CHRISTMAS COFFEE: A HOLIDAY ROMANCE Page 2

  She breathes into my ear, “Open the bottle and let’s get to it.”

  “Anything you want.” I crack open the vodka and ask if she wants ice, but she shakes her head.

  “Neat is fine.” She downs the first cup and then a second one before tugging that sweater over her head. She steps toward me with her golden hair tossed over her shoulders and a black bra that makes her tits look better than the sweater. It’s not fucking possible to look at her face when she’s this hot. The best part, she has no fucking clue. This chick probably thinks she’s cute or pretty. She has no idea that guys like me fantasize about a body like this. She’s curvy with a narrow waist and her hips spill down into thighs that I can’t wait to get between. She’s a fucking seductress with a fairy’s face and a saunter that would make a succubus jealous. The girl’s got moves.

  She pulls my sweater over my head and walks around me slowly, dragging the pads of her fingers across my stomach, side, and then across my lower back. She stops behind me and presses her tits to my back, rocking those sweet hips toward me. I feel her hot kiss on my skin and it takes everything I have to stay still and see how this plays out. Most women wait for me to make the first move. I can count on one hand how many times a woman has controlled me in bed. Most don’t even try.

  She places a palm on both sides of my waist and asks, “Why aren’t you drinking?”

  “I thought you’d have a better time if I wasn’t totally plastered.”

  “Plastered would be bad, but a little tipsy might be fun. Take a drink.” She releases me and then walks over to the bed, sits down on the edge and crosses her jean-clad legs at the knee. She leans back on her arms which pushes her chest out, making her body look even more appealing.

  She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I pour a double and down it fast, before walking over to her. I’m about to push her back onto the bed when she stops me, grabs my waistband, and unbuttons my jeans. The zipper slides down slowly as she watches with fascination. I feel her hand wrap around my shaft and swallow a moan. She smiles as she feels its girth, squeezing me firmly, making me harder, longer with her touch. She slides down my jeans and strips my boxers, leaving me naked and standing in front of her, my erection before her eyes.

  She glances up at me from under her lashes. “Is anything off the table?”

  Oh fucking hell. She’s perfect. I shake my head. “You?”

  “No.” She takes a swig from the bottle.

  I do the same before putting it on the nightstand and lying back against the pillows. I lace my arms behind my head. I glance at her and see her eyes on my face, questions fade when she kneels on the bed and unhooks her bra. She tosses it to the side, and I can see the swell of her tits and those nipples, tight and perfect for me.

  I grin at her and command, “Strip. Lose it. All of it.”

  She doesn’t speak, doesn’t play coy, or act shy. She obeys and it makes me hard again. The way she slips out of her jeans and panties, she tosses them aside without a drop of shame and waits. I could learn to enjoy this. She goes from being in charge to being compliant. I want to feel her naked body pressed to mine.

  Before I can act, there’s a knock at the door. I look at Hot Girl for a second and she says, “Go ahead and answer it. I’m not going anywhere.” She leans back against the pillows.

  I’m torn, I don’t want to leave her—not even for a second—but the asshole is knocking more urgently now. I swear and grab my jeans, pulling them on fast, and then pull on my shirt. I walk over to the door and yank it open. When I see who’s there, I step into the hallway, closing the door behind me.

  Quin is grinning. “Lovely place to spend the night.”

  I glare at him and hiss, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Saving your ass. Come on. I stumbled on something, but it’ll be gone by morning.”

  I glance at the door. “I can’t walk out on her. She’ll never forgive me.”

  Quin scoffs, “You’ll never see her again. Your ass is on the line. Fix it and then nail some other girl. She’s a piece of ass, they’re all the same.”

  He sounds completely reasonable, but in the back of my mind, I know this one is different. If I leave now, I shoot any chance I have of being with her to hell.

  Quin tugs at me. “Come on. We’re running out of time. We have to get there before the shredding company.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Bardenbey.” The company that should have been mine. The company I nearly bankrupted. “It could save your ass.”

