“So,” I began in my best fake-therapist voice once I felt confident I could pull it off, “what’s got you all tore up enough to wallow in an Aspen dive bar on Christmas Eve?”
He shook his head, as though to clear some sticky thought, and frowned back down at his scotch. “My fiancée is pregnant.”
“Um, okay. Congratulations?”
He downed his glass before he answered. “It’s my brother's kid.”
“What the fuck?”
I remembered his brother. A few years older than Ty and me, he was completely idolized by everyone in Aspen for his skills on the slopes. He was Olympic material, and the whole community catered to his every whim.
Personally, I thought Cory Sievers was a narcissistic asshole. Ty had been overshadowed by Cory’s ego, but was so much more beautiful in every way. Inside and out. I thought everyone else in the world was simply fucked in the head for not seeing what I saw.
Thus, my mouth continued on before my brain could slam on the brakes.
“Why the hell would anyone choose your brother over you? You’re ten of him.”
“You know my brother?” He almost growled it, as though just the thought greatly annoyed him. His dark gaze narrowed.
Cue awkward silence.
I stared at him for a painfully long moment while my brain kicked in. “Um, no, not really. I know of him.”
My response seemed to placate him, a little light flickered in his eyes, but he shook his head wearily. “Yeah, doesn’t everyone?”
I exhaled and grabbed the bottle and another glass, this time pouring myself one as I refilled his with an extra heavy pour. “So, I’m guessing she’s not your fiancée anymore? Are you sure it’s not yours?”
“Dead sure. I was deployed for the last year. Haven’t seen her since January. So, yeah, she’s his fiancée now.”
“Dude,” I breathed. “That’s really fucked.”
“Yeah, as she explained it, she missed me so bad, and he was a great comfort to her. Carnally, it turns out. I just spent the last couple days clearing my shit out of her apartment in Colorado Springs. We were supposed to come to Aspen for Christmas, to celebrate my separation from the Army. I sorta feel like re-enlisting now, though.”
My heartstrings pulled tight, and I raised my glass, lifting a brow to encourage him to do the same. “Well, I say you dodged a bullet. She’s gotta be off her rocker to want your brother over you. So, cheers.”
He offered me a jaded chuckle and flashed a wry hint of that blinding smile I remembered. Just a tiny tilt to his lips, but it was enough to make my vagina go pitter-patter. With a panty-soaking glimmer in his eyes, he palmed his glass, touching it to mine with a clink. “Down the hatch.”
And down it went. Multiple times. Enough for me to start feeling a bit warm and fuzzy. Flirty. Reckless.
Perilous things for me to feel around Ty Sievers.
The timer went off for the pizza, so I stepped away to serve it to my three musketeers. By the time they finished eating and had a few more drinks, it was nearing midnight, Brecks’ Christmas Eve closing time. I called a taxi to take them home and pulled a voucher from the till.
“You know, Gin,” Frank mentioned, stopping at the bar before they headed out to the cab, “you really should come over tomorrow. We’re hanging out at Larry’s, and we’d love to have you come eat with us. It’s not right that you’re planning to spend Christmas alone.”
I smiled back at the kind old man. “No worries, Frank. I’m actually looking forward to a little peace and quiet after dealing with you rabble-rousers all night. That said, if any of you need anything at all, give me a shout, okay? Seriously. I don’t want to be worrying about ya.”
Frank nodded, then nudged Ty with his elbow. “You take care of our girl, now,” he chuckled.
I snorted. “Dude, I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I’m good.”
But Frank just lifted his chin towards me in a stubborn manner, then looked back at Ty with a raised brow.
“I’ll keep an eye on her for ya,” Ty promised with a curt nod back to the old man.
The instant the door closed behind them, everything seemed quieter. More intimate. It was both unnerving and electrifying. Bing Crosby crooned White Christmas over the satellite radio, magnifying the placid feel of the night.
“You’re adorable with them,” Ty mused, flashing me an overly lazy grin that made my pulse quicken.
