“This isn’t some kind of Christmas hallucination, right? You’re not the Ghost of Christmas-Possible making a visitation?”
I laughed. “I don’t think Christmas-Possible was one of the ghosts, baby. But no, this isn’t a dream.” I shoved at his hands until he moved backward, then I slid my arms onto his shoulders. “Do you know, I love these shoulders? One of the first things I noticed about you.” I ran my hands over the top of his sweater, loving the way the muscles gave and bunched beneath my fingers.
He snorted, his hands clenching the sides of my sweatshirt at my waist. “Always wanted for my body. It’s a curse, really. No one seems to care about my dazzling personality…”
He was joking, of course, but he was serious too, and I didn’t get why.
“And you use these shoulders to do the best things, Gideon. To help people who need you. To protect your town. To comfort my baby when she cries. To hold me when I sleep. And I think I knew even five years ago that I could rely on them, I was just too scared to listen to my gut. You’re a good man, Gideon Mason. And I don’t want to be without you again.”
“Fuck, Liam.”
He leaned against the wall by the stairs and drew me against him, sliding his lips against mine. The taste of him was familiar and exciting every damn time, and I wanted to sink inside him.
Instead, I pulled back.
“Wait,” I said breathlessly. “Wait. I need to say the tough things, or I’ll never remember to say them, and I… I need you to know thatIlove you, Gideon. I don’t know how thehellit’s possible for me to love someone as much as I love you. And it’s so big and crazy and…improbable”—I grinned, thinking of Everett—“but it’s the only thing that’s real. So this time, for thelasttime, I want us to do this right. I want us to talk about all the things that scare the shit out of us. I want to know all the trivial shit about you and the big things too.”
“Wow,” he said. Then he fell silent for a minute, his face contorted in pain, like he was overcome with emotion.
“Gideon?” I said gently.
“Shhh. I’m trying not to make a joke about thebig thingsI can show you, Liam, because then you’re going to threaten me with those dancing Santas, and the whole moment will be ruined.”
“Did I saybestman?” I demanded, feigning outrage. “I meantworst. Absolute worst.” I pushed him backward up the stairs, and he went, laughing and pulling me along with him.
“Good thing you love me,” he said softly when we got to the top of the stairs.
“Good thing I do,” I agreed. I pushed Gideon into his bedroom. “Good thing Ilikeyou too.”
Gideon stopped and put his strong hands on my jaw. “You like me, huh?”
“More and more every day,” I told him honestly, and somehowthatseemed to get to him more than any other declaration of affection.
“Okay, you want to talk about the tough things? Then ask me, Liam,” Gideon said, wrapping his arms around me. “Ask me why I never divorced you, all these years, even as pissed off and hurt as I was. Ask me why I never changed my insurance policy.”
I swallowed, taken aback by the sudden seriousness in his tone and the way his eyes locked on mine. “W-what? Why?”
“Because I was never, ever going to get married again. And do you know why?”
I shook my head, and my hands coasted up his chest to rest at his shoulders, drawn to them as I always was. “Why?”
“Because deep down, I knew nothing could ever be better than what we shared, even if it only lasted hours. I knew even if I let myself fall for someone else, it would be a pale imitation of you and me. And that wouldn’t be fair. I couldn’t pretend to give my heart to someone else when you were already walking around with it in your pocket.”
Gideon leaned down so his forehead rested against mine.
“And way deep down? I believed that someday you’d come back to me,” he said softly.
I nodded, blinking a bunch of stupid tears out of my stupid eyes so I could see the man I loved. “I’d very much like to come back to you, Gideon. MeandHazel.”
Gideon squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them a second later, they burned.
He stripped off my sweatshirt and jeans and pushed me down on the bed, and I only laughed a littletinybit when his eyes darted around the room like he hoped nothing would start spontaneously dancing.
His eyes narrowed at my laughter and he shucked his own clothes in record time, then jumped on top of me, straddling me on the bed so his thick cock rubbed against mine through our boxers.
“Is this what our marriage is going to be like from now on?” he demanded, rocking slowly.
“Fuck,” I groaned. “You mean your cock rubbing against me all the damn time? God, I really,reallyhope so.”