Dean’s eyes went from his mother to Trina and she wasn’t sure what he was thinking. And she had that strange sensation of knowing him both really well and not at all. Not really. And instead of making her daunted or worried, the thought was a happy one. An exciting one. Getting to know all the parts of this man would be happy work. That would make for happy days.
He touched her hair, pushed it behind her ear. “Maybe I need to do some work to deserve you,” he whispered for her ears alone.
“Is there something happening between you two?” Eugene asked, pointing a finger at Trina and Dean.
“If it is, I can only say it’s about damn time,” Marion said, holding his hand. “Wish them a merry Christmas and let them go back to their evening.”
Eugene seemed slightly baffled, as if he’d walked into the wrong room.
“Merry Christmas, Dean. Trina,” he said with a sort of head bow.
“Merry Christmas, Dad,” Dean said, then wrapped his arm around Trina’s shoulder and led her out of the room.
“That was strange,” she said. “Did you think that was strange?”
“Things are always strange with my dad,” Dean said. “I’ll drive. We can come back to get your car in the morning.”
“But that was stranger than usual, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. We didn’t fight.”
“Right,” she said, with a smile. “You didn’t fight.”
“It’s a Christmas miracle.”
“Wait,” she said as they stepped into the elevator. “Why are you driving?”
He pushed her back into the corner of the elevator, pressed his body full length against hers. Hips to chest. His arms around her waist. “Because I want to make out in my car,” he said into her mouth. “Because I don’t want to let you go for as long as it takes to drive to your house.”
“I like the sound of that.”
In the end they had hot monkey sex. In the truck. And on her couch.
Then they talked. They talked until the sun came up.
And it was Christmas Day.
Chapter Six
December 24, 2013
6:32 PM
All right, Dean thought, staring at the red wreath made out of beads on Trina’s front door. This is not going to be easy. I need a plan. Maybe a speech. A speech would be good.
He didn’t have a speech.
He took a few minutes out on the porch before opening the door to try and think of a speech.
But he had nothing.
Just the mad stupid pounding of his heart and few song lyrics he couldn’t get out of his head.
The front door was pulled open and there was Trina, her face rosy. Her hair pulled back in a ponytail that fell down over her shoulder.
“Why are you standing out here?” she asked, glancing around their front porch. “You hiding presents?”
“No. Just thinking.”
“Thinking? You do that better in the snow, do you?”
“Not really.”
“You are so weird.” She pressed her warm lips to his cold ones and pulled him in at the same time.
“You’ve been drinking,” he said, smiling against her mouth, kicking the door shut behind them.
“Just a little.”
He kissed her again, slipping his tongue into her mouth, and she moaned, melting against him in an instant. That’s what Trina did, she melted against him. She just went boneless.
He loved it. Hard.
“Maybe more than a little,” she whispered.
“Drunk Trina is kind of my favorite Trina.”
“You only say that because she’s easy.”
“Shhh, that’s my drunk girlfriend you’re talking about.”
He kissed her again. Wrapping his arms around her as if he could absorb her through the leather of his coat, the shearling beneath that. His stupid suit and his skin beneath that. Into his blood, that’s where he’d absorb her if he could. Right into the heart of him.
That’s where he’d carry her.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I know, I missed you too. Four days is too long, isn’t it?”
“The fourth day was the worst,” he agreed. “I almost drove to the Canadian border to meet you.”
“I would have liked that.”
She kissed him, slipped her arms around his waist, under his coat, resting her hands on the top of his butt.
“Hey.” He broke the kiss, though that was the last thing he wanted. But they had some serious ground to cover tonight. And that wouldn’t happen with her hand on his butt. Nothing would happen with her copping a feel.
“There’s something…” He got distracted by the sight of an open cooler on the kitchen island between the living room and the kitchen. “What did you do?”
She clapped and spun, and he ducked back to avoid getting sliced by the end of her ponytail. “I tried to recreate the ice sculpture at your parents’ party.”
“Are those snowballs?”
“They are!”
“How many did you use?”
“Thirty-two. Artfully arranged. And there’s a flashlight in there somewhere that will probably short-circuit at some point. Not quite as good as the tree falling over, but it should prove to be exciting.”