Page 53 of Pretty

We locked our lips together and dragged out our kiss. It had been an amazing evening and night, and Drew was everything my heart needed.

CHRISTMAS DAY

“Hey, beautiful.” I greeted Pretty with a kiss and wrapped an arm around her waist. She had met me at the edge of the sidewalk at the lodge we were staying in.

“Heyyy, baby. Are those for me?” she asked, pointing at the bouquet of tulips and roses in my other arm.

“Nah. This beautiful, older woman gave them to me and asked me to be her man. She said since I didn’t have a skiing partner, she wouldn’t mind being my partner for life,” I teased.

Pretty shoved my shoulder playfully. “All right. Don’t get that old woman fucked up out here.”

“Damn! Language, baby, language.” I chuckled. I handed the flowers to her and kissed her lips sweetly again. “I was only thinking about you up on those slopes. As soon as I finished, I walked into the gift shop and got these for you. I’m a territorial ass nigga, but I had no idea you were kinda that way too.”

“I won’t deny it; I’m a bit territorial myself. You’d better remember who you belong to.”

“I’ll never forget that I’m yours and you’re mine. On the real, though, I can’t believe that you didn’t hit the slopes with me.” I took her hand, and we walked back into the lodge.

“I told you that you weren’t about to get me out there and break my neck.”

We stopped at the front desk, grabbed our hot chocolate, and headed to the lounge area by the large picture windows and found comfortable seats.

“Girl, you’re being dramatic. I told you that you could take the bunny trail. You think I would let you hurt yourself?”

“I wasn’t about to find out. Besides, why would I risk it all on the bunny trail when you were out there expertly skiing like a pro? We wouldn’t be together anyway, so what difference did it make?” she teased, sticking her tongue out at me.

I captured her chin and tugged on it until she opened her mouth. I seductively sucked her tongue. She moaned, and I gave her thigh a little squeeze. “You’d better watch that tongue of yours.”

“Whatever. Back to what I was saying. Why would I risk it all? We weren’t going to be together on the slopes, so it didn’t matter if I stayed behind at the lodge, now, did it?”

“That’s your excuse, and you’re sticking to it, huh?”

“Yep. I might as well have stayed inside and remained warm while you froze your butt off in all that snow and ice.”

“Even if you weren’t a trooper or a ride-or-die⁠—”

“Hey! Who said I wasn’t? I was all about the ride, but that dying had a different ring to it.”

I laughed. “Girl, you didn’t even take the ride.”

“Well, did I really need to get in that lift chair thingy and ride to the top of the mountain, just to ride back down and have done nothing?”

“It’s all about the experience, baby.”

“I think I’m pretty well experienced, especially in all things Drew Jennings.”

“Experienced on riding this dick,” I muttered, smirking at her above the rim of my mug of hot chocolate. “This is the best Christmas that I’ve had in a long while, babe. I wanted to tell you that and thank you for this gift.”

Pretty had gifted me with a Christmas trip to Aspen, Colorado. I had always wanted to spend the Christmas holiday at a ski resort. This resort had so many things to do beyond skiing, and we’d had fun doing everything together, except skiing.

“You’ve been so good to me, Drew. This was the least that I could do to bring happiness and joy to your life. You’re always doing beautiful things for me. Take this for instance.” She held out her ring finger on her left hand and marveled at the rock that I placed there. With her chin resting in the palm of her right hand, she stared at the ring on her left hand. “You didn’t have to go through all of that to propose to me. You could’ve just taken me out to dinner and proposed or walked to my house and proposed over a good meal, or anything regular, but you didn’t. You created an entire event to bring people out to tell me how special I am, how much they appreciated me, and in front of all those folks, you asked me to be yours. That was so very special and sweet, Drew. So romantic.”

I smirked. “It was the least that you deserved, baby. How are we going to spend the rest of our Christmas Day?” I asked.

“Well, we spoke to our family on video chat first thing this morning. We’ve exchanged our gifts to one another, and you’ve been skiing. We’ve been ice skating and sledding already. We don’t need to shop anymore. I think we bought their stores out,” she declared with a giggle. We’d shopped every day that we’d been in the small town, except for today.

“Okay, but how about a mild outdoor activity?”

She turned her lips down and asked, “How mild?”