  I walk away from the woman on the other side of the door without an explanation.

  3

  Nova

  I tug my long hair over my shoulder, away from my sweaty skin, and smile. He’s insanely hot. In fact, I could have fallen for him and I know it. To save myself the heartache, I took him to bed. At least that’s what I tell myself as I wait for him to come back. There’s no way to recover from a one-night tryst with a random guy. I’ve tried it. There’s nothing after that which could possibly live up to the unrealistic expectations that have grown in my mind. If a guy is good in bed, he’s usually a total asshole, which is why I had a long string of non-serious relationships until I met Ben. As for the one-nighter type of men, their bedroom skills come from years of dicking around, nailing anything that moves. This guy has mad skills, but there’s something else there—a haunted look in his eyes.

  Something is gnawing away at him. I sense it, I’m not sure what it is exactly, but the slope of his shoulders and the twinge of regret in his voice makes me wonder. Maybe he’s coming off a bad break up too. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to be alone. Night is the worst time to be isolated. Every worry I ever had seems to creep up until there’s no escape. Being alone makes it worse.

  I don’t want to think of Ben or what happened. There’s a hole in my chest where my heart belongs. Easing the ache for a bit, a distraction of slick bodies and sensations will help. It helped in the past, but the effects don’t last long enough. I thought I was done with this part of my life. It’s strange to be back in this vulnerable spot. Maybe I use sex as a defensive mechanism, a way to push guys away. The truth is, I didn’t plan on stopping at the bar tonight. The day went to hell and the car died just as I ran off from Ben. Luckily, I was able to push it into the nearest parking lot, which was the bar across the street. No one stopped to help, not that anyone ever does. It’s not like that here. At this point, my car is mostly duct tape and barely runs, but it’s all I have.

  I know what I’m doing is reactionary. That if I hadn’t gotten dumped, I wouldn’t have said yes to this guy. Add up the rejection, cheating, and disbelief and I want to forget for a while. I can’t believe Ben was seeing someone else while he was living with me. I can’t get past that. What’s wrong with me? How did I miss that?

  Then I quit. I walked away from a great job. I had no choice. I can’t go back there.

  I’ll have to visit the employment agency on Friday and beg for a shit job that pays too little. People ask me why I’m not in college, or they look at me and assume I’m a student. It makes job-hunting difficult. I’m a social pariah for not continuing my education. There’s so much pressure to do what other people think is right. At times, I’m not sure who I am at all. Add in the swiftly approaching holidays and this entire mess is a nightmare. I don’t want to think about Thanksgiving tomorrow. I don’t want to pretend that it won’t suck, that I’m fine. I’m not, but I can put blinders on and keep marching.

  One day everything will be all right. One day things will be good again. Until then, keep going and don’t stop. If I slow down, I’ll fall apart. I can’t let that happen.

  I’m twirling my finger against the sheet forcing my mind back to thinking about the stranger. His body tells me everything I need to know. He’s a pampered ass, one of those rich kids that has time to work out and get rock hard abs and a matching ass. His arms are thick, powerful, but he’s careful with me. I like it. I can’t wait to see what he’s goin
g to do.

  I roll onto my side after a second. I glance at the door that hasn’t moved. The hallway is silent. His sweater is still on the chair. The pit of my stomach dips. There’s no way he walked out, but the sinking feeling in my gut is telling me a different story. I wait another minute or two and pull on a robe and pad over to the door. I press my ear to the door and listen.

  Nothing.

  I pull the door open wide, throwing it back, hoping he’s there, but the hallway is empty.

  4

  Nova

  Mystery Man is gone, he took off without a word. Mortification sours my stomach and I nearly fold in half. This has never happened before. Ever. What the hell?

  I dress quickly with every intention of darting. When I fly by the counter, head lowered and eyes glassy, the man at the counter calls out to me. “Miss! There’s a message for you.”

  I stop and turn on my heel. I stop in front of the long gray desk and he hands me a note.

  ‘Keys will be under the mat in your car first thing tomorrow.’

