Winter Love

by Kennedy Fox

  “And why not?” I snapped, back to anger again. “Don’t I deserve an answer.”

  “You deserve a lot more than that.” Brandon tipped his head, a new sparkle in his bright blue eye. “Like this, Red. It’s for you.” He gestured toward the space around us. “Merry Christmas, baby.”

  It took me a solid few minutes to understand what he meant. As I did, I turned in a full circle, taking a good look at what he was asking me to see.

  It was modest. Nothing huge or ostentatious. Just a one-bedroom apartment with a bedroom and bath down a hallway, plus the living area we were standing in, which included a kitchenette and small island. Modest, yes, but pristine. The floors shone, the crown molding gleamed a bright white, all the furniture—a couch, a TV set, and a small desk against the bay window—was polished bright. The walls were blue—the same color of my room in the apartment I’d lived in briefly before we got married. The furniture was similar, albeit a more expensive version of the secondhand mid-century modern stuff I’d used to outfit that place. And in one corner, he had set up a small Christmas tree, lit with white lights that danced across the ceiling like stars.

  It was a version of myself I hadn’t seen in a very long time. A part of me that I missed sometime. The part that I’d made for myself before I’d married one of the richest men in Boston. The part I admittedly missed sometimes.

  I turned around to where Brandon was now leaning against the kitchen island, big arms crossed over his chest.

  “This is for me?” I asked. “What…what is all this? Why?”

  “Yes, it’s for you. And for me, when you want me here. But mainly for you.”

  Brandon toed the floor nervously with his sneaker. His South Boston was creeping out again—it didn’t usually do that unless he was emotional. But this emotion wasn’t anger.

  “I know I’m early, but I wanted to give it to you when the kids weren’t around,” he continued. “It didn’t seem fair, you know. You gave me one of the guesthouses for the lab, plus I have my office upstairs. You go to your offices every day, but that’s not the same as having your own space. Where you can get away from me and the kids when you need to recharge. Just be yourself.”

  My jaw dropped. “And you thought I needed an entire apartment for that?”

  Brandon shrugged. “You hate hotels. And especially since Luis came, you haven’t wanted to go all the way to the Cape for some time away. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how much you resent the lab.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I know I’ve been gone a lot—I had to oversee the renovations to this place. The building was kind of a mess, and I wanted it to be right. I didn’t realize you’d be so upset that I missed one Friday night.”

  I didn’t answer. I was still processing just exactly what he had done.

  “Did I…did I do okay?” he asked a few moments later. The nervousness on his handsome face was disarming. Even after seven years, he still worried he couldn’t make me happy.

  Well, you didn’t help much here, did you?

  “I wasn’t sure,” Brandon echoed my inner thoughts. “Sometimes you don’t like it when I go overboard—”

  “Brandon,” I interrupted gently.

  He looked up. “What, Red?”

  “It’s been seven years. I know you’re not trying to buy my love anymore.”

  “Baby, ten minutes ago, you thought I was having an affair. I have to cover my bases here. Not to mention figure out why the fuck you would ever think I would do something like that to you.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he had me there. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  Brandon chuckled, then sighed guiltily. “It’s okay. I have been gone a lot fixing this place up. And it’s not like I don’t have my moments too.”

  I snorted. He certainly did. But instead of firing back, I took a slow walk around the modest living area. “So this really is why you’ve been gone constantly? This is where your mind has been?”

  He nodded. “I bought the building and had it renovated. The other three apartments will be rented out, but this one’s for you, like I said. Do you…do you want it?”

  I opened my mouth to say no, but found I couldn’t. “I…I do…” I shook my head. “But honestly, I feel bad about that.”

  Brandon frowned. “Why?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t mean for you to think I don’t support you. I do, Brandon. I’m so proud of what you’re doing in your lab—”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And I know you gave up so much time so that I could get my practice going. I was gone a lot, and that couldn’t have been easy,” I rattled on. Now that I was going, it was hard to stop. Maybe that’s really what that pit in my stomach was about. Guilt, not suspicion.

  “But?” Brandon prodded.

  I crossed the room to look at the desk, ran a finger over its shining surface, then toyed with the modest diamond on one hand. This was the hard part.

  “Sometimes I feel like…that’s all I got. A hard beginning, then few years where our life prioritized my career instead of yours. But now we’re back to you. And I’m left to deal with my job, running our house, and often the kids on my own too.”

  Brandon opened and closed his mouth a few times. But then, he simply nodded. “Yeah, baby. I know. It’s why…” He gestured at the space around us. “Well, it’s why I did this. I felt like I’ve been failing you lately. And I wanted to make up for it.”

  “So you feel guilty too?” I whispered.

  “Baby, I feel guilty about every waking minute I can’t spend worshipping you. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. But, Red?”

  I looked up. “Yeah?”

  Brandon slipped a finger under my chin and tipped my face toward his. “Guilt aside…please tell me what I did that made you think I could even see other women besides you?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  I pulled my chin away, too shy to look at him. Here he was, looking like he walked out of GQ despite wearing nothing but torn jeans and stained cotton. I had tried to feel good about myself coming here, but my hair was still probably a mess after walking through the snow, and makeup or not, I probably still had pillow creases on my cheeks. What came to Brandon so easily was a lot of work for me.

