“I’m not chancing it, Bella.”
“Should I reach out to my . . .”
“The day after your birthday.” He winks.
I sigh. “I don’t know anyone’s number by heart anymore anyway. Where are we going now?”
“Somewhere that will have your gorgeous mahogany eyes sparkling just for me.”
My heart warms over. In a few days, I’ll clear this mess we’ve made. For now, I’ve grown more sympathetic for the time Geraldine went to Jamaica. She’d been missing for months before she resurfacedmarried. Dad is the only one in the dark about it since he’d never approve anyway.
56
Santino
We arrive at the lake house at nightfall. Gina’s running around each room, shouting how she wants to give me head on the chandelier. Then she’s declaring how she’ll be spread eagle over the fireplace in the master suite bathroom.
“Bella, what are you drunk off? All those ass and hips will catch fire.”
“Oh, whatever, Bad Santa,” she snorts. “I’m drunk off love. Where are you going?”
Fist an ax in my hand. “My Bella’s waking up on Christmas Day to a tree . . .”
She transfixes me with a glittery gaze. “I assume there’ll be at leastonepresent beneath the tree? Something shiny, formed under pressure, perhaps?”
Leaning the ax against my leg, I pull the beanie from her hair. The usual sleek spirals are puffed up. I smooth my hands over them, planting a kiss on her mouth. “I can’t attest to any gifts, shiny or otherwise. I didn’t get anything for Christmas, remember?”
“Humph, we are not playing that game. You had your dick swinging for a reason, Santino. I want to reap the fruits of your labor.”
I start toward the sliding partition that separates the house from the lake. Over my shoulder, I reply, “I’m not proposing when you’re aware, Gina.”
“Okay, so sometime on my birthday, then?” She follows me, stopping at the threshold where fresh powdery snow covers the deck. “Wait, Santi. Let me grab my jacket.”
“Nope. This is a real man’s job.”
“Wait . . .” She calls after me, her voice growing smaller as I walk through the wilderness.
A few minutes later, I’m at a line of fir trees edging the lake when Gina shuffles over. She’s tucked her arms into the puffer jacket, jutting her chin. “That’s the one, Dirty Santa, that one!”
Glance up, then glance up some more. Cork a brow. “Bella, how many linebackers . . .?”
With an enormous smile, Gina runs into my arms, her puffer jacket thudding from the strain. “Kidding.”
Holding hands, we walk quietly for a while. When her dazzling brown gaze lands on the tree she wants, Gina cocks a hand over her shoulder. “I’ll start dinner. You got this from here?”
“Sure, I’ll make sure none of youramicassneak into the house.”
“Funny,” she retorts. “If I see another possum, I have you. Especially if you anticipate eatingwell tonight.”
* * *
I’ve showeredin a bathroom double the size of my apartment back home. In the kitchen, I find Gina. She’s stripped from the snowsuit from earlier. Chicken and herbs sizzle on a stainless-steel range stove. I love a thong between my lady’s cheeks just as any other man. But the panties I had selected for her earlier are high-cut. The lace material stretches across the round spheres. The plumpest parts of her ass fill out and overwhelm down below.
Gina clears her throat.
Aware, I arch a brow. “Chicken cacciatore?”
“Well, Santi, this place has every ingredient known to man. So, let’s hope it tastes familiar.”