Hawke
There’s an elf on my shelf.
I blinked. Twice.
Fuckme. I hadn’t even hit the bottle all that hard yet, and now I was straight-up seeing things.
“Hey,” I said, looking down at the elf in my arms. Her eyes fluttered closed, her body slack. Breath escaped her mouth in frantic white puffs, and even through her costume, I could feel the heartbeat machine-gunning in her chest.
No way. No fucking way.The last thing I needed was Santa’s little helper dying in my arms in the middle of a damn blizzard.
I gave her a firm but gentle shake.
“Come on, now. Don’t do this to me.” I pressed the back of my hand to her cheek—she felt like a popsicle. “Wake up, baby. Wake up.”
Her eyes opened again, then widened, a fresh blush competing with the frigid air to make her cheeks pink. She disentangled herself from my hold and stood up on her own two feet again, but I kept a grip on her arms, just in case.
“You with me now?” I asked.
She was gaping at me with huge, blue eyes that stood out like sapphires in the snow, those cheeks turning pinker by the minute. Locks of flame-red hair spilled out from beneath a sparkly white hat, stark against her green scarf. And the rest of that scandalous outfit? Goddamn. A tight red ballerina dress that barely skimmed the tops of her thighs, red-and-white striped stockings, and one of those useless little half-sweaters girls wore that did absolutely nothing to hide the diamond-hard nipples poking out beneath.
She looked like a candy-cane cupcake, just begging for me to sink my teeth right in.
My cock stirred at the thought.
Hey, remember me, asshole?
I released her and took a step back, zipping up my pants and adjusting myself before things got uncomfortable. That one-track mind of mine was going to get me intoserioustrouble one of these days.
“Thank… thank you.” The girl was panting again, a mittened hand pressed to her chest as she struggled to catch her breath.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Fine. Just… it’s probably the altitude. And the stomping-through-the-snow part. Your driveway isn’t exactly plowed.”
“Wasn’t expecting company.”
“But it’s Christmas Eve,” she said, as though that explained shit. After a beat, she narrowed her eyes, her nose wrinkling in the cutest fucking way imaginable. “Sir. Are youdrunk?”
“Not drunk enough,” I muttered, which was damn lucky for her. Any more inebriated, and I would’ve had zero judgment, zero inhibition,zeroreservations about dragging her little elf ass inside, pinning her against the wall, and finding outexactlywhat she was hiding underneath those candy-cane stockings.
“Oooh-kay then.” Her breathing seemed to normalize, thank fuck—one less thing for me to deal with. “Sorry to bother you at an obviously bad time, but I kind of crashed my car into your driveway, and now it won’t start, and my phone has no service out here, and Ireallyneed to get to my parents’ cabin before dinner’s over or it’ll turn into this wholething, because my mom is super high maintenance and I didn’t even tell them I was coming, and I always mess up Christmas every single year, but this year I planned out this whole surprise for them, so I was hoping I could—”
“Slow down, Cupcake.” Whether it was the booze or that hot little outfit, my ability to concentrate was seriously compromised. I could barely follow her mile-a-minute ramble. “What do you mean, you ‘kind of’ crashed your car?”
She lowered her eyes and shrugged, nibbling on her lower lip, and fuck, the sight of her teeth against that plump, rosy flesh made my cock twitch all over again. All I could think about was how that lip would feel between my teeth, what kind of sounds she’d make if I bit down on it and sucked…
“I lost the road,” she went on. “Or it lost me. I don’t know. It’s whiteout conditions, right? I’m driving along, trying to figure out where I took a wrong turn, and all of a sudden I can’t steer. Can’t stop. I’m just spinning and sliding down this hill, no control, just hoping and praying that when it’s all over, I land somewhere soft.” She smiled innocently, finally meeting my eyes again, her eyes full of a sweet hope I hadn’t seen in years. Decades. “And ta-da! Here I am!”
I grunted out a laugh. “Hate to break it to you, Cupcake, but I ain’t exactly somewhere soft.”
She looked away again, another blush creeping up her neck.
Damn, that looks good on her. Wonder what else makes her blush…
“Could I maybe just… use your phone?” she asked.
I leaned back against the door, crossing my arms over my chest. Flustered was a good look on her, and I liked being the one who’d put it there. “Nope.”
