Jingle Balls: A Holiday Romantic Comedy Anthology

by Dylann Crush

  “Go back over there,” Lu said. “And just be yourself. Learn about the guy. And then report back.”

  I took a deep breath. I could do this. Of course I could do this. I strode back toward the windows, toward the giant tower of sheer sexiness that was my date. “Sorry about that,” I said, happy to find actual words coming out of my mouth.

  “Rose,” PJ said, pulling my attention away from the behemoth of hotness. “This is Becky. Becky, this is my boss, Rose.”

  I glanced at Ash as PJ called me his boss and the man’s eyebrows lifted with interest. That was good. “Hi Becky,” I said, greeting the girl. She was pretty, with blond straight hair, a depth of intelligence in her dark-eyed gaze, and pink full lips.

  “Hello,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Polite too.

  “Would you like to get a drink, Rose?” Ash’s voice was like warm caramel, wrapping around me, pulling me to him.

  I turned back to him and managed a nod. “Yeah,” I thought I heard myself whisper. “Okay.”

  We left PJ and Becky and headed back to the bar, Ash’s big hand on the small of my back. Heat emanated from the spot where he touched me, and already I was imagining that big hand sliding over other parts of my body.

  When we each had a drink and were seated at one of the high-top tables next to the windows, Ash turned every powerful ounce of his attention on me and lifted his glass. “Cheers.”

  I was a goner.

  4

  ASH

  On Behalf of Birds…

  I was going to kill Max.

  This woman—Rose—was the whole fucking package. He’d given me what equated to her resume as we’d come over in the car, and I guessed he knew her pretty well somehow. The woman had graduated top of her class at CalTech and gone on to get a master’s degree in computer engineering from MIT. And then founded her own cyber security company, and based on the information Max had about the company, she was killing it.

  And now that I’d met her, stood trapped in that keen intelligent gaze and felt the sheer magnetism between her tight curvy little body and my own . . . Well, I worried that was going to make it hard to go back to Alaska. I wasn’t normally away from the boat in December as it was, but this year Mom had demanded I be home for the holiday, and I gave in, hiring another captain for my boat. Taking time off wouldn’t kill me—it wasn’t like I needed the money.

  But I did need to be able to get away from San Diego, and getting involved with someone who lived here was not a good idea. I didn’t need one more thing pulling me back.

  Rose sat close at my side, the red sequins of her dress glinting and reflecting the light around us. Her long legs were crossed beneath the tall table, and the curve of her calf made me want to reach down and caress it, maybe let my hand slide up a bit higher, feel the strength of her thighs, maybe hear her moan. But I was getting ahead of myself.

  “Tell me something that’ll surprise me,” I said, and the way her pretty lips dropped open and her eyes widened told me that was not the expected first conversational salvo.

  Her mouth closed, those pretty red lips pressing together, and then she spoke, and her voice was creamy rich coffee and quiet dark nights in front of a fire. “I’m not a fan of birds.”

  That wasn’t exactly expected. “No?”

  “No.” A little smile lifted one corner of her mouth. She was flirting, and I loved it. My body was humming with anticipation—not of anything that might happen between us per se, but of her next words, her next breath. Just being next to her was the most exciting thing I’d experienced in a long, long time.

  “It seems unfair to rule out all birds just like that. What about Big Bird? He seems like a good dude. And penguins? They’re so cute and waddly. And how about that one in the hand, and the ones in the bush? Useful, no?”

  She was giggling, leaning forward over the table and shaking her head. “Waddly is not a word. And the bush, really?”

  “Too soon for bush jokes?” I leaned in, loving the way her dark eyes flashed with amusement.

  “Definitely too soon.” She picked up her drink and took a sip, the long column of her throat moving as she swallowed. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. She put down the glass lightly. “City birds—like pigeons, and maybe seagulls—they have a weird thing for me. Like they know I hate them, so they wait for me outside my office building and then try to kill me.”

  “Pigeons try to kill you when you leave work?”

  “Yes. All the time. They dive bomb me and follow me around, and they try to hit me with their… you know.”

  “Have you been pooped on, Rose?” I grinned at her.

  She pressed those perfect lips into a frown, and all I could think about for a split second was what the red lipstick she wore might look like, rubbed off on me if she were to wrap her lips around certain parts of my body. “I have. And it was awful. I’m scarred for life.”

  “Well, despite the scars, you look okay to me. Actually,” I paused. How much was too much here? “You’re beautiful.”

  She held my gaze when I said that, and my body heated as she watched me, everything inside me tightening up. Other women would blush or drop their eyes at a blatant compliment. But not this one. God, she was sexy.

  “Thank you, Ash,” she said. “So tell me about Alaska. I’ve never been there.”

  “Well, in my line of work, there are a lot of birds,” I began, hoping to see her smile again.

  “Crab fishing, right?”

  I confirmed this with a tilt of my head as I sipped my whiskey.

  “It must be gorgeous up there. And pretty heart-pounding work, I’d guess.”

