Love Under the Mistletoe Read online

  Her heart started that rapid pattering again, like a butterfly beating its wings against a jar.

  He said nothing more, but raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to do as he said. Slowly but surely, as if something compelled her beyond her control, she did. She placed her belly down over his thighs so that her head extended over and her legs dangled up at the other end.

  ‘That’s right. That’s perfect. You know really, don’t you? You feel it.’ She didn’t want to acknowledge it. Yes, she knew, and although everything in her screamed to resist and stop it, she knew also that she wondered about it. She wanted it.

  And before she could think anything more, it happened. The noise registered first. A loud, bright flash that seemed to cut through the air. Then she felt it. A sting, but a broad sting, a hand-shaped sting, each finger’s indent blooming clearly in her mind as the pain radiated out from her skin.

  ‘Ow!’ she squealed inadvertently, unable to keep it in.

  He responded by doing it again on the other cheek. This time she merely gasped, a sharp gasp of indignation. ‘Wha …?’

  Thwack! Again. This time the sting felt different. Warmer, seeping into her skin, making her glow, making her want more. She was determined to resist him, that’s what she should do, shouldn’t she? So she tried to get up, but he planted a strong hand on her back and held her there. ‘Stay still. Don’t move.’

  He spanked her again, balancing up both sides, and before she could speak or act, he set about a regular spanking. He varied his strokes, some hard, some softer, with no regular pattern. Three on one cheek, one on the other, then one, two, one again. She was so stunned, so shocked at his audacity and her temerity, that she simply took it.

  Not only was she taking it, but each time he delivered a blow, she was curious about the next. More than that, she was wishing for the next.

  Her backside was alight, surely, and the heat had spread down the backs of her thighs. She had lost track of how many spanks he had administered. Too many. Yes, too many, not because she couldn’t stand the pain, but because she had lain there and let him do it. The shame of her reaction suddenly sparked angry tears.

  He stopped. When he stopped, she lay there, her face wet, her lip quivering, her skin alight. She couldn’t move. She could hear him panting; it had taxed him.

  Holly took the opportunity to scramble to her feet. Her legs were wobbly, almost defying her, but after a sway, she steadied herself and stood before him, looking down, her hair a mess, her eyes blotchy. He cast his eyes up to hers. He was supremely calm although his mouth was open as he drew in recovering breaths.

  She did what she had to. Bastard for doing this to her. Bastard for letting her feel this way. Bastard!

  She raised her hand and brought it down hard to strike him, but Daniel reacted even faster and caught her wrist in his hand. She twisted to escape his grip but he held her fast.

  With her right wrist encircled in his hand, he brought his other hand up swiftly between her legs and his fingers instantly found her. She was soaking. She was drenched in lust for him. At the first touch of his fingers she gasped as pleasure hurtled to the surface, pleasure she knew had bloomed from the pain her backside still felt. He brought her right to the edge quickly within a few seconds, then withdrew his hand only to reach down and unbutton his trousers. His cock reared out, hard and ready. He released his hold on her wrist and she didn’t move away. Instead, he took hold of her hips, gently, stroking and soothing. He didn’t pull her down, he didn’t have to, she moved of her own free will with no hesitation. Holly straddled him and sank down onto his cock, enveloping it with her tight wet need.

  She moved on him instinctively, soon finding a natural rhythm which moved him along her G-spot while also rubbing her clit. His hands splayed out on her tender flesh, and she welcomed the stinging reminder of what he’d just done. Never had she felt so vivid and real.

  She looked down at him, now in reversal of what had gone before, and she adored him.

  Holly rocked and bucked on his cock and the look in his eyes told her he was in rapture. His mouth was slack; his eyes, although fixed on her, were vacant and wide.

  Daniel arched his head up and she bent to kiss him, the longest, deepest kiss, and while they kissed she came. She moaned her orgasm into his mouth and he came too with a groan that mingled with it, shooting his seed deep inside her as his hips jerked off the chair.

  They didn’t speak after. It was nearly dawn. She would have to return to her room before she was spotted.

  Silently, not wanting to break the almost sanctified atmosphere, she put on her clothes and walked to the door.

