Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa (16 page)

“Not much. I met a few more of the old guard here in town and took a tour of the lake.” No way was she telling him about the dead reindeer.

“I bet that was interesting,” he said, sarcasm lacing each word.

“Interesting enough.”

“How did your meeting with the mayor go?”

She stifled another yawn and said, “It went really well. That new offer of yours has really pissed them off. The council as a whole isn’t interested in considering, but there are two members, they own the mistletoe nursery, who are ready to capitulate. They want out big-time. The four other council members are in a holdout pattern.”

“Can you get close to the other members?”

She smiled. “I already have. I had dinner at the controller’s house tonight, and another council member was there as well. Right now, they’re impregnable. If this weather holds, we might have a problem.”

“What do you suggest?”

Kim sighed. “I don’t know. I’m so tired right now. I do know
Town & Country
is coming in tomorrow for a week. They’re shooting now for next year’s holiday edition. They’re featuring California’s best. And at dinner tonight, Leticia, the controller, told me there is a real good chance Kelly Ripa is bringing her family out next week and wants to shoot a segment for
Live with Regis and Kelly
. But that’s supposed to be a secret. She doesn’t want the kids to be compromised.”

“Interesting. I’ve had the top IT guys dig for info on the internet. Whoever holds the note to those mortgaged properties is buried. Get me that information.”

Kim nodded. “I’m working on that. It could take a little time. I do know it’s a private consortium. It’s not like they’re going to give that information just because I ask. In fact, I did, and they clammed up.” She yawned again. “Nick, I’m beat as hell.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come up there for a few days?”

She stiffened. “Ask me in a couple of days. Right now I want to focus on what I have to do here.”

“Okay, but don’t make me beg.”

Nick Gold didn’t beg for anything. He just bought it. And she shivered; he was, in a sense, buying her. She didn’t like the way that felt.

For a long time after she hung up, Kim wondered if marrying Nick was the right thing to do. When she had agreed, it had seemed like the perfect match. The perfect merger. The perfect solution. Now she wasn’t so sure.

She toweled off and slipped into a cute little burgundy two-piece cammie and short pajama set. The soft silk felt good on her warm skin. She took her silk-and-velour robe from the armoire and decided she should at least let Ricco know his father would stand back. Maybe he would rest easier.

She wasn’t sure why she decided to tell him. He would find out in the morning from his sister, but something drew her across the hall to the Dasher suite. Softly, she knocked on the door. A long moment later, the door opened. She swallowed hard. He was bare-chested, dressed only in long flannel sweats. He glowered down at her. She put her hands up and said, “Don’t kill the messenger.”

He stood back from the door and she entered the cozy room. The fire crackled in the fireplace, and she smiled at the careless way his clothes flopped out of his duffel bag like limp dolls. “How long before you put your things away?”

“Not everyone on this earth is as compulsive as you.”

“There is nothing wrong with being tidy.”

“You’re anal.”

She set her hands on her hips and squarely faced him. “So what?”

He shrugged. “So nothing. Why are you here?”

She wanted to punch him. He wouldn’t look at her, as if she no longer held any appeal to him. The thought crushed her. And she chastised herself for it. She’d known it would happen. It always did. She let out a long breath. Nick was not a mistake. Nick was the right choice. No more of this emotional roller-coaster bullshit.

“Your father.” He shot her a glare, and she put her hands up again. “I mean your sperm donor has agreed to leave you alone and make no further attempts to contact you. I don’t mean as in he’s leaving your mother’s house, but he won’t be back here.”

“Oh, so
he
decided not to come back, not Ez?”

“What do you mean?”

“My sister! Was it her choice or his, damn it?”

“What the hell does it matter? He’s not coming back here.”

“It matters to me that my sister didn’t stick up for me,
that’s
what’s the matter.”

Ah. It made sense. His pride was damaged. And she could understand his heart. He had been there for his sister, the father had not, and in his eyes she’d picked the father. “Ez would have told him. He just beat her to it.”

“Right.” Ricco began to pace the floor. “I love my family, but damn if I’m going to stand by and watch them all get caught up with that drunk, then crash and burn when he milks them for everything they have or leaves in the middle of the night with the silverware, like he’s done in the past.”

