Christmas Holiday Husband Read Free

with despair, were as good as ever. He wore army-khaki shorts, and bulky work socks. Presumably he’d kicked off his boots at the door.
    The soft old blue polo shirt was no sort of fashion statement with the khaki shorts and thick socks, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his rangy body.
    She’d run her hands down that long back. Raked her fingernails over those broad shoulders as her body clenched in ecstasy around his. Licked every square inch of his skin. And she felt desperately ready to do it all again.
    Her fingers relaxed as her mind wandered, and the knife slid off her plate with a clatter. They both started. Ellie bent to retrieve it from the tiled floor. Tony swung away from the pantry and took it from her. He crossed to the sink, washed and dried the knife, and returned it.
    She nodded her thanks.
    “Strawberry jam? Honey? Marmalade?” he asked.
    “Yes please.”
    “All of them?”
    “Uh...no, of course not. Um...strawberry jam.” She floundered deeper. Lord, if this was the best she could manage discussing breakfast spreads, what hope did she have when pieces of their shared past turned up in conversation?
    Tony took the jam from the shelf and set it down beside her plate. He sat. The intense atmosphere was broken seconds later by the arrival of a mini-whirlwind. His five-year-old twins and a wheezing brown spaniel skidded into the sunny farmhouse kitchen together.
    “I won.”
    “No—I won.”
    “I think Tasha beat you both,” Tony said as he bent to rub the old dog’s ears.
    He spread his arms wide and both daughters launched themselves into his lap. He tightened an arm around each and kissed the tops of their blonde heads. Ellie met his eyes again as she watched the little family tableau.
    “So you’re going to turn my two scatterbrains into brain-boxes?” he asked.
    “I’m hoping so,” she replied, wishing fervently she was the one being hugged. “I thought we might start with a walk around the outside of the house,” she said to the girls, hoping her pounding heart wasn’t making her voice quake. “You can tell me all the things you know and I can find out what I’ll have to teach you.”
    “Ten more minutes,” Tony said, glancing at the kitchen clock and releasing his daughters.
    “When the big hand’s on twelve, and the little hand’s on nine, Daddy.”
    “Right,” he agreed, rising to switch on the electric kettle. “Antonia and Carolyn,” he added to Ellie. “You’ll soon be able to tell them apart.” He made a game of chasing the girls out of the kitchen and turned back to her. “Tea or coffee? You always had coffee in Sydney, if I remember rightly.” One dark eyebrow quirked up with the question.
    “Yes, still coffee,” she said—the memory of her first morning with him slamming back to taunt her. Because of course they’d drifted asleep after making love, and woken as the early sun spilled across them, Tony moving over her to imprison her beneath him yet again.
    “Not too sore?” he’d asked between hopeful kisses. And Ellie, already alight, had murmured she’d be fine, and opened to him. He’d pleasured her first with a knowing finger, circling smoothly, insistently, until she’d relaxed and was ready, panting softly as her climax approached. Then, as she gasped with the pleasure of it, he slid home with a long husky sigh of satisfaction.
    “Much too sore,” she’d teased him a little later, as their bodies glided together in the tumbled bed. He was gentle with her. And afterwards, he’d brought coffee to bed, dipping his forefinger into the mug, anointing her nipples and licking the coffee off again as she giggled.
    “Still black?” he asked.
    “Mmmm?” She was miles away.
    “Still have your coffee black?”
    She nodded, not able to speak for a moment. She was in the shower with him, soaping him all over, before he left for work that long-ago morning. She’d never seen such a beautiful body, and Tony was not the least self-conscious