Stoke My Fire: A Sexy Bad Boy Holiday Novel (The Parker's 12 Days of Christmas Book 7)

by Blythe Reid

“Well, how about we get some coffee together? I have some things I need to tell you.”

  “Mmm,” she said. “Coffee.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s meet at that coffeehouse near your apartment. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes”

  “Love you, Sarah.”

  “I love you too, Melody.”

  ***

  As I sat in the coffeehouse, I observed the other tables while I waited for Melody. There were several families there. One of the families was a mother, father, and two children, both girls. The girls were whining about waiting for their food, but their parents kept looking at them like they were the perfect daughters. It felt incredibly strange to know there were those kinds of people, and my mother had existed with the same title of parent.

  I heard the coffeehouse door whip open, aided by a gust of wind, and Melody rush inside. She looked as stunning as usual with her blond hair pulled into a bun and faded red lipstick on her mouth. She gave me a hug and sat down across from me.

  “Hey, sweetie.” She wrapped her fingers around the Styrofoam cup in front of her. “Is this mine?”

  “Latte macchiato,” I said. “Your favorite obsession.”

  “Thank you so much,” she said. “I will pay you back. I’ll buy us some dinner sometime. I may have a new obsession though.”

  “You slept with your client?”

  “It was after our arrangement was officially done,” she said. “So, the police can’t get me in trouble for anything. He was so great.”

  “I can’t judge you,” I said. “I did the same thing.”

  “Wait, when?”

  “With that guy, Chris, who worked at Synthesis Spirits.”

  “Wait, wasn’t I gushing about how gorgeous he was, and you acted like you didn’t care?”

  “I didn’t care back then!”

  She shook her head at me. “See? I can be a great matchmaker, and I didn’t even see the man. How many times have you slept together?”

  “A couple,” I said. “But I like him. A lot.”

  “Have you told him? Or are you two just sleeping together?”

  “I think we both know it’s more.”

  “That’s great, Sarah.” She grinned. “Maybe we’ll be able to go on a double date soon, and our guys can bond over their use of escort services.”

  I shook my head. “Since I’ll have to testify, I’ll probably not be able to talk about Linc’s Platinum Company.”

  “You have to testify? Why?”

  “The police asked me to. I’m the person who has worked with Linc the longest,” I said. “I know him better than most and, well, honestly …”

  She stared at me, waiting for me to continue. I took a deep breath, and I told her everything. I had to stop a few times because she looked like she was ready to cry. I didn’t think I could deal with her crying without crying, too, and that was the last thing I wanted to do in a coffeehouse.

  “What a piece of scum. Worse than scum. The scum on scum’s shoes,” she said, shaking her head. “Remind me to punch him when I see him next.”

  “I hope I never see him again after his trial.”

  “So, he’s going to trial for everything?” she asked. I nodded. “I mean, really. I knew he was into some bad stuff, but I never thought he’d get arrested. He seemed like one of those super smart con men in those movies, you know?”

  “I assume his lawyers helped him out a lot, but he must have made a few missteps.”

  She took a sip of her coffee. Her red lipstick left a mark on the mug. I tucked a few strands of my hair behind my ear.

  “So, uh, are you going to be okay with money?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “I wasn’t spending all my profits. Hadn’t you saved up anything?”

  “Linc took most of my profits,” I said. “But I have a little bit saved up. And I have the freelance writing, so hopefully, that will work out.”

  “Oh, shit, right. I’m sorry. I totally wasn’t thinking right then. Well, if you need anything, give me a call. You can even just text. If you don’t want to directly ask, send me a text that says—I don’t know, we can make up a code? Send me a text saying you want some orange juice. Then, I’ll slip you some money under your door. I actually like that a lot. It’s like I’d be a Robin Hood super spy.”

  “Ah, yes, your lifelong dream of becoming a Robin Hood super spy.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. She grabbed my hand. “You’re a great friend. I’d hand you the money right now if I had it and I didn’t know you’d refuse to take it.”

  “It’s very kind of you.” I leaned over the table and kissed her cheek. “You’ve always been a great friend too.”

  My inhibitions about moving on with my life dissipated as Melody and I talked about a future without strange men and a future without Linc. But there’s one more person I wanted to bring from my past to my future.

  Chapter 19

  Christopher

  Christmas Eve was such a strange holiday. It was technically not a holiday, being the day before a holiday, but all the businesses still shut down, and there was a crackling fireplace energy as anticipation grew for the next day. Unless you were alone on Christmas Eve. Then, that crackling energy turned into soot and ashes. Everything was a reminder of the life mistakes that led to this moment of solitude.

  I lay on my bed thinking about Sarah. I should have called her, but I had seen the news about Linc, and she hadn’t reached out to me since she confessed about her mother. Maybe I had been a means to an end. Maybe I had been a knight in shining armor to her until she found a way out on her own. I couldn’t blame her for the feelings I’d developed for her, but I’d be damned if it didn’t make the isolation feel that much more suffocating.

