Santa's Broody Helper Read online

  Holly pulls back to give me enough room, her eyes flying open wide. “Oh my god,” she breathes. “I had no idea.”

  “How could you know?” The laugh that escapes me feels like a church bell ringing. “We’ve never met before. But it feels like I already know you.” Who says that? “I wanted you the second I saw you. And now I need you.” I fist my hand through her hair. “Do you understand? I need you.”

  “We need each other,” Holly says solemnly, and then she takes me into her mouth.

  Holly

  Sometimes people come to you disguised as someone else. Sometimes the hottest man you’ve ever seen in your life and possibly your soulmate comes to you disguised as a brooding delivery man. And all I can think as he makes a noise in the back of his throat that’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before is that no one with such a perfect penis should be brooding. Like, ever.

  I don’t know what’s happened in his life to give him such pain in his eyes, but not tonight. No more. He was supposed to bring me something that would change my life. Now I’m going to change his.

  No matter how much of a struggle it is. And honestly—it’s not much of a struggle to lick and suck and stroke him. His lean, muscular legs are so touchable I can’t hold myself back. And his dick might be enormous, but I can take it. The lights of my Christmas tree shine down on us and I feel suffused with a holiday spirit that’s suspiciously like love.

  Maybe that doesn’t make any sense. Or maybe it makes perfect sense. There is such a thing as love at first sight. There is such a thing as an epiphany. And I’m having one right now. His hand in my hair is an epiphany. So is the way he guides me back and forth, almost using me. I need more of this.

  I take him an inch deeper into my mouth and he lets out a strangled moan. “Holly, if you keep that up...” The warning is explicit in his voice. Hope and purpose surge through me, tidal and strong. Then he tugs at my hair, an urgent enough touch that I get to my feet. He gives me one single heartbeat to stand before he turns me around and presses me onto the sofa.

  “Fuck,” he breathes. “I’ve waited all my life to unwrap you.”

  I’ve waited all my life for him to unwrap me, I just didn’t know it until now. He starts with my tank top, hooking one finger into one strap and pulling it down so he can kiss the sensitive skin beneath. He follows it up with a lingering press of his lips against my collarbone. The shirt comes up over my head and the strength of his gaze is enough to make my skin tingle. He soothes the feeling with the palms of hands, drawing them worshipfully over my waist and up to my breasts. I’m lost in his touch. His palms are rough but his touch is gentle and frankly, it’s too much for my brain.

  I let my head fall back against the sofa as his hands go lower, tugging off my panties in sure movements.

  I’m completely exposed.

  He spreads me wide on the sofa and I grip the arm to keep myself from sliding down and curling into a ball on the floor. God, I want this. I want this badly enough to do anything. But there’s something else twisted up with that feeling, too. I want him. I want the cold clean scent that clings to his skin, despite the fact that he must have been delivering packages all day. I want the dark eyes that burn into the core of me. I want the rough stubble that skims my skin when he kisses me hard.

  I want him inside me. And I want him now.

  But Matthew is determined to make this moment last as long as possible. He wedges his hips between my legs, holding them open, and runs his hands down the inside of my thighs, to my hot center. Another noise in the back of his throat. He grits his teeth. He’s holding back. And with one firm stroke he tests me. For a bare instant I think I failed! But he holds his fingers up in the lights from the tree. “So wet,” he says. “Still so wet.”

  I squirm at his hips, trying to rock mine into place. He’s solid as a mountain. All of my effort gets me nowhere. “Please. Don’t make me wait.”

  He presses the pad of his thumb against my clit. Sensation ignites, wrapping around my hips like a Christmas bow made of desire and tugging tight. Matthew grins down at me, looking wicked and wonderful. It’s sweet torture. He adjusts the pressure on my clit, making my thighs shake. “Why would I hurry?”

  The real reason—the reason I don’t want to wait—bubbles up to the surface. “Because I want you right now. There’s—there’s timing.”

  He narrows his eyes. “Timing?”

