by Marie Force
“Gavin,” she said with a sigh. “Please don’t walk away from me again.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“I love you, too. I’ve loved you for so long I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love you.” Ella would never forget the way he looked at her as he kissed her again and again and again.
They began to pull at clothes, equally frantic in their efforts to bare each other.
The flannel pajama pants he’d admired ended up tangled around her ankles. His jeans were pushed down only far enough to free his cock, her T-shirt up only high enough to reveal her breasts.
This was madness, she thought. Utter madness. And love. Gavin Guthrie loved her. In light of that amazing revelation, all the pain and agony of the last few months fell away into the nothingness of the past. What did it matter now that they had this, now that they had each other? He plunged into her, his fingers digging into her shoulder and hip as he held her in place for his fierce possession.
“God, Ella . . . You feel so good. So hot and tight.” He swooped down on her mouth, his tongue mimicking the strokes of his cock as his chest hair abraded her nipples.
It was too much. It was not enough. It was everything she’d always known it would be but so much more, too. He’d never been like this before, unleashed and unrestrained, and she loved it. She loved him. How freeing it was to be able to admit that to herself and him, too.
He broke the kiss and shifted his focus to her nipple, sucking and tugging and licking while she held on tight to his hair, as if she could control the uncontrollable.
“Ahh, Ella. Ella, Ella, Ella . . . I love you so much.”
His words triggered the release that had been building from the moment he brushed his lips over her knuckles. She came so hard she saw stars.
“Oh Christ . . . Ella . . .” Groaning loudly, he rode her orgasm into his own, surging into her repeatedly until he dropped, spent, on top of her. “Wow.”
“Mmm, wow indeed.” She ran her fingers through the damp strands of his hair, loving everything about him, even when he was sweaty. That thought made her giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking that I even love your sweat.”
“That’s sexy, babe.”
“It is. I love that I made you sweaty.”
“You make me very sweaty, among other things.” He ran his hand over her hip, up to her ribs, stopping to cup her breast. “Are we going to be okay, Ella? Are we going to be able to make this work?”
“As long as you stay with me rather than running away when things get hard.”
“I will. I’m here to stay.”
“Then we’re going to be just fine.”
They slept in the next morning and stopped at Megan’s diner for breakfast before heading to their afternoon shift at the Christmas tree farm. As they got out of Gavin’s truck, Landon walked over to greet them. He wore his usual seasonal uniform of heavy coveralls, a skullcap and leather gloves. His face was red and ruddy from the hours spent outside in the cold. He shook hands with Gavin.
“Thanks a lot for coming to help,” Landon said.
“My pleasure.”
“I’m not sure we can afford a professional tree cutter of your caliber,” Landon said with a teasing smile.
“I’ll give you the friends and family rate.” Gavin paused before he added, “Thanks for what you did last night, Landon. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
“You didn’t,” Landon said, his amiable expression hardening. “He did, and we don’t want his kind around here. Personally, I can’t believe anyone in this town would say such a thing to you, knowing who you lost over there.”
“Means a lot to me. Thanks again.”
Ella rested her hand on Gavin’s back, offering her support.
He smiled at her and put his arm around her. “Is this where we go our separate ways?”
“Yep,” she said. “I’ll be over there.” Ella pointed to the shack where her mother and Aunt Hannah were doling out hot chocolate, cider and donuts to families who’d come to tag their Christmas trees. By next weekend, they’d be returning to cut them down and take them home.
“Come on, Gavin,” Landon said. “I’ve got a whole bunch of cutting for you to do.” In addition to the tag-and-cut program, the Stillman Family Christmas Tree Farm supplied trees to retailers all over the state and the rest of New England.
“I love to cut,” Gavin said. Before he let Landon lead him away, he kissed Ella square on the lips in front of her brother, her mother, her aunt and anyone else who might’ve been looking. “Save some hot chocolate for me.”
“Oh, um, I will.”
He smiled at her before he walked away, whistling as he went.
Ella watched him go, her lips tingling from the kiss. In four hours, they could make their escape and return to his place until family dinnertime tomorrow. She couldn’t wait to be alone with him again. Turning to head for the shack that housed the concessions and cash register, Ella found her mother and aunt watching her.
“What?” she asked them.
“You,” Hannah said. “Kissing Gavin Guthrie in public all of a sudden.”
“It’s certainly not all of a sudden.” Ella stepped into the small wooden structure, where the scent of chocolate and cider mixed with the pervasive fragrance of Christmas coming from the thousands of trees on the property. Ella loved it here. She always had.
“Is that right?” Hannah asked.
“Uh-huh,” Ella said.
“You approve of this?” Hannah asked her sister.
“Hardly matters if I do,” Molly said. “Ella is a grown woman who knows her own heart. But for what it’s worth, I think the world of Gavin, just like I thought the world of his brother.”
“He sure is easy on the eyes,” Hannah said, making them all laugh.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Ella said with a dirty wink.
