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I leaned down, brushing a soft kiss over her waiting mouth. Charlotte hummed happily, her tongue lightly grazing mine.
“Should we order pizza too?” she asked.
“Then why didn’t we stay and eat with them?”
She walked backward, her hands tucked into the waistband of my pants. Her eyes glittered. “You know why.”
With a groan, I followed her as she pulled me through the entry into the family room. “If you make me run through this one more time,” I warned.
She bit down on her bottom lip, stifling her laughter. “I already caught you testing it again this morning.”
Now my neck reallydidget hot. “You did?”
Charlotte nodded.
I cupped her face in my hands and planted a searing kiss on her lips. “One more time, but you have to order the pizza first because I’m starving.” I kissed her again. “And if you make me wait too long, I’ll have to eat you for dinner.”
Her body slumped against mine. “That’s not much of a threat,” she said weakly.
I held myself still as she left the room to find her phone and call the restaurant. The track started behind the couch, and if everything remained untouched, then I should be fine. I’d checked it that morning just as she left to help Tansy unpack her kitchen.
My heart thumped dangerously fast, but it was all excitement. No nerves.
I could hear her on the phone, and I wiped my palms down the fronts of my thighs before walking closer to her.
She was standing in front of the biggest tree in our house, the twelve-foot monstrosity that had taken almost every last shred of my sanity as we tried to decorate it for the event tomorrow. I didn’t know this until Charlotte, but when you had a house with multiple Christmas trees, you also needed multiple themes.
The one in the family room was covered in red-and-green lights, as well as white and red and green ornaments that we’d pulled from her own family storage.
The tree in the dining room was silver and gold, with sparkling white lights and tinsel hanging from the ends of the branches. That, if nothing else, was the ultimate display of my love for her—that I’d hung tinsel from every fucking branch of that tree.
We had a tree in the carriage house because Tansy and the kids had stayed there until they closed on their house.
We had a tree in our bedroom.
I’d asked her once why we didn’t put trees in all the bathrooms too, but she didn’t think I was very funny.
As I stood back and watched her, though, I couldn’t deny that there was something magical in the air when the house looked like this.
Charlotte confirmed our dinner order, adjusting one of the bows that she’d tied onto the branches. That tree was covered in white lights and antique crystal ornaments and dark-green velvet bows.
When I asked her how much the vintage ornaments cost, she’d distracted me with bathroom-counter sex, and I had a feeling I didn’t want to know the answer anyway.
The only lights in the entryway were from the tree, and when she ended the call, she didn’t pull her gaze away from the festive sight right away.
I pushed my hand into my pocket and toyed with the edge of what had been hiding in there all afternoon. In the other hand was the remote for the train.
When I pressed the “Power” button, the sound of the engine whirred to life in the room behind me.
Charlotte smiled at me over her shoulder.
Approaching behind her, I slid my hands over her hips, settling them on her stomach while I laid my chin on her shoulder.
“Tree looks good,” I told her. “Everyone will love it.”
She coasted her hands over mine, letting our fingers intertwine. “I’m nervous,” she admitted.
“How come?”