  “I’m ovulating,” I whisper. “And I’m not sure how long it’s going to last. I’m afraid that if we wait too long, it’ll—it’ll be over.” This is without a doubt the dumbest I’ve ever felt, but the words that come out of my mouth change him. A new fierceness comes over Matthew’s face.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Jesus, what a wicked grin. “If I’d known there was a deadline—”

  “It could be any moment.” I push my hips up toward his and he slides his hand between us, pushing two fingers deep inside. “That’s where I need you. Please. Please. I need your special delivery.”

  A seriousness fights with the wickedness on his face. “Are you sure about this?” Matthew’s almost panting. Through my legs I can feel the tension in his muscles. Stopping himself from taking me—from giving—must be the hardest thing he’s ever done. “Because I swear to god, Holly. If I do this, you’re getting pregnant tonight. With my baby.”

  I force myself upward and grab the front of his shirt in both fists. I look him in the eye. I don’t have time for anything other than complete directness in this moment. My pussy throbs with its own emptiness. “I need you now.” My own voice sounds like someone else, but I don’t care. I do.

  There’s a pause in which the whole world rests in Matthew’s eyes. They rake down my face, down my chest, down the rest of my naked body. He takes one ragged breath.

  And then he turns me to face in the opposite direction.

  Matthew

  This isn’t the time for missionary. This isn’t the time for slow, gentle sex while we gaze into each other’s eyes. Holly’s gritted teeth tell me exactly what I need to know—that she wants it hard, that she wants it fast, and she wants it now. I’ve heard a few things about getting women pregnant. I know it can happen on the first time, but I have tricks up my sleeve that are sure to help her along.

  My skin feels tight with purpose, too tight to hold all my muscles in. Holly mewls as I press her hands to the back of the sofa and kick her legs apart. Her juices have started to run down the inside of her thighs. She holds on tight to the back of the sofa, knuckles white. “Please,” she begs again. “Do it now. I need it now. I need you now, Matthew. Now—”

  Her last word is cut off by one hard thrust between her legs.

  I take her in one stroke, almost blacking out at how fucking good it feels. She’s tight and soaked and we’re a perfect fit. It’s like we were made for each other. She stretches around me, throwing her head back. The Christmas music switches to a Josh Groban song. Under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t want to be serenaded by that dude, but in this moment? Fuck it. Let Josh in on it too.

  Her muscles clench around me, pulling me in tight. The rhythm we’re making together consumes everything else. I feel every last moment of this hellish day disappearing into the rock and thrust of her hips. The dog that jumped up and tried to chew through my hoodie while I held six boxes stacked one after the other. The old man who threatened me with his cane because he’d forgotten he paid for Christmas Eve delivery. The secretary who let me deliver twenty-five boxes, five on each dolly load, before she told me they were for the wrong address.

  All of it is gone. All of it is replaced by clean white snow, falling from a navy sky. A twist of garland around a pristine front porch, with silver tinsel highlights. The smell of ham and scalloped potatoes. And more. The breathless anticipation of standing at the top of the stairs, waiting to see if Santa had finally come. The sweet, sweet moment of anticipation when I’d hold my single wrapped present in my hands, my mother’s tired eyes on mine. The year she got me a b
oxed set of Chronicles of Narnia. I wanted that boxed set so fucking much. Opening it was like opening a stack of gold.

  Holly in the doorway of her house, surrounded by light. Holly’s neat property under a blanket of snow, fresh and ready to start clean. The look in her eyes when she told me she wouldn’t sign my scanner. Driving my hips into her again and again. Claiming her as mine.

  Fuck, she’s going to be mine. Even if I walk back out of here tonight and never see her again, I’m leaving a part of myself with her. A single flame of regret bores a hole through the center of me. Can I walk out of here tonight? I have to. A woman like Holly—cozy and beautiful and driven—deserves someone better than me, a surly delivery driver with nowhere to be and a bad attitude.

  It’s impossible to cling to that bad attitude now, with my cock buried balls deep in her sweetness and her head tipped back, hair swaying with every thrust. It’s too good. It’s too gorgeous. “Yes,” she cries. “This is all I want—all I want.”

