by Penny Reid
“Better than what?” I had so many questions, but this one felt like the most pressing.
His eyes cut to mine and I felt the weight of them instantly, like a touch. Like he’d grabbed me with both hands.
“Oh, now Diane. You know the answer to that.” His tenor was low, gravelly, and he gestured mildly to my house as his mouth curved in a sardonic smile. “I’m dirt in your fingernails, gorgeous. No use being polite about it.”
I frowned at his assessment of himself. “That’s an overly dramatic simplification, Repo.”
“Whatever you say.” He shrugged, his tone still gentle yet holding an unmistakable edge of bitterness.
We stared at each other for a time—me watching him, him being watched—neither of us willing to speak.
Lord help me, I was curious. I wasn’t usually the curious sort, more interested in the doing of things rather than the pondering of things. If a task required more than a half-hour of thought, I was of the mind that it should be delegated. Let an expert handle the details and just give me the summary.
But not tonight. Not with him. Not in the dark. Not after two glasses of brandy, a sexy book on my mind, and silk on my skin.
It was almost one year—to the day—since I’d walked into the Iron Wraith’s club. Last December I’d called it a Christmas present to myself. I might’ve spent the twelve months since engaging in healthy behaviors, but the memory of my indulgence, with him, had never been far from my mind.
And I wanted to know the truth, about so many things.
So I blurted, “Why did you hit on me last year? When I showed up at the club?”
His eyebrows jumped a tick on his forehead, his eyes widening a smidge. But his features smoothed otherwise, the tension in his shoulders dissipating. Though the question seemed to surprise him, apparently it also relaxed him.
“What a ridiculous question.” He both smiled and frowned at me, his eyes skating down then up my form.
“How so?”
“A beautiful woman walks into my club, dressed like you were—”
“How was I dressed?”
“Like you wanted to get laid.”
“I guess I did want to ‘get laid,’” I mused, grinning and laughing despite myself, despite his crass reply. Or maybe because of it. “Okay, go on.”
He chuckled and the deep rumble made me shiver, sent spikes of lovely feminine awareness racing over my skin.
“What else is there to say?”
“What were you thinking? When you saw me?”
“I was surprised, to see you there.” He paused, his eyes narrowing, like he was debating his words.
He bit his lip, chewed on it, his gaze growing distant and hazy as though he were remembering all those months ago.
Finally he said, “And I hoped you’d let me touch you. Make you feel good.”
My smile widened. A tingling warmth spread from chest to my fingertips and low in belly. “And I did.”
“Yes. You did.” His grin waned even as his gaze heated. Repo swept his eyes over me, or what he could see of me wrapped in the blanket. “And then you disappeared.”
I tilted my head to the side, again his stare feeling like a touch, like he was grabbing me with both hands. “I didn’t disappear. We live in the same place.”
He chuckled again, but this time it was devoid of humor. “No.”
“No?”
“No, Diane. We do not live in the same place.” He leaned forward, his elbows connecting with his knees, his hands clasped in front of him.
Lifting an eyebrow, I challenged, “We most certainly do. In fact, it’s less than fifteen miles between my house and your club.”
“Worlds apart,” he countered simply, but he looked amused.
I scoffed. “That’s nonsense.”
“Nope. That’s reality, gorgeous.”
“So that’s why you never—never tried to contact me? After?” I didn’t feel vulnerable or insecure about our lack of interaction afterward. But I was curious. Simply . . . curious.
He didn’t respond right away. Instead he watched me and I noticed his breathing had become shallow.
I pressed, “Do you do that often?”
“What?”
“Pick up strangers? Have mind blowing sex with women and then move on to the next?”
“Mind blowing?”
“Yes. Mind blowing. Earth shattering. Life altering.” I stood, waving my hand through the air for emphasis, and crossed to the sideboard. I needed more brandy for this conversation.
