"This feeling, it's been awhile.
I won't say I missed you but welcome back. Take your time and make yourself at home.
Sorry about all the shattered glass, I couldn't clean it up by myself."
- Marc Razon

**

Everyone piles into the kitchen as soon as Sally announces that we are going to be baking a whole lot of treats for Christmas right after dinner ends.

Sally and Georgia pull out bags and boxes of ingredients from a couple of grocery bags and lay them out on the kitchen island in record time. "Who wants to bake?" Sally questions us and I turn to Luke.

"Cookies or cake?" I whisper to him and he looks down at me a little offended at my question.

"You're making me choose between cookies and cake? How cruel is that?" He scoffs, putting his arm around my shoulder but I shrug it off and grab one of the many aprons hanging from a hook on the wall. It is red and white with a large teddy bear in the middle holding a banner that says "Best Chef."

"Cookies or cake?" I repeat the question, amused at his distress.

"Cookies." He finally says, rolling his eyes and grabbing a green apron.

I quickly turn away from him and raise my hand, getting Sally's attention. "Yes, dear?" She asks, looking at me over the rim of her glasses.

"May I help with the cookies?" I ask tying the knot of the apron around my waist.

"Always so polite." Luke gives a breathy laugh behind me.

"Of course! Of course! Come on then." She motions at me to come to her side of the kitchen counter and I manoeuvre my way through everyone towards her.

"I was thinking about making the chocolate truffle cookies first." She tells me and I swoon a little since I haven't had chocolate truffle cookies in decades.

I nod at her list of cookies in mind with enthusiasm and smirk at Luke who is now leaning towards us from the other side with his elbows on the kitchen island. "I like chocolate." He says and Sally grins.

"Lovely then! Let's get started."

She pulls out a large cookbook with tapered and stained pages and flips through them. "Aha!" She finally points at a recipe and slides the book towards me.

I scan the ingredients and vaguely remember my mother making it one Christmas.

"I got this," I tell Sally when she hands me a bowl and whisk along with all the ingredients needed and lets me get to work.

Adelaide and Montana start to bake the first cake after Sally finally gives in and lets them after all the pleading they do. Georgia gets started on the pies, Michael hovering around her while she goes through the ingredients. They have been inseparable since the day we got here.

The kitchen is filled with homely sounds of laughter and light chatter. Kitchen supplies clinking against each other as everyone gets down to work.

Luke watches what I'm doing intently without saying much and I smile down at my bowl as I cream the butter and sugar together. He gets restless after awhile and decides to help Ashton with a cherry pie that he is attempting to make, a pie I'm pretty sure no one will want to taste for the fear of immediate death.

I almost drop my bowl with the mixture in it as my body wracks with laughter when Luke shakes half a bottle of salt into a bowl of raw tomatoes that he has spent the last ten minutes squashing with a spoon.

Luke eventually gives up on it and comes back to his spot on the kitchen island in front of me, singing and shaking a pepper shaker, I take my bowl out of his reach and put it under the mixer and blend in the flour when I'm satisfied with all the ingredients.

"I thought you said you can't cook?" He recalls and I shrug.

"Never said I can't bake. Plus, with the number of cookies my mom has made through the years, I can do it with my eyes closed."

"Really now?" He grins and I stop mid-stir, the bowl of chocolate chips in my hands still raised.

He just stares at me so I snicker with a shake of my head and dump the rest of the chocolate chips into the mixer. "What are you planning in that head of yours?"

"Oh, nothing mu—" Luke starts to say with a shake of his pepper shaker again but there is a loud noise followed by Adelaide's shouts. "Ashton!"

A burst of laughter resonates through the room and I turn off the mixer—looking to my left to see a cloud of white engulfing half the kitchen. For a second, I think the snow has made it into the house but then realise that it is much thinner and is puffing out from something.

My hand flies up to cover my mouth in utter shock and amusement when Montana and Adelaide cough flour out of their mouths, gaping at each other's ghost white appearances.

"You idiot!" Montana screams down at the ground where Ashton and Calum are rolling around with uncontrollable laughter, covered in flour as well.

"He put the flour in the blender without the top on!" Adelaide yells, trying to explain it to a shocked Sally who is trying to hold back her laughter.

Fred walks into the kitchen hurriedly to see the white clouds and chaos. "Oh, my." He remarks, lifting his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

I look at Luke and see his gaping expression and the laugh that I'm trying to hold back breaks free.

"Oh my god." I gasp with laughter and lean into Michael who is miraculously next to me.

Montana can't help but laugh at the sound of my laughter as she wipes her face with a kitchen towel and passes it to Adelaide who even with the white flour covering her face, still manages to look red with embarrassment.

Ashton manages to tamp down his laughter and get off the floor to apologise to Addy. Georgia warns him to stay away from the pies from now on.

"You suck." Addy accuses Ashton and Michael who has been stealing cookie dough out of my mixing bowl, chokes, coughing loudly.

I want to swat his hands away from the bowl but instead, I clap his back and he gulps down some orange juice from a glass nearby. I wipe at my teary eyes with the crook of my arm, the look of shock on the girls faces still making me feel overjoyed.

To everyone's amusement, Sally makes Ashton and Calum clean up the mess and I get back to work on my cookies.

I roll the dough with a large rolling pin that is even bigger than my forearm according to Michael and force myself to not eat all the cookie dough before they even have a chance at the life of being a beautiful, well-baked cookie.