  ‘Was I right?’

  She turned to him and considered his question. ‘Yes.’

  And then she left.

  Chapter Five

  She and Daniel managed another night together, but the next day was taken up with family matters and a trip to Exeter. Although Rosa and Daniel rarely touched, Holly still resented the time her lover and her sister could openly spend together during the day while she could not.

  She wondered if she’d be able to stand it for long, but that night at dinner Holly found herself sitting right next to Daniel. She was on the end with Daniel to her left and her right side empty. Miles was adjacent to her around the corner of the table. Her effusive uncle had already had too much to drink and seemed determined to single-handedly reignite the fox hunting debate.

  Daniel kept his head down. He didn’t speak to her once. Instead he turned to his left and engaged Aunt Clare in an animated discussion on travelling in South America. Holly bit her lip, her appetite gone.

  There was a pause in the meal. Her mother fussed about the dessert not setting properly and declared they’d have to wait.

  Daniel laughed amiably at something her father had said but still ignored Holly.

  But then she felt a touch on her leg. At first she thought she’d imagined it. Or perhaps it was the dog. But no. Warm fingers had stroked her knee. They still were stroking her knee. Her breath caught.

  ‘I suppose your work takes you all over the world, Daniel?’ asked her father.

  ‘It does, although, if I’m honest, I could do with a little less travelling these days.’

  The hand was working its way higher up her thigh. Already her desire was screaming for him.

  ‘I’m sure, I’m sure. Where have you been recently?’

  Higher. His long fingers were pushing her skirt up until it rested in a mass of folds in her lap. She reached for her glass but forgot to bring it to her mouth.

  ‘I was in Mexico a few weeks ago.’ He smiled at Rosa. ‘Rosa will tell you. There was a lot of Skyping.’ Rosa gave a simpering laugh. Daniel’s fingers were exploring the warm crevice where Holly’s thigh joined her pelvis. She instinctively spread her legs to aid him.

  ‘It must have been hard for you,’ said her mother.

  ‘Yes, very hard,’ replied Daniel. Holly wondered if he was hard for her now. ‘But you do what has to be done. We got through it, didn’t we, Rosa?’

  ‘Yes, just about.’

  He had slipped his fingers under the band of her knickers. As he edged them down to find her wet and ready, Holly forced her glass to her lips and took a long drink. She swallowed back her cry of pleasure as he found her clit.

  ‘I’m working on a project for the Mexican government, a suspension bridge. We’re finding it hard as the land on one side is a conservation area. There’s a very rare frog which breeds there.’

  ‘Goodness. That must make life difficult.’

  ‘It does, but we’ve managed to save all the little fellows. But if you thought British bureaucracy was bad, you should try dealing with Mexican officials.’

  There was tepid laughter around the table. Daniel’s hand, meanwhile, was masked under the voluminous tablecloth. He was managing to conduct a conversation and ply Holly’s clit stupendously at the same time. Daniel leaned forward on the pretext of engrossing himself further in the discussion. He t
ook the opportunity to push both his forefinger and middle finger up inside her. Then he began a slow in-and-out movement, managing to get in to the second knuckle while detailing the transportation of steel girders across the Gulf of Mexico.

  Holly’s head swam. She wanted more. Her body was crying out. His touch bore the promise of ecstatic fullness, and yet he teased her, giving her elusive glimpses of what could be. She longed for him to scrape hard over her clit, to raise her to the next level. As he laughed at an awkward joke from down the table, Daniel did just that. His fingers grazed along the fat little bud, ripely waiting for his attention. Pleasure was ratcheted upwards.

  She panicked.

  He couldn’t do this. Not here. Not now. Uncle Miles was facing her way again. He’d notice. He’d see.

  She reached under the table and took hold of Daniel’s wrist, determined to put a stop to it. But he resisted and kept up his movements. It was too good. His fingers were coaxing delicious feelings from her. She couldn’t bear to have him stop, but Holly wouldn’t let him continue without a rebuke. She dug her nails into his bare skin. It would hurt, she knew. She used to do it to her sister when she interrupted her solitary imaginings. Daniel didn’t flinch. The conversation had moved on and he was now simply smiling and nodding rather than taking part.

