by SJ McCoy
“Can we explore?” Roxy asked.
“Of course, we can. That’s what we’re here for, and to get that hot chocolate.”
He drove the length of Main without finding a space and ended up two blocks over. Roxy took his hand as they walked back. “This is so cool. I didn’t even know about this place.”
“And you’ve lived at the lake for how long? Haven’t you explored the area at all?”
She shrugged. “Not really. I was getting to know Summer Lake itself at first; there’s so much to do there. I’ve thought about getting out to see what else is out here, but I haven’t had much time—or anyone to go with. It’s hard to coordinate weekends off with the girls. We all usually work at least one day.”
He smiled. “Now you have someone to explore with. There are a lot of cool towns around here. We should make a list and go see them all.”
She stopped walking and reached up to plant a kiss on his lips.
“What was that for?” he asked with a grin.
“Just for being so wonderful. I’ve kind of wished I had a boyfriend. I’ve wished that I could get out and get to know the area. You’re granting all my wishes.”
He laughed. “You make me sound like a fairy.”
“Hmm. No. I can’t see you in a sparkly outfit with a wand.”
“I promise you; you won’t ever see that.”
When they got back on Main, Roxy looked around like a kid in a candy store. “It’s so pretty! Look at all the lights strung across the road, and all the storefronts are decorated. Oh, Logan, I love it!”
His heart raced. For a moment there he’d imagined that her last word was you. The disappointment that settled in his stomach when he realized his mistake only served to remind him how much he was hoping to hear that—to know that she felt the same way he did.
“Isn’t it great?” He hoped she couldn’t hear the disappointment in his voice. He needn’t have worried; she was dragging him toward a store where there was a Christmas tree set up in the window complete with twinkling lights and a line of dancing elves.
She laughed. “Aww, look. The little elves are so cute.”
He smiled through pursed lips. He could see her point, but he could also see that he was in for a long afternoon.
~ ~ ~
“What can I get you?”
Roxy looked up at the server with a smile. “I’ll take an extra-large hot chocolate with whipped cream and candy cane.”
Logan looked up from his menu and raised an eyebrow.
“And for you?”
“Just a straight hot chocolate.”
“Give him the whipped cream and candy cane, too,” said Roxy.
The girl smiled and turned to leave.
Logan laughed. “How do you know that I even like candy canes and whipped cream? I could be allergic to them for all you know.”
“You’re not, though, are you? Everyone loves candy canes, and for all the quips you’ve made about wanting to bring whipped cream into the bedroom, I know you must like it.”
“Now there’s an idea. We should pick up a can of cream on the way back. I can tie you to that bed and eat cream off you.”
Roxy felt the heat in her cheeks. She liked the sound of that. She glanced around, wondering if anyone had heard what he said. “That sounds like fun.”
“It will be.” He smiled. “Though I’m not sure you’ll think it’s as fun as this afternoon has been. I didn’t know you were such a Christmas freak.” He nodded toward the bags around her feet.
“I can’t help it. I love it. All the decorations and the music and the movies—”
He groaned.
“What’s wrong?”
“Are you telling me that I’m going to have to watch Christmas movies for the next several weeks?”
She shrugged. “You don’t have to.”
“I think I do. See, I was planning to ask you if you’re going to stay?”
She nodded happily. “I’d love to. It’ll be our first Christmas together. We can get a tree and bake cookies and …” Suddenly, she realized what she was doing and stopped short. She didn’t want to scare him by painting a scene of happy domesticity that might scare him. She met his gaze. “Sorry, I …”
He grinned and reached across the table for her hand. “Don’t be sorry. It sounds wonderful. I’ll put up with the sappy Christmas music if I get to share Christmas with you.”
“Aww,” she squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
The server came back and set two mugs down in front of them.
Logan looked at his. It was a huge mug with a tower of whipped cream on top with candy canes hooked all around the rim. He looked up at Roxy. “Seriously?”
“Yep!” She pulled a candy cane out of her own and scooped up some whipped cream with it before offering it to him.
He grinned and licked the cream off it. “Mm. That is good.”
She laughed. “I told you.” She watched as he pulled two of the canes from his own mug. “No, don’t just eat them, you need to let them melt into the chocolate, so you get all the flavors together.”
“I wasn’t going to eat them.” He carefully put the two canes on top of her whipped cream, arranged in the shape of a heart. “I just wanted you to know.” He pointed at his eye, then at the candy cane heart and then at her.
Roxy felt tears well up in her eyes and reached for his hand again. She’d been planning to tell him this weekend. She’d wanted to find the perfect moment—maybe in bed, or in front of the fire, or looking out at that amazing view. But he’d chosen the moment for her. She couldn’t let it go by. “I love you, too, Logan.”
His eyes widened, and he gripped her hand tightly as a big smile spread across his face. “You do?”
“I do. I didn’t know when to tell you—or how—but I can’t wait any longer. I’ve gone and fallen in love with you.”
