Luna nodded, unable to speak for a moment around the lump in her throat.
Mila, in the way that young teenage girls were so good at, went right on without noticing. “So, wait...if you’re their granddaughter, how come you haven’t been around Valentine Bay visiting? And are you going to be coming back more now?”
Luna opened her mouth to give an answer before realizing she didn’t actually have one. The silence hung heavily in the air for a long moment.
“Don’t worry kid. She won’t give me an answer to that one, either,” came a voice from over Luna’s shoulder.
Luna turned and saw Connor, a wide smart-ass grin spread across his face. She groaned. “Trust me, smart guy. As soon as I know, you’ll know.”
He laughed. “I can live with that, I guess. If I have to.”
“Oh, look, they’re lighting the tree,” Abby said, pointing to the middle of the square.
“There’s Gran!” exclaimed Mila.
A heavily bundled Mrs. Valentine walked to the microphone stand that had been set up in front of the towering tree, a handsome young muscle-bound man with penetrating dark eyes and thick black hair trailing along behind her.
Luna turned and whispered to Connor, “And I assume that’s Fernando?”
He grinned and whispered back, “A safe assumption, I think.”
Mrs. Valentine tapped on the microphone a few times, sending electronic feedback screeching through the crowd. She leaned forward and began to speak into the mic regally, as if she didn’t even notice the high-pitched shriek from the microphone.
Maybe, Luna thought with a smile, she didn’t. Maybe it was a good lesson in pressing forward regardless of what other people thought, or outside forces trying to slow you down. Just do your own thing.
“First of all, I want to wish a very merry Christmas to everyone here tonight. We’re a small community, Valentine Bay. But a close-knit one. And it’s wonderful to see so many familiar faces in the crowd, so beautifully lit by the colors of the tree lights.”
She looked up from her cards at that, her eyes searching the crowd. After a moment during which nothing much happened, she leaned forward to the microphone again and spoke archly. “Well, apparently some people aren’t listening for their cues.”
Just then, the massive tree in the center of the square sprang to colorful life behind her, and the entire crowd exhaled in awe.
“Yes,” Mrs. Valentine said, her words magnified and strong. “Imagine how much more impactful that moment would’ve been had it happened at the correct time.”
The crowd chuckled, and the speech continued, but Luna wasn’t paying attention to the words anymore. Instead, she was looking around at the beautiful and familiar faces, lit so beautifully by the multicolored lights shining from the stunning Christmas tree in the square.
It was home. This place was home, and these people were home.
She turned back to Connor, but he wasn’t looking out at the many faces in the crowd. He was only looking at one. Hers. And the look on his face took her breath away.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, sliding an arm around her shoulders.
“I—”
The words caught in her throat. She realized with a flash of alarm that she’d been about to say, “I love you.” No forethought. No planning. It had just been about to fly out of her mouth as if it were the most natural thing in the world to say.
And in a way...it kind of was. Because it was true. And she knew that.
She just wished everything were that simple. It wasn’t.
He leaned in closer, his eyes a mix of hungry and playful that sent her stomach spinning. “Hey,” he whispered, “what do you say we skip the caroling and go back to my place? I think we can make some pretty fantastic music of our own.”
The answer to that question, at least, was extremely simple. “Hell, yes."
Chapter 23
Luna
Walking through Connor’s front door, there was a charge in the air that Luna hadn’t experienced the first time she’d been there. She thought it must be something about knowing the reason they were there—it brought out the animal-lust side of her that she’d been getting back in touch with lately.
It was like Connor flipped a switch inside her, one that turned her into a wanton woman, driven by desire and unrestrained by inhibitions.
And she had to admit, she kind of liked the “new her.”
As soon as Connor closed the door and locked it, he turned to her and she could see the hunger in his eyes. It sent a thrill through her body that completely counteracted the chill that had invaded it as they stood outside for the tree lighting ceremony.
She didn’t just feel warm inside. She felt a raging heat that couldn’t be tamed.
Connor stepped over to her and pulled her to him. Luna gasped and jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his torso like a boa constrictor, digging her nails into his back like a tiger. Damn. He was bringing out the whole animal kingdom in her!
He cupped his hands under her ass to hold her up and she ground herself down into his palms. His tongue invaded her mouth and she pressed a hand to the back of his head to pull him closer to her.
God, she couldn’t get enough of him. He was like a drug, and now that he was back in her system, she didn’t want to spend another day without him. Not even another minute.
She pulled back just far enough to speak. “So, I have a feeling we’re going to satisfy a fantasy tonight,” she teased.
He laughed, a low and throaty sound. “I have a feeling we’re going to satisfy more than one. But which was the one you had in mind?”
She grinned playfully. “Remember when you said that we should ‘really do this in a bed’ sometime? Well, I’m pretty sure tonight is that time.”
He dipped his head down and planted kisses up and down her neck, pausing just long enough between kisses to whisper a few words at a time. “Baby, we are going to use every part of that bed, all night long, again and again. Does sound good?”
She was so lightheaded that she tossed her head back and moaned at his words, which drew a low chuckle from Connor. He licked her neck, moving his tongue slowly up her superheated skin and then whispered, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
She returned the low chuckle. “You can take that as a hell, yes.”
He moved his hands away from her ass, then, and wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her tightly against him—and she, in turn, held even more tightly to him.
Clinging. That was the only word to describe it. She was clinging to him. She had to smile at the description as it popped into her head. Yeah, clinginess had never been her issue where Connor was concerned. Quite the opposite, in fact.
And, she thought as he carried her up the stairs and to his bed, maybe the fact that she could smile at the thought now, find just a bit of humor in all the pain, meant she was growing past it, and that her issues with Connor were dealt with—or at least in the process of it.
The hope of that thought filled her with almost as much warmth as Connor’s kiss.
When they reached the bedroom, Connor laid her down gently on top of the comforter and kissed her again, running his hands all over her body as he did.