  He flicked her clit almost punishingly. Holly sucked in as her insides coiled and curled their way to rapture. Her feral grip at last relaxed and her hand instead closed over his, pushing each of his fingers as hard as possible against her. She bucked her hips as imperceptibly as she could, urging him to work her to a release. She no longer had a choice in the matter; she craved him; she craved the pleasure he gave her.

  The conversation continued but she heard nothing. Sound became warped, sensation dulled save for the feelings flowing from her vivid sex. It pulsed and ached, closing in on that break, that burst of ecstatic deliverance.

  Daniel had his glass in his left hand and occasionally brought it up to take a drink. She held his right hand tight, pushing the tips of his fingers into her, grinding them along her wetness. All the while, Holly stared blankly down at her plate, which was still covered in the copious amounts of venison casserole her mother had dolloped onto it.

  The movement of his fingers, contained yet avid, was hypnotic now. Building, building.

  And there. Holly opened her mouth and let air rush in as ecstasy poured out. She managed not to shudder. She managed not to shake or even gasp, but she grimaced, she must have done. As his fingers fucked her orgasm from her right there at the dinner table, her face contorted and twisted.

  Her sister fixed her with her eyes. ‘Holly? What the hell’s the matter? You look like you’re going to be sick.’

  ‘I …’ Her body heaved off the last twitch of pleasure and she squeezed her eyes tight shut as the heavy seep of post-orgasmic exhaustion settled into her.

  ‘Darling?’ asked her mother. ‘Are you alright?’

  His fingers slackened and dragged themselves away. Daniel turned to her, his eyebrows raised in concerned inquiry. ‘Aren’t you well, Holly? You look very hot.’

  She stared at him, then back to her sister. ‘I’m … feeling a bit weird. I don’t think venison agrees with me.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jane flatly. ‘Well, it can’t have been that. I got it fresh from Sir Gerald’s estate.’

  ‘I think I’m going to have to …’ She got up, pushing her chair back with a scrape. Luckily, her skirt fell back into place before she could give everyone a flash of her knickers.

  ‘But what about dessert? It’s lemon syllabub!’ called her mother.

  Holly hurried down the corridor and turned into the library, rushing over to a desk and leaning over it, her breath pulled into her fast and heavy. Her mind might have been a flurry of chaotic madness, but her body – skin, bone, heart, and soul – had never felt so good. Every nerve ending was alive and ready for more, always more.

  Footsteps sounded behind her. ‘You didn’t finish your meal.’

  She looked around. Daniel had followed her. He came in and shut the door behind him.

  ‘Did they send you after me?’ she asked, standing straight and facing him.

  ‘No. But I said I’d come and see if you were all right.’

  She shot him her best glare. ‘That was crazy, Daniel. Someone could have seen. Someone could have figured it out.’

  He gave a devil-may-care smile and walked slowly across to her. ‘But they didn’t.’

  ‘You’re a bloody idiot.’

  He was standing right next to her, close enough for her to feel his heat, close enough for her to smell his desire, but not close enough to touch. She wanted him again already; she longed for him always and everywhere.

  Her stomach rumbled loudly.

  He cocked an eyebrow. ‘You didn’t eat much.’

  ‘No.’ Holly raised her eyes and met his dark ones, infinitely deep, innately knowing. She wanted all he was, all he could give. ‘I’m still hungry.’

  His lips quirked slightly, almost imperceptibly. After a beat of recognition, his hands moved to his zip. He pulled his trousers down a fraction, all that was needed. His cock was out, high, thick, and long, its dewy slit eyeing her provocatively. Holly felt a rush of moisture fill her mouth.

  She looked at him, defying him, enjoying it after the heart-pumping danger he’d put her through at dinner.

  ‘Go on,’ he stated, his intentions clear.

