For The Holidays (Gaming The System Book 9)

  For The Holidays

  A Gaming the System Novel

  Brenna Aubrey

  For a dear & longtime friend, Sabrina. You virtually held my hand all through writing At Any Price and are still there now.

  "A good friend is like a four leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have." -- Irish Proverb

  Take a ski holiday and snowcation getaway with Adam, Mia, Jordan, April, William, Jenna, Lucas, Katya & Heath!

  Mia:

  Hey you! Adam and I are organizing a holiday retreat this winter for all our friends. We are sooooo excited to invite you, too. We’ve rented a place in the mountains. There will be skiing, other snow sports and all kinds of fun. The whole gang will be there--Jordan & April, William & Jenna, Lucas & Katya, Heath and of course, Adam and me.

  Please come along with us! It’ll be epic.

  The Gaming The System series

  Girl Geek (Mia) (click to purchase)

  At Any Price (Adam and Mia part 1) (click to download)

  At Any Turn (Adam and Mia part 2) (click to purchase)

  At Any Moment (Adam and Mia part 3) (click to purchase)

  For The Win (Jordan and April) (click to purchase)

  For The One (William and Jenna) (click to purchase)

  Worth Any Cost (Adam and Mia part 4) (click to purchase)

  It was Always You (Jeremy & Michaela) (click to purchase)

  For The Taking (Katya and Lucas) (click to purchase)

  For The Holidays (Adam, Mia, et al) (click to purchase)

  The Point of No Return series

  High Risk (click to purchase)

  High Reward (click to purchase)

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Mia

  Why is it that we make plans for vacation—to spend a week of relaxation and escape—and in the process, we end up stressing ourselves to the brink to prepare for it? That’s what this day had been for me—a thin slice in the middle of the stress sandwich that was my preparations for the holidays and the start of a new rotation in medical school.

  Adam and I had just returned from my mom’s place in Anza on Christmas night, having spent a few days with my mom and her husband, Adam’s uncle Peter. In addition, we’d had Peter’s kids, William and Britt, their significant others, and the grandkids.

  Mom had planned an amazing little down home family Christmas for us all. We’d had some adventures—exploring and hiking, a little horseback riding with the kids, and playing a lot of crazy board games.

  I sighed, adjusting a shimmery silver, star-shaped ornament on our gorgeous tree that stood nearly ten feet tall in our front room, and was still dwarfed by the cathedral ceilings. It was close to midnight on Christmas night, and I couldn’t help but take a moment to admire the play of light and shimmery beauty in that quiet room. The colorful ornaments reflected the white lights, the shining red and gold ribbon against the soft green fir of the tree. Closing my eyes, I inhaled that fresh, clean scent that immediately took me back to hiking through Idyllwild forests as a kid.

  Suddenly, strong, solid arms encircled my waist and pulled me back against a broad, hard chest. The tree’s aroma was replaced by the familiar scent of the man I loved. Eyes still closed, I relaxed against him as he dipped his head to land a peck on my neck. A little thrill buzzed there, as it always did when he touched me. He rested his head against mine, and my eyes opened.

  He was staring at the tree, all the glistening lights reflecting in his gorgeous dark eyes. “Crazy, we’ve barely had a chance to sit and just admire our tree. Here we are, no sooner home but headed back out of town.”

  I sighed. “The price we pay for being young and driven, I guess? Thank goodness for the holidays. It seems to be the only thing that can slow us down. I’ve been able to hog you mostly to myself for the past forty-eight hours.”

  “Only forces beyond our control can slow down people like us.”

  I swallowed, considering that. Before Christmas, we’d hardly seen each other, for nearly a month. He’d had a business trip. I’d had final exams. He’d spent nearly a week working with his charity foundation on end-of-year business items for the season… The list never ended.

  I turned and landed a return peck on his whisker-rough cheek. “Maybe people like us should learn to slow down more often and savor what we have.”

  Adam smiled and his arms tightened around me. “Hey, it was your idea to go spend the week, and our first anniversary, up in the mountains with our friends.”

  “Mmm, true. We never get to see them anymore either. But we’ll get our time alone. And now that you’ve promised to keep your phone locked in the safe while we’re there, I’ll actually get to have a real conversation with you that isn’t rudely interrupted by beeping and buzzing.”

  “Yes, yes. Just pay no attention to all the twitching and withdrawal symptoms I’ll be enduring in the process.”

  He joked now, but it had been a brief point of contention between us at first. He’d happily relented when I’d agreed, not to bury my nose in my textbooks. Compromise was good and healthy and yet… I couldn’t help but be a little worried about us. Even if it was just a tiny inkling of disquiet with no tangible basis.

  We went to bed at the same time that night, something we almost never did normally. Sometimes we’d spend time together doing other things—watching TV, cuddling, sexy times. But Adam was rarely the type of guy who just rolled over and went to sleep afterward. He popped out of bed and was raring to go for a few more hours still.

