Same Time, Next Christmas (The Bravos 0f Valentine Bay Book 3)

by Christine Rimmer

Oh, he was everything she remembered, all she longed for—honed and deep-chested, with those sculpted arms that took her breath away. Such a big man.

  Everywhere.

  She held up her arms to him and he came down to her, grabbing her close again, slamming his mouth on hers.

  It was frantic and hungry, not smooth in the least. Needful and desperate, necessary as air. They rolled, their hands everywhere, relearning each other, every muscle, every secret curve. There were more kisses, deep ones that turned her heart inside out. His fingers found the core of her, so wet, so ready.

  They needed more.

  They needed everything, to be joined, each to the other.

  He produced a condom seemingly from thin air.

  “Planned ahead, did you?” she asked, trying to tease him, ending up sounding breathless and needy.

  His eyes burned into hers. “I want this, Sabra. Us. I want it forever.”

  “Yes,” she said, before he’d even finished asking. “Forever. You and me.”

  “Don’t leave me. Don’t do that again. Don’t drive me away.” He stroked her cheek.

  “I won’t. I swear it. I’m ready now, Matthias. Ready for the rest of our lives, you and me. I love you. You’re the only one, and you always will be.”

  “Sabra...” He kissed her again, wildly, his fingers tunneling in her hair, his mouth demanding everything, all of her. “My love,” he whispered against her parted lips. “I love you, always. I was such a fool.”

  “It’s not as if you were the only fool.” She broke away enough to plead, “Let me...” And she took the condom from him, removed the wrapper and carefully slid it on.

  Once she had it in place, he lifted her as though she weighed nothing. Stretching out on his back, he set her down on top of him.

  She was so ready. Beyond ready. Rising to her knees, she lined him up with her heat and took him inside—all the way, to the hilt.

  He groaned and she bent to him, claiming his mouth with hers, rocking her hips on him in long, needful strokes. He clasped her bottom with those strong hands, one palm on each cheek, and moved with her, surging up into her, sending her reeling.

  She came with a gleeful cry.

  And then he was rolling them, taking the top position. Rising up over her, he pushed in deep and true.

  That time, when her second finish shattered through her, he joined her. They cried out in unison, going over as one, holding each other, Matthias and Sabra.

  Together.

  At last.

  * * *

  An hour or two later, they went downstairs naked. She greeted Zoya and admired the tree.

  He didn’t let her linger in the main room long, though. Pulling her into the bathroom, he filled the tub, added bath salts, climbed in and crooked a finger at her to join him.

  She did, eagerly, settling in between his legs, leaning back on him. He really did make the firmest, most supportive sort of pillow. For a while, they floated in the hot water that smelled of lemons and mint.

  He told her that he had a missing sister.

  “What? You’re kidding me.”

  He nuzzled her hair. “Nope. This past year, we found out that the oldest of my sisters, Aislinn, was switched at birth.”

  “So then, Aislinn isn’t your sister by blood?”

  “No. If she hadn’t been switched, her name would be Madison Delaney.”

  “Wait.” Sabra sat up, sending water sloshing. “Not the Madison Delaney, America’s darling, the movie star?”

  “Yes.” Gently, Matthias pulled her back to rest against his chest. “We have a long-lost sister, and she is a movie star.”

  “Wow.”

  “Exactly. We’ve been trying to reach out to her. So far, our attempts have been rebuffed—either by her or by the people who protect her, we’re not sure which.”

  “But you’re not giving up.” It wasn’t a question.

  He replied as she knew he would. “One way or another, we’ll find a way to get through to her. As we will find Finn. Someday. Somehow...”

  “I know you will,” she whispered, and they were silent for a time.

  But then, he bent his head to her and pressed his rough cheek to her smooth one. “Forever,” he said gruffly. “I mean it. You still on for that?”

  “Always.” She lifted her arm from the water and reached back to slide her wet hand around the nape of his neck, tipping her head up to him for a quick kiss.

