Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 101758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“Did you wrap those yourself?” I ask him, admiring the pretty red-and-gold paper with green bows.
“Of course not. If I did it, they wouldn’t look that good.” His hand glides up and down my back. “Are you going to keep staring at them, or are you going to open them?”
“For now, I’m staring.”
I notice some little green-wrapped gifts too.
“What are those?”
“For Cally. Our baby needs Christmas presents, Red.”
Two things: One, he’s the sweetest man on the planet. And two: I’m so in love with him that I can hardly breathe.
“Don’t tell me you hate Christmas,” he says, and I look up to find him frowning, his eyes filled with worry.
“No, it’s not that. Who could hate this? It’s just . . . this is my first Christmas.”
His voice drops. “Say that again.”
I wrap my arms around his middle and smile up at him. “This is the first time I’ve ever had Christmas.”
“At all?”
I nod and bite my lower lip. “And I’m a bad girlfriend because I only got you one present, and you got me a million.”
“It’s not a competition.”
Yeah, well, now I know that next year I can go crazy too.
“Come on, I want you to start opening. It’s going to take you a while, and we have to be at Tucker’s place by eleven.”
“It’s not going to take me three hours to open these.”
“This isn’t all of them. Let’s go.”
My jaw drops, and I stare at him for a full fifteen seconds before tears fill my eyes.
“Whoa, none of that. Christmas is fun, wildcat.”
I blink the tears away and sigh.
“Okay. Where do I start?”
“You sit here on your throne,” he replies, showing me over to the nearby love seat. “And I’ll deliver packages.”
“You get a kick out of this.”
“Are you kidding? This is my favorite thing. Showering you with fun stuff.”
He waggles his eyebrows and grabs a box, passes it to me, and for the next hour, I rip paper, untie bows, and by the end of it, I just don’t know what to say.
He got me a new water tumbler, several new blankets, fresh paints and brushes, a Kindle, a laptop, a freaking iPad. Don’t even get me started on the designer handbags, the shoes, the trip to Milan wrapped up in a box.
Then, with paper littering the floor and a bow tied around Cally’s neck, Xander takes me by the hand and says, “More this way.”
“What the hell? Xander, this is wonderful, and I’m so spoiled, but you don’t have to do more. Also, where are we going to put that new cat perch for Cally?”
“Wherever she wants it,” he says with a shrug. “She’ll tell us when she knows.”
I shake my head at him, and he takes my hand and leads me through the house to the garage.
“No.”
I stop, and he frowns down at me.
“You haven’t even seen it yet.”
“Xander, if it lives in the garage, it’s too much.”
“My Maserati lives out there.”
“Exactly.”
He smirks and pulls me along, opens the door, and I sigh.
Before Thanksgiving, I’d mentioned in passing that it was time to get my truck in for maintenance and such and my tires were looking a little bald.
That was not code for Buy me a new truck for Christmas.
“Babe, that’s a truck.”
He grins at me. “I know. Now, I didn’t go crazy. It’s basically just the newest model of the truck you had before. And it’s the Limited edition, so it’s sleeker and not so beefy. She’s pretty. I’m hoping you’ll take me for a ride in it because you’ll look sexy as fuck driving that thing.”
All I can do is stare at him.
“Where’s my old one?”
He blinks down at me. “Oh, it’s just parked over at Tucker’s place for now. You won’t have a problem selling it, but it’s yours to do that with. Not my place.”
“But it’s your place to buy me a new one.”
He turns to me and cradles my face in his big hands, his thumbs ghosting over my freckles.
“You’ll be safer in this, and that’s the most important thing to me. It’s my place to protect you and to make sure you have the best, so yes. It’s my honor and privilege to give this to you. Plus, it’s red.”
Well, when he puts it like that, it’s just practical.
“Thank you.” I boost up on my toes to press my lips to his, and then I take his hand and lead him back inside.
“You don’t want to sit in it?”
“Oh, I do, and I will, but you haven’t got your present yet.”
“Baby, you let me come all over your tits earlier. Best present ever.”
I roll my eyes and then snort out a laugh. “Uh, that’s just a Thursday morning around here, babe.”
“You mean I can do that every Thursday? It’s a date.”
I’m laughing my ass off when I lead him into my studio. Xander doesn’t usually come in here, so I felt confident in keeping his present here until today. It’s sitting on my easel, wrapped in gold paper with a red bow.