Christmas Comfort (Hot Holidays Series) Read online

  Christmas Comfort

  HOT HOLIDAYS SERIES - BOOK ONE

  BY RACHEL DUNNING

  Copyright © 2013 Rachel Dunning.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Smashwords Edition

  ISBN: 9781310720147

  Cover Design Copyright © 2013 Rachel Dunning.

  Cover Photo Copyright © 2013 CURAphotography.

  Obtained from Shutterstock and used with permission.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Rachel Dunning:

  Perfectly Flawed Series

  Standalone Novel

  Over 420 Pages

  NO Cliffhanger!

  Like You, #1 Perfectly Flawed Series

  Naïve Mistakes Trilogy (New Adult)

  Finding North, #1 Naïve Mistakes Trilogy

  East Rising, #2 Naïve Mistakes Trilogy

  West-End Boys, #3 Naïve Mistakes Trilogy

  Girl-Nerds Like it... Series (Erotic Romance)

  Girl-Nerds Like it Harder, #1 Girl-Nerd Series

  Girl Nerds Like it Faster, #2 Girl-Nerd Series

  Girl-Nerds Like it Deeper, #3 Girl-Nerd Series

  Girl-Nerds Like it Longer, #4 Girl-Nerd Series

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  http://racheldunningauthor.blogspot.com

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Christmas Comfort

  Epilogue

  Other Titles

  Foreword

  This is a novella, short, steamy, and hopefully sweet.

  If you're into longer titles, you'll find a list at the end.

  Here's wishing you a happy holiday period. If you're working, welcome to the club. If you're alone, delve into this book and meet its characters. If you're with family, cherish it.

  Most of all, get comfortable, pull out a glass of wine or two, or, if you don't drink, maybe a cup of tea.

  And believe...

  Christmas Comfort

  -1-

  Mitchell Langford knew how to please a woman.

  He also knew how to lose one.

  The one thing he didn't know, and for the life of him couldn't figure out, was how to keep one.

  His last marriage had ended in catastrophe. Which is saying something, seeing as the one before that had ended in disaster.

  Number Three had slept with another man, cuckolded him, used his money and left him for dry.

  But she'd failed.

  Because Mitchell Langford also knew how to win. And, damnit, these women might be tryin' to take him for a ride but he'd be darned if he let them take his money as well!

  So he'd fought her. Taken her to court and gotten grounds and let her run off with her Loverboy of eighteen or nineteen or idiot-teen, and he'd kept the dough.

  He always kept his dough. Women came and went, but his money stayed with him. He'd learned that lesson with his first wife. She'd gotten away with some of it. And he'd sworn that'd be the last damn time.

  You see, Mitchell Langford was many things, but worst of all, he was a romantic. A hopeless romantic who believed in love and chivalry and kindness and playing fair (except in court) and treating women right.

  He was a forgiving man. He forgave Number One when he smelled tobacco on her breath which he knew wasn't hers, he forgave Number Two when she had nude photos taken of her by her "photographer," and he even forgave Number Three when he found her mouth balls-deep around another man's shaft—in his master bedroom!

  Forgive, sure. Forget? Fuck that. Who'd they think he was, Carlos freaking Solis?

  Mitchell Langford was a good man—until pushed into a corner. And, when pushed, he became rabid. A bloodsucker, a vampire with no soul and one goal only—to win. He fought to the end no matter what.

  It had made him old. Even at the ripe young age of thirty-three, he felt...old, old from life itself.

  He still believed in love. Only he believed in it differently now. He believed in it as something temporary. He believed love blossomed and bloomed like the flower in spring and, as it was with everything in winter, that it also died.

  He knew, now, that love, to be appreciated, had to be partaken of in the summer of it. He learned that leaving before Love's fall approached, before Love's winter, was the only way to truly experience it without the withering pains that inevitably occurred after Love reached its own old age.

  Mitchell Langford. A man whose name rang of old money but whose bank account reeked of new. He'd made his name in the markets of the world, travelling from New York to London to Paris and back as needed because he was the man with the gift of the gab who could sell ice to an igloo, fire to the Devil, and brimstone to God himself. And if you think an igloo can't talk or can't pay, you haven't met Mitchell Langford yet.

  Some say that same Devil even kept a spare room for him in case he ever needed it.

  But, tonight, December twenty-fourth, the Devil had no room, and even if he did, even Mitchell appreciated that, tonight of all nights, it probably wouldn't be available.

  If he was honest with himself—which he sometimes was—it wouldn't be the kind of place he'd want to be at tonight anyway. No, Mitchell wasn't particularly religious, not religious at all in fact, but there'd always been something about Christmas. Something that had shit to do with religion.

  Something that had to do with family...

  Mitchell sat in his uptown London office, twenty-first floor, facing the skyline and sipping a brandy while he watched the snow come down in clumps, the sun almost setting in the distance.

  Stuck.

