CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX – THOMAS
Sylvie was in my arms. In my bed. With her hair tickling my nose and her breath fluttering across my chest.
This couldn’t be real.
There was no way she’d told me she loved me.
Perhaps it’d been the alcohol. She hadn’t drunk much, but I had—maybe I was already half pissed when we went outside and she responded to my flirting by telling me she wanted me.
She wanted to give ‘us’ a try.
Maybe someone had spiked her drink.
Maybe she’d hit her head hard.
“What are you muttering about?” she murmured, snuggling in closer to me.
I sighed and kissed her forehead. “I’m wondering how drunk I still am that is this happening.”
“You weren’t even that drunk.” Her words were still little more than a mumble. “And I wasn’t drunk. So, be quiet, I’m trying to sleep.”
“Good luck with that. I expect there to be a knock on the door with lots of yelling in about fifteen minutes.”
Sylvie groaned and pulled the covers up over her head, almost punching me in the jaw in the process. “Noooo.”
“Yes. The magic of Santa waits for nobody.” I moved the covers aside and kissed the top of her head. “Come on. You’re the one who drank Santa’s booze last night. If you participate in any part of that, you have to do your duty in the morning.”
Another little groan eked out of her, and she wrapped her arm and leg around me like a koala clinging to a tree. “I deserved that whiskey.”
“And that’s why I let you have it,” I replied. “You did deserve it. You’re also an excellent present stacker.”
“Well, it’s hardly my first rodeo organising gifts.” She hugged me tighter, pressing her face into my chest.
Her flattening her body against mine did only one thing: make my cock hard.
She stilled. “Thomas! It’s too early for that!”
“You’re the one wrapping yourself around me and rubbing against me,” I grumbled. “What do you expect?”
“Fine, fine. But if we are going to be disturbed in fifteen minutes by an excited child, keep it in your pants.”
“More like ten minutes now.”
“Ugh, my life is slipping away before my eyes.”
“Hardly. You haven’t opened them once this morning.”
“That’s because it’s… What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty.”
“Seven-thirty and I’ve had five hours of sleep,” she replied. “Are yours open?”
“The woman of my dreams is lying in my arms. What do you think?”
“I think you’re a big, fat suck-up.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too.”
She laughed, finally releasing me and rolling onto her back. “Ohhh. Why did I let my sister get married on Christmas Eve? What kind of stupid idea was that?”
“Better than Christmas Day.”
“Don’t. It was a suggestion.” She sighed and finally opened her eyes, blinking sleepily at me. “I vetoed it.”
“I’d expect nothing less.” I propped my head up on my elbow and grinned down at her. “Good morning.”
A slow smile spread across her face. “Good morning. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.” I lowered my lips to hers and kissed her softly. “You’re finally waking up.”
“Well, the countdown is on, like you said, and—”
“Uncle Tommy!” Danny’s scream cut her off, and it was followed by the hammering of his little fists against the door. “Uncle Tommy! Santa made a meeeeeeeeeess!”
“Just in time,” Sylvie quipped, sitting up with a yawn.
“Uncle Tommy!”
“Yeah, I hear you, buddy,” I called. “Give me a minute.”
“Is Auntie Sylvie in there?”
Sylvie paused, tilted her head to the side, then looked at me questioningly.
“That was not me,” I said firmly. “I’d put my money on it being Zara.”
She stretched her arms up over her head with another yawn. “Eh. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Wow. It’s like you’ve had a personality transplant.”
“It’s like you want matching couple scars.”
I grinned. “Maybe I do. They’re more permanent than tattoos, aren’t they?”
She glared at me as she climbed out of bed. “You—”
“Uncle Tommy!”
“Coming, coming!” I shouted back. Sylvie wrapped herself in my dressing gown and perched on the edge of the bed as another yawn took over, and I tugged on some pyjamas before opening the door. “Happy now?”
Danny grinned and held out a pile of plaid that remarkably resembled the pyjamas he was wearing. “Grandma said, ‘Get your bums out of bed and put these on!’”
He shoved the fabric at me before I could do anything, and just as I opened my mouth to ask him what it was, he bolted down the hallway and disappeared around the corner.
Sylvie popped up behind me. “Oh. Pyjamas.”
I kicked the door shut and separated the pieces. “Two pairs of. One is your size.”
“Your mother is exceptionally organised.”
“I’m going to go with ‘aggressively hopeful.’” I passed her the pair in her size and tossed mine on the bed so I could change. “You better put those on, or she’ll think you’re rejecting her.”
“I could never.” She yawned again. “If this doesn’t work out, I’m going to take her up on the whole adoption thing. I think I’d wear a feather boa to breakfast if your mother asked me to.”
“What if I asked you to?”
