Naughty and Nice

by Shannon Stacey, Jaci Burton, Megan Hart; Lauren Dane

  When he was finally able to focus, looking down on her, there was no sign of tears. She kissed his belly and leaned back in her chair, head tilted to watch him as she wiped the corner of her mouth with a fingertip. She was smiling so smugly he had to laugh.

  “Very nice,” she told him.

  He wasn’t going to argue. He did glance at the clock, though, as he pulled his pajama bottoms up to his hips again. They’d slept in, and it was already close to noon. “See? We couldn’t have done that at my parents’ house.”

  “Certainly not now that they’ve put a queen-sized bed in your old room instead of putting us in the basement,” she told him. “Which was actually better.”

  “Sure, with all the kids down there playing foosball,” he laughed. “Knocking on the door, asking when Uncle Brandon and Aunt Leah are going to wake up. See, it’s a good thing it’s just us. Once the kids show up, there’s no more random dick sucking at the kitchen table.”

  She gave him an odd look. “Obviously, people with kids still have sex, Brandon.”

  “Well…yeah.” He shrugged. “But not like they did before they had kids, right? I mean…the stuff we do…”

  She raised a brow. “What about it?”

  He ran a finger over the tattoo on his biceps. To most anyone it would look like a simple band of color, but he knew where to look to see the buckle that made the design a belt. Sort of a joke between them, since one of the first times they’d ever been together she’d used his belt to restrain his hands. Leah had a matching one on her belly, low where only he could ever see it.

  “These sorts of things,” he said.

  “You mean kinky things.”

  He hesitated. “Well…yeah.”

  His wife chewed her lower lip for a second. “I imagine nothing is the same after you’ve had kids.”

  There. He knew it. She wasn’t ready for baby talk. And, not wanting to get the conversation headed in the wrong direction, he changed the subject. “What do you want to do today? I can run down to the main lobby and rent some movies.”

  “You’re going skiing,” Leah said firmly. “I’ll be fine here by myself. And I don’t want you to miss out on anything. It’s a ski trip, remember? And besides, you’ll have a better time without me holding you back.”

  “That’s not—” he began but bit off the protest when she gave him a look.

  “You’ll have a good time by yourself. No sense in staying in with me, I can’t go anywhere, anyway. I mean it, Brandon.”

  That sealed it for him. “Okay. Great. Well…can I get you anything before I go? It won’t take me very long to run down—”

  “Brandon.” Leah’s brow furrowed.

  Oops. She loved it when he did stuff for her, but he had to remember that despite that, she was a strong and independent woman who also liked it when he didn’t. He bent to kiss her, lingering until she poked him.

  “Go,” she said. “I want to read my book!”

  He snuck another kiss anyway. “I’ll only stay out a few hours.”

  “Really, baby, it’s fine. You go and have a good time. I’ll be okay. I promise.” She tipped her face for another kiss, then tweaked his nipple just hard enough to show she meant business. “Go.”

  * * *

  Leah had meant what she said when she’d told Brandon to go, but it had been a few hours and she’d finished her book. Figuring she’d be spending the days on the slopes and the nights drinking, dancing and making love, she hadn’t thought to pack more than the one she’d been halfway through. It had taken her only an hour and a half to whip through the rest of the book, a decent suspenseful thriller that had ended too predictably but kept her interest, at least. Now she’d flipped through the condo’s impressive and extensive selection of cable channels, predictably finding nothing to watch.

  She was bored.

  She glanced at her phone but decided against texting Brandon. He’d come home early if she wanted him to, but she didn’t want to ruin his ski time any more than she already had. It was only a little after three, and before he’d left he’d promised to be home by five.

  She looked out the window, which overlooked the center courtyard of the condo complex. There was a nice little restaurant and lodge just past it, along with the small convenience store that sold magazines, paperbacks, snacks and rented DVDs. The question was, would she be able to hobble her way there and get something?

  By that point she was sort of desperate enough to do anything. She stood, testing the pain in her twisted ankle. It was tolerable, especially if she rested it frequently. She figured it would be worth a shot, anyway. Get down there, pick up something to read, maybe a movie or two for tonight, head back. They could order in.

