Christmas in Coconut Creek (Dirty Delta, #1)

by Karissa Kinword

“I want to wipe that smug look right off his face.” “We could make out?” Nat suggested. “We’re talking punishment, not reward.” “The outfit you’re wearing alone owns real estate in every cognitive area of his brain.” “Rent free.” I laughed, shooting a wink toward the man in question who stiffened at my attention, even as Mateo carried on their conversation.

“Why don’t we have the boys take us home for a nightcap? Frankie ordered a ride already.” “Bad idea.” My words slurred. “I’m perfectly capable of getting myself back to your apartment.” “You’re not going home alone. The sun will be up in a few hours anyway.” “We both know you and Mateo aren’t making it until the sun comes up.” “Can you blame me?” “No,” I admitted. “But I’m trying my literal hardest not to blow his hot roommate and you’re putting me through a clinical trial with this.” “Just…don’t look at his dick.” “Who’s dick?” Mateo asked, pressing up behind Natalia with Frankie at his side. “She’s not great at that,” Frankie said. I turned to face him. “That’s bold coming from the guy who hasn’t stopped staring at my ass for two hours.” “Funny you would notice.” “All right, play nice, kids.” Matty smirked. “Santa’s watching.”

So I begrudgingly found myself on the living room couch with a lethal case of the spins and wearing a pair of Frankie’s boxer briefs and an oversized Go Army! crewneck. “Socks, as requested,” Frankie offered as he appeared from down the hallway carrying a comforter in his elbow. He tossed the rolled-up bundle to me and crashed onto the opposite end of the sofa. “You could take my bed, it’s much more comfortable.” “Thanks,” I muttered, rolling them onto my feet. “And, no, thanks.”

know. What, do you have ugly toes or something?” I squealed, tucking my feet under my thighs when he leaned over to look. “Get out of here, you creep!” “What is so scandalizing?” His laugh lit up the room as he tried to pull my ankle toward him. “Is it bunions? Oh, don’t be embarrassed, it's very common.” “I don’t have fucking bunions, dickhead.” I swatted his fingers away. “If you must know, I always wear socks when I stay at strange men’s houses so I don’t wake up in the middle of the night with a dude taking pictures of my feet for his spank bank.”

“You’re a lunatic, and you’re drunk. And if I was a guy that had a thing for feet, you just wearing my socks would be doing it for me and I’d never wash them again.” I grimaced. “You’re not doing a great job convincing me you aren’t that guy.” “But you still didn’t take the socks off,” he replied with a wink. “I would sooner rip my own cuticles than put my feet on a dick.” “It feels necessary that I point out no one is asking you to do either of those things.”

stretching out and dipping my nose beneath the blankets. Which was the worst thing I could have done. My eyes were heavy, and the soft fabric smelled like laundry detergent and him. A warm, deep musk, like well-worn flannel and bergamot sand.

“Drink that whole glass, please,” Frankie said, sitting down at the end of the couch again and fluffing the blanket out to cover my legs evenly. His tentativeness wasn’t lost on me, which made the resentment I felt harder to stick. His heated gaze followed me as I gulped down the pills, making sure I finished the water. Even as I put the glass down on the coffee table he didn’t look away.

“Why did you unmatch me?” I asked quietly. His hand explored, finding my ankle over the blanket. The gesture wasn’t loaded or expectant, but it still lit up my nerves. I loved that touch, so I let him run his fingers back and forth over the bone silently, until he finally murmured, “I almost messaged you two minutes after you walked out of the airport, Trouble.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m an all-in kind of guy. When I want something, I tend to get selfish. So, let’s just say I felt myself getting a little too selfish this morning.”

Maybe he wanted every single word to sink into my skin, so I’d know that he meant he wanted me too much to let himself have me. My body was buzzing to know what Frankie felt like when he was being too selfish.

Fuck, waterproof mascara was a fickle bitch.

I laid back down, only to be met with another much louder and apparent shutter of a camera. I flung into an upright position, immediately coming face-to-iPhone with Frankie at the opposite end of the couch as he had been when I fell asleep. Except now he tauntingly held his camera over my sock-covered toes in his lap. “Good morning, Colorado. Were you just having a wet dream on my couch?” “Ugh, sicko!”

“I had to wake you up somehow. You were performing parts of the Kama Sutra on my bed spread. It felt like a thing I needed to give consent for.”

