Holiday Magic Epilogue - Mason

Sleep seduces me. It caresses my body with soft fingers, luring me to it with whispers of sweet dreams as I lounge across the sofa in the living room. The fire plays wingman to sleep, its warmth encouraging me closer to the siren song of it.

Christmas day was long but perfect. After spending it with Unit Bravo, feasting and playing an awful but hilarious game of charades where Nat only knew the title of books and Ava knew even less than that, I am ready to fall into an awaiting slumber.

So when it’s disturbed by a grunt, I frown up at Mason, who is staring down at me.

“Yes?” I prompt after a moment of silence.

“Do you want to do something?” he asks.

My brows shoot up as I heave myself up onto my elbows. “It’s kind of late for that, isn’t it?” Outside, late evening deepens the darkness outside, even swallowing the glimmer of the snow blanketing the entirety of the town.

His fangs glint in the firelight as he smiles tightly. “Not for a vampire.”

“Well, I don’t know if you remember, but I’m actually not a vampire,” I taunt with a smirk of my own.

He sighs, offering out a hand. “Come on. It’ll be worth it.”

I groan but slide my fingers into his to help haul me up from my cozy spot on the sofa.

He continues to hold my hand as he leads me into the foyer, grabbing our coats, and then heading out into the wintery night of Wayhaven.

-

My breath leaves little wisps of ice as we go, Mason marching ahead of me with purpose.

“So where are we going exactly?” I ask as he leads me deeper into the forest, thick shadows biting with frosted teeth at our heels.

“I’m pretty sure it’s this way,” he states.

I roll my eyes. “Because that really makes me feel better about all of this.”

But although the chill depth of the wintery night should be washing me in strokes of anxiety…I’m calm. With Mason’s hand still in mine, his confidence and security are all I feel.

It’s only ten minutes later until we leave the thick spread of trees and find ourselves at the entering road to Wayhaven. Mason leads me along until we’re at the entrance to the Christmas tree lot.

I glance about the space, a lot less lively than the last time we were here. “Did you get the sudden need to decorate some trees again?”

“I will never have the urge to decorate a tree, sweetheart/handsome,” he replies before tugging me suddenly up against him, our bodies flush together.

His lips curve into a smile that should be illegal in its devastation. “I thought we could finish what we started.”

I shake my head in confusion. “What did we start?”

He nudges his head upwards, and I follow the movement.

Above us, looking a little more frostbitten than before, is the tiny piece of mistletoe we’d found ourselves beneath during our stakeout.

I laugh. “I can’t believe you actually remembered.”

“I remember everything I do with you,” he states without reservation.

The words send a rush of something deep through me that I’m not sure I want to analyse. Instead, I simply ask for what I want most in that moment.

“Then kiss me.”

He doesn’t need telling twice.

Grasping the back of my neck, he brings our lips together in a wash of heat and expectation. There will never be another kiss with anyone else that will stir in me the same feeling as Mason always calls from me.

The excitement of Christmas has nothing on the flurry that he sends fluttering through every limb and nerve. My body thrums with a need for him as my heart calls for his.

His heartbeat erupts in reply against my chest as we press to each other, deepening the kiss until I’m dizzy.

When we draw apart, my breath stirs the air between us. His eyes rove over my face, lingering on the depth of my returned gaze, before dropping to my parted lips, and back up again.

“What is it about you, sweetheart/handsome?” he murmurs out, running his fingertips across my bottom lip with the flashing gaze that lets me know he’d rather be doing it with his tongue.

“What about me?” I manage to breathe out.

His gaze burns into mine. “Why can’t I stay away?”

“…Do you wish you could?” Fear of the answer catches my words.

He shakes his head. “Not even for a second.”

I catch his lips in another kiss, knowing words aren’t enough.

I’m half-conscious of the thought that it was good we never got that moment beneath the mistletoe until now…or the trees might have had a few more comments to throw our way.