Christmas was looking better by the minute.
“Ah, Cupcake,” I said, joining her at the stove and sliding my hands around her hips. “Where have you been all my life?”
“No idea, but you almost missed it. You sleep like a bear. Well, I guess a wolf makes more sense in this context. Do wolves sleep like bears? Or is that not a thing?”
“You wore me out last night, woman. What the hell did you expect?”
Maddie finally turned around to look at me, and when she spotted the Santa hat, her eyebrows jumped up, her eyes brightened about ten shades, and that megawatt kid-on-Christmas grin of hers stretched across her face.
And the very last chunk of ice cracked and fell right off my heart.
“Don’t say a word,” I teased, pressing my finger to her lips. “Or it’s gone.”
“I’m not saying a word. Just… Merry Christmas. Am I allowed to say that?”
“I suppose I can make an exception for that.” Grinning, I leaned in close and stole a sweet good-morning kiss.
“Bacon!” she shouted suddenly, pulling away and turning her attention back to the frying pan. “You have to watch it, or it’ll burn.”
As she tended to her bacon, I looked around the kitchen, noticing all the other work she’d done. Not only had she brought in more wood for the fire, but the table was covered in hot, fresh food—cheesy eggs with broccoli and red pepper, hash browns, a stack of pancakes a mile high, fresh-squeezed orange juice, coffee. She’d even made a centerpiece out of emergency candles and a cluster of pinecones and boughs she must’ve collected from outside.
“Maddie, you… You did all this?” My damn eyes watered. Girl must’ve chopped up some onions in those eggs, or maybe it was the candle smoke. Had to be something like that.
“Since you gave the head chef the week off, I kind of had to.” Maddie laughed, and I tried desperately to hold on to it, to memorize the sound. “I know you’re not into Christmas trees or anything, but I figured you wouldn’t mind if I improvised on a few decorations. Bella helped me pick them out. Didn’t you, girl? After you chased that poor fox through the snow, you big goofball.”
The dog barked, wagging her tail like she’d just been awarded a medal of honor.
“Oh, by the way,” Maddie said, “you really shouldn’t keep the emergency flares in the same box as the candles. You almost got a verydifferentkind of wakeup call. And I couldn’t find any pepper, so I had to get the little packets out of those… those army TV dinners, or whatever they are. You’ve got some weird stuff in there, Hawke. Honestly.”
“MREs,” I said, grinning my ass off. Why was she so fucking cute?
“Well, whatever they’re called, the next time you try to eat one, you won’t have any pepper. I left the salt, though. But I think they’re mostly expired, anyway. You should probably just—”
“I should probably just…” I slid an arm around her waist, stroking the curve of her ass. The soft little moan escaping her mouth made me instantly hard again, but more than that, she just felt… right.Damnright in my arms. Right wearing my shirt. Right filling my kitchen with the sound of her sweet voice and laughter. Right cooking breakfast on Christmas morning as if she’d been meant to find her way to my doorstep all along.
“You’re a crazy girl,” I said, burying my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent. “A crazy, sexy, incredible girl who crashed into my driveway and turned my whole fucking world upside down in a single night.”
“Hey! You’re the one who told me shifters and vampires are real. Talk about turning the whole world upside down in a single night.”
“Guess that makes us even, right?”
“How do you figure?”
I laughed. “Now webothbelieve in fairy tales.”
“Wow, all that in a single night.” Maddie smirked. “Imagine what we could do with an entire week?”
“I couldn’t keep up with you for an entire week, Cupcake.”
But fuck if I didn’t want to. A week, a month, my whole damn life.
All this time, I’d merely been existing. Living life from the wrong side of the window, just like she’d said. But then Maddie literally crashed into my life, and suddenly I felt alive again, seeing everything around me in vivid color instead of drab shades of gray.
Somehow, despite my best efforts, the woman had found a way in, breeching my walls, jackhammering the ice right off my heart.
The thought of letting her walk out that door today carved me open inside, damn near gutting me.
I thought I’d be okay saying goodbye; from the very start, I knew she’d be out of here as soon as the storm broke, and we’d given each other one hell of a sendoff last night.
But now that the hour of her imminent departure was closing in, I couldn’t fucking bear it. I didn’t want to know what tonight would feel like without her in my arms. WhatIwould feel like.
Maybe it was crazy, but hell—just like the existence of shifters and vampires and all the other creatures that went bump in the night—what Maddie and I had was real. Didn’t matter that I’d only met her a day ago. Sometimes, you just fuckingknew.
I lifted her hair and pressed my nose to the back of her bare neck, inhaling her sweet scent once more, stirring the possessive, protective wolf inside me to life.
I knew the reality, knew my words wouldn’t change it for either of us. But I had to say them anyway, because if there was anyone listening—any fucking North star, Santa Claus, Christmas miracle magic left to make it happen—I had to give it a shot.
“Stay with me, Cupcake,” I whispered. “Just stay.”