“They’re my favorite barflies, old widowers whose kids and grandkids moved away years ago. I just like to know they’re okay, especially over the holidays.” My smile faltered slightly, and my heart panged with regret. “I suppose maybe it's my penance.”
He frowned, brows drawn together. “Why do you say that?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head to rid myself of the nagging remorse. Over a decade had passed since my dad died, but the guilt still lingered. I forced out a caustic laugh in an attempt to shield my somber vulnerability. “I just have major daddy issues.”
I grabbed a clean towel, plunging it in the warm soapy water of my sink, and glanced back up at Ty to catch him studying me. An hour before, his attention had totally unnerved me. While the scotch helped settle my jitters somewhat, a warm flush still flooded my cheeks. For a moment I stalled, frozen by his gaze. Trapped by my own vulnerability, I tried to read his expression. I ached for understanding. Compassion. The cross I bore had grown so heavy over the years.
Or maybe I just wanted someone to care a little. Wretched guilt had a way of making Christmas rather melancholy.
He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, his voice a whisper when he spoke. “I always wondered what happened to you.”
Wait, what? Holy fuck.
My breath caught in my throat as his quiet words echoed through my head. I felt my jaw fall slack, not my best look, but I froze solid for a long moment. It was like my mind had quite simply exploded. I couldn’t believe he’d even noticed me all those years ago, back when I hid behind thick eyeliner and pothead friends.
Somehow, I finally managed to inhale and speak, my voice hoarse. “I didn’t think you even knew who I was back then, much less now.”
“I almost didn’t recognize you at first,” he continued. “I love the flaming red.” His hand gestured towards my hair, almost as though he wanted to touch it, but then lowered back down to palm his glass. He threw back the last sip of scotch and set it on the bar.
Grabbing the bottle, I replenished his drink and did the same for myself. I lifted the glass to my lips, inhaling the smoky aroma, then downed it in one hearty swig before I responded with a nervous chuckle. “I did it this shade for the holidays. Might go bright pink next. Sorta into the whole She-Bob-era Cyndi Lauper vibe at the moment. She’s just so amazing. So unusual. I love her style.”
Yes, I was babbling. Like an idiot.
“Do you bop often?”
Shit. I suppose I deserved that for bringing up the ultimate masturbation song. In the blink of an eye, I went from mindlessly prattling to totally speechless. My mouth opened, but nothing came out aside from a dorky nervous chuckle.
A dorky nervous chuckle that broadened his panty-melting smile. “Well, you’re definitely more colorful than you were before. Very eye-catching. And the ink.” He reached across the bar and his fingertips grazed the swirl of stars around a witch’s broom tattooed on my inner wrist.
That feathery touch destroyed any remaining composure I had left. It tickled my skin long after he pulled back his hand to take another sip of scotch.
“Um…thank you,” I somehow exhaled, even though my lungs felt completely seized up.
“Gotta say, though, I’m really glad you still have that sexy goth air about you. I always had a thing for your miniskirts, fishnets, and combat boots.”
Fuck me.
I tried thinking back to just how much liquor I’d poured him, but instead found myself hypnotized by his long, wide fingers circling the rim of his glass.
My mouth went dry. Long,
wide fingers meant a long, wide…yeah. Mental images whirled through my head, spurred on even more by the mind-bending things he was saying.
It had to be the scotch talking.
A heavy drip from my bar rag splunked loudly in the sink below, drawing me out of my head and back down to earth. I desperately needed to step away to clear my foggy mind. He was too intoxicating, much more so than the booze I’d consumed.
Before I moved away, though, I shot him a shy sidelong glance.
“By the way, I always wondered about you, too.”
Chapter Two
I retreated across the barroom to the one dirty table in the place where my aged admirers had been and wiped it down. My strokes were likely more vigorous than necessary, but my body buzzed, a flurry of nervous energy. The scrape of Ty’s barstool on the floor echoed through the still night, as did his footsteps closing in. Every hair on my body rose, electrified by his proximity, and I turned around in breathless anticipation.
He was so very close to me.
