Chapter 12
Two Days Until Christmas
teddy
The hot water from the shower eased some of the ache from my shoulders and back, but my body was still hellbent on reminding me I wasn’t in my twenties anymore.
I’d spent another morning outside, splitting wood until my back seized up before plowing the drive with the UTV, trying to work off my need to touch Kelsey.
The storm had finally blown itself out, leaving behind a world buried in white and roads that would be impassable for days.
I toweled off and pulled on clean jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt, the fabric sticking to my damp skin.
Christmas music drifted down the hall—Perry Como, from the sounds of it—singing about candy canes and holly.
Like we needed reminding that it was beginning to look like Christmas after back-to-back blizzards.
After tying my wet hair back into a low knot, I made my way into the kitchen to find Kelsey bent over the island, rolling out gingerbread dough.
She’d found another one of my flannel shirts, a green one that had always reminded me of the color of her eyes.
Her hair was still damp from her own shower, leaving wet spots on the shoulders where it had dripped.
Every time she leaned forward to reach the far edge of the dough, the hem rode up just enough to reveal the curve where her thigh met her ass, and I lost the ability to think straight.
Nothing but smooth skin disappearing under worn flannel.
I cleared my throat before I did something stupid like drop to my knees right there in the doorway. “Need a hand?”
She glanced over her shoulder, one of her brows lifting in surprise. “You wanna help bake?”
“Hell, someone’s gotta make sure you don’t burn the first batch.” I rolled up my sleeves and moved to the sink to wash my hands.
“Cookies only seem to burn when you’re involved,” she shot back, but I could hear the smile in her voice. “Or have you forgotten the time you set the smoke alarms off?”
“That was a fluke.” I dried my hands, remembering exactly how those cookies had burned—because I’d had her bent over the deep freeze in the laundry room, my hand down the front of her pajama pants.
“Can’t expect a man to remember his own name, much less when the cookies need to come out of the oven, when you’re making sounds like that. ”
Pink bloomed across her cheeks. She turned back to the dough, pressing her weight into the rolling pin. “Don’t distract me.”
“Distract you?” I moved closer, all innocence. “I would never.”
“Right.” She sprinkled some flour over the dough before dropping the bag back onto the counter, sending a puff of white into the air. “Because you’ve always been so good at keeping your hands to yourself when I’m trying to bake.”
She wasn’t wrong. Never had been able to resist her in the kitchen, something about the sight of her in an apron flipped all my switches.
The concentration on her face when she measured.
The way she’d bite her lip when reading a recipe.
How her hips moved to the music she always seemed to have playing while she worked.
“I’ll be good,” I lied, already plotting.
“Sure you will,” Kelsey replied with a snort, shooting me several skeptical glances as she continued rolling the dough. I waited until she was focused before making my first move—reaching around her to the drawer on her left, deliberately brushing against her hip.
The slight catch in her breathing made my pulse kick up. “Could have sworn the cookie cutters were in this drawer,” I murmured. The layout of my kitchen was damn near identical to the one in the house we used to share. I could find my way around it with a blindfold on.
When I pulled away, she made a soft sound of frustration before reaching up to brush her hair back, leaving a smudge of floury dough across her forehead.
“You’ve got a little...” I gestured vaguely at her face, fighting a grin. When she tried and failed to get it, I stepped behind her properly, my hips pinning hers against the island before I tipped her head back. “Here, let me.”
Kelsey didn’t pull away as I swiped my thumb across the spot. Instead, she pressed back against me as I sucked the sweetness off my skin, just enough to let me know she felt it too. This electric current running between us, threatening to short-circuit what little self-control remained.
We’d been on our best behavior since calling a truce, not arguing…
keeping our hands—and mouths—to ourselves.
Acting like responsible adults who could coexist without it turning sexual.
But the way she was looking at me now, green eyes homed in on my mouth like a heat-seeking missile, made it clear that particular ceasefire was about to end.
I didn’t even have it in me to give a damn. I’d missed this. Missed the way her breathing changed when I touched her, the gentle tug-of-war between wanting to finish whatever task she’d set herself and wanting to give in to what I was offering.
