by Amy Lamont
“Are you sure you want to spend Christmas with me?” I had to ask him. “I know it’s not really your thing, and well, I may go a little overboard with the whole Christmas spirit thing.”
His warm chuckle had filled my ears and made every nerve-ending tingle. “I’m sure, sweetheart. Remember, you promised to show me how magical the day can be.”
I knew from his tone of voice he had more than tinsel and Yule logs in mind when he spoke of magic.
As it turned out, Nate had spent the two days before Christmas Eve much the same way I had. Well, maybe not quite the same. Where my friends and I had run around like crazy to get ready for Christmas, Nate had a full staff at his disposal to get his home holiday ready.
He arrived bright and early on Christmas Eve. When he saw all the stuff I had packed up to take with me, he froze in the doorway of my apartment.
“Don’t worry,” I rushed to explain. “I’m not moving in indefinitely. There are just a few traditions I have…”
I trailed off as it hit me that I should have asked him if all of this would be okay. We’d spent most of the time we’d known each other having sex. Mind-blowing, amazing, out-of-this-world sex. Maybe that was all he had in mind for the next few days, just a continuance of the one-night stand.
As I stood there biting my lip, frantically trying to think of how to backpedal and leave some of it behind, he stepped inside and kissed me. It was quick and hard, but held lots of promise. While I worked on shaking off the daze his kiss left me in, he scooped up my bags and headed toward the door.
Guess he didn’t mind humoring me with my Christmas traditions.
His condo came as a bit of a surprise. The address overlooking the park didn’t come as a shock. But the fact that it was comfortable and lived in and, while spacious, but not humongous, did. I loved it. It suited him and wasn’t at all the modern, streamlined, oversized penthouse his billionaire status had me expecting.
It was also decked out from top to bottom in Christmas decorations.
“You told me you didn’t do Christmas,” I said.
And for the first time since I met him, he looked a little embarrassed. My mouth dropped. Seriously, I swear the tips of his ears got a little pink.
“But you do Christmas,” he said quietly.
I twirled and took in the lights and the garlands, the stockings on the mantel, and the tall Christmas tree with its pile of presents underneath.
“You don’t do this every year?”
The expression he turned on me could best be described as a grimace. “No, I don’t do this. Ever.”
“So where did all this…” I gestured around the room, and words failed me as I took it all in.
“My staff helped me with it.”
I turned to him and tears prickled behind my eyes. “You did all this…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Too afraid to hope it could be true.
“For you,” he said. “I did all this for you.”
I froze for an instant. But then I dropped my bags and raced across the room to throw myself into his arms. It took us a little while after that to get to putting away the things I’d brought.
Later, he helped me bake Christmas cookies. And by helped, I mean he sat at the kitchen bar and taste tested cookie dough as I made it. That too had ended up with me in his arms. Or more precisely, us on the floor covered in flour with a batch of sugar cookies burning to a crisp in the oven.
Christmas morning had brought its own surprises. Turned out most of the brightly wrapped gifts under the tree were for me. Though I’d managed to sneak a few of my own under there when Nate wasn’t looking.
I’d be lying if I said many of those boxes for me didn’t contain sexy lingerie. I didn’t mind. It thrilled me that Nate saw me that way. For the first time in my life, I felt sexy and desirable. I couldn’t wait to try them on.
But there were some other things in there, too. He’d given me a pair of red plaid pajama bottoms with an oversized matching sweatshirt.
“For the nights we can’t spend together,” he’d told me.
And my breath left my lungs when I unwrapped a small blue box with a white ribbon. Inside I found a snowflake pendant of diamonds and platinum. I wanted to say it was too much. That he shouldn’t be spending money like that on me. But my throat clogged with tears at the sight of the beautiful piece of jewelry that would forever remind me of this day and of the moment we met in the hotel bar decked out to look like a winter wonderland.
Before I found my voice, he had the necklace clasped around my neck. All I could say was “Thank you.”
