by Skye Warren
Two…
One…
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Blast off.
We argue. Jason advances on me and I untangle myself from Maisie and back off just in case he really does get physical. The last thing I want is for her to get caught up in the crossfire. The Cook kitchen, usually the warmest place on earth, erupts into shouting and scuffling while the four of us all try to say what feels like the most important stuff in our hearts and heads at the same time. Finally, in a moment of unfounded rage, Jason swipes a handful of cookies off the counter and hurls them at me.
Icing sticks to my face and slides down my shirt, landing right on my Vince Austin sneakers. After a few dumbfounded seconds of staring down at the red and white icing settling into the expensive leather, I look up at Jason. Brows furrowed. Jaw set. I take a deep breath and grab my own handful of cookies off the counter and fling them at Jason.
They fly across the kitchen and hit him square in the face. One clings to his cheek for a few heartbeats of shocked silence before it drops to the floor with a sad little plop. The next thing I know, we’re all grabbing handfuls of cookies and lobbing them at each other. Anger slowly slides into glee and hateful words become laughter. Before we have a clue what’s going on, we’ve flung every single cookie at each other, and I’m talking about the culmination of hours and hours of work on Maisie and Marion’s part. And when there isn’t a cookie left on the counter, we start scooping icing off the floor and tossing it at each other.
When the kitchen is nothing but cookie crumbs and icing globs, the four of us stand there, staring at each other, chests heaving, eyes dancing from one face to the next. We are family. Jason and I have been friends since grade school. Marion came into his life in high school. Maisie showed up shortly after that. There’s a great big ‘what now’ hanging in the room and I don’t think any of us have the answer to that.
“What the fuck are you doing with my daughter?” Jason asks me after a long period of extended silence.
I think the socially acceptable thing would be to apologize, but I refuse to apologize for something this special. I look to Maisie and smile. Even covered in icing from head to toe, she’s beautiful. And stepping between her father and me.
“I came onto him, Dad.”
I wait for Jason to remind her that I didn’t have to say yes. That I could have declined her advances. That I could have done anything but give into my most basic desires with Maisie. But the strangest thing happens.
Marion smiles. “You’ve had a crush on him forever.”
Maisie’s jaw drops and her eyes go wide as she stares at her mother. Jason’s face mirrors hers.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Marion says to her husband. “You know damn well that you knew about it. In fact, what was it you said to me?” Marion screws up her face and puts a finger to her lips. “Oh yeah. You told me, more than once if I remember correctly, that we’d be lucky if she ended up with a man like Scott.”
“Right,” says Jason. “Like Scott. Not Scott himself.”
Marion smiles at her husband. “Right. But this way, we know she’s with the real deal.” What follows is the most surreal conversation I’ve ever been part of. Marion goes through a list of why she and Jason love me and mentions how many times they’ve wished Maisie would find someone just like me. I just stand there in the icing-coated kitchen, doing my best to make sense of a conversation that, for all intents and purposes, should be absurd.
While her parents go from condemning our week-old relationship based on sex, sex, and more sex to planning the rest of our life together, Maisie holds my gaze and a blush flares across her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she mouths, shaking her head and lowering her gaze.
“Don’t be,” I mouth back when she glances up at me.
By the time Christmas morning rolls around, things are mostly back to normal. A few things are a little weird. The cookies on the platter on the coffee table are all store bought. Maisie sits a little closer to me than she usually would, sometimes running a hand up my thigh. Marion can’t stop smiling and Jason has told me more than once that if I hurt his daughter, I’m done for.
I should be scared. I mean, I should be really fucking terrified. Here I am in a week-long fuckfest with a girl and suddenly we’re talking about things that sound really longterm. Final. Permanent. Words like forever and future are getting flung around like the cookies and icing a few days ago. By all rights, I should run screaming for the hills.
But I’m not.
I won’t admit it yet, but I think I’ve had words like future and forever in my head for the last few years when it comes to Maisie. If I get really metaphysical about it, I might even start wondering if she and I were meant to be together. That her life forged her into the perfect woman for me and my life made me just the kind of man she needs. We’re friends. We’re lovers. We’re really fucking good together. And while we’ve only been doing the sex thing for a week, I’ve known her for what feels like a lifetime. Hell, for what is a lifetime.
But, none of that matters very much right now because we’re not talking about forever. Not yet. She’s got a degree to finish in Pittsburgh, and I’ve got a club to run in Miami. Although the damn thing can basically run itself and I really can’t fathom leaving her when this week is over.
By the time we reach the end of Christmas day, I’ve got it all figured out. I corner Maisie just outside her bedroom after her parents go to bed.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I say after a decadent kiss that has my dick straining in my pants.
“Hey.”
“I’ve got one more present for you.” My hands move on autopilot across her body, loving the swoops and curves of her full hips and lush breasts.
Maisie giggles but looks away. We haven’t had sex since her parents found out about us and as sad as my dick is, I personally am just fine with the unspoken agreement. “We can’t,” she says with a little shrug of her shoulders.
