Christmas Spirit: An Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, Age Gap MM Christmas Romance

by Ali Ryecart

  Up and out within half an hour, Georgie thought. So, no breakfast, then.

  Georgie cast a longing eye towards the four poster he wouldn’t be sleeping in. Better grab some spare bedding.

  He pulled open the wardrobe doors. Empty, save for some wooden hangers. He looked under the bed. Nothing. The only bedding was what was on the bed.

  “There’s no spare blanket, or anything.”

  Georgie turned around as the door to the en suite opened.

  Oh.

  Roland, in a pair of boxers. A tight pair of boxers, and a baggy T-shirt. And legs, long, lean muscled legs.

  “Is there a cupboard in the bathroom?” He knew full well there wasn’t, he just needed to say something, anything, to fill the silence and take his attention away from those tight, and well-filled, boxers.

  “No, there’s nothing in there. You’ll have to call Nicholas to bring up some spare bedding.”

  “What with? There’s no phone, remember.”

  Georgie crossed the room and opened the door, poking his head out. The hallway was in complete darkness. He screwed up his eyes, peering into what felt like a void, but he could make out nothing. Straining his ears, he listened for any telltale noise that Nicholas was downstairs, but the only sound he could hear was the beat of his heart. He pulled back and closed the door with a hard thud, wanting only to leave the silent darkness outside.

  “I’m not wandering around in the dark looking for him. I’ll put my coat on and sleep in the chair, ‘cause that’s got to be better than a stone floor. I think. It’ll be all right.”

  Georgie looked at the chair and his heart fell. He doubted he’d get much sleep, and he’d end up with a bad back by morning. Maybe if he piled it up with towels…

  “I can’t believe there’s no spare bedding. You’ll put your back out if you try sleeping in one of those.”

  Roland slung open the wardrobe door.

  “I told you, I’ve looked,” Georgie said, irritation rushing through him that Roland didn’t seem to believe he was capable of looking for a spare blanket. “See? There’s nothing.”

  Roland huffed as he turned around. “Then I’ll go and find Nicholas.”

  “Good luck with that. Take a look outside, it’s pitch black.”

  Georgie watched as Roland did exactly what he’d done a few minutes before, his lips lifting in a satisfied I told you so smile when Roland stepped back in and closed the door.

  “Then there’s only one thing for it. We’re going to have to share.”

  “What?”

  Share a bed? With Roland? Roland who was his boss, Roland who was looking more than a bit tasty in a pair of tight boxers…

  “…plenty of pillows. We can put a couple down the middle. The bed’s more than big enough to accommodate the two of us.”

  “No. Really, I can—”

  “All right.” Roland threw up his arms. “Do what you like. I’m too tired to argue.” He climbed into bed, pulled up the duvet, the very soft, plump, warm looking duvet, and turned on his side, away from Georgie. “When you’ve sorted yourself out, blow out the candles. Goodnight.”

  Georgie looked from the bed to the chair and back again. It was tempting. It was very tempting, but… No. He’d do what he said he would, and sleep in the chair.

  Grabbing some towels from the bathroom to use as makeshift blankets, Georgie blew out the candles, leaving the only light in the room to come from the dying flames of the fire. The room was warm, and he discarded the idea of putting on his coat. Instead, he stripped down to his underwear, leaving on his T-shirt, and settled into the chair which creaked under his weight.

  Shifting and fidgeting, he tried to find the best position. The chair hadn’t exactly been plush when he’d sat in it earlier, and scoffed down most of the afternoon tea, but it hadn’t been this hard, had it? He glanced over at the bed, where Roland was an indistinct hump in the darkness, the bed that had more than enough room for two.

  Georgie slung the towels to the floor. The carpetless, rugless, flagstoned floor had to be more comfortable than the chair. A pile of rubble had to be more comfortable.

  No, he was wrong. A pile of rubble would have been the better option, and warmer. The heat had leeched from the room, and he began to shiver. He’d get dressed again, and this time he would put on his—

  “For Christ’s sake, you’re making enough noise to wake the dead. Get into bed, so then at least we can both get some sleep.”

