Page 50 of Daddy's Little Christmas

“You complaining?” I murmured near his ear.

His shoulders relaxed by a hair.

“…No,” he said. “Just… cataloguing.”

The corner of my mouth kicked up.

“Bend your knees a bit,” I said. “Let your weight sit over the middle of the blade. Don’t fight the glide.”

He tried.

We moved in small, slow pushes, my hips guiding his, my hands firm on his sides. Every time he wobbled, my grip tightened.

The small gasp when his balance shifted.

The way his back pressed fully into my chest for a heartbeat before he caught himself, as if leaning was instinct.

The heat where our bodies aligned, incongruous against the cold air.

“Don’t let me fall,” he blurted once, when another skater slid by extremely fast and sent a ripple through the air.

Something deep in me answered before my mind caught up.

“Daddy’s not going to let you fall, sweet boy,” I said, voice dropping without conscious thought.

The effect was immediate.

His hands, which had been gripping my arms like lifelines, loosened just enough to cling instead. The tightness in his shoulders eased—not gone, but redirected—as if his body had decided it was safe to rest where it was. His head tipped backa fraction, the line of his spine settling more fully against my chest.

I breathed in slowly through my nose and the urge hit me hard and fast—to wrap both arms around him and hold him there, not because he needed it but becauseI did.

Heat was part of it. Want was part of it. The way his body fit against mine made that impossible to miss.

But underneath that was something else, just as sharp: the sudden, unsettling awareness that I wanted him in a way that wasn’t casual and wasn’t contained. A way that reached past attraction and into attachment.

That realization caught me off guard. I hadn’t felt it in years. Long enough that I’d almost forgotten how quickly it could take hold.

“You’re doing well,” I said instead, because saying anything more—admitting how fast this was moving inside me—felt like crossing a line I wasn’t ready to cross yet.

He let out a quiet, hiccuping little laugh.

“Your standards are low,” he said. “But I appreciate that.”

We did another slow loop like that, then two more. By the time we eased off toward the edge, his cheeks were bright with more than just the cold and his movements had gone from terrified flail to tentative glide.

At the bench, we sat and worked our skates off, trading them for boots. Rudy’s hands shook a little as he worked the laces, the tremor lingering from adrenaline rather than fear. I considered pretending not to notice, then decided against it and covered his hands with one of mine for a second.

“Breathe,” I said quietly. “You did great.”

He looked up through his lashes.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m proud of you.”

Color crept under the windburn on his cheeks. He ducked his head, but his mouth curved.

We grabbed cocoa from the stand—paper cups almost too hot to hold—and took them to a bench overlooking the pond. The blanket came in handy then; I shook it out and tucked it around his knees, ignoring his half-hearted protest.