Her Christmas Romance Surprise

by Kenna Shaw Reed

  We rounded past a line of gum trees and found the gravel road up to a faded weatherboard cottage. It could have done with a paint job, but like many country homes, its style was set and forget from the moment it became lived in. Money was better spent on grain, fencing and stock.

  After the ute pulled to a stop, I couldn’t blame the bumpy road for my shaking body.

  This. Was. Happening.

  “Pia?” Kade looked to me, with all the same longing and fear I shared. What if we could never live up to our years of fantasies?

  “You promised me a kiss.” I flirted, raising an eyebrow to see how he’d respond.

  “I promised you a lot more than that.”

  “Come and get it, then.”

  Before I had time to react, Kade sprinted around to my side of the ute, offering his hand to drag me into his arms. We stood, the blazing sun forcing us either back to the air-conditioned car or into the house. I wanted to feel his touch against my bare flesh, to kiss him again. To get to know his lazy lips as well as I knew my own.

  “Last chance?” His hands had slipped to my waist and the hot metal pressed against my back.

  “Why, changed your mind?” In my attempt to stop the car from burning me, my body pressed forward against his. I could feel what was on his mind, but it seemed as if our relationship had a pattern. A long, seductive dance and then a leap of faith. One got me to Goulburn. Another to this spot. But the leap from standing here to inside his house, with a bed and privacy was the greatest leap of all.

  His fingers dug ever so slightly into my hips, a subtle grind as I moaned, “Please don’t.”

  “Don’t what.” He stopped for a moment, his breath hotter than the air and close enough to inhale.

  “Don’t change your mind.” I smirked, fingers trailed down his chest, “Let’s not keep wasting time.”

  Kade didn’t need to unlock his cottage, no one probably knew it existed and break-ins were unheard of this far out of town. He mocked at an attempt to carry me over the threshold but stopped when I laughed him away. Seriously, he could save that level of romance until after we’d declared a greater commitment than one afternoon or one lunch.

  A fake Christmas lunch. No. Kade could never be a fake anything. He. Was. Real.

  The old wooden floors held no secrets, fifty or sixty years of heel prints and furniture scrapes. Replacement boards showed where the combination kitchen, dining and lounge rooms had once been separated. The cottage was an open book, except for the rooms off to the side where he led me by the hand.

  Kade’s bedroom.

  His bed with a dark brown cover and abstract design took up most of the room. No sign of female influence in the old, sparse furnishings. Solid oak framed bed with iron bed head, and matching chest of drawers and side tables. The only light in the room was from his window overlooking a neglected paddock.

  Watching my eyes for any sense of regret or a change of mind, Kade flicked the straps from my yellow print sundress from my shoulders. The soft fabric fell, to be caught by my breasts. A wriggle dislodged it down to my hips before another flick of Kade’s wrist dropped my dress to the floor.

  I stood, trembling while I waited for him to continue. Kade knelt down, inspecting each foot carefully before removing my sandals. Starting at my toes, he lay kisses to claim my body as his. Working his hands up each leg while I tugged at the elastic holding his man bun in place. Freeing his hair to be wrapped around my fingers, I couldn’t remain passive. I needed to be part of this.

  The moment I reached down to touch the elastic of his shorts, Kade pushed me to the bed. Giggling, I continued to tug at his shorts until they joined my dress on the floor. I worked my way up to the top of his bed, pulling him by his t-shirt until he removed my leverage.

  His bare chest to my bra. His briefs to my panties. My legs claimed his while his hands claimed my wrists. Panting and nervous laughter.

  Our last chance to walk away as friends.

  “Bed okay?” He bounced the mattress until I giggled for him to stop. Could he be the rare male who liked sex to be fun, rare and exquisite!

  “Not too hard or too soft.” I tried to shrug with as much grace as humanly possible while wearing my boring beige bra and panties. If I’d know this could happen, that Kade was K, my credit card would have seen the inside of a lingerie shop on the way to Goulburn.

