In the Spirit

by Shannon Stacey

  “Kinky people, I guess.”

  “No wonder you won’t go into the light. You’re already in kinky Christmas paraphernalia heaven.”

  “There was a cock ring with jingle bells on it, too, but who knows where that’s been. Actually, judging by the packaging, I think the kinky stuff may have been gag gifts.”

  Jessica grimaced. “Still, leaving sex toys in a rental property? Who does that?”

  He waved the handcuffs at her. “All the better for us, babe.”

  “What do you think you’re going to do with those?”

  “Get all my Christmas decorations back.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “No way, pal. I won this lack of festive crap fair and square. I’m not giving it back without a fight.”

  When he advanced on her, she put up no more than a token struggle. She’d play his little game, but there was no way in hell she was giving him back so much as a single decoration.

  Zach laughed at Jessica’s screech of sexual frustration. Only thirty minutes and she was already caving. Any second now she’d give in.

  It had taken the handcuffs, many yards of garland and one leg of the couch to put her totally at his mercy. They’d been sweaty and laughing by the time she figured out she couldn’t escape.

  She wasn’t laughing now.

  “Please, Zach.”

  He laughed at her begging tone. “I told you I’d make you come when you give me all my Christmas stuff back.”

  She screeched again and threw her head back against the couch. She was sitting on the floor in front of it with one foot tied to its wooden leg, and one tied to the armchair—and that had required some serious muscle on his part, along with a ton of red garland. He’d tried tying her leg to the Christmas tree she wanted to get rid of so badly, but she’d almost jerked the whole thing over on top of them.

  He picked up the bunch of tinsel he’d taped together at one end and ran it once again over her breasts. Her nipples hardened and, though she tried to resist, her back arched.

  His dick was so hard he was just praying she surrendered soon. After tormenting her for a half-hour, there was no way he could be the one who lost.

  To that end, he dropped to his knees in front of her. After switching the makeshift tinsel flogger to his left hand, he reached beneath her thighs with his right.

  She whimpered again when he slid a finger into her slick warmth. She was so smooth inside. Hot. Another finger. Her body squeezing.

  “Surrender, babe, and I’ll make you come.”

  She was panting now, pressing her pelvis against his hand. His own control was slipping, and it was time to play dirty. With a totally fake shrug, he pulled his fingers out and started to get up.

  “Okay, babe. I think I’ll go make some gingerbread cookies.”

  “Fine! You win. You can have it all back. Just fuck me, Zach. Now. Please!”

  If only she knew how close she’d come to winning. He entered her swiftly, and she came almost immediately, her hips bucking up against his. He watched her face as she came, memorizing the way the way her breath caught in her throat. The way she bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out.

  When her body shuddered and she finally shouted his name, he allowed himself to come, his mind giving him the sensation of pumping his come into her, even if his body no longer produced it.

  When the tremors passed, he collapsed next to her, wanting to savor this moment forever. But first, freeing Jessica from the garland and the toy handcuffs. He really wished he hadn’t tied the knots so tight.

  eee

  Damn him. She did not want to be enjoying this. But with each passing decoration they pulled from the boxes, she regressed further into the joy of her childhood. Perhaps it was Zach’s influence—his Christmas spirit was unrestrained and unabashed, just as hers had been, once upon a long time ago.

  But his enthusiasm was infectious, and it wasn’t long before she caught herself humming “Winter Wonderland” and shaking a snow globe for the third or fourth time.

  Unfortunately, Zach caught her, too. “You’re enjoying this.”

  Jessica set down the snow globe and straightened her shoulders. “No, I’m not. I’m just pretending for your sake.”

  He laughed at her. “You’re full of shit, babe. You are totally in the holiday mood.”

  She shrugged, unwilling—and unable—to deny it any more. So she was having fun. Big deal. His persistence was getting to her.

  “This is the Christmas I’ve been waiting for,” Zach said, and all of a sudden it was a very big deal indeed.

  If he got the Christmas he’d been waiting for, would he go into the light or cross over or whatever the hell it was ghosts were supposed to do? While she hadn’t managed to wrap her mind around any kind of a possible solution for their future, she also hadn’t managed to be okay with Zach not being a part of her life anymore.

  Pain started to edge out her newfound festive mood, and she shoved it down. She had no idea what was going to happen, but she would not ruin this night for him. If he wanted Christmas, she’d give him a Christmas neither of them would ever forget.

  From that point on, she made no effort to keep her inner child at bay. She sang every carol she knew, then started in on the pop versions. She tacked garland until it rose and fell like a mountain range running amok through the cabin. She tossed tinsel like it was rice at a wedding, and played an impromptu game of volleyball with Zach using a squat inflatable Frosty as the ball. She even gave him a Christmas blowjob under the plastic mistletoe.

  When the hour grew late and it was nearly time for bed, however, he threw her an emotional curveball.

  “Let’s write letters to Santa,” he said.

  “No.” Jessica didn’t care if he crossed over or not. She was not writing any letter to that double-crossing, jelly-bellied fat guy.

  “Please?”

