Wreck the Halls: A Novel

On the flight to New Hampshire, Melody tried desperately to focus on her TED talk about insect brains being the key to great artificial intelligence, but every time five minutes lapsed, she realized she’d retained nothing.

Obviously she had the furthest thing from an insect brain.

Striving for casual, Melody turned in her wide, leather seat and glanced toward the rear of the plane to where Beat was thumbing through a neat bundle of paperwork, his brow in a furrow. He licked his index and middle fingers to turn the page, and a huge, industrial-sized crank turned below her belly button.

It seemed that every time she blinked, she would remember those long fingers tugging the band of her panties forward to look at her.

Goddamn, Peach. Are you on the pill just in case? Pulling out of that pussy is going to be torture.

In the heat of the moment, those words had made her hot. Brought her to the brink. In the light of day—or bad airplane cabin lighting, as it were—they only made her wonder. Made her think. Physically removing himself from her seemed to be a . . . theme? Or a need?

As if he’d heard her thoughts out loud, Beat’s attention snapped up and gripped her with enough intensity to power the airplane.

“Psst.” Danielle elbowed her in the ribs. “You’re staring.”

“Right.” Wetting her suddenly dry lips, Melody whipped back to a forward-facing position, keeping her eyes closed until her pulse slowed down. “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to distract me with the truth about you and Joseph, our trusty cameraman?”

“Distract you from what?”Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

“Air travel makes me anxious.”

“If you’re going to demand the truth out of me, you have to return the favor.”

“I guess I owe you one,” Melody grumbled. “For letting me know I was mooning over Beat on camera.”

“Whatever you tell me stays between us.” The producer crossed her legs and shifted to face Melody more fully. “The two of you are interesting enough in front of the lens. I don’t even have to stir the pot behind the scenes.”

“Is that standard practice on a reality show?”

Danielle considered spilling, then visibly changed her mind. “You’ll have to read about it in my memoir one day.”

Melody used a finger to click the air. “Preorder.” Danielle smiled, but remained silent, giving Melody an encouraging nod. “We kissed last night,” she whispered. “Made out, really.”

“Shock of the century.”

Just say it. Rip it off like a Band-Aid. “He sort of . . . walked away.”

Danielle did a double take. “I actually didn’t see that one coming. Elaborate?”

“No.” Melody shook her head adamantly. “Your turn.”

The producer definitely wanted to dive deeper into Melody’s explanation, slumping comically. “Joseph and I came up through the ranks together at a twenty-four-hour news network. We ran in the same circles, crossed paths, and always had that . . . flirty nemesis thing going on. Then around eight years ago, we were on a field assignment, covering a storm, and we were forced to spend the night in the news van. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.”

“Sounds like he filled in the blanks.”

Danielle snorted. “Anyway, he’s got this whole ‘I’m in charge’ bullshit going on and . . .” She picked up the magazine she’d been reading and absently started to fan herself. “It’s the opposite of what I want. Outside of bed, anyway. In bed . . .”

Melody examined that statement. “Were you surprised to find out you enjoyed being with someone like that in bed?”

“Surprised doesn’t even begin to cover it.” The producer threw an irritable glance over her shoulder. “And the bastard constantly reminds me I enjoyed it.”

“That accounts for the tension, I guess,” Melody murmured, replaying the conversation in her head. Danielle and Joseph had clear preferences in bed. Melody had never been comfortable enough to explore her own . . . but maybe Beat had? What if he had certain interests and she hadn’t discovered them yet? He’d certainly dropped some hints last night. Maybe the problem hadn’t been her eagerness . . . and instead, he just needed a little more time to share what turned him on?

Don’t let me come.

Melody realized her heart was racing and unbuckled her seat belt with fidgety hands, needing desperately to move—and unfortunately, there was only one place to hide on a plane. On the way to the bathroom, she passed a dozing Joseph who was napping at the rear, his camera off and buckled into the seat beside him, like a small child. Melody used the restroom quickly, washed her hands, splashed some cold water on her face and then started to return to her seat when the plane hit a patch of turbulence—

She stumbled sideways in the aisle, reaching for purchase.

“Mel,” Beat said sharply, catching her wrist.

