A Man for Christmas

Chapter One

"Have you been naughty?" The words dripped saucily from plump, cherry red lips, "Or have you been nice?" The handle of a black crop was traced down the voluptuous curve of breasts that were pushed up so high they poured out over the shiny black leather lace-up bodice that attempted to keep them confined. Sinful red lips curled into a sadistically eager half-smile, and long blood red nails curled around the handle of the short whip when it slammed into a soft palm. "Or, am I going to have to punish you?" The husky voice dropped into a sexy purr and the tip of the crop whispered over a band of creamy skin, left exposed between where black, thigh-high boots started, and where a short black satin skirt ended, which barely covered the delights beneath. But, there was no answer and an anticipation loaded silence reigned.

A frustrated growl...

"Who are you kidding?" Naomi said to herself in her usual voice, which sadly, sounded nothing like the husky murmur she had been trying to work herself into a frenzy of enthusiasm with. She gave an exasperated groan and belly flopped onto her bed, holding her head off the covers so she wouldn't mess her cropped black hair, which she had styled almost militantly to match her dominatrix costume. She exhaled explosively. "No way can you pull this off!"

She reached for the curl she had painstakingly arranged to fall Betty Boop style over her smooth forehead and twirled it around her finger. The gel was still wet but by the time she arrived at Bernie's Christmas party, her hair would be so stiff it would make a hand bleed if anyone touched it. Not that she thought it was likely anyone would touch her hair - worse luck. "I should have hired the Betty Boop costume."

The Betty Boop costume was one of the final two that Naomi had liked, and even though it was sexy, Naomi thought that with her pixyish looks and petite frame, she would have ended up looking sweet and demure when what she was hoping for was 'alluring temptress'. At least there was no way to mistake the message she hoped the dominatrix costume would send. And now, she wasn't sure she wanted to send that message at all, but it was far too late to salvage the situation caused by her failing courage. The costume shop would be closed and Naomi's determination to be sexy, to at least entertain the thought of being with a man, was faltering in the face of battle!

She rolled her green eyes at her cowardice and dropped her head dejectedly onto her crossed arms, looking around her spartanly decorated bedroom without really seeing much at all. As they always did, her soulful eyes gravitated to the silver, framed picture of her fiancé Brandon where it sat on her bedside table like a holy relic. Her lips twisted into a wistful smile and she crawled over her wide bed until she could hold the image of the handsome blonde man who had been her childhood sweetheart in trembling hands. She lovingly traced a fingertip over the heavy square jaw, the full, smiling lips and twinkling eyes, captured forever in the photograph.

They had always been together, her and Brandon; even as children they had been inseparable. By the time they reached high school it was all but urban myth that the pair had been Siamese twins joined at the hip when they were born. They were like two halves of a whole, they were soul mates. But 'were' was the operative word and Naomi knew better than anyone that forever was a fragile thing. So delicate that it could be shattered in a heartbeat by a police man at the door, asking if she was the nearest of kin for Brandon Sutton, that there had been a horrible accident. In that moment, for Naomi, 'forever' had ceased to have any meaning.

Naomi sighed and returned the framed picture to its place. Her therapist had told her that two years was long enough to grieve, that she wouldn't be dishonouring Brandon's memory by moving on and making a life for herself, that he would have wanted her to do just that. But a person only ever had one soul mate, and Naomi had met and lost hers already. At twenty-six, she knew she had a long, lonely life ahead of her. No one could ever replace Brandon but she supposed the therapist was right. She had to at least try to move on and make some kind of a life for herself and if nothing else, she didn't have to remain celibate.

One of the many, difficult things she'd had to grow accustomed to in her new life without Brandon, was the lack of sex. Both she and Brandon had been worse than a pair of rabbits in mating season. He'd had the stamina of a marathon runner and the adventurous spirit of a dare-devil. Elevators, the top floor of double deck buses, under a towel at the beach, in her mother's back yard in the middle of the night – nowhere was sacred and they had been as insatiable as each other. Naomi soon learned that Brandon's picture and a vibrator did not compare to the real thing.

Sighing, she squared her shoulders determinedlyand thrust her bare arms into the sleeves of her long black woolen trench coat. Then, she left her apartment and locked the door behind her before she lost her nerve completely.