  Reason and resentment were crushed. Holly was overwhelmed by desire. She gave at the knees and curled her fingers around the base of the shaft. She studied it briefly. She’d never been so close to the male phallus before; now she could see every vein, every ridge and rise. It enthralled her. An instinctive awareness of what to do took over. Opening her mouth wide, she lowered her head over the smooth, russet head. Her curious fingers pulled the foreskin fully back and she ran her tongue over the head, gathering in the seeping pre-come which had dribbled expectantly from the slit. The taste gave her such a head rush she gripped onto his leg to steady herself. She wasn’t hungry; she was starving. She wanted this; she wanted to taste and engulf him, to have him filling her, sitting full and heavy on her tongue. She went at him urgently, rolling her tongue around the length before licking down to find his balls and sucking on them in turn. Her curiosity drove her on.

  ‘Good girl. You’re a natural,’ he said, his voice slurred with drifting pleasure.

  She had watched porn. Silly moments of giggling embarrassment at sleepovers when her friends had trawled the Internet. She remembered the images. She’d thought porn was about exploitation, but that hadn’t matched the scenes she’d witnessed. Holly found herself admiring the women, envying them even, for their fervent skill and their clear love of what they were doing. Now she understood where that enthusiastic abandon had come from. She went at him like that now.

  ‘Hold it tight at the base,’ Daniel muttered, twining her hair in his fist and pulling it back from her face. ‘That’s right. Don’t hold back. Suck hard, as hard as you fucking can.’

  She looked up at him, proud that he felt he could advise her, that she was skilled enough to be directed. She did as he said, pulling in her lips and attacking the hard but giving flesh with her tongue. Her cheeks started to ache, but she ignored it, sucking in so hard she wondered if she could create a vacuum and fuse her mouth to his cock forever. Her blow-job-thick spittle poured from her swollen lips and coated his rigid flesh, making her rigorous hand-fuck of his lower shaft even more effective.

  Daniel started to moan, not the intermittent groans he gave when he thrust between her legs, but an indulgently low whine of complete abandon. She went at him with pure lust, urging on his release, impressing herself with her own fervour.

  ‘Shit, I’ll come in your mouth. Fuck, fuck, that is incredible!’

  He was trying to pull off, but she clamped her free hand around the back of his thigh and held him against her. He was too far gone to protest. With a heaving cry, propelle
d from his gut, he burst into her, two, three spurts of white-hot come which hit the roof of her mouth and pooled on her tongue.

  Daniel staggered back and slumped into a chair. Holly had swallowed him down. The taste and texture intrigued her just as he did. It was him. And she adored him.

  When he had recovered he pulled open his eyes heavily and smirked over at her. ‘Wicked, dirty girl.’

  ‘Don’t ever doubt it.’ She stood, returned the arrogant smirk he bestowed so easily, and went off for some lemon syllabub.

  Chapter Six

  The next day or so was spent in a haze of Christmas preparations, wrapping presents, preparing food, out of tune carol singing, and a lot of sex. Daniel and Holly managed to sneak away unnoticed at various points to continue their discovery of each other. The house was big enough to provide plenty of opportunities and hide-aways. The old dairy parlour at the end of the west corridor became a particular favourite.

  But Christmas Eve arrived quickly and, as they did every year, the family made their way down the frosty lanes to the village church for Midnight Mass.

  Holly sat in the ancient space, squeezed in between Clare and Rachel. The usually chilly, dank air tingled with pre-Christmas excitement. People had come to the service festooned in tinsel and flashing Santa hats, and the progressive young vicar had joined in, revealing a glimpse of Rudolph socks under his cassock. The hum of anticipation made the air dance. Holly, however, wasn’t thinking about the best way to cook tomorrow’s Brussels sprouts.

  Daniel had been reluctant to come along, but did so at her mother’s insistence. He’d been happy to join them for the walk, but Holly didn’t think he was going to come into the church itself. However, the church wardens got to him before he could do a runner and he found himself with a hymn book and a firm hand guiding him to a pew. He managed to sit at the back and Holly suspected he would escape at the first opportunity. She confessed to a sneaking love of Midnight Mass. There was something about the crisp promise of the next day when you walked out into the cold night air afterwards, something about the lingering last notes of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ that made her glow inside. Even Rosa couldn’t annoy her tonight.