Christmas With You (15 page)
Read Christmas With You Online
Authors: Tracey Alvarez
Carly cocked her head. “I think you’ve used every one of Mrs. Taylor’s decorations.”
Baubles, silver bells, and gimmicky Santa decorations covered the pine tree, with only a few strands of tinsel left spilling out of the box. He hadn’t bothered color-coordinating or going with the
less is better
style he preferred, and it touched her deeply.
He shot her a small smile, crossing to the couch to retrieve the glittery star. “You taught me a thing or two about tree decorating. And about pulling my head out of my ass and talking to my parents—which I did, and we’re cool.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “You didn’t spend the whole day in bed, then?”
Kip turned the star in his hands and then placed it on her dining table. “No, I’ve been doing all the usual traditional Kiwi things—eating too much turkey, trying to construct Lego spaceships with the twins, and getting sunburned. Christmas Day didn’t turn out to be as bad as I’d feared, except I missed you every single minute.”
A lump expanded in her throat as he crossed the room and took her hand, his roughened fingers curling around hers.
His thumb rubbed across her knuckle, his blue eyes intense. Delicious shivers worked their way down her spine.
“Why don’t you check under the tree, sweetheart? See if Santa left you anything.”
He tugged her hand, and she let him lead her to the tree, her head filling with the clean, tangy scent of pine. Beneath the lowest branches lay a small, neatly wrapped package. Kip kneeled, drawing her down with him.
“Were you lying about your gift-wrapping skills?”
Kip grinned and wriggled his fingers. “I’ve been practicing. Now open it.”
Carly peeled off the paper, exposing a rectangular silver box. Prying off the lid, she caught her breath. A green pendant in the shape of an infinity twist nestled in the white satin.
“Greenstone?” she breathed, stroking a finger along the cool curves.
“Yeah. Maori consider greenstone a
taonga
—treasure.” He brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear then traced the finger down her cheek, much the same way she touched the pendant. “I chose this pendant because it symbolizes an everlasting bond between two people.”
Everlasting bond? She glanced up, and oh, God, the fierceness of his stare, as if his soul poured out of him into her, filling all the little gaps and crevices that had remained empty for too long.
“I love you.” He cupped her jaw. “Since the first moment you fell into my life and kneed me in the nuts, but likely even before then.” His throat worked, and the hot sting of tears burned her eyes. “You’re my treasure, and I want to spend every Christmas with you—today, next year, fifty years from now.”
Her heart once again rabbited around her chest and she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He loved her, and he’d helped turn her from a Grinch into a believer again. She believed that while family was important, falling off a ladder into the arms of the most incredible man, ever, was more important. Though, in their case, it was a crash-landing with the possibility of concussion, but when she and Kip told the story to their kids,
falling into his arms
sounded less klutzy.
Oh, dear God—
kids
.
“But…” Her lip quivered. “You don’t want the whole family thing, the requisite three grandkids for your parents.”
“Sweetheart, I want everything with you, including, one day in the future, the whole family thing.” He stilled her trembling lip with his thumb. “But you do realize that twins run rampant through the Sullivan clan?”
“Twins?”
“Many, many sets of twins,” he said seriously.
“Then I want them, too,” she said. “But more than kids, more than your wonderful, match-making family, I want you Kip. Always.”
He studied her, his blue eyes warming her from the inside out. “I always thought love made you vulnerable. I guess it does, because, baby, you could crush my heart in your hands.”
Carly leaned forward, brushed a soft kiss on his lips. “You’re not vulnerable if the one you give your heart to loves you so much she’ll treat it like the most precious
taonga
she’s ever been given.”
“You love me?”
“To the North Pole and back.” She laced her hands around his neck, smiling until a sudden chill nipped her conscience. “Oh, my goodness, I didn’t—”
He cut her off—kissing her until she melted into him. He gathered her close, and she found herself flat on the floor with the Christmas tree towering above, and hard, pine-scented male wedged between her legs.
“You didn’t what?” Kip kissed his way down her throat. “You didn’t shut the door? It’s okay; I think Mrs. Taylor understood the second part of my plan.”
She laughed, as the fine line of stubble surrounding his gorgeous mouth tickled her skin. “No—I didn’t get you a Christmas present
or
a birthday present.”
Kip wriggled his eyebrows. “Sweetheart, look at yourself all flushed and beautiful. Do you think I want anything else?”
