White Hot Christmas: A Heart of Fame Christmas Story (4 page)

“Although I’m only dropping
you
off. The fancy go-mobile I’m taking back to me garage and fixing after Christmas. Your missus said you’ve gotta ‘nother go-mobile fancier than that one that actually works you can get around in until I get ‘er back to you.”

“You drove me home?” Nick asked, even as a rational part of his sleep-fogged mind told him it was a ridiculous question. “All the way?”

Mike shrugged. The fat white pom-pom of his Santa hat jiggled on his shoulder. “Couldn’t very well leave you on the side of the M1, could I? And I wasn’t much a fan of your wife drivin’ all the way to get you, not with the crazies on the road at this time of year. ‘Sides, I’ve done everything I needed to do before Christmas.”

Nick blinked.

Mike flashed him a smile. “Don’t think I’m not going to charge you for this though. Me hourly rate sits around twenty bucks for celebrity chauffeurin’ work.”

A grunt-slash-laugh burst from Nick. He grinned at Mike. And then frowned. “How did you know…”

“Who you are?”

Nick nodded. Outside, the familiar facades of Murriundah’s shops began to give way to just as familiar fronts of the houses of the main drag. Houses that would soon give way to open stretches of bush before a nondescript side road would appear.

Home. He was almost home.

He was almost—

“I gotta daughter who listened to you non-stop when she was a teenager,” Mike said, changing back a gear as they approached the main street’s only pedestrian crossing. Ambling across it, Nick noticed, was Rhys McDowell’s mum and dad, both carrying bags from the Murriundah Fresh Produce store.

They looked towards the tow truck, both smiling in that utterly friendly way country folk do no matter who they are interacting with—be it stranger or life-long friend.

“And a granddaughter who does the same with your son’s band.”

Nick raised his hand and waved at the McDowells—who waved back, smiles widening—before turning to Mike.

“You drove me home,” he repeated, although this time it wasn’t stunned disbelief and confusion in his voice, but a gratitude he had no hope of ever describing.

Mike chortled. “I did. Now, tell me where this turn off for your house is. Your missus says it can be easy to miss if you don’t know what you’re lookin’ for.”

“I mentioned before how much I love you, right?” Nick asked.

Mike threw back his head and laughed, a big-belly guffaw that filled the cabin of the truck with a joy Nick found infectious.

“You did,” Mike confirmed. “And I mentioned you weren’t my type. Is this it?”

The dirt road hiding between two massive peppercorn trees was, indeed,
it
. With a skill Nick associated with Formula 1 drivers, Mike navigated his truck—with the dead Range Rover attached behind—into a tight right turn and up the narrow road.

Ten minutes later, they drew to a halt out in front of Nick and Lauren’s sprawling sanctuary from the public eye: AKA, home.

Nick stared at it. For a second he wondered if he was actually dreaming. Was he still stuck on the side of the M1, waiting for a mechanic to arrive?

And then the front door opened and Lauren stepped out onto the sweeping front porch and he knew damn well he wasn’t.

There wasn’t a hope in hell any dream could ever be as perfect and beautiful as the woman smiling at him from the top step.

Not a hope in hell.

Home.

He was home.

Unwrapping the Present

Blackthorne Homestead, Australia

“Merry Christmas, Nick.”

Nick jerked his grinning stare from Lauren to Mike.

The old man smiled at him. “Have a good one.”

“Come in for a coffee?” Nick offered, even as a part of him—that very
male
part that had been aching for his wife since the moment he flew out of Australia a week ago—rebelled against the invitation.

Mike laughed again. “Nah, mate. Got me own missus to get back to. ‘Sides, you don’t want an old codger muscl’n in on your reunion. I’ll see you in a few days with your go-mobile though, so you can caffeinate me up then, okay?”

Before Nick could stop himself, he flicked Lauren a look. She was descending the stairs, her exquisite legs somehow more exquisite in the short denim shorts she wore, her white tank emphasizing the perfection of her curves and the healthy glow of her skin. Her hair cascaded around her face in a tumble of auburn waves he couldn’t wait to feel slip through his fingers and her lips curled in a smile that spoke of everything that waited for him when they were alone.

“Are you sure?” he asked Mike, even as his body reacted to his wife. To her smile, her presence…

A firm hand clapped down on his shoulder, and he swung his stare back to the mechanic.

Mike chuckled. “Sure. Get your arse outta me truck, mate.”

Nick grinned. And then stuck out his right hand. “Thank you, Mike. Seriously, thank you.”

Mike took Nick’s hand and gave it a firm pump. His eyes twinkled. “No worries. It’s what I do.”

It took Nick exactly five seconds to open the passenger door and scramble out of the truck’s cabin.

Five seconds for his feet to hit the ground and his gaze to find his wife.

