Random Acts of New Year by Julia Kent

Author:Julia Kent [Kent, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-30T18:30:00+00:00

Charlotte

I don't have a mantel in my apartment, but if I did, there would be a plate of cookies and a carrot set out for Santa and his reindeer.

And no chickens.

It was Christmas morning, and I'd already got my gift. Right here, breathing lightly as he slept. I pressed my ear over his heart, the scruff of chest hair tickling my jaw. Liam looked so innocent when he was out cold, long eyelashes pressed against the tops of his cheekbones, arms and legs relaxed in slumber.

I could imagine what our little boy would look like when I watched him.

Eyelids fluttering, suddenly Liam's blue eyes were on mine, giving my heart a little jolt.

“Hey.”

“Merry Christmas.”

“You, too.” His arm reached around my bare shoulder and squeezed me. As he sat up slightly, his abs curled in. My palm was flat against his belly and the power of those muscles trapped it there.

I have such a tough life.

“Did you ever think we'd have this?” he asked softly, his fingers playing with my skin, smoothing it with his calloused hands. Nothing sexual–this was the quiet, tender time two people spend together when there are no appointments, no workdays, no rushing.

And we'd had more sex than usual, which always bonds us tighter.

“Have this?” My hand rode up his thigh.

An appreciative groan, then laughter, followed. “This. When I'm with you, I feel like everyone else isn't real. Like time itself doesn't work right unless we're together. You send me into some dimension you create with a spell. But you're not a witch. It's just who you are, making me who I become when we spend time together. When we touch.”

Each breath I took as I tried to respond felt like a century.

I smiled. “I feel it, too.”

“I know you do. I see it in you. How can this exist when no one else talks about it?”

“Maybe we're the only ones who feel it. Who have it.”

“Then why us?”

“What do you mean?”

“What makes us so special that we get this?”

“I don't know. Luck?”

“That terrifies me.”

“Why?”

“Good luck means it's random. Bad luck is random, too.”

Instinct made my hand go to my belly. Liam covered mine with his own.

“Like this. Bad luck.” His hold on me became stronger. “God, Charlotte, that morning you bled out in bed.”

“I know.”

“And–all of it. I don't ever want to lose you.”

“Aren't you a cheery one this fine Christmas morning?”

He sat up and grabbed my hands. It seemed like he was trying to make me see how much I meant to him, but he didn't have to.

I knew.

“I don't mean to be. But this is serious. I feel serious when I think about how much I love you. Nothing else means more to me in the world.”

“Oh, Liam.”

“And then I go to a darker place.”

I just tilted my head, listening, trying to understand.

“I get depressed sometimes, imagining a world where I don't have you. I have something to lose.” His hand on my belly froze, as if the two losses came forward from the past and settled there, watching us.

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