“I know. That’s not what I’m talking about.” I pause and grind my cock into her hips, letting her feel just how hard I am. “But you better believe the moment we’re not in this house anymore, I’m going to take you and show you all the reasons I have handcuffs for cufflinks.”
Maisie’s eyes light up and she bites her bottom lip. “Promise?” she asks and she might as well be purring.
“Cross my heart.” I step back just a hair, create a little space between us because at this rate, it’s looking more and more likely that I’m not going to be able to make good on my promise to stay out of her bed. “Now, about this gift…”
“Just what do you have in mind?”
“There was a lot of talk about you and me and forever in the last couple days…”
Maisie’s eyes go wide. “Oh shit, yeah. I’m so sorry about all of that…”
I hold up my hands. “Let me talk, woman. I can see it. You and me. Until my death does us part,” I say and drop her a wink. “Not yet, of course. But I’m not ready to go back to Miami and leave you in some shitty dorm in Pittsburgh.”
Maisie furrows her brow. “What are you talking about?”
“I want to do a trial run. I want to rent a swanky apartment in Pittsburgh and move the two of us into it while you finish your degree. After this week, I can’t not have you.”
I wait for her to put up a fight. To give me all the reasons that we just won’t work. To tell me that I’m being creepy and clingy and a little too protective.
She doesn’t.
“I’m not ready to be without you, either.”
And that settles that.
Chapter 8
Maisie
“I look like I’m trying to smuggle a basketball under my graduation robes.” I pull the voluminous black fabric close to my ever more pronounced belly and turn sideways in front of the mirror.
Scott studies me, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a basketball…”
“You’re the whole reason I’m in this mess,” I say, meeting his eyes through the mirror as he steps up behind me and wraps his arms around my belly.
“First of all, I’m glad you consider being the mother of my child a mess. And second of all, you freely admitted that you came onto me. If anyone is at fault for this mess, it’s you.” He kisses that spot just below my ear, the one that sends jolts of pleasure and need straight to my pussy every time. “Me? I couldn’t be happier in this mess, as you call it. And you look more beautiful with every passing day.”
We’ve been living together since the week after Christmas. He found a great apartment for us and filled it with my first set of non-hand-me-down furniture. It wasn’t a few weeks after that when I found out I was pregnant. I half expected him to bolt, but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He stayed and the past six months have been completely and utterly perfect. I didn’t believe in happiness like this. Thought it was just something that made for good movies and eluded all of us mere mortals who had to struggle through real life.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Scott is everything I ever needed and more. He’s strong and confident, old enough to know what he wants and young enough to still get out there and take it. He dotes on me without making me feel trapped. He supports me without making me feel weak. Everything he does brings out a new, better facet of my personality. And in all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen his smile this bright, or heard his laughter come so easily.
And those handcuff cufflinks? He’s got a really good reason for those. I mean really good. Scott’s a little dominant in bed, which suits me just fine because after a long hard day of being a strong woman making a way for myself in this world, I like melting into him and being a little submissive. But only for him. And only in bed.
We are good together. Right together. I’d almost go so far as to say we’re made for each other. There’s been no more talk of forever, not since that crazy day over Christmas when my parents should have kicked him out of their house but started planning our wedding instead.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks, rubbing his hands along my rounded belly.
I refocus on his eyes through the mirror. “You. Us.”
“That’s funny,” he says. “I was thinking about the same thing.” He steps back just enough to put his hands on my shoulders and turn me ever so gently. I think he’s going to kiss me, so I tilt my face up to his. He surprises me by going down on one knee.
“I was going to do this at the ceremony. Make a big deal about it and see how many shades of red I could get your face to turn. But that would just cheapen something beautiful. I love you, Maisie. With all that I am for all that you are. Will you marry me?”
I stare down at the ring he holds out for me, a large emerald surrounded by many sparkling diamonds. It’s beautiful and untraditional, just like us.
Frowning, I sit back on my heel and cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t know. You’re awfully old. I can’t imagine that your stamina is going to hold out much longer.”
Scott’s eyes go wide and his mouth drops open. “I’ll show you stamina!” He stands and grabs me by the hips, pulling me in for a ferocious kiss before swooping me up in his arms and carrying me back to our bedroom. Before I know it, our clothes are draped over the back of a chair and Scott’s sliding his cock into me.
“Yes,” I murmur, staring up into his jaw-droppingly handsome face.
“Do you like that?” he asks.
I nod as he thrusts his hips into me. “Fuck yeah. But that’s not what I mean.”
A slow smile spreads across his face. “Say it again.” His pace is tortuously slow and I grab him by the hips, pulling him into me.
“Yes.” I smile as he fills me, his cock buried so deep inside me I’m on the brink of coming. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He grins and damn it if he stops moving all together. “Really?”
“I can’t think of a better way to spend forever.” I squeeze his ass in my hands. “Now Scott?”
“Yeah, Maisie?”
