Seduced by Santa Read online

  Heat and pleasure exploded within her, ripping through every cell in her body and igniting a need to move. Rhod’s groan echoed hers, and he pulled back until he was almost out of her. Then he surged back in, faster than before. She gasped and dug her fingers into the rug, holding on as he did it again and again.

  He built up a hard rhythm, powering in and out of her like a locomotive. Eager for everything he could give her, she wriggled her ass and thrust back against him. She needed this. Wanted it. Wanted more. Harder.

  “Please…” she begged, dropping to rest on her elbows as his hands smoothed down the sides of her thighs. What she was begging for she wasn’t sure…she just needed more. Of everything.

  “I got you, sweetheart.”

  One hand changed direction, smoothing up and over her ass, then slid around her hip and between her legs. She bit her lip as he slid clever fingers between her pussy lips and located her clit. Not teasing now, he played her body with the finesse of a master musician, making it reach for notes she didn’t know existed.

  Tension built from a simmer, settling low in her groin and reaching out aching fingers through her body to her pussy and her clit. With each circle of Rhod’s finger, each flick over her clit and solid thrust of his cock into her pussy, he drove her closer and closer to the edge. Then, with a gasp she was there, standing on the very precipice.

  “Fuuuck, yeah. That’s it,” he groaned, driving into her so hard that his balls slapped against her. “I want to feel you come all over my cock.”

  The dirty talk and the feeling of his cock throbbing inside her did it. With a cry she let go, falling over the edge and into the abyss below. Sheer ecstasy blazed through her, burning away everything else until she could do nothing but react to each wave as it hit her, buffeting her body and energizing her. Rhod swore as her hips bucked. Her pussy clenched tightly, his cock gripped and caressed by her strong vaginal muscles. His thrusts became harder and faster as he sought his own release until, with a cry, he slammed into her one last time and stiffened.

  A moan left her lips as his cock jerked and pulsed against her cervix, throbbing in climax. For a second she resented the thin layer of the condom between them, wanting to feel the hot jet of his seed as he came, but she put the thought aside as he collapsed over her.

  Using his arm to brace himself, he planted a kiss on her shoulder and then blew out a shaky breath. “I think that’s the best Christmas present I’ve ever had.”

  “Really? I think we could do better.” A smile curved her lips and she wriggled her ass against him. “Wanna help me test that theory?”

  Chapter Five

  “You’re playing Santa? You?” Rhod couldn’t help it, amusement bubbled up from the centre of his being and escaped from his lips in a deep, rumbling laugh that had more of a hint of ‘ho ho ho’ about it.

  Stone, standing by the window in Candy’s office at the Chapel Community Centre, just glared. His jaw worked as he looked at the bundle of red fabric in his hands.

  “Yeah, thanks mate. You take the piss all you like,” the werewolf groused as he held up the suit.

  Rhod managed to restrain his snigger. Only just. The whole sorry thing looked like something from a bad fancy dress costume…or worse, a stripper’s outfit. “Red velour. That is so you. You should be on the stage…wait, is there a thong with it? Santa stripper, I can see it now. Might wanna shave beforehand though. Last I heard, the ladies didn't dig the hairy look.”

  Stone shot him a look that would have frozen ice. “Fuck. You.”

  “I told you before. You gotta chat me up…lay the charm on…and you might be in with a chance.” Rhod leaned his ass back against the edge of Candy’s desk and folded his arms. The broad grin didn’t leave his face, it just grew wider.

  “Laugh it up bud…” Stone warned in an ominous voice as he looked through the glass of the door into the hall beyond. Candy and Eloise were in the middle of the floor directing a gaggle of children in putting Christmas decorations up. Until they’d arrived here this morning, Rhod had had no idea that Stone’s mate knew Candy. From the surprised look on his face, it had been news to Stone as well.

  “Women. They do it for you every time. Be warned, mate. Next year it could be you in this get up.”

  Rhod shuddered and shook his head. “Not a chance. I do not do Christmas. Ever.”

