by Whitley Cox
“Lass, just open it.” Man, he really was not breaking character, not for anything. “I swear I didn’t spend a quid on it.”
Letting out an exhale of frustration, she rolled her eyes and lifted the lid, peering inside.
Aurora’s eyes flew up to Zak’s face. His smile was the size of Jupiter. Then he started to dance. “It’s my dick in a box … ”
Aurora threw her head back and laughed harder than she’d ever laughed before. She released the lid and toppled back on to the bed, tears streaming down her cheeks as her sides began to ache and her whole body shook.
That’s when she noticed just how low the kilt was pulled down at the front, allowing for his cock to spring out and be tucked inside the box. His red, neatly trimmed pubic hair was peeking out over the top of the kilt and box. She hadn’t noticed it before because well, the man had rippling muscles everywhere and gorgeous tattoos, she’d been a bit distracted. She glanced back up at him, and he was still jiving, humming the tune to the Saturday Night Live parody song “Dick in a Box.”
His eyes were closed, his mouth bunched and his fists tight as he unapologetically got down to the beat.
Could this man get any more amazing?
She hadn’t laughed like that in a while—it felt good.
And no man she’d ever dated had made her laugh like that, played games or did silly pranks and stunts the way Zak did. He took life seriously when it mattered, but otherwise he was just a big kid. And she loved that about him.
He stopped dancing and opened his eyes. “Do you like it, lass?” he asked, the brogue still strong. “I made it myself … well … grew it myself.”
Aurora snorted and sat up, grabbing the lip of the box and tugging, forcing him to climb on to the bed. “I love it,” she said, gently pulling the box off him. “It’s the best Christmas gift I’ve ever received. How did you know it was exactly what I wanted?”
He flashed her another wide and sexy grin. “Intercepted your letter to Santa.” He tucked himself back beneath the kilt and pulled it up. Though the tent he created was unmistakable.
God, he looked good in that kilt. Like a sexy Highland warrior with all his tattoos and rippling muscles. He just needed a swath of blue paint across his face and she’d probably spontaneously orgasm right then and there.
She reached beneath the kilt and took his hard length in her palm, stroking him. He cupped the back of her head. “Take me in your mouth, lass. That’s my Christmas wish, then I’ll give you yours … over and over and over again.”
She smiled up at him, flicked her tongue out and licked off the bead of precum from the crown of his cock. “With pleasure.”
They were both breathing heavy and Aurora’s leg was cramping by the time Zak rolled off her. He removed the condom, tied it and quickly nipped off to the bathroom to dispose of it. Seconds later, he was crawling into bed beside her and scooping her into his arms.
He kissed the top of her head as she lay next to him, cradled against the hard length of his body, her hand over his heart, head on his shoulder.
“Can I ask you something?” she said, glancing up at him. “It’s about Aiden.”
He grunted, nodding once. “Did he say something to you?”
“Yeah.” But then she quickly shook her head. “I mean he did, but it wasn’t anything offensive or anything. Just something that made me wonder a few things.”
“What did he say?”
“He made me promise that I wouldn’t hurt you. He said that his mom really hurt you and that he doesn’t want to see you like that again. Can I ask what happened? Why a ten-year-old knows so much?”
Zak didn’t strike her as the type of dad who filled his kids in on the details of his divorce. That was not something the children should be privy to—even though she saw it all the time in her job.
Zak let out a long sigh, his chest expanding as he inhaled again, held his breath, then released it once more. “Things in my marriage to Loni were a little strained. I was working a lot trying to get my business up to a new level. We were expanding the gym to its second location and siting places for its third. I was branching into merchandise and on-site dietitians. I was working a lot. I was trying to make a better life for my family. Loni wanted the big house in the ritzy neighborhood, so even though I wanted to wait a few more years until the business was in a better place, I gave in, and we bought this house and moved here. Which meant that the pressure was on for me to expand the business. I needed to pay the mortgage.”
“That must have been really stressful for you,” she said.
He nodded. “It was. But my kids were happy. They go to a really great school. They want for nothing. And my wife had a really great life too—or so I thought. I rarely said no to her. Figured she was home with the kids, taking care of the house and of our family—the least I could do was provide for them but let her take care of the rest. She’d quit her job as an interior designer to be a full-time mom, so I made sure she was comfortable. Just like the kids, she wanted for nothing.”
“But that wasn’t enough, was it?”
God, she could see where this was going.
“Apparently,” he said stiffly. “It was a Tuesday afternoon in the summer. I was home with Tia helping her plant some seeds for her garden, and Loni was off at her book club, or so she said. Aiden asked if he could go a few doors down to the neighbors’ and play in his friend’s new backyard treehouse. It was July, hot, and we’re longtime friends with the neighbors, so I saw no problem with it.”
Apprehension tingled across Aurora’s limbs. What was Zak going to say next? What did Aiden see? What did he hear? Was this why Aiden had warned her not to hurt Zak, because he’d witnessed his mother do something horrible?