Five seconds for Lauren to launch herself into his arms and kiss him.

A part of his brain registered the solid
thunk
of the passenger door closing behind him, the same part heard Mike wish them both a Merry Christmas before the sound of the truck’s engine revved louder and then the rest of his brain told him Lauren’s tongue was sliding against his, that her warm lush body was pressing to his, that her breasts were crushed to his chest and nothing else existed except her.

By the time he pulled his lips from hers, the only sign of Mike was the back of Nick’s Range Rover being towed down the dirt road into the bush around their home.

“He seems really lovely,” Lauren said, smoothing her palm up Nick’s chest.

Nick tugged her closer to his body and returned his gaze to her upturned face. “He is.”

She grinned, and slid her palm down his chest. Lower, lower until her fingers slipped between his shorts’ waistband and his stomach. “It’s not wrong of me to say I’m glad he didn’t come in?”

A tight rope of tension and heat twisted through Nick’s core and into his groin. “Not at all,” he murmured, before capturing her lips again with his.

It was only the extreme summer heat and sun that brought the kiss to an end.

He lifted his head and found her smiling at him. “I want to make love to you so badly I’m in physical pain right now, wife. But I’ve also been without a shower for over twenty-four hours.”

A devilish glint filled her eyes and she rolled her hips, rubbing the curve of her sex against his groin. His cock, he wasn’t at all surprised to realize, was a rigid pole straining for release…or her touch. “Hmmm…you
are
a bit stinky.”

She skipped backward a step, the mischief in her face sending a fresh rope of lust into Nick’s core. “And it
is
very hot out here,” she commented, flicking the sky a glance.

“It is,” he agreed. His body thrummed, craving hers with an urgency he couldn’t ignore.

Lauren continued to walk backwards, holding his gaze as her hands went to the glorious curves of her hips. “Think I’ll take a swim while you take a shower.”

Before he could respond, she slipped her fingers under the waistband of her shorts and pushed them down over her hips.

Nick sucked in a swift breath.

She wore the skimpiest red and green G-string he’d ever seen, the item of lingerie barely more than some thin, green lace straps curving around her hips and a tiny triangle of red covering her pubic area. And on that tiny triangle, printed in glittery green, was a Christmas tree.

“Unless…” she said, trailing a finger down her belly to the top of the tree. “You want to unwrap your present first?”

Nick move.

Straight for her.

With a squeal of delight, Lauren spun on her heel and ran, pulling her shirt up over her head as she did so.

She tossed it back at him a second before he caught up with her. He snared her wrist and yanked her to his body.

“I like this present,” he growled, cupping one of her beautiful breasts in his hand and dragging his thumb over the pebbled tip of her nipple.

“Figured you might,” she answered, leaning into his touch.

He bent at the waist and took her nipple in his mouth. Drew on it. Sucked it.

She whimpered, tangling her hands in his hair. His cap fell to the ground at his feet. The sun baked down on his dark hair.

With a growl, he raised his head and captured her lips. Kissed her. Kneading her breast as he did so. Worshipping her.

“I’m dangerously close to fucking you right out here, wife,” he declared against her lips when she raked her nails down his back. “To hell with the sunburn and mozzie bites.”

She laughed, the throaty sound like carnal sin and heaven all at once. “You know where the mozzies can’t bite us, Nick? And where you’ll get wetter than the shower?”

He drew in a long breath. “Want me to join you in the pool?”

She cocked an eyebrow, and rolled her hips again, stroking the curve of her sex against the engorged length of his shorts-trapped erection. “It’s Christmas Eve. What better place to be together, right?”

“Hell yeah,” he growled. He scooped her up. Threw her over his shoulder.

She squealed with laughter. He smacked her butt. “I think you’ve been on Santa’s naughty list, Lauren Blackthorne.”

She gasped and wriggled. “I’m married to you. What other list am I going to be on?”

He laughed. His cock throbbed. “Right. That does it.”

Tightening his grip around the backs of her thighs, he strode around the side of the house, heading for the pool.

Lauren laughed when they reached the gate. “You’re going to have to put me down to open it, caveman.”

He smacked her butt again. “Shush,
present
. I’m a rock god. No gate can stop…stop me…” He struggled to balance Lauren over his shoulder and reach the opening latch. “I can open a gate without…” He tried again.

Lauren laughed. “
Retired
rock god. And it seems—”

His fingers hooked the latch and the gate swung open.

“Yes!” he cried.

Lauren laughed again. “I knew I married you for a r—”

He threw her in the pool before she could finish.

The cool water splashed upwards in fountains of sparkling drips as—laughing—she broke the surface.

By the time she found her feet and stood, her upper body above the rippling water, her hair clinging to her neck and shoulders and cheeks, Nick was half undressed.