  “Both are accurate.” I considered her. Every other woman I’d dated asked if it was dangerous and cringed when I confirmed that it was. But not Rose. She seemed to understand on some deeper level that it wasn’t about the danger—it was about finding something that reminded you, minute by minute, that you were alive. “It’s like nothing else in the world. As soon as we’re out of the harbor, you get this feeling like you’re just on your own, being tested. You against nature.”

  “I imagine you’ve had some close calls. How long have you been fishing?”

  “I joined my first crew at about twenty-five. Bought my boat last year.”

  “You’re a captain,” she observed.

  “I am.”

  “But you grew up here? What made you leave San Diego?”

  “My mother, mostly.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into all the details of my family and their ridiculous expectations.

  “She’s still here?”

  “She is,” I said, and thinking of Mom required a very large swallow of my drink.

  “And you live in Alaska full time?”

  “Yeah. Even in the off season I usually stay up there. It’s easier than going back and forth, trying to split my life in two.” I didn’t say any more about it being easier than being here, trying to fend off my mother’s attempts to make me into the man she thought I should be.

  But Rose was smart. “You don’t like being in San Diego.” She was frowning at me, looking for answers.

  “It’s not about like,” I said slowly. I sighed. “My dad died about ten years ago. He had cancer, so he sold his company, set us up to live well in his absence.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said.

  And I was too. My parents hadn’t been happy, and he didn’t want to leave everything to her. I inherited everything, and I basically give my mother an allowance each year. None of which was polite conversation. “Mom just depends on me more than I wish she did,” I hedged.

  “Oh,” Rose said, “that’s complicated.”

  “It is,” I agreed. Mom was terrified that I’d get killed fishing, that she’d be destitute. “My mother is very focused on the material things. She worries about losing her lifestyle, her big house.”

  “Sure,” Rose said, and I could see in one instant that none of those things mattered to her. She looked sad, and her next wor
ds proved what kind of woman she was. “So you’re not close with your mother?”

  “No,” I said. “Not since I was little. Back then taking polo lessons and going to cotillion seemed normal. But now, being forced into slacks with ducks all over them and made to sit at dinners with fourteen forks so my mother can marry me into even more money just doesn’t really suit me.”

  Rose was looking at me, her eyes narrowed. “You’re Ashton Saint,” she murmured, and I knew she was thinking of my father, the first Ashton Saint, the man who owned half of the buildings in downtown San Diego. “You’re actually the landlord of the space my company rents,” she murmured.

  “Remind me to reduce your rent,” I joked.

  A hoot erupted from the other side of the room where the dance floor was set up, and we both looked over to see one of the Sharks players—Trace Johnson, I thought—doing the worm on the dance floor, his white tux shirt picking up every mote of dirt and dust as he flailed from one side of the hardwood to the other. A beautiful woman in a silver dress with dark hair was standing at one side of the space, her arms crossed. She looked pissed, and when he finally got up, a wide grin on his face, she said loudly, “You promised!” There was murder in her expression, and for a split second, I felt sorry for the guy—she was clearly wearing the pants in that relationship, and she was not pleased.

  The other players were standing around watching the spectacle, and I recalled Max telling me that Johnson was sometimes hard to handle in the off season. The guy was huge—the Sharks keeper, I recalled—and he was laughing like a maniac.

  “I hear he was even more rambunctious before he got engaged,” Rose said, watching the players.

  That was hard to believe. I turned back to Rose, glad for the break so I could move conversation away from my family. “Rose, I’ll be honest. You don’t seem like you’d need Mr. Match to find you a guy.”

  She laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in her face. “You’d be surprised.” She squinted for a moment, as if looking deep inside her mind for the next words she wanted to say. “I don’t have a lot of time to date,” she said. “And when I meet men out, at bars or at the beach, or whatever, they never seem to be quite the right type.”

  “What’s the right type?” I found myself on the edge of my seat, hoping it was me. Which was ridiculous. I didn’t have time to date, either.

  “I need someone who understands commitment to a goal, someone driven and focused who won’t resent me for being that way. I need a partner.” She delivered this last line, gazing squarely into my eyes again, and a thrill went through me.

  Despite my complete inability to commit to anything right now, I found myself wanting Rose to ask me to commit to her. Maybe not forever, maybe just for tonight. “I get it,” I said honestly.

  “But what I’m wondering,” she said. “Is why you would use a matchmaking service.”

  The answer was pretty simple. “Max Winchell made me.”

  “The Sharks forward?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why does he care?”

  I shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure. But we’ve been friends since elementary school, and a couple years ago he was on some kind of rampage to get everyone he knew to fill out a profile for this thing. Honestly? I think he’s got stock in the company or something.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah. Exactly. But I did it, and then I forgot about it. And I’ve never heard another word. Except for this thing tonight, which Max said was a Mr. Match event.”

  “And you’re my match,” Rose said simply.

  Except that Max had set this up, not Mr. Match. “I guess so,” I said, not too worried about the details now that Rose was here in front of me.

  “I guess it just took a while for us to find a match,” she said, and my body thrilled at her words, even though I didn’t think I could be anyone’s match. Maybe we could be perfect for each other, but it could only be for tonight.

  5

  ROSE

  This Tree Looks Comfy

  If you had asked me even five minutes before showing up at the ball tonight if a crab boat captain could possibly be my perfect match, I would have told you no. And I would have laughed.

