I'll Be Yours for Christmas

by Samantha Hunter

  “It’s like sex. You might be a little rusty, but it will come back to you,” Brody reassured.

  “You sure you trust me not to scratch her?” he asked with a hint of humor, but his nerves betrayed him.

  Brody’s new Dodge Charger SRT8 was a nice machine. This was the most car he’d driven since he crashed, and his hands were a bit sweaty, his heart slamming not from excitement, but apprehension.

  “It’s right to be nervous after a crash,” Brody said, reading him. “It’s normal, but if you want back in, you have to start working through it. Open her up gradually. See how it feels. You can back off if you need to.”

  His friend’s understanding helped ease his anxiety. Brody was absolutely right—how could Reece expect to return to driving if he couldn’t drive a regular road car?

  He left the parking lot, and relaxed as the car started moving.

  This was familiar. It felt good.

  As they hit the lake road heading to the winery, Reece picked up speed, feeling his reflexes kick in, and he laughed with pure pleasure.

  “Told you,” Brody said, chuckling, too.

  Except for when he’d been making love to Abby, he hadn’t been this pumped in some time. Her face, her scent, came back to him with startling clarity, and he lost track of what he was doing for a moment, which had him backing off on the gas.

  “You okay?” Brody asked.

  “Yeah, sorry. I was distracted for a minute,” he said, irritated. He still craved her touch, but he couldn’t afford any distractions if he was going to drive, and that included women. Even Abby.

  Reece focused for the rest of the drive up the side of the lake, turning into the driveway where he found a crowd of cars in the parking lot.

  “I guess the party is still going, but we can head into the house, have a few beers,” he said to Brody, parking the Charger and handing his buddy the keys. “Thanks for that. It felt good.”

  Brody stuck the keys in the pocket of the leather bomber jacket he wore, watching Reece speculatively. “I heard they were thinking of a new guy for your team,” he said.

  “Yeah, I heard that, too. Hope to convince them differently, but it’s hard, being stuck here.”

  “I know a few guys at Daytona. If you want to fly in for a day, I could set up a test drive for you. We could go down there for a few times around the track, do some timed runs, if you want to see how it goes.”

  Reece knew he should jump at the opportunity, but the sweat broke out on his hands again. He didn’t understand why he was reacting this way, and it pissed him off.

  “Sure, set it up,” he said evenly, though his stomach lurched as they walked up to the house.

  His left leg was still bothering him. He was starting to think it might never get better, though he knew it felt worse after being locked into position while driving. Exercise and time would solve that problem, he kept telling himself.

  “So what’s the big event?” Brody asked, nodding toward the group of cars.

  “Bachelorette party,” Reece said with a laugh, shaking his head.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope.”

  Reece explained about Abby, and how she was working out of the winery. The bachelor party was at a bar in town, but Sandra had decided to have her party at the winery. Reece had overheard that conversation on his way through the house one day.

  Brody stopped, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger, grinning as he looked toward the reception rooms. “Should we crash?”

  Reece laughed. “We’re not eighteen anymore.”

  His friend cocked an eyebrow in his direction. “Yeah, we wouldn’t have known what to do with a roomful of half-drunk chicks in the mood to party when we were eighteen,” he said, making Reece laugh harder, his former tension dissolving.

  “And you do now?” Reece teased back, slapping Brody on the shoulder, but Brody was already heading toward the party. Reece followed, reluctantly.

  “It’s kind of Abby’s thing,” he hedged. “Maybe we should just stick to the house.”

  “Gotta get your spirit of adventure back, friend,” Brody said with a grin, and Reece gave in and continued to follow. They made their way over to the tasting room, walking in the side door where it was dark in the lobby, moving like spies along the bar and cracking open the door to the reception room out back.

  Reece wasn’t sure what he expected to see, but it sure wasn’t what he saw.

  “You sure this is the bachelorette party?” Brody asked on a whisper, his eyes wide.

