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Final exams come and go, and I ace all my classes.

Our internship comes to a close with a big party at our favorite bar. Chase and Brian aren’t able to return after winter break since they both have fully loaded spring semester schedules, but Chloe, Mackenzie, Dylan, Justin, and I will all be back. The StrongFitKids section at the stadium finishes construction, and it’s beyond amazing.

I’m spending more and more time with my dad and Joanie and less and less time with Cooper, but text messages throughout the day let me know he’s thinking about me as much as I’m thinking about him. He comes over for lunch or dinner a few times a week to fill my dad in on the latest from the Heat, but overall, my dad has been well-behaved when it comes to his recovery.

Classes are over and I’m in the thick of Christmas shopping as I try to figure out what to get for the men in my life—two men who have virtually everything.

Two men who are both intent on living life to the fullest given that they’ve received different but still very real warnings about how preciously short life can be.

And that’s when it hits: the winter bug that seems to come for me every December. Classes are over, and my body finally has a second to relax as the front office of the Heat goes on hiatus for a couple weeks as well.

It infiltrates me and knocks me down to the point that I don’t even want to get out of bed.

Mia calls me, but I don’t answer.

I stay in my room since the last thing I want to do is get Joanie or my dad sick. Joanie’s family comes into town to visit prior to the holidays, and my dad and Joanie stay with them in their rental place to keep away from my germs. Cooper comes over as soon as the coast is clear to take care of me.

He makes me soup and tea, and he brings me a box of Kleenex along with an assortment of cold remedies. Just seeing him makes me feel a whole lot better.

Still, the bug knocks me down for nearly an entire week. For an entire week, Cooper comes over to check on me, to feed me, and to take care of me. He takes me to the doctor, who prescribes an antibiotic, and he makes sure I take it every day. He heads home at night just in case my dad comes back, and by the time I wake up on Sunday morning—a week before Christmas—I’m feeling back to my old self again.

So much myself, in fact, that before Cooper arrives, I change my sheets and spray Lysol everywhere to clean the place up. I vow to be ready when he gets here.

While I was lying in bed sick, I did some online shopping. I pull out the racy red lingerie I grabbed for myself, and I set up the pre-lit Christmas tree I ordered in one corner of my bedroom on top of a fuzzy red rug that came in the same delivery.

I force my way into the strappy contraption held together by a bunch of ribbons tied into bows—complete with a row of festive white fur above my boobs, by the way—and position myself beneath the tree.

When Cooper walks in, he finds me under the tree, wrapped in red silk and white fur.

His jaw slackens. “Feeling better?”

I nod slowly as I run my tongue along my lower lip. “Would you like to unwrap your gift?”

He just stares at me for a few beats, and then he strides across the room and sinks down to his knees in front of me. “Fuck yes I would.” He pulls at one of the ribbons near my hip holding the scrap of fabric together, and then he unties the other side as well.

His movements are slow and meticulous, and he unties the ribbons holding my top together next. Soon I’m naked under the tree, and he runs his hands along my skin, starting up on the sides of my breasts and down along my torso to my thighs. He rubs them along my inner thighs and up across my hips to my stomach, and then up between my breasts, gently trailing a pattern along my skin, carefully avoiding the places that I most need him to touch.

He does it again, this time running his hands all the way down my calves to my feet, and he takes a moment to massage my feet before working his hands back up my legs. He massages my calves, and then my thighs. It’s both relaxing and infuriating as I wait for him to make his way toward the places that have been aching with need for him for the last week.

My lips want his on mine.

My breasts feel heavy as they wait for his touch, and my pussy throbs with need as he builds the tension between us.

It’s been too long. Between the holiday and his traveling combined with how busy he’s gotten introducing new players to town as he works to build the bond between teammates—and then me taking care of my dad and suffering through my own bout with a winter cold, we’ve only snuck in two quickies since right before the parade.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmurs softly, and then he leans over me, pressing a soft kiss to my lips before trailing his mouth to my neck, and then down to my chest, between my breasts and down to my navel, along my hips and down to my thighs.

My hips buck toward him, silently begging him for any sort of friction, any sort of relief as I become desperate for his touch, and he trails the softest kisses along the inside of my thigh as butterflies seem to batter around my stomach. He moves so slowly, so deliberately, and I shiver from the anticipation. He’s fully clothed and he’s only just barely kissed my lips and yet somehow this is the single most erotic moment of my life.