My own gifts felt like nothing in comparison, mostly in keeping with the magic of Christmas theme. But he seemed genuinely pleased with the snow globe of Manhattan during Christmas and the ornament from the Hotel Wynter. I’d also stuffed his stocking full of silly things—chocolates and puzzle books, funny socks and a booklet of sex coupons.
But his favorite gift from me was one I almost hadn’t given him. I’d debated a long time before I wrapped it up.
He’d opened the box I placed it in and looked up at me in question. I reached over and pulled the pile of pages out. “I wrote it for you,” I explained. “It’s our story. Of the night we met. But for your eyes only. And I didn’t give Brandi credit for this one.”
He looked at me for several long moments and then down at the pages in his hand. I held my breath as he read, afraid he’d be pissed or think I broke my promise about never writing about him.
But when he turned his gaze on me, I knew I had nothing to fear. His beautiful eyes had turned a dark amber, the green barely visible. Before I knew what he planned, he had me pinned to the floor surrounded by piles of wrapping paper. He stripped me of my red silky robe and matching nighty and worked hard at recreating the night we met.
The rest of the day we spent making love, cuddling and nibbling the munchies and the Christmas dinner his staff had left prepared for us.
And now, I was happy to lie under the tree, the Christmas lights the only light in the room. Nate’s hand absently sifted through my hair while I traced patterns over his chest with my finger.
“Merry Christmas,” I whispered.
He tightened his hold on me and used his hand in my hair to turn my face up to his for a long, slow kiss. “Merry Christmas.”
“Do you feel the magic yet?” I couldn’t help but ask.
He smiled down at me. “I might have to admit the last two days were a little bit magical. But I think it had more to do with you than Christmas.”
My heartbeat picked up speed and I stretched up to leave a line of kisses along his jaw. I let him believe what he wanted, but I knew the truth—the magic of Christmas had delivered this man to me.
I squeezed my eyes tight and sent one more Christmas wish out into the universe—please, please let me have many more Christmases with Nate.
THE END
SNOWBOUND WITH THE BIKER
Chapter One
Katelyn
“Let me top that off for you.” Paige leaned forward with the pitcher of frozen margaritas and refilled Emma’s glass.
I stuffed a mini quiche in my mouth to keep from giggling at Paige’s none-too-subtle tactic. It was common knowledge that tequila worked like truth serum on Emma, and we’d all been waiting to get the dirt on her and the hot guy she’d hooked up with over Christmas.
“Me, too, please.” I held my nearly empty glass out and Paige stretched to fill it.
I settled down, curling my legs underneath me and reached for a stuffed mushroom. I’d been waiting for tonight for a month. Between work and school, I hadn’t had a chance to breathe lately.
But tonight was New Year’s Eve, and Paige, Jade, Emma and I were indulging in our New Year’s Eve tradition—staying in and binging on munchies, dessert and frozen margaritas while we watched the ball drop from the comfort of our own living room.
“Well, first things first,” Paige said, rubbing he
r hands together. “We need to decide on the winner of our bet.”
I grinned. On Thanksgiving the four of us made a bet to see who could have the wildest adventure by tonight. And it had gone exactly as planned.
“I know I’m not the winner. I haven’t even had time to think about doing something adventurous,” I said.
“Me, too. The closest I came was having drinks with Jared Sloane,” Paige said.
“Oh my God, that totally counts.” Jade shook her head. “I still can’t believe you had drinks with the lead singer of Sliding Violet.”
Paige shrugged, but a small smile tugged at her lips, letting us know she wasn’t as cool about the whole thing as she’d like us to think. “It’s not like I got to do more than that. He got a phone call and had to leave. He never even asked for my number.”
Paige nudged Jade’s leg with her toes. “How about you? Did you manage to hide some big adventure from us?”
Jade rolled her eyes. “I wish. The most exciting thing that’s happened to me since Thanksgiving was getting an extra fortune in my cookie when we ordered Chinese the other night.”
