The Slow Burn ~ Kristen Ashley

by Ashley, Kristen

  “I got in the spirit and decided to think it’s the money I make that I’m buying presents with and the money you gave me I’m paying bills with, and I’m not going crazy. But I get to participate in Christmas. So let’s end this here, okay?”

  Toby was seriously down with her getting in the Christmas spirit however she wanted, so he shut up.

  She picked up her thread. “I hit Macy’s to get some Christmas wrap, then the craft store to get some supplies. Made a few cards. Did some tidying of the house. Put in an application for a receptionist position at that law firm in town. They’re down with entry level and the pay isn’t gonna have me living the high life, but it’s pretty good, definitely better than what I’m making now, the hours will be steady, and if I get it, I can burn my smock. Took Brooks to Margot and Dave’s. Got ready to be fed at a fancy restaurant by my hot-guy, loaded boyfriend and then properly banged. And oh, Lora called, and she has an annual Christmas Eve’s Eve party every year and she invited us to come. If work doesn’t get in the way, do you wanna go?”

  Toby was processing how she got all that shit done in one day.

  He still managed to answer, “Yeah.”

  “And just to say, Matlock Mart is closed Christmas Day and shuts down at six Christmas Eve, but since I’m one of the cashiers with the least time in, I might have to work the Christmas Eve shift until the bitter end.”

  “It’s cool, babe,” he muttered.

  “Okay, so, full disclosure about Christmas Eve. Izzy, Margot and I got into a text group, and even though all Margot and Dave’s boys and their families are coming to town, we decided to make a new tradition and we’re doing a safari dinner on Christmas Eve.”

  “A what?”

  “Drinks and appetizers at mine. Dinner at Johnny and Izzy’s. Dessert at Margot and Dave’s. It took us approximately fifty texts to talk Margot into doing dessert, but since most the party will be sleeping at their pad, we felt it should end there and not somewhere everyone has to drive home. Not to mention, she has to feed that brood Christmas dinner the next day.”

  Toby said nothing because there was nothing to say. That made sense.

  “Izzy’s doing a buffet,” she put in.

  “Right.”

  “And if I have to work, since I’m doing apps, I’ll get it all ready and you might have to come over and warm some stuff up and play host while I sort myself out when I get home, and then I’ll take over.”

  “We could do that part at mine,” he offered.

  “Then how would everyone see my kickass lights and hideous wreath?” she asked.

  He grinned.

  “Izzy’ll help you,” she told him. “And Margot no doubt will horn in.”

  “It’ll be cool, Addie, I’ll have it covered and that sounds like a good time.”

  “Yeah,” she said, but there was something not committed to that word.

  “Babe, they’ll get it if you can’t do apps this year. We’ll do it at mine, you help me sort something out, you get off work, go home, do your thing, come to mine when you’re ready. I’ll have it handled and you don’t have to worry about it.”

  “It’s not that, it’s . . .”

  She trailed off and didn’t finish.

  “It’s what?” he asked, glancing from the road to her.

  When he looked back at the road, he felt her eyes come to him, “Do Margot and Dave’s kids come for Christmas every year?”

  Margot and Dave’s sons were scattered. Mark, who was in Atlanta, lived relatively close, Lance and Dave Junior, respectively in Oregon and Minnesota, not as close. They were all married. They all had kids. They all came to visit their mom and dad on occasion.

  But mostly it was Margot and Dave taking trips to go see them.

  “Usually at least one of them are around, but no, it’s rare it’s all three. Why?”

  She didn’t answer his question.

  “Why, Addie?” he pushed.

  “They were biting at each other when I dropped Brooks.”

  “Margot and Dave bicker, Addie, you’ve seen them do that . . . a lot.”

  “Thinking on it, it was different when they were over to help decorate,” she murmured like she was talking to herself. “They can bicker, but it’s cute. It seemed sharper and went on longer.”

  “You think they’re having problems?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I just . . . nothing. I shouldn’t be saying anything. I don’t know them well enough.”

  She knew them well enough. Margot and Dave had adopted Eliza and Adeline as sure as they’d done the same with Toby and Johnny. Addie spent time with Margot often. And with Margot, Dave usually wasn’t far away.

  It hit him then that Margot and Dave hadn’t shown at the Christmas Fair. They hadn’t even mentioned they were coming.

  Toby couldn’t remember the last Matlock Christmas Fair he’d been to. But thinking on it, it had been before his father died and he and Dad and Johnny had gone together.

  With Shandra.

  And Margot and Dave.

  They never missed shit like that.

  And he was so wrapped up in being with Addie and Brooks, he didn’t even notice it.

  Toby felt something in his stomach he hadn’t felt in years and it didn’t feel great.

  And it was like Adeline knew he was feeling it because she said, “Ignore me, honey. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Running my mouth, I’m ruining your official first date.”

  “It’s them,” Toby told her, referring to the bickering.

  “Yeah,” she agreed quickly. “And it’s Christmas and they’re gonna have a full house, and I know she’s all over that and can’t wait for her boys to come home but it’s still a lot of stress. And you should see it, Toby, it’s insane, but kind of awesomely insane. She showed me today and she’s actually done storyboards for Iz and Johnny’s wedding.”

