Page 105 of Bound to You

“No, he doesn’t! He’ll love them. He just needs to get used to it.”

Marvin looks up at me, and I can see the plea in his eyes.

Help me. Save me.

“Sorry, buddy.” I shake my head at him, knowing that if I’m doing this, he’s sure as shit doing it too.

I look up and catch our reflection in my bedroom window. It’s dark out so I can see us clearly.Tooclearly.

Isla and May never really had big family Christmases back at home. I didn’t either until I came here, and the D’Angelo’s showed me how it’s done, making sure to invite anyone else that didn’t have a place to celebrate. This year, it was decided that Isla and I would host.

I was not aware that when I volunteered to host, I also volunteered to wear a matching onesie with Isla and Marvin. She had a special one ordered for him because she didn’t want him to feel left out.

I shake my head as I look at the three of us in the reflection.

“What?” Isla asks, her hands on her hips.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” I laugh.

Her smile threatens to appear as she takes me in, almost as if she knows how ridiculous we look but refuses to admit it. “We had to go all out!” She pulls the hood up on her onesie, making the reindeer antlers bounce around on top of her head.

I pull the hood back off her head so I can feel her skin beneath my hands as I cup the back of her neck.

“I would’ve much preferred if you were wearing that little red dress I saw peeking out of the closet earlier. You would’ve fulfilled the fantasies I’ve had since I first saw you in it, running around in that on Christmas Day.” I press a kiss just below her ear. “Although I might have had to steal you away so I could give you a little gift of my own,” I whisper.

She flinches as my breath tickles her neck, giggling like that’s exactly what she wants right now.

We decided no presents this year. There are so many of us, and we didn’t want to add the extra pressure. But I have a little present for Isla, in a little red box, glittering away in the pocket of the dress pants I was planning on wearing today.

There aren’t any pockets in this onesie, and I don’t know if I want to be wearing it when I make the girl of my dreams the fiancée of my dreams.

A buzz sounds through the apartment.

“Santa’s here! I hope you’re decent or you’ll be on my naughty list,” Leo laughs before the intercom goes silent.

I can’t believe I’m going out there like this. I don’t ever need to give these guys more ammunition. I walk out to the kitchen, pressing to let him up before I sit at the bench to wait.

“Ho ho ho!” He comes walking in wearing a gigantic white beard. “What the fuck are you wearing?” he barely manages to ask between laughs as he sees my reindeer onesie.

“Says the guy wearing my great grandma’s wig for a beard.”

He laughs, but I throw the hood off my head and check behind me to see that Isla hasn’t come out of the room yet.

“What’s with the suspicious glances? Who’d you kidnap?”

“No one,” I whisper shout. “But I’m going to need your help.

ISLA

Laughter echoes off the walls of our apartment as Michael Bublé floats from the record spinning in the corner of the living room.

Our apartment.

It is our apartment now. It’s been over five months since I started living here permanently with Caio, but it feels like so much longer and so much shorter at the same time.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve been here forever, like the routine we live in is something that I’ve always done. It all comes so naturally.

And other times, it feels like it was only yesterday that we saw Ruby Cove for the first time.

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