Unwrapping Her Perfect Match: A London Legends Christmas Novella by Kat Latham
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’Twas a week before Christmas, and at the auction house...
At six foot one, Gwen Chambers has felt like a giant her whole life.
She’s a calm, capable nurse saving lives in a busy London hospital, but
healthy men give her heart palpitations. When larger-than-life rugby
player “Little” John Sheldon convinces her to bid on him in his team’s
fundraising auction, she discovers how pleasurable heart palpitations
can be.
A rugby player was stirring, with desire no one could douse...
John has wanted Gwen since he first saw her, but when he’s injured
in a match just before Christmas he suddenly needs her too. Not only can
the sexy nurse help him recover, but she might be able to help him look
after his daughter—a shy ten-year-old who speaks only French.
But will it be a Happy Christmas for all, and for all a good night?
From decorating the Christmas tree to ice skating at the Tower of
London, Gwen helps father and daughter open up and bond with each
other—and she bonds right along with them. But when John's agent calls
with a life-changing offer, Gwen has to decide how far she’s willing to
go for her perfect match. Will their first Noël also be their last?
Excerpt:
The goddess wore a
rugby shirt with the wrong number on it.
John Sheldon
watched the woman walk through the door of the stadium’s
hospitality suite, where he and his London Legends teammates would
soon be auctioned off for charity. Outside, snow blanketed the rugby
pitch while green and white Christmas lights strung around the
stadium blazed with the team’s colors. Inside, rich people were
getting pissed on mulled wine and whisky he’d never be able to
afford under normal circumstances. John had been trying not to yawn
when the woman entered the room.
Her height drew his
notice first. How could it not, when the next-tallest woman in the
room came to her shoulders? She was the only woman here who wouldn’t
make him feel like a towering giant. Her face was angled away from
him, and her wheat-blond locks of hair had been twisted and clamped
behind her head in one of those casually elegant styles that begged
to be undone, mussed up by big, clumsy fingers. Her neck was slender,
her shoulders broad, and her rugby shirt had the number ten on it.
His captain’s number.
An elbow jabbed him
between the ribs, jostling the tumbler of Islay whisky he held and
splashing the amber liquid across his hand. “I count three for me,
a dozen for the skipper and nil for you, Shelly. What do you make of
that?”
John set his
tumbler on a table, tempted to lick the alcohol off his hand so it
didn’t go to waste. Opting instead for a classiness he usually
failed to achieve, he wiped his wet hand on a cloth serviette and
looked down—a good eight inches down—at Matt Ogden, who’d
recently become the team’s starting fullback. “Nil what?”
“Bidders.”
Oggie raised his brows and nodded at the crowd gathered in the suite.
John scanned the
people who’d paid five-hundred quid each to be here tonight. They’d
come to raise money for several charities by bidding on a player to
do pretty much whatever they wanted for a day. Last year John had
been “won” to teach a kid rugby skills. That was a lot better
than the year before, when he’d had to show up at a stockbroker’s
office and pretend to be his best mate. How he’d got through it
without lamping the arsehole was a mystery.
And Oggie was
right—not a single person wore his number. At the start of the
evening, guests received a replica Legends rugby shirt, and they
pinned on it the number of the player they intended to bid for. It
was an ice-breaker that gave the players a chance to change people’s
minds before bidding started. A good dozen guests, including the
goddess, wore the number ten—not surprising, since his captain Liam
Callaghan was one of the best-known rugby players in the world. But
why in God’s green England would three people want to bid for Oggie
when he’d barely played until last month, while John had started
every match?
Okay, so Oggie was
a little above average height, while John was six-nine. He could see
how that might intimidate people. And Oggie was apparently good
looking—if you asked him—so that explained why all of his bidders
were female.
“Fucking hell,”
John muttered, the potential for humiliation sinking in. “I’m not
standing up there and having no one bid on me.”
“Looks like
that’s exactly
what
you’re doing. Meanwhile, I’ll have to let those three ladies down
gently,” Oggie said, his voice betraying the fact that he might be
here physically but mentally he was back home, shagging his best
friend Libby.
The specter of a
crushing defeat loomed over John, and his determination to come out
on top finally kicked in. “I may not get as many bidders as you,
mate, but I bet I can raise more money.”
“Really?” Oggie
laughed and stretched out his hand. “You’re on. What does the
winner get?”
“Pride. Bragging
rights.” He held up his tumbler. “And a bottle of this whisky.”
“Done. Now go do
what you do best. Knock some heads together.”
John knew right
where to start. The goddess might’ve started the evening wearing
his captain’s number, but by the end of the night she would be
calling out his.
#
Wonder if I could
wedge those windows open enough to throw myself out, Gwen
Chambers thought as another of the women standing near her droned on
about her stock portfolio. Gwen had never considered investments a
weapon before, but after five minutes she felt like she was being
battered into a long, tedious death.
She’d only joined
the group so she didn’t look like a loser, standing alone in a
corner or hovering by the drinks table. This definitely wasn’t her
crowd, though. After she’d spent a twelve-hour shift sprinting from
one end to the other of East London’s busiest Casualty department,
inserting IVs, shifting patients from gurneys to beds, and dealing
with a suspected addict who refused to take no for an answer, these
women’s conversation about their retirement funds had the same
effect as chloroform.
The women barely
glanced at her as she excused herself and turned away in search of a
different anesthetic—alcohol. She hadn’t gone far when the air
around her sizzled to life. Tingles shimmied down her back, as if the
pin her sister had used to attach the number ten to her shirt was
rubbing against her skin. The sensation rose, though, from her back
to the base of her skull, stroking along her neck and skimming the
top of her head.
Someone was
watching her. Someone whose gaze could reach over her head.
