Unwrapped

by Gem Frost

  UNWRAPPED

  Gem Frost

  UNWRAPPED published by Gem Frost. Copyright 2019, Gem Frost.

  Cover design copyright 2019 by Addendum Designs.

  Proofread by Margaret Bates.

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, Gem Frost.

  Author’s note: UNWRAPPED was previously released in a different form under the pen name Ellen Fisher. It has been heavily rewritten and expanded.

  Chapter 1

  Nick

  The Christmas tree looks like a fucking Hallmark commercial.

  I have to admit it’s pretty. It’s damn pretty. It glistens with small, sparkling lights and artfully draped tinsel. My sister’s carefully collected glass and ceramic ornaments dangle from its thick green branches, twirling slowly. Beneath its lower boughs, brightly wrapped presents are stacked high. It’s actually one of the most beautiful trees I’ve ever seen. I mean, Hallmark would pay serious money for this damn thing. It’s gorgeous.

  I really want to knock it over and stomp on it.

  While I’m glaring at it, a door bursts open, and Perry Como’s baritone voice, singing “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” drifts into the room. Two rugrats dash in, followed by my sister Madison. She has that rumpled, tired look that all parents with little kids get this time of year, and her coffee-brown hair is working its way out of her formerly neat ponytail, hanging messily around her face. She pauses on the threshold and looks warily at my expression.

  “For crying out loud, Nixon, will you stop staring at my tree like it’s the ugliest thing you ever saw in your life?”

  She only calls me by my full first name when I’m misbehaving, and I flinch, as she intended. Our parents were both big into history, and they named us after presidents. She’s the lucky one, named for James Madison. Me… well, I’m not so lucky, which is why I generally go by Nick instead.

  “It’s not ugly,” I admit, grudgingly. “It’s very pretty.”

  “Then why do you keep glaring at it like it’s a mortal enemy?”

  Char, my four-year-old niece, picks up a package, shakes it carefully, then places it back on the floor and heads in my direction. I automatically pick her up and plop her onto my lap, and she cuddles against my chest. It’s sweet. She’s sweet. Seriously, kids are awesome. Especially other people’s kids.

  “Uncle Nick hates Christmas,” she announces. “Dontcha remember, Mommy? You told us that.”

  Madison glances at me, and her cheeks flush. Obviously that wasn’t meant to get back to me, but Madison should know by now that Char repeats everything she sees or hears. At Thanksgiving dinner, she gave me a long and detailed description of the weird purple thing she’d found in Madison’s nightstand, and I seriously thought my sister was going to die of embarrassment.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” Madison says now. “Hate is a very strong word. I’m sure he doesn’t hate Christmas.”

  “That’s right,” I agree. “I don’t hate Christmas. I loathe it, I despise it, I abhor it, but I certainly don’t hate it.”

  Connor, who’s seven, looks up from where he’s investigating a package. “Those words all mean you hate it, don’t they?”

  Smart kid. I shrug, and Char looks up at me with a quizzical expression on her little face. “How come you hate Christmas, Uncle Nick?”

  Her voice and expression are so mournful that I feel like an asshole. Like a world-class Grinch. I hang out with the kids practically every Saturday so Madison can get a break from them, since their other mom took off for the other side of the country after their divorce and is never around to see the kids. I’m like, I dunno, a role model or something. And I should probably try to be more positive about the holiday.

  After all, the kids have had enough upheaval in the past year, and the last thing they need to have around on Christmas Eve is a grumpy uncle who can’t stand the holiday. Which is why I tried really, really hard to get out of coming here tonight. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the rugrats. But they’re so fucking happy about Christmas Eve, and I really do hate it. For that matter, I really loathe, despise, and abhor it too.

  The point I’m making here is that my beloved sister dragged me over here against my will. It wasn’t my idea. Even so, now that I’m here I know perfectly well I should try to pretend to be getting into the Christmas spirit, if only for the sake of the kids.

  But I’d much rather be moping around at home, where there’s no goddamned sparkly Christmas tree to mock me.

  “I had something bad happen to me on Christmas Eve once,” I admit at last. “But I guess it’s kind of dumb to let that ruin every Christmas, huh?”

  “I don’t see how you can be sad when you have all these presents to open.” Connor has a firm grip on what’s important about Christmas, and his naked greed makes me grin despite myself.

  Fortunately, I brought quite a pile of wrapped and bowed loot with me, which means I’m on their nice list, if not Santa’s. The kids will open most of their presents Christmas morning, of course, but tonight they’re opening all of mine, and I’ll be opening the things they bought me, too. At first Madison tried to drag me over on Christmas morning, but I flatly refused. Christmas morning is for family, not for a grumpy, sullen uncle who loves the holiday about as much as Scrooge did before his ghostly visitations. The kids don’t need me there in the morning, casting a pall over the happiest day of the year.

  “When can we open our presents?” Char asks hopefully.

  “Soon, kiddo.” Madison glances at her Apple watch. “We’re waiting on someone else I invited over. A man from work. He doesn’t have any family here, and I didn’t want him to be lonely, so I asked him over for dinner.”

