Last Christmas: A The Girl Before Eve Christmas Novella

by Lisa J. Hobman

  Lily and I hadn’t really talked about the America situation much. And I was trying hard to come to terms with the fact that she would be spending her time between Scotland and New York for the next few years. We could make it work.

  We would have to.

  Whilst she was out at work, I was getting all of my marking out of the way so I could enjoy every fleeting moment of the festive season with Lily. And I was making sure that she was coming home to a clean, Christmassy home. I wanted her to really enjoy this Christmas. It felt of paramount importance that it was nothing short of perfect.

  We visited the German Christmas market during the first weekend of the holidays. We took the tram so that we could indulge in a little eggnog and Gluhwein. The atmosphere was wonderful. Christmas songs played from every stall that we passed, and each stall holder had donned a silly festive hat. The aroma of a wide variety of spiced food tantalised our taste buds and we ended up munching on large pieces of stollen despite already having devoured bratwurst and mustard.

  “Let’s go on the Ferris wheel.” Lily grasped my hand and began to pull me toward the huge structure that towered over us and Princes Street.

  “Oh, I don’t know… It’s so… high.”

  “Are you scared you might pee your pants?” She giggled.

  That was it. War. I scooped her up and flung her over my shoulder, hoping she wouldn’t puke down my back. “Ferris wheel, here we come!” I called back to her where she dangled precariously.

  “Put me down, pee-pants, or I swear I’ll get you for this!” She half laughed, half squealed as she beat at my back with her gloved fists.

  Passers-by laughed and pointed at us.

  When we finally reached the looming hoop, I gazed up at the twinkling lights that adorned it. “Come on then, wifey. Let’s go see what all the fuss is about, eh?”

  We paid our money and climbed into the first seat that circled the air to greet us. Once fastened in securely, we began to move—and I almost left my stomach and its contents on the floor. But once we were up at the top, the view was stunning. It was dusk and all the Christmas window displays blinked and twinkled below us. The castle high on its rocky precipice glowed with the blue lights illuminating it from below. And the faint sound of Slade could be heard along with the raucous voices of people joining in with Noddy as he yelled the famous lyrics.

  I glanced over at Lily and couldn’t help smiling. Her eyes sparkled like the lights of a Christmas tree, and the bulbs of the Ferris wheel created a glowing halo around her hair. She looked like an angel, and I suppose in a way that’s exactly what she was. She had rescued me and cared for me after Eve’s death, and I don’t know how I would have made it through that without her.

  I felt her squeeze my hand, and I turned to find her smiling at me. I wished I could read her thoughts. Was she worrying about being apart from me as much as I was about being away from her? I ran my thumb across the back of her hand and tried to focus on the feeling of that one small precious thing. After December twenty-seventh, it would be a long time until I got to hold her hand again. My heart ached at the thought and my throat tightened, but I fought to keep the emotion from my face. I wasn’t about to guilt her into staying. She would end up resenting me, and I couldn’t live with that.

  After all the years she had wanted to be with me and the short time that my eyes had been opened to that fact, it was like I was losing her. And there was nothing I could do but let her go. Let my angel spread her golden wings and fly.

  Christmas had always been a happy time since Lily and I got together. But that was about to change drastically. Would I look to Christmas from now on with the same warm glow and excited anticipation? Or would it become just another time when I could finally see my wife? Would she meet some high-flying yank executive with perfect white teeth and an eight-pack? Would boring old Adam the English teacher from Jedburgh become a distant memory to her? And would I forever live with the regret of not kissing my best friend at the tennis court when I was merely a stupid teenager?

  I swallowed the lump of emotion that had become lodged in my throat and gripped her hand tighter. How the hell could I let her go? How?

  She giggled as the car rocked and she nuzzled into my chest. I brought my free hand around her shoulders and peered out over the twinkling landscape of the city we now called home and which held so many happy memories for us. I did my best to memorise every single thing about holding her so close to me.