Before she knew what was happening, he’d changed her flailing trajectory and pulled her down into his lap. She winced at the crunch of paperwork beneath her butt. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I hope that wasn’t important.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek. Did he just glance at her mouth? “It’s only paper.” Melody nodded, started to get back up, but the plane jolted again, rocking her on his lap toward his chest and prompting him to take a sharp inhale. “Mmmm.”

Hunger swooped down inside of her. Deep. “I should go back to my seat.”

The plane disagreed by traveling over several bumpy air pockets. Beat’s hand tightened on the seat’s armrest with each one. “You’ll get hurt. Stay here until it stops.”

There was some truth to his words. She wasn’t coordinated on her best day. Trying to make it back to her seat while the plane was going over turbulence could easily end in a concussion. But pretending the position wasn’t coaxing something to life inside both of them was growing more and more impossible. If the sheaf of papers wasn’t trapped between them, she suspected Beat would be hard beneath her butt. The hand he’d been using to clutch the armrest slid onto her knee, his thumb digging into the sensitive inside. It inched higher after a particularly rough bump of turbulence. Squeezed.

The seam of her jeans became too tight. But she would get through this unscathed. They would. They just needed a distraction.

“Tell me about the paperwork I just butt crushed?”

“Yeah,” he rasped, closing his eyes. “It’s, uh . . . applications. From scholarship hopefuls. We’ll announce our January recipient on New Year’s Day.” He appeared to be trying to focus on the subject she’d broached. “It’s always a hard choice, but picking from this group is almost impossible. There isn’t a single one of them that doesn’t deserve it.”

“What kind of criteria do you look for?”

Something sparked in his eyes. Excitement. A passion for his job that made her chest carve itself open for him even wider. “Obviously, academics are paramount, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg for these kids. They’re all at the top of their class. So we have to go beyond that. Look at their club participation, recommendation letters. Once we have about a dozen standouts, that’s when we watch their recorded audition files.”

Melody felt her own excitement building. “How do you inform the winner?”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “We usually contact their parents or guardian, arrange a Zoom call. Octavia appears on the screen and tells them college is paid for. It’s . . .” He trailed off, nodding. “It’s something.”

“And you make it happen.”

“They make it happen. I just do the research.”

A bigger picture began clicking into place. “Did your mother create the scholarship program, Beat? Or was it you?”

“I don’t know.” He stared off over her shoulder a moment, eyes narrowing slightly. “It has been so long, I can’t remember.”

That was the truth. He honestly didn’t recall. “I’m betting on you.”

“Why?” They did nothing but communicate through a long, silent look. “You think I do this to balance out the wealth I’ve been born into,” he said slowly.

“I think maybe that’s part of it. The rest is just being a good person who wants to help.”

“I don’t know about that. It’s like . . . I can’t believe all this talent is out there and so much of it will go undiscovered. They have all the aptitude and none of the advantages. Meanwhile, I’m the opposite. None of the talent, all of the—”

“No. You have to stop that.”

He laughed without humor. “It’s not that easy.”

“Oh. Believe me, I know. We have these tremendous, unrealistic expectations on us, because of who our mothers are.” She thought back to her many hours of therapy, the conclusions they’d drawn over and over. Ones she’d only started believing recently. “But, Beat, we get to be people. We get to just be people.”

This time, when his gaze fastened on her mouth, there was no pretending she’d imagined it. “Privately, maybe, we get to just be people.” He leaned in. Or maybe she did. “Around everyone else, though . . . friends, colleagues, the press, it’s always been about keeping relationships superficial, distracting people from looking at anything too deep. Too personal.” She heard him swallow. “Maybe I take that a step too far, you know?”

Their foreheads met, eyes searching.

No. She wasn’t imagining the weight of importance between them. This conversation.

She wasn’t imagining it at all.

“It’s really hard to be around you,” she said without thinking. “It’s also really easy to be around you. Does that make any sense?”

“I’ve never understood you more.”

“I wish I could say the same.” He looked a little wounded by that, but she didn’t take it back. “You say you keep relationships superficial. That you take it a step too far. Tell me what you mean.”

