Ian pulled her close, and she sagged against him. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “And I’m sure your assumption about your parents is right. Amber told you she loves you, right?”
“Yes,” she said over the lump in her throat. She was beginning to feel like something was seriously wrong with her. She wished she could express herself as easily as Ian and Amber.
“Do you ever say it back to Amber?” Ian asked.
She lifted her head. “I try, but the words get stuck, and then she hugs me.”
“You feel things, though,” he said, “deep down.”
She was so glad he was good at guessing because she was not good at explaining. “I feel so much, but it just doesn’t come out the way it does for other people.”
He cupped her head, holding her against his chest. “You’re unique. That’s why I love you.”
She squeezed him even tighter, hoping he guessed from the extra squeeze how much he meant to her because the words were forever caught in her throat.
Chapter Seven
The days flew by as she and Ian went on dates every night after work, and he met her for lunch at work. The lab was closed the week between Christmas and New Year (though she’d planned to do some work from home), and she wanted to finish up a few loose ends before Christmas. Ian was a major distraction, but the lab was nearly empty as people left for the holidays, which made it easier to focus. Every day after a shared lunch in her office, Ian turned out the lights and gave her a pick-me-up. The first time, she hadn’t known what he’d meant. He’d told her she looked tired and turned out the lights.
She’d laughed. “You expect me to nap here?”
“I’m going to give you a little pick-me-up.” She felt the heat of him, close now, and his voice rumbled in her ear. “A little energy jolt.”
He turned her and wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing and nipping her neck.
“I do get a jolt when you bite me like that,” she told him.
“Oh, yeah?” His teeth clamped down on the cord of her neck as he unbuttoned her jeans.
She found herself out of breath. “Ian.” They couldn’t do this here.
“Don’t scream,” he crooned in her ear.
She went damp, remembering all the times he’d made her scream back at his hotel room. She squirmed, but he had her tight, one arm wrapped around her waist. “I can’t keep quiet when you—” The zipper of her jeans rasped down. “Oh, God,” she said.
He pulled the jeans down along with her panties, and she knew she should protest. There were still some physicists wandering around the hallways. “There’s people…” Her voice trailed off as his hand slid unerringly to her center, and her brain shut down.
“Ah,” he said, his breath hot in her ear. “I love this short circuit of yours.”
She stiffened at the way he sounded gloating, but his fingers gave her a pinch, shooting fiery pleasure through her limbs, making her cry out and soften. He turned her, pressing her against the wall, and covered her mouth with his, muffling her cries as he brought her to climax in a feverish rush.
And while she collapsed against the wall, panting and surprisingly full of energy, he turned on the light. She closed her eyes against the glare and felt him slide her panties and jeans back on.
“You like your pick-me-up?” he asked as he redid the zipper and button on the jeans.
She beamed. “That really worked! What am I going to do when you’re not here to do that every afternoon?”
He cupped her jaw and kissed her. “Then you can think of me. Maybe I’ll get you a vibrator for work. You can call it Ian.”
She couldn’t help but smile. She couldn’t remember ever smiling as much as she did around him. “You’re crazy.”
“For you.”
“Me too.”
He grinned. “Stop by my hotel when your eyes are droopy.”
Then he left, and she got back to work with renewed enthusiasm and energy with the knowledge that a well-timed distraction could actually add value to her research.
~ ~ ~
Kate stared eagerly at her gifts from Ian the day before Christmas Eve. They were sitting on the living room sofa at her place because Ian had checked out of the hotel. Her apartment felt very cozy and Christmassy now. Ian had decorated it while she was at work, stringing white lights along the ceiling of the living room and adding a small tabletop tree to the coffee table.
“Open yours first!” She gestured to the large gift box on the coffee table. She couldn’t wait for him to open it. She just knew Ian would appreciate a thoughtful gift.
He snagged the box and tore the paper off in no time flat. “It’s hand sanitizer.”
“In the size approved for security checkpoints,” she pointed out.
“Ah.” He pulled out the next thing. “And a neck pillow.”
“For sleeping on planes.”
He pulled out a thin metal square. “And a small square.” He held it up in question.
“It has a tracker inside it that synchs to an app, so you don’t leave any luggage or your laptop behind. I thought—”
He kissed her. “I love it.” His warm brown eyes gazed into hers. “A very thoughtful gift. You wanted to make sure flying to see you was as safe and comfortable as possible.”
“Yes!” She loved the way he really understood her. “Oh, Ian. I’m not ready for our time to end. This is the first time we’ve been boyfriend-girlfriend, and we leave tomorrow.”
“I’ll see you on Christmas at Barry and Amber’s.”
“I know, but then I’m heading back to Chicago. Besides, we’ll be surrounded by our families.”
He slid a warm hand to the back of her neck and squeezed, which for some reason turned her on. “I’m sure we can sneak away for a little while. Besides…the weather’s looking dicey. They’re saying a blizzard’s coming. We could get stuck here and have our own Christmas.”
“I’ve never had Christmas without my family.”
“We’ll be our own little family.”