  My head jerks up, but Madison gazes back with innocent dark eyes—so perfectly guileless that I know, I just know, she’s up to something. Bambi himself never looked so sweetly innocent. Goddamnit, she’d better not be trying to set me up with someone again. Since she moved back to town, she’s been constantly trying to get me to “settle down,” throwing men and women into my path, and it’s annoying as hell. The absolute last damn thing I need on Christmas Eve is my darling sister trying to set me up with some rando who doesn’t have friends or family of his own to hang out with.

  As if on cue, the doorbell rings, and Madison flashes a too-bright smile. Yeah, she’s definitely up to something. “That’s probably him now. Excuse me a minute, Nick. Guys, don’t drive your uncle nuts, okay? And quit poking at your presents.”

  She leaves the room, and the second she’s out of sight, the kids totally ignore her last words and dive for their gifts, continuing to prod them with intense interest. I almost tell them to knock it off, but I’m arrested by the sound of a voice—an agonizingly familiar tenor voice—in the foyer, and the noise of feet drawing closer to the living room. I’m frozen in place as Madison walks back into the room, a slender, strawberry-blond man with black-rimmed glasses just behind her.

  “Nick,” she says, “this is Archibald Sydney.”

  Shit. Shit. I don’t need her to tell me his name. I already know the guy standing behind her, know every inch of him intimately, could describe every detail of his face and body, right down to the precise location of each of his goddamn freckles.

  Because it’s been precisely three years since Archibald Sydney dumped me on Christmas Eve.

  Chapter 2

  Syd

  Nick looks like he’s been slugged in the stomach with a two-by-four. Truth is, I f
eel pretty much the same way. Until this moment, I’d almost forgotten what the sight of those strongly masculine features do to me, how those gorgeous brown eyes and too-long black hair make my heart thunder like a summer rainstorm.

  No… I’m lying to myself. I haven’t forgotten a damn thing about Nixon Brant. In fact, that’s precisely why I set this situation up, because I’ve never been able to forget. Three years, and it still feels like it all happened yesterday…

  I swallow hard, doing my best to keep my voice from shaking, and speak in a cool tone, deliberately using his full first name, which he absolutely hates.

  “Hello, Nixon.”

  Nick manages to get his mouth closed, but it looks like an effort. A big one. “Syd,” he says, his voice a harsh whisper.

  He doesn’t use my first name, which I also absolutely hate. His spontaneous use of my preferred nickname, as well as his very visible shock, obviously clues Madison into the fact that we have a history. She glances back and forth between us in confusion. “Do you guys know each other?”

  It’s my fault she’s confused, because I didn’t tell her. I should be ashamed of myself, but I’m not, not really. I wanted to see Nick again so much that I let it override all other considerations. I was even willing to risk my friendship with Madison over it—and over the past eight months she’s become a very good friend.

  “Yeah,” I answer. “We’ve met.”

  That’s the understatement of the century, right there. Nick’s the man I’ve spent three long, interminable years trying to forget. But I don’t especially feel like volunteering that information right now. The last thing I need is for Nick to know how much I cared.

  “Uh, yeah,” Nick says, obviously trying to follow my lead but doing a crappy job of acting. Deception is one thing Nick was always terrible at. I could read him like a book. Still can, apparently. “We, uh, met a few years ago.”

  “Well, um… that’s nice,” Madison says, although she still looks worried. Obviously, she’s sensed some glimmering of the truth from Nick’s shell-shocked expression. Could be I’m not doing a great job of hiding my feelings, either. “Uh…” She rounds up her kids with a single glance, like a border collie rounding up a small flock of sheep. “I need to go finish up dinner. Why don’t the two of you catch up?”

  Perfect. That’s exactly what I want, the reason why I engineered this whole horribly awkward situation. To be alone with Nick one more time, just to see if there’s still a spark between us. Judging from Nick’s horrified expression, that’s precisely what he doesn’t want. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Nick needs to confront the past as much as I myself do. Confront it, accept it…

  And move on.

  “Sounds terrific,” I answer cheerfully. I hand over the food and wine I brought to Madison, then walk over to the sofa and sit down, so that Nick will look churlish and rude if he tries to retreat. I pat the sofa next to me. “Have a seat, Nixon. Let’s catch up.”

  Nick hesitates, then makes his way toward me, looking like a man headed for the electric chair. He settles onto the couch, as far away from me as humanly possible. Madison shoots us a last uncertain smile and leaves the room, shooing the kids ahead of her.

  And just like that, we’re alone for the first time in three years.

  Nick glares at me, looking ready to commit murder. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demands.

  I force a pleasant smile. It’s not easy to look unconcerned in the face of his obvious anger, because Nick is a big guy, not to mention incredibly intimidating, but I somehow manage it. “Your sister was nice enough to invite me over for Christmas Eve,” I answer. “I don’t have any family in the area, you know.”

  “I want to know what the fuck you’re doing working with my sister,” Nick growls. “There is no way that’s a coincidence. Are you stalking me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” My smile slips, and I look at him coolly. “After all, I’m the one who dumped you. Remember?”

