A Clockwork Christmas

by JK Coi, PG Forte, Stacy Gail; Jenny Schwartz

  That is, if it worked.

  Bleary-eyed and braced for anything, Roderick double-checked the vise grips holding the machine to the workbench then, sending up a small prayer, flicked the switch. With a catlike purr the compressor came to gentle, perfect life, its heated air gushing forth from all nacelle ports to fill the greenhouse with warmth.

  “I’m cheered you didn’t break it.”

  Roderick spun around. It was to Cornelia’s credit that at first he couldn’t even see her. Then she moved, a shadow amongst the shadows pooling by the door, so much a part of the dark he could easily be convinced she knew some otherworld magic to make herself one with it. Her dark golden hair was tucked under a black leather newsboy cap, and a form-fitting black leather doublet lent her the appearance of a lithe and graceful boy. That illusion disappeared, however, with the narrow-hipped black leather leggings that gloved the voluptuous swell of her bottom and long, slender columns of her legs. Normally the legs, well-hidden in polite society, were a part of the female anatomy he didn’t give much thought to. But displayed in such a fashion now, they were all he could see.

  What those legs must feel like, wrapped around a man until he begged for mercy.

  Roderick’s breath shallowed out, while beneath the blacksmith’s apron he grew instantly, painfully hard. No woman had a right to be so damned beautiful, he thought, half-resentful, while the heat in the greenhouse closed a delirium-inducing fist around him. She was his idea of perfect, with breasts made to fit a man’s hands, an ass so round and firm it seemed a sin against God to cover it in absurd bustles and petticoats, and if he didn’t have those legs clamping onto his hips soon he just might lose his mind.

  If he hadn’t lost it already.

  “My dear little thief.” His voice sounded rusty, but he considered himself lucky it hadn’t come out a shattered whimper. “You broke in again.”

  “To use a certain familiar phrase, it was child’s play.” She flashed a few delicate silver implements, lock picks he supposed, before they vanished into her black gloves. “I wanted to see if you had damaged my baby.”

  “Not at all.” Helpless, Roderick watched her glide closer, as silent as the night itself. When she took off the cap to fan her face with it, he caught the roses and soap scent coming from her tumbling hair. His knees nearly buckled. “You could have waited until morning.” He was glad she didn’t.

  “Waiting is for those who have time to waste. I don’t. You didn’t tinker with my temp regulator, did you? It’ll burn up without it.”

  “I didn’t touch it.” But he wanted to touch her. So bad his arms hurt with their stillness.

  “Hmm.” One by one, oh so slowly, she plucked at the fingers of her gloves with her teeth. An inaudible moan whispered from Roderick at the sight of her pearly whites tugging on the material until her hands were bared. It was too easy to imagine her doing the same to the fasteners of his pants. “My advice, Coddington, is for you to let this run for at least an hour to make sure it’s stable. You should open some of the greenhouse’s vents though, before it gets too hot in here.”

  Hot? Dear God, he was about to combust thanks to the fire she set off in his pants. “Already taken care of.”

  “Really?” She frowned up at the vents while undoing the doublet’s buttons. And as she did, he felt himself slowly inching toward madness. “It’s awfully warm in here.”

  “Leather doesn’t breathe.” It was nothing to reach out and slip the doublet from her shoulders to expose a whisper-thin gauzy black chemise, its low scooped neck emphasizing the earthy slopes of the breasts he knew were dusky rose tipped and full enough to satisfy any man’s fantasy. She turned in surprise, automatically reaching for the doublet, but he held it away from her while he coiled his free arm around the small of her back. “There. Isn’t that better?”

  “Coddington—”

  “I’m just making you more comfortable.” He wasn’t, and they both knew it. As he watched, her dark eyes grew darker still with heady awareness and that bewildered, hungry passion that turned everything manly in him to quivering goo. “You can’t wear leather in this heat.”

  The sound of the heavy doublet hitting the floor made her jump.