I allow my legs to fall open to give him the access he needs as he continues kissing his way along my thigh, and then I can’t help it. I grab onto the back of his head and direct him between my legs.

He dives right in, his tongue darting out to flick along my clit before he moves it down, dipping it into my pussy for a beat before moving it out and back up. He sucks on my clit, and then he reaches up to push a finger into me while he does magical things to my clit, his tongue working in time with the pressure of his finger as he thrusts it into me.

God, this feels good. He feels good.

I grab a fistful of the fuzzy rug beneath me, clenching it between my fingers as I feel my body start to tense up at his touch, and that’s the moment he pulls back. I’m right there, right at the edge, ready to explode into the type of orgasm my body has needed for weeks, and he stops what he’s doing.

I’m too needy, too desperate, too insane with hunger to even form words to ask what the fuck he’s doing and why the fuck he’s stopping, but just because he stops what he’s doing to my vagina doesn’t mean he stops entirely.

He goes back to kissing my thighs softly, and then he moves up my body toward my breasts, trailing kisses the entire way, like he’s worshipping my body. My body is eager for any tiny sort of friction against his jeans, and I wrap my legs around him, my pussy wide open as I desperately try to find some relief. His mouth latches onto my breast, his magical tongue swirling around my nipple. The feeling only intensifies the ache and the desperation.

He sits up and reaches down to unbutton his jeans, and he pulls himself out, hard and heavy. I want to taste him, to feel him in my mouth, the salty sweet tang on my tongue, but I’m too desperate to suggest it. Instead, I watch as he stokes the head of his dick a few times before he lines it up with my pussy. He swipes it through a few times, and then he jerks himself off against my clit, driving me closer to the edge again, before he dips inside. He lets out a loud grunt as he holds himself steady for a beat, and then he pushes in, dropping some of his weight down on top of me as he balances on one arm and grabs my breast with the other hand.

He doesn’t speed up, though, instead opting to take his time as he pulls out and pushes back in. It’s slow and luxurious, and part of me forgot just how incredible it actually feels to have nothing separating our bodies as we do this. This is something sweeter than fucking yet something far beyond making love. It’s some sort of communication that I’ve never experienced with anybody else, an intimate way for us to connect that transcends words. It fills a need and a void I didn’t know resided within me, and it somehow colors the gray as he drives me closer and closer to the edge again.

This time he lets me tip over it, picking up speed as I ride him through my body’s wild contractions over him. I moan through my release, my body clenching up like a tight coil as it releases with pulses and pulses of pleasure.

“Fuck, Gabby,” he grunts. “Yes, baby. Come for me. Come all over my cock,” he murmurs as I come. “Fuck, you feel so good. I could stay in here forever.” He thrusts a little harder as my body starts to calm, and then he slows as his grunts turn to growls that tell me he’s coming, too.

He finishes with a mighty roar, a sound that has quickly become my favorite thing to hear, and then his mouth finds mine.

He kisses me like I’m holding onto his last breath, and it’s beautiful and slow and tender as we lose ourselves in each other.

“You didn’t even take off any clothes,” I say after he pulls out and starts to move off me.

He chuckles and pulls his shirt over his head.

“Hi abs,” I sing, and I run my fingertips along them as he moves to settle in beside me.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he says. “Come spend the night at my place. We can do that at least a few more times, and I’ll even whip something up for lunch.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be today?” I ask.

“Yeah, I do,” he says with a resolute nod. “And it’s wherever you are.”

It’s cheesy, but it does the trick. It hits me square in the heart.

“I know I’ve been busy, and we both know it’s going to get worse once the season starts, but I want you to know that wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I’m carrying you in my heart and my thoughts. Always.”

“Right back at you,” I whisper as a sudden intense emotion rolls over me. “I wish we could spend Christmas together.”

“We are,” he says, turning toward me brightly. “I told Troy I was bringing over Christmas dinner.”

“Oh, that’s so nice of you. But that’s not really what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” he murmurs. “And maybe next Christmas will be different. But I figure it’s better than nothing, and your dad is getting stronger every day.”

I nod. “He is, but I still don’t think he’s ready to hear about us.”

“I agree with you. Maybe it’ll be different as we get closer to the season starting. He’ll watch us as we keep growing closer and it’ll be like some natural progression. If he’s there to witness it, maybe the blow won’t be so hard. And someday down the road, like a long, long way down the road, we can admit the rest of it to him about how we really met.”

“You think so?” I ask a little doubtfully.

He shrugs. “We can hope so.”

If only it all went down quite that easily.