She couldn’t have asked for a sweeter, sexier, kinder man to find underneath the tree—but maybe Santa had a little help from a certain flyboy in choosing the right man for her. Carly threaded her fingers through Kip’s thick, dark hair, her heart so full to overflowing she wondered how her vocal chords still worked.
“No,” she said. “We
both
got everything we wanted.”
###
Thank you for reading
Christmas With You
! I hope you enjoyed diving into the Due South world. If you did…
1. Please help other readers find this book by
writing a review here
.
2.
Sign up for my newsletter
so you can find out about upcoming book releases and other cool stuff.
3. Come like my
Facebook
page.
4. Check out my
website
.
5. I love to hear from my readers on any social media platform or you can e-mail:
[email protected]
The Due South series focuses on family, community, and of course, each book contains a scorching hot romance.
Other books in the series:
In Too Deep (Due South Book 1)
She vowed never to return.
To save her brother from financial ruin, Piper Harland must do the one thing she swore she'd never do—return to the tiny island hometown where Ryan "West" Westlake crushed her heart. Piper is tough, resilient and a little wild—much like the remote and beautiful Stewart Island where she grew up. As a cop who's part of the elite New Zealand Police National Dive Squad, bringing the dead back to their families still doesn't stop the guilt she feels over her father's drowning death. Now nine years later she's obligated to return to a hostile community as the outsider, and forced to work with the man who was once her best friend and first lover.
She's a risk he can't take.
West is an Island man, through and through. As owner of the local pub, he lives and breathes the local community, and sure as hell can't imagine living anywhere else. But most of all he refuses to ever fall for a woman like his flighty mother. He lost Piper once to give her the chance to fulfil her dreams of becoming a cop. But now she's back for an unexpected six week visit to help her brother—his best mate. Maybe West wants her a little bit, maybe he can't resist the temptation to tease and touch her, but can he fall in love with such a flight risk?
Saying goodbye for the second time might just destroy them both.
Melting Into You (Due South Book 2)
Big, sexy men who don’t relate well to kids need not apply…
Kezia Murphy plays her widow card well. When you don’t trust people not to let you down, it’s easier to not get involved—and getting involved with a man who makes her skin sizzle just by looking at him would be
una pazzia
—crazy! Four years ago while Kezia’s daughter, Zoe, battled leukaemia, a tragic accident stole her husband’s life. Starting over in the little town of Oban where she’s adopted into the close knit community on Stewart Island, Kezia and her daughter are all the family the other needs. Except Zoe yearns for more.
New Zealand’s worst candidate for instant fatherhood…
Ben doesn’t do gooey emotional stuff. He doesn’t do cosy home and family. And he sure isn’t the big teddy-bear Kezia Murphy, the woman he secretly fantasises about, thinks he is. So when Jade, his surprise eight-year-old daughter arrives on his doorstep, he’s a D-minus student struggling to pass a crash-course in parenting.
They’ll either melt or raze their lives to the ground…
When the sparks of attraction between Kezia and Ben fan into an inferno, Ben doesn’t know how much longer the layers of resistance around his heart can resist melting into the gooey mess he fears. The more he fights it the harder it is to make the choice that will destroy the family he now longs to claim.
Click here to buy Melting Into You
Ready To Burn (Due South Book 3)
Take one sassy Harland girl…
Shaye Harland, sous chef de-awesome, desperately wants the role of Due South’s head chef. Though a little out of her depth, she can totally cope with the extra demands if she can resist her future brother-in-law when he muscles in on
her
kitchen. The Hollywood wannabe is nothing but a troublesome distraction and he fries her sex-ometer to a crisp. But as far as romance? Forget it. Love, when she finds Mr. Perfect, will be as sweet as her to-die-for cookies.
Add a bad-boy from LA…
Del Westlake swore he’d never again set foot on the island he calls the “ass end of New Zealand.” With his reputation as a sous chef in one of LA’s hottest restaurants trashed, and his estranged father’s restaurant needing a head chef, Del wants nothing more than to go in, get the job done, and get out. Except his feisty second-in-command carves herself a spot in his heart and completely incinerates his plans.
Watch the sparks fly as they burn it up in the kitchen…
Winning a spot on a TV reality show is just what Del needs to jumpstart his career back in the States. Nothing can get in the way of him winning—not even the woman whose trust he’d destroy if she discovers his secrets. But with a film crew capturing the explosive kitchen chemistry between them, will his bad-boy ways rear up and ruin his shot at becoming Shaye’s Mr. Perfect?
