by Lili Valente
A Naughty Little Christmas
Lili Valente
Contents
A Naughty Little Christmas
About the Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Sneak Peek
Tell Lili Your Favorite Part!
About the Author
Also by Lili Valente
A Naughty Little Christmas
A Lover’s Leap Novel
By Lili Valente
A Naughty Little Christmas © 2018 by Lili Valente
Cover design by Helen Williams, photo credit svetikd from iStock
All Rights Reserved
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This novel was previously published as Snow Place Like Home by Jessie Evans. It has been expanded and revised for re-release as a full length novel. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy, hilarious romance novels with alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
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About the Book
Warning: This sexy second-chance romance features a man who’s going to take it all off in the name of love.
I figured moonlighting as a Santa stripper was the most exciting thing on my docket this holiday season.
But that was before Macy Clayton, my first love and the one I never wanted to get away, careened back into my life. Before the avalanche and the hike through a blizzard. Before getting snowed in at a secluded ranger station with nothing but a fire, a few fleece blankets, and each other to keep warm.
And yes, it turns out what the survivalists say is true—you really do stay warmer, and happier, when you’re naked.
Soon, Macy and I are back on track to being two turtledoves, and I’m happier than any partridge in a pear tree. But crossed signals and old wounds prove that second chances can be tricky, even during the most wonderful time of the year.
I’ll pull out all the stops to prove to Macy she’s the only one I ever want to jingle my bells, but will it be enough to pull off a Christmas miracle?
To my book-nerd family.
Wishing you peace, love, happiness,
and yummy book boyfriends
all the year long.
Chapter 1
Macy
“It’s going to be fun, I promise!” Olivia’s brown pigtails bob as she bounces across the snow, dragging me behind her toward certain icy doom, a manic gleam in her eye. “I was scared last year, but once you get over the initial shock, it’s invigorating!”
“You said it felt like you were having a heart attack and that fourteen was way too young to die,” I remind her, clutching my puffy winter coat closed at the top. “And that you almost lost consciousness when your head went underwater.”
Olivia wrinkles her nose and swishes a dismissive hand my way. “Yeah, but not in a bad way.”
“In what way is losing consciousness beneath the waves of a freezing cold lake not bad?”
“You’re just afraid of fun. And we’re fifteen now, with much stronger hearts,” Olivia says, hooking her arm securely through mine as if she senses I’m about to make a run for it. “You haven’t had a day off in months, Macy. You work too hard. It’s time to live a little. To make wild, crazy, adventurous memories you’ll treasure for the rest of your life.”
I glance down at my watch. “Which will be for what? The next ten, fifteen minutes? How long does it take to die from hypothermia?”
Olivia laughs and lifts an arm, waving vigorously to a group of people gathered on the shore of Lover’s Leap Lake. “You’re not going to die. You’re going to have a blast, and then we’ll grab hot chocolate at the Fish and Bicycle, toast our toes by the fire, and bask in the glow of remembered bravery.”
“Stupidity,” I grumble.
“Fifteen going on fifty,” Olivia warns, her favorite catch phrase when she thinks I’m taking life too seriously.
But Olivia has no idea how serious things have gotten around the Clayton house, and I can’t tell her. I love Olivia. She’s a great friend, but I’m not sure what she would do if she knew my dad had run off for good.
She might agree that I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my little sister, Lynn, and myself alone—I’ve been doing it for years, really, since my dad made a habit of drinking his paycheck away and dropping the parenting ball—or she might decide I need help. She might tell her mom or her dad or one of the teachers at school, and Lynn and I would end up in state custody faster than you can say “child abandonment.”
And the chance that potential foster parents will want a fifteen-year-old and a thirteen-year-old is slim to none. I’ve done my research. Teenagers are hard to place, and siblings almost always get torn apart.
I can’t let that happen to Lynn. I’m the only family she has left.
Besides, I’m doing just fine. Sure, I’m tired from working double shifts at the grocery store on top of school. But winter will be over in a few months, so we won’t need to pay for heat anymore.
I just need to make it through March. As soon as the temperature creeps up, I can back off the crazy schedule, catch my breath, and figure out a more sustainable long-term plan.
So I keep my mouth shut and force a smile. “Fine. I won’t be fifteen going on fifty. But if any part of my body freezes off, you have to drive both it and me to the hospital to have it reattached, since you’re the only one with a driver’s license.”
Olivia starts bouncing again, a huge grin on her pink-cheeked face. “Yay! It’s going to be epic! I can feel it! Come on, Daisy’s waiting for us, and she brought matching swan floaties!”
