The 25 Men of Christmas

by Cassie James

  “This is so embarrassing,” I mutter half under my breath. “Off. Now.”

  Ribbit must hear the desperation in my voice and takes pity on me, because he finally scoots off of her enough that she can sit upright again. He doesn’t go far, though, giving her one heck of a good lick across the cheek.

  “He’s so sweet. Is he allowed to be in the mall, though?” She looks around us at the place that’s packed but noticeably devoid of other pets.

  “Yeah. They’re hosting a day for people to get pictures of their pets with Santa. I thought we could bring Ribbit here and…” I don’t really need to explain what we’re doing here, I just told her enough that she can obviously draw her own conclusion. “Anyway, they’re set up on the opposite side of the mall, but I figured if we met over here we could park where there’s a bit less of a crowd.”

  It was bad enough I didn’t get a chance to do the chivalrous thing and pick her up. The least I could do was make sure she wouldn’t walk through miles of parking lot to get to me.

  Gemma claps her hands together, her eyes lighting with excitement. Ribbet does a little bounce of his own as if he’d like to be clapping right alongside her.

  “Look at how cute you are, mister.” She seems to love his excitement, which only serves to make him more excited. “Where’d he come from?” she asks, finally giving me her actual attention.

  Is it terrible of me to be jealous of my own dog?

  “He was a rescue, I got him from that shelter the team volunteers with every spring.” She nods, knowing the one. She missed it the first year, but she went with us last year. We had a fun—but stinky—time washing the dogs on last year’s excursion.

  Coach is big on volunteer hours.

  “Is he always this excited to meet new people?” She laughs as he licks her cheek again.

  Lucky bastard.

  “No,” I answer her honestly. “We worked one-on-one with a trainer for months so he’d be a perfect gentleman, but he broke all his training just now to say hi to you. Guess he just likes you.”

  And it’s not hard to see why as her lips part to show off an amazing smile. When she smiles, the whole damn mall feels lighter and brighter somehow.

  I put out a hand to help her stand up, and she takes it gratefully, her eyes going back to my dog. “Alright, Ribbit,” she says, “Let’s go tell Santa what kind of treats you want for Christmas!”

  She’s the only woman I would ever let do what she does then—she tugs Ribbit’s leash right out of my hand and starts to lead my dog away from me, which of course he goes along with happily.

  She looks back at me with a cheeky smile. “Are you coming?”

  Ribbit bolts straight for the doggy door as soon as we step foot in the house. All the excitement clearly went straight to his bladder. Though, at least after the incident with knocking Gemma over he managed to be back on his best behavior. Almost like he wanted to impress her as much as I did.

  I look to Gemma and apologize, “I wasn’t anticipating that my dog would forget his manners the second he saw you.”

  “Stop apologizing. I love your dog, even when he is throwing himself at me hard enough to maybe cause damage to my internal organs.”

  “I would pay your hospital bill if he did,” I only half-joke.

  “So, you’re definitely a dog person.” She raises her eyebrows at me and then wiggles them before pulling her hand out of mine so she can walk over to the framed photos hanging on the wall just inside the front door.

  “That’s Tuck,” I tell her as she pauses to look at the one photo in the set that’s not of my family or Ribbet. “He was the dog I had growing up. My parents got him when I uh… didn’t flourish in school.”

  “Flourish?” Her teasing is light but when her eyes find mine they’re perfectly serious.

  “I had a hard time socializing with other kids. One of their friends finally told them they ought to try getting me a dog. It worked, too. It’s hard to be shy when everyone you come across wants to stop and pet your dog.”

  “That’s amazing. I would never have even thought about that.” She spends another second staring at the Border Collie that has long since passed before she turns and comes back to me. She slips her arms under mine to wrap them around my waist and puts her head against my chest.

  I’m so surprised that it takes me another second before wrapping my arms around her in return.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  “I’m just happy to be here with you,” she says quietly, with a vulnerability that I wasn’t expecting.

  I squeeze her a little tighter as I tell her, “I’m happy you’re here, too.”

  “You’re a good man.” She looks up at me through her eyelashes, the most earnest expression on her face. The sight of it makes my gut tighten.

  I try to make light of things, joking, “What, because I rescued a dog? Totally a selfish decision, I just didn’t want to live alone.”

  She laughs even as she shakes her head.

  “You’re a good man because you’re kind.” She draws her hands around and sneaks them up my shirt, laying her palms against my bare chest. “And thoughtful.” She drags them down, her fingers tracing the lines of my abs. “And you took me on a date that felt like real life.” She leans forward and places a soft kiss on my mouth.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t do something better. The other guys had already used up so many of the good Christmas activities… and I wasn’t sure you’d want something that felt like a repeat…”

  “Milo, stop. I’m serious. This was a good date for us. You showed me how easy it would be to be together in normal life—and not just on the days when there’s some big plan or special something to do. You made our date special without needing to turn it into a whole event. And now I’d like to properly thank you.”

  She gets a glint in her eyes that tells me exactly how she’d like to thank me.

  And I want it, I do. I want her.

  But something in the moment stops me. A fear maybe, that she’s started going through the motions with us guys instead of really enjoying every encounter.