  But now?

  A wispy thread of magic had blown in on the breeze tonight, twined itself around me, around Ash, and pulled us together. And though I didn’t believe in magic, I could feel it on my skin, in my body. The man next to me emanated a sexy confidence, along with a certain reassuring warmth. I had no doubt that he could handle anything that came across his path. I was also pretty sure there was something important in his life that he wasn’t telling me about.

  But with his onyx eyes on me and a flush of hot anticipation rolling through me, I found I didn’t really care.

  I’d always said I was too busy for a relationship, and that had not changed. But for the first time in a while, I found that I very much wanted to spend more time with a man. Even if it was only a few hours or a few days. It didn’t have to be forever, but I wanted to know everything there was to know about Ash. And I wanted to know every inch of his skin, too—and that was a feeling I definitely hadn’t had in a long time.

  The Sharks had calmed down across the room, and Ash’s gaze was back on me. The party had filled up around us, and there were hundreds of people in formalwear glittering and sparkling beneath the glowing lights. The DJ was beginning to play, and I could feel the energy in the room ramping up.

  Ash was watching me as I looked around the space. I could feel his gaze on my skin like a light shawl tracing over my shoulders, tickling my chin, and for maybe the first time in my life, I felt shy as I lifted my eyes back to his.

  As soon as our eyes met, something in me locked into place, and Ash’s sexy smile lifted at the corners again.

  “Do you want to dance, Rose?”

  The DJ had begun to play “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” The idea of being in Ash’s arms, pressed close to that hard broad chest was irresistible.

  “Sure,” I said, slipping off the stool where I sat.

  He held a hand out and I took it, warmth climbing through me the second our skin touched. As I walked with him toward the dance floor, I caught Lulu’s eyes through the crowd, and she grinned and lifted two thumbs up. I smiled back, surprised to find myself in this situation but unwilling to question it.

  Ash stepped onto the dance floor and tugged my hand, pulling me into his arms. For a moment, it was awkward, my hands sliding slowly around him, tracing an unfamiliar path along the planes of muscle that made up this handsome man. But then his hand slipped around the small of my back, landing just above the curve of my ass, and the other wrapped across my shoulder, his broad palm spread across the center of my back.

  We were so close I could breathe him in, and his scent was like wind across the ocean—fresh and wild, with an undercurrent of spice. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, and as he pulled me nearer, my cheek coming to rest on that broad hard chest, I closed my eyes, letting my mind free to wander.

  Ash was huge, and being wrapped up in his arms made me feel small and safe, something I rarely craved. I was in charge most of the time, but I knew that with Ash, I didn’t have to be. At the same time, he didn’t seem like a guy who was threatened by my dominance—in fact, for the first time ever, I wondered if maybe I could be part of a matched pair.

  “Is this okay?” he asked, loosening his grip slightly to let me move back enough to look up at his face. His dark eyes were hooded as he looked down at me, a light flush colored his neck and cheeks. Shit. He looked aroused, and the thought of it made my own body flush.

  “It’s . . .” And I’d lost the ability to speak again.

  He stared down at me, that sexy smile widening, and I was certain he knew exactly what I felt. His eyes dropped to my lips, and every muscle inside me coiled in anticipation. He was going to kiss me.

  We weren’t dancing now, just standing on the dance floor, staring at one another as people moved around us an
d the music shifted to a George Michael holiday song.

  I didn’t care what music played. My attention was focused on the mountain of sex standing in front of me, his hands on my body and his eyes on my lips in a predatory gaze. I pressed up onto the balls of my feet, decreasing the distance between us.

  And that did it. Ash closed the distance, brushing his lips against mine in a slow exploration, asking a question I only had one answer to.

  Yes.

  He paused, and then he angled his mouth against mine, lightly at first and then more firmly, his arms tightening around me and that big hand on my low back dropping to brush my ass. I opened my mouth to him, and then I was lost in sensation. Tongues, breath, mouths and hands moved in a synchronized way that was half dance, half battle. This, I thought faintly, was what it was like to have a man who was your equal.

  After a kiss that literally changed the way I thought about the world, Ash released me, and I stepped back, my chest heaving as I regained my breath.

  The sexy smile was back, but I could see that the kiss had affected him too. He took my hand and pulled me away from the dance floor, back toward our table.

  It was strange. I felt the world opening up before me, like a curtain had been lifted and revealed a realm of possibilities I never knew existed—had never even looked for. But now, suddenly, hope filled my heart that maybe one of them could be real. I knew it was because I was suddenly considering what life might be like with a man at my side, not just any man, but my match. He might have been sixth, but Lulu was right.

  It was possible that I’d met my match in Ash.

  We danced off and on for another hour, talking and laughing like we’d known each other longer than just an evening. Eventually, the lights in the room dimmed a bit, and we moved back to our table, laughing.

  As he pulled out the chair for me, my eyes scanned the room, and landed on a rumpled pile of boy-man half-leaning, half-lying on the wall behind him near the windows. Next to him was a very pretty young blond girl, wringing her hands and looking around with panic in her eyes. PJ and Becky.