The Kringle Girls - Collection (16 page)

And kind of hot.

But what guy would want an eccentric introvert who
didn’t quite look human? Merry had no desire to try and make things work in the
outside world, and was content with her life. Okay, so maybe she was a
little
lonely – elves really only had a
few topics of conversation. Toys, Santa, Christmas. Sugar. Even so, Merry was
never going to be the kind of woman that a sexy, confident man like Ben Wilks
would ever look at twice. If Merry were going to wind up with anybody, it would
have to be with a meek, nonthreatening,
average
sort of fellow who understood that Merry wasn’t looking to be overwhelmed
or swept off her feet. Surely Mrs. Claus knew that, and wouldn’t do anything to
push the poor guy into a disastrous attempt at a connection with her youngest
daughter.

Would she?

Merry nervously nibbled her lower lip, sneaking
another look at Ben, and
froze
to
find him looking right back at her. She couldn’t even muster a smile, but
nodded. He quirked an eyebrow and solemnly nodded in return.

He must think
I’m a total freak. God, I really should have paid attention when Noelle tried
to teach me how to flirt.

At that moment, Mrs. Claus stepped up to Ben, breaking
his eye contact with Merry, who heaved an internal sigh of relief. She didn’t
have to ask to know that Ben wasn’t the kind of guy who would settle for a
timid, shy partner in life. And he certainly wouldn’t want a woman who wasn’t
comfortable trying new things. Merry didn’t consider herself a control freak,
but she liked to know where she stood. She couldn’t read Ben, and it drove her
crazy, not being able to predict what he would do or say next, thought he was
always polite and quick to follow orders when a piece of equipment broke or the
elves were in danger of running through their licorice supply. Most of the time
she barely had to make the request when he’d be halfway finished.

Would he always do everything she asked?

About to turn back toward her little house to get
ready for the night’s festivities, Merry stopped in her tracks, arrested by the
idea of having a newly tame Ben Wilks prepared to do anything to please her. In
this fantasy, they were alone in her bedroom, and he watched her with hot blue
eyes as he slowly peeled his shirt from what she had decided must be a highly
impressive set of abs, though she’d never seen them.

“Take off your
pants,”
she would whisper, and imagined the heat in his eyes as he held her
gaze and then slowly,
oh so slowly
, pulled
his belt free from the buckle, undid the top button, and pulled the zipper
down.

She was dizzy just thinking about it. Merry had always
been too timid of humans to have any real sexual experience, but she had one
hell of an imagination and a set of toys that would make even Noelle proud. Hooray
for the Internet.

I could use one
right now
, she thought, pressing her thighs together to relieve her aching
pussy. The Ben fantasies were getting a little out of hand.

“Miss Kringle?” The warm, rough baritone pulled Merry
out of her reverie, and she blushed to see Ben crossing the square toward her
as her mother headed back to Kringle Castle, a swarm of elves in her wake. Merry
couldn’t move, and watched him approach with a growing sense of frustration. Even
the way he walked was graceful and full of confident purpose, she noted somewhat
resentfully.

She tensed as he stepped closer and he narrowed his
eyes, but gave her an easy smile.

“What’s wrong? Did you need help getting the stable
secured in time for the storm? Because we really need to make sure that the
windows – ”

“No, we’re all set. It’s fine. I just had a question about
the party.”

“Oh. Of course. Well, it’s a little chaotic, but since
this is your first year, I’m sure the elves won’t make you participate in their
version of reindeer games. The music isn’t bad and most of them are pretty good
dancers, and – ”

Oh my God, stop
babbling.

Merry abruptly shut her mouth, feeling the heat rising
up in her cheeks again. Ben only grinned and shocked her by placing a warm hand
on her arm. She felt the tingle all the way to her fingers and toes, whispering
across her nipples and down to her swelling clit.

“I just wanted to know if I could reserve a dance.
With you.”

Merry opened her mouth again, but for a moment,
nothing came out. She tried again.

“I don’t dance. I mean, thank you, but no.”

