Page 29 of The Naughty Elf

She waves the flask at me. “A gift from one of the donors today for impressing them. It’s helping me stay warm and sprinkle some more magic around until I take these stockings off.”

My head falls back with a laugh.

Her eyes are bright with mischief. And I’m imagining peeling them off of her myself. I want to kiss her again. It’s not the first time I’ve had that thought today.

Pulling back, I gesture her back onto the sidewalk. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

“But things aren’t clean yet.” She gestures back to some of the leftover debris. It’s no more than a normal day’s worth of work at this point.

“Someone else can take care of it. You’ve been here all day, working nonstop.”

Ginger huffs like she’s going to fight me, but I’ve already got her walking toward my truck. “Hey. You don’t need to drive me home. I can call my dad…”

I roll my eyes. “Ginger, your place is on my way home. There’s no sense in having him come all the way back out. I’m driving you. Plus, you’re drunk. You can’t drive.”

When I catch a glimpse of her again, her lip is between her teeth.

“What?”

“I really like your no-nonsense dad tone.” That glimmer of spunk she shows me when we’re flirting surfaces.

“You do, do you?” I swing her around the back of my truck and open the passenger door for her. She turns to me, her touch finding the center of my chest and ambushing me with a heat that’s hard to temper.

Ginger doesn’t usually touch me. A brush here or there, but nothing deliberate.

Why does she have to be so tempting all of the damn time?

That quirk of a smile is tipping me past my barriers, but she retreats and slides onto the bench seat with grace.

I close the door behind her and circle the front of my truck to get in the driver’s seat. When I shut us in alone, she’s curled up on the seat, looking at me. I shake my head. “Buckle up.”

She pouts at me, then does as I ask. The drive to her father’s sprawling ranch property where her house is located, is only fifteen minutes at this time of night, and Ginger sings along with the radio for ten of those minutes.

When we turn onto the back road that will take us to the sixty-acre plot, she unbuckles and slides along the bench seat to press against my side. “Are you still cold? I’ve got an extra jacket in the back.”

A shake of her head has me tensing. So much of her is pressed into so much of me. Fuck, I want to touch her. Want her to touch me.

The heat of her palm finds my knee, making me clench my hands around the steering wheel to keep myself steady.

“Jackson.” The way she says my name sets my blood boiling.

“Ginger,” I reply when she lets the silence hang.

“I never get to touch you. I can so freely graze and stroke and squeeze everyone else. But not you.” Her hand slides up mythigh, and my cock rages to life in less than a second. “It’s not fair.”

Her mouth is next to my ear, and her breath fans the sensitive skin of my neck. It takes all of my effort not to close my eyes at the sensation. Her name falls from between my clenched molars, and she hums in response, squeezing my inner thigh so close to my hard-on that I twitch in my jeans.

Her ever-closer caresses without touching me directly make the last few minutes of our drive take forever and no time at all.

Turning onto her mile-long driveway springs her into action, cupping and stroking me with long movements. Ginger grazes her teeth against the shell of my ear, nipping the lobe before she nuzzles under the back of my jaw.

“Fuck, Ginger.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own.

We barely make it to her house, where I throw the truck in park and drop my head back. Still clutching the steering wheel, I try to recapture my good sense. I’m pretty sure that’s a lost cause because she strokes me again and kisses my throat.

“What about Gracie?” I ask her in between frantic kisses.

“Mom brought her home. She should be in bed,” she says hastily, sucking my lower lip into her mouth and biting down on it gently.

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