“Oh my ears!” Hannah said, covering them while Ella laughed again. “On that note, I’m outta here since my relief has arrived.” She kissed Ella’s cheek. “I’m happy for you, Ella. I hope it works out for you two.”
“Thank you, Auntie.”
“I’ll talk to you this week,” Hannah said to Molly.
“Yes, you will.”
After Hannah left, Ella rang up a young family that had tagged a tree and bought a wreath, hot chocolate and donuts. The kids, who were maybe five and seven, were bundled up and bursting with Christmas excitement. Thanks to her work at the store and full immersion in the season, Ella had never lost that feeling. Christmas was still her favorite time of year.
It would be even more so this year, with Hunter and Megan’s wedding the weekend before the holiday.
Watching the kids consume their donuts with barely restrained glee filled Ella with yearning for the family she’d nearly given up on having. Last night, Gavin had told her he loved her. In the bright light of day, everything seemed possible now that she knew for sure he felt that way about her. That changed everything.
“You’re fairly glowing today, my dear,” Molly said as she doled out cider to another young couple who were heading off to find their tree.
“I’m happy.”
“It makes me happy to see you happy. You’re in love then?”
“Madly.” What a relief—an overwhelmingly powerful relief—to be able to admit how she felt about Gavin. Finally.
“How does he feel?”
“The same.”
“Oh, El,” Molly said, tearing up. “That’s so wonderful.”
“Yes, it is.” Ella gazed out at the distant fields, where she could see Gavin working beside her brother as they loaded trees onto a flatbed. “It might seem like it happened fast to everyone else, but it didn’t. There was nothing fast about it.”
“I know that, sweetheart. We all do.”
“I guess I wasn’t as circumspect as I thought I was when it came to him.”
“You were in a tough spot, wanting
a man who was emotionally unavailable.”
“It was tough. But what we have now . . . It was well worth the wait.”
“So that’s it? All sewn up and together forever?”
“I can’t imagine anything could tear us apart after what we’ve shared this week.”
“Ella—”
Ella held up her hand to stop whatever her mother was about to say. “Please, Mom. Please don’t say it. I’ve been warned every which way to Tuesday by just about everyone who loves me—and that’s a lot of people. I love him. He loves me. I finally have what I’ve always wanted. You know how much I love you, but frankly, I just don’t want to hear any more warnings.”
“Fair enough.”
“Are you mad?”
“No, sweetheart, of course I’m not mad. I actually understand better than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was dating Dad, I had more than one person warn me about taking on a flatlander, how he’d never be happy here, how someone with his education would want bigger things than a country store in Butler, Vermont. People who barely knew me warned me.”
Ella was riveted by this information. “Did that worry you? That other people couldn’t see him being happy here?”
“A little. Part of me thought they were right. Here he had a Yale education. How was he ever going to be happy running our little store in this little town?”
“And yet . . . Who’s happier than he is?”
“That’s my point. I knew in my heart that he’d be fine here. He knew it, too. We both had the one thing we wanted more than anything, so everything else was just details.”
“I love that you still feel that way about each other even after all this time,” Ella said with a sigh. “When we came in the other day, and he was making you giggle . . . It just . . . It gave me hope.”
“He makes me giggle every day.”
“Please spare me the gory details.”
Molly’s face lit up with a big, dirty smile. “The details are extra gory now that we’ve rid our barn of all the rug rats.”
“Oh my God.” Ella covered her ears and gave a pretend shriek. “Make it stop.”
Molly peeled Ella’s hands off her ears. “I hope you understand that what I’m telling you is that if you’re with the right one, everything else falls into place the way it’s meant to.”
“I can’t imagine anyone ever being more right for me than Gavin, even with all his imperfections.”
“Everyone has imperfections. Some are just more pronounced than others. Gavin’s world was tipped upside down by something outside his control, and he’s spent years trying to right it again. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how relaxed and happy he looks with you by his side. It’s been a long time since he’s been that way.”
“His mother said the same thing.”
“I know. She told me.”
“When did you talk to Amelia?”
“When she called me to have a little squeal over the fact that our kids are dating. Again.”
“Hannah and Caleb happened such a long time ago that it’s easy to forget sometimes that you and Amelia have already been down this road once before.”
“Yes, we have, and we’re no less thrilled this time than we were then.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I’ve always thought of Hannah and Caleb as this sort of epic romance that the rest of us mere mortals could only aspire to.”
“They were beautiful together, but you and Gavin are every bit as epic and every bit as beautiful, especially when you consider the long road you traveled to get where you are now. You never gave up on him.”
“I sort of did. For a while there.”
“No, you didn’t. If you had, you wouldn’t have gone the other night when they called you to come for him.”
“I didn’t know I was going for him when they called.”
“Didn’t you, Ella? Didn’t you sort of suspect it was him?”
“I guess I did.”
