The Naughty List (5 page)

He reached down and pulled Anya off the floor and into his arms.

“What are you doing?” she demanded as she wiggled on his lap.

“Playing Santa. Tell me what you want for Christmas.”

“It’s Christmas morning,” she reminded him. “Shouldn’t we have had this talk weeks ago?”

“Just tell me. We’ll see what Christmas miracles I have in my pocket.”

Anya sighed as she rested against him. Nothing felt better than Anya’s head on his shoulder.

She raised her hand and touched his face, his lips.

“I have you. There’s nothing more I want or need.”

Daniel’s chest tightened. He knew he should be on his knee for this but it felt so much more natural to have Anya on his.

“Not even this?” He held up the Tiffany box and laid it in the center of her palm. Her eyes went wide as the sky when she opened the box.

“But…” she started to protest and Daniel stopped her mouth with a kiss.

“But nothing. Marry me, Anya. That’s an order.”

He took the ring from the box and slipped it on her finger. Tears flooded her face as she threw her arms around him.

“Yes, Sir,” she breathed in his ear.

“Good girl.” Those two words were all he could push past his throat. He’d never been so relieved in his life.

For a few minutes they merely held each other and cried and laughed and kissed. But finally Daniel came to himself enough to start teasing her again. He couldn’t go five minutes without teasing her.

“Now that ring cost a fortune. So I expect something equally valuable right now in return as my Christmas gift. Pay up.”

Anya blushed from ear to ear.

“I have a present for you. I do.”

“Good. Go get it. I want it. If it’s not at least twelve pairs of new socks, you will be roundly punished until next Christmas.”

“I can’t go get it,” she said, nervously turning the new ring on her finger. “It’ll be late.”

“Shipping problems are unacceptable. No excuses. How late are we talking?”

Anya took his hand and kissed it before she slowly settled it flat onto her stomach.

“According to my obstetrician, about seven and a half months.”

* * *

Tiffany Reisz
is the multi award-winning and international bestselling author of THE ORIGINAL SINNERS series from Harlequin Mira. Find her online at tiffanyreisz.com. She wishes you all a happy (and sexy) December no matter what holiday you celebrate.

Christmassy

Alexa Piper

Cora let Valerian kiss her. His weight pressed down on her further, made her breaths shorter.
Even if he’s usually an asshole, he
does
know how to kiss,
she thought as she felt his smooth, warm lips connecting to her own, felt them probe and explore, felt his tongue meet hers.

Cora put her hands on his head, crushing his perfect, honey pale hair as she pulled him toward her so she could kiss him deeper. She wanted to feel him on her, crushing her with his weight and his warmth and the weird tingling that shot through her witch senses whenever he was
this
close, skin on skin.

But he pulled back. “Now there, Cora, do the holidays always have this effect on your libido? I do approve. I will hang mistletoe next chance I get, deck the hall with all that shit they have in set-dressed cheesy TV shows. If holly makes you horny, I shall oblige.”

Cora sighed, but before she could actually retort, Valerian had his mouth on hers again. He was hard and ready against her stomach. It was in Valerian’s nature to be greedy, and he was notoriously ready to consume whenever an opportunity arose. He slid his right hand from her hip to her thigh, almost chastely pressed against its twin and kept in that position by both his knees. Valerian caught Cora’s lower lip between his teeth, and when his hand changed course and slid between her legs and up to her pussy, he increased the pressure on her lip, started sucking as his fingers parted and pushed into her.

Cora moaned, and Valerian pulled his hand back. “Don’t stop,” she pleaded. Her hard nipples pressed against his chest, touched and brushed over the eyes that looked like tattoos to the untrained eye, except, of course, they were not tattoos. Valerian was not mundane, not
human
enough for tattoos.

“Have I ever?” said Valerian. He shifted to let Cora open her legs for him, and just like that she was free to stroke his back with her feet, feel his buttocks with her calves. She was so ready for him, and just when she was about to pull him into her, Valerian lowered himself into her expectant softness, into her warm wetness, and filled her utterly.

