The Stocking Was Hung (7 page)

“No point in letting these candy canes go to waste,” Noel whispers before grabbing handfuls of my hair and pulling my head down, her mouth meeting mine halfway.

The kiss is no less electric than it was yesterday, except now I don’t have to worry about having an audience and I can turn up the heat as much as I fucking want. She’s finally beneath me, where I’ve wanted her since I met her.

Noel’s legs immediately come up to wrap around my hips, her ankles locking together above my ass, and I sigh against her lips when they feel exactly as I imagined them. Her thigh muscles tighten around my waist, pulling me harder against her. Even through my flannel pajama bottoms and her cotton
‘After Sex Pants
,’ I can feel the heat from her pussy radiating against me and my tongue pushes deep into her mouth while I slowly slide myself against her warmth. My tongue moves in tandem with the movement of my hips, a slow and easy rhythm that has Noel clutching harder to the hair on the back of my head.

Moving my mouth away from hers, I kiss my way across her cheek and down the side of her neck, using the tip of my tongue and a little teeth to nip at her skin as I go, until my face is right between her tits straining against the thin material of her tank top. With my elbows resting on the bed, caging her in, I use the tips of my fingers to pull back the top edge of the tank top until one perfectly pink nipple makes an appearance, and I don’t hesitate before wrapping my lips around the hard bud and sucking it into my mouth.

“Sam,” Noel moans softly, pulling my head tighter against her chest as I swirl my tongue around and around her nipple until her hips start moving erratically. She slides the heat of her cotton-covered pussy against my dick, and I swear to God, I see stars. She moans my name again when I suck her rosy peak into my mouth once more, and the sound of my name on her lips is just as hot as I imagined it would be. With my hips pumping gently against her, I pull my head back and stare at her nipple, now wet from my mouth. I blow softly on it and watch it harden even more right in front of my eyes.

“When was the last time you had an amazing orgasm?” I whisper against her skin in between soft licks and more gentle blows of air on her.

I rub my thumb back and forth over her nipple and wait for her answer, holding myself still between her legs, even though I want nothing more than to rip off both of our pants and fuck her until she’s moaning AND screaming my name, to hell with the people downstairs.

“Um,” Noel mumbles in reply, her hips jerking against me.

I glance up at her, my thumb still lazily gliding over her pebbled tip while I stare at her face. Eyes closed, teeth biting down on her bottom lip, and head thrown back on the pillow. Best sight I’ve ever seen, but her non-answer to my question makes me pause.

“Are you still trying to think about your answer or have I rendered you speechless?” I ask with a smile even though her eyes are still closed and she can’t see it.

“Um,” is her only reply once again.

I’m not sure if I want to pat myself on the back for my awesome skills, or kick that dumb shit Logan in the balls for never giving her an amazing orgasm, or at least never giving her one she can recall at the moment.

“Let’s call it a tie,” I declare, sliding my hand down her ribcage, over her stomach, and dipping my fingers under the waistband of her pants, hoping the words on them will actually have some truth to them in a little bit.

“Oh, God,” she groans, her hips lifting up toward my hand, urging me on when my palm slides over the wet lace between her legs.

My head dips back down to pull her nipple into my mouth once more as I use the heel of my hand to rub against her until her hips start jerking again and incoherent mumbling, cursing and sighing flutters out of her mouth.

Just as my fingers begin to move the edge of her lace underwear to tug it aside and finally feel all that wet heat on my skin, the bedroom door flies open and once again, slams into the opposite wall.

“Stop being a slut, Leon! We’re going on a family outing. Put on some clothes and get your slutty ass downstairs!” a male voice shouts before the door bangs closed and I hear footsteps pounding loudly down the hall and on the stairs until they fade away.

My mouth is still attached to Noel’s nipple and my hand is still down her pants and I have no fucking idea what just happened, but my dick is about ready to stab someone.

“So, that was Nicholas,” Noel says casually as I finally detach my mouth from her tit, pull my hand out of her pants, and look down at her.

“I figured. Nice guy. Seems friendly,” I reply sarcastically.

“We should probably get downstairs before my dad and Aunt Bobbie decide to barge in here as well, pull up some chairs, and give us a critique.”

Aaaaaaand there it is. Boner killer.

