by Jamie Knight
Under the Mistletoe
Love Under Lockdown, Book 23
A series of standalone quarantine romance books.
Copyright © 2020 Jamie Knight Romance.
All rights reserved.
Jamie Knight –
Your Dirty Little Secret Romance Author
Here are the books so far in the Love Under Lockdown series:
1): Under Lock & Key
2): Under Lockdown
3): Under Strict Orders
4): Stuck Together
5): Under His Roof
6): Under the Hawaiian Sun
7): Under Wraps
8): Under His Care
9): Under the Sheets
10): Dating During Lockdown
11): Under His Protection
12): Locked Down with Mr. Right
13): Under His Watchful Eye
14): Below Deck
15): Under the Rancher’s Firm Hand
16): Under His Suit
17): Who Wants to Lock Down a Billionaire?
18): Under His Discipline
19): Under the Want Ads
20): Cramped Quarters
21): Lock Step
22): Under His Ownership
23): Under the Mistletoe
New books are always being added.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
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Books in the Love Under Lockdown Series
Prologue
Denue
Don’t text her anything inappropriate, I lecture myself. Sure, she’s hot as hell. With curves for days. But she’s much younger than you. And she works for you.
This is a conversation I have with myself often, and more and more, I don’t listen. If I continue down this course, though, it’ll be too late to turn back. I’m already in deeper than I had meant to become.
I turn my attention to nature to try to get my wicked desires out of my head.
Feathery and spry, the thin green leaf floats and dances through the drops and tears from the sky, ambling about softly in circles, and lands squalidly by the curb. The colored water carries it away, drowns it, down one of the drains in the street.
The asphalt is clear now, just as it was moments ago, as clear as the agile, living curtain of rain trickling down the study room window, where I sit and design the rest of my afternoon. I run my hands through my hair, feel the dry wetness of morning hairspray and chuckle at the scraggly itch of it.
I drum my fingers along my cheek and drop them down my bare knee. Just as the rain washes away the dust and dirt of seasons past, the still steaming cup of coffee in my free hand does my soul.
It has been three weeks since the messages came in, on all screens and via the paper, informing everyone about a new virus and instructing us to stay indoors and confine our movement to our own homes only. Since then, like probably everyone else during this pandemic, I have been spending a lot of time stuck to my couch or staring wistfully out the window.
I do love it when the rain falls in the middle of a hot afternoon. Unexpected, the pregnant clouds roll in, daunting and dark, to turn the sun’s smile upside down. The soft breeze calms the ankles, soothes the calves and blows away the sweaty thighs as the first sheet glazes the earth floor.
I was outside when it started, on my phone, trying to think of a better way to punctuate my superbly flat text. A text that, in fact, had been at the tips of my fingers, at the fray of my proverbial tongue, for the better part of the morning.
It had been three hours since I wished her a good morning and asked if everything on the timeshare software was gelled. She had responded in, well, what I think was a cheeky, haughty sense of humor, and I, in all modesty, had tried to think of a better, sexier, much less stale, much raunchier, yet unflinchingly professional response.
And then it poured.
And it keeps pouring.
I sip the drink slowly, savoring the faraway tastes of foreign soil. It burns my tongue, just as I want it to.
It's better than trying to process the one line of thought that means anything through this mess we're all in. A line of thought, which if tampered with, or seen through the tiny puffy clouds above my head, would make HR swiftly consider my proposal a violation of their terms against inter-office relationships and swiftly terminate me, with no severance.
Nellie Amador has been a pesky yet brilliantly pedestalized thought on my mind for the duration of five weeks, six days, twelve hours and thirteen minutes, and counting. My assistant from Puerto Rico, the gold country, has no particular outstanding accomplishments in her life. She makes me tea, which I had always thought I detested with a sincere passion, until she made it.
She outlines my itinerary and schedule. She makes sure my suits are pressed and fine. She keeps a gentle reminder once a week for me to call Ma. She does her job.
So, in light of such a conventional human being's very normal and extraordinary life, how is it suddenly so dire for me to make a proper, formal response to her saucy text in the middle of light, unexpected December rain?
Nellie
It all started, I think, three weeks ago, under the sink.
There was a rancid smell running through my apartment. It was old and fresh at the same time. Stunning, I thought, that something like that could possibly exist.
I investigated for a random number of hours late one night after an excruciatingly long morning of Skype calls and a dull and heavy afternoon of Zoom meetings and one narcissistic evening of PowerPoint.
The tools were in the drawer where my father had left them the last time he had come around visiting, and I tightened the belt, folded my sleeves and was nothing short of wearing war paint and a bandana tightly wrapped around my head when I got down on my knees and worked the penlight.
