"Nope," Caulter says. "Let me find a paperclip or something."
I sigh heavily, collapsing against the headboard. Losing the handcuff key is definitely a buzz kill.
Caulter returns, paperclip in hand. "I found it in the desk."
"Have you done this before?" I ask.
He cocks his head to the side, looking down at me. "Hello," he says. "Have you met me? I was a total juvenile delinquent. I've picked a handcuff key before."
He jiggles the paperclip in the locking mechanism, but it doesn't spring open the way I expect. Several minutes of struggling and cursing under his breath later, Caulter shows me a shard of the paperclip.
"It broke off in the lock," he says. "It's stuck."
"It's stuck?" I squeal. "I thought you did this before!"
"I have! Apparently the sex toy company sells handcuffs that are harder to get out of than police cuffs."
"What are we going to do?" I ask, racking my brain to remember whether the gardener keeps tools in the shed out back. Hacksaws cut through metal, right?
Caulter is scrolling through his phone, distracted by the screen.
"You better not be posting this on social media," I say.
"I'm finding a locksmith."
"To come out here and get these off me?" I squeak. "You can't!"
"Would you rather I called your father down here and asked him for help?" He pauses for a beat, silence my only response. "That's what I thought."
"I can't believe I'm handcuffed to the bed," I say.
And left high and dry with no orgasm, to boot.
Caulter has the phone to his ear already. "Do you need anything?" he asks. "Water? Food?"
"A key," I yell as he walks down the hallway.
When he returns, he holds up the phone. "Locksmith is on the way," he says. "Trapped pregnant woman qualified as an emergency. He'll be here in thirty minutes. Now I just have to figure out what to do with you for thirty minutes."
"Make up for trapping me in this bed?" I ask.
"That I can certainly do," he says, sinking between my legs.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Caulter
It's the rehearsal dinner. Ella's wedding planner has arranged a huge spread in the backyard underneath a giant tent, the one where the wedding reception will be held tomorrow. A second tent nearby is already set up for the ceremony itself. Inside this tent, wide swaths of white chiffon drape from the center of the ceiling outward to the edges, and a massive chandelier hangs from the middle, sending yellow light shimmering and dancing over the interior.
"I thought the rehearsal dinner was supposed to be small," I whisper to Kate, sliding my hand around her lower back. "You look good enough to eat, by the way. Eat out, I mean."
She definitely does. Kate is wearing a red holiday dress, a sheath that makes no attempt to hide her figure. It clings to every inch of her curves, accentuating her pregnant belly. Her hair is swept up off the back of her neck, and the earrings she wears catch the light as she turns to face me.
"It was supposed to be small," she says. "It got a little out of control with all of the out-of-town guests. And you're being bad, Caulter Sterling."
"You bring it out in me." I lean close to her and whisper. "We should sneak out of here."
Kate rolls her eyes. "This is our rehearsal dinner."
"Look around," I whisper, spinning her around to face the other side of the tent, where our extended families and friends are dancing, kids included. "Dinner is finished anyway. Everyone is mingling and dancing and listening to music. There are so many people here, no one will even notice if we sneak out for a few minutes."
"Oh, is that all it takes you now -- a few minutes?" she asks.
"That all depends on whether I'm pulling up your skirt and bending you over your father's desk," I whisper.
"We can not do that," she says. "It's completely indecent."
"It wasn't so indecent that summer, was it?"
"That was different," Kate hisses. "That summer we both hated my father and we were…"
"Well, I know you were repressed and sexually frustrated and thinking of how much you desperately wanted to feel my cock inside you."
Kate laughs. "Oh, please," she says. "Like you weren't obsessing about how much you wanted me. You were practically throwing yourself at me for years."
"I'm trying to throw you some D right now," I whisper into her ear, and I can feel her shake against me as she giggles.
"We can sneak out to the guest house," she whispers.
"Nope," I tell her. "Christmas lights are being strung up on it, remember? The wedding planner decided we needed more lighting outside. To set the mood."
