Christmas Cowboy (A Standalone Holiday Romance Novel)

by Claire Adams

  “Oh, thanks, but I’m not really sure I have anything special to request.” I hoped he wouldn’t be too disappointed, but I had never really known much about flowers.

  “You’re the lady of the house now. He remembers when he was a kid, and Mrs. Walker would ask for the most particular flowers. You could always request some petunias or maybe some lilies.” She went back to her stove and shut the oven off, then she went off to the private quarters where she spent her downtime during the day.

  I waited until she was well out of earshot and muttered, “Lady of the house?”

  “You are and not just any lady, but a special one.” His smile widened to meet his eyes. “I’d like you to start having more to do with the place, Lexa. I think it would be nice to share the place and you’ve been here almost a year and haven’t replaced anything or moved anything other than taking over that guest bedroom. It’s your home, so feel free to do with it what you like. I want you to feel at home.”

  “You saw my apartment, Aiden. I never did anything special to the place. It was clean and tidy, and that’s how I liked it. I love the house the way it is.”

  “Suit yourself.” He didn’t seem irritated, but I decided I’d try and have a little more say in things like gardening and my preferences of food, which Mattie had been trying to get out of me for months.

  After lunch, I made a few requests with Pete and had him show me some options on my cell phone. I chose several flowers in mixed colors and hoped that Mrs. Walker would approve. I liked to honor her memory as often as I could because I knew she was still alive to Aiden when it came to Olde House.

  I glanced down at the time and panicked as I realized I’d be in a mad rush to get ready for dinner with my parents. I was holding Aiden to the dessert he promised. When we got home, I wanted to be spread out like a feast for him to devour.

  I ran upstairs and jumped in the shower wondering where he was, but knowing it didn’t take him half as long as it did me. I spent the rest of my hour alone getting dressed to impress, then Aiden came waltzing in and stood behind me in the mirror.

  “I saw you with Pete. Did he get the flowers you wanted?”

  “I had a little help choosing, but I’m certain they’ll be lovely.”

  He undressed behind me and stepped into the shower. I watched his reflection, the perfect, thick cord of his muscular torso and his strong jawline, the one I loved to kiss and bite. And there were other things there I wanted to bite as well, and I heated up thinking about the pleasure he got from such teeth scraping actions.

  We finished getting ready, and before long, we were in the car. He made small talk about my parents and how far along in their relationship we’d grown as he drove out toward the restaurant. The whole way there he went on and on about my parents, so much that I was sick of the both of them by the time we made it there.

  “I think you’ll enjoy dinner very much.” He pulled into a parking spot and shut off the engine. We’d taken his sister’s mustang, and even though I loved the Shelby, his sister’s car was more comfortable.

  “I hope so.” He came around to get me out of the car, and I took his hand when he opened the door taking a deep breath to try not to pout.

  As we approached the restaurant, something felt a little off. It was the way he held my hand as if he wasn’t ever going to let it go.

  We walked inside, and a small crowd of my friends and family all shouted surprise. I tried to grab hold of Aiden’s arm as I looked around and saw all the happy faces, including my parents and Bre, who’d dragged Daniel along. My smile was beaming, and I was so embarrassed, but then a hush fell over them, and I could see eyes fixed on the space behind me. I turned around to see Aiden with a tiny black box in hand.

  I covered my cheeks and gasped as he dropped down to one knee. I reached for Bre’s hand as if doing so would keep me on my feet. She’d always been my support and my rock, and I knew with her there, I couldn’t fail.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes a moment, but then he gazed up into my eyes with such sincerity that tears pooled in mine. “Alexandra Marie Patterson, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” The crowd hushed even more as I prepared myself to answer.

  Our entire past year flashed before my eyes. The night we met, who had known when I cut his clothes off and scrubbed his wounds that he would be kneeling before me at that moment asking me to be his wife. It had been a hard road, one made rockier from my lie, but here he was, and he still wanted me. That was true love. Unconditional, forgiving everything else that had happened to make the journey seem like an impossible dream.

  “Yes, of course, I will, yes.” There was a collective aww that lifted up in the room as he slid the ring on my finger. Like us, it was the perfect fit.

  He rose up from his knee and scooped me up into his arms, and we spun so fast that our friends and family became a blur. Then he put me down on my feet and kissed me as everyone cheered.

  Even though I was drunk with emotion, I felt safe and content knowing we were meant to be. And at that moment, I could feel Shawn’s eyes on us, as well as Ally’s and her parents. I knew that somewhere, somehow, they were looking down at us and giving us their blessing.

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  BILLIONAIRE’S VACATION

  By Claire Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams

  Chapter One

  Christian

  I tapped my fingers against the edge of the couch as I waited for them to finish the final sound check and whatever other miscellaneous things that they were doing. I thought that they would get all that done while I was still in hair and wardrobe, but apparently, they weren't aware of how valuable my time was. I should have charged them extra.

