Holly, Jolly, and Oh So Naughty (Festive Flames)
Holly, Jolly, and Oh So Naughty: Chapter 31

The days after Christmas come with a warmth they’ve never had before. Partly, it comes from having James around the house. He settles in immediately and does everything he can to help, and even though it’s only been a few days, I replace myself incredibly grateful for him.

For the first time in six years, I’m able to take a bath undisturbed and sleep in. Emma wants to spend all her time with James, and I can’t blame her. We did sit her down and explain everything to her, as much as we could explain to a six-year-old, at least, and while she showed signs of confusion, she was mainly just happy to have James here and with us.

Questions will likely come later.

That strange week between Christmas and New Year’s when nothing feels real is made all the more dreamy by James’s determination to treat us at every turn. He lavishes us in gifts and affection, and I can tell he’s desperately trying to make up for his reaction and his absence. I don’t have the heart to put my foot down yet, though, and watching Emma have one of her best Christmases ever is the cherry on top.

A couple of days after the dance, Emma leaves with her grandparents to go ice skating, which gives me the time I need to start packing up some of the Christmas clutter that’s invading my home. I trash all the Christmas paper, throw out boxes, and take down a few of the decorations.

Then I tackle the tree.

I’m halfway through seeking out the end of the Christmas lights when the front door clicks.

“Hello?” James calls from the hallway.

“In here!”

James appears in the doorway with two coffees balanced in a carton in one hand and a bag in the other. “I brought coffee and strudel because I heard you were trying to tidy up, so I thought you would need the energy boost.”

“How thoughtful,” I reply with a smile. “Any chance you could hold this for me?” I offer out the tail end of the lights, and when James sets aside his gifts and takes it, I begin my investigation of every bulb as we slowly unwind the lights from the tree.

“Aren’t these supposed to be off when you remove them?” James asks.

“Technically,” I murmur, eyes down on the bulbs. “But this way, I can replace all the broken ones as I unpack and then I don’t have to deal with this impossible tangle more than once.”

“It’s part of the Christmas magic.” James laughs. “Christmas lights will always end up tangled like a nest. I’m pretty sure it’s some sort of law laid down by Santa.”

“Oh, really?” I shoot him a glance. “Then I want a word with Santa.”

“I’ll try and arrange that,” James says. Suddenly, his warm hand encloses around my wrist and he pulls me away from the tree.

I stumble close to him and place one hand on his chest. “James, I’m trying to work here.”

“I know,” he murmurs, bringing his face close to mine. “I only want to say hi.”

A bashful smile creeps across my lips, followed by a rush of warmth through my entire body as his lips press against mine. Despite everything, James still has an uncanny ability to make me feel like the only woman in the world. I drape my arms around his neck and pull him closer, deepening the kiss.

James reacts in kind and we slowly begin to rotate. He kisses me deeply with his tongue teasing over the seam of my lips before easing into my mouth. Another curl of heat runs through me, and I stroke through the finer hairs at the back of his neck. When the kiss breaks, James begins humming a soft Christmas tune and swaying me back and forth.

Laughing, I go with it and allow him to twirl me around as he hums because after each spin, he pulls me back against him and kisses me deeply. My heart flutters with a mind of its own and I’m utterly smitten until a strange restriction catches around my ankles.

I overbalance with a yelp and would have hit the floor had James not been there to catch me. He holds me in his arms, almost parallel to my arms, laughing heartily. Glancing down, I see that all of his spinning and weaving has tangled me up in the glittering Christmas lights and now I look like some kind of ornate deer.

“Oh, my God,” I laugh. “Hold on, help me up.”

“Hmm,” James hums. “I don’t think I will.”

“Wait, what?”

The next thing I know, he’s got me on the floor and is kissing me deeply as he winds the remainder of the lights around my wrists and pins them just above my head, using the table leg to hold me in place.

It’s not very secure, all things given, but I choose to keep my hands there as he kisses me deeply and slides his hands over my abdomen.

“Time for my Christmas gift,” James murmurs against my lips.

“The scarf and mug weren’t enough?” I gasp when he breaks the kiss. His lips trail down my jaw, and he buries his face into the side of my neck with a groan while his hands slide up my body and grope my breasts through my shirt.

“They were perfect,” he murmurs, and his lips tickle my throat as he talks. “But you’re better.”

I can’t argue with that. Curling my hands into loose fists, I grip the cable of the lights and close my eyes. Heat flushes inside me like a furnace, flaring each time James’s lips press against my skin.

He lavishes attention down my neck, nibbles across my collar bone, and tears my shirt open to expose my breasts. I don’t care about the buttons I hear clattering into the distance. They can be a problem for later.

Right now, James is kissing my breasts and drawing my nipple into his mouth. Flesh stiffens immediately, and I gasp softly, arching into the flush of pleasure that flares from where his tongue swirls in circles around my nipple. There’s a flash of teeth and his tongue soothes the area immediately after.

I squirm and giggle when his hands skim over my ribs, and James chuckles with me, then he shoves a hand beneath my leggings, and I’m briefly blinded by the surge of pleasure that courses through me when he slides his fingers over my pussy.

Two slide deep inside me, slicked by the dampness that formed between my legs the moment he pulled me close. I moan loudly, aching to touch him, but the Christmas lights limit my movements and I don’t want to break them. James kisses down over my abdomen, teasing my navel, and then he vanishes from sight.

There’s a moment when he rolls me back and forth in order to get my leggings and underwear off my legs, and then he buries his face against my pussy, pressing firmly between my barely parted thighs.

