Janie
So the cabin maybe looked like a blind three-year-old decorated it.
What can I say, I had never been in charge of something like holiday decorations before. What decorating that was done at Hailstorm was generally done by Lo and Ashley and the other women who had experience on the right amount of garland and tinsel so that it looked classy instead of gaudy.
I honestly didn't even have any plans to decorate.
But early this morning, Wolf had clamored out of bed, sinking his feet into his clunky snow boots, and slipping on a giant lumberjack plaid jacket, and disappeared out into his woods.
It was a thing he did.
He disappeared into the woods.
Like sometimes I stayed up all night reading or obsessively looking for some wrong to right.
We had our things.
The woods was his.
Sometimes, he came back after just a few hours, his hellbeasts barking happily like maybe they had just taken a nice walk.
Other times, he would be gone most of the day and would come back with a deer to dress.
Now, I knew it was hypocritical of me since I ate meat, but the hunting thing bothered me. It was one thing to know your food came from slaughter - though at least I always ensured that mine came from pasture-raised organic farms so the animals at least had a nice life first - and it was a complete other to see such a beautiful animal dead right in front of you, knowing you were going to consume it.
"Her leg is shattered," he told me the first time he brought a doe home, her big eyes maybe just possibly making my eyes well up - an emotion that would have horrified me if anyone other than Wolf was witnessing it. "She wouldn't have made it," he added as my eyes moved over her long, spindly legs, seeing the gnarly way one was twisted and swollen. He was right; she would have been a goner. But it would have been a long, drawn-out death. "Mercy kill," he finished with, before taking her out to the shed to dress her.
I could never bring myself to eat venison, so Wolf made some jerky, and some treats for the dogs. The fur was used to make a heavy blanket that he dropped to the homeless guy who lived outside the local convenience store when the cops didn't rush him off.
He was a firm believer in using every bit of an animal, which was something I respected.
Even though the whole time he was gone, I was silently hoping that he didn't come home with a cute dead animal on Christmas Eve.
So when he came stomping up the path around noon, my heart was pitter-pattering as he stopped outside the door.
Then it burst open.
And he didn't have a dead animal.
He had a fucking giant Christmas tree.
It was easily three feet taller than me and two times as wide as Wolf.
"Um, what is that?" I asked, cradling my mug between my hands
"Christmas tree," he rumbled as he dragged the thing inside, a bit of snow leaving wet marks across the floor.
"I think there was a mixup," I told him, watching as he turned to me, brow raised, waiting for an explanation. "That thing was clearly meant to be shipped off to Rockefeller Center." He gave me a small lip twitch to that, but kept dragging the thing in, then hauling it up into what happened to be a tree stand near the wall - something I wasn't sure I would have recognized even if I had noticed it sitting there. When he was done, it sat proudly, taking up way too much of the already too-small space, but filling the room with what I had to admit was a refreshing fresh pine smell. "Okay. So, we have a tree."
"Gotta decorate it," he said, looking at me somewhat expectantly, and I got the distinct feeling that he was every bit as in the dark as to how to do such a thing as I was. I very much doubted he dragged giant Christmas trees into his cabin every year to admire alone.
Which meant he did it for me.
For us.
There was a heart-squeeze sensation in my chest, something that never failed to take my breath somewhat away when it happened. I secretly hoped it never would stop. I liked it more than I ever could have known I would.
"Do you have decorations?" I asked, looking around. When he looked a little lost at that, I felt a smile pull at my lips. He was such a man. Great big ideas with not too much forethought. "Okay. Go get decorations. I will make a pot of coffee. Then we can ah, what is the term, trim the tree together."
"Sounds good."
So then he lumbered off to the store, coming back with six bags full of Christmas crap and two cylinders of pre-made cookie dough that, apparently, I only had to slice and put on cookie sheets. A task even clueless-in-the-kitchen me could handle.
And then I got to see a side of Wolf I never could have anticipated before, a side of him I tried hard - nobly, honestly - not to laugh at.
Wolf was anal about Christmas lights.
Full-on over-the-top silly-Christmas-movie type ridiculous.
No, they could not all be solid.
But the twinkling ones could not twinkle that fast or that slow or that in-between.
There was grunting, growling, and cursing involved.
I may or may not have discreetly captured a short video to show Lo in case she didn't believe me when I told her.
An hour into this obsessive shit, I grabbed a book and waited it out for him to finish so I could help him with the ornaments.
I also promptly burned the cookies during this time which I didn't realize until the room started getting smoky. Rushing over to the stove to free them, then jacking open a window to air the place out, all I got from Wolf was a brow raise and a lip twitch followed by a small head shake. He knew I wasn't Susie Homemaker when he shacked up with me. And, luckily, he found my complete and utter lack of housewifery skills at least somewhat charming.
"Woman," he called about six chapters later, dragging me out of a really nail-biting cat-and-mouse scene, making me let out a little grumble even though I knew I was supposed to be doing the decorating thing, not reading.
