Santa Baby: a Crescent Cove Romantic Comedy Collection

by Quinn, Taryn

  “You’re so good at this.” I leaned up on my tiptoes and nuzzled his jaw. “You just made me very good money.”

  He cocked a brow. “Six dollars?”

  I frowned. “Stop it. I bet more than that.”

  He sorted through my tidy stack of, um, ones. “Six,” he repeated. “I didn’t even know you could bet that low.”

  The dealer winked. “She’s cute.”

  Oliver didn’t even growl, just placed the next bet. And proceeded to win the next two times as well, raising his bets each time. As did I. Not like he did, though. He was a high roller.

  Must be nice to be rich.

  When he finally decided he’d had enough and motioned toward me as he moved away from the table, I was a little in awe. He was a damn shark. Cool and composed no matter what he was betting. Ice water in his veins. I’d been so impressed by his poker face that I’d even sobered up a little.

  The horny thing, however? Even more in force. At least in his direction.

  “So, have you decided on a game you’d like to try? Or want to spin the wheel?” He gestured to the Wheel of Fortune game a few feet away.

  I shook my head and tried to do math to figure out how much I had to spend. The radio station had awarded me two-fifty in spending money and I’d brought a small amount myself, along with the one credit card I used for emergencies. I also had my Baccarat windfall, which was modest.

  “I’ll just play a couple and we can leave,” I promised, slipping onto a seat in front of a game that had giant buffalos who appeared to be stampeding for money. The basic deal appeared to be the typical get three like objects, ca-ching. Get three buffalo, get bonus plays.

  Seemed like a winning formula to me.

  “I won’t be long,” I said again, snagging a drink off a passing tray and flinging a tip in the server’s direction. I’d forgotten that last time.

  I took a sip. Hello, cranberry deliciousness, old friend.

  This one seemed to be virgin, however. Like me. Look at that.

  Sipping again, I tested my luck with the game. It took a bit to get the hang of it, but once I did—and once my money started adding up—I finished my drink and went for another, this time not virgin at all.

  Hell’s bells, I had beginner’s luck at more than blowjobs. Look at me, raking in the cash.

  Oliver had wandered off with his phone to his ear, but he came back often enough to check on me that I felt warm and protected rather than irritated. A matter of perspective, I realized, but I happened to like it when he seemed caring and involved.

  Did I mention I was still drunk? I’d probably see things differently tomorrow.

  Racking up the dollah-dollah bills wasn’t hurting my buoyant mood one iota. Who needed liquid courage when the machine was rolling your way?

  “Still playing?” Oliver asked sometime later. I had no concept of time. This crap was addictive.

  I’d have to investigate casinos in New York. Oooh, Atlantic City.

  “Yes,” I mumbled, betting again. “Only a few minutes more. I’m on a winning streak. Can’t move yet.”

  Oliver sighed. “Six dollars again?” He cupped my shoulder and leaned in. “Let’s see—holy shit.” He scrubbed the side of his fist over the small number in the corner of the screen as if he couldn’t believe it was real either.

  Let’s just say I’d be able to pay for our plane ride home—first class.

  “Told you,” I said smugly. “You doubted my prowess.”

  “Princess, I don’t doubt your prowess at anything you put your mind to.”

  Unthinkingly, I turned my head and kissed his knuckles. That wasn’t even the alcohol spurring me on. I was beginning to truly like the guy.

  Amazing how fast things could change.

  He curled his fingers into my shoulder before subtly transferring the hold to my throat and tipping back my head. My lips parted, and I forgot all about my winnings as I gazed up into his midnight eyes.

  “You keep right on playing as long as you want.” Even as he said it, I sensed an invitation behind his words. A reminder that once I was finished, he would be there, waiting.

  Or maybe that was wishful thinking. I tended to do that often. There was a reason my bestie labeled me a hopeless romantic.

  “Oh, dammit.” I jerked on the seat and Oliver’s hand fell away. “I told Ally I’d text her after Celine to tell her how it was.” I’d no sooner pulled out my phone than Oliver plucked it away.