  I had always gotten what I wanted, but what I wanted was a lifetime with Sarah, and I knew that was too much to ask of most people, much less a woman who’d so recently regained her freedom from another man.

  My apartment buzzer went off. I launched off the bed and to the intercom.

  I pressed the intercom button. “Hello?”

  There was static muffling the voice, but I could have recognized it anywhere. “Hey.”

  “Sarah.”

  “Christopher.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Um. I thought I was here to see you, but if you don’t want to let me in …”

  I pressed the button to unlock the apartment building’s door. I left my apartment to wait by the elevator. I listened to the creaking and beeping of the elevator as it rose. I’d have to get the building superintendent to check it before Sarah came back next time. If she came back.

  The elevator doors opened. She looked beautiful. She was wearing a long peacoat, and her dark hair was pinned up in a loose bun. She startled as she noticed me, but a second later, she grinned, grabbing onto me in a big embrace.

  “How are you?” she asked. “I hope you weren’t in the middle of anything.”

  “No, no,” I said, enjoying the feeling of her silk dress. “I was resting. You remembered where I live?”

  “It took a little time for me to remember exactly,” she said. “I had a past client who worked for this company that created a web mapping service. I remembered some of the places around here like the gas station and the fast food place a couple streets over. Using that, she helped me narrow down where you could live, and I had the taxi drive down this street until I recognized your building.”

  “She?”

  “I did have female clients as well,” she said, circling my arm around her waist. I obliged her request, pulling her closer to me. We kissed, and she felt so good against me. “Sometimes they want a romantic partner, but more often, they only want a friend. A few weeks ago, I went to a masquerade high school reunion with a woman who used to be bullied. But she was gorgeous and by the end of the night, she had every man wanting her.”

  “Well, I don’t believe that.”

  “Oh?”

&nbs
p; “There’s no way any man would choose another woman over you.”

  “Aren’t you smooth with the pickup lines?”

  “Oh, I didn’t know you still needed to be picked up.” I scooped her into my arms, her shoes nearly falling off as her legs flung up. I kissed her again. “So, you tracked me down. What did you plan on doing next?”

  “I wanted to give you your present.”

  I looked at both her hands. They were empty. “What is it?”

  She unbuttoned one button of her coat, revealing beautiful, naked skin underneath it.

  “How long do you think it will take you to unwrap it?” she asked.

  “Give me a second.”

  I ran to my door with her in my arms, and her laughter filled my ear. I opened my door, passing by the entrance where we had slept together before. This time would be different though. This time I was going to earn her with more than money.

  I laid her on my bed, kissing her over and over as she unbuttoned her coat the rest of the way. My apartment was a bit cold, so my hands moved over her, rubbing her everywhere except where I knew she wanted to be rubbed.

  She was the best present of my life, and I was going to treat her like it.

  Her hands moved, sliding my clothes off piece by piece. I didn’t think anything could be more persuasive than her hands. I didn’t think I could want anything more than her hands until she opened her legs and I could feel the warmth of her pussy. After all my clothes had been stripped off, I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her tight against me. Keeping a tight grip on her, I rolled her on top of me, her dark hair swaying between us.

  Oh God, she was so gorgeous, and the way she smiled down at me made me feel more alive than I’d felt my whole life.

  I felt her hand on my cock, but I kept my gaze on her, and she looked right back at me. Her green eyes made me think of life, of nature blooming, of spring, of how the smallest things grew into massive trees. Then, she lowered herself onto me, and all thoughts turned into how good she felt.

  There was an immeasurable amount of intimacy between us, and for once, it didn’t scare me. I wanted every bit of affection she could give me, and I wanted to give her every bit of it I could give her.

  I pressed my fingertips into her hips, guiding her body up and down above me. Every bit of me ached for her. Her hips rolled with every movement. It felt so, so good, which was a problem when I wanted this to last forever. I wanted to watch her breasts sway with every movement. I wanted to feel her body tighten around my cock every time she slid back down onto me. I wanted her to look at me with that mixture of desire and glaze-eyed pleasure every second for the rest of my life.

  As the pleasure built in me, I couldn’t keep it slow and steady any longer. I bounced her up and down on me, and she tensed her body every few seconds, keeping a constant grip on my cock. My hand moved to the small area below her neck, and I pulled her close to me. I kissed her hard, my body wanting to convey something to her that I couldn’t put into words. I moved my face down to the curve of her neck. I thrust into her faster. I was going to give all of myself to her.

  My cock twitched inside her, and I felt that implosion of eye-opening, hand-gripping ecstasy.

  Everything was so damn joyful, so filled with belief, and so beautiful. It was the first time I truly understood why people loved Christmas.

  Epilogue

  Sarah

  I have no clothes here.

  Hopefully, that was something that could be rectified.

  I rolled over to look at Chris. He was snoring a little, but he still looked devilishly good.

  I shook his shoulder, leaning close to his ear. “It’s Christmas.”

  He opened up one eye. “Did Santa come?”

  “Mmm. I don’t think so.”

  “Merry Christmas,” he murmured, leaning toward me, kissing the side of my mouth. I kissed him back, full on the mouth.