  The trying times of being married to a man who rarely got more than five hours sleep a night. As I waited for him to come to bed, I dawdled on my tablet, still distracted by some of those distant worries.

  As luck would have it, the link for one of those silly internet quizzes crossed my feed and I, like an idiot, clicked on it. As if it were some kind of fortune teller that might set us straight, or even just calm some distant fears.

  When Adam came to bed minutes later, slipping under the sheets, I was just answering the last question of the their “Rate Your Marriage” quiz on BuzzTea.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, settling in beside me.

  “Oh I followed some dumbass clickbait.” I laughed. No need to alarm him that I’d actually gone looking for it. It was meaningless, anyway. I showed him the screen on my tablet. “I just took this quiz, and apparently we scored abysmally. BuzzTea gives us less than three years until divorce.”

  Adam didn’t answer for a long moment—he seemed to be mulling it over. Then suddenly, as if what I’d said had finally sunk in, he stiffened, struggling to sit up. “What?! Let me see that.”

  “Don’t get your blood pressure
up. It’s just a stupid internet quiz.”

  But Adam had already clicked on the retake button and was now sitting up in bed, spooning forgotten. He furiously drilled through the questions, every muscle in his body growing tenser and more upright with each passing question. I swallowed. “Adam, put it aside. It’s something some intern on a deadline wrote while Googling shit. It’s not—”

  “No. No one’s allowed to give us a low score. We don’t roll like that.” And with a flourish, he hit “see your results” and held his breath. “Shitty programming. I could do this way better, so it would give immediate results.”

  I nodded. “Of course you could.”

  “Listen, I’ll go do it right now and it won’t even take an hour to—Ah! here it is. See, that’s a....” His voice faded as he squinted, scrutinizing the screen. The tablet illuminated his breathlessly handsome features. I never tired of looking at him, really. Okay, maybe sometimes when he was getting on my nerves. But lately we hadn’t seen enough of each other for that to even happen.

  Sadly, he really seemed to be taking this dumb quiz thing hard. Clearly, he needed a distraction. “Come here. That thing’s bullshit.” I bent and kissed his temple, his cheek, his neck, and I gripped the edge of the tablet, ready to whisk it away from his scrutiny. “They give us absolutely no points for burning up the bed when we have sex.”

  “Hmm,” he said, apparently not hearing me as he clicked more links and, maddeningly, tried to take the thing again. I yanked it away and set it on my side of the bed, out of his reach.

  He let it go, falling back against the pillow and looking at me. “It’s complete BS,” I repeated.

  He shrugged. “I’m exhausted, anyway. I think I need a vacation to recuperate from Christmas. But I’ll do it after I write the makers of that quiz a sternly worded letter of complaint.”

  I laughed. “You are such a nerd. But… you are my sexy, hot nerd.”

  He leaned in and kissed me. Now we were talking. I locked my arms around his neck just as he pulled back. “You realize we have to be up in four hours?”

  I took in a deep breath and let it out. “Fair point. But once we’re officially on our vacation, I expect all the sexy sex we can get.”

  “With seven of our closest friends in the same house.”

  I bit my lip. “Maybe inviting everyone up with us was a crazy idea?”

  He kissed me again. “Let’s have the most fun we’ve ever had on vacation.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Thankfully, as I rolled onto my side to fall asleep, he scooted back into spooning position. My lids closed, and dreamy almost-sleep grasped at me like the incoming tide lapped the dry sand.

  Tonight, we were exhausted. It had been a wonderful Christmas, but tomorrow, we’d be in the snowy mountains doing fun things. I’d have him all to myself—and sometimes with friends—for a whole week. Then, the special surprise I’d planned for our very first wedding anniversary.

  Things would be brighter. We’d reconnect and those thought gremlins would be banished once and for all.

  I couldn’t wait.

  Chapter 2

  Adam

  Emilia thought I’d dropped it.

  As far as she was concerned, I had.

  But that quiz was absolute bullshit. And I was on a mission to prove it. As we rode in the car to the airport to catch our three-hour flight to Vancouver, Canada, I was determined to design my plan of attack.

  The goal? To prove that a low score on some stupid BuzzTea quiz meant nothing and that we, Emilia and I, as a married couple of 358 days, were not only amazing, but goals.

  So suck it, BuzzTea. It was on.

  I spent much of the travel time researching, making lists, and brainstorming ideas. What were the qualities of a successful marriage? Beyond just the answers to the questions that would score us higher on that one quiz, I wanted to know. Because it was important, damn it.

  I was the best at everything I did. And this would be no different.

  During my research phase, I took several more quizzes. Let’s just say these people didn’t know shit about Emilia and me and our marriage. We were busy these days, yes, and had to carve out time to see each other. I traveled, and she was in a very challenging medical school program which required many hours of study and working rotations.

  So time wasn’t on our side, and maybe lately we didn’t have sex as much as they required—or rather, recommended. You had to be in the same time zone and zip code for that to happen, and in recent months, that hadn’t been us.

  And I didn’t do phone sex. Which, I might add, is not sex at all. It’s just getting yourself off with an audience.