“It wasn’t until dinner that night that Loni’s true whereabouts were revealed,” he went on. “Aiden simply asked her why she was naked wandering around Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe’s bedroom and why Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe were naked too. Then he asked who the other people were and why they were naked too. He saw her from the treehouse. She was at the neighbor’s house behind the house where Aiden was playing.”
Aurora’s hand flew to her mouth.
“His question was innocent. No accusation in his tone, just simple curiosity. We’ve always been very open and accepting of the human body in our house. Nakedness is normal. But they also know that it’s inappropriate to be naked in someone else’s house unless you’re having a bath or shower or something. The human body is beautiful in all forms, but there are certain times and places when you need to keep your private parts covered. My kids know that. I’ve drilled that shit into their heads since before they could walk.” He glanced down at her. “I’m crazy protective of them, if you haven’t already noticed?”
She blinked up at him and smiled. “I noticed, and I think it’s wonderful.”
He squeezed her tighter against him, then continued, “Aiden just didn’t understand why his mother was naked in the neighbor’s bedroom in the middle of the day.”
“An understandable conundrum for a, what, nine-year-old boy?”
He nodded. “Yeah, he was almost nine at the time. Kid never should have seen that shit.”
“He discovered his mother was having an affair.” She shook her head. “That’s terrible.”
“He discovered his mother was having an orgy, actually. She belongs to a swingers’ club. And had for nearly a year. That’s where she met Craig. That motherfucker helped end my marriage. They’re probably up on the mountain in that fucking cabin right now with every hole in her body filled by a different guy.” He made a disgusted face and shook his head. “She brought up a threesome with me once, and I shot it right down. I’ll get as kinky as they come in bed, but I don’t fucking share. Not with a man, not with a woman. When you’re my woman, you’re mine and only mine.”
Everything inside Aurora tightened. Her breasts suddenly ached, and her pussy throbbed.
When you’re my woman, you’re mine and only mine.
&nb
sp; Yes, please.
“It was after Aiden asked her that I began to put the pieces together. I’d been oblivious or ignorant or too caught up in building my business to really take notice. I mean I knew she was gone a lot, claimed she was reasserting her independence, finding herself again now that the kids were in school. Here I thought she was taking a pottery class, going to hot yoga, taking part in a book club. Meanwhile, she was getting stuffed by half the fucking neighbors.”
Aurora’s fingers clenched over his chest, her nails digging slight half-moons into his skin. He didn’t seem to mind. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, kissing his shoulder. “And poor Aiden. Did you ever tell him what she was really doing?”
He shook his head. “Not really. But he figured out enough. He knows that his mother was lying to me and that it hurt me and it broke up our family. I didn’t tell him that she was the one who broke up the family. I’d never blame his mother to his face or where he could hear. But he’s a smart kid. He figured it out.”
“He’s a brilliant kid. And he loves you so much.” She released her fingernails from his pec and kissed the spot where she’d left marks. “I’m really sorry.”
“I should have known though, should have paid more attention. She was a liar from the beginning. Our whole relationship, whole family was built on a lie.” His fists bunched. “I fucking hate liars. Hate them. I’ve had so many of them in my life. Never again.”
She straightened the bedsheets at her waist with long, nervous strokes as a pit the size of a watermelon opened up in her belly.
“Aiden was created out of a lie.” He ran his hand over his face. “My son was born because she’d lied to me. Loni lied about being on the pill, which was why Aiden was conceived only three months after we started dating. She wanted to trap me. I was only twenty-four, had just lost my wrestling scholarship and didn’t know what I was going to do. I was getting my degree in kinesiology, but after an injury, I lost my scholarship. I lost my drive. I didn’t want to be up to my neck in student loans with a baby on the way, so I made the decision to quit college and get my personal training certification instead. I took business classes at night and then eventually made enough money to buy a hole-in-the-wall gym in the bad part of town, where I trained MMA fighters and fitness competitors.”
“That’s amazing. And from there your success just skyrocketed?”
“I guess you could say that. But Loni was never content. Always wanted more. I thought for a while she was trying to seduce one or two of the guys I trained, but they told me they’d never touch my woman and gave me their word, so I let her flirtations slide. I shouldn’t have though, should have checked in more, made sure she was happy. Tried to fix things if she wasn’t.”
“No marriage is perfect,” she whispered. “No relationship is perfect.”
She could attest to that—and then some.
“But what she did was wrong,” she added. “Even if you were a workaholic, it wasn’t your fault she cheated.”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “I know. Still feels like I could have done more though. She lied about waiting to introduce the kids to Craig, too. She didn’t fucking wait. She—” He glanced down at her when she’d re-dug her nails into him. His kissably soft lips dipped into a deep frown. His eyebrows followed suit. “I’m sorry. This is different. You—us, it all took me by surprise. Had we done things the conventional way, I would have waited a while before you met the kids.”
She released her nails again, then flopped back against the pillows. “I understand, and I wasn’t upset. Is your ex going to give you a hard time for introducing me to your kids so soon?”
He lifted one shoulder and made a face that said probably. “She might. I won’t lie to her if she asks about how we met or why you met the kids so early.” He held up a hand. His index and middle fingers were crossed. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t ask.”