Kate groans. "Well, that doesn't help my mood."
"Let's run up to the house," I insist. "No one will notice."
"Not my father's office," Kate says, turning to face me and giving me a stern look.
I pull her against me like I'm slow dancing with her, careful to keep my voice low. "You say it's completely inappropriate, but I seem to remember that you said the same thing back then. And you still bent over, put your palms down on the top of that desk, and let me spank that sweet little ass of yours. Then you let me fuck that tight little pussy right there in your father's office."
Kate rolls her eyes. "You're so juvenile," she says. But she runs her tongue over her lower lip, the way she always does when she's turned on.
And I know my fiancé. She's definitely turned on right now.
"Juvenile would be if I slid my fingers between your legs right now, so that I could see if you're wet," I say.
Her cheeks color. "If you did, I'd slap you right here."
"I can't say that would make me less turned on."
"House. Now," she says, her voice urgent. She turns and weaves between guests, smiling and nodding when someone stops to congratulate her, and hugging family members before we slip out of the tent.
Outside, snow is falling softly, covering the ground with a fine dusting of white powder. "We're going to have snow for the wedding tomorrow," I say.
"Don't remind me," Kate groans. "Ella and the wedding planner have been making contingency plans all day. There's supposed to be a big storm tonight."
"What?" I ask. "Where did you see that?"
"Haven't you checked the weather?" she asks. "If you used your phone for doing something other than watching porn, you'd already know that."
"I also use it to check dating apps," I joke.
"Hilarious," Kate says. "You know just the right thing to say to a pregnant woman."
"New Hampshire gets snow all the time," I say. "A little snow is no big deal, right? It's a Christmas Eve wedding. A little snow is perfect."
"That would be true, if it were going to be just a little snow. But it's supposed to be a Northeaster," Kate says. "It's seven right now and already laying on the ground outside. The wedding planner is going crazy. Didn't you see her earlier, freaking out?"
"I figured that was just about wedding stuff," I say. I intentionally leave out the part where I was busy fielding ridiculous requests from my mother and the wedding planner, Rebecca, to "up the ante" with the wedding. Their most recent stroke of brilliance was their idea to have a white tiger cub to carry the rings down the aisle.
Ella's promise to keep things manageable and under control might have fallen by the wayside.
I don't tell Kate that. I think her head would explode if she knew they'd even asked about a white tiger cub as the ring bearer.
Although, really, who doesn't want tigers in their wedding ceremony?
"I had to tell them not to order sleighs," Kate says. "And horses. Actual real-life horses. They want to have sleighs bring people to the ceremony if we get snowed in."
"Or snowmobiles. Actually, that's not a half-bad idea," I say. Then I see the look on Kate's face. "Or…that's an awful idea. How could they even consider that?"
Inside the house, we cut through the kitchen. Rose is there, directing catering staff with all o
f the precision and authority of a military general. "Are you kids escaping from your own party?" she asks.
"We just wanted to come inside and...visit you," Kate says, exaggerated innocence in her voice.
Rose laughs. "Shoo," she says, gesturing at us. "I know you're trying to sneak off to get some time alone."
"What?" Kate squeaks. "Never."
"Get out of my kitchen," Rose says. "And if you see your father, tell him the wedding planner is waiting for his entrance."
"His entrance?" Kate asks.
"He got a Santa outfit," Rose says, shaking her head. "Didn't he tell you?"
"A Santa outfit?" I ask. Somehow I can't picture the Senator in a Santa costume. He doesn't seem like the type to tolerate frivolity in any form.
"It was his idea, not mine," Rose says, shaking his head. "I don't know what's gotten into him lately. He wanted to do it for the kids at the rehearsal dinner tonight, since it's so close to Christmas. I thought it'd be good for him to do something like that."
"Huh," Kate says, before taking my hand and pulling me to the door. "Well, we'll go back out there soon."
