A Very Grumpy Lumberjack Christmas

16. Luke

16

LUKE

B acon sizzles and pops in the pan. The aroma fills the cabin, mixing with that of the other breakfast items I already prepared, and makes my stomach rumble.

After the night we had, I’m starved, ready for a big breakfast on this cold, blustery Christmas morning.

I flip over the browning strips just as Noel starts to stir on the bed. She releases a long yawn and stretches, arching her back off the mattress, arms up toward the headboard.

Even though she’s wrapped in the heavy comforter and I can’t see anything, merely knowing she’s naked underneath there makes my cock twitch against my sweatpants. “Good morning.”

She lazily pushes up on one elbow with another yawn and narrows her eyes on me. “Do I smell bacon?”

I grin and motion down to the pan with the tongs. “In about three minutes, you’ll have a full lumberjack breakfast—eggs, pancakes, potatoes, and bacon.”

“Wow”—her eyes widen slightly—“you went all out.”

Noel shoves her hand back through her mussed hair, trying to flatten the unruly mass that doesn’t want to comply .

Fuck, she’s stunning like this.

In my home.

In my bed.

Where she fucking belongs.

“You know”—she grins at me playfully—“I would think after the last, what twelve hours, that I would be a foregone conclusion. There’s no need to wine and dine me.”

I snort as I move the bacon around in the pan to avoid it settling on one of the hot spots. “I don’t keep wine in this house.”

“Oh, I know.” Her sing-song tone warms me far more than standing next to the stove does. That she can be so relaxed, so seemingly content on the day she should be absolutely destroyed, tells me more about how she feels right now than she ever would verbally. “You greatly prefer sweet and fiery bourbon…”

I dart my gaze over to hers to find that coy smile that makes my balls draw up tight and a low rumble of approval roll through my chest.

She enjoyed that as much as I did.

And fuck did I.

I’ll be jerking off to that memory ‘til the day I die.

And to the one of her on her knees with my cock down her throat in this kitchen, begging me to let her swallow my cum.

Hell.

I reach down and adjust my growing erection now to a more comfortable position and turn as I hear her approaching footsteps on the wood. My body tenses in anticipation of her touch.

Please let her be naked.

It’s selfish.

It might make me a greedy asshole.

And I woke with her tangled around me and promised myself I wouldn’t touch her for at least a few hours today—to give her a break and not make our Christmas together only about the mind-blowing sex.

But I desperately want to see her beautiful body this morning.

It would be the best way to start the holiday—a true gift.

I glance over my shoulder, but instead of endless smooth, peachy skin and that ass I could grab and kiss and lick and worship all fucking day, one of my flannels covers her to mid-thigh again.

Though I’m confident she still has nothing on under it.

She comes into the kitchen and loops her arms around me, pressing her lips against my bare back. The warm brush makes my stomach tighten. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Snowflake.” I turn off the pan and move the bacon to the platter on the counter where I ate her last night and want to so badly again, then motion toward the oven. “Do you want to grab the eggs, potatoes, and pancakes out of there? I was keeping them warm.”

“Sure.” She drops another kiss on my heated skin. “I’m starved.”

I snort. “I wonder why.”

Completely my fault.

I kept her up longer than I should have last night. I’ve probably taken her too many times. Definitely took advantage of how sweet, hot, and receptive she has been to my obsession with making her come. But Christ, I couldn’t keep my hands off her.

And it wasn’t like she wasn’t a very willing participant.

She couldn’t keep hers off me, either.

Something I will never complain about.

It was like we were eighteen again—those young kids just starting out in our “real” lives, trying to figure it all out.

Seems we failed at that.

But at least we’re still good at the sex part…

She grabs oven mitts from the counter, pulls out the platters from the oven, and sets them on the small table in the corner of the kitchen that seats two.

And she’s the only other person who has ever sat across from me at it.

She slides into what was always her seat and glances up at me as I bring over the bacon and two empty plates, setting one in front of her. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.”

At least, I was trying not to.

But seeing her back in this spot, where we shared so many meals, where we shared our plans and dreams, might be the hardest part of this entire situation so far.

Because she looks right in that chair.

Like she’s home.

She offers an annoyed little scowl, grabbing the knife and fork from the table and shaking her head as she examines the spread of food. “I hate when you do that.”

“Do what?”

Her icy-blue gaze cuts to mine. “Don’t tell me what you’re really thinking.”

I clench my jaw hard enough for the teeth to actually hurt.

There are so many times in the last two days since she literally crashed back into my life that I haven’t said things to her.

Ones I’ve kept back.

Clung to as tightly as I always have.

Because this might be the only time I get with her.

