Mr. Naughty: A Second Chance Christmas Romance

by Kara Hart

  I shrug. “No. Definitely not. Marriage was the absolute worst choice I could have ever made,” I say.

  “Exactly. Marriage is a lot like war. It’s hell. Stay away. Stay very far away,” he says. He puts up two index fingers and makes them into a shape of a cross, as if he is warding off evil spirits. I push him away.

  “Speak of the devil,” he says.

  “What?” I ask him. He’s looking over my shoulders and his grin turns even wilder than before.

  “It’s your lucky day, buddy,” he pats my shoulder. I turn around. Emily fucking Carter.

  “No way,” I whisper. He pushes me from behind, which makes me want to sock him the face. I hold back and keep walking toward her. She looks… solemn. She’s looking at the floor and checking her phone constantly. I slowly keep moving through the sea of drunk buffoons, until I’m only feet away from her.

  She’s wearing this blue dress that hugs every curve on her body. Her tits are practically pouring out. Her ass is puncturing the fabric. But it’s that face that I can’t stop staring at. It’s the perfect color, the most satisfying smoothness, and her lips beg to be kissed. I don’t normally get nervous around women, but I have to admit, this one has begun to drive me crazy already.

  “Buy you a drink?” I ask her.

  She doesn’t even turn around. She slams her fists against the bar and makes an exasperated noise. “Seriously? Again? How many fucking times do I have to tell you losers to leave me al—” She turns around and sees me. Her complexion turns ghost white and all of the air inside her comes out in a flurry.

  “Oh, shit,” she says. “I thought you were… I thought you were some creep or something.”

  I jump back a little, but mainly, I’m just laughing at the reaction. “Sorry,” I laugh. “Emily, right?”

  “Yes. Emily,” she says. “Hey, Michael.”

  “So, what’re you drinking?” I ask her again. “It’s on me. You know, for making you jump out of your seat like that.”

  “You’re sweet.” She looks away bashfully. What I would give to have her spread her legs for me right now. I imagine her calling me into that bathroom, begging me to fuck her. I start to think about the dirtiest thoughts I have locked away for so many years. After the divorce, I became a regular old Joe. But that’s not me. When I see something I like, I go insane. I can’t hold back. I have to discover and conquer every single part of it.

  “But,” she sighs, “I can’t have you paying for my drinks. You’ll start to think I’m a low life or something.”

  “In that dress?” I ask her, brows raised. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a low life wear something so sexy.” Sexy. There. I said it. It’s out in the open. The seeds have been sown.

  She blushes again, but this time she’s staring right into my eyes. She’s got the blue, dagger kind, the kind that pierce right through your soul. My cock starts to rise against the zipper of my pants and I have to take a giant breath and focus to try and make it go away. It’s impossible, of course. She’s too fucking gorgeous.

  “Well, do whatever you want to do, I guess,” she says. “I drink old fashioneds, and I don’t do cheap whiskey.”

  I lift up my drink proudly. “Looks like we have a lot in common,” I tell her.

  She laughs. “No way! Okay, well, you know the drill then.”

  I order her the drink and throw my money at the bartender. This time, I tip the normal tip. There’s no need to show off for this woman. I need to contain how I feel. I need to put it in a box and never let it out into the world ever again. It’s explosive. It could ruin everything I’ve worked for. Susan, my fucking ex-wife, would see to that.

  “So, are you supposed to be on a date or something? This isn’t exactly the fanciest bar in town,” I say.

  “Um,” she shrugs. “I was supposed to be meeting someone here. That Tinder app.” She shakes her head, looking frustrated.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” I laugh.

  “Pretty stupid. I mean, I knew I wasn’t going to find the man of my dreams on there, but I get pretty bored not knowing anyone out here,” she says.

  “I don’t think it’s stupid. I’d do the same if things were different for me,” I say. My leg brushes against hers and the hairs on my neck begin to rise. I don’t apologize. I don’t even move my leg back. I keep it next to hers and we begin to understand what this is.

