On Sale for Christmas (4 page)

I think that's what did it for him. Because I was still in the throes of my own orgasm when I heard his sexy groan, and the growls of pleasure that followed. I couldn't quite see from my window, but I imagined the spurts as they flowed onto his hand, and it made my climax even better.

"Mmmm," I said, squeezing my eyes shut to re-play his sounds in my head. Wow, okay, this might be the most random hook-up I'd ever experienced, but he really
was
a sexy beast.

"Think that'll tide you over for a bit?" Ben asked.

I smirked. "That and some coffee. I could use some right now."

"It's eleven o'clock at night…"

"Too late for you, Gramps?"

"Tomorrow I'm taking you down to the Sweet Shack for white hot cocoa."

I groaned. "Not the Sweet Shack!"

"Why not? It's got the best white hot cocoa in the county."

"It's got the
only
white hot cocoa in the county," I protested. It was a kitschy, country hangout with a Santa at Christmas time and a model train that chugged around the diner tables. Not only was it eye-roll inducingly tacky, but I used to wait tables there when I was in high school. "It brings back bad memories of my being fired for swapping out the salt and sugar when I was bored."

He laughed. "So
that's
why you got fired. I always wondered…"

I bit my lip. In the city, I never had to go public with a guy if I didn't want to. In this town, there were no secrets. I could already imagine our clucking mothers taking photos of us like we were going to prom. "Fine. I'll go with you. But I'm meeting you there in my own car. I don't want people to see us together and assume…you know…"

"Assume what? That I'm going to turn you into a call girl and make you come like a freight train?"

"Ben!" I sputtered.

Alas, I had no snappy comeback for that.

"So, for this call-girl game, do you have any preference on venue, customer, or price? Or do you want me to surprise you?"

I was pretty sure that one of us would break eventually. It just wasn't going to be me. So I said two fateful words: "Surprise me."

The bell on the Sweet Shack's door jingled as I opened it, and the owner looked up from the countertop with a huge smile, as if he actually remembered me fondly in spite of the salt and sugar incident. Or the ceramic cups and saucers I accidentally smashed before he finally gave me the boot. "Why Becca Vincent, as I live and breathe…"

"Hi, Gus," I said, a bit sheepishly.

"Haven't seen you around these parts for a while. Are you finally home to stay?"

Pulling my white woolen hat from my head, I tried to smooth my hair back into its trendy straight style. "Just came back to see my mom for the holidays."

"How much longer until graduation?" Gus asked, wiping down the counter. "Your mom must be eager to have you back."

Did anyone actually believe I was coming back to Geece Grove after college? This town wasn't going to be my final resting place, but I just said, "I've still got another year before graduation."

"Did you hear? Ben White is back in one piece. Thank God."

I smiled tightly, remembering that Gus was a veteran, and feeling shitty that I hadn't really worried about Ben. He'd always led such a charmed life, I guess I never considered that he might've come home from some dangerous foreign place in a body bag. And that horrified me more than a little. "Actually, Ben's meeting me here this morning for some of your famous white hot cocoa."

Gus stopped wiping, flinging the towel over his shoulder to flash me an even wider grin. "You and Ben? Well, isn't that just the sweetest thing I've heard all Christmas! It's about time. I always hoped you two would get together—"

"Oh, we're not together," I interrupted, swiftly. "Just having a hot beverage."

Gus just shook his head as if he didn't believe me. "That boy has been sweet on you for as long as I can remember. The way he used to stop in here two, three times a day when you worked behind the counter. The big tips he used to leave for you…one of these days you ought to give him a chance."

Seriously? It'd been bad enough when our moms were pushing us together. Now even Gus was trying to play matchmaker. And part of me wondered if Ben had arranged for that, too. The thought made me antsy. Especially when the bell jingled again and in walked a tall, dark, and buff santa named Ben, carrying a big silver box tied with an ostentatious red velvet bow.

"Merry Christmas, Specialist," Gus said with a little salute.

"Back atcha, Gus," Ben replied, then leaned forward to plant an audible smooch to my cheek. "Morning, Becca."