His chest lifted and fell. He opened his mouth to speak twice, before finally proceeding. “Like I told you, when I was younger, it got too hard for me to accept . . . being indulged all the fucking time. I wasn’t doing anything to earn comfort. Relief. That guilt started to creep in everywhere. I needed an outlet. And when I was sixteen, I asked a girl I was seeing to keep me right on the edge. Tease and torture me, but not let me finish. She did it, but she didn’t want to see me again after that. Neither did the next girl.” His shoulder rolled back jerkily. “I learned not to share this part of myself with people I care about. I learned to keep it private and somewhere along the line, it stopped being about guilt and more about enjoyment. But most importantly, not having to confide in anyone. There are places a person can go . . .” He closed his eyes and gave his head a brief shake. “Jesus, I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

Melody hadn’t breathed in a full minute. “It’s okay.”

When he looked at her again, his gaze was a combination of heated and apologetic. “There are places a person can go, Mel. Clubs, sometimes private residences. I find women willing to be discreet and . . .” He raised an eyebrow, as if to say, You get the picture. “It’s a transaction, not a relationship, and that clear line is comfortable to me.”

“Oh,” she whispered, regrouping her thoughts.

Beat interrupted the process when he pressed their foreheads together again. “Look at me.”

“I’m looking.”

“I haven’t been to any of those places since I saw you again. I haven’t wanted to.”

Boneless, she nodded. Beat liked to be brought to the edge without being allowed to finish. Maybe she should have been shocked, but her brain only seemed capable of projecting images of Beat in the highest highs of hunger, his body keyed up and straining, teeth bared, eyes glassy. Who wouldn’t want to be with him, feeding him what he wanted, in those moments?

“So . . . you like to be edged. Orgasm denial.”

He huffed a pained laugh. “You use more technical terms than I do.”

“I restored a copy of a classic sex help book once. I might have picked up a few things.”

“Mel, you don’t seem scandalized by this at all.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“No. But knowing you’re comfortable with this . . .” His lips trailed slowly across her cheek toward her mouth and settled there, breathing heavily enough to leave hot condensation. “I’m worried what I’ll want to do.”

“Why are you worried?”

He winced, almost like he was in pain. “Because this is my way of getting what I want without having to be vulnerable. It’s satisfaction with none of the . . . emotion. None of the bond.” His mouth was flush with hers when he spoke, muffling his words slightly. “I like fucking until I’m ready to explode, Mel. Then I stop. I can’t . . . I don’t know how to let anyone in at the end. I leave.” He shifted his hips beneath her and made a low, tight-lipped sound. “I’d hurt your feelings, like I did last night. I don’t think you realize how much that gutted me.”

“My feelings were hurt, because I didn’t understand. Now I do.” She rushed to wet her dry lips. “And I think . . . if anything, your need for . . . hardship is proof that you have a soul. You recognize your good fortune. So many people in your position don’t.”

“Hmm.” Her hand lifted on its own, her fingers spearing slowly into his hair, his eyelids falling more the farther they went. His hand on her thigh tightened and she couldn’t stop, couldn’t keep herself from sipping a kiss from his lips. “I just had a thought.”

“Okay,” he said, not moving. Holding his breath? “I’d really like to know what it is.”

Instinct had her twisting her hips, rolling her spine, and adding pressure to the paperwork still lodged between them until he sucked in a breath. “Maybe we can try again. Now that I know what’s coming—or in this case, not coming—” Briefly, she touched her tongue to the seam of his lips. “Maybe I would enjoy . . . not letting you.”

A shudder ran through him. “Mel.”

It surprised her, the little surge of power that sparked in her fingertips. But the glimmer of something new and unique didn’t scare her. No, it beckoned her closer. Using Beat’s shoulder for leverage, she lifted her weight off his lap, closed her hand around the stack of papers, and moved them to the adjacent seat, before settling back down, inhaling roughly over the thick protrusion that greeted her.

“You knew what you were doing to my cock,” he whispered harshly against her ear. “Didn’t you, Peach?”

“Yes.”

His rocky exhale blew the hair off her neck. “Imagine fucking each other.” His hand fisted in her hair and pulled, his lips pushing flush to her exposed neck, making her gasp. “God, imagine it.”

Oh, she was. In bright technicolor. There was a wealth of hesitation in his voice, though.

