Abstinence

Chapter 47.

"Do you celebrate the holidays?" I ask Hayden, lying on my stomach staring up at him while he's sitting up against the headboard, a book in his hands. Holidays were never a topic we discussed. I guess until now, there was a never a reason to. It's surprising to think that even after this time there are still pieces of each other we haven't discovered yet. Almost like a puzzle you thought you had completed only to find out you're missing a few pieces. He and I have come to learn a lot about each other and ourselves but there is more to learn.

"Not really. Why?"

"Today is Thanksgiving."

"I'm aware of this. I like Thanksgiving."

"Then what don't you like?"

"I don't celebrate Christmas, Easter, Halloween, any of the parents days, definitely don't care for Valentine's day—" He cuts himself off with laughter after noticing at my taken aback expression.

"You basically don't celebrate anything."

"Yes, I guess I should've started with that. I do not partake in any ridiculous holiday with the exception of Thanksgiving. Do you celebrate?"

"I do, it's the only thing that's been constant in my family. In an odd way, the holidays are a big thing for us." I say odd because though it's important, I've spent Christmas with Reign's family while my dad would sometimes leave. I never asked where he would go, but now that I know more, he was probably going to be with my mother. Even when he was gone, he'd leave little presents all around the house and would call me giving me clues so I could find them. "You wouldn't celebrate them with your children?"

"No, I just don't care for them, they're unnecessary."

"Oh okay then."

"Do you disagree?"

"Of course I do, but I understand why you feel that way about them, so it's not a problem with me."

"Oh really? Tell me why, oh wise one." His tone teasing.

"It always goes back to your life as an adolescent," I tell him. "The holidays are family oriented and about love and that was something your childhood lacked greatly. You never had a good relationship with your parents so their special days of the year were probably the most difficult for you. And with Valentine's day, you never loved a person or had anyone to spend that day with. But who knows, maybe they really are unnecessary since you've lived without them for this long. You can tell me if I'm way off." I finish with a small chuckle.

He doesn't agree or disagree with my take on his disapproval of the holidays, he only shrugs his broad shoulders and reverts back to reading his erotica novel.

"Read to me." I request, my face in my hands, desiring to just hear his voice.

With a smile on his face, he reads the pages of the book, Darkest Desires, aloud. The deepness of his voice soothing and slightly arousing as he articulates the words from the novel. The combination of the sex excerpt and Hayden's husky voice has my mind in an entirely different place. I want him to read to me while fucking me, is that possible? I move from the opposite side of the bed in between in legs, still laying on my stomach with my head resting somewhere between his groin and abdomen.

His eyes are on me, distracted from his book for a quick moment, before he picks up where he left off, "His fingers trail between her warm thighs, his eyes locked on hers gauging her reaction to his touch. She was wet. Wetter than any of the five other women he's felt before. Swollen lips kiss and suck at the dip of her tatted collarbone, the only sounds in the art gallery, are a wondrous mix of his breathing and Cassie's soft moans."