  “Take this time for you, princess. She’ll be there later.” He pocketed my cell and brushed a careless kiss over my hair that so did not feel like a casual gesture.

  I should complain about him taking away my agency. That might have been an ongoing theme. But some part of me felt relieved. I was having fun and didn’t really want to check in right now. I loved Ally, loved talking to her, but I didn’t want to deal with her questions about Oliver again. She’d asked me some earlier, trying to act nonchalant—were we getting along, were we having fun, was he being all Oliver-ish—but that had been pre-blowjob. I really didn’t want to talk about what Oliver and I were or weren’t at the moment. All I wanted was to party on and just be.

  So yeah, he’d done me a favor. A small one I’d probably be righteously indignant over later, after I wheeled my money wheelbarrow out of the joint.

  I didn’t look up from the machine for who knows how long. Eventually, my excited whoops of joy as I kept right on winning drew a small crowd. Some younger people, some seniors, and one or two men who assumed I needed some help spending my cash. I did not. I also didn’t need anyone’s assistance in picking my stopping figure. Once I reached the number my dizzy brain had set on after my streak had begun, I ended the game and stood up with my arms above my head like a prizefighter.

  “That’s all she wrote! All done here. Thanks for cheering me on, everyone.”

  People laughed and slapped hands with me, and then a couple industrious types nearly knocked me over in their haste to fight over my machine. I stepped aside and grinned, about to look for Oliver, when his warmth surrounded me from behind.

  “Did I mention you’re magnificent?” His soft voice at my ear was more powerful than any drink I’d consumed. More potent than ten of them in quick succession.

  “Not recently you haven’t.” It was a risk to turn and loop my arms around his neck, but I was in a betting mood.

  I laughed as he lifted me up and crushed me to his chest. Looming over him, I brushed a hand over that wayward lock of brown hair that always liked to dip into his eyes. Such dark, intense eyes. And I fell under their witchy spell as surely as if he’d commanded me to.

  “Congratulations. You’re magnificent.” He angled his mouth to give me a celebratory kiss, probably a chaste one. That was Oliver’s MO.

  It wasn’t mine. Not this weekend.

  I slanted my lips over his and took greedily, not wasting any time on pretenses. I hadn’t been kissed nearly enough in my life. Certainly not by a man like Oliver, whose skill was practically bathroom fodder in our town.

  Which might set some nerves brewing at another time, but not now.

  Weaving my fingers into his hair, I drew on his tongue, sucking lightly. Teasingly. Letting him know I was a sure thing if he’d decided not to retreat behind silence again as he had for a while earlier.

  He responded in kind, his lips teasing mine open farther as he gave as good as he got. Better. Those sly little licks were going to kill me. Hints of pressure, flickers of need, never alighting long enough for me to settle in and lose myself.

  But I was halfway there.

  “Not here,” he murmured, and I found myself nodding.

  Finally. We’d go back to the hotel room and finish what we’d started earlier in the night.

  I wondered if he’d let me take a picture of our messed-up bedsheets post lovemaking for my memory journal? Eh, I’d worry about that once I’d been deflowered.

  Petals thrown every damn where.

  That was why I didn’
t expect to find myself in yet another cocktail bar after we’d cashed in my windfall, nursing a cup of piping-hot coffee with a side of buttery croissant.

  The croissant was to die for though. And he’d given me back my phone, but I hadn’t yet texted Ally.

  I was still enjoying myself, despite my sexual frustration. The Monday-night quarterbacking could wait until it was actually Monday.

  “Good croissant?” Oliver asked before sipping his own coffee.

  “Delicious.” Even the coffee was. Must be a Vegas thing or else my palate was changing like the rest of me. “By the way, you’re a huge tease.”

  That eyebrow thing he did verged on pornographic. “Am I now?’

  “You know where I thought we were going when we left the casino. It wasn’t to drink French roast.” I leaned across the table. “I had another French occupation in mind.”

  He smirked. “Is that on your sexual bucket list too? Some kind of traditionally French foreplay?”

