by Emily Bow
***
Finals ended, and campus felt different. There were no flirty fun, meet me texts from Chance. There was no dark-haired, green eyed six-foot plus guy waiting for me when I got out of class.
There was no him.
There was, however, a relief at having exams over, of believing my hard work had paid off and that I’d done well, but there was also a new recognition that my life was a little flatter than before.
Chance had given me a gift, a hint of how a real relationship could enrich my life. That lesson struck me each time my heart ached. I needed more in my life than school, friends and family. And when spring rolled around, I would work on that. Put myself out there in an open, honest way, not wait on med school to start a relationship. No guy would be Chance. But…
I shook off the vice clenching my heart.
Before I left to go home for the holidays, I stopped by Logan’s lab and asked him to give Chance a gift for me. Logan nodded and put the small box in his lab coat pocket. “Merry Christmas, Holly.”
“Merry Christmas, Logan.”
I turned to go.
“Come see my pH levels.” Logan turned his computer screen to me and went over what he was working on, briefly and then, seeing my interest, in more detail. Everyone talked about getting Easton’s baseball prowess, and the five Kentwell brothers billions here. If they knew Logan’s mind, they’d see the future.
I squeezed his arm. “I’m beyond impressed.” I turned to go.
“Holly.”
I paused and Logan took the gift from his pocket and returned it to me. “I think you should give this to Chance yourself. He’d like that.”
I needed to be braver. My heart thumped, and I took the small package. “Thanks.” I left the lab.
Bravery.
I leaned against the hallway to text my parents, paused, and called instead. I got them both on the line. I told my parents about Baylor. I told the truth, how I failed to check on the application, and how I’d only applied to one school.
Their support, and the best words, “You’ll keep working, and it will all work out,” buoyed me and made me question why I’d ever hesitated to tell them.
***
I went back to the sorority house and changed before driving over to Chance’s apartment. I wore red and green striped Christmas stockings and a red Christmas dress.
Security let me up, and I rang the doorbell.
Chance opened the door.
Chapter 26.
Chance stood in front of me, dark slacks, a red and green Christmas sweater. A hesitant, surprised, and pleased smile.
Every nerve in me wobbled. I licked my lips and clutched the gift. “Do you have a minute for your Christmas present?”
“I was coming to see you.” Chance opened the door wider, letting me in. “Do you have a minute for a Christmas apology?”
“I’d like that very much.” My shoulders eased with his words. “If you’ll accept mine too, yes.”
We went over to the couch and sank down. Chance changed the television from a football game to Christmas music. I put his gift between us.
“I had dinner with Gran last night.” Chance looked at his clasped hands. “Gran told me that she had doubts about Tyler and Madison and wasn’t surprised they broke up. But that she had only heard lovely things about you. And she teared up as she talked about seeing her ring on your finger over waffles. She went on about your hand holding the fork, me there looking at you…how she flashed to a memory of my grandfather…and that she hadn’t felt so happy in a long time.” His voice was gruff. “I realized then how you felt when I ignored your feelings at the engagement party and proposed. What a big deal that was. I told Gran the truth. I apologized to her. Now I’m apologizing to you. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” I wanted to reach for his hand, but I nudged his present toward him instead. “Open it.”
Chance pulled aside the silver ribbon and tore open the wrapper to reveal an ornament. The ornament was a miniature book. I’d printed a copy of his favorite Sci-Fi novel’s cover and carefully glued the cover art to the pottery and knotted a green ribbon to the hook. The color matched his eyes. He now had a homemade ornament to go on his tree alongside the designer elements.
“Do you like it?”
Chance ran his thumb along the edge. “The ornament’s not perfect.” He paused. “But I love every inch of it.”
I pressed my lips together to hold in the emotion. We both knew he was speaking of more than the gift.
Chance hung the miniature book on a middle branch. Then he knelt and gathered two gifts wrapped in red and green paper. He returned to me and placed them between us. One flat and square and one smaller.
Chance indicated the small rectangular box. “Open this one first.”
I peeled back the red and green glossy ribbon, tore the festive paper, and opened the lid. Green emerald earrings winked up at me.
“Like your eyes,” I said. “They’re perfect.”
“Baylor green. I know you’ll get in, and I wanted to show you I believe in you and support you.”
My sore heart hurt a little less, and I was glad I came. “Thank you.” I met his gaze, and I stared into his eyes, searching for answers.
Chance nudged the paper flat gift toward me. “Now this one.”
I ran my fingernail under the seam and lifted out a calendar with a picture of us on the front. In the image, Chance and I were face to face. I wore the shimmering white dress, and the people and holiday décor behind us had been lightened in an artistic blur. This was from the engagement party, before the proposal. Our expressions, the intimacy of the moment, stole my breath. No one looking at this photo would think we were anything but totally into each other.
I flipped the page. The same photo topped January, and February, and all the other months. “Chance?”
“I only wanted December because I only do temporary. I knew when I found a girl I wanted to be with longer, that would be it for me. Which is terrifying.”