  “Yeah, I always wondered at that.”

  Stone grunted as he struggled into the costume jacket, and then looked at Rhod. His expression was that of a man in serious pain. Mind you, Rhod would be as well if he’d had to wear that costume. In human form the werewolf wasn’t anything close to Mister Universe. Even so, the muscles across his shoulders looked in danger of threatening the seams in the thin fabric, while the waist could have wrapped around him twice.

  “Who the fuck measured this thing up? They’ve got the thing the wrong way around. What guy’s waist is this big?”

  Mine. For one night every year, if he answered the call and put the belt on.

  Rhod pushed off from the desk, opened the bag Candy had left and rooted around inside. Anything to ignore the high-pitched squeals and excited laughter that filtered through the closed door.

  But the Christmases he remembered were organised affairs that came with an itinerary and a butler…where the table was set with the best silverware and the presents were all wrapped in this year’s coordinating paper…where gifts were expensive and thoughtless. Not this type of Christmas where a roomful of kids hung handmade paper chains and stuck cut-out snowflakes to the window…where excited children looked at the pile of gaudily wrapped presents under the tree trying to guess which one was theirs.

  One. Singular. Not the hordes of pricey presents the kids he’d used to deliver to saw as their right.

  “Here.” He pulled out the false belly from the bottom of the bag and threw it at his partner. The stuffing hit Stone upside the head and slithered down his shoulder. “You might need to take a bit out of it though, to accommodate that gut you’re getting from Eloise’s cooking.”

  “Fuck off!” Stone threw the stuffing back, but the vibe hit home. Rhod laughed as the werewolf pulled his shirt taut to check his midsection out. It was as flat as a pancake, but that wasn’t the point. “See, nothing doing. I am the man!”

  “Yeah, sunshine. You keep telling yourself that.”

  And he’d keep telling himself that Christmas wasn’t getting to him.

  If someone had told him two weeks ago that he’d be loved up and in some chick’s flat on Christmas eve getting ready to head out to a Christmas party, Rhod would had told them to get their heads checked. For one thing, he liked his own space too much to do the whole ‘couples’ thing, and Christmas? Yeah…the last time he’d gone to a real Christmas party, rather than a work one where everyone was trying to figure out how to get plastered as quickly as possible and avoid making conversation with Peggy from accounts, was the wrap party back at the Pole before he’d hung up his suit.

  Somehow though, within a week Candy had wrapped herself around his heart and soul. So much so, that even though she was out of danger after the concussion from the alley attack, he’d still stuck around ‘just in case’. At least, that was what he was telling himself. In reality, they’d settled into a routine that he would have described as ‘comfortable’ if not for the nights spent hot and sweaty between the sheets.

  He’d never had sex like it. Hot, passionate…toe-curlingly erotic. Heat surged through his body in an unstoppable wave as memories of last night etched themselves on the back of his eyelids. Perfect 360 degree, high definition playback with added sensory detail of everything that he’d done to Candy and she’d done to him. The image of her crawling over the bed wearing nothing more than a saucy smile and pulling down his boxers to reveal his rigid cock filled his head. He could still feel her warm lips wrapped around…

  A soft groan escaped his lungs as his cock surged to life, hard and ready beneath the towel wrapped around his hips. Fuck, he was ready t
o go again. Here. Now. Ready to go and find her and drag her into the bedroom…drown them both so far down in passion that he couldn’t feel the increasing pull of The Call.

  As the thought entered his head, he looked up and to the right. Just as he expected, a small leather box perched on the neatly folded towels next to the sink. Jauntily. If a box could look jaunty. Damn thing was enchanted, or he’d have pitched it into the nearest ocean, or dropped it into the nearest construction site as they poured concrete. But whatever he did to it, the damn thing had boomerang properties. It contained the belt, and the belt was calling him. Whispering in a low voice that it was almost time to put it back on and reclaim his birthright. To join his brothers and head out to deliv—

  “Yeah, you can fuck off,” he told it in a low voice and carried on shaving. He was done with being the big guy. Done with The Call, The Belt and everything it meant. Done with Santa. He was just Rhod and he wasn’t a Claus. Not anymore. And no pain-in-the-ass enchanted box was going to tell him otherwise.