It took me less than an hour.
The sink floor was quite comfortable in contrast to the water smell running down the plastic pipes. I soon fixed it and was carefully wrapping the tape when my phone buzzed. I took a glance and dropped the penlight to my chest, the awe more surprising than what I was reading.
Are your feet sore?
Maybe it was a general sense of concern, since I had merely mentioned how angry I felt my shoes were for having to run around the six floors that were his, making sure everything was tight before we closed shop.
Maybe it was a typo. Maybe it was not meant for me.
Just in case, I texted back. One little word that could easily sound innocent, depending on the context. But not in this context.
Very.
I'd like to call you some time, came his response.
Okay, so it had definitely been meant for me. And none of this was innocent at all, for Denue Combey to text at 11 PM on a Monday night.
So, I decide to step it up a notch, sending an inviting text.
But he hasn't responded in hours, and I firmly believe I finally spooked him. Weeks of trying to hint subtext at the man seems to have scared him off.
I just asked if he would like a massa
ge some time, given his hectic online schedule. Did I go too far, or was it not far enough?
I should have done better. Last time I asked him to tell me of the wildest thing he did in his teenage years, and it activated a conversation that ran well past midnight.
Putting the phone face down, I snuggle deeper into my comforter, the words of old poets, the smashing of rain against my window, and the sweet gullible warmth of having nothing more to do for the rest of the day bliss enough.
Denue
She has soft black hair, short and supple down her back. It captures her thin, long face perfectly. A silk of it strands down her cheekbone, and ends where her lips engulf veined, hard, flesh that is not hers. It is mine.
Her full lips wrap and pleasure, down and up the shaft, pulsing with each flick of her tongue. Tension wounds about her fingers, as in tandem, in rhythm, hand and mouth slithering in wet and skilled motion.
Big brown eyes look back at me, innocence aflame behind them. Tenderly, I push her forward with my clammy palm from the back of her neck and thrust my hips slightly into her. I try to stifle my moans as I cum. She flicks her tongue once more and pops her mouth off of it, her work done.
Nellie pulls me from the seat and chuckles in my mouth as we fall aimlessly on the bed. Her frame, so small and fragile, feels full and firm under my touch.
Warmth from our centers radiates and calls to the other. Lips mesh, slide and suck on each other. She tastes of coconuts and raw impatience, and her skin, divinely soft, has the scent of a burst of secret femininity. My tip finds her ready, and I promise to never be gentle.
Of course, it’s only a fantasy. I imagine her to feel this way, like sunlight sheathed in her body, as my own gentle strokes around my pulsing cock bring me close to the end. The pouring rain outside intensifies the sound on my voicemail of her soft unadulterated voice.
The report came in early. Please check your inbox.
Everything tightens.
Come on, Denue. I know you're not that busy tonight for a chat.
She whispers my name.
Maybe I should come over, make you some of that famous hot chocolate you're always on about.
Ecstasy erupts through my hand and ends up on my balls, my chest, and my coiling body. I open my eyes to an empty bedroom. Gasping for breath, I calm down to the sound of the recording on my phone.
"Whatever the price, Nellie, you and me are going to happen," I say into the untapped void, evoking hardcore reality into the substance of my fantasy.
Chapter One
Nellie
There comes a time in every girl's life that she dreams of being free. For a place that is devoid of all the madness and scheming, one that has no sense of the deluded reality that so haunts her in every waking hour. It is in that place I wish, for just this moment, to be in.
Banter, as good as it can get on a podcast, is blasting through my earphones as I stand behind the sink, bathing in sunlight that’s pouring in through my window, as golden as wine on the lips with a lover's letter between one’s fingers.
It’s a glorious morning, one that has found me wishing I could go for a run through the melody of the newly paved park before the first snow comes in. The grass in Booksfield, also known as America's Little Heart, as well as my home, has never been greener, yet the rain, as recent as a sudden urge to floss in the middle of the day, has proved that fact wrong.
To say that the alleys and flatbed pathways and the cafes and the little corner shops with the red and blue flags jutting out from the warped tent roofing don’t miss the flamboyance of family, of friendships and lovers walking, jogging, making love or ending it, out there, in the open, where the blue sky and the omniscient sun see and bless everything, would be a lie.
Lives had never been the same since the onslaught of masks and arms-length greetings and remote work and classes and awkward virtual sex, and here I am contemplating a run through the controlled chaos, smirking at the conversational audio buzzing in my ears, when my phone rings and I see that it’s the one person I actually want to be calling me.
"Good morning, Nellie."
"Morning, Denue."
"Did I wake you?"
