She made me feel such things… so virile, so manly, like I could keep this up past dawn. Watching her writhe beneath me, so sexy, so organic, I felt like a god to her goddess. Something primal, something pagan, something that long predated the Christian God we both prayed to sometimes.
It didn’t feel blasphemous in the slightest to think or feel that way, though – which I found passively interesting. Not like I was about to fucking dwell on it. Not with the likes of Eden beneath me.
She was heaven. Heaven on earth.
She dragged my ass to such unearthly heights that I saw stars when I finally came. So beautiful. Such grace she showed me.
“I love you,” I panted, and was vaguely aware of both her arms and legs wrapped around me, holding me close.
“I love you,” I panted again, and though I know she murmured the sentiment back to me against the front of my shoulder, I couldn’t hear it for the blood rushing in my ears as my pulse sent my heart skyrocketing into the cage of my ribs.
I don’t think we’d meant to sleep after our first round of lovemaking, but it was hard not to with how thoroughly we wore each other out.
Still, it was approaching midnight, and thus Christmas Eve, and I had more gifts for her.
“I love what you do to me,” she said shyly, and I slipped from her, grunting at the sensation overload of the motion.
I settled on the other side of her hip and drew her close.
“You ready for your next present?” I asked, and she smiled.
“But wait, there’s more…” she quipped lightly, and we both laughed.
“You are so ridiculous sometimes,” I said as my chuckling finally died and she giggled behind her hand adorably.
I reached into the drawer and withdrew the parchment envelope.
“What’s this?” she asked and took it from my hands, sitting up and putting her back against the headboard. I propped my head in my hand and looked up at her.
“Open it,” I said and swallowed hard, mouth suddenly dry as her eyes skated over the letter. They misted over the short missive and she sniffed, those beautiful dark eyes of hers flicking to mine as she bent and pressed her mouth to mine.
She looked in the envelope where the chain of the locket rattled and shifted against the thick parchment and she extracted the locket.
“Oh, Sage,” she whispered.
“Open it,” I said, and she did, prying it open carefully with her thumbnail, tilting the silver hearts into the light from the Christmas tree.
Her eyes welled, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. I’d put a picture of myself in the one half, in the other I’d used some resin to contain a four-leaf clover. She’d been obsessed with them when she was little, dragging me out back to pour over the clover patches looking for one.
“Is this…”
“The one you gave me before my first deployment.”
“For luck,” she whispered.
“For luck,” I murmured, poking her lightly in the center of her chest over her heart.
She gripped the locket in her palm, clicking it shut, and threw her arms around me, holding me tightly.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered and I don’t think she realized that next to her? Nothing was.
She was the embodiment of the word.
I looked over her shoulder at the clock on the bedside table, 12:03 a.m., and smiled.
“Merry Christmas Eve, beautiful,” I murmured.
“Merry Christmas Eve,” she whispered and I could hear the smile in her voice.
The letter fell open beside her hip…
Dearest Eden,
I figured it was high time I wrote you back. I’m not really sure what to write, and I’ve never really felt like I was any good at these things, but it’s high time I told you just how I feel.
I love you, baby. I’ve loved you for a long time, I just wasn’t sure how to express it. What was right and what was wrong. I lost sight of you for a while, but you never let me go and I know that now.
So here I am. Giving my heart to you. One that you can wear for all time, proudly. You’re everything to me.
Merry Christmas, Babe.
Forever,
Sage
I had hoped that this would be enough, and by her reaction? I’d knocked it out of the park. I was more than good with that.
25
Eden…
“My turn,” I said the next night after we had traded and opened everything with the club. Sage looked up from where he was putting away the brand-new chaps and cold-weather riding gear he’d been given.
“What?” he asked.
I’d wanted to wait for some reason. For actual Christmas. Our first Christmas…
I pulled out the flat square package from where I’d hidden it in the back of his closet.
“Babe, you already got me—”
I waved him off. “That was just the Christmas pre-game,” I said of the knife I’d bought him and had engraved with his initials.
“What’s this?” he asked, as I hugged the plain-wrapped brown package to my chest and stepped over to him.
“You might want to sit down,” I murmured, and he did, taking a seat on the edge of his neatly made bed.
I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly and held the gift out to him.
He took it from me and set it into his lap, eying it curiously. I kneeled on the floor across from him and waited.
“Okay, you got me curious,” he said smiling and tore the paper off from the leather binding. I bit my lips together and waited patiently as he scowled at the gilt on the cover of the book.
Our Story
Volume One
“What?” he asked, and swallowing hard, he opened the cover. His eyes immediately grew misty.
“I, uh, hope you don’t mind… I was so scared you would find I made the letters magically disappear and you would be angry.”
He turned the pages of the book – all of my letters from the first shoebox and some photos, perfectly bound. It’d cost a mint, but the magic on his face and in his eyes was everything as he choked up.
“It’s Maren, and Nox,” he said, fingers skimming the page.
I felt my own eyes mist. I had gone to a painstaking amount of effort as quickly as possible to get this done. Initially, I had gone to everyone just asking for pictures, but then when I had found the letters, it had become so much more.
“I found as many pictures as I could that went along with the same time the letters were written,” I murmured.
“You did all this? For me?”
“Of course,” I whispered. “You kept them all—”
“Fuck, baby.” He set the book aside and slipped off the bed, pulling me in tightly against him, shuddering with emotion.
“Merry Christmas, baby,” I whispered, and he sniffed, pulling back, caressing my face.
“Our first,” he said. “Of so damn many to come.”
I smiled and nodded, and that was how we greeted our first Christmas together, kneeling on his bedroom floor in front of our first Christmas tree, crying tears of joy instead of heartache, kissing one another breathless as the brotherhood out in the taproom started drunkenly singing ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ at the top of their lungs.