Free SWEET CALLAHAN HOMECOMING by Tina Leonard

you, gorgeous.”
    “Really? I spent at least four years sure that that was exactly what you were afraid of. Every time I caught you, you ran a little farther away again.”
    He nibbled on her shoulder. “Made it all that much better for you when you caught me, though, didn’t it?”
    “Not necessarily.”
    A baby squeaked in its bassinet and they both looked over at Briar. “I think you’re bothering our children, my love,” Xav said.
    She took off her blouse, and his heart practically stopped beating. “Holy Christmas. Dressed for the holidays, babe?” He stared at the red lacy bra barely covering her nipples.
    “You could say that. And there’s matching panties, if you can remember your way.”
    He was having trouble breathing. “Ash, I really think we need to talk this out. You haven’t been yourself since I told you that it was me who shot your uncle at Rancho—” His words stopped and his breath choked off as she got out of his lap and dropped her short black leather skirt to the floor. She hadn’t been exaggerating—a red lace valentine stared at him, and she turned slowly, letting him see that her fanny cheeks were bare, beautiful, and sweetly divided by a sexy red lace thong.
    Okay, so there was going to be no more talking tonight.
    He snatched Ash up, cradled her in his arms.
    “Change your mind?” she asked, her voice oh-too-innocent.
    “Strangely enough, I have.”
    He sank into bed with his prize, made short work of the hot lingerie, felt his whole body sigh with the relief of having her back in his arms again. “God, this is good,” he said with a bone-deep sigh, inhaling her perfume and the scent of her skin. “I missed the hell out of you. This is better than good.”
    “We haven’t done anything yet,” she said, her voice teasing.
    She thought she was so smart, thought she had his number.
    She did.
    And he was crazy about her.
    * * *
    “D ID YOU TELL HIM ?” Dante asked Ash the next day as she walked into the kitchen to grab two mugs of coffee.
    It was two weeks until Christmas. All she wanted was the joy of being home with her family, to celebrate the holidays the way only a family could—together. They’d worked so hard for this for so long. And she had these beautiful babies to be thankful for, a miracle that she could never have envisioned. The babies had been bathed, fed and dressed in darling soft, warm, matching pajamas. They’d looked like tiny candy canes in their bassinets when she’d left them, slumbering with their big, handsome father. “No. I didn’t tell him. I tried to tell Xav he had to go, but the discussion got waylaid.” Ash smiled to herself, remembering how Xav had loved her—and then loved her again. It had been like old times—almost. He’d whispered some nonsense about how it was better this time because they were in a bed together for the first time—as if he was sentimental about such things—and then he’d told her he wasn’t sure he knew how to make love to her without keeping one eye on the lookout and maybe he couldn’t make love to her behind a closed door. There was no breeze blowing against his ass, and no sandy grit blowing in his eyes. Under these softer, more private and less primitive conditions, how could he make love to her?
    She’d laughed, told him to shut up and get on with it.
    He’d sunk into her, and she’d closed her eyes in ecstasy, realizing all his teasing had just been a way to keep the moment light. But it hadn’t been light—it had been heavy, intense, earth-shattering.
    She couldn’t send him away.
    “I think we all agreed it’s safest. They’re going to come for him.”
    “We don’t know that.” She turned to face her brothers as they ganged up on her in the kitchen. They were stuffing their faces with Fiona’s good pancakes, grits and eggs, slurping coffee, generally plowing through enough food to feed a platoon. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t leave if I told him to.”
    It wasn’t