DAY 22: L.A. Cotton | 25 Days of Christmas
On the twenty-second day of 25 Days of Christmas, L.A. Cotton gave us a Holiday Scene from Wicked Christmas: A Wicked Bay Novella and ONE lucky winner gets a signed copy of Wicked Beginnings!
P.S. This novella is to be read AFTER the other books in the series.
An hour later, the horses drew to a stop, and the guy came around to help us out. “Maverick?” Lo asked, her eyes wide as she drank in the sight before us.
“I’ll be back in two hours. Don’t wander too far and stick to the trail.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed the picnic hamper and blankets from under the bench and grabbed Lo’s hand. “Come on.”
“What is all this? Where are the others?”
“They can fend for themselves for a couple of hours. I wanted you all to myself.”
“Maverick,” she chided, but I caught the hitch in her voice.
“Are you warm enough?” My eyes swept down her body. So many fucking layers. Not that I had any intentions of getting her naked here. That could wait until tonight.
Lo pulled her knitted hat down over her ears and beamed at me. “I’m good.”
“Come on then. I’m starving.” We followed the snowy trail through clusters of trees.
“Look at the icy cobwebs on the branches. It’s so beautiful.” Lo reached out, tracing the delicate patterns.
My girl made me smile with her excitement. “I figured we should make the most of the snow.”
“I love it. We had a white Christmas once, when I was a little girl. I remember waking up and being so excited when I saw the blanket of white covering our back garden. I woke up the whole house, demanding we go straight outside and make snowmen. Mum and Dad insisted on coffee first, but Elliot got dressed and came outside with me. We spent the morning building a family of snowmen, making snow angels, and having snowball fights. When my mum finally dragged us inside, I couldn’t feel my fingers.”
“Hey, come here.” I placed the hamper down and pulled Lo into my arms. The padding of our winter coats made it difficult for us to be as close as I wanted to be, but I held her, nonetheless. Needing to comfort her.
Even now, Lo still didn’t talk about her family much. So whenever she did, I savored the words and memories, snippets of her life before Wicked Bay.
Before me.
“One day,” I said. “That’ll be us, Lo. You, me, and a house full of kids waking up on Christmas morning.”
“It sounds nice,” she answered, but I knew her mind was elsewhere.
“No, it sounds fucking perfect.”
I could imagine it now. Lo smiling with a rosy-cheeked baby on her hip while I chased our son around the house, pretending to be a monster. We didn’t talk about it much—but I hoped she knew I wanted it with her.
Releasing her, I glanced at my feet, raking a hand through my hair. “We should eat. You’ll need plenty of energy for tonight.”
“Tonight?” she asked. “What’s tonight?”
My eyes snapped to hers. “You, me, and that ridiculously big bed.”
“Hmm, I hate to break it to you, but I think the others want to go out dancing tonight.”
“Dancing?” I groaned. Dancing wasn’t in my plan of acquainting myself with every inch of Lo’s skin.
“Come on.” Lo smiled coyly at me. “It could be fun. You can get me drunk and then you can take me home and—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.” It came out gruff as my mind wandered to places it didn’t need to be right now.
Lo’s soft laughter filled the frigid air as she went up on her tiptoes and fixed her lips on mine. “Thank you, Maverick.”
“For what?” I stared back at her with lust and love in my eyes.
“For just being you.”
FOLLOW L.A. COTTON
Comments
Post a Comment