  But one kiss from him? Never enough.

  Already she could feel him, growing hard and ready, wanting her as she wanted him—again.

  Sometime later, she told him that she’d moved back to the farm.

  “When was that?” he asked.

  “It’s been a long time now. I moved in July, a year and a half ago.”

  He nuzzled her hair, which she’d piled on her head to keep it from getting too wet. “So then, you were already living there last Christmas, when I showed up just long enough to tell you it was over.”

  “Yeah.”

  He muttered something bleak. She couldn’t make out the exact words, and she decided not to ask. Instead, she took his hand from the side of the tub and pulled it down into the water, across her stomach, so his arm was wrapped around her.

  “Are you happy there, at your family’s farm?” He bit the shell of her ear, so lightly, causing a thrilled little shiver to slide through her.

  “Very.” She slithered around, splashing water everywhere, until she was face-to-face with him. “I’m hoping to stay there.”

  “Hoping?”

  “Well, I want to be with you. And maybe you want to stay in Valentine Bay.” He kissed the end of her nose and she backpedaled, “If I’m moving too fast for you—”

  “No way. There is no ‘too fast’ when it comes to you and me, not anymore. We’ve wasted too much time already.” He took her slippery shoulders and pulled her up so he could claim her mouth in a lazy, thorough kiss. When he finally allowed her to sink back into the cooling water, he said, “Yes. I’ll move to your farm with you.”

  She reached up, pressed her hand to his bristly cheek. “You haven’t even seen the place yet.”

  “I don’t need to see it. You’ve moved home and that makes you happy. I love you and for me, home is where you are. You’ve mentioned that your farm is in Astoria, which means my field office is nearby. Getting to work won’t be an issue—and do you realize you’ve never told me the name of this farm of yours?”

  “Berry Bog Farm.”

  “Perfect.”

  “What’s perfect?”

  “Everything.” He traced her eyebrows, one and then the other. “I’m going to need your phone number as soon as we get out of this tub.”

  “You got it.”

  “I’m serious, Sabra. I won’t let you leave this cabin, not even to sit on the porch, until your number is safe in my phone.”

  “I’ll get right on that.”

  “You’d better,” he warned, but when she started to climb from the tub, he held her there. “Not yet. In a little while.”

  With a sigh, she kissed his square chin. “This is kind of nice, you and me, naked in the tub together...”

  “Kind of nice doesn’t even come close.” He pressed his wet hand to her cheek, then made a cradle of his index finger and lifted her chin so their eyes met. “The thing with Mary...?”

  Her heart felt caged, suddenly, hurting in her too-small chest. “That’s her name? Mary?”

  He nodded. And then he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “I never should have started it with her. I was so hurt and mad at you.”

  She whispered her own confession. “I was so screwed up over my dad, screwed up and afraid, of you and me, of how powerful and good it was between us, of trusting what we have together—and then of someday losing you, l
ike my dad lost my mom. So I told you to go out and look for what you needed. No way can I blame you for taking me at my word. I just hope... Oh, I don’t know. I feel bad for her. For you. For all of it.”

  “It’s been over with her for a year,” he said. “A year, as of today.”

  She stared at him, confused. “You broke up with her on the twenty-third of last December?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The same day you drove up here to tell me you were with her?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “But I don’t, I mean, how...?”

  He pulled on a damp curl of her hair and then guided it tenderly behind her ear. “I knew it wouldn’t work with her the minute I saw your face last year. I was just too damn stubborn to admit it right then. But as soon as I left you standing there alone, I knew what I had to do. I drove back to Valentine Bay feeling like a first-class jerk, wondering how I was going to break it to Mary that I couldn’t be with her, that it was all wrong.”

  “Oh, Matt. And at the holidays, no less. What a mess I made. I’m so sorry.”

  But he gave her that wonderful, wry smile she loved so much. “It could have been worse. As it turned out, I didn’t have to play the jerk, after all. Mary broke up with me.”