  My eyes skimmed the results of the fifth questionnaire. Maybe with all our no spare time we were forgetting to hold hands as much as we once did—or supposedly should. Had we ever been hand holders, much? It was hard to hold hands while playing video games.

  Not that we did much of that together, either, anymore.

  I frowned.

  Maybe that damn article had a point? Maybe we were in trouble?

  My heart raced at the thought, and I turned to look at my new wife as she dozed beside the window on the airplane. We were in the front row of first class and she’d tucked her long legs under her, her hands pressed palms together and she rested her head on them like a pillow. She must have been exhausted.

  Even so, she was so beautiful. Even dressed in her comfy traveling clothes with minimal makeup. Or anytime, really. I brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face and her long eyelashes fluttered open.

  I took advantage, shoving my shoulder as far over as I could. “Here, nap on my shoulder.”

  “Mmm,” she mumbled and obediently pushed forward to rest her head on my shoulder. It took a few tries to get comfortable. She reminded me of a finicky cat finding just the right spot to lie down in, but eventually she found it. The minute she did, I turned to smell her hair and give her a light kiss on the top of her head.

  Then, I went back to work accumulating all the data I needed to make our marriage the top of the marriage leaderboard. We’d pwn all the rest.

  I took another long sniff of her hair, the rush of love hitting me like a drug. Mmm. Yeah, it was like the hit directly to my blood. Of course, now I was reminded of how long it had been—over a week now—since we’d had sex. Our lives had been that crazy busy.

  As she’d said, we were going to be spending time together. I’d make it all about catching up on lost time and opportunities.

  I couldn’t wait.

  But I couldn’t put that goddamn quiz out of my mind. So as she slept on my shoulder on the short flight northward, I seethed, and I planned.

  I wouldn’t have my phone for much longer to help with the research. I’d promised Emilia I’d lock it away for a week. My staff had been given instructions to reach out to her and Jordan in case of an emergency.

  She did have a point. When I had my phone in hand, it often came between the two of us enjoying our time together. We control-freaks rolled like that. But I’d done this before, for shorter periods of time, and I was ready.

  I was going to pour all of my energies into us and upping our score. I made my list of all the ways we were going to correct course and kick marriage quiz ass.

  None of that “finished in three years” bullshit. Nope. We were going to grow old together. And that was that.

  Two big SUVs picked us up at the airport and carted all nine of us into the mountains toward the world-renowned resort of Whistler and the mansion we’d reserved for our getaway week.

  A smiling concierge greeted us along with a blast of cold air that, if I’d felt sleepy before, completely woke me up. Snow was on the ground everywhere, and a gorgeous backdrop of mountains cut a jagged edge in the horizon. The concierge, Anna, informed us that fresh snow was predicted for practically every day of our stay.

  The women in our group all waxed poetical on the luxurious cozy interior and the magnificent views. Jordan, Heath and Lucas
were very impressed by the fully stocked bar and a billiards table just adjacent. Within minutes, Kat ferreted out the console in the den and I cursed myself that I hadn’t forbidden video games while we were here. That’d be about as easy as soloing a boss mob at a high-end raid, though. We were mostly a group of gamers, after all.

  Maybe I’d make it a rule for just Emilia and me. I had to admit to more than a little thrill at putting my complete focus on her.

  Also on making her moan with pleasure and saying my name as many times as possible in that deep, throaty voice. Yes, I’d definitely added that to my list. At the top, bottom, and in the middle.

  And speaking of my list… I made sure, before my lovely wife confiscated my phone to lock away, that I found the nearest conveniently-placed pad of hotel stationary to scratch down my notes—in the form of a bullet-point action plan—to keep handy.

  By the time this week was through, we were so going to be on the marriage leaderboard.

  Eat shit, BuzzTea.

  Chapter 3

  Jordan

  This morning, I’d stepped off that plane, smug as fuck with a secret in my pocket. A three-point-five carat secret, to be exact.

  Yeah, I was taking a massive risk carrying this thing around in my jacket pocket. The girlfriend, she wasn’t a slouch when it came to ferreting out a secret. Hell, she’d flushed out all my deepest, darkest secrets long ago, and hopefully had moved on to new hunting grounds. Because I had a big one right now, one that she wouldn’t discover, if all went well, until just the perfect time.

  Only problem was that I had yet to discover what, exactly, was the perfect time for it.

  After passing through customs in Squamish and making our way to the private cars that would drive us to the mansion in Blackcomb, near Whistler, we were greeted by our concierge and her assistant who were waiting with hot towels and, inside, a tray full of champagne.

  As they rattled off a carefully prepared welcome speech of things they’d planned for us, I considered carefully my next steps. The concierge looked like a glammed-up snow-bunny, all dressed in pale pink and fluffy wool. She was close to the type I would have automatically started hitting on within ten seconds back in my pathetic single days. These days, I still looked, briefly, without giving much more than a second thought. Sure, she was cute. But my girl eclipsed them all. It wasn’t even close.