"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 she 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 wave 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.