Olivia bounds down the snow-covered hill toward the crowded lakeshore, and I follow, my heart dancing anxiously behind my ribs.
Not only do I have absolutely no desire to do the Polar Bear Plunge into freezing cold water, but I’m also pretty sure my swimsuit will be the rattiest thing on display here today. Not all of my girlfriends are well off, but all of them are in better financial straits than I am, and few are still rocking a one-piece, let alone a pilled, threadbare black one-piece they grabbed at a Goodwill sale the summer they turned twelve.
When we reach Daisy, we exchange hugs in a flurry of giggles and squeals as the organi
zer of the event announces plunging shall commence in five minutes, and I try to get caught up in the excitement. I tell myself no one will notice that my suit is riding up on the sides and barely covering my breasts at the top, or that the fabric is nearly see through with wear across the bottom.
But as I peel off my jeans, boots, and socks—until my hideous suit is concealed only by my puffy black coat—a wave of self-consciousness twists my stomach, making me wish I hadn’t skipped lunch to save a few bucks.
And then I feel it…a prickle of awareness, an invisible electric current coursing up my spine, lifting the hairs on the back of my neck and making my lips buzz in the cool air.
Even before I look, I know who I’m going to see.
I glance up, grinning as my gaze connects with the eyes of the boy standing on the opposite shore, and a single word dances through my head—Mine.
There he is, the boy who belongs to me. The boy who was in my bed last night, the one who kissed me until I felt like I was made of starlight and magic. The one who makes me believe that happy endings aren’t just for fairy tale princesses and movie stars and girls with dads who care enough not to run away and leave them alone.
I’ve lived next door to Dean Roberts my entire life, but in the past month, he’s become my world. He’s more than my boyfriend. He’s my confidant, my best friend, my ally, and the only person who knows the truth about my family. I don’t know what I would do without him.
I do know, however, that I love him to distraction.
And, apparently, I do an exceptionally poor job of hiding it.
“Oh my God, stop,” Daisy, a tomboy from way back, says with a groan. “No more making goo-goo eyes at the boyfriend, Clayton. Seriously, my stomach can’t take it.”
“Hush,” Olivia says, shivering as she squirms her bare feet into the freezing sand. “Dean and Macy are the cutest. Leave them alone.”
“There’s nothing cute about goo-goo eyes,” Daisy insists, propping her hands firmly on her hips. “They look like a pair of drunk llamas.”
“I don’t touch the hard stuff,” I say as I cast another unabashedly gooey look Dean’s way. “But I almost wish I did. Then maybe this plunge wouldn’t hurt so much.”
Dean blows me a kiss across the water before pointing to the lake with an arched brow. I nod, indicating that yes, I’ll meet him in the middle. I would crawl across burning sand to get to Dean, so I’m certainly not going to let a little cold lake water get in my way.
“We don’t need liquid courage.” Olivia takes my hand and then Daisy’s, giving them both a firm squeeze. “We are brave warrior goddesses who will face the frigid deep with valor and honor. Are you ready, sisters?”
“Yes, drama queen.” Daisy rolls her eyes, but I can tell she’s looking forward to the run into the water nearly as much as Olivia is. “Let’s do this.”
“All right, plungers, get ready.” The organizer’s deep voice booms over the speakers, sending a ripple of anticipation through the crowd shifting anxiously on the shore.
Olivia giggles and reaches for the zipper on her coat.
“On your mark,” the announcer says, pausing for effect.
Daisy sheds her parka with a rough jerk of her arms, revealing a modest one-piece that instantly makes me feel better about my own suit. “Grab a swan, girls,” she says, claiming one of the three inner tubes from the ground and wrapping it around her waist. “This is happening.”
“Get set, and…plunge!” As the last word booms through the air, the crowd explodes in a flurry of motion. I barely have time to shuck my coat and snag my swan before I’m swept up in the tide of people rushing toward the lake.
I jog into the water, squealing as my nerve endings ignite in protest to the cold, but there’s no turning back now. There are too many people behind me. More importantly, there is a delicious boy ahead, already stroking hard through the waves toward me.
Jaw clattering so loud I can hear my teeth snicking together over the giggles and shouts of the people plunging into the lake around me, I clutch my tube to my chest and frog kick toward Dean. Within a few seconds, my feet go numb, followed quickly by my knees and hips. I know my legs are still attached and moving because I keep chugging forward, but I can’t feel them, and I’m quickly possessed by the certainty that staying in this lake longer than a few minutes is a bad idea.
