Read Online Three Nights before Christmas by Kat Latham - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kat Latham
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along the wall for the annex’s light switch, but the chill went deeper than flesh. Austin had asked her to take a look at his locomotive, and she’d agreed in the hopes of relaxing his suspicions about her. But she didn’t have to dig too deeply to find other motivations. She missed working on trains. Missed the heat, the noise, and the thrill. Missed harnessing their power and force. Missed knowing that she was doing her part to keep America running by transporting important goods from one place to another.
More embarrassing to admit, though, even to herself: Austin had shown up out of uniform, with his jeans hugging his legs and butt in ways she was beyond stupid to notice.
You’ve been away from men for a looong time. The only men you’ve seen are prison guards, the maintenance staff who got you to do all their work for them, and your brother. Of course your hormones are hard-up for action.
Before prison, she’d reveled in an active sex life. Dave had been the best lover she’d ever been with, but not the only. Her mom had delivered passive lectures about good girls waiting for marriage—or at least love and something resembling commitment—and she’d nodded and agreed before heading out to “Bible study” with whatever guy had caught her eye.
She’d enjoyed getting to know guys biblically.
It wasn’t that she’d been a bad kid, lying to her parents and going out in search of trouble. She’d gotten good grades, had good friends, and loved her family. She’d just been bored, living on the outskirts of a small town and eager to find some excitement. In high school and after she’d moved out and started her own career, she’d had a few serious boyfriends—Dave being the most regrettable and the others being pretty forgettable—but she’d also felt no shame in getting down and dirty for the sake of a few feel-good moments with guys who happened to catch her eye.
But prison had severely limited her sexual partners, basically leaving just her hand. Though some of her otherwise-hetero friends had developed relationships with other women, she hadn’t experimented. For one thing, she’d built thick defensive walls around herself and didn’t want to be touched. For another, she hadn’t found anyone she was attracted to enough to let them breach those walls. Sure, prison sex was often more about working off frustration or providing comfort rather than genuine attraction. But she could do those two things on her own.
The fact it had been so long had to explain why her fingers itched to sift through Austin’s wind-ruffled, snowflake-dampened hair. To run them down his stubble-roughened face to his broad chest and beyond. Her sexual drought was the only possible explanation for the way her body seemed to awaken and liquefy at the sight of him. He was the most virile man she’d been close enough to touch in years.
And the forbidden attraction of unbalanced power had to be a gross leftover of life inside.
As she continued patting down the wall in search of the switch, the lights suddenly blazed on so brightly she had to blink several times before she could actually see anything. But when her eyes adjusted, she gasped in horror. The locomotive was nothing more than a rusted hulk in the middle of a cold, dingy warehouse. Chipped black paint fought a losing battle with the rust. All four sets of her driving wheels had been removed, so she hovered over the tracks balanced on hydraulic jacks.
Lacey’s heart bled for her. “Oh, my God. It’s worse than I imagined.”
Chagrin lined Austin’s face, and he ran his palm over the stubbled cheeks she’d just been fantasizing about stroking.
Boyish embarrassment radiated off him as he clearly made an effort to meet her eyes. “I had a team of volunteers from a historical society, and we had to recondition or replace all the locomotive’s parts, so we took it apart. Whatever we couldn’t fix here, we sent to specialized mechanics to recondition. Most of
More embarrassing to admit, though, even to herself: Austin had shown up out of uniform, with his jeans hugging his legs and butt in ways she was beyond stupid to notice.
You’ve been away from men for a looong time. The only men you’ve seen are prison guards, the maintenance staff who got you to do all their work for them, and your brother. Of course your hormones are hard-up for action.
Before prison, she’d reveled in an active sex life. Dave had been the best lover she’d ever been with, but not the only. Her mom had delivered passive lectures about good girls waiting for marriage—or at least love and something resembling commitment—and she’d nodded and agreed before heading out to “Bible study” with whatever guy had caught her eye.
She’d enjoyed getting to know guys biblically.
It wasn’t that she’d been a bad kid, lying to her parents and going out in search of trouble. She’d gotten good grades, had good friends, and loved her family. She’d just been bored, living on the outskirts of a small town and eager to find some excitement. In high school and after she’d moved out and started her own career, she’d had a few serious boyfriends—Dave being the most regrettable and the others being pretty forgettable—but she’d also felt no shame in getting down and dirty for the sake of a few feel-good moments with guys who happened to catch her eye.
But prison had severely limited her sexual partners, basically leaving just her hand. Though some of her otherwise-hetero friends had developed relationships with other women, she hadn’t experimented. For one thing, she’d built thick defensive walls around herself and didn’t want to be touched. For another, she hadn’t found anyone she was attracted to enough to let them breach those walls. Sure, prison sex was often more about working off frustration or providing comfort rather than genuine attraction. But she could do those two things on her own.
The fact it had been so long had to explain why her fingers itched to sift through Austin’s wind-ruffled, snowflake-dampened hair. To run them down his stubble-roughened face to his broad chest and beyond. Her sexual drought was the only possible explanation for the way her body seemed to awaken and liquefy at the sight of him. He was the most virile man she’d been close enough to touch in years.
And the forbidden attraction of unbalanced power had to be a gross leftover of life inside.
As she continued patting down the wall in search of the switch, the lights suddenly blazed on so brightly she had to blink several times before she could actually see anything. But when her eyes adjusted, she gasped in horror. The locomotive was nothing more than a rusted hulk in the middle of a cold, dingy warehouse. Chipped black paint fought a losing battle with the rust. All four sets of her driving wheels had been removed, so she hovered over the tracks balanced on hydraulic jacks.
Lacey’s heart bled for her. “Oh, my God. It’s worse than I imagined.”
Chagrin lined Austin’s face, and he ran his palm over the stubbled cheeks she’d just been fantasizing about stroking.
Boyish embarrassment radiated off him as he clearly made an effort to meet her eyes. “I had a team of volunteers from a historical society, and we had to recondition or replace all the locomotive’s parts, so we took it apart. Whatever we couldn’t fix here, we sent to specialized mechanics to recondition. Most of
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