Wreck the Halls: A Novel

December 19

They woke up to the sound of the intercom buzzer going off.

Melody’s brain commanded her to open her eyes, but only one of them cooperated, revealing a blurry, off-balance world. Better to skip life today and resume tomorrow. Sleeping longer was the only option. This wasn’t normal sleeping, though. She didn’t usually wake up plastered to another human body, not a stitch of clothing between them.

She was spooning. With Beat. In her bedroom.

Her rear end was in his lap, her feet sandwiched between his calves, her head resting near his shoulder. His heart thunked steadily against her spine, his breathing even and beloved. His body was warm and welcoming, his angles corresponding perfectly to her curves. The fingers of their left hands were entwined in front of her on the mattress, his thick, lightly tanned digits braided together with her shorter, paler ones.

An enormous sense of rightness expanded in her rib cage until moisture pooled in Melody’s eyes. I’m in love. I am most definitely in love.

Last night felt like a dream.

After they’d been together on the couch, they’d hydrated, showered as a pair—laughing as pink paint circled the drain—and ended up stumbling wet from the bathroom onto her bed where they’d engaged in a very slippery, very soapy round two. Doggy style! She’d never imagined herself a down-on-all-fours kind of girl, but behold, Melody hath seen the light. She flushed to the roots of her hair now remembering the slap of Beat’s lap against her bottom, his fingers digging into her hips, fondling her breasts, his wild breath in her ear.

Now that I’ve come inside of you once, I’m addicted, he’d panted. I can’t stop.

Fine by her.

They would just stay in this bedroom forever. Watch nostalgic movies and order takeout and do it until the end of time. Nobody could stop them.

The buzzer went off again, longer and louder this time.

With a growing sense of trepidation, Melody unlaced her fingers from Beat’s and reached out to grab her phone off the side table—

“No,” Beat growled into her neck, seizing her hand and pinning it to the mattress.

She giggled breathlessly, happiness popping like a champagne bottle in her chest. Beat was awake. They were awake together. “Someone is at the front door.”

“I don’t care. They can wait.”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“It’s probably Danielle.” Her eyelashes fluttered involuntarily as Beat’s tongue licked up the side of her neck, the landscape of his lap changing in a very rapid way. “I don’t know what time it is, but I’m pretty sure we should be streaming by now.”

“That’s their problem, Melody. I need to fuck you again.” He rolled Melody on to her back and she was wet in a matter of seconds, because Lord have mercy, this man was gorgeous on a regular basis, but in the morning? He was plucked straight from the pages of Greek mythology. If he’d woken up in a crown of olive branches, she wouldn’t even have questioned it. He was bare chested and scruffy and his hair was a disaster, his lips and eyes softened from sleep. A God woken from slumber. With needs.

Yet he chose to satisfy hers instead.

She twisted the fitted sheet in her hands while he used his tongue between her legs, his thumbs massaging her inner thighs, his breath hot, his lips suctioning, his tongue debauched. Worrying her clit with the tip of his tongue, his right hand rode up her torso to knead her breasts, right, then left, and all the while a quickening grew more intense below her belly button. He wasn’t going to stop. Oh God, he wasn’t going to stop.

“Beat.”

His tongue kept going. Faster. Faster.

He looked directly at her and pushed two fingers inside of her body, rotating them, rubbing an undiscovered spot that made colors bleed together in her line of vision, then pumping them in and out. Hard. Fast. Mimicking what he’d done to her with his body last night and her back arched off the bed, her cry of his name singeing her throat.

No sooner did the spasms ebb than Beat was guiding himself between her legs, thrusting home with a strangled curse. Taking a moment to look into her eyes, to revel with her in the wonder of them being joined so perfectly. Just as suddenly, her back left the mattress, Beat lifting her upright with her legs locked around his waist. He walked on his knees until he could press her back up against the solid wood headboard—and then he fucked her against it in a way that could only be described as brutally beautiful.

“Before millions of eyes are on you today.” He drove deep and held, held, held until she started to whimper, squirming between his strong body and the unmovable barrier. “I just want to remind you that I’m the only one who gets you like this.”

“Yes, yes, yes, please. Please. Don’t stop.”

“There’s no Beat without a Melody.”

Her heart grew almost unbearably tight.

“I dreamed about you,” he breathed in her ear, beginning a slow bump and grind that made her neck lose power, falling back against the headboard. “You were right beside me and I was still searching for you.” His swallow was audible. “I hope it’s not going to be a problem that I’m obsessed with you, Peach.”

Time seemed to suspend itself. “Is it going to be a problem that I’m obsessed with you, too?”

Intense eyes zeroed in on hers, his jaw flexing as he started driving harder again, in that no-mercy fashion, banging the headboard off the wall. Boom. Boom. Boom. “Look at me. I can’t keep my cock out of you. Two days without you and I felt like I was losing my mind. Do you think it’s going to be a problem?”

“No,” she breathed.

“Correct,” he grated, right on top of her mouth. “Come on it, baby. Feed me.”

