On Sale for Christmas

Mom's self-satisfied grin finally broke through the facade. "I heard that you and Ben were spotted at the Sweet Shack together. He sure grew up nice, didn't he?"

Nice? Even I was having a hard time thinking of Ben that way anymore, given that the text he just sent me was burning a naughty hole in my back pocket. "Is nothing ever secret in this town?" I groused.

"Oh, you and Ben have a secret?" mom asked with a suggestive waggle of her brows. "That sounds romantic."

"Stoooooop," I whined, because what we were about to do was anything but romantic. Because selling your body to a stranger was about the most unromantic thing a girl could do, right? "We're just friends."

We weren't just friends. We were…something else. But not anything I could name. I was pretty sure that if I went through with our plan tonight, we'd have to strangers ever after. Because how do you look a guy in the eye when he knows you've done something like this?

Luckily, our lives would take us in different directions, so I wouldn't have to look him in the eye.

Of course, there was a part of me that didn't really believe he'd go through with it. A part of me that was sure Ben was going to take me somewhere and put on a mask and pretend to be some stranger—destroying the fantasy completely and my respect for him along the way.

The problem was, I couldn't decide if that would be a relief or not. The only thing I knew for sure is that I'd had more fun with Ben than any guy since…well, maybe ever. And I didn't want the games to stop. Which meant that I was ready at the front door, at precisely 7:30pm. Freshly showered, legs shaved, matching underwear, and a box of slutty clothes and sexual fantasies in hand.

Ben came crunching up the snow on the walk to present me with a bouquet. "Flowers?" I asked, opening the front door before he could ring the bell. "Seriously? This isn't a date!"

"They're for your mom," Ben replied, with an easy grin. "Besides, they're poinsettias. Beautiful but dangerous. Thought you might like that juxtaposition."

I laughed. In spite of my nerves, he'd made me laugh. Just as easy as that. He made everything so fucking easy—including me.

Because my blood was running so hot all I wanted to do was jump him the minute we were alone together in his truck.

"Just so we're clear," Ben said, wrapping his arm around my seat as he twisted to see out the rear window. "This is totally a date."

"Whatever," I replied, taking a shuddering breath of cold air.

"You might want to settle in for a long drive, though," Ben said, pulling onto the main road. "We're going out of town. Far out of town. Where nobody knows either of us."

"Good," I said, wetting my lips. Glad that he'd thought of that. If there were already rumors about our meeting for hot cocoa at the Sweet Shack, I could just imagine the rumors if I was seen hooking by the side of the road. Or however it was supposed to happen.

Given that it was my fantasy, maybe I should have thought this through.

It had to be anonymous. That's all I knew. "So, how is this supposed to go down?"

"I thought you wanted me to surprise you."

I did say that, didn't I? And strangely, it helped me feel more at ease to just go with it and see what he had planned.

~~~

But my hands went to my face as we pulled off the snowy highway onto an access road for a No-Tell Motel with a blinking neon sign.

"What, too classy?" Ben asked, eying me carefully.

"No," I breathed over my galloping heart-beat. As far as my fantasy went, it was pretty much perfect. "It's just starting to get alarmingly real. How far are you going to take this?"

Ben's jaw clenched. "As far as you'll let me. But you say the word, and I turn around, Becca."

Was he kidding? This is farther than my nerves would ever have taken me. If we turned around…it'd never happen. I'd never know what it felt like. Never burn with sexual heat the way I was burning now. My god, I was so turned on, my panties were already soaked through. "I don't want to turn around."

"Okay then," Ben said, parking and turning to me. "Then you should pretty much do whatever I tell you to do for the next few hours so that none of this goes sideways. A guy is going to meet us here—"

"Holy shit. You're not screwing with me? Because if you're screwing with me…"

"I'm not screwing with you. This is what you wanted, right?"

Breathe, Becca. Breathe!