A Christmas to Remember (7 page)

He drove a hand into my hair, fisted it, tilted my head, slanted his the other way, and slammed his mouth down on mine.

Then he thrust his tongue in my mouth.

I held on, pressed close, and enjoyed my first Christmas kiss from Shy Cage.

And I enjoyed it a whole lot.

When he broke the kiss and lifted his head half an inch, he whispered, “Merry Christmas, Tabby.”

Oh yeah
.

Loved my man.

Not a second later, his hand left my hair so he could sweep his arm over my ass, down the backs of my thighs to my knees. He curled it in, yanked my legs to the side and then I was on my back in the bed with Shy on top of me.

Now we were talking.

His mouth found mine again, his tongue slid inside, his hand drifted up and in to curl around my breast and I wrapped all four limbs tight around him, thinking this first family Christmas with Shy was starting out
great.

* * *

“Sanna! Sanna! Sanna, Sanna,
Sanna!
” I heard Cut’s excited voice as well as his little feet pounding on the stairs, making it clear he was heading our way.

I (sadly) blinked away sleep as I felt Shy’s arm give me a reflexive squeeze.

Once I opened my eyes, I noted the basement bedroom was pitch black. I felt like I’d had two minutes of sleep. I was, not unusually, pressed down Shy’s side with an arm thrown over his stomach and a cheek to his shoulder.

It was good I got back into my Christmas pj’s after our late night Christmas activities, but Shy was totally nude. This made it also good that the covers were up to my shoulders.

“Jesus,” Shy muttered when the chant of “Sanna, Sanna, Sanna!” hit the room.

I saw a blurry shadow move like lightning and my eyes adjusted enough to the dark so I could see Cut climb up on the bed. He got up on his feet, still chanting, and walk-wobbled down our bodies, stepping on one or the other of us every other footfall until he threw himself down, arms out, landing flat out on the both of us.

“
Sanna came!
” he screeched, and after imparting this crucial information, he rolled off Shy’s way. We heard his little feet hit the floor then thud across it as he kept shouting, “Sanna, Sanna. Sanna! Sanna came!”

Then he was up the stairs and gone.

“I think that means it’s time to get our asses outta bed,” Shy noted sleepily and I let out a soft laugh.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I think that’s what it means.”

I bent in, aimed a kiss at his shadowed throat and hit my mark. But as I was moving away in order to roll away, I had two arms around me and I was rolled the opposite way. Shy rolled with me and I was again back to bed with my man on me.

After getting me in position, he laid another Christmas kiss on me. It was warm. It was soft. It was lazy. It was a little sleepy. And it was
long
.

In other words, it was
the bomb.

When he lifted away to kiss my forehead, I remarked breathlessly, “You know, if that’s the only thing you give me today, I’m good.” And this was no lie.

Yes. The kiss was
that
good.

Then again, they always were.

I felt his eyes on mine in the dark before I heard his gruff voice say, “Christ. Fuckin’ love you, Tabitha.”

I pressed into him and gave him a squeeze. “Love you, too, honey.”

He dropped his head to kiss my jaw before he dipped down to kiss my throat. Then he rolled again, taking me with him until we were off the bed and on our feet beside it.

We retraced our steps of a few hours before to do the teeth-brushing, hair-brushing thing again (me with the hair brushing, that is; Shy didn’t bother). Shy added pulling on a pair of seen-better-days dark blue sweatpants and a white thermal that was skintight and gave more than a vague indication of the muscled lusciousness that lay beneath it.

I gave myself a moment to appreciate the view before I pulled on a thin black cardigan and a pair of thick socks and headed upstairs, hand in hand with my man.

The minute we made an appearance through the door to the upper level, Rider cut us off at the pass.

He did this by rushing to us, skidding to a halt on his own socked feet two feet in front of us, and tipping his head back to announce, “Santa was here! He left presents and filled stockings and even took the carrots for the reindeer!”

There was a reason Santa, having shown, was a surprise at which to rejoice. This was because my two baby brothers were Hellions with a capital Hell. They were normally unruly but October through December afforded Tyra the opportunity to threaten them with Santa bringing coal rather than presents, and she did this often. They ignored it often. So, until this morning, the jolly one making an appearance was a crapshoot and both the boys knew it.

