Page 17 of Santa's Pucking Hat Trick

I could feel Michael beaming under the photographer’s praise even before I saw it. Goody-two-shoes Henning always loved to be the teacher’s pet.

“Can we pull in Young for this next shot?”

I watched Young trudge onto the set, grinning to myself as I shoved some low-cost canapes into my mouth. As I chewed and swallowed and housed some more snacks, I finally saw a dark-haired woman approach from my peripheral vision, and I didn’t turn to look at Rachel, hoping for maximum pissed-offness. She couldn’t stand it when I ignored her authority.

“Roman, you were supposed to be here almost an hour ago,” she started coolly, though I could sense her temper flaring at theedges of her voice. Maybe there was a slight tremble. The fraying of her control.

I’d love to make her lose it. Ideally, though, she’d be riding my cock when that really happened.

“Sorry, boss,” I told her with a wry smile, finally turning to look her in the eye. She was about my height in her heels, and I imagined that would make us fit together pretty nicely in bed. “Woke up in some woman’s apartment, and the commute was little further than normal. But I gotta say, she and her yoga instructor roommate were more than worth it. So…bendy.”

It was a completely fabricated story, but that only made it more thrilling to tell it to her. In reality, I’d been alone last night—the last couple of nights, really. It might have been some kind of record for me, and maybe I should have been concerned about this break in pattern, but I figured I was just distracted by this new game with Rachel Henning. If I’d also jacked off in the shower this morning to thoughts of her, that was unrelated. She was just hot. Seemingly unattainable. Off-limits.

And right now, in the face of my made-up sexcapade, she wasblushing.

The usual response I’d have to something so pretty would be a sexual one. A desire to see her blush like that when I touched her. Astirring in my loins,so to speak. And sure, that was happening a little bit—I was just a man.

But the overwhelming feeling was an almost giddy thing. Like…I thought she wasadorable.I wasn’t sure I’d ever thought of a grown woman as adorable before.

She was still cute to me when she bit out, “I don’t care about your—your extracurricular activities. I care about this photoshoot. Be dressed in five minutes.”

She stormed off, the clack of her heels on the floor only heightening my desire to…hell, I didn’t know at this point. Fuckher? Kiss her? Just hold her until her anger deflated like an old party balloon andthenkiss and fuck her?

At the moment, though, the priority was to rile her up even more. And as I shamelessly watched her ass as she walked away from me, the extra sway in her hips that I convinced myself was just for me to appreciate, I got an idea.

Time to amp up this little game to the max. I grinned wickedly as I headed to get dressed—following her orders, but not exactly how she intended.

11

RACHEL

If I was really trying to avoid thinking about how hot Sawyer, Wes, and Roman were, setting up a whole photo shoot for the team was not the greatest idea. On the marketing front, it was perfect, of course. A really solid idea that I was sure would boost the team’s reputation and visibility. But God, at what cost?

I watched Sawyer and Wes with a truly absurd level of concentration as they posed with their teammates. Strong jaws, stronger arms, and the unique masculine grace they both shared as elite athletes…it was mesmerizing. After Wes and I had connected during his interview and Sawyer and I had literallykissed,it was also like torture.Here are the hot guys you can’t have, posing for your viewing pleasure! Look, but don’t touch. Again.

And it only got worse when Roman finally emerged in his Santa garb.

And he wasmissing a shirt.

I almost moaned aloud at the sight. Roman was, somewhat predictably, covered in tattoos: a cluster of roses on his ribs, a tiger clawing its way up his chest, some more art I couldn’t recognize because I was too mesmerized by all of his warm, sun-browned skin showing in between the ink. Rippling abs flexed as he walked, bracketed by the suspenders in a way that felt downright pornographic. A thin dusting of dark hair on his chest only enhanced the gorgeous picture even more, as did the cocky half grin he wore up top. And damn it, even the stupid Santa hat looked good on him, the red contrasting so perfectly with his green eyes that I wanted to cry out in frustration—sexual and otherwise.

As Roman came further into the room and the other guys started to notice him, titters of laughter and mocking wolf whistles rose up. Roman preened under the attention, but his eyes never strayed far from my face.

It made it even harder to regulate my reaction. But I was determined not to let him win. Not to let him see that as much as he pissed me off, I kind of still wanted to make out with him about it.

“Roman, you need to put on your shirt. This is a family-friendly shoot,” I told him as firmly as I could manage while my inner voice was saying,No! Don’t put on a shirt! In fact, take off more clothes!

He looked at me like he knew what I was thinking. “Family friendly’s not really in my wheelhouse, sweetheart.”

“A more PG-13 photoshoot could be interesting,” the photographer butted in from behind me. I whirled around on Leonard, who was semi-openly eyeing Roman’s body in a way that made me self-conscious about how I must have been staring too. “Up to you, of course, Ms. Henning. But peopledolove a Sexy Santa. And we’ve got all of these svelte young men here itching for theirGQmoments—why not work with what we’ve got?”

I let out a laugh. Leonard was right, and as the other members of the team laughed at the prospect of getting a little more scantily clad themselves too, a thought dawned on meabout how this could still help with Operation: Rehab Roman. He was already pretty far tarnished in the eyes of a traditional small town like Mistletoe, arguably past the point of no return, so spicing up the rest of the team to make him less of a stand-out bad boy by comparison…it wasn’t a bad idea. Reverse engineering the problem of his reputation.

“As if any of the rest of these guys want to pose with their shirts off,” I let out flippantly, half knowing that the response would rebuke my efforts to stop this before the whole team was in an uproar. The situation had truly gotten out of hand when the other guys started to strip.

This turn of events was definitelynota good one for my overstimulated libido.

“Fine,” I sighed, sounding like I was agreeing to sacrifice myself to a horror movie monster on behalf of my band of friends. “Alright, fine. You guys can have your spicy photoshoot. But we’re keeping it strictly PG-13, alright? And any of you who haven’t gotten kid-friendly photos yet should keep your shirts on for now—we’ll get some of those too, so I have more shots to choose from for the social media campaign.”

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