He stood too, grabbing his glass which I hadn’t realized until that moment was empty, and shadowed my steps. I uncapped the liquor and turned, finding him closer—and taller—than I’d expected. But I didn’t miss a beat. I refilled his glass, then I refilled mine, then I clinked our tumblers together and tilted my chin so I could catch his eyes.
As it turns out, I didn’t need to catch anything. He was giving them to me willingly.
“So, tell me, is this your modus operandi? If so,” I clinked our glasses together again, “on behalf of underserviced women everywhere, allow me to extend a sincere thanks.”
Before I could bring the glass to my lips, Repo set his tumbler on the side table and wrapped his large hand around my wrist, staying my movements. He shifted a step closer and I noticed his gaze had grown hooded as it traveled from my lips to eyes.
“Diane,” he whispered, his other hand moving to the blanket covering my shoulder. “Are you drunk?”
I shook my head, my heart all at once in my throat, my chest both heavy and light. “Not yet.”
“Good.” He nodded faintly, guiding my hand to the table and placing my glass next to his. “Because I’m going to tell you something and I want you to remember it tomorrow.”
“Repo—”
“My name is Jason,” he said gruffly. “Call me Jason.”
“Okay. Jason.” I swallowed and nodded quickly as he gripped the blanket and tugged. I felt it slip over my shoulders and fall away, yet I made no move to grab it. I couldn’t. I was trapped, a thrilling sense of déjà vu holding me hostage.
“The answer is no.”
“No?”
“No.” He formed the word slowly, meticulously, as though imparting a profound truth with great care. “I do not pick up strange women often. Or at all. I do not take a woman to my room, coax her out of her clothes with petting and kissing like teenagers, and then kneel before her. I do not eat pussy—ever—and I do not wait for a woman to come three times before taking my turn and becoming crazy with how badly I want to do it again. All of it.”
By the end of his speech I was panting.
And incredibly turned on.
I wondered if anyone in the history of the world had ever been as turned on as I was right that minute.
Probably not.
Not helping matters, Repo—I mean Jason—had replaced his hand on my shoulder as soon as the blanket fell away, his thumb pulling the strap of my nightie down my arm, baring my breast. He cupped me. I moaned.
“Now,” he said, no longer whispering; his deep voice wasn’t loud, but it also wasn’t soft, “I’m going kiss you. Everywhere. But not because I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since last year, since last Christmas when you walked into my club.”
I shivered, my eyelids half blinking and I swayed towards him. “Then, why-why are you going to kiss me?”
“Because . . .” he bent, turning me, pressing my back against the high table as his hands slipped down my body to my thighs. “We’re standing under the mistletoe.”
I stared at him. Then I lifted my eyes and saw he was right.
The mistletoe. My son-in-law’s mistletoe. The one he’d hid in my house. The one I’d missed. The one he’d predicted would deliver unto me a very merry Christmas.
I gasped just before Jason’s lips met mine, just before he captured my moan and my newly filled glass of brandy crashed to the carpet.
But I didn’t care about that.
I could think about that tomorrow.
Because now, right now, I was too busy having a very merry Christmas.
A Very Beardy Christmas (Billy and Scarlet)
A Winston Brothers bonus scene
Author’s Note: I wrote this scene as a Christmas short for my newsletter, and meant for it to be short and sweet at the time, but—since we’re talking about Billy and Scarlet here—it quickly morphed into something quite different. The action takes place the Christmas before Dr. Strange Beard and Beard Necessities.
“Thanks to autocorrect, one in five children will be getting a visit from Satan this year.”
Author, Unknown
*Claire*
I was stuck.
At present, I was stuck in my car, peering out the windshield to the big old house beyond. It was beautiful. They’d painted it yellow. The paint must’ve been done recently because the color looked fresh, vibrant, especially against the blue-gray sky and snow dusted trees of the Smoky Mountains behind it. The trim was white, so were the gutters, and both were lined with garlands of holly strung with Christmas lights.