  “I don’t exactly look twenty-six anymore, do I?” I admitted. “I look like a thirty-four-year-old mother of two who spend most of her days at the office, has more gray hairs than she’d like to count, and never gets enough sleep. Why wouldn’t you look at other women?”

  My voice cracked at the end. It was one thing to think such things. Saying them out loud was so much harder.

  What if thought the worst because of it? That I was crazy? Or pathetic?

  Or right?

  Brandon tugged me closer, then took my face between his big hands and stroked my cheekbones gently with his thumbs. “I’ve told you once before. I’ll tell you again. I’ll tell you every day for the rest of our lives if you need it. This face was and still is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my sad, sorry life. This face is my heart, Red. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to see anyone else.”

  A tear trickled down my cheek. I hadn’t realized how deeply these insecurities ran until I voiced them out loud. “Really?” My voice was a whisper, buried under an unearthed sob. “Truly.”

  Brandon sighed as he pressed his forehead to mine. “For always, Red.”

  And then, as gently as the way his big hands cradled my face, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my lips.

  We stayed like that for a few minutes, kissing slowly, gently, allowing our tongues and lips to say the words we couldn’t find otherwise. Months of slight worry and insecurity had built up, and now they were being released in a flood of relief and love. When finally I broke away to lay my head on my husband’s warm, broad chest, he rocked me back and forth for a few moments before his hands traveled back up to clasp my head.

  I tried to pull back. “What are you doing up there?”

  “Hold on,”
Brandon said as his fingers moved over my scalp. “I’m counting.”

  Chapter Five

  “Counting what?”

  “The gray hairs you insist you have.” Brandon pulled strands of my hair apart with his big, yet gentle fingers, like he was really looking. “One, two…oh, wait, that last one was just really light blonde.” He stood back with a smirk. “You must be talking about somewhere else.”

  And before I could stop him, he was yanking apart the buttons of my jeans, then shoving them and my underwear down to the floor while he sank swiftly to his knees.

  “Brandon!” I squealed. “What are you doing?”

  He had already pressed his nose between my legs, inhaling deeply in that way that was utterly animalistic

  “I told you,” he said. “I’m checking for gray hairs.”

  “I do not have gray hair down there!”

  His nose pressed against my clit, rubbing lightly before he sat back again. “You’re a liar, baby. You haven’t aged a day since I met you. None there. And definitely none down here. I do see something very interesting, though.”

  “Oh?” I asked. “And what is tha—oh!”

  His tongue swept up as he slipped one finger, then two inside me.

  “Brandon.” My head hung back, fingers threading into his thick, golden curls. “Brandon—oh! Someone…might…”

  I looked over his shoulder to the windows across the living room. The lights across the street were off, but that didn’t mean no one was there.

  To my mild regret, he did stop. “See us? Yeah, but baby, after all this time, I sort of wonder if you like it.”

  With a chuckle, he returned to his work, and soon I was too overcome to argue. After all, maybe he was right. I wasn’t totally opposed to the idea that someone out there might see how this man completely undid all my pretenses.

  “Oh…” I moaned as his fingers quickened along with his tongue. “Oh…God.”

  It was all I could manage. Braced against the desk, Brandon between my legs, I was limp and at his mercy as his tongue urged me higher and higher on an invisible plane of pleasure.

  And then the familiar but no less exciting cliff approached.

  “Brandon!” I shouted as I dropped off.

  My entire body seized.

  I began to shake.

  The stars beyond the windows of the apartment blurred.

  I was consumed with pleasure.

  It took minutes, maybe more, for me to return to earth again. By that point, Brandon had managed to removed my socks and boots too. He rubbed his cheek, roughened by the effects of a day’s growth, against my inner thigh, then lightly kissed the skin before standing.

  “The truth, Red?” he said as I slowly came down from my high while sagging against his chest. “I’ll think you’re the most beautiful thing on the planet even when we’re old and wrinkled. You don’t ever have to doubt that.”

  “That seems a bit unreasonable,” I said into his shirt, inhaling his lovely scent of almonds, mint, and man. “Even for you.”

  “Who ever said love had anything to do with reason?” Brandon asked as he reached down, grabbed between my legs, and gently lifted me to sit on the desktop. He pressed himself between my legs, so I could feel the strong, highly unreasonable desire through his jeans.

  And before I could answer, his lips closed over mine, taking my mouth with a kiss I hadn’t tasted in what felt like months. This wasn’t like the casual kisses on my way to work, or the ones I got just before we turned out the light. It was full of heat. Fury. Desire. Longing. The kiss that was always too much and at the same time shouted “not enough!” The same kiss that, seven years ago, made my toes curl and my gut clench with need in exactly the same way.

  “Brandon, I—” I croaked.

  “Hush, Red,” he said with a smirk before kissing me again. “And before you tell me not to ‘silence’ you, let me put this out there: why don’t we say things in other ways for a minute or two?”