  “Yeah,” he answered, though he had to admit to a moment of confusion, as well.

  At the far side of the room, women all gathered, and Reece had to blink a few times to believe what he was seeing. Abby had been very hush-hush about the party and changed the subject or was vague when he asked how it was going. Now he knew why.

  He’d figured the party would either be a bunch of women dancing or talking, or sticking dollar bills in some young guy’s jock strap, but instead, a ministage had been set up on the far end of the room, and there was a pole that braced from ceiling to floor.

  And the women were taking turns dancing around it. They had their clothes on, of course. And most of them collapsed laughing as they tried to imitate classic stripper moves—some more successful than others—to songs playing so loudly all he could hear was music and shrieks of laughter, along with encouraging comments.

  “Women are strange,” Brody said. “Don’t they usually get mad at us for going to watch this kind of thing?”

  Reece laughed, edging the door open for a better view of the merriment. It was all innocent fun and games, and no one even noticed they were there, they were all enjoying themselves so much.

  He naturally sought out Abby, who was standing to the side, monitoring the event and making sure all was going well. She smiled and spoke to Hannah, who stood by her side, the two women standing apart from the main action.

  The song ended and Sandra, much happier than the day he’d found her screaming at Abby out in the field, took the stage. She definitely appeared to be tilting a bit, a martini sloshing dangerously in her hand.

  She took a microphone and grinned at the group of women in front of her.

  “This is such a blast—as you know, it’s all on video, and I’ll be sure to let you know which cuts make it to YouTube tomorrow,” she promised. Laughter and a few playful threats ensued.

  “But the martinis aren’t gone and we’re not done yet!” she announced to a chorus of hooting and howling.

  “And not everyone has taken their turn, and we said everyone has to take a turn,” she warned, turning to face Abby, who was still talking to Hannah.

  The crowd cheered again as Sandra said, “Now we know Abby Harper can throw a monster bachelorette party, but can she dance?”

  Abby stopped midconversation with Hannah, just then noticing the room’s attention was on her. Her eyes widened and she shook her head.

  “Oh, this just got interesting,” Brody said, leering at Abby and Hannah. Reece elbowed him.

  “The one on the right is Abby,” Reece told him, but the light warning in his voice was clear.

  Brody grinned. “So the one on the left is free?”

  Brody was a shameless womanizer, teased in the media as to whether he had more trophies or romantic conquests. About the only thing in life he was serious about was his driving. Behind the wheel, he was all business, but out in the world, he was all play.

  “Yeah, bud, go for it,” Reece said, thinking it might be funny to see Brody get shot down. He’d known Hannah as long as he’d known Abby, and Hannah was as no-nonsense as they came, and she didn’t suffer fools.

  Abby was still vociferously protesting, even as Sandra tugged her up on stage, everyone laughing and daring her to do it.

  When Abby was left alone by the pole, the crowd clapping to the beat of some bump-and-grind rock song that started playing, Abby laughed, put a hand to her face in embarrassment and rolled her eyes
.

  “Oh, my God, she’s going to do it,” Reece said, finding himself inexplicably breathless.

  Abby was dressed in a very simple black dress that seemed conservative next to some of the outfits in the room, but when she kicked her heels off and grabbed the pole, Reece’s cock jerked and hardened.

  She slid her back up and down the pole, the simple dress sliding down off her shoulder slightly, and rising as she bent her knee to reveal a smooth expanse of thigh. When her head fell back in apparent sexual bliss, Reece heard Brody hiss a breath and elbowed him again.

  When she came back up, vamping for the girls, she looked across the room and froze as she saw him.

  He smiled, nodding once, and mischief sparkled in her expression. No one seemed to notice them watching but her.

  Her eyes stayed on his as she started dancing again. Wrapping herself around that pole like a pro, she bent forward to show the tops of beautiful breasts as she shimmied, impressing him with flexibility that he knew he wanted to learn more about.

  “That’s your high school girlfriend?” Brody said in awe.

