Page 15 of His Off-Limits Christmas Gift

I want to bend you over this table and fill your sweet little cunt.

Too graphic.

What if you move on with me?

That sounded too much like a commitment.

Instead, the flare of jealousy that burned through me prompted me to double-check. “You’re not interested in Eric, specifically?”

I was pissed that the asshole was moving in on her. He was a classic ladies’ man around here. And even though it’d been years since I’d seen Rachel, I knew she deserved better than a ladies’ man using her—even for a holiday fling. Casual sex was fun, but Eric would cheapen the experience for her. I knew the kind of player he was, and I wanted better for her.

“No.” She shook her head. Slowly, she traced her finger back and forth on her knee. It seemed like a fidget, yet not. “I’m just…” She sighed and pierced me with a vulnerable look. “Clueless.”

My stomach growled at that moment, breaking up the seriousness of the moment. She smiled a bit, and I chuckled. “How about lunch?” I stood up, resisting the urge to offer her my hand for her to stand with me. Chivalry wasn’t dead, but if she wanted to insist on being so clueless, I didn’t want to confuse her any further.

“What?”

“I want to take you to lunch.”

“Like… TDH wanted to take me to dinner?”

I furrowed my brow. “TDH?”

“Shit.” She stood and slapped her hand over her eyes. “Eric. I, uh, I didn’t remember his name. Or I didn’t pay attention when I first met him. Tall, dark, and handsome. TDH.”

“You renamed him an acronym?”

“Why not?” She shrugged.

“Then wouldn’t he have been TDAH?”

“Tada?” she joked.

I laughed. “Come on. A working lunch. We’ll talk.”

I expected a protest, but when her stomach growled too, I knew she’d see reason.

We didn’t go far, just to the café on the first floor. As soon as we had a table, I launched right back into her interest, or lack of interest, in TDAH. But the claim that she wanted to move on with a holiday fling… I hadjustconsidered that last week when I spoke with her brother. That I could offer her a holiday fling and boost her spirits. It was almost Kismet that she’d say it out loud.

“If you had a boyfriend, this Kyle guy, how can you claim to be clueless?”

She licked her lips, taunting me. “I?—”

A server came up and interrupted. We both ordered, drinks and our lunches, then she explained. “I grew up next door to Kyle. His family and mine are close.” She frowned, pausing as she sipped water. “Don’t you know this already? From being friends with Brandon?”

I shook my head. “You were so much younger, Rach. I was living here, in New York, when you were in high school and all that.”

She nodded.

“I remember your neighbors. And that your mom was best friends with the woman next door.”

She scowled and blew out a huge breath. “Yeah. Emily Jones. Kyle’s mom. She’s as upset as my mom is that Kyle and I aren’t together anymore.”

“Just that you’re not together? Not that he dumped you?” I frowned. “It seems like it’d be instinct for a mother to want to defend her daughter from a guy breaking her heart.”

“I… I don’t know if my heart was really broken. If it was love. If it could have been love.”

“Because you’re too young to tell the difference?”

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