Let It Be (Butler, Vermont #6) - Marie Force Page 0,72
mastered.
“Do not laugh,” he said to Dani.
“Trying so hard.”
Lucas walked her around the room for thirty minutes until she began to surrender to sleep. He rubbed her back and whispered to her about sweet dreams and sugar plums and Santa coming on his sleigh to bring good girls lots of presents. All the while, he thought about what he’d been doing a year ago on Christmas Eve. After dinner with his family, he and Landon had gone barhopping with some friends from the firehouse.
How different both their lives were now, and he wouldn’t go back to how it’d been for anything. Having Dani and Savvy in his life was the best thing to ever happen to him. In this coming year, he and Dani would get married and maybe add to their little family. He couldn’t wait for everything they had ahead of them.
When he was sure that Savvy was asleep, he kissed her and put her down in the portable crib. Then he shook out his arms, which were tingling with pins and needles from holding her for so long.
“My hero,” Dani whispered when he joined her in bed.
“I love her so freaking much.”
“She loves you just as much. You’ve got the magic touch with her.”
“Do I have it with you, too?” he asked, cupping her backside to bring her in closer to him.
“Always,” she said, smothering a yawn. She’d been working seven days a week for two months at the warehouse and was off until after New Year’s Day. He’d taken the week off, too, and couldn’t wait to spend it with her.
He kissed her forehead and then her lips. “Get some sleep, love. You’re exhausted.”
Her eyes fluttered open. “You don’t want to…”
“Always,” he said, echoing her comment. “But you need sleep more than you need me tonight.”
“I need you more,” she said, yawning again.
“Sleep. We’ve got a whole week to snuggle.”
“Mmm, can’t wait.”
“Me either.”
“Colton.”
“Hmmm.”
“Colton.”
He opened one eye to his favorite thing to look at—Lucy’s adorable face.
“We need to go to bed.”
“I can’t move.”
“You have to move, or your pregnant wife is going to sleep on the floor, which will make me cranky on Christmas. Do you want me cranky on Christmas?”
“Nope.”
She poked his ribs, and he startled awake.
“Damn, woman.”
“Take me to bed, Colton, or else.”
Since he didn’t want to find out what or else entailed, he forced himself to stand and to help her up, holding her for a second until she was steady. As she reached the last month of pregnancy, she lost her balance more often. “You good, babe?”
“I’ll be better when I’m in a bed.”
Their dogs, Sarah and Elmer, looked up to see where they were going, but decided to stay put next to the fire, where they were snuggled up to Tucker and Tanner as well as George, Ringo, Homer and Horace. There were nearly as many dogs in the house tonight as there were people.
Colton and Lucy said good night to his dad and grandfather, who were enjoying a nightcap before bed.
“Sleep well, children,” Elmer said.
“I’ll let the pups out one more time before I go to bed,” Linc said.
“Thanks, Dad,” Colton said. “Good night.”
“Night, son.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Colton asked Lucy when they were on the way upstairs.
“Other than being fat and my boobs aching, I’m just dandy.”
“You’re not fat. You’re beautiful.”
“I can be both.”
“You’re the most gorgeous pregnant woman I’ve ever seen.”
“You have to say that. You did this to me.”
“I did a rather spectacular job of knocking you up, didn’t I?”
She turned to face him and squeezed his lips shut.
Colton, being Colton, kept talking anyway. “Admit it,” he said, his voice muffled. “No one has ever knocked up anyone better than I knocked you up.”
Lucy, being Lucy, knew just how to shut him up when she’d heard enough out of him. She curled her arms around his neck and kissed him.
That always worked to shut him up. Temporarily, anyway.
He picked her up to carry her the rest of the way up the stairs and eased her onto the bed, landing next to her, all without breaking the kiss that became more desperate by the second. “I thought you were tired.”
“I am,” she said, reaching for him.
Colton loved pregnant Lucy and how she couldn’t get enough sex, no matter how often they did it. That worked for him.
“Hurry,” she said.
He hurried, and when they came together in a moment of heat and need and love so big it threatened to consume him, he gave thanks as he often did for