  Georgie didn’t need to be told twice. He slipped under the duvet, hardly daring to breathe as he clung to his side of the bed. A bed he was sharing with Roland Fletcher Jones. A Roland Fletcher Jones who, stripped down to his underwear, was more than a little mouthwatering.

  Stop it!

  Roland was his boss. His uptight jerk of a boss. Or an uptight jerk most of the time. Next to him, Roland’s breathing had settled into a deep and even rhythm. He was asleep, and as Georgie closed his eyes, he quickly tumbled after him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Roland woke with a start. His heart hammered hard against his ribcage, his breathing came in rapid, shallow gasps, his skin damp and sweat-slicked. The duvet lay in a heap on the floor. He was naked. And hard, his dick long and thick, and thrusting upwards like a rod.

  Next to him, Georgie lay sprawled out, on his stomach, hugging a pillow, his arse — his naked arse — smooth and round under the flickering light of… the candles. The candles Georgie had snuffed before his aborted attempt to sleep in the chair.

  What in hell was going on?

  Roland took a deep breath, then another, and another.

  He was dreaming, that’s what it was. If he could tell himself that, it meant it had to be true. The alarm would go off soon, dragging him into the real world where this would disappear like vapour. He rubbed his hands down his face. A dream, brought about by rich food and drink, and the odd circumstances he was in, all heaped on top of long, long hours of overwork for months on end. And of having a man in his bed, when there had been no man for so damn long.

  Next to him, Georgie shifted and muttered before resettling.

  Roland stared at his smooth back, hollowing at the base before following the round contours of his arse. An arse Roland had nibbled and sucked, an arse he’d prised apart to reveal a pink and inviting pucker, an arse he had licked and sucked, his tongue pushing forward, breaching muscle…

  Oh God. Roland swallowed hard as he lay staring at Georgie, as the images cascaded down on him, each one falling faster than the one before.

  Georgie, on his hands and knees, looking at him from over his shoulder, urging him on, pleading with him…

  Georgie, his mouth hot and wet, taking him down to the root of his dick…

  Georgie, gasping and whimpering, as Roland grabbed and twisted a fistful of Georgie’s raven-dark hair, holding his head rigid as he fucked hard into his mouth…

  Georgie, straddling him, his lips swollen and spit-soaked, a guttural cry forcing itself from his throat as he wrapped his palm around his dick, rutting into his fist as he rode Roland’s cock…

  Roland thrust shaky fingers through his sweat-damp hair. None of it had happened. It couldn’t have happened. He’d dreamed of Georgie earlier, and this was the same.

  His teeth clenched down on his lower lip, and he winced. Sore and tender. He ran the tip of his tongue across the throbbing skin. Georgie had crushed his lips to his, as he’d ridden his cock all the way to the finish line, and—

  Roland released a strangled cry, squeezing his eyes tight as his orgasm thundered through him. He fisted his palm around his cock, every throb and pulse as hard and fast as his heartbeat.

  His hand slipped from his cum-soaked crotch. Prising his eyes open, he looked into the inky dark of the dead of night. The candles, every single one of them, were doused. Next to him Georgie was little more than a sleeping shadow in the darkness.

  Sleeping. That’s what he’d been doing. A dream he’d woken from, when his climax had catapulted
him awake.

  His release was cooling on him, making him itch. He needed to wash away the evidence. On trembling legs, he staggered to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Georgie’s nose twitched and his mouth began to water. The savoury aroma of bacon filled his senses, as succulent, salty and tangy as—

  He opened his eyes, blinking at the tapestried bed curtains of the four poster.

  As tangy as… He swallowed, chasing the last vestiges of a dream that was already fading in the morning light. Fluttering candlelight, dancing over his body, over Roland’s body, as they’d twisted and turned and tumbled in the bed, the duvet pushed to the floor.

  Fuck.

  Oh, no.

  Oh, yes.

  No, no way. He’d dreamed about him and Roland?

  Christ, he wasn’t that desperate to have screwed his boss. Was he?

