I lean forward, placing the bowl on the coffee table, and then cup her jaw, forcing her to look at me. “You do now, pretty baby,” I murmur, my eyes locked with hers. “You’re spending it right here with me, where you belong.”
Her eyes get watery, like she’s about to cry. “You want to spend Christmas with me?”
“No. I want to spend every holiday with you.”
She blinks wide, startled eyes at me. “What?”
“You heard me.” I stroke her cheek. She’s so damn soft. “I want you right here, celebrating every holiday with me for at least the next fifty years.”
“You…” She licks her lips, looking startled. “You don’t think it’s too soon?”
“Hell no,” I growl. “Cowboys know when to grab something with both hands and hold tight, Saoirse. It’s in our blood.” I tip her head back, brushing my lips across hers. “You’re something I don’t intend on letting go of, not even if you try to buck me off.”
A soft laugh burbles from her lips. “Did you just compare me to a horse, Flint?”
I grimace, scratching the side of my face. “Maybe that didn’t come out like I thought it would. I just meant, even if you try toget rid of me, I’m not letting go. I know a good thing when it’s in my arms, pretty baby.”
“You feel like a good thing to me, too,” she whispers, her voice a scrap of sound.
“Good.” I grin down at her. “Then there’s no reason for you not to stay here.”
“Do I get to help pay bills?”
“Absolutely the fuck not.”
She glowers at me.
“The house is already paid for, Saoirse. And I make more than enough to cover the bills.” I stroke her cheek. “Besides, I’ve been saving for a long time, just waiting for you. You’re going to have to learn to let me spoil you.”
“Fine, but I get to spoil you, too.”
I haul her onto my lap, running my hand across her ass. “You can spoil me with this body anytime you want.”
She groans, faceplanting into my chest. “That’s not what I meant.”
I just chuckle in response, tipping her face back to kiss her.
I fuck her to sleep,and then wait until she’s good and passed out to slip out of the bed. I dress in the dark, being careful notto make too much noise, and then head out to my truck, praying she doesn’t hear it start.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m at the local Wal-Mart, with thirty minutes to go before it closes.
I haul ass straight to the Christmas section with a cart, doing my best impression of a man on a shopping game show as I rake shit into the cart at record speed. A tree, lights, tinsel, garland, fifteen different kinds of ornaments, a Viking nutcracker, a few Grinch dolls, and weird cone-shaped trees. Everything I think she might like, I grab.
The clerk is equal parts impressed and annoyed when I load it onto the belt ten minutes before closing.
“Getting a late start?” she asks, one brow raised.
“Something like that,” I mutter, tossing bags into the cart as fast as she dumps items into them.
I’m back in the truck and on my way home within fifteen minutes, prepared to turn the house into a winter wonderland for the pretty little goddess who has never had a reason to celebrate. She will this year, though. After everything she’s gone through, she deserves it.
Hopefully, Dillon will have news soon about the creepy motherfucker who tried to bait and switch her into a porn. I called him while trying to wrangle the escaped heifers yesterday. He promised he’d look into it. Since the jackass advertised in the paper, he shouldn’t be that hard to track down.
With any luck, he won’t be a looming cloud much longer. I’ll be able to tell Saoirse that she’s safe for Christmas. She shouldn’t have to worry about it.
It takes three trips to unload everything, and believe me, I do my damndest to make it one, but there is no way to juggle a seven-foot tree and eighty-four shopping bags.
The goddamn tree is evil. It takes me an hour to set it up and untangle the lights. And another hour to fluff the fake branches into something resembling a tree.
