Page 67 of Holiday Home 4

It’s like I’ve become a secret student of two competing dojos,he thought. However, instead of hoping that one sensei would eventually fight the other, wowing him in the process, he’d much rather see what they looked like when using their lips and hands to grapple for control over the other, not leg sweeps and palm thrusts.

While eating brunch, Liam spent a lot of time considering if such a dream was possible. Anything meant anything, sure, but she’d clearly been intimating another threesome with Avril when she’d set forth his prize.

At the same time, he kind of felt like Tess was in his corner, that she was willing to help him make progress in his relationship with her colleague. Having experienced what that felt like already, receiving Avril’s help in improving his chances with Tess, the familiarities were clearly there.

The question was: would Tessaccepta threeway with Victoria, or did she actively hope it might happen?

Putting the cart ahead of the horse,he reminded himself, shifting his focus toward the woman who he wasn’t in an activesexual relationship with. Before he started marking the calendar date for when he’d get to have both professors at the same time, he ought to be sure that things between him and Victoria wouldn’t stall out or outright end.

He needed to have a little more patience, he ultimately decided. And he still had no chance of winning against either woman at chess, as Tess so happily showed him following brunch and the completion of his first proper massage lesson—in which they both resisted every urge in their bodies when he had his oiled-up hands on her thighs and hips.

Two days in a row, he’d experienced what it must feel like for a toddler to enter a bounce house full of overly competitive adults. Neither woman seemed interested in softening their punches, and he suffered a barrage of nearly as many losses today as he had yesterday.

“If one thing’s for certain,” Liam eventually remarked, “it’s that my scorecard is sure going to end up looking pretty uniform. And I’m going to be excellent at writing the letter L.”

“You’re not too bad, actually,” Tess said. “You’ve honestly already improved a fair bit.”

“From drowning straight away to floundering a bit, then drowning?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

Mirth filled Tess’s smile. “Kind of.”

Fortunately, he was able to convince her to offer him some guidance.Fortunately,having experienced so much defeat when learning cards from his uncle, he didn’t end up in a bad mental place when he got stomped. So, he was able to pick up some more knowledge from Tess before they decided that now was the right time to head over to Anna and Avril’s apartment.

With the possibility that he might drive back to campus from there, they took separate cars. When they arrived, they found that Victoria had beaten them over. And so, things could kick off right away.

“Cheers!” Avril called out a little while later, champagne glass rising above her shoulders.

Liam and the others did the same, then everyone downed their glasses. As confirmed by the dark-haired professor who’d been asked to bring it over, the champagne was non-alcoholic. So, he’d be safe to drive home afterward. So would Tess and Victoria, too, because Avril quickly began offering refills. After all, it wasn’t her bottle, so there wasn’t any reason to be stingy.

Not that Avril Knight knows what that word even means,Liam thought.

After his drink, his eyes shifted toward Victoria. To his surprise, he found her already glancing at him. He smiled, aware that she was probably also thinking about the last time he’d sampled one of her non-alcoholic beverages.

As of about five minutes ago, just before Avril had called for a toast, he’d spent the last of his points. The redheaded schemer had stared at him as if he’d utterly flubbed his stated goal of creating drama when he placed fifty-six points to Fiji. Thanks to that massive influx, it’d sailed by a hundred total points, most of them coming from him. So, it wasn’t even close when all was said and done.

And well, that was Victoria Moreno’s fault, as she well knew.

However, some small part of him wilted, now aware that the only guarantee he’d see another picture of her past vacations revolved around him defeating her in a chess match. A task that was going to be quite an uphill battle. Not to mention—

“What are you frowning about?” Avril asked, elbowing his ribs as she slid in next to him. “You’ve just decided where you’ll spend your upcoming spring break, at one of the most romantic places in the world, sun and beaches and beautiful women in skimpy bikinis as far as the eye can see. You ought to be grinning from ear to ear.”

Opening his mouth, a typical remark to one of Avril’s jibes forming on his lips, Liam noticed something. An absence of something, in fact. The other conversations in the room had all dried up. Upon noticing this, Liam shifted his attention from the slyly grinning redhead beside him to the other three stunning women in the room. Anna and Tess were clearly looking his way, and even Victoria seemed curious about his forthcoming answer. She just hid it a little better, bringing the rim of her refilled glass to her luscious mouth to cover her interest.

Circling his attention back to Avril, he made sure to answer loud enough for the whole room to hear. His heart was only slightly racing while he did so.

“Yeah, you’re right. For a whole week, I’m going to be the luckiest guy on the planet.”

“Eight, actually,” Avril said, “if we count the time in the air.”

“An eleven-hour flight isn’t exactly what I’d call vacation time,” Tess said. “Especially with the time zone change.”

“We’ll be flying in style, at least,” Avril said. “In-flight entertainment, good drinks, comfy seats.” She waved a flippant hand through the air. “And we can sleep on the flight; it’ll be fine. We can just leave at a time when we’ll arrive at Fiji early, having slept along the way.”

Curiously, Victoria and Anna shared a look, though nothing seemed to come of it. The rest of the celebration passed by relatively uneventfully. Compared to the last time they’d all gathered in this apartment to celebrate something, nothing like what had happened then found a way to recur. Based on a furtive look from Tess, then a wide grin when Avril caught him doing the same in her direction a little while later, Liam was certain he couldn’t be the only one reminiscing about that night.

By the time it was sensible for him to get headed back to Perrymont, he bid four fond goodbyes. One of those went to a redheaded mischief-maker, who cruelly whispered into his earabout what he would have been allowed to do with her if he could have found a way to stay over. Another went to a dark-haired woman with far too much politeness and grace to ever suggest something so uninhibited but who might be interested in trying one or two of the things that her roommate had whispered into his ear. Another went to a woman as abundant in style and elegance as anyone he’d ever met, even when she was naked but for an arm over her breasts. Damn, he hoped for more.

Surprisingly, but not in the way he’d been thinking, he got it. Avril had gotten her chance to whisper those words in his ear after grinning and pulling him into a hug. Naturally, that had rolled over into him also hugging Anna goodbye. By then, Liam had figured he was safe to hug Tess goodbye, even if it would mean noticing Avril’s sly smirk in his peripherals.

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