Christmas with Nicholas: - an Untwisted seasonal story (Untwisted series)

CHRISTMAS WITH NICHOLAS

ALICE RAINE

If you like your books sexy, sassy, and seriously good fun, you’ll love this festive novella which follows the passionate relationship between Nicholas Jackson and Rebecca Langley from the
Untwisted
series.

Nicholas Jackson, world-class concert pianist and survivor of a troubled past, is as sexy, intense, and domineering as they come, but since encountering Rebecca and her quietly persuasive manner he’s discovering that he does have a softer side after all. Determined to give Rebecca the best Christmas of her life, Nicholas sets out to get her the perfect gift. The only problem is, he has no idea what to get her.

Can he give Rebecca a Christmas she’ll never forget? Join Nicholas in this sexy seasonal tale and find out just exactly what he has in store for the woman of his dreams.

Note to the reader

This novella can be read as a standalone book, however, it contains the characters Nicholas and Rebecca from the 
Untwisted
series. If you are reading this as part of the series then it is recommended that you read it at some point 
after
book 1 and 
before
book 4. Enjoy!

Chapter One
Nicholas

Shoving my hands roughly into the pockets of my suit trousers I muttered my annoyance, threw a filthy look at the apologetic saleswoman, and then strode from the department store empty-handed, back out into the main walkway of Westfield shopping centre.

Huffing out a long breath, I walked across to the balustrades and leaned forwards so I could take a moment to clear my head. All around me happy Christmas shoppers were chatting jovially as they shuffled past me laden with bags of goodies and gift-wrapped presents. Christmas decorations hung from every available surface in sight. It was quite sickly, really; icicle lights twinkling from the banisters, huge Christmas trees lining the open shopping area overloaded with garish baubles and tinsel, and the annoying strains of ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ filling the air for the fifth bloody time since I’d arrived three hours ago.

Pushing my hair from my face I turned and leant back on the railing as I considered what to try next. My entire purpose for this trip had been to get a Christmas present for my girlfriend Rebecca; but after traipsing around every suitable outlet in the godforsaken place I still had nothing. I’d seen clothes that would suit her, jewellery she would no doubt like, and even handbags that would have been OK, but they weren’t
wow
presents, and seeing as this was the first time in my screwed-up life that I was buying a Christmas present for a woman – not just any woman, but
the
woman that I
loved
 – I wanted it to be perfect. Shaking my head I chewed on the inside of my lip; at this rate Rebecca would have a big fat nothing under the bloody tree on Christmas morning.

Pushing off from the railing I turned in search of a coffee. Perhaps a java hit would kick my brain into gear, but as I took my first few steps towards Starbucks my eyes caught on a shop window to my left. Pausing,  an idea began to form in my mind. Walking up to the glass I scanned the contents as a smile formed on my lips. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this earlier – it was perfect.

Half an hour later I left the shop with my wallet considerably lighter – well, to be specific my American Express Platinum account was lighter – but I didn’t care. Money was inconsequential in this matter. Striding off I knew I now needed one last shop before I could get out of here, and as I marched along I even found myself humming along with the The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ with a satisfied grin on my face. I felt more in the Christmas spirit already.

Rebecca

Two weeks later

I enjoyed the cold crispness of the early evening air as I walked to Nicholas’ for the evening. It made a refreshing change from the snug, overly warm interior of my little bookshop, which often got quite stifling if we had more than six customers in at once. During our time together Nicholas had often tried to insist that I let him buy me a car, or worse still, provide me with my own personal driver, but I had well and truly put my foot down. I might be dating a famous and stupidly well-off pianist, but I didn’t need pampering like that. I grimaced as I tried to imagine just how much money he had, but then pushed the thought away as it was quite overwhelming and always made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Besides, I liked walking. It was good exercise and London was the most amazing city to explore by foot.

The shops, boutiques, and roadside cafes of Primrose Hill were brightly lit and decorated with Christmas lights and displays as I wandered along. For a change practically every person I passed on the street was jovial and wished me a Christmas greeting of one kind or another. 