“He can’t walk without the aid of a cane, Ricco. I doubt he’ll go sneaking off into the night with your mother’s silver.”

He turned fierce eyes on her. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this from Miss Hard-Ass Don’t-Fuck-With-Me Michaels.”

Kim turned toward the door and put her hand on the knob, but before she said good night she held out her other hand. “I’d like my locket.”

He stood scowling at her, but then he turned and opened the drawer to his nightstand. He pulled out a small envelope—the Legacy stationery—and handed it to her.

She opened it, and the locket slid into her hand. A hard jolt of emotion hit her, and she felt the hot sting of tears. She looked up at Ricco, who had lost some of his anger. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost this forever. Thank you.”

He stood hard and unmoving. “You’re welcome.”

Before she turned into a blubbering ninny, Kim rushed from the room to hers.

• • •

R
ICCO STOOD STARING AT THE DOOR FOR SEVERAL MINUTES
, wondering why he felt so empty at that moment. What the hell was wrong with him? What the hell was wrong with his family, and what the hell was wrong with Evergreen? In three short days, his life was shot to hell. And he didn’t like it one bit. It was one thing to be undercover or working an investigation, where you could keep your emotions in a tiny little compartment and not worry about feelings. Police work was cut and dry. No warm, fuzzy bullshit involved. But this! This—family, Kim, and Evergreen stuff—was too much. He didn’t want to be the savior of the world.

He paced the room like a caged tiger. Everything and everyone was closing in around him. His flight instinct crouched, poised, and waited for the final trigger. For the second night in a row, Ricco pulled on his running gear and hit the streets of Evergreen. His hot breath curled around his head as he rounded the north end of town for the third time. The streets, while well-lighted, were barren. No strollers, no couples walking hand in hand admiring the stunning array of Christmas lights and decorations. The place was dead. And with a sudden twist in his gut, Ricco knew they were all doomed. Money couldn’t buy happiness, but it could buy towns, and if Land’s Edge—a Fortune 500 company flush with cash, he’d learned today—had their eyes set on his hometown, it was going to take an act of Congress or an act of God to prevent it. He didn’t hold much hope either one would come through.

As Ricco came down his mother’s side of the street he smelled the aromatic smell of a cigar before he saw the red glow of the tip. And latched onto it and walking as spry as a teenager was his dear old dad. Son of a bitch—Ricco had known he was scamming them.

“I’ll give you until tomorrow, old man, to pack your bags and head out of town. If you come back, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

“Mi—”

“Save your bullshit lines for my mother and sisters. I want you out of here.”

“I’ll ask your mother for a divorce then.”

Ricco stopped in his tracks. A divorce would devastate his mother.

“No you won’t.”

The old man smiled, and Ricco’s stomach turned. It was that same smile he turned on when he was about to go for your jugular. “Maybe for a price I won’t.”

Almost thirty years of pent-up anger and frustration unfurled inside Ricco’s gut and came out in his fist. He smashed it into his old man’s face, sending him backward into the snow.

It took every ounce of control Ricco had not to grab him up by his coat and finish him. Instead he spat on the sidewalk next to him. “You’re going to rot in hell, and that’s too good for you. I want you gone tomorrow. And if you leave with anything you didn’t come with? Consider yourself under arrest for grand theft.” He turned then, and the tension that had driven him to run had returned. But this time, it went deeper. Running it out was not going to ease it.

S
HE ACHED
. L
ITERALLY
. E
VERY INCH OF HER
. A
S IF SHE’D
been consumed with fever.

Kim tossed and turned. Several times she woke with a start, her body hot, her breath forced, her heart racing. Each time she crumpled back into the bed she saw Ricco’s fiery gaze, and she could almost feel his scathing lips on her throat, her breasts, her belly…and lower. Finally, unable to stand the heat in her bed, she threw the covers from her. Even the air was warm. The fire glowed in the corner, and the cool air slipping in from the window did little to ease her discomfort. Frustrated, and knowing she would find no sleep the way she was feeling, she slid from the bed and grabbed her robe. Maybe some of those gingersnaps and a glass of warm milk would help her sleep.