A lie of omission.
Aurora was getting good at those.
Her stomach rolled over, and she pushed down the taste of bile.
“You have to admit though,” she said, taking a deep breath to steady herself, “this is kind of surreal. I mean I just met you, and now I’ve met your kids and am spending Christmas with you. It’s all so backward.”
“Only if we choose it to be. I mean, are you wanting to call it quits after tomorrow?” He rolled over and faced her, propping himself up on his elbow. “We never really discussed a timeline for … us.”
Us.
She glanced down between them, and he grabbed her hand. “Is there an us? Or is there just a Christmas we’ll never forget?”
“Can’t we have both?” he asked, running his big, strong thumb over the back of her knuckles. “I really like you, Aurora … Rory, and I don’t want this to just be a Christmas fling. I haven’t been with anybody since Loni because I wasn’t ready. I carried a lot of anger and knew that it wasn’t healthy to start a new relationship so pissed off with my ex. But I’m in a good place right now, and I really like you.”
And I’m in love with you.
“Will you tell me about your brother?” he asked, his deep blue eyes boring past the façade that she was carefully constructing around her and seeing right down to what made her tick—which was family, love and Zak.
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Brecken was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when he was twenty-three. He had episodes, but not many. But when he did have them, they were severe. He went on medication right away, and that seemed to help. Or so we thought. It was the summer between my second and third year of law school. I was busy summering, as they call it. Working my nose to the grindstone for a legal clinic in Seattle, so I wasn’t able to make it home for a visit since the summer before. He called me one afternoon, wanting to talk, but I was too caught up with work to really give him the time of day. I ended the call after only a few minutes.” Her words became strangled in her throat. “Had I known he was calling to ask for help, I never would have … ”
God, she didn’t want to ruin the moment with heartache and painful memories. Being with Zak made her have hope for the future—something she’d been far too long without—and even if their pipe dream of turning this into something more fizzled out, she wanted to store this moment in her memory bank for eternity.
“He walked out into the lake by our house and never resurfaced. They found his body a few days later.”
Zak made a deep, pained noise in his throat.
A knuckle came under her chin. “I hope you don’t blame yourself.”
“But I do,” she whispered, blinking back warm tears. “I was so busy with work that I didn’t have time for my own brother. Maybe if I’d taken just an extra five minutes to talk to my brother, I would have been able to prevent him from … ” She wiped at a tear that had slipped down her cheek. “I could have convinced him to get some help.”
He shook his head. “No. It’s not your fault. And I bet your brother would say the same thing.”
Brecken most definitely would, because he was that kind of a selfless, extraordinary person. Didn’t mean she still didn’t wish she could have given him more of herself, more of her time—maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe her dad never would have had his heart attack and instead all four of them would be putting the angel on the tree and baby Jesus in the manger this evening back in New Hampshire.
But then you never would have met Zak.
As much as it gutted her to think such a thing, it was a small price to pay for having her brother back. But it was one she’d hope Zak would also choose if in her shoes.
For a long time, anger had been her only emotion. She was angry with her brother. Angry with their country’s broken medical system and the way mental health was swept under the rug as if it wasn’t a real problem and the people afflicted just needed to get outside and go for a run.
Most of all, though, she’d been angry with herself. Still was.
“Promise me something,” Zak said, his voice soft and gent
le.
She turned to face him, sniffling. “Hmm?”
“Promise me that you won’t continue to beat yourself up over this. I know it’s going to take time, but know that it wasn’t your fault. Nobody blames you but you, and you’re wrong.”
Pain funneled into her heart. How did he already understand her so well? They’d only known each other for a few days, and yet he seemed to just get her the way no man ever had.
She squeezed her eyes shut, causing another tear to drip down her cheek. She needed to calm her heart, calm her breathing and allow the thundering thoughts and harsh words of blame and criticism in her head to fade away.
“You’re thinking awfully hard there, lass,” he purred, the brogue back. “Care to share?”
She shook her head and wiped the tears out from beneath her eyes. “It’s nothing. Just reminding myself of how lucky I was to be rescued in the snowstorm by such a capable, generous and sexy man. I could still be stuck out there if it wasn’t for you.”
“I’m the lucky one,” he purred, rolling on top of her. His smile was carefree, but there was a storm behind his eyes. They’d gotten into some pretty heavy stuff in just a few days. Much like her, he probably had a lot on his mind. “I don’t want what’s starting between us to end when the tree comes down and the snow melts.” His mouth was now less than an inch above hers.
“This all feels like a dream,” she whispered.
“Better than a nightmare.” His voice now a husky whisper.
“I keep pinching myself hoping that I won’t suddenly wake up and be stranded in my car buried by a mound of snow, freezing to death all alone on Christmas.”
“I’d never let that happen.”
She chuckled beneath him. “My hero.”
“Damn straight,” he said with a growl, grinding his pelvis against her, pulling her once again from her dark thoughts and into his dirty ones. “Do I need to put the kilt back on to convince you?”
She made sure her smile was brighter than the sun.
