Free A Fairytale Christmas by Susan Meier

you.”
    Gwen skidded to a stop in front of the open door, just in time to see Brody glare up at his dad from his position on the bed. “Big whoop.”
    Drew sat on the bed beside Brody’s long legs. “It is a big whoop. I missed your baby years. I missed elementary school. I missed middle school. But not by choice. Your mom moved you far away.” He looked down, then back up at Brody again. “It’s a blessing for me to get you. I may only have two years before you’re off to university, but I want those years. I want every minute I can get with you to get to know you.”
    Brody’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”
    “Yes. I think the next two years with you might be the happiest of my life.”
    Brody unexpectedly bounced up and grabbed his father in a hug. Tears filled Gwen’s eyes and she backed out of the room, leaving father and son to their personal moment.
    But when Drew returned to the kitchen she didn’t hesitate. She said, “That was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen anybody do,” caught the front of his shirt, pulled him to her, and kissed him.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    S HE tasted his passion first. Surprised as he had been, he reacted instinctively and naturally fell into the kiss. All his pent-up desires rushed out in one fierce press of his mouth to hers. But as quickly as that registered for Gwen he shifted, changed. As if suddenly realizing he was finally getting what he’d been itching to take, he tempered his passion, and he smoothed his lips over hers gently, experimentally.
    She rose to her tiptoes and kissed him back. She glided her hands up his arms to his shoulders. His arms slid around her waist as his tongue slipped into her mouth.
    Sweet fire exploded in her veins, rocking her to her core. It took several seconds for the world to right itself, but when it did he twined his tongue with hers and the fire inside her roared with life and energy. No simple kiss had ever affected her as this one did, and when his hands slid up her back, tightening her more snugly against him, she suspected the kiss was as explosive for him as it was for her.
    She knew why. They truly liked each other. All along they’d had sexual chemistry, but adding emotion to that chemistry had made them a fiery combination. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to actually make love to him if a kiss could reduce her to a simmering bundle of need.
    But before she could take her thoughts any further hereleased her, stepped back and rubbed his hands down his face. “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be sorry! That was great. Plus, I started it. What you did with Brody was fantastic. No woman could resist that.”
    Self-conscious, he took another step back. “It was still wrong. And we can’t do that again. You’re so young, Gwen. You have your whole life ahead of you. I’m settled with who I am and what I have, and now I have a sixteen-year-old son to raise. Hell, you’re barely older than he is. I won’t get involved with you.”
    With that he strode out of the kitchen, and Gwen fell despondently to one of the chairs around the table. She wasn’t sorry she’d kissed him. But she was sorry about the age gap between them. How could she possibly fight that? Change that? She couldn’t.
     
    With the awkward way Drew treated her over the next few days Gwen was glad she hadn’t started the practice of spending the night—though she had packed pajamas for herself and Claire, just in case the weather was truly too bad for her to drive in.
    Drew was careful to be cheerful around Brody, so there was no doubt that he was wanted, but around her he was withdrawn, as if he were afraid that one kind word would cause her to kiss him again. She should have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t. How could she be embarrassed about kissing a man she genuinely liked? Someone she knew liked her, too?
    On Tuesday afternoon Drew brought in the Christmas tree he’d promised her, and set it up in the living room without a word. She’d