12 Christmas Romances To Melt Your Heart (9 page)

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USA Today Bestselling Author Jami Davenport writes sexy contemporary and sports romances, including her two new indie endeavors: the Game On in Seattle Series and the Madrona Island Series. Jami's new releases consistently rank in the top fifty on the sports romance and sports genre lists on Amazon, and she has hit the Amazon top hundred authors list in both contemporary romance and genre fiction multiple times.

J
ami lives
on a small farm near Puget Sound with her Green Beret-turned-plumber husband, a Newfoundland cross with a tennis ball fetish, a prince disguised as an orange tabby cat, and an opinionated Hanoverian mare.

J
ami works
in IT for her day job and is a former high school business teacher. She's a lifetime Seahawks and Mariners fan, misses her Super Sonics, and is waiting for the day professional hockey comes to Seattle. An avid boater, Jami has spent countless hours in the San Juan Islands, a common setting in her books. In her opinion, it's the most beautiful place on earth.

T
his is a work of fiction
. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or person, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

C
opyright © 2015 Riley J. Ford

A
ll rights reserved
. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

“
W
e need
to celebrate our three-month anniversary,” Shaun said, gazing at Selma with those green eyes that always made her melt.

“I would love that,” she said. She ran her hand over his bare chest and snuggled in closer. They were lying naked together after another bout of hot lovemaking. They were so good together, and Selma still couldn’t believe that she’d met him during a California earthquake when she almost lost her life. Every day together since then had been magical.

Granted, they didn’t get to spend as much time together as she would have liked, because his job as a firefighter kept him away a lot. Plus, she had recently gotten a promotion at work and was expected to stay late hours. Still, she and Shaun spent as much time together as they could, every chance they got.

“What would you like to do to celebrate?” Shaun asked. “I want to do something special every three months and then something big at the year mark.”

“I love how romantic you are,” she said. “I don’t know anyone else who celebrates three-month anniversaries.”

“They don’t have what we have,” he said, stroking her cheek and staring into her eyes with expression that sent her heart fluttering. Everything about him enticed her, intrigued her, and sent her into overdrive. Even though they had just had sex, she felt her body craving him again…and based on his arousal pressing against her thigh, he was feeling it, too.

He leaned in and kissed her: a slow, sensual meeting of the lips that caused a rush of tingles to flood her body.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he murmured between kisses.

“I don’t remember the question,” she said, reaching up to stroke his firm back. He had a way of distracting her from even her own thoughts.

“Where do you want to go for our three-month anniversary?”

“We’re going away?”

“I thought we could celebrate both Christmas and our anniversary, since they’re so close together. How about a romantic getaway somewhere?” He kissed her jaw and then her neck.

“Sounds good,” she said.

“Any ideas?”

“How about skiing? That might be romantic.”

“Great idea. Nothing sounds better than being holed up in cozy cabin together.”

“And skiing, too,” she said with a smile.

“Oh yeah, that, too. We could also ski.” His lips quirked up.

She laughed. He kissed her in a way that stole her breath, and soon her giggles were replaced with sighs…and then moans.

T
he ski cabin
in Mammoth was better than Selma had expected. It was right on the slopes with a view of the mountains and ski lifts. There was an in-room Jacuzzi and a stone fireplace. But the best part was the bed. It was a tall four-poster bed with a soft down comforter, loads of pillows, and a beckoning softness to the mattress that made Selma and Shaun never want to leave. So they didn’t. At least for the first day of their arrival.

Their lovemaking was as good as it ever was…until he got up to check his phone like he’d been doing more of lately. The thing that bothered her the most was that he usually became distant from her when he did that. He would put his phone down with a preoccupied look on his face, and then she wouldn’t feel him fully with her after that, even during lovemaking. It niggled her…felt like a red flag.

Before that, the six-hour drive had been wonderful. It had gone quickly because they’d spent their time talking, joking, and laughing. Selma couldn’t imagine time passing that quickly with anyone else but him.

She’d never spent Christmas Eve away from her family before, but they’d understood and had agreed to celebrate when she got back from her ski vacation. They liked Shaun and were happy for Selma.

Her sister had even asked when they were getting married, which had thrown Selma for a loop.

She could see myself marrying Shaun one day, but not until they been together longer. Yes, she’d fallen in love with him the first night they’d met, but she was also a pragmatic person and knew it was important to fully know a person before taking such a big leap.

Shaun often asked her if she would love him always, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to answer that question yet, choosing to defer it instead. In her heart, she knew she could love him forever, but she didn’t have the courage to let him know yet. Not until she had some of her questions answered.

Her heart had been broken too many times in the past. She needed to make sure that would never happen again before she gave herself fully to Shaun.

There were things she felt she didn’t fully know about him. Unanswered questions. Things that niggled her. Such as the phone.

For instance, he was always hyper-protective of his phone. It was password-protected, and he never let her look at any of his messages as he scrolled through them, turning the phone away from her. Sometimes he would get a call and leave the room. Other times, he would hide his texting from her.