  “All right, I think we're ready,” Kelly, the interviewer, said, dropping into a seat to my left and giving me a winning smile. As though she needed a smile like that with legs like those. I watched as she carefully crossed her long, tanned, muscular limbs in front of her and carefully arranged her navy skirt. When she leaned toward me, clearly trying to appear friendly for the cameras, I caught a glimpse of a lacy, black bra beneath her gray shirt. Maybe she wasn't quite as straight-laced and prim as she appeared to be.

  I smiled back at her, albeit more predatorily than anything else. I was so going to bag her by the end of the night no doubt. No woman could resist me for too long, though the small portion of the chase was most of the fun.

  “All right, everyone, we're live in three, two, one!”

  “Rolling!”

  Kelly turned toward the cameras, giving her viewers her classic grin. She was a pretty girl, no doubt. Half the reason the viewers watched her was because she reminded them of who they wanted to be. Young. Successful. Sexy.

  “All right, everyone, we're here on The Latest, bringing you the best in entertainment interviews and gossip. And tonight, we have a very special guest for you: Christian Wall!” There was clapping from the studio audience, and even though I hated interviews like this, I forced a charming smile on my face. Time to put on my best façade and give them what they wanted. Sounded like the cadence of my life story.

  The thing was, even though I wasn't the sole owner of Sunrise Real Estate, I was the face of the company. I loved working press conferences, and I loved going out and talking to people who were looking to buy houses and helping them find their dream homes. I'd had the chance to be on a number of reality TV shows where I helped sell homes to couples looking in various cities that we operated in, and that was always worth all the fuss.

  But the entertainme
nt ones were always a bit trickier. I'd have to be careful not to let Kelly trip me up. I knew the kinds of things that had been in the news about me lately, things that were making everyone, even Paul, a bit frustrated.

  “So, Christian, as you probably know, the main reason that I've asked you here today is that you have recently been named the hottest bachelor in the United States. Can we just start with a talk about that title?” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. I couldn’t help but wonder how many other people in the world were walking around, faking happiness.

  I laughed a little, shaking my head. “Well, it's of course very flattering,” I said. “I've heard about guys getting named the hottest bachelor in their city or things like that, but I thought Mr. USA had to be a model!”

  Kelly gave me a smirking once-over and looked out toward the audience. “I don't know about the rest of you, but if Christian here isn't fit to be a model, then I don't know who is! In fact, I'd say it's only a matter of time before they have you up on underwear ads around the city.”

  “You wish, maybe!” I said, even though I was inwardly rolling my eyes. Sure, I was hot enough to be up on those sorts of ads, and what I did with my personal life had always been, I held, no one's business except for my own. However, she did have to realize that for all the other things that had made it into the news, I did have some professional reputation that I needed to uphold. Not many young husbands would feel comfortable buying a house from someone they knew their wives were wanking to. It was disturbing, and yet a little hot.

  “From what I hear in the news lately, there are other ways to get the great Christian Wall down to his underwear,” Kelly said, a gleam in her eyes, and of course that was where she had been heading with that remark. I might have seen that one coming.

  I cut her off with my canned response before she could mention the whole underwear incident. It had been a stupid bet with one of my friends, fueled by way too much alcohol. We'd been out at this bar, and girls had been stripping their shirts off so that guys would do body shots off them. Originally, I'd ended up on the table with just my shirt off, but then one thing had led to another, and there had been these two sexy Swedish girls practically fucking me right there on the floor, their hands trailing everywhere.

  Someone had gotten a shot of me stripped down to my black boxer briefs and laid out on a table for them to do body shots off of me. That photo had proceeded to be picked up by seemingly every entertainment source in the world. It wasn’t my finest moment by far, but one that everyone seemed to cling to as if they had nothing better to do. It was one of the incidences that had made Paul a bit exasperated. Or maybe more than a bit.

  But, obviously, I couldn't just tell Kelly to fuck off.

  Instead, I smiled at her. “If you're suggesting that we go out to dinner on Friday night, I'm afraid I'm already taken,” I told her. “I've recently started seeing someone. It's nothing too serious now, but I'm not sure how much longer I'll be the hottest bachelor in the U.S., unfortunately!”

  “Oh, really?” Kelly asked, arching an eyebrow at me.

  It was total bullshit unless you counted this thing that I had going on with this girl Megan, but that was more of a 2 a.m. drunken thing than anything else. I wasn't about to quit being a bachelor anytime soon.

  “But the parties aren't going to stop, are they?” Kelly pressed. “It seems like you've been at all the red-carpet events lately; it seems like you and Jamie Michaels are getting pretty chummy, hmm?”

  “Jamie's a great guy,” I told her. “I was lucky enough to meet him on a ski trip last winter in the Alps; we started out at Meribel, but at the end of the week, neither of us were ready to go back to the grind.” I laughed a little. “Fortunately, I could get some work done remotely, and off we headed to Italy for a second week in Cortina. He's an amazing skier and a great guy.”

  “Some people might say that you have a little too much fun sometimes,” Kelly said. “Tell us what you think about that? Is life just supposed to be fun and games for some and toil and work for others?”