Bernie's' 'naughty or nice' Christmas Eve party would have started already but Naomi gave a mental shrug. She would just be fashionably late and speaking of fashion, she deliberately did not allow herself to think about what she was wearing underneath her trench coat as she ran through the heavy downpour to reach her car. Her coat was made from thick fabric but even so, Naomi was soaked to the bone by the time she ran the short distance to where she parked her savvy red coupé. She clenched her jaw and resisted the urge to use her sodden state as an excuse to return to her photographs of Brandon and her memories. The costume is made out of rubber, you wimp. It will be fine!

Something fell into her lap when she bundled her saturated coat into a ball and hurled it haphazardly onto the back seat. It was a lolly pop in a shiny cellophane wrapper, tied with a bright red bow. Santa had given her the lolly pop earlier that day and smiling, she bit her bottom lip at the memory.

The local police station had sponsored the Christmas display in the shopping centre that year, and the proceeds from Santa photos were being donated to a children's charity. Walking past the figure of Father Christmas, sitting in his gaudy, glitter covered throne amid a pile of fake snow, Naomi had laughed when she saw that under his long white beard, Santa was wearing board shorts and a surf shirt, rather than the traditional red costume.

Naomi had been impressed. She had never understood why the brave Santa Clauses in Australia, who risked life and limb hearing the Christmas wishes of hundreds of screaming, hyperactive children every year, insisted upon making their job harder by dressing in a heavy red suit when Christmas down under was in the middle of summer.

Bernie had gushed and giggled and insisted they sit on the hired man's lap to have their photograph taken. When Naomi balked at the idea, Bernie insisted it had nothing to do with the fact that far from a jolly, rotund figure in a red suit, this year's Santa was a mountain of man meat, whose muscles bulged underneath his beach wear.

"It's for charity!" The small, fiery red head laughed and she pushed Naomi onto Santa's knee before she could escape.

Smiling broadly beneath the fake white beard, Santa circled strong, heavy arms around Naomi's waist and rested his hard hands on the outside of her thighs, holding her on his knee. When she tried to stand up, he tightened his grip. She was clearly not going anywhere.

"What do you want for Christmas, little girl?" Santa had asked Naomi in a voice that was far too sexy to belong to St. Nick!

Laughing, Naomi shyly risked a look at the man upon whose lap she was sitting and her mirth died on her lips when she stared into the single, most amazing chocolate brown eyes she had ever seen. His thumbs drew lazy strokes on her firm thighs, which, to Naomi's surprise, left goose bumps in their wake. He smelled like leather and man and soap and the scent almost made her swoon.

"Uh," was all Naomi could manage by way of an answer. She lifted her eyebrows and worked her jaw a few times, as though by doing so, the words would follow and draw attention from her blazing cheeks. But nothing would come. At least, not from her mouth anyway.

Naomi had been sure that if Santa didn't stop looking at her with those smouldering, I-could-blow-your-mind-with-pleasure brown eyes, she was going to cream her panties. No one had ever had that effect on her before. Not even Brandon. She decided she must definitely need a good fuck if she was going to lose it like that over a mere look from a man. Even if said man had the most amazing eyes, the fullest lips...and was holding her on his thick thighs that were so hard with muscle that they actually hurt her butt! She bit back a moan.

"She wants a man for Christmas," Bernie had interjected quickly, and then to Naomi's wide eyed, drop jawed mortification, she added, "And not a blow up one either!"

"You want a man for Christmas?" Santa asked and when Naomi looked back at him, he had held her gaze with a spine tingling intensity that made her melt like ice-cream in the sun.

Naomi blinked rapidly and shook her head 'no', then nodded 'yes' and then she gasped and then shook her head 'no' again. She knew she wasn't making any sense, but she couldn't breathe and the silence that stretched between them while Santa waited for an answer was filled, for Naomi at least, by the sound of her heart pounding frantically in her ears.

Naomi had to fan herself when a lazy half-smile twisted Santa's totally edible lips beneath his fake white beard. Her eyes glazed over and it took all of her control to stop them from rolling back in her skull.

