The Grump Who Stole Christmas: Kringle Family Christmas Book One

by S Doyle

  Suddenly my stomach was growling with hunger.

  He laughed again. “Go to bed, Kay-Kay.”

  I did as he said and made my way back to my room. Just like I told him I wouldn’t, I didn’t touch myself.

  Instead I crawled into bed, aching, hungry…and smiling.

  12

  Paul

  I was fucked. I had a full day ahead of me at the farm, I had a list of things I wanted to get done at the cabin. Except I hadn’t slept at all for the remainder of the night.

  Why the fuck had I agreed to not get myself off?

  Sleeping in the ache sounded like a lyric from a Lady Gaga love song. I’d been rock hard all night. Without the relief of getting off, it was all I’d been able to think about. How she felt snuggled up in my lap. How she tasted. The soft sounds she made in the back of her throat. The way her head arched to the side when I was sucking on her neck.

  She liked to have her neck sucked. Would she let me mark her with a love bite?

  Hickey was a word my teenage self used. Love bite sounded significantly more mature.

  I thought about all of that and I ached. I ached hard.

  So much, that by the time I told myself I had to get out of bed and start the day, I knew I was both grumpy and fucked.

  Fucked because I was not done wanting Kay-Kay Kringle. Which meant that whole aching thing was only going to get worse and worse. Especially, since I knew she’d been as reluctant to leave my bedroom as I’d been to let her go.

  How much longer would she stay? Certainly until all this publicity stuff played out. Until she was sure she could turn the inn back over to her father. Although I didn’t see how that didn’t eventually get them back to the same trouble they were in now. I hadn’t misrepresented the situation when I said it was too much for Pops.

  Even with me taking over the tree farm, he couldn’t handle the inn by himself. He probably knew it too.

  Which raised the potential of selling the place. Pops and I already had an agreement. If it came to that, I’d buy the farm outright, but I wanted nothing to do with running an inn. The two operations could function independently if they needed to. Realistically, I knew that.

  There just seemed something sad about the McCleer Christmas Tree Farm and the Buyer to Be Named Later Inn.

  This place was Kringle. And Christmas. It was pine needles and snow falling. It was brownies and eggnog. It was a little piece of magic that I’d stumbled into and I didn’t want to let it go.

  Breaking it up into pieces didn’t feel right. But it wasn’t my call.

  It was her call. She had the most business savvy in the family, she had to know what to do. The sooner she made that decision and went back to New York, the better for everyone.

  What the fuck was I talking about?

  Her leaving was better for no one. But I wasn’t so naïve to think I was living in some damn Hallmark Christmas movie where the woman from the big city comes home only to find she misses her small town life and wants to give everything up for the Christmas tree farmer.

  Fucking lame-ass plot.

  I stomped downstairs and found Pops in the living room pulling up YouTube on the smart TV, which wasn’t like him at all. He rarely watched anything on television.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Press conference for Matt’s homecoming. Apparently the video is already up on YouTube. That’s right, I know about the streaming.”

  Right. The whole thing where Ethan and Kay were going to go to the airport with a big warm family welcome-home for the prodigal son. I watched the footage play out. Looked like they were in baggage claim at the airport. A podium had been set up for him.

  Matt was there on screen. I could see the family resemblance. Except, of course, for his size. He was huge. He was answering questions about his hockey injuries. Made sense the press would talk about that first. He kept talking about his groin injury, which of course only made me think of my groin and how freaking heavy it had felt last night.

  Geezus, would he stop saying groin!

  Then it all seemed to happen in a blur. Suddenly Ethan and Matt the Mountain, his NHL nickname, were fighting.

  “And there they go,” Pops said with a harrumph as we both watched the TV. “Never could go two minutes without pissing each other off.”

  Was this really happening? Were they fighting? Was it serious?

  “Oh shit,” I said, squinting at the TV as I watched Kay dive into the fray. “Is that a nipple twist? Is she giving the Mountain a nipple twist on television?”