  Unfortunately, in this whole scenario she hadn’t imagined the part where she made it down the condo’s stairs and across the courtyard, only to set her foot wrong on a patch of ice and twist her ankle again. Fortunately, she didn’t scream, though the pain was instant and agonizing enough that she wanted to. Somehow, though, she managed to get herself into a chair next to the big fireplace. So much for not being bored—now she was still without a book and stranded, to boot.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out to spy a familiar number. “Hi, Caroline.”

  “Hi, honey. It’s me.”

  Leah smiled. Brandon’s mom always said that. “How are you?”

  “Oh, fine. How’s everything out there?”

  Leah looked around the lodge, so festively decorated, and felt a sudden and extremely unexpected pang. The tree in the corner twinkled, the presents underneath assuredly fake. She’d only spent one Christmas with Brandon’s family, but it had seemed so much more like what the holiday should be than this did. She and Brandon had given each other this trip instead of presents, which meant there’d be nothing to open on Christmas Day. No tree or stockings stuffed with trinkets.

  “It’s okay, I guess.”

  “Just okay?” Caroline sounded concerned. “What’s wrong?”

  Brandon was just like his mother in that way—honing in on the slightest hint of trouble. Leah tried to be annoyed and failed. “Oh…I twisted my ankle and so I’m not skiing, I’m just here in the lodge. Bored.”

  “Where’s Bingo?”

  Leah rolled her eyes, but fondly, at her mother-in-law’s nickname for Brandon. “He’s skiing.”

  “Well…” Caroline didn’t quite seem to know what to say to that. “Why? Why isn’t he with you?”

  “I told him to go and have fun, Caroline. It’s okay. Really. I’m just sort of bored, that’s all. He’ll be back soon. Then we’ll go to dinner.”

  “Ooh, good food out there?” And then Caroline was off, rattling away about recipes and the grandkids and Brandon’s brothers and their wives and what they were making for dinner or what they’d already made. She talked for a good ten minutes with Leah needing to do nothing but murmur in response, and just like that, she was finished. “I just wanted to check in, honey. Make sure you’re both doing well. Having fun.”

  Another pang of guilt washed over Leah at that, even though she was sure Caroline hadn’t meant to make her feel bad. “I’m sorry we’re not there for Christmas.”

  There was a pause long enough to prove that Caroline, no matter what she said, felt the same, but then she gave a motherly tut-tut. “Don’t be silly. You kids need to have a nice vacation, and I know it’s the only time you could take since your company closes for this week. No sense in wasting that time coming to see us when we can come to you in a couple weeks, right?”

  That was how they’d presented the idea originally, but now it sounded selfish and lame. “I guess so. Sure. It’ll be great.”

  “You sure you’re okay, honey?”

  Leah assured her she was and spent another five minutes with Caroline saying goodbye. She considered texting her husband to see where he was, but again refrained. Instead, she dialed a familiar number.

  “Hey, I thought you were on vacation,” greeted her best f
riend Kate.

  Leah relayed the story quickly. “So now I’m in the lodge.”

  “Dude, call that handsome husband of yours to come get you. He totally will, and you can spend the rest of the afternoon riding him like a pony.”

  “I know. But…I don’t want him to miss out on skiing, that’s all.”

  Kate laughed. “You know he won’t care. Given the choice between getting his crank yanked and skiing, don’t you think Brandon would choose the sex?”

  Leah laughed too. “Of course. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be selfish of me to make him.”

  “Pfft, selfish.” Kate snorted, then muttered as though she had a hand over the phone, “No, I will not tell her I want a slumber party and a pillow fight.” Louder, Kate said, “My handsome husband gives his regards.”

  Leah had worked with Kate’s husband Charles Dixon for a number of years before being laid off from her job. “Tell Dix I said he’d better be treating you right or else he and I will have a little talk.”

  “Oh, he is. No question about that. He doesn’t know I peeked at the boxes under the tree. One is definitely jewelry shaped.”

