A Soldier's Christmas (12 page)

“I don’t need to.” Logan indicated behind
Travis.

While Travis had been talking, Emma had
come up behind them and heard the last part of their conversation. Tears leaked
from her eyes while she focused on her brother.

Travis groaned, but smiled as Emma threw
herself into her brother’s arms. In her excitement, she nearly knocked Travis
from the barstool.

They held each other close, and Emma
finally kissed her brother on the cheek. “Thank you. Hearing what you said
meant a lot to me.”

“Oh, sis. You are an amazing writer, and
I’m proud of you...I just wish you’d tell the others because it’s been killing
me having to keep it to myself and not being able to shout it out to the town.”

“I’m telling them Christmas day.” She
kissed Travis on his other cheek.

Logan thought that Travis was secretly
pleased at the affection his sister showed him, but he laughed when Travis
nodded and gave Emma a shove into his arms.

“You can stop kissing me now and go and get
it on with your guy.”

“I’m all for that,” Logan agreed, and
laughed harder as Travis groaned in discomfort.

Emma’s emotions were close to the surface
while she danced with Logan. She’d been in a state of arousal since before they’d
left their room, but when she’d overheard Travis talking to Logan that had all
been forgotten. She loved her brother and knew that if she hadn’t overheard him
that he wouldn’t have told her as much as he did Logan.

She smiled to herself and snuggled against
Logan’s chest while he held her securely in his arms. She just hoped the rest
of her
family were
as easy to talk to about her writing
as Travis was.

While they danced, Emma hadn’t missed the
looks and stares from everyone in the room, but she didn’t pay much attention.
Where she lived was a small town and everyone needed to know everyone else’s
business—it drove her crazy. And in her excitement, she’d wanted to give
them something more to talk about. Which is why, she plastered herself against
Logan to his utter delight if the blaze of heat in his eyes was anything to go
by.

Her arms wrapped around his neck as his
arms wrapped around her waist and held her tightly. She’d never felt more
secure as she did with his warmth surrounding her.

“You feel so good against me,” she
whispered into his ear, and felt a shudder wrack his body.

“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” He
gently rubbed his erection against her belly. “Because you feel fucking
fantastic against me.”

“Mmm,” she inhaled his musky scent, “I think
we both need to cool down or the folk around us will be getting more of a
show.”

Logan smiled and kissed her softly. “I
think the sleigh ride is waiting for us then.”

“I think so too.”

Emma cupped the back of his head and held
him steady while she sealed her lips to his in a too short kiss. “More of those
to keep us warm outside...Let’s go and grab our jackets.”

“I’ll follow you anywhere, babe, so lead
the way.”

Mac, who led the horse drawn sleigh through
the
snow covered
forest, seemed oblivious to his two
charges under the blanket in the back of the sleigh. Emma knew he’d started to
lose his hearing, but had never known him to keep out of anyone’s business. He
loved to gossip as much as the women in town. No one knew his age, but her mom
and dad remember him as being old when they were children. If she had to guess,
she’d say he was somewhere in his eighties…maybe even in his nineties.

The sleigh ride had been Mac’s business for
as long as she could remember, and it wouldn’t be the same without him sitting
up front.

The gentle rocking of the sleigh would have
lulled her to sleep if her face hadn’t frozen. Logan held her in his arms while
the thick sheepskin blanket kept their lower halves warm.

“Are you happy, Logan?” Emma asked, and
lifted her head from his chest.

Logan met her gaze and traced along her
forehead with a finger. “Before you, I was stuck in the same old, same old.
Then you wrote a letter to a soldier, a stranger, and my life started to mean
more to me. I knew that back in the States someone cared about me, and
really
, wanted to talk to me, to hear
what I had to say...so yes, I am happy, and that’s because you make me happy.”
He leaned closer and gave her the sweetest kiss. “Don’t ever doubt me.” He
kissed her again. He pulled away slightly and stared down at her. “I have a
slight confession to make, though.”

Emma sat straighter and curled into him.
“What?”

