Free White Hot Christmas: A Heart of Fame Christmas Story by Lexxie Couper

Arrival
    Sydney International Airport, Australia
     
    Nick Blackthorne looked at the writhing mass of weary travellers crammed into the arrivals customs security area, the overly excited camera crews pushing and shoving their way through said writhing mass, the surly-faced customs officials glaring at them all, and the stoic sniffer-dog handlers holding the leashes of the far-from stoic sniffer dogs, and thought: Well, this sucks.
    He hitched his carry-on bag farther up his shoulder with one hand and dug his mobile phone from the back pocket of his shorts with the other.
    Checking the screen, his worst fears were confirmed.
    Yep. No service at all.
    Which meant he had no way of letting Lauren know what was going on.
    What were the odds Australia’s leading current affairs program would be filming a special in the airport on Christmas Eve?
    Until the chaos before him right now, a chaos he was meant to make his way through, he would have said slim to none.
    What also were the odds of some misguided individual trying to smuggle something into the country via their luggage that consequently sent the sniffer dog’s wild on the same Christmas Eve?
    So, a crowded customs area, chockfull of tired international travellers all eager to get out of there on one of the most special days of the year, stuck together in a small space that—even at the best of times—fostered a suffocating sense of Oh-God-I-want-out-of-here agitation.
    And Nick. Travelling alone. Incognito. Without a bodyguard or any fanfare. Hell, even the crew of the airline he’d flown in from London had been unaware he was on the plane until halfway over the Pacific.
    Shoving his mobile back into his pocket, he adjusted his glasses on his face—slightly tinted lenses that weren’t quite sunglasses but concealed his eyes enough to make identifying him tricky—and let out a ragged sigh.
    This was what he got for being out of the country leading up to Christmas. Sure, he’d been out of the country for a damn good reason—opening the UK branch of the Children’s Smiles Foundation he ran with Sir Addison Lancaster, the British wildlife cinematographer—but he should have known something like this was going to happen.
    When had getting back to Lauren ever been a smooth trip?
    Studying the frenzied television crew closing in on the sniffer-dog’s target, Nick puffed out another shaky breath.
    If it weren’t for their presence here, he’d make use of his fame and celebrity status and queue-jump. Even after all these years of being retired and out of the public limelight, whenever he made an appearance things got a little crazy. If he wanted to he could snag a guard, let the man know who he was and ask to be taken through the “special” customs gate. Even with the craziness unfurling before him, he was tempted.
    He had a long drive to get home once he got out of here. It would take him at least six hours if the traffic through Sydney was behaving and the M1 wasn’t in holiday-madness hell. Being trapped in customs was only adding to those six hours and he hadn’t seen his wife for over a week.
    He hated not being with Lauren for that length of time. Or really, for any length of time.
    He wanted to get home. It was Christmas Eve. He wanted to be with his wife. He wanted to take her in his arms, draw her beautiful body to his hard one, lower his head to hers and kiss her until she made that utterly intoxicating little noise she made when he kissed her.
    He wanted to slowly press her against the closest wall, thread his fingers through hers and raise her hands above her head, worshipping her mouth as the steel of his arousal told her in no uncertain terms how fucking much he missed her, how fucking much she turned him on.
    He wanted to make love to her lips, her throat, her shoulders, her breasts with his mouth and then bring her to the most insanely intense orgasm of her life as she leant against the wall.
    He wanted to lose himself to the pleasure of everything