"Your father is dressing up as Santa?" I ask her when we're out of the kitchen.
"I don't know what's going on," she says, giving me a wide-eyed look. "He didn't do anything like that when I was a kid. Maybe he's trying to make up for it now."
"Maybe he's taking antidepressants," I say.
"He has seemed more upbeat lately," Kate says. "I thought it was because we were getting married."
"Let's stop talking about your father," I tell her, pressing her back up against the nearest wall in the hallway. I pull her hands above her head, and watch as her breasts rise and fall with each inhale and exhale she makes. "I'd rather talk about what I want to do to you."
"Oh?" she asks. "What do you want to do to me, Caulter Sterling?"
"I want to --"
"Oh God, you already knocked her up, Caulter." I hear Joe say loudly, walking past us. "Get a fucking room."
"Shut up."
"He has a point," Kate says. "We should go to a room. The library?"
"Mmm, the library." My cock hardens at the mere mention of the word. I have very good memories of the library.
At the door to the room, Kate pauses. "Peek in first and make sure no one's in there."
"We're adults, you know. You're acting like we're high school students sneaking around trying not to get caught," I whisper back to her.
Kate looks at me with a mischievous grin. "I thought that's the game we were playing," she whispers.
"Naughty Kate." My dick presses against the zipper of my tuxedo pants, the thought of being with Kate in the library giving me the biggest boner ever. My head is spinning with ideas – she's too pregnant for me to take her on the ladder again, so I'll just have to improvise.
I turn the doorknob quietly, and open the door a crack.
And get a view of what's perhaps the most traumatizing thing I've ever seen in my life.
Ella, dressed in a naughty elf costume, is bent over a desk in the library, while Santa smacks her ass.
"Oh, fuck," I whisper, turning around so fast I probably just gave myself whiplash. "Oh God, my eyes. Shit, I need bleach for my brain."
"What's going on?" Kate hisses, pushing me out of the way.
"Don't look in there," I tell her. It's like the image is burned on my bread. I wonder if I can get electroshock therapy to erase my memories. Or maybe a partial lobotomy.
"Don't tell me what to do," Kate says. She looks inside, then whirls around and slaps me hard on the arm.
"What the hell was that for?"
"Why did you let me see that?" she whispers frantically, a panicked and pained expression her face.
"I told you not to look in there!"
"It's my father," she says with disgust. "And Ella."
"Yeah, I know," I say. "Talk about a fucking boner killer."
"Dressed as Santa and an elf!"
"I saw it. Stop reminding me."
"My father was spanking your mother!" Kate slaps me on the arm again. "Oh God. I could hear them talking."
"I didn't hear them talking."
Kate slaps me on the arm again. "I'm going to vomit," she says. "My father was telling Ella he wanted to slide into her chimney because she'd been a bad little ho ho ho."
I can't contain my laughter, and Kate claps her hand over my mouth to stifle my snort. "Shhh. They're going to hear you."
"We should get out of here," I say. "You have to admit, though. That's a pretty good line. I may have to use it on you sometime."
Kate looks like she sucked a lemon. She shakes her head back and forth over and over. "No," she says. "We will never speak of this day again. And you will never dress up as Santa. Or use the words chimney or ho ho ho in my presence."
"But you are my little ho ho ho," I say, cupping her ass with my hand and pulling her against me.
Yeah, whatever, the carnage in the library was a boner killer for a second, but hearing Kate use the words ho ho ho, my cock is springing to life again.
I press my hardness against her for effect, and she puts her palms on my chest.
"Oh my God, Caulter," she hisses. "How can you be hard right now? Oh shit. Does this turn you on? Are you some kind of pervert? I don't mean like the kind of pervert I know you are, I mean the real kind of pervert."
"We'll find someplace else," I say. "They don't have to ruin the mood."
"Are you insane? I'm not sure I'll ever have sex again after seeing that!" She pushes me back, but then she slips on her heel.
And I'm focused on catching her so she doesn't fall. Except we both slam into the door and it swings wide open.