Logan cupped her face, and let his thumb
trace along her lips. “I didn’t think far enough ahead about getting you a
Christmas gift. I’m sorry…”

“Don’t.” She sealed her lips to his to keep
him quiet. “I don’t have anything here for you, either. I’ve just been living
in the moment. I did send you a care package a few weeks ago when I was in
Boston, though.”

“I do have something for you that you may
want to keep.”

“I’ll keep anything you want to give me.”
She snuggled down into the blanket with Logan. “I love you, so anything you
give me will be treasured.”

“I love you, too…which is why I was
wondering if you’ll come with me to visit Matthew’s wife, Claire, and their
daughter after Christmas.”

His words caused her heart to feel heavy
with sadness. A reminder of what her mother had done. She had never been one
for forgiving quickly, and with how badly they’d both hurt, she wasn’t ready to
say ‘I forgive you’ to her mom.

“I’ll come with you. Will we be able to
drive or will we have to fly?”

“It depends as to whether we’ll be heading
back to my base or here afterwards.” Logan played with the strands of hair that
escaped her fleece hat.

“Well, I think we need to load up the
backseat of your truck with my essential possessions and head out after
Christmas. We might get a chance to find somewhere to lease before you have to
report in.”

Logan stayed silent, but Emma felt him gulp
a few times and his heart beat wildly. “You silence me, Emma. You really do.”

She chuckled softly against him. “I’m so
happy. In fact, I’m bursting with happiness and no matter how Christmas dinner
with my family goes tomorrow, I’m happy and can’t wait to start my life with
you because you’re never getting away from me now.”

“I’ve no wish to get away from you.”

Emma smiled into his chest as she snuggled
closer. It was crazy how quickly everything was happening, but if he’d sent her
a letter asking her to run away with him, she would have eighteen months ago.
She was truly happy with Logan and she could see their future. She was excited
to find them somewhere to live.

When she woke up a week ago, she’d had no
clue that her life would be changing for the better.

Waking up in bed with Emma on Christmas
morning filled Logan with so much love for her that his chest ached. He had the
woman he loved in his arms and he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to share
her with her family over Christmas dinner. He wanted it to just be the two of
them. But that wasn’t how the day would play out, regardless of how selfish a bastard
he was. But who would blame him after the evening spent getting hot and sweaty
with the sexy woman. He was bound to become possessive over her.

Last night, he’d stripped her naked but
left her thigh highs and boots on before he’d taken her up against the door.
He’d been so worked up that he hadn’t even taken his own clothes off, and just
opened his pants and shoved home. Such finesse, he grinned to himself. They’d
both come quickly and it had taken the initial edge off. But he couldn’t get
enough of her, and they made love four more times before they’d finally fallen
into deep slumber wrapped up in each other.

The room smelled of sex, which caused a bigger
grin to spread over his face as his hand caressed up from Emma’s leg, over her
hip, and up to the curve of her breast. He loved her flesh and as he gently
pushed her over onto her back, he sighed at the sight of both large globes. Her
dark nipples were already hard as his mouth dipped to sample and taste with
long drags of his tongue.

His sexy woman arched and moaned, her eyes
still closed while she stretched and shoved a nipple deeper into his mouth. He
cherished her body, and as his fingers caressed over her mound, he slipped his
fingers between her thighs into her wetness. She was so wet and swollen that
his dick jerked against her thigh.

“Mmm
..
.
keep
going,” she said when he paused. She trembled under
him. Her fingers trailed from his neck, over his shoulder and down his arm to
cover his hand that massaged her swollen nub.

Logan let her hand and fingers replace his,
and nearly came when she touched herself. His breath caught at the back of his
throat and he couldn’t control the pounding of his blood as it roared through
his body.

She always looked sweet and innocent, but
there was nothing sweet and innocent about her right now while she strung
herself higher.

He found he couldn’t watch anymore because
he really was about to come all over her, and the bed. “No more,” he hissed,
and grabbed her wrist.

As he lifted her hand to his mouth, he got
comfortable between her spread thighs and met her gaze. One by one, he sucked
her fingers into his mouth. She tasted delicious and he craved more.