With a sigh and a silent word of apology to my quickly wilting wiener, I kiss the tip of Noel’s nose and roll my body off of hers to get out of bed.

“Just because we were interrupted doesn’t mean I’m finished with you,” I inform her as I grab some clothes from my duffle bag on the floor. “Those ‘
After Sex Pants’
are going to be used properly before this night is over, so brace yourself, Noel.”

I leave her in bed with a flushed face, parted legs and her long red hair spread out on her pillow as I make my way into the bathroom with a smile on my face.

If I can survive her milk-hating father, handsy Aunt Bobbie, and cock-blocking brother, I can survive anything. Even whatever this family outing is, I’m sure of it.

Noel

“B
race yourself, Noel.”

Sam’s parting words before he walked into the bathroom and took a shower this morning still bounce around inside my brain, even over the loud arguing happening in the van around us.

I almost had sex with a stranger this morning.

I almost had sex with a man who knows more about me than most people in my life and makes me hotter than any man before him.

I could be having sex right now if I wasn’t stuck in a van with my entire family, listening to them argue about the fastest way to get to our location and then curse at each other when my dad takes a wrong turn.

Nicholas was right when he barged in on us this morning. I’m a slut. I’m a slutty slut who is acting slutty and should be ashamed. I JUST broke up with my boyfriend of a year. Like, literally three days ago. A man I thought I could spend a very long time with, even if I cringe at the words
forever
and
marriage
. He was nice, treated me good, let me move in with him a month after we met when the lease on my own apartment was up, and made living together so easy it seemed as if we’d been doing it for years. Maybe that’s the problem. Everything was too easy with Logan. We never argued, we never disagreed on anything, and I never got butterflies in my stomach or even a tinge of wetness with just one look or one touch of his hands on me. All I have to do is
think
about Sam and the feel of his body on top of mine, his hardness rubbing against me, and his tongue plunging into my mouth and my underwear is soaked.

Not a very comfortable feeling or appropriate thoughts when I’m squished in the second row of my parent’s van with my mother on one side and my brother on the other, shouting around me. Sam unfortunately got thrown in the back row with Aunt Bobbie, so Nicholas’s wife, Casey, could be up front with dad, and I’m pretty sure his coughs every ten seconds are a verbal cry for help each time Bobbie’s hands stray to his lap as we bounce over potholes and take corners at an entirely too high rate of speed.

I’m too tightly packed into this seat to do much more than crane my neck and look back over my shoulder at him with a sympathetic smile.

“We’ll be there soon, I promise,” I tell him softly.

“Logan, I noticed on your bag I carried upstairs last night that it said Sox on it. What’s that all about?” my dad calls back to him, his eyes shooting daggers into the rearview mirror.

Shit!

Sam coughs loudly and when I sit here trying to come up with some excuse for the nickname on his bag, he continues coughing until Aunt Bobbie wraps her arms around him.

“Breathe, dammit, BREATHE!” she shouts, grabbing his head and pulling it down to her chest.

Now, he really is coughing, choking on a mouthful of spit and panic, as Aunt Bobbie nestles his face into the fake cleavage created by her custom-made silicone boob vest that’s barely covered by her low-cut red sweater.

“I don’t get the whole Sox thing. Your name is Logan Masters, why does your bag say
Sox
?” my dad questions again, totally oblivious to the molestation of Sam’s face in Aunt Bobbies tits at the back of the van.

“Cheeses Christ, Bobbie, let the poor man up before he suffocates!” my mother complains with a huff, prompting Aunt Bobbie to finally remove her hands from Sam’s head.

He jerks up and scoots as far away from her on the bench seat as possible, all while still coughing and shooting me the evil eye.

“The boy’s fine. Now answer the Sox question,” my dad reminds us.

“Uh, he likes socks,” I reply lamely.

Nicholas snorts from next to me and I punch him in the thigh.

“That’s dumb,” my dad quips, causing Sam to cough again, probably agreeing with him that the answer is, in fact, dumb.

You try coming up with something on the fly when your brain is filled with missed orgasms and you can still feel a big, warm, very skilled hand rubbing your vagina.

“Yep, socks. He collects them. Looooooooooves socks so he got the nickname Sox,” I add, crossing my arms and glaring at my brother before he even thinks of saying something stupid.

