Bidding on Santa (Holiday Heartthrobs Novella Series Book 1)

by Annelise Reynolds

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Copyright © 2016 Annelise Reynolds

  Bidding on Santa

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduction, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) utilization of this work without written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been uses without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This story is appearing in the erotic Christmas anthology Ropes, Ribbons, and Bows. You can get it and more from some amazing authors, so be sure to go check it out.

  Available 12/17/16

  Acknowledgements

  So many people to thank for walking this journey with me. First and foremost, I’ve got to thank my kids. They put up with mommy having to be in the writing cave all the time. I am truly blessed to have both of them in my life. They are my heart and soul and the reason I do what I do. They are everything to me.

  To my sisters: Lili, Paula, and Katie, you three have shown me what family really is. I love you more than you can ever know. Thank you for sticking with me through everything, supporting and encouraging my dream. I truly do not know what my life would be without you three amazing women in it.

  Jemma and Addy: thank you both for starting this journey with me. I am where I am now because of you two. You have both been sounding boards and given me so many laughs. You do not know how much you mean to me. Counting the days until I can hug you both.

  To my two friends that started as fans: Amy and Michelle, you two blow me away daily. You have both been so supportive and encouraging me at every turn. Even when I don’t believe in me, you both do, and it blows my mind. Thank you for your support, but even more, thank you for your friendship.

  To my Best Bitch Pepper: Lady, I haven’t known you long, but I feel like I’ve known you forever. You make me laugh all the time, and push me to be better. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I cannot wait to cut up with you in KC and at other events. Let’s just make sure we have someone ready to bail us out.

  To my editor and my cover designer: Thank you Dawn Lewis for your amazing work on my books. I can’t thank you enough for what you do. I know I’m a total mess when it comes to editing. Tracie at Dark Water Covers, you fucking rock. I lucked out when I won the cover for Ember’s Burn from you, and I love getting to work with you. Thank you.

  To my Vixens and Kyle: Thank you all for showing me such support. You guys amaze me with all you do. You kick ass and take names every day. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you all help pimp me like a two dollar whore. Thank you.

  To the other amazing authors that I have met along the way: You fucking rock. Thank you ladies for showing me support and friendship. I have met so many amazing women through this journey, and you are all amazing. Thank you: Jemma Bell, Addyson Thompson, Pepper Lynn, Becca Taylor, Debbie Dickerson, Jess Sims, and so many more…

  Katie

  I love this time of year; fresh fallen snow, the carols, the decorations, all of it. In fact, the only downside I see to the Christmas holiday is the constant reminder that another year has almost wrapped up, and I am completely alone – except for Cocoa, my chocolate lab.

  This year was going to be worse than every other year because I didn’t even have my family around. Mom and Dad decided to go on a cruise, my brother and his wife just had their fourth baby, and while I would have gone there, I just felt like I’d be intruding – plus I was still alone...

  So here I am, sitting on my couch, wrapped up in my flannel blankets, a fire crackling in the fireplace, Cocoa at my feet and a cup of cocoa in my hands, watching another Christmas movie where a couple finds true love over the holiday season. If only life were like a Christmas movie!

  Now, technically Christmas is a week away, but being a teacher, I’m already out of school. Lucky me, right? No, not really. It just reminds me how empty my apartment is and that I have absolutely nowhere to go.

  I could have gone to several of my friends’ homes for the holiday, in fact I had more than one offer, but I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to impose on a family holiday like that.

  I just took a sip of my cocoa when my doorbell blared through the apartment, causing me to jerk and slosh hot liquid over my hand.

  “Dammit.” Cocoa was up and barking at the door, each of her yelps reverberating through the tiny apartment and bouncing off the hardwood floors. “Calm down, Cocoa.” She stopped barking, but she pranced back and forth, her nails clipping on the floor and her entire back end shaking with excitement to see who was at the door.

  I set my mug on the coffee table and got up, wiping my hand off on my old, ratty college sweatshirt that had seen way better days and much worse than spilt hot chocolate.

  “Coming,” I called out for whoever decided to pay me a visit on the Friday night before Christmas. I patted Cocoa’s head, and went to the door. In her normal exuberance, she was trying to nudge me out of the way so she could greet our visitor first.

  “Who is it?” I called out.

  “It’s me, girl. Hurry up, it’s colder than a polar bear’s asshole out here.”

  I laughed, recognizing Robyn’s voice immediately. I opened the door to let her in, holding Cocoa by her hot pink collar to keep her from shooting out the door or from jumping on our guest.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you and Jim had that firefighter thing tonight?” She came in holding a garment bag, and a big duffle.

  “We do, and so do you.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going with us. I’ve got you a dress, shoes – you can count them as your Christmas present, and we got you a spot at our table.”

