by Holley Trent
Terry’s eyes went wide and she shook her head, “Oh yeah, girl, I think one must have rubbed up against me at Christine’s Tavern last week because I still can’t get my energy up.”
“Oh, that sucks for you. No pun intended. What do you think about elves?”
Terry shrugged. “Ain’t never seen one, so I reckon they don’t bother me.”
“And have you ever worked with pubescent girls? Ages, oh, twelve through sixteen, seventeen?”
“Is this an interview? Hold up, do I need to go take out my piercings?” She pointed to barbells in her brows.
“Yes to the first thing, and the second isn’t necessary.”
“You ain’t foolin’, are you? What kind of job? You hooked up with a new school?”
Gillian sucked in some air and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I suppose you could call it that.”
“In that case, I used to be a bus monitor for the middle school and sometimes I volunteer to help with scout troop outings.”
“I didn’t think you were the outdoorsy type.”
“Girl, fuck the outdoors. I take them to the movies and stuff when their mommas forget to buy craft supplies.”
Gillian snorted. Terry had always been the go-with-the-flow type. That’d come in handy around the unpredictable weirdoes in the palace, for sure. “How would you feel about a live-in position?”
“Depends. Where is it and what does it pay?”
“The pay is very good. As far as where, well…” That was hard to explain. She wasn’t quite sure where the palace was. Somewhere between Germany and the next realm was the way Eldora had explained it, and Gillian tried not to think about it because she liked not having a broken brain. “Europe-ish,” she hedged.
“Europe?” Terry’s eyes went wide. “Well, you know I can’t speak any languages other than English.”
“That’s fine. Everyone where you’re going speaks English perfectly well.”
“Well, shit, when do we leave?”
“You’re interested? I haven’t even told you what the job is.”
“It pays, right?”
“Yes.”
“And I’ll have someplace to live?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then let’s go. Tell ’em not to hire anyone until I have a chance to try for it.” Terry strode purposefully across the room and grabbed her puffy coat from the back of a chair. “Tell me about it on the way. Let’s make tracks.”
“No need to rush.” Gillian locked the door, turned off the television, and then looped an arm around one of Terry’s. “The travel time isn’t as bad as you’d think. Swallow.”
“Huh?”
“Swallow now. For some reason, that staves off the dry heaves on the other end.”
Terry furrowed her brow, but did what Gillian said.
“Here we go.” Gillian teleported them, and grinned at Terry’s startled yelp as they faded from the trailer.
***
Gillian and the nymph girls stayed up late giving Terry an orientation and a bit of hazing. Terry had adapted surprisingly well given the circumstances and hadn’t batted an eyelid when they’d materialized in the palace sitting room the girls tended to cluster in.
Terry had simply looked around then shouted, “Oh, shit! Is that real suit of armor over there? Is anyone in it? What video game is that? Can I get ‘next’?”
As the afternoon of the twenty-fourth faded to eve, Gillian tried to be cheerful. The eggnog was plentiful, the ten-foot tree in the parlor was awe-inspiring, the Christmas carols playing on Eldora’s old gramophone were joyous, the girls were spirited, the buffet dinner was the stuff of dreams, and Gillian was crazed.
Being antagonized by Nick was a far less painful thing than being ignored by him. She wanted Nick to pay attention to her. Whether or not she played nice when he did…well. She couldn’t help it. He just flipped some switch in her. Maybe she really was the brat he’d accused her of being.
Around four a.m. palace time, the party started winding down. Eldora bailed first and went to bed followed by most of the girls, and trailed last by Terry. Kori lingered for a while chitchatting about how stoked she was that the Ho’s would be popping in less frequently. Then she stretched, yawned, and looked at the clock on her phone.
“Hmm. Uncle Nick should be back at his apartment by now. I hope he didn’t get into any trouble this year.”
“Trouble?”
Kori shrugged and jammed her feet into her bunny slippers. She was all the way at the door when she said, “Every single year.”
“Am I supposed to…” Shifting her weight, Gillian wrung her hands. “I mean, is there something I should be doing?”
Kori poked her head back into the room and locked her tinsel gaze on Gillian. “I’m just a kid, Gillian.”
“Right. Just a kid. You have reasonable opinions on everything else. Why not this?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, folks around here tend to be kind of messed up when it comes to romance. I’ve watched a lot of your human television shows and could probably cook up a scheme for you if you really want to hear it.”
“Life experience tends to provide better insight to this sort of thing, but thanks.”
Kori drummed her fingertips along the doorframe and chewed on the side of her mouth for a long while. “I don’t know what to tell you. I hope you figure something out ’cause I want you to stay, but I’m used to not getting the things I want.”