  It was just less than two weeks to Christmas, and I was pulling out all the stops. Lily had been covering a story about late-night Christmas shopping in Edinburgh, and had worked a little later than usual. She had been interviewing shoppers and shop owners in the city, so I decided to cook a well-earned, delicious meal for when she arrived home. Along with the tempting aroma of chicken casserole, I added the mouth-watering smell of chocolate-chip cookie snowflakes. Once the cookies were cooled, I decorated them with frosting and those little edible silver balls. What can I say, I was out to impress.

  The wine was chilling and the chicken casserole was cooking away in the oven when she eventually walked through the door. I hoped that the aroma of oregano and spices would be a warm welcome for my beautiful, hard-working wife.

  “Hey, honey, I’m home!” she called as she made her way through to the kitchen. “Hey, good lookin’, what’s cookin’?” She slipped her arms around my waist and kissed my shoulder.

  I relished the feeling of her arms encircling me and once again had to fight away the niggling sadness that threatened to overcome me because she was slipping through my fingers “Made you a yummy chicken casserole. Thought you might be ready for it after being out in the cold.”

  “Oh, I sooo do need it. I’m famished. Shall I set the table?”

  “Yeah, thanks, sweetheart.” I dished up new potatoes and a good portion of the enticing chicken dish onto two plates and carried them over to the table. “Listen… I think we need to talk.”

  She sat and gazed up at me. “Yes. I guess you’re right.”

  After placing the plates down I sat beside her. “I’ve been thinking. A lot. About the America thing. And I’ve come up with a plan.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. You would be leaving to go out there in December. And I have a half-term break in February. I could come out to spend a few days with you. Then the same at Easter… then summer. Then you could come home for Christmas.”

  “And you think that will work?” She sounded hopeful.

  I gritted my teeth and swallowed hard as I reached out and took her hand. It has to work, Lily. I can’t be without you. My stomach knotted in spite of the positive front I was showing. “I really do. We’ve been through so much, Lil. Being apart for a while is… well, it’s just another thing that will show us how strong our relationship is. Because we are strong together, Lil.”

  Her lip began to tremble. “I love you so much.”

  “And I love you too. And that’s why I want you to be happy. And taking this job will make you happy. But don’t think for a minute that I won’t miss you. Because every second of every day that you’re over there and I’m over here, I will miss you like a part of me is gone.”

  She stood from her chair and clambered into my lap, straddling me so that her skirt rode up her thighs. “Can we maybe eat later?”

  I smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Hungry for something other than my yummy chicken casserole, are you?”

  She chewed seductively on her lip and nodded as she slipped her hands up my T-shirt and grazed her nails down my bare skin. She climbed off my lap and held her hand out to me. I grasped it in mine and let her pull me toward the stairs. Bing Crosby crooned “I’ll be Home for Christmas” as I willingly allowed my wife to lead me to our bedroom.

  Once inside, she began to undress as I watched. Slowly unbuttoning her pale grey silk blouse and allowing the fabric to slip to the floor with a whisper. “We have so much time to make up for. The last few weeks have been so strange. And I h
ate when we fight. And when we don’t make love often. I need to know you love me, Adam. I need to feel you inside my body to know that.” She shimmied her fitted skirt down her hips, over her bottom, and down her thighs, and I followed its journey with my hungry gaze. She reached around and unfastened the clasp of her bra, allowing the flesh-coloured lace to skim her full breasts before letting it fall as Eartha Kitt began to sing in that sultry way she had. The sound of “Santa Baby” floated through the air, and I licked my lips, desperate to taste and tease Lily with my tongue. Hooking her thumbs into the lace edging of her panties, she kept her eyes fixed on me as she swayed her hips in time with the festive music and slipped the panties down the smooth skin of her legs to step out of them.

  Once she was naked she sat in my lap once more, and I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. I wanted nothing more than to sink deep into her and lose myself in the pleasure she gave me. But she needed to hear me first. “I love being inside you, Lil. But you have to believe me when I tell you how much you mean to me. How much I love you. It’s not just about sex.”