My eyes roll back in my head and a rush of tingles shoots through my body as his tongue delves against my core, pumping his fingers inside me with purpose. Then he crooks his digits and his fingertips press against something inside me that sends a sharp pulse of pleasure straight to my core. I jolt with a gasp and writhe on the floor.

“Fuck, James,” I gasp, clenching and unclenching my hands. “Holy fuck—fuck!”

He brings me to orgasm in record time, and he doesn’t pause his onslaught of attention until I’m a quivering, gasping mess and each swipe of his tongue is like torture.

“You have no idea how beautiful you look,” James says once he’s discarded his clothes and returned to my side. “All flushed and aroused with the multicolored lights on your skin. A work of art.”

“You sweet talker,” I moan, nuzzling into him. Above us, the remaining lights on the tree wink down at us from their nest of tinsel.

“It’s because I want to fuck you,” James teases.

“What are you waiting for?”

I get my answer in his touch. He traces my lips with his thumb, then slides his fingertips over my jaw to my throat. Down my neck to my shoulder, then across the swell of each of my breasts with a light touch to my throbbing nipples, James traces all of me. I feel oddly exposed under the intensity of his gaze, and yet there’s such care in the way he squeezes my breast and then continues his path over my abdomen to my soaked pussy and overheating thighs.

It’s like he’s mapping out every detail of me for some mental portrait.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs again, then he rolls against me and his rock-hard cock presses against my hip.

“Do you want me to beg?” I gasp against his lips. “Because I will.” I ache to feel him against me, inside me. I want his pants in my ear, his moans in the air, and his thick cock so deep inside me that it’s impossible to tell where I end and he begins.

“That’s kinda hot.” James grins and our eyes meet. “Beg for my cock, Lily. Tell me how eagerly you want it.”

“I don’t want it,” I moan softly, and my core clenches. “I need it. It’s all I can think about. I need to feel your dick spearing me open, sliding so deep that I can feel you with each breath. I need your balls slapping my ass, your hand in my hair, your mouth on my tits. I need you everywhere, and making me wait is cruel⁠—”

He kisses me feverishly, ending my breathless tirade of begging. James thrusts his tongue into my mouth, and I suck eagerly as he pries my thighs apart and situates himself between them. The lights tighten around my limbs, but it’s strangely erotic to feel restricted. I’d never been tied up before, but the restraining lights unlock something inside me and I thrust my hips up against James.

“Yes,” I moan deeply when the next kiss breaks. “Take me,” I beg. “Please, just fuck me already!”

James obliges with a single deep thrust that sheaths himself so deep inside me that all air is punched from my lungs and a strained whimper escapes my kiss-flushed lips.

Yes.

James starts to fuck me immediately, hard and fast, while his mouth kisses and nibbles across my breasts. He keeps one hand against my lightly bound wrists and the other trails over my abdomen, caressing my body as he fucks into me with wild abandon. I have no room for thoughts, only acknowledgment of the rapidly building fire of pleasure deep within my core.

I chant his name over and over as I soar higher and higher, and soon, he fucks my second orgasm out of me with a scream. But he doesn’t stop there. He continues to fuck me, rolling me onto my stomach and pulling me up onto my knees, then he re-enters me and pounds with a new, deeper angle.

I’m a complete mess, utterly at the mercy of his thrusts and wandering hands. He praises me constantly, massaging my breasts and sliding one of his hands between my soaked thighs to tease and toy with my clit until I’m quivering apart underneath him. His touch is almost too much for my sensitive body, but that only spurs him on, and by the time James comes inside me, he’s fucked a third orgasm out of my exhausted body.

Merry fucking Christmas.

We spend twenty minutes on the floor, utterly spent and exhausted, until James untangles me from the lights and moves me to the couch.

I lie there, exhausted, while he kindly cleans me up with a towel and brews us some fresh coffee. Then we cuddle on the couch under blankets and pick at the strudel he brought.

“Wow,” I murmur, slowly licking jam from my fingertips. “That was amazing.”

“You were phenomenal,” James says, kissing my shoulder.

“I like that.” I giggle. “Keep that coming.”

He kisses back up my neck, and the warmth that builds between us would surely lure me to sleep if I didn’t roll over in his arms and see something strange in his eyes.

Is he… unhappy?

“James?” I cup his face gently. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m gonna worry. Did I do something?”

James’s eyes widen, then he turns his head into my hand and kisses my palm. “No, babe. No. Not a thing. I was just… thinking.”

“About?”

“Well…” He takes a deep breath. “You and Emma and your grandparents have taught me how important a loving, caring family is. And then I think about my own mother and I feel guilty for telling her I’m cutting her off.”

“You had good reason,” I say softly, studying his face. “Do you regret it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? It was a heat-of-the-moment decision. I don’t at all excuse what she did to you or what she has done to me, but she is my mom, y’know?”

I nod slowly. “Do you want my honest opinion?”

He meets my eyes. “Please.”

“I think if you want to reach out to her, then you should. But do it because you want to and not because you feel you have to. What she did to me is horrible and I will never forgive her for that, but you did lose your dad. Losing your mom, too, would be a lot to bear.”

“I think about that,” he says softly. “But I don’t know if she will ever change.”

“Maybe that’s what you need to do,” I say, lightly kissing his chin. “Be strong. Lay it out to her and see how she reacts. Then you can choose what to do without carrying that kind of guilt, y’know?”

James nods thoughtfully, then dips his head to kiss me.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”