Hawke
Christmas morning dawned way too early, the bright Colorado sun streaming in through the wooden blinds in my bedroom. I hadn’t even fully opened my eyes yet, but I was already hard as fuck, still dreaming about all the things I’d done last night with that gorgeous, fiery redhead.
Nothing in my life had ever felt so good. So right.
She’d been so warm and soft in my arms, her lean body perfectly aligned against my chest, my fingers tangled up in her crazy curls as we made love again and again, both of us spent and happy when we’d finally drifted off to sleep.
It’d been the most peaceful night’s sleep I’d gotten in a decade.
I turned onto my side now and reached for her, aching to tangle my hands in those curls again, to bury myself between her thighs…
But the sheets beside me were cold.
I opened my eyes, heart in my damn throat.
My woman was gone.
Well. Ain’tthata bitch of a way to wake up on Christmas.
I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, trying to breathe through that hollowed-out feeling inside me.
But there, stacked up in the corner of my room like it belonged there, was Maddie’s endless supply of luggage.
She hadn’t left me yet.
The breath whooshed out of my lungs, and I shook my head, laughing at myself.
When the fuck did you become such a lightweight, Stevens? Fuck.
One night with Maddie Lockwood, and I’d gone completely soft.
I fisted my cock.
Okay, maybe notcompletelysoft…
But hell, I wasn’t about to stand around with my dick in my hand. Not when there was a beautiful woman somewhere in this cabin.
I threw on a hoodie and a pair of flannel pajama pants and opened my blinds, checking out the scene. It was a damn winter wonderland out there, everything covered in a thick, white blanket that sparkled in the sun. It felt like the world had been scrubbed clean and given a second chance.
Too bad it can’t last…
Darkness banged on the door of my heart, but I locked it down. I still had some time with her. Maybe an hour. Maybe a minute. Either way, I wasn’t about to waste anotherseconddwelling on that inevitable goodbye.
But first…
Digging through a box of old shit shoved into the very back of my closet, I retrieved the one thing—other than my mouth—guaranteed to put a smile on my girl’s face.
Santa hat, leftover from one of my last Christmases with my mom and sister. It was one of the few things I’d held on to from those days, and now I was glad I hadn’t pitched it into the trash with the rest of the stuff.
For so long, all those old memories brought only pain and darkness. It was long past time to change that.
Downstairs, a new fire was crackling in the hearth. The power had been restored sometime in the night, and now the whole place smelled like breakfast. Not watery oatmeal and a protein shake spiked with a shot of whiskey, but a real, homemade, loosen-up-your-pants-and-spend-the-whole-damn-day-in-a-food-coma breakfast.
“What kind of trouble are you two getting into down here?” I asked my girls.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Maddie said, not turning away from the stove. Wearing nothing but one of my flannel shirts and a pair of hiking socks that went up over her knees, my girl was happily frying up some bacon, her red hair all over the damn place. Bella lay curled up on the floor at Maddie’s feet, gnawing on her favorite bone, happy as a pig in shit.
The storm had passed. The lights were back on. The fire was blazing. I’d enjoyed the most mind-blowing sex of my life last night. My dog was happy. And there was a hot, half-naked woman frying up bacon in my kitchen.