"I thought someone as gorgeous as you would already have too many men." Santa drawled in a husky rumble that almost pushed Naomi over the edge of control. She doubted he would ever have any idea just how close he had come in that moment, to being thrown on the ground by a woman who barely stood as high as his broad chest - which, Naomi couldn't help but notice, felt very hard and buff under her hand.

When she didn't answer, Santa's eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Naomi was left in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that he knew exactly how much he was affecting her. Chuckling softly, he pressed a red lollipop into her hand and she nearly fainted when he dragged the warm, calloused tip of his finger seductively over her palm. She wondered if she had imagined it but even hours later, just thinking about Santa's voice, his eyes, and the warmth he radiated, sent a tingle down Naomi's spine that ended in fireworks between her thighs. For the love of..! Who thinks lustful thoughts about Santa Clause for crying out loud!

It was all the motivation Naomi needed to start her car. Things were getting pretty bad on the desperation front when all it took to make her climb walls was a man dressed up in a red hat and fake white beard. Hopefully, she would find someone to scratch the itch Santa had left her with at Bernie's fancy dress party. More accurately, Naomi hoped she would give someone a chance to scratch that itch. She was determined, though. It was time to get on with her life and let Brandon rest in peace at last.

Naomi thought that maybe a nice vampire or something like that would tempt her. Dark, brooding men had always gotten her juices flowing. Or a hot Santa! She smiled secretly.

Not that there was any chance of that happening. Wistfully, Naomi didn't think that the man under the red hat and fake beard was in Bernie's circle of theatrical friends.

You wouldn't have given him a chance anyway. Naomi admitted to herself, and wondered if an argumentative, over active internal dialogue was indicative of approaching insanity.

To distract herself, she tried to imagine what kind of extravagant costumes she would see at the 'naughty or nice' party. If the previous parties Bernie had thrown were anything to go by, the costumes her guests wore would alone be worth going for – or would at least justify the lunacy of driving through what was fast beginning to look like a gale force storm.

Naomi narrowed her eyes and leaned forward over the steering wheel as though in doing so, she would be able to see the road in front of her a little more clearly. The storm had been growing steadily worse as Naomi drove and she was beginning to wonder if she should turn off the road until it eased up a little.

Naomi glanced briefly at her street map. "Okay, according to Bernie, the street I need to turn down should be the next on the left."

Brilliant strikes of lightning tore across the ink black sky and thunder rocked Naomi's car violently – it was definitely no time to be thinking about man candy wrapped in red hats with white fluffy beards. A ferocious wind seemed to blow up from nowhere and threatened to slide the small red coupé from the lonely dirt road.

The coupé bounced and jolted as Naomi drove over potholes and through puddles in the unsurfaced road that she could see in the storm and she swore under her breath. Naomi had known that Bernie's new home was out of town, but she didn't realise her friend had moved that far away from civilisation! She gripped the steering wheel and tried to focus through the wall of water slamming against her wind shield. The torrential downpour was so heavy that it swallowed the golden glow of her headlights before they could illuminate anything beyond ten meters in front of her car.

Suddenly, the back end of Naomi's red coupé slid across the road. All thoughts of hot Santa's and brooding Vampires fled her mind as she turned the steering wheel into the direction of the slide. She immediately lifted her foot off the accelerator to slow down, unwilling to brake in case she lost control of her car completely in the treacherous conditions. After what felt like hours but was probably little more than a few minutes, the coupé slid to a halt and clutching the steering wheel like a drowning woman, Naomi lowered her forehead to rest on her hands until she stopped trembling.

Chapter Two

Red lights flickered in Naomi's peripheral vision and she shot her head up quickly, expecting to see a car heading straight for her since her red coupé was sprawled lengthwise across the deserted road. Before she could get it together to start her car and move it out of the way, a dark sedan eased to a stop beside her. Considering she was alone on a road that was way off the beaten track, Naomi didn't know whether she should be relieved someone had stopped, or alarmed.

The sedan's door opened and for a few long moments, no one stepped out. Naomi could hardly blame them. She didn't want to get out of her car either. The rain hit the roof of her red coupé so hard that it sounded as though a troupe of ballroom dancers were tangoing across it.

