Page 30 of Christmas with the Elkin Billionaires

They walked as quickly as they dared out to the parking lot, snagging their coats on the way. Chase paused to draw Tana’s over her shoulders, stealing a kiss as he did.

Tana groaned against his mouth. “Don’t do that,” she scolded. “Or I’m not going to make it home.”

“What would you do if you couldn’t make it home?” Chase felt desperate to know and desperate for more, but he shoved that feeling down.

“I’d get cold.” Her eyes shone. “But it would be worth it.”

Inside fifteen minutes, they were in Tana’s cottage. Chase finally got to peel off her dress, the way he’d been fantasizing. It was one thing to see a person shed a bunch of snow clothes. It was another to lift the smooth fabric of a dress up over her hips and slowly expose the lacy underthings she wore beneath it, then pull it over her head and watch her hair tumble back down over her shoulders. Inside twenty minutes, they were both naked, the covers of Tana’s bed a mess on the floor. And then Chase didn’t care what time it was. He was all over her, he was inside her, and nothing else mattered.

17

TANA

“Come to my place,” Chase whispered early on Saturday morning. Tana had turned over to find him in her bed, taking up most of the mattress. “I want you there.”

“Really?” Tana stretched her arms above her head and yawned. “You don’t want to stay here?”

He laughed. “I thought you’d like the hot tub.”

“I like being in the hot tubwithyou.” The one problem with Chase was that being around him excited her too much. Sleeping in wasn’t an option with his hard chest against her back. She just wanted to be closer to him. To talk to him. To do other things with him. “I like being in bed, too.”

“Then let’s not get out just yet.”

Tana rolled over, climbing on top of him for the kind of unhurried sex that was so rare she wanted to cry. Chase worked himself in and out of her like they had all the time in the world. She felt every movement, every ridge. She put her hands down onto his chest and braced herself there, rolling her hips in slow circles. His blue eyes never left hers. She wanted to close her eyes, but it was so much more intimate watching him like this. Watching the way his body tensed with his impending orgasm, feeling the way his hands tightened on her hips.

Afterward, they climbed into the shower, laughing and making too many soap suds. Tana felt deliciously tired. “I have an idea.” She tipped her head back to rinse the conditioner out of her hair, and even with her eyes closed, she could feel Chase watching her. “Want to hear it?”

“I can’t wait to hear it.” Chase lifted his hands and smoothed the water over her hair, running his hands down the soft skin of her neck. He traced her collarbone.

“I want to...” She took a deep breath. “This is going to sound pretty ridiculous. But...I want to watch TV at your house. You have a big TV. There are other…big things there.”

He burst out laughing. “That’s not ridiculous. I do have the bigger TV. By several feet.”

Tana opened her eyes. Chase was so gorgeous, with his smile breaking through his stubble, water glistening on his skin. She had never been with a man so muscled and perfect. “I never get to watch TV. I mean, I do, sometimes. But most nights, after Lindsey goes to sleep, I’m too tired to pay attention to anything.”

Chase’s face lit up. “Wear your best TV clothes. We’re not leaving the couch.”

An hour later, Tana was sprawled out on the sofa in Chase’s living room. A fire crackled in the fireplace, and snowflakes drifted down in the sunlight outside the huge windows that took up most of one wall. Tana closed her eyes and soaked all of it in. The perfect temperature of the room. The sound of Chase fiddling in the kitchen. And the prospect of a full day ahead of them with nothing to do but relax.

“You sleeping?” he asked, his voice close, startling her.

Tana had been drifting off into a dream about trees against the moon and a soft blanket. “No,” she answered, opening her eyes. “Ooh—I wouldn’t want to miss coffee.”

“I’ve got doughnuts, too.” Chase handed her the coffee and went to get the plate, which held four flawless glazed doughnuts. He settled in next to her. It was so easy—maybe too easy—for Tana’s body to meld to his. Chase put his feet up on the ottoman, and she leaned against him, his arm over her, and a contentedness laced with sadness suffused her. This couldn’t last. It just couldn’t.

Tana put her coffee down. “I can’t remember the last time someone just...held me like this.” The words fell like the snowflakes outside, delicate and soft. “Can you?” Tana held her breath, wondering if he’d answer. She wasn’t bothered by his pause. They had all the time in the world.

“I can remember. It was high school.” He laughed a little. “Isn’t that pathetic? The last time I felt this close to a woman was in high school. We were both seventeen. She went away to college, and I became a professional skier before I graduated, and that was the end of it. Who was yours?”

Tana felt safe enough in Chase’s arms to tell him the truth. “Lindsey’s dad. We were married.”

“Wow,” Chase said softly.

“It wasn’t a long relationship. We kind of...crashed together and thought getting married was the best idea either of us had ever had. I got pregnant not long after that. And he—” Tana had never, not once, admitted this part of the truth to anyone. “He didn’t want to be a dad. He kept referring to the baby as ‘it’ and suggested I get rid of it like she was something to be thrown out.” Chase stiffened, his arms pulling her in tight. “He left in the middle of the night. He just left. I woke up one morning, and he was gone.”

“Oh, Tana. I can’t even imagine.”

“It wasn’t great,” she admitted. “After that, I divorced him and changed my name back, and never looked back.”

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