Ben looked…hurt? That couldn’t be. Unless the
isolation from the outside world had finally made him snap so that even
she
looked like a viable romantic
option. But he could leave anytime he wanted, visit friends and women all over
the world with a simple step through the portal, so that didn’t make sense
either.

Seriously, just
because you’re not the right woman for him doesn’t mean you have to be a
doormat, Merry. Snap out of it!

Merry swallowed and mustered some basic courage.

“That’s very sweet of you, Ben, but I’m a terrible
dancer. All those eyes looking at me…”

“How do you know they’re looking at you?”

“Because ninety-five percent of the community is under
three feet tall. I kind of stand out no matter what I do.”

He chuckled, and she blushed again, and the
embarrassment was just painful, despite her attempt to assert herself.

“Excuse me.”

“Merry, wait – ”

But she was halfway down the path toward her little
house, grateful to put some distance between her and the too handsome, too sure
of himself,
too
fascinating and sexy
and totally not right for her Ben Wilks.

MERRY KRINGLE WAS GOING to drive him stark, raving,
mad. Ben was sure of it. He’d never believed in love at first sight, but then
again, he hadn’t believed in Santa Claus either. Both fundamental beliefs were
shaken the minute he’d agreed to take the job as an all-purpose handyman for an
eccentric, remote northern community. He’d stepped through the odd doorway in
the woods…and his life had changed forever. Not only was the job everything
he’d hoped for – physical and challenging and away from any sort of boring
office politics or drama, but Merry Kringle was the woman he didn’t realize
he’d been looking for his entire life.

Not that he hadn’t resisted, of course.

She was the
daughter
of Santa Claus. A princess. An unearthly fairy maiden who spent her life
helping bring joy to millions of children. Funny, smart, and generous, from
what he could tell from her interaction with the elves. Out of his league. Permanently.

It didn’t help that she made him hard as a fucking
rock with her pouty lips and eyes that literally changed color with the
intensity of her feelings, along with a sweetly curved body Ben wanted to lick
from her toes to those hot little pointed ears. Just the thought of her long
legs encased in soft leggings that clung to every toned muscle, and the
slightest glimpse of cleavage when she bent over to talk to one of the elves on
the production line was enough to get him throbbing – under those modest
clothes, she had perfect, rounded tits that Ben was sure would taste like the
warm sugar he always caught a whiff of when he stepped close.

He’d been jacking off to the thought of all that warm
sugar for months now.

The first time, he was sure some sort of magical
Christmas wrath was going to rain down on him and weeks later they’d find his
body buried to the eyeballs in gumdrops and defective leftover toy parts,
stabbed through the heart with a candy cane. At the very least Ben expected to
see his name charred into the Naughty List, glowing and permanent as a brand on
his skin. Nothing. North Pole Village bustled along, the residents completely
unaware that their silver and pink-haired princess was turning the local
handyman into a lust-crazed shell of a man.

Once Ben had realized that Merry was going to keep
starring in his increasingly naughty nightly fantasies without his permission,
he was grateful for the fact that she was skittish as a wild fawn – one of them
had to have some common sense, and if she showed even the slightest bit of
interest, he was going to have her stripped and spread and coming around his
cock before she could say
jingle bells
,
and her eyes would shift from blue to deepest swirling violet as she screamed
out her pleasure.
Screamed out his name.

Yes, Ben was grateful. Or so he reminded himself. At
first.

The gratitude didn’t last. As the weeks passed, Ben
could feel his infatuation changing. He still wanted to stroke and suck and
debauch every inch of her hot little body, but the more moments he stole of her
company, the more he got to know her, the more he realized that no other woman
was going to measure up. He was falling for her, hard.

And she still ran every chance that she got.

It pissed him off.

Son of a bitch.

And now it was Christmas Eve, the one night he could
actually coax her into seeing him in a different light. He thought he’d done a
terrible job of hiding what he felt, and often caught Mrs. Claus watching him
with those shrewd, twinkling eyes. Ben loved his job and his new life at the
North Pole too much to jeopardize it, and reasoned that if he courted Merry
gently, courteously, respectfully, maybe she’d start to warm up to him. And
maybe Santa and the elves wouldn’t arrange to have him trampled by reindeer in
a dark alley somewhere.

