Ringing His Bells: A Steamy Standalone Holiday Romance by Flora Ferrari

Author:Flora Ferrari [Ferrari, Flora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-12-13T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Natalie

Nick is standing at the edge of the bed, completely naked except for his Santa’s beard and the hat, his smirk making the beard twitch as he stares down at me with hard ice-blue eyes. I try to laugh off the sight of him, but there’s nothing funny about the way his pectorals bulge, and the hard lines of his abs pop.

“Come on then,” I say sassily, leaning up on my elbow. “What are you waiting for?”

He chuckles warmly, and somehow his hot breath dances over my skin even from there. That’s when I realize this is a dream.

Don’t wake up, don’t wake up, I cry in my mind.

“Do you really think you could be that confident, little elf?” the dream-made Nick teases. “Do you think you could ever be that forward?”

I jolt awake with a quiet scream. I’ve learned to be quiet when I wake from nightmares, first because of the teasing in the orphanage and then because I can’t alert anybody to my presence here.

Dream Nick’s words bounce around my head.

Because he’s right.

When it comes time for him to claim me – which I sense is very soon, if the primal wild glint in his eyes is anything to go by – how the heck am I going to satisfy him?

He’s so much older, so much more experienced, and I’m… me.

I shake away the thoughts, reaching for my phone and glancing at the time.

What?

It’s almost eleven AM, an hour and a half after Kenny usually wakes me up.

Maybe if I was a normal big sister my heart wouldn’t start hammering in my chest right now, a slam-slam-slam that hurtles through my whole body and leaves me feeling like I could burst into tears. But my mind is filled with all the times in school when Kenny went AWOL, causing me to leave the school in a panic.

One time he got into a really nasty fight over some loose change on the sidewalk. Later I learned he started it because he was so angry about mom and dad, so filled with hate that they were gone, that they’d abandoned us.

That was how he put it. They abandoned us.

He’s had that edge ever since their deaths, and now I can’t stop thinking about all the countless ways he could have gotten himself into trouble.

I pull on my hoodie and my sneakers – I’m already wearing my sweatpants – and run down the hallway, head bowed just in case I run into any of the staff. I’ve never hidden down here this late in the morning before. I’m normally up before anybody arrives for work.

Santa’s Wonderland is jam-packed with families, the line snaking around from where Nick sits to the end of the red carpet and then spilling over it. My gaze scans the scene for any sign of Kenny, but the mall is too crowded.

Yet, I would recognize him. I know I would.

I take out my cell phone and call the orphanage, thinking maybe he overslept, even if he hasn’t been late for this job once since he started.

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