I forced myself to slip the bookmark in between the pages, and looked up to find the tree alive with light. Most were solid, pretty little petite colored lights, but there were several slowly blinking strands as well, making the whole thing more festive.
I guess Wolf had reason to be anal about the lights.
"Good?" he asked as I watched it, my lips turned up, my heart filling with something that I didn't immediately place as Christmas spirit, it being such a foreign thing to me. My gaze shifted to him, seeing a bit of something there that I rarely ever saw - a bit of insecurity, a need for approval.
I shook my head, moving to stand. "No. Not good. Fucking amazing. It's perfect," I told him, walking up, my hands sliding up his stomach and chest to rest just barely at his shoulders - as high as I could reach.
"Not yet," he said, shaking his head as his hands folded around my back. "But soon."
The kiss was short and firm, promising more, but letting me know not to get my hopes - or libido - up because he had other plans right now.
Namely, putting all the pretty bulbs on the tree.
It wasn't until the whole thing seemed like it couldn't hold one more thing that Wolf turned away and came back with a single box, holding it out to me a bit sheepishly.
Wolf? Sheepish?
I had to see what was in this box.
My hands were almost frantic, tearing off the pretty paper and bow that he clearly had taken the time to have gift wrapped and surely deserved more appreciation than I was showing it.
Lifting the lid, I found a simple white ceramic ornament nestled in a bed of red crinkly paper. In the center in green font in the shape of a tree with a small heart on top was what had him shifting a bit from foot to foot.
Because it was cheesy.
Sappy.
Sentimental.
Things that pretty much no one would ever call him, this man who broke open rib cages and ripped out hearts with his bare hands.
But they didn't know Wolf the way I did. They didn't know the man who pulled me close at night and cuddled me up when I was lost in bad memories. They didn't know the person who always made sure I had fresh coffee in the morning, even if he was long gone before I woke up. They didn't know how there was a never-ending stack of new books on a table inside the door because whenever he went shopping, he grabbed me a book in case I was unable to sleep and needed something to reach for to get lost in.
They didn't know that man.
So they didn't know just how sweet he could be.
Me, I did.
So even though a small part of me was embarrassed by the heart-squeeze I felt at seeing it, the other part was stupidly, ridiculously, all-consumingly endeared by it.
Our first Christmas together.
Wolf & Janie.
Not only had this amazing, thoughtful man remembered to pick up something to commemorate the date, but he had braved the mall to do so, since that was the only place around to get something personalized like that.
Any man who braved the mall for you was a keeper in my opinion. Hell, I never even braved the mall.
"Good?" he asked, making me realize I had been staring down at the ornament for way too long. And, in looking up, realized my fucking eyes were a little misty.
Damn him.
No one else managed to get to me.
I mean, I emoted. I was good at showing my anger, frustration, exasperation, and disgust.
But the warm and gooey stuff? Yeah, that was all still so new to me. I was convinced that was why I so easily teared up with him. It was new. I didn't have any defenses against the onslaught of them.
A part of me said I would get there.
The other part said that maybe, possibly, I shouldn't even try; I should let myself be that kind of vulnerable with him.
"Perfect," I countered, giving him a small smile as I turned to place it right in the front of the tree where we could easily see it.
"You're up," he declared, handing me the wreaths and bows and various Christmas stuff. "Gotta make cookies."
So that was what he did.
Perfectly, I might add.
Not even a hint of char.
The bastard.
Always showing me up with his baking skills.
I set to using up all the stuff he had picked up at the store. Which was all hung somewhat unevenly, and looked like a child did it.
But it was still pretty.
And it was ours.
That was what mattered.
"Woman," Wolf growled, making me turn to find him sitting on the floor in front of the tree with two steaming mugs and a plate of cookies. "Come on," he added when I didn't immediately move toward him.
Normally, being ordered around like a dog wasn't my thing. But there was just something about the way Wolf did it that worked for me every time.
So my feet moved across the floor.
But when I moved to sit beside him, his giant hands sank into my hips, dragging me across the floor, then settling me between his legs, my back resting back against his chest, his beard tickling over my forehead as he reached to hand me a mug.
"What is this?" I asked, looking down at the liquid that was clearly not coffee.
"Hot chocolate," he explained, reaching for his own.
"So you're telling me that big, badass biker dudes drink hot chocolate?" I asked dubiously.
"On Christmas," he clarified.
"Right. Because any other time would just be silly. I'm telling your brothers about this," I told him as I took a sip, feeling his chest move as he swallowed some of his own. "Expect nonstop ribbing from here until eternity."
"Mmhm," he agreed, not the least bit worried about the idea. Likely because no one would ever make fun of him, and he knew that.
"I love our tree, Wolf," I told him after a long silence, something he was completely comfortable with, but I could never seem to shake the urge to fill the gaps.
"We did good," he agreed, taking the mug from my hands and replacing it with a cookie. "'Cept your cookies," he told me as I saw him bring one up over my head. "They were a fail."
A hard one.
But that was okay.
Because his were a win.
We balanced each other out that way.