By the time I’d arrived at Nicholas’ road I was smiling broadly and in a rather good mood from all the festive cheer. I’d barely stepped inside the front door when I was met by the man himself practically jogging down the stairs to greet me, his dark hair a wild mess on his head and his blue eyes twinkling mischievously in his handsome face.

‘I want to give you your Christmas present early,’ he stated as soon as I had both feet inside the hallway. Smiling at just how excited he looked I peeled my scarf from around my neck, hung it up, and stepped into his open arms for a hug. Given how padded my winter coat was, our embrace was a bit difficult, but in his arms was still my favourite place to be, regardless of how many layers of fleece might separate us, and I sighed contentedly.

‘But it’s only the twenty-second,’ I mumbled into his strong chest, his warmth bringing some life back into the cold tip of my nose.

Chuckling, Nicholas held my shoulders and moved me backwards so he could gaze down at me. ‘I know, but this present has a time expiry.’ Checking his watch he frowned. ‘Shit, talking of time, we need to get a move on. Don’t worry about taking off your coat, we’re heading straight out.’

‘Where are we going?’ I asked, eyeing Nicholas’ almost childlike enthusiasm curiously. He’d noticeably changed during our time together; relaxing with me, smiling frequently, and even changing some of his old domineering habits, but he could still be quite closed off emotionally at times so his obvious excitement grabbed my attention.

‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ he replied mysteriously, and then grabbing his own coat from the rack, Nicholas took hold of my hand and dragged me back out into the cold evening without even letting me get my scarf again.

‘My scarf!’ I protested, but by this point Nicholas was bundling me into the back of his car, which already had the engine running. Mr Burrett, his personal assistant, sat behind the wheel watching us both with amusement.

‘Don’t worry, I have several ways I can keep you warm,’ Nicholas murmured as he leaned in close to my ear so only I could hear. The tone of his voice was suddenly low and silky and made me blush instantly. Turning to him I found him plugging in his seatbelt whilst smirking across at me with a wicked glint in his eye.

Swivelling in his seat Mr Burrett smiled at us both jovially. ‘Good evening, Miss Langley. Are you warm enough back there?’ What with Nicholas’ salacious comments and Mr Burrett’s impeccably timed question I was now boiling hot with embarrassment. ‘Hi, Mr Burrett. I’m good, thank you,’ I mumbled, pretending to struggle with my seatbelt as a distraction.

‘Are we heading straight off, sir?’ Mr Burrett enquired mildly, annoyingly giving no hint of our intended destination, but his use of the title ‘sir’ made me smile; even now it made me laugh to think that my boyfriend had personal staff. Mind you, being a world-famous pianist I suppose he could probably afford the luxury, and Mr Burrett certainly seemed to love his job.

‘Yes, please, James, and be swift about it, I didn’t realise how late it was.’ Taking hold of my hand Nicholas pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked something on the screen, so I took the chance to question Mr Burrett.

‘Where are we going Mr B?’ Even though I
knew
his name was James, I had for months now, I still couldn’t bring myself to call him by his first name – with his smart suits, crisp white shirts and black ties, he was so formal it just seemed wrong. Besides, in the past year where I’d basically lived with Nicholas Mr Burrett had insisted on calling me ‘Miss Langley’ the whole time too. We were at an impasse, not that it really mattered; we were comfortable with each other, which I suppose was all that mattered.

‘I’m afraid I’m sworn to secrecy,’ he replied, flashing me a grin in the rear view mirror, which made Nicholas give my hand a squeeze.

‘Don’t be so impatient, you’ll find out soon.’ Nicholas assured me as he pocketed his phone again and gave me his full attention.

Leaning across the car Nicholas pulled me as close to him as our seatbelts would allow and tipped his head down to place a swift kiss on my temple. Moving his lips to my ear he whispered, ‘Besides, I thought you’d learnt that delaying something often improves the final pleasure?’ If possible my cheeks flushed even redder as Nicholas’ comment sunk in. It was a blatant reference to something he’d tried on me in bed a few weeks ago. Orgasm denial, he’d called it – I’d called it two hours of teasing tongue torture. Although to give him his credit, when Nicholas had finally allowed me to come – after bringing me close to orgasm so many times I’d lost count and almost consciousness – it had been an out of this world orgasm. A climax like no other I’d ever experienced, and something that I probably wouldn’t mind trying again.

