He came for her, moving fast down the porch steps, boots eating up the distance between them, eyes promising everything.
Love. Heat. Wonder. The kind of bond that weathers the worst storms. Joy and laughter and the two of them, together, forever and ever, building a family, making a rich and meaningful life.
She threw open her door just as he reached her. Popping the seat belt latch, she flung herself toward him.
He caught her, those strong arms going around her. She landed on her feet against his broad, hard chest.
“Oh, thank God...” They breathed the prayerful words in unison. And then his beautiful mouth crashed down on hers.
The clean, man-and-cedar scent of him was all around her, encompassing her, exciting her even more. The kiss grew deeper, and his hold on her got tighter.
One minute, she had her two feet on the ground and the next, he swept her up against his chest, still kissing her, still holding her the way she’d dreamed he might again someday.
Like she was his and he was hers and he would never, ever let her go. He turned for the house, kissing her as he went.
Up the steps he took her, through the open door.
The scent of evergreen intensified as he kicked the door shut. He’d already brought the tree in and propped it up in the stand. Zoya lay by the fire, panting a little. She rolled over inviting a belly scratch and let out a whine of greeting. Sabra saw the tree and the dog in fleeting glimpses, keeping her mouth locked to his, worshipping him with that kiss.
Matthias kept walking, carrying her across the rough boards of the floor, to the stairs and up them.
The kiss never broke.
Until he threw her on the bed. She bounced twice, laughing.
“Take everything off.” His eyes made a million very sexy promises. “Do it fast.”
Not a problem. Not in the least. They stripped in unison, clothes flying everywhere. She’d worn one of those sexy bra-and-panty sets she’d bought the year before, but she gave him no time to appreciate them. She tore them off and tossed them aside.
And he?
Oh, he was everything she remembered, all she longed for—honed and deep-chested, with those sculpted arms that took her breath away. Such a big man.
Everywhere.
She held up her arms to him and he came down to her, grabbing her close again, slamming his mouth on hers.
It was frantic and hungry, not smooth in the least. Needful and desperate, necessary as air. They rolled, their hands everywhere, relearning each other, every muscle, every secret curve. There were more kisses, deep ones that turned her heart inside out. His fingers found the core of her, so wet, so ready.
They needed more.
They needed everything, to be joined, each to the other.
He produced a condom seemingly from thin air.
“Planned ahead, did you?” she asked, trying to tease him, ending up sounding breathless and needy.
His eyes burned into hers. “I want this, Sabra. Us. I want it forever.”
“Yes,” she said, before he’d even finished asking. “Forever. You and me.”
“Don’t leave me. Don’t do that again. Don’t drive me away.” He stroked her cheek.
“I won’t. I swear it. I’m ready now, Matthias. Ready for the rest of our lives, you and me. I love you. You’re the only one, and you always will be.”
“Sabra...” He kissed her again, wildly, his fingers tunneling in her hair, his mouth demanding everything, all of her. “My love,” he whispered against her parted lips. “I love you, always. I was such a fool.”
“It’s not as if you were the only fool.” She broke away enough to plead, “Let me...” And she took the condom from him, removed the wrapper and carefully slid it on.
Once she had it in place, he lifted her as though she weighed nothing. Stretching out on his back, he set her down on top of him.
She was so ready. Beyond ready. Rising to her knees, she lined him up with her heat and took him inside—all the way, to the hilt.
He groaned and she bent to him, claiming his mouth with hers, rocking her hips on him in long, needful strokes. He clasped her bottom with those strong hands, one palm on each cheek, and moved with her, surging up into her, sending her reeling.
She came with a gleeful cry.
And then he was rolling them, taking the top position. Rising up over her, he pushed in deep and true.
That time, when her second finish shattered through her, he joined her. They cried out in unison, going over as one, holding each other, Matthias and Sabra.
Together.
At last.
An hour or two later, they went downstairs naked. She greeted Zoya and admired the tree.
He didn’t let her linger in the main room long, though. Pulling her into the bathroom, he filled the tub, added bath salts, climbed in and crooked a finger at her to join him.
She did, eagerly, settling in between his legs, leaning back on him. He really did make the firmest, most supportive sort of pillow. For a while, they floated in the hot water that smelled of lemons and mint.
He told her that he had a missing sister.
“What? You’re kidding me.”
He nuzzled her hair. “Nope. This past year, we found out that the oldest of my sisters, Aislinn, was switched at birth.”
“So then, Aislinn isn’t your sister by blood?”
“No. If she hadn’t been switched, her name would be Madison Delaney.”