  “Does that mean I got the first test right?”

  “Oh, you passed the first test when you messaged me.”

  “I can’t even remember what I said. I must have rewritten it a hundred times.”

  “Consider yourself forgiven on one condition,” I stroked his naked chest, playing with the dark brown hairs. Twisting them in my fingers as I made a show of counting his abs.

  “Make it quick, before I’m willing to agree to anything.”

  “That’s the thing,” I hesitated, wanting him to understand that I’d wanted this for over a decade, that being together in this way meant more to me than a random hook up. “You rushed me from the café to the car and then from the car to bed so fast, I’m scared.”

  I knew how pathetic and misleading this sounded, and tried again, “I don’t want to forget our first time, and I don’t want you to forget, either.”

  “Then I have a condition of my own.”

  “What?” With each grind, I craved to feel him within me. We’d gone from anonymous messages to meeting; from crazy to insane in less than a week. I didn’t care what condition he was about to impose; I was ready.

  Willing.

  Able to match him in any desire he chose.

  “One condition,” he repeated unnecessarily. “That this isn’t our last time.”

  “Oh, Kade,” I cried before he overtook my mouth. With each breath he lowered, holding still at my entrance, his arms bulging in an attempt to hold himself rigid, waiting.

  “Are you sure?” His body trembled until I nodded. I’d never been more certain. Others may judge this as a random hook up, even label me the awful S word for sleeping with Kade on our first date.

  Except Kade Reiss could never be a random stranger.

  Not when being together felt so complete.

  This couldn’t be a first date.

  Not when our entire lives had led to this moment.

  “Oh!” I cried as he slid inside.

  “Are you okay?” He stopped mid thrust, full of concern.

  “It’s been a while,” I admitted, shifting my hips until he was perfectly in place. “You might need to give me some L plates.”

  “Enough talking,” Kade crushed my body beneath his before making me completely and irrevocably his.

  His mouth. Alternating between cruel and biting, to soft and gentle. And that was when he had dived between my legs. I had no choice but to relax and let him explore my body. Finding out how to extract giggles, or moans with a differing touch. The one spot on my neck, if kissed, would render me helpless to his desire. That my right nipple, if squeezed, would almost force me to swallow him whole. While the other nipple would find my lying back in a contented purr.

  With each kiss, I fell a little deeper. With each touch, I removed boundaries I never realized existed. No wonder I’d never found another man worthy of loving. I’d been waiting for the right man.

  This.

  This was perfect.

  Kade was everything I’d ever dreamed.

  Happy Christmas to me.

  Kade

  A lifetime of waiting.

  Years of hoping.

  One day with Pia changed my world.

  It wasn’t just about the sex, although we were magic together. None of that awkwardness of some first times. I’d never known a woman who found pleasure in—well, everything. No wonder she had, and would always be, the only woman for me.

  Tormenting me with her wriggling ass while we struggled to cook dinner. Making even cooking fun by tossing me random cans, packets and frozen vegetables and challenging me to make us something edible.

 
“You know,” I teased when she sniffed in mock disgust, “If you’d used your real photo, I would have stocked up on foods to please. You know, on the off-chance—”

  “The off-chance of what? You really thought after all these years, you had a chance with me?” Hands on hips, swaying provocatively to my playlist, she demanded my reply.

  Dinner could wait.

  We couldn’t.

  Not now and not ever.

  Pia Morgan was mine. Whether she knew it or not, Christmas could be our way of announcing us to our families, but if I had my way, there would be other announcements to come.

  All I needed was a sign from Pia that we’d by-passed the fake date bullshit I’d signed up for. This was real.

  A forever kind of real.

  Until she was ready to give me a sign, I could be content with her calling out my name.

  Dinner and food could wait.

