A Christmas to Remember Read Online Free PDF Page A

tremble. She wanted to kiss him more than she wanted her next breath, but this wasn’t going to be their usual “friends with benefits” situation. This time, she wanted it all. “I want to give us a
real
shot, Ian.”
    “Because of what happened the other night,” he said, not sounding impressed.
    “Because of what
almost
happened the other night,” she corrected. “A near death experience makes people rethink things.” She paused. “Like mistakes they’ve made.”
    “Yeah, it does.” He never took his eyes from hers. “I’ve seen hundreds of people go through it. It wears off,” he said flatly.
    “This won’t.”
    He didn’t move. So she did. She pulled his head to hers, then looked at his mouth.
    And then that mouth was touching hers, lightly at first, then not lightly at all.
    “You believe me,” she whispered in relief against him.
    “I don’t know what I believe,” he said, voice rough. “But I know I want you back.” Gently fisting his hand in her hair, he tilted her head to suit him before kissing her like he meant it, parting her lips with his and slowly stroking her tongue with his own. When they were both breathless, he pulled back to look at her, let out a low, innately male sound that made her quiver, and then took her mouth again. And again. And again, until a huge crash sounded.
    They both jerked and whipped around in time to see the tree still vibrating from its fall. Broken glass and ornaments littered the living room, a virtual graveyard of Christmas, and as Melissa stared at it in horror, the fire alarm went off.
    Oh no…
    “My cookies!” She ran to the kitchen—the smoke-filled kitchen—and hurriedly turned off the oven. Then she pulled out the cookies. Burned to a crisp.
    Ian strode to the window and shoved it open to let in the twenty-degree, icy winter air before turning with an intense look in the direction of his pantry.
    “Melissa,” he said with shocking calm in the middle of such chaos, “why is my pantry barking?”
    Tossing aside the oven mitts, Melissa opened the pantry and scooped up the eight-week-old black lab puppy with the red bow around her neck. “I didn’t plan for it to go like this,” she said. “But…” She tried for a smile as she thrust out the puppy. “Merry Christmas?”
    Ian stared at her, and then at the wriggling, panting, happy creature in her arms. “You got me a puppy?”
    Melissa set her in his arms.
    The puppy went ape-shit ecstatic at having a new person to lick to death. Trying to get at Ian, she was running a marathon in place, desperate to get closer. The second he pulled her in she made happy little puppy sounds, then sighed a big puppy sigh as she relaxed into a boneless state and… peed on him.

Chapter 6
    Ian tucked the puppy under one arm, opened a second window, and turned on the oven fan, then strode into the living room. He’d already unplugged the tree lights, but now he made sure everything else was turned off. “Don’t come in here,” he said over his shoulder to the silent woman in the doorway. “You’re not wearing shoes.”
    Melissa hugged herself. “I’m so sorry. This isn’t how I thought things would go.”
    Ian wondered how she thought things
would
go, but he said nothing as he went into his bedroom next. There he set the puppy on the floor. “Stay,” he told her, and changed his shirt.
    Less than ten seconds later, the puppy was already chewing on a shoe. Ian scooped her back up and got licked across his chin for the effort. “You’re as big a troublemaker as she is, aren’t you?” he asked.
    The puppy panted happily, blowing warm puppy breath into his face.
    Ian carried her into the living room. Melissa had found a broom and a trash can. Still dressed as a fairy-slash-elf, she was cleaning up the mess. She’d shoved her feet into a pair of his winter boots. They were huge on her but she didn’t appear to notice as she struggled to right the tree. Coming up behind her, he took over.