Christmas at Twin Falls (11 page)

“I love it and you.”

Kaleena froze. “W-what?”

Cody stood and put her aside to get more gifts from beneath the tree. He passed a couple to her, and she ripped into them the same way he did, but with trembling hands. Her mind raced. She told herself she’d heard wrong or that he made a mistake. In the emotional moment, he couldn’t have meant to say he loved her.

She exclaimed over the beautiful dress he had bought her in sparkling silver. The hip hugging ensemble reached to mid-thigh, and the design on the back was little more than two strips of material crossing from butt to shoulders. Her lover had added matching strappy heels.

“Wow, this is amazing, and it’s my size. I love it. Thank you, Cody.”

“That’s not all.”

She looked around. “I don’t see anything else.”

“Stay right here.” He left the room and returned a short while later. Kaleena stared at the tiny box in his fist, her chest aching. Cody lifted her from the chair and sat her onto his lap. “Kaleena, I—”

“Cody, you shouldn’t…um…”

“Shh.” He put a finger to her lips. “Let me do this. Just listen.
Please
.”

She nodded. Any second now she would pass out.

Cody drew in a breath and let it out. He held both her hands in his, big hands that engulfed hers and made her feel tiny yet safe. He stroked her skin with a thumb, sending zings of desire through her body, and after a long pause, he spoke.

“Kaleena, I never thought I’d meet a woman like you. Hell, I didn’t think she existed. I didn’t know what or if I looked for someone. If you asked me, I would have said no. I was content with my life. Then one day you walked in, and I fell before I knew what was happening.”

Her eyes widened, and she tugged her hands to free them. Cody let go, and she folded them in her lap. He didn’t need to see how they shook.

He pulled the string on the small box wrapped with red paper since she made no move to take it from him. “I thought I’d never see you again, yet you showed up out of nowhere a week before Christmas. Just that one act changed this holiday for me. You didn’t leave it there. You made it fun, and I promise you I will never forget this as long as I live.”

Tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “I’m so glad. I wanted you to be happy.”

“I
am
happy, Kaleena—with you.
Because
of you.” When he presented her with the ring, holding it up until light from the fire reflected off the massive diamond, panic set in. He picked up her left hand, but she curled her fingers into her palm. “Baby, I love you, and I want you to be my wife.”

Kaleena almost hit the floor scrambling off his lap. She backed away from him, her head spinning. “Oh no, Cody. I’m so sorry. You’re the most wonderful man in the world, but I can’t. I just can’t. To say yes, around this time? I can’t do it. I have to go. I need to get back home.”

She spun on her heel ready to run out the door, her thoughts rolling over top each other, her vision blurred with tears. The sob she heard she was pretty sure came from her, and all she could think was Cody deserved better. Maybe she’d been a fool to assume the brokenness between the two of them would mend with a few scattered experiences of fun over the Christmas holiday. She should have thought more of him and what he felt, not her own selfish notions.

Kaleena made it to the hall before Cody caught her wrist and whipped her around to face him. His hold on her might be gentle, but no amount of wriggling freed her. He drew her closer, and she trembled at the warmth radiating off his body. Even his natural male scent teased her, along with the sensation of his chest brushing her nipples through her nightie. She raised her hands and tangled fingers in his T-shirt, not knowing if she wanted to push him away or pull him nearer.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and she figured he took back the offer. “I can’t let you go.”

She blinked up at him. “What?”

“I loved you last year, Kaleena. Somehow during those weeks I looked after you, I fell in love, but that wasn’t the time to make declarations after all you’d been through. I was forced to watch you walk away, knowing I would never see you again. That day was the hardest I’ve ever lived through, apart from when I first found out about my parents. I let you go back then because it was the right thing to do, but that can’t happen again.” He drew her tighter to his chest, and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I can’t go through this again. I can’t have you walk away from me another Christmas. I love you. If you can’t marry me, I understand. But please, baby…
Please
stay.”

“Yes.”

