Instead, he captured her wrist in his hand and brought her fingers to his mouth, sucking the fingertips between his lips as he licked away the icing. She tried desperately to ignore her growing desire for him as he swirled his tongue around her fingers, but the sensation was overwhelming. January even tried to pull her hand away, but Deckard’s hold didn’t relent.
Her free hand reached out to grip the counter but she failed when she came in contact with the bowl of icing. Coating her other hand with the concoction, January used Deckard’s hunched stance to her advantage and ran her hand from the top of his head down and across his cheek, covering his hair and half of his face in the icing.
He immediately released his hold and looked at her in surprise.
“Did you really?” She tried not to laugh at his look of complete shock, but a giggle slipped free. “You’re going to pay for that,” he said as he reached for the bowl, but she beat him to it and held it against her body as she took a step back, and then another. But he only followed until soon they were both running through her house, dodging furniture and laughing hysterically at the same time, January barely remembering that her parents were sitting at the kitchen table. When she caught her mother’s eye, January watched as a knowing grin spread across her lips and then turned her attention back to the completed gingerbread house on the table.
January had slowed enough that Deckard was finally able to grab the bowl from her grip and captured it in his own. He scooped out an overzealous amount onto his hand and hovered it in the air as he devilishly grinned down at her.
“Deckard, don’t,” she warned as she took a step back and then another, her hands held in the air in surrender.
“You got icing in my hair. That means war.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll even help you clean it out,” January placated.
Shrewdly, Deckard stalked toward her, his hand still floating above the bowl with dollops of icing dripping from his hand until he had her back pressed against the refrigerator door. He leaned forward and January closed her eyes, anticipating the chill of the icing skidding across her face, but all she felt was the gentle brush of lips against her nose.
Her eyes flashed open with a blink and looked up at Deckard in confusion.
“I accept your apology,” he said as he carried the bowl and his hand over to the sink. “We can make another batch of icing, but I need to get it out of my hair first.”
Filled with relief January joined him at the sink. Using a dish towel to drape over his shoulders, she had him lean over the basin as she used her faucet to clean the gunk from his hair. He moaned as her nails scraped across his scalp in a gentle massage.
When she was done cleaning the white icing from his dark strands she turned the faucet off and took a step back to grab a clean dish towel from an island drawer to dry his hair with. But as she turned around with the towel in her hand she was met with a sprinkling of water against her face.
Deckard had stood up and flipped his hair away from his forehead, which caused the loose droplets to land on her. It appeared that he was about to stage war number two.
With the towel in hand she remembered the way her father used to twist the material and flick it toward someone, resulting in a smack of whatever body part the end of the cloth landed one. It was always in jest, but she remembered how the tip of the material would sting like hell.
Grabbing two ends of the rag, January twisted the cloth in her hands creating a line of swirls, then with the flick of her wrist she let the towel go on one end, expecting it to land against Deckard’s hip. But she should have known better, that man knew what she was thinking before she even did most of the time.
His reaction was better than she could have ever imagined as he caught the loose end of the towel and tugged her toward him. She smiled sheepishly as she landed against his body, expecting him to retaliate against her assault, but he did nothing more than sink his free hand into her hair, tilted her head back, and crushed his lips against hers. She was lost instantly. Her fingers lost their grip on the rag as she trailed her hands up his chest and around his neck, clasping her hands together behind his head. He drank her in, swallowed down every ounce of fear and guilt left in her body and set her free.
A cough sounded breaking them apart, finding her father looking back and forth between the two of them.
“Where is your house?” her father asked referring to the gingerbread house. January tried her hardest to come up with a believable excuse, not that it would matter; her parents had been in the same room the entire time.
Luckily, Deckard chimed in, “That batch got a bit overmixed.”
“Yeah,” she added. “We need to make a new batch.”
Her dad looked like he wanted to say something more as he pinned his eyes to Deckard’s arm still wrapped around January’s waist, but her mother saved them all.
“How about your dad and I go into the living room and order a pizza for dinner?”
Grateful for the suggestion, January said, “That sounds great, Mom. Thanks.”
She watched her parents walk hand-in-hand to the living room, leaving January and Deckard alone in the kitchen.
“You know what this means?” Deckard asked and January looked up at him in confusion. His one-sided grin caused her hackles to rise.
“No, what?”
With a forceful tug, he turned her in his arms again and brushed his lips against hers. She liked that he always wanted to hold her close. “Now we’re alone.”
It wasn’t long before they were lost in each other again. January never expected to connect with someone so quickly, but with Deckard, she couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. Time ceased to exist when they were together. Gravity held no power because she was floating on cloud nine high above the stratosphere just by being in his presence. But she had to remind herself that none of this was the way it should have been. The guilt was what was going to drag her through Hell until she could figure out a way to make it up to everyone. Not just her mother and family, denying them their love of the holiday, but even Deckard’s smile wasn’t as bright as it had been when he was pointing out the different ornaments on the Christmas trees in his grandparents’ shop.
And she knew that none of them would ever understand the burden that she felt. All that she could do was show them what she had denied them and hope that they didn’t hate her for it.