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Emma hung up her cellphone and turned to me with a pout. “Well it’s official. Nobody can make it up for Christmas.” She looked out the window where snowflakes floated in the air like pieces of glitter.

“Why not?” I asked the love of my life from where I was stretched out on the obscenely long leather couch. It could fit ten people, but even with my height, I could only take up a third of it. I lounged in a pair of lose-fitting, dark sweatpants and a white Tee shirt that was a little too snug.

I felt positively normal, and I was loving every second of it.

Emma stood in the middle of the massive living room, propping her hands on her hips. “Because it’s dumping snow in Denver and all along the front range. All the highways leading up to the mountains have been closed. Meaning anyone who wants to get up here for Christmas eve is screwed.”

She scowled at the innocent snowflakes outside. Her honey blonde hair was thrown up in a hair clip and she wore light jeans and thick knit, oatmeal colored sweater. The way the light caught her chocolate eyes cast a spell over me. From the moment I’d first seen her dark intelligent eyes peek out behind the romance novel she had been reading, I was utterly and completely hers. She was my angel.

Coming back to my senses, I glanced outside again at the seemingly harmless weather.

Emma crossed her arms. “I’d say we have a couple hours before the storm hits here.”

If this was our biggest problem, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I’d only recently retired from life as a Knight of the Light, and even then, I could never truly consider myself unconcerned with the demons and dark spirits roaming the world. I may not work for the Order of Luxis anymore, but if I were being honest, I would always be a Chevalier.

However, the prospect of being snowed in with the love of my life was hardly an inconvenience.

“Well good thing the house is stocked with food,” I said. We didn’t need to go anywhere. In fact, I planned to lock her away in the bedroom soon and ride out the storm by worshipping her body. Thoughts of her lips parting as I lapped between her thighs, experimenting with angle and speed to see what sounds I could get her to make had me hard in a moment.

She circled the expansive room, examining the space with a critical knit in her brow. We were staying at my parent’s house, though Emma insisted it was a mansion. There were far more bedrooms than we needed, but I intended to make use of every single room. Regina and Phillip were off on a mission for the Order of Veritas, so we were housesitting for them.

Apparently, that meant our primary duty was to sit in the house.

Emma insisted to my parents it was important we watch the house for them despite the fact they had unsupervised safehouses around the world. When she invited Krystan and Travis up for Christmas, I realized she wasn‘t really trying to do my parents a favor.

“This house is huge and amazing,” Emma said, taking in the white and grey décor and rubbing her arms. “But it’s too modern and cold for Christmas.”

Growing up in a secret Order, trained to fight the forces of Darkness, I’d not been allowed luxuries like holidays or celebrations, but I’d learned more recently that this was a part of a normal life for most.

I got up and stretched. The carpet was plushy under my bare feet as I crossed over to Emma to wrap my arms around her slim waist from behind.

She stroked my arms and said, “We need a bear skin rug, and truck load of twinkle lights.”

I kissed the side of her neck, my arousal making it hard to focus on anything but the tempting vanilla scent of her skin. She turned around in my arms, her cheeks already flushed, “Stop that,” she laughed lightly before kissing me. “We only have a couple hours before it the storm hits, and we need supplies to have a real Christmas. We have to get going.”

“A real Christmas?” I asked, not wanting to go anywhere. And certainly not wanting to do anything that involved putting on more clothes.

“Yes, you are going to love it. I promise. Now where is that credit card your mom left for us to use?” She extracted herself from my hold and moved toward the rich, cherry wood kitchen.
“I thought that was for emergencies,” I said.

She stopped searching the granite countertops to look up at me. “You were stolen as a baby and never experienced a Christmas in your entire life because you were trained as a Chevalier. I consider this a freaking emergency. Besides, your parents are pretty much billionaires. They aren’t going to miss the money.”

“I’m not sure if it’s their money so much as the Order of Veritas’s funds.”

She grinned at me. “Better yet, Regina can submit the expense report to their Order.”

I laughed along with her joke but I didn’t know what an expense report was.***

After a couple hours, the weather did exactly what it threatened and began to dump. Thankfully we’d gotten all we needed and returned to attached garage that allowed Calan and I to easily transport all our purchases inside the house.

We carried the nine-foot-tall pine tree into the house with relative ease. It did not hurt that Calan was every inch the warrior he looked, from his broad, muscular chest and shoulders to his tapered, six-pack waist. Having gone through training myself, albeit against my will, it admittedly made holding my end of the tree easier.

We had the tree set up in its stand in mere minutes. We took a step back to examine how the tree filled the living room. Calan brushed back the dark curls from his forehead. His hair was getting longer and I didn’t hate the matching dark stubble covering his square jaw. He looked less like a soldier and more relaxed.

Our tree was damn well close to majestic. The instant I spotted the tall pine , I knew it was for us. It was as if I was drawn to it by some magic force. Pine needles sprinkles all around the carpet, but I was pretty sure Calan’s OCD mother had a vacuum stashed in every room in the house.

I inhaled deeply, enjoying the sharp sting of the pine. “Doesn’t that smell amazing? Aren’t you feeling the Christmas spirit already?”

Calan took a deep breath and glanced at me. “I still don’t think I understand what Christmas spirit is. The only spirits I know of need to be banished back to the Stygian.”

