If this was going to become a yearly thing, I was going to lose my shit. We didn't need to become the Christmas party capital of Dusk Bay. Or anywhere else for that matter.
"It's always good to think ahead," she said meaningfully. That was fair enough. Not thinking ahead in this town got people dead.
"Fine, but after Christmas, put them away somewhere I don't have to look at them," I said. "Why are so many of them bright red and bright green? Couldn't we have had a few black and gold ones?"
"Red and green are Christmas colours," she said. "It's only for a few days. Then we can pull them down and forget about them for a while."
She looked around at us. "Have you all got your suits ready? Because I have a surprise for you."
It was then I realised she held a bag in her hand. I eyed it like it might be a ticking time bomb.
Around here, anything was possible.
"What did you do?" Ares asked, blunt as ever. Pulling punches had never been his thing.
She held up the bag and smiled. "I brought Christmas ties for you all. So you can go with my Christmas gown."
I closed my eyes. Screwed them shut and shook my head. Just when I thought this couldn't get any worse, it did.
"I'm dead, aren't I?" I asked.
I was dead and this was hell. It was going to be Christmas for the rest of my eternal existence.
"Stop being so dramatic.” She pulled out a simple dark red tie and handed it to me. "Did you think I'd buy you one with reindeers on it?"
"You thought about it," I said flatly.
When she smiled, I knew she was right. For her, I would have worn it. Thankfully, she'd chosen something a lot more tasteful and simple, even if I would have preferred black.
"Please say you chose a reindeer tie for me?" Ice asked.
She reached into the bag and pulled out one that looked even more like Rudolph threw up. Green, with reindeers with bright red noses. It was the thing of nightmares. He seemed happy when she handed it to him.
"Hell yeah," he wound it around his neck and held it in front of himself, looking pleased. "I love it."
"You would." Ares said. "If you think I'm wearing something like that?—"
She gave him the same look as she'd given me, and handed him a dark green tie that brought out the colour in his eyes. He took it and didn't even seem to hate it.
"I've seen worse.” He wound it around his neck and shrugged.
"Now, I'm wondering what your dress looks like," I looked from one tie to the other. Anything that matched all three of them was going to be… Interesting. Of course it would look hot on her and I was already looking forward to peeling it off her. Was there any chance we could skip straight to that part?
Predictably, she said, "You'll have to wait and see." The woman was her own special kind of evil, if you asked me. Beautiful, smart and sexy as hell. Dangerous because she had all of us wrapped around her pretty little finger. We loved every minute of it.
"Are you going to wear a reindeer costume with a fluffy tail and antlers?" Ares asked.
We all turned slowly to stare at him.
"What? That's the only kind of reindeer I want to look at.” He shrugged.
"Now I know what I'm getting her for Christmas," Ice said, only half-joking.
Ares was right, she would look adorable like that. And even better with antlers on her head and nothing else.
All of this thinking about her barely dressed, or naked, was making me hard.
Admittedly, when it came to her, my cock was almost always hard. It was like that since the moment I lay eyes on her when I stepped out of the car at my father's mansion. I'd pretended tohate her guts, but my first thought was pinning her underneath me and watching her squirm while I thrust into her.
