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She looked at him like he’d just blasphemed. “Forget the turkey?”

“That’s what I said.” He squeezed the butt he spent way too much time obsessing about. “I would have said screw the turkey, but there’s only one thing I want to screw and I’m holding her.” He tilted his head, stared into her eyes. “Correction, I want to make love to her. And then have sex with her in the shower. And then take her from behind as she’s bent over the bed.”

“Yes.” She licked her lips. “Yes, to all those things.” Her lips brushed his ear, her breath heavy. “And your hands.”

“My hands?”

“Yes. I want your big sexy climbers’ hands, and those long, strong fingers, all over my body.”

He groaned. “You don’t have to ask. You’ll get my hands, and my mouth everywhere you want them. And some places you didn’t think of.” He proceeded to march them out of the sitting room, only to lurch to a stop when he came across Jack. “Not now, buddy. I’m about to do all sorts of things that you are not allowed to watch.” When Jack didn’t shift, just plonked his butt on the floor and stared up at him, Luke cursed. “Move.”

“You need to ask him nicely,” Anna whispered, then sunk her teeth gently into his ear lobe and sent a bolt of lust straight to his dick.

“Jack, please get your furry arse out of our way before I shove the woman you think is yours up against the wall, and take her right in front of your eyes.”

Anna giggled. “Yes to that one, too. I mean, not in front of Jack, I think it might creep me and him out, but I definitely want to be taken against the wall as well.”

Jack gave him one last dirty look before walking off to his cat bed, tail in the air. Luke snorted. The cat could dismiss him all he liked. Luke was the one with the girl.

“Before or after the turkey,” he mumbled as he pushed open the door to his room, to the big bed where he’d had so many fantasies about this exact moment.

“What?” Her mouth was busy on the part of his neck where it met his collar bone.

“You want to be taken against the wall before or after we’ve eaten turkey?”

She eased her head up and looked him in the eye. “Luke? Forget the turkey.” She giggled. “I would have said stuff the turkey but there’s only thing I want to get stuffed right now—”

She erupted into laughter as he threw her onto the bed.

He silenced her with a kiss.

And then made good on all his promises.

Epilogue

The Following Year—December 25th

Anna had a little smile to herself as she stared at the advent calendar on the kitchen table.

Some things hadn’t changed from this time last year.

Luke had insisted on keeping Colin’s advent tradition alive, even creating a new calendar, as poorly drawn as Colin’s had been. It meant they’d had twenty-four windows to open, twenty-four days of activities leading up to today. Some of them, like buying the tree (they’d booked a slot and cut down their own), decorating it, going ice skating (Luke still hated it), visiting Harriman State Park (where they’d scattered Colin’s ashes in a quiet ceremony when her parents had come to visit in the summer) hadn’t changed from last year. Some of them, like the Polar Express bus ride, had been included. Others, like meeting up with Mateo, and going to visit her old patient Joe, who hadn’t just been reunited with his son but now lived with him, had been adapted.

Of course some things had changed.

This morning she’d woken up with a furry body on her bed and a big, burly body in her bed.

She’d also woken up happier than she could ever remember.

“And I’ve got you to thank for that,” she whispered as she looked at the two new collages on the wall. The first, with photos of her and her brother over the years. Next to it a similar one with photos of Colin and Luke.

And next to that, hung the two collages they’d made last Christmas Eve. She still didn’t like that one of them contained only photos of her, but Luke had refused to change it.

She felt a familiar squeeze on her shoulder, the familiar warmth of Luke’s solid wall of a chest as he came up behind her and tucked her head under his chin. “It gets easier,” he said softly. “We’ll always miss him, always think of him especially at this time of year, but the ache will become less raw, the memories more fond than painful.”

She knew he wasn’t just talking about Colin. Two days ago, they’d put flowers on his mom’s grave. He talked about her more openly now, and a photo of her and Luke stood proudly on the fireplace in the sitting room alongside one of her and Colin with her parents. And a series of postcards from them, the latest from Barcelona.

Her eyes dropped again to the advent calendar and she frowned. “Wait, you made a window for today?”