Jingle Bell: Rock Part 19

She laughed, swatting him across the chest, but forced to nod in agreement. With a little sigh, she relaxed back against him. "Well, this time around, let's hope we make our mistakes together."

He squeezed her tight, eliciting a little squeal from her. "That's my plan." He rolled her over even as he slid down the couch, until she laid in a sprawled tangle of skin and blanket on top of him. "We weren't meant to be apart again."

She shook her head, the tears that never seemed more than a blink away of late, surfaced again. "Not unless we're really really stupid."

"I'd hunt you down this time," he said, nipping at her chin.

"Oh?" She nipped back, then began to slide down his body. "And just how do you plan on capturing me?"

He rolled her to the floor then landed in a crouch on top of her. "I have my ways."

Laughter bubbling up, along with the desire that seemed to have no end, she wiggled her eyebrows. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to show me?"

"Depends. How long do you think we've got until breakfast shows up?"

She caught him off guard with a quick shove. An even quicker roll later, she was astride him. "Depends," she shot back. "On how long it will take you to get free of my evil clutches."

He grinned, and her heart soared at the wide-open emotions he did nothing to hide now. "How do you know this isn't exactly how I planned to keep you enslaved?"

"Enslaved? My, my," she said, glancing about for his belt. "That conjures up all sorts of naughty images, now doesn't it?"

His expression turned more than a little wary and she couldn't help it, she laughed.

He rolled her to her back, pinned her neatly beneath him. "Why is it I think I'm going to have my hands full for the next, oh I don't know, half a century or so?"

She leaned up and nipped him right on the nipple. Making him jerk, and making his body twitch to life. With raised eyebrows, she looked back up at him. He just smiled and gave her an innocent little shrug. Then they both laughed and rolled together until they were fully entwined.

"I don't know," she finally answered, a bit breathlessly. "Are you interested in having your hands full?"

"Now there's a loaded question."

She merely continued looking at him, her heart so full to bursting, she didn't think she could survive such intense happiness.

"As long as they're full of you, yes," he said. Then with a sweet pa.s.sion that still took her breath away, he kissed her tenderly. "I love you, Suzanna York."

"Boy," she said, her breath leaving her in a whoosh. "I'm just never going to get tired of hearing you say that."

He grinned. "I know the feeling."

"I do love you, Jace Morgan."

The jarring ring of the phone interrupted her, making them both jump.

"Don't forget where you left off," he told her with a quick kiss as he disentangled himself. "I'll need to hear that a couple more hundred times myself."

"Definitely. And that's probably my mother. Are you sure you want to answer-"

But he already had. "Hi, Frances. Yes, it's me, Jace." There was a pause, then he grinned and said, "Oh, she's perfectly fine."

Suzanna wrapped the blanket around herself and rolled to a sitting position. She pushed the hair from her eyes, and feasted on the vision of Jace Morgan, buck naked, talking quite casually on the phone-to her mother of all people! She had no doubts he understood the full ramifications of what he was doing. By noon today, blizzard or no blizzard, all of Marshall County would know they were back together.

She hugged her knees close, smiling, not remotely concerned.

Then Jace was hanging up the phone and her mouth fell open. "She didn't want to talk with me? It's Christmas Eve."

"I told her you'd call her back after we'd eaten breakfast."

Right on cue, there was a knock on the door.

"You do have superpowers," she said.

He winked at her, strolling to the door. "And don't you forget it. With a fortifying meal, there's no telling what feats of daring and death-defying excitement I might be able to accomplish."

She couldn't help it, she s.h.i.+vered in antic.i.p.ation.

Then she realized he was going to open the door and-"Jace! Shouldn't you put something on?"

"What?" He looked down. "Oh. Right." In two quick strides he was across the room. One yank and she was no longer wrapped up in the blanket. He wrapped it around his waist and strolled right back to the door, sending her squealing into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her just as he opened the door to the hall. She waited a few moments, until she heard the door close once again, and called out, "You're going to pay for that, you know."

He whipped the door open, tugged her out with one yank, right up against his once-again naked chest. "I figure we're even, since I have no s.h.i.+rt to wear home."

Her cheeks warmed. "Oh yeah. That."

He smiled, apparently unconcerned. "Yeah. That."

She turned to the cart with the food tray on it. If he could be casually naked, so could she. "You want to eat on the couch? Watch the snow fall?"

He tugged her back against him, nuzzled her neck. "You don't mind that your mother knows? Should I have let you tell her?"

She turned in his arms. "Oh, I'm pretty sure, knowing her, she had a good idea when we both got stuck here last night."

"But you didn't tell her how many rooms we had."

"I don't think I had to. Did it occur to you that she could have called on any number of other people to come get me from the station?"

He didn't have to answer. "We've been set up."

"By the best. Are you angry with her?"

"Are you?"

Suzanna shook her head, wrapped her arms around him. "How can I be? She gave me the bestest Christmas present of my life."

"The bestest, huh? I guess that's a lot to live up to."

She pumped her hips against his, noting he was already well on his way "up."

"I think you'll manage just fine."

"Do you now?"

"I do."

His eyes darkened and his expression intensified. "Then I guess I should warn you, that I plan to hear those words from your lips again at some point in the future."

Her heart skipped a beat, then raced on, full steam ahead. She hugged him tightly. "As long as you plan on repeating them right back to me, I don't dunk we'll have a problem."