  There’s nothing else. No reason for walking out on me. No apology. No mention of an emergency.

  I crumple the paper up, balling it in my fist. I can’t go home. I have no car. I don’t want to see Ben. This has been the worst day of my life. I turn and storm back up to the room. There’s a bottle of Absolute with my name on it.

  The next morning, my head is pounding. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to face the day. This is going to suck. I dry swallow a few aspirin, shower, and leave the hotel, but not before I pass happy children dressed in pretty fall clothes as frantic parents try to corral them into the car.

  It’s snowing. Fat white flakes fall from the sky and melt when they touch my skin. It won’t stick, but it’s enough to make traffic a mess. I groan and wrap my arms around my middle, tuck my chin, and walk faster toward my car.

  Part of me expects it to still be busted. The whole thing was a massive play to get into my pants until someone else came along. Being left behind with no explanation stung. Coming off an abrupt breakup, and now this? Well, it’s more than I can handle. The best way to deal with it is to pretend it never happened and if I see that asshole again, I’ll kick his junk into his skull.

  When I make my way across the double parking lot, I spy my car dusted with a fresh blanket of snow. Crap, it’s sticking. Getting a tow truck is going to be even harder.

  I walk up to the ‘89 Honda and wrench open the half frozen door. The keys are still under the mat where I left them for Hot Guy’s ‘friend’ to fix it. I slide into the car and press my head to the steering wheel when I spy my crocheted hat on the floor. I reach for it and tug it on my head. It’s freaking cold. I inhale deeply and decide that I should at least try to make the engine turn over. AAA is going to ask me when I tried to start it, so here we go.

  I slide the metal key into the socket and twist. The car sputters like it usually does and then turns over. Startled, I glance down at the gauges. The battery needle is where it’s supposed to be, rather than hanging limply to the side.

  “He did it,” I mutter to myself, shocked. But why? He walked out on me. Why the hell would he pay to have someone fix my car in the middle of the night? It must have cost him a fortune to get it done so fast. I don’t understand.

  The snarky voice in the back of my mind snaps at me. He pities you and your sad little car.

  I frown. It didn’t look like pity last night. In fact, I thought he actually liked me. My skin prickles as I think about him, his touch, and easy laugh. Screw it. I’m not torturing myself trying to figure out why he walked. It’s his loss.

  Snarky me chides from the back of my mind, Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

  The roads are a sheet of black glass. My wipers frantically wash away thick flakes as I crawl ahead with the rest of the stragglers who decided to head to their Thanksgiving dinners this morning. Lots of people are going over the river and through the woods to their grandmother’s house. I’m headed toward my older sister’s house in Deer Park. It’s a little town that lies smack in the center of Long Island, about thirty miles east of Manhattan. Think of suburban homes, cape cods and split-ranches, and tons of traffic. The homes have little yards with barren trees that jut up from the frozen ground like skeletal fingers. Add in the cold morning air and the scent of exhaust as I travel east, and I don’t have the stomach to eat the muffin I nabbed from the breakfast buffet. Instead, I clutch a cup of mediocre coffee like it’s a lifeline.

  My chest feels like it’s going to cave in. I don’t want to think about anything. I try to stare at the road and forbid my mind to wander, but it does. Ben’s voice echoes in my ears—it’s been over for a long time. We should both move on.

  He was the one who wanted to date me. He was the one who wanted to move in. At some point, I stopped doing what I wanted because it made him happy. I had never dated anyone for long before him. I guarded my heart ferociously back then, but somehow Ben got through. And now, it feels like I’ve been ripped to shreds. Add on the hot guy who wanted me one second and vanished the next and I feel completely mental. If I go crazy, at least I’ll blend in a bit more with the family. They’re all nucking futs.

