Page 79 of Emerald Waves
Ahh, there was the seam. I teased a fingertip along the edge of the sheet, lightly tugging every few inches until finally I’d managed to unglue him from it. His screech and flailing arm forced me to scooch back to avoid an elbow to the eye as he blinked sleepy eyes up at me.
“Oh, my goddess, why are your hands so cold!” He yelped, clawing for all the blankets.
“Oops,” I muttered, figuring it was either the fruit or the whipped cream that had left my fingers frozen. “Merry Christmas, Mate. I made us breakfast in bed.”
“And nearly froze the skin off my belly, ugh, now Cade is all squirmy and I’ve gotta take a piss.” When I reached to help him from the twisted collection of blankets and sheets, he cut me a look that immediately had me withdrawing my hands, until his lips quirked and I realized he was struggling to keep the grin off his face while he gave me shit for waking him that way.
Two could play at that game. I pouted, and he immediately broke, giggling and throwing his arms around me, whispering, “Merry Christmas, mate,” before kissing me fiercely, then climbing over top of me to get out of the bed so he could pee.
While he was in the bathroom, I straightened the tangled sheets, fluffed the pillows and propped several against the headboard so he’d be comfortable while we ate. I made sure I was standing between his line of sight and the tray when he emerged, and stayed that way until he’d gotten settled in and I could place the wide tray over his lap.
“Whoa.”
His eyes widened, then shimmered with a light sheen of tears when he took in the Santa waffle I’d made us.
“I thought you and little Cade might like a special treat for breakfast this morning,” I said.
“How long did this take you to make?” he breathed, clearly in awe of my creations.
“Not long,” I remarked, “While the waffle maker did its thing, I arranged the raspberries and strawberries into the shape of Santa hats on the plate and added the whipped cream beard and fluffy end of his hat after the waffles were on the plates. Then it was just a matter of drizzling the waffles with a bit of melted butter and syrup and dotting the whipped cream with a few more raspberries.”
“This has to be the most creative meal you’ve made me yet,” he declared, before finally taking up his fork, but only after his belly gave a rumble while our sweet little Cade giggled, urging his daddy to eat so he could enjoy the special treat too. “I love it. Thank you.”
“And of course, that is grape juice in your glass which I chilled so it would stay nice and cold, just the way you like it,” I remarked as I dug into mine now too. “The rest of your surprises are downstairs, but I really wanted to start the morning up here,just you, me and Cade. I can’t wait to hold him and help him decorate the tree next year. I’ve never made a scrapbook before but when I was ordering a few last-minute things I found all these different holiday sheets and cutouts and thought it would be super fun to see what we could do with them as a means of preserving Cade’s childhood forever.”
“I’ve never made a scrapbook either,” Emerson admitted. “And I know that no one ever made one for me, but I would love for us to make one for our son, so he can always look back and see how much we love and cherish him.”
“Then that’s exactly what we’ll do. I even ordered a pack of scissors that cuts different designs along the edges of things, and plenty of glue sticks and stickers and cardstock and clear plastic page protectors to put them in when we get through.”
His voice was a bit cautious when he asked, “Did you remember to order the actual scrapbooks to put the pages in too?”
My face heated because my mate knew me far too well already and understood my tendency to forget important details when I got excited about something.
“I may have forgotten, initially, but I remembered this morning while I was whipping up the batter for the waffles and ordered a bunch of them, though they probably won’t ship for a few days.”
He giggled at that, then let out a contented sigh as he shoveled another berry and whipped cream covered piece of waffle into his mouth.
“Sooo good,” he moaned around it, looking almost as blissed out as he did when I had him pinned to the bed with my cock buried deep inside of him last night.
A smear of whipped cream lingered at the corner of his mouth, and I leaned over the tray to kiss it away, careful not to overturn his juice.
“Here’s to decades of Christmas’ to come,” he murmured as I drew back.
“Centuries,” I pointed out. “I’d shoot for an eternity if I could, as long as I got to wake up every morning to you. You’re my home, Em, not these walls, just you and soon, our little Cade, too.”
His eyes shimmered with tears again, but only one spilled over. I caught it on my finger when I caressed his cheek, so enchanted by my mate and the life he carried inside of him that I could have sat there and stared at him all day.
And had.
At least when he was sleeping and couldn’t give me the stink-eye for hovering over him like we both knew I was prone to do.
“Ready to go downstairs and see what else I have in store for you?” I asked once we’d both finished eating and I’d moved the tray aside.
His teeth dug into his lower lip as he eyed the door. “Only if my mate intends to carry me down that never-ending staircase. I swear it manifests a new step every other day. I can’t even see them past my belly anymore, which is utterly terrifying.”
“Mate, why didn’t you tell me you could no longer see your feet?” I asked gently, knowing that the reason was likely because he’d been on his own for so long and was used to making do no matter what the circumstance was. “That isn’t safe for you or our little one. Until our egg comes, I insist on carrying you up and down to make sure you get to your destination safely.”
“Thank you,” he murmured, curling into my embrace as best he could with our egg inside of him. “I didn’t realize it until the other day when you were out getting the tree. At that point I sat on the top step and very carefully scooted down one by one until I reached the bottom.”
