Abdominal Snowman: A Feel Good Holiday Romance Read online

  Whatever prudish version of me had been going on about taking things slow had all but melted away in the heat of our passion. Exactly like, well, a snowman in the sun.

  “I need you so bad,” I whispered to him between kisses, and slid his pea coat off across those tremendously broad shoulders of his.

  The two of us separated just long enough for Nole to get the fireplace lit, casting the darkened living room in the same hot glow as the night we met, and perfectly setting the mood.

  Nole put his hand on my waist, slid his tongue into my mouth, and eased me back onto the couch, crushing me sweetly beneath the enormity of his weight.

  “I’m all yours,” he whispered to me, then slid his lips down from my ear, and kissed me on the neck.

  The two of us writhed out of our clothes together as the heat of the fireplace billowed through the room, lashing at our increasingly exposed skin in a way that made it feel like there were more than just the two of us clawing at one another in the intimacy of the moment.

  He slid his palm beneath the cup of my bra and squeezed my breast, rubbing his fingers in slow, gentle circles around the nipple, filling me to the brim with a glow of sensation.

  “Oh, yes!” I cried, throwing my head back, and shivering as he slid my bra off altogether, and brought his lips down to the place where his fingers had just been.

  He explored me with his sweetness of his lips, and the warmth of his tongue, exploring my curves as though starving to devour every inch of me.

  I ran my fingers through the dark of his hair, and he rubbed his stubble up against my neck in a way that made me purr with excitement. I slid my hand down along his naked chest, sliding my palm along the hills of his muscles as his pectorals rose and fell with the intensity of his breath.

  He squeezed me just a little bit more fiercely, one hand sliding down the back of my jeans and gripping my bottom through a thin veil of lace.

  I felt totally his, totally possessed by him, and couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d surrendered to anyone in this way.

  I unbuttoned his pants as he lay there kissing me, and slid my hand into his underwear, feeling the heat of his desire for me. I wrapped my fingers around the expanse of him, and my eyes widened when I realized the sheer hugeness of him.

  He raised an eyebrow at me, and smiled seductively down.

  “What? Did you think because I’m a snowman I’d be packing a baby carrot down there?”

  It didn’t take him long at all to get me totally undressed after that. Soon the two of us lay entwined, naked and ravenous for one another, my clawed fingers digging into his back as he pressed himself against me, every inch of my body on fire with need for him.

  After what must have been a thousand kisses he pulled his mouth away from mine, and still I leaned forward to keep him from escaping, as though hungry for so much more. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, and leaned me back into a sitting position against the couch. I shivered as he slid his muscles away from me like a blanket being stolen, but then immediately warmed up again as I watched him bowing on the floor at my feet, and I suddenly understood what was about to take place.

  He grabbed both my knees, and spread my thighs apart. Then he leaned in, his beard brushing up against my skin, and kissed me between the legs.

  I cried out at the top of my lungs, chest angled toward the ceiling as his head began to move, and the pressure quickly began to mount.

  “Oh! Oh, God... Oh yes, yes, YES!” I screamed, and he leaned even further into me. The way he moved his tongue was completely wild and unpredictable, sending spasms of pleasure through every facet of my being, my knees shaking as they folded in around his bobbing neck. I had to struggle hard to resist the urge to smother him against my body.

  “Oh! OH!” I cried, and dug my fingers into the couch cushions just to try and contain myself. “You do know I’m gonna have to throw away this couch after this, right?” I teased him through chattering teeth.

  Then my mouth fell open. A blinding pleasure flooded over me, and I gripped him almost violently by the back of his head, my fingers laced tight against his sweat-beaded hair.

  I closed my eyes, and surrendered myself to the blizzard of sensation, the pleasure unlike any I’d ever experienced, causing my heart to pound relentlessly in my chest, and every nerve ending to glow like lights on a Christmas tree.

  It was far and away the most intense physical experience of my life, and already I was starving for so much more...