“Fuck me before I change my mind.”
THE END
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Part XVII
Dirty Santa by Charleigh Rose
Chapter 1
Okay, let me just preface by saying I needed the fucking money.
I really, really, really needed the money. I fucked up, royally this time. Spent my entire year putting every penny I earned at the auto repair shop toward fixing my old Corvette Hardtop Coupe. Turned that shy baby into a racing beast, but seeing as I won’t be able to take it to the tracks and earn the money back before the snow melts—this is fucking Maine we’re talking about. No one races in the winter, unless the destination is a graveyard—I had to come up with something fast to make sure there’ll be presents under the Christmas tree for my nieces and nephews.
Which is why I am now dressed as fucking Santa Claus in the middle of a sad, blue-collar mall. Yeah, life. Fuck you too.
“Here’s your prosthetic belly,” Tiffany shoves a large, cream-colored gut into my hands. I tuck the flabby, creepy thing under my red and white custom suit and tighten my waistband against it to keep it from falling. The belly isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is the beard. I’d rather eat a hedgehog for breakfast, lunch and dinner than wear this crap. First, it’s itchy as hell, and second, it makes me sweaty. Everything about this costume makes me uncomfortable. I’ve never even believed in Santa. I’ve been an atheist since I was five. Being born to a crackhead mom and an alcoholic dad will make you lose faith in pretty much everything other than pussy.
Yeah, pussy never disappoints. Pussy always delivers. Which brings me back to reality.
“So, uh, Damien, when you get off this shift…” Tiffany looks around and licks her lips. She’s a solid six, our Tiff. A nice, plump event coordinator who’s been working at this mall since she was born, or so it seems by the way she knows everything about it. Huge rack, curvy ass, but a below-average face. I rounded her up to six based on her full lips and ability to walk on high heels without looking like a baby deer on ice. “Would you like to get a drink or something?”
I flash her my Casanova smile. I fucked her once on my first weekend as Santa. I know I promised myself no more average pussy—my motto is ‘if you need to fuel yourself with booze, it’s not worth riding’—but Tiff was an exception to the rule because I’m her employee and she’s hella flexible with my shifts, and also because she’s divorced with two kids so you know she doesn’t really expect you to call her up and court her like some kind of Prince Fucktard. Okay, it was mostly because I was drunk and horny, but still. She knows the score. Or so I thought.
“I’ve gotta wash my hair tonight,” I chug my beer—technically not the most professional thing to do minutes before you sit in the middle of a busy mall with kids in your lap—and let out a loud burp. She smiles coyly and looks down. Nothing will deter her from trying to ride my ten-inch cock later today, and it’s not hard to figure out why. I’m the guy your mother warned you about and the reason your dad bought a baseball bat when you turned fifteen. That asshole on the black-flamed Harley who asked for ‘just a kiss’ after the first date but somehow got you to take off your panties and grind against his dick to the point where he came back home with a stain on his jeans the size of Hawaii. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s my height or my build. Kinda huge for a guy who doesn’t play football or rugby for a living. Or maybe it’s my dad’s hazel eyes which I inherited. They tend to twinkle when I see something I like. ‘Cause when I see something I like – it likes me back, always.
I take my seat on Santa’s chair and watch the long, neat line of families and children waiting to take a picture with me. When the pimpled kid I work with, Aaron—dressed as Rudolph, by the way—starts guiding the kids and their parents one by one to sit in my lap so I can ask them what they want for Christmas and take a pic
ture with them, I curse inwardly and remind myself that Ford, Stevie, Pam and Eve are more important than my general hatred toward humanity. For the next few hours, it’s the same ole’ script.
Me: “Ho ho ho, and who do we have here?”
Kid:
Me: “Well,
Kid:
Parent/grandparent next to them: “Well, good to know!”
Me: “Now get the fuck outta’ here.” (Not really, but I wish.)
Anywho.
Twenty minutes before my shift ends I notice them. They’re the last in line. The people I usually want to get rid of the most. A bunch of girls—no, teenagers, maybe seventeen? Loitering around, laughing and whispering in each other’s ears. There are four of them, three are a seven, one is a fucking ten—great legs, long blonde waves and a green turtleneck that tells me she is sexy without looking slutty—and all of them are fucking illegal, asshole. Concentrate.
I wait for them to approach and watch as Aaron eyes the blonde leggy one like she is water and he is in the desert. I will not fuck him up. Not today. I will mind my own business, get my paycheck, fuck Tiffany and pretend that she is this chick right here. All four girls approach me, all giggling. The blonde one stands at the back. Shy. I hear the blandest one of them asking “is he the guy?” and a brunette nodding back with a serious case. So apparently, I’m the guy. Good to know.
Now, I’m not sure how appropriate it is for any of them to climb on top of me, but fuck if I care. It’s not a part of my job description to think. The brunette--a solid seven--plops on my thigh and knots her arms around my neck shamelessly, her smile brightened by her red lipstick.