Nicholas was obviously intent on keeping our destination a secret, so rather than waste time pointlessly guessing I snuggled into his side and let the warmth of the car relax me after my busy day at work. The week before Christmas was always crazy at the bookshop, with last-minute present hunters landing on our doorstep in a panic. Tomorrow would be even worse – we were hosting a special 10% discount sale to entice yet more Christmas shoppers to pop in for a bargain present, so I was fully expecting to be run off my feet all day.

I must have fallen asleep in the dark warmth of the car, because the next thing I knew I felt Nicholas undoing my seat beat and placing a soft kiss on my lips. ‘Wake up, sleepyhead,’ he murmured, as he helped my sleepy, uncoordinated body from the car. The frigid air rushing into my open jacket woke me instantly, and I hastily buttoned it up and wrapped my arms around myself, silently cursing Nicholas for making me leave my scarf behind. It was only when I turned to moan at him that I took notice of where we were and suddenly forgot all about my cold neck. ‘Why are we at Heathrow Airport, Nicholas?’

My eyes were drawn to Mr Burrett’s movements at the rear of the car; he already had one large suitcase sitting on the pavement beside him and was currently busy hoisting a second from the boot. As my confusion mixed with curiosity I turned to Nicholas and found him ginning as he pulled two rucksacks from the car as well. ‘This is your present … I’m taking you on holiday for Christmas.’ My jaw dropped open at the same time as my heart went loopy in my chest. A holiday? With Nicholas?
For Christmas?
How frigging exciting! But then reality settled in thick and fast and popped my excited bubble as I frowned with almost unbearable disappointment. ‘I can’t, Nicholas, the bookshop, it’s our busiest time of the year.’

Grinning Nicholas shook his head, ‘I cleared it all with Louise last week; she was working anyway but apparently your weekend worker Robin jumped at the overtime because he’s saving up for a new Xbox.’ Oh … that certainly sounded OK then, I knew without a doubt I could trust the two of them with the shop, and two staff members would be more than enough in my small bookshop. Well, in that case there really wasn’t anything holding me back then!

Nicholas must have taken my pause as hesitation because he frowned. ‘We already agreed that we’d see your family for New Year so we could spend Christmas as just the two of us.’ Tipping my chin back he looked straight into my eyes with that intense, focused stare that always made me shiver. ‘What’s holding you back? Don’t you want to go on holiday with me? I thought it would be a nice surprise …’ He sounded so deflated that I immediately felt guilty for taking too long in my pondering, so slapping a huge grin on my face I leant up and kissed him hard on the mouth before bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet.

‘Of course I do! It was just a bit of a shock at first, but this is so exciting, Nicholas! Thank you! Where are we going?’

‘You’ll find out when we land.’ Nicholas replied smugly, looking far more relaxed now and handing me one of the backpacks, which I took and stared at curiously. It was brand new, and stuffed full. ‘You can’t look inside until I say,’ he warned me, obviously catching sight of my inquisitive look. Turning back to the older gentleman, who was watching us with a fond smile on his face, Nicholas nodded. ‘Thank you Mr Burrett, have a great Christmas. I’ll text you if the details of our return change at all.’

‘Right you are, sir. Miss Langley, have a fantastic time. Merry Christmas.’ Waving at us Mr Burrett slid back into the car and eased off into the chaos of Heathrow traffic leaving Nicholas and I to find our way inside.

As we negotiated our way through the throngs of people outside something occurred to me. ‘Your presents!’ I cried, stopping and shooting him a distressed look, ‘They’re in my flat, I won’t be able to give them to you on Christmas Day!’

