Page 100 of Hero for the Holidays

“No. He wouldn’t. But he would eat my enemies.”

“Woe unto your enemies, Lila Gates.” He patted her head.

And then he and Fia made their way downstairs. “Lila,” he called out, “I’m just going to head over to the farmhouse for a bit.”

“Okay,” she said.

Fia looked at him, raising an eyebrow. He shrugged.

These were the kinds of innocuous lies you had to tell kids for their own good sometimes, he figured. Because he couldn’t say “I’m about to go bang your mother until neither of us can breathe.” No. You couldn’t say that. That was emotional trauma. That was psychological damage that no one was going to recover from anytime soon. It just didn’t need to happen. So a little white lie was the best thing here, as far as he was concerned. They walked out of the house and down the front steps. And then, on impulse, he grabbed Fia’s hand. And ran. She ran with him, clutching his hand, the desperate need to make it to the cabin as quickly as possible powering them both.

And when they arrived in front of the cabin, they stopped, and he looked down at her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. He cupped her face and wiped them away. “What did I do to make you cry?”

It had been such a common thing when they were teenagers. Her tears had been his fault far too many times.

“Nothing. It’s... Nothing is this, is it?”

He shook his head. “No.”

And then, beneath the clear sky, he gathered her into his arms and kissed her.

But this time he knew that they weren’t going to stop. This time he knew that Fia Sullivan was going to be his.

He enveloped her body, kissing her deep and long, sliding his tongue against hers. She tasted so familiar, and new all at once. She was everything. All of his memories, sweet and bitter rolled into one. She tasted like heartbreak and first love. She tasted like cotton candy. So sweet against his tongue. Like possibility and failure. Like hope and triumph.

Like regret. So much regret.

And he took it all in. He didn’t try to blunt any of it. Didn’t try to spare himself, didn’t try to block himself.

Not from this. Not from the intensity of it. Not from the truth of it. He had spent all this time telling himself that he hated her.

When it was just this poisoned love that he’d never quite been able to shake. But he knew that it wasn’t the kind that people built houses out of. Knew it wasn’t the kind they made families with. And on some level he always had. But he wanted her to rescue him. From himself. His own feelings. His own needs.

What a child he was.

He thought that wanting was enough. But of course it wasn’t. Tonight, it would be, though. Tonight, wanting, needing, craving was all there was going to be.

He shifted his hold on her, felt the luscious press of her breasts against his chest.

He ached for her.

An ache that spanned thirteen years. An ache unfulfilled. Because sex had never been anything unless it was with her.

Because desire had never been more than a flicker unless she was the cause of it. The source.

Then he propelled them both into the cabin, closing the door behind them. That old bed that was still in the corner, and even if the place was a bit dusty, it was good enough for him.

He held her tightly and then smoothed his hands down her waist, her hips. Suddenly, it hit him. She had carried a child in the years since he’d been with her. It had changed her body. Changed the shape of her profoundly.

Reverence, awe, need welled up within him.

He pushed her shirt up over her head.

He lit the camping lantern so that he could see, because God knew he wasn’t going to have Fia Sullivan naked under his hands without being able to see clearly. There were faint silvery lines on her stomach, and he fell to his knees, kissing them, moving his thumb over them. There was nothing to say. He looked up—her eyes were closed, her expression pained.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “More beautiful than I remember.”

“I’m definitely not a teenager anymore,” she whispered. “There’s been some wear and tear.”

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