Room at the Inn

By Drew Marvin Frayne

Working on Christmas Eve—no fun. Working a double shift on Christmas Eve? Even less fun. But working a double shift on Christmas Eve in a hotel with two guests? For Jason Martin, it was a recipe for a long, dull holiday. But then a power outage at the local airport sends a bus filled with people to Jason’s hotel. Alone, Jason not only has to attend to his guests, he has to save Christmas for a group of weary and grouchy travelers. Happily, one of the guests, a Mr. Marino, steps in to lend Jason a hand. Mr. Marino is helpful, handsome, and running right to the top of Jason’s Christmas wish list. But Jason has sworn off hotel hook-ups. And Mr. Marino will be heading out of town the next day, Christmas day. Is it worth getting involved with someone who is only staying for one night?

• Language: English
• Publisher: NineStar Press, LLC
• Release date: Nov 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781947904316

Book preview

A NineStar Press Publication

Published by NineStar Press

P.O. Box 91792,

Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87199 USA.

www.ninestarpress.com

Room at the Inn

Copyright © 2017 by Drew Marvin Frayne

Cover Art by Natasha Snow Copyright © 2017

Edited by: Jason Bradley

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at the physical or web addresses above or at [e-mail]

ISBN: 978-1-947904-31-6

Printed in the USA

First Edition

November, 2017

Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content, which may only be suitable for mature readers.

Room at the Inn

Drew Marvin Frayne

Table of Contents

Room at the Inn

About the Author

Room at the Inn

CLICK. CLICK. HE needed a black five. Click. Click. He hadn’t flipped either over yet. Click. Click. Click. Come on… Click. Click. Nope. No black five. Game over.

Jason sighed, shifted in his seat, closed the open window on the company computer, and looked at his watch. It was barely nine thirty. Roughly…two minutes had passed since he had last checked the time. Great. Normally, double shifts sucked. And double overnight shifts sucked even harder. But a double night shift on Christmas Eve? He looked around the deserted hotel lobby. Through the glass doors, he peered beyond that, into the almost-as-empty parking lot. Yeah. Double night shift on Christmas Eve sucked hardest of all.

He didn’t mind the Christmas Eve part so much. His parents were on a Caribbean cruise for the holiday, and his older sister had four kids and lived four hundred miles away. The Martin family Christmas was going to be held on January 4 this year, which would allow for his parents to get back from their cruise and his sister and her brood time to drive across three states. Plus it would have the added bonus of ensuring that most of the Christmas frenzy, which was gripping his nieces and nephews at the moment, would have worked its way out of their systems by then. Jason shuddered. Christmas might be more fun with kids, but four kids under the age of seven? Stuffed with sugar and mad for presents on Christmas morning? No thanks. That was a fresh hell he didn’t mind missing at all.

Besides, working the holidays meant time-and-a-half, and a quick glance at the rapidly rusting-over Toyota in the parking lot would tell anyone that Jason could use the cash. And since he had no family to be with on Christmas and nowhere else to go, Jason was happy to cover for the people who did have somewhere to be. Still, it was just so…empty.

Jason got up out of his seat, stretched, and walked out from behind the main desk. Rotely, he checked the coffee pots (regular, decaf, and high octane) and plate of store-bought chocolate chip cookies that greeted guests as they came in. The caffeinated brew was about half full—the decaf was always full. Should he make fresh? Jason shrugged. Why bother? The hotel had a grand total of three guests—one middle-aged man sleeping off an office Christmas party at which he’d gotten a little too merry, and one young couple visiting the husband’s parents for the holidays (and Jason had inferred from the look on the wife’s face that staying at the hotel was definitely her idea). None of them would want any more coffee tonight.

Jason poured himself a cup of the high octane—he was going to need it to stay awake—and contemplated taking a cookie. You haven’t had any carbs since Thanksgiving, he reminded himself, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor in both life and food choice. He walked over to the sparse green tree that some day-shifter had erected in the corner. For an artificial tree, it seemed remarkably real…largely because it looked so tattered and haphazard, as if the Charlie Brown Christmas tree had both grown up and mutated. The tree was six feet tall—about three inches taller than Jason—but had less than two dozen ornaments on it, all red balls that had seen better days. Gaily wrapped boxes were scattered around the tree’s base. The hotel had been using these same boxes for years,