It likely will be.

And I don’t want to waste a minute of it, even if it means she’s going to decimate me again when she leaves .

I bend down and press a quick kiss to her lips, trying to stop the conversation before it becomes a Christmas morning argument that doesn’t need to happen. “What I’m thinking can wait.”

She grins, waggling her pale brows and shifting on the chair slightly to expose more of her bare thigh. “Something else sweet, innocent baby Jesus would hate?”

Laughing, I snag two mugs from the cabinet and pour us each a cup of coffee. I set one in front of her and start serving both of us from the platters. “Oh, there are definitely other plans, Snowflake, but I have something else in mind.”

Noel takes a sip of her coffee. “Like?”

“You’ll see.”

Her eyes shift to the clock on the stove. “It’s almost 9:00. That’s late for you. What have you been doing while I was being lazy and probably snoring and drooling in bed?”

I slide into my seat, take my first bite of eggs, and chew, watching how the storm-filtered morning light coming in the window beside us dances across her face so beautifully. “You were not being lazy, snoring, or drooling.”

Far from it.

She looked…peaceful.

Content.

Free.

Something I’m not sure I’ve felt in eight years.

Despite my days filled with endless manual labor, I certainly haven’t ever slept as well or as deeply as she did last night.

I sip my coffee, watching her over the brim as she smothers her pancakes in the fresh maple syrup I put out. “In fact, you were incredibly enticing and made it very hard for me not to climb back under the covers and join you.”

Noel swallows the bite of eggs she’s chewing. “ Why didn’t you?”

“I have incredible restraint.”

A scowl twists her lips. “What we’ve been up to has been restrained ?”

Grinning, I cut off a chunk of pancake. “You have no idea, Snowflake.”

She shudders slightly, then grasps her mug between both hands and sips at her coffee. Her gaze shifts to the front door and my boots, jacket, and axe. And the water under them. “Did you go back outside?” She glances toward the window. “What’s it like?”

“Shitty.” I shove in a few bites of food, then point to the radio with my fork. “And I listened to the weather report. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it.”

Her laugh lights up her face as she tears off a piece of bacon and pops it into her mouth. “I was pretty exhausted, if you remember…”

“Oh, I definitely remember, Snowflake.” It would be impossible to forget how she got so exhausted. “The weatherman said as much as another eight inches today and tonight.”

Her eyes bug out. “Seriously? Eight inches?”

I struggle to keep my face neutral and not burst out laughing. “You handled more than that just fine—many times. In multiple places…”

Noel gasps. “Luke! You cannot be so filthy this early in the morning, and definitely not on Christmas.”

“I can’t?”

“No.” She takes a bite and leans back slightly, crossing her arms over her chest. “What would your mother say?”

This time, my laugh floats out, filling the cabin. “My mother isn’t here, so her thoughts on the topic are irrelevant. The only thing she is worrying about this Christmas is taking care of my dad, who is a terrible patient. She knows I’ll dig their house out once I can get down there. ”

Noel’s face suddenly falls, her brow furrowing. “My mom…”

“I already warned your mother that you probably weren’t going to make it back up there today.”

Her shoulders slump slightly, but she shoves a rather aggressive bite into her mouth. “How did she take that?”

“About as well as could be expected.” I shrug. “She’s a smart woman, Noel. She knew what this storm could do and that you probably weren’t coming back as soon as I called.”

“So…we really are stuck here all day, huh?”

I shove a big bite of pancakes into my mouth, chewing as I watch her. “Is that really so bad?”

She stops with her fork full of eggs halfway to her mouth. “What? No. God, no. I mean, this has been”—she releases a long, heavy breath—“I don’t even know what to say. This has been…”

“I know what you mean; I can’t find the words, either.”

Unexpected.

Complicated.

Wonderful.

Heartbreaking.

Disastrous.

All those things rolled into one.

All because I could never get over this woman, no matter how hard I have tried.

We eat in silence for a few moments.

Her eyes never leave me, a thin thread of tension still hanging there. “What else did you do this morning besides listen to the weather report?”

She knows how early I always get up—well before dawn—and then I’m usually out the door and out onto the property, checking on the saplings, fertilizing, doing whatever else I have to in order to help Mom and Dad keep this place running year-round.

“I didn’t stray too far from the cabin, if that’s what you’re asking. There’s no way to get down to the barn right now and not end up with either frostbite or lost in the goddamn woods.”

She snorts and takes another bite of her eggs. “You could never get lost in these woods. You know them as well as you know my body.”

I set down my fork and lean back, crossing my arms over my chest. “And how well is that?”

