Page 32 of Dear Santa, Send Me a Cowboy
I was flirting and I couldn’t believe it. But I was sick of being a bitch toward him and wanted him to see that I was a nice, genuine person who wasn’t always so bossy.
“Won't be a day where we won’t be havin’ fun, I can promise you that.” A smug smile pulled at his lips, causing my heart to stutter.
Shaking my head, I tried to conceal my smile from him but there was no way he wouldn’t catch it. Then kneeling down beside my box of decorations that I had gotten out the previous night, I began to pull out my sacred ornaments.
Silvan’s first Christmas. A cute snowflake he had made out of beads at school. It had become my favorite pastime hanging ornaments, but the only thing missing was my son. Every year it became a tradition for us to decorate the tree together, and as I was crouched down staring blankly into the box, a flood of emotions swarmed me.
The last thing I wanted to do was cry, but the first telltale signs started to emerge as my throat hardened painfully.
“Thought I would get your tree started for you, wasn’t sure how you’d want your lights but I figured you’d be okay with havin’ a former tree farm worker put them up for you.”
His voice spurred me to wipe at my eyes and rise from my kneeled position.
“Former?” I questioned, trying to focus on something other than Silvan's absence.
“Yeah, for as long as I could remember I was pretty fuckin’ adamant on workin’ side by side with my dad one day. But then once I was old enough to learn the ropes of the tree business, I caught on pretty quickly that it wasn't the career for me. Instead, I worked on a farm up in Montana as a ranch hand for a good fifteen years, livin’ a young cowboy’s dream before I decided that I wanted to come back home.”
I watched him closely as he fingered some of the branches on the tree as if deep in thought before swinging his stare back over to mine.
“Pretty fuckin’ glad I decided to come back home too.”
My heart swelled.
“Me too,” I whispered.
Taking Silvan’s first Christmas ornament over to the tree, I carefully hung it onto a lower branch in the front.
“What about you, what’s your story?” Lawson asked.
Sighing, it felt strange that we were having this type of conversation after the fact and not before.
“Well, picture an average twenty-one-year-old college student who ends up knocked up by a man who made it perfectly clear that he had no interest in having kids at any point in his life. And now she has to navigate single motherhood and getting a degree while she receives zero support or help from the father, who, out of the blue now, suddenly wants something to do with his son.” Knowing that I was already getting worked up over what I was telling him, I decided I had no more left to add. “That’s my… wonderful story.”
I kept my eyes down and continued to hang ornaments as if I didn’t just unload many years’ worth of bad memories.There was an obvious tension in the room now, and just when I thought that Lawson would struggle to steer himself around it, he surprised the hell out of me when he opened his mouth.
“Wonderful? More like fuckin’ empowering, Diana.” My eyes flashed to his. Standing just on the opposite side of the tree, he looked a mixture of enraged and turned on. “Never in my life have I met someone so strong, so resilient and determined. If you think your story makes you weak, Diana, you’re so fuckin’ wrong it ain’t even funny. Look at all this.” He gestured his hand around the entirety of the house. “Look at you and how perfect you are. You did that, darlin’. Not anyone else, and if you ask me, that man didn’t deserve to have any part of you or your son.”
Stepping around the tree, he closed the space between us.
“You’re a force, darlin’, and as much as I know that you can handle everything that life throws at you and come out winning, I want to be the man that challenges you along the way. That reminds you even though you’re capable of anything, you don’t need to be when I’m around.” He brought his mouth down until he was just hovering over my lips. With his breath dancing erotically over my skin, I was seconds away from hauling his handsome face down onto mine. “Let me carry the weight,” he whispered. “Let me take care of you like you deserve.”
Having heard enough, I tossed my arms around this thick neck and brought him down onto my needy mouth. Immediately a mixture of vanilla and chocolate filled my senses as our tongues lashed together rhythmically.
Fisting the hair on the back of his head, I tugged his mouth more firmly onto mine. My whole body felt like it was on fire, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, I was desperate for another release that already seemed to be cresting.
“Fuck, jump up, baby,” he demanded between kisses, and without hesitation, I leaped into his awaiting arms. Swift handscaught me around the waist where he effortlessly glided them down my thighs and wrapped each leg around his hips.
No more than a few seconds apart, like magnets, our lips had collided back together. With his fingers digging into the fleshy part of my thighs, I shamelessly began to grind and rock myself all over the front of him, urging for something more than what we were doing.
Lawson released a low, pulsating growl that disrupted the tempo of our kiss, but it didn’t take long for him to come back stronger and more determined. With his mouth now moving at the speed of light, he began to assist in my efforts at dry humping him. Using his hold on my thighs, he lowered me down to the center of his groin and began to roll me over his hardness.
Hips moving, chests heaving, we were on the brink of destruction.
But I was desperate for more.
Desperate for penetration.
“Lawson!” I whimpered. “Please…”