  Judging from the naked pain that flashes across his stupidly handsome face, Nick does remember, very clearly. A stab of guilt shoots through me, but I tamp it down firmly. I didn’t like hurting Nick three years ago, and I didn’t want to ever hurt him again, so I’d stayed far away from him, making certain our paths never crossed. I hoped that time would allow me to forget him.

  But time apparently doesn’t heal all wounds… because I’ve never forgotten.

  When Madison moved to town and began working in my practice, and I realized her brother was Nick, I finally admitted to myself that I had to see him again. I don’t know why, exactly. I mean, the cold, stark reality is that our relationship is over. Completely, totally, and utterly over.

  If only I could really bring myself to believe that.

  “So, you expect me to believe you just happen to work in the same office as my sister?” Nick challenges.

  “We’re both in orthodontics, remember?” I know he remembers; it was a subject of small talk between us when we first met. “Anyway, when she moved to town she came to work at my practice, not the other way around.”

  Nick’s eyes narrow. “So, you hired her because she was my sister?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” I snap, shoving my glasses up on my nose. “I didn’t even know she was your sister when I hired her.” It was the truth—I hadn’t known. After all, Madison took her wife’s last name and continues to use it, even after the divorce, so there was nothing to connect her to Nick. And I’d never met her, because she’d lived in another city back when Nick and I were an item.

  But as soon as Madison and I started chatting over lunch at the local Chinese restaurant occasionally, I figured it out easily enough. Of course, I didn’t volunteer to Madison that I’d once been involved in a hot affair with her brother. I still feel guilty for keeping that information to myself, but it’s enabled me to learn a lot about Nick over the past eight months.

  Like the fact that he goes out with someone new every weekend.

  That isn’t a surprise, of course. In fact, it’s the reason I broke off our relationship in the first place. I simply couldn’t live with the painful awareness that I was just another in a long string of conquests. Nick’s a player, through and through. And yet discovering that Nick still hadn’t changed was a surprisingly sharp knife right through my heart.

  I guess I’d wanted him to still be moping after me, three years later, the way I still moped after him. Which was stupid. Even wearing a tacky Christmas sweater (neon green, with a red-sequin-nosed reindeer), Nick is beautiful, tall, perfect, and built like a Greek god, and I’m… well, I’m a short, pinkish-haired orthodontist with thick glasses. He’s way out of my league, and always was.

  “So maybe it’s a coincidence you work in the same office,” Nick says. His voice is a low growl. “But surely you don’t expect me to believe it’s a coincidence that you’re here?”

  I hesitate for a long moment. “No,” I admit at last. “It’s not a coincidence.”

  So maybe I am a stalker. Kind of. I can’t really blame Nick for being mad, all things considered.

  His eyes narrow. God, those eyes. They’re like cocoa, a rich, deep brown and usually warm. But right now, they’re cold as ice. “Then why the hell are you here?”

  I pause again, then blurt out the honest truth—a truth I didn’t mean to admit, even to myself, let alone to Nick. But the words just burst out of me on their own.

  “I wanted to know if we could still be good together,” I whisper.

  Nick stares at me for a long, breathless moment. Then his long arms reach across the couch and pull me against him. His arms go around my waist in a tight, unbreakable grip.

  And our mouths meet.

  ✽✽✽

  Nick

  God, I’ve missed this.

  Since Syd’s haunted my every dream for the last three years, it isn’t much of a surprise that I remember every last detail. The way his lips taste, clean and fresh like the winter air, with the slightest hint of mi
nt. The light citrusy fragrance he wears. The way his head falls back in surrender. The almost inaudible sound of longing that rises from his throat.

  It’s been three fucking years… and yet it feels like no time has passed at all.

  I dig my fingers into his thick, strawberry-blond curls and yank him against me harder, dragging him into my lap, so that he straddles my legs. At the very first touch of Syd’s lips, I instantly went painfully, rigidly erect, and I can feel he’s already hard too. The feel of his hot, hard cock against mine is almost enough to send me right over the edge, after the three long and lonely years of celibacy I’ve suffered through.

  Celibacy, hell. The truth is, I don’t much care that I’ve gone three years without sex. What matters is that I’ve gone three years without Syd.

  I hear a low sound rumble in my throat, almost like a growl, and I slide my hands up under his sweater, feeling the smooth power of his back, the muscles rippling beneath the warm skin. He’s a little guy, but stronger than you’d imagine. I guess is the word to describe him is wiry. The feel of his skin against my palms makes my heart pound, and I can’t seem to help slipping my tongue into his mouth. Our tongues tangle together, mating in a savage, desperate dance, and I can hear Syd’s rapid breathing, can hear myself panting as if I’ve just run a marathon.

  And then I hear a less welcome sound.

  The door opening.

  I yank my head away from Syd, and I see Madison standing there, staring at us with shock.

  Syd looks over his own shoulder, his round, black-rimmed glasses askew, and instantly goes beet red. I remember with a little pang that he always blushed easily. He always called it the curse of the redhead. But I’ve never seen him quite as crimson as this.

  Madison stares a moment longer, her mouth hanging open, then she manages to pick her jaw up off the floor.

  “You guys must know each other better than I thought.”