  “We could do something else,” I suggest.

  “Absolutely not.” She points vaguely to the direction of the bedroom. “You gave me something real tonight, now let me return the favor.”

  The other problem I have finally breaks free, “I can’t use today’s toy with you!”

  “What? Why not?”

  I pull away from her reluctantly and yank open the drawer of the side table next to my couch in the living room. I almost don’t even want to touch the tacky red leather long enough to even show it to her.

  Her eyes widen, first with uncertainty and then with curiosity. “Is it like a whip?”

  “It’s called a flogger. And yeah, that’s basically what it is.” I drop it on top of the table.

  “There are only two days left after today…” I have no idea where she’s going with this. “And I have tried everything else…”

  No.

  No, I can’t do it.

  “I can’t get hit you, Gemma. Not even if you’re asking me to.”

  She flinches like the idea of it as unsettling to her as it is to me. Still, she crosses the distance, moving toward me with soft steps looking like the angel that she is. She presses another kiss to my lips.

  “Okay, so don’t hit me with it.” She reaches around me and picks the toy up by its handle. She carefully presses the handle into my hand, instead. “Just touch me.”

  “What?” My voice cracks.

  “C’mon.” She takes my free hand and starts to pull me back the hall towards the bedroom. There’s no question where it is since my little house only has the one bedroom in it. When I bought the place, I bought it for the yard so that I could get a dog.

  Ribbit’s been making good use of it ever since.

  Why am I thinking about my dog right now? This smart, beautiful, independent woman is practically dragging you to your bedroom right now. Stop being an ass
and worship this woman the way she deserves.

  I take a deep breath as we step over the threshold into the bedroom. Gemma shoots me a confused look as I pull her to a stop.

  I’m a gentleman, not an idiot. There will be no waiting around for her to always make the first move—there’d be nothing sexy about that. And I so desperately want her to feel like things can be sexy between us.

  I want to be more than the man that took her on a sweet date with his dog in tow.

  I want to rock her world.

  I might not be Andre, ready to have her walking crooked and too sore to sit down, but I can hold my own in the bedroom. Besides, after having Andre last night she probably needs the kind of more relaxed pleasure I can give her tonight.

  With her attention fully on me and the present, I place a long, lingering kiss on her mouth. I don’t stop there, either. I kiss her, slowly moving her backward toward the bed as I take full advantage of our first real kiss. My tongue dances with hers, the movement soft but certain as we taste each other again and again.

  I could kiss her forever, but I know that’s not really what she’s waiting for.

  Ready to kick it up a notch, I step back and prepare for undressing her—but she doesn’t give me the chance. Right before my eyes, she strips out of her clothes so fast it nearly makes my head spin.

  I have no choice but to join her, shucking my clothes and letting them fall in a neat pile beside the bed.

  “I’ll lay down,” she volunteers, turning and climbing onto my bed so that I get a delectable view of her ass. When she settles in the center of my comforter, she turns her eyes up at me expectantly.

  I drag the leather over her body, the individual pieces at the end fanning out to brush over her gently. This is so much better than whipping her, there’s no doubt about that. I watch as her body tries to arch toward me touch everywhere I drag the flogger against her.

  Finally, I can’t take it anymore.

  “Gemma.”

  “Yes,” she answers the question I didn’t have the nerve to ask. “Condom?”

  I shake my head, then realizing her eyes have fallen closed, I use my words to tell her, “Not yet.”

  “Why not?” she whines, sounding like she thinks I’m telling her no altogether, but I’m definitely not doing that.

  “Because,” I explain to her as I crawl up the bed after her, positioning myself between her legs with my own dangling off the end of the bed as I prepare for what’s surely going to be the best meal of my life, “I’m sure you had quite the night last night. Which means I’m going to make sure you’re nicely wet and relaxed for me before I make love to you. Don’t think I didn’t notice the little twinge in your step while we were walking through the mall.”

  Her cheeks go a little pink.

  She’s so sweet.

  A good girl through and through, even when she’s trying to act bad.

  I go down on her properly after that, taking my time to lick the length of her, leaving nothing untouched as I devour her like I’ve been starved for years. And honestly, I have been. No woman has ever tasted as sweet as her, and even still, she’s the first woman I’ve been with in a long time. The romantic in me has been waiting for her since the day I first laid eyes on her.

  No woman was ever going to be a good enough substitute.

  I’m even more sure of that when she orgasms as I suck her clit into my mouth, one finger teasing her entrance but never actually pushing inside. She’s delicious, and she’s mine.

  When Gemma stops shaking, looking well and truly spent, I move over and collapse on the bed next to her. I pull her close to me, heart swelling when she tucks her head next to mine and laces her fingers through mine so that we’re holding hands.

  She’s panting as we both lay there, me staying as still as possible so I can catalogue every motion her body makes against me. Holding her like this is perfect. I know we’re not done, yet. There’s still a lot of night left, and a lot of things we obviously didn’t get to. But I’m sure as hell not complaining at the moment as I just enjoy the feel of her slick skin, every bit of her sweat thanks to me for bringing her to that climax.