It was a long time later, both of us just watching our tree which did blink absolutely perfectly thanks to his anal ass, when Wolf's hands moved from where they were perched on my bent knees, gently - well, as gently as a giant could do - moving upward, sneaking inward.
I had never given much thought to things like holidays before, never being one to participate fully in the festivities at Hailstorm. I would occasionally give Lo a hand since I wasn't one of the people who was traumatized by or avoidant of the holidays. I just never felt into them. So maybe I helped Lo drag the tables into the room and set them up, but on the actual night of Christmas, I stayed in bed reading while many of the others snuck out.
I just never felt overly festive, I guess.
So I had no idea what people were supposed to do. Or, more accurately, what couples were supposed to do on Christmas.
But, well, Wolf's hands on me felt like the right way to celebrate any damn thing.
My legs slid open, the outsides of my thighs resting on the tops of his, inviting his touch to keep moving upward.
My air sighed out of me as his fingers traced the sensitive insides of my innermost thighs before moving up and sneaking under the material of my pants and panties.
His work-hardened, calloused fingertips teased the outside of my lips until my fingernails were biting into his wrists, my hips rocking gently with the need for his touch.
His hand shifted, thumb moving to press into my clit at the exact same time as two thick fingers slid inside me, making a ragged moan escape me, my thighs pressing closer together, inviting the friction as he wasted no time, started thrusting somewhat lazily as his thumb worked my clit, driving me up.
"Wolf, please," I begged, hips rocking harder, needing more.
But he wasn't quite ready to give it to me, despite his hard cock pressing into me, telling me he was.
Inside me, the tips of his fingers crossed, and he started working them in slow circles, each twist moving across my top wall, letting his touch press over my G-spot, but only ever as a tease, never with enough pressure to let the need deep in my core be released.
On a frustrated growl after the eighth swipe that was meant only to torture me, I yanked back, losing his touch as I moved to stand in front of him, reaching up to discard my shirt with little fanfare, knowing there wasn't all that much going on up there, though Wolf always gave my breasts a lot of attention, maybe making up for my dismissal of them. But when my hands went for the waistbands of my pants and panties, Wolf's body went taught, a low rumble moving through him as I pushed them off, using his shoulder as leverage as I stepped out of them.
When I stood upright again, his deep eyes were molten.
Because, well, I was short. He was tall.
That meant that my pussy was right in front of him as I stood there.
And my Wolf, well, he was never one to pass up on the opportunity for a little feasting.
His hands moved behind my knees, sliding up the backs of my thighs, then letting one wide palm completely cover one of my asscheeks as his other hand yanked slightly, then dragged that leg up and over his shoulder, completely opening me up to him.
There wasn't even a pause before I felt his lips close over my clit, letting out a rumbling sound of appreciation as a pained whimper escaped me.
His beard tickled my inner thighs as his tongue moved up and down my slit, always blazing a path right back to my clit where he would circle excruciatingly, until he knew I was so close before pulling away again. Dragging it out until I was half-collapsed over his head, my thighs shaking too hard to be able to stand fully on my own anymore.
His hand left my thigh to wrap around my lower back, anchoring him to me as I lost the hand on my ass.
I had no idea to where until a moment later, my walls so tight that I knew this was it, I was going to finally get a relief to the screaming need inside, his mouth pulled suddenly away from me, his shoulder shrugging so my foot hit the ground with a weighted thud, and his arm yanked me almost violently down onto his waist.
He lifted me slightly up, then yanked me back down, his cock filling me impossibly deep.
"Fuck," I hissed, hands digging into his shoulders as my forehead slammed to the center of his chest, needing to take a deep breath to adjust to the full sensation.
"My woman," he declared, voice full of fierce possession, arms squeezing me way too tight, cutting off my air.
Normally, I would loathe the idea of being anyone's anything. I wasn't a lamp; I couldn't belong to anyone.
Except, if I were being honest, I could.
I did.
I belonged to Wolf.
I was his, body, heart, soul - if you can forgive that level of sappy.
But maybe I was okay with it because while, yes, I was his, he was also mine. I could claim him. He would be honored to hear me say he was mine.
And my love, my fierce possession of him was just as strong as his of me.
This thing we had, this was something special.
We both could see that.
It was an uncommon kind of love, deeper than I even knew was possible.
And there was a level of safety in being claimed by a man such as Wolf. Because it came with things that many normal men didn't offer with their love. It came with determination.
It didn't matter what happened in our future, if something ripped us apart. It wouldn't stop his feelings, his commitment. I knew that even if I hadn't seen him for a decade, if I showed up and said I needed him, he would drop everything to help.
And, in turn, I would do the same for him. No matter what.
Maybe that was what made the impossible - trusting a man with me - possible.
The foreverness of it all.
This was it for us.
We both felt it.
So he was right.
I was his woman.
My head lifted, his ducking down at the same time so I could claim his lips, tasting myself there, something that made a shiver course through me, my walls tightening around him.
"My man," I said against his lips, fiercely, like I felt it.
Then, well, we broke in the skirt of the Christmas tree.
I had a feeling it was going to be our new tradition.