We all turned to stare at Emma.
She held her hands up, palms out as she laughed. “All right, all right. I’ll concede. I had an awesome adventure. I won.”
A twinge of jealousy in my belly took me by surprise. Not that I had any desire to have a one-night stand. But I couldn’t help but think there were other opportunities I’d passed up on over the last few years. What might have happened if I’d acted on those impulses?
As soon as the thought entered my head, a vision of the boy who lived next door to me most of my life, the one guy I’d never had the nerve to say more than two words to at a time, flashed in my mind—Hunter Lawson.
As quickly as the vision came, I shook my head to clear it. That was a dream that died years ago.
“I think you guys need to fess up,” Emma said.
Jade, Paige and I exchanged guilty looks.
“Ha! I knew it.” Emma pointed a finger and moved it to encompass the three of us. “You planned all this. You guys never had any intentions of trying to win our bet.”
Paige grinned, unrepentant. “How do you figure that?”
“My first clue should have been when Katelyn agreed to your scheme so quickly.” She pinned me with her gaze, her brown eyes dancing with amusement. “You never go along with their crazy plans.”
I shrugged and fought a smile. She was right. Paige, Jade and I had come up with the idea of the bet before Thanksgiving to try to pull Emma out of the rut she’d been in since graduation.
She was right, too, in saying I usually resisted Jade and Paige’s crazy schemes. The bet had been no different. I’d only gone along when they swore I wouldn’t have to do anything outrageous to make it look like I was trying to win.
“I didn’t catch on right away. Really it wasn’t until this week when I realized nobody else seemed to have done anything. Especially you.” Emma jabbed a finger toward Paige. “You’re one of the most competitive people I know and you didn’t even try to win. You helped me. And please, that story about Jared Sloane.” She rolled her eyes, shaking her head.
“What do you mean that story about Jared?” Paige sat up straight. “You were there. You saw me having a drink with him.”
Emma nodded. “I did. I also know you. If you wanted to win the bet…hell, usually you wouldn’t need the bet to get you to act. You wouldn’t have let him leave that hotel without at least giving him your phone number. I’m not buying the ‘he didn’t ask for it’ bit. Normally you’d have written it on a napkin and stuck it in his pocket or stolen his phone and programmed it in. When do you wait for adventure to come find you?”
I couldn’t help it. I burst into giggles. Emma was so right. Paige was no shrinking violet. If she wanted to win that bet, she’d have gone out on tour with Sliding Violet, not settled for a drink with the lead singer in a hotel bar. Even Paige couldn’t keep a straight face.
“Okay, you’re onto us,” Jade admitted. “We might have planned it out. But we really did it because we were worried about you. It wasn’t like a prank or something.”
Emma’s face softened. “I know. And I appreciate it. I did need something to shake me up. My whole world was becoming these four walls. I was about a year away from collecting cats.”
“So no hard feelings?” I asked. Our intentions were good, but I would hate it if we hurt her.
“No, no hard feelings.”
“How could she have hard feelings? She snared Nathaniel Wilder. Billionaire, playboy and best of all, hot guy to end all hot guys.” Paige jabbed a toothpick into one of the pigs in a blanket and shoved it in her mouth.
Another spear of envy prickled hotly in my stomach. Not that I begrudged Emma her time with Nate. But thoughts of my own hot guy to end all hot guys seemed to have a grip on my mind tonight. Why was Hunter back in my thoughts again? I’d put away the fantasy of riding off on the back of his motorcycle years ago.
“And speaking of,” Jade said. “You’ve been awfully tight-lipped about what happened with him, Emma. We want some details.”
A mixture of emotions chased across Emma’s face and my heart squeezed. I had a feeling all was not right between her and Nate, and if she got hurt because of our scheme to get her out of the house, I’d never forgive myself.