And there we are, my hands under Kate's arms as she struggles to stay upright and I struggle to not let her fall to the floor.
And there they are -- an elf sitting on the desk in the library, her legs wrapped around Santa's waist.
Kate shields her eyes as I yank her to her feet, a look of sheer panic on her face. Meanwhile, I'm pinching my eyes closed tightly, trying to keep the train wreck in front of me out of my line of sight, as I blindly pull Kate toward the door.
On the other side of the door, Kate breathes in deep breaths as she grabs my hand and pulls me down the hall, running far more quickly than should.
"I guess it is a Merry Fucking Christmas," I say.
She stops dead in her tracks, turns around, and slaps me extra hard on the arm this time.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kate
"Holy shit." I stare outside at the huge pile of snow that's blown up in front of the doorway. Wind whistles through the guesthouse as I stand there, gaping. "Do you see this? We can't even get out of here, let alone expect anyone else to come to us!"
"Close the door," Caulter yells from the kitchen, where he's frying bacon on the stove. It makes my stomach rumble, and I look down at my belly as I shut the door tightly behind me.
"You kept me awake all night, kid," I say. "I think she's going to be a soccer player or something, the way she kicks."
"He might be a soccer player," Caulter says.
"Seriously, we're going to have to cancel the wedding."
"It's not until four today," Caulter says, far too calm for the situation. "Snow plows will clear the roads by then. It'll be totally fine."
"It's still snowing!" I say, my voice louder than I intend. "And the sky is completely grey. It's going to snow all day! Look at my weather app!"
I hold out my phone and Caulter glances over his shoulder at it, then turns around with a plate full of bacon. "Eat bacon and stop stressing out," he says.
"Fine. But just because I'm distracted by this bacon doesn't mean I'm not stressing out inside," I tell him, as I put a piece into my mouth and immediately regret it. "Hot. Hot. Hot bacon."
I suck air into my mouth to cool it.
"You saw me literally just take that out of the pan," Caulter says.
"I'm pregnant," I tell him. "You wa
ve bacon in front of me and expect me to think rationally about it's temperature? Okay, Ella is texting me about the schedule. She says the wedding planner could organize a wedding in the middle of a combat zone, and not to worry."
"Did she say anything about the Santa Claus incident?"
"Oh God, why did you have to remind me of that over breakfast?" I ask. But I don't push away the plate of bacon, because, let's face it, nothing, not even the traumatic memory of naughty elf and Santa will keep me away from a full pound of bacon.
"At least they're pretending it never happened," Caulter says.
"Which is exactly what I would like to do," I say. "So it would be awesome if we could just stop talking about the incident."
"I'll say nothing else about the incident."
"That would be advisable, if you ever want to have sex again."
"We should definitely have sex before the wedding," Caulter says.
"I don't think we're supposed to do that," I say, checking my messages. Bailey and Libby are texting me, pinging me one right after the other. "Bailey and Libby will be here in an hour for hair and makeup. If they can get here. They suggested that guests arrive on dogsled. Do you think the wedding planner really got horse-drawn sleighs?"
"I hope that's the only thing she got," Caulter mutters.
"What?" I ask. "Wait. What does that mean? What aren't you telling me?"
"You know how Ella can get a little bit…enthusiastic," Caulter says.
"What do you mean by enthusiastic?" I ask, my voice dark. "If this wedding becomes a three ring circus…"
"Well, she wasn't trying to get a bear as the ring-bearer, at least," he says, half under his breath.
"I heard that," I squeak. "She's not getting a bear. That is not happening."
"She didn't get a bear," Caulter says. "I absolutely promise."
I narrow my eyes, looking at him. "What. Did. She. Get."
"She was talking about a tiger cub," Caulter says. "I told her you would hate the idea."
"A freaking tiger?" I squeal, my voice going up an octave. "Why would she get a tiger to carry the rings down the aisle? Your mother's sister's kids are doing it!"
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