All by My Elf (Under the Mistletoe collection)

4

“Once we’ve cleaned up, we’ll figure out the logistics. Where we can lie down most comfortably and still maintain some privacy. What to put beneath us for a bit of cushioning. Things like that.”

“Oh, I’m way ahead of you there,”

he told her, and there was something in his tone ...

It was nothing. She was imagining things.

“Let’s do this,”

she said, and they did.

Ten minutes later, both they and the leftovers were safely situated inside the back storage area.

Once she’d consolidated the buttons and magnets, the food containers had fit in the drawers lining the walls.

And if she and William plastered themselves against one another, they just barely fit on the carpeted center aisle.

It was the only good option, really, despite the greater chilliness back there.

The seats inside the main area at the front of the Mincemobile didn’t recline much, and although the current visibility outside was virtually nil, that might change.

She didn’t relish the thought of waking from a nap to randos peering in through the lightly tinted glass at the two of them entwined on the floor.

The storage space had zero windows, as he’d pointed out, and that’d been enough to convince her.

Since they’d brushed their teeth using bottled water, they were both minty fresh.

Which was good, given their extremely close proximity.

At the moment, they were lying on their sides, face-to-face, arms wound around one another beneath their respective outerwear.

Their legs were intertwined, their shoes abandoned in favor of an extra layer of thick socks.

A cloth banner—“Season’s Meatings from Mrs.

Claus’s Mincemeat Treats!”—was their inadequate mattress, along with a few sweaters from both suitcases.

She’d unbuttoned her coat and unzipped her fleece to help share her bodily warmth more easily, and he’d opened his fleece, too, and draped his coat over her near-bare legs.

It wasn’t exactly memory foam and a down duvet, but it’d do for a single night.

His arms surrounded her firmly.

He had one broad hand on her nape, tucking her chilly face into his throat, while the other hand spread across her lower back and hitched her even tighter against him.

From this close, his every breath rocked her like an ocean wave, and apparently his bodywash had that same delicious herbal scent as his shampoo, because she could smell it everywhere now.

She didn’t think she’d ever felt so secure in her entire life. Or so horny.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t relaxed a single tense muscle since they’d lain down together. And to her surprise, a man who usually ran colder than she did was throwing off heat like the Mincemobile’s enormous engine.

Neither of them was sleeping. Speaking solely for herself, Nina was so wide-freaking-awake at the moment, she might as well have been hooked up to an IV drip of Red Bull.

He shifted restlessly against her, and for just a moment, she thought she felt—

Nah. A wallet, maybe. Something in his fleece’s pocket.

Then whatever it was disappeared as he shifted again.

“I—”

When he cleared his throat, it vibrated against her lips, and she clamped them resolutely shut instead of doing what she wanted. Namely, opening her mouth and tasting that sound on her tongue.

“I think we should play Never Have I Ever. I’ve got a bag of M her colleague and longtime crush; the sexiest damn elf on this planet or any other—gripped her hips, braced his feet, and earned his freaking halo.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Nina raised her head from his chest and met William’s half-lidded gaze. “Why weren’t we doing this all semester?”

“I don’t know what was holding you back,”

he told her, his voice rumbly with exhaustion, “but I didn’t want to be the sort of guy who leaps on a new female colleague as soon as she sets foot on campus.”

“Some people do that?”

“Professor Grundall.”

His lip curled. “He calls each year’s incoming faculty his ‘fresh hookup supply.’”

“Yuck.”

“Exactly.”

He yawned. “But to be fair, the moment I heard about a possible opportunity to spend a month with you in a cramped penis-mobile? I was there , CV in hand, ready and eager to assume my new elf name.”

“And thank goodness for that .”

She let her head flop back down on his shoulder. “Even once we were both aboard the penis-mobile, though, you didn’t make your move.”

“I wanted to.”

He rubbed his face and uttered a heartfelt groan. “Oh, god, how I wanted to. But the second we stepped into this monstrosity, I realized I shouldn’t.”

Her brows drew together. “Why the heck not?”

“Because you were essentially trapped with me, Nina.”

His palm returned to her back and stroked slowly up and down her spine. “Whenever I told you how I felt, I wanted you to be able to say no and leave, not be stuck in a big metal tube with some dude propositioning you.”