  “Kissing, you jerk.” I sat back and paused with a flaky piece of croissant nearly to my mouth. “Are there different kinds of French sex? If so, we should investigate that.”

  “Try the usual first, why don’t you? Save the love languages for later.”

  “I’ll try anything at this point.”

  He nodded at my coffee. “How is it?”

  “It’s wonderful. But—oh.” I sighed. “Duh. You’re trying to get me to sober up. But I’m not actually drunk.”

  “Sure, you aren’t.”

  “I was buzzing earlier. But now I’m pretty much back to normal. It’s been hours.”

  He seemed dubious. “You expect me to believe you?”

  “Yes. I bet I could walk in a straight line, no problem.”

  He jerked his chin beside our narrow table. “Go on then.”

  After bolstering myself with a couple swallows of coffee—heavily laden with cream and sugar, unlike his black—I rose and walked to the bar and back. There was a little wobbling, but not much. I got a few amused looks at my precise heel-to-toe steps, yet they didn’t stop me.

  I was learning not to care so much what others thought. Trying anyway.

  Once I sat again, I glanced at Oliver, who was staring at me with a strange sort of pride. “Well?”

  “You hardly wavered.”

  “I told you.”

  He leaned forward and placed his large hand against my forehead. “Skin isn’t flushed either. Your tolerance is impressive for a non-drinker.”

  “I drank a few times in college. I just couldn’t get to the fully drunk part. The one where my inhibitions were gone. You know, tequila makes her clothes fall off.”

  He gazed at me unblinkingly. “I missed that one.”

  “It’s a country song. A good one too. We should dance.” I glanced around. It was late, but the cocktail bar still had its share of patrons scattered at the tables and milling around the bar. “Think we can here?”

  “I’m not really certain this is the place for it.”

  “I bet if we get the dance floor started, everyone will join us. Who doesn’t like to get their groove on?” I stood and circled the table, grabbing his hand and bringing him to his feet.

  He didn’t put up even a token protest. Wonders never ceased.

  “Me,” he muttered.

  “You just get your groove on horizontally instead of vertically.” I pulled his hand over my shoulder and drew him into the cleared-out area near the bar. A couple of the patrons shot us wary looks, but just as quickly started to smile as I began to dance.

  Any freaking way I wanted to.

  “Yet you claim not to be drunk,” he said under his breath, hands dipped in his pockets as he watched me shimmy and sway to the Camila Cabello song coming through the speakers.

  I hadn’t been to “Havana” and the music didn’t exactly match my movements, but whatever. This was a freeform freestyle.

  “Nope. Just high on life.” I lifted my arms over my head and turned around, slowly swiveling my hips. I cast him a backward glance, hoping upon hope he was paying attention to me at the very least.

  His gaze was welded to my behind.

  “I like yours too,” I said, waiting until he looked up guiltily to flash him a grin. “Come a little closer, why don’t you? I don’t bite.”

  Actually, I wasn’t sure that was true. I wanted to take a nice big juicy bite out of Oliver Hamilton—the kind that left behind marks.

  Hmm, maybe I was a little bit kinky underneath my hard vanilla shell. Who knew?

  He stepped closer and gripped my hips, moving against me in his version of dancing. I was okay with it. He was far more restrained than I was, but I knew that was public Oliver.

  Private Oliver was a much different beast altogether.

  “Do you know how many men are wanting you right now?” he asked near my ear, his breath a warm puff against my skin.

  I nearly shivered as I reached behind me to hook my arm around his neck. It took some angling because he was so much taller than me. But he shifted down and I slid up and we made it work.

  “That so?” I circled my backside against his front and smiled as I was rewarded for my efforts with the bump of his hips. And a mighty fine erection indeed. “What about you?”

  His hand skimmed my waist, hesitating there before climbing higher so that the tips of his fingers brushed the underside of my breast. “Your effect on me is quite obvious, princess.”

  That nickname. He might as well have poured hot caramel on my body and licked it off.

