Page 55 of Santa's Pucking Hat Trick

Soon, when everyone else had gone but Michael and Violet, it was finally the former’s turn. It was odd that he’d ended up being last, since he was dead center at the table. I noticed him shifting nervously in his seat. He cleared his throat, glancing down at his lap for a second before looking up at Violet, who sat beside him.

“Well,” Michael began, his voice unusually soft. “I guess I’m thankful for a lot of things this year. But more than anything…I’m thankful for Violet.”

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small velvet box, and suddenly the whole room went still. Violet gasped, her handflying to her mouth as Michael slid out of his chair and onto one knee.

“Violet, I’ve loved you for so long, I can’t remember what it was like before I loved you,” Michael said, his voice thick with emotion. “You’re my best friend, my family, the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t wait any longer to make it official. Will you marry me?”

Violet’s tears flowed instantly, and she nodded furiously, barely able to speak through her sobs. “Oh, Michael. Yes, of course I’ll marry you!”

The room erupted in cheers, everyone clapping and congratulating the newly engaged couple. Rachel let out a playful groan, crossing her arms. “I thought you were going to propose at Christmas, Mike! You were gonna let me help!”

Michael laughed, pulling Violet into his arms to kiss her cheek. Were it not for her deep skin tone, I was sure we all would have been able to see her blush, but we felt it as surely as she did. My friend shrugged, looking at his sister. “I couldn’t wait that long.”

As everyone celebrated, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of envy. Not for Michael’s proposal or his happiness—he was my best friend, after all, and he and Violet were perfect for each other—but for the idea of it. The idea of loving someone so much, wanting to spend the rest of your life with them, and knowing they felt the same. Having the moment of celebration with everyone as you committed yourselves to one another. I glanced at Rachel, who was smiling so brightly it lit up the whole room, and I realized something that knocked the wind out of me.

I wanted that same moment with her. I wanted her every day, every hour. Without a single doubt, I was in love with her.

And I couldn’t say a damn word about it. Not here, not now. But that didn’t change the fact that it was true. I held it in as dinner resumed, then wrapped up, then turned into dessert—pies galore, and spiked hot chocolate for the adults in place of the wine. I kept my feelings inside, a burning ember of emotion, as a lot of the extended Henning crew headed to their hotels for the night and others retired to their guest rooms. Michael and Violet left, staying the night at her place since he still lived at home for now—they’d been looking for an apartment, though. Bria left too. So eventually, I finally had Rachel alone.

“I’m glad you were here today,” she told me as we walked together into the backyard. The night was cold enough that I’d given her my jacket, now that November was in full swing. “It was so…normal. But I kept wanting to touch you. Had to remind myself that no one else knows about us.”

Us.Such a simple word, but it felt so good to hear her say it. To think of us as a unit, somehow. “I wanted to touch you too.”

We were at the door to the guest house now, and it felt like the right time to tell Rachel what I’d realized over dinner. To say the three words that might ruin everything, but also might make it all fall into place. The stars twinkled above us in the night sky, and she looked so sweet, so open to the idea of love compared to the closed-off coldness I’d seen in her at first…but no matter how hard I tried to open my mouth and just let it out, no matter how badly I felt the need to share this with her like I wanted to share so much else in this life, the words stayed trapped in the back of my throat. The last person I’d loved—thoughtI’d loved, maybe, though it had felt genuine in the beginning—was Sharon. Rachel wasn’t like her, of course, but it was natural to be a little gun shy after that. Maybe part of me even worried still that Sharon was right. That no one else would,couldlove me the way she’d claimed to. Not even Rachel.

“Do you want to come in?” Rachel asked, looking at me with serious eyes, dark blue and gray like the sea. I knew she was inviting me to sleep with her again—our first time just us two since that day in her office. If I couldn’t tell her I lovedher, maybe I could show her with my body instead. I nodded, following her inside.

Realistically, it wasn’t likely anyone would hear us from the main house all the way out here. But after spending a whole day with Rachel’s family, somehow we both felt the need to keep quiet, whispering our desires as we shed our clothes and tumbled together into her bed. That illusion of danger, the unfounded worry that maybe we could get caught, heightened the heat between us. I was so hard, ready for her faster than I’d ever been, my cock aching to be inside her again. Rachel was absolutely soaked when I dipped my hand into her panties.

“You’re so beautiful,” I breathed against her dark hair as I found the tiny nub that was the center of her pleasure. Rachel sighed sweetly and gripped the back of my head, pulling me into her neck, urging me to kiss her sensitive collarbones. I sucked and licked her there as I rubbed circles into her clit, breathing in her scent, breathing out the four-letter word I felt like a phantom limb.

Rachel came so easily, so softly for me. Whimpering, writhing against the bed. I wanted to give her more, have her come again against my mouth as I relished the way her pussy tasted, but she stopped me when I started to move lower.

“I love when you kiss me,” she told me, her cheeks visibly pink even in the dimness. “But I need to feel you inside me now, Wes. Please, make love to me.”

That phrase was like a knife to my heart. She didn’t know how true it was. How badly I wanted to love her fully, always and forever. But she did know how badly I wanted her in this way. She reached for my erection, her soft hand on my shaft feeling like heaven and sin all at once.

“Anything for you,” I told her, and in another few seconds, I was lying on top of her, our fronts pressed firmly together as I slid home inside her perfect pussy.

It struck me as strange that we’d never had sex this way—classic missionary, face-to-face, underrated for its intimacy and the depth my cock could reach when she was beneath me. How odd, I thought as I pumped slowly inside her, that we’d only really had sex a few times. It felt like we’d been doing this forever. Like we were born to do this. I kissed Rachel’s mouth as I fucked her slowly, taking my time, reveling in the sweetness of her wet heat enveloping me.

When she came apart again, moaning into my mouth and digging her nails into my ass, I had no choice but to follow her over the cliff’s edge. She murmured sweet nothings as I spurted inside her, telling me how much she loved being filled with my cum, how good I felt inside her, how badly she’d needed this all day.

As we drifted off to sleep together, I imagined what it’d be like to have this with her every night. To live and die to the sounds of Rachel Henning’s moans for the rest of my life, whether they were sounds I caused her to make or ones she gave to Sawyer and Roman. Either way, what bliss.

30

RACHEL

The afternoon sun had already started to dip behind the low-hanging clouds as Bria and I made our way through the quaint little streets of Mistletoe. Black Friday had brought its usual madness earlier in the day, but by now, the chaos had mellowed out to a manageable hum. The twinkle lights strung across every shop window made the town look almost magical, like a Christmas card come to life. Bria and I had been shopping since dawn, our arms full of bags, but I was finally starting to feel the wear of the day.

“Alright,” Bria sighed, adjusting her grip on the mass of shopping bags she held. “Do we need to hit anywhere else, or are we done?”

“I think we’re done.” I rubbed my temples as a wave of fatigue hit me. “Unless you’re planning to bankrupt me with one more stop.”

Bria laughed. “Hey, we both did some damage. But it’s the giving season, right? We can justify it because we weren’t shopping for ourselves. Well, except thatonepair of boots I found.”

“Well, they were such a good deal,” I teased. I smiled with her, but my mind was somewhere else. As we walked, I glanced into the windows of each shop, my thoughts drifting to the guys. I’d already bought most of the gifts for my family—the easy part—but I was still stuck on what to get for them. Roman, Sawyer, Wes…it felt like I should get them something meaningful, something that showed how much they meant to me.

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