A Very Dirty Christmas Read online

  "Nope," Caulter says. "Let me find a paperclip or something."

  I sigh heavily, collapsing against the headboard. Losing the handcuff key is definitely a buzz kill.

  Caulter returns, paperclip in hand. "I found it in the desk."

  "Have you done this before?" I ask.

  He cocks his head to the side, looking down at me. "Hello," he says. "Have you met me? I was a total juvenile delinquent. I've picked a handcuff key before."

  He jiggles the paperclip in the locking mechanism, but it doesn't spring open the way I expect. Several minutes of struggling and cursing under his breath later, Caulter shows me a shard of the paperclip.

  "It broke off in the lock," he says. "It's stuck."

  "It's stuck?" I squeal. "I thought you did this before!"

  "I have! Apparently the sex toy company sells handcuffs that are harder to get out of than police cuffs."

  "What are we going to do?" I ask, racking my brain to remember whether the gardener keeps tools in the shed out back. Hacksaws cut through metal, right?

  Caulter is scrolling through his phone, distracted by the screen.

  "You better not be posting this on social media," I say.

  "I'm finding a locksmith."

  "To come out here and get these off me?" I squeak. "You can't!"

  "Would you rather I called your father down here and asked him for help?" He pauses for a beat, silence my only response. "That's what I thought."

  "I can't believe I'm handcuffed to the bed," I say.

  And left high and dry with no orgasm, to boot.

  Caulter has the phone to his ear already. "Do you need anything?" he asks. "Water? Food?"

  "A key," I yell as he walks down the hallway.

  When he returns, he holds up the phone. "Locksmith is on the way," he says. "Trapped pregnant woman qualified as an emergency. He'll be here in thirty minutes. Now I just have to figure out what to do with you for thirty minutes."

  "Make up for trapping me in this bed?" I ask.

  "That I can certainly do," he says, sinking between my legs.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Caulter

  It's the rehearsal dinner. Ella's wedding planner has arranged a huge spread in the backyard underneath a giant tent, the one where the wedding reception will be held tomorrow. A second tent nearby is already set up for the ceremony itself. Inside this tent, wide swaths of white chiffon drape from the center of the ceiling outward to the edges, and a massive chandelier hangs from the middle, sending yellow light shimmering and dancing over the interior.

  "I thought the rehearsal dinner was supposed to be small," I whisper to Kate, sliding my hand around her lower back. "You look good enough to eat, by the way. Eat out, I mean."

  She definitely does. Kate is wearing a red holiday dress, a sheath that makes no attempt to hide her figure. It clings to every inch of her curves, accentuating her pregnant belly. Her hair is swept up off the back of her neck, and the earrings she wears catch the light as she turns to face me.

  "It was supposed to be small," she says. "It got a little out of control with all of the out-of-town guests. And you're being bad, Caulter Sterling."

  "You bring it out in me." I lean close to her and whisper. "We should sneak out of here."

  Kate rolls her eyes. "This is our rehearsal dinner."

  "Look around," I whisper, spinning her around to face the other side of the tent, where our extended families and friends are dancing, kids included. "Dinner is finished anyway. Everyone is mingling and dancing and listening to music. There are so many people here, no one will even notice if we sneak out for a few minutes."

  "Oh, is that all it takes you now -- a few minutes?" she asks.

  "That all depends on whether I'm pulling up your skirt and bending you over your father's desk," I whisper.

  "We can not do that," she says. "It's completely indecent."

  "It wasn't so indecent that summer, was it?"

  "That was different," Kate hisses. "That summer we both hated my father and we were…"

  "Well, I know you were repressed and sexually frustrated and thinking of how much you desperately wanted to feel my cock inside you."

  Kate laughs. "Oh, please," she says. "Like you weren't obsessing about how much you wanted me. You were practically throwing yourself at me for years."

  "I'm trying to throw you some D right now," I whisper into her ear, and I can feel her shake against me as she giggles.

  "We can sneak out to the guest house," she whispers.

  "Nope," I tell her. "Christmas lights are being strung up on it, remember? The wedding planner decided we needed more lighting outside. To set the mood."

  Kate groans. "Well, that doesn't help my mood."

  "Let's run up to the house," I insist. "No one will notice."

  "Not my father's office," Kate says, turning to face me and giving me a stern look.

  I pull her against me like I'm slow dancing with her, careful to keep my voice low. "You say it's completely inappropriate, but I seem to remember that you said the same thing back then. And you still bent over, put your palms down on the top of that desk, and let me spank that sweet little ass of yours. Then you let me fuck that tight little pussy right there in your father's office."

  Kate rolls her eyes. "You're so juvenile," she says. But she runs her tongue over her lower lip, the way she always does when she's turned on.

  And I know my fiancé. She's definitely turned on right now.

  "Juvenile would be if I slid my fingers between your legs right now, so that I could see if you're wet," I say.

  Her cheeks color. "If you did, I'd slap you right here."

  "I can't say that would make me less turned on."

  "House. Now," she says, her voice urgent. She turns and weaves between guests, smiling and nodding when someone stops to congratulate her, and hugging family members before we slip out of the tent.

  Outside, snow is falling softly, covering the ground with a fine dusting of white powder. "We're going to have snow for the wedding tomorrow," I say.

  "Don't remind me," Kate groans. "Ella and the wedding planner have been making contingency plans all day. There's supposed to be a big storm tonight."

  "What?" I ask. "Where did you see that?"

  "Haven't you checked the weather?" she asks. "If you used your phone for doing something other than watching porn, you'd already know that."

  "I also use it to check dating apps," I joke.

  "Hilarious," Kate says. "You know just the right thing to say to a pregnant woman."

  "New Hampshire gets snow all the time," I say. "A little snow is no big deal, right? It's a Christmas Eve wedding. A little snow is perfect."

  "That would be true, if it were going to be just a little snow. But it's supposed to be a Northeaster," Kate says. "It's seven right now and already laying on the ground outside. The wedding planner is going crazy. Didn't you see her earlier, freaking out?"

  "I figured that was just about wedding stuff," I say. I intentionally leave out the part where I was busy fielding ridiculous requests from my mother and the wedding planner, Rebecca, to "up the ante" with the wedding. Their most recent stroke of brilliance was their idea to have a white tiger cub to carry the rings down the aisle.

  Ella's promise to keep things manageable and under control might have fallen by the wayside.

  I don't tell Kate that. I think her head would explode if she knew they'd even asked about a white tiger cub as the ring bearer.

  Although, really, who doesn't want tigers in their wedding ceremony?

  "I had to tell them not to order sleighs," Kate says. "And horses. Actual real-life horses. They want to have sleighs bring people to the ceremony if we get snowed in."

  "Or snowmobiles. Actually, that's not a half-bad idea," I say. Then I see the look on Kate's face. "Or…that's an awful idea. How could they even consider that?"

  Inside the house, we cut through the kitchen. Rose is there, directing catering staff with all o