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The crystals hanging from the chandelier clinked together softly as Abigail hung sprigs of mistletoe from them. They were cheap, plastic dollar store buys with little red rubber holly berries glued to the tops, the glue hidden beneath satiny red ribbon.
They were atrocious, really. She’d be lucky if Hannibal didn’t toss her out for horrible choices in décor.
But she wasn’t exactly in possession of a lot of money at the moment, and most of her time out of Port Haven was spent at the mercy of Alana Bloom—who was very nice, but didn’t know when to leave her alone. Just to get a hold of the mistletoe, she had had to feign a need to use the bathroom while Alana ordered sandwiches in the mall’s food court, and darted into the nearby dollar store instead. There, she had stuffed her pockets and purse with as many two for one packets of the plastic stuff as she could and headed back to Alana’s endless probing and a turkey sub without having been missed.
The chair she was standing on to hang the last sprig rocked precariously, and she had visions of explaining to Hannibal exactly how she had gone crashing through his dinner table.
Luckily, it held, and she was able to climb down and examine her handwork from all corners of the room. Not only had she managed to set the table for two—and properly, at Hannibal’s tutelage and insistence—but she had also managed to hang fifteen of the gaudy sprigs of mistletoe from all corners of the room. They swung gently from the crystal chandelier overhead as well as the curio cabinet and the wall sconces.
There was absolutely no way that Hannibal wouldn’t get the hint.
And she had been hinting. For months. Abigail wanted Hannibal like she wanted air to breathe, and she had ever since she woke up to striking profile, bent over a book, one morning in Port Haven.
He had saved her; and she wanted nothing more than to be his, and to make him happy. For all she had seen, he lived a fairly lonely life, working out of his home office and spending what little downtime he had with Will Graham and Jack Crawford.
What he needed, Abigail thought, was a bright spot in his life—and she could be that brightness if Hannibal would let her. They shared so much; their secrets, their very lives were entangled. And maybe Hannibal was what she needed as well.
“Abigail?” She heard from the kitchen, Hannibal’s voice carrying softly into the dining room. His feet were whisper-soft against the cool marbled floors, and she probably would not even have heard him enter the room if he hadn’t called out her name.
“Are you finished in here or—” Hannibal cut himself off as he stood in the doorway, peering around at all of the mistletoe. Reaching up, he rested one forearm against the doorframe before turning that intense gaze upon her. “And what is this?”
“Christmas decorations,” Abigail said promptly, feeling her face grow a little warm. She had worked herself up the courage to carry through with her plan of hanging the mistletoe, but she hadn’t exactly thought much beyond that.
A negative reaction suddenly seemed like an insurmountable hurdle in her mind.
“They are…of an awfully similar mind,” Hannibal said wryly, and Abigail cleared her throat to cover a soft, anxious sound that had escaped past her lips.
Very suddenly, she had no idea what to say to him. Explaining the mistletoe seemed foolish now, and instead of even trying Abigail scuttled past him and made her way into the kitchen.
The delicious smells of cooking meat wafted out to meet her, and Abigail quickly busied herself with dicing the tomato that Hannibal had left. The butcher knife felt too big in her hands, sharp enough to slice through the flesh of the tomato with no resistance.
She didn’t look up when Hannibal entered the kitchen, instead focusing on the knife and the cutting board, trying her level best not to slice her own hand. Panic was rising up from the pit of her stomach, threatening to burst out as frantic explanation and a mess of words that would likely only make the situation worse.
“Abigail,” Hannibal said softly, standing next to her behind the counter now. He reached out and covered her hand with his own, stilling the rapid movement of the knife. “I won’t have you harm yourself in my kitchen because you were flustered and distracted while massacring that tomato.”
His tone was light, almost teasing, and it forced Abigail to take a shaky breath and look up at him.
Isn’t this what she had wanted? To finally have his attention? Not as a patient, or as a child, or even as a confidant—but as something else, something more.
Now that she seemed to finally have Hannibal’s attention, she wasn’t altogether sure what to do with it.
Wetting her lips, Abigail set the knife down and finally met Hannibal’s gaze. He looked as cool and calm as usual, no visible crack in his veneer. But there was something else there; a curiosity, flickering in his eyes before he put the mask back on.
“I just wanted—” She started, but was cut off by Hannibal moving closer, edging her backwards until the small of her back hit the marble countertop.
“You just wanted what, Abigail? For me to kiss you?”
Abigail’s heart beat fast in her chest, and she could feel a blush creeping up her neck and dusting over her cheeks. She had been caught out—she had wanted to be caught out—but now the whole idea felt childish and all she wanted was to pretend it never happened.
Hannibal seemed to sense her discomfort, and he made a soft tsking sound, reaching out and gripping her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her head up so she had to meet his gaze.