I cleared my throat. “Why didn’t you just get up and sleep in your own bed then?” “I didn’t want to disturb you after you fell asleep. You looked cute as fuck drooling on my pillows.” “I did not drool on your—” I palmed the cream-colored throw under my head. Fuck, I definitely drooled on it. He smirked and looked down at his lap. “You know, for a girl who swore up and down last night she’d never put her feet on a dick, you’re looking extremely comfy right now.” I registered then that my legs were still extended clear across Frankie’s thighs. I’d claimed the couch as my own in the middle of the night under the influence of drunken comfort seeking. To be fair, it could have been much worse—that little dream I just woke up from could have been real. I rolled my eyes and pulled my feet back under the blankets, but my heel caught something stiff and sensitive tucked into the band of his sweatpants. “Oof.” Frankie winced through his teeth. “Careful where you’re kicking those.” My cheeks flamed. “Do you have a fucking hard-on right now!?”

“It’s the morning, I don’t control these things.” “Put it away,” I demanded. “Make it go away.” “Should I pack it a bag and buy it a plane ticket?” “Frankie.” I ground my teeth together.

“Don’t call me Colorado,” I deflected. “This isn’t Zombieland.” Frankie smirked. “You might change your mind if you looked in a mirror.” I glared in his direction, well aware of the state I must have been in. I knew what a night out did to the undersides of my eyes—I wasn’t twenty-one anymore. Not to mention Natalia’s makeup wipes were fucking scented, and I could feel the dry layer of skin begging for the expensive serums I had back at her apartment.

“Okay then…O.” His grin turned toothy, fueling the tension. “Who were you riding in your dream?” “No one. I was not having a fucking wet dream.” “Those little noises you make put Tally’s to shame.” I dismissed him. “You’re hearing things.” “Right.” His snide smile dialed up to ten. “So…” He leaned over, the leather of the couch creaking beneath his shoulder in the otherwise quiet room. He ran a soft trail up the inside of my exposed calf with his fingers. “If I touched your pussy right now, would I find out that you’re lying to me?”

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” “I wouldn’t dare.” Frankie kept his hand on my leg, drawing little circles with his thumb that reignited the thrum I felt elsewhere. “You know, avoidance is akin to admission,” he said. “Women that lied to me used to end up with their sweet little ass over my knee.”

I sat up on my knees, discarding the comforter on the way and dropping onto all fours. Frankie’s eyebrow quirked, his pink tongue peeking out between his parted lips at my new position. I crawled toward him across the short gap and puckered my lips to his ear. This close, I could feel the sharp intake of his breath. “Too bad I’m not a little girl, Francesco,” I whispered, licking a teasing trail up the shell of his ear.

“You’re a sadist,” Frankie groaned. “I’m starting to think so, too,” I agreed. “I’m going to go shower then and take care of this.” He vaguely gestured to his dick, creasing a line in the fabric of his pants as he stood. “I’ll leave the door unlocked for you, O.” “Don’t flatter yourself!”

“Giving yourself a tour?” I didn’t hear the sliding glass close behind me, but Frankie was standing quietly outside holding two hot mugs of coffee. He was fresh out of the shower in board shorts and no shirt, the curling ends of his hair damp and dripping at the nape of his neck. His skin was beautifully tan. A soft trail of hair swirled his belly button and disappeared beneath the peak of his boxers that made my throat feel like a desert floor. “It’s really nice,” I complimented,

“So then why were you looking for jobs in Colorado?” “I make out well doing this, but it’s not mine. You know? It’s Mateo’s. Sitting behind a computer all day isn’t what I envisioned myself doing. I’m good at flying, and I miss it.” “I get it.” I gave him a soft smile. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything but teaching. Seeing the passion in those kids and knowing I’m making a positive impact is worth every late night grading the same multiplication table over and over again.” “I wish I had teachers that looked like you in school.” I shoved him with my shoulder. “We were having an adult conversation for once and you had to go ruin it.” Frankie took another sip of his coffee and scanned my body. “There’s a lot of things I want to do with you, O. Having adult conversations isn’t exactly on the top of the list.”

“What?” I asked. “You look really good all disheveled in my clothes.” “God, what happened to, ‘I felt myself getting too selfish’ from last night?” “I took a shower and changed my mind.” I tilted my head, challenging him and taking a few steps closer. “Well, I didn’t.”

Over Frankie’s shoulder there was movement in the backyard next door. An older man was watering a crop of tomato plants and stealing glances at the two of us out of the corner of his eye. I waved tentatively, causing Frankie to turn and look as well. “Shit.” He sighed under his breath. “Come here.” “Huh?” “Come here,” Frankie whispered more aggressively at me, pulling me closer and wrapping a forearm around my lower waist. He dialed on a smile and waved over the fence at the graying man. “How are you this morning, Mr. Barry?” “Oh, just fine Francesco,” the man shouted back in an accent I couldn’t place. Frankie squeezed me harder, until I was tripping over my feet and steadying myself with a palm on his stomach. “What are you doing?” I complained. “All right, you have a great day! Tomatoes look fantastic!” he yelled over me, and then steered the both of us back in the direction of the sliding glass door. “What was that about?” “Let’s just say our neighbor thinks Cap and I are more than buddies. You’re a good decoy. Gino’s probably already on the phone with the rest of the geezers from clubhouse bingo telling them about the ten in my backyard.” “So, you owe me one.” “What’s that saying? You touch my dick, I’ll touch⁠—” “What is it with you and dicks?” I laughed. “Gino might be onto something.”

