Page 1 of Mistletoe Love Match
ChapterOne
Calliope Cress
Calliope Cress was on the cusp of sweet release.
Crammed into a snug broom closet, she gripped the lip of a shelf piled high with rolls of toilet paper and hummed her pleasure. “That feels so bloody good,” she bit out in a breathy British accent, then immediately wanted to take it back—not because she was upset about teetering on the brink of orgasmic bliss. If anyone needed a trip to O-town, it was her.
It was Christmas Eve, and she’d gotten roped into volunteering in the Helping Hands Community Center’s childcare room for the final day of a health and wellness fair. She’d been there for the last seven and a half hours looking after the medical staff’s children. Twenty kids in one place with every child amped up on dreams of what they’d find under the Christmas tree had been like herding cats. But as crazy as it was in the classroom, that wasn’t what had her prickly with irritation and wound as tight as a spring on the verge of snapping.
The problem was the infuriating man on his knees in front of her going to town like he was a horny old Saint Nick and she was a plate of freshly baked Christmas cookies.
The wanker with a magic mouth, Alec Lamb.
A man she couldn’t escape.
And why couldn’t she avoid him?
He was volunteering at the community center, too. Thank God he wasn’t stationed in the classroom. He was a doctor in training—a medical school student—and was on the other side of the building, tending to patients.
Oh, and they resided in the same bloody house.
That’s right. The. Same. House.
Her brother’s house.
Well, it wasn’t just her brother’s home.
Alec’s older sister, Libby, was engaged to Calliope’s older brother, Erasmus—or Raz, as he was known to his close friends and family. They lived together with Raz’s son, Sebastian. Libby, Raz, and the lad made a darling trio. Calliope adored her nephew, and she loved her soon-to-be sister-in-law. The chick was a yoga sensation and a shrewd businesswoman. But Libby had one glaring fault—well, two, to be exact—Alec Lamb and his twin brother, Anders, men who happened to be the same age as her and her twin sister, Callista.
Yes, twins.
It was a nauseating double twin-a-palooza situation. And it had been like that for the last four months.
Alec and Anders were supposed to attend medical school in a study-abroad program in Ecuador, but they’d decided to complete their first semester in Denver to be with their sister. She and Callista had left their home in London to teach in South Korea. Instead of returning to their posh flat in Chelsea after their teaching stint ended, they’d traveled to Colorado to spend time with Raz, Libby, and Sebastian.
Little did she know she’d be stuck in the wonder-twins foursome from hell.
And that statement demanded a point of bloody clarification.
It wasn’t hell being with her sister. They’d been inseparable their entire lives. And even Anders, with his easy smile and stupid jokes, was tolerable. What made it a living hell was that Callista and Anders had clicked from the minute they’d locked eyes. It was like something out of one of those American Hallmark movies, with the two lovebirds blushing like schoolchildren and fawning all over each other.
Anders, how sweet of you to find a shop that carries my favorite English toffees.
Callista, I love this stethoscope. It’s such a thoughtful gift.
Gag City.
She’d had a decidedly different reaction to Alec.
Despite having her leg slung over his shoulder and her panties hanging off her ankle as he worked her with his mouth, she despised the man. The bloke was aloof and as rigid as an ironing board. The stick shoved up the man’s arse was in there tighter than Excalibur stuck in stone.
And she couldn’t get away from him. The rhythm of her life went like this: Alec was always with Anders. Anders was always with Callista, which meant she had to tag along—for her sister’s sake, of course.
It was one thing to entertain a little crush, but she wasn’t about to let Callista fall hard and fast for Anders Lamb. She knew her sister as well as she knew herself. Callista wasn’t ready for a serious relationship. They were twenty-two years old. They’d graduated with degrees in elementary education and had plans to teach abroad and see the world. Not to mention, Alec and Anders would return to Ecuador soon to continue their studies. But that didn’t matter to Callista. Anders Lamb was the only thing her sister seemed to be able to focus on these days. And that’s why Calliope had to pull a Jane Austen and act like the modern-day Victorian cock-block.
Unfortunately, she had to do this with Alec sneering at her like Ebenezer Scrooge.
She’d wake up, ready to spend the day with her sister, and hello, moody wanker. Alec was always in the background, watching her from every angle. Even when everyone in the house was fast asleep, she couldn’t avoid the man.
