“I love you,” I said, the words coming easier now that I’d said them publicly in front of half the town. “I’m going to love you for the rest of my life.”
“I love you too,” Holly whispered, reaching up to cup my face. “Now stop talking and make love to me.”
I entered her slowly, savoring the way she felt around me, the way her body welcomed mine like we’d been made for this. This wasn’t frantic or desperate. This was deliberate, purposeful—a physical manifestation of every promise we’d made to each other.
“God, Holly,” I breathed, feeling her pussy tighten around my cock. “You feel so perfect.”
She answered with a soft moan, her nails dragging down my back in a way that would definitely leave marks. Good. I wanted to carry the evidence of this night with me, wanted the reminder that this was real and permanent and everything I’d been too afraid to hope for.
I shifted my angle, hitting that spot inside her that made her gasp, and increased my pace slightly. Not frantic, but purposeful. Her breathing changed, becoming shorter and more desperate, and I knew she was close again.
“That’s it,” I murmured against her neck, kissing the sensitive spot behind her ear. “Come for me, like a good girl. Let me feel what I do to you.”
“Declan!” she cried and shattered, her pussy clenching around me in waves that pushed me over the edge right after her. I thrust deep one final time, groaning as my orgasm tore through me with an intensity that had nothing to do with the physical and everything to do with the emotional weight of what we were building together.
For several long moments, we just lay there, tangled together and breathing hard, while the fire crackled and the snow fell softly outside our window.
Thirty-Four
HOLLY
First Christmas Together
I wokeup on Christmas Eve morning in the arms of the man I loved, in a cozy inn room with snow falling gently outside the windows, feeling like I was living inside the kind of romantic Christmas movie I’d always secretly believed was too good to be true.
Declan was still asleep beside me, his dark hair mussed, and his face relaxed in a way that made him look younger and completely peaceful. In the soft morning light filtering through the frost-covered windows, he looked like someone who’d finally stopped running from something and had found exactly where he belonged.
Which, I supposed, was exactly what had happened to both of us.
“Good morning,” he murmured without opening his eyes, his arm tightening around me. “Merry Christmas Eve.”
“Merry Christmas Eve,” I said, pressing a kiss to his chest. “How did you know I was awake?”
“Your breathing changed,” Declan said, finally opening his eyes to look at me with the kind of fond smile that made my heart flutter like a caffeinated butterfly. “Plus, you were doing that thing where you trace patterns on my skin when you’re thinking.”
“What thing?” I asked, though I was currently doing exactly what he’d described.
“That thing,” he said, catching my hand and pressing it flat against his chest. “What were you thinking about?”
“This,” I said simply. “Us. How different everything feels this morning compared to yesterday morning.”
“Different how?”
“Yesterday morning I was Holly Winters, temporarily coordinating a Christmas festival while trying to figure out what to do with my life,” I said, settling more comfortably against his side. “This morning, I’m Holly Winters, permanently staying in Everdale Falls to build a life with the man I love.”
“That is different,” Declan agreed. “This morning I’m Declan Hayes, unemployed former successfully lawyer who’s completely happy about destroying his career for love.”
“Unemployed former successful lawyer who’s about to become Everdale Falls’ newest legal advocate,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“A significant difference,” Declan said, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “Especially since one of those career paths involves working with you for the rest of my life, and the other involved never seeing you except on vacations.”
The rest of my life. The phrase should have been terrifying—we’d been officially together for less than forty-eight hours—but instead it felt exactly right, like we were finally acknowledging something that had been true since the moment we’d laid eyes on each other in high school.
“Speaking of the rest of our lives,” I said, suddenly remembering something important, “we should probably get back to town soon. Christmas Eve service is at eleven, and my mother will have a complete emotional breakdown if we’re late to family traditions.”
“Family traditions,” Declan repeated with obvious interest. “What exactly does Christmas Eve look like in the Winters household?”
“Chaos,” I said cheerfully. “Beautiful, loving chaos. Mom makes her famous Christmas Eve breakfast casserole, Dad reads the Christmas story out loud even though we’re all adults, Matt pretends he’s too cool for family sentiment while secretly taking pictures of everything, and we exchange one special gift each.”