My heart beat so loudly I could barely concentrate, but I wouldn’t have moved away from him for the world.
“My mother sent over this picture, thinking the photograph had turned out well, and…” Chance shook his head. “Looking at it was like a punch to the gut.” Chance gestured toward the kitchen. “On the same day, our housekeeper flipped the calendar in the kitchen to January, I stood there, and my heart stopped. December had been covered in events. Venues where we’d be together. And January was blank, empty. I don’t even know your class schedule. And that’s how I knew.” He touched his heart and then tapped the calendar. “I wanted all your months.”
Chance took my hand and raised the red and green Christmas ribbon.
My lips parted, but I had no words.
He carefully twined the red and green ribbons around my ring finger and knotted the end. “These are a promise. A promise that when I ask you out, here and now, for the very first time, the question is real. There’s no one around. There’s no agenda. There’s only you and me. Holly. Will you go out with me? Be my girlfriend? Spend next year and the year after making me apologize, grow, and be better?”
I threw my arms around his neck and leaned into him, nodding as he finished the words. My lips met his in a kiss filled with promise.
Chance laughed, a relieved, happy sound, and pulled me onto his lap.
His mouth dropped to my lips more firmly.
Chance was finally mine, and the attraction between us was no longer coated with a lie. There was only truth and generosity between us.
I opened myself to him, parting my lips. The zings of chemistry went from my lips to my toes, melting all the spots in between. The apology, the promise, those were what I’d truly wanted for Christmas.
And him.
I tangled my fingers in his silky, ruffled hair. “Chance. If I were greedy and asked for one more thing, would you give it to me?”
Chance ki
ssed my neck. “Anything.”
“You.”
Chance pulled back and met my gaze with his wicked green eyes. He tilted his head as if reading my expression.
Did he need a demo? I leaned closer. “Be with me?”
He shifted so his hands were under my bum, and he rose.
I locked my legs around his waist and my arms around his shoulders, and his kiss demolished me as he headed to his bedroom.
Chapter 27.
The darkened bedroom was exactly where I wanted to be. Chance let me drop to my feet, though our lips clung together.
I backed away. “Am I asking too much too soon?”
He shook his head. “You’re everything that’s right in my life.”
I turned my back to him and looked at him over my shoulder. “I was a melted puddle when you unzipped me in that boutique dressing room.”
Chance put his arms around me and he danced me toward the wall. He took my hands and flattened my palms against the paneling. He nestled his nose into my hair. He made a needy, hungry growl, and the sound heated my senses. He pressed against me, recreating the erotic dressing room scene in a way my body loved.
I wiggled against him, loving his response. “I dreamed the most wicked dream about us that night.” My lips tingled at the loss of his lips. My voice was husky and sexy. “Unzip me again, Chance.”
Chance undid the zipper slowly, tracing the skin he’d revealed with his fingertips first, and then with his mouth, trailing kisses down my spine. Each brush of his lips lit my nerve endings like I was a Christmas tree brightening the dark. The hairs on my skin rose in an electric reaction. The lightness of his touch did the opposite of satisfy. It made me want more. When he reached my lower back, my weakened knees sagged. He gathered me to him, spinning me so we were face to face.
His lips met mine, and we devoured each other as if every kiss that had come before was leading to this moment of pleasure, of teeth and tongues and connection.
He moved his mouth to my neck, biting, licking, sucking. “You made me wait weeks, just to kiss you, and now you undo me in one night before I’d even figured out how to get you back and make you mine.”
“If you haven’t guessed, you’ve got me.” I rolled my head and he spread kisses over my collarbone with lovely light pressure.
Chance tugged at my dress, trapping my arms to my sides, and he massaged my breasts before lowering the cups on my bra, and repeating the delicious cycle of licking and sucking and relishing.
“I….” I was going to say something, but what he did with his tongue had me hooking my leg around his hips so I could pull up against him and rub while I struggled with the dress. I was a writhing mass of awareness aiming to make contradictory things happen. Dress off. Stay pressed against him. Feel. Act. “Ahhh there.”
He drew back.
I whimpered and reached for him. “Chance.”
He took my hands and led me to the bed.
I shimmied out of the dress and crawled on top of the mattress, kicking off my shoes and peeling down my stockings as I went.
His hands eased his clothes off, and I caught glimpses of his body in the darkened room.
“I want to do that,” I said, revealing need in my voice.
He lowered his body to mine. “We have time.”
I relished the weight of him on top of me as we sank into the softness of his comforter. “Mmmh.”
Chance unhooked and tossed my bra aside. “January.” He paused to look at me with appreciative eyes and traced his fingertips over my breasts.
I pressed upward, but he teased me by lowering his fingers to draw circles on my abdomen. “February.” I circled my hips. He eased his fingers just under the lace of my panties. “March.”
I groaned and flattened my palms against his back. The strength of his broad muscles awed me. I squeezed his muscular butt and moved my hands around to the front of his shoulders. “April,” I said, joining in his calendar game that was also a promise. I slid my thumbs down and pressed them to his masculine nipples. “May.” I drew my hands lower and cupped him. “June,” we breathed out the word together.