“Right on,” Shy replied and I looked up at him to see him smiling down at my little brother.

His eyes were soft again, as was his entire face.

After knowing Shy for years, the road to us more than a little bumpy, having Shy in my life, my home, my bed (or, I should say, our home and bed since we lived together)—there was a lot I loved about all of that.

And one of those things high at the top of the list (a long list, seriously), was how he was with my brothers and the fact that he didn’t hide how deeply he cared about them.

Ride was a big fan of Shy’s, too, and this was proved when he jumped forward, grabbed Shy’s hand and started tugging (I’ll note, totally ignoring me), declaring, “Come on! Dad said we can open our stockings!”

“Your old man said you can open your stockings when everyone was up and had coffee,” Dad contradicted as I followed Shy and Ride into the living area that was really one huge room including kitchen and living room, with a fabulous view of the mountains from every window.

When I got there I saw, not surprisingly with Cutter’s earlier excitement, that both Landon and Rush were also up and sitting in the living room. Their eyes glazed with sleep, hair a mess, and at the sight, I couldn’t stop my lips from twitching.

Rush, like Shy (and, incidentally, Dad) was wearing a thermal and seen-better-days sweatpants. Landon had on a tight white long-sleeved tee and a pair of navy blue workout pants with a wide white stripe down the side.

Tyra, in the kitchen at the coffeepot, was dressed like me but her Christmas pj’s included pants, not shorts. They had a sky-blue background and white snowflakes all over, with the addition of miniature snowmen and penguins wearing scarves.

“Coffee!” Cut half-shouted in disgust, half-whined in despair.

“Coffee, boy,” Dad agreed, and I saw his eyes on his youngest. “It’s brewin’. You got about two minutes to wait. The presents’ll still be there when it’s done.”

“Coffee’s stupid!” Cut informed Dad.

“Don’t tell your mother that,” Dad warned Cut, and this was the God’s honest truth. Tyra liked her coffee.

I hit the kitchen and a second later I hit Dad for a kiss on the cheek and a hug.

Then I moved to Tyra, gave a hug, got one in return, and exchanged heartfelt, whispered Merry Christmases.

“Do we gotta wait until Tabby hugs everyone, too?” Cut asked as I shifted to the cupboards that held the mugs.

“That would be an affirmative,” I heard Dad mutter.

“Affirma-what?” Cut demanded to know.

I pulled down mugs, looked at Ty-Ty, and we both giggled.

But Dad didn’t think this was amusing and he was also done.

I knew this when he ordered, “Son, sit your ass in the living room, shut your trap and
wait two minutes
.”

Tyra, not a big fan of Dad cursing in front of the boys (something she let him know often, something he didn’t care about and continued to do when the spirit moved him, which was all the time) whirled and snapped, “Tack!”

“Thank fuck Christmas comes only once a year,” Dad, unrepentant at his language (obviously), ignored Ty-Ty’s snap to say under his breath.

Tyra gave her husband a glare, which deflected off him completely (as usual) and turned back to the coffee.

She poured.

I moved around the space and passed out the mugs, giving another cheek kiss and “Merry Christmas” to Landon and Rush. Again, with Lan, I checked the pulse of his mood by looking in his eyes.

They were, as I’d noted earlier, sleepy. They were also something else, and that something else had to do with the fact that the minute I moved away, his gaze moved direct to my two little brothers, who were barely containing their excitement. He looked contemplative, not joyful, and my Christmas spirit took a hit.

I gave Shy a look. Shy gave me a head shake that I interpreted as him saying
let him work through it.

It was tough but Shy knew his brother better than me so I did as I was non-verbally told.

Finally hitting the living room with my own cup, I noticed that Ride and Cut were firmly in position, both fidgeting on their booties, obviously impatient.

Tyra had a Christmas tradition where stockings were stuffed and placed where you were supposed to sit during the unwrapping festivities. This was mostly because they couldn’t stay hung since she stuffed them so full of presents and candy, they overflowed. It was also to give some order to the proceedings.

This meant that Rider and Cutter’s stockings were on the floor by the presents. Rush’s was, too, seeing as he played Santa every year and had since we were kids, way before Tyra entered the picture and (finally) made my dad happy. Even after Tyra arrived, Rush was still the one who passed out the presents. Now, since Ride and Cut could coordinate their limbs on command, Rush just sat there and told them which presents to take to people.