  The instant Nole’s sweet lips had slid away from the heat of me I was wrestling him to the ground. I pinned him on his back against the rug by the hearth. He tightened his muscles as I climbed down onto him, and sat there astride him in the roaring glow of the firelight.

  Our bodies became one. I had to close my eyes, and focus on my breathing just to get used to the feeling of him inside me.

  It was absolutely incredible.

  “You feel amazing,” he whispered up to me, and drew a hand to my breast, feeling me up as I absorbed him. I slid my fingers into his, pushed his hand back down again, and leaned forward to pin both his wrists to the rug.

  I began to ride him.

  Our bodies moved in rhythm, and an instant, pure euphoria overcame me. Sweat poured along my spine and fell onto him as the passion consumed us. The torturous sweetness of pleasure overtook me as I ravished him into oblivion, my cries filling the house, his muscles heaving into me from below, and the two of us feeling as though we might go up in flames and dissolve away with the whipping flames at any moment.

  I quickly exhausted myself on him, sliding my hands from his wrist to his chest to try and better support myself as I straddled him. At last I had to collapse on his heaving abdomen, the sensations still ringing beautifully through me, and tried my absolute best to catch my breath again.

  Before I could recover I felt his weight shifting out from under me. He was lifting me up onto my feet, pressing me against the wall with my legs outstretched. He moved into me from behind, enshrouding me in his arms. I cried out as he began to thrust the rock solid force of his muscles up into me, the sensations suddenly wilder and more intense than ever before.

  In the last seconds he held the two of us together, crying out and convulsing in sheer delight, our minds, bodies, and souls united as one as the moment stretched on into forever. Finally he let out a deep sigh and unclenched his muscles from around me, and I was left shaking all over, even as he continued to hold me in his arms.

  “So that’s what Christmas magic feels like,” I wheezed between deep, heaving breaths.

  Nole laughed. “What was that thing you were saying about taking it slow earlier?”

  I grinned. “Yeah, yeah I know... I guess one thing just sort of led to another, and the slow and steady plan kind of flew out the window,” I admitted.

  “Yeah, things kind of just snowballed out of hand...” he said, and I rolled my eyes at the terrible pun.

  “You can get out now, thanks,” I teased him, and turned around, smiling, to kiss him over my shoulder.

  Chapter Six - The Way the Cookie Crumbles

  Do you remember that feeling you used to get when you were a kid?

  You know, when you’re staying at a friend’s house for the night. You wake up before everyone else while it’s still dark out, you can’t remember where you are or how you got there, and the whole world feels like a strange and alien place to you.

  The way I felt when I awoke the next morning was a lot like that. Except that in my case, I was in my own bed, I knew exactly where I was, and I was still somehow totally failing to make any sense of what was going on, or what had happened to my life over the course of the past twenty-four hours.

  I rubbed some of the grog out of my eyes as best I could, then reached over without even looking to the other side of the bed.

  There was nobody there.

  A sense of unease washed over me.

  How many times would I keep waking up to wonder if the events of
my life had only been a dream? If Nole had only been a dream, a desperate form of escapism from a lonely single mother nearing her thirties?

  I ran my palm over the place where he would’ve been on the blankets beside me. It was almost as cold as he’d been when he was still only a snowman.

  I sighed, and creaked out of bed, my limbs stiff as I moved.

  I looked for signs of him all around the bedroom. His clothes, a note to explain where he’d gone, even a stray hair on his pillow.

  Finally I trudged over to my vanity mirror, and gazed at my reflection for a moment, illuminated by the dim cold light of reflected snow radiating in from my window.

  I stared into my dark brown eyes for a long moment, considering myself. Then it occurred to me to tuck back a strand of my mussed blonde hair, and I turned my head at a slight angle to my reflection.

  I couldn’t help but smile, then.

  My neck was covered in a series of hickies, as sure a sign as any that last night had actually happened. I remembered the fire of pleasure that had surged through me, and let myself get just a little bit excited from the recollection.

  But then the smile vanished from my face again just as suddenly as it had appeared.