  “Robyn, I will be the only one there without a date.”

  “And that, my friend, is where you are wrong.” She winked at me, and I groaned.

  The last time she set me up had been a disaster. It was right after my high school sweetheart and I broke up four years ago.

  “Please don’t tell me you set me up on another blind date.” I groaned at the memory of the last one. She’d set me up with Jim’s friend at the fire department, and it had to be the worst date possible.

  “Hey, I still say Cory is a great guy. You guys could’ve been cute together.”

  “He’s annoying as hell,” I grumbled. “And, he not only showed up over an hour late to the restaurant, but he kept looking at his watch. At your wedding, he kept trying to unzip my dress during the pictures.”

  “See, he wanted to get into your pants.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t wearing pants – wedding, brides
maid dress, remember?”

  She winked at me. “Then he was halfway there.”

  I loved her like a sister, but seriously, at any function they have Cory acts like an overgrown child and finds ways to irritate the hell out of me.

  “Look, Cory won’t be there. He’s on the schedule to work tonight, so you don’t have to worry, there’s no chance of you picking him.”

  “Picking him? What do you mean?”

  She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward my bedroom. “I’ll explain while we get dressed, come on.”

  I went, following behind like a petulant child, not really wanting to go, but knowing Robyn, she was going to get her way, and I better just buckle up and try to enjoy the ride.

  I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, she used the empty vanity beside me to start her makeup for the night. “So this charity thing we are going to tonight, is kind of like an auction” she said cautiously. I groaned, already ready to protest going.

  “There will be bachelor firefighters all dressed up in Santa suits, you won’t be able to tell who is who. They will each have a different kind of cake, and you bid on the slice of cake and the firefighter holding that cake gets to be your date for the night.”

  “Ok, y’all have fun with that.” I turned to walk back to my movie, but Robyn caught my hand and pulled me back to the mirror.

  “Oh no you don’t. You’re going. Who knows, you could meet a great guy so you don’t have to spend Christmas alone because you are a headstrong brat that won’t accept our invite to Christmas.”

  “Or I could end up with another Cory on my hands and end up mad at you again. Remember how long it took you to make that up to me last time?”

  “It took a bottle of wine and a pedicure. I’ve got a basket of wine and chocolates at home waiting along with a gift card for the nail salon, just in case. Now,” she demanded, “get ready.”

  Cocoa was sitting in front of the bathroom door staring up at me with her big chocolate eyes. Her tail wagged when I made eye contact, and her head came up excitedly. I bent down to give her some love before turning back to the mirror and getting to work.

  I was going to start my makeup, but decided against it. I needed to start from scratch. “How much time do we have?”

  “We have an hour and a half to get ready.”

  “Great, I’m going to take a shower first.”

  I stripped down and got into the shower to wash my hair. If I was going to do this, I was going to do this big. With any luck, I’d at least get a good one night stand out of it that I would totally regret and beat myself up over tomorrow.

  I washed every nook and cranny of my body with vanilla body wash, I shaved my legs, made sure my cupcake was well maintained before I got out of the shower and wrapped myself in a huge fluffy towel, a smaller towel went around my hair.

  “Put a move on it, woman, you just cut your time to get ready by a third.” Robyn’s makeup was done, and she was fixing her hair into a French twist up-do. Jeez, I was probably going to look like a freaking slob next to her. Her blonde hair and blue eyes and trim figure made me jealous – not for the first time.

  “Well, if all else fails, at least I’ll get a piece of cake tonight,” I said, moving to go try and make myself look presentable. Working with kindergarteners, I was always in slacks, jeans, tennis shoes, and any shirt that I really didn’t care about getting dirty – which was pretty much my whole wardrobe.

  “Here goes nothing.”

  Cory

  My phone rang as I was getting ready for my shift. I volunteered to work tonight rather than being a part of the annual auction. I did it one year, and never again. Forget that mess. The chick who bid on me had our kids’ names picked out by the end of the night. Hell no, I would never be doing that shit again.

  “Hello.”

  “Cory, I need your help.”

  “Doug? What’s up?”

  “I can’t do this auction tonight, man. They put me on because I’m not married and I wasn’t working, but man, I’m just not ready for this. It’s only been a month since April left.”

  Doug had had it hard lately, his fiancé left him after he found out she had been having an affair. He didn’t even have time to process the affair before she took off with her sidepiece.

  His job was too dangerous and kept him away too much, at least those were the reasons she gave. The bitch didn’t say anything about the fact that she was screwing some IT guy who made a shit ton more money compared to a firefighter that made squat. She was a gold digging whore, and he was well rid of her. It would just take time for him to realize that.

