by Holley Trent
“Um…okay, I haven’t really thought this out very far in advance. It’s not like I can manhandle her. I’m not strong like Nick and I can’t freeze time.”
“Maybe not, but you’re smarter than Mr. Nick—don’t tell him I said that—so I’m sure you’ll think of somethin’.” Agnes disconnected.
Gillian looked at Kori again. “Improvise?”
“Sure. This’ll be a good story for the girls later. They never get to do stuff like this.”
“Don’t get used to it. Hope your next queen is a priss.”
“I don’t want another queen.”
“Sorry, sweetheart.”
Sighing, Kori strode back to the RV door and knocked loudly. “Yoo-hoo! ’Scuse me, ma’am?”
Gina threw the door open and snapped, “What now? I really need to go. Some dumbasses held my husband up at the bank and he ain’t got keys to get back.”
“Wow, you should call the police, ma’am,” Kori commented. “We don’t get crazy city crimes likes that out here.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll deal with it ourselves. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
Gillian snuck up to the backside of the open door and whipped around it to grab Gina’s wrist and Kori’s shoulder simultaneously. She teleported the three of them to the first place she could think of—Kurt’s office—to deposit Gina, and then teleported Kori to the palace before Gina could realize who was responsible. All that bouncing around had caught up to her, so there in front hall in front of the visiting Ho’s, Gillian tossed her cookies onto the stone floor.
“Ugh.”
“Aren’t you going to offer us hospitality?” Horty asked when Gillian finished dry heaving.
Gillian looked at her smug, smirking face. Gillian wiped her mouth on her sleeve and pulled the service bell to summon whichever poor elf was charged with hazardous waste cleanup. “The only hospitality I’m going to offer right now is not knocking you into next week. You know I’m capable of it, blondie, so don’t press me unless you want to lose another clump of hair.”
Horty’s jaw dropped.
Honoria scoffed. “Rude!”
The trio stormed toward the kitchen where Gillian suspected Eldora would be found.
“If you’re going to be queen,” Holly called over her shoulder, “you need to learn your place, as does big brother. The two of you would have never survived in Daddy’s court. There are customs to uphold—niceties. You’ll last longer if you toe the line.” They paused as if to await her rebuttal. Naturally, she had one.
“Yeah, please kiss my ass. Now, if you ladies would excuse us, we have a ball to dress for. I’m certain you can find a servant willing to get close enough to you to escort you to a chamber to change out of those…” Gillian did a waffling motion in their general direction. “Rags you’re wearing.”
She gave the three princesses a low curtsy, and then remarked, “Toodle-loo” as she pulled Kori up the stairs.
“Nick can take this job and shove it where tinsel don’t shine,” Gillian muttered.
“You’re so good at it, though,” Kori said.
“This is being good at it?”
“Yeah. You always seem to know what to do.”
“I’m just being me, Kori.”
“And you don’t think that makes you the rightful queen?”
Gillian furrowed her brow. Was she good at it?
“I wonder how much better you’d be if you and Uncle Nick actually worked together. But maybe you’re too much alike to want to try.”
Gillian stopped her lady-in-waiting at the head of the stairs. “Excuse me?”
Kori shrugged. “It’s not an insult, Aunt Gillian. It’s just truth. Is it such a bad thing?”
Gillian had no idea. Lately, she didn’t think she had good ideas about much of anything.
CHAPTER NINE
When Gillian finally joined Nick at the end of the receiving line formed to greet Christmas ball guests, he gnashed his teeth violently as he assessed her from head to feet.
Her hair was done in some fancy updo, and her dress—a silver sequined sheath—was basically one inch from all-out obscenity. If she bent over, the guests in attendance could probably see into the future.
“I’m guessing you didn’t try that on,” Nick snapped. He wrapped one arm around her waist and held her close to his side as the next swarm of guests entered.
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t have time, what with all my…queenly duties.” She rolled her eyes.
“No need to be tart, pet. I’m simply informing you that it’s a little short.”
“No shit?”
“Perhaps you should change.”
“Perhaps fuck you, because you bought it.”
They smiled, waved, and shook hands as people worked their ways down to them. When there was a break in the queue, he motioned to Mother at Gillian’s left who’d been pretending to ignore their barbs.
Mother raised a brow. “Yes, Nicholas?”
“We’ll return shortly.”
“No need to rush. You’ve been in the line longer than customary as it is.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
She shrugged one of her bare shoulders and waved to some emissary approaching the grand archway. When she turned back to the seething couple, she said, “It wouldn’t hurt for you to work on P.R. a bit. You’ve got a poor reputation amongst magicfolk as it is, Nicholas. You could at least try to be pleasant to be around.”
“Why bother? It won’t change their treatment of me any.” Nick pulled Gillian out into to the hall leading up to the servants’ stairs. “You really thought it was appropriate to come downstairs dressed like that?”
They pounded up the stairs at a frantic pace that made Gillian a bit wobbly on her stilettos—not that he would let her fall.