  So it had happened. The two of us had actually slept together. Which meant that he had left that morning without even saying goodbye. And despite all the weird, passionate things he’d said about only existing because of me, I’d really been nothing but a one night stand to him. A notch in his candy cane, so to speak, to be abandoned at first light.

  “When are you going to learn, Addison? Cheese and crackers, what is wrong with you?”

  I had to stave off a sudden wave of depression that was threatening to wash over me. I felt just then that I needed to keep moving; that if I let myself sink under because of this, I might never rise back up again.

  I’d been through too many disappointments in my life already, and it felt ridiculous to let this one be the final nail in the coffin. I couldn’t afford that, least of all for Jule’s sake.

  “I need coffee,” I finally decided, thinking that at the very least this might help clear my head up a little. I grabbed a bathrobe from the closet and slipped it over my pajamas, then trudged down the hallway to the stairs, and began to make my descent.

  Immediately I was struck by a series of sounds coming from the kitchen, and this quickly rekindled a spark of hope in me.

  Nole hadn’t left at all! He was up fixing me breakfast, the big lug...

  Wait, was it even breakfast time, or had I overslept? For some reason I had a sense from the light outside that it was way later than the morning by this point, though I’d never had a great sense of time.

  Now smiling myself, allowing myself to hope, I rounded the corner into the kitchen, and found myself weirdly surprised by what I found awaiting me.

  Nole was still here, alright. But so was Jule.

  She was seated at the kitchen table, slurping from a bowl of tomato soup. She looked up and gave me an expressionless wave as I padded into the room in my reindeer slippers, and I waved back at her, in a daze. At the sound of my arrival Nole turned from the stove to look at me. He had a skillet in his hand, and what appeared to be a perfectly made grilled cheese sandwich sizzling over the fire.

  “Oh, good morning,” he said brightly, his smile as intoxicating as ever. “Or, afternoon by this point, rather...”

  I glanced over at the clock on the wall over the sink. It was nearly 12:30 at this point- he must’ve really worn me out last night...

  “Oh, shoot! Jule, did I forget to pick you up this morning? Oh, honey, I am so sorry,” I said to her, my feelings of terrible parenthood washing over me like they so often did these days.

  “You didn’t forget,” she said. “Annie’s mom dropped me off on their way to go Christmas shopping in Westport. I told you she would, remember?”

  I felt at once relieved, yet ridiculous for forgetting this.

  “Oh... Right,” I said. “Well, err... Jule, this is, uh, Nole...”

  Having to explain an overnight hookup to my kid was not something I thought I’d ever have to do for some reason, and a part of me wanted to go running from the room in a panic, dodging the responsibility altogether.”

  “Yeah I know,” she said matter-of-factly, and slurped some more tomato soup from her spoon. “We’ve met.”

  Nole laughed behind her, and I looked up at him again, probably about as red in the face as Jule’s tomato soup.

  “I hope you don’t mind I fixed her lunch,” he said. “She told me she was hungry, and I thought it was perfect grilled cheese and soup weather.” At this he scooped the grilled cheese onto a plate with great showmanship, and sat it on the table in front of Jule.

  “Thank you,” she muttered dutifully.

  “No of course, I... I don’t mind at all,” I said, and vaguely remembered the things he’d told me about wanting to be there for us. “Thank you.” I was still hung up on the awkwardness of the situation, and wondered how much of it I needed to explain to my daughter, versus how much of it was strictly on a need-to-know basis.

  Feeling ridiculous even as I did so, I crouched down next to Jule like some preachy parent in an after-school schedule about to have a heart-to-heart with their kid. “Jule, Nole and I are... Well, he’s a friend I know from-” But it was here that I suddenly blanked.

  Sheesh, how pathetic was it that I didn’t even have anywhere to lie about where I went to make friends? The only place I ever went was the bakery, and I couldn’t say he was a friend from work, because Jule knew full well that the old lady who pinched her cheeks every time she came in was the only other employee at Loveland from the Oven.

