Page 19 of Yule Tied Up

I lightly knock on the door, but I don’t wait for anyone to call ‘come in.’ To my surprise, Kirill is actually giving Mackenzie some space and is perched on a stool. He’s dressed again. His size dwarfs the piece of furniture, his knees practically up around his ears.

He gets to his feet. “Find anything?”

Mackenzie’s head pops around the side of the shower curtain. “Were there footprints?”

I shake my head. “Nope, nothing. I don’t know what you saw, Mack, but there was no sign.”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head at herself. “Shit. I can’t believe I was imagining things. I’m so sorry, guys.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” I tell her.

“Yeah, I do. I completely ruined the mood.”

“It’s dark, and we’re out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps we should have considered that it would be kinda strange being all the way out here. A place in town would have been better.”

Kirill snorts. “Yeah, right. You think someone would have rented us a place? You saw how they looked at us in the markets. It was like they’d never seen three men with a pretty girl before.”

“That asshole at the high striker wouldn’t even sell us tickets,” Tino grouches from behind me, clearly still not over us being turned away.

I don’t think it’s that we were with Mackenzie that got us all the looks. We do make for three imposing figures. “Maybe people thought we were out to cause trouble?”

We’re supposed to head back to the Christmas market in the morning, but now I’m wondering if it might be a better idea to just stay here. After all, we have everything we need.

“Let me get out of the shower, and then we can snuggle up on the couch in front of the fire,” Mackenzie says. “And we’ll pull down all the blinds, so my imagination can’t get the better of me again.”

I smile at her. “Sounds good.”

Kirill grabs her a towel and wraps her up as she steps out. Her skin is soft and pink from the hot water. She seems far more relaxed than she was when she went in, so that’s a good thing.

I step out of the bathroom, and Kirill guides her toward the bedroom, no doubt planning on helping her get dressed.

He throws me a wink as he passes. Son of a bitch. Maybe he’s planning on keeping her completely undressed.

But a few moments later, she appears in a pair of red pajamas with snowflakes on them. Her blonde hair is tied up in a high ponytail, her face free from makeup. She looks cute as hell. In her hands, she has a couple of bags.

Kirill emerges from the bedroom behind her. He clearly didn’t get his way.

“I almost forgot.” She brandishes the bags. “I bought us all something.”

I narrow my eyes at her, suspicious. “What?”

“You have to look for yourselves.” She hands us one each.

Frowning, I shove my hand into the bag. My fingers come into contact with a soft, velour material, and I tighten my grip and pull out the item. Red with snowflakes all over them.

“Oh, no.” I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”

She claps and jumps up and down. “Yes, you have to! It’s Christmas.”

I turn to Kirill and Tino, who are also holding sets of matching pajamas. Tino looks like he’s just been given a turd in a shoebox, and Kirill like he found his favorite pet dead.

Tino holds out the set beseechingly. “You can’t do this to us, Kenzie. We’re from some of the most powerful crime families in the world. We cannot be seen wearing matching Christmas pajamas.”

She laughs. “But that’s the beauty of it. No one is going to see you.”

She seems so happy at the prospect of us all being in matching Christmas pajamas that I already know none of us are going to say no, no matter how fucking ridiculous we all might look.

I point at the other two. “This is something we take to the grave.”

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