12 Christmas Romances To Melt Your Heart (25 page)

I
have
to be the dumbest son-of-a-bitch who ever walked the face of the earth. I have Madison Wentworth on the back of my bike. Her father will kill me if he catches us, and I can’t force myself to care.

Yes, I know exactly who Madison is. She’s the daughter of a local judge and his power-lawyer wife. I’ve met them both. In the courtroom. When they sent me to jail.

I’m in deep shit.

But I can’t say that I’m not enjoying it. She’s pretty much wrapped around me, her hands fisted in my shirt, her front pressed against my back. Every now and then, she adjusts her bottom and presses close to me.

I take a turn way too sharp and she squeals, wrapping her arms so tight around my middle that she grasps her hands together in front of my belly. I cover her hands with one of mine and she takes a breath behind me. It makes me feel like she trusts me…and I almost feel the need to warn her not to do that.

We have been riding for about an hour and we never really talked about how long I could keep her.
Keep her?
Oh, I am so fucked. I don’t keep women. I fuck them and then I put them back on the shelf so some other sad fuck can take them and fix their broken hearts. Relationships are messy and I’ve never wanted to spend time with anyone enough to even consider one.

Until today.

I pull over, because I should probably ask her what time she needs to get back to school. What if she has plans? What if she’s already ready to go back?

I kill the motor on my bike and it rumbles to a stop beneath us. I look back over my shoulder and find her smiling a big, goofy, breathtakingly beautiful smile at me. My heart stops as I look into her eyes.

“Why did we stop?” she asks, her breaths falling heavy and harsh, like she has been jogging. She bounces on the seat and a laugh bursts from my throat.

When was the last time I made a sound like that? I can’t remember, and I get a little dizzy at the peaceful, happy feeling that settles over me.

“Why did we stop?” she asks again, tapping my arm with the palm of her hand. It’s a happy, expectant move.

“I thought maybe we could talk,” I tell her.

She goes still behind me. “Oh.”

I look back at her. “You don’t want to talk?”

She smiles at me. “Talking is good.” Her voice is suddenly gruff and full. “Should we get off?”

I nod at her.

We’re parked beside a lake and it’s nearly dark out, so only a few people are here.

She points. “Want to go sit on the dock?” She climbs off the bike and the warmth of her body goes with her. I don’t like that. Not even a little. She starts toward the dock without even looking back in my direction.

I scramble to follow her. Her shoes squeak on the planks and I watch her ass sway. She’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt, typical college-wear. A purple Swatch watch is on her slim wrist. Her sandy-brown hair hangs in a heavy, tangled mess down her back, and she doesn’t seem to care.

“You’re really beautiful,” I blurt out. I cringe when she stops, turns to face me and smiles at me. My belly clenches and my dick notices how much I like her.

“Thank you,” she says as she sits down on the end of the dock. She tugs her shoes and socks from her feet and shoves her socks inside the shoes. Her bare toes peek up at me and she sighs as she dips them in the water. She leans back on her palms and tips her face up to the sky. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she says without even looking at me. She breathes in and out through her nose, slowly.

“Did you enjoy the ride?”

She smiles and nods. “I want to do it some more. Like, all the time. Every day. All day.” She giggles and I find myself grinning with her.

With me? Or does she just mean riding? I am afraid to ask.

“Why did you come with me?” I ask instead.

She tips her face toward me. “Because you asked me.” She snorts and then giggles. “Even though you only did it because I chased you down in the quad. I nearly tackled you.” She winces. “Sorry about that.”

“Best thing that’s happened to me all day,” I say.
Shit
. Did I say that out loud? I sit beside her on the dock.

“Me too,” she says quietly. She looks down at my boots. I’m holding them out over the water. “You should take your boots off. Stick your feet in the water.”

“Why?” I don’t understand why she’s so excited to get her feet wet.

She laughs. “Because it’s fun.” She taps my thigh. “Take them off.”

I shake my head.

She tilts her head at me like an inquisitive puppy. “Please,” she says. “Don’t make me sit here and feel funny being the only one with naked feet.”

I groan and pull my foot up, then tug my boot off. Then I repeat it with the other one and set the boots on the dock behind me with my socks stuffed inside.

“In the water,” she says with a fierce jab of her finger.

