The Naughty List Bundle with The Night Before Christmas & Yule Be Mine. Fern Michaels

beginnings and all that. Or, if I couldn’t wait, which I’m pretty sure would have been the case,” he said, grinning when she smiled, “I’d have had Saint Nicholas pay us a short visit next week on Christmas. But the time came upon me sooner than I’d planned…and I don’t want to go back without you.”

      “I don’t want you to, either.”

      “Is that…does that mean…will you?”

      It turned out he was quite adorable when he was flustered. She’d never once seen him lose his composure. Unless he was on top of her, making her come as he thundered through his own release. But that was different. His hopeful look claimed her heart just as fully as he’d claimed the rest of her. “It does,” she said, her smile trembling as the full force of the moment came over her.

      “You’ll have time to know for certain,” he said in a short rush. “We’ll apply for the visa and you can take that time to find the right place, and find out if you can stand having me in your—”

      So very adorably uncertain. “Griffin, I’m saying yes.” She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him. Fiercely. Possessively. And reveled in it. When they finally came up for air, she remembered…about the ring box. “Can I see it?”

      “Oh! Oh, right. Of course. This is brilliant!” He all but jumped and did a fist pump. She might have joined him. “Here.” He opened the box, working to get the hinge to spring free.

      “When did you get—oh, Griffin, it’s stunning. That setting.”

      “It was me mum’s engagement ring. Passed on to me.”

      “You just…carry it around with you?” she asked, stumbling, saying anything that came into her head, until she could pinch herself and make herself believe this was really happening. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. It wasn’t big and ostentatious, which suited her just fine. “It’s so charming, and so beautifully set.” She finally lifted her gaze to his. “I’d be honored, but…are you sure, Griffin?”

      “I had it sent to me three weeks ago.”

      “Three weeks—really?”

      “Remember the night you had to do all the cupcakes over for the Brunelli shower because—”

      “She found out it was a boy after not wanting to know, and announced it the day before the surprise shower, and her mother-in-law simply wouldn’t hear of having gender-neutral colors. Even on the cupcakes. Oh, I remember.” Melody smiled. “You stayed up half the night helping me. I was afraid you’d finally give up and walk away after that. I was not exactly a cheerful camper. But then, I’d had other plans for the night.”

      He wiggled his eyebrows. “I know. You came upstairs and I saw all the trouble you’d gone to—”

      “Well, we’d missed all of Thanksgiving together with everything else we were obligated to do and I just wanted something that made me feel like I had…” She drifted off then. She hadn’t told him her motivation behind cooking him a turkey and some of the other traditional dishes she’d always had growing up. She’d had to cater the civic center event that day, and Griffin had used the empty offices at Hamilton to run daylong conference calls back home so he could catch up on his work, uninterrupted. She’d never really felt she lacked family on that holiday as she’d usually been working the community affair and enjoyed the festive event just as much as a family dinner. Or so she’d told herself.

      But she’d missed being with Griffin that day, and watching the other families enjoy each other’s company…had made her wistful. So she’d picked the next time they both had time free, which had been a few days later, and decided to cook him a big meal. He didn’t have to know it was her Thanksgiving. But she did.

      And then…the great cupcake do-over had happened.

      “You wanted to create a moment, a memory, that made you feel like part of something more than just yourself. Or even a member of the community. You wanted us to have that meal, together. And I wanted that, too. You have no idea how badly.”

      She knew now, about his background. All of it. For him to want anything that resembled a family gathering…“Griffin, if I’d known, I’d have told Mrs. Brunelli to take her gender-neutral colors and—”

      “I sent for the ring the next day. I didn’t know when I was going to ask for your hand, Melody, but I knew then it was just a matter of making sure you wanted it, too.”

      “We’ve never said…”

      He grinned. “I took a chance.”

      She grinned. “It’s about to pay off. Can I…?” She nodded toward the box in his hand.

      “Let me.” He slid the ring from the aging, crushed velvet cushion, then set it aside to take her right hand.

      “It might not—it fits,” she said in wonder, as he slid it on her ring finger.

      “I might have borrowed one of your rings, just for a day.”

      She looked up from the joyful, charming antique ring adorning her finger to look at Griffin. “So, you’re telling me that Mr. Henneman knows.” He was the only jeweler in Hamilton.

      “Melody…everybody knows.”

      She started to ask how, then laughed at herself. She’d been so intent on keeping her little fantasy bubble intact, she’d tuned out all the chatter and gossip about what anyone thought of her and Griffin. “So…what’s the word?” she asked, admiring her ring as she slipped her hands up his shoulders and around his neck. “Should I have been placing bets down at Hannigans?”

      He shook his head. “The odds suck.”

      She felt a little deflated at that. “Really?”

      “Unless you were going to bet against us. Everyone thinks you’ll say yes.”

      “Oh!” She grinned then. “Well, turns out they were right.”

      He lifted her up into his arms and spun her around. “How much work is left on the Traybill cake?”

      “I finished just as you came in.” She leaned down and kissed him.

      “Perfect.”

      He scooped her up in his arms, which elicited a little squeal of surprise. She liked the caveman thing, too, as it turned out.

      He leaned over just enough so she could reach the worktable. “Grab that red one. The chocolate one, too,” he said, meaning her pastry bags.

      “Why?” she asked, even as she leaned down and snagged them both.

      “I thought we could start planning the wedding cake design a little early.” He turned and headed up the back stairs. He bumped them through the door and didn’t stop until she was in the middle of her bed.

      She hadn’t had the chance to make it since they’d left it earlier that morning. The linens were in a heap, and the pillows were still arranged in the way he’d moved them under her stomach so he could—

      “Oh!”

      He’d slipped her surgical pants down and had started to create his own version of a rose…on her inner thigh.

      “Damn,” he said. “That didn’t come out right.” He leaned down and caught her eye as he licked it off. “Let me try again.”

      “It’s dark in here, you can barely see. You don’t know how to do roses yet.”

      “I know.” He grinned. “Lucky you.” He slid her panties off, and started another one. Right in the middle of—“Damn,” he said, seconds later.

      Her hips rose to meet his tongue. “Lucky me, indeed,” she gasped. She reached for him, but he was intent on having his way with her…with his usual maddening, perfectly torturous, slowly wrenching thoroughness, until she was quivering, shaking, and clutching at him. “Come here,” she