  “I…” Her voice was almost unfamiliar, a disturbed, breathy sound that should have been calling out a lover’s name. It turned him inside out. “I’m still wearing leather.”

  “Yes, you are.” At last giving in to the strength of his fantasies, Roderick went to his knees, and with his teeth tugged at the button at her waist until it was free. “But not for much longer.”

  Cornelia couldn’t think. She wanted to, she needed to. But somehow he had derailed her ability to bring a coherent thought together the moment his big hands cupped the cheeks of her leather-clad bum and squeezed as if testing for ripeness. And what he was doing with his teeth…

  Goodness, what a talented mouth the man had.

  “I didn’t come here for this.” Though in all honesty she wasn’t entirely sure what she had come for when she’d sneaked her way up into Roderick’s workroom. Presumably it had been to assure herself he hadn’t ruined her one clean shot at getting in and out of Irish Paddy’s well-guarded fortress. But now that she had done so there was no real reason for her to linger. What she should do was obvious—push him away, pick up her doublet and vanish with some appropriately scathing remark to put him right in his place.

  The only problem was she rather approved of his current place.

  Three buttons held the front of her well-worn leather leggings together. Another tug from his teeth popped them free, and with that unmistakable sensation came another, a moist heat between her legs that made the muscles clench deep in her belly. The instinct that wanted Roderick held safely at bay told her the window of opportunity to make a clean escape was closing fast. If she wanted to be safe, untouchable—unhurtable—then she would have to move. Now.

  Yet as strong at that instinct was to save herself from vulnerability, a far more potent need kept Cornelia immobile, and after a heartbeat’s consideration she realized what that need was. She wanted this. As solitary as her life had to be, and as dangerous as she knew it was to let anyone close enough to hurt her, she wanted Roderick’s hands on her more than her next breath.

  The damp whorl of his tongue drawing circles over the sensitive skin below her belly button and above the edge of her scant French lace drawers shocked all thought to a halt. Her hands were sifting through the cool silk of his hair without her knowledge of how they came to be there, removing the welder’s goggles as she went. Her inner defenses that had taken a lifetime to build began to crumble, and she half curled her body over his in a wordless, desperate embrace. She needed him. She needed to hold him until she didn’t know where she ended and he began. She needed him to hold her as if letting her go would mean the loss of everything he treasured. She needed him with a hunger that sapped her of the strength she relied on to stand alone. If she could use him to lean on for support, she thought for this one time, relying on someone else would be all right.

  Please. Just this once.

  Roderick’s teeth sank into the tender flesh of her belly while the large hands kneading her bum snagged on the waistband of her leggings. With a tug he peeled them away, then held each foot, so small in his bowl-sized palms, as he freed her from the moccasins and encasing leather.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t capture you in these tight britches six months ago,” he murmured, his voice rough with a passion that almost intimidated her. Then he surged to his feet and bit at her lower lip, a lover’s hungry gesture that claimed her as his. “If I had, you can bet your perfect little ass you never would have gotten out of here without a complete ravishment. You have legs that were meant to squeeze a man to death, Cornelia.”

  He didn’t give her time to correct him on the personal name usage. Before she could even draw a breath he molded his mouth to hers as if it were his only goal in life. The kiss was wild and hot and an act of intimacy in itself, the
ravenous plunge of his tongue seducing her before she might have had a chance to reconsider the fallacy of submitting to her enemy’s bold advances. But there was no reconsidering, no going back. For better or worse, this was what she wanted.

  The heavy leather blacksmith’s apron was a thick curtain that kept them apart, and Cornelia resented it bitterly. She broke free just long enough to slip it over his head, dropping it to the floor next to her doublet. He brought her back to his mouth as if he abhorred even that slight separation, and when the iron-hard rod of his arousal pressed into her pelvis the air left her in a giddy rush. Half expecting her internal alarm bells to go off, a swell of feminine delight mingling with pride bloomed in her chest instead. Enemies they might be, and without a doubt this was a complication they didn’t need. But Roderick desired her. He didn’t like her, and he certainly didn’t feel any love for her; after what she had done to his adored Beth, he never would. But he did desire her, as much as she desired him. It wasn’t forgiveness, and that was fine. Her mother had taught her forgiveness was for God and fairytales. This was more than she had the right to hope for.