“Fuck me.” Mateo sighed, pulling a leather wallet out of the back pocket of his shorts and sifting through it to slap a crisp fifty-dollar bill in his girlfriend’s hand. “HA!” Nat snapped the bill tauntingly. “Woah, hey now,” Frankie interjected. “What the fuck, guys?” I gaped at my friend. “Did you make bets on us sleeping together?” “I knew you wouldn’t,” Nat boasted. “I know my best friend.” “I know my best friend,” Mateo added. “Pike, I was rooting for you.” “Not exactly up to me.” Frankie scratched the back of his neck. “Where’d you two run off to just now?”

“Phee.” Nat put her hand on my shoulder. “You’re in Southern Florida. There’s no such thing as a tree farm.” “But hey,” Frankie intervened. “We can go to a tree lot, okay? There’s plenty of already cut ones to choose from.” “We have a tree already,” Mateo argued. “Cap.” Frankie’s eye twitched at his friend. “Don’t be a scrooge. Maybe O is right. We could use a little holiday sprucing.” He nudged me with a shoulder and winked at the pun.

“It looks like a bomb went off in here.” “Jesus Christ,” I gasped with a hand over my chest. I turned to find Frankie lying on the bed with his hands under his head, surrounded by the disarray of my belongings and half-opened suitcase. “I appreciate the sentiment, beautiful. But you can just call me Frankie.” “Get out.” I pointed a finger toward the door. “You know, there are perfectly good drawers for all of this?” He began rooting around in the pile next to him until something caught his eye. “Yeah, well I didn’t exactly expect to have a man in my bed this morning.” “Surprise,” he replied, half to me and half to the lacy red pair of panties he lifted off the bed and dangled from his fingers. “Wear these for me?” “Get fucked.” “I’m trying.”

“Fine, I’ll just imagine it for myself.” He stretched the cherry red elastic from ear to ear over his face, the crotch lying perfectly over his sharp nose. “Give me those,” I scolded him, hopping onto the bed to snatch them away. Frankie chuckled when I finally wrestled them out of his grasp. “Don’t you have anywhere else to be besides up my ass?” He quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t fucking say anything,” I rebuked, kicking myself. “We’ll call it even, then.” He smirked. “And no, Cap and Tally are summoning spirits so I figured I’d take a page out of your book and give myself a tour.” “Go and tour the kitchen.” “Sure. Right after I get my clothes back.”

“Right now?” “Take ‘em off.” “I’m not wearing anything under it.” “I’ll close my eyes.” “Oh, okay, in that case…” I shoved an arm up the inside of the sweater, letting my hand disappear. Frankie sat up off the pillows in anticipation as I brought the same hand back out a few seconds later sporting a middle finger. “You’re a cold woman.” He frowned, standing from the bed and walking toward the door. “I think you’re enjoying this as much as me, though.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Frankie said, then snagged the red panties out of my hand, tucking them into the pocket of his shorts before walking out the door.

“I need another drink, I think. The sun is getting to me.” “Sure, Phee. And Frankie hasn’t been following you around like a puppy since you woke up this morning.” “He’s pestering.” “You’re loving it.” I rolled my eyes. “He told me he unmatched me because he was too into me. That’s a cop-out, isn’t it? It’s a line to save his ass. I can’t just give in; he’s gotta earn it.” “Maybe. He might be serious. I’ve known Frankie for a while now, and he’s not really the type to hit it and quit it.” “He obviously is if he was trying to get lucky in Colorado Springs on a stayover.”

“And then you both would have been lying.” Natalia eyed me knowingly. “What’s the worst thing that could happen? You spend your holiday vacation getting eaten out by an attractive older guy who lends you his socks and makes you coffee in the morning?”

“The four of us just shack up with our Christmas tree and our festive decorations and hot cocoa until New Year’s and fuck like rabbits? Pretend I don’t have a career and a life in Colorado that my round-trip ticket is waiting to bring me back to like we’re in some big orgy snow globe?”

I cruised along quietly, watching her and that tempting little tongue she flicked out when she was focused. Following her around a store felt entirely too domestic and comfortable for the reality of the situation.

“I have a bad back.” “Aw, old man has no mobility?” She teased me with a pouty lip and a rub between my shoulders. “That’s okay. Mateo seems very nimble.” I scoffed and threw an extra box of lights in the cart. If my physical therapist knew I was offering to climb ladders he’d put me on the bad kind of stretcher, but I was always more competitive than cautious. “Oh I’m plenty nimble, sweetheart. You’re trying to instigate me into climbing a ladder so you can check out my ass all day.” “What ass?” Something inside me twitched. This fucking girl. Right when I felt ten steps ahead of her in whatever game we were playing, she always knew how to give it right back. I let out a menacing laugh. “You’re asking for it, Trouble.”