  “Merry Christmas.”

  With our two-for-two record of having sex the moment we stepped into his apartment, I’d never had much time to appreciate it. His bed was huge. I assumed it was a king-size bed, but I’d never seen such a big bed. The sheets were rather rough, but I had been so exhausted last night, I never even noticed. It took up the space of most of the room, but light poured in through the shades of a window, making the room feel bigger. He seemed to have made a good home out of a modest apartment.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “I think this is the first Christmas morning I’ve had where I didn’t either wake up alone or obsessing about how to help my mother,” I told him. “It’s nice.”

  He gave me a quick kiss. “Hopefully, there’s more of those to come.”

  “I hope so too.”

  “Do you want some breakfast?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “We’d have to check what I have in the fridge. I’m not the best at keeping it stocked.”

  When we finally manage to get into the kitchen after several minutes of getting twisted in Chris’ blankets, Chris opened the refrigerator.

  “Well, there’s ketchup,” he said.

  “Which is a fruit.”

  “Some turkey lunch meat.”

  “There’s our protein.”

  “And there is something in a baggie here that’s brown.”

  “Sounds exactly like my childhood Christmas breakfast.”

  He glanced over at me, smiling. “We’ll get you a real breakfast.”

  “Nothing is going to be open Christmas morning.”

  “Not everybody celebrates Christmas. I know one diner that will be open, and they have the best pancakes you’ll ever have.”

  “The best?”

  “The best.”

  We kissed again.

  ***

  The snow was falling so lightly, I had layers of it on my coat before I even noticed it. It was a beautiful morning, made even better by the fact that the streets were mostly empty except for Chris and me.

  I stopped in front of a window filled with Christmas decorations. The store was closed—evident by the sign and the dark shadows inside—but the wooden angels were too beautiful to not stare at.

  Chris wrapped his arm around my waist. His body heat felt good in the cold or, I should say, almost as good as when we were in bed together.

  “You know, in a way, I’m grateful,” I said, breaking the silence. “About the whole escort thing. I know if it hadn’t been for that, we wouldn’t have ever met.”

  “I think we still would have met in another place, another time,” he said. “I like to imagine I saw you in the lingerie section, and I’d ask you what your favorite brand of underwear was—for a gift for my mother, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Or, we’d have met at a carnival. You would have gone for the elephants, but I would have gone for the trapeze artists.”

  “You think you know me well enough to know why I’d go to a carnival?”

  “Are you saying you wouldn’t go for the elephants?”

  I laughed. “No. But I would have gone for the trapeze artists too.”

  We continued to walk. The silence was comforting between us, but the future felt like this paralyzing weight over us, and all I could think about was how unsteady my future was. My whole life had revolved around my mother and the consequences of her actions. Freedom never felt so much like plummeting.

  “I’m going to have to testify,” I said. He stopped walking. I took one more step, so we were far enough away from each other that he wouldn’t feel compelled to comfort me. I enjoyed his comfort, but sometimes I needed to say what I needed to say, and his kindness could be enough to break me into pieces. “For Linc’s case. I mean, against Linc, but for the accusations of everything he did. I’m looking for a new job too. I do freelancing once in a while, but it’s not a very stable job.”

  “I can help you get a job,” he said. “I’m sure there’s something at Synthesis Spirits that you’d be great at.”


  I shook my head. “I can do it myself.”

  “I don’t have a problem helping you.”

  “I know. And you’ve been so good to me already. I want to see if I can do this on my own.”

  He wrapped his arm around me. “I’m certain you can.”

  In the distance, I could hear “O Holy Night.” We moved toward the music together, our hands clasped, and I realized that freedom didn’t have to mean falling if there was someone willing to hold onto you until you could pull yourself back up. Freedom wasn’t about all the overwhelming choices but having the ability to make the right one. And I did.

  ***

  On the way back to Chris’s apartment, we found a bakery that was open. We bought a molten chocolate cake, and by the time we set it on Chris’s kitchen counter, my mouth was watering.

  He started making a small fire in his tiny fireplace. As I watched him lower the lighter to the scrunched-up paper, it was a bit overwhelming. Here was a man who barely knew me, who jumped through hoops for me, and now he was here, building me a fire to keep us warm.

  He handed me a fork, sat down across from me, and set the molten chocolate cake between us. He had a fork in his hand too.

  “We’re not going to use separate plates?” I asked.

  “Nope. We’re going to dive right into this cake like we always wanted to do when we were kids. Christmas is a kid’s holiday, so we’re going to act like kids.”

  “I hope we don’t have to act like kids all day,” I said, leaning forward, kissing the edge of his jaw. His skin flushed the tiniest bit.

  “Well, okay, not all day. Maybe not even this whole next hour. But while we have this cake, we’re going to be like kids. We’re not going to think about calories or what looks proper or how crazy everything has been for the last few days. We’re just going to eat and enjoy it.”

  He nodded over to my hand holding the fork. “So, knowing that this cake is filled with molten chocolate, do you want to do the honors of ripping it open?”