"It's one in the afternoon, sir. If I were sleeping, you wouldn't still be paying me."
The man would be the worst, and paradoxically, the best poker player walking. Even through the phone, anyone could tell whether he had worked out today, or wore his favorite cuff links to work, or had even eaten breakfast, or was smiling his dimples off while talking to me.
"That's what I'm talking about," he says. "Blooming energy on a Thursday afternoon during a depressing pandemic is what I like about you."
"And not the picture of me hanging behind your desk?"
"Hey, you're the one who wanted to be in the middle of that meeting. And besides, yellow looks fantastic on you."
Had I gone beyond being bold and flirtatious with my boss?
Sure.
He had started it, though, weeks ago, and playfully, I went along with it. There hasn't been much going on with respect to socializing, and the daily calls were, and still are, a saving grace from going mad in the isolation.
"The Chester-Billings case file," he says, suddenly getting professional.
"I sent it over by email. Two days ago."
He swears. I can tell he slapped his knee while at it.
"Sorry. I think I must have knocked the server off its connection last week."
"How?"
"I pushed a button. The darned thing has not blinked since."
I can tell where this was going, and I can also taste the rushed beating of my heart. It was metallic, spicy.
“Sounds like a personal problem,” I joke.
"I’m no good at doing email printing, Nellie. I'm sorry, but would you mind doing me the favor and running it over? I'll reimburse you."
And then, I can imagine that he’s biting his lips. He knows as well as I do that our correspondence for the last couple of weeks has always been online. Email is my normal way of sending him things. But now, he wants a delivery.
I know he’s lying about not being able to get the email. He’s as tech savvy as they come.
I also knew the significance of his request. It would mean bridging our two separate worlds together. It would mean coming together face to face when the rest of the world is in isolation and we have been too until now.
"I'll have it over to you ASAP."
"Thanks again, Nellie. I owe you one."
And now for something of great meaning…
The podcast is back on, the call having been disconnected. The sun shines even more brightly than I had perceived before Denue had called. The still wet asphalt seems even blacker, the muddy pots housing my chrysanthemums outside my kitchen window seem to have bloomed more already, and the air around my nose, my lips and my skin feel tighter.
Chapter Two
Denue
I had been on the floor, grieving over the loss of a number of calories, sweating profusely and begging the instructor, Bert, to let me rest and leave me alone. My arms were weak, tired at best, and I could no longer pursue the Crossfit minimum for the day.
He told me to take some time off, and that tomorrow would be a hounding, right before exiting our virtual meeting. It was hurtful, to say the least, but so relieving when I scarfed down the chicken soup I had hidden behind the laptop before the session.
It was intense, trying to keep focus. The company had been facing fresh hurdles, some that the average CEO and chairman from fifty years ago would find quite the feat.
My peons worked around the clock from all over the world, sifting data, combing it down to refined perfection and sending it back to me for sale to all the advertisers I can find. Truth be told, I had not experienced much change through the whole 'move to online' phase, as I was already used to technology. It was the restrictions that got to me.
They said that there would be no more drinking in bars, or pooled parking lots, or with anyone co
nsidered a human being. Added to that was the fact that we all had to put on masks whenever we were outside our four walls.
They also didn’t know whether the virus could be spread via food preparation or delivery, there being mixing and conflicting reports. And so, becoming the cook that I never have been, I decided to never leave the house.
To say my house is nice would be an understatement, but I don’t like to brag.
It’s more like a mansion.
It has five bedrooms.
Two kitchens.
A gym.
An indoor pool.
Enough pantries and food storage to last me two years in case the world went to hell in a handbasket— a possibility that is beginning to look more likely.
And that’s only what it has on the inside, leaving the outside out of things.
I was set. Until the days turned into weeks, and there was clearly no better place to be than home, alone, and yet it was lonely and induced madness.
The chicken soup's salty brine was fresh on my tongue when I pulled myself through an ice bath. Bert recommended it since we started working out together a year ago, and since I started it, the pained soreness has been prodigal for the longest time.
It was so cold I couldn’t stand it for long. I got out hastily, readied myself and pulled an apron over my ass to make Christmas Eve dinner.
Cooking for one plate had never been easier.
Before long, the pasta was boiling.
The meatballs were sizzling.
The potatoes were baking.
The aromas were filling my house.
A commercial came up on the screen, and something in passing— a giddy woman with her arm wrapped around another bigger, meatier one, or a lamppost with a freshly woven wreath on it signed Merry Christmas— got me thinking of my quiet muse once more.
Of course I called her.
I’d never been known for my patience or impulse control. Instead, I was the type to take what I want when I wanted it.
