The Christmas Blanket

by Kandi Steiner

“I don’t have space for holiday spirit.” “Sure, you do. I mean, you’ve already got the biggest part,” I said, pointing at the bare tree. “It’s just sad that you have that whole tree and not a single thing on it.” River glanced at the tree with a look I couldn’t decipher, and then his eyes found mine again. “Come on,” I begged. “You’ve got to have a box of Christmas decorations.” The heavy sigh he let loose next made me smile. “You do, don’t you? Where is it?” “The loft,”

But, take this blanket as a promise. This is my promise that I will work hard, all my life, to give you everything I can. I will do everything in my power to get you that house, to shower you in gifts, to make all your dreams come true.” He leaned in to press a kiss to my lips, long and slow. “And I will never stop fighting for us.”

“Only every day, Eliza,” he whispered, his brows bending together. “Every hour. Every minute. Every second you’ve been gone.”

Emotion surged through me, but I didn’t have the chance to break beneath it before the blanket dropped from around us, and River took me full in his arms. And then his mouth was on mine, hard and punishing, a kiss and a gunshot all the same.

I cried out at the connection — a sigh, perhaps, or a moan or a whimper. Maybe it was all of those things, all wrapped into one, my body and brain so confused it couldn’t decide how to react. But I leaned into ...

His arms were sturdy where they held me, and as our lips melded together, it was as if there was no other place in the world we could possibly be. It was a kiss we’d shared a hundred times before. It was a kiss I’d never experienced, nev...

It was years of love and passion. It was years of heartache and pain. It was everything I hated, everything I desired, everything I’d forgotten and everything I would always remember, too. This is my husband, my heart screamed. This is the love of my life. Th...

“I loved you. So I let you go.” His hands reached out, framing my face, his eyes searching mine as he shook his head like every word was the most horrible truth. “And damn it if I don’t love you still.”

The next sob that broke through my chest was cut off when his mouth met mine again, this time warm and comforting and gentle, yet sure. His hands held my face, fingers curling in my hair, thumbs brushing my temples. I leaned into that touch, into that kiss, into that man with everything that I was, with everything I ever had be. And in that moment, I was home.

River only broke our kiss long enough to strip my sweater overhead, my hair tumbling out of the neck hole in a waterfall down my back. Chills raced from the cool air, from the feel of his hands on me, wrapping around my rib cage in a gentle squeeze before he moved for my sports bra next. He pulled it up and over my head, too, letting it fall to the floor.

His shirt came next, and then his briefs, his sweatpants, until he was fully naked and trembling in my grasp as he backed me up to the bed.

I felt those eyes like big, calloused hands, working their way over my breasts, my navel, my thighs, and the little gap between them where I was already wet and throbbing for him. River’s throat was so tight I heard his next swallow, and a gentle shake of his head was all I got before he was climbing on top of me, maneuvering me up until my head was on the pillow and he was between my legs.

We both shuddered at the rush of heat from our bodies being together again, and River swept my hair from my face, kissing my jaw, my neck, my collarbone and back up until his mouth claimed mine.

There was no time to think, no time to second guess or let logic sneak its way in before River was balancing all his weight on one elbow, his other hand reaching down to hook my leg up his thigh. He pressed more weight into his knees, the tip of him sliding against my w...

I knew the feel of him, even after all these years. I knew the shape of his crown, the lean of his shaft, the exact lining of the vein that rippled up from his base. I knew how he would fill me even before he did, but when the flex of his hips brought us together, when he slipped inside me for the first time in ...

It was a searing fire, the way he stretched me, and yet it filled me with a current of pleasure all the same. I whimpered into his mouth and he caught that cry with a growl, with a demanding kiss, with a s...

He knew grabbing my ass like that, tilting his hips the way he was — it was in just the right way for my clit to catch the friction it so desperately wished for. He knew that when he yanked on me hard and my hands flew forward, finding the headboard on either side of him, it was the perfect angle to let that gentled curve of his cock reach all the right spots. And he knew when he leaned forward just enough to capture my left nipple in his mouth, sucking it between his teeth, that it was all I needed to combust.