  No doubt this was the only heaven she would ever see.

  With both of them focused on the task of eradicating the useless barriers of clothing, Cornelia soon had her vision filled with a sight she knew she would remember for the rest of her misbegotten life. Roderick was already too handsome for his own good. But as she looked her fill she realized Mother Nature had been kind enough to make her ideal man, only to present him to her in all his glory.

  He was beautiful. The raw masculinity of his physique made her flush from her hairline to her toes with a feverish kind of yearning she hadn’t known she could feel. Her lips hungered to trace the elegant sweep of collarbones that highlighted the strength in his broad shoulders. His chest was a veritable playground her hands itched to explore, with lean muscles sculpted over sinew and bone. The flat brown discs of his nipples called to her tongue to taste, and a faint sprinkling of dark hair darted down the center, growing darker as it arrowed past his navel. Her breath backed up in her lungs as she took in the turgid thrust of his manhood already glistening with the urgent need that echoed her own, and her knees trembled with the force of the ache pulsating between her legs.

  As if in a dream they moved as one, her arms coming to anchor around his neck while he reached for her. Her feet left the floor with the strength of his embrace while his mouth took hers captive. The world spun dizzily as he turned and headed deeper into the shadows, one arm banded around her while the other trailed down to cup her bottom, his fingers an exquisite pain as he ground her into his throbbing shaft. Cornelia couldn’t speak, couldn’t think; he was assaulting all her senses at once with a burgeoning ardor she was little prepared to handle. All she could do was hold on and pray her sanity would somehow be left intact when all was said and done.

  His mouth was what she thought true sin must be like—hot and greedy and so blatantly erotic it was a lush act of sex itself, sweet in its avid allure and impossible to resist. Shivering with the need clamoring inside her, she bit at his lips and explored the moist chamber of his mouth as if the greatest pleasure in the universe could be found there while he lowered her onto the sofa. He laughed at her sound of surprise as he compelled her to fall back onto the lumpy cushions, then shared in her shudder at the new discovery of his weight settling over her, body to body, flesh against flesh.

  Locked in her solitary life, Cornelia had never bothered to fantasize of such things. But as their bodies fit together as though made for that purpose, her heart recognized Roderick as the fantasy she’d never dared to dream.

  “Cornelia.” His voice was no louder than a breath, yet it vibrated all the way to her soul. “I can’t count the nights I’ve lain awake in this very room, thinking of you. Cornering you. One way or another, you’ve become my greatest obsession.”

  She didn’t want him to think of that now. She didn’t want him to think, period. But before she could point out that now was not the opportune time for talking, Roderick burrowed his mouth into the side of her neck while his hands slid down to claim the firm roundness of her breasts.

  An electric jolt of pleasure zipped through her as he teased the dusky rose nubs between his thumbs and forefingers. A broken whimper that was underscored by the restless twitching of her hips escaped her as he did it again and again, as if he knew the lush tide of delight was fast building to a teeth-grinding torment deep in her belly.

  She knew part of him wanted her dead. She just never thought he wanted to kill her with pleasure.

  “More.” She heard the word, the command, emanate from her own lips, felt herself arch into his touch like an attention-starved cat, and she wanted…wanted… “More, Coddington.”

  “Roderick.” A big hand slid over the subtle arc of her hip bone as if he delighted in learning every hidden part of her, before hitching her leg up to his waist. “Let me hear you say my name, Cornelia.”

  For a heartbeat, she hesitated. It was the one remaining wall standing between them, a wall she thought he hadn’t been aware of, that one last-gasp effort to keep him at some sort of distance. Even now, she still clung to that flimsy bit of armor, if only so he couldn’t completely cripple her when the time came. And it would come. It was his mission in life to bring retribution down upon her head. Yet here she was, accepting this intimacy as her fate because she could do nothing more. Whether he knew it or not, her need for him had already done the crippling he yearned to do himself.

