A Clockwork Christmas

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

  Patrick finally glanced up and she knew the moment when he really saw her. His gaze flew over her, from the long leather jacket and breeches, to her short hair and last, but not least, the mechanical eye. She’d tried more than once to wear a patch and cover it like she did her legs and her hand, but the microscopic mechanical organisms that took signals to her brain didn’t like when she wasn’t able to see, and she’d always ended up with monstrous headaches that threatened to spill her brains out through her ears.

  “What happened to your eye?” His question came out grudgingly, as if admitting to curiosity or showing any signs of life was a betrayal of his vow of sullenness—something she could relate to since she’d felt pretty much the same way right up until a few days ago.

  What had changed? So little, but it was like a tiny pebble in a dark lake, rippling outward and touching everything.

  Jasper.

  She lifted her hands and tugged off the leather glove. “The same thing that happened to my hand.” She returned his wide look of surprise with a sad smile. “And both my legs.”

  “Lordy,” he muttered and glanced down at the space where his own legs should have been pushing up the coverlet on the bed.

  “Yes. Well. I was very angry about it for a very long time.” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat. She’d used her shattered voice more today than in the last four months put together.

  He nodded his head. “I can’t breathe for the anger,” he admitted. “It feels like I would have been better off dead than forced to live like this.”

  “You know, the doctor can truly work miracles.”

  He gave her a disbelieving look, but when she purposely stood up with a smooth motion and took a step closer, his expression turned to one of uncertainty and fear. And thank goodness, there was a glimmer of hope too. She took a deep breath. “Would you believe me if I told you that despite feeling like an impossibility now, it does get better? And one day you’ll wake up and it will feel as if the sucking weight on your chest has eased? On that day, you’ll discover the reason why you were meant to live through this…and maybe it will even be worth it.”

  He grumbled, but she thought she might have gotten through to him. Just a little.

  As she turned to leave, he reached for her hand. “Would you…?”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Will you be here when I wake up from the surgery tomorrow? After the doc puts the metal legs on me? I mean, could you? Be here, that is?”

  He sounded so scared. Suddenly all his adult bravado was gone and in its place was the soul-ripping terror of a little boy. “Of course I will. As long as you don’t throw anything at me.” She gently took back her hand, making a show of pulling on her glove so that he wouldn’t see the tears that had gathered in her eyes. “Although I’m sure we could find a few extra pillows to throw at the nurse.”

  Jasper edged the door closed before Callie said goodbye to the boy. He didn’t want her to know how much of their conversation he had overheard.

  When he’d returned to her room and found it empty, he’d panicked. But his pounding heart had expanded with such pride when he heard her teasing voice coming from this room and realized she’d come to offer Patrick the kind of support he could only get from someone who really understood what he was going through.

  He thought of retreating to his own room and giving Callie some time to herself before the evening meal, but changed his mind. The only place he wanted to be was with her.

  As he waited for her to take her leave of the boy, he paced the room like a caged tiger before stopping in front of the window. He stared out, but noticed nothing and couldn’t have said if it was snowing again or not.

  His mind was on the fruitless conversation he’d had with Mrs. Campbell regarding the nature of General Black’s intentions, after which he’d finally tracked down the reclusive doctor in his basement laboratory. That discussion hadn’t gone well either. The man could barely be moved to speak of Callie. She didn’t concern him any longer, not now that her body was healed and of no further interest to him. He only cared for one thing: his increasingly darker and more esoteric research into the apparently limitless possibilities of biomechanical medicine. The government had promised him unlimited funding, and in return he only had to give up some of his patients to “the cause” once he’d put them back together.

  Jasper’s arguments with both of them had only made him more aggravated when he finally retreated back up the stairs.

  Callie entered the room. She raised a brow in silent question at seeing him in her room, but showed no real surprise that he’d been waiting for her. She looked so beautiful. Hard and soft. Strong and vulnerable. Damaged, but far from broken.

  She walked to the dresser and dropped her gloves on top of it. Unable to stay away, he rose and came up behind her, pulling open the edges of her coat and sliding it down her arms. He draped it over the dresser with her gloves. She looked at him through the mirror. He wanted to take away the doubt that flickered across her face, but at least it wasn’t the dispassionate cold or the anger that had stripped him raw.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders, stopping just short of wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back into him. Their kiss this afternoon came back to taunt him, but he didn’t want to push too far, too hard, too soon.

  “What are we to each other now?” she asked, her voice sounding hoarse as she gazed into the mirror.

  The question took him off guard. “We’re the same as we’ve ever been,” he said, even though he didn’t believe it. “Husband and wife.”

  “Is that enough now, do you think?”

  “Enough for what?”

  “To have a future together.”

  His chest contracted. “You tell me.”

  With a sigh, she turned around to face him. “I don’t know. Yesterday I would have said no. I would have said there was nothing left for us. Nothing left of me to make a future even possible.”