He got up and leaned across the table to plant a kiss on her lips. “I love you with all my heart, Rox. You’re my person.”
She let out a little sound that was half laugh half cry as tears welled up again. “I’m your person?”
“Yeah. They say there’s someone for everyone. I never bought into that. I do now. You’re it for me.”
She smiled through the tears that were threatening to spill down her cheeks. “I thought I’d find my person someday, but I never thought that you’d be him—that you’d want to be.”
“I want to be. Today, tomorrow and always.”
“Aww.” She squeezed his hand tighter. “You’re a romantic at heart, aren’t you?”
He swaggered his shoulders. “I never thought I was, but you seem to bring it out in me.”
~ ~ ~
It was almost dark by the time they’d finished wandering through the stores. Logan would have happily been done after their hot chocolate break, but on their way back to the truck, Roxy had pointed out a souvenir Christmas decoration made in the shape of a candy cane heart in a store window. Remembering how good it had felt when she told him that he was a romantic at heart, he’d gone inside and bought it.
“It’ll go on our tree,” he’d told her with a smile.
She hadn’t replied, but the smile on her face had been worth the extra hour that they’d spent browsing the stores again afterward. He’d sneakily picked up a leaflet in the café when he’d gone in to pay. He’d thought he might surprise her with it tomorrow, but now that it was dark, he decided that it’d be better to do it tonight. She loved the lights, just as he’d expected.
Once they’d piled all the bags into the back of the cab, she opened the passenger door to get in.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She gave him a puzzled look. “I thought we were going back.”
“Not yet. There’s one more thing I want to check out.” He held his hand out to her. “Do you want to see?”
She laughed. “Of course, I do! You know how much I’m loving this.”
He kept his fingers crossed in his pocket as they w
alked to the end of the block and then turned right away from Main Street.
“Where are we going?”
“Wait and see.”
A wave of relief rushed through him when they reached the square in front of the town hall. There was an archway of Christmas lights and lined up beyond it were three horse-drawn carriages that were also adorned with lights.
Roxy looked up at him. “Can we?!”
He laughed. “That’s why we’re here.”
She was as eager as a small child dragging him toward them. “Come on. Those people look like they’re going over there, too. I want to get the white horse – the first one.”
Logan laughed as he hurried after her.
Once they were seated in the carriage with a blanket over their laps, he put his arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss on her lips.
“This is so perfect. Thank you. I can’t believe we’re doing this. I’ve always wanted to go on a sleigh ride.”
He laughed. “It’s not quite a sleigh ride—”
She put a finger to his lips. “Don’t spoil it. To me, it’s a sleigh ride.”
“Okay. Whatever you say.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I say this is the most magical day of my life. I’m with my hot sexy boyfriend, we’re planning our first Christmas together, and he’s taking me on a sleigh ride.”
He grinned, loving her enthusiasm about it all, and most of all, loving the way she said their first Christmas together, as if she, too, were starting to believe in their future.
The horses turned onto Main Street, and Roxy looked all around, taking in the lights and the music that was now playing from somewhere. She grinned at him. “You know, when I lived in the city, I used to daydream about going away for Christmas, going somewhere like this, some small town where Christmas is still magical. In the city, it’s all about the bottom line. How much merchandise can they shift in the month of December, or these days it starts as soon as Halloween is over.”
Logan didn’t like to say that the business owners here didn’t go to all this effort purely out of a sense of community. They were liking turning a nice profit, too.
She made a face at him as if she’d read his mind. “I know! But what I’m saying is that this is my ideal, my too good to be true—except it is true, you made it come true for me. “I love you, Logan.”
He closed his arms around her and claimed her mouth in a kiss. “I love you. Rox,” he murmured when he finally lifted his head.
“Can’t we just stay here?” asked Roxy when they were getting ready to leave the cabin on Sunday. “I don’t want to go back to work. I want to stay and pretend it’s Christmas until it really is Christmas.”
Logan laughed. “Sorry. I know you think it’s magical here, but the magic runs out in about an hour. We have to check out by two.”
She sighed. “I know. I just don’t want it to end.”
“We’ll come back. I’ll check the availability as soon as we get home and we can book for whenever you can get off work.”
She nodded. “I hope we can. I’d like to come back before Christmas.”
He laughed and looked at all the shopping bags from yesterday that were piled up with their luggage, waiting to be taken out to the truck. “What you don’t think you bought enough?”
“I’ll buy more if we do come, but it’s not that. This place feels special to me now.”
He hugged her to him. “It feels special to me, too.” He knew it always would. It was the place where she first told him that she loved him. “We should make it a tradition that we come here every year in the run up to Christmas.”
She looked up at him, and for a moment, he worried that he shouldn’t have said that, but she smiled. “I think we should. I’ll drive you nuts with Christmas shopping and then make it up to you in that fourposter bed afterward, just like last night.”
He held her a little tighter. “If you’re promising me repeat performances of last night, we can come here every weekend!”
She laughed. “What time is it?”
