Ho Ho Hennessy

Using his legs, he started to rise to carry her upstairs, but just as he did, Hennessy felt a shove on his shoulders.

Blankly, he raised his head and saw the whole room watching them.

“Going somewhere, Hennessy?” Jack and Moon blocked him from getting up. “You trying to break the rules?”

“No …” Damn, he was, he acknowledged to himself, but fuck if he would tell them.

“Are you saying that Arin is your naughty Santa?”

Hennessy stared at Arin, silently willing her to give a word or movement that he could interpret she was.

Arin just steadily stared back. “A man named Hennessy isn’t afraid … He’s fearless.”

Hennessy felt as if she had stepped into his heart and claimed it for her own. She was the one who was fearless. She had been from the first moment they had met.

He’d been the one who hadn’t been able to handle anything or anyone permanent in his life. He would run off or drive them away until there was only one man who followed him. And sooner or later, Core would become just as resentful and angry as Moon.

Arin was his naughty Santa. She had given him hints he had ignored, telling himself he was trying to outsmart Viper’s game while, in reality, he had been trying to outsmart himself, to keep himself from becoming attached to her, to keep himself from falling in love with her. And he had almost succeeded … until a bold, beautiful woman forced him to stay long enough to realize it was too late. He was already in a trap, and the last thing he wanted to do was escape … or let her escape.

Giving Jack and Moon smug smiles, he rose, holding Arin. “She’s my naughty Santa.”

“Arin?” Disappointed, Jack stood still, while Moon walked away.

“I’m his.”

“Damn right.” Hennessy lifted her higher on his hips, carrying her toward the steps. “She’s all mine.”

Chapter 16

Arin leaned back against Hennessy’s bedroom door when he set her down. Shimmying out of her elf outfit, she watched as he took off his suit and boots.

“Who really drew my name?”

She mischievously removed her bra, letting it drop to the floor. “Sasha. It cost me plenty, too. I had to give her half my wardrobe, pay off the bet I made with Jewell, make good on the bets that the other women made with the brothers, and compensate Winter for all the headphones she’d bought. You better be worth all the trouble I went through to switch names with her.” Mock threatening him, she sauntered toward him with a teasing lift of her lips.

“Whose name did you really have?”

“Jack,” she confessed.

Hennessy laughed. “He said you were.”

“I was never going to be anyone’s but yours. When I set my mind to something, I never fail.”

Taking her by the waist, he lifted her into the air. Her breasts at eye level, he rolled his tongue around her nipple, his domineering gaze eating her alive, promising to fulfill every fantasy she had ever imagined during her bleak marriage.

Putting her hands on his shoulders, she was able to look down at him. Her stomach muscles quivered at how easily he supported her weight.

Hennessy was a man’s man, not a man who pretended to be one, who couldn’t keep the sexual promises he made. Hennessy wasn’t a fantasy image she had created either; he was a living, hot-blooded male who was not capable of making promises he couldn’t keep. That was why he was so hard to pin down.

“Same here.” Turning around, Hennessy carefully lowered her to the bed, his muscles straining under his brown skin as he placed a knee on the mattress and leaned over her. “Baby girl, I’m a man of few words, so when I say this, you better listen up.”

Sprawled under him, Arin carnally arched her back, pushing her breasts upward and begging him to touch her.

“You might think this is just a game, but I’m not playing with you. I’m being dead serious when I say you’re mine. You. Are. Mine.”

“You think so?” Taunting him, she ran her palms over his chest, using her thumbs to circle his nipples.

“I know so.”

“Prove it.”

“I will. And, when I fuck you, you’re never going to be able to forget it.”

“I would never be able to forget` you, even if you never touched me. You’re not an easy man to forget.”

Arin felt the steel embrace when Hennessy lowered his body to cover hers. There wasn’t a soft part on his body that she touched, from his shoulders to his arms, to his back that flexed under her searching fingertips as he used his mouth to explore the contours of her body.

He nuzzled his face into her waist, darting his tongue out to taste her before moving lower to bury his face between her thighs. Using his wide shoulders to make room for himself, he grabbed behind her knees to lift her to his waiting mouth, delving his tongue to discover what the tiny thong wasn’t strong enough to protect.