“Wait.” Sabra sat up, sending water sloshing. “Not the Madison Delaney, America’s darling, the movie star?”
“Yes.” Gently, Matthias pulled her back to rest against his chest. “We have a long-lost sister, and she is a movie star.”
“Wow.”
“Exactly. We’ve been trying to reach out to her. So far, our attempts have been rebuffed—either by her or by the people who protect her, we’re not sure which.”
“But you’re not giving up.” It wasn’t a question.
He replied as she knew he would. “One way or another, we’ll find a way to get through to her. As we will find Finn. Someday. Somehow...”
“I know you will,” she whispered, and they were silent for a time.
But then, he bent his head to her and pressed his rough cheek to her smooth one. “Forever,” he said gruffly. “I mean it. You still on for that?”
“Always.” She lifted her arm from the water and reached back to slide her wet hand around the nape of his neck, tipping her head up to him for a quick kiss.
But one kiss from him? Never enough.
Already she could feel him, growing hard and ready, wanting her as she wanted him—again.
Sometime later, she told him that she’d moved back to the farm.
“When was that?” he asked.
“It’s been a long time now. I moved in July, a year and a half ago.”
He nuzzled her hair, which she’d piled on her head to keep it from getting too wet. “So then, you were already living there last Christmas, when I showed up just long enough to tell you it was over.”
“Yeah.”
He muttered something bleak. She couldn’t make out the exact words, and she decided not to ask. Instead, she took his hand from the side of the tub and pulled it down into the water, across her stomach, so his arm was wrapped around her.
“Are you happy there, at your family’s farm?” He bit the shell of her ear, so lightly, causing a thrilled little shiver to slide through her.
“Very.” She slithered around, splashing water everywhere, until she was face-to-face with him. “I’m hoping to stay there.”
“Hoping?”
“Well, I want to be with you. And maybe you want to stay in Valentine Bay.” He kissed the end of her nose and she backpedaled, “If I’m moving too fast for you—”
“No way. There is no ‘too fast’ when it comes to you and me, not anymore. We’ve wasted too much time already.” He took her slippery shoulders and pulled her up so he could claim her mouth in a lazy, thorough kiss. When he finally allowed her to sink back into the cooling water, he said, “Yes. I’ll move to your farm with you.”
She reached up, pressed her hand to his bristly cheek. “You haven’t even seen the place yet.”
“I don’t need to see it. You’ve moved home and that makes you happy. I love you and for me, home is where you are. You’ve mentioned that your farm is in Astoria, which means my field office is nearby. Getting to work won’t be an issue—and do you realize you’ve never told me the name of this farm of yours?”
“Berry Bog Farm.”
“Perfect.”
“What’s perfect?”
“Everything.” He traced her eyebrows, one and then the other. “I’m going to need your phone number as soon as we get out of this tub.”
“You got it.”
“I’m serious, Sabra. I won’t let you leave this cabin, not even to sit on the porch, until your number is safe in my phone.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
“You’d better,” he warned, but when she started to climb from the tub, he held her there. “Not yet. In a little while.”
With a sigh, she kissed his square chin. “This is kind of nice, you and me, naked in the tub together...”
“Kind of nice doesn’t even come close.” He pressed his wet hand to her cheek, then made a cradle of his index finger and lifted her chin so their eyes met. “The thing with Mary...?”
Her heart felt caged, suddenly, hurting in her too-small chest. “That’s her name? Mary?”
He nodded. And then he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “I never should have started it with her. I was so hurt and mad at you.”
She whispered her own confession. “I was so screwed up over my dad, screwed up and afraid, of you and me, of how powerful and good it was between us, of trusting what we have together—and then of someday losing you, like my dad lost my mom. So I told you to go out and look for what you needed. No way can I blame you for taking me at my word. I just hope... Oh, I don’t know. I feel bad for her. For you. For all of it.”
“It’s been over with her for a year,” he said. “A year, as of today.”
She stared at him, confused. “You broke up with her on the twenty-third of last December?”
“That’s right.”
“The same day you drove up here to tell me you were with her?”
“That’s the one.”
“But I don’t, I mean, how...?”
He pulled on a damp curl of her hair and then guided it tenderly behind her ear. “I knew it wouldn’t work with her the minute I saw your face last year. I was just too damn stubborn to admit it right then. But as soon as I left you standing there alone, I knew what I had to do. I drove back to Valentine Bay feeling like a first-class jerk, wondering how I was going to break it to Mary that I couldn’t be with her, that it was all wrong.”
“Oh, Matt. And at the holidays, no less. What a mess I made. I’m so sorry.”