“You bought it,” Gillian reminded him. “What did you think when you were shopping and held it up to yourself? ‘Oh, this looks like a perfect length for the wife of a mobster elf who goes into jealous rages, blahblahblah’.”
He scoffed. “I don’t sound like that. And if I’d known the thing was no longer than a muff, I would have picked something else.”
“Maybe you should just stick to shopping for your own stuff from now on. You do pretty well at that. We can’t win at everything. No one’s perfect, Nicky.”
They passed Gillian’s room, as well as Mother’s chambers, and he pulled her along toward his own underutilized suite. He spent far more time at his apartment.
“Um, my room is back that-a way.” Gillian hooked her thumb toward the suite they’d passed.
Nick ignored her and shouldered the door open. He pulled her into the dark, cavernous room, shut the door, and dropped the heavy latch into position. “You drive me crazy.”
“Divorce me, then.”
“I should.” He snatched her around the thighs and heaved her up to his shoulder in an inelegant hold with her torso dangling over his shoulder, and she yipped.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Showing you what you’re teasing, and what you’re so eager to give up. We may as well consummate this thing, right?”
At the whir of his zipper, she gasped.
“Tell me no, Gillian.”
“No to being your wife?”
“No to me fucking you.”
“I should say no to that, but…”
“You won’t.” He pushed the bottom of her dress up to her waist and climbed onto the bed, his knees between her thighs.
Somehow, his mouth found hers on the first try and he nipped at her lips hungrily, groaning as he wound his fists into her hair and flattened his body against hers.
Gods.
He wanted her so badly—wanted her boldness and intelligence. Wanted her to put him in his place in that unflinching way no one else could do.
“This is just sex,” she said.
“Quiet, pet.” He ground his hard shaft against the thin fabric of her already-wet panties and hissed.
He tugged at her bottom lip with his teeth while rolling her party dress up even more to expose the soft, silky skin of her belly.
“I don’t think you care so much about me wearing this dress,” she said and he darted his tongue into her mouth. His kiss was so urgent and primal she probably thought he hadn’t had much practice with the gentler kinds.
She wouldn’t have been wrong.
He broke the lock on her mouth to say, “Don’t mistake my arousal for approval, Gillian.” He slid down her body and off the bed to stand in front of the short footboard. Grabbing her ankles, he pulled her until her knees dangled over the edge of the bed and then he finessed her panties down.
Her body tensed as he draped her legs over his shoulders. He’d stoke her deeply from that angle, and he craved it so badly—being in her, making her take all of him. Making her pay attention to him, since it seemed to be such a fucking chore for her.
He dipped two fingers into her slit and scissored them, murmuring his approval of her wetness—her arousal. Rubbing the lubrication up and down her lips, he whispered, “So smooth, Gilly? All for me?”
“No, for the dress. In case I bent over.”
“Would it kill you to say something kind to me?” Dropping her legs from his shoulders, he flipped her over and then tugged at her hips to improve her angle for his entry.
She wriggled her ass at him as if to urge him on, though he certainly didn’t need added incentive. Just the thought that she was his made him desperate to come.
“Come on, Nick,” she said. “Fuck me. Is that nice enough for you?”
Snarling, he pressed the tip of his swollen cock against her opening, teasing at the slit, putting the fattest part of his dick halfway in and holding it very still for a moment before deciding to take it out. “Ask for me,” he said.
Perhaps it was a poor time to be flexing his ego, but he needed her to want him and only him. He wanted to hear the words.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Ask.”
She went still on all fours with her face mashed against his quilted bedspread, toes curling, and cunt contracting from his teasing.
Is it that hard to say?
He had the magic to know people’s hearts’ desires, and yet she made him doubt things he should have known to be truth. The magic said that she did want him, but it didn’t tell him for what. He wasn’t used to caring so much.
“Please,” she whispered.
She sounded so needy—so desperate—and her husky tone made him want to give in and rut, but the part of him that was evolved held him back. Made him think. He kneaded her backside, notching his fingers into the generous flesh of her ass and sucked some air through his clenched teeth.
“So human,” he mused.
“I can’t help what I am.” She tried to straighten up, but his punishing grips on her hips kept her down, and his cock—shoved far into her sheath—made her submit.
“I wasn’t complaining, pet.” He slid almost all the way out of her, and paused at her opening once more. Leaning over her, he whispered, “I’m interested in your…human things.”
Not just her body, but her traditions and conventions. He could give her those things if she was patient with him and told him what they were.
“Tell me,” he said.
Her silence was devastating and obviously purposeful. She was holding back her words to punish him.
Or make me behave?
He spread her ass cheeks farther and pressed a thumb over her tighter opening, massaging. Her toes curled when he worked the tip of his finger into her ass. He gently stretched her, adding a second finger to the massage before giving her ass a hard slap.
“Yes,” she moaned.
He suppressed a growl. They were obviously compatible when it came to sexual drives, but that wasn’t enough for him. If that had been all he needed, he would have taken a permanent lover centuries ago.
“We need to return to the ball,” he said in a measured tone.
