I startle and cover my ears.
“Practice, darling,” Pauline grins knowingly at me.
From across the room, Kai darts over and kneels at her feet.
“Here he is. Kai! Look!” Pauline grabs a fistful of his hair, forcing Kai to meet my eyes. He gives me a huge smile.
“Hi, Noel. Great place you have here.”
Pauline rests a hand on Kai’s head. I catch sight of Holly halfway down the stairs now, and I want to rush to her, but I don’t want to be rude.
“I just saw Rick and Cat. Did you come with them?”
“We did! You know this place is fab, Noel.” Pauline launches into a story about their drive down, but my eyes have found Holly.
She’s chatting with a woman on the stairs; her hair is tied back, falling down one shoulder, and her short skit floats around her legs. She’s wearing a lacy red top, showing her beautiful breasts, and I remember how her nipple taste.
“You’ll come for dinner soon?” Pauline says.
I blink, knowing I had tuned out the conversation. “Yes, I’d love that, thanks.”
“Run along, Kai. We must not keep our friends waiting any longer,” Pauline demands. She flips her long blonde hair as Kai scrambles along the hall on all fours.
I meet Holly on the stairs before anyone else can grab my attention. She turns to me and smiles, her eyes glowing.
My heart tugs weirdly, and I know I have the biggest grin splashed on my face, and I don’t care. I’ll smile every time I see this woman walk into a room.
“I’ll talk to you later. Nice meeting you,” the woman says and goes upstairs.
“Good morning, Miss Burkholder.”
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Brennon,” Holly says.
I move closer, close enough to see the glitter in her dark pink lip gloss. She tilts her head to me and smiles.
Leaving her last night was so hard. Part of the reason I gave her the choice to continue or to pick up our game today was because I thought maybe I needed a push…a push to spend a night in a woman’s bed who isn’t my wife.
Another part of me is relieved that she sent me away, even if all I wanted to do was bury my cock in her pussy.
I take her arm, guiding her down the last four steps.
“This is for later.” I hold up the gold-wrapped gift, it’s heavy and boxy and set it behind the reception desk. “How did you sleep?”
“Great,” but a shadow crosses her face, and I want to know why.
“Are you sure?”
“My family hasn’t celebrated Christmas together for a long time. Being here, with all the holiday decorations…”
She touches a piece of evergreen on the doorframe of the dining room. “Made me miss some stuff. I called my cousin last night. She and her kids read The Night before Christmas.”
“Christmas does bring out the sentimentality,” I say.
I take her arm and guide her to the dining room.
“Or new traditions,” Holly laughs, pointing to the table on the raised platform where we had dinner last night.
A man has his head buried in a woman’s pussy, and her legs are over his shoulders.