  She dragged the T-shirt from my body and began to place kisses everywhere she could reach. Her soft lips warm against my skin but leaving shivers there nonetheless.

  She lifted her hooded gaze to meet mine and smiled. “I know that,” she whispered. “And I do believe you. But this way I get to feel it too.” Leaning down once more, she flicked my nipple with the tip of her tongue and I moaned as pleasure spiked at my groin.

  Chapter 10

  Merry Christmas Baby—Christina Aguilera

  Lily

  Adam was the most wonderful man. And I was one lucky woman. His desire to put my happiness before his own made me want him there and then. Sod the chicken casserole. It smelled delicious, and he had baked cookies in the shape of snowflakes for me too. Could he get any sweeter? But they could wait. The desperate need to be close to him and to love him was so powerful that I couldn’t even think about food.

  Once we were upstairs and I had removed the T-shirt from his body, I straddled his firm thighs and rocked my pelvis against his hardness beneath me. I silently climbed from his lap and dragged the sweatpants and boxers down his legs as he watched me through hooded eyes. Climbing into his lap again, I gazed down at him as he slipped his hands up my stomach and reverently cupped my breasts, tweaking at the buds as they puckered under his caress. I lowered my face to his and covered his mouth with my own. His soft, yielding lips parted, allowing my tongue inside to duel with his own, and he slipped his hands into the long waves of my hair.

  I pushed him backward until he was lying flat, and I grazed my nails down the ridges and striations of his taut abdomen. He inhaled deeply through his nose, and I watched with pleasure as his erection flinched beneath me. I rose up onto my knees so that I could take him into me completely. The only audible sounds were our ragged breaths and moans as my body enveloped his. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back as I adjusted to his size. But moments later his dark irises were locked on mine.

  “God, I love you so much, Lily. The feel of you surrounding me. I could stay here forever.”

  I moved over him, making him mine once more. Pleasing him as he pleased me. He groaned as he gripped my hips.

  I couldn’t find words to express the wonderful sensations shooting through my nerves and muscles as our bodies moved in perfect rhythm, and so I silently watched where we were joined. He reached out and caressed the sensitive bud of nerves at the junction of my thighs with his thumb, and I gasped as he circled me there. My eyes drifted closed and I rocked and circled my hips, grinding myself into his hand, into his body, seeking my release.

  With one hand at my breast and the other at my apex he thrust into me with erotic, carnal grunts. Hearing him let go like this made my core muscles tighten, which in turn made him exhale more guttural sounds. I opened my eyes and was met with a look of awe and wonder. His brow was furrowed and his lower lip was pulled between his teeth. My breathing accelerated as I headed toward ecstasy. And as I soared skyward I cried out his name, repeating it over and over as pleasure and my immense love for Adam washed over me in waves. He joined me moments later, gripping my hips and thrusting deep one last time before I collapsed onto his chest to listen to his pounding heart.

  We lay there, just holding each other as we came down from the best emotional high we had shared in a long time.

  “I love you, Lily,” he murmured.

  And at that moment everything became crystal clear to me. I couldn’t compare my relationship with Adam to the one he’d had with Eve—as I’d been doing almost all my life. They were two completely different entities. Each had its own path. Eve and I were totally different people, and I knew that all along. He never would love me the way he loved her because I wasn’t her. And that was okay. He loved me for me and that was all that mattered.

  I could see it in the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. In the way he locked his hooded gaze on mine as he moved inside of me. In the way he called me cheesy whenever I called him pee-pants. We had history that went back to our childhood, and nothing could take that special bond away. We were friends first and foremost. And what a bloody good foundation to have beneath us.

  We could live apart and still be together emotionally. After all, we had done that the whole time I travelled with work. Admittedly we weren’t “together” in the same sense back then. But surely that addition to our relationship just made things stronger?