  Thankfully, Jule turned to me just then and spared me this humiliation, though in exchange for embarrassment of a different manner.

  “It’s okay Mom, I know about sleepovers. I’m not a little kid...”

  “Do you, now?” I asked, surprised by this. Nole was grinning over at me, and it took a lot of effort to suppress a smile of my own.

  “Yeah, Dad has them all the time when I’m over there,” she continued just as nonchalantly, and dipped her grilled cheese in her soup.

  I raised an eyebrow at this. “Does he, now?” I asked a little bit more sternly.

  She nodded as she strung along a big gooey bite of her grilled cheese over her plate. “I really don’t get what the big deal is. I mean I just had a sleepover last night, and you don’t see me getting all embarrassed about it.”

  Maybe I should’ve been relieved that she didn’t know any better about what Nole was doing here, but some instinct to keep my daughter from growing up confused about sex-ed like had made me keep on talking, even though I knew I should almost definitely just quit while I was ahead.

  “Well, erm, grownup sleepovers are a little bit different, Jujyfruit,” I stammered, and immediately wondered where I thought I was going with this. “And for the record, you’re forbidden to have any until you’re at least twenty-five...”

  I could tell this only confused her more, her brow furrowed in the exact same way my own did in situations like this.

  She stared at me for a moment. Then she looked over at Nole, and turned back to me again.

  “Is he the reason you’ve been acting so weird lately?” she asked.

  I could tell Nole was trying to be gracious by turning away from us then to start on the dishes, but I could clearly see him laughing all the same.

  My face felt hot as coals, but I couldn’t help but smile despite my embarrassment.

  I decided it might be better to just pivot away from the subject of my love life altogether, rather than digging this hole any deeper than I already had.

  “So, uh, Jujyfruit... Were you still wanting to bake gingerbread cookies this afternoon? I’m pretty sure I already have all the ingredients we need, and I remember you said you’d been wanting to.”

  “YEAH!” said Jule, brightening up, her eyes wide with Christmas spirit.

  I
smiled warmly, glad to be onto a subject that was a little bit more family friendly. Jule had always loved baking cookies around the holidays back when I was still together with Scott. I guess anyone related to me by blood pretty much got whatever the baker’s equivalent of a green thumb is by default.

  Her father had never been in the kitchen when the two of us baked together, which was probably for the better, honestly. Still, I got the sense that this was the sort of thing she was nostalgic about ever since the divorce, and just maybe us doing it together again this year might help the holidays feel a little bit more normal for her.

  “Great!” I said, almost as cheerful as she was. “Finish up your lunch and then go get cleaned up first. You’re smelling a little bit like bad eggnog this morning...”

  “You’re one to talk, Lemonhead,” she needled back, and I made a funny face at her.

  “Well, I guess I should probably be going, then,” said Nole, finishing up the last of the dishes, and my daughter and I both turned to him. I actually kind of wanted some excuse to make him stay longer, but I thought him going for the afternoon might actually be for the best. Jule, though, was a lot less sheepish in her desire for his company.

  “No!!! Stay and bake cookies with us!” she insisted, and then she turned to me, like she was asking my permission to let one of her friends to spend the afternoon with us. “Mom, can he stay and help? Please?”

  I smiled and raised an eyebrow at her, then looked up at Nole, who was grinning right back at me.

  “I mean I definitely don’t mind him staying,” I said. “But I’m sure he has plenty of other things he’d rather be doing than helping two crazy ladies bake cookies all afternoon...”

  I was actually a little bit blown away by Jule’s interest in Nole. She could be a sheepish little thing, especially around adults she didn’t know. The fact that she wanted him around felt like a major sign that he was serious boyfriend material. And maybe even more than that...

  “You’d be surprised, actually,” Nole said, and dried off his hands with the dish towel. “I actually can’t think of anything I’d rather do more than stay and bake an entire gingerbread community with you two this afternoon. As long as your mom is sure she’s not tired of me hanging around all day...”