My Kind of Christmas

asked, “The crash? Jake?”
    “Did I yell?”
    “No. You said his name. You made a sound. You stiffened and clenched your fists and started panting. And you wouldn’t wake up.”
    He gave a humorless laugh. “I was busy,” he said.
    “Does that happen a lot?”
    He let his lids close gently. “Not since you,” he said softly, opening his eyes again. “It’s been a couple of weeks, I guess. That’s why I won’t stay with my brothers. I thought I screamed. In the dream I scream. It’s like the real thing.”
    She shook her head. “You didn’t scream. I might not have known about the nightmare if I’d been in the next room.”
    “That’s good to know.”
    “Can you talk about it? About what happened that day?”
    He gave a shrug. “There’s not too much to tell. We were locating a terrorist cell on the Libya border, flying in low, making our presence felt. There were reports of a terrorist training post. There had been heavy fire from that place—we’d had casualties and fatalities. There had been reports of a lot of grenades, IEDs, gunfire, ground missiles. A couple of sorties to the area reported surface to air Russian-made air heat seekers, which were evaded by jets. There were some close calls, near-misses, and then a NATO helicopter was taken down. We saw the flash, evaded, but the bastard got Jake’s engine. And his plane just came apart—as if it were made of nothing more than plastic . I looked for a chute. I prayed for a chute. We thought we were clear but… We weren’t clear.”
    “Then what did you do?”
    “Went around, came back in and bombed the shit out of that place.”
    She was quiet for a second.
    “It’s what we’re paid to do, Angela,” he said.
    “I know, it’s just that I can’t imagine seeing a friend crash and then getting right back to the mission....”
    “It was the only satisfying thing that happened that day,” he said. But he turned his head away.
    She put her fingers on his chin and turned him back. “Have I said how sorry I am for your loss?”
    He gave her a small smile and pulled her down beside him. “You’re a sweet girl.”
    “You don’t treat me like a girl,” she said. “If I were really a girl, you’d be arrested.”
    “But your uncle Jack was right, you know—I have issues.”
    “We all do, Paddy. Including Uncle Jack. My aunts, Mel and Brie, have had some issues of their own—really tough stuff to get over. You’re not so different from the rest of us.” She gave his neck a kiss. “Can you fall back to sleep?”
    Sometimes he was afraid to sleep, which left him tired and angry. But when Angie was around, things didn’t seem so cold and empty. “Snuggle up here, angel. Rock me to sleep.”
    “My pleasure.”
    But sleep was not what she thought would comfort him the most. She caressed him—his shoulders, his chest, his belly. She kissed his neck until he rolled toward her and took her mouth with a vengeance. His hands started to move and when she groaned her pleasure, he laughed deep in his throat. Any lingering trace of his nightmare was now gone.
    They’d been together such a short time, yet it felt as if he’d known her a lifetime. They certainly got to know each other in a wonderfully intimate way. He grabbed her butt and turned her, fondled her, slipped his fingers into her and over her and got her wriggling toward a climax. She stroked him until he was moaning and reaching toward her.
    “I’ll be careful,” he whispered, reaching to the nightstand for his condom.
    “Please don’t be too careful,” she whispered back.
    Again that sexy laugh. “Feel like a wild ride, do you?”
    “Any ride with you is wild.”
    He knew every place to touch her, each erogenous spot that excited her, the movements that propelled her toward pleasure. When he hovered over her, spread her legs and entered her, she always gave him that satisfied sigh. When he rode her, she clung to him with a whimper of joy. He could always bring her to orgasm a couple of times before he took his own, and she couldn’t possibly know how happy that made him. That she responded to him so totally, gave herself so trustingly into his hands, let herself go like that… He was so grateful. It made him so happy he had to remind himself not to utter I love you .
    Instead, he said, “Angie, I’ve never been with a woman like you. You’re everything. You’re amazing. Thank you for loving me like this, for giving me all the sweetness you give