  “No, she was just a neighbor then, a girl I knew,” Reece said, not looking away.

  “And now?”

  “Not sure,” Reece said, wanting to stop talking and focus.

  Laughing, Abby held her hand out. All hell broke loose when Hannah strutted up on stage, wearing a classic wool skirt and plain white blouse, but Reece suddenly saw the smart-mouthed accountant that he knew turn into a sexy vixen. She undid a few buttons and her hair swished around her face, making those dark-rimmed glasses downright intriguing.

  Brody lost all control and started whistling, cat-calling for more, and the women turned, gaping, a moment of silence falling over the room, except for the heavy beat of the music still playing.

  Reece wasn’t sure what their reception would be, but he was poised to either apologize or make a run for it.

  Brody’s eyes were glued to Hannah, and he seemed to care less if they had been discovered, yelling to the women to start dancing again.

  Laughter broke out, and some women came back, taking Reece and Brody by the hands, pulling them forward and insisting if they wanted to join the party, that they had to dance.

  Reece laughed, but “over my dead body” was his silent reply to that. Brody, though, was in party form, grabbing a martini and jumping up on stage with a shocked Hannah, leading her to dance more with him, just as Reece took Abby’s hand and helped her down.

  “I missed you” was the first thing he said, and he realized it was true.

  “I missed you, too,” she admitted.

  His eyes devoured her flushed cheeks and the rest of the room around them fell away.

  “I don’t get the dancing thing, but I sure did like it,” he said in a low voice.

  She grinned. “I don’t know, either. It’s some stripper fantasy, girl-power deal, I guess,” she said, shrugging. “It was fun, though.”

  They both cracked up when they looked back to see Brody dancing around the pole.

  Something clicked for Reece when he heard Abby laugh. He wanted to drag her off to a dark corner and take her now.

  She seemed to know what he was thinking. The party had taken on a life of its own, and no one even noticed them anymore.

  Before she could find some reason to change her mind, he took her by the hand and led her out of the room, into the tasting room, behind the bar. It was mostly dark, and no one else was there, though everyone was about twenty feet away at the party.

  He backed her up against the wall, silencing anything she might say with a kiss that made his need clear. She moaned into his mouth, and as he slipped his hand up under the skirt of her dress, he found her slick, as aroused as he was.

  “It’s not the hedges, but it will do,” he said roughly into her neck, need clawing at him as he picked up the scent of her sweat and sex, her skin hot from dancing and arousal.

  “Someone might come out, they could see,” she said, but he knew from her tone it was exciting her more…and she didn’t ask him to stop.

  “Yeah, they could, so we’d better hurry,” he agreed, freeing his erection from his jeans and lifting her hips, cradling her butt in his hands so that she could wrap her legs around him.

  Reece wasted no time getting inside of her, pushing deep and hard, taking her in short, quick thrusts that made her arch against him. She muffled a cry of pleasure as she dug her fingers into his shoulders, hanging on. She was hot and tight around him, and he didn’t care if someone did come out and catch them, he needed her too much.

  He didn’t think he’d ever been this aroused. He was starving for her. In fact, he never would have risked this kind of public exposure given his responsibilities to the team and his sponsors, but right now, he didn’t have to worry about that.

  He leaned down, bracing Abby against the wall so that he could suck a nipple through the fabric of her dress. That sent her over the edge. She sank her teeth into his shoulder as she came, holding on tight and trying to hold back the scream that became a low keening against his neck.

  He couldn’t stop, either, and found her mouth, plundering it with a deep kiss as he exploded inside of her, the orgasm making his legs weak, but he rode it out, taking every last bit of pleasure she offered him.

  When the moment passed, they were both sweaty, sticky and breathless. Reece heard voices coming toward them and they quickly ducked down behind the bar. Abby was illuminated in a sliver of light that angled down from the front windows, her eyes wide and sparkling, hair tousled. She covered her mouth to smother a giggle.

  He pulled her in close, wrapping his arms around her as the voices came closer.