Each of the double doors had a giant evergreen wreath hung with a big, red bow. Someone had wound red ribbon all along the banisters to the steps leading to the large, wraparound porch. A Christmas tree was visible in the largest window of the house, all lit up and decorated, like something from a movie.
It was the sight of the Christmas tree that had initiated my panic attack. I’d been perfectly fine until I’d spotted the Christmas tree. I’d been steady. I’d been composed. I’d been prepared.
Now I could hardly breathe and I hadn’t even left my car. A sense of something on my chest, something real heavy—and spikey—make each intake of air a labor. Random little pains stabbed my heart as I tried to swallow the rush of nerves.
My hands hurt. Why do my hands hurt?
Tearing my gaze from the Christmas tree in the window, I glanced at my knuckles and found they were white.
Relax.
Just relax.
I’d been gripping the steering wheel so hard, my fingers had started to lose feeling. Forcing myself to release the wheel, I shook my hands and closed my eyes.
Get a grip, Claire.
Get. A. Grip.
But I couldn’t. I had nothing to grip, no anchor, no safe harbor.
I forced myself to breathe, to calm, because I could to this. My childhood had been anchor free, I’d been tossed about on a sea of chaos and violence. I didn’t have a real concept of safety was until I was sixteen.
This meant that my particular superpower was adaptation. No one had a stronger self-preservation instinct than I did—no one—and one Christmas dinner with the Winstons would not be the death of me, even if Billy Winston happened to be present.
Sure, it might feel like dying. It might feel like being stabbed repeatedly through the heart with a wooden chopstick while standing on one leg naked in icy tundra that smelled like regret.
But it wouldn’t, in fact, be death.
Oh jeez, now I’m sweating.
Opening the Mustang’s door, I turned my face toward the rush of cool air as I stood and breathed it in. He’s probably not even there. I was a nervous sweater. Not sweater as in the knitwear kind, sweater as in the pit stains, droplets rolling down my temples into my eyes kind.
When I was a little girl, the other kids used to call me Sweaty Scarlet. I’d tried to make this into a joke, calling myself the S. S. St. Claire, like I was a navy boat or something. The boat thing never caught on, but Sweaty Scarlet followed me into high school until I left Green Valley (as had a few other names).
But, that’s okay. Builds character, right? Kids will be kids. I harbored no ill will. Folks grow up, they change, life goes on . . .
Or, it doesn’t.
Good Lord, my heart was beating so hard, it felt like someone was crashing brass cymbals inside my chest.
Chill.
Chill.
. . . I SAID CHILL, DAMMIT!
Billy and I were, according to the world, nothing but passing acquaintances, and this had always been the case. By outward appearances, our continued association endured only because of my coincidental relationships with his brothers:
My deceased husband, Ben, had been best friends with Billy’s oldest brother, Jethro; Jethro and I had been friendly since Ben’s death.
Billy’s father, Darrel, had impregnated my mother, Christine; Billy and I were therefore linked by the twin offspring of their affair, Beau and Duane.
Only one other person knew of our shared past, and that person was Cletus Winston, the third brother in the Winston family. He also happened to be my only friend during childhood. Our friendship had started probably because we were both outcasts, but it endured probably because he was an awesome person.
In addition to being awesome, Cletus was the best secret keeper I knew. My friend had never spoken a word about Billy and me to anyone. However, as much as I trusted him, not even Cletus knew the whole story. If he did know the whole story . . . well.
Let’s just say, he probably wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.
I could just turn around, make an excuse, plead exhaustion or traffic.
I’d been determined not to be scaredy-cat-Scarlet or cowardly-Claire. But now, faced with the reality of what I’d agreed to, cowardice was looking pretty darn comforting.
Before I could make up my mind one way or the other whether to get back in the car and drive away, the front door opened and a tall figure stepped out. I stiffened, my immediate instinct was to bolt, but then I exhaled a slight, hysterical laugh when I saw who it was.
