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Raven gave in to our hold, and we cuddled for a while before she decided to give us a show anyway. While she was changing from one sexy dress to another, Asher ran his hand up my thigh. Gods alive, it was like watching the sexiest, slowest striptease in the history of dance. Raven wore a strapless lacy black bra with a matching thong that made my core throb, and Asher was having a reaction as well. My mates always lit my body on fire. “She’s something, right?” He leaned over and whispered in my ear.
“Something is an understatement. She’s everything.”
Chapter Two
Valentina
“With all this mistletoe around, no one is going to drink or dance. They’ll be too busy making out,” I said, while untangling myself from strands of silver tinsel. Josephine had so much of it that by the time I was done fishing it out of the box, I looked like a disco ball.
“Yeah, but Tess will be here for the party…” Jeremy protested.
“So hang up a bunch at your house,” Jo quipped. “This is a business.”
Tess whispered something in Jeremy’s ear which, in turn, made him bend her backward and kiss the hell out of her.
Mates were the greatest. Mine were the best, but even seeing others with their fated mates was a joy.
Raven hadn’t texted me back when I asked if they’d arrived at Asher’s parents’ house but then again, she only responded when she had something to say. Her words.
“Maybe we need some mistletoe at the house.” Fox enveloped me in his hold, his arms winding around my waist from behind. He rested his chin on my shoulder.
“As though we need any encouraging,” I said, turning to kiss his cheek.
“That’s true,” he chuckled, making my entire body vibrate. My mates had such a profound impact on me, in all ways. Sometimes I wondered if it would fade, and I was sure it would, but for now, I was thoroughly enjoying this phase.
“What is he doing?” I tipped my chin to Bishop who was strong-arming a triple-box tower while he maneuvered around tables with ease. He was the buffest of all my mates but he moved with grace.
“Josephine said she had twenty-five Christmas trees in all shapes and sizes. He said he didn’t remember that many from the year before. They argued. Guess who won?”
I laughed while burrowing deeper into my man’s hold. “Josephine. Let me guess. Now he has to pull them all from the basement.”
“He walked right into it. Everyone knows better than to argue with Jo.” Storm came to stand next to me and held my hand. When we first got mated, I would make love with each of them individually but, somewhere along the journey, that line blurred. We all made love together now, and then that bled into our interactions. I was in Fox’s embrace but Storm was next to me, holding my hand and had kissed my temple. But thankfully there was no jealousy between us.
“There are twenty-five of them,” Bishop gruffed from the corner of the room where I watched him pile boxes of artificial Christmas trees of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Each box had a corresponding tote that had the matching decorations.
“I know.” Josephine tossed her salt-and-pepper braid over her shoulder and jutted her chin in the air. She had added jingle bells to her shoes in an effort to be festive, but I would never tell her they drove me nuts. The times when she sat down were like a vacation to my overworked nerves.
We had three of the trees up and decorated, the biggest ones, according to Josephine. My mates were on break from classes and all of us barely scraped by in our grades since we were a bit distracted by dying at the hands of Dean. Still, I was proud of us for even accomplishing a pass.
Storm, Fox, and I walked over to the pile and began putting together the trees first. There was a black one, a vibrant green one, tall, thin ones, and even one that bent over at the top reminding me of The Grinch—who Bishop was currently representing well. There were so many, I wasn’t sure if we wouldget them all up and decorated before the Midnight opened in just a few hours.
Bishop put together a silver tree, squatty and thick at the bottom, grumbling the entire time. While I shook my head at him, he turned. “What?”
“Do you hate Christmas or something?” I asked, bluntly. If he did, that was fine. We all had our quirks, our likes and dislikes.
“I don’t hate it.”
While I opened up the bent and scrunched branches of the pink tree I was working on, I answered, “But you don’t particularly like it.”
“I haven’t had a lot of good ones. Let’s put it that way. Christmas for my parents was another day. They spent the morning tapping their knees and checking their phones—so desperate to get back to work. We kids couldn’t unwrap our presents fast enough for them. It was something in their way of getting back to what they did best—work and avoid us.”
“But they always provided for you,” I responded, leaving the pink tree for a few seconds. My mate seemed to need me.
“In money, yes. In time and effort, no. We never baked Christmas cookies together or did any of this. The housekeepers decorated, and our nanny baked with us. That was it.”
“Then we’ll have to make some new memories of our own. Besides, if you wanted to bake cookies, all you had to do was ask.”
Bishop was hard on the outside but inside, he was a teddy bear who needed a cuddle once in a while, and by once in a while, I meant all the time. He chuckled. “We could do that.”
