Merry Little Christmas

by Jess Bryant

  “Hey…”

  He smiled when he looked up and found Maddie standing in the doorway, “Hey… I told you to stay in bed.”

  “I know.” She moved into the room, that soft smile lighting up her pretty face, “But you and my girls are in here so this is where I should be.”

  He scooted over on the oversized chair and his tiny wife was able to slip in beside him. He smiled as she wound herself around him. His daughter in one arm and the other around Maddie, he’d never felt so content in his life.

  “She quieted down fast.”

  “Just wanted to make sure Daddy was okay since Mommy was screaming her head off earlier I think.” He chuckled and kissed his wife on top of the head when she elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Funny.”

  “I try.”

  “I wanted to show you something too.” Maddie leaned over him, careful not to jostle the baby, “We’ve both been so tired we haven’t really stopped to take in the little things. We almost missed it but… it’s snowing.”

  She pulled the curtain back and Devin gaped in wonder. Snow. In Texas. For Christmas. It was a rare and beautiful thing. He tried to think if he’d heard anything on the news about snow in the forecast but came up empty. It didn’t matter. He could see it for himself and it was a miracle.

  He put his arm back around Maddie as she snuggled in tight against him. He pulled the spare blanket over her. They all sat there for a long moment, cuddled together. Avery asleep in his arms. Olivia and Ellie asleep in their beds. He couldn’t imagine a better way to spend his night.

  “Listen to that…” Maddie whispered, “Silence.”

  “Mmm, beautiful.” He agreed, kissing her forehead.

  “Merry Christmas Devin.”

  “Merry Christmas sweetheart.”

  Riley & Jenny: A Very Special Christmas

  “Santa’s work is done.”

  Riley slipped back into his warm, inviting bed with a groan. He really should have put on some extra layers to go running around the house so early in the morning but he hadn’t wanted to make any extra noise and risk waking up the kids. After all, the whole point of getting up early to put the finishing touches on Santa’s overnight visit, aka downing the glass of milk and cookies, was so they wouldn’t know he was the one doing it.

  It was an aspect of Christmas he hadn’t even realized he missed. He was a grown man, an adult, so it had been a long time since Santa was a part of his holiday. But he had kids in the house now so he was going all out for their first Christmas together and he would have gone so far as to rent a Santa suit if only Jenny would have let him.

  She’d told him time and again that the boys didn’t believe in Santa. They were old enough to know the hard truths about the way of the world after all. They’d dealt with far more than they should have had to in their young lives. And that was why he wanted to give them this, a simple, easy, childish Christmas in all of its glory.

  He’d had those once as a kid and he knew what it was like to lose them. The year his father passed away, he didn’t even remember them having Christmas. He was sure they had. There was no way his mother had let the holiday pass unobserved, but it must have been a quiet, somber affair.

  And the year after, he’d grown up. He had two older brothers. One of which had taken on a fatherly role far too soon and the other dealing with a black cloud of grief and pain that nobody had been able to penetrate. Christmas had come and gone and they’d celebrated over the years with presents and dinner and all of the fixings… but it had never really been the same.

  Because once you lost the magic, he thought it was lost forever.

  Happily, he knew now that he’d been wrong. The magic wasn’t lost forever. It was only lost to adults. Adults forgot about the magic in the bustle of their everyday lives and the stress of jobs and money and living.

  But having kids brought it all back. They’d decorated the tree together. They’d gone Christmas shopping for Jenny together. They’d strung lights up around the house and he’d listened to them whine because he wouldn’t let them up the ladder to help. The weeks leading up to this day had been fun and memorable and he had no doubts that today would be anything less than fantastic.

  “I told you not to bother. The boys are old enough to know Santa isn’t real.” Jenny giggled lightly and then gasped when he wrapped his arms around her, “Oh my God! You’re freezing!”

  “I know. It snowed last night.”

  Snow. Magical. They very rarely got snow in Texas, particularly on Christmas. The storms usually waited until the new year to make landing. But a white Christmas was the most unpredictably perfect thing he could have wished for because snow meant all kinds of fun he could have with the kids outside later.

  Right now though, he was more focused on having a little fun with his wife.

  “Really?”

  “Uh huh.” He wrapped her up and cuddled closer, “Warm me up?”

  Her giggles turned to a sigh as she wiggled to get comfortable, “Mmm, what’d you have in mind?”

  Riley smiled as he slipped his hand across her belly. The soft swell there would have been nearly impossible for a stranger to notice but for a man that was obsessed with his new wife, he knew every time it grew so much as an inch. His daughter was in there, growing and changing, part him and part Jenny, and the wonder of it took his breath away.

  Carefully, he slid his hand lower, beneath the band of her pajama bottoms and then her panties. She sucked in another gasp of air when his cold hand explored lower. He was the one to groan when he found her sweet heat and she shifted her legs wider for him.

  “Cold.” She murmured even as her hips rolled up into the touch.

  “Hot.” He corrected, “Wet.” He traced her clit and then slid one finger deep inside her, “Tight.”