“I’d tell you to dance naked through the village with it before I did it.” She shed the robe and grinned at me, then grabbed the pyjamas from where she’d set them on the bed. “Mostly for my amusement, though.”
“The things you find entertaining scare me slightly.” I put the pyjamas on and stretched out. “Come on. He’ll only come back and start hitting a wooden spoon against a pan if we don’t move it.”
“Do you have experience with that?” Sylvie asked, quickly brushing her hair.
“Yes. I learnt my lesson last year,” I said morosely. “There’s nothing like a spoon against a frying pan about three inches from your eardrum to make you get the fuck out of bed.”
She nodded slowly and put her slippers on. “I can imagine that to be a very effective way of waking someone up. Noted.”
“For what? I always wake up before you,” I replied, following her out of the bedroom. “If anyone needs waking up with a one-man band, it’s you.”
“Irrelevant. I’ve been busier than usual the last few days. I’m usually awake with the birds to get my day started. I just need a few days to catch up on my sleep, that’s all.”
“That’s all? You’ve barely slept in days.”
“Exactly. Once I’m all caught up, I’ll be fine. Plus, it’s warmer down south, so—” She cut herself off. “But that doesn’t matter.”
“You can talk about it, you know,” I said quietly. “Being here and pretending doesn’t make the fact you live hundreds of miles away any less true.”
She stopped in the middle of the hallway and pinched my sleeve, lowering her gaze to the floor. “I know, but…”
“We’ll figure it out,” I promised her, kissing her forehead. “You have commitments you can’t just drop because I conned you into falling in love with me.”
“Ah, I’m glad you admit it was all a trap.”
“Of course, it was. You weren’t going to do it by yourself. Don’t you know I engineered every single thing that went wrong with the wedding just so I could swoop in and save the day?”
“You set a man’s vehicle on fire on the motorway just to trick me into falling for you? I don’t know if I’m impressed or horrified by the risk you took.”
“Okay, that one wasn’t me.” I grinned and linked our fingers so we could continue our journey to the living room. “Actually, none of it was, it just sounded better in my head.”
She sighed. “Do you know what? Sometimes, I think you haven’t grown up at all from when we were kids.”
“Funny. I think the same thing about you.”
She knocked her fist into my arm half-heartedly.
“Neither of you have grown up,” Mum said dryly, leaning against the kitchen doorframe. “Good morning, darlings. Ooh, Sylvie, those pyjamas fit you a treat.”
“Yeah.” She tugged at the bottom of the shirt. “How did you, er, happen to have a set for me?”
Mum’s eyes glittered. “I guess Santa left a little something.”
“Can we see nowwww?” Danny asked, clinging to Mum’s dressing gown. “Please, Nanny. Pretty please!”
She ruffled his hair with a smile. “Of course, darling. Where are your mothers?”
“Waiting for Sleeping Beauty and Sylvie to get down here,” Zara said from the kitchen island. “Your coffee is getting cold, you know.”
Sylvie perked up. “Coffee?”
“You don’t drink coffee.” I frowned.
“I drink coffee when I’ve had five hours of sleep,” she countered. “And I definitely drink it on Christmas morning when the chance of a nap is near zero.”
Beth held up a mug. “Here. This one is yours.”
“I love you.” Sylvie scurried over and took it, then sipped. “Ah.”
“Don’t flirt with my wife,” Zara quipped.
“Only because it’s Christmas.” Sylvie grinned, cradling the mug close to her body.
I cleared my throat. “Okay, can we go into the living room now? Danny is about to burst, and I don’t want to be cleaning guts out of the fireplace on Christmas morning.”
“Uncle Tommy!” Danny groaned, but he was bouncing on the balls of his feet as he rattled the doorknob. “Can we? Mummy? Mumma? Nanny? Pleeeease. Auntie Sylvie, tell them!”
I shot my sister a look at that last name, and she fake whistled as she looked away.
“Told you,” I mouthed to a grinning Sylvie.
“I’m with Danny,” Sylvie said, hugging her coffee like she would die if someone took it from her. “If I have to be awake, he should at least see if Santa came.”
“Auntie Sylvie is my favourite!” Danny rushed over to her and tugged on her pyjama top. “C’mon, c’mon!”
She allowed him to drag her over to the door, and I slid in front of them, grabbing the doorknob.
“Are you sure he’s been, though?” I asked, looking down at him. “Have you been good enough?”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded frantically. “I did all my homework, and I helped you at work, and, and, and… I tidied my room yesterday!”
“Sounds pretty good to me,” Beth agreed. “At least a stocking for all that.”
Danny’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Shall we find out?” I chucked him under the chin and slowly turned the doorknob. “Three… two… one…”