“Yes, June,” he said, his words torn and husky. “More.”
We were on the same page. I gave him more of my touch and smiled in the dark. “How could I know my favorite tenor of your voice would be just like that?”
“We have loads of intriguing things to learn about each other.” He dipped his fingers under the seam of my panties, finding my wetness. “Ah.”
He toyed with me, and we moaned together.
His lips met mine in a deeper, ravenous kiss. He eased back with a small bite of my lower lip and then sucked on my neck.
“Mmm.” I shifted and wrapped my legs around his hips. I reached between our bodies, curled my fingers around his full length, and stroked him over and over again, hoping he adored this as much as I did.
Chance broke away and sucked in a breath; his chest heaved and his body shook.
Me, I caused that. I felt powerful, cherished, and so pleased. He slipped my panties from my body, and it was just him and me.
My mind fuzzed.
There was a crinkle of a condom wrapper. Then more slow strokes. Instead of speeding up, he’d slowed as if he too were melting. But he’d turned my liquid insides to fire. I bit his lower lip and moved my mouth to his ear. I circled it with my tongue and managed a clear, rational demand to make my needs known to him. “Chance.” Had I conveyed enough? Would he finally take me, please, now.
Chance shifted his weight and adjusted himself at my entrance, and I was so ready for him to claim me as his own. In moments we’d be one.
He paused.
The anticipation made me dig my fingers into his shoulders and tighten my thighs against his hips encouragingly. “Yes.”
“Yes?” Chance’s voice came out ragged and his body shook.
I tore my lips from his neck and dropped my head back against the sheets. “If you make me wait…” I shook my head. “Chance.” My voice came out raw and needy. I placed my hand over his heart. “I fell for your charmed looks and clever mind, and I adore you. And right now, all that combines and I want you and your body in a way…there are no words.”
“The words. I have to say the words.” His voice came out raw. “I’m in love with you, Holly. Miserable without you. Those days.” He groaned. “When you didn’t respond to my texts, I was like a freaking freshman restarting my phone to make sure the signal was working. And every time you met me, my whole body and soul felt right. Waiting for you, if you want to wait, is not a problem for me. I’m in love with you and want you to know you’re the one.”
My mind was spinning slowly, luxuriating in the feel of his arms, the teasing of his body, but I had no doubts. “I love you too, Chance, and why would I want to wait when I’m one hundred percent certain of us?”
“I love statistics.” His voice was gratified, as if he adored my answer.
“Well then you should know that I’m one hundred percent certain that if you list another month, or hold yourself from me a second longer…”
Chance moved his fingers to the sensitive bundle of nerves at my sex. He performed the most delightfully erotic circling maneuver that spun every possible delicious feeling through me as he surged forward. “July.” His voice husky with desire, his body thrust into me and stretched mine again. His fingers amped up the feeling in a simultaneous, circling motion. Circling, pressing, in, out, around, forward, back, rotating, holding me just out of reach, pressure, rocking, and then…
Euphoria.
Bliss.
A release of all the tensions, doubts, anxieties…my world dissolving…returning to a new, richer awareness.
Chance also let himself go, reaching his own pleasure, becoming a part of me. Together, we created a fantastic us. I lay limp and glowy while he pulled the sheets high, and we snuggled together.
He gave a slow kiss to my swollen lips, a
nd the connection I felt was so much more tangible than words or things.
I rubbed my hand with the tied ribbon on my ring finger along his arm, letting the fabric brush his skin.
“Now that’s real,” I said.
Chance kissed me again. “You’re the most real thing in my world. My favorite Christmas present ever, the percentage I didn’t know was missing until I found you and you took yourself away from me.” His hand fell to my hip in a possessive grip, and his thumb made distracting patterns.
He kissed me again. The sensation was Christmas, and warmth, and a promise as he once again gave me the most beautiful real moment of my life.
THE END
Book Club Topics / Questions
What’s the best/most unique Christmas gift you’ve ever received?
What’s the best/most unique Christmas gift you’ve ever given?
What’s the best homemade Christmas gift you’ve received?
Would you ever participate in a “fake” relationship?
Note to Readers
Thanks for reading! You’ve changed my life. I hope you’ll leave a review. I do my best to read them all and value your thoughts. Best regards, Emily
Emily’s Newsletter Sign Up Click Here
Books by Emily Bow: Click Here
Romance with a Fake Love Series
Book 1: Fake Fiancé for Christmas
Book 2: My Fake Valentine
(Easton & Valentina)
Book 3: My Fake Love Potion
(Logan & Arabella)
Book 4: My Fake Wedding
(Nathan & Emilia)
Book 5: My Fake Soulmate
(Tyler & Bitsie)
About the Author
Emily Bow writes contemporary happily-ever-after romance novels. She holds a BA in Psychology from Texas A&M University and an MFA in Creative Writing from American College Dublin. A native Houstonian, she loves travel, movies, and books and may be found at www.EmilyBow.com.