  “And now?” There was nothing in this world that could tarnish her beauty, nothing that could extinguish his love for her. He admired everything about her, treasured every inch of her—flesh, bone, blood and iron—and there was nothing that could make her less desirable to him.

  But he couldn’t say any of that. He couldn’t tell her to give him another chance.

  He waited, not certain what he would do if she insisted she felt nothing.

  “Now.” She lifted her hand to his temple, across his cheek. The metal was cool against his skin, but her touch was careful. “Now, all I know is…I want to try.”

  He breathed out, cupping her face in his hands and bringing his mouth to hers. This kiss was harder than the last, need cutting into the heart of him as he tasted her, breathed her in. And this time it was Callie who pushed for more. She curved her fingers around his neck and pushed closer.

  He opened his mouth over hers again and again, and she matched him. When he slipped her his tongue she sucked on it, making him groan. His hands fell from her face to her shoulders and spread open to touch as much of her as he could. He dragged them down her back to her waist and clutched the white lawn tucked into her men’s breeches. He hesitated, but only for a moment, and then he pulled the tail of the shirt out and slid inside, under the bottom edge of her corset.

  She gasped and arched into him.

  “Oh God, Callie,” he moaned into the delicate curve of her throat. The small bit of skin was warm and smooth to touch, a feast for his starving senses. He wanted all of it to be accessible to his hands and mouth and moved to begin undoing the many buttons.

  He’d never before been faced with the challenge of undressing his woman from the stuffiness of men’s clothing. It should have been easy, at least easier than the yards and yards of silks she had always been bundled into before, but in his nervousness and haste, the buttons slipped through his fingers.

  “Hurry, Jasper.”

  At her encouraging whisper, he grasped the shirt in both fists and pulled, p
opping each button in sequence slowly, all the way down. She shrugged her arms out of the wide sleeves, but her hands caught on the narrow, buttoned wrists and he helped her to undo those as well.

  He removed his own shirt then, which was dealt with decidedly more quickly. He wanted to take her back into his arms right away, but instead he pulled her with him to the bed. He pushed her to sit on the edge and knelt on the floor at her feet.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Helping you with your boots.” He took her ankle and tried to lift her leg, but she resisted.

  “I’m not an invalid.”

  Gazing up at her, he let his hands slide up her calves, feeling the hard metal under her boots and breeches. He’d done his best, made no bones about the fact that he found her desirable as hell and stronger than ever, but he knew it would take time for her fears to fade completely. And he planned to be there every step of the way, supporting her however he could.

  “You know I don’t think you aren’t capable. I’m quite certain you could do anything you put your mind to…and do it better than anyone else.” He moved higher, over her knees. Slipped his hands between her thighs and gently pushed her legs apart.

  Her mouth dropped open as she watched him slowly smoothing the way toward her center. “So let me do this. I’ve been waiting to touch you for months, Callie. It feels like years.”

  She gave him a very small nod. His thumbs brushed the hidden seam between her legs and she shuddered beautifully.

  He pulled back and carefully removed each of her boots before addressing her corset and breeches, until she was finally naked before him. As he looked at her, he was glad to know for certain that the iron didn’t faze him at all anymore. It was simply a part of her, like her bruised soul would continue to be a part of her, probably for the rest of their lives.

  He didn’t deceive himself that she would ever return to the person she’d been before the attack, but neither would he, and that other life seemed like a dream now. It had belonged to two completely different people. In fact, he just might love the new Callie even more desperately for all that.

  “Lie back.”

  She was nervous, he could tell. But she did as he asked. As she moved to lie fully on the bed, he determined to make himself worthy of her trust.

  He came down beside her and couldn’t stop himself from touching her. With his hands and his mouth he worshipped her until she shuddered and moaned, her body arching upward toward his every caress. He was careful, but driven to give her the most pleasure she’d ever experienced.

  He moved over her, taking a nipple in his mouth, rolling it against his tongue and nipping lightly with his teeth. She gasped, squirming beneath him. Her hands clutched his shoulders. Her legs bent at the knees and her thighs opened to draw him closer. Jasper lowered himself and ground his hips into the bed sheets, even as he sucked harder on her breast.

  “Jasper.”

  God, he loved the sound of his name from her lips, in her raspy voice. He wanted those lips sliding up and down on him until he exploded in her sweet mouth. But this time was not for him. This was all about Callie.

  He flicked her nipple with his tongue once more and gazed into her face as he slid down the length of her torso. She groaned as she realized where he was headed and her hips gently bucked.

  Her thighs tightened around his shoulders, the hard edge where iron took the place of flesh biting into his skin. He savored the feeling. It heightened the need that had built inside of him so that he was already primed to explode. It was all he could do not to surge upward and thrust inside her now, but Callie wasn’t ready yet. She wouldn’t be ready until he’d made her come at least twice with his hands and mouth.

  Her taste burst upon his lips as he licked her sweet folds, making him moan with pleasure. He couldn’t get enough of the taste of her and went deep, plunging over and over again, stabbing inside her with his tongue. To his delight, she gripped his hair and demanded satisfaction, which he strove even harder to deliver.