He checked his watch. “Ten after one.”
She waggled her eyebrows. “Do you want a repeat before we leave?”
His cock sprang to attention at the thought. Part of him knew he should say no, but that part was weak. They could still check out on time. He took hold of her hand and led her toward the stairs. “I’ll never say no to that.”
When they reached the bedroom, she put a hand to his shoulder and pushed him so that he sat down on the bed. He pulled his shirt up and off and started to unfasten his jeans, but his hands forgot what they were doing and fell still in his lap as he watched her unfasten her top and then reach around to unhook her bra. He couldn’t wait for her breasts to be free, out for him to see and to touch. They really were the perfect breasts as far as he was concerned. He’d done everything he could to convince her of that—everything except remind her that he’d had plenty to compare them to.
~ ~ ~
Roxy loved the way he watched her. She’d grown in confidence since that first time he’d made love to her. She didn’t wait for him to undress her anymore. She knew he loved to watch her undress herself.
As soon as she unfastened her bra, his gaze was fixed on her breasts, and she doubted it would leave them, no matter what else she did. She let the bra fall to the floor and smiled to herself as she caressed her nipples with her hands.
A low groan escaped his lips. “I want to tell you that I should be the one doing that, but—man!—watching you is almost as good.”
“Only almost?” She circled her nipple with her thumb and shuddered, both from the way it felt and the lust in his eyes as he watched.
He groaned again. “I dunno, Rox. Come here. Maybe you should touch one, and I’ll have the other.”
She went to the bed and kneeled over him, straddling him and loving the feel of rough denim brushing between her thighs. She leaned over him, dangling one breast in front of his face. “Like this?”
She gasped as he took her in his mouth and sucked hard. Electric currents went zapping from his lips through her breast all the way to the place between her legs where his hard cock was now pressing.
She let her head fall back and let him take charge of both breasts, his hands and lips working her into a frenzy. She started to rock in his lap, still enjoying the feel of the denim but starting to need to remove it.
She stopped when his hands stilled. He’d had one on each breast, but now he put them both on her left and started to touch in a way that felt more clinical than sexual.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. I just felt something.”
She laughed. “I was feeling something, too.” She rocked her hips again. “Let’s get back to it.”
“Hold on a minute, Rox … there.”
He pressed his finger against the side of her breast, and she winced. “Ouch!” That wasn’t nice.”
He looked up at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It didn’t hurt. It’s just tender. That’s not the kind of touching we’re doing here.”
He was frowning. “Have you felt that before?”
“No.” She blew out a sigh. She didn’t want to examine the imperfections of her body right now. She’d rather explore the perfection of his.
“Seriously, Rox.” He took hold of her hand and placed it over the spot where he’d touched. “See if you can feel it.”
She half-heartedly pressed around, then shook her head. “Nope. But that doesn’t surprise me. Breasts are made up of fatty tissue. They’re not going to be perfectly smooth.”
He slid her off his lap, looking serious. “I’m not talking about them not being smooth. I’m worried about what that might be.”
“It’s nothing.” She frowned. “Well, it’s a mood killer, I’ll say that.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t mean to ruin the moment, but that scares me.”
> “It shouldn’t. It’s nothing.”
“How do you know that?”
She shrugged and touched the area again, starting to wonder if he might be right. Her fingers found a small hard lump, and she frowned. “Breast tissue is lumpy.” She said—telling herself as much as him.
“But now you can feel it, and you’re not so sure yourself, are you?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Will you promise me you’ll go to the doctor tomorrow and get it checked out?”
“I promise I’ll go, but it won’t be tomorrow. I’m at work. I’ll call and see when I can get an appointment.”
He scowled. “If you don’t make an appointment, I’ll make one for you.”
She stared at him indignantly and opened her mouth to ask what right he thought he had, but it hit her before she spoke. He believed he had the right because he cared.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Hey! Don’t be scared. I’m sure it’ll turn out to be nothing.”
She shook her head as he wrapped his arm around her. “The tears aren’t about being scared—I just understood how much you care.”
He nodded solemnly. “I told you, Rox. I love you. I want to take care of you. In every way.”
She sniffed and got up. She collected her top and bra from the floor and started to put them back on.
He pulled his shirt back on and gave her a rueful smile. “And you thought I was the kind of guy who was just looking to get laid.”
“Yeah. In this one instance, I wish I was right.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. That’s more important, though.” He was staring at her breasts again, but this time instead of lust, his eyes were filled with concern.
Chapter Eighteen
“Promise you’ll call me after you’ve made your doctor’s appointment; let me know when it is?”
“Only if you promise me that you’ll stop worrying about it. I’m sure it’s nothing.” Roxy leaned across the console and pecked his lips.
“If it’s nothing, then there’s no reason for you to put off getting it checked out, is there?”
She nodded reluctantly. “Okay, okay. I’ll do it. I’m just mad at the stupid lump. I hate that it brought our lovely weekend to such an abrupt end.”
