“Know what I see when I look at that angel?” he asked, his voice low and rough.
“Evidence of my terrible aim?”
He huffed out a laugh. “See a woman who loved me enough to throw shit at my head when I was being an asshole. See someone who fought for us, even when fighting meant breaking things.”
I craned my neck to find his hazel eyes. Warm and open and so full of love it took my breath away.
“You’re being serious,” I said, not quite a question.
Teddy pointed to a mercury glass ornament, our reflections staring back at us in the metallic, mirrored finish. “I see you, Kels—no makeup on, hair a mess, wearing my shirt—this is the girl I fell in love with. Not some perfect version you thought you needed to be. Just you.”
He pressed a smacking kiss against my cheek and swatted my backside before returning to the couch. “Now, quit fucking with the goddamn tree and come eat your dinner.”
A laugh bubbled up. “Gingerbread cookies and coffee constitute dinner now?”
“Hey, we’re empty nesters living in sin. We can eat whatever the hell we want.” With the plate balanced on his thigh, he picked up one of the cookies—one of the Christmas light ones that bore an unfortunate resemblance to a butt plug—and took a bite.
The lamp on the side table caught the silver threads running through his beard, turning them platinum in the golden light.
Teddy was beautiful. Devastating, really, in the way that dangerous things often were. All that barely contained power wrapped in tattooed muscle and the kind of confidence that came from knowing exactly who you were and refusing to apologize for it.
And he was mine. Again. Still. Always.
I padded over, hyperaware of how his gaze tracked the movement of my bare legs. A week ago, I would have been self-conscious about the way my thighs touched, about the cellulite and spider veins that had appeared after pregnancy, about all the ways my fifty-one-year-old body wasn’t what it used to be.
Now, though? I felt like a model walking a runway with the way he was looking at me.
“Had to ice these damn things all by myself yesterday,” he said,patting the empty space beside him on the couch. “Least you can do is enjoy ‘em with me.”
Heat crept up my throat as I recalled the reason he’d had to do it all by himself. How I’d ended up sprawled across his kitchen island, limbs still quaking and unable to move after my fourth or maybe fifth orgasm, while he whipped up the royal icing with a smug expression.
I stopped in front of the couch, and before he could say anything, I plucked the plate from his lap before sliding onto it myself.
One arm automatically went around my shoulders while the other went to my bare legs, fingers splaying wide across my skin. “What’re you doing, baby?” he asked, his voice dropping an octave.
I selected a gingerbread cookie shaped like a candy cane and bit off the tip while keeping my expression perfectly innocent. “Eating dinner. Like you said.”
“Uh-huh.” His fingers pressed into the soft flesh of my inner thighs, not quite tickling but close enough to make me squirm. “And you had to sit on my lap to do that?”
“You know, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas until I’ve sat on a bearded man’s lap to tell him what I want.” I licked a stray bit of icing from my thumb, watching his pupils dilate. “Isn’t that the tradition?”
His grip tightened, pulling me closer until I could feel exactly how much he appreciated my choice of seating. “That so?”
“Mm hmm.” I set the plate on the coffee table and turned to straddle him properly, my thighs bracketing his hips. “So, Santa... have I been a good girl this year?”
He raised an eyebrow, a slow grin spreading across his face—all teeth and trouble. The kind of smile that had gotten me into more compromising positions than I could count over the past three decades.
“That’s a loaded question, baby.” His hands spanned my waist before sliding down over the curve of my hips.
With deliberate slowness, I reached for the hem of my—his—T-shirt and lifted it just enough to reveal that I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
“What do you think, Santa?” I ground against him, feeling his erection strain against his jeans. The rough denim created the perfectamount of friction against my bare skin. “Is this nice... or naughty?” I asked, unable to quite suppress the small gasp that escaped.
His fingers dug into my hips hard enough to bruise, holding me still even as I tried to rock against him. “Jesus, Kels.”
“That wasn’t an answer.” I traced the waistband of his jeans with one finger, popping the button free. “Come on, big guy. I need to know if I’m naughty or nice.”
“Think we both know the answer to that,” he forced out through clenched teeth. “But I’m real interested in hearing what’s on your Christmas list… see if you can’t change old Santa’s mind.”