“Yeah. If I’d turned you away, that would’ve been awkward for ...”

Her jaw cracked in an enormous yawn of her own. “For both of us.”

He nodded. “And maybe frightening for you, given how poorly some guys take refusals. I was worried you might say yes simply to protect yourself.”

Such a sweet man.

She patted his chest clumsily, her eyelids drifting shut. “I would have said yes, but only because of the enormous crush I’ve had on you for months. Not out of fear or self-protection.”

In the ensuing silence, she started to doze off.

Only to startle when William spoke again. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Um ...”

She nudged her cold nose into his neck and slung a leg over his. “I guess I just didn’t think you were interested?”

In her current state, it was the best answer she could offer.

“How is that possible?”

His befuddlement sounded genuine. “According to Claudia, even if I’d followed you around all day with a sign reading ‘ Please accept my deep and abiding nerd-love, Nina ,’ I couldn’t have been any more obvious about my feelings.”

His open affection warming her to the bone, she kissed his bristly jaw and tried to marshal her sleepy thoughts.

“I’ve always been bad about picking up on those sorts of things.

And after my divorce, I think my confidence in my own appeal took a hit.

I concentrated on my studies and my friends and stopped looking for romance, and I never really started again, even after I got over things.”

Two or three years into their marriage, her ex-husband had become her roommate more than her lover.

And by the end, she might as well have been a light fixture in their shared home: useful for illuminating his path but rarely noticed directly.

A fundamentally static object, without needs and desires of its own.

Such as the need to find more meaningful work and apply to a doctoral program, or the desire to be seen and appreciated for more than her basic utility.

Unwilling to devote so much of their money to a risky career path or have so much of her attention diverted from tasks directly benefiting him, he’d laid down an ultimatum: grad school or their marriage.

But the real choice had been between her doubts about her own value and her hope for a better future.

She’d gone with hope—and had now been rewarded for that decision more than she’d even dared to dream.

“I’m sorry,”

he murmured, his hand pausing between her shoulder blades.

“Please don’t be. I’m glad I was single when we met.”

More than glad. Ecstatic, now that she knew he returned her feelings. “Generally, I only pay attention to men as colleagues and friends rather than potential dates. You were the one exception, William. From the very beginning, I always wanted you to be mine.”

“Ditto.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I was planning to tell you exactly that at the end of our last shift, on New Year’s Day. Claudia kept insisting tonight was the night, though, and pushing boxes of condoms on me whenever you were in another room.”

At that news, her eyelids no longer felt quite so heavy.

She pushed up onto an elbow. “You have an entire box of condoms?”

“As a matter of fact ...”

He reached off to the side and proffered a blue box. “I do.”

Coincidentally enough, his voice sounded much less drowsy too.

Her newly alert brain sorted through the possibilities. “It’s a shame we can’t use the seats. They’re really cushy.”

“The windows may be tinted, but sadly, they’re not that tinted.”

Lips pressed together in disappointment, he shook his head. “If someone peeked in at just the wrong moment, they’d see us besmirching Mrs. Claus’s pristine reputation.”

“Pristine Mrs. Claus has a giant phallus atop her sleigh,”

she pointed out.

When William’s grin crinkled the corners of his eyes, she fell for him all over again.

“Hey, the woman knows what she wants,”

he said, lifting a shoulder. “I respect that.”

“In that case ...”

With a tug on his arm, she rolled his willing body on top of hers. “Why don’t you respect me again, Professor Dern?”

“Anything for an esteemed colleague, Professor Teems.”

Late the next evening, the Mincemobile pulled up to Claudia’s family home. Nina and William returned all the empty food containers with their heartfelt thanks and—at Mrs.

Ko’s invitation—took hasty, much-needed showers before waving goodbye again.

Claudia’s narrow-eyed scrutiny never wavered from her coworkers.

The three of them climbed back aboard their mobile workplace.

And once Claudia stored her suitcase safely in the back, Nina and William gladly waved her into the driver’s seat, since they were both awake and alert due only to continual ingestion of enormous vats of coffee from Sheetz.

Claudia arched a single dark brow. “You never let me drive.”

“It’s been ...”

William coughed a little. “It’s been a busy twenty-four hours.”

“I’ll bet,”

Claudia said.