  It was Brody and—if he was correct—Hannah.

  He felt Abby shift in his arms, she must have realized, too, and reached to see. He held her still, putting a finger to her lips until their friends moved on, and Reece heard the grumbling engine of the Charger rev to life.

  “Sounds like Hannah is taking home a little Christmas cheer,” Abby said, chuckling, and Reece grinned as they both stood up, surveying the area as they fixed their clothes and emerged into the other room.

  “Who was that, anyway?” she asked, threading fingers through her hair to smooth it down.

  He ran his eyes over her and wanted to mess it right back up again.

  “My friend Brody. Palmer,” he added.

  “Like, the Brody Palmer?” she asked. “Are you telling me my best friend just left with Brody Palmer? The one whose fan site has a poll keeping track of whether he’s ridden more cars or women?”

  Reece winced and opted for being straightforward.

  “Yeah, that would be the one.”

  Abby groaned. “I don’t know whether I should call her to warn her off or congratulate her,” she said.

  “You can’t believe everything you hear in the media,” Reece said, chuckling.

  Abby eyed him doubtfully, and he caved.

  “Well, okay, when it comes to Brody, most of that is kind of true, but he’s a good guy, I promise. She’ll be okay with him,” he insisted.

  “If you say so,” she commented, smiling, and pressed in close. She kept Hannah’s comments about wishing she could find a hot guy to use for sex to herself. It looked like her friend’s wish had come true.

  “How about you?”

  “What?” he asked, playing dumb.

  “More cars or women?” she asked with a grin.

  “I don’t have anyone running polls, but I’m pretty sure I can say cars,” he answered, nuzzling her neck. “I’m not a saint, but I’m no Brody Palmer.”

  “Thank heavens,” she said, laughing and wrapping her arms around his neck, sighing.

  Bright lights flicked on and they flew apart to find a grinning, soused bride-to-be facing them. Sandra stared at them for a minute, still smiling.

  “Sandra, are you okay?”

  “I’m won-fer-dul,” she said, lurching forward to wrap her arms around Abby in a drunken
hug. Abby sagged under the slack weight of the woman, who mumbled praise about the best party ever and being so sorry she had threatened to “shoe” Abby after the fire.

  “It’s okay, Sandra. I knew you were just upset, and wouldn’t really sue me,” Abby comforted, trying to support her weight and looking over Sandra’s shoulder for help.

  Reece came to her rescue, slinging one of Sandra’s arms over his shoulder, bracing most of the weight as they got her to one of the fireplace chairs and gently deposited her in it.

  “What are you doing with the not-so-blushing bride?” he asked with a grin.

  Abby sighed. “I can find out which of her friends or sisters is most sober, and see if they can get her upstairs to her room. I have all of their car keys over at the house, so no one is going anywhere tonight. Big sleepover,” she said, chuckling, and Reece relaxed. “They have a group brunch planned for tomorrow morning, so once I get them set tonight, I’m done.”

  “What can I do to help?” he asked, and she looked at him in surprise.

  “You can’t take care of all of this alone, and Hannah is gone for the night,” Reece pointed out.

  “You’re sure?” she said, and he saw the doubt in her eyes. He didn’t blame her.

  But now that he’d had her in his arms again, he knew that he didn’t want to let her go one minute sooner than he had to.

  “Absolutely. Abby, I’m sorry I was an ass last week. I guess I thought it would be easier if I put some distance between us, but it wasn’t.”

  “Reece,” she said on a sigh, leaning her forehead against him.

  “That guy, at the Christmas tree event…did you go out with him?”

  God, he felt sixteen, but he had to know.

  “No. I was just trying to tick you off.”

  “It worked,” he said with a grin, but then became serious again. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just…I don’t know,” he admitted, feeling foolish. “I was messed up.”

  She pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips. “I know. Me, too.”

  Suddenly the world seemed a little more right again, and Reece blew out a breath, looking at his watch.