  Callie’s head thrashed back and forth as Jasper’s mouth drove her ever closer to orgasm and his fingers plucked at her tight, aching nipples. She spread her legs wider and rolled her hips, encouraging him to lick her right over the edge, and he obediently obliged. As the waves of blinding pleasure slammed into her, her shout echoed between them.

  The heavy pulses had barely subsided before Jasper started pushing her again. He guided one finger inside her, and then another, sliding in and out and then circling the sensitive bud of her clitoris.

  “Please,” she whimpered. He was watching her, and she thought the heat in his eyes must mirror the raging inferno he had set loose inside her. “Jasper, I need—”

  “Come for me again first.”

  She groaned as he set his mouth on her once more and scissored his fingers deep inside her. When her body tightened in readiness for yet another orgasm, she tugged on his hair. When he didn’t respond, she clutched his shoulders. “Jasper.”

  “Again,” he insisted, lifting his head.

  He slowly licked his lips. The sight of his mouth wet with her, eyes gleaming with passion for her, set Callie off again just the way he wanted. Even harder this time. Her eyes fell closed and she tipped her head back as her spine curved off the bed.

  When he came over her and took her mouth, she opened for him, tasting herself in his kiss. With her arms around him, she luxuriated in the feel of his chest hair rasping across her nipples, his weight pressing her down. She realized that some part of her had believed she would never feel this alive again.

  But was it love?

  She’d thought that was over. Jasper’s lies and her pain had killed it. So was it love she felt now, or did she only want to hold onto him because he’d managed to pull her through the anger?

  “Callie, look at me.”

  She opened her eyes. His length pushed inside her. Slowly. Oh so slowly.

  The strain as he tried to hold back twisted his expression into one of reverent pain. He was afraid of hurting her, but after so long, she knew he must want to thrust hard and deep, and it was what she wanted too.

  She pushed him onto his back and levered her body over him, taking care not to press her iron fist into his chest. His hands went to her hips to hold her tight as if afraid she would get up and leave, but he gazed into her face with such…love.

  Part of her still doubted that Jasper’s feelings could be real, that he could look at her with anything but disgust. Another part of her was amazed by him. In the face of her hostility, he had never once defended himself. He had offered himself up instead. Accepted her feelings and begged for her forgiveness. He had worked so hard to make her see that she wasn’t a monster, that life still waited for her. That it was still precious. And that she never had to be alone.

  She lowered herself down, gasping as she drew him into her slick passage.

  “Good God, you feel so good.” His hands dragged over her skin until he cupped her breasts. His hips thrust upward, pushing deeper.

  She started to move, using her powerful legs to ride him. Harder. Deeper. Soon they were both panting, moaning, striving for release. She leaned down to join her lips to his as the pleasure coiled tighter and tighter and then spun away in a blinding explosion of lights and sensation. Jasper stiffened beneath her and buried his face into the curve of her neck, his shout absorbed by her sweaty skin.

  Chapter Eight

  Callie lay in the curve of Jasper’s shoulder. His fingers trailed up and down the length of her spine and he couldn’t stop dropping light kisses on her forehead, her closed eyelids and her cheeks. He had no intention of letting her move for a long time.

  Finally, she gazed up at him. “I wasn’t sure I would be able to feel that way again,” she whispered.

  He tightened his arms around her, feeling fierce and determined. “I’ll make you feel that way every day for the rest of our lives, Callie. I promise.”

  “What about the general?” She shivered.
>
  The dark cloud of reality intruded. “It’s my fault. I’ll fix it.”

  “No.” She pushed herself into a sitting position. “I still don’t know what the future will hold for us, but if we’re going to have any chance together, there are going to be some changes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The woman who danced her way through life is gone, Jasper. The wife who never would have challenged her husband’s decisions is gone.” She pulled the bed sheet up to her chest. “If I’m strong enough to come out of all this and be drafted as a spy for the War Office, then I’m strong enough to be an equal partner in my own marriage. We make decisions together from this point forward. You don’t keep me in the dark for any reason, least of which for my own protection.”

  “Callie—”

  “There are no secrets between us. Ever.” She paused and cleared her throat, her fist clutching the soft cotton tightly between her breasts. “And it means you don’t get to leave when things become difficult.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her he had stayed away from the clinic for her own good, so she could heal properly…but it would have been a lie. She was right. Jasper could have insisted on staying despite her anger. He should have. But instead he’d let Callie and the doctor push him out because he had been scared. Guilty. Furious.

  “You have my promise, Callie. We figure this out together, and I won’t ever leave you again.”

  She nodded and shifted to get up from the bed, but he closed his hand over her forearm. “I have some conditions for you, too,” he said, pulling her back to him. “You have to promise me that you’ll dance again one day.”

  “What?” She shoved against his chest, but he wasn’t letting her go. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Why is it ridiculous? If you can survive this, and if you can give me another chance to love you, who says you can’t dance again if it’s what you want?”