He combed through my hair with a tender pull before his palm settled along my jaw. I suddenly felt dizzy. His thumb lightly brushed my earlobe, and my heart threatened to beat clean out of my chest. He lowered his lips slowly, pausing just a hair’s breadth away.
Oh. My. Moly.
I’d fantasized about this moment so many times. Ached for it with every fiber of my being. Unable to wait another second, I lifted my lips to graze his. With all the strength of a butterfly’s wing. Once. Twice. Then more firmly, opening my mouth, silently begging him to do the same. My body shivered with the brush of his tongue, the faint hint of scotch hitting my senses.
His hand tightened in my hair with a deliciously possessive tug, and he deepened the kiss with a low moan. Heat surged through me. All at once, I felt powerful in my sexuality, yet shaken to the core. Aching to feel him inside me. I half expected my little black panties to steam up the room.
He lifted his head, his eyes searching mine, and swayed on his feet.
Damn.
“Okay, you’re drunk,” I croaked. Why else would he have kissed me?
He slowly shook his head. “It’s you, not the scotch.”
Holy fucking hell. I yearned so badly to believe that was true.
A jarring slam at the rear entrance announced the cleaning crew’s arrival, and I braced Ty’s shoulders in an attempt to steady him. At least that’s what I told myself I was doing. Truth be told, my head felt so dazed, my body so trembly. I desperately wanted to mold my hands around his thick shoulders and cling to his stout frame, but somehow, I forced myself to step away. Grabbing my parka and purse, I called out to him over my shoulder. “You didn’t have a jacket or anything when you came in, did you?”
“Um, no,” he replied, his voice gruff. “I’m just staying at the Gant a few blocks away.”
I shot him a glance as I tugged on my puffy down coat. “More than a few blocks. You’re going to freeze out there.”
Oh, how I would have loved to help keep him warm. The thought compounded exponentially with all sorts of dirty ways I could do just that. The dizzy rush that followed reminded me I wasn’t exactly sober either. Definitely too buzzed to get behind the wheel any time soon. A walk in the crisp air might sober me up a bit. Otherwise, I’d have to blow half my night’s wages on a cheap-ass hotel and spend the night in town. Cabs didn’t wanna fuck with the road to my little cabin on the mountainside.
I held open the front door to the bar, doing my best to plaster on a nonchalant smile even though my heart was doing the Jingle Bell Rock in my chest.
“How about I walk with you? I don’t want you to slip, crack your head, and bleed to death on Christmas Eve.”
“Yeah, that would suck,” he chuckled. His eyes, still somewhat heated, paused on my lips when he met me at the door. He raised an arm above me to hold it open, and his proximity sent my stomach whirling all over again. “Ladies first.”
Silence filled the air between us as we trudged through the winter night, our footsteps crunching along the snowy sidewalk, then cut through the park near the Gant. Glittery snowflakes sprinkled down between the tall pines, clinging to Ty’s flannel-clad shoulders before quickly melting from the heat of his body.
Mmm, his body.
Fuck, stop thinking about his body.
“So, it's after midnight,” I offhandedly mentioned as we schlepped through drifts in the park. “That means it’s officially Christmas. Maybe Santa will be extra good to you since you’ve had such shit luck lately.”
“Honestly, in the last week or so, I was kinda like fuck Christmas. I’d have just as well ignored the whole thing. But now?” His voice trailed off and he stopped. I turned back to find him studying me. After a long moment, he came closer. Our breath fogged the air between us, mingling into one large misty cloud. He guided me back through pine boughs until I was up against the trunk of a massive tree, sheltered from the placid world around us by low branches. He braced his hands on each side of my head, boxing me in, and held my gaze. “Now, all I want for Christmas is you.”
Just like a super-hot man version of Mariah Carey.
There was an utter litany of reasons this was a bad idea, but I also could rationalize twice as many arguments the other way. He was a little drunk, but I was a little drunk, too. And I’d lusted after him forever. This would likely be my only chance. We were both consenting adults. Yeah, he was on the rebound from his brother-fucking fiancée, but maybe my vagina could be the salve to heal that cheating ho’s vicious burn and his brother’s betrayal. Perhaps he just needed a solid fuck to stuff all that shit firmly in his past so he could move forward. Heck, I could be doing him a favor.