As she turned to softly close the door behind her, a small sound alerted her that someone was near. Her heart pounded; she could feel the pulse of it in her veins and the percussion of it in her ears. The heat in her body, which had just begun to subside, warmed. Her shaky hand slipped from the brass knob, and slowly she turned.

Her eyes clashed and held with the penetrating ones across the hall.

Ricco stood perfectly still save for the heavy rise and fall of his chest. His bronzed skin glistened under the lowlight of the hallway, a fine sheen of perspiration highlighting every ripple and ridge. He was dressed in running shoes, sweats, and a white wife beater. A black hoodie hung from his right hand.

His dark eyes dipped to her lips. Slowly his fingers opened and the hoodie fell soundlessly to the hardwood floor. His eyes rose to hers, and Kim caught her breath high in her chest. Heat, anger, frustration, and pure craving burned bright in the dark depths. Her entire body trembled, and she feared for her balance. “I—,” she croaked.

He was across the hall in one long step, his solid arms locked around her waist, yanking her hard against his chest. “Shut up,” he growled, then kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

Kim lost her balance, she lost her will to fight what was between them, but mostly she lost all control at that precise moment. And she didn’t care.

Ricco pushed the door to her room open and thrust her inside, his lips never even close to breaking from hers. Her nerve endings tingled, her body filled, responding, wanting to meld more tightly into him. He pushed her against the bed, then onto it. He climbed up after her, his long body pressing against hers. His spicy scent was more pronounced from his run; it added fuel to her primal flame. He smelled completely male, and she wanted all of him, then and there, down and dirty.

He tore her garments from her. He kicked his shoes off and shoved his sweats down his legs, then kicked them off. She ripped his T-shirt down the front of his chest in one reddening tear. Ricco flashed a hard devilish grin that undid any lingering vestiges of her inhibition. Free of all encumbrances, his fingers dug deep into her hair. He brought her mouth to his but did not kiss her. Instead his lips hovered just above hers, his hot breath singeing her face. There was no soft petting, no building foreplay, no sweet words to ready her for him. None was needed. In one deep thrust he entered her, and Kim nearly died on the spot. Her hips rose, her back arched, she squeezed her eyes shut and bit her bottom lip. The sublime feel of his filling her to capacity, his hot, sweaty body above her, his mad passionate taking of her, shook her to her core. Never had anyone responded to her as ardently as this man inside of her. And at that precise, perfect moment, his need for her softened her hardened heart enough that she thought she might wake up a little bit in love with this man.

He pulled her up to him, his hot breath mingling with hers. He thrust again and her eyes flew open. Her body stilled. His eyes were black in his passion. His anger and frustration still lingered deep in their depths. Was he as angry at himself for his need as she was at herself? Did he feel it too? This uncontrollable thing between them that seemed only to quiet when their bodies forged into one?

Kim let herself go in his arms, surrendering her body to his. Ricco seized the opportunity. In another violent thrust he slammed into her, again, and then again. He twisted her hair in his fists, his jaw rigid, his eyes fierce, thrusting again and again, and she’d never been so wet for a man as she was for him.

He kissed her. A hard, ruthless kiss. Then he pressed his forehead to hers and forced her to look at him. “This is only sex, Kim, don’t ask me to stay.”

Her heart squeezed tight for the briefest of seconds. Emotion welled up in her chest with the velocity of a tsunami. But she understood. Each had their paths to follow, and neither one included the other. She nodded and breathlessly said, “It goes both ways, Ricco.”

“Good,” he said and closed his eyes. “Good,” he said again, this time barely audible.

Gathering her into his arms, he thrust deeply and she screamed with pleasure. He covered her cries with his lips, milking her of her fluids as she in turn milked him of his. And that was how she came, held tightly in his arms, her body driving against his as he filled her to overflowing. Perfectly, their mad rush, their mad need, and finally their mad release, hurdled them both off a steep precipice, where they crashed into a thousand tiny pieces at the bottom. Broken, but sated. For the moment.

• • •

I
T TOOK
R
ICCO MORE TIME TO RECOVER FROM
K
IM
than it did for him to recover from his two-hour run. He lay on his back, spent. Kim lay draped across his chest, a limp, wet rag. Her long blond hair clung to his skin like damp mop strings. He could feel the swell of her tits against him and the soft indentation of the cradle of her hips along his thighs. The air crackled with warmth, their musky sex scent hung over them like a summer storm cloud. His nostrils twitched, and he licked his dry lips.