  “Say what?”

  “She has these three huge white boards she’s filled with all these pictures of dresses and hairstyles and flowers and limos and food and decorations and cakes. They have lines drawn from one to the other from prep to church to reception. Iz hasn’t seen them yet, and I begged Margot to make sure I was there when she unveils them. It’s good you boys are millionaires because Johnny’s gonna be paying through the nose to realize Margot’s dream for his wedding. It’s hysterical.”

  That made Toby chuckle.

  She reached out to him and squeezed his thigh. “She just has a lot on her mind.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, taking a hand from the wheel to wrap it around the back of hers.

  He left it there.

  “And by the by, since Izzy’s doing Christmas Eve dinner for three thousand, and we’ve got Brooks, they’re coming to mine on Christmas day. So we have Christmas day duty. Iz already talked to Johnny and he’s good with that. Are you down?”

  He was so down.

  To share that, he said, “Sounds good to me.”

  Her fingers tensed in his.

  “You’re around a lot and you give us a lot of you, Tobe,” she said carefully. “You probably like your time, your space, and you haven’t had much of that since we got together. And back home again with your brother, if you guys have traditions that you . . .”

  “Babe, quiet,” he said gently.

  She fell silent.

  “I want to spend Christmas with the woman that’s eventually gonna give me nieces and nephews, and I want to spend Christmas with Brooklyn and you. If the time comes I need space, I’ll share. That same thing happens for you, I want you sharing too. But the time for space is not Christmas. In other words, I’m not just down with that plan, if you’d asked, that would have been what I told you I wanted.”

  “Okay, honey,” she said softly.

  “We good on that?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she answered. Then muttered, “You’re so totally a holiday person.”

  “Wait ’til Halloween. Since I have a kid and a reason to do it up, I�
��m gonna blow your mind.”

  She let out a quiet laugh and gave his hand another squeeze.

  Toby returned it.

  “You look good in a suit, Talon. The black on black so works for you,” she whispered.

  If she liked it, he’d wear something like that for their wedding.

  “You can can the flattery, babe. I’m a sure thing.”

  She burst out laughing.

  He tucked her hand in the crook of his hip and thigh as that sour feeling in his gut slid away.

  They were going to The Star and he was filling his woman with good, hearty, expensive food and sitting across from her in that dress, hoping she wasn’t wearing panties, and then picking up her dog and taking her to his home.

  He’d fuck her in his bed and sleep beside her there too.

  And she was in the Christmas zone, hosting appetizers and planning safari parties (or whatever the fuck) and not in it with him, arguing about money.

  She was putting on weight.

  It was all good.

  All good in a way that nothing could mar it.

  At least not tonight.

  So he drove his girl the rest of the way to The Star, drawing her out about the job she’d applied for to make sure it was something she actually might want. Because he knew Marlon Martin, one of the partners, and he could have a word to see if he could make that happen for her if she was into it.

  And then they had his official first date, nearly two weeks into them being together.

  In other words . . .

  The Toby and Addie way.

  “It’s snowing,” Addie whispered.

  She was tucked up to his side, and he was trying to ignore the fact she wasn’t in a seatbelt, as he drove carefully home with Dapper Dan sitting where Addie should be, his nose snuffling the cold wind coming through the crack she’d put in the window.

  “Yeah,” he whispered back, not knowing why he was whispering, it was just something about her mood that was blanketing the car that made it seem like that was the thing to do.

  She said nothing more as he navigated the winding roads with the detached condos in his development to his place at the very end, glad to be home for a number of reasons, but relieved to be there so he wasn’t driving with her restrained.

  He’d bought his place in July, offering on it a week after Brooks had been kidnapped.

  Each of the fifteen condos was private, secluded, with a long drive, and surrounded on three sides with a lot of space filled with forest. Though they all were the same layout, they had different designs in the unusual front doors, different elevations, and some had horizontal wood siding, some vertical, some herringbone and some shingle.

  Toby’s was herringbone.

  He took the turn up his lane, reaching to his visor to hit his garage door opener.

  “Dig your pad. It’s totally boss,” Addie murmured when it came into sight.

  “Glad you think so, honey,” Toby murmured back.

  He guided them into the garage, shifted into park and shut her down as Addie pulled away.

  Dapper Dan had jumped out on Addie’s side by the time Toby reached and grabbed her bag from the passenger floor and knifed out of his.

  But when he looked, expecting her to join him at the hood, which was close to the door that took them inside, he saw she was wandering toward the open bay of the garage door.

  Taking her cue, Dapper Dan ambled out into the falling snow.

  Toby dropped her bag on the hood and switched directions, watching Addie walk out into the snow, stop and tip her head back.

  Toby froze, staring at her in her dark green coat over her dress and those sex-on-heels boots with her hair up in an arrangement that practically screamed at a man to take it down, and he didn’t move as he watched her stand in the veiled moonlight and blink up at the snow.

  She had some framed pictures of Brooks sitting out at her house. More pictures on her walls, those group frames, most of them with pictures of her and Eliza or her with people he hadn’t met.