  I’m about to impregnate her. I’m about to fill her with my seed and hold her still while it pumps deep inside of her. The thought makes me even harder—so hard I can’t hold back any longer. I reach around to the front and swirl my fingertips across her clit. She clenches tight and moans. “I’m making you come right now because I’m going to come right now,” I say through gritted teeth. “No more waiting. Here’s your delivery.”

  She braces against the back of the couch and pushes back into me, so deep I wonder if I’ll ever find my way out. My cock jerks and pulses and I tease her pleasure out of her one small circle at a time until she’s shuddering and quaking and crying my name, over and over like a prayer. Hark how the fucking bells. And finally there’s no more barrier between us. My release tears loose with all of my muscles involved, my other hand holding her down hard on her left hip. She’s not going anywhere. I’m a beam of light, ready to ascend to the sky. There’s no way my skin can contain me now. All of me, entering all of her and rushing toward that tiny egg, where it will become my child. Mine. Mine. Mine.

  Holly comes down from the high with a whimper that sounds like pure relief and I gather her against me, still hard inside of her. I’m not going to let her down until we’re both sure the job is done. For the first time, I can take a full breath.

  I didn’t notice much of the living room before, but if I had to guess, the rest of the house is this perfect. Everything is soft, with rounded edges. Neat wallpaper covers the lower half of the wall, rising to a perfect dove gray. Gifts nestle beneath the tree, lights twinkling on metallic paper. The ornaments refract the light onto us like a blessing. She breathes fast and deep and clasps her hands over mine. “Oh my god,” she pants. “That was—that—that—”

  “Do you think I can get your signature now?” I ask wryly.

  “I don’t know. That was—wow. That was nothing like I expected.”

  Something in the wondering tone of her voice seizes my attention. “Have you ever been with a guy my size before?” The pause tells me everything. I tip her slightly to the side so I can look into her eyes. “Holly, have you ever been with a man before?”

  She bites her lip, face alight, and shakes her head. It’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And it just about destroys me. I took her first? She wants to get pregnant by me and let me take her first? I’m never going to recover. My heart is never going to fucking recover.

  It’s a long time before she eases herself off of me, standing up on shaky legs. There’s blood, the color of a Christmas ornament. The sight of it makes me hard—again.

  Holly beams at me, wordless, and pads away. Into a bathroom, I think—and the assumption is confirmed a moment later when water moves through the pipes in the house.

  I’m naked and alone in her living room. It’s so fucking perfect in here, just like her. For the life of me I can’t remember why I hated Christmas so much.

  I’m about to explode under a crush of longing so powerful it threatens my ability to stand when Holly reappears.

  “Hey,” she says, her nose wrinkled and wearing an oversized t-shirt that barely grazes the tops of her thighs. There goes my heart again. “I have some bad news.”

  Holly

  Matthew reaches for his clothes and the moment snaps open like an ornament falling onto concrete. He won’t meet my eyes. “What’s that?” He’s moving fast, covering his lickable muscles with swift movements. My heart falls with each item of clothing. Too late, I realize what this sounds like. It sounds like I want him out of my house, and now.

  “Look. Come with me.” He pulls his t-shirt on last and follows me to the front door of the house. We peer through the window set into the doorway, an arched thing that makes me inexplicably happy.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “The snow.”

  “Shit.” He rubs at the window. “I thought we steamed up the place.”

  “No—it’s that bad out.”

  Matthew yanks the door open and looks into a white vortex. Nothing is visible from the front porch. I can barely make out the posts of the railing. His truck is gone. “Shit. I—” He looks back down at me. “If you want me out, I can go. My truck’s not far. I remember where I parked.”

  I swallow hard. “That’s the thing. I’d really like it—love it—if you’d stay.”

  Something shifts on his face. A dawning. “You want me to stay here?”

  I grab for his hand and hold tight, my heart swelling. “I’m desperate for you to stay here. Maybe that’s pathetic.” Then I remember. “But—you don’t have to. If you have somewhere else to be. You can get to them later.”