And then he was
completely
undressed and in the pool with her.

He caught her in his arms as she moved to him.

Their wet bodies slid against each other. Their lips and teeth and tongues clashed and clicked. He plunged his hands beneath the water and removed her Christmas tree G-string without breaking their kiss.

She moaned into his mouth, and then whimpered as he parted her wet pussy lips with his fingers and penetrated her tight heat.

“Oh God, Nick, I really missed you,” she groaned as he rolled his thumb over her clit and then scissored his fingers inside her.

She wrapped her leg around his hip, allowing him to thrust his fingers deeper.

The cool water lapped at his chest, his back. The sun warmed his exposed skin. Lauren’s shallow breaths fanned his shoulder, the side of his throat. It was an intoxicating blend of sensory caresses, one that flooded his cock with fresh blood and hunger.

“Nothing would have kept me away from you for Christmas, babe,” he groaned back, dragging his lips down the column of her throat before scooping her left breast into his hand and taking possession of her wet nipple. He sucked the beads of pool water from her flesh. She writhed in his arms, fisting her hands in his hair.

Moving his mouth to her other breast, he walked through the water until they were at the side of the pool.

He suckled on her breast, positioning her right beside one of the outlet jets.

When she began to whimper, her nails clawing at his shoulders, her pussy pulsing around his scissoring fingers, he pulled his mouth from her breast with a pop and raised his head to look down at her.

A lazy, pleasure-fogged smile curled her lips.

“Ready?” he asked on a shaky whisper.

“Yes,” she answered, without asking him what for. She never did. She trusted him as much as he trusted her.

Smoothing his hands over her hips beneath the water, he slowly pivoted her until she faced the wall.

“Oh, god Nick,” she gasped, as the outlet jet’s powerful stream of water found the hood of her clit.

He pressed to her back, his cock nestling between her butt cheeks, one hand kneading her breast, the other parting her folds more to allow the forceful surge of water greater access to her clit.

“Holy crap, Nick,” she burst out, her shoulders driving into his chest, her fingers wrapping his wrists. “Oh, god. Oh, god…that’s…that’s…incredible.”

He held her that way, nipping and biting at the side of her throat, reveling in the way her breast filled his hand, how the puckered point of her nipple rubbed at the center of his palm. “You’re incredible,” he murmured against the top of her shoulder. “And all I’ve thought about since touching down.”

“Oh, Nick…” she panted, writhing in his arms. “Oh, Nick…I think I’m going…I think I’m going…”

She arched, her head ramming back to his shoulder, her cries rising to the afternoon skies.

He felt her orgasm claim her, a shuddering throb that made her whole body quake.

Felt it. Wanted to experience it with her.

Turning her in the water, he captured her mouth with his, scooped one of her knees up with a shaky hand and, supporting her leg in the crook of his elbow, slid into her slick wetness with one fluid thrust.

Burying himself to the very root of his length.

“Yes,” she cried out, her walls gripping him with tight pulses. “Oh yes.”

The water turned to a turbulent pool of choppy waves splashing around them as he drove into her again, as deep as he could. Filling her.

As always when he entered Lauren, his world ceased to exist for any other reason than her pleasure. In her pleasure, he found his own.

They moved as one, lips and tongues mating, hands anchoring each other together. Lauren’s leg squeezed around Nick’s hip. Her sex squeezed his hard length. With every outward stroke, she constricted around him. With every penetrating thrust, she cried out his name and begged for more.

He gave her more. He gave her everything he was. Everything he would be. Everything and more.

And then, as the base of his spine began to tingle and the waves lapped at his feverish flesh in a cool kiss, she snagged a fistful of his wet hair and tore her mouth from his.

“Best present ever,” she gasped, a heartbeat before her sex gripped his in a wild pulse and she threw back her head and came once again.

He came with her, incapable of holding back his release. Not wanting to, even as he never wanted this to end.

They came together, under the hot Australian December sun, their bodies wet, their hearts pounding in perfect harmony.

Finally, as the last of his seed spilled from his cock, he raised his head from where he’d buried it in the side of her neck and gazed down into her eyes.

Eyes he had loved since the moment he first saw them. “Merry Christmas, wife,” he whispered.

A shy, sexy smile played with her lips. “Merry Christmas, h—”

“Mum?”

A concerned male voice rose above the sounds of the birds and lapping water.

Nick froze. Lauren did the same.

Their eyes locked.

Josh?
Nick mouthed silently.

Lauren nodded.

“Mum?” a female’s voice joined in. “Where are you? Is Dad home yet?”

Nick’s mouth fell open.

Lauren covered hers with her hand.

Chloe.

“Mum?” their daughter called again. Closer this time. Closer. “What the hell is going on? The house is open and you’re not—”