Hazel looks round. ‘Yes, we’ll need to get them in the oven pronto. Do you want a hand?’
‘It’s OK. Holly can help me,’ he replies quickly.
‘Can you guys bring up a few more bottles of wine too?’
‘Sure.’
Bailey grabs a wicker basket, and I follow him to a door at the far side of the kitchen. He opens it and tugs on a dangling piece of string. Down below, a bare light bulb glows yellow. ‘After you,’ he says.
I peer into the depths, and a waft of cold earth-scented air invades my nostrils. ‘I don’t know. It looks a bit spooky.’
‘Well, it’s the best I can do at short notice. Unless you can wait three hours? Lunch is usually finished by two, but then there’s the clean-up ...’
Aha! He’s been so touchy-feely with me during lunch prep. Iknewhe was thinking along the same lines.
‘So the potatoes are down here?’ I say brightly and take off down the rickety wooden steps. Bailey closes the door behind us with an evil cackle, as if to insinuate I’m caught in his wicked trap. But even if he’s offering a few kisses in a potato cellar, I’ll take them.
The cellar is a square brick-walled and stone-floored space with a strip of narrow window at the top on one side, covered over with snow. There’s not much down here except some dusty wine bottles in a rack, a bench with some tools, and a few crates of potatoes lined up by the walls. Surprisingly, there’s also a cracked leather couch and a bookcase with faded dog-eared covers. I pull one out at random and look at it. ‘Catch-22. Is this a man cave?’
‘Dad used to escape down here when there was too much noise and chaos upstairs.’
‘It’s freezing.’ I pull down my cardigan sleeves over my hands and rub my arms. ‘I hope he brought a hot-water bottle or a blanket.’
Bailey dumps the baskets near a crate of potatoes. ‘Aye. It’s balmier in summer,’ he says, not looking at me.
I stand there, feeling awkward. Now we’re down here, I’m not sure if I’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick. Maybe he really did want help with the potatoes and not to snog me after all?
‘Bailey ...’ I say helplessly, not knowing how to communicate that I want him badly.
Perhaps my voice conveys some of what I’m feeling because he scoops an arm around me, pulls me close, and covers my lips with his. The relief of kissing him again is palpable. My body relaxes. It’s like coming home. I thread my fingers through his hair, accidentally dislodging one of his latex elf ears, which falls on the floor.
‘Oops, sorry.’
He laughs. ‘Maybe we should do this without ears.’
‘Without clothes would be even better,’ I say boldly.
‘Hmm, we’ve got exactly ten minutes before someone opens the door to find out what’s happened to us.’
‘There’s no privacy in this house,’ I grumble.
‘Welcome to my world.’ Bailey looks at his watch. ‘We can discuss this further, but I’d rather kiss you if that’s all right.’
‘Well, since we’re here ...’ I give in to the lure of his lips. The sight of two human-sized elves making out must look pretty funny, but I don’t care. At this point, Bailey could be dressed as a giant candy cane, and I’d still be into him.
We’re just getting warmed up on the couch when the door at the top of the stairs opens, and Hazel calls down, ‘What are you elves doing down there? Snogging? We need the potatoes asap!’
Bailey snickers into my hair. ‘Told you.’
Christmas afternoon
Christmas lunch is delicious, including the famous flambépudding, but I can’t seem to eat much. All I can think about is how good Bailey’s tongue felt in my mouth, the weight of his warm body moving against mine, and how many minutes I have to wait until we can finish what we started.
When we’re left alone for a few precious minutes, washing up at the sink, he teases me with promises of going upstairs for a ‘nap’, then changes his mind, saying we could stay down here and ‘play board games’ instead. He’s working me up into a frenzy of want, and he knows it. When the last dish is dried, I grab his hand and dig my nails into his palm. ‘Let’s go. Now.’
Bailey bites his lip and gives me a scorching look that makes my thighs tremble. ‘I just need to talk to Kirk.’
‘What about?’