“There’s not much to say.” Emma tugged a hand through her heavy, dark blonde hair. “We had sex. We spent Christmas together. We had more sex. And he’s been out of town on business since the day after Christmas when he dropped me off here.”
I bit my lip and then asked softly, “Have you heard from him?”
“He called once and texted a few times.” She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not like he made any kind of commitment to me, but I think maybe I read more into spending Christmas together than he meant. Or, I don’t know, maybe he decided he’s not into me. Or maybe I’m assuming too much. The guy is busy. Maybe one phone call and a couple of texts are him being super attentive.”
Paige leaned over and gave Emma a quick hug and I reached over and squeezed her hand. She leaned into Paige for a second before sitting up. “But hey, no feeling sorry for me. If nothing else, I had an awesome time.” A mischievous smile spread across her face, wiping away any sign of distress or confusion. “And contrived or not, I made a bet in good faith and I won. You guys owe me.”
The three of us exchanged looks before Paige turned back to Emma with a shrug. “That seems fair. I guess we each owe you a favor.”
Paige’s pragmatic response had my stomach churning. I knew this bet thing was going to come back to haunt me. That’s why I argued when Paige and Jade first cooked up the idea.
I turned my own apprehensive gaze on Emma. “What do you want us to do?”
She grinned and tapped her index finger against her chin. “I may have to give this one some thought. It’s not every day I have something to hold over the three of you.”
Paige snatched a pillow from the couch and tossed it at Emma’s head. “I think we need a statute of limitations on this bet.”
Emma dodged the pillow with a laugh, and then sat up straight.“ I know what I want!”
I twisted my hands in my lap. Paige and Jade wore identical expressions—eager and curious at once. I was pretty sure mine didn’t match theirs.
“Okay, lay it on us. What’s the favor you’re going to collect?” Paige rested her elbows on her knees.
“My favor is…” Emma took a deep breath and let her playful gaze travel over each of us. “You all have to continue with the bet. You each need to try to have at least one wild adventure.”
Again the image of Hunter Lawson flashed in my mind. Why on earth would I think of him right now?
But I knew. Too many of my fantasies over the years featured having wild adventures with Hunter Lawson. The only things that kept me from going after him all these years were my parents’ disapproval an
d the fact he was my brother’s best friend.
“I don’t know, Emma. What are the chances there are two guys like Nate Wilder waiting in a bar?” I asked.
Emma laughed. “Well, that night there were two. Don’t forget Paige’s rock star was there, too.”
I shook my head. “You know what I mean.”
Emma sent me a soft smile. “You don’t have to run out and have a one-night stand with a stranger. It can be anything—bungee jumping, taking a wild vacation, jumping from a plane, quitting your job.
“I love it.” Jade said. “We can all use a little shaking up.”
Emma nodded. “I think so, too.”
Was it my imagination or did her gaze linger a little longer on me?
“So are the stakes the same?” Paige asked. “Whoever wins gets a favor from each of us?”
“Nope. I’m not including myself in the bet since I already more than stepped out of my comfort zone.” Emma’s lips quirked into a wry smile. “And while there are some days I’m ready to go right back into hibernation, I think I get the message. Life is much better off the couch.”
I bit my lip in an attempt to hold back my giggles, but when Jade and Paige cracked up, I couldn’t help but join them.
“Oh my God,” Jade said. “I don’t know how I managed not to burn those pink flannel pajama bottoms. It’s a wonder you were able to pry them from your body.”
Emma shook her head and tried to give us each a disapproving look, but she failed miserably when she joined us in our giggles. “I know, I know. But I’ve been better and I don’t plan on relapsing.”
“Good.” Paige threw an arm over Emma’s shoulders and gave her a quick hug.
“Anyway,” Emma said, “since I’m not in on the bet, I get to decide the winner. I know everyone’s busy so I’ll give you until this summer. Whoever has the wildest adventure by July Fourth wins. And I’ll treat the winner to a full day of pampering at the Pink Posey.”