  “My daughter can be ruthless. And she knows how to make those two stop fighting. This isn’t good. This isn’t going to look good for Matt or Ethan. How many times do I have to tell those boys to think first before they act?”

  Reflexively, I put my hands over my own nipples. I would have to let Kay know I liked a little pressure on my nipples when I had sex, but twisting them would be out of the question.

  Wait? Was I already planning for when we had sex?

  I was so fucked.

  Later That Afternoon

  Kristen

  I stomped my way through the snow out to Paul’s cabin. The press conference at the airport on its surface had been a disaster. Two brothers fighting hockey style on the local news. Did it get any worse? But like someone once said, any press was good press.

  Suddenly the phone at the inn was ringing off the hook, some just wanting to come and star gaze at Matt. Maybe others just remembering that Salt Springs, with the Christmas Jamboree in full force, was beautiful this time of year.

  Plans for a Christmas Eve event at the inn were now moving along swiftly and efficiently. All things felt like they were back under my control, when this morning they had been so thoroughly out of my control.

  I’d been wanting to talk to Paul alone the entire day, but it felt like he was avoiding me. First, back at the house when we got back from the airport, and now, when he’d left the farm in the hands of the interns.

  There was only one place left I imagined he might be. I was right.

  He was on a ladder, with a mallet in his hand, hammering in the hinges that connected the front door to his house. No easy feat. He would have had to lift the door on his own, which from the bottom of the porch seemed massive, gotten it to line up with the top and bottom connecting hinges, and then secured it enough so that now he could fully connect it.

  “That’s not a job for two people?” I asked. Although it obviously wasn’t, because it was almost done.

  “I understand you have cause to question my physical strength, but as you can see, I was able to handle it myself.”

  “Why? I mean, why are you hanging the door today? I thought you were going to wait for the crew to come back after New Year’s.”

  He came down from the ladder and stood on the porch, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a down vest and a wool cap, but his arms were only covered in the soft flannel shirt he wore.

  I had this urge to rub that flannel between my fingers. I climbed the front steps, getting closer to him. So close I could reach out and touch him. Only I had this sense that if I tried to, he would pull away.

  “I got the impression your brother Matt is not happy with me being in the house. Probably best if I move out to the cabin. It’s livable with a few amenities. I just needed to get the front door on so I could heat the place.”

  “So this is about my brother and not about last night?”

  Why did I have to go there? Why did I have to bring it up like it was a thing, when it was just a few kisses? No big deal. Two adults with some mild messing around.

  But the ache, the ache had been so bad. Not just between my legs, but everywhere. Like my entire body and soul hurt being separated from him.

  “It’s a little bit about last night,” he admitted. “Look, Kay…”

  I had this sense he was going to launch into all the reasons why the two of us made no sense again. How he wanted something, someone, entirely different for his futur
e rather than me. All reason and logic, and none of it I wanted to hear.

  “I got off last night!” I confessed. “I know I said I wouldn’t, but I just couldn’t not do it. So I, you know, used my fingers…and I came. Just felt like I had to confess that.”

  His face darkened then. “You came?”

  I nodded. “Twice actually, which I’ve never really been able to pull off before. So good on you for giving me some proper motivation.”

  “Motivation? What the…you came? What about sleeping in the ache?” he shouted.

  Okay, maybe this wasn’t the smartest confession I’d ever made.

  “I couldn’t get to sleep,” I said.

  “No? Neither could I! I was up all freaking night long with a hard dick. But did I touch myself? Oh no, because I was sleeping in the ache.”

  I had the good sense to look contrite. I shrugged my shoulders. “Sorry?”

  His face turned an even darker shade of red. “Apology not accepted. You owe me an orgasm. Two orgasms!”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because you had two, and I had none, so you owe me. That’s exactly how I figured that.”

