Page 85 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

“I can’t imagine ever getting tired of looking at you.” I cup her face in my hands and tip it up so she has no choice but to look at me. “And when you grabbed me and kissed me that first time in the theater, I couldn’t believe how fucking lucky I’d gotten.”

I brush my lips over hers and her eyes drift shut.

“I want to make you feel lucky too,” she whispers.

CHAPTER 27

NATALIE

Gabe tastes of the most delicious combination of strawberries, cream, and unexpected thoughtfulness.

And this time his kiss is soft and gentle, not frantic and hungry like in the theater.

The touch of his mouth, his tongue, not only makes my belly flip and my core tremble, but warms me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, just as much as the blanket he’s wrapped around me, the fire he lit for me, and the thick rug that he’s making my toes curl into.

I peel my lips from his and ease back a little to take in the mystery behind the green eyes roving my face.

“What’s all this really about?” I ask him.

“The kissing?” he asks, brushing my cheek with the back of his fingers.

“Hah, no.” That wild first time in the theater was amazing, but it also somehow wasn’t the real me. Real Me needs to know the depths of him more before we do this again. “I mean moving up here to spend the holidays in ahouse on a hill with no neighbors for miles and being a grumpy old fuck about me decorating it.”

He rests his forehead against mine and jerks his thumb toward the front of the house. “You still need to take that shit down.”

“Not the point.” I tap his chin and the dark bristles tickle my finger. “The point is, why do you so badly want to spend Christmas being sad and alone?”

“Being alone doesn’t necessarily mean being unhappy. Sometimes being alone makes you the happiest you could ever be.”

“Well, that is about the saddest goddamn thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Nothing sad about it. It’s logic. If being around people makes you unhappy, being not around people makes you happy.”

“Even at Christmas?”

“Especially at Christmas.”

“But surely your mom and dad don’t count? You seem pretty close.”

“Yeah, we are. But Christmas is…” He closes his eyes and shakes his head, like he regrets starting that sentence.

“Why is Christmas hard, Gabe?”

He drops back from crouching, to kneeling, sliding his hands down my thighs until they come to rest on my knees. “How did you know I was going to say hard?”

I have no idea how I knew. No idea how I feel like I could finish every one of his sentences. It’s like I have a direct mental connection to the inside of his head. But I can’t tell him that. He’d definitely dismiss it as woo-woo bullshit.

So I laugh it off. “I read six-year-olds’ minds for a living, remember?”

He replies with a smirk that sends my belly into a somersault and makes me want to kiss it right off his chiseled, bearded face.

“Thank you for telling me I have the mind of a child. And there was me thinking you might be getting over the whole not-liking-me thing.”

“Nope,” I joke.

He heaves a huge breath that makes his broad, square chest swell to barrel size.

“Okay.” He focuses on drawing circles on my knee with his thumb. “I wasn’t totally honest earlier, when I said my issue with Christmas is that it’s commercial bullshit.” He looks up at me. “I mean, itiscommercial bullshit. But it’s a longer story than that.”

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