  I shrugged and smiled disarmingly at her. “I’m not too sure about what life is supposed to be about, or if you could put it into one or two words.” I shrugged. “But as far as my crazy life, you know what they say. Boys will be boys. And especially for Jamie and I, who have access to some of the best toys in the world, from snowmobiles to dirt bikes and more, yeah, we're going to have a ton of fun. Of course, we're always safe with them, and we haven't dropped off the globe like we did during the ski tour. For me, things have been busy around the office as people book their last-minute summer vacation homes and start looking ahead to next winter. And Jamie's working on shooting his latest movie.”

  “Any details you can share about that?” She wagged her eyebrows.

  I laughed. “Jamie's totally close-mouthed about it,” I told her, and that one wasn't a lie. “You probably know more about it than I do!”

  “We wish!” She glanced toward the cameras as if including the audience in her ‘we.' “Christian, one more question before we let you go: any details you can give us about this mystery woman who has captured your interest?”

  I mimed zipping my lips and throwing away the key, laughing at the noises of protest from many of the female audience members. “A gentleman never kisses and tells,” I said, holding up my hands. “Anyway, I believe in true love and all of that. I'd hate to think that I jinxed things by getting too far ahead of myself.”

  “Aw, that's sweet,” Kelly said. She looked back out at the audience and began to introduce the next segment of the show; I gave a little sigh of relief, keeping the smile plastered on my face, and tuning her out.

  Despite all the talk about this woman who I was supposedly seeing, I didn't even have to try to take her home that night, really. She would entertain me for the night, or a bit of it, for sure. The way she subtly eye-fucked me before the interview gave me full assurance. I was fucking her within an inch of her life later.

  I walked off stage with various members of her crew patting me on the back and shouting words of encouragement. I needed a shower, and then I was headed to find her again.

  Funny enough, I ran into her as I was finally coming out of my long shower. I'd done my best to scrub off the excessive makeup they'd covered me with prior to the interview, highlights and eyeliner and all sorts of silly things that combined to make me look better under the harsh lighting of the studio. Finally, I felt human again. Like a man.

  “Oh! I didn't realize you were still here,” Kelly said as her eyes went a little wide. The soft smile playing at the side of her lips let me know that even though she might be a little surprised, she was happy about it.

  I smiled at her, running a hand back through my still-damp hair. “Yeah, I chatted with a couple of the other guests for a bit and then got someone to let me into your dressing room so I could take a shower. I hope that's okay.”

  I watched her expression carefully and, yeah, she was probably already wet in her panties. I could only hope her panties matched that flash of a bra that I'd seen. I could only imagine the way the black lace would look across her tight, sexy skin. My cock twitched in my pants at the thought of gripping it and running in along her soft curves.

  “It’s perfectly fine.” She licked her lips and eye-fucked me again. “Did you like it?”

  I chuckled. “The shower? Yeah. There was this hot guy in there, and he let me run my hands over his wet, muscular body.” I winked. “Wait. That was me…”

  She laughed. “You’re so full of it. I swear the world waits in wonder for your next stunt or to see who you really are under that handsome mask.”

  “I’m just me.” I lifted my hands to the side and gave her the cutest little boy look I could. “And me wants to know if you'd let me buy you a drink. It’s a ‘thanks’ for not totally destroying my reputation like so many entertainment anchors seem to want to do lately,” I told her, cocking my head to the side and smiling down at her.

  There was a
moment of indecision on her face, but then, she smiled. “Sure thing,” she said. “Can you give me ten minutes to get changed out of my suit, though?”

  I spread my arms generously, nearly snorting as I saw her eyes dart down toward my abs. “Take as much time as you need,” I told her. “I've got some work emails that I need to answer, so I'll just lurk around the break room doing that.”

  “Great,” she said and disappeared for a bit.

  My mind became a playground of possibilities. I loved women. Especially when they were naked and moaning. Chill bumps pinpricked my skin as lusty images rolled through my mind, one after the next. I was heated and panting a little by the time Kelly showed back up.

  “You ready?” she asked, looking like heaven.

  “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.” I stood and lifted my hand. “Lead the way, beautiful.”

  “Oh no, don’t you start that.” She laughed as she turned and walked in front of me. I let my eyes run down the long line of her back to the thick curve of her ass. Wonder if she likes anal?

  “Start what?” I asked innocently.”

  “You know what.” She laughed and moved through a large crowd of people.

  From there, it was easy enough to lead her out to the street with a hand at her lower back. “You know,” I said slyly. “My place isn't that far from here, and rather than going out to a bar, I've got a really good wine that you might like. I picked it up the last time I was in Italy.”

  Kelly moved onto the street and glanced over at me as she bit her lower lip, no doubt thinking about that imaginary girlfriend. Sure enough. “I thought you were interested in someone?” she asked.

  “We're still pretty casual,” I said. “She's not going to protest if I have you over for a glass of wine. I think people are putting a little too much weight on the relationship anyway. She’s not wearing a ring, and I’m not buying one. And here’s this… what with you interviewing me and all, we're basically coworkers, right? It’s like a coworker happy hour. At my place.” I lifted an eyebrow, hoping like hell my antics would work.