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He wakes to find her bent knee brushing up against his morning erection. He shifts his hips reflexively and a little groan rumbles in his throat when she hitches her leg higher and rests her inner thigh against his length.
She’s curled up around him, her head on his chest and her arm slung over his waist. He knows she’s awake, but he lets her keep up the ruse that it’s incidental contact. As many times as he’s told her there’s no need to be shy about it, she seems to prefer some element of seduction when she initiates. She’s opened the door, and he’s meant to take that as an invitation to enter.
“Morning,” he croaks throatily, reaching down with the arm that’s pinned under her shoulder to give her ass a squeeze. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” she replies softly, not lifting her head to look at him.
There’s an unspoken awareness that they should have been woken at 6:00 am by an excited child. Should have hauled themselves out of bed in search of coffee and a cinnamon roll. Should be sitting in a sea of shredded wrapping paper realizing that despite their best efforts, they overdid it.
It was easier, in the in-between years, to let Christmas be just another day. In drab motel rooms and on endless country roads, surrounded by other people who didn’t have anywhere to be, or anyone to be with. But now that they have a home, it’s not as easy. The empty spare bedroom, the modestly decorated tree that she’d insisted on getting, the endlessly looping holiday specials on TV. Their freshly rooted life is exponentially better in most measurable ways, save for the one.
There is also an unspoken awareness that she is the one who needs tending to. She is the one who made the decision that he was not there to make with her. The one who felt the shift in weight as William left her arms for the final time. The one who watched the confusion in his eyes as he was carried away by a stranger. She is the one who wears the guilt like a millstone around her neck, though he has tried many times to relieve her of it. It isn’t entirely fair, the way her guilt doesn’t leave space for his grief, and someday they will talk about that. But not today.
She leaves the bed briefly to use the bathroom and brush her teeth, and as she climbs back under the covers he does the same. There is an unspoken understanding that they are too old and too familiar to endure bed breath and full bladders for the sake of spontaneity, and when he burrows back into the warm pocket of air beneath two quilts and a down comforter, she confidently wraps her hand around his scrotum and gives it a squeeze as though the interruption never took place.
They kiss and touch, covers pulled up high over their shoulders to keep out the cold. Normally there would be droplets of conversation sprinkled throughout their play, but the artful way she avoids meeting his eyes tells him that now is not the time. Not today. He runs his palm down the valley of her waist and up the curve of her hip, marveling for the millionth time at the velvety softness of her skin. She’s always been so supple, so delicate under his fingertips even though she is tough as nails just beneath the surface. Tender and tough, his Scully. His enigma. His girl.
His hand leaves the meaty swell of her hip and finds the pointed tip of her chin, gently encouraging her to look at him. She tilts her face up but keeps her eyes on his mouth, and he watches as a rapid accumulation of tears obscures her irises. He has the impulse to tell her that it’s okay, but he knows as well as anyone that platitudes regarding the loved and lost are rarely helpful.
Instead, he kisses her trembling lips, wincing when the tears roll down and wet both their cheeks. He pulls her closer, matching her anguish with urgency, desperate to soothe her hurt. She rises to meet him, her wet, salted lips nipping at his hungrily as she hooks one leg over his hip and encourages him to move over her. He settles his naked hips into the heat between her thighs, feeling her cunt radiating against his skin as she reaches down between them and attempts to guide him in. He’s not quite hard enough, and she wraps her fist around him tightly and begins to stroke at a harried pace.
“Hey,” he says, pulling away to look at her face.
Still, she evades him, arching up to recapture his lips as she futilely attempts to make his cock hard.
“Scully,” he says, more firmly, and her eyes snap up to his. “Slow down, honey.”
He shifts back to lay beside her, propped up on one elbow. He soothes her with gentle touches instead, fingertips trailing and lips brushing, and there is an unspoken understanding that they are starting over. He kisses her with all the depth of their shared experiences, shared losses, shared joy. He focuses on the familiar lilt of her tongue dancing against his, the feel of the downy hairs on her upper thighs that she refuses to bother shaving, the transformation of her nipples from plush to tight under his touch. His hand wanders down between her legs, tracing the place where thigh meets torso, teasing along the edges of her labia, swirling around her opening. His mouth finds her breast, and he gets lost in taking a thorough inventory of every crevice, every ridge, cataloging skin smooth and rough, silky and dappled with wiry hairs. She wasn’t wet when he started, but with each dip of his middle finger inside her cunt it returns slicker and slicker, until every inch of skin from her clit to her asshole is syrupy and swollen, and her fingernails are digging into his scalp.
He releases her nipple with a wet smack, moving his mouth to her ear.
“I wanna make you come,” he informs her, though there is a request buried beneath it.
She doesn’t answer, just arches her hips up off the bed and pulls his bottom lip between her teeth.
He loves it when he has the time and permission to get her all worked up like this. So wet, so aroused, so primed that the slide of his finger through her inner lips and into her cunt makes her gasp and quake. When she stops kissing him, he knows to quit teasing and get down to business. Wetting two fingers, he pins her clit between them and slides up and down once, twice, three times. When the first low growl leaves her lips, he knows she needs something inside her immediately.
He nudges her legs open wider with his knee, and he’s buried in her to the hilt while she’s still in the thick of it, moaning and writhing and leaving deep scratches down his back. The heat of her soaking cunt throbbing around him is instantly overwhelming, and he has to remind himself that there isn’t any reason to try and hold back. He fucks her hard, slamming the head of his cock against her cervix as she comes and comes, her whimpers almost sounding pained as he makes it last.
He comes with a grunt, burying his face in the crook of her neck and inhaling the smell of her skin as he empties inside her. He feels her fingers combing through his hair and he relaxes into the sweet bliss of the afterglow, most of his weight resting on his knees so he doesn’t crush her.
They take the day slow. She has a bath while he starts the coffee and bakes the cinnamon rolls, and then they open the few modest presents they’ve purchased for one another. Fresh snow begins to fall and they watch an old black and white movie cuddled up under one shared blanket on the couch. It’s not the best Christmas they’ve shared, but certainly not the worst, either. There is an unspoken understanding that as long as they are together, it’s enough.