Bad, right? Well, they’d also made a mousse in case people didn’t want pie – squirty cream and cocoa powder. When it got to the table, it looked like diarrhea.
Because there was no dessert, people decided they’d have a drink to finish off the meal and raided Erica and Jerome’s liquor cabinet.
I’d left early, but they were all still drinking when I did – more than likely to numb their taste buds after the mouthful of pie we’d all tried out of politeness. Biggest mistake ever, I’d rather take my chances with deviled eggs.
It had been a long week, and it was only Thursday, so no one had taken it badly when I’d bowed out before the rest of them. The truth was, I wanted to try to call my parents. It was Christmas and even though they hadn’t replied to my last message about Eric, a part of me was certain that they’d answer today. I mean, it was freaking Christmas day!
Just as I was about to hit their number, my eyes caught on the present that Dahlia, Lily, and Luna had given me earlier – the one they’d told me I couldn’t open until I got home. In fact, they’d almost panicked when I’d said it would be ok and had started opening it in front of them.
Putting my phone to the side, I picked it up and gave it a shake. Nothing made that tinkly broken glass noise when I did it, but there was some heavy thudding.
Making sure I was alone, I ripped off the paper and frowned at the brown box that was under it. If you were going to give someone a gift that was secretive, wouldn’t the nice thing to do be to at least make it something in a box that told you what it was when you took the paper off? They’d made me hide this under my coat like it was porn or something.
Oh shit, they hadn’t got me a box set of porn, had they?
Biting my lip, I argued with the stupid tab thing that was holding it shut, and then lifted up the lid. What was inside wasn’t anything I’d seen before. It looked like a short rocket ship in different sizes with weird bumps and arms coming out of some of them. I recognized the next item in the box, a vibrator, but it had something else attached to it that stuck up in the air, too.
Removing those items from the box, I put them on the floor beside me and picked up a package with different tubes in it and read the labels out loud.
“Cherry lube, apple lube, Baileys lube, warming lube, ice fire lube, tingling lube… how many types can you get?” Considering there was two rows of five in the package, I’m thinking the answer was a lot.
Placing it down next to the others I’d already taken out, I lifted out the next thing. A vibrating cock ring. Turning it over, I wasn’t sure whether to wince or laugh at the images on the back that told you how to use it. The item that was next to it in the box also said it was a cock ring, but this one was thick and made of black rubber.
By the time I got to the bottom of the box, I was kinda turned on, definitely curious, and absolutely embarrassed. There was also some hilarity and laughter, but holy shit those girls had no shame. They’d added in nipple clamps, a clit clip with a dangling diamond, another butt plug that was metallic with a diamond at the end, a row of beads that were apparently also for your butt, a clit vibrator, and finally the last thing had been a prostate massager. Seeing as how I definitely didn’t have one of those, I was taking it that this one was a gift for Levi.
Leaning over the pile of sex toys, I went to pick up my phone when I heard something breaking in the living room.
Standing up, I opened the door and headed toward where the noise had come from calling out, “Red, Rambo, if you’ve broken something special, your daddy’s gonna…”
That was kind of the last thing I got to say because an arm went around my throat from behind me, and something was placed over my face.
Of course both of those things made me scream into the rag on my face, but it was the voice that whispered, “Merry Christmas, Charlotte. I can’t wait to give you the present I got you,” that made me hyperventilate just as I lost consciousness.Chapter SeventeenLevi“I need to ask her this question,” Elijah insisted, pushing past me as we walked through the dark living room toward the bedroom. “It’s such a good one.”
Ironically, the fact that the house was dark didn’t really strike me as strange. Lottie tended to turn lights off as she went, but normally not unless I was with her. Given how busy the day had been, it wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d just come home and passed out.