  I sighed and checked my watch. I had just over an hour to get ready. “Yeah, man. I’ll take it, but you owe me. Can you get to station thirteen in the next twenty minutes?”

  “I’m right outside. You are the only one I could think of that wasn’t already involved in the auction or married.”

  “Well, come tell the LT, and I’ll head out. I’ve got to go get my tux. Do you have your suit?”

  “I’m walking in now. It’s with me.”

  I sighed. I hung up seeing him walk toward me, relief written across his face. “It’s for a friend. It’s for a good cause,” I kept telling myself as I watched him bringing the wrinkled, offending Santa suit toward me.

  “Thanks, man. I seriously can’t thank you enough.” He almost threw the damn thing at me, like he couldn’t wait to be rid of it, and I really couldn’t blame him.

  “Yeah, man. I get it.” We walked into the lieutenant’s office and told him about the change. He said he understood and told me to hurry up so I could get my ass down to the event. I still needed to run by my house and get my tux.

  I sprinted out to my truck, leaving my gear on. I didn’t even take time to change. It was a good thing that I didn’t live too far from thirteen, but with the snow falling, I knew it was going to take some time to actually make it home then to the hotel.

  The flurries were starting to stick to the ground. Chances were, the stations would be hopping tonight, so in a way Doug did me a solid. I just hoped that this time around I didn’t get a clinger. It would be nice if I got a hot, sexy date with dark hair, round hips and a nice ass. Katie’s image flickered across my mind, and I felt my cock twitch. There was no way she would be there tonight.

  The night of our set up date, I should have cancelled. I went into the date with a bad attitude and that was on me. I hate being fixed up and when Jim said she was just dumped by her high school sweetheart, yeah I had no interest in dealing with an emotional woman. That was a huge mistake.

  She wasn’t my normal type. Normally, I like a woman with an athletic, slender build, and Katie wasn’t that. She was curved, her face rounded, and her hips and ass were wider than my normal conquests, but damn I wanted those round curves. Her rack was what women paid for. She had big, full breasts that, if she wore the right shirt, she’d have an abundance of cleavage.

  At Jim and Robyn’s wedding was when I realized how attracted to her I was. The dress flattered each of her curves and left me hard and aching. It was too late though, I was already firmly on Katie’s no-date list, and I really couldn’t blame her. First impressions are a total bitch to get over.

  I grabbed my tux from the back of my closet and quickly got dressed. Then I put on the wrinkled red velvet suit. I put it over my tux and headed out the door, checking my watch as I climbed in my truck.

  The snow was picking up – they had said it was going to get bad tonight. It was a wonder the auction wasn’t cancelled, but I had to go. It was too late to change my mind now. With the snow and traffic, I was running late. It was getting thicker out there. Chances were most, if not all, of us would be stuck in the hotel for the night.

  I parked the truck and grabbed my Santa beard from the seat next to me. Fuck, the beard is going to itch like crazy, but I put the damn thing on anyway. There was no helping the damn costume though – it was a mess.

  I went into the back entrance and handed the
m my ID, letting them know I was filling in for Doug. Captain Boyd was there, and when he saw it was me, he started laughing. He knew how I felt about doing this shit, and I was not going to live this down. He was there when I got the clinger, and he had to have her removed from the station when she went up there. I flipped him off, and went to where the other Santas were lining up.

  The guys were from all over Boston. I had met some, and others were new to me. We stood around talking, waiting for the auction to begin. They had each of us pick out a piece of cake or pie. I let the chocolate eaters and vanilla fiends go first. I’m not much of a sweets kind of guy, I prefer food, but when I do eat cake its red velvet or carrot cake. Chances of either of those being the first to go are nil.

  When I did get up there, there were a few choices; a lemon pie, a few more types of chocolate cake and vanilla cake, and nestled between were the red velvet cake and the carrot. So, the choice was mine. I grabbed the red velvet, and went to wait in my line.

  We told Boyd who we were and which cake we had. He put it on the list. “Shit, Cory. I don’t have your description. I have Doug’s.”

  “Whatever, man. It’s not like I’m going to marry the girl that buys my cake. Just say his description. They will never know.”

  “Alright. You sure? I could just wing it.”

  “Whatever you want to do. I don’t really care. It’s just one night.”

  “Cool.” He moved on down the line collecting types of cake and names. “Alright. Let’s get this going. Remember guys, it’s for a good cause. Let’s wine and dine the ladies that bid on you tonight. Dance with them, and try to have some fun.”

  “They’re desperately seeking Santa because they can’t find their own chimneys to slide down,” one of the rookies popped off and some of the guys laughed.

  “Or they are just trying to donate to a good cause. They may have a loved one that died in a fire. You don’t know their motives, it’s your job to figure it out and make them feel good about donating to the families of our fallen, so they will do it again.”