His flesh was so hard that he throbbed. As
he kissed down her belly to her mound and slipped his tongue through her
arousal, he couldn’t control the rocking of his hips against the bed.

She always had him on a hair trigger and
her taste on his tongue drove him insane. He glanced up, met Emma’s hooded gaze
and, at that point, he knew he was lost.

“I need you,” he growled, and moved up her
body, his dick sliding home as they both groaned with the pleasure of his
entrance.

Logan panted above her. “I should have
checked if you’re sore before I entered you.” He clenched his jaw with the
effort it took for him to stay unmoving inside her tight sheath. She felt like
silk. Her walls gripped him tightly. As he lowered his chest against her
breasts and rubbed, her arousal eased his way deeper until he nudged against
her cervix.

“Wrap your legs around me.”

Emma didn’t need telling twice. Her legs
wrapped around his waist, and the friction she created around his cock had his
balls pulled tight. His ecstasy reached new heights as he finally started to
move.

He slid out and tightened his ass, his cock
rock hard as it thrust back home. He couldn’t stop himself as he pounded her
into the bed. His body surrounded her, and when he sealed his lips over hers
and caressed her tongue, he felt her release flood his dick while she moaned
and gasped into his mouth.

Her walls pulsed along the length of his
dick, which caused him to swell even more, seconds before she sucked his
release out of him.

He broke from the kiss and buried his face
into the curve of her neck while he rode out his pleasure and prolonged it for
them both with the slow slide of his cock inside her.

“Emma,” he cupped her face, and paused when
she contracted around him, “I love you.” He dropped his forehead to hers.
“Thank you.”

“What?”

“Shush,” he kissed her on the tip of her
nose, “let me finish. I’ve never thanked you for everything you wrote to me.
You let me see inside of you, which I know that no one else ever has and that
meant a lot of me. It still does. But, babe, I love you so much that it terrifies
me.” Logan slipped from her body, and rolled to his side, Emma still in his
arms, their legs intertwined. “You really are going to leave with me after
Christmas?” he asked, unsettled all of a sudden. He felt like his heart was
exposed and she could crush it at any second with only one word.

“Oh, God! Don’t do that.” Emma reached up
and cupped his face between her hands. “I love you and I am leaving with you.
You’re mine, Logan. We’re going to live together near your base, and then we’re
going to make a home where we choose without any influence from anyone. I
promise—my heart is yours.”

“You know how to bring a guy to his knees.”

She snickered. “I like it when I’m on
my
knees.”

Logan froze then chuckled. “Hmm, we’ll
practice that much later... but I do have something for you.”

“You do?”

Logan reluctantly climbed from the warmth
of Emma and their bed to root through the pocket on the front of his bag before
he climbed back on the bed and knelt beside her.

He felt nervous as he clutched his gift
tightly in his hand. He got the gift made on a whim with hope that he’d one day
be able to give them to her. But now that the time had come, he was nervous and
unsure regardless of what they’ve previously shared.

Emma must have sensed his nervousness
because she knelt in front of him, placed her hands on his thighs, and rubbed.

When she started to reach where his dick
rested against his thigh, he caught her wrists and met her wicked gaze. “Not
yet.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “I had something made for you a long
time ago, but I didn’t have the guts to send them to you, and hoped that I’d
one day get the opportunity to give them to you.”

He rubbed her brow with his thumb, and let
the dog tags dangle from his fingers.

Her eyes widened and met his gaze before
they flittered back to the tags. “I had mine duplicated, and I thought you
might...um, want to wear them, sometime.”

Emma nodded. “Put them on me.”

She smiled through the tears that ran down
her face and reached up to trail her fingers over the tags that were now around
her neck. “I’ll wear them always.”

“Oh, babe, please don’t cry.” He kissed her
softly. “I originally got them done so that you’d have me with you always.” He
felt the blush creep onto his face.

“You’re so damn sweet.” She snuggled
against his chest, and added while rubbing one of his nipples, “Merry
Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, babe,” he whispered,
overcome with raw emotion.