“Picked yourself a real winner there, Leon. A sock collector
and
he diddles you under mom and dad’s roof,” Nicholas laughs.

I really need to work on my glare.

“NO MILK FOR YOU!” my dad yells from the front seat.

All of us scream when he takes his eyes off the road to turn around and give Sam a dirty look, causing the van to swerve over the yellow line.

He quickly gets the van back in the right lane and everyone is quiet for the next few minutes until we finally pull up to the curb of our destination. The van doors quickly open and everyone spills out faster than they’ve ever moved in their life.

While Nicholas helps Casey, his very pregnant wife, maneuver the curb and start up the walk and my parents and Aunt Bobbie take the lead up to the house, I wait back for Sam, an apology for the disastrous car ride on the tip of my tongue.

“Don’t apologize,” he cuts me off as soon as I open my mouth. “Just remember you owe me later, and I will take my payment in the form of you, naked, moaning my name again just like this morning.”

And just like that, my vagina bursts into flames and I feel like it was completely unnecessary for the owners of this place to shovel the walk. I could just sit down on the sidewalk and scoot across it on my ass like a dog trying to itch its butt. My vagina would melt all the snow and ice in a matter of seconds.

Sam grabs my hand and laces his fingers through mine as we head across the street to join my family on the front porch.

“What is this place, anyway?” he asks, staring up at the yellow, two-story Victorian with green trim. “Is that a large leg in the window turned into a light?”

My family hears his questions and they all grow silent, turning to stare at him with mouths open and eyes wide.

“Are you kidding me, man? Uh, that’s a leg lamp. You know,
THE
leg lamp,” Nicholas informs him.

Sam shrugs and shakes his head.

“This is the house where they filmed
A Christmas Story
,” I add, figuring that will jog his memory.

His face is still blank.

“You know, Ralphie, Randy, tongue stuck to a flagpole?” Casey asks him with a smile.

“Nope, no clue,” Sam replies.

“Wow, what a douchebag,” Nicholas snorts, which earns him another punch from me, this time in the arm.

“Dammit, Leon! That hurt!” he complains like the fucking crybaby he is.

Everyone shoots Sam sad, pitying looks, like someone he loves just died instead of the fact that he’s never heard of
A Christmas Story
. I get it, only because this movie represents mine and Nicholas’s childhood and having the house where the movie was filmed only an hour away from where we grew up was always a big deal. Ever since they opened the house to tours eleven years ago, it’s been a tradition for our family to come here together and then go home and watch the movie. It only reminds me all over again that Sam doesn’t have a family. Never had a family and something like this is completely foreign to him.

While my dad buys everyone’s tickets right inside the front door, I push up on my toes and kiss Sam’s cheek, the scratch of his day-old stubble tickling my lips. When I pull back so we can walk inside the house, Sam looks down at me and smiles.

“What was that for?”

I shrug. “Just because.”

“Well, feel free to
just because
me anytime and anywhere you’d like,” he encourages with a wink.

I laugh, giving him a light smack on his arm as we walk through the doorway and enter the living room of the greatest Christmas movie ever made, my thoughts scrambled with visions of Ralphie and Randy opening presents and my mouth on Sam’s package. We pass by workers in each room of the house, all of them wishing us a Merry Christmas and each time, Sam just gives them an uncomfortable smile and a nod. I know he’s not a big fan of the holidays, but his refusal to reply to anyone who gives him the standard Christmas greeting makes me wonder.

As we all tour the house, I explain scenes from the movie to Sam in all the different rooms—the kitchen where the Bumpus’ herd of smelly hounds ate the turkey, the stairs where Ralphie stood in his pink bunny costume, and of course, the front window where the great Leg Lamp stands, tall and proud instead of broken and buried in the backyard. In between rooms, Nicholas takes the opportunity to grill Sam about his life, and I have to say, I’m pretty proud he only has to cough once trying to remember all the things about Logan I’d quickly thrown at him yesterday in our cab ride from the airport. And that one cough is justified since Nicholas asks him when he’s going to make an honest woman out of me and propose. Although the cough is more of a laugh/choke instead of a “Help me out here,” which earns him a very mean side-eye from me.