Ug
. A smooch. I'd been
smooched
in public by a guy wearing a black ski vest over red and white flannel. And I might've objected if it weren't for the fact that Ben smelled so great, and just the feel of his lips on my skin made me shiver.

With one hand on the small of my back he guided me to a chair and called out our order. "Two white hot chocolates, Gus."

Gus reached for the whipping cream and white chocolate chips. "Coming right up!"

"Hungry, Becca?" Ben asked, mischief lighting in his eyes. "We can get breakfast. I dunno. Some fruit. Berries maybe."

Oh, I was hungry. But not for food. "White hot cocoa and
fruit
?"

"Fruit's good for you," he asserted confidently. "Totally cancels out all the sugar and crap in the cocoa."

"I heard that!" Gus groused from across the diner, just before the silence of the place was replaced by the laughter of a bunch of new customers flowing into the space.

"For you," Ben said, sliding the box across the table to me.

Crap
. A Christmas present. And I didn't get him anything. Because, why would I? Gifts were something sweethearts exchanged. They came with expectations. They meant something. He clearly wanted this to mean something and things started falling together in my mind. The waiting to have sex. The date for cocoa where people could see us being all cozy. The nostalgic pitch from Gus. And now the present.

I hadn't wanted to listen, but Ben had told me again and again that he'd been crushing on me for years. Now that we were fooling around together he must have thought we had a shot. He wanted a relationship. Which made me a horrible person for leading him on. "Okay, listen," I said, taking a deep breath. "We're not doing this. I mean, you're a really nice guy, but—"

"Becca—"

"You're sweet," I said, sliding the pretty silver box back across the table at him. "And you're sexy. Really sexy. Like,
panty-melting
sexy. But this is just a hookup, ok?"

Ben frowned, sliding the box back to me. "Becca—"

"This isn't a
thing
. It's a fling," I said, in a panic, recoiling from the box. "After winter break, I'm going back to the city. I don't want a long distance relationship. This is fun, but this can't be more than fun. I'm not into the whole small-town romance thing. So we're not exchanging meaningful gifts. You can't give me something romantic and expect—"

"Becca, just open the fucking box."

He looked so grumpy, I was afraid he might cause a scene if I didn't open his present.

"Fine." I yanked open the velvet ribbon without care, shredding the silver paper, and snapping the tissue paper aside.
Uh oh.
What I saw inside was definitely not romantic. Leather mini dress. Black thigh highs. Platform lucite shoes. I squinted, then slapped the lid shut. Yeah, so not the kind of gift I wanted anybody else seeing!

These were clothes that a call girl might wear—clothes he picked out for me. Clothes he might want me to model for him, and that thought kicked up my pulse all over again. I stared at the box, then sheepishly back up at Ben. "Um…for our reindeer game?"

Ben still had his arms folded over himself in annoyance. "Right."

Oops
. I bit my lip, making an apologetic face before glancing back at the slutty clothes in the box. "Where did you even get these?"

"Internet. Express shipping. Pretty sure the dress will be a decent fit but the shoes were a shot in the dark."

"You wanted to meet here so that our moms wouldn't be looking over our shoulders when you gave this to me?"

"Right again," he said, stiffly.

He was still annoyed.

There was nothing for it but to apologize.

But before I could, Gus slid two steaming mugs of frothy cream onto the table, each ornamented with a candy-cane stir stick. Ben started to take out his wallet, but Gus stopped him. "You're money's no good here, Ben."

"What about mine?" I asked, though I wasn't exactly flush with cash.

Gus only gave me a feral grin, then walked away.

When we were alone again, with the awkward steam of our two frothy mugs, I said, "I'm sorry, Ben. About before. My panic-induced rant was pretty bitchy and presumptuous."

"It's fine," he said, sipping from a cup that left a little foam on his lip that I wanted to lick clean. "Message received. You're drawing boundaries. But I'd really love to know what you've got against small-town romances."

I gave a playful smirk. "I don't like anything
small
."

His lip quirked up at the corner in half-amusement. "Size queen?"

"Sort of," I mused, remembering that what I'd felt of him had been thick and enticing beneath his pants. What I'd
seen
him stroke looked like more than enough to satisfy. But then I turned serious. "If I'm gonna make it in acting, I have to have big expectations, big ideas, and big dreams. Small towns don't really fit into that equation."