But most of all, tonight he’d looked at me with those hypnotizing blue spruce eyes. His words echoed through me. I always wondered what happened to you. That was the moment my misfit teenaged heart had always ached so hard for. I hadn’t been as invisible to him as I’d always thought.
So who was I to deny his one Christmas wish? Crazy as it was. Seriously, he should have his head examined for wanting me.
But maybe after I let him fuck me silly.
I ran my fingertip along the angle of his jaw, just like I’d wanted to when I first saw him in the bar, scraping my nail through his scruff. His indrawn breath was the straw that broke my little Christmas camel’s back. I raised up on my tiptoes and breathed my answer against his lips.
“I’m all yours.”
As light and feathery as our first kiss began back at Breck’s, this kiss was purely carnal. Fierce. Consuming. His lips firmly devoured mine with a brush of his tongue that stoked the aching burn deep inside me. The weight of his body pressed me almost painfully into the chunky bark of the pine tree, teasing a fragile moan from my throat.
Around us, all the inhabitants of Aspen lay sleeping, dreams of sugarplums dancing in their heads, but all I could think was how badly I wanted Ty to fuck me right then and there up against that tree. Especially when his hands slid down my body to cup my ass, jerking me up against his arousal almost painfully.
I was a bit of a freak, after all.
And, judging by the bulge I felt, the whole hand-size thing seemed spot on with him.
I molded my body to his, pressing into his solid strength. My arms wrapped tightly around his neck. I was dying to lick and nip every inch of that fucking glorious chest of his, to work my way down what I imagined were chiseled abs and a deliciously contoured vee to relish in that glorious thick cock.
His lips left mine to graze my collarbone, leaving an icy-yet-scorching trail in their wake. The intensity of it all wrought a hoarse moan from deep in my body. His fingers slid up from my ass, under my coat and flannel, slipping beneath my camisole. They were freezing cold, but for a moment, my only thought was how amazing they felt against the inferno of my skin.
But then that damn unwanted common sense intruded.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, still reeling from the heady sensation of his mouth on my neck, “your hands
are like ice. You don’t have a coat on. You’ve got to be freezing.”
He lifted his head to kiss me hard on the lips before he spoke. “Don’t fuckin’ care. Pretty sure I’m gonna explode if I don’t fuck you, like right now.”
Our breath condensed around us, creating a sensual mist in the winter air.
“Well, we are in Glory Hole Park,” I laughed quietly. “But maybe we should get to the Gant so you can take me inside and get me naked. Pretty please.”
“You ask so nicely. I want to hear you beg.”
“Please,” I repeated, pressing my lips to his again before I continued. “Please, Ty.” Another kiss. “Take me inside and fuck me.”
His fingers clenched hard against my waist and he tipped his forehead to rest against mine. After releasing a deeply indrawn breath, he straightened and grabbed my hand, practically dragging me through the winter wonderland of Glory Hole Park toward the hotel.
Not that I was resistant in the slightest.
Chapter Three
The desk clerk barely spared us a passing glance as we rushed through the quiet lobby toward the elevator. As soon as the doors slid closed behind us, Ty was on me again, his mouth ravaging mine. His tongue deeply coaxing my own out to play. His hand trailed down my thigh to the hem of my skirt before sliding back up to squeeze my fishnet covered ass.
“Christ,” he groaned into my mouth, “I can’t even tell you how many times I jacked my cock thinking about you in your short little skirts with your ripped up tights. I want to tear them open and fuck you right here.”
Sadly, the elevator didn’t cooperate, dinging that we’d reached his floor. The doors slid open. I just wanted him to keep going. To keep saying those amazing things that set my body on fire. To close the doors and do those amazing things right here and now.
Stocking Stuffers: A Five Story Christmas Anthology Page 23
