Page 38 of Holiday Home 5

“If you’d like, I could stay out of the bed and read over at the dining room table.”

He understood her point.“I’ve enjoyed quite a bit about tonight, but you’re pushing it right now.”

So, he closed his mouth and let her finish heading back to the other room. Finding one of his books a few seconds later, he pursued her. She was already under the covers, leaning against her pillows as she thumbed through her book to the page she’d left off at. However, she’d also plumped his pillows up, preparing for when he slid into the covers beside her and did the same thing.

With the suite’s sliding doors shut, their view of the outside was delegated to one of the numerous Fijian-style windows. They had long, thick slats, currently left open, because who would close them while in a location like this? This was a place of absolute privacy,especiallytheir suite. They didn’t need to worry about anyone or anything. It was just the two of them.

It was just the two of them, Liam repeated in his head.

Rounding the bed, he glanced at her, and she at him. Only for a moment, just registering his presence, and then shereturned to reading her book. She didn’t look up as he climbed into bed beside her. Liam did his best to match her aplomb, opening his book to the admittedly early section he was still in and trying to focus on piece configurations and back-rank defense variations, not the incredibly voluptuous woman sitting next to him.

Was he the first person in history to experience that struggle? Very possibly.

They sat in relative silence for the better half an hour. They could still hear the soft ebb and flow of the ocean, but it was more hypnotic than distracting. Staring at the chess positions inked onto most pages, reading the thoughts of one of the greatest chess players of all time above and below it, he did his best—and his best was somehow good enough—to keep from side-eyeing Victoria.

This meant he hadn’t noticed that the gorgeous, olive-skinned professor had stopped readingherbook.

“Do you feel like you’re learning?”

Liam nearly started. Spoken softly or not, the question jolted him as though Victoria had placed an ice cube on the back of his neck. Looking up from his current lesson, he found Victoria leaning slightly toward him, eyes scanning the page he’d been reading.

“I think so,” Liam said, though he was slightly hesitant in doling out his praise. Based on the book's first half, it seemed almost entirely to focus on back-rank mates and tactical patterns. Unfortunately, he’d already spent hours and hours learning about these things through videos, online puzzles, and practice. So, the book had so far felt more like a review. He’d picked up one or two new things, but not as many as he might have hoped.

“A little under your current level?” Victoria keenly asked.

“I… think so. Do the puzzles in it get harder at the end?”

“Slightly, but not by much. When I was learning chess at a younger age than you, I read it in the library early on. I much preferred Irving Chernev’sLogical Chess: Move by Move.I’d set up my board and follow along.”

Victoria smiled softly, favoring the memories of her youth momentarily.

“Once you head back to your dorm, you could borrow my copy and see if it works for you. When I was your age, technology was just beginning to reach a state where learning through online videos, articles, and so on was on the rise. At this point, especially with chess’s unexpectedly meteoric rise in popularity over the past couple of years, those might just now be the best ways to learn the game.”

“Even if that’s true, I still know my favorite way of learning.”

“Losing repetitively to me and Tess?” Victoria said, “checking” him before he could make his move.

“I haveonewin in there,” he reminded her. “It madeallthe losses worth it.”

“It did?”

“Unequivocally.”

A word that would have made Avril throw her head back at him and laugh. But for the right opponent, it was the right move. In response, Victoria only snorted softly, but the glimmer of a smile remained afterward. It was still there as she reached over, plucked the slightly disappointing book out of his hands, placed it on top of hers, and then moved both over to her nightstand.

“I’m ready for bed,” the stunning woman said. “Are you?”

“No”was the honest answer.

“Yes,” he said instead.

Instead of turning off her nightstand lamp and directing him to do the same, Victoria climbed out of bed. Liam’s heart took off in a dead sprint. In a truncated replay of how strip poker had gone, the incredibly well-endowed professor removedher shirt. In what he assumed—he saw her and Anna with many similarities—was an uncharacteristic move, she dropped it onto the ground. As it disappeared from his view, hidden by the other side of the massive bed they’d be sharing tonight, she began to wiggle her wide hips and escape her shorts.

Back to just underwear, where she’d been when this deal had been struck.

The older woman looked at him, saw how desperately he hoped for her to stay true to her word, and then removed them both. First came off her sports bra, imitating how things had gone on the other side of their bedroom’s sliding doors. The most amazing tits in existence reappeared before him. God, they really might be able to fully hide his entire cock between them. They had an ideal shape, curving on the top and a little rounder on the bottom, with dark areolae surrounding nipples he couldn’t wait to harden and play with. Salivating over Victoria’s massive breasts as he was, he was slow in redirecting his attention when she began completing her promise.

Avril would have beenpissed.Not just because the “sanctity” of her game had been undone by the deal Liam and Victoria had made, but that onlyhewas around to see the dark-haired professor become fully nude. As the woman who’d invited Tess to becomeherworkout partner, Victoria must have had this body for years.

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