Cora moaned again and began grinding herself into him, a movement he reciprocated willingly. She clutched at his skin, his hair, and curled her toes as she came closer to her high much faster than she thought she could. Their shared rhythm rode her like an incoming tide, and was all she could bear at the moment. And then his hand was there again, coaxing her erect clit just so, and she came, came hard and long, as she hadn’t in a long time.

After wave upon wave, her breath slowed, and she thought she was done, but Valerian’s able fingers stroked her honeyed bead again, up and down, and before she knew it, her breathing picked up once more and she was coming for a second time.

* * *

“Glass of water?” said the taotien. He was standing by the bed, and while Cora had her forearm draped over her eyes, she knew that he was staring at her exhausted body, atangle in his silk-soft, taupe-colored sheets.

“Valerian, you are an ass,” she said without moving her arm.

“What, for making sure you stay hydrated? For giving you multiple orgasms without having one myself? Please be more specific in your name-calling.”

“Pheh,” Cora said, reaching for the glass as she forced herself into an upright position. Which was hard. She really was—what was the word?—spent. She drank the glass down in four greedy gulps, then lowered it, held it steady in her lap with both hands.

Valerian gave her a curious look that Cora never noticed because she was staring down at the empty glass in her hands.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he said.

“Oh, just… My parents are expecting me to spend Christmas with them.”

“Aah. Family. An unfortunate inconvenience. Empress Wu Zetian had a most effective way of managing them.”

“Which was…?”

“She killed them all. A witchling like yourself should have no trouble with setting up the appropriate ritual and…”

“I am not killing my parents, you insensitive ass!” Cora shouted and threw the glass at Valerian, but he easily caught it midflight.

“Pah, I meant it as a… joke,” he said, very straight-faced, very convincing.

“You did not. Asshole.”

Valerian shrugged. “You know me too well, my lovely lusty witchling. I’ll come with you, then. How is that?”

Cora blinked. Her mouth was suddenly dry again. “Excuse me? You want to meet my parents?”

“Great,” Valerian said, his trademark seducer smile burning beacon bright. “It is settled, then. They’ll love me.”

That’s just what I’m afraid of, you self-absorbed jerk,
Cora thought. “No, you
won’t
come with me and tell them shit I don’t want them to know, and smile and flirt with my mother—or my father!—and…”

“Well, if you insist on thanking me, you could do so on your knees,” Valerian said, casting a meaningful glance down to his crotch. His cock was already throbbingly ready again.

“You’re unbelievable!” Cora said and got out of bed with a new-found energy fueled by annoyance. So typical! Valerian was
always
like that. She should have known better by now than to tell him anything about herself at all, but then… sometimes she just couldn’t help but feel the need to talk.

And it’s not like I don’t know it will always end the same,
she thought, hastily following the breadcrumbs of her discarded clothes back to the door of Valerian’s penthouse.

Meanwhile, Valerian smiled contentedly to himself. This was not the morsel he would have normally gone for, but he would be damned if he didn’t savor it, and to the last. “Mmhn, and I’ll have to give this place a Christmassy touch,” he said to the very much humbug-y walls surrounding him.

* * *

At noon on Christmas Eve, she was outside Valerian’s penthouse, staring at the huge holly wreath that was hiding the door. The wreath would have stared back and shrugged if it could have, but being made of holly, the best it could do was look glossy and… Christmassy.

Cora finally lifted her hand to knock, but just in that moment, Valerian opened the door and beamed at her. His smile was cut shorter than usual. “You just have
one
overnight bag?” He asked, staring at her luggage much as she had stared at the wreath.

“Yeah. I can pack light. Plus, I still got some stuff at my parents’ house.”

Valerian shook his head, tsk-ed. “You are a philistine. You did not even pack a dress, did you? I like you in dresses. Seeing you in them reminds me of our first time fucking.”

The problem was, now that he said it, Cora remembered it, too.

“We are visiting my parents,” Cora said, reminding them both. “I cannot possibly, you know, in my old room. It’s weird.”

“A philistine and a prude,” Valerian smiled. “Might that fantastic creature allow me to invite her inside?”