“And still you went. You never gave up on him. Not for one minute. There’ll come a time when you’ll be tested again. It’ll be a decision not to give up then either.”
“You say will like you’re certain it’ll happen.”
“It will, Ella. I’m certain it’ll happen, because it always does. Even the most epic of romances have their bumps. Just ask your sister about what it was like to be married to his brother. She’ll tell you that for all of Caleb’s wonderful qualities, he could try her patience like no one else ever has before or since. And that’s saying something when you consider she had eight younger siblings.”
“So it’s a Guthrie thing. Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, sweetheart, it’s a man thing. It’s a man-woman thing. There’re always going to be challenges, no matter who you’re with. The important thing is to be sure you’re with the right one. Then the challenges don’t seem so insurmountable.”
“I’m with the right one. I’m three thousand percent sure of that.”
“Then it’ll work out the way it’s meant to.”
Ella clung to her mother’s assurances. The thought of it not working out with Gavin after everything they’d been through wasn’t something she cared to think about. Especially not when she was so busy being happy with him.
They were awakened out of a sound sleep by the phone ringing at Gavin’s house before dawn on Wednesday.
“What the hell?” he muttered as he grabbed for it on the bedside table and checked the caller ID. “For you.” He handed the phone to Ella.
“Hello?” she asked, suddenly nervous at the thought of someone calling her at his place.
“It’s me,” her mom said. “I thought you’d want to know Chloe’s in labor. We’re packing up and heading for Burlington and taking Thanksgiving with us. Dad has shut down the office for the day if you want to head over.”
Ella was still processing the fact that her mother had called her at Gavin’s house at five in the morning.
“Ella?”
“I’m here. Thanks for calling, Mom. Did Max say anything about how she’s doing?”
“I don’t think he knows anything more than that. See you there?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there at some point today. I have to go in to work for a short time before I leave.” Her head began to swim with details about her new niece or nephew, her brother and what he was going through, the start of the holiday shopping season in the store, the relocation of Thanksgiving to the lake house in Burlington, and the trip with Gavin that she planned to tell him about on Thanksgiving.
“See you when you get there. Love you.”
“You, too, Granny.”
Molly groaned as she hung up.
“Did your mom really call you here at five in the morning?” Gavin asked.
“She really did.”
“How am I ever going to look either of them in the eye again?”
“I’m sure it’s no surprise to them that we’re sleeping together.”
“Still, I liked it better when they weren’t entirely sure.”
“I bet you did,” she said, laughing at the dismay she heard in his voice.
He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Morning, Auntie Ella.”
“Oh, I like the sound of that. I can’t wait to hold that baby.”
“So you’re going to Burlington today,” he said.
“I guess I am. That wasn’t in my plans.”
“You’ll be there for Thanksgiving?”
“Mom said they are packing up the turkey and bringing everything to the lake house, so that’s the plan.”
Gavin turned on his side, put his arm around her and snuggled her in close to him. “What am I supposed to do without you for all that time?”
“You could come over to Burlington.”
“I can’t leave my folks for Thanksgiving.”
“I know,” she said with a sigh, loving that he was so faithfully devoted to h
is parents but sad to know they’d be spending the holiday apart. “But I’ll be back tomorrow night to give you your surprise.” Her stomach knotted with excitement and a lingering bit of fear that he wouldn’t be as happy about her surprise as she was.
“I can’t wait for this surprise of yours.”
“I hope you like it.”
“I’m sure I will.”
Ella wished she could be so sure herself.
“So thirty-six hours with no Ella. That’s cruel and unusual punishment after you’ve gone and gotten me addicted to you.”
“Addicted? That sounds serious.”
“It’s super serious. Life-threatening even.”
Ella ran her fingertips over the stubble on his face. “I love you like this.”
“Like what?”
“Happy, playful, funny.”
“I’d forgotten I had those things in me until you showed me they’re still there.” He turned them so he was on top looking down at her. Then he began kissing her neck, making her want him yet again. It never ceased to amaze her that she wanted him all the time.
“Do you think it’ll always be like this?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“Crazy.”
He glanced up at her, grinning. “It is kinda crazy, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never been like this with anyone.”
“Like what?”
“Insatiable.”
“That’s such a good word, and by the way, I don’t want to think about you doing this with anyone else.”
“I never did this with anyone else. Everything is different with you.”
Cupping her breasts, he ran his tongue over one sensitive tip and then the other. “Are you sore from last night?”
“Tender more than sore.”
“Mmm,” he said, his lips vibrating against her nipple. “I need to be more careful with you.”
“No, you don’t. I like you just the way you are.”
“Unrestrained and unrefined?”
“Exactly like that.”
“Let me give you gentle and tender before I have to let you go for thirty-six endless hours.” His lips were soft and persuasive as he set her on fire with desire for more of him, all of him. By the time he entered her, slowly and carefully, Ella was clinging to what remained of her sanity.
“God, you’re so perfect,” he whispered. “I could live inside you and never want for anything.”