He kissed her, long and hard. "Thank you," he whispered against her lips.

"For?"

"For making me feel like I'm home. Really home. For the first time."

She could only nod, kissing him long and deep, until they were both so stirred up that breakfast was completely forgotten. "And thank you," she whispered.

"For?"

"Waiting for me. Not giving that beautiful heart to someone else."

"I couldn't give it to anyone else. It's always belonged to you."

She pressed her lips to his chest, right over his heart "You were my Christmas past, you're my Christmas present..." She looked up into his eyes, her own s.h.i.+ning with everything she felt inside. "And I want you to be my every Christmas future."

He pulled her up against him, taking her mouth in a kiss so hard and deep it literally lifted her off her feet. "Now that's what I call the bestest Christmas present ever," he said, spinning her around once before setting her back down.

She pressed a hand over her racing heart, laughing a little at his exuberance. He let her go and began taking lids off of their breakfast dishes. "Now, since my present is already unwrapped..." He turned with a bowl of strawberries and a little pot of honey. "I guess it's only fair that I get to do a little holiday decorating." With a grin as wicked as she'd ever seen it, he gave a little nod. "Couch or bed?"

She couldn't answer him, her gaze was going from the honey pot... to the wicked gleam in his eye. It was all she could do to remain upright.

"Okay then, right here." He juggled the bowl and pot into one hand, and lifted her arms out, one at a time with the other. "Hmm," he said, walking around her, dipping his finger into the honey.

She gasped when he let a drop of honey drizzle first on one nipple then the other. And tried not to squirm when he bit through a strawberry, and pressed each half firmly onto the dab of honey. "Now this is what I call tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the tree."

She eyed him through a haze of pleasure. "Just be warned. I fully intend to deck your... halls. Later."

"Oh," he a.s.sured her, rolling another whole strawberry into the honey pot "I'm counting on it." He pressed it into her navel, and when it wouldn't stay there... he pressed it somewhere else.

"Jace!"

He knelt in front of her, trailed the drizzle of honey dripping down her thighs with his tongue. "Hmm?"

"Nothing," she said, jerking with pleasure, grabbing on to his shoulders for balance. "Just... don't stop... what you're... oh my G.o.d."

She could feel his chuckle between her legs.

"Don't ever stop."

"Not until you beg me to." And he kept his promise.

Then again, Jace had always been the "dependable" Morgan. She'd just never known how much she could come to depend on him. But she was about to find out.

A Blue Christmas.

Alison Kent.

Chapter One.

The last time Jessie Buchanan had seen Thomas "Blue" Miller he'd been walking out of her life.

He'd left her standing in the middle of a long graveled road, left her looking through watery eyes at shoulders too broad to belong to a boy of eighteen, at legs longer than she'd ever realized when she'd felt them heavy and warm, and tangled naked with her own.

For ten years now she'd revisited the mental image, wondering what Blue had been thinking, his head held so high after she'd told him that, no, love wasn't enough of a reason for her to stay, wasn't enough of a reason to spend her life in a town that, in eighteen years, had never felt like home.

He had felt like home, but he'd been bound to September, Texas, by ties she'd never been able to break.

Get over it, Jess. The ties were unbreakable. Blue never had any intention of living anywhere but in the one town you couldn't wait to put behind you.

And if that fundamental difference wasn't the foundation for a doomed relations.h.i.+p then she hadn't learned much since leaving. Of course, there was always the possibility she hadn't learned anything at all, considering here she was back in September and on her way to see Blue.

Approaching the railroad crossing at the city limits, Jessie slowed her low-slung sports car, remembering how many unsuspecting oil pans had met their fate on the seemingly mild-mannered b.u.mp in the road. The locals knew better than to take the lazy rise at face value because of its wicked backside drop.

Crawling up and over the tracks, she coasted to a stop at the first of the city's two traffic lights. The fact that she knew when and where to drive with caution didn't sit all that well. Taking the girl out of the country had apparently been more of a sure thing than wringing the country from the girl. Not that September was exactly a world away from Dallas, her home for six years now.

It just seemed that way, she thought, as the light changed and the car purred into town, what with Soup's Auto located immediately-and conveniently-between the tracks and the traffic signal, the Dime & Dollar on the far end of the next block, city hall on the near side, and the mayor's house smack-dab in between.

The town resembled so many of the other dots on the map she'd driven through since leaving her condo at noon. But subtle nuances still separated September from the others. Nuances noticeable only by a native. Or a long-lost daughter returning home.

No. Not returning. Never returning. Visiting. A short vacation and nothing more. Still, she could hardly deny that eighteen years spent in this town gave meaning to the places she drove past.

Places like Miller's Feed and Supply.

The white frame building sat alone at the far end of town, the location allowing for the constant flow of stock trailers and dual-axle pickups without getting in the way of folks needing to get to the post office or to Debbie Does Hair-Dooz or to the First Baptist Church Wednesday nights.

And behind the wooden structure loomed a thoroughly modern and huge barn red... barn.

Jessie knew from her Internet research that Blue was doing all right for himself. The addition to the original location now served as Miller's regional supply center, warehousing the stock for the extremely profitable chain of family-owned stores.

She had to admit a bit of a thrill, however, seeing that the businesses first structure still stood, little changed since the days Blue had chased her up and down the aisles, letting her twist free when he caught her, until neither of them had the will to wait one minute more.