I shuddered in memory of our brief yet awful time in the hell dimension. Turning to Calan, I said, “Please do not banish the Christmas tree to the Stygian.” I turned to grab the bags of ornaments. “I swear, once we get through my list, you’ll know all about the Christmas spirit.”

“List?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m calling it the Calan’s Best Christmas Ever checklist.” No never mind it was his first Christmas, so the adjective ‘best’ was superfluous. “It starts with decorating that behemoth tree, baking Christmas cookies, snuggling up with hot cocoa to watch crappy yet utterly addictive Christmas movies where people never had a real problem in their entire life. And finally, a letter to Santa before bed.”After all the physical activity of putting up the tree, I was sweating under my sweater. Peeling it off, I threw it on the counter and straightened the black tank top I’d had on underneath.

Calan was on me in an instant, pressing my back against a kitchen counter, his face hovering over mine. “I think we should take a break, don’t you?” he lowered his lips to mine, kissing me so thoroughly my knees turned into Jell-O and heat rushed down my body. His fingers skimmed down my bare arms, evoking goose pimples.

Flashes of us banging it out in the kitchen right there was oh so tempting. His hard length pressed against my belly and the way his fingers massaged my hips coaxed out an unexpected moan.

It took all my strength to push him back. “Christmas first. You can open your presents later.” Calan, more than anyone, deserved a real Christmas with all the cozy, joyful delights. As delicious it sounded to stop and peel his clothes off and run my hands and tongue down those warrior abs, I had a Christmas mission.

I slapped my hands together and rubbed them. “Okay, first up we are decorating Flaubert.” At Calan’s questioning look, I explained. “I named the tree. The tree’s name is Flaubert.”

His eyes darted back and forth between me and the tree as if he suspected I’d gone mad. “Is that a normal Christmas custom? Naming the tree?”

I pushed a box of ornaments into his arms that jangled against each other. “Nope, that’s a special Emma flourish.”

I was surprised how much Calan got into stringing up lights. Realizing I was in the way of his painstaking perfection in getting each bulb in the right spot, I moved onto hanging garlands, ribbon, lights, and big red bows on as many mantles, railings, and cabinets as possible.

After running out of materials to deck the halls with, I turned to find Calan holding out an ornament to me.

The tree blazed behind him in a cheerful glow that momentarily stunned me.

“Would you like to do the honors?” he asked, a smile tugging at his lips. His dark hair curled attractively over his forehead and those blue eyes held sultry promises. Again, I asked myself if maybe I shouldn’t scrap this whole celebration plan and strip him of his clothing and get merry in a different way.

I grabbed the ornament, and kissed Calan. When his arms began to close around me, I ducked out of his grasp and pranced over to the tree where I stuck on the first ornament.

When I heard a growl behind me, I giggled and turned around. “Like I said, presents later.”
Calan’s handsome smolder turned to genuine concern in a heartbeat.

Before I could ask what was wrong, he dove toward me, grabbing me by the waist and rolling away from a loud crash.

The room still swirled around me as I tried to sit up. Calan sat up rigid next to me, staring hard across the room. I followed his gaze to the fallen Christmas tree. It was still lit but had destroyed the glass coffee table it had landed on. The tree lights still twinkled, but the lone ornament I’d put up rolled away and into the kitchen.

“I think the tree is haunted,” Calan said, his cerulean eyes narrowing.

I lightly smacked his chest. “Don’t talk about Flaubert like that. I mean sure he tried to kill me…a little. Stop staring at him like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like Flaubert is going to spring up and try to play whack a mole with us.”

When he scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, I knew I’d used yet another reference denied to him. Note to self, take Calan to an arcade and teach him the timeless game of smashing things with a rubber mallet.

“I bet we missed something on the mount,” I said, smiling at him and leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Let’s get Flaubert back up and move onto item number two on the list. Making Christmas cookies.” I struggled to get up from our tangle of limbs. Calan held out a hand in a gesture to help but instead pulled me to the ground and rolled me under his body where he trailed kisses from behind my ear, down my neck, when he reached the swell of my breast, my hips jerked up in need, begging for more. He wrapped his hands around my bucking hips and pressed them into the carpet, and my vision went hazy as my mouth dried up. I should have kept the sweater on, it was safer. I could feel the heat of his body radiating through my thin tank top and instantly craved more.

“No.” My eyes shot open, when he slipped his thumbs into my jeans. I rolled out from under him and hopped up to my feet. Then giving him my best stern look, I shook my finger and said. “Christmas cookies, first.”

I daresay my handsome warrior looked almost annoyed where he sat, his arm propped across his knee. “But I’m hungry for something sweet now,” he said, his eyes trailed deliberately down my body. Because of our psychic connection, I could feel the intensity of his arousal echo inside me. Liquid heat moved through my body wherever his eyes went until they landed between my legs. Wetness pooled there, and I had to quickly back up to the kitchen.

“You’re cheating.” I said, short of breath like I’d been sprinting. “If we start that now, you know we aren’t going to stop.”

A smile tugged up one side of his handsome, oh-so-tempting lips. “That’s true.” Then with a shrug of submission he got up and straightened his pants. “Okay, let’s make these Christmas cookies.” Suspiciously eyeing the downed tree, he added, “After putting this right.”

I would have jumped up and wrapped my legs around him in a hug, if I weren’t sure it would end up with us immediately losing our clothes and any perspective of Christmas.

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