  There weren’t a lot, Addie wasn’t a taking pictures and framing them person.

  She was a living life and remembering it person.

  Just like Toby.

  But there was one photo that had pride of place in her bedroom in a fancy frame on the dresser.

  A big one that had lost some of it’s sharpness due to it being enlarged.

  You could still see it was a picture from the back of a blonde woman sitting on a blanket in the night, most of her cloaked in darkness, just a hint of a body, the light material of a sundress.

  But the moonlight was lighting her long, blonde hair.

  Daphne.

  And right then, Addie stood with the moonlight, bright even through the clouds, lighting her hair with the snow falling in her face.

  Tobe rested his shoulder against the opened bay and crossed his arms, deciding in that instant that it was time to sort out the shack. The place his grandfather, and his father, and he and Johnny hung at when they left Matlock behind and went fishing, or hauled their ATVs or snowmobiles to in order to cover different terrain or just relax and blow time.

  It was his now and he hadn’t been back often seeing as Addie was not at the shack and they had not been at a place he could take her and Brooklyn there.

  Now he was.

  So he was going to fix up that man retreat and make it something better for her, for Brooklyn, and for Johnny and Iz when they wanted to use it.

  Addie could have a lot of moonlight there. And snow. And nature. And quiet.

  And him.

  And he could give her a nice place to get away from it all and get her Daphne on.

  Addie didn’t right her head when she called, “You’re not supposed to be over there.”

  “I like the view.”

  She righted her head then and looked to him.

  “I’m falling in love with you.”

  That was so unexpected, his gut actually swung back like her words landed there.

  He honest to fuck felt winded.

  But it was a velvet blow.

  “Well, maybe it’s more honest to share that’s past tense,” she went on.

  Jesus fuck.

  “Come here,” he growled.

  “She’d love you, Tobias. She’d adore you,” she said. “She’d love how you are with Brooklyn and she’d love how you are with me.”

  “Adeline, come . . . here.”

  She didn’t come there.

  “I hate that Izzy has to walk down the aisle with Charlie. Nothing against Charlie. He earned that honor looking out for her all those years before she met Johnny. But I wish Mom was walking her down the aisle. I wish Mom could put her hand in the hand of a Gamble man. Mix moonlight with motor oil.”

  Fuck.

  Him.

  “Baby, come here.”

  “It’s selfish, but I wish that because I want it after, if you make me yours in front of God and man and woman and Matlock. I want her hand to put mine in yours, wrap our fingers around and I want to stand with you and her and know she’s down with the hand I’m gonna hold on to for the rest of my life.”

  All right.

  Enough.

  He pushed from the opening and stalked to her, framing her face in his hands when he arrived, pushing her head back and blocking out the moonlight with his.

  “Addie—”

  She slid her hands in his overcoat, under his suit jacket, and curled them around his sides.

  “It was a great second first date, Toby.”

  He was done.

  “Shit, I gotta fuck you in the cold in the bed of my truck.”

  She grinned her I-own-this-man grin. “Works for me.”

  Of course it did.

  He kissed her.

  And it was the hottest, and most beautiful fuck he’d ever had, even if it was in the cold with him bent over her, covering her as best he could with her ass at the edge of the tailgate he’d pulled down, the spikes of the heels of her boots di
gging in his ass.

  She wasn’t wearing panties.

  And he’d never forget pulling her hair free and seeing those waves and curls all over the ribbed steel, her eyes locked on his as he moved inside.

  Only Addie would take that fucking and get off on it as hard as she did.

  Only his Addie.

  His match made in heaven.

  It would be their second go, in his bed, when he was inside her, going slow, both of them bathed in moonlight, the waves and curls of her hair all over his pillows, watching her body move under him with the rhythm of his as she took his cock when he gave back as good as he got.

  “Gone for you too, Adeline,” he whispered.

  “I know, honey,” she whispered back, tightening all her limbs around him.

  Toby just smiled and kissed her as he fucked her because . . .

  Of course she did.

  Toby would spend the next week working with Johnny on the sly, sifting through pictures and flipping through photo albums and going through their women’s stuff when they weren’t around.

  But when they found it, they knew they’d found it.

  So they took it to Margot and told her how it was going to go down.

  Without Eliza knowing it, at the altar, after Charlie put her hand in Johnny’s, he was going to wrap that braided leather around their hands. A braid of leather that would bind them throughout the ceremony. A braid of leather Daphne was wearing in a picture Johnny had found, wearing it as a headband in a photo Izzy had, and Toby had found that leather braid in the back of an old jewelry box Addie had by her mother’s picture on her dresser.

  And when Toby married Addie, Izzy would move from her sister’s side and do the same thing.

  It made Margot shoo them out so they wouldn’t see her crying.

  In other words, both men knew they’d been right.

  It was perfect.

  The Place to Be

  Addie

  “AND . . . VOILÀ!”

  Margot pulled the sheet off the first whiteboard.

  Then the second.

  And the third.

  And I sat next to Eliza, who was sitting between me and Deanna, pressing my lips together and alternately watching Margot and glancing at my sister out of the corners of my eyes.