As Dean surges across the last of the freezing water separating us, it’s clear he’s on the same page. “Crap it’s cold,” he gasps, his brown eyes wide in his handsome face as he treads water beside me. “Macy, it’s cold in here!”
“It’s December in Colorado, you nut,” I say, laughing as he plays up his shock, blinking and sputtering. “Of course it’s cold. What are you doing here?”
“Olivia told me she was bringing you, and I couldn’t let you suffer alone,” he says, his words warming my heart even though my skin is so cold I’m pretty sure my goosebumps have goosebumps. “Come on, Clayton. Let’s get the hell out of here. Your lips are blue, and I don’t want them falling off before I get to kiss them again.”
“Me, either.” I shiver-giggle as I kick back toward the shore, so happy I almost don’t care that I might never feel my legs again.
Dean and I scramble back through the shallow water hand in hand. He pauses long enough to kiss my cheek and murmur, “You are crazy hot in this swimsuit. Be right back,” before dashing across the sand to grab his clothes from the other side of the lake.
Grabbing a towel from a pile near Daisy’s abandoned boots, I dry off as best I can and struggle back into my clothes, but even after wrapping my coat tight across my chest I can’t seem to get warm.
I’m still shivering when Olivia and Daisy come crashing out of the water. “Whose dumb idea was that?” Olivia gasps, shaking so hard she drops her towel twice before finally getting a grip on one edge. “That was awful!”
Daisy groans. “Never again. I’m never letting you talk me into anything ever again. Now hurry up and get dressed and drive me home.”
“No,” Olivia wails. “What about hot chocolate?”
“All I want is a hot bath,” Daisy says. “And five pairs of socks.”
Olivia blinks innocent eyes my way. “What about you? Can I purchase you an apology drink by the fire at the Fish and Bicycle?”
I wince and back toward Dean as he arrives. “I’m sorry, but I’m on team hot bath, too. Raincheck?”
“Sadness fills my heart,” Olivia says, but she grins as she waves hello to Dean. “Okay, raincheck. But for the record, I still think we’re heroes. We did it! All the way in, with no chickening out. We deserve credit for that.”
“I would rather be able to feel my balls,” Dean mutters as we start toward his truck, making me laugh. “No, seriously,” he says. “I’m not sure they’re still there. I legit can’t feel much below the waist right now.”
Brow furrowing, I tap a thoughtful finger to my still mostly numb lips. “That could be bad. You need those.”
“I do,” he says with a huff. “I mean, it’s a long way off, but I would like to be able to have children someday.”
His words send a blush rushing to my cheeks as I climb into the passenger’s seat and buckle in, reminding me of the birth control talk we had last night, the one that ended with both of us acknowledging that we need to get some on hand before we get out of hand.
“Speaking of babies,” I say, trying my best to sound casual, “I grabbed condoms from the jar in the nurse’s office today. You know, just in case…”
Dean shoots a nervous grin my way as he starts up the truck. “Me, too. I lurked outside in the hall until she went to the bathroom then ran in really quick. I felt like a kid stealing cookies from the kitchen.”
“Me, too,” I say, giggling.
“So, what do you think?” He pulls out of the parking lot, heading up the narrow highway leading out of town, toward the mountain we’ve both called home our entire lives. “Does that mean we’re not ready?”
I shru
g uncomfortably, simultaneously excited and terrified by this conversation and its implications. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It just means we’re smart enough to realize that adults aren’t really cool with handing out condoms to teenagers, even when they pretend they are.”
“Good point.” Dean’s lips curve in that crooked smile that hits me in the heart every time. “My mom won’t be home until late tonight. She’s going to the teacher’s holiday party thing at the Community Center. So if you wanted to come over and warm up in the Jacuzzi tub upstairs together…”
“Oh yeah?” I shift in my seat, facing him as he expertly maneuvers around the patches of ice still left on the road. “I could be down for a Jacuzzi. Lynn’s staying at a friend’s tonight, so I don’t have to make dinner, and we’re already wet…”
“We are,” Dean agrees. “And we’ll be saving water if we wash together.”
“It’s the environmentally responsible thing to do,” I say, grinning as Dean nods seriously in response.
“It is. And I care a lot about the environment, Maze.” He reaches out, taking my hand as he adds, “Almost as much as I care about you.”
“Me, too,” I whisper, chest aching with happiness. “I’m in love with you, actually.”
He glances my way, the pleasure and relief mixing in his eyes assuring me it isn’t too soon to let the emotional cat out of the bag. “Me, too. Crazy in love with you.”
