Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
“And I told you I’d take you anywhere.”
She lowered her mouth to mine slowly, and I decided that it didn’t matter where we went. If I could be with her for more than a few hours at a time, it would be very fucking merry indeed.
26
SELENA
I kept waiting for Dominic to back out, to decide there was no way in hell he was going to Christmas World and this was why he needed to date a woman his own age. But to my surprise, he picked me up from my apartment on Thursday evening as planned. We were taking a redeye from LAX to New York.
I fully believed, up until the moment that he called to let me know he was out front, that this trip wasn’t going to happen. It was too perfectly sweet to be real. The intimidating, hard-as-nails, inscrutable man I’d met just six weeks ago was now taking me to Christmas World. It had to be a dream.
But it wasn’t. I floated on a cloud of happiness from the time I slid into his car and met him in a kiss over the console all the way through the airport, where we were careful to keep our hands off each other, to the first-class seats on the plane where we shook off our caution and pushed up the divider between the seats to be as close as possible to each other. I hadn’t asked where we were staying, but I wasn’t surprised when the taxi drove us to what had to be the most opulent, deluxe hotel to ever exist. We checked into a villa that was nicer than any home I’d ever lived in – on par with Dominic’s house in LA.
“You didn’t have to buy the place out,” I marveled, walking from room to room. Was this really just for us? It must have cost a not-so-small fortune.
“You wanted Christmas World, you get Christmas World,” Dominic said indifferently, as though the cost was no more than a cup of coffee. He was catching up on work emails on his phone, barely noticing the luxury.
I paused, the enormity of everything hitting me all at once. It didn’t feel like a dream anymore, it felt real, and that was terrifying. “Why?”
“Why?” He waved his arm, aggravated, as he scrolled through his messages. “Because you always wanted to go, and Santa isn’t the devil, and all that.” He glanced up at me, brow furrowed. “Right?”
“That’s what I wanted to come,” I said slowly, “but why did you bring me? You could have said there was no way in hell you were coming to Christmas World.”
Dominic stilled. His phone went dark in his hand as he stared at me. “Because I wanted to make you happy,” he said finally, so simply that I felt the truth of his words all the way to my heart.
I didn’t ask questions after that. I didn’t need to know why or how long this would last or what we would do when it was over anymore. It was enough that it was happening now, and I made the most of it.
Dominic flat out refused to wear the Santa hat I picked out for him, and he rolled his eyes at the pair I picked out, but other than that, he was all in. We walked every inch of Christmas World the first day, and he didn’t complain once except to say that he couldn’t eat another fucking cookie.
It was every bit as magical as I thought it would be. Better even than I’d imagined because I was with Dominic who moved through the town with ease. Knots of people seemed to loosen for him. And best of all, for the first time, we were completely free to be together in public without the crawling anxiety that someone would see us. We took full advantage, our hands always interlocked, or arms wrapped around each other.
Even though we’d been spending all of our nights together since Thanksgiving, this was the first time we could be like a normal couple. I was nervous about it the first morning we woke up, but it immediately felt so easy, so natural. It didn’t seem possible that he was the same man I’d been so intimidated by. He wasn’t hard or cold. He had a wry wit and humor that was so dry you might not know he was joking if you didn’t know him well. And I knew him well now. I knew when he was annoyed by the kids in line in front of us, even if his face remained impassive, and I knew when he was unexpectedly charmed by something.
“You think it’s cute,” I said delightedly when his eyes went to a small boy hugging an elf and softened fractionally.
“I don’t,” he said, bored, but he didn’t fool me. Not anymore. Here was the man who had helped make Jake into the wonderful person he was. When I tried to insist, he wrapped his arms around me and smothered my words with a long kiss.