The Baby Made at Christmas

“Why, yes, now that you mention it, I do....”

So it didn’t kill the mood, it simply changed it, and somehow they went from all that incredibly serious kissing in the kitchen, into a pillow fight kind of feeling. Getting the sheets and comforter into a tangle, pushing half the pillows onto the floor, laughing and chasing each other all over the bed until they were both breathless.

Until once again he was poised on top of her, looking down into her face with those dark eyes, his erection safely sheathed this time. She looked up at him, stroked the wave of thick dark brown hair away from his forehead, traced the lines of his parted lips with her fingertips and watched as he lowered himself and slid in, came back to the rhythm and push that had brought her so close so fast, before.

They never looked away. She hadn’t known that it could be so intense, watching each other. Or so intimate. She gripped his back, wrapped her legs around him, as if their locked-together gaze was a taut thread that would break if she didn’t hold on to him as hard as she could. In his face she could read the building of his release, and even at that moment they didn’t break eye contact.

He pressed his lips tight together, closed his eyes for a fraction of a second—dark lashes sweeping down, then up—and the wave of his climax broke against her body while she panted for breath, then cried out and moaned against the sudden crush of his mouth on hers.

Neither of them spoke for a long while after they were still. She lay there with his body still flung over hers, her limbs encircling him, his softening heat still filling her. After a little while, he eased aside as if he could tell the moment he began to feel too heavy on her.

He touched her lightly and almost methodically, as if to check that everything was still there and whole, cupping each breast in turn, making patterns with his touch along her sides, down to her hips, running the flat of his hand over her stomach, resting his palm against the mound that felt so swollen and sensitized.

“Four seasons in one day, weren’t we, do you think?” he said softly. “Like the weather in the mountains.”

“We were, a bit,” she agreed. “Which season is this?” She stretched and wriggled against him.

“Summer,” he answered at once. “Warm and sleepy and happy. Sun on our skin.”

“Mmm, I like summer. And winter.”

“I like them all.”

“Me, too. I like the point when it changes. First snowfall. First hint of fall. That tiny shift, but really the whole earth is turning.”

“Yes, when you feel something new in the air, and you know it’s just the start.” Was he still talking about the seasons? She wasn’t sure if she was.

Deliberately, she brought it back to concrete detail, instead of words that could have two meanings. “Love the snowmelt swelling the creeks and rivers.”

“Love a hard frost turning the leaves in one night.”

“And hiking through those deep drifts of gold and brown, when the air smells all peaty and fresh.”

“You’re a real outdoorsy gal.”

“I am.”

“Like that. Like my women athletic.”

They talked, not saying anything very much, until they fell asleep.

Chapter Four

That was day one.

Christmas took over most of day two.

Lee awoke early in the morning to hear Mac calling his family in Idaho, standing in her kitchen and keeping his voice down. “C’mon, sis, I knew you’d be up with the kids,” she heard him say.

Upstairs, the Narmans and their guests were up with the kids, too, and she knew she needed to touch base with them right away, to see what they wanted for cleaning and catering over the next few days. She called the cleaning company first, to confirm availability, using the boss’s home number, and booked them in tentatively for eight this morning. It was only six-thirty now, but the cleaner was happy to hear from her. He could charge a mint for working on Christmas morning.

Lee jumped in the shower for a two-minute scrub and then dressed quickly. Mac was still on the phone. “Doing my second job,” she mouthed at him, pointing up at the ceiling. He nodded.

The Narmans were very happy about the cleaners coming at eight. Most of the party was still in bed, just two sets of bleary-looking parents in pajamas and robes up and about, watching their impatient, early rising kids dive into the contents of several bulging stockings.

“Catering, no, not for today,” they told her. “You filled the refrigerator with everything we needed for last night—thanks so much. And for Christmas dinner we’re eating out.”

They talked through a few more details—they wanted a four-course spread for twenty people catered for later in the week, and someone had broken the glass shower door in one of the bathrooms, so could she arrange to get that replaced? Then Lee did a quick collection of bottles and cans and empty pizza boxes, and took out four bags of trash.

She was taking the final bulging bag to the little wooden trash hut that kept out bears and raccoons when Mr. Narman, Sr., found her and presented her with a list of eight more “little details” that needed her attention. More shopping, another repair job, reservations at various restaurants to make on their behalf and several more items.

“Is it always like this when they’re around?” Mac asked, when she told him she would probably be tied up most of the day, and then there was her dinner with friends to go to. She’d made coffee, and pointed to the cereal packets and the toaster and the bread.

“Pretty much. But they’re polite about it, and it’s such a good arrangement for me. Very cozy when they’re not around and I get to go upstairs.”

“Oh, you get to use the house?”

“Yep.” She grinned. “Laze in front of the open fire and drink champagne in the Jacuzzi.” She kicked off her boots and stretched her neck and shoulders in preparation for diving into all those phone calls.

“You were a cat in your previous life, I can tell.”

“Oh, you can?”

“The way you stretched and purred when you said that. The way you’re just slightly trying to get rid of me because I’m crowding your space.”

“Trying to—?”

Maybe I am.

He was grinning at her, leaning on an elbow in the kitchen doorway, with their breakfast dishes—two mugs, two plates—sitting in the sink behind him. The accusation hadn’t been made in anger. “It’s okay,” he said. “I have stuff I need to do, too.”

“I’m really not... I’m not pushing you out the door.” She felt a little panicky that he’d read her so clearly, and that she’d given the wrong impression about last night.

“It’s okay.” It must be, because he was still grinning.

“It was...” She scrambled for the right words. So she was a cat. Did he like cats? “I loved it. I loved the whole night. Sleeping beside you. And then you were still here in the morning, and that was lovely, too. It really was.”

“It’s okay,” he repeated patiently.

“I want to see you again,” she blurted out, and then bit her lip, because maybe she’d overstated her case, maybe his recognition that she was ready for some alone time had made her too honest about how much she’d liked last night.

Damn!

Or not.

He was smiling. Again. “So do I. Soon. We can make a plan now, if you want. Or if you don’t know when you’ll next revert from feline to human form, we can leave it and make a plan later.”

“Now. We can make a plan now. I’m only a cat some of the time.”