  What little family he had—his parents, his sister and brother-in-law, his niece of four—would be carving up the roast in a few hours. His mother's apple pie would be sitting in the oven, filling the one place he called home with an aroma that teased him to return to simpler times every time he visited her.

  Yes, Mitchell Langford believed in love.

  But he also believed in power, in deceit, in betrayal.

  He believed in all these things, because he'd suffered at their hands.

  He looked at the blizzard outside and understood it as being a sign from someone, somewhere, to tell him to slow down, to spend more time building a home, to maybe have children, to appreciate the women he'd had so they wouldn't feel the need to run off with men weaker than himself, men who spent their time schmoozing and holding middle class jobs instead of conquering the world like he did.

  Being honest with himself again, twice now for the night, he admitted that he'd maybe shared the blame in some of them leaving—except balls-deep Number Three; that was all her.

  He'd put his career ahead of them, perhaps. It was conceivable.

  Mitchell Langford thought the universe was telling him these things tonight. And Langford, being Langford, held his drink up to that imaginary force outside, and said, "Fuck you, you bastard."

  -2-

  Three brandies down, Mitchell lay down on the office couch to rest when his phone buzzed like an excited vibrator in his pocket.

  Number withheld.

  He answered.

  "Mitchy boy!"

  "Jeff, how are ya?"

  "So I take it you're still in London?"

  "T
hat I am, young man."

  "Look, mate. You can't spend Christmas alone. I checked it over with the family here and they took a vote that you spend it with us."

  Mitchell sat up. "Jeff, it's OK, I'm good on my own."

  "Bullshit. You can catch the train and be here in an hour." Then Jeff whispered, "Besides, my sister's on the lookout and, well..."

  Mitchell laughed.

  Jeff, Mitchell's business partner, was a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and two kids—two more than he'd planned on. But he could tell Jeff was a happy man.

  "Jeff, I don't think you want me flirting with your sister. You know I'm not the type—"

  "Mitch, whatever, I was holding a carrot up for you. Come on over, mate. No one should be alone on Christmas."

  Mitchell thought of home, the real home he'd return to every year at this time, never having missed it once in his thirty-three years. His mother's heart must be breaking at not having him there.

  His certainly was.

  A sign, he told himself.

  Fuck that. "Jeff—"

  "Mitch, look mate. Please, there comes a time when business needs to be put aside, you know? We have food for the entire village here, kids screaming like crazy, we have booze and jokes. C'mon. You know you need it."

  Mitchell could read between the lines. Three marriages, rich as the waters of the Nile, and what do you really have to show for it, partner?

  "You say I can get there by train?"

  "In an hour, my friend. That'll put you here at six, enough time to drink a few before we hit the grub. Bring your luggage. You'll spend the night in our guest-room."

  Mitchell had to confess, no one deserved a Christmas alone. Everyone deserved a little comfort. "OK, fine. I'll pick up some wine somewhere."

  "Mitchy Boy, it's bloody Christmas Eve. And you're in Britain. Nothing's open!"

  "I'll think of something."

  Mitchell had a liquor cabinet full of the best in his office. Reserved for top brass and high-rolling prospects. There was no ways he was gonna show up at his partner's hospitable home empty-handed. He just wasn't built that way.

  He opened up the cabinet, and whistled slowly when he saw what he had inside.

  -3-

  Jacqueline Conway knew how to please a man.

  She also knew how to throw one away.

  The one thing she didn't know, and for the life of her couldn't figure out, was how to stop one from hitting on her every time she went into a social gathering.

  In her youth it had been easy to understand. She was dark blonde and blue-eyed. She had curves enough to water a man's mouth. She'd never exercised, but she'd learned a long time ago that boys on heat are less picky than dogs on heat. Fortunately for her, not all the boys she'd ever met had been dogs.

  She'd had a good run, had a good time, had gotten a child out of it from the one bastard she hated more than any other. But her son was loveable, adorable, beautiful and smart.

  Like his mother.

  And now, at thirty—just turned it this year—she was OK with having lived the wild life all those years back. In her view of it, she'd grown up fast, did what she needed before she was well into her twenties. She'd smoked it up and cracked it out and fucked up a storm.

  And now, she was done. Through.

  William, her ginger-haired little boy with hair like his father and eyes like his mother—he was her life now. He had been for the last seven years. Watching him grow had brought about a personal experience of the innocence of youth in her, because Lord knows she'd missed out on it herself.

  And it wasn't for lack of a good upbringing.

  It was for lack of personal inhibitions.

  Jacquie had never been shy. And she'd never been one to say no to a challenge. The tattoo on her ass and the other by her mound were attestations to that.

  Hurt like a bitch that second one.

  She'd picked up some weight. She was rounder now, fuller. Her breasts had had a few minor rendezvous with gravity but they were still enticing and attractive. She'd always suffered from a few ripples at the back of her legs, and some of them had become more prominent.

  But she had allure. And she knew it. If she were still in the game—which she wasn't—she'd be playing to an older crowd. And the older crowd has different tastes.