  He lets out a laugh that echoes through all of my decorations. “I don’t have anybody else. Lots of the drivers do, but not me. I’m just renting a shit place down by the old factory and delivering packages.”

  Relief. Lovely, sweet relief, like a long drink of hot tea after a cold day. Speaking of hot things after cold days... “Then stay. Shut the door. Ignore the storm. And we can go take a shower together.”

  Matthew sags, then takes my face in his hands and kisses me. It’s deep and hard and somehow hotter than all the other kisses combined. When I open my eyes all I can see are his, dark and mischievous. “I’ve never heard anyone say anything that fucking sweet in all my life. Where’s your shower? Let’s go right now.”

  Christmas morning dawns white under a thick blanket of snow. I wake up with a glow at the center of my belly, turning over once beside Matthew’s solid form beside me. Excitement wells in my throat, so deep it makes my eyes tear up. I’m pregnant. I know it like I know the earth revolves around the sun. Well, now I revolve around Matthew. I’m not going to say anything yet—not to anyone—because I know how insane that sounds. I knew I was pregnant the morning after. No. I’ll have to wait at least a month. But I know.

  He stirs next to me, and I slip out of bed and throw my robe over the second pair of pajamas I changed into last night. Turns out, you can do a lot of different things on a bed versus a couch and even more in the shower.

  In the kitchen I put the coffee on. Each movement has its own special weight now. Everything is different, and it’s all because a shipping company sent Matthew to my door. It’s all because every other man I was with before this let me down in a huge way. My heart trembles a little bit, because...what now? What if Matthew doesn’t want to stay with me past this Christmas fling? I couldn’t blame him. Even if he doesn’t have anyone else, he could still want a life of his own.

  I’ve just poured two mugs of coffee when the front door creaks open. My heart stops, blood frigid in my veins. No. No. He can’t be sneaking out—not now. And if he is I couldn’t blame him. I only asked him to stay the night. I didn’t ask him to stay forever. But I should have. Regret comes in a crashing wave, and I lower my head over the coffee cups and let the steam blend with my tears. The door shuts with a decisive crack.

  So this is Christmas morning. I’m pregnant—I got my wish. I got my special delivery. But it’s nothi
ng without the possibility of Matthew. Oh, God. Oh God. What have I done?

  The tears come slowly, then faster until the salty drops mix with the coffee. I jerk my head back and swipe at my eyes with the back of my hand. What is wrong with me? I got everything I wanted. I’m making my own family now. It’s going to take some time, but it’s happening. There’s no reason to cry over a man I just met. It’s only that my heart is tearing in two. Three. A thousand.

  And—no matter how hard I try, it’s so easy to rationalize. Last night was perfect. It was the most perfect moment of my life. It was everything I could have wished for or asked for. Maybe he didn’t want reality to ruin that. God knows reality has ruined enough as it is. A sob wracks my body and I wrap my arms around myself and hold on tight.

  Then, in a Christmas miracle, I feel another set of arms, strong and sure. Holy shit. Christmas magic is real, because this hug feels as solid as any good hug in my life. I breathe in. Cold. Clean. A thundering....heartbeat?

  “Matthew?” I sniff, twisting around to prove that it’s him.

  He arches one eyebrow at me. “Why are you crying into coffee?” A spark comes into his eyes. “Are you—do the changes in mood happen this fast?”

  “How dare you,” I accuse him on a wild laugh, then throw my arms around his neck. “I thought you were sneaking out and leaving me behind forever. Which I know is just—I haven’t asked you to stay, I know I shouldn’t, but I want it so bad. So bad, Matthew.”

  He lifts one arm, and I see what’s dangling from his hand. A brown duffel bag. “I was getting my emergency overnight bag.” He tips my chin up to look into my eyes. “I don’t have any other family, or anywhere to be on Christmas. I want to spend it with you. And every day after that.” He drops his hand down to my belly and brushes his fingers over the still-flat pajamas. “Forever. What do you say?”