"Okay," he said, thoughtfully. "But why panic?"

"My mom married young, divorced and ended up stranded in this town. That's not gonna be me."

"Slow down, Slick. You just jumped from romance to marriage and divorce…"

For some reason, this made me blush. As if
I
was the one who had conventional ideas about relationships. "That's not what I mean! I just mean that Geece Grove can be suffocating—"

"Also quaint, filled with great memories and people who care about you," he interrupted. "You don't have to
live
here to appreciate its quirky charm, because there's no prison bars at the city limits that keep anybody here. I've been halfway around the world on Uncle Sam's dime, and I plan to see a lot more of the world before I die. I'm gonna travel and experience whatever life has to offer. Maybe I'll settle down here; maybe I won't. But I don't have to hate the place I came from to become the guy I wanna be."

It was such an unexpected, and well-deserved rebuke, that it left me speechless in its aftermath. Biting my lip, I just stirred my candy-cane in my white chocolate and wondered if maybe it was time for a serious attitude adjustment.

I tended to see things in black and white. Things were all good or bad. People were naughty or nice. Ben was telling me that the world was a lot more nuanced than that.

"Point," I said, a little sullen at the realization that I wasn't nearly as sophisticated as I wanted to be. That maybe I'd been kind of an insufferable jerk. "So, Ben, how is it that you're single, again? Because in addition to being sweet, and sexy, you might also be kind of
wise
."

That made him grin. "Yeah, I could write fortune cookies."

I wrapped my cold fingers around my mug, luxuriating in the warmth of it. One sip and I groaned. "Oh
God
, I forgot how good that is…"

Ben groaned, too. But it wasn't a good groan, and it wasn't directed at me or the cocoa. His eyes had settled upon one of the newest customers in the Sweet Shack—a woman curly blond hair wearing a pink tweed coat and matching hat. Ben gave her a tight smile and a little wave. She waved back, with just as tight a smile, and that's when I recognized her.

Maureen Campbell.

One of Ben's bouncy blond cheerleaders. Except she hadn't been very cheerful. Kind of bitchy, actually. I hadn't liked her in high school and wasn't about to pretend now. Especially since Ben looked like he wanted to crawl out of his ski jacket. So I didn't wave to Maureen. I just asked, "Your ex?"

"Yup."

"Things ended badly?"

Ben's eyes dropped to his cup. "You could say that."

He was being so unusually evasive that I raised a brow. "Not gonna tell me?"

He just grimaced.

"Oh, c'mon, Soldier. How badly could it have ended?"

He stared at his hands on the mug. "Wanna get out of here?"

That bad, huh?

But I wasn't about to let him off the hook. "It was your idea to come here! Now you want to leave before my whipped cream has even melted into my cup?"

Ben looked chagrined. "We could get a cup to go."

Petulantly, I took a greedy gulp of my white hot chocolate, savoring the peppermint. "To go
where
exactly?"

Ben gave one wary glance at his ex, then suggested, "We could help my mom make popcorn garland for the tree. Or we could make snow angels in the park. Or we could make a—"

"I don't wanna make anything with you, Ben," I said, taking another big swallow of my creamy cocoa. "I just wanna make
out
with you."

He grabbed my hand. "That can be arranged."

Regretful as I was to surrender my drink, I flung my scarf over one shoulder, grabbed up my box of slutty clothes, and let him drag me out into the bright winter day. But before we left the Sweet Shack, I stopped in the doorway, leaned up on my tip toes, and kissed him full in the mouth.

A real kiss. A lingering, full-bodied, kiss with tongue. The kind of kiss that played to an audience and got them clapping. And I was half-certain I heard Gus applaud. Ben was a little dazed in its aftermath, and it was only after we were outside in the parking lot, that Ben threw open the door of his truck for me, and asked, "Not that I'm complaining, but what was that for?"

"Maureen was watching. I wanted to irritate her in revenge for whatever horrible thing she did to you."

Ben sagged against the snowy side of his truck. "How do you know she did something horrible to me and not the other way around?"

"I just do," I said slipping into the passenger seat.