  Pia

  “Are you sure about Christmas?” I turned to my—could I call Kade my boyfriend or would he prefer the term, partner? Was he either or both? Or neither? Whatever he wanted to be called, Kade Reiss lay gloriously naked next to me, our legs perpetually intertwined and despite all of yesterday, last night, and twice earlier this lazy Sunday afternoon, I was ready for him again.

  “The way I see it, if we turn up together, our families are going to start naming our children.” Kade laughed, brushing the tip of my nose with his, replacing his nose with a light kiss before rolling away. I could have kept listening to him talk through his options for a project bid for hours—not all the hours spent in bed had been making up for lost time. We’d also taken the time to get to know each other, as adults and as more than friends. “You hungry?”

  “For food, maybe. For you—” Any moment now, we’d head back to the reality of Sydney and I wanted one more everything.

  Kade rolled back, pinning me to the bed in my new favorite position. “You know, there are things we can do with this iron bed-head.”

  Did I trust him? Yes. Did I trust him to stop if things got out of hand and I didn’t want to keep going? Yes. I knew this man, there was nothing in him that I should fear. I gripped the posts as if tied, maybe next time. “Your closest neighbors are a flock of sheep, so if you play your cards right, no one can hear me cry.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?” We’d had so many conversations, asked and answered so many questions that I lost count of where we were up to. Instead, I raised my hips, knowing by now what he couldn’t resist, and once I managed to wrap my ankles around his, there was only one thing Kade could do. Me.

  “Yes, I’m sure about Christmas. Unless you’ve had enough of all this.” His words didn’t end in a full stop, they ended with us being joined together.

  Pushing our pasts aside and opening the possibility of a future.

  “Ahh.” I didn’t even try finding coherent words.

  “Well?” Kade’s fingers edged me to the point of no reason. “Have you had enough.”

  “No, I want more.”

  “Talk to me, use your words.”

  “Damn it, Kade, you know what I want!” Seriously, what else did I need to do to prove in how much I wanted him. Always and forever ... “Please, Kade, please you know what I want.”

  “I can’t hear you.” His fingers kept stopping when my tremors started. Damn the man, it took him half a day to know how to bring me to my knees, literally. Since then, my body had become our play-gym. Who needed Netflix when Kade was all the entertaining I needed?

  “I want more,” I panted, knowing how much he needed to hear me say the words. “I want more, I crave more.”

  “Once more.” He quivered, his teasing fingers threatening to quit their job. “Tell me what you want.”

  “All I want for Christmas is you. Do you want me to sing the bloody song or are you going to give me what I want so I can sing your name?”

  “Ask and she shall receive.”

  “Ohhhh, Kade, ohhhh, Kade.”

  “I thought we were getting ready to go back to the city.” He lay, his head on my chest as I stroked his wet hair, loving how the length, once released from the fashionable man bun, could wrap around my fingers. Something to remember for later.

  “It’s late Sunday night. I don’t like you driving back with kangaroos on the road at night.”

  “It’s either tonight or tomorrow morning.”

  “We could leave at six? Shower before we leave and then you only have to get changed before going into work.”

  “Which office are you working from this week?” Kade seemed to float through towns. He’d gone through his schedule but right now, all I could remember was that we had four days apart. Four days multiplied by twenty-four hours equaled approximately one hundred hours without this man by my side. At least he’d be in my life and the same technology that had bought us together could be our channel. For one hundred hours, give or take.

  “Sydney for Monday and Tuesday, it’s our busiest time getting produce to the Sydney markets before Christmas.”

  “Then?”

  “How about I meet you back here on Christmas Eve? I can be here before lunch.” Kade ignored the two days in between.

  “Food?”

  “Yes.” Kade reached up to kiss my nose. A habit I had already gotten used to. “I’ll make sure there are two soft poached eggs waiting for you.”

  “With toast.”

  “Cut into tiny little, mouth-sized triangles.” Kade shrugged as if no explanation was necessary, “So I can dip each piece in gooey egg yolk before feeding you.”