  No. The candles, in his dream because that’s what it was, had been aflame. He’d put them out before his fruitless attempt to sleep in the chair, before he’d slipped into bed at Roland’s command, clinging onto the edge, keeping as much distance between him and Roland as he could. If he’d put the candles out, then they couldn’t have been alight, which meant he and Roland couldn’t have… Georgie shifted, and the bed creaked.

  “Good, you’re awake. You should get up because I want to go soon.”

  At the window, staring out, Roland stood clutching a large steaming coffee cup. His hair was slightly mussed, as though he’d been running his hands through it. A pair of black jeans moulded themselves to his long legs, and a dark moss green jumper wrapped itself around his torso. Green, like Roland’s eyes, glittering in yellow candlelight, just before he grinned and went down—

  No. No, none of that had happened, because it couldn’t have. It just couldn’t.

  “Sure. I’ll jump in the shower. I’ll be really quick.”

  One of the abandoned towels lay within arm’s length and Georgie tugged it over, pulling it around his waist to hide his nakedness.

  I was wearing my pants when I got into bed.

  They lay in a crumpled heap on the floor.

  He threw a glance at Roland, who carried on staring out at the snow-covered landscape, completely still and as though he were alone. Grabbing his clothes, Georgie dashed to the bathroom, with no idea how he was going to ask Roland, Roland Fletcher Jones, his boss, if they’d done a whole lot more than, literally, sleep together.

  “It’s stopped snowing and it’s a clear sky, thank God. I’ll get directions to town from Nicholas,” Roland said, when Georgie emerged fully dressed from the bathroom.

  His train. Would there even be one running?

  “Sure, thanks.”

  Roland was still staring out of the window, still clutching his coffee exactly as he had been when Georgie had woken up. Georgie wrinkled his brow. The sunlight. That was wrong. Roland had wanted to be out of the hotel by 7.00am, when it would have been more dark than light.

  “Did we sleep through the alarm?”

  It would’ve been odd, because he was such a light sleeper. A fly scratching its arse, or a moonbeam farting, were more than enough to wake him up and keep him wide-eyed for hours. Unless something had given him cause to sleep long and deep.

  “My alarm didn’t go off. In fact, when I woke up about twenty minutes before you did, and saw the time, I assumed I must have slept through. When I checked the alarm, it wasn’t set,” he said, his face expressionless, distant, and definitely not that of a man who’d spent the night screwing his brains out.

  Roland, did we or did we not have hot and off the charts sex last night?

  Georgie suppressed a nervous giggle. That was one question he wouldn’t be asking any time soon. Because he didn’t need to. Because it had never happened. Had it?

  Georgie cleared his throat.

  “I saw you do it, but we were dealing with the power outage and it would have been easy to have made a mistake, I suppose.”

  “In the dark, yes. But the room was alight with candles. I didn’t make a mistake. I double checked it. I’d set the alarm, but this morning there was no alarm.”

  So you made a mistake… Georgie wasn’t about to contradict him. Everything about Roland was tight and tense, closed off, and if he said too much, he might just end up having his head bitten off, chewed up, and spat out. They might just as well have been back at Pendleton Manor.

  “So, erm, when do you want to set off?”

  “Soon, but you may as well have breakfast first. Help yourself. I don’t want it.”

  Georgie gazed greedily at the little trolley parked next to the coffee table. Heaped with bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns, toast, and little pots of jam and butter and honey, his stomach rumbled. There were also a couple of croissants. And a large cafetière half full of coffee, coffee that was filling the air with its rich, nutty aroma.

  “You don’t want any? But you ordered it. Which means you must’ve spoken to Nicholas. So, have the roads have been cleared?” Georgie said, as he piled his plate high. God, he was starving, but he wasn’t going to let himself think why that might be.

  “I didn’t order it. This was here when I woke up. I’ve not left the room so, no, I haven’t seen or spoken to Nicholas.”