Just when she began to wonder if the driver had changed their mind about stepping into the rain, the wavering, yellow beam from a flashlight appeared behind the door and a booted foot landed on the now muddy road, followed by a long leg with thick thighs. Naomi blinked with disbelief at the spontaneous lustful thoughts that crept unbidden into her mind. She had just nearly had an accident on a deserted, dirt road in the middle of a hurricane force storm and yet there she was, wondering what it would be like to drag her tongue up the inside of a thigh that thick?

"I must have hit my head." Naomi blinked rapidly as the driver, who was obviously a man - and a big one at that – approached. She watched the mountain of man meat prowl toward her car with a feline grace, illuminated like some ancient sex God in the golden glow of her headlights. No way, no one looks that good without air brushing. "I definitely have brain damage."

Something floated behind him and when he drew closer, Naomi saw he was wearing a long, black cape but before she had time to wonder what kind of weirdo he was, she saw what he was wearing underneath and all thought fled her mind in the face of the tight, black leather pants sitting low on his tapered hips, stretching taut over his magnificently powerful thighs. A sinful red shirt, which the rain had already plastered to his chest, clung to every dip, every crevice, and every muscle on his broad, defined torso. A hint of dark hair peeked over the open collar of his shirt and Naomi had to bite her lip to hold back an appreciative moan as her eyes scanned his entire six foot of deliciousness from head to toe – and then she dragged her eyes back up to meet his in case she missed anything. She thought that right about now, a photographic memory would be at the top of her Christmas list, if only to tell Bernie.

Who are you kidding? HE is at the top of my Christmas list! The thought would have made Naomi giggle had she not been sobered by the rather depressing realisation that nothing would ever come of her chance meeting with sex walking. Nothing ever did. She never let it.

Naomi wound her window down just enough to speak through it. The man may be drool worthy but she wasn't stupid. She was still in a vulnerable position. He swaggered to a stop at her door and stood with his weight balanced mostly on one long, lithe leg. She tried to act as though she didn't notice how the stance show cased his fine arse.

"Evening, what happened here? Are you injured?" His voice was as smooth as aged whiskey and he looked down at her with smouldering, chocolate brown eyes that not only turned her knees to jelly and her nipples to diamond hard points, but which also seemed strangely familiar to her.

Before she could explore the sensation though, he braced a muscled arm on the roof and when he leaned down to look through the window, he did a double take when he saw Naomi.

And for her part, Naomi screamed, horrified when she saw his face.

His eyebrows lifted to his hairline. "Are you hurt?"

"Fuck!" Naomi gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh! I'm so sorry...I didn't expect you to be a vampire."

"It's okay," The expression of concern he wore melted slowly into a lazy half-smile underneath his theatrical make up and fake fangs. "I didn't expect to come face to face with a dominatrix either. Are you going to Bernie's Christmas party?"

"Yes, do you know her?" Naomi asked, disappointed. Bernie had a lot of friends in her arty circle, but all the good looking ones were gay.

"Yes, I'm her cousin, Steele." He offered a handshake on the other side of the all but wound up window, "nice to meet you."

Oh wow... Naomi lost herself in the warmth of his smile, his full lips, and the way they peeled back slightly to reveal straight white teeth. Teeth that she wanted to lick...

"Oh! Really?" Naomi gushed, finally thinking to wind the window down so she could take his hand, "I'm her friend -"

"Naomi." Steele smiled, "I know."

"How -"

Steele held Naomi's eyes with his. "What happened?"

"I lost control." Naomi said, and regretted her words as soon as they left her lips. They were far too close to the truth for comfort.

"When?"

Right now! "Only moments before you arrived."

"Have you been drinking?"

"No. I'm on my way out, not in." Naomi gave him a teasing look, "You sound like a police man, not a vampire.

"I'm an off duty policeman," He smiled and his eyes twinkled mischievously. "Step out of the vehicle please. I'll need you to blow in the bag."

Naomi thought she'd blow any bag he wanted and whenever he wanted her to. He looked as though he had just stepped off the page of a fireman's calendar - only without the hard hat. Naomi had always been a diehard fan of sweat and ash and the highlight of her year was to receive her favourite fireman calendar for Christmas. The man at her car window may not have been covered in designer grime but he was soaked to the bone and so smoulderingly sexy that Naomi was now a devoted convert to the drowned off duty policeman look. Someone should make a calendar...