But he gave her that wonderful, wry smile she loved so much. “It could have been worse. As it turned out, I didn’t have to play the jerk, after all. Mary broke up with me.”
She gasped. “No.”
“Oh, yeah. We had a date to see a Christmas play that night. I went to pick her up and she asked me to come in for a minute. I stepped over the threshold—and then we just stood there by the door and she said how she’d been thinking, that it just wasn’t working for her with me, that it wasn’t love and she didn’t feel it ever could be, that she and I needed to face the truth and move on. She really meant it,” he said, his wry smile in evidence again. “We ended it right then, simple as that.”
Sabra cradled his beard-scruffy cheek. “I do want to apologize sincerely, for hurting you, for sending you off to find someone else. I really messed that up. I could have lost you forever.”
Matthias frowned. “I pushed too hard at the wrong time. You were all turned around over losing your dad. I wasn’t patient and I should have been. As for losing me, you never could, not really. Somehow, I would always find my way back to you.”
“And I. To you.” They did that thing lovers do, having sex with their eyes. Then, with a happy sigh, she floated to her back once more and rested against him. “I have to ask...”
His warm breath stirred her hair as he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “Anything.”
“All that time, from last Christmas to now. Did you know you would come to meet me today?”
“I did. No question, as sure as I knew I would draw my next breath. I also spent too many sleepless nights positive that you would give up on me, find someone else, change your mind. I could think of a million ways it was not going to work out, picture myself waiting here for hour after hour, alone.”
“There’s no one else, I promise,” she said fervently.
He bent and pressed a kiss into that tender spot where her neck met her shoulder. “Baby, something in your voice says there’s a story you’re not telling me.”
She blew out a hard breath and admitted, “My friends said I really had to try seeing other guys...”
He was suddenly too quiet behind her. Was he even breathing? “And did you?” he asked.
“I did, yes.”
“And...?”
She winced. “You really want to hear this?”
“Damn straight I do.”
She told him everything, all about her adventures in online dating, starting with the online chats and the coffee dates, moving on to the Farmer’s Market day with Dave, the awful evening with the grabby podiatrist and the three dates with Ted.
When she first started putting it all out there, Matthias remained still as a statue behind her. But he slowly relaxed. He said he would like to go a few rounds with that foot doctor. And he made a sound of approval when she got to how she told Ted that she was in love with someone else and added, “Meaning you,” just in case he had a single doubt by now who owned her heart.
Once she’d told him everything, she asked, “How come you didn’t just come looking for me sooner? You could have saved me from all those bad dates, saved yourself from worrying that I wouldn’t show up here for Christmas. I don’t think I would have been that hard to find.”
His hand stroked slowly along her arm, fingers brushing up and down. “That wasn’t our agreement.”
She slithered around again, getting front to front. “I can’t believe you know that, that you understand that.”
He looked vaguely puzzled. “Should I have tracked you down?”
“I have no idea.” Sending water splashing, she rose up to kiss him and then settled back down against his broad chest. “What I do know,” she said, “is that I’ve always felt that trying to find you between Christmases would be wrong. I felt it was important that we both respected the agreement we’d made together, that if the terms were going to change, they had to change at Christmastime.”
He caught her face between his wet hands and pulled her up so her parted lips were only an inch from his. “Everything is changed, as of now. We’re agreed on that, right?”
She bobbed her head up and down in his hold. “Yes, we are. I’m in. You’re in. Both of us. A hundred percent.”
“We’re together now. We’re taking this thing we have public and we’re doing that before New Year’s.”
“Yes. You and me, in front of the whole world—have you got vacation time this year?”
His lips brushed hers again. “I’m off until January second.”
“Good. We’ll visit your family in Valentine Bay. I’m taking you to the farm—and we have to go to Portland. I need you to meet my best friends, Peyton and Iris.”
He smiled against her mouth. “So then, we have a plan.”
“Oh, yes we do.”
“Make no mistake.” He kissed her, hard and quick. “Marriage. We’re doing it, the whole thing. The ring. The white dress. The vows—and what about kids? You do want kids?”
“Oh, Matthias. Yes. Definitely. All of the above. I can’t wait to marry you.”
“I think we’ve both waited more than long enough.” But then he frowned. “Have I blown this? I should be on my knees now, shouldn’t I?”
That time, she kissed him. “Naked in the bathtub is working just fine.”
“All right, then.” He pulled her closer and sprinkled kisses in a line along her cheek. When he reached her ear, he whispered, “We’re not just each other’s Christmas present anymore. What we have is for the whole year round.”
“For the rest of our lives,” she vowed.
And they sealed their promise of forever with a long, sweet kiss.