  Georgie’s hand froze, clutching onto the fork midway between the plate and his mouth. Even he, a humble, lowly kitchen boy, knew that you just didn’t wheel in a tray of breakfast to a guest’s room, especially when the guest hadn’t ordered it.

  “That’s — odd.”

  And what had Nicholas, or whoever, seen when they’d crept in? He gulped back a big mouthful of coffee, too much, coughing and spluttering, his eyes watering.

  Roland huffed. “Yes, it is. But why doesn’t that surprise me? This whole place is odd. As soon as I can get an internet signal, I intend to do a little digging. Five more minutes,” he said putting down his coffee cup, “then we need to get going.”

  Roland pulled on his waxed cotton jacket, before he turned back to staring through the window.

  Georgie ate quickly, wrapping the croissants up in a paper napkin. He’d add them to the bread rolls he’d just about managed to rescue from the lunch buffet before it had been cleared away. Was that only the day before? It felt like a lifetime ago.

  “Ready,” he said, getting up and pulling on his own jacket, which definitely wasn’t waxed, before grabbing his rucksack.

  Roland spun on his heel, strode across the room, and threw open the door, leaving Georgie to follow in his wake.

  They creaked their way downstairs, their footsteps the only sound in the otherwise silent hotel. There should be people milling around, making their way to breakfast but, just as last night, there was no sign of anybody. Like Roland, as soon as he could, he was going to google the place. But what would he put into the search engine? He didn’t know what it was called and he didn’t know where they were.

  “Hello?” Roland called, pulling out his wallet as they approached the reception desk.

  Nobody and nothing answered, except for the heavy tick of the ornamental clock.

  “I’ll see if he’s in the lounge.” Georgie put down his rucksack and headed into the room where he and Roland had shared dinner, and where Roland had let slip a side of him Georgie hadn’t even guessed at.

  A fire burned in the grate, and the plaster Santa stood guard. Still smiling, eyes still twinkling. Georgie swung around — and staggered straight into Roland.

  “Careful.” Roland’s hands clamped onto his arms, before falling away a second later. Roland didn’t step back, nor did Georgie.

  Georgie gazed up into pupil-blown eyes, their green no more than a thin outer rim. Inhaling a deep breath, Georgie’s senses were drenched in the warm spice aroma of Roland’s cologne. An aroma that had been twisted up in the bed sheet. An aroma that in the darkest hours of the night had been mixed with a scent that had been more basic and primitive. Georgie had to know. He had to know if his dream was
really a memory.

  “Roland, I—”

  The heavy strike of the reception clock, loud and booming, shuddered through Georgie, each strike like an extra heartbeat.

  “I can’t find him anywhere, and I’m not prepared to wait any longer,” Roland said, stepping back, his voice overloud as he scraped his fingers through his hair. “I’ll leave some money and my contact number. If there’s more to be owed, they can call me. Come on.”

  Georgie didn’t say anything as he watched Roland count out a bundle of notes. He bit down on his lip, embarrassed by how much Roland was leaving as payment for their time in the hotel. He plunged his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out his battered wallet.

  “I don’t feel right not contributing.”

  “Then you’ll just have to live with it. I told you I’d take care of the room.” Roland threw him an impatient glance before he fished out a business card and a pen from an inner pocket, and scribbled a note on the back for Nicholas.

  “But dinner last night, and breakfast—”

  “Don’t argue. Right, let’s get going.”

  They pulled open the heavy wooden door and both gasped as freezing air hit them.

  “Jesus,” Georgie said, his teeth already beginning to chatter as he pulled out a woolly hat and some gloves.

  Roland didn’t bother to answer him as he trudged over to his Land Rover, nothing more than an indistinct lump under the thick covering of snow. They were going to have to clear it before they could go anywhere.

  “The snowploughs must have been out last night.”

  Georgie nodded to the driveway, clear except for the thinnest layer of snow, leading away from the hotel and disappearing into a tunnel of densely packed, snow-laden trees. He clamped down on his lip, pulling in his brows as he stared at the trees, his scalp tingling with he didn’t know what.

  “Good, it means the roads will be clear. Help me shift the snow from the car so we can get away.”