  “Oh… Riley!” It was a sharp cry that had him aching hard just that fast.

  He loved it when she cried his name. His. He’d always been a possessive sort of man. He was a proud man, liked things that belonged to him. He had his land and his house and his family name. But there was no feeling in the world quite like knowing that Jenny was his, that she had chosen him, that she trusted him to love and cherish her, to give her what she needed for the rest of her life.

  “Shh, you’ve got to be quiet honey. The boys will be up soon.”

  “They’re not the only thing up.” She shot back with a smirk, wiggling her ass against his erection, “Do we have time?”

  “Always.”

  He planted kisses against her neck and shoulder as he pushed her bottoms out of the way. Once her bottom half was naked he turned his attention to his own clothes. He untied his own pajama bottoms and dragged them off as well. Then, he threw the blankets back off of them.

  “Ry, it’s…”

  “I plan to keep you plenty warm.” He cut off her complaint by grabbing her knee and pulling it back over his own legs, opening her up to him.

  “Oh…”

  He smirked at her contented sigh when he returned his hand to its place between her legs. He stroked through her folds and groaned as she responded. Her hips bucked as she grew wet for him. He continued to play with her for a long moment, teasing her clit, pumping in and out of her, until she was writhing and moaning and he knew for certain she was ready.

  She twisted enough to grab the back of his head and pulled his mouth down to hers. The kiss was sweet and sleepy. Tongues stroking slowly as the heat between them built. He kissed her the same way he touched her, as if he had all the time in the world. Only when she broke the kiss and met his eyes did he have to fight the urge to go faster, harder.

  “Please, hurry...”

  “Sure you’re ready?”

  Jenny only nodded, giving him another of those soft, knowing smiles. She knew he constantly worried about her, about the baby. They’d had more than one long discussion about the possibility of hurting the baby by having sex. She’d sworn to him a dozen times that the baby was fine, wasn’t going to be h
armed or scarred for life in the womb, but he still worried. He’d wanted this baby, with her, too much to ever risk it, not even for a few moments of blissful pleasure inside his wife.

  Taking her word and trusting her in kind, he shifted his hand, holding her open as he guided himself into her from behind. Jenny immediately clenched tight around him and he buried his face in her hair to muffle a groan. Everything inside of him sped up, his heart rate, the blood roaring through his veins, but he refused to give into his baser instincts and took her slowly.

  All the way in, as deep as he could get, and then all the way back out. Slow. Sweet. He kissed her as he made love to her. As he played with her clit, with her breasts, as he stroked the tiny little bump that was proof of their connection.

  And Jenny clung to him as she rocked into his touch, sighing and moaning in that way that only made him more desperate to push her over the highest peak. Her nails dug into his skin where she grappled for a hold as a quick orgasm shook her. It was short but powerful enough that she pulled him over with her and he climaxed just as fast, holding himself deep inside of her until his body went weak with release.

  Jenny was still breathing hard when he pulled back and she sighed, “Well Merry Christmas to you too.”

  He chuckled and pinched her ass lightly, “What? You expected Christmas to be different than every other day of the week? I always wake up wanting you honey. Get used to it.”

  “I’m trying.” She rolled to her back and he propped himself on an elbow so he could look down at her.

  “I know.”

  They’d only been married a few months. Had only dated a few months before that. They were still learning how to do this together, how to be together. Being madly in love helped with the rough days. The days when she was stressed and emotional and anxious about everything, the days when the boys were none too happy to listen to their new step-father, the days when nothing any of them said or did was right. They had bad days like anyone else but there were always more good days, always a good moment even among the bad ones.

  He’d implemented mandatory morning sex as a definite way of always starting the day out right.

  She hadn’t objected. She rarely did. Whether he was dragging her into the back room of her salon to do dirty things to her or sneaking his hand under the table at dinner to tease her, she let him have his wicked way with her whenever and wherever he wanted, which was pretty much everywhere and always. Because she wanted him the same way, just as much, just as often.

  Because she was his perfect match in every way.

  He brushed his lips over the end of her nose, “It’s our first Christmas together.”

  “I know.” She smiled and reached up, brushing his hair out of his eyes, “It’s hard to believe. It feels like a dream.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He met her eyes, seriously, “I think if anyone had told me this time last year that I would have a wife, that I would have two little boys that owned my heart and soul and a little girl on the way… I would have laughed in their face.”

  “We don’t know the baby is a girl Riley.”

  “Sure we do.”

  “No. We don’t. We don’t go for the sonogram until…”

  “I know it’s a girl. I don’t need some test to tell me that we’re having a daughter Jen. We just are and that’s all there is to it.”

  She snorted, “You’ve decided it’s a girl and so it is?”

  “Of course.”

  “Cocky, son of a…”

  “Hey!” He pressed his mouth to hers even though he knew she was only teasing him, “You want a girl. I want a girl. So we’re going to have a girl. I’m confident, not cocky remember?”

  That was an argument he was willing to have with her for the rest of their lives. He was confident. Confident in his ability to give her anything she wanted. And she wanted a daughter. So he was certain that was what he’d given her.