We’d lost it somewhere along the way—first during the fertility treatments, when sex became clinical, scheduled around ovulation charts and injections. Every month that ended in disappointment added another layer of pressure until touching each other felt like work.
Then later, when Levi’s struggles consumed everything.
Therapy appointments, medication trials, the constant vigilance required to keep him safe—it all took precedence.
We’d fall into bed exhausted, backs turned to each other, too drained to bridge the growing gap between us.
Weeks would pass without anything more than accidental touches—months, toward the end.
But now, with her pressed against me, I remembered what we had before life got so complicated. When we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. When the kids would catch us making out in the kitchen and complain about how gross we were.
“Teddy,” she whispered, my name barely audible over Burl Ives’s voice.
“What, baby?” I traced a line from her temple to her jaw before curving my fingers around her throat, loosely holding her in place. My other hand found her waist, thumb tracing over the flannel.
She shivered, goosebumps breaking out along her arms. “You said you’d be good.”
“I am being good.” I leaned down, my lips brushing her earlobe. “Haven’t kissed you yet.”
Yet.
Her breath came out in a little gasp, and she rocked back against me again, unconsciously seeking friction. My body responded instantly, blood rushing south so fast it left me lightheaded.
“Tell me how you want it,” I said, my voice rougher than intended.
Her throat bobbed in a hard swallow beneath my palm. “Want what?”
“Like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” I murmured, pulling my lip between my teeth.
The pulse point in her neck thrummed. She abandoned any pretense of rolling, her hands gripping the counter. The flannel had ridden up in the back, confirming what I’d suspected when I walked in—she wasn’t wearing a damn thing underneath.
“C’mon, Kels. You want it thick?” I asked, trying not to smile when she rubbed herself against the front of my jeans. “Thin? Cut into shapes?”
“Shapes?” She gave a strangled laugh. “Oh my God, you’re talking about the cookies.”
“What else would I be talking about?”
“You’re the worst,” she grumbled.
“Just trying to get this dough in the oven before it dries out. Not my fault your mind’s in the gutter.” I turned just enough to reach the drawer behind me, grabbing the cookie cutters. “Looks like we’ve got a snowflake, a mitten, a tree, and a… dick?”
“It’s a candy cane, Teddy.”
“And what about the butt plug here?”
Kelsey took the cookie cutter from my hand and held it up for inspection, rotating it with a thoughtful frown. “I think it’s supposed to be a Christmas light. Or maybe an ornament?”
The movement pressed us even closer together, and I had to bite back a groan at the feel of her soft curves against me and that shirt unbuttoned enough to tempt a saint.
“What?” she asked, tilting her head back to peer up at me.
“Nothing. Just waiting on you to tell me what we’re doing here, sugar,” I managed once my brain came back online.
The double meaning wasn’t lost on either of us. Kelsey’s tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip. I tracked it, keenly aware of all the things it could do.
Her smile was slow and lazy, the kind that used to flip my brain inside out when we were teenagers. “I thought it was obvious. We’re making cookies. Now, are you gonna help or just stand there and stare at me?”
I loved this version of her, so different from the wounded, careful woman who walked on eggshells when we were together in Texas.
Here she moved differently, like the pressure had been bled from her body by the altitude.
Maybe it was because we were alone and relieved of the burden of putting on a front for our kids.
Or maybe it was just that I’d finally let myself be here this time, not halfway out the door.
We cut out the first two dozen cookies. She went for trees and snowflakes, all delicate points and perfection.
Being the mature individual I was, I chose the butt plug and the candy cane cutters, cracking jokes like the shift of her hips wasn’t actively torturing me.
The flex of her shoulders, the little concentrated sounds she made while cutting out shapes.
Once they were arranged on the baking sheets to her liking, Kelsey bent over to place the first pan in the oven, causing the flannel to ride up. One look and my self-control snapped like a rubber band stretched too far.
With a low growl, I gripped her around the waist and hauled her up onto the island as soon as she finished setting the timer, flour puffing up around us like smoke.
Her thighs parted automatically to make room for me. I stepped between them, my hips settling against hers and erasing every coherent thought in my head.