I hesitantly stick my feet in, and she laughs at the wounded look on my face when I realize how cold it is.

“Quit being such a baby,” she scolds with a laugh.

I gently palm the side of her head and give it a playful push. “Did you seriously just call me a baby?”

“That might have to be your nickname for the rest of our lives.”

My heart does that stutter thing again and I am speechless and breathless.

I had put her on the back of my bike because I wanted to fuck with her parents more than anything else. But now I feel a stirring of want for so much more.

She brushes a lock of hair back from her face and winces when she tugs through a snag. “Oh, my gosh. I must look like I’ve been tumbled in a dryer, right? Is it bad?” She starts to sweep through her hair and her hand sticks in another knot. “You wouldn’t happen to have a brush, would you?
Crap
,” she swears as she encounters a huge snarl.

“Wait,” I say. “I’ll get it.” I start to work through the tangle with my fingers and she sits still while I work out every last one. When I’m done, her hair is silky and smooth and I am not ready to stop running my fingers through it, but I probably should.

“Don’t stop,” she says quietly. “That feels really good.” She pulls her feet from the water. “Wait,” she says, and she adjusts so that she’s lying over my lap. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Hell, at this point, I’d be sad if she made me stop.

“It’s fine,” I tell her.

She relaxes against me and says, “Talk to me, will you?” Her eyes close and I’m pretty sure if she got any more relaxed, she’d fall asleep.

My insides settle in a way they never have before. Usually, I have a roiling, boiling sensation in my chest, like something is fighting to get out of me and I must work to contain it at all times. But now… Now I am at peace. My soul and my heart connect like tumblers lining up in a lock.
Snap!
It opens up.

And it scares the hell out of me.

I pull my hands from her hair, thinking that her proximity is the problem. But the tumblers don’t realign. They don’t lock her out. They let her in. They invite her in and offer her a fucking apple pie so she’ll sit and stay for a while.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You stopped rubbing my hair.”

I lift her off my lap and set her beside me. “All the tangles are out.”

“Oh.” She sighs. “That’s good.”

She suddenly looks uncomfortable and it kills me that I caused it.

“Thank you for fixing my hair,” she says quietly.

I grunt.

She giggles. Then she snorts and covers her mouth. I think that snort is the sexiest thing I have ever heard.

She grabs my arm and lifts it toward her face, studying my tattoo, running her fingers over it.

“It’s not scratch and sniff, sweetheart.”

“What is it?”

I lean close to her and whisper, “It’s a tattoo.”

She scoffs. “I know that. But what does it mean?”

“I got that one when my grandmother died. I was sixteen.”

She points at another one. “And this one.”

“When I was emancipated by the state. It turned out no foster families wanted a sixteen-year-old with a bad attitude.”

“You didn’t have any other family?”

“No.”

“What’s this one?” She points to the side of my neck, and her finger tickles the sensitive skin. I suddenly wish she would press her lips there.

“When I got out of jail and got into college.” I rub my nose, suddenly feeling really uncomfortable.

“How did you turn it all around?”

A smile tugs at my lips. “I had this really great parole officer who took me under his wing. He made it all work out. I owe him a lot.” I’ll never pay him back everything I owe. “He’s the one who put me on the path I’m on.”

“What path is that?” She watches me closely and I have all of her attention. And I love that feeling. This girl is intoxicating in the best sort of way.

“Law. I want to help boys like me. I want to give boys who have nothing and no one on their sides a second chance. Or a third chance. Or any chance.”

I’m suddenly feeling really exposed so I lie back and look up at the sky.

She lies beside me, her shoulder touching mine. She doesn’t say anything for a while, but the silence isn’t oppressive or cloying. It’s comfortable.

Her voice is quiet when she says, “Thank you for bringing me out here. If I never see you again, I want to tell you that I had a really great time.”

The thought of never seeing her again kills me.

I take a deep breath.

“What if I told you I want to see you again?” I hold that breath.

She says nothing.

“Guess not,” I mutter.

She shoves my shoulder. “Shut up. I was thinking.”

“If it requires that much thought, you’d better say no.”

“No.”

My heart falls. I should have seen that one coming. Rich girls don’t fall for guys like me.