Cora knew he’d put up mistletoe in the hallway. And wreaths, ornaments, candy canes, and miniature figures to put any cheesy TV show’s set-dressing to shame. She did not move. Valerian held the door open for her.

“If you don’t come in, we’ll have to stop on the way and create some stress relief in the car,” he said, tiger grin never wavering. “Your choice.”

“You’re a jerk,” Cora said as she brushed past Valerian and dropped her coat and bag by a plastic reindeer. She made another breadcrumb trail of the rest of her clothes and Valerian followed her, more docile than usual.

She looked back over her shoulder as she dropped her bra to the floor and saw that he was unbuttoning his shirt.

“Leave it on,” she said. “I want you to leave your clothes on.”

“Mmm. Selective prudism. Acceptable.
Delectable
.”

“So long as it meets your taste,” Cora said as she turned a corner into Valerian’s huge living room, “I’ll just sit here.” She sat down on a comfy armchair. “I’ll spread my legs, like this. See how delectable you find that.”

“Oh, sweet Cora. In all honesty, we should have the holidays last all year if they make you act like this,” Valerian said as he went down on his knees. He looked deep into Cora’s eyes before his lips found her pussy, already soaking. His tongue teased her before it went deeper, went inside. His mouth felt divine, and Cora threw her head back, groaned, and clawed the armchair’s fabric with her fingers. She could feel his lips moving up and down, his tongue pushing in and out, and his breath, warm before it left her skin tantalizingly chilled. It felt like she was floating in an ocean of joy.

Valerian pulled his tongue back out of her and his teeth gently coaxed her swollen clit.

And then, he stopped.

“Aw!”

“I know,” he said, standing and opening his zipper to free his swollen cock, “but my pants felt so tight, and I was sure you could help me with that.”

Valerian grabbed Cora by the waist, and before she knew it, he was sitting on the armchair and she was straddling him as his cock pressed against her from underneath, his sheathed tip just touching her ass. She could not resist rubbing herself against him.

She already felt the dripping need inside her, and she wanted it to be filled.
Actually, I want him to fill it,
she thought, taking his shaft in her hand and guiding it inside her. She lowered herself as deep as she could. And then, her hips went up again, slowly. She tightened her muscles so as to feel him even better and once it was just his tip inside her, she moved down once more, sheathed all of him in her.

Valerian held her there so his mouth could find her nipple. He sucked on it, sucked so hard it hurt, in the best of ways. When his mouth left her soft flesh erect and ready as he took care of the other one, Cora resumed her rhythm.

Valerian put one hand on her behind, one skilled thumb on her clit and watched her with eyes that had an edge all their own.

Like a dancer, Cora moved closer and closer to her conclusion. She felt him ache and pulsate and release inside her before she was there, but even through his groans, Valerian kept his hands working, pushing pushing pushing her, and then she was there, cloud high, tip of the mountain, and it was over, she was riding the waves down and out with the sweat that was running toward her navel. She sank against Valerian for a moment, breathed him in, enjoyed feeling him inside her still. Then she got up.

“Now I’ll have to change,” he said as some come dropped on his pants. Valerian was a vain creature, always greedy for the looks of others.

“I’m sure you’ll manage to find another pair of pants to wear while I shower.”

“I just might,” he said as Cora walked to the bathroom to shower.
But I’ll keep the shirt on, it smells so deliciously of you, my witchling,
he thought.

* * *

They spent the first half hour of the drive in silence. The radio filling the interior of Valerian’s Mercedes with jingling bells, Santa who was coming to down, and a certain red-nosed reindeer.

It was snowing outside, and there wasn’t all that much traffic. The roads in front of them were powdered white, but Valerian didn’t seem to mind. He looked utterly at ease behind the wheel, the corners of his lips turned up as they so often were.

She stole another look at him.

“Cora, you can touch me anytime you want,” Valerian said. His eyes never left the road.

Stupid, just ignore him.
“Well, you know, I would but—”

“Stop there,” he said.

“What?”

“Stop. You’ll have to tell me later. See? Someone’s having car trouble.”

He was right. Through the flurries, Cora could see a figure waving at them from the side of the road. Their car was behind them, the blue of the metal frame already almost completely covered with fresh snow.