Good Elf Gone Wrong: A Holiday Romantic Comedy

Gracie had changed into her party outfit, another one of those tight cocktail dresses that made her look like she was wrapped up like a Christmas present. I tugged at the bow on the back of the cocktail dress that rested right above her ass.

Across the room, James was giving me a dirty look.

I locked eye contact with him, draped an arm around Gracie’s shoulder, then stuck my hand down the bodice of her dress, squeezing her breast.

I smirked at James.

Though I was projecting confidence, a part of me was relieved that Gracie had chickened out.

Did I want to fuck her?

Yes.

Did I want to watch her come around a cock for the first time in her life?

Fuck yeah.

However, just because I was getting reeled into Gracie’s life didn’t mean I could forget what my real purpose was. It was one big nested lie.

Hudson: Any movement on the data.

Talbot: It just now finished copying hundreds of gigabytes worth of data.

Anderson: We should get something good on here.

Hudson: I need people working all night on it.

Talbot: It’s going to be at least twenty-four hours before all the data is analyzed.

Hudson: I’ll come by after the party to help sift through the data.

Soon I would have what I needed, and I would do it without actually crossing that line, without actually sleeping with Gracie.

Really? Having your tongue on her clit, her naked and sweaty and moaning around you while you finger fuck her wasn’t a line?

Yes, it was a line but not the line. I still hadn’t crossed the point of no return.

“The house looks amazing!” Gracie’s coworkers—I recognized them from the file my team had put together—congratulated Kelly, who basked in the praise.

Beside me, Gracie angrily sipped her wine.

“Stop letting Kelly get the credit,” I hissed at her. “Say something.”

Gracie made an unhappy noise.

“It’s no use. They’ll just act like I’m the one being rude and ungracious,” she said, tipping back the wineglass. “Besides,” Gracie added wistfully, “this is the only chance I’ll get to decorate my own historic Victorian home for Christmas. It’s as close to living my dream as I’ll ever get.”

Suddenly, all I wanted to do in the world was buy Gracie that Victorian house and help her decorate it, just to see her happy.

Kelly and James were walking around like they were politicians or royalty while the employees of EnerCheck Inc. fawned over them.

I suddenly couldn’t stand it.

Spoiled lazy country-club kids.

“I’m going to get you another drink.” I kissed Gracie softly on the mouth.

Now that my real mission was close to being done, I was going to fucking finish this other one.

“I just love the garland on the chandelier,” gushed one middle-aged woman in the group of James’s relatives gaggled around Kelly.

Gracie’s sister preened.

“I only do real garland,” she said. “That fake plastic stuff just doesn’t have that traditional feel, does it?”

“You must have had a crane to get it up there,” the woman joked.

“No, she had me,” I said, inserting myself into the conversation.

James scowled at me.

Kelly’s eyes widened.

“Kelly’s a little too short to reach,” I told the woman. “I mean look at her.” I picked up Kelly, lifting her over my head while she shrieked.

Across the room, Gracie was watching. She looked almost sad.

She’ll be happy once Kelly and James’s relationship is a smoking crater, I told myself. Stop feeling guilty.

“Show off.” Kelly, still cradled in my arms, swatted me playfully on the shoulder.

“I was going to tell her to sit on my shoulders,” I said to the crowd, “but she got wise to what I was doing when I tried to have her sit facing me.”

“Oh, my word.” James’s cousins gasped from behind their hands.

“You are so bad, Hudson,” Kelly said with a nasally laugh and shook me by the chin. “He’s from the Gulch,” she told the crowd.

“Put her down,” James snapped at me.

I set Kelly on her sparkly red stilettos.

“You better be careful, James,” his aunt joked. “He looks like the type of man who will steal your girlfriend away on the back of his motorcycle.”

“Probably more like fuck your girlfriend on the back of his motorcycle, right?” Kelly said, trailing her fingers along the collar of my leather jacket.

I gave her my best sexy and dangerous smile.

She lapped it up.

“I’m being a bad hostess, Hudson. You need a drink.” She grabbed my hand and led me over to the wet bar. “Do you want Sex in Santa’s Workshop or a Naughty Girl martini?”

“Can I just have straight sex without all the sugar?”

Her eyes widened.

“I meant a scotch,” I said after a beat.

“Coming right up.” Kelly made a big show of arching her back as she reached for the bottle.

She handed me the glass of scotch.

Across the room, Gracie and Dakota were sharing a plate of snacks while pretending not to watch Kelly and me.

“Poor little Gracie. Is she still being a boring old wallflower?” Kelly asked while one of James’s family members asked him loudly about the history of the house.

“You have no fucking idea,” I said, making a big show about knocking back the glass of scotch. “At first, her innocent little-girl act was a huge turn-on. I liked pushing her boundaries, making her let me do shit to her that she wasn’t all that enthusiastic about. But now it’s just a buzzkill.”

Kelly poured me more scotch.

“I really just need the type of girl who will let me come in her ass under the Christmas tree without a lot of back talk.”

I let my gaze slide down Kelly’s chest.

“That’s not really Gracie’s style,” Kelly said, putting her hand on her hip. “She’s pretty boring and vanilla. It’s weird that we’re even sisters. We’re the exact opposite.”

Trap baited.

“Gracie isn’t completely boring,” I said, lowering my voice and draping my arm over her shoulders conspiratorially. “I did convince her to let me eat her out on that white chair in your master bedroom.”

“It’s not really my bedroom,” Kelly said.

I could make out the outline of her nipples under the thin fabric of the cocktail dress. It was one of those ones with lots of cutouts that a woman couldn’t wear undergarments under.

“Huh,” I said. “That’s too bad, because the whole time I kept wishing it was you gushing all over that white chair.”

Trap set.

“I’m engaged, Hudson,” Kelly purred.

“I don’t mind fucking engaged women. It gets me pretty fucking hard knowing that I’m stealing some idiot’s fiancée away from him because he didn’t fucking know how to take care of her, give her what she needs.”

Kelly’s eyes lit up.

“You really are a bad boy.”

Trap sprung.