  “Fine. Sure,” I said, stomping past him into the cabin. “We’re alone here. I’ll give you an orgasm!”

  “Two orgasms,” he shouted behind me, even as he shut the now-functioning front door behind him.

  I turned to face him and raised one eyebrow. “You’re getting up there close to forty, aren’t you? Can you do two orgasms without some medical intervention?”

  That was definitely the wrong thing to say. He pushed into my personal space and bent down so that our noses were practically touching.

  “Try me,” he grumbled.

  Paul

  I was tired from lack of sleep. I was grumpy because I was making bad decisions and I didn’t care. I was a little hot and sweaty from hanging the door.

  Most of all, I was horny as fuck!

  And she got herself off without me?

  She’d lain in her bed, touched herself, and I hadn’t gotten to see it, be a part of it. Oh no. That was not cool. Given I’d already reconciled myself that last night was not going to be the end, it couldn’t be the end, I was totally okay with where this was going. I’d already accepted my bad decisions.

  “Hmm, let’s see. Since I seem to be the wounded party in this…”

  Another eyebrow lift from her. “Really? Would you call yourself the wounded party?”

  “Yes, I would. I was left aching and unsatisfied for hours.”

  “That does sound bad,” she said, a smile playing around her lips. “I can’t imagine the torture.”

  I took off my hat and down vest, tossing them on the floor, all while stalking her, to get her to move in the direction I wanted. Which was toward the blow-up mattress with the blankets and pillows I’d set up in a corner of the lower floor of the house. Now that the door was hung, I could turn on the heat. Only I didn’t bother with it. It wasn’t that cold outside and I felt certain we were going to be generating our own heat very shortly.

  “Oh, you won’t have to imagine the torture. I’m going to be inflicting some of my own. Get naked. Now.”

  She gasped. But not in that way that said she was outraged or offended. She gasped like she sounded excited. I was right. She had been just as reluctant to leave me last night as I had been to let her go.

  “Don’t be coy, Kay-Kay. You know you want this too.”

  I pulled at the snaps on my flannel shirt so hard they popped open with a snap. While she was working on her winter coat, hat, and gloves. That was the one disadvantage of living in cold climates, there was a lot of shit to take off before you could get busy.

  I was ahead of her, now shirtless and bootless, wearing only my socks and jeans. We were nearly to the blow-up mattress.

  “Now, let me think. How do I want to get off first? I know. I think I want a blow job.”

  I didn’t think I wanted a blow job. I wanted a blow job. All guys want a blow job. But with a woman like Kay-Kay, I got the sense that simply demanding one wasn’t going to work. I needed to plant the idea in her head and see how she responded. The way she was looking at my dick, pressed against the fly of my jeans, I thought my chances were pretty good.

  Then she bit her bottom lip and the freaking wave of uncertainty that passed over this confident, kick-ass woman’s face almost brought me to my knees.

  “The last guy I was with…he said I wasn’t the best at them.”

  “A, fuck that guy. B, do you not like to do this? Because I won’t like it if you don’t.”

  “No,” she said quickly, even as she was playing with the hem of her sweater. “I actually really like to do it. I think it’s hot. I just didn’t realize I wasn’t any good at it.”

  I closed my eyes and nearly whimpered. Kay-Kay thought giving blow jobs was hot. This was going to be fucking epic. I moved around her and lay down on the air mattress, which was pretty comfortable and roomy enough even for me.

  “Again, fuck that guy. You like to give blow jobs? It turns you on? There is nothing you can do wrong then. I promise you.”

  She looked down at me from where she was still standing. I sat up to take off my socks, because socks were never sexy, and then shucked off my jeans and boxer briefs in one motion until I was buck naked.

  It wasn’t that cold, but it was cold enough that I wasn’t taking any chances with the impact of that cold on my dick. I already had a number of strikes against me in the manly-man department because I couldn’t change her tire. I didn’t need to add to that.

  “Are you going to get naked or what?”