His dick stirred the minute Kim laved his right nipple with her tongue. “Mmm, you taste salty,” she murmured.

He slid his hand down the slick curve of her back, stopping just at the rise of her ass. She had a great ass. Her lips nipped at him, her tongue swirled around his nipple. His body stiffened. He pressed the palm of his hand more firmly against her. It occurred to him at that very moment that he hadn’t used a condom. A first. While he had no fear of impregnating Kim, he was surprised she hadn’t insisted. Not that he could have stopped his trajectory. He’d lost all control; the only thing that had been important to him had been getting inside of her and letting go.

“We didn’t use a condom,” Kim said as her fingers traced down his belly to his rising erection.

“I’m snipped and I’m clean.” And he’d liked the way he’d felt unencumbered inside her. The act, while one of pure lust, had also held a level of sensuality he had never experienced.

She pressed her lips to his belly. “I just started the pill this month and you’re the first man I’ve been with in two years. I liked the way you felt in me. Raw. Real.”

He grabbed her hand as it wrapped around him. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “Cinderella…”

She rose up on her elbows and peered at him. “What, Prince Charming?”

He opened his eyes and caught his breath. Two sapphire-colored eyes stared back in quiet question. No sarcasm, no anger, no ulterior motive except sincerely wanting to know why she should stop. “If you keep touching me that way, I’m not going to let you out of this bed,” he replied.

She smiled, and he felt the warmth of the sun touch him. It was a genuine smile, one that said she was happy, and feeling a bit full of herself. He bet she didn’t smile like that too often. “I can think of worse things.” She grinned.

“Why haven’t you been with a man in two years?”

“Because I hadn’t found one I wanted.” She squeezed him. “Until now.”

He forced himself to go slow, to find out more about this woman who intrigued him so. “Where do you live?”

“L.A.” She licked him. Just beneath his navel. His dick swelled in her hand. He wanted her lips on him. “Where do you live?” she asked.

“San Jose.”

“Hmm, maybe the next time I’m in your neighborhood on a business trip, I’ll look you up.”

Ricco smiled, deciding he liked that idea a lot. “Next time I’m down south, maybe I’ll look you up.”

Kim’s lips trailed down the dark hair that directed her to the root of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the hot rush of desire fill him. The air pressure seemed to thicken around them, the temperature of the room rose, and her hot, musky scent, as if someone had turned it up, intensified around him. Her essence filled his pores.

When the hot wetness of her mouth closed around the thick head of his dick, Ricco moaned and pressed his hips against her. His fingers slid deep into her damp hair, and he thrust up into her wet cavern. Ricco closed his eyes and let himself go, savoring the erotic charge of her tongue, lips, and hands.

“God, that feels good,” he said, his voice low and husky. When she cupped his balls and rubbed her tits against him, he nearly came. “Jesus—,” he hissed. Ricco looked down his belly. The erotic vision of Kim’s luscious lips locked around his dick and her full tits bobbing against his thighs pushed him over the edge. The tightness in his balls uncoiled in a quick unfettering; he fisted his hands in her hair and set his jaw. The wild, hot release and her refusal to do anything less than take all of him into her prolonged the sweet agony of his orgasm. She rode him out, her hands, mouth, tongue, and tits taking him where he had never gone. If he made it out of the bed before the end of the week it would only be because he’d need to find other sustenance than Kim’s body and the incredible things she did to him.

She crawled up his body and kissed him long and deep, her tongue swirling against his, her hands digging deep into his hair, claiming him. When she pulled away, she smiled that little secret smile of hers and said, “We’re even. Now you know what you taste like.”

He grinned and licked his lips. “Not bad.”

She grinned back, but her body stiffened, and slowly her brows furrowed. She looked past him to the window. He turned to see. “What’s—” He froze, then immediately rolled from the bed to the window. “Holy shit! The house next to my mother’s is on fire.”

He grabbed his sweats and jerked on his shoes. “Call nine-one-one!”