Clutching the lapels across her chest, she raised bright eyes to his, “I… this is so… I… I don’t know what to say, Callum.”
He felt disappointment nag at him when she used his full name. She’d called him Cal last night.
He beat the feeling back, hoping, in time, it would come again.
He curled a hand at her neck, using his thumb to stroke the underside of her jaw and prompted, “Do you like them?”
She nodded enthusiastically.
He grinned and finished, “That’s all you need to say.”
She moved forward the step that separated them and slid her arms around him, her cheek at his chest, her arms going tight.
His hand at her jaw shifted into her hair and held her face against him.
“Now this is definitely better than a nod,” he told her, his voice gruff.
She emitted a short, happy giggle, keeping his body tight in her arms and tipped back her head to look at him. “I’m being very rude. I should say thank you.”
“I don’t know. This doesn’t feel rude,” he teased and she giggled quietly again.
“Can I give you your gifts now?” she asked and his eyebrows went up.
“Do you think that’s all you’re going to get?”
She blinked again, adorably, and then breathed, “There’s more?”
Callum used her hair to tip her head back, bent his own and against her lips he murmured, “Yes, baby doll, there’s more.”
Then he gave her a Good Morning Merry Christmas kiss.
She was blinking again when he lifted his lips form hers.
He was chuckling again when he let her go, reached beyond her to nab her coffee cup and he handed it to her. Then he grabbed her hand and guided her into their bedroom.
Callum had been up awhile. Long enough not only to make coffee but also to deal with the mess the soggy towel made of their bed and collect the presents his mother had stashed in the garage yesterday while they were sledding and place them under the tree.
When they arrived in the room, Sonia stared at the tree like a thirty-seven year old girl who just learned there was a Santa Claus.
Sonia’s shining eyes came to his and she smiled, “I’m guessing this means you like Christmas too?”
He slid an arm around her shoulders and grinned down at her. “All my people enjoy any occasion that gives them an excuse to celebrate. But this,” he gestured to the tree, “is because you like Christmas so much.”
Her expression changed and she was gazing at him like she did last night, like she was trying to read him, understand him, assess the validity of his words.
And, just as she did last night, she must have liked what she saw for she melted into him.
“Let’s have Christmas,” she suggested in a soft voice with soft eyes looking up at him.
“Let’s have Christmas,” he agreed on a murmur, bending his head to touch his mouth to hers.
He went to the bed, threw all her pillows on the floor by the tree and they sat on them, Sonia declaring excitedly that this year she got to “play Santa Claus”.
“You can do it next year,” she assured him as she started organizing packages with what appeared to be unbridled joy.
Watching her, Callum decided that next year, and every year, since she obviously had so much fun doing it, Sonia would play Santa Claus.
Callum found, to his delighted surprise, that she was far more generous with him than any of her friends and neighbors. Callum also found that she liked clothes a great deal more than he suspected seeing as she hadn’t worn the same outfit twice in the three weeks they’d been together. He had new cords, shirts, belts, jeans, sweaters and even a new, stylish, brown leather jacket with a thick, insulating layer which would be perfect when they got back to Scotland. Clearly, these gifts were what were in the copious deliveries that she rushed to the door to confiscate from whichever of his wolves had accepted it before she ran upstairs with the packages but came back down empty-handed.