“Eww. We are not related.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Our own cozy unit. Maybe.” He put his gifts in a neat pile on the coffee table. “We’ll see.”
She couldn’t help but pout. Ian leaned close and nipped her pouting bottom lip. A hot shiver ran through her.
“Let me guess,” he said, “you don’t like the uncertainty of the Christmas situation.”
She really did prefer absolutes, even though life rarely gave them to her. “It’s like you can read my mind. How do you do that?”
He chuckled.
“No, seriously, how do you do that?”
He handed her a gift box wrapped in shiny red paper. It was a perfect cube. “I know you, that’s all. And you can be certain of one thing.”
She smiled. “What?”
“I’ll get you naked on Christmas either way.”
“You’re such a dirty talker.” She kissed him and nipped his bottom lip like he always did to her.
He kissed her long and deep. “You’re such a sexy woman. Now open your gifts.”
She ripped off the paper, opened it up, and pulled out a coffee mug. It was Rosie the Riveter and it read We Can Do It.
“I love it!” she exclaimed.
“It matches your T-shirt, and this way you can be reminded whenever you drink coffee—”
“Which is practically all day!”
He rested one large hand on her upper thigh. “That we can do it.”
She paused. “Do you mean we can do the long-distance thing or we can do, you know, it.”
He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close, kissing her gently. “Both.” He handed her a pink and white striped gift bag.
She flung the tissue paper off the top and pulled out a cute pink dress with spaghetti straps, a low-cut neckline with bits of lace, and a ruffled hem with more lace trim that would end mid-thigh. “Ian, this is so pretty.”
“Try it on,” he urged.
>
She could hardly wait. It was the prettiest most feminine dress she’d ever owned. She set her glasses on the coffee table, stood, quickly stripped down, and dropped the dress over her head. It felt like a cloud.
“Take off the bra,” he said in a low voice.
She did, dropping it on her pile of clothes. She did a little twirl, watching the ruffle poof out a little bit. “I can’t wait for an occasion to wear it! Thank you!”
“This is just for us,” he said, sliding his hand under the ruffled hem and lifting it to show her. She could clearly see his hand through the fabric. She hadn’t realized how sheer it was until he did that. “It’s not really a dress. It’s lingerie. The saleslady called it a babydoll.” He looked her up and down. “So pretty. I love you in this.”
She sat next to him and played with the lacy trim on the end of the babydoll. “I never had anything pink as a kid and definitely nothing this lacy and ruffly.”
“Why not?” he asked, pulling out her hair band and running his fingers through her hair.
“My mother didn’t want me to be defined by gender stereotypes. She wanted me to feel I could do anything a man could do, including excelling as a physicist.”
“I hope I don’t sound like a complete sexist pig, but I really like you in dresses.”
“Me too. As long as I don’t have to wear pantyhose.”
He stroked her leg. “Bare is definitely the way to go. And no offense, but I think your mom went too far the other way. I mean if you like being girly sometimes, she should’ve let you.”
“I always felt like I missed out,” she confessed. “My whole life was science. Every time I asked for a toy or a doll, I got a scientific instrument. Ian, I got an oscilloscope for Christmas instead of an Emma doll that can really drink and pee.”
He laughed. “That sounds horrible. What’s an oscilloscope again?”
“It measures voltages, particularly handy when troubleshooting a newly designed circuit.” She cocked her head. “Which one sounds horrible? The oscilloscope or the doll?”
“Both. Why did you want a doll that can pee?”
She lifted one shoulder up and down. “She just seemed alive.”
He stroked her cheek. “You wanted a sibling. A younger sister.”
She nodded. “Amber’s seven years older, and she didn’t like hanging out with me until I was older. It was kind of lonely at my house. Kinda quiet. Not much fun for a kid.”
“So you turned to books and science.”
“That was the only option for me,” she said. At his sympathetic look, she added, “But it wasn’t that bad, really, we had a lot of interesting discussions about science at the dinner table.”
He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her.
Tears threatened, and she blinked them back. “Science was a type of love,” she said, though she was starting to realize it was a very limited type of love.
“I’m going to give you the whole deal,” he said. “Not a type. The kind of love where you don’t know where you start and I begin.”
“You mean sex.”
He stood and pulled her up with him. Then he pulled her arms around his waist and wrapped his arms around her. “I mean like a circle where you don’t know the end or the beginning. Within this circle—” he paused and met her eyes “—represented by our arms around each other, is you and me. And it’s filled with unconditional love.”
Her heart squeezed painfully as she felt what he was offering at the same time as she understood what she’d been lacking. She nodded, unable to speak over the lump in her throat.
Without warning, he scooped her up and carried her to bed. And then he took her, with great care and tenderness that showed his love in every touch, every look, until there was nothing in the universe but him.
