I wake up to see Cutter staring down at me.

Cutter.

What the fuck. From one instant to the next I’m wide awake and scrabbling up the sofa, pulling the coverlet up to my shoulders, my knees into my chest. I look wildly around, wondering where I am. Relief suffuses me when I see I’m in my own apartment but Cutter, the vibrator presenter, is here. Naked from the waist up and staring down at me with a weirdly beatific grin on his face.

“What are you doing here Cutter?” I groan. My head is banging.

“Getting laid, same as you.” He shrugs, like he’s talking about coming over for coffee.

Oh my god.

I screwed my boss, then got blind drunk and brought my hideous co-worker home to spend the night.

Worst Christmas Office party. Ever.

“Noooo.” I whine into the blanket. “Did we do it here on the sofa?”

“Eww. Gross,” he cringes. “I wouldn’t have had you down for that much of a slapper.”

“Watch it, that’s my bestie you’re trash-talking,” Tai emerges from his bedroom, also topless. He walks around the sofa to kiss Cutter on the mouth.

“Whoa, TMI of a visual nature” I say. “What’s going on here?”

“What ya think you’re the only one that can pull a hot guy at the office party?” Tai says.

“You and…?” I point at Cutter like he’s not there.

Hot guy? Well I guess he kinda sorta is, in a nerdy kind of way. If you like that kind of thing.

Tai nods with a huge grin and a squirm. I haven’t seen him this happy in ages. And then my attention turns to my own contentment or lack of it. Why aren’t I snuggled up with my own hot guy for Christmas?

Has he abandoned me already?

Couldn’t he have waited until New Year at least so I could gloat over my kid sister when I go home. Tell Daddy yes, I am seeing someone, when he inquires with excess concern. He clearly assumes I’m going to be an old maid. He tells me Mom already had my sister Flor and I by the time she was my age.

I don’t remember much about the party after my boss destroyed my pussy, beyond tobogganing down the ski slope between his solid thighs. I do remember sampling a ton of different cocktails from the individual bars and taking shots of gluhwein every time Milo and I went up the toboggan run again. With every cupful I was wondering when I could get that incredible cock out of his pants again.

I fell around his neck and whispered in his ear, the aroma of his masculinity making my pussy clench.

“Just how long is an appropriate length of time to wait before demanding you fuck me again?”

Clearly this morning wasn’t long enough. The good news is I didn’t hook up with Cutter instead.

“What am I doing on the sofa?” I murmur, miserably. “Did you undress me,” I ask Tai when he hands me coffee, “and were you watching?” I demand of his new love.

Cutter repeats the only word he seems able to utter this morning. “Eww.”

Fair enough. I must look a fright if it’s as bad as I feel.

“Milo undressed you and he tucked you into bed,” Tai says.

“He did,” a smile stretches my mouth into a painful rictus. “Is he in there?” I indicate my bedroom door.

Maybe he snores and I came out to the sofa. My bed is so small there probably wasn’t room for me to sprawl out beside the hunk, as I do when I sleep.

“He left,” Tai tells me. “I was on my way to the bathroom and saw him creeping out. He said he had to fly to Tokyo for a meeting.”

“On Christmas?” I whine.

“You do remember he’s focused on closing the Haikiddo deal before next year, right?” Cutter snaps.

“Oh it does know more words than ‘eww’,” I snark, my head is still a jackhammer fit for a road crew.

“But open your gift from the grotto,” Tai says, grabbing the silvery box from the counter.

“Mine was the new iPhone.” He does a swift tango around the room with it.

“Me too,” Cutter says and grabs him for a dip.

I open the gift and inside is a blue Tiffany box definitely not phone shaped. I pull the lid off to find a gorgeous gold chain with a row of small diamonds offset on one side at the collar bone.

“Wow, it’s beautiful,” I breathe, thinking I’d still rather have the man over the diamonds.

“Generous boss you guys have. You should appreciate him a little more,” my bestie says pointedly at me.

“Believe me I’ve learned to,” I say, laughing and miserable at the same time.

“Up, you need a farmer’s breakfast for that hangover,” Tai insists.

I make my evening flight with minutes to spare what with Tai’s constant chattering while I’m trying to pack. The plane is maxed out and people are frazzled. I sink into my window seat and try to stop obsessing. All I can think about is Milo and what he does to my body. What will happen when I go back to work in the new year?

The steward comes on the speaker reminding us to switch our phones to airplane mode and my stomach sinks when I reach into the pocket in my bag made for storing it at fingertips. In a panic, I yank my bag up from under the seat and tip out the contents on my lap to rummage through them desperately. Then plant my forehead into the tv screen.

My seat mate is looking at me wondering whether she needs to call for a Marshall.

“I left my phone at home,” I tell her.

“Ouch. I’d be, like, amputated without mine.”

Exactly.

Now I’ll have to wait until January second to know whether Milo is ghosting me. I can’t call his PA and ask for his number because the office is closed down. I can’t think of any way in the world to reach him. I’ll just have to sit through the holidays nursing my constant obsessing.

Our first dinner altogether again and my sister is feeling pretty smug about the lawyer she’s dating in Dallas. I can also see Daddy isn’t that pleased that he’s twelve years older than her.

“And you, Baby Girl?” He asks me, “Are you seeing anyone special?”

“Oh, I might be,” I say mysteriously and see my sister smirk, assuming I’m making it up to try to compete with her.

Usually I love coming home for Christmas, sister included, but this year my body aches with insecurity. I need to know. Not knowing where I stand is intolerable. As is the throb in my pussy every time I picture my boss’s face, or remember his amazing cock penetrating me.

It’s all I can think about and Christmas night, stuffed from too much rich food and horny as hell, I trail my fingers between my thighs to relieve some of the pent up agony stored there. As I stroke absent-mindedly across my folds, picturing Milo’s ripped torso and stubbled jaw, an insistent knocking starts to drive me crazy.

I get out of bed and open my door to locate it and realize it’s coming from downstairs. Someone’s knocking at the front door. At this time of night when everyone else is asleep. This is Texas and maybe I should grab Daddy’s shotgun before I open the door at midnight. ‘You can never be too careful ‘ my father always instilled in his girls.

“Who’s there?” I hiss, pressing my face up to the wood after getting the firearm from Daddy’s study.

No answer. Just another insistent tap. I can’t make anything out through the sidelight windows aside from a huge bulky figure in the dark. So I cock the gun and throw open the door, aiming to surprise the intruder.

“Nice welcome.”

I look down and see Milo on his knee on the doorstop.

I drop the gun to the ground and let out a little squeal.

“Ohmigod I’m sorry. What are you doing here at this hour, fixing to get shot? Y’all know where you are?”

“I do now,” he grins. “Judging by how you’ve lapsed into Southern drawl.”

“Are you really here?” I pinch his resistant bicep.

“I couldn’t wait any longer, Aura.”

“For what?”

“It’s been driving me to distraction and I’m not usually a distracted man. You haven’t answered any of my texts or calls. You better not be having second thoughts.”

“About what?”

“About Switzerland.”

“What about Switzerland?”

“You said if I spent Christmas Day with you, you’d come with me to the mountains. You don’t remember?”

“Of course I do. Okay, I don’t. I’m sorry, I had a complete blackout after we got together, I was so nervous.”

“So you aren’t ghosting me? I’ve been a crazy man the last coupe of days. Add to that all the time waiting to claim you finally and I figure you owe me even if I am late for Christmas.”

“It isn’t quite midnight,” I say and drop to my knees to surrender my mouth to his delicious lips. “You can be my pumpkin.”

“And you’re my Cinderella.”