  A few minutes later he drew the razor over his chin for the final time, then reached into the sink to splash water over his face. Nothing, not a good shave to blow the cobwebs away or even a few minutes mulling over the most un-sexy things he could think of—like cleaning out the oven in his flat or decorating the hall—had gotten his erection to subside.

  “Honey…do I look okay?”

  He glanced in the mirror to see Candy hovering in the doorway, pulling at the sexiest little elf outfit he’d ever seen. A green knee-length dress with white trim hugged her figure, while a wide black belt emphasized her tiny waist. With her dark hair in loose curls over her shoulders and green stripy pantyhose, the whole look was “sexy secretary meets Santa’s naughty little helper.”

  “You look wonderful, sweetheart…”

  Grabbing a towel to wipe his face dry, he dropped it in the laundry bin as he passed and stalked toward her. If Santa really did have help that looked like that, he sure as hell wouldn’t leave the North Pole.

  Rhod stopped barely a hairsbreadth from her, crowding into her personal space deliberately and watched her eyes dilate with awakening passion. “In fact…” He leaned down to whisper his lips over hers, his cock tenting the towel and threatening its precarious grip on his hips. It didn’t matter how many dull things he thought of when he was around her; his body reacted instantly. “If we didn’t have to be somewhere tonight, I’d take you into the bedroom and strip that pretty outfit off you. With my teeth.”

  The breath she dragged in over parted lips was shaky, and the answering heat in her eyes had him backing her up towards the bedroom. All thoughts of the party and everything else planned this evening fled his mind like a flock of birds headed south for the winter. All he could think about was getting her on a flat surface and peeling that delicious little outfit off her a piece at a time.

  His lips claimed hers in a searing kiss. Desire shot through him like a lightning strike, electrifying every cell in his body. He walked her backwards, his hands sliding around her waist to pull her up hard against him. She moaned, the sexy little sound lost under his lips. Fuck, he loved it when she did that. His cock jerked, balls tightening with the need to pull up the knee length skirt so he could sink into her wet heat.

  Her body softened, lips clinging to his as she kissed him back and he knew he had her. Fuck the party…they could be quick, very quick. A fast, dirty screw before the party. Yeah…

  Briiiinnnnggg.

  They both froze at the sound of the doorbell. Rhod closed his eyes as she pulled away, muttering a curse under his breath. The doorbell went off again, and again, the sound gleeful and insistent, as though someone were leaning on the button the other side. Stone. It just had to be.

  Candy cleared her throat and stepped back. A flush hit her cheeks as she smoothed down her outfit and looked up at him to smile. He caught his breath at the promise in her eyes.

  “That’ll be Eloise and Jared. After the party…you’re all mine.”

  The husky tone did things to his body that should be illegal, but somehow he managed a smile back.

  “You’d better believe it, babe.” He paused to flick a glance back through into the bedroom. “Errr… I’m going to be a while still. How about I meet you there?”

  “Typical man, taking an age to get ready. Okay, I’ll see you there…but don’t be late. I would hate for you to miss Jared being Santa.” She reached up on tiptoe to plant another, hard kiss on his lips.

  “Believe me, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Rhod chuckled, unable to resist watching the sexy wiggle of her ass as she grabbed her coat from the back of the couch and headed for the door. He watched her until she was out of sight, waiting until he heard the door open and familiar voices in the hallway. Reassured by Stone’s deep tones that Candy was in safe hands, he turned and walked back into the bedroom to get ready.

  He didn’t get more than three steps into the room before The Call hit him. Hard. Every muscle in his body locked up, almost driving him to his knees as the box appeared on the bed in front of him in a sparkle and glow of magic.

  “Fuck. Off!” he ground out, gritting his teeth as he kept moving.