“The house looks great, O.” Her cheeks flushed. She had to know it looked good, because I wasn’t being facetious at all. I’d genuinely forgotten the magic of the holidays until that very moment, staring out at my candle-lit living room under the golden blanket of light. It wasn’t like Mateo and I didn’t celebrate, but we weren’t the types to decorate on our own. Up until a few years ago most of our Christmases were spent on a deployment somewhere, and it had always been secondary on account of it. But this… This was nice. “Thank you.” She smiled up at me. Her eyes were crystal blue, but that close I found yellow in them. Sunshine in the sky. There was a singular part of me that knew I was fucked at that very moment. Comparing a woman’s eyes to the goddamn sky.

I had to know if I was reading things wrong. Just a kiss. If she rejected me, then that was that. We could have a very friendly, PG Christmas, and I could move on to the next dead-end dating app that Mateo found to haggle me about.

“How’d that get there?” I pointed toward the hanging leaves. Her attention flitted upward, eyes narrowing. Another creeping flood of blush pinkened her fair skin, but she didn’t react negatively. In fact, that bright gaze drifted down to my mouth after a moment before leveling with me again. I still saw the ample curiosity in it, no matter how fleeting the moment.

“You’re always up to something,” she murmured. That mistletoe had nothing to do with me, but I’d let her believe it. “And you’re always just out of my reach.” She darted her eyes away. Self-conscious, embarrassed, nervous—who cared. I wanted her to look at me again, and I didn’t want to wait. “Ophelia.” The second her chin lifted I leaned down and cut whatever string of words she was about to say in half with a sweet press of my lips to hers. It blindsided her. Our eyes were slow to shut, but when they did, the rest of her opened up. It was like the warm buzz of a first sip of whiskey, the kind that tempted you into drinking a whole lot more. Her body pressed to mine. My hand tangled in her hair. With little coaxing, Ophelia tilted her head to better reach me, dragging a curious palm up my neck that settled on my jaw as she slid her tongue against the seam of my lips, asking to be let in. Gotcha, baby.

“Easy.” I smirked. “Don’t let me catch you slipping, O. Wouldn’t want me getting any ideas now.”

“Definitely not.” “Let’s get outside, Trouble.” I pulled her along behind me and whisked us out the door.

It had been two days since Frankie kissed me. Nat and I decided on a recovery day after the first few in Florida felt more like a never-ending hangover than a relaxing vacation.

Straining to look up, I found the epitome of a beach babe eclipsing my sunshine and staring down at me on the towel. “That bikini belongs in the Louvre, O.” Frankie whistled. I shot a look at Natalia, who shrugged as Mateo dropped a backpack in the sand and leaned down to kiss her. “You’re like a fucking caricature.” I poked Frankie’s ribs as he fluffed out an oversized towel next to me and sat. The few buttons on the shirt he’d managed to clasp came undone effortlessly with a tug of his fingers. “Whose idea was this?” Mateo complained

“I love this beach.” He nodded, his eyes laser focused on my chest in the stringy red top. I pushed his jaw away playfully. “I want it to be known that I had no idea the two of you were playing tagalong today. Natalia and I,” I said pointedly, “thought we’d get some sun and some dinner, do a little Christmas shopping, and then see the tree lighting on the boardwalk tonight.”

Frankie showed his hand the very second it was dealt—it was always my move.

“So why are you called Pike?” I addressed the table but looked at Frankie

“Which version do you want?” Matty laughed. “The truth.” “Because a pike is a long spear and he had the biggest dick in Delta.” “Mateo!” Nat swatted his chest, rattling something off under her breath that made Frankie wheeze into his elbow. “Do you all just swap genital trading cards in the military?” “It’s the Army’s Pokémon,” Frankie cajoled.

“The PG reason is that when Pike first joined our unit out in the Pacific, he was coming into an already tight-knit group of guys and needed the proper welcome.” “Assholes,” Frankie mumbled, playing with his food. I could make out the touch of blush under the brim of his ball cap. “So we took him out on an inaugural fishing trip,” Mateo continued. “A rite of passage into Delta with the whole crew. Not even an hour in, this guy catches the biggest fucking Northern pike fish any of us had ever seen.”

“Now tell them why everyone calls you Captain,” Frankie suggested, sending a knowing smirk in his best friend’s direction. “Nah, now’s not the time.” “I’d like to know!” I piped up,

“It’s because I call the shots, sweet girl.” “Get calling then, brother,” Frankie agreed. “I’ll do tequila, next round’s on you.”