Mistress Christmas Read Online Free Page A

failing—not to stare at the dark, wet patch on the front of his jeans.
    “No, wait.”
    She didn’t. Holly turned and fled through the door backstage where she knew she’d be safe. But she didn’t know if she was running from him or from the bad-girl wild side of herself that scared her to death.

    Fuck.
    Mistress Christmas had gotten him so hot and bothered from a simple goddamn lap dance that he’d squirted in his jeans. It’d been years since he’d had to untuck his shirt to cover the evidence of an accidental discharge.
    Stunned, Nick sat on the bench and replayed the entire encounter. What a damn enchantress. From Holly’s come-hither smile, to the sexy, mesmerizing motions of her smoking hot body, to the sound of her breathy sighs, she was absolute perfection. He licked his lips, once again tasting the hunger and neediness in her kiss.
    None of that kissing, full-frontal grinding should’ve happened. The “hands off” policy for lap dances in strip clubs was usually strictly controlled. The stripper taunted and teased, rubbed and gyrated, while the customer basically sat on his damn hands and watched. Nick knew those were the rules.
    So why hadn’t Mistress Christmas known them?
    Granted, the sensuous way that womanly body of hers swiveled and shimmied was breath stealing, but there’d been something…sweet and unsullied about her performance. Something shy and earnest about her. A feverish need to please that seemed to surprise her as much as it had him.
    But Nick had to ask himself—could innocence be faked? Was that how she lured men to financial recklessness? Get the bouncer to look the other way, break the “rules” about no touching, bring the customer to orgasm while faking her own? Then the stripper with the heart of gold runs away, expecting the customer to be so desperate to get off again in secret that he’d come back for more?
    He could totally see that angle working. Problem was, he couldn’t see Holly as the type of woman to work that angle.
    Which was probably why it worked so goddamn well.
    After Nick retrieved his coat, he scrutinized the bar for a glimpse of her.
    Nada.
    Cold air and snow blasted him in the face when he stepped outside, but it didn’t cool his temper or his libido. With nothing else to occupy his time, he could wait in his car in the parking lot and hope to see her sneaking out the employee entrance.
    Yeah? What then? Follow her? To what end?
    Nick needed to catch her in the act of stealing inside the bar, not stalk her to see if she lived in a low-rent district. Not fantasize that she’d welcome his advances outside the club.
    Jesus. How pathetic did it make him that he didn’t have anything better to do than moon over a stripper who’d given him the first decent orgasm he’d had in over a year?
    Nick’s pager buzzed. He read the text scrolling across the screen. Figured. Duty called him back to the station.
    His gaze lingered on the vehicles parked by the service entrance before he drove off.
    But he’d be back.

Chapter Three
    “Y ou ran out of here pretty fast last night, Holly. Was everything okay?”
    “Uh. Yeah.” Holly applied crimson lipstick to her upper lip.
    “You sure? Bubba said you disappeared for a while into the private area and then you careened back here like you’d seen your grandma in the audience.”
    The lipstick slipped, smearing a thick red line across Holly’s cheek. “Goddammit, Ivy! That’s not even funny.”
    “Jumpy much?” Ivy pinched Holly’s chin between her thumb and forefinger and swiped at the streak. “What’s going on with you?”
    “Nothing.” She couldn’t share what’d happened with Nick with anyone, least of all Ivy.
    Nick. Just thinking about the man sent an ache between her thighs. That cowboy was outstanding and out of her league with a capital “O” for orgasm—unintended or not. After the volatile lap dance, she’d hidden in the dressing room until she’d had to strut across the stage. And