“Claire McClure. Are you coming in the house anytime soon?” Cletus Winston hollered. His hands were at his hips and he was wearing the ugliest Christmas sweater I’d ever seen—that is to say, he was wearing the knit kind; he was not wearing an ugly person who sweated. “Or should we put your place setting inside your car? It’d be a mighty long way to pass the mashed potatoes.”
“I’m coming inside.” I waved him off, rolling my eyes at myself and trying to sound blasé, even though I couldn’t quite bring myself to step away from my car.
“Are you sure about that?” He, meanwhile, took a step away from the door. “I could jimmy-rig a pulley system, attach one end to the chandelier in the dining room and the other end to your car hood. Do you mind eating out of a bucket?”
“Don’t be a dummy.” I chuckled, nervously, squinting behind him at the open door. I thought I saw movement there, another person close behind, but I was too far away to tell for certain. “I just need to get some things out of the trunk.”
“What things?” I couldn’t see his face clearly, but somehow I just knew he’d narrowed his eyes.
“Food things.” Closing the driver’s side door, I walked to the back of my car and popped the trunk. Lifting it open had the happy byproduct of obscuring me from view. “Go back inside, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“What’d you bring? Is it dip? You know I enjoy a good dip. Do you need help?” he called, sounding anxious.
Shaking my head—both at myself and Cletus’s antics—I shouted, “I don’t need help. I’m just fine. You can go back inside and stop pestering me.” And then, because my hands were shaking as I reached for the spinach dip and bread bowl, to myself I mumbled, “Good Lord, Claire. Get a hold of yourself. He’s just a man. He’s not even the Boogieman. Plus, he’s engaged to Daniella Payton. Plus, he might not even be here. He’s probably over at his fiancé’s house.”
Because I was talking to myself like a crazy person, I didn’t hear the approaching footsteps—boots crunching on the light dusting of snow—until Cletus was almost to where I stood, hiding behind the raised trunk of my car. So when I sighed, it was with exasperation. He’d never been a good listener.
“I said I didn’t need help, Cletus.” Turning towards the sound of the footsteps, my arm laden with foodstuffs, I shut the trunk. “You are—”
<
br /> Oh God.
Oh no.
I’d been mistaken. Horribly mistaken. The approaching, snow crunching footsteps hadn’t been Cletus’s.
They’d been Billy’s.
I’m not ready.
“Hey, Claire,” he said, using that voice of his, standing just beyond the taillight of my car, not more than four feet away.
Too bad, Scarlet. Because this is happening.
The weight and enduring intensity of his gaze jarred, sent a flash of heat . . . well, everywhere. I was hot everywhere.
“Hi,” I breathed more than said, my eyes automatically sliding over his shoulder and beyond him. I tried to swallow. I couldn’t.
But I did I stare unseeingly at the landscape during the wordlessness that followed, listening to the sound of my frantic heartbeat, the blood rushing between my ears, the great big thump thump thumps still reverberating painfully in my chest. The ruckus of my pulse made it difficult to locate my wits. They’d abandoned me as soon as they’d spotted him, turned tail and run for the hills. Traitors.
Thankfully, not looking at a Billy Winston while he stood directly in front of me had become second nature more than a decade ago, an adaptation (i.e., self-preservation) technique apparently so thoroughly ingrained in my psyche that, even after not seeing him for these last several years, the instinct had endured.
Also second nature: creeping on him while we was, let’s say, across a room; or talking to someone else; or in any situation where I could get away with gazing at Billy Winston without him noticing. I was certain the creeper-me portion of the evening would come later. . . assuming I actually went inside, which was still up for debate.
Please be nice to me, Billy. Just be nice.
I sensed him shift a split-second before asking, “Can I help you bring that in?” His delicious, smooth, deep voice was calm—so calm—it was near hypnotizing. But his small movement drew my attention. Billy had stepped forward, his hands outstretched, like he was going to take the dip and bread bowl.