  But at the very least, she could still hold onto this one last pitiful line of defense.

  A low laugh rumbled in his chest and he rubbed against her, his iron-hard staff as hot as a brand against her inner thigh. “What a fascinating contradiction you are,” he breathed as he dedicated himself to covering the slopes of her breasts with open-mouthed kisses. “Stone cold in your determination to risk life and limb for a big score, yet timid as a church mouse when it comes to letting anyone in.”

  “Coddington, you talk too much when you should…” The rest of the remonstration fractured into an incoherent moan, as at last the searing hot suction of his mouth closed over an aching peak.

  Whether his earlier ministrations had readied her or she was naturally sensitive, Cornelia didn’t know. All she knew was that when he dragged his tongue over the taut nub her fingernails dug into his shoulders and her back arched with her cry. An unexpected spasm of pleasure quaked through her, for it seemed as though her every nerve was somehow attached to that one specific point. She couldn’t hold still, the need building to such a fever pitch she ground her hips against his hard shaft in a wordless plea to make the torment stop. His jagged groan mingled with hers as he brought her other leg up to hook around his waist and, fisting his hands in her hair, he pushed into her searing, gloving depths.

  What fleeting pain there was passed as her body adjusted to him and his deep, rolling thrusts. Shivers of drugging delight seeped through her, echoes of what had rocked her moments before. Before she was fully aware of it, her own body caught his rhythm to chase the ethereal pleasure, her ankles locking fast at the small of his back to pull him deeper. Splintered sounds, his and her own, scraped and meshed together as their rhythm grew maddening, the mindless need driving her to bite his shoulder and push him into her so hard he would never be free, and she never wanted this to end…

  Then the crescendo that was the excruciating tension snapped inside her, a convulsive rupture of ecstasy that tipped her into a place she didn’t know could exist for undeserving people like her.

  It was a place of absolute, perfect peace.

  Chapter Eight

  Cornelia hadn’t meant to fall asleep, so it was a surprise when she opened her eyes to the gray shadows of pre-dawn. The greenhouse’s panes were pearlescent with steam, the entire attic workspace a cocoon of warmth despite the wind whistling outside. For a lazy moment she gave a thought to simply closing her eyes once more and sinking back into the cozy warmth aroun
d her.

  Then she remembered.

  As she had been taught from the cradle, she made no sound as she startled fully awake. In an instant she took stock of the situation, and found it wasn’t good. The sun was getting serious about peeking over the horizon, she had nothing but her burgling uniform to wear—the moment the sun came up she’d be hopelessly out of style. And there was a naked man pressed against her back.

  Despite her very real fashion distress, the naked-man issue was indeed first on her list of priorities.

  Roderick’s slow, even breathing told her he was still asleep, and she wanted to keep it that way. But that was going to be a challenge, considering his arm was draped over her waist, his hair-roughened leg was hitched over her hip, and his hand cupped a breast as though they were made to fit together.

  If she could sneak her way out of this one undetected, it would be a miracle.

  When Cornelia finally made it to her feet to noiselessly scamper to where her abandoned leggings were, several minutes had passed and she was breathless from her glacier-slow exertions. But that didn’t matter, she decided, shimmying into the leggings before she slung her hair over her shoulder to weave into a messy plait. What mattered was that she was free to get the devil out of there before the sun was truly up and Roderick—

  “I’m awake, you know.”

  Cornelia froze, horrified at the sight Roderick must be seeing, but too shy to turn and face him while wearing nothing but half-buttoned leggings. Last night she had somehow forgotten the revolting web of scars crisscrossing her back, but then again maybe it wasn’t that surprising; she’d forgotten a lot of things last night. Like how Roderick hated her enough to dream up a spectacular trap that could very well bring about her death. Like how his all-consuming need for revenge was driven by a tragic love for a dead woman. Like how a guttersnipe sneak thief like her was unworthy of him.