She fought the urge
to hunch her shoulders, make herself smaller. Disappear before she
became the arse of someone’s jokes. But she’d battled that
instinct for years and refused to give in to it now. As nervous
energy bubbled beneath her surface, she carefully focused on
composing herself.
A man cleared his
throat behind her. Above
her,
actually. The sound had her turning and—oh,
my God—brought
her face-to-shoulders with the tallest man she’d ever seen. She
actually had to look up to meet his warm brown gaze, a gaze made even
more brown by the bruises shadowing the delicate skin under one of
his eyes.
At six-one, she’d
never felt anything but massive. Overgrown. Freakzilla, as the kids
at school had not-so-affectionately called her.
This man gave her a
brief taste of what it must be like to be normal. Dainty, petite and
feminine. This must be how her sister Tess felt around everyone she
met.
The man stuck out
his hand. “John Sheldon. Number five.”
She placed her hand
in his. Currents of adrenaline made her fingers pulse with a
sensation bordering on pain. “Gwen Chambers. Bidding on number
ten.”
“Let me get you a
drink and tell you why that’s a terrible mistake.” Before she
could respond to his flirtatious words, he snapped his fingers.
“Chambers…are
you related to Tess Chambers?”
“She’s my
little big sister,” she said automatically before noting the
deepening confusion on his face. “I mean, she’s my older sister
but she’s a lot littler than me. It’s something we always say
to—you know what? Never mind.” Oh
God, just shut up, you fool.
John Sheldon
smiled. “Our sponsor’s sister. Very
nice
to meet you, then.” He gestured toward the number on her back. “And
you’re bidding on her boyfriend—why?”
That won a little
laugh from Gwen. “She’s making me, actually.”
“Making you?”
“She doesn’t
want anyone else to have him. Said she has big plans for him.” Gwen
raised both hands and grimaced. “At that point, I stopped asking
questions. But since she’s the auctioneer, she said it wouldn’t
look right if she bid on him herself. So she gave me some money and
asked me to do it for her.”
John’s brows shot
up. “And you’re going to be a good girl and do as she says?”
“Well, of course.
It is
her
money. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise…?”
“Otherwise I
wouldn’t be here at all. This isn’t really my scene.”
“No? Why not?”
Too
many virile men. Her
blush deepened as she recognized the corner she’d painted her into.
“My dad and sister watched a lot of rugby when we were growing up—”
“Wait—I’ve
met
your
dad. Your sister’s brought him to some of our events. Blonde bloke.
Scruffy beard. Short.”
Gwen laughed. Her
dad was six-foot six. Only this
guy
could consider him short. “Yep. Short and hairy. At home, we call
him Ewok.”
John had the
misfortune to be taking a sip of whisky at that moment. He made a
horrible choking sound, bending over and covering his mouth and nose
as Gwen patted his back. His broad, strong, warm back. God, she could
feel every single muscle. She could outline them with her finger and
name them for him, if he let her.
Grabbing a
serviette from the table next to him, he wiped his mouth and hand,
and stared at her with amused, watery eyes. “You’re having me
on.”
“Yeah, we don’t
call him Ewok. Mostly we call him The Doctor because, well, he’s a
professor of history, so if he could time travel he would.”
“Like Doctor
Who.”
“Got it in one,”
she said. “Anyway, I never watched rugby with him and Tess. I’m
more—”
He waited a few
seconds, but when she couldn’t find a less pathetic way of saying a
cake-decorating enthusiast
he had mercy on her. “More…of a doer rather than a watcher?”
She blinked. “Um,
are you asking if I play rugby?”
He wouldn’t be
the first.
He grimaced.
“Actually, I was trying to flirt. Didn’t come out right.”
Flirt?
With me?
She
caught herself before she said it but blurted out instead, “Are you
taking the piss out of me?”
He reared back.
“What? No! Why?”
Because he also
wouldn’t be the first to do that. When she was sixteen, a boy from
the school swim team had bet his teammates he could get a blowjob
from her. She’d given him a hell of a lot more than that before
finding out he’d won a hundred quid in addition to the dubious
prize of her virginity. Her sister had got revenge by distributing a
humiliating picture of him getting out of the pool with an
unimpressive erection, but the wound he’d inflicted had never truly
healed. Every attractive man who flirted with her in the decade since
then had paid for that boy’s sins.
John looked so
horrified by the question that she immediately felt awful about
doubting him, for both their sakes. “I’m sorry. Ignore me.”
“I don’t want
to do that, Gwen.”
The sound of her
name in his deep, throaty voice gave her shivers. A waiter passed by
with a tray of full champagne flutes. John grabbed one and handed it
to her. “Let me try again with the flirting,” he said. “Imagine
you bid that money on someone other than my skipper. What would you
want him to do?”
“Someone other
than Liam?” She took a long sip of the champagne, trying to wet her
suddenly parched throat.
“Me, for
example.” His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Imagine you bid on
me. What would you have me do?”
“I’d get you
for a whole day?”
“Mmm hmm. A whole
day. All yours.” His voice caressed her as seductively as a
physical touch. The seed of temptation he’d planted sprouted. If he
were hers, what would she have him do? Ruck
me,
she wanted to joke, but she kept quiet for fear that she might see a
flash of revulsion on his face before he was able to cover it.
A gavel tapped a
piece of wood three times, and everyone turned their attention to the
front of the room, where her sister’s boyfriend Liam leaned over a
podium to speak into a microphone. “All right, everyone, we’re
ready to get started. Could I have all Legends front and center?”
One of John’s
hands skimmed the sensitive skin inside her elbow. He leaned
down—what a novelty—and nudged the shell of her ear with his
nose. His voice sent shivers of longing through her as he whispered,
“All day, Gwen. All yours. Whatever you’d like. Anything at all.”
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