  “Well,” she gulps, “I don’t think he’s coming. And if he does, I think I’m going to send him home.” Her voice trails off and she’s looking at my chest, over to my biceps. “Where’d you get those tattoos? I didn’t see them earlier.”

  Her fingers lightly brush against the dark lines around my arms. My cock pushes and pushes against my jeans. I can’t stop it now. My blood pumps harder and faster than ever, and my face turns warm. “I got them years ago,” I say.

  “Did they hurt?” she asks.

  “Actually, no. They kind of felt good,” I smile.

  Her hand pulls back from my arm. She lets it rest against her upper thigh. I can’t help but look at the buttons that lead down to that forbidden place of my fucking dreams. They lock the world out, but if I have anything to say about it, I’ll be in there soon enough. I’ll pry my way through, tearing each button off with my teeth.

  “Hm. A glutton for pain. You’re one of those types, aren’t you?” she asks. Her teeth are white and slightly sharp. I picture her biting my lip as I penetrate her, pushing her back against the bedpost. I feel her hands clawing down my back, sending shivers down my spine.

  I nod to her suggestion. “All carpenters are gluttons for pain,” I say. “It’s part of the trade.”

  “I’ve heard about you guys. They always think you’re so quiet and docile. Deep down, you’re so different,” she says.

  “Maybe,” I whisper.

  “Take your hands for example,” she says, grabbing my palm and spreading my fingers. She runs her index finger up and down each of them. “Look how calloused these are. Rough. They’ve seen and felt things I couldn’t dream of. They’re hard working hands. No one with hands like these could be passive.”

  “You mean tamed? Hell no,” I say. “I’ve lied to myself one time before. That won’t happen again. Autonomy. That’s the way of a carpenter. The solitude thing is what you’re thinking of. Sometimes you have to reject the world to get the needed work done.”

  She lets go of my hand and takes her drink. “But it’s hard, isn’t it? Being holed up like that for so long?”

  “It’s rewarding,” I say. “But I sometimes get lonely.”

  “Isolated,” she nods. “I understand.”

  We’ve gone too far with this conversation. Any further and I suspect we couldn’t ever hire this woman. I clear my throat and step back a little, keeping a safe distance. “I’m giving you the job, Emily.”

  Her head shakes slightly and her eyes twitch with surprise. She sets her drink down and places her hands against her legs. “Wait, what?” she asks.

  “You heard me. I’m going on a leap of faith here. The job is yours if you want it, but it’s like I said earlier. You’re going to have to work to keep it.”

  Before she can respond, a man walks up behind me suddenly. “Emily?” he asks.

  “Nope. Wrong girl,” she says. The man mumbles something and walks away. “That was him.” She tilts her lips into a frown, but immediately smiles after.

  “Shouldn’t you…”

  “I don’t want to,” she says. “I’m not going to let you down, Michael. I promise. I want this job more than you know. And because I also need it, I’m going to make carpentry my bitch.”

  And I’m going to make you mine, Emily.

  This is the worst decision I have made in my life. When Susan finds out she’s on the job site, she’s going to fire her. She’s going to take me to court. She’s going to show them the evidence she needs and she’s going to take Lisa from me. It’s what she has threatened to do multiple times before. “The evidence stands for itself,�
� she would tell me.

  But this woman is important to me for some reason. Emily is pure. She’s excited. She’s living life, despite her hardships. Not only that, she’s just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever fucking laid eyes on. I grab her hand and squeeze, knowing it’s not the right move, but she doesn’t budge. She just looks at me with innocent eyes.

  “I have to go,” I tell her.

  “Don’t go. Stay and have a few drinks with me,” she says. She wants me to stay. She wants to go home with me and sleep in my bed. She wants to feel me, to know what it’s like to feel my hard cock slide right in. She knows it’ll complete her. Hell, I know it’ll complete me too. She wants a night of hard intimacy, but I can’t give that to her right now. It’s best I keep my distance.

