacy, while I was asleep upstairs and didn’t even come up to get in the bed? Fuck him. Well he’s about to get his ass kicked because I’m over it. He—

  My internal tirade is cut off when I’m jerked hard from behind. My eyes get big, and I squeak in shock. Who in the fuck would dare touch me tonight of all nights? A hand goes around my mouth about the time I raise both of my stilettos and jam them into his feet, li
fting them again to get his knees this time.

  I hear a muffled curse as I’m pushed toward my car in the empty garage. I stumble for a few steps, quickly coming up and wrapping my hand around the strap of my purse. That’s when I take in the black mask, black cape, and black jeans.

  “You,” I say through clenched teeth and take a swing with my overloaded purse. Batty dodges it easily, leaning back as it whizzes by his head like the fucking Matrix.

  “Will you stop it? I knew you were going to come in here hotter than hell.” Somehow I don’t think he’s talking about how I look.

  “You broke into my house!” I yell, advancing on him with my finger raised.

  He snatches it before I poke at his chest. “I was doing you a fucking favor. I think what you meant to say is thank you.”

  “So you went back to the hospital and got my shit.” I shrug. “You still took my spare key, turned off my alarm, and went into my house! You could have knocked. You could have left it on the fucking porch.”

  He takes a step toward me and lowers his voice. “I put the key back. I locked the goddamned door. I set the fucking alarm.”

  Our breath mixes as we pant against each other. When did he get so close? One second we’re staring daggers at each other, the next our masks are gone and our mouths are fused together. We battle with our tongues, lashing at each other with teeth. His hands go under my shirt and mold around my breasts. My hands do the same, but I use my nails to scrape down his ribs. Batty groans and yanks me hard to him. My breath gusts out from the force of hitting his chest. As fast as he brought us together he’s arching his hips away from mine to put a hand over where I’m hottest, between my legs.

  He curls his fingers in and rubs, making me desperate. When he pulls his lips from mine to work on the button of my jeans I ask, “How do you do this to me?” Seriously, I was set to skin him alive, now I just want his skin to touch mine.

  “I ask myself that every fucking day. Bend over.”

  I look around to where I’m supposed to be bending, almost doing it right there with the order in his tone. That’s not Popper. She doesn’t take orders. Sadie must, because when he turns me to the hood of my car, I grasp the end closest to the windshield and hang on as he yanks my jeans down.