  She wasn't worried about it. She had appeal. What she didn't have, was a desire to use it.

  That all changed when she opened the door for Mitchell Langford. And when the warm floodgates opened up to moisten her crevice as soon as she saw him.

  -4-

  His American accent was whipped cream on Christmas pudding. His styled hair was black as the night sky behind him. His dimpled smile and aquatic eyes would be the unmaking of her if she let herself fall into them.

  Standing there looking at him, her hand on the door, Merlot glass in her other hand, she considered that maybe she just might let that happen.

  "Hello," he said, "is this the Conway residence?"

  She had to give it to the man in the three piece suit: He had class.

  Jacquie Conway had never been one to feel flustered by a man. And tonight would be no different.

  "Yes it is," she said, taking in his maleness with her eyes while she brought her glass up to her lips. She liked seeing him shiver a little outside in the snow. "And who may I say is calling?"

  She knew damn well who was calling. Jeff had dropped more than a few hints to her about him earlier.

  What he hadn't said, was how unbelievably gorgeous he was.

  The stud grinned slightly. She could see his eyes waver a fraction, wandering down to her breasts and then her stomach for just a second. Then he caught himself and flicked them quickly back up. Well-mannered, she could see.

  She would study him for the night, she decided.

  She would watch how he talked and how he acted. And, by the end of it, she'd decide if he would be worth her while. William would spend the night here with his cousins anyway. It was one of the few nights she could go wild if she wanted to.

  Jacquie Conway had had plenty of hormonal urges when she'd been a girl, and acted on almost as many. But she was a woman now, and if this prospect didn't pan out, she'd pleasure herself later thinking about how it could have been.

  Because if there's anything Jacqueline Conway was not, it was desperate.

  "Mitchell. Mitchell Langford," said the man.

  He stuck out his shivering hand. She shook it gently, just like any proper lady would. She also eyed his crotch for a second, just like any proper lady would. "Is that wine?" she asked.

  He looked at it. "Sort of. Fortified."

  "Jacquie!" cried her oaf of an older brother. "What the bloody hell are you letting Mitchy Boy sit out there in the cold for?"

  She smirked. Just letting him know who's boss.

  As quick as Jeff had uttered the reproach, he was past her and putting his arm around "Mitchy Boy" outside and bringing him in. The two were like Schwarzenegger and DeVito in Twins.

  Her brother was DeVito.

  "Bloody hell, you're shivering. Come on over and meet the family!"

  Jacquie watched as Mitchell "Mitchy Boy" Langford was corralled through their cottage to meet her mother and father, and the three kids—Jeff's oldest, Karl; his youngest, Kaitlyn; and Jacquie's own little William. Jeff's wife, Mitchell already knew.

  Jacquie hung back, watched as he shook everyone's hands and towered above most. Must've played basketball in his day, she mused. That's what all these Americans do, isn't it?

  He handed the wine to her mother and told her it was Madeira Wine, 1973 vintage. Must've been expensive. A man with style.

  Her mother thanked him and said he didn't have to bring anything. He didn't even offer a rebuttal, just politely nodded. They all sat at the sitting area, crowded around a crackling fire. When the fresh glasses came out, Mitchell poured them all a drink of the expensive beverage.

  Jacquie eased over to him and said, "May I take your coat?"
<
br />   She saw by his sudden pause that she was also on his mind, just as he was on hers. He offered her his coat.

  She couldn't place the cologne, only that it was expensive. He didn't smoke. There was no perfume on it either, and he had no ring on his finger. Sure, Jeff had mentioned he was divorced, but she liked to see things with her own eyes.

  She wouldn't go so far as to look in his pockets. Not because she had any particular qualms about it, but because someone might see her. But she felt by the heaviness and feel of the breast pocket that there was a wallet in there. She assumed it would be devoid of photos of children. What kind of man would leave his kids at home for Christmas?

  Her son William ran up to her in the entranceway and complained about how his little cousin Kaitlyn was being such a bit—

  "Don't you use that language in front of me, mister!" she bellowed at him.

  "But, Ma!"

  Jacqueline Conway pushed her chest out and put her fisted knuckles on her hips. She tapped her foot. "William Thomas—"

  Her son bowed his head in shame. "Sorry, Ma. It's just..." He turned and stalked off, and she heard him say, "Bloody hell."

  They grow up so fast.

  As her head eased up, following the dust of his trail, she saw "Mitchy Boy" in the distance, leaning against a wall, watching her. But not ogling. No, he'd been staring blankly in her direction, lost in a thought, or in a dream.

  When their eyes met, her skin prickled with heat. Her chest opened up for air. She let her guard down and her lip tugged up into an involuntary smile.

  She put it down to the strength of the wine.

  -5-

  Jeff offered to show Mitchell the house. It was quaint, small. The house was in a rural area and had no number on it. When he'd arrived, he'd even heard sheep or goats or some other type of farm animal in the distance.