8
CHAPTER EIGHT
LUKE
Christmas morningand we’re finally opening the presents we got for each other. We celebrated with my family, Mack, Shane, and Andi’s friends last night. Andi decided that we had to wait until this morning to open our presents as a couple. I tried everything in my considerable arsenal of persuasive techniques to get her to agree to open them last night after everyone left. Not one single thing worked, although she appreciated my persistence and tenacity.
She’s so stubborn.
Since this is her first holiday season with real family gathered around her, all I can do is give her whatever she wants. In the meantime, last night I showed her what it felt like to really, really want something but be denied…repeatedly…until begging became the only answer. After our late-night escapades, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to do that to her more often. She was on-fucking-fire for me. The more revved up she was, the more it drove me. I’m so thoroughly whipped and wrapped around her little finger, but I don’t care who knows it. As long as everyone knows she belongs to me.
I’d really expected and hoped that we’d be married by today. When she initially said she wanted a Christmas wedding, I was more than willing to oblige her. My mom and my sister changed those plans, and it’s still a sore subject for me. It’s not that I don’t trust her, it’s not that I don’t believe in our love, and it’s not that I’m just an insecure bastard.
It’s simply that I want the bond that my parents have always had. I want that constant connection with my stubborn, independent, beautiful girlfriend.
Putting those feelings aside for the sake of a wonderful Christmas together, we settle on the couch and Andi plays Santa. The silky red and white nightgown she’s wearing makes it hard to concentrate on the presents she’s handing me, though. She makes one hell of a sexy Mrs. Santa.
“I want you to open this one first,” she says with a shy smile.
Taking the perfectly wrapped present from her hand, I pull her down into my lap. “Open it with me,” I whisper into her ear.
She adjusts in my lap and gets comfortable in “her spot” in the crook of my arm. I place the present on my other leg, and we each use one hand to open the small box. It’s a velvet jewelry box, but I know it’s not a ring. She already has her engagement ring and we’ve picked out our wedding bands, even though we haven’t picked them up yet.
“What have we here?” I ask, feeling the excitement building in Andi. She holds the box as I open the hinged lid, and I feel my heart skip a beat. I look over at her, and she’s biting the corner of her bottom lip, waiting for my reaction. “It’s perfect. I love it, baby. Put it on me.”
She removes the necklace from the box and lifts it over my head. It’s an engraved dog tag on a silver ball chain. The inscription reads“Your treasure is where your heart is”and the shape of a heart is cut out of the metal. The separate heart is also on a silver beaded necklace. Andi pulls the heart over her head and it rests on her chest. The inscription on the piece she wears simply says“Our heart.”
“While we’re apart, I wanted something that we’d both wear a piece of, as a constant reminder that we’re already one. This is our heart, our love, and our promise to each other. I know you can’t wear it in the ring or anything, but I’ll always have mine on. Wear yours when you can,” she says before kissing me.
Wrapping my arms around her, I pull her completely on top of me as I lie back on the couch. She pulls her legs up to straddle me. My hands are in her hair, holding her head as I pour my love into my kiss. “Thank you, baby. It’ll be the first thing I put on every day when I finish at the gym.”
She gets me more than anyone in my life.
Sitting up, she smiles brightly at my promise and hands me another present. “No, ma’am. Your turn.” I incline my head toward her present from me as I sit up.
“Okay,” she concedes a little too easily. I chuckle, knowing that she’s secretly been dying to open her presents. She opens the huge box and looks at me skeptically when she has to dig through mounds of wadded-up paper to find the next box. “Hmmm, what’s this?”
“Open it and see.” I smile.
She opens the next box and finds a box from a well-known jewelry store inside. Her eyes light up as she looks up at me. “What have you done, Luke?”
“Nothing but the best for my girl.”
When she opens it, her eyes immediately mist with tears of happiness. Pulling the bracelet from the box, she intently examines the various charms that adorn it. They each have significance in our lives, and I know she understands that.
She laughs as she holds up the first one. “A microphone? For my karaoke nights?”
“Yep.” I nod.
“A guitar. The night at your parents’ house.”
“Keep going.”
“Boxing gloves! The gym—and you, of course!”
As she turns the bracelet, she smiles warmly at the last charm. “Our home.”
“I have one more to add to it, when the time is right,” I confess.