“I don’t want to say no,” she rushes on to say. She sits up and looks down at me. “Unless you want me to say no. Do you want me to say no?”

I take her hand in mine. “I want you to say yes.”

“What would we do?” she asks, her eyes narrowing.

“It would be a date. I have no idea.”

“Would…you…kiss me?”

I cough into my fist. “Well, I hope so,” I croak.

“What else would we do?”

“Umm…dinner?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Umm…maybe a movie.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Maybe we could take a walk.” Girls like that shit, right?

“Could we go on a picnic?”

“If you want to.”

“I want to. When?”

I scratch my head. “When is good for you?”

“I don’t have anything to do on Saturday night.”

“Seriously?”

She nods. Then she squints at me. “Are you just asking me to be nice?”

A laugh bursts from my throat. “Sweetheart,
nice
is not a word that has ever been used to describe me.”

“So, we’re going on a date on Saturday,” she sings out and claps her hands. “I’m so excited.”

Her happiness is catching.

Holy shit. I am in so much trouble.

“I had better get you back home.” I’ve enjoyed my time with her and I’m really not ready to give her up yet.

“Can we ride some more?” she asks, blinking those green eyes at me. I suddenly realize that I would give her just about anything she wanted.

She suddenly leans over and kisses my cheek really quickly. “Thank you,” she says. Her cheeks redden and my dick presses insistently behind my button fly. I get up quickly, hoping she won’t notice.

There’s one thing I do know. This is not a girl you fuck. This is a girl you take home to meet your mother.

I wish I had one.

I
had assumed
we were just going for a short ride, but it’s two hours later when he returns me to my car. He pulls to a stop and the rumble beneath my bottom ceases. I don’t get up just yet. For the past hour, I’ve been riding with my cheek pressed tightly against his back. It feels nice and safe and comfortable.

“I didn’t want to come back,” he says to me from over his shoulder. He doesn’t look at me. Something tells me he would look everywhere but at me even if we were facing one another.

“Then why did you?” I lean to the side so I can see his face. He has a fine dusting of hair on his jaw and I want to touch it to see if it’s bristly or soft. I force my hands into my lap.

“I figured you’d be ready to ditch me.” His eyes meet mine and hold them.

“I wasn’t,” I say softly.

A grin tips the corners of his lips. “Good.”

“I’m really excited about Saturday. How should I dress?”

“I was hoping you might wear nothing.”

I freeze. Mainly because I can’t take a deep breath. Air? What’s that?

“I’m just kidding!” he rushes to say, and he raises his hands to cup my face, forcing me to look into his eyes. “I was only joking. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. What you have on now will work. We’re not going anywhere fancy.”

“Okay.” I draw in a breath. “I’m in the A building in the complex. Room 23. Or should I just meet you somewhere?”

“I’ll pick you up.”

I can’t stop smiling. I probably look like the worst sort of ninny. “I’ll see you then.” He unstraps my helmet and I get off his bike. My legs are wobbly as I stand up, and he helps me straighten myself and get steady with a hand beneath my elbow. “I had a lot of fun today.”

“I did too.” He looks almost like it hurts him to admit that.

“I’ll see you Saturday,” I whisper to him.

He nods and I walk away. I pop my trunk so I can get my coat out. It’s getting cold outside. It takes me a minute to arrange my things, get my coat, shake it out, and put it on. I look over and find Bob standing by the fountain talking to some shady-looking men. I’m pretty sure they don’t go to school here.

I open my car door and start to slide in, but I start to think that Bob might want my phone number in case something changes before Saturday. I jot it down really quickly on the back of a receipt and go to give it to him.

I hear one of the men he’s with as I walk closer. “Who was that on your bike?”

He laughs sharply. It’s not like the laughter I heard from him today at all. “Just a girl.”

Just a girl?
A girl I have a date with on Saturday,
or
my name
would have been better. But apparently, I am
just a girl
.

“She got a name?” one of them asks.

“I never can remember their names,” he says. “Too many of them.” He laughs sharply again and lights a cigarette. “That one is no different from the rest. Just something to do.”

My heart sinks all the way down to my toes. I crumple my phone number up and drop it to the ground. At least I won’t have to get dressed up on Saturday.

Maybe I just dodged a bullet.