Smiling at me reassuringly Nicholas shook his head, ‘Don’t worry, you can give them to me when we get back. The best present this year will be spending Christmas with you.’ Slightly overwhelmed by his uncharacteristically open response all I could do was smile and nod. To be honest the presents I’d got for him wouldn’t compete with a fully paid for holiday anyway. I’d gotten a simple framed photograph of the two of us for his practice room and some personalised cufflinks for when he wore his concert suit, one with his initials on it, and one with mine. The last gift was handmade and I’d spent quite a while putting it together; it was a scrapbook of things that tracked our relationship – the ticket stub from the London Palladium concert when I’d first met him, pages from my diary that had our piano lessons written on them, the first picture of the two of us appearing in public together, sentimental things like that. The book was dear to me, but I knew it was a bit girly and over the top so I wasn’t sure how Nicholas would take it. Hopefully he’d like it. I suppose now I’d have to wait a few extra days to find out.

Once we were at the check in area Nicholas skipped all the usual desks with their large queues and headed for one labelled as ‘Gold Class Members’. Rolling my eyes I shook my head at how pompous he could be sometimes, but as my eyes moved over the enormous lines at all the other counters I was secretly quite glad that we wouldn’t be joining them.

Once we had placed our bags down I looked up and tried to work out which airline we were flying with to get an idea of our destination, but literally all it said above the desk was ‘Gold Class Members.’ No doubt I would find out now when Nicholas checked us in, so I quickly sidled right up to him innocently and watched as he handed over our passports. Obviously working out my plan immediately, Nicholas grinned and looked at the check in man, ‘This is a surprise holiday for my girlfriend, any chance you could keep the destination quiet please?’ The clearly harassed guy behind the counter blinked at Nicholas several times and for a second I thought he was going to say no, but then he smiled, looked at me, and wiggled his eyebrows, making me grin. ‘Of course, sir, what a lovely gesture.’

Taking the passports and paperwork from Nicholas the man ran them through the computer and printed out the luggage labels. I caught a brief glimpse of the label and saw KEF on it, but annoyingly had no idea what country or airport that stood for. K … hmmm. K … Kenya? That seemed fairly unlikely unless we were going on a safari I suppose. Krakow? Perhaps we were off to Poland for Christmas? Although thinking about it, KEF could be short for Kefalonia. Ooooh! Maybe Nicholas had a week in the Greek sunshine planned for us! My eyes briefly widened at the lovely prospect of some winter sunbathing, but knowing that Nicholas was going to so much trouble to arrange this surprise for me I schooled my face into a blank expression and pretended I hadn’t noticed.

‘Okay, sir, so that’s two first class tickets going to …’ At this point he paused, turned the tickets so only Nicholas could see, and indicated with his finger. ‘Your seats are A and B in row 2 of First Class. Boarding starts in one hour. Have a fantastic trip and Merry Christmas.’

Once our suitcases had disappeared onto the conveyor belt we shouldered our backpacks and made our way through to the departure area. Of course we weren’t slumming it on the uncomfortable metal benches in the departure lounge, no, instead, within five minutes of checking in we were in the First Class lounge being served a chilled glass of champagne and a delicious selection of canapés. As much as I might scoff at Nicholas’ extravagant lifestyle, I had to say I could get used to treatment like this!

Even with my suspicions of Greece, Nicholas still wouldn’t give me any indication of where we were going, so instead of fighting it I settled back and enjoyed our luxury, until finally Nicholas stood up and said it was time for us to leave.

I have no idea how he managed it, some special sly Jackson skills no doubt, but in the time that passed between leaving the lounge and getting to our seats on the plane I hadn’t managed to see or hear anything that gave me confirmation of our destination. Even the uniforms of the air hostesses were plain navy blue with a small blue and gold triangle on it I didn’t recognise. Nicholas had insisted I listen to his iPod as we approached the departure gate, probably so I didn’t hear any passenger announcements. He did the same again as soon as we were in the air and the seatbelt sign was switched off, my ears filling with the gorgeous caramel tones of James Morrison. Settling back in my seat I smiled, I loved his voice, it was rough yet also silky smooth, sexy as hell, and certainly better than listening to the pilot’s usual speech about flight time and conditions, so if it kept Nicholas content I’d happily go along with it.