  Each step past the thing was like walking through treacle, steel reinforced treacle, but he did it, reaching the other side of the bed and the wardrobe by the window. Reaching up, he grabbed his pants off the hanger and hauled them on. All the time he ignored the box behind him, the magic so strong now that it was humming.

  “You can get lost. I’m not interested,” he told it.

  Then he made the mistake of looking up and out of the window. A window which before tonight had looked out onto a plain brick wall, the reason he’d been comfortable wandering around in the buff, sure that he wasn’t going to inadvertently flash anyone. But the magic of Christmas was nothing if not adaptable, if not downright fucking sneaky. Instead of the wall he looked out across the city, all the rooftops laid out before him. Snow fell, covering them in a blanket of white as a familiar sleigh touched down on the roof opposite.

  Magic held him tight, locking his muscles down so he couldn’t move as the red-suited figure climbed out, turned and saw him. A smile spilt the bearded face as the Santa lifted his hand to wave. A creature of magic himself, Rhod easily saw past the age, extra pounds and the beard, and a bolt of recognition shot through him.

  The man opposite was his younger brother. Cole.

  Unable to help himself, he lifted a hand to wave back and the look of surprise and happiness on Cole’s face cracked what was left of Rhod’s resistance. His eyelids dropped as memory after memory flooded his mind. Of the time before the snot-nosed brats, of Christmases past…even before he was born.

  He saw gifts in crude, cheap paper a mother had saved months for, right through to a hand-made gift of Jam in the most expensive paper. Gifts from military parents not able to make it home wrapped with so much love it brought a lump to his throat. Gifts from all walks of life, all wrapped with care and thought…right through to gifts found wrapped and ready, made all the more precious for the fact the giver didn’t make it home one night after work thanks to a hit and run accident.

  The collective memory of all Clauses everywhere and everywhen who had ever delivered a much-longed for present to a child slammed into and through him, swept everything else…all his arguments, misgivings and disappointments…away. Washed through him and filled him up with the joy and happiness of Christmas until he was fit to bursting.

  Opening his eyes he looked again at Cole. His brother smiled and gave him the thumbs up before turning to grab the heavy sack from the back of the sleigh. Hauling it over his shoulder, he set off across the snow-laden roof with a spritely step that belied his apparent age.

  Swiping a hand over his face to clear the tears leaking from his eyes, Rhod turned to the bed and the box waiting for him.

  “You sneaky bastard,” he muttered and reached for it.

  No more running. It was time to do his duty.

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nbsp; “Oh my, you look great. Thank you so much for doing this, Jared, you don’t know how grateful I am,” Candy said as she and Jared stood in the cold corridor outside the main hall of the chapel.

  “You’re welcome. Just don’t tell anyone, okay? It would quite ruin my street cred,” he replied with a wink and a grin.

  The costume wasn’t great. Cheap and a little on the tacky side, it was all she could get on such short notice. Built for a smaller man, the jacket was too tight in the shoulders and too short, so if Jared twisted just a little wrong, the padding across his flat stomach was visible.

  It didn’t matter though. All that mattered to the kids packed into the hall behind them, belting out Christmas songs with more enthusiasm than musical ability, was that Santa was here delivering presents.

  She breathed a sigh of relief, taking a moment to relax as they waited for the end of the song. They’d done it. Eloise, Jared and Rhod had been fantastic, chipping in to help with the repairs and get everything set up for the party. Without them, particularly Jared playing Santa, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  “Speaking of street cred, where’s that no good partner of mine? Not like him to miss an opportunity to take the piss,” Jared commented, pulling the too-short jacket down again.

  She shook her head. “Probably caught in traffic or something. He’ll be here.”

  The song drew to a close and she lifted the bells in her hand, ready to ring them and announce ‘Santa’s’ arrival. But before she could strike them, silence descended like a blanket, cutting off all sound. Anticipation filled the air, and then, faintly at first but growing louder and louder, sleigh bells.