“You shouldn’t offer things you don’t mean,” he chided gently, letting his hand fall away.
Abigail floundered for a few seconds, missing the warmth of his skin against hers. This wasn’t a rejection; it didn’t feel like a rejection. And if she had gone through all the trouble to do this in the first place, why was she letting the opportunity slip through her fingers like so much sand?
“I did mean it,” Abigail croaked, and one corner of Hannibal’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
The countertop was digging painfully into her back, but she didn’t mind when Hannibal pressed her harder against it, towering over her now as they were chest to chest.
“If I kiss you,” he said, voice almost a whisper, “do you promise to take that horrible mistletoe down?”
Abigail felt her breath leave her, and all she could do was nod her head faintly. It was just as well, because before she could give a better response Hannibal had leaned down and pulled her into a kiss.
One broad palm cradled the back of her neck, and his warm lips slid over her own, careful but with obvious intent. Abigail noted idly that his breath tasted like the bitter wine he’d been drinking while cooking dinner, and she thought there was no better way to have your first taste of wine than on the lips of another.
Hannibal’s tongue was sliding over her lips, plying her mouth open and she obliged with a little gasp. This certainly was not her first kiss; but it was her most intense kiss. All the boys that she had ever dated in high school kissed like fish, all wetness and no finesse.
It was clear that they wanted to bypass the kissing, and get to the good part.
But with Hannibal, it felt different. With him, it felt like an art form, almost as if he was playing her like an instrument and working off of the sounds and emotions she produced.
It was as amazing as it was terrifying.
Abigail tried to kiss back adequately, not wanting to seem to Hannibal like she had no idea what she was doing when she had been the one to ask for this. But the way he was nipping sharply at her lips was making her stomach flutter and her knees go weak.
Murmuring softly, Abigail clutched tightly to the crisp white front of Hannibal’s apron, the material crinkling beneath her fingers. She could almost feel Hannibal’s amusement as she went pliant in his arms, his free hand coming to rest at her back and holding her close against him.
She let her head fall back a bit, and Hannibal’s deft fingers moved up to tangle in her long brown hair, tugging gently on the strands. He used it as leverage, holding her where he wanted her while he kissed his way into her mouth.
Truthfully, she was starting to feel a little trapped. But Hannibal’s lips on her own, his hands in her hair was too much to give up, and so she only clung harder and let herself get lost in it.
Just as she thought it couldn’t get much better, Hannibal’s lips shifted to kiss the corner of her mouth, and then trailed down her chin and over her throat.
“Oh,” she gasped, a little startled as the older man pressed soft kisses down her neck and over her collarbone. Abigail’s head fell back then, giving him more room to move, and she swore she could feel Hannibal smirking against her skin.
It would be just like him to remain in complete control while she lost herself.
Wondering what would happen when Hannibal reached the top row of buttons on her blouse, Abigail stretched out an arm to steady herself against the counter.
Unfortunately, the reach brought her hand in direct contact with a Swarovski crystal wine glass, knocking it clean off of the counter and onto the floor where it shattered with a loud tinkling sound.
The realization that she had just broken a piece of glassware that cost more than she cared to think about pulled her from Hannibal’s trance. Her hands went up, palms flattening against his chest to stop him, to get his attention.
Immediately, Hannibal let go of her—and she nearly collapsed to the floor, still feeling weak and flustered.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, eyes flicking to the glass shards littering the tiles, “I just—”
Hannibal gave her one of his wry little smiles again, reaching out to stroke a hand through her hair in hopes of silencing her.
“It’s only a wine glass,” he said, fingers slipping down her jaw so that he could make her look up at him again. “There are many like it in the world if I wish to replace it.”
Abigail allowed a small smile of her own, still leaning heavily against the countertop. The roast in the oven was starting to smell done, and the soft classical filtering over the speakers in the ceiling had started over again at the beginning of the album.
Things were ending; she knew that.
“I can at least clean this up,” Abigail said, pushing off of the counter and reaching for the dust pan between the trash and the refrigerator. Her lips still felt heated and kiss-swollen.
A soft touch to her shoulder stopped her, dust pan and brush in hand. “I’ll take care of this,” Hannibal said. “I thought we had a deal about that mistletoe?”
His eyebrows raised slightly, and Abigail suddenly felt empty.
She had nearly forgotten the mistletoe, and the playful deal they had made. Or at least, she thought it had been a playful deal. To Hannibal, it seemed to be the point of the kiss.
“Right,” Abigail said, voice quiet. “I’ll go take it down now.”
Hannibal turned away from her, tugging on a pair of oven mitts and moving towards the stove and the roast inside of it. He seemed completely unaffected, and something in Abigail’s chest twinged painfully.
“Oh, and Abigail?” Hannibal called over his shoulder, “please be careful with the chandelier. I don’t want to clean up anymore shattered crystal tonight.”