  The bends in the highway are pitched sharply to one side and the car slips as I take a curve too fast. Swearing to myself, I slow further. I could walk faster. I grip the wheel tighter and lean forward in my seat, trying to see. An old Bonneville crawls up next to me. I’m on top of the steering wheel when I glance over and notice the driver. She’s eighty years old with a crocheted cap on her head, hugging the steering wheel with her face so close to the glass that she could kiss it. Something white paws at the back window of her vehicle and I can see that her ancient car is filled with felines. The old woman straightens her knitted cap and adjusts her huge-ass glasses before looking over at me.

  It’s like she’s my ancient twin. Or the worst omen ever. It’s like looking into a mirror with a built in time machine. Fast-forward sixty years and that’s me. Holy crap.

  I rip my hat off my head and toss it in the back seat and give a panicky yelp to myself, “No cats! Never!”

  The old lady frowns at me, flips me the bird, and speeds away. I’m left gaping in her wake of white exhaust. I try to speed up but the car loses traction again. I make a mental note never to buy a Bonneville.

  My mood drops a few bars into suckage as I near the exit for my sister’s place. The last thing I want to see is her Norman Rockwell poster child life, but I don’t want to go home and eat frozen leftovers. Being alone will make everything that’s happened real. I’ll have to face it and that’s the last thing I want to do. Besides, the only thing in my fridge is a jar of pickle juice. I ate all the pickles when I ran out of Vienna Sausages. I can’t believe I ate those, but it was tiny wieners or dinner with Mom and her million questions.

  When I finally get to her pastel gray cape cod, I park in front. A stream of smoke billows from her little chimney. Snow hugs the roof of the picture perfect home. Boughs of holly hang from her eaves, coupled with draped evergreens, and topped with twinkling white lights. It forms a pretty garland that runs the length of her house. A matching deco-mesh wreath adorns her front door. Sprigs of holly and evergreen poke out from between the bright red and green plastic.

  I tried to make a deco-mesh wreath with her this summer. She bought all the materials to make a summertime wreath. The picture looked cute, but when I was done, my wreath looked like a bloated marshmallow with crap stuck to it. I’m not Suzie Homemaker and never will be. Just ask the pickles in my fridge. I need to go grocery shopping.

  I take my time moving up the shoveled walk and reach the front porch. The wooden front door is cracked open an inch, behind a glass storm door that’s foggy with condensation. I wrap my knuckles on the glass and then poke my head inside. “Tinselly?”

  My sister’s dark hair swings into the doorway, followed by a face that’s a few years older than mine. “Nova!” She’s wearing a long brown skirt with a
festive sweater, all of which is covered by a ruffled apron with a hand-drawn turkey on the front. She rushes at me, spatula in hand, and gives me a bear hug. “You came!”

  When she plows into me, I let out an oof sound as I’m bear hugged. I pat her on the back and then pry myself away and smile. “I couldn’t pass up your stuffing.”

  She believes me for a moment and then her face falls. “You were wearing that sweater yesterday.” Frown lines pinch between her brows as the corner of her mouth raises.

  I avoid her gaze. “Yeah, I sort of had a bad day and didn’t have time to change.” I feel my face flame. “Can I freshen up?”

  Her mouth opens and the spatula rises. I already know what she’s going to ask.

  I raise my hand, one finger up, and shake my head. “It wasn’t what you think. I slept in my clothes. I’m that girl. And for the love of God, please don’t mention Ben to mom at dinner. She doesn’t know and I can’t deal with it, not today. Promise me?” I texted Tinselly last night when I was a little past drunk. Texting while intoxicated is never a good idea. I grimace as I think about the messages I sent. Some were weepy—those were sent to Tinselly.

  I told Ben to fuck off a few times. Texted that I hate his guts and hoped he had fun with his new girl toy last night. I may have written some other things too—crass, angry words that I would have never said.

  Tinselly’s dark eyes rest on mine, sad or disappointed, I can’t tell which. She nods and then her lips twist into a smirk as if she knows I had a rebound guy last night. “Well, at least answer this—was he good?”

  I frown and swat at her. I don’t like lying to Tinselly, but if I tell her what really happened, I’ll cry. So, I smirk and whisper in her ear, “He was completely unbelievable.”