Page 18 of Naughty-ish

Whatever farm he knows sounds even better than the place I found.

“A reindeer?” Eloise questions. “A real one?”

“A real one,” Nick echoes, giving her his signature wink.

“Can we go with him, Mom?” Nash whines.

“Yeah, Mom.” Nick purses those lush lips that connected with mine days ago. “Can we go with Nick?”

Sweet Jesus, he’s too cute with the rugged scruff and the bad boy vibe plus his red knit cap. He’s only wearing a flannel shirt and a puffy black vest despite the cool temperature.

“Okay, fine.” I hesitate but Eloise is quick to unbuckle herself and Nash is doing the same, pressing open his door on the other side of the SUV. “But I at least get to try to chop it down.”

“You can do all the work.” Nick’s voice fills with a grin before biting the corner of his lip. My lower belly flips when he looks at me. My gaze catches on his mouth, but I quickly look away.

I will not think of him kissing me.

There will be no snow-plow innuendo. Or chopping wood comments, either.

I will keep all my smutty Santa thoughts to myself.

+ + +

Something about a man cutting down a tree is ruggedly sexy. After my measly attempt at sawing the base of the evergreen, Nick put his thick muscles to use, until the kids could cry out “Timber.” Then Nick hitched the fragrant pine over his shoulder and carried it to his truck.

The other incredibly sexy thing about Nick is how he interacts with my children. He let Nash handle the mechanisms in his truck to lift and lower the snowplow during our half-hour detour. Then he humored Eloise near the reindeer pen, taking pictures of her with the large, antlered beast in the background. He even convinced her the animal pulling Santa’s sleigh gave her a wink. He promised her she was on the nice list.

“So, you never had a real tree before?” Nick asks as the kids race around wooden cutouts of faceless elves and Santa and Mrs. Claus.

“Mitch didn’t like the mess.” I squint as Nash sticks his head through the Mrs. Claus frame and Eloise puts her face above the Santa suit.

“At the breakfast, he looked like a prick.”

I huff, slowly walking with my hands in my jacket pockets. “He used his prick to fuck someone else while we were married.”

Nick stops short. His jaw tenses while his eyes narrow, hard and dark. “Motherfucker.”

With a scoff, I say, “That sums it up.”

Nick glances over at Nash and Eloise, who laugh as they switch places behind the wooden Christmas couple. Nick’s eyes squint again, focused, concerned. “How is he with your kids?”

I shrug. “He’s good enough. He attends their school activities and pushes them towards sports.” The truth is, though, he’s present but not overly involved. “I don’t really want to bash Mitch. He made a mistake, according to him, but that mistake is now living in my old house.”

Nick watches me. His expression tightens before he tensely jokes, “With a fake Christmas tree.”

Softly, I smile. “Yep. And probably cheap plastic ornaments.”

Our family collection of ornaments is in a box labeled Christmas, stored in the leaning garage behind my new home. I’ll need to dig out the special ones, representing the kids over the years, but any other ornaments will need to go. If I am buying a real tree, I am buying new decorations for it. “I planned to look at ornaments in the gift shop here.”

The corner of Nick’s mouth hitches up. “Sounds like a good plan.” He glances at Nash who calls his name from the Santa cutout. Giving Nash a chin tip, Nick addresses me, “What will you do for Christmas this year?”

“On Christmas Eve, I’ll go to church with my parents and have dinner with them. Nash and Eloise are with me this year. Mitch is supposed to come over to watch the kids open their presents on Christmas morning. He’ll take them in the afternoon to his place.”

I’m already anticipating a lonely day, but I don’t want to think about that today.

“You haven’t found the you know what, yet, have you?” Nick lowers his voice, conspiring with me in the Santa charade.

“No luck.” I shake my head, anxious because I’m running out of time. Squinting in the sunlight gleaming off the snow, I add. “Sometimes I wish presents weren’t part of the holidays.”