  “I can’t. I left Hanson at the other end. Plus, I have a lot of shipments to take care of tomorrow,” I lie. I gulp down the remainder of my drink and wink at her. She looks over at Hanson who is playing a lonely pinball machine in the corner of the room. He glances back, smiles, and waves. “Come in on Friday.”

  “That’s three days from now, right?” she asks.

  “Yep.” Three long days. By that point, I’ll have gotten this feeling out of my mind. My cock will have come back to its original state, and I’ll be able to breathe normally again. I should have gone for the blonde earlier. She was someone with no attached consequences.

  “Okay then,” she sighs. “I’ll see you then, Michael.”

  “See you,” I say.

  But as I walk over to Hanson, I feel a weight push me down. “This woman is something else,” I think. But I know how this game gets played. By the end, we’ll both be lying in ruins.

  Emily

  Three days pass with extreme slowness. First I delete Tinder. I delete every conversation I’ve ever had with any of those freaks. It’s not the place for a woman like me, and I know that, but sometimes it’s really tough feeling this lonely and helpless.

  Next, I start to go to the gym. I’ve had the membership since I moved down here. It was something I got with the money I grabbed from Dennis before I left. I just want to tune things out. I want to feel like the world is normal.

  Third, I clean my house, organize my clothes, and I even get a new haircut. I don’t know what’s making me do this. Maybe it’s my new boss and the way he looks at me. I get the feeling that he wants more than another worker to help out at the shop. When he looks at me, his eyes dart away. When they come back, they remain steady and hold dark truths.

  For, behind every nice and docile gesture he makes, is a darker side to him. I’m not saying it’s bad. I don’t think he’s abusive or crazy like Dennis was. It’s more of an intensity that I’m sensing. When he fucks, I bet he doesn’t let go. I bet he devours you. I bet he goes full force, every single time.

  But I can’t think of him like that. He’s my fucking boss, for Christ’s sake, and he’s married with a kid. It’s just bad fucking news, altogether. Honestly, I’ve been pretty excited to come into my first day of work, but now I’m completely dreading it. Will I meet his wife on the first day? Will she eye me up and down, figure out what she hates about me, and throw me to the curb? And of course, he’ll endure it all with a nod and a smile. “Yes, honey.” Like all men do.

  I hate that I am so bent out of shape over this. It’s definitely unbecoming, but this is all so unbearable. I know what he’s thinking when he looks at me. Last night, he called me sexy. You don’t just call a woman sexy if you don’t want to take her home.

  Do you?

  I really don’t know anymore. I’m all confused over this, and in reality, I just need the job. Well, today is the big day, and I’m not about to cross any lines. I get in my car and tilt my seat forward. I turn on the engine, but I just sit there. “You have no idea what you’re doing,” I tell myself. “You just sit there and pretend like you know where you’re going. But you’re just drifting through everything.”

  I look at myself in the mirror. Behind the pretty lies, there’s a small girl, full of worry and regret. I never knew growing up would be this hard. I always thought it would mean freedom. You know, getting your own place, falling in love, and having sex whenever, and wherever, I wanted. That’s what I thought it would be like.

  They all tell you that it’s not like that, but when you’re younger, it’s impossible to listen. You just hear what you want to hear, and continue down that path of self-discovery. Now that I’m older, all of those things have worn off. The sex wasn’t as satisfying as I thought. The love was hardly even there. The apartment was more money and effort than I expected.

  I don’t even want to know what it’s like to be forty. Kids, a husband, and a life of regret. Is that what it all leads to? Surely, there’s something better than all of that. There just has to be a better way.

  I put my foot on the pedal and float over to the Vanderbilt house. I get out, lock the car, and look up at the cloudy sky. No rain today. That’s something at least. When I walk into the open garage, both men look up at me. Michael smiles. “You’re early,” he says.

  “Sorry, should I come back later?” I joke.

  “No, it’s a good thing,” he says. “I’m just surprised, really. I’m sure you had a long night.”

  “Actually, I kind of just left,” I say. I don’t want to talk about last night. There were so many things I had wanted to happen. None of them came to fruition.

  “Me too,” he says.