  Another pang poked her at the thought of having no presents to open on Christmas Day. “You have the girls this year?”

  “Yep. Christmas Day. Don’t get me started on what we had to do to get Pickles to agree to that,” Kate said, referring to Dix’s ex-wife. “Let’s just say if I could feasibly get away with signing her up for a Match.com account and hooking her up with someone who’d take her away…anywhere…far away…I would.”

  Leah made a face. “But having the girls on Christmas. That’ll be fun. Won’t it?”

  There was a pause before Kate said, “What’s up with you?”

  Leah sighed, shifting in the chair to put her bad ankle up on the coffee table. All around her were people laughing, eating, talking. She spotted the family from the restaurant, the toddler bundled in a hat, scarf and coat and in a much better mood today. The mother held the baby on her hip, and it was obvious the father had taken the older child skiing while mama and baby hung out in the lodge. Leah wondered if the father had skied tandem with his kid, and a sudden image of Brandon teaching their children to ski hit her so hard she had to shake her head to clear it.

  “You’re like the third person who’s asked me that,” she said.

  “Must mean something is. Spill it.”

  “Do you think you and Dix will have kids?”

  The silence was longer this time. “Oh, girl,” Kate said finally. “You got the fever?”

  “No.” Leah watched the parents helping the kids get settled at one of the tables. “Well. Maybe.”

  Kate laughed. “What does Bingo think about that?”

  “Well, here’s the thing. I’d have said he was a green light for it, definitely, but he’s been making noise like having kids would cramp our style.”

  “They do,” Kate said. “Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have them.”

  “I know. And believe me, it’s not like I’ve been mooning around peeking in strollers and wishing for a Bitty Baby Spitup of my very own. But something…I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like Christmas here!” Leah said more vehemently than she’d intended.

  “No Beadazzled sweaters?”

  “I’m sure I’ll get one in a few weeks when Bill and Caroline come to visit, but that’s not the point. I thought it would be great to go on vacation this week, so I wouldn’t have to take extra time off work since the office is closed. I thought it would be exciting and romantic and all that, to spend our first married Christmas alone. But Kate…I spent so many Christmases like this, or alone. I don’t like it as much as I thought I would.”

  When she was young there had been gifts left by Santa and a nice dinner, sometimes cooked by her mom, but most often at a restaurant. Her parents were the ones who liked to travel for Christmas. This year they’d gone to Japan, of all places. And to be fair, they had invited her and Brandon to join them, but the trip was too long and too expensive. It was nothing like Christmas with the Longs, who hung their tree with popcorn and cranberries and sang carols and drank hot chocolate spiked with Godiva liqueur until midnight. Where the family with the youngest child got to keep the “tiny stocking” for the whole year.

  She pointed her toes, feeling the ache in her ankle. “Though having to stay off my feet does make a nice reason for him to wait on me hand and foot.”

  “As if he needed a reason!”

  Leah smiled. “I know.”

  “So don’t waste your time talking to me. Text your dude. G’wan,” Kate said. “I’ve got cookies to bake or something like that.”

  They said their goodbyes and Leah disconnected the call, hesitating only a few more seconds before thumbing a message to Brandon’s number. She thought it likely he wouldn’t be able to get to his phone right away, but within half a minute his reply came through, sending a little shiver of delight through her.

  BE THERE RIGHT AWAY.

  * * *

  It was billed in the brochure as a “romantic, moonlit getaway” and “a festive holiday sleigh ride through snowy pastures decorated for the season in a spectacular display of animated lights set to classic carols and holiday tunes.” There’d been nothing about waiting in line for forty minutes in frigid air for a two-person sleigh instead of a horse-drawn hay wagon that could carry thirty people. Nor that, though the cider and hot chocolate and coffee was free and plentiful, the port-o-potties were clear on the other side of the building and not marked. Or that the horses announced just what they thought of the whole situation by dropping their fragrant piles all over the place.

  “You warm enough?” Brandon rubbed Leah’s mitten-clad hands between his thick gloves.