  I should make her orgasm again—and soon.

  “Uh, Milo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think we have company.”

  An unmistakable whine sounds from the end of the bed.

  I push up on my elbows and stare down at the pair of eyes. “Stay,” I warn him, not wanting him to jump on the bed right now while I’m still trying to enjoy the feel of Gemma naked against me. And even though the words are obviously for the dog, I can’t help wishing it was that easy to ask Gemma to stay, as well.

  Forty-One

  Gemma

  December 24

  I wake up on Christmas Eve with a tinge between my legs and a general soreness throughout the rest of my body. Normally I’d get breakfast with Dad, but I’m just so damn tired.

  Which, as great as my dad is, he didn’t seem to question at all when I called him to beg off from breakfast. “You’ve been running yourself ragged with work. Sleep until later, and I’ll pick you up for dinner at six.”

  I don’t remember what I mumbled back to him, but I’d only barely managed to text Lars and Edric that whatever my Christmas Eve mystery man had planned needed to happen either before my dinner with Dad or after.

  And then I promptly fell right the hell back to sleep.

  I stretch my arms over my head, relishing the way my muscles twinge as I groan. There’s nothing I regret about my arrangement with the Storms, but holy cow. I’ve been going hard, giving it hard, and getting it hard all month long.

  A faint knocking makes it from the front of my house to my bedroom, and I groan as I roll over. My alarm clock practically fucking screams 1:00 P.M. at me, and I jolt from the bed in a frenzy. I never sleep late like this.

  The knocking gets louder, more insistent, and I scramble from my room, only barely caring that all I’m wearing is an oversized t-shirt, ugly plaid panties, and my favorite pair of fuzzy socks. I don’t even want to think about what my hair looks like. I threw it on top of my head after my shower last night, and I can feel it bouncing in a loose ponytail with every step I take.

  “Coming!” I shout as I skid down the hall.

  I only barely catch myself in the split second before I would’ve slammed face first into my front door. Wouldn’t that have been a sight, opening the door on my Christmas Eve date with a bloody nose?

  I jerk the door open just to find a very grumpy looking Lars on the other side. One of his bushy ginger eyebrows snakes toward his hairline as he runs his eyes up and down the length of my body. I’d be embarrassed if the annoyance in his eyes didn’t dim in favor of the heat of lust flaming to life in its place.

  Still, he’s frowning—beard twitching and everything—when he pushes past me into the house. He doesn’t speak at all, just heads straight to the kitchen with the two bags of groceries he’s hefting along with him.

  Okay, what the hell? Rude much?

  I slam the door with a grumble and stalk after him into my kitchen. I deal with a lot of bullshit on a daily basis. I’m not going to deal with him being a dick just because.

  “I tried calling,” he says from the far side of the island where he’s unpacking the groceries.

  He slams boxes and bags onto the counter with a surprising amount of force, and I try to wrap my head around all the things I just can’t quite figure out right now. Like, why is this perpetually happy, goofball of a man so pissed off right now? And why the hell did he bring a shit ton of groceries over? He can’t cook a lick.

  I wrap my fingers around the edge of the counter, steadying my breathing as I stare at the way the muscles of his arms tense and flex as he unpacks the bags. There’s gotta be something going on. Lars is never just grumpy to be grumpy.

  “I’m sorry—I put my phone on vibrate after I texted you this morning. I literally just woke up right before you got here.”

 
His head snaps up, and the irritation that’s been sitting heavy as sin on his face gives way to something softer. “Shit, are you okay?” he asks as he rushes around the side of the island.

  His hands cup my cheeks as he turns my head this way and that, peering down at me through squinty hazel eyes. My own irritation gives way to a warm fluttering feeling in my belly, and I reach up to wrap my hands around his wrists.

  “Just worn out,” I answer truthfully, and Lars’ smile turns lecherous in a second. “I needed to catch up on all the sleep I’ve missed out on.”

  “Poor baby,” he jokes before leaning down to cover my lips in a sweet, languid kiss that leaves me panting and squirming where I stand when he finally pulls away from me.

  Lars’ kiss is full of promise. A promise that he’ll make me feel amazing if I let him have the chance. I give myself a second to consider whether jumping him right there in the kitchen is good form because as sore as I am, I still want him.

  Just as he’s leaning in to kiss me again, I ask, “What did you get for today’s item?”

  He shakes my hands free and his fall away from my face as he grunts. He turns his back on me, and my stomach drops.

  Crap, how bad can it be?

  He stalks around the island before shoving his hand deep into the last bag of groceries and pulling something out. Lars glares down at the item for a second before sliding it across the countertop to me. My brain doesn’t immediately process what I’m seeing.

  “Is that a…” I trail off as my head cocks to the side.

  Huh. Never seen one of those before.

  “A dick-shaped cookie cutter?” he asks with a disgusted scoff, and I try to hide my grin as the pure fucking irony of the situation hits me.

  Lars is a god-awful cook—like has had kitchen fires so bad the fire department’s been called—bad. He’s spent more than one night on one of the guys’ couches due to a kitchen incident, and he’s never too ashamed to regale someone with a tale of woe from his misadventures in the culinary world.