Page 1 of Yule Tied Up

CHAPTER 1

Mackenzie

“Oh,my God, look! We’re nearly there.”

Beyond the winding road and the thick expanse of trees, strings of bright lights twinkle against the night sky.

We’re heading to an annual three-day Christmas market in one of the small towns in the Adirondack mountains. Excitement bubbles up inside me. I absolutely love this time of year. All the twinkling lights and the excuse to eat sugar cookies and drink mulled cider at any time of the day. I love gift buying too, though purchasing gifts for my three men isn’t always the easiest of things. They’re all wealthy in their own right, and if they want something, they can buy it themselves. I might just wrap myself up in a Christmas bow and call it a day. I’m pretty certain they’d be more than happy with that.

I reach across the central console to squeeze Kirill’s hand. He’s driving, focused on the road, but he glances over at me with a grin.

My heart gives a kick. I still can’t believe he’s mine. With his messy, bleached blond hair and nose ring, he’s the sort of man who turns heads when he walks into a room. He’s Russian born but has lived in the States for years now. He still has an accent and occasionally slips back into his mother tongue. Notthat I mind. When he calls me hiskukla—his doll—it still sends pleasurable shivers through me.

“I love how excited you are about this, Mackenzie,” he says.

I grin. “I really am.”

He throws me a sexy wink, and I can’t help but lean across to plant a kiss on his square jaw, the graze of his stubble against my lips.

In the back seat, his two best friends, Domenic and Valentino, are sharing snacks and playfully fighting over which playlist to listen to next. They banned my Christmas music from the list over an hour ago. Said it was too sickly sweet, spoilsports.

Tino leans forward, between the seats. “Hey, how come Kirill gets all the action?”

He grabs me around the throat and pulls me in for a kiss. I happily kiss him back, our tongues tangling. Kirill continues to drive, completely comfortable with me making out with his best friend.

“Well, this is fucking bullshit,” Dom grumbles.

I break off the kiss with Tino to sneak out a hand and grip his thigh. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn.”

The three of them make up a gang known as The Devils at Verona Falls University—a college for the sons and daughters of international crime families. You’d think I’d have avoided them like the plague with a name like that, but since Dom was supposed to have been my stepbrother, I never had the chance. They made my life hell when we first met, but that’s all changed now.

I’m sure all of them will get their turn with me over the next three days. As much as I want to make the most of visiting the market stalls, and going on horse and wagon rides, and drinking hot chocolate, I know we’ll make the most of having the cabin to ourselves.

The thought has me tingling all over. Things have calmed down since the arrival of our baby. We all love her to pieces, but it puts a damper on your love life. I’ve also been conscious of my health, as I suffer from epilepsy, and growing a whole other human being puts a lot of strain on the body. We’ve been through a lot over this past year, and the stress didn’t make things better either.

This trip is a gift from Domenic’s father, as is the offer to babysit our daughter while we’re away. I’m anxious about being this far from Lucy, especially as I haven’t left her this long before, but we all need this time. It’s important to remember how we were together, before we became parents. While we’re visiting the Christmas market, our actual accommodation is somewhere a little more discreet. We didn’t want to have to explain our situation to the owner of an Airbnb or try to find a hotel room that would accommodate all four of us, so we’ve got a remote cabin about thirty minutes’ drive from the town.

The cabin looked perfect in the pictures. It has an open fire with fur rugs on the floor, and the owners have decorated for Christmas, so it has a real tree. There’s a huge bed as well, big enough for all of us, which was our main concern.

Kirill frowns and stares ahead. The road takes a fork, and, for a beat, his eyes narrow as if he’s unsure which one to take. Then I see it, the small, almost hidden sign to the Hideaway Cabin.

“It’s north,” I prompt him.

Kirill takes the turn, away from the town, and we head up an ever-narrowing track. There are no lights out here, and only the bright beam from our headlights shows the way. Trees and inky blackness stretch out on either side. We’ve left the twinkling lights of the town behind us. I shiver a little. If I wasn’t with three big, scary-ass men, I’d be too nervous to stay somewhere so remote.

The cabin has Wi-Fi, we checked, so we won’t be completely cut off. We need to be contactable in case there’s an emergency with our daughter.

“Rumors are that a witch lives in these woods,” Dom announces out of nowhere.

I swivel in my seat and give him the side-eye. “Dom, don’t. Not unless you want me to run back to Verona Falls.”

Tino laughs. “As if that place is any less scary. You must have heard the stories about how four different ghosts haunt the halls.”

This is news to me. “They do?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Three of them are old, like from distant times.”

I laugh softly at the way he puts it. Distant times. He’s not wrong in that vernacular.

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