  I had spent the last four years waiting to feel like I had achieved the level of affection that he’d had for Eve when I’d had that all along. It was just different. But not in any negative way. Not even slightly. And it wasn’t a competition. Why had it taken me so long to realise this? Had it taken the chance to live apart from him to make me see with such clarity?

  I pulled myself up on my elbow and placed my hand over his heart. “No more, Adam. My worries, my insecurity… all gone. You’re mine and I’m yours, and that’s all that matters now.”

  He frowned up at me for a moment, but then a beautiful wide smile appeared on those luscious, kissable lips. He knew what I meant.

  I trailed my fingers down his body and back up again as his hand slipped into my hair and I leaned to kiss him.

  Because I could.

  Because he was mine.

  There was so much to do. So much to plan. And Christmas was only a matter of a few days away. I had no clue how I was going to cram it all in. My latest discovery had cemented everything in my mind and I had decided to hunt out a special gift for Adam.

  On my way back from yet another shopping trip into Edinburgh, I stopped in to see my mum. She was baking, and the delicious sweet aroma of her creations tantalised me as I walked through to the kitchen.

  “Ah, Lily, mi niña preciosa.” She pulled me into a hug that didn’t involve her cakey hands touching me. She then kissed both of my cheeks and dabbed a blob of the floury mixture on the end of my nose just as she had done when I was a child.

  I giggled at her playfulness. “Mmm, smells yummy. What are you making?”

  She smiled conspiratorially. “I’m making los polvorones for my son-in-law.” Crouching to slide the tray into the oven, she glanced up at me. “You will have to stay until they are cooked and cooled.”

  “Oh, it’s fine, Mum. Just bring them over on Christmas Day.”

  She stood again and took my hand, this time not caring about the dough. “Lily, I have decided that this year you and Adam need your space. I am invited to Gwen and Malcolm’s for Christmas dinner. They too feel that you need to have this precious time alone. They want their son to be happy. Just as I want you to be happy.”

  “But… you always spend Christmas with us, Mum.”

  She shrugged and cupped my face with her gooey hands. “Well not this year, mi querida. This year you get the time for yourselves. I think with what the future holds for you both, you need this.”

  With what the future holds for you both… That sou
nded very final. And quite scary. I understood what she meant, and I was grateful to both of our families for wanting our happiness above everything. Of course I was. But Christmas was our family time. It always had been. It wouldn’t be the same. Then again Christmas from now would never be the same. The thought tightened my throat and twisted my insides.

  Christmas would never be the same again.

  I pushed my fears deep down in a desperate bid to not upset Mum, and three hours later after a long heart to heart I left her house with a large cake tin full of polvorones, minus a few that we had to taste test, obviously.

  Chapter 11

  Christmas Wrapping—The Waitresses

  Adam

  Knowing that Lily’s mother had resolved to go to my parents’ for this, what could be our last Christmas together for a long time, filled me with a deep guilt. The realisation that this is what I was facing caused an aching in my chest. It also made me more determined to make things work. To make Lily see that I was committed to her. And that I would do whatever it took to make sure we got through this. That I was her home and I always would be.

  My wife. My true love.

  We sat cuddled together, warming up by the newly lit fire. Her head rested on my shoulder, and I traced circles up and down her skin with my free hand as I always did when I was lost in thought. Our gifts had been small this year. And a little insignificant in some ways. There was one gift I had saved. I wasn’t sure if today was the right time and was filled with trepidation at the thought of handing the small box over.

  Lily sighed. “I love this tree. It’s such a lovely shape. And it smells divine. Very… Christmassy.” Her random thought spoken out loud made me smile. But she was right. It was possibly the best tree we had ever bought. We had agreed from the start that real trees were the way to go for us. From the journey to the farm to pick one out, to the naked decorating and drinking sherry… and right up to the smell of fresh pine that greeted us as we stepped into the house. Our home. And as silly as it may sound, I was glad we had agreed on that one vital thing.