Page 104 of Daddy's Little Christmas

When I finally led him down the hallway to my bedroom, it wasn’t with the hunger of the first time or the desperate edge ofa quick stolen moment. It was with the weight of everything we’d shared and everything we might never get again.

He watched me with wide eyes as I undressed him, piece by piece. I took my time. Not to tease. To honor. To memorize.

The way his breath caught when I palmed his shoulder.

The way his chest rose and fell a little faster when I skimmed my fingers along his ribs.

The way color bloomed in his cheeks when I told him he was beautiful, and meant it all the way down.

We made love slowly, like a conversation we weren’t ready to end. Nothing frantic. Nothing showy. Just the steady, rising wave of connection—the quiet sounds he made when my hands found the right places, the way he held onto me like he needed the feel of my shoulders under his fingers to stay anchored.

I lost myself in him. Not the way you lose control. The way you lose the edges of where you end and someone else begins.

When he came, it wasn’t with a loud cry. It was with a shudder, a whispered “Graeme,” and a look on his face that cracked me wide open.

I followed not long after, burying my face in his neck, my body shaking with the force of it—not just the physical release, but the flood of emotion that came with it. Gratitude. Fear. Wonder. Something that felt dangerously close to three words I wanted to shout from the rooftops.

After, I cleaned us up as best I could without letting go of him for long. Then he curled against my chest, leg slung over mine, hand resting over my heart where it thudded too hard, too fast.

The room was dark except for the spill of light from the hallway and the faint glow from the snow outside.

“Thank you,” he murmured, voice slurred with sleep. “For… all of this.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He made a soft, contented sound and nuzzled closer. His breathing evened out. His hand went lax.

I lay awake longer.

Listening to the wind.

Feeling the weight of him against me.

Counting the beats of my heart like they might tell me something useful.

At some point, exhaustion dragged me under too.

We’d woken up and made love two more times. Each time more incredible than the time before. Then we’d grab a shower and tumbled back into bed.

When I woke, the first thing I noticed was the cold.

Not in the room—the radiator still hummed, the faint heat from the furnace reaching through the floor—but on the sheets next to me.

The space where Rudy should have been was cool.

My hand slid over it automatically, searching for warmth, for the familiar dip of his body.

Nothing.

The clock on the bedside table read 7:12. The gray light of early morning seeped around the edges of the curtains, turning the room soft and indistinct.

For a heartbeat, I told myself he was in the bathroom.

That he’d come back in a minute, sheepish and sleepy, crawling under the covers with cold feet and a muttered apology.

But the house was too quiet.

No soft clatter in the bathroom.