It’s Thursday!  If all goes well, NICK will be in the queue this weekend.  Here’s one last excerpt for you. 🙂

EXCERPT:

NICK FIDDLED ANXIOUSLY WITH the knobs on the giant, pulsing copper kettle as gummy pink ooze slowly made its way down the sides and across the floor.  Spokes, an ancient elf about two feet tall, watched placidly while chewing on a candy cane.  The thumping music from the party down the hall was muffled.  Cursing, Nick yanked a nearby lever.

“Tried that,” said Spokes.

Nick glared at him.

“Is there anything you haven’t tried?” he asked, trying to keep his temper.

Spokes chewed thoughtfully.

“Haven’t tried unplugging it.”

“Seriously?”

Spokes grinned and scampered around the back of the giant cauldron.  After a moment, it shuddered and ground to a halt.  Nick rubbed his forehead, feeling an encroaching headache as the ooze spread over his feet in a sticky, slow-moving blob.  This would take all night to clean up, and given that most of his staff was tipsily cavorting in the next room, he may as well start looking for a shovel.

“Oh dear, Mr. Kringle,” said a soft voice from the doorway, “Does this sort of thing happen often?”

Nick looked up.  For a second, he couldn’t make sense of the woman who stared at the mess in fascinated horror, stepping up on a nearby box to avoid getting the goo on her delicate little boot-clad feet.  She was unmistakably part elf, though taller than her North Pole counterparts.  Everything about her was a blend of unbearably cute and lusciously naughty.  She had a curvy little figure a pin-up would envy, poured into a no-nonsense suit, her coat draped neatly over her arm, and riotous shoulder-length blond ringlets that refused to be confined by pins.  Her eyes were a warm ocean blue, over a cute little nose and a rosebud mouth designed to make a man think of sex.

Hell, everything about her screamed sex.  Nick felt an unwelcome surge of lust.

This was the supervisor?

He tried to think of something to say, something professional and reassuring, but all that came out was, “You’re late.”

She frowned at him, raising a pert eyebrow.

“ My apologies.”

She held a hand out to him to shake from her perch on the box as he squelched his way over through six inches of sugary pink ooze.

“Phoebe Winters, Mr. Kringle.”

Even on the box, she barely came up to eye level, and Nick was shocked as her warm hand touched his.  Everything about this woman was wound tight – she was probably as frigid as his father’s icicle palace – but her skin was as soft as marshmallows, and she smelled faintly of warm ginger.  She extricated her hand quickly and edged back as far as the box would allow.

“Perhaps we should reschedule.  You seem a bit…busy.”

She cocked her head toward the sound of the party.

“The annual holiday party.  I was told it’s tradition.  Luckily my predecessor left detailed notes.  Parties aren’t exactly my thing.”

“Mr. Berry was an excellent manager.  He’s already got the new Ottowa factory running ahead of schedule.”

The reprimand was implicit, and Nick’s mouth tightened.

“We’re on schedule.  Almost.  Let me give you the tour.”

Phoebe nodded tightly and began looking around for a safe descent from her perch, seemingly horrified by the ocean of sticky sugar.  Without thinking, Nick reached for her, gripping her by the waist and lifting her off her box.  The breathless little squeak she made was bad enough, the sound like a curious finger up the length of his cock, but the press of her body and the fingernails that dug into his shoulders were worse.  For the space of a heartbeat, her luscious tits snuggled against his chest, her hands clutched him tight, and her mouth dropped open in a little gasp.  It wasn’t hard to imagine her digging her fingers into his naked skin, that same wide-eyed breathlessness as he fed his cock into her heat, a slow, tight inch at a time.

Unnerved, Nick swung her around to set her on the floor outside the doorway, well away from the oozing pink stuff.  He was relieved to let her go, and his palms tingled from where he’d touched her.

This is your boss, idiot, he reminded himself, and scrambled to regroup.

“Can I offer you something?  Candy?”

Phoebe paled and shook her head hard enough to set her curls bouncing.

“No, thank you.  I don’t eat candy.”

An elf who didn’t eat candy?

Nick frowned.

“Well then, let’s get started.”

He steered her toward the elevators.

“Don’t you have to deal with…that?”

The pink ooze was now spreading across the lobby floor, toward the closed candy shop at the front of the factory.  Nick sighed, and squelched back to give a few quick instructions to Spokes, who nodded, unfazed, and headed off to the party to find a few not-entirely-drunk assistants to start the cleanup process.

Nick frowned at Phoebe as they stepped into the elevator and he hit the button for the top floor.  She smoothed her suit subconsciously, and Nick sent a stern mental warning to his cock, which took immediate interest at the sight of her hands sliding down all of those edible curves.

“You’re staring.  Is something wrong?”

“I’ve never met an elf who didn’t like candy,” said Nick.

“I’m only half-elf,” replied Phoebe nervously, “My father was human.”

“I’ve never met a half-elf who didn’t like candy,” said Nick, not missing a beat.

“Well, now you have.”