She wondered if he was cheating on her, although she had no direct proof. While she had doubts, she also wanted to trust him. Part of her felt like she already did. Maybe she was being foolish, but she knew in her heart that he really loved her. But the phone thing bothered her, and she vowed to ask him about it during this vacation. She hoped she would get an answer that would satisfy her and put all her fears to rest.

After several bouts of intense, passionate lovemaking, they both got some sleep and rose in the morning to get ready for a day of skiing. They bundled up in their ski clothes, retrieved their skis, boots, and poles from the rental office, and then were on their way.

It was a beautiful California day in Mammoth, even though it was December. In California, there were often seasonal days where the temperature was a balmy sixty degrees even in winter. This was one of those days. Selma even found herself sweating as she stood in line for the ski lift.

“Want to work our way up to the top?” Shaun asked, studying the ski trail map.

“Sure,” she replied. They were both good skiers and had agreed to ski both intermediate and advanced slopes all day.

“I do want to go off trail once or twice,” Shaun said. “I love the rush.”

“Count me out.” Selma shivered at the thought. Just last week she’d read about a man running into a tree while skiing out of bounds. He’d suffered a severe head injury. That didn’t sound worth it to her…but she knew Shaun liked extreme skiing at times.

They inched forward on their skis, following the line of fellow skiers waiting for the lift.

“Skiing off trail is fun,” Shaun said, his green eyes twinkling in his tanned face. “C’mon, you might like it.”

“And trigger an avalanche? No thanks. I’ve heard that can happen when skiing out of bounds.”

He guffawed. “You read too many tabloid reports. Avalanches don’t happen very often, and you really have to be kamikaze skiing to trigger one.”

“If you say so,” she said. Her need to control her fate had been a running joke between them since they’d started their drive to Mammoth. She’d checked the traffic report constantly to make sure there weren’t any big-rig accidents, mapped out the best route, and had even asked if she could drive one point because Shaun tended to go about twenty miles over the speed limit and pass people on the left over the double line.

Even though he was in a lifesaving profession, he loved speed and made no apologies for it.

For all of Selma’s carefree, fun-loving attitude, it was mostly a veneer that hid her fears and insecurities. There was a part of her that always felt like the other shoe was going to drop at some point. So she did her best to try to control the things that she knew she could, all with a smile and a joke.

Shaun was the opposite. He truly was cavalier in some ways, always believing that things would work out. She loved that quality in him, wondering what it would feel like to never have doubts.

That was one thing Shaun didn’t seem to have.

They skied up to the chairlift and got on. Soon they were being whisked high above the snow-white mountains dotted with tall pine trees.

Shaun pulled her close, his strong arms wrapping around her. She snuggled in, breathing in his scent. She loved being in his company, loved having him hold her. Every moment with him was a dream, a feeling of heightened ecstasy. The intoxicating effect of being in his presence caused her to dismiss her worries, even her common sense. It had been that way from the beginning, when they’d first gotten to know each other under a table in a restaurant that had crashed down around them during an earthquake. Shaun had told her things about himself…confessed his own insecurities. She hadn’t seen much of that vulnerability since, but it didn’t stop her from remembering the man she’d first fallen in love with. Even if he seemed more guarded now in some ways.

She always pushed away her doubts when she was with him. She knew he would eventually reveal himself to her in time. The love she had for him carried her through. It filled her like a song she couldn’t forget. Every morning, he was the first thing on her mind and the last thing in her thoughts before she drifted off to sleep. She wished she and Shaun could awaken together every morning, but she was grateful for the time they did have together with both of their complicated work schedules.

When they were together, everything else faded away. It was just the two of them in their own private world.

Selma snuggled close to him on the ski lift, imagining the beating of his heart through his thick ski jacket…a sound she loved whenever she laid her head on his chest after lovemaking.

Snow drifted softly around them. There was a poetic silence between them in this moment. A silence punctuated by the faint whirring of the ski lift overhead and the distant shouts of skiers below. The winter wonderland around them lent a magical feeling to the moment.

He bent down and lightly kissed her on her lips. It was a soft joining of their mouths, both cold from the crisp mountain air. As they kissed, their lips became warm together. It was a moment that felt suspended in time. It was just the two of them, high above the mountains with tenderness and affection and love swirling around them as softly as the snow flurries that fell gently from the sky.

It was then that Selma knew.

Knew without a doubt.

Shaun was everything she’d ever wanted. She couldn’t imagine life without him. She knew in her heart that she’d found her man: the man she wanted to be with always.

The thought gripped her chest with a momentary flash of panic, but then it subsided.

This was Shaun. The man she knew and loved.

Why not let herself completely go with him?

Love was a gift, and she couldn’t turn away from it any longer.

She was going to let him know. The next time he asked if she would love him always, she would say yes.

“Yes, I love you, Shaun…always.”

This would be a big step in their relationship. Granted, she’d told him how much she loved him every day, but whenever he asked, “Always?” she’d always skirted the issue. Looking into his green eyes always made her feel so vulnerable…but in a good way. She hadn’t been ready to tell him how much she saw him in her future until now.

But now she was ready. She was ready to tell Shaun that she would always be his.

That he was her one and only.