“But? I hear a but.”

“I don’t know how to do this without holding myself back. Keeping sex impersonal.” Beat shook his head. “I could ruin this. I could hurt you—and that’s unacceptable.”

“Do you really think we can keep ourselves from trying?”

“It’s getting harder to answer questions when you’re sitting on my lap.”

Maybe it was her elevated position that boosted her confidence or perhaps it was the intuition she possessed when it came to Beat, but she gripped his hair and twisted slightly, murmuring against his panting lips. “Starting now, you aren’t allowed to finish.” She kissed him sweetly, in direct contrast to her words. “Not until I say you can.”

His eyes grew unfocused, his fingers digging roughly into her thigh. “Jesus, the irony. I could finish just hearing you say that to me.” Conflict and lust warred in his expression. “I don’t know if I’m good for you, Mel.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Melody shifted her hips, slowly turning in his lap until she was facing the front of the plane. She looked back at him over her shoulder and gave a slow roll of her lower body, memorizing the way his eyes darkened. “Are you going to let us find out?”

They remained there for several moments, Melody rocking in his lap, his chest rising and falling with more and more urgency. That battle between yes and no still waging itself on his handsome face. Until finally his right arm shot out, banding around her collarbone and drawing her back firmly to his chest. “Do you think I have a choice when I grow more obsessed with you by the fucking minute?” He sunk his teeth into her ear, reached for the coat draped on the seat beside him and covered them with it hastily, hiding their actions from view. “You made it hard, now grind on it. Tease me. Give me that good pain.” Beneath the coat, his big hands palmed her breasts, teasing the buds in the center with his thumbs. “I want to be the one hurting, Mel. But God, I don’t want to hurt you . . .”

Him stroking her nipples was making her anxious, desperate for friction. The importance of his words sunk into her subconscious to be unearthed and studied later, but just then, all she could do was embrace the new, exciting power tripping through her bloodstream. All she could do was give their needs a dose of oxygen and she did that by sinking down low against the V of his thighs, then riding back up, roughly, his strangled groan raising goose bumps on her skin. “Is that what you like?”

“From you? It’s what I love,” he said, struggling to breathe against her neck. “Keep going. Good girl. Fuck me through my pants. I’ll tell you when I’m getting close.”

“So I can s-stop?”

“That’s right. So you can stop and leave me pussy-starved.” He licked her, neck to cheek. “Only for yours.”

That intense quickening she recalled from last night started in her midsection, sinking lower and lower until the pulse between her legs became impossible to ignore. She could have an orgasm like this. Denying him. Being praised for it. His hands were beneath her shirt now, thumbing aside the cups of her bra, making sweeping arcs against her bare nipples, but that wasn’t supposed to be enough to give her an orgasm, was it?

Didn’t matter. That’s what was happening.

Just like last night, she was going to hit her peak hard and early—

“Five minutes until we land,” called someone from the front of the plane.

Melody blinked her surroundings into focus, peeking up and over the seat in front of them. Danielle stood at the front of the aisle, speaking with the copilot, laughing at something he said. And indeed, Melody could feel the plane beginning to descend gradually, that telltale weightlessness making her stomach hover in the air. But their progress toward land wasn’t the only thing filling her with that ticklish rush. It had a lot more to do with the man.

Without turning around, she could sense Beat attempting to gather himself. He palmed her breasts a final time, cursed, tugging her bra back into place. His sex was full and long beneath her bottom, his hips still tilting up, up, up slightly as if he couldn’t help it.

“I should . . .” Leave this incredible warmth? Cut herself off from these singular sensations that only he could coax to life inside of her? Not high on her list. But what choice did she have? “I should go back to my seat. Before we land and he starts filming.”

“Yeah,” Beat said thickly, pulling her shirt down, before reaching up to smooth her hair. One stroke, two, then a light gripping of her strands. “Peach?” His teeth grazed the nape of her neck. “No one sees you turned on but me.”

Melody was surprised how much that possessiveness gratified her. She leaned back and whispered in his ear, “You stay like this,” riding the hard ridge of him one final time, listening to him swallow a moan, before standing up on shaky legs and returning to her seat for landing, filled with a lot more anticipation than she had been during takeoff.