  She snorted at his little-boy tone, but remained steadfast. “No. If you want to do it, I’ll try really hard not to make fun of you, but I won’t do it. And no, neither guilt nor kinky sex will change my mind.”

  She tore a sheet of paper out of her plotting notebook for him, and let him use her favorite pen. She even tried not to peek over his shoulder when he sat at the breakfast nook table.

  “Dear Santa,” he said aloud as he started to write. “I’ve been a very naughty boy and for Christmas I want to be even naughtier.”

  Jessica laughed and continued straightening the lights he’d haphazardly hung around the sliding door.

  “I’d like a leather flogger,” Zach continued, “because Jessica—that’s my girl—doesn’t listen very well and she needs to be punished. And maybe one of those gag balls because she talks a lot.”

  My girl. She laughed at his outrageous wish list, but it sounded weak even to her own ears. She was his girl.

  But he was a ghost.

  Zach was watching her intently now, so she forced a grin and said, “What did you really write?”

  “That’s between me and the jolly guy. And speaking of him, it’s almost midnight. We’d better go to bed or Santa won’t come.”

  She rolled her eyes, but stopped when he rose and swept her into his arms. Without even stopping to preset the coffee to brew or shut off lights, he carried her into the bedroom and tossed her down. “Let’s make merry, babe.”

  It was almost one-thirty when Jessica pulled away from a soundly-sleeping Zach and rolled out of bed. Apparently, while he didn’t need to sleep, he could fall easily back into the habits of life. Judging by the snoring, a little too easily.

  Feeling like an idiot, but resigned to getting no sleep until she’d done it, she quietly tore a sheet of paper from her notebook and sat down to write.

  Dear Santa,

  I know you and I have had some problems in the past. But I believed in you longer than anybody. Then, the year I was eleven and Becky Owens and I got in a fight because she said you don't exist and then she got that doll we all wanted and I didn't, you broke
my heart. It hurt so much I never asked you for another thing after that.

  Well, Santa, I've got about twenty-three years of being a good girl saved up. And all I want for Christmas is Zach Roberts. I want him alive and by my side for the rest of my life. I want to have babies with him and watch their faces light up when they see what you've brought for them on Christmas morning. I want to grow old beside him and knit Christmas stockings for our grandchildren. I love him.

  Please, Santa.

  I believe in you.

  Love, Jessie Newton

  Smiling at the childhood nickname Santa knew her by, she folded the note and slid it under the plate of ceramic cookies. Now that she’d gone and given into the foolish impulse, she wished she had real cookies to leave out. As a child, before her falling out with the holiday, she’d always placed four homemade chocolate chip cookies, nine carrots—for Rudolph and the gang, of course—and a small thermos of milk on the side table near their tree. Her mother had bought the thermos one Christmas season after weeks of listening to Jessica fret over leaving Santa Claus warm milk. She laughed softly, remembering the joyful little girl she’d been.

  After casting a final glance around the Christmas wonderland she and Zach had created together, she unplugged the tree lights and went to slide into bed.

  Zach stirred just enough to roll onto his side and throw an arm and a leg over her body. “Love you, babe,” he murmured into her hair.

  His sleepy words made her heart stutter, and tears burned her eyes and clogged her throat. Jessica squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep, shuddering breath.

  Please, Santa.

  eee

  Jessica stretched, inhaling the light scent of sugar cookies that had become even sweeter than the smell of freshly-brewed coffee in the morning. It seemed fainter than usual, and she opened her eyes.

  “Merry Christmas,” she murmured for the first time in decades.

  “You’re finally awake!” Zach shouted as he jumped out of bed, as excited as a little boy, and headed for the door. “I have a gift for you.”

  She watched him, preparing herself for the blinking in and out routine she was almost used to. But he hit the door with a thud and landed on his ass on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, leaning over the bed to make sure he was okay.

  He didn’t look okay. Zach was lying on his back, staring at his hands as if he’d never seen them before. A bruise was already blossoming on his forehead.

  A bruise. A real one, caused by ruptured blood vessels under the skin—an affliction not experienced by ghosts.

  “Zach? What’s going on? Why didn’t you just poof through the door like you usually do?”

  “I tried,” he replied in a choked whisper. “I’m alive, Jessica. I’m alive again.”

  Joy and disbelief raged through her. “How? Ghosts just don’t…dead people don’t…”

  Who was she to say what ghosts could or couldn’t do? Only a week before she’d have sworn there was no such thing as ghosts, but now she not only knew they existed, but she’d been having pretty spectacular sex with one. She was in love with one.

  “My letter to Santa,” Zach whispered. “I asked him to make you stay here with me. I didn’t expect this.”

  Jessica felt as if she had a sugarplum stuck in her throat. He really wanted her to stay with him? Scenarios started running through her head before she could stop them. Selling the condo. Paying to have cable and phone run to the cabin.

  Zach was alive. He hadn’t asked for that, though. He said he’d asked for Santa to make her stay with him.

  But her own letter… It couldn’t be. There was no way.

  He sat up and looked closely at her. She probably looked as dumbstruck as he did. “What are you thinking?”

  She cleared her throat. “I…umm…wrote a letter to Santa, too. After you went to sleep last night.”

