Page 115 of Daddy's Little Christmas

Something in his eyes went bright and fierce.

“Okay,” he said. No hesitation. “Then stay.”

The simplicity of it undid me.

I sucked in a breath that stuttered on the way out. “You’re sure?”

His thumb traced along my jaw, slow and reverent. “Rudy. I have never been more sure of anything that scared me this much.”

And there it was, right there between us: fear and wanting and choice.

I kissed him deep. Hungry. Full of all the words we weren’t saying yet. His mouth opened under mine, his hands sliding up my back, pulling me closer until our bodies aligned, warmth sinking through every place we touched.

The familiar electric shiver ran down my spine, but this time it felt different—not like a spark that might burn out, but like something steady catching fire.

He kissed me back like a man who’d been holding his breath.

By the time we broke apart, my lips felt swollen, my lungs burning, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs.

“Stay,” he whispered again, forehead resting against mine now. “Stay and let us find out what this could be.”

“I will,” I breathed. “I’m scared… but I will.”

His eyes softened. “We’ll do scared together,” he said.

He laced our fingers, tugging gently. “Come on.”

“Where?” I asked, my voice already gone loose and warm.

“Bedroom,” he said, a faint smile curving his mouth. “I’ve missed you in my bed for all of… what, half a day?”

Heat rushed to my face, down my neck. My body answered before my brain could.

“And if I missed you too?” I said, because I was learning to say the wanting out loud.

He kissed me once more, quick but lingering. “Then we’re even.”

The hallway felt shorter than usual. Maybe because I knew exactly what waited at the end of it. Maybe because every step felt like choosing—this house, this man, this moment.

In his room, the light was softer, winter daylight filtered through thin curtains. The bed was unmade, covers rumpled from the sleep I’d watched him in before I slipped out like a coward.

He caught my hand when I faltered.

“Hey,” he murmured. “We’re still allowed good things, even if we get there the messy way.”

My throat thickened. “Okay.”

He undressed me like he was unwrapping something precious—steady hands and soft eyes and the kind of touches that said more than any speech could. Every time my breath stutteredor my fingers trembled, he slowed, checking in without words, letting me come back into my body at my own pace.

He shed his clothes and when he laid me back on the bed and came down over me, bracing his weight so I wasn’t pinned, just held, my chest felt too full.

“Rudy,” he said, like a prayer.

“I’m here,” I whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The way he kissed me after that felt like an answer.

Everything else blurred—heat and skin and breath and the slow, unhurried slide of his hands mapping me like he was learning me all over again, like this time counted more because I’d chosen to come back. Every brush of his mouth, every murmur against my throat, every quiet “that’s it” and “so good” sank into places in me that used to echo.