~ ~ ~
Ian carefully snuck out of bed Christmas Eve morning and checked his cell. Yes! The airport was shut down. The snow had been coming down hard last night, winds high, and they’d been warned it was a possibility. All flights were cancelled, giving him more time with Kate. He emailed the office, requesting the days off between Christmas and New Year’s. It was nearly all his vacation time, but it was worth it. Then he emailed his mom to let her know he’d be staying in Chicago for Christmas, but he’d call. This was the best Christmas gift of all. He carefully shut off the alarm clock and slid back into bed, settling Kate against his side. She threw an arm and leg over him. He loved that she was so used to sleeping with him now that she just kept right on sleeping. This was their first Christmas together just the two of them. They’d already given each other their gifts last night, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t make it fun.
She woke with a start a short while later. “What time is it? I didn’t hear the alarm.”
“I shut it off. The airport closed. We’re stuck here.” He kissed her.
“Really?” She slowly blinked as she relaxed again. “Wow. The blizzard must be bad.”
“Yeah, and the wind and the ice.” He pulled her on top of him, and she rested her cheek over his heart. She often said she liked to listen to his heartbeat. “Our first Christmas together.”
“I saw you last Christmas.”
“I mean just the two of us.”
She stroked his chest. “I want to cook. We’ll make a holiday dinner just like back home. Turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, Christmas pie.”
“You know how to make all those things?” She didn’t cook as far as he knew.
She lifted her head, her blue eyes sleepy again and unfocused. “I’ll look it up online. How hard could it be?”
He played with a lock of her blond hair. He loved that he was the only one who ever saw her hair like this out of its bun, loose and flowing in beautiful waves over her shoulders. “You think we can make it out to get food in this blizzard?”
She slid off him and crossed to the window, peeking between the slats of the blinds at the white wall of snow. His cock pulsed just looking at her standing there naked. He snagged a condom from the nightstand and rolled it on. “Get over here,” he ordered.
She turned with a smile and immediately climbed on top of him, taking him in. She knew that tone meant business. He gripped her hips and ground her down hard on him. She threw her head back and moaned. He kept moving her up and down the length of him, and she lifted her hair and shook it out nice and loose.
“Yes,” he said, “I love your hair like that.”
She moved on her own then, faster and faster, until he felt like he was going to explode.
“Come with me,” he urged, sitting up and angling her so he could stroke her in just the right spot on the inside.
She cried out and went wild, whimpering and bucking. He kept a firm grip on her hips, making her take more, urging her on. “More, yes, more,” he told her over and over until she broke with a long shuddering release that triggered his own. He exploded with a hoarse cry, holding her tight as the last tremors went through him.
He lay back and she went with him, lying on top of him, both of them breathing hard.
“Your heart is pounding,” she said.
He couldn’t speak.
She sat up, still straddling him, and put a hand over her own heart. “So’s mine.” She put his hand over her heart. “Feel it?”
“Yes.” He yanked her back down on top of him and wrapped both arms around her in a tight embrace. She let out a sigh and relaxed against him. This was all he needed in this world. A naked Kate pressed against him. He didn’t care how hard it was going to be doing this long-distance thing. If he could have this in the end, it was all worth it.
~ ~ ~
Kate had no idea what she’d been thinking when she said they should have a traditional Christmas dinner. Neither she nor Ian knew how to cook. But on Christmas day, after the snow was cleared a bit, they managed to find a grocery store that was open and had a few frozen turkeys left. She microwaved the small frozen turkey until it seemed soft, and stuck it in the oven. Meanwhile Ian m
ade the Christmas pie, a decadent chocolate layered thing of pudding and whipped cream that he’d spent half the time spreading all over her and licking off. He was extremely distracting. By the time the oven timer went off for the turkey, she’d already gone off three times to his one, which seemed to be his normal pace with her. Not that she was complaining, no man had ever made her feel as good as Ian did.
Finally, she took the turkey out of the oven and let it rest before carving as the recipe said. Then she stuck the green beans in the microwave. While they cooked, she smashed the potatoes she’d microwaved earlier with a large fork and a lot of muscle power. Ian finished the job for her because the potatoes weren’t looking very mashed.
Ian peered at the turkey. “Are you sure it’s done?”
“Yeah, it’s golden brown just like the picture.”
“You think it’s cooked all the way through?”
“I don’t have a meat thermometer. Just wiggle the drumstick. That’s what my mom does.”
He wiggled it. “What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know. My dad always carves it after she wiggles it.”
He shrugged and carved the turkey. “It’s kinda pink on this one part.” He pointed.
“So we’ll skip that part.”
He cut off the drumsticks and set them on a plate; then he added some white pieces of meat.
They sat on the sofa with the feast laid out on the coffee table before them. She turned on the TV to the Christmas carol channel with the image of a fireplace. Now it felt like Christmas at home, minus her parents. And Barry, Amber, and Violet. Gosh, she missed Violet. Still, it was festive. And at least she didn’t have her mom snapping at her dad all day to help her in the kitchen, even when she always ended up criticizing his efforts and taking over anyway. She found she didn’t miss the exchange of gift certificates with her parents either.
Everything was better with Ian, who was always touching her and kissing her, except when they were eating. Even then, his eyes always looked at her with a heated tenderness. She knew she was lucky to have him in her life. She looked at him, staring at the plate of food on his lap, and struggled to find the words to tell him how she felt. “Thank you.”
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