  “Sexy eggs!”

  “You betta believe it!”

  “Are you telling your parents about me or are you presenting me as a Boxing Day surprise?”

  “Babe, I’m guessing that as soon as your mother sees me on her doorstep, my parents will be getting a phone call.”

  I didn’t want to shove my amazing news in the face of my friends. The day before Christmas Eve and neither Abbie nor Zara were fessing up to having a date. As for JoJo, she’d turned into a ghost. Either he was very, very good, or non-existent and she’d left for Adelaide. Either way, I didn’t want to mute my happiness by worrying about their misfortune.

  Kade.

  The largest bunch of red roses greeted me at the office before I’d even arrived back from Goulburn with an unsigned card.

  Natives, you have my cottage. Roses, you have my heart.

  Tuesday and Wednesday arrived with more flowers. Luckily, my male colleagues allowed my smile to be the only answer to any question, but it didn’t stop them from plying me with jokes and innuendo.

  Kade. The answer to all my questions, as I was to his.

  Somehow, through fate or karma or some kind of Christmas miracle, we’d gone from strangers talking online, to lovers, almost by-passing the whole getting to know you phase.

  Although I knew everything that mattered.

  Kade had worked bloody hard to build a life and career away from his family but remain connected to the land. An article in a business magazine espoused his reputation as honest and reliable, nicknamed Mr. Ten Percent. Whatever the deal, whether it was consolidating farms, shifting livestock or managing scarce feed across drought-stricken properties; Kade Reiss was the man to make it happen. A handshake followed up with a contract and a beer between new friends.

  Each deal made the next one easier to find and easier to make.

  And, of course, I couldn’t accept Kade as a Christmas miracle without testing the difference between fake and real. After all, K and M never intended to be more than two lunches. Consider me jaded from years of being single, but some part of me expected the gloss to wash away once he returned to his normal life.

  “Don’t tell me you actually read that rubbish?” Kade said when I told him about the old article. “Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what your read.”

  “Is this how you charmed me into bed?” I asked as my bed never felt so lonely and I refused to calculate
how many miles between my unit and Kade’s hotel room in Port Macquarie. A deal needed his urgent attention, but his enthusiasm for the next deal was infectious.

  “Baby, you are the best deal I ever made. And think, all it took was a bunch of cheap flowers.”

  “Don’t forget soft eggs and the perfect bed.” I tried to laugh, not wanting his words to flatten my mood. Yes, I’d wanted a date for Christmas lunch, but Kade had been equally keen to have a date for Boxing Day. Without him lying next to me, my insecurities were in full-blown mode. He had been my unattainable crush for so many years, part of me refused to believe this could end up in a happily ever after. That only happened in movies or books.

  After an hour talking, listening and trying to relax into our growing bond, I called it a night. But as I fell asleep, my doubts returned, reminding me that our relationship was too new and too perfect. A little voice refused to be silence; are you just another deal?

  Kade

  I couldn’t rely on the twenty-four-hour shopping bonanza that was Christmas Eve.

  From the Monday when I arrived back in Sydney, to scoping out every decent boutique and shop on the central coast, there was only one gift I wanted Pia to open on Christmas morning.

  I didn’t care how she wore it, at first. As long as she wore it and understood.

  This. This thing between us.

  Wasn’t fake.

  Wasn’t as new as the calendar would suggest.

  We were real and if she was willing to take the chance, so was I.

  I’d been all in from the moment she stayed in the bedroom next to mine, waiting for her baby sister to be born. I’d been the one to sit with her and listen to her fears. I’d been the one to watch and silently thank Declan as he chased off anyone who showed an interest.

  I’d been waiting all my life to grow up and for a chance to show Pia how much I cared.

  All I needed was for Pia to accept her gift and for Craig to respond to my damn email. For all the money I handed over to him without a question, the least he could do was his fucking job.