  Hanson shakes his head and drinks a Coke. “You guys are dumb. I stayed the whole damn night. I’ve never felt so good in my life,” he says.

  “Did you get the hi-score on the pinball machine or something?” Michael asks him.

  “Fuck off,” he says.

  “So you want some training or what?” Michael turns to me and stretches.

  “You know it,” I say. Training. Yeah, I’d like him to train me. I’d like to prove to him that he’s the boss, and that I can do better. Teach me, Mr. Vanderbilt.

  “Alright, so have you ever used a hammer before?” he asks.

  I put my hands against my hips and roll my eyes. “Seriously?”

  “No, not seriously. In all seriousness, safety is key, always. When you’re in here, you wear these safety glasses. Always wear long sleeves and gloves. You don’t want to end up chopping your finger off,” he says.

  He gets into the nitty-gritty, and extra boring details about sawing, dusting, hammering nails, and everything else you’ve never wanted to learn about. All in all, however, I’m surprised. It actually seems kind of fun.

  Eventually, Hanson chimes in. “I’m going to run to get some Chinese food. You guys down?” he asks.

  “Sign me up,” I say. Michael nods. “Always.”

  When he leaves, it’s just us. We’re alone now and there is no sound except for the beating of our hearts. I can’t tell if he can hear mine, but it’s reverberating through my ears. “So,” I say.

  “So, that’s really it. You’ll have to watch us to get the hang of it, but I think you’ll be fine. You’ve done a good job today, honestly,” he says.

  “Thank you,” I say. I look down at those rough hands of his. The ring on his finger flickers at me. “How long have you been married for?” I ask him.

  His eyes widen. “Oh, this,” he laughs and pulls it off. “I don’t really know why I keep this thing on.”

  “Wait, what do you mean?” I ask him.

  “I haven’t been married for a while now. Me and my wife, Susan… well, it’s sort of out in the open now, I guess. We got divorced,” he says.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. Deep down, my heart is full of excitement. I can feel the butterflies filling my stomach.

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s for the best, really. We both sort of just went separate ways,” he says. But deep in his eyes, I can see the anger and frustration, as well as pain, pierce through the veil.

  “Sorry I even asked. It’s none of my business,” I say.

  “It’s fine.” He smil
es. “You told me something personal, so it’s only right to return the favor.”

  “That’s a philosophy I can support.” I smile.

  We come to a standstill in the conversation and everything begins to feel heavy. “So what about you?” he asks me.

  “What about me?” I glance into his eyes and give a smile of embarrassment. What is going on here? Is he thinking the same thing as me or is this all in my head? We’re alone. We’re at his house. It’s just a small trip upstairs to his bedroom. I quickly ignore the stupid idea. This is, after all, my new job. I can’t complicate things any further in my life.

  “You have a boyfriend out here?” he asks. Okay, so he’s definitely thinking the same thing as me, right?

  “The Tinder date, remember?” I remind him.

  “Shit,” he says. “Somehow, I completely forgot about the Tinder date.”

  I laugh and run my hands through the sides of my long hair. “It’s okay. You’re old. I don’t expect you to know about these things called dating apps.”

  “I’m thirty,” he scowls. “Sadly, you’re right. I’ve never used one before. Never had the need.”

  “Maybe we should sign you up for one,” I say.

  “Me? Hell no. I don’t really have trouble meeting women,” he says.

  “It’s not about that. It’s just… you know, an option,” she says.

  “You guys talking about getting this guy to go out with someone again?” Hanson steps back in with the Chinese food in hand.

  “I was just—”

  “Don’t waste your time,” he laughs. “Michael is too stuck up for any woman. He’d rather take care of his kid than nuzzle on some sweet—”

  “Hanson. Come on, man,” Michael sighs.

  “I think that’s really sweet,” I say. “There aren’t too many good dads in the world, are there?”

  Hanson rolls his eyes. “I think I need a kid. Women love that shit way too much,” he says.

  Michael shrugs. “It’s just one of many responsibilities. Hey, I think I’m going to sign up for that thing. I mean, why not, right?”