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“I love watching you move against me.”
Claire pressed down harder. Erin maintained the angle inside her while her free hand moved up to cup Claire’s breast. She stroked the tight nipple as Claire rode her faster, chasing the release already tightening through her body.
Claire’s rhythm faltered. She caught it once, then pitched forward and braced one hand beside Erin’s head.
“Erin.”
Erin held the pressure exactly where Claire needed it.
Claire came around her fingers. A cry tore from her as the contractions moved through her, leaving her shaking above Erin.
Erin stopped and waited until Claire’s body relaxed. Then she withdrew her fingers carefully and guided Claire down against her chest. Claire lay across her, breathless, while Erin wrapped both arms around her. For several minutes, Claire remained sprawled across her, cheek resting over Erin’s heart. Erin stroked one hand down her back while her breathing gradually steadied.
Claire finally lifted her head. “Is this how you treat everyone who comes into your boutique on Christmas Eve?”
Erin kissed her. “Only the ones who bring avalanches.”
Claire laughed against her mouth, then kissed her again.
“Remember when you said we should make this Christmas more memorable?” Claire asked.
Erin smiled. “I remember.”
“I think we succeeded.”
Chapter Eleven
The forest-green cable-knit sweater sat a little loose across her shoulders, and the sleeves covered half her hands unless she folded them back. A faint trace of Claire’s Hermès perfume clung to the wool, and Erin caught it every time she turned her head.
She hadn’t asked to borrow the sweater. Claire had pulled it from the closet, held it against Erin’s chest, and said, “This will keep you warmer than the shirt you wore last night.” Then she’d buttoned Erin’s coat over it as though the matter were settled.
Main Street sparkled under the piercing sunlight bouncing off the snowbanks. Plows had banked the snow into clean walls along the sidewalks, and the storefronts still wore their Christmas garlands and wreaths hung from the old-fashioned streetlamps. Cars moved slowly over the packed road while pedestrians claimed the cleared sidewalks. Beyond the rooftops, mountains crowded around Ouray so closely that the town appeared tucked into them for safekeeping. Erin sometimes forgot they were there until a visitor tipped their head back and went silent.
Claire, in a navy knit hat and oversized sunglasses, tipped her head back now. “How do you stop noticing them?”
“You don’t. You just stop almost walking into traffic.”
They passed the hardware store and the old Western hotel with its wooden balcony. Erin pointed out the bookshop where the owner kept a rescue greyhound behind the counter and had assembled the best sapphic fiction section Erin had found anywhere in Colorado. She had once gone inside for a birthday card and emerged with four novels and no card.
“We’re stopping there on the way back,” Claire said.
Erin smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Claire’s gloved hand found the loose cuff of the sweater at Erin’s left wrist and turned the fold one more time, pressing the wool flat with her thumb before letting go. She did it the way she’d straightened the napkins at dinner, noticing the small disorder and quietly setting it right.
Erin felt it travel straight through the cable-knit.
“Ready for coffee?” Claire asked.
“Please. I’m running on very little sleep.”
“I seem to remember you being completely responsible for that.”
Erin smiled. “Completely?”
Claire’s mouth curved. “You’re right. I contributed enthusiastically.”
Erin steered them left toward the narrow blue awning of the Magpie Café, where the hand-painted sign had faded to the exact color of a robin’s egg. Before she could reach for the door, it swung open and Gloria Beecham appeared in her flour-dusted apron, arms already spreading.