  Oh, he knew me. He knew me better than anyone. Knew that even as an argument was bubbling to my lips, it would disappear the moment he stripped off his shirt and allowed me to feel the smooth planes of his chest and the abdominal muscles no man over forty had any right to. Knew that I’d lose my ability to think right when I felt him enter me, solid and warm. Knew I’d lose all conscious thought as his fingers slipped between us, one hand to my breast, the other to my clit.

  And I did again, as he proceeded through each step, just like I knew he would.

  “B-Brandon!” His name escaped my lips like a siren.

  “That’s it, baby,” he growled, now starting to pick up the pace. “You don’t need to be quiet in here. There’s no kids asleep. No family or housekeeper to overhear. Shout my fuckin’ name, Red. Let me hear it! Let all of Boston hear how bad you want me, baby.”

  And I did. I shouted my desire, again and again as he pummeled into me, finding my darkest spaces the way only this man had ever done.

  Seven years together.

  It could have been seven days.

  Slowly, I was learning the truth.

  Seven years isn’t long enough when it comes to your soulmate. A lifetime isn’t long enough for a connection like this.

  How could I have ever doubted it?

  “Holy fuck, Red!” Brandon growled as he thrust forward a few more times. His entire big body tensed, and mine, sensing his pending release, tightened around him. “Jesus, baby, that feels so fucking good!”

  “I’m close,” I managed before biting his shoulder. My fingers dug into his shoulders as I wrapped my legs around his trim waist. He was so deep. God, he always felt so, so good.

  He hissed as his hands dug into my thighs, holding me even closer. “Oh God, I’m about to come!”

  “Do it!” I ordered him, arching back, opening to him completely. “Please, Brandon!”

  And then we fell apart together, shaking atop the desk he had purchased for my desire, making the entire apartment glow with the remnants of our love. Brandon shouted his release while I vibrated mine, and we held each other as second then minutes passed. Knowing the only place we belonged was with each other. And that one day, maybe our two damaged souls would learn to accept it for what it was. Forever.

  Chapter Six

  Sometime later, I leaned into his chest, allowing me to fold against his big body. This was my happiest place, wrapped up in his warmth. The room came back to me, little by little, the warm glow of the lights seeping into my vision, contrasted so much by the cool glow of the snow outside, now piled on the sidewalks below and the tops of the buildings around Beacon Hill.

  I wasn’t cold, though. I was wrapped in the safest place I knew. Brandon’s arms. The cocoon of desire and safety only he could five me.

  “You didn’t have to do this, you know,” I murmured into the smatter of golden hair over his strong chest.

  “What, give you three orgasms on your new desk?”

  I looked up, setting my chin in the divot between his pectoral muscles. “No, that I quite liked. I meant you didn’t have to buy me an entire building. The orgasms would have been enough.”

  “I don’t know.” He kissed me lightly. “I’d get the moon for you if I could, you know.”

  I sighed. “But I don’t want the moon. I want you. I missed you the last few weeks, you know.”

  His eyes closed with regret. “I know. I’m sorry. I just…I wanted to surprise you, you know? I wanted it to be special.”

  I lay my cheek against his skin, luxuriating in the smooth, warm feel of him. “Do you think you’ll ever learn not to be so over the top?”

  Brandon chuckled as he pulled me tighter against him. “Probably not. But you deserve a space for yourself, Red. More than I do, considering how much you do for all of us.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, nuzzling close. “You are an incredible father and husband, Brandon.”

  “Except for the last few months?”

  I snorted and didn’t ans
wer that. Instead, I just said, “I think we both deserve the space to soar. Maybe we can do it together.”

  He tipped my head up so I was looking at him, and then blessed me with his smile—a thousand-watt expression that lit up any room, certainly more than the Christmas lights that twinkled all around us.

  “Sounds like a plan,” he murmured. “I do love to see you soar. I wouldn’t mind being next to you while you do it.”

  I smiled back. “Right back at you, Mr. Sterling.”

  The smile broadened into a grin. “Merry Christmas, Red.”

  I returned his kiss. “Merry Always.”

  Thank you so much for reading this exclusive story! I hope you loved this snippet from Brandon and Skylar’s life together. If you’d like to read more about them and how they fell in love, you can get the first book of the series free here.

  About the Author

  Nicole French is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance. She's also a hopeless romantic, low-key fashion addict, and total bookworm. When not writing, she is hanging out with her family, playing soccer with the rest of the thirty-plus crowd in Seattle, or going on dates with her husband. In her spare time, she likes to go running or practice the piano, but never seems to do either one of these things as much as she should.

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  Chapter One

  LILY MAY

  I hissed out a breath of relief as the lights came into view.

  I’d been driving for hours and hadn’t passed so much as a McDonald’s for the past two. I was tired, hungry, and it had started to snow. Seeing the town in the distance was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

  My latest release played over the radio as I drove slowly down Main Street, so I softly sang along as I took in the signs of the local businesses and searched for someplace to stop for the night.