The bike fit just perfectly in-between his car and mine; it was like the garage was made for the two of us.
We got out of the car. There were still stacks of boxes lining the garage wall, some of his things that we’d moved in but hadn’t yet unpacked. He’d given up his apartment at the beginning of the month and moved into my house, which meant we were officially shacked up together.
I was loving every minute of it.
I held the door while Ronan unloaded the shopping bags from the backseat and the trunk. It took three trips. We’d gone out Christmas shopping, then for dinner. And now we had just enough time to get ready for the party tonight.
It was four days until Christmas, and tomorrow we were taking the ferry over to Victoria to spend the holidays with my parents. Justice and Mia were coming, too. Ronan would be meeting my biological mom and my grandparents for the first time.
Maybe we’d play some Blackball.
And I was gonna looove watching my family shower Ronan with gifts.
The Sorensens were gift giving people.
Ronan, apparently, was not. He’d seemed a little… overwhelmed… by the level of my gift shopping extravagance.
He put the last of the shopping bags on the living room floor as I shrugged off my coat. “I can hear you frowning!” I sang from the coat closet. “Who frowns like that at gifts?”
He made a grumpy noise, which eerily reminded me of my dad.
I was gonna have to file that away for a future therapy session.
Then he muttered something about, “Who needs this many gifts?”
“Christmas is the season of giving, Ronan Sterling. I thought you were a giver.”
I plucked his jacket from him as he slipped it off, and hung it up for him. Then I looked at him standing there in our living room, surrounded by Christmas themed shopping bags… like grouchy Santa.
I went and flicked on the Christmas lights that had been strung up all around the room and on the tree. A number of our friends had been by this week to help decorate and drink spiked eggnog. Now it looked gorgeous and festive, and so cozy—especially with my handsome man in the middle of it, wearing the sweater I’d bought for him as an early holiday gift.
“If you’re gonna be this over-the-top about it,” he grouched, “why wouldn’t you at least do it in advance? It’s crowded in the stores.”
“So? I don’t mind crowds.”
“I do,” he muttered. And I knew that was true.
Crowds put him on high alert. Especially when it was just the two of us, like it was today. I was glad to have Andre around, as my full-time bodyguard now, so that Ronan could relax and just be with me when we went out. And I absolutely loved telling my bodyguard, He’s precious to me. Protect him.
But sometimes I still preferred it when my man was the only one watching my ass.
“Well, when did you shop for my gift?” I asked him. I was digging, desperately wanting to know if he’d gotten me a gift yet.
“A while ago,” he muttered, throwing me a look. Clearly, that was all he was about to admit.
I beamed at him. “You look adorable in that sweater. So you can try to stop being delicious, but it’s not working.”
“Don’t try to butter me up. I told you, I already got your gift.”
“What? Can’t a girl pay you a compliment?” I was only speaking truth. It was a nice, thick sweater from a local designer, a simple gray wool that clung nicely to his muscles.
Though it did have a sprig of bright red-and-green mistletoe knit into it over the left breast.
I’d begged him to wear it while we went Christmas shopping, and he’d given in. And I loved how it made the salespeople smile at him. No matter how he tried, he just couldn’t pull off grinchy in that thing.
“If we’re gonna do this living together thing,” he said, watching as I started poking through the bags, “maybe you can give me an idea of the budget beforehand. So the vein in my head doesn’t throb the entire time you shop.”
“I know. This was all very spendy of me. But look.” I started pulling things out of the bags. “I’m a great gift giver. I got the perfect gifts for everyone on my Christmas list.” I held up a six-pack of craft beer and a men’s black T-shirt that said, Don’t bother, Santa already knows you’re an asshole. “Ashley,” I said triumphantly. When Ronan looked only mildly impressed, I held up a bottle of Canadian whiskey and a giant mug that said, Bossy Bosspants. “Brody?” When he just shook his head, I held up the bottle of premium tequila and the men’s underwear from the sex shop I’d dragged him into; they were skimpy boxer briefs, bright red with cutouts at the sides that would show off his ass muscles. “And these are for you.”
He took the gifts from my hands, hesitantly, when I shoved them at him. “So, basically, you give gifts that make people you care about uncomfortable?”
My jaw dropped. “Excuse me? These are gifts to make people I care about smile.”
He held the underwear up next to his face. “Is this making me smile?”
He definitely wasn’t smiling.
“Well, not right now, sweetie. But later when you strip down and slide them on, and I get insta-wet… trust me, you’re gonna be happy.”
His eyebrow spiked at that. Then he stuffed the underwear in the back pocket of his jeans. “I’ll just save these for later, then.”
“Oh! And check this out.” I pulled another gift from the bag. “His and hers mugs!” I thrust them toward him as he leaned in to read them.
The first one said I like her and had a