Melody’s body must have sworn its allegiance to Beat without consulting her, because she didn’t have a say in the matter. Everything inside of her simply obeyed, her belly getting that achingly light flutter, her thighs ticklish on the insides, the effect of overstimulation coming to a head at once and coursing through her like a current of hot water, jolting her knees and robbing her of sight. “Beat,” she wailed—pinned to the headboard roughly as he climaxed with her, his groans of satisfaction loud in her ear, his hips jerking out of rhythm, holding, holding as the pleasure washed away in degrees.

With Melody still in his arms, Beat toppled backward on the bed, her laughter sounding foreign in a room where she’d never laughed with anyone. He pushed her hair back and she stared down into his beautiful face, leaving her heart hovering somewhere in the clouds.

“I can’t wait until Christmas is over and the cameras are gone.” He leaned up to kiss her softly. “I would love to take you somewhere for a month until all the mania dies down.”

“Wreck the Halls is streaming in forty countries,” she reminded him gently.

“We’ll go to the moon.”

“I’m in.”

The buzzer stayed buzzing for a good thirty seconds this time. There was no more avoiding reality—or the reality show, to be exact—and they gave in with twin groans of frustration, reluctantly climbing out of bed. Melody put on her robe while Beat traipsed into the living room to find his pants. They met, haphazardly dressed, in front of the door a moment later. “Brace yourself for the wrath of Danielle,” Melody yawned.

She opened the door.

Approximately nine thousand camera flashes went off.

Capturing her in a robe, hair mussed from three rounds of sex, Beat standing beside her shirtless with a bite mark on his shoulder.

Danielle stood still as a statue, observing them in a wide-eyed sweep.

Joseph stood behind her, camera on his shoulder, red light flashing. Filming.

The cheers could probably be heard in Berlin.

“Serves you right,” the producer sniffed, pushing her way into the apartment. “I’ve been calling you for an hour trying to warn you.”

Beat finally snapped out of his shock, wrapped an arm around Melody, and drew her against his chest, hiding her with his body as he slammed the door. For a count of five, he stood there holding her until a laugh rumbled in his chest, steadily growing louder.

Melody looked up at him. “What are you laughing at?”

He laid a firm kiss on her forehead, appearing thoughtful. “Well, I started to get upset—and I am, in a way. I don’t want these people standing outside of your apartment. I want you safe and we’ll have to work harder to make that happen. On the other hand . . .” He ducked down to whisper for her ears alone. “I’m kind of . . . glad that we’re going to be all over the internet looking like we just spent the night in bed together. Why wouldn’t I want everyone to know I’m sleeping with you? Actually, I’m fucking thrilled about it.”

Joy was like fizz tickling the insides of her throat. “I can’t say I mind it, either.”

“Good.” Beat nodded once. And all Melody could do was stand there with her jaw on the floor as he threw open the front door. “That’s right. I spent the night,” he shouted. “And it’s exactly what you’re thinking.” Utterly, intoxicatingly hot in nothing but an unbuttoned pair of pants, Beat propped a hand high on the doorjamb, his toned muscles shifting in the morning light. “Our apologies to the neighbors.” He closed the door again to the roar of cheering and whistles from the crowd, engaging the lock while looking inordinately pleased with himself. “Now. Who wants breakfast?”

“We don’t have time for breakfast,” Danielle screeched. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning. In case you forgot, I have you scheduled for the final slot on the Today show. Even if we leave now, I’m not sure we’re going to make it! And you both look like you just crossed the finish line of a sex marathon.”

“I did cross it,” Melody said brightly, looking at the camera. “Several times.”

Beat’s rich laughter flooded the apartment.

Danielle shook her head in bemusement. “Just when I thought we’d peaked at snowball fight, you two go and prove me wrong.” She waved her hands around in a flurry. “Just . . . get dressed in something. Anything. I am not going to disappoint Hoda Kotb.”

Melody didn’t want that, either, because who didn’t adore Hoda? She jogged into the bedroom and threw open her closet, her eyes landing on the brightest, most fashion forward dress in her closet because she felt daring and alive and bursting at the seams in that moment. She reached for the red chiffon cloud with billowed sleeves that only reached the upper middle of her thighs, removed her robe and threw on the dress, along with a pair of sparkly, vintage heels. Next, she dashed to the bathroom where she brushed her teeth, splashed cold water on her face, applied deodorant, snatched up her makeup kit—which she planned to make use of on the ride to Manhattan—and skidded back into the living room.

Danielle looked impressed. “Go off.”

Beat turned to witness her entrance and fell back a step, whistling. “Damn.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

Never taking his eyes off her, Beat lifted her borrowed coat from the peg and closed the distance between them, holding it open behind her so she could slip in her arms. Beat took another minute to button and tuck in his own shirt then put on his jacket, before wrapping an arm around Melody’s shoulder. He relaxed when he saw the security team was now waiting outside of the apartment door to escort them to the SUV.

Still, he leaned down and kissed her temple, saying, “Stay close to me.”

She leaned into his warmth. “Always.”