  We danced for a while, and I was right that some of the other patrons joined us once we demonstrated we weren’t weirdos. At least I thought we did. It was Vegas, so you never really knew.

  Before long, the beat of the music slowed as the night wound down to closing time. It was late, and even a woman experiencing her first exciting cross-country adventure got tired eventually. I found myself in Oliver’s arms with my cheek against his chest as we swayed to the song playing, one by The Chainsmokers. The singer was talking about wanting something just like this.

  I could relate.

  “Ready to go back to the room?” Oliver finally asked when it was obvious the bar was about to close.

  I nodded, my sleepiness lifting. Did this mean we would finally take care of business?

  All right, he’d be taking care of more business than me, but still. I didn’t intend to be a newbie for long. I learned fast.

  I hid a yawn behind my hand as we headed out. Maybe I should’ve had another cup of coffee.

  “You partied all night,” Oliver said, sliding me a sidelong look as we hit the sidewalk to return to our hotel. “Car this time?”

  “No. It’s beautiful out.” I slipped my arm through his and tipped my head against his shoulder. “We should move here.”

  “Should we now?” His response was laced with amusement, and I didn’t even get annoyed.

  I was so warm and loose and relaxed. It was possible I’d never been this relaxed ever before in my life.

  Scratch that. I knew I’d never felt this good.

  “You indulged every one of my whims tonight,” I said softly, swallowing again and again to make the sudden lump in my throat disappear. “No matter how crazy. Even Celine.”

  “We had fun.”

  “Really? You honestly enjoyed yourself with me?”

  He glanced down at me, regarding me so intently that my whole body flushed. I mean, obviously, I couldn’t check to verify that, but his expression spread heat through me from head to toe.

  “Very much,” he replied equally softly.

  “So, does this mean you don’t actually hate me?”

  “I never hated you.” His answer came so quickly that I took it at face value. “Can you say the same?”

  Pursing my lips, I squinted at the lights from passing cars as I sifted through my memories. “Um, no.”

  His laughter was rich and intimate. “Somehow I knew you’d say that.”

  “You’re so
infuriatingly smug. And you sleep with everyone, and think you’re God’s gift to the world.”

  “I can assure you I do not. And I haven’t been with everyone.” He paused, holding my gaze while my heartbeat thundered out of control. “I haven’t been with you.”

  “Some think oral sex is still sex,” I whispered, failing miserably at my attempt at a jaunty tone.

  “Don’t Clintonize me right now. If oral sex counts, it’s only if it’s mutual.”

  I cleared my throat. “I believe I expressed some interest in that earlier.”

  “I believe so. You have an interest in a great many things.” He rubbed his thumb over my hand on his arm. “You’ll have to share them with me sometime.”

  “Busy tonight?”

  He didn’t laugh. “As it turns out, I’m all yours.”

  Oh boy. I could hear my virginity shrieking as it went down in flames.

  I’d definitely need a picture as evidence for my memory journal. Not just of our lovemaking nest. Of the hotel and the street outside and everything else I’d neglected taking photos of in my quest to just…live.

  “We’re here.”

  I turned my head and widened my eyes. We were standing in front of the circular driveway to our hotel.

  “Did we run here?” I asked. Maybe that explained why I was out of breath.

  Nope, that was due to imminent sex.

  Finally.

  So fucking finally.

  Go to hell, swear gallon.

  Oliver squeezed my hand and gestured ahead of him. “After you, princess.”

  Eight

  I had entertained carrying Sage over the threshold into the suite. Not that I normally did such things. There was a fine line between romance and farce.

  But as in all things, Sage Evans was different. She made me want to be different as well. To live outside the box just as she did.

  If anyone deserved that extra jolt of romance, it was sweet, untainted Sage.

  Not that she’d remain untainted much longer. I had my share of positive qualities, but my saintly nature wasn’t one of them.

  I’d tried to keep my distance at different times during the evening. It was simply impossible, no matter how often I reminded myself of my brother’s stern words. I wanted more from her—what, I wasn’t yet certain—but if she needed less…well, I could be what she needed, for tonight or a string of them.