AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I know Jeremy is home by the sound of him stomping his boots on the front porch. A moment later, the front door opens, and he walks in, unzipping his coat to reveal Jackie. The little dog hops down, gives himself a shake, and limps over to the fireplace where he curls up on the hearth.
“Brr!” Jeremy shakes himself just like Jackie as he takes his coat off. “It’s really coming down out there.”
I walk over and kiss his cold cheek. “I’ll warm you up.”
He grins as he kicks his boots off. “I’m counting on it, babe.”
“Not like that.”
He makes a mock-disappointed face. “Like how, then?”
“I have a surprise for you.”
His eyebrows lift with curiosity. “No kidding? As it happens, I have a surprise for you too.”
“Ooh, what’s that?”
He slips his arms around my waist. “Thought maybe I could take my best girl out to dinner at Bambi’s tonight.”
“Fancy! What’s the occasion?”
“To celebrate.”
I assume he means celebrate the fact that he’s moving in this week. “I can’t wait. Moving you will take all of about twenty minutes since you still don’t have any real furniture, so we’ve basically got a whole week off with nothing to do.”
“What do you mean, nothing to do? We’ve got Christmas at your mom’s house, not to mention skiing, snowmobiling, ice skating, snowshoeing—week’s gonna be packed!”
Now I pull a face. Jeremy is gradually making an outdoorsy girl of me, but it’s slow going. “Um, don’t forget snuggles, romantic movies, reading by the fire, and more snuggles…?” I prompt. My response to the outdoorsy stuff is to make him watch rom-coms at every available opportunity, though I’m not sure how much attention he pays.
He kisses my forehead. “Oh, there will be snuggling, don’t you worry about that. Okay, what’s my surprise?”
“Sit down and get cozy. I’ll be right back.”
I head into the kitchen. When I come back, Jeremy has settled himself on the couch in front of the gas fire.
He looks at the two mugs I’m carrying and does a mock-dramatic double take. “Has the moment arrived? Is this the hot chocolate of myth and legend I’ve heard so much about?”
I smile proudly as I hand him a mug. For weeks now, he’s been asking about it and I’ve been teasing him that he has to wait for the perfect moment.
And this is it.
I settle on the couch next to him. “If you can’t have hot chocolate two days before Christmas during the first big snowfall of the year to celebrate moving in together, when can you have it?”
He clinks his mug gently against mine. “Merry Christmas and happy moving in together. Here’s to some much-deserved time off.”
The Addison re-opened six weeks ago as an expanded area for the fire station, complete with spacious dorm areas and a state-of-the-art kitchen. Thanks in part to the new space, and in part to the Welkins Ridge Fire Station’s growing reputation as a great place to work, Jeremy has been able to hire five new firefighters, and he decided to give himself Christmas off to coincide with the days that the library will be closed for the holiday.
Between Jeremy overseeing the renovation of the Addison on top of running the station and me overseeing the renovations to the library on top of negotiating our new role as a branch of the county library system, the last few months have been insane for both of us. Jeremy has practically moved into my place anyway, so as soon as Noah was able to line up a new tenant for his place, we decided to make it official.
I hold my breath as Jeremy takes a sip of his hot chocolate, then he lets out a long, satisfying groan. “Ohhhh… You were not lying, woman. That is the best goddamn hot chocolate in the world.”
I know it’s good but watching him relish it sends a thrill of pride through me. “Told ya.”
He takes another sip and moans again, his eyes closed. “Thick, creamy, and sweet, just like you said.”
I’d anticipated a positive reaction—my hot chocolate really is incredible—but I hadn’t anticipated how sexy it would be watching him drink it. The look of sheer pleasure on his face, the indrawn breath of satisfaction, the way he licks his lips, the slow way he lifts the mug to his mouth again for more…
“We should have sex,” I tell him.