  She gasped. “No.”

  “Oh, yeah. We had a date to see a Christmas play that night. I went to pick her up and she asked me to come in for a minute. I stepped over the threshold—and then we just stood there by the door and she said how she’d been thinking, that it just wasn’t working for her with me, that it wasn’t love and she didn’t feel it ever could be, that she and I needed to face the truth and move on. She really meant it,” he said, his wry smile in evidence again. “We ended it right then, simple as that.”

  Sabra cradled his beard-scruffy cheek. “I do want to apologize sincerely, for hurting you, for sending you off to find someone else. I really messed that up. I could have lost you forever.”

  Matthias frowned. “I pushed too hard at the wrong time. You were all turned around over losing your dad. I wasn’t patient and I should have been. As for losing me, you never could, not really. Somehow, I would always find my way back to you.”

  “And I. To you.” They did that thing lovers do, having sex with their eyes. Then, with a happy sigh, she floated to her back once more and rested against him. “I have to ask...”

  His warm breath stirred her hair as he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “Anything.”

  “All that time, from last Christmas to now. Did you know you would come to meet me today?”

  “I did. No question, as sure as I knew I would draw my next breath. I also spent too many sleepless nights positive that you would give up on me, find someone else, change your mind. I could think of a million ways it was not going to work out, picture myself waiting here for hour after hour, alone.”

  “There’s no one else, I promise,” she said fervently.

  He bent and pressed a kiss into that tender spot where her neck met her shoulder. “Baby, something in your voice says there’s a story you’re not telling me.”

  She blew out a hard breath and admitted, “My friends said I really had to try seeing other guys...”

  He was suddenly too quiet behind her. Was he even breathing? “And did you?” he asked.

  “I did, yes.”

  “And...?”

  She winced. “You really want to hear this?”

  “Damn straight I do.”

  She told him everything, all about her adventures in online dating, starting with the online chats and the coffee dates, moving on to the Farmer’s Market day with Dave, the awful evening with the grabby podiatrist and the three dates with Ted.

  When she first started putting it all out there, Matthias remained still as a statue behind her. But he slowly relaxed. He said he would like to go a few rounds with that foot doctor. And he made a sound of approval when she got to how she told Ted that she was in love with someone else and added, “Meaning you,” just in case he had a single doubt by now who owned her heart.

  Once she’d told him everything, she asked, “How come you didn’t just come looking for me sooner? You could have saved me from all those bad dates, saved yourself from worrying that I wouldn’t show up here for Christmas. I don’t think I would have been that hard to find.”

  His hand stroked slowly along her arm, fingers brushing up and down. “That wasn’t our agreement.”

  She slithered around again, getting front to front. “I can’t believe you know that, that you understand that.”

  He looked vaguely puzzled. “Should I have tracked you down?”

  “I have no idea.” Sending water splashing, she rose up to kiss him and then settled back down against his broad chest. “What I do know,” she said, “is that I’ve always felt that trying to find you between Christmases would be wrong. I felt it was important that we both respected the agreement we’d made together, that if the terms were going to change, they had to change at Christmastime.”

  He caught her face between his wet hands and pulled her up so her parted lips were only an inch from his. “Everything is changed, as of now. We’re agreed on that, right?”

  She bobbed her head up and down in his hold. “Yes, we are. I’m in. You’re in. Both of us. A hundred percent.”

  “We’re together now. We’re taking this thing we have public and we’re doing that before New Year’s.”

  “Yes. You and me, in front of the whole world—have you got vacation time this year?”

  His lips brushed hers again. “I’m off until January second.”

  “Good. We’ll visit your family in Valentine Bay. I’m taking you to the farm—and we have to go to Portland. I need you to meet my best friends, Peyton and Iris.”

  He smiled against her mouth. “So then, we have a plan.”

  “Oh, yes we do.”