  She pulled off her sweater and I could see the faint outline of her ribs underneath her skin. I was going to feed this woman pasta and eggs and brownies until that wasn’t the case anymore. She did it for me. No matter how she looked. Dressed up in fancy clothes. Snuggled up in winter gear. Inside-out pajamas.

  I didn’t care about her ass size or breast size or any of that. But I had this sense she hadn’t eaten to satisfaction in a long time. I wanted to do that. I wanted to satisfy her body and her mind.

  It’s why I was so pissed off about the orgasms that she stole from me. I wanted to do that for her. Give that to her.

  Now her sweater was off, her boots and socks were off, and she was shimmying out of her jeans. Finally, she was standing next to the mattress in just a tiny pair of white cotton panties and matching bra. I didn’t have to worry about my dick size then. I was tenting the blankets.

  I tossed the covers aside as an invitation. She quickly got under them and I covered us both completely. Our own little world. She had goose bumps along her arms, and I could feel the hard pricks of her nipples against my chest as she started to scooch down on the mattress.

  She was cold, but I would warm her up. I would heat every last inch of her skin with my mouth. I would…

  Oh God! She was already sucking on the head of my dick. Her hot wet mouth pulling me inside. Her tongue swirling around the underside. What the fuck? Who the hell had told her she wasn’t any good at this?

  Her tongue played with the indent in my dickhead and I was helpless against the rush of precum that spurted out of me. That didn’t put her off though. If anything, it only fired her up more. Suddenly one hand was at the base of my cock, her other hand was on my balls, and she was taking me as deep as she could, to the back of her throat.

  This was not what I was expecting. I would go so far as to say I wasn’t prepared for it. A little tongue action, a little lip action, that had been my previous experience. This felt like being swallowed whole. This felt like being utterly out of control. Totally at her mercy.

  “Kay, stop. Kay, I’m going to come. Stop.”

  I wanted to get off. I deserved to get off after being so stoic last night.

  This was not that. This was hot, wet sucking. This was my balls being rolled in her delicate fingers until I whimpered, the pleasure was so extreme. This was someone who was showi
ng me with her mouth and her hands that she did like this. That she did think it was hot. Because it wasn’t a performance. I could feel her toe running up and down my calf in the same motion of her sucking and stroking. Like she was lost in all of it. Like her whole body was there just to pleasure mine.

  “Kay, I mean it,” I said between clenched teeth. “I’m going to come in your mouth. I’m going to come in your mouth so hard.”

  But she wouldn’t back away. Instead she reached up with one hand and splayed her fingers over my mouth as if to quiet me. I exploded in a thrust and she took me. She took all of me. I sucked her fingers into my mouth while she did. Desperate to have a piece of her.

  When it was over, she rested her cheek on my stomach, her long dark curly hair splayed out on my chest. I toyed with strands of it all the while wondering if I was ever going to have the capacity to think again.

  “Okay, tell me who said you’re not good at that,” I muttered. “Because on behalf of all mankind I have to track him down and kill him.”

  She lifted her head and propped her chin on her hand, smiling. “Well, after he said it, I really took it to heart. So I found a class and studied to improve.”

  “You took a class on sucking dick?” My mind struggled to understand that.

  “Not with actual penises,” she said. “It was a sexual improvement class. There were sterilized dildos available or we could bring our own. You can take a class on anything in New York.”

  I shook my head. “Some guy made you feel shitty about something you actually like to do, and you took a class to get better? You are the quintessential overachiever, Kay-Kay.”

  She wiggled. “I know. It’s sort of a fault of mine.”

  I got my hands under her arms and hauled her up my chest so that her cheek was now resting just over my heart. I pulled her hair away so I could see her face. So pretty. So strong. So vulnerable at the same time.

  “All you do is talk about your faults, Kay. Your mistakes. The things you think you screwed up. I hope you know those are the last things anyone sees when they look at you.”