Cody picked her up and thumped her on the hall table. He drew her chin up with both hands at her jaw and leaned in to kiss her lips. Kaleena moaned beneath the onslaught of his tongue and the way he parted her legs to push between them. He left her mouth to explore her cheeks, to kiss her eyes and her temples. When he returned to her lips, he dropped his hands to the front of his sweatpants and dragged them low. With a flick of a finger, he shoved her panties aside at the crotch and filled her with his cock. Kaleena cried out his name. Her wetness allowed him easy entry, but her inner walls clenched his shaft, and she hooked her legs around his waist. Cody thrust deep inside of her, drew back only a few inches, and then pounded deeper.

He raised her legs higher and ignored how the table banged the wall each time he rammed his dick into her pussy. Kaleena gripped his shoulders and angled back to take all of him. She rained kisses along his throat and tasted the salty skin on his shoulder. Sucking and licking, she loved on him, hoping for the evidence of how much she loved this man to show up for the entire world to see. He’d chosen her, when she was broken and afraid—he’d made her special to him.

“You’re going to make me come, Cody,” she whimpered.

“That’s the plan,” he growled.

He pulled out and yanked her to her feet. With a twist, he had her facing the table. Once again, he ripped her panties aside and thrust into her heat. She arched her back and went up to her toes, doing her best to accommodate his thickness.

Cody’s hunger and his rough treatment had her legs banging into the table. He tried bracing them both with a palm on the wall, but he didn’t slow his pace. She pushed into his drive and met him grind for grind. Their bodies knocked together so hard until she couldn’t take it anymore. She had to let go. Her orgasm exploded, and she lost the ability to hold herself up. When she collapsed, Cody caught her. He held on and pumped nonstop until he found his own release.

At last, he pulled out, and she drew away from the table. The fronts of her thighs were red despite her brown skin. Cody dropped to his knees. “Oh damn, baby, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.” He kissed her thighs and stroked the tender skin. “I’m an idiot. You agree to stay with me, and I go and hurt you.”

“It’s okay.” She touched his hair, tangling her fingers in the silky locks. “You really should get up from there though because you’re getting me hot all over again.”

Cody jumped to his feet and took her hand. “Come on. Let me do this right.”

They headed upstairs to his room, and Cody relieved her of her clothing before taking off his own. He stood in front of her and guided her hands to his chest. Kaleena luxuriated in the feel of his hard body, the rapid heartbeat beneath her palms. She stared into his eyes and saw the love she never thought she’d see or want to see in another man other than the fiancé she lost. Cody wasn’t like Jeff had been, but he didn’t need to be. Cody’s attentiveness, his sweetness, and his strength made him the man she loved now.

“I thought I could never be with anyone else,” she murmured. “Not because I didn’t want to. My heart ached to love again and be loved. I just thought it wasn’t meant to be, that nobody would care. As hard as I strove to heal, I doubted my ability. You were there from day one. You helped me stand up and live. I love you so much, Cody. I’ll admit I’m scared about this, but like you, I can’t see myself leaving. Even with the risk—”

“Shh, my love.” He touched her cheek when she started to cry and thumbed the moisture away. “There’s no risk, except to be cherished by me.”

He raised her into his arms and laid her gently on the bed. When he followed her down, Kaleena spread her legs to allow him to settle between them. She moaned as his cock sank into her heat. Connected physically, they lay unmoving. Kaleena mentally opened herself to Cody, as tough as it was. She trusted him, and even while an ache of fear started in her belly, she stayed open. The torment and pain of her loss hadn’t robbed her of the ability to be with another. Instead, she realized, it sealed her fate toward finding the kind of completion she’d known before. The miracle came with Cody—her rescuer, her friend, her lover. Fear would not keep her from holding onto him now and forever.

As Cody began pumping with slow, deliberate movements, she raised her knees and locked her heels behind him. Their fingers intertwined at their sides, they moved in perfect unison. Kaleena arched into him and concentrated on the sensations his amazing body elicited. She lifted her legs higher and felt the bump of his ball sac against her anus. Pleasure exploded on a new level, and she gasped when her pussy walls compressed around her lover’s shaft. An orgasm began to expand outward from her core. She shuddered from head to toe. Between gasps of ecstasy mingled with a spasm of fear, she managed, “Cody, I will. I
will
marry you.”