  They already had her sons. The boys would be their sons just as soon as the adoption papers were complete. And Jenny dreamed of a little girl she could dress up in frills and ruffles. She wanted to paint the spare bedroom pink and buy dolls and bows.

  And he wanted that too. Not just because Jenny wanted it but because he wanted a daughter too. He’d grown up as the youngest of three boys. His knowledge of girls had been highly limited because of that. And though he knew that he’d developed his charm and was fully capable of holding his own with the fairer sex, he thought it would be nice if his own sons grew up knowing just a little more about them than he did.

  If they grew up with a little sister to protect, to love and cherish, it would change them.

  Just like he knew it was going to change him. And he looked forward to it. Just as he had looked forward to becoming a husband and father to the two boys knowing full well that it would make him a better person and a better man.

  “Uh huh…” She kissed him again quickly and then stroked his jaw, “I couldn’t have even dreamed this a year ago.”

  “No?”

  “No. My dreams about you back then…”

  “You dreamed of me even back then?” He cut her off with a wag of his eyebrows.

  She rolled her eyes, “You know I did. You were the fantasy Ry. You were the gorgeous and unattainable dream. Even before you ever kissed me, guys had a tough time measuring up against you.”

  “The last of the Wild West Boys that needed to be tamed.”

  His smile dimmed just a fraction at the thought. He’d never liked that moniker the town had given his brothers and him. It made them sound like a pack of outlaws running wild through the streets, having their way with the nice womenfolk and then waving goodbye as they rode off into the sunset on their horses.

  And maybe it had been like that for Zach at one time, before Bluebell, when he’d been convinced a relationship meant ties he wasn’t willing to bind himself with for anyone. And maybe it had even been kind of like that for Devin, never letting anyone close enough to see past the façade of the bad seed image he liked to present to the world so the women he did see felt kept at arm’s length. But his brothers had left that lifestyle behind when the right woman came along and he had never really fit the mold anyway.

  Of course he’d dated. And he’d never gotten serious with anyone. So there was gossip that he was as wild as his brothers had been in their glory days, but that’s what most of it had been. Gossip. Just a funny way of categorizing him into a familiar box because he hadn’t immediately gotten married after high school and settled down like most of his friends.

  It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted what they had. Love and marriage and the whole works with the kids and the white picket fence. He just hadn’t thought it was for him. He’d had some growing up to do before he was ready for it. Hell, he still sometimes looked in the mirror and wondered if he was adult enough to be a husband and a father.

  But when he’d gotten involved with Jenny, all of the other bullshit had simply faded away. All of his issues had become inconsequential. And that’s how he’d known that he was really ready for this. Because wanting this, wanting Jenny, had been more powerful than any of the fear or panic or doubt could have been.

  “No. I don’t think so actually… that’s my point. I never imagined trying to tame you because I liked you just the way you were.” She cupped his cheeks between her hands, “The reason nobody else ever measured up was because you weren’t just some sexy, cowboy with a pretty face that could charm the panties off a nun. You were a good guy. Smart. Caring. Sensitive. You were the whole package.”

  He smiled at that, “Mmm, keep talking. I sound kind of awesome.”

  Jenny giggled, “You are kind of awesome. And I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  He kissed her again, because really, what else was he going to do? His beautiful wife was laying in their bed gazing up at him as if he were the eight wonder of the world. And he felt like he had stumbled in
to his own version of heaven when he had her like this. The two of them, together, with the rest of the world somewhere far away, was the dream these days because they didn’t get nearly as much alone time as either of them would have liked with two little boys running around.

  As if on cue, there was a loud banging on the door.

  Riley groaned. Jenny giggled. He fell off his elbow, careful to land on his side of the bed and not on his newly pregnant wife. Jenny tugged the blankets up around them even as they both wiggled back into their clothing. He put a hand to his eyes even though a grin automatically rose up his face at the sound of the excited voice on the other side of the door.

  “Mom! Mom! Are you awake! Mom its Christmas!”

  Riley chuckled, “It’s Christmas? I had no idea!”

  Jenny smacked him in the stomach playfully and then raised her voice, “We’ll be downstairs in a few minutes. Do not open a single present until we get there do you hear me Robbie?”

  “Yes ma’am.” There was a little whine from the other side of the door and Riley started to say something but another voice cut him off.

  “Hey Dad, can we go outside? It snowed last night. The whole yard is white. You’ve got to come see this.”

  He and Jenny exchanged a warm glance and his heart tripped up in his chest. Dad. The greatest word in the English language. Every single time Jenny’s youngest son called him that, he wanted to hug all of the air right out of the kid. JP used the title casually, as if it wasn’t a big deal at all for him to call his new step-father by the term, and Riley supposed that maybe for him it wasn’t.

  His biological father had never been there for him. Not the way Riley had even just these past few months. He’d never invested time and effort in him, had never wanted to just hang out and talk to him the way Riley enjoyed doing. He’d fallen hard for Jenny’s youngest son as quickly as he had JP’s mother and it was nice to know that the feeling was mutual.