Heat blooms across her cheeks, and she ducks her head slightly. “Are you fishing for compliments, Luke?”

I grin at her. “Not really.”

Just trying to change the subject so she doesn’t keep asking what I was doing all morning.

Letting my gaze fall down to her plate, I find another topic. “Did you get enough to eat?”

She glances at her half-empty plate and nods. “I did.”

“You didn’t take very much.”

Sipping at her coffee, her slender shoulders rise and fall. “I’m not much of a breakfast person anymore.”

I raise a brow. “Really? It was always your favorite meal.”

She offers another little half shrug. “Still is. I do breakfast for dinner all the time. But my schedule is such that I’m sometimes eating at weird times and rarely this early in the morning.”

Her schedule.

Her job.

What drew her away from Mistletoe and me so easily.

I shouldn’t ask—for my own sanity—but I do anyway, unable to stop myself. “You’re still liking it?”

She leans back, too, cradling her mug between her hands. “What? My job?”

Nodding, I toy with the edge of the table, where the old wood has started to wear and splinter slightly from things banging against it over so many years.

One of her blond brows wings up. “Do you really want to know?”

Shit.

I don’t.

I really, really don’t.

Unless the answer is, “No, I fucking hate it and I’m coming home.” But given the look on her face, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

“I do.”

Because despite everything that’s happened, despite the way I feel about her and how intensely I want her to stay, I want to know she’s happy—even if it can’t be with me.

She sighs and drums her fingers on the side of her coffee mug. “I do love it. There are three people on the main PR team, and when I moved up there, I was the noob, the American.”

I smirk at her.

No matter how knowledgeable she is about hockey, I can only imagine the shit she must have received up there for being from south of the border.

“They didn’t want to really trust me with much. I drafted PR releases, handled a lot of grunt work for the first couple of years. But something about being there in the arena, the crowds, the energy, and the team, I don’t know, it’s electric.”

My body tenses the longer she talks and the more I can hear the true joy in her voice.

She really does love it.

And I know she’s fucking good at it.

Even when she was just doing PR for the local high school teams and the community college, she was brilliant.

Coming up with campaigns to draw people to their games and get students enrolled.

Noel is always going to be good at whatever she does.

“And now that I’ve been there for this long, I’m not the noob anymore. In fact”—she swallows thickly—“my boss, the head of the department, is retiring in February, and there’s a good chance I’m going to be promoted to his position.”

“Head of PR for the Leafs?”

She nods.

“Wow, that’s pretty impressive. I’m happy for you.”

Her brows arch. “Are you?”

Shit .

I push back my chair and make my way over to the sink to start washing the dishes without answering her question.

And maybe that, in and of itself, is answer enough.

No matter how badly I want Noel to be happy, I’m still a selfish bastard who wants her to be happy here with me.

Not a thousand miles away in another country.

I throw on the faucet, letting the water warm before soaping my plate and silverware. Noel approaches and stands next to me, handing me her plate without another word.

It was so dumb to bring that up.

And now there’s this tension again that I had hoped to avoid.

At least until it gets closer to the time when she actually has to leave and our little snow globe where we can pretend our futures aren’t so divergent shatters.

She takes the washed plate from me and snags a towel from the drawer handle to dry it.

We work in silence for a few moments before I can’t take it anymore.

This isn’t how I want to spend today.

It’s Christmas.

I can’t let anything interfere with making this special for her .

Peeking over at her, I watch her set the clean and dry dishes on the counter. “I know how we can spend the day—at least, part of it.”

Her lips twitch. “That won’t insult sweet, little baby Jesus?”

“I don’t think he’d have a problem with this.”

Turning toward me, she tosses the towel onto the counter. “Well, now I’m intrigued.”

I incline my head toward the bed. “Go in the top drawer of the nightstand.”

Narrowed eyes on me, holding slight trepidation, she nods. “All right.” She pads over on bare feet and pulls open the top drawer. A tiny gasp slips from her mouth, and then her gaze darts up to meet mine. She reaches in and pulls out the leather-bound book. “You kept it?”

I got rid of anything and everything related to Christmas or Noel.

I couldn’t bear to have any of it in my home, in my space.

Any reminder of either only felt like the pain of her leaving was fresh again.

But that book in her hand—that would have felt like throwing away an actual piece of me.

And I just couldn’t do it.

“I kept it.”

Tears glisten in her eyes as she flips open the first page, and I know what she’s reading there. The inscription she wrote before she gave it to me that Christmas when we were sixteen—the one that changed everything.

“Merry Christmas to my favorite person on the planet. I never want to spend another one without you.”

If only we knew what was coming.

If only there had been some way to avoid the storm.