Merry disappeared around the bend into the woods just
outside the village, and Ben felt lust and frustration swirl around him,
battling for control. He needed to take the edge off.

And he knew just the place for it.

WITH A TOWEL SLUNG over her shoulder, Merry traipsed
through the woods, whistling under her breath as the snow came down. There was
a serious storm on the way, but they were ready, and for the moment it was
pleasant and beautiful, with fat flakes sticking to her eyelashes and getting
caught in her hair. The elves were off setting up the party in Kringle Castle’s
Great Hall, and Merry knew that the best thing she could do was to stay out of
their way. From her mother’s elf side of the family, she’d inherited their
lighting fast reflexes when she wanted them, but the elves had been setting up
the Christmas party for hundreds of years, and Merry really didn’t like to mess
with tradition.

When her sisters had lived up here, they’d all sneak
off to the hot springs to go skinny dipping after Santa took off, and Merry had
continued the ritual alone. Even if she hadn’t been looking forward to a long
soak after a hard day’s work, it would be tough to pass up a chance to splash
around in the steamy winter wonderland and let the little waterfall work its
magic on all the tension that had built up in her shoulders over the months
since Ben’s arrival.

She was just working her way down the last hill toward
the rocky pools when an unfamiliar sound had her freezing in her tracks – a
rough, tortured,
male
groan.

Inching forward so that the springs came into view, Merry
took in a sharp, cold breath, and held it. The night was dark, but a sturdy
lantern was propped up on a ledge, illuminating the series of little pools and
the gentle waterfall that spilled deliciously hot water from tier to tier. There
was some magic here – Merry had always been able to feel it in the water, and
the air was thick with it as steam rose in puffy clouds. But it wasn’t the
springs that had Merry’s lips parting in shock.

Ben stood under the waterfall, wet and glistening and
naked as the day he was born. Water churned gently around his strong thighs and
the waterfall coursed over the rest of him, but every precise detail of that
sculpted body was bare to Merry’s gaze, glimmering in the lamplight. His hands
were braced on the rock wall, letting the water pelt muscular back and
shoulders. The tight muscles of his ass shifted as he adjusted his stance
slightly, and Merry’s mouth went dry. Forgetting all thoughts of a dip, Merry
crouched down behind a massive fir tree and peered out around the trunk.

I should go,
she
thought.

Ben turned around.

Later,
Merry
assured herself.

Right now, she was getting a naughty lesson in male
anatomy that no amount of imagination could match. Ben Wilks was stunning. Broad
shoulders, tight abs, and a light swirl of black chest hair that trailed down
his body to match the neat thatch between his thighs.

Merry licked her lips as Ben raised his arms over his
head to stretch, wet lashes closing over his gorgeous eyes in pleasure as the
water washed over him.

Stunning,
she repeated to herself.

Her heart was pounding as she finally let her gaze
drop to inspect his cock, and the rush of heat to her pussy was surprisingly
intense. He was shockingly erect, impressively thick and long. Even from here
Merry could see the tender pink of his fat crown and the ridges of veins that
trailed down to the heavy sac beneath.

So
much
better than her fantasies or the occasional skin flick she watched on nights
when her curiosity got the better of her. She wanted to touch him.

Hell, I want to
lick him. All over.

She clutched the tree trunk, completely turned on as
she watched him push wet black hair out of his eyes. And then her own eyes
widened, and she didn’t need a mirror to know they swirled dark blue and purple
with excitement as his hand drifted down that ridged torso to clasp his cock in
a firm grip, his intent clear.

Merry squeaked. Loudly.

Ben paused at the sound, looking out into the dark,
and Merry didn’t breathe, huddled against the trunk. After a moment, he ducked
his head under the waterfall, shuddering with pleasure as his hand started
moving on the thick shaft, slowly at first, and then jerking the luscious flesh
with hard strokes that Merry could feel echoed in her throbbing clit.