Luke wraps his flour covered arms around my waist and lays his chin on my shoulder as I roll the balls of dough in cocoa powder and lay them in neat rows on the trays with white baking sheets on them.

"Need any help?" He murmurs and I shake my head quickly knowing that his help would most likely entail an entire bottle of spices slipping into my chocolate cookies.

"How is the pie going?" I ask, leaning my head back to catch the scent of the cherries from the juice Ashton squirted on Luke earlier.

He pouts at this. "Sally said that she doesn't want a heart attack at seventy-five."

I lay the last ball of dough on the sheet and quickly peck his pout, agreeing with Sally. I carry the tray carefully towards the large oven, taking care not to slip on the flour that is everywhere on the ground. Luke follows me and opens the oven door for me and smiles like a kid as I slide them in.

"Are those all for me?" He asks giddily.

"When did I say that? None of it is for you." I reply and shut the door, setting the alarm to ring when it's done.

Luke takes my hand and pulls me into his chest, unravelling the knot that is holding the apron around my waist. "You have flour on your nose." He says huskily and kisses it, his lips coming off powdered white.

"Oh no." I pull the hem of my green flannel up to wipe it off but he moves my hand away and wipes at my cheek with the sleeve of his striped sweater.

"There you go." He says lightly and stares into my eyes. I stare back into his blue ones and wonder what he is thinking. He was deep in thought while we were at dinner a couple of hours ago as well. 

I raise myself onto my tiptoes so I am in level with him and kiss him lightly, the noises of the kitchen around us fading a little. His lips are soft and warm on mine and he deepens the kiss, pulling me closer to him by the waist. I wrap my arms around his neck and lean into him.

"Let's get out of here." He moans into my mouth and pulls away quickly, already dragging me behind him.

"—but my cookies!" I complain breathlessly but he doesn't stop. I remove my apron completely and drape it over a chair as we pass by it quickly.

Hopefully, someone checks on the cookies when the alarm goes off so all my work doesn't become ashes.

Luke hurries me out through the back kitchen door of the Rayners house and into the back of the little guest house through a pathway I didn't know existed till now. It is closed off so the ground is clear of snow and isn't as cold.

Luke shuffles us into the little guest house that we have been staying in for the past week and closes the door behind him. It is strangely quiet for once since everyone else is over at the other house.

Luke turns around to face me and his cheeks are flushed, his eyes glazed. "Sierra." He says deep in his throat and before I can breathe a word out, I am in his arms again, his lips on mine.

There is an emergency in his movements and a strain in his limbs but his lips are soft on mine as if he is scared that I will push him away.

Instead, I revel in the taste of him and pull him closer to me, urging him on. I wrap my arms around his neck and he grips my thighs, pushing me up his body and wrapping my legs around his waist and backing us into a wall.

I feel the heat rise between my skin and the places where his bare skin touches mine and I want to feel it everywhere. I tug at the hem of his sweater, indicating that I want it off.

His lips halt its way down my neck for a moment so I can slip the sweater over his head. I throw it onto the ground and his lips connect with mine once more. The sensation of both our need mixed together weakens my body and I slip an inch down his hip. Luke secures me around his body with his arms gripping me tightly and starts walking.

I pull away from his lips and trail kisses down his neck as he kicks open our bedroom door and kicks it closed behind us again. I gasp when I land on the soft mattress of the bed. He quickly climbs on top of me but I don't feel any of his weight.

I protest at this furrowing my eyebrows and he lowers his body onto me, slowly so that I'm not crushed by his weight. "I'm too heavy baby." He murmurs when I wrap my arms around his shoulders and tug him down some more.

"I'm not fragile," I say and kiss him harder, my tongue sliding along his lips. He tastes like cinnamon and cherries and mint all at the same time.

Luke moans into my mouth, pulling at the buttons of my flannel and I lift my hands so that he can slide it over my head easily. He gulps a little at the sight of my plain black bra and I feel it right at the core of my stomach, my skin burning everywhere his gaze lingers.

He peppers kisses down my chest and his fingers wander over my sensitive skin, moving towards the hook in the front between the two cups of my bra.

"If I take this off," he groans deep in his throat and I wrap my legs tighter around his waist. "If—if I take this off, I will not stop until everything else is off too." He manages to say into the hollow of my neck.

I want you to.

I want him to take it all off so I can feel every inch of his skin against mine but I clamp my mouth shut.

"But I can't. We can't yet." He says slowly bringing his face up to look at me again. Our laboured breathing louder than anything else in the world.

"Why not?" I whisper and he kisses me again quickly filling the little space that was clearing in my head to fill with insecurity.

Luke starts to plead. "Please don't think I don't want to, believe me, I want to, so badly but I just want it to be right." Worry flashes in his eyes as he wonders if he has hurt my feelings.

"I'll wait for whenever you're ready," I reassure him finally, my fingers tracing the planes of his face and his lips. His head falls a little, his forehead touching mine, our breath mixing together. I am so safe in his warmth that I feel myself murmur. "I love you."

Something sparks in my chest at my own words and he lifts his head again to look me in the eyes.

Why did I just say that?

His eyebrows furrow together like he is confused and something passes over his eyes. A moment later, he shifts his weight onto the bed and lays down next to me, pulling me on top of him.

"Don't leave me," Luke says, staring off into the distance above my head and I stare down at his beautiful face, not knowing how to respond. He looks at me again and sees my struggle for words and guides my head onto his chest.

"I will never," I promise and lay a kiss just above his heart.