River slowed his pace, kissing my lips hard, bruisingly, until he dragged those lips and nipping teeth and sweeping tongue down my neck again. I was so limp and small in his arms that it didn’t take much effort for him to flip me over again, onto my stomach, with my ass in the air just the way I knew he liked it.

He slapped my ass as a reward for remembering, and I fisted my hands in the sheets as he lined up at my entrance, remembering all too well how deep he felt in this position. His hands slipped between the folds where my thighs met my hips, and in one full thrust, he filled me again.

“Fuck, Eliza,” he husked, slipping out just to slide back in again. “So w...

“Sometimes you gotta look past all the hard things you go through and look at all the little things you have to be thankful for.

“I did find that feeling. But it wasn’t in Europe, or Asia, or on a mountaintop or on a beautiful, white sand beach.” I shook my head. “It was in that boring, tiny cabin with no power, no technology, no fancy food or fancy views or fancy entertainment. It was in front of that fireplace, under that stupid old blanket,” I said on a laugh that Beth joined me in. “With that stupid man and that stupid dog.” I sniffed. “I had everything I needed in that moment. And I felt it in my soul.”

“I’ve been writing it to you. For you.” River’s eyes bounced over the pages as he turned them, and then they found mine, confusion written within the green depths. That journal was one I’d written in religiously, and every entry started with My Dearest River.

River turned another page, fingers tracing over the ink inside. “I never stopped thinking of you,” I said softly. “I always wished you were with me, and all along, I knew that something was missing.” River swallowed, nose flaring as he turned another page.

“I think I went looking for adventure, but what I didn’t realize was that I left the best one behind.”

At that, he stopped turning the pages, holding the book open in his hands and looking at me, instead. His eyes flicked back and forth between mine, and when a sheen of gloss covered them, emotion...

“You are my adventure, River,” I whispered helplessly, two tears streaming simultaneously down each of my cheeks at the admission...

I didn’t miss the quiver of his bottom lip where he kept it buckled, or the way his next breath shuddered a bit with the effort to bring new oxygen into his lungs. And I just shrugged, knowing there was no other way to put it. “I am lost without you.” As soon as the words left my lips, River blindly placed the journal ...

I clung to him like life itself, wrapping my arms around his neck as his wound around my waist. He crushed me to him, and I tried to pull him ...

“I don’t care if it’s in a big city or in another country or right here in this town we grew up in,” I said through my tears. “I want this. I want you. I’ll go wherever you want or stay right here ...

River framed my face, shaking his head before he kissed me hard and promising. Both of our faces were bent in agony, like that kiss killed us as much as it brough...

“I thought I lost you again,” he said, his words shaky and strained. I clung to him tighter. “Oh, bab...

He shook his head, like he still couldn’t believe I was there in his arms, before he met me with another long, deep kiss. Then, he was helping me strip out of my coat, my scarf, my hat and gloves and boots. He took me in his arms as soon as I was rid of my outerwear, and then he pulled me i...

For a long while, we sat there just like that, holding each other and kissing and crying and not saying a single word. My heart surged with relief. My soul cried out in victory at finally being found. Every mol...

Moose hopped up onto the couch, practically right on top of us until we wiggled to make room for him, too. I laughed, kissing his head and rubbing behind his ears. Then, River reached behind me, where the Christmas Blanket was hanging over the back of the couch. He smiled at me as he unfolded it, spreading it across the three of us, and then he took me and Moose both into his arms, holding us there by the fire.

When he gave me that blanket, he made a promise — that he would never stop fighting for us. I knew as I held him in front of that fire, as he ran his hands through my hair and kissed my forehead softly, that his promise was true. And that I would never stop fighting for us, either.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” River whispered. And I smiled, and held him closer, and thanked God for blizzards. “Merry Christmas.”