The End

At Last

DAHLIA ROSE

Chapter One

Beau Everett looked at the horse standing on the other side of the corral. He’d bought the stallion for breeding, and because he was just so damn beautiful. His coat was like black ink and shined like onyx. His lines showed perfect breeding and muscle tone, and Beau knew the name Midnight Ink was apt. But the stallion was stubborn, and now they were in the middle of a stare down. Even in winter he decided to work the horse. Wyoming was known for snowstorms as late as May. That was many months to wait, and the stubbornness set in. Midnight needed to be broken.

Beau puffed out a breath and watched it mist in the cold. Today wasn’t bad, but he would prefer to take a horse and head to the hot springs in the mountain instead. Twin Falls ranch sat on a prime piece of property. The backdrop was Cloud Peak Mountain, and hot springs sat on their property. His father built the business from a small two-bedroom house to what it was now. After his parents died, he and his twin brother Cody took over the work and grew it exponentially since then. Cody managed the cattle, and Beau always loved the horses. Except for right now with the battle of wills he had going with Midnight that had taken center stage for the past few weeks. He’d been working with the horse for weeks, and each day it was the same routine. Midnight refused to take the bit or be saddled.

“Staring him down working for you?” His brother’s voice came from behind him and startled Beau. He was so intent on the horse that he didn’t hear the boots crunching in the snow as Cody walked up.

“We’re coming to a mental accord.” Beau looked at his brother and grinned. It was like looking into a mirror except Beau ran his hand over the scar that was in the hairline over his right temple. At ten years old he thought he was a dare devil and tried to jump from the coral to the back of a horse . . . He missed.

“It seems he may be winning,” Cody teased.

“I’m giving him the illusion of victory,” Beau replied easily. “I saw your old friend drive up.” A year ago, Cody spent a couple weeks helping a woman get over the loss of her fiancé. Beau saw her get out of the car at Cody’s house a few days earlier. He also saw the look on his brother’s face and the flush on his neck. There was more there than what his twin was saying.

“She just wanted to say hi,” Cody answered.

“Uh-huh.” Beau snorted. “Christmas lights in the window?”

Cody cleared his throat. “She likes the holiday.”

“Apparently.” Beau grinned. “Seriously, bro, I’m glad you seem to be taking that bull by the horns. You need someone in your life. I’m your big brother. I have to watch out for you.”

This time Cody laughed. “By five minutes. That doesn’t mean a thing.”

“So you say, but I am more world savvy.” Beau grinned.

“This year is sixteen years,” Cody said suddenly.

Beau sighed. “I know. Didn’t seem like that long since we lost them. I’ll get flowers on Christmas day and take them to the graveyard.”

“I’ll be there. One more week till Christmas,” Cody said. “Do you think they wanted this for us? The place looks like a sterile hospital on the holiday. Remember how Mom used to do it up? The house smelled like ham, bread and pies, and she even decorated the bunk house for the ranch hands.”

Beau closed his eyes and remembered it easily. If he concentrated hard enough, he could swear he smelled her baking. Losing his parents still cut deep. Having them die on Christmas day made it even worse. He didn’t know if they’d want this for him, but there was nothing about the holiday that brought him joy anymore.

“I hope Kaleena can help you enjoy it,” Beau teased.

“You’re a fine one to talk. By the way I went into town this morning, and Natasha said hi,” Cody said and punched Beau in the shoulder. “Bam, you should see your face.”

His brother meant the hottest woman in Huntsford as far as Beau was concerned. They knew each other since high school, and she was always his unicorn. She moved to New York to be a photographer and then moved five years ago and bought Razzlez Bar and Grill.” Upstairs she ran a studio taking pictures of babies and the residents of the town. Plus she worked at the small gazette taking pictures for the newspaper. She was a whirlwind packed into a pint size body being a mere five feet three inches to his six feet two. But when she entered a room, she dominated it. Her skin looked like it shimmered in the summer and was warm as hot chocolate in the winter. Big wide almond eyes would make any man fight a war for one look in their direction, and her full lips could curve in a smile or cuss like a sailor.
Perfect woman.