His eyes glowed. ‘Sounds like my favourite kind.’ He ducked into the kitchen and emerged with champagne and glasses. ‘Christmas Eve was so disastrous that we never got around to this.’

Her heart squeezed at the sudden desolation on his face. Then his smile swept it away and he hustled her upstairs to his bedroom, where her bag waited. Such a lot seemed to have happened since she’d left it there.

Grady poured the champagne, though Laurel thought she was fizzing enough already, and they toasted each other. Then they cuddled on the bed while Grady opened his present, wrapped in silver and tied with red ribbon. ‘So this is what made your bag heavy,’ he marvelled when he finally revealed the sculpture of the couple, turning it in his hands, running his fingers over the smooth lines of the two naked bodies. ‘I like this. It’s horny.’

Laurel choked on her champagne. ‘It’s not supposed to be horny, you Philistine. It’s a celebration of the beauty of the human body.’

‘The sculptor picked two particularly sexy bodies to celebrate,’ he observed, undaunted. Tugging her to her feet, he took her over to the full-length mirror and tried to copy the pose of the sculpted couple. ‘It would work better without clothes. Then these two sexy people would be us.’

She giggled, rubbing happily against him. ‘Nakedness could be arranged.’

But he leaned out of her embrace to pick up the sculpture again and examine it. ‘Would you mind if I changed it?’

She stopped short in surprise. ‘Don’t you like it? I’m not sure about returning an original sculpture to a gallery but I can keep it and you can choose something else.’

He quirked his eyebrows at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘Of course I like it! I love it. I just want to change it a bit.’ He turned it so she could see the base. ‘I want to cut through the base so the man and woman touch. Then I’m going to glue them together with something fierce like epoxy resin, so they’re together forever. Like us.’

Laurel melted against him and kissed his neck. ‘That sounds perfect. But … do it later, OK?’

He put down the sculpture and let her lead him to the bed. ‘Later works for me. Let’s not waste this mistletoe.’

Acknowledgements

A host of people have helped me bring you Under the Mistletoe and I’m grateful and thankful for them.

Sue McDonagh, writer and artist, was my first port of call when creating Laurel’s life as an artist. Laurel’s work is inspired by the paintings of artist Ismael Costa and also Sue McDonagh’s own gorgeous portraits of children. See her work at www.suemcdonagh.co.uk. Also, if you like my books, you might well enjoy hers. I do.