  Zach pulled himself up so he could crawl into bed beside her. “What did you ask for?”

  Tears burned her eyes and she blinked them away. “I asked Santa to give me you for Christmas. I asked him to make you alive. I told him I wanted to have children with you and teach them to believe in Santa.”

  His expression probably matched the expressions of millions of children around the world at that moment, and he pulled her into his arms.

  “Oh, I want to make children with you, babe,” he said in a husky voice that gave her shivers. “I want a little girl who looks just like you.”

  She saw the hot emotion burning in his eyes before he pressed his lips to hers. Returning his kiss, mourning only briefly the loss of his sugar-cookie breath, Jessica forgave Santa for giving her nemesis that doll and not her. Zach was so much better. And him she could unwrap over and over again.

  After kissing her until her toes threatened to curl up like an elf’s shoe, Zach smiled down at her. “You must love me an awful lot to write a letter to Santa after all these years.”

  Anxiety tickled Jessica’s stomach, like when you unwrap a gift and you’re hoping what you want is inside, but you know you have to be prepared for a brown hand knit sweater with a green reindeer on it. “I do. I do love you.”

  His grin took her breath away. “I love you, too. I was going to go and haunt your condo and never celebrate Christmas again if Santa didn’t give me what I wanted. This is even better.”

  She took a deep breath. “Will you still come to my condo with me?”

  “Can we come back here for Christmas? At least once in a while?”

  “Every year. I’ll buy the cabin, but we’re hiring somebody to put the blow-up Santa on the roof. And we’ll put a mantel up to hang stockings. And the Santa cuckoo clock has to go.”

  “We’ll negotiate.” Zach started peeling the blankets down her body. “You must have been a very good girl this year, Jessica.”

  She giggled, feeling like a teenager in love for the first time. “Let’s be really naughty now.”

  “You might get coal next year,” he warned, giving her a stern look.

  After kicking her feet free of the blankets, she wiggled under his warm, so-alive body. “All I wanted for Christmas was you.”

  “Merry Christmas, babe.” He kissed her then, his hand slowly heading for the South Pole.

  “Ho ho…oh yeah…do that again.”

  About the Author

  Shannon Stacey married her Prince Charming in 1993, and is the proud mother of a future Nobel Prize for Science-winning bookworm and an adrenaline junkie with a flair for drama. She lives in New England, where her two favorite activities are trying to stay warm and writing stories of happily ever after.

  You can contact Shannon or sign up for her newsletter through her website: www.shannonstacey.com

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  An invitation too hot to pass up.

  Bound for the Holidays

  © 2006 Mackenzie McKade

  Angela Clarke finds herself bound for the holidays, literally. Not by one, but two gorgeous men—a powerful executive and one sexy cowboy.

  Angie expected to spend Christmas alone, not in the arms of her new boss after the office party. Their attraction is hot enough to melt ice, and his wicked promises alluring. What he’s offering she has only fantasized about.

  To her surprise, the night not only involves silk scarves and a set of handcuffs, but one tall dark cowboy.

  Ryan Tyler has never thought twice about sharing his women with his best friend—until Ryan touches Angie. She stirs something deep inside him. But it’s too late to stop the decadent night from unfolding. What starts as hot sex with a warm, willing woman turns into something more. After tonight, Ryan knows he’ll never be satisfied with just one taste.

  Could his fantas
y lead to something lasting, or will it only be one night of pleasure?

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Bound for the Holidays:

  The lights were dim as Angie entered Ryan’s bedroom. His masculine scent and the woodsy cologne he used were prevalent in the air. The furniture was southwest style. His king-size bed was yellow pine with large bedposts. The smell of sulfur rose briefly as Ryan lit tea-lights along the mantelpiece, and Wade started a fire in the flagstone fireplace.

  The mood was soft, sexy, and Angie couldn’t wait to be touched by these two strong men. She drew her attention back to the bed and a wave of excitement dampened her panties. That was when she heard soft music begin to play in the background.

  These men knew what enhanced a women’s sexuality. Tonight her fantasy would come true.

  But what about tomorrow? The little voice in her head rose, but she vanquished it. She wouldn’t look any further than tonight.

  Angie startled when she felt Ryan’s palms on her shoulder. He leaned in close, his breath a warm whisper across her skin. “Lay down on the bed.”

  The clicking of her heels against the marble floor made her tense. It was really going to happen. The man who had wreaked havoc with her hormones would be hers tonight. Add to that a sexy cowboy and Angie couldn’t ask for more.

  Clad in only her bra, thong, garter belt, silk stockings and heels, she slinked across his dark brown velour comforter. It was soft across her skin as she lay upon her back.

  “Fucking hot,” Wade growled his approval.

  Ryan remained quiet. Flickering shadows danced across his face, giving him a mysterious quality.

  Both men began to take their shirts off at the same time. Angie’s pulse leaped. They were amazing. Where Wade was hard muscle, obviously built from physical labor, Ryan was sculpted by hours in the gym. She couldn’t wait to thread her fingers through the light covering of hair on their chests. Kiss where the hair swirled around their belly buttons, and then move down further with her tongue and mouth to taste them.