She murmured, “Ball” and brought her knees closer together so she could reach her clit, but Nick was there before her, putting pressure on it as he began to thrust.
His mind was a mess, but he was only an elf, and he had needs. He needed his mate, and she was right there and no amount of mental gymnastics could cure him of his impulses. He pressed his hands onto the bed at either side of her and fucked. Just fucked.
“God, you’re perfect.” She clamped her hand over her mouth and bit down into the fleshy back of her palm. “Just a fuck. It’s just a fuck and then I’ll go home after Christmas.”
He let the growl out at that, because it couldn’t happen. What would he do without his queen? The people who mattered liked her, and she had a way of making things happen when they needed to.
He lifted one hand from the bed and found her clit once more. He flicked at the most sensitive spot just beneath the hood and she let go, the muscles of her cunt tightening around his cock as she came and her still rocking back and forth trying to milk him.
Nick exploded inside her, his cock spasming and his grip going ever tighter on her hips.
When he loosened his grasp, she collapsed flat onto the bed, panting.
She looked beautifully debauched and he wanted to lay there with her—waste the night holding her, touching her. But he had duties, and so did she.
“Clean up and get dressed, pet.” He pulled the hair that’d fallen from her updo back from her neck and planted a kiss on her pulse point. “Perhaps you can find something to wear in Mother’s closet.”
She was still trying to catch her breath even after he scooped up his pants. He stepped into the adjoining bathroom with them, and heard her scoff.
He stopped dressing long enough to hear, “Thanks for the reminder, Nick. You don’t want a wife. You need a robot queen.”
He did want a wife—her specifically.
He just didn’t know what to do to keep her except to tell her that she couldn’t go. Perhaps the old ways had their merits. His mother had come around to tolerating his father.
Perhaps Gillian would do the same for Nick.
CHAPTER TEN
After raiding Eldora’s nearly endless walk-in closet—muttering at the indignity of being so masterfully fucked and not even allowed time to come down from the high of it—Gillian returned to the ball. Not wanting to fall victim to another of her husband’s jealous ‘rages,’ she’d found a lovely lavender silk caftan that fell well past her knees and left her aching assets to the imagination. She didn’t think she could endure another round with Nick’s aching asset, anyway.
She walked into the ballroom just in time to witness a large mob gathering at the throne, and Nick casting them all that blasé stare she knew disguised a number of darker emotions.
Shit.
She hated seeing him like that—hated feeling like he was bothered by something she couldn’t fix. And of course she couldn’t, because as she’d reminded him, she was just human. She didn’t belong there…or to him.
“What’s going on?” she asked Eldora, who was standing off to the side of the room wringing her hands.
Eldora turned slowly and her pale gaze fell to Gillian’s attire. “I believe red is your tone. It’s powerful, and befitting your position. Would you like me to find you something more suitable for a queen?”
Gillian’s cheeks burned hot. “You’re the queen here, not me. I just want to know what the mob at the throne is up to.”
“I suspect you’re not simply trying to be humble, but you are the queen. Is there any doubt?”
“Plenty.”
“Because you wish for it to not be true or because you’re precognitive like your ancestresses and see failure?”
Gillian furrowed her brow and gave her head as low shake. “I don’t have that ability. I’m not a seer.”
She wished she we
re sometimes. She’d spend so much less of her life being blown around and uncertain. For once in her life, she wanted to be certain about some things. Nick being one of them.
What the hell am I going to do with him?
She wanted him, but wasn’t so sure about the job that came with him. She’d be paying her own way with it, that was for sure. She was beginning to see that being the elf queen wasn’t an idle job, and she could certainly feel respectable while doing it, but she still wasn’t so sure it should be her job. She was a competent preschool teacher, and maybe her new subjects behaved like children at times, but that didn’t mean she had the stuff it took to lead them. Unlike with her preschool kids, she couldn’t just send home cute apology notes when she messed up. Little mistakes could have huge consequences in the magic realm.
Eldora just stared at her for a long while, and then let out a breath.
Gillian was starting to understand Eldora’s nonverbal cues almost as well as Nick’s, but she didn’t want to call the lady out on her turmoil. Gillian knew exactly what it was about. She didn’t want Gillian to leave, and of course, that made Gillian feel plenty guilty.
“The magic folk use this time to air their grievances and ask favors of the king and queen,” Eldora said. “It’s Nicholas’s first time, so I’m anxious about how he’ll handle it. I don’t know if you’ve discovered this, but he tends to hold grudges.”
“I’ve learned that lesson,” Gillian mumbled, thinking of her aching hips. Rubbing them, she stood up on her tiptoes and tried to get a better view of the chaos happening on the other side of the room. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Someone may try to put a curse on him, which will fail because he’s proof to most jinxes. Alternately, they may try to jinx one of his family members, which is slightly more likely.” She raised one elegant eyebrow for emphasis.
“Duly noted,” Gillian said.
“Take it as compliment if they try it. It means they believe you’re valuable, or more likely, a threat.”
“I’m not a threat.”
“You’re a threat. Many are already afraid of you.”