  She leaned against him, her head on his shoulder, her bad foot propped up on a little pile of snow he’d pushed together to make a footstool for her. “Yep. That cider smells amazing.”

  “You want some?”

  She laughed. “I think one adventure to the porta-john was enough, don’t you?”

  “We’re next, anyway,” Brandon said just as the white sleigh decorated with boughs of holly—and whatever the fa-la-la that other stuff was—jingled to a stop in the line. He stood, joints creaking from the cold, then bent to help her up.

  Getting to the sleigh was slightly less of an adventure than taking her to the bathroom had been, and they were both giggling by the end of it as he helped her into the high seat. The driver looked over his shoulder at them, his scarf pulled up high on his mouth, his hat pulled low over his eyes.

  “You guys ready?”

  Leah settled onto the leather seat and pulled aside the thick quilts to make room for Brandon. “Hi.”

  The driver ducked his head at her as the horse stamped impatiently, blowing out a breath into the cold air. “Hiya.”

  Brandon took his seat and pulled the quilts up over their legs. “Warm. God.”

  “The ride lasts about forty-five minutes, maybe a bit longer if we get backed up at some of the more popular attractions,” the driver said, sounding bored. “Prepare to be amazed by the coordinated light-and-music display of holiday cheer.”

  “He sounds totally cheerful,” Leah whispered in Brandon’s ear when the driver turned back and clucked at the horses. “I’m amazed by his enthusiasm.”

  Brandon leaned in to nuzzle at her cheek and murmur, “He’s probably It’s A Small World and Jingled Belled out. Just guessing.”

  The sleigh jerked into motion, the horse setting off at a lazy pace. The driver chucked at it again and it went a little faster for a few steps, then slowed again. Leah got the giggles beside him as they pulled away from the waiting area and headed across a dark, snowy field. Just beyond them, down the dip of a hill, they could see the glow of what Brandon was sure was going to be a holiday display of the cheesiest proportions, but for now the sky was still dark enough that he could tip his face back and stare up at the bright points of the stars.

  “So much for
moonlight,” he said.

  “I like it better this way. Dark.” Leah’s hand crept into his lap to give his crotch a sexy squeeze. “And the stars are so pretty.”

  Brandon shifted his knees apart to give her better access, though he was pretty sure she wasn’t going to keep going. “Yeah.”

  He breathed in the cold air that felt even colder now that they had the weight of the blankets on them. Cheesetastic and expensive it might be, but a sleigh ride at Christmastime with his wife was exactly as romantic as the brochure had promised.

  Her fingers tightened briefly on his half-hard dick and pulled away as the sleigh went over the edge of the hill and down, the horse moving a little faster and the lights ahead of them now bright. They could hear the music, too, tinny at this distance but still familiar. It was, indeed, “It’s a Small World.”

  The driver slowed the horse as it approached the first path of lighted displays, because as he’d predicted, they’d caught up to the hay wagon in front of them. The displays were pretty typical, tube lighting outlining traditional Christmas scenes. A house, a sleigh, a carousel. Reindeer that moved their heads up and down. All set to music.

  “Pretty.” The lights reflected on Leah’s face, green and blue and red. She was smiling at the scenes in front of them.

  “You’re prettier,” he said into her ear.

  She looked at him. “Oh, am I?”

  This time, he slipped his hand into her lap and pressed gently. He grinned. “Uh huh.”

  He thought she’d shake her head or simply push his hand away, but to his delight, his wife just shifted on the seat, opening her thighs a little wider. There wasn’t much he could do through the denim of her jeans, but…well…he sure could try.

  “Oh. Elves,” Leah murmured, her gaze on the first display they’d finally pulled up in front of. She rocked her hips just enough against his hand that he knew she wasn’t paying one damned bit of attention to the elves. “Look at the elves, Brandon.”

  He did, not because he was worried the driver could see what was going on beneath the layers of quilts, but because Leah had told him to. Because it was sexy this way, something forbidden, something he was doing that normally she wouldn’t allow but he knew she really, really liked.