  “Make no mistake.” He kissed her, hard and quick. “Marriage. We’re doing it, the whole thing. The ring. The white dress. The vows—and what about kids? You do want kids?”

  “Oh, Matthias. Yes. Definitely. All of the above. I can’t wait to marry you.”

  “I think we’ve both waited more than long enough.” But then he frowned. “Have I blown this? I should be on my knees now, shouldn’t I?”

  That time, she kissed him. “Naked in the bathtub is working just fine.”

  “All right, then.” He pulled her closer and sprinkled kisses in a line along her cheek. When he reached her ear, he whispered, “We’re not just each other’s Christmas present anymore. What we have is for the whole year round.”

  “For the rest of our lives,” she vowed.

  And they sealed their promise of forever with a long, sweet kiss.

  Epilogue

  They stayed at the cabin for Christmas, enjoying all the traditions they’d created together in the years before.

  On Christmas morning, he handed her a small package wrapped in shiny red paper and tied with a white satin bow. She opened it carefully, feeling strangely expectant, full of nerves and happiness.

  Inside was a ring-sized box with a porcupine carved in the top. “You made this.”

  “Guilty,” he said in that gruff, low voice that she loved more than anything—well, except for everything else about him. She loved all that, too.

  She glanced up at him. He was kind of blurry. But that happens when a girl’s eyes are filled with sudden tears. “Matthias. I love you.”

  He reached out a hand and eased his warm, rough fingers under her hair. Clasping her nape, he pulled her in close. “Don’t cry.” He kissed her forehead. “It’s a present. Presents shouldn’t make you cry.”

  “Of course they should.” She sniffled. “But only if they’re really good ones.” A couple of tears got away from her and trickled down her cheeks.

  He
kissed those tears, first on one cheek and then the other. Then he went for her lips. That kiss lasted a while. They were always doing that, kissing and forgetting about everything else.

  Finally, Zoya gave a hopeful whine. They both glanced down to see the dog sitting at their feet, her vivid blue eyes tracking—Matthias to Sabra and back to Matthias again.

  “Aww. Zoya needs love, too.” With a chuckle, Sabra dropped to a crouch to give the dog a quick hug.

  When she got up again, she held up the box and admired his workmanship. “It’s beautiful.” It even had two tiny brass hinges to keep the lid attached.

  He gazed at her so steadily, a bemused expression on that face she knew she would never tire of looking at. From the speaker on the kitchen table, Mariah Carey sang “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Happiness crowded out every other emotion. She glanced away and swiped at more joyful tears.

  “Sabra.”

  She met his eyes again. “Hmm?”

  “Are you ever going to open it?”

  A lovely, warm shiver went through her as she lifted the carved lid.

  Inside, on a bed of dark blue velvet, a single pear-shaped diamond glittered at her from a platinum band. “Oh, you gorgeous thing,” she said, the words more breath than sound.

  “It’s okay?” he asked, adorably anxious.

  “It is exactly right. Just beyond beautiful, Matthias. Thank you.” She went up on tiptoe for another quick kiss. And then she passed the open box to him. “Put it on for me?”

  He did as she asked, bending to set the box on the coffee table and then sinking lower, all the way to one knee. “Sabra Bond.” He reached for her left hand.

  She gave it, loving the feel of his fingers closing around hers, protective. Arousing. Companionable, too.

  “I never expected you.” His eyes gleamed up at her, teasing her, loving her. “You broke into my cabin and ran off with my heart.” She gave a little squeak of delight at his words and brought her right hand to her own heart. “It hasn’t been easy for us,” he said. “We’ve both been messed up and messed over. And it’s taken way too long for each of us to be ready at the same time. But now, here we are, four years from that first year. Finally making it work. And it all feels just right, somehow.” He slipped the ring onto her finger. It did feel right, a perfect fit. “There is no one but you, Sabra. You are in my dreams at night and the one I want to find beside me when I wake up in the morning. I love you,” he said. “Will you marry me?”