Rounding out the crew, Dad and Tyra were on one couch. Shy and I were on another. And Landon had the armchair.

The minute Tyra’s ass settled on the couch next to Dad, Dad gave the go ahead.

“Tear it up, boys.”

Rider and Cutter did not delay.

I didn’t either.

Neither did Rush.

It was arguable, but I thought stockings were the best part of Christmas. I didn’t know why. I always got stuff like deodorant, magazines, gift cards, things to put in my hair, lip gloss, shit like that, all of this wrapped in Christmas tissue paper (another Tyra tradition). So it wasn’t like I was unearthing diamonds and pearls, but instead stuff I usually bought myself at the drugstore on a regular basis.

Still, I loved it.

I was halfway through tearing through my stash when something hit me. A warm buzz that vibrated in the air—indistinct, almost elusive—but I felt it coming at me from my left side. I lifted my head from unwrapping a plastic spatula shaped like a Christmas bell and looked that way.

And at what I saw, I went still.

This was because both the brothers Cage were not unwrapping their stockings. They were watching Rider and Cutter as if they were mesmerized. But their mesmerization left warm looks on their faces, the kind of warmth mixed with nostalgia that made me catch my breath.

My eyes drifted to my brothers, all three of them, the big and the little.

All of Kane Allen’s children looked like him, including Rush and me. Ride and Cut were no different. A mess of dark, thick hair, and even as little boys you could see they were going to have Dad’s tall frame.

Both my baby brothers got their mother’s green eyes, however.

Rush got our mother’s eyes. Luckily, I got Dad’s, which meant I got nothing from my mother. I was down with that, seeing as we didn’t get along since she didn’t much like me from approximately the day I was born and I returned the favor.

Landon, being dark like Shy, made Tyra, a redhead, the only odd man out in the assemblage.

We looked like family, though. All of us.

But I knew Shy and Landon didn’t see how cute those two little boys were, tearing into their underwear and socks with abandon. Or how awesome it was that Rush, a badass himself, got off on sitting on the floor with his little bro buds and passing out Christmas presents. Shy and Landon also weren’t thinking how beautiful Ride and Cut were with their father’s coloring, features and frame, and their mother’s extraordinary eyes.

No.

They were seeing themselves in happier times.

And, for once, in fact, for the first time in sixteen years, that nostalgia didn’t hit them like a knife in the gut.

Instead, it was hitting him with a feeling that was sweet.

I knew Shy was going with that flow; he had been since he became a part of my life.

It was Landon who now was letting the sweet feeling of love, joy, and family seep into his pores.

And liking it.

And I liked that.

Feeling my own not-so-vague hint of sweet, I came unstuck, moved the part of my stash that I’d tucked in the seat between Shy and I, and shifted closer to him.

I put my hand on his thigh and when I got his eyes, I encouraged quietly, “Baby, open up your stocking.”

“It’ll get opened, Tab,” was his quiet reply.

I held his eyes, saw the sweet burning in them, felt it burn into my soul, and nodded.

Then I went back to my stash.

“Now presents!” Cut shouted, clearly done with his stocking and ready to move on.

“Lan and Shy aren’t done with their stockings, honey,” Tyra told him, and Cutter sliced his narrowed, impatient gaze to Shy and Landon.

“Hurry up!” he snapped.

“We’re good,” Landon told him and looked Tyra and Dad’s way. “You can keep goin’. We’ll catch up.”

Dad gave him a look, assessed what was going on (Dad was far from dumb; he knew all about Shy and Lan). Then he gave a chin lift and his gaze moved to Rush, “Start it, Rush. Think this year it’s youngest to oldest.”

“
Yee ha!
” Cutter, the youngest, screeched, his arms going straight up in the air right before his body fell on a big package. He slapped his hand on it and said to Rush, “I wanna start with this one.”

“That’ll be hard, buddy, since that’s for Ride,” Rush told Cut.

Cutter’s face fell.

“Though, this one’s for you,” Rush said as he reached and slid an even bigger package out from behind the tree.

Cutter’s eyes got huge.

Jeez, my brother was cute.