“Me, too. I had to steal my grandmother’s houseplants after her funeral, for Chrissakes.”
Kori’s smile was soft. “You’re the queen of the elves. You should get what you want.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not?”
“Because other people are involved. My family taught me that. You can’t make people want the same things you do, even if it’s the best thing for them.”
“But you can ask them, right? You can compromise, or do your part and try to?”
Gillian turned her hands over in concession.
Kori waved goodnight and went away.
Gillian sat thinking for a while, staring at the twinkling lights on the tree and admiring all that shiny silver tinsel.
Compromise with Nick Roth?
It seemed a futile endeavor, but she could try. What did she have to lose?
He was domineering and aggressive, but he had soft spots. They were the things that drove his passions and made him behave the way he did. His practicality was why he was the king. His weaknesses were why he was Santa.
Apparently, he was becoming her weakness.
Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
She was unused to being offered so much. Maybe that was why she didn’t recognize it as something she wanted.
CHAPTER TWELVE
With his feet still shod, Nick put them up on the new glass coffee table in his apartment’s living room and crossed his legs at the ankles.
He sat very still in the dark with his arms resting along the sofa’s cushion tops.
Everything on him hurt. His brain, his skin, his joints.
His heart.
When he fought, he put everything into it, so the pain was no surprise. His heart, though, hadn’t bruised by some alleyway brawlers, but by a beautiful, perfect, scary little descendant of roughnecks and fortunetellers.
And she was standing right in front of him, swaying a bit from her teleport.
My Gilly
Clearing her throat, she pulled her cloak closed—he was pretty sure that was his—and raised her chin in greeting.
He raised his in turn. He was only half surprised to see her, figuring Mother had probably guilt-tripped her into swinging by.
“Kori thought you’d be here,” Gillian said, quickly disabusing him of that notion. “Why didn’t you go to the palace? Everyone’s waiting on you for breakfast.”
There were no noises in the room aside from the heat being blown up through the air vents and the ticking of the clock invisible. T
he silence seemed to make her nervous. She wouldn’t stop fidgeting her ring or shifting her weight.
He said nothing, just stared. He didn’t know when he’d ever have a chance to just look at her again. His queen: sweetly ruthless, and so pretty. So human.
Slowly, she made her way slowly to the end table near the sofa where she switched on the lamp.
Looking at him, she winced.
He ran his tongue over his split lip and thumbed the edge of the bruise along his cheekbone.
Sitting carefully on the edge of the cushion to his right, she whispered, “What happened, Nicky?”
Nicky. She was the only person who’d ever called him that.
He studied her face quietly, noted the curiosity and intensity, and decided that perhaps she really did want to know.
“I couldn’t help myself, Gillian.”
“What, you went and beat up some guy because you were angry I gave that land to your sisters?”
“It’s not about that. But, yes, that angered me because of why you did it. To spite me. To push me away.”
“It’s a marriage of convenience. Most people don’t expect those to turn into love matches…and most human people need those.”
“I’m not going to apologize for wanting you.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears and let out a breath. “I don’t want you to apologize for it. I guess in a way I’m flattered.” Her laugh was dry and mirthless. “I just don’t know what to do with you. Hell, with this whole situation, really. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to girls like me. Guys like you don’t happen to girls like me.”
He pulled his arm in and held his hand in front of his face, tightening it into a fist and then letting it fall slack onto his lap. “This is me, Gilly. The Nick that existed before there was a Santa. Temperamental. Irrational. Spiteful. I suppose by human standards I’d be classified as a sociopath.”
“Stop it.” Her tone was quiet, but commanding, so he’d listen. Obey.
He pushed out a long exhalation and carefully stood, putting one hand over his aching ribs with a wince.
“What set you off tonight?” She followed him to his spotless kitchen and waited quietly as he dumped ice from the freezer into the stainless steel sink then shoved his fists into the frozen crags. He turned his head robotically toward her, grinding his teeth against the pain. “Old grudge.”
“Someone stronger than you?”
“Someones. I guess it was a fair fight.”
“I take it you won?”
“It was a draw. I’m glad they’ll be in the hospital for a few days whereas I’ll be good as new in a few hours. I should feel bad about wishing I’d hurt them more.” He pulled his hands out of the sink, shook the extra water off, and looked at his knuckles. The swelling was already going down. “But I don’t. That’s the man you’re married to, Gilly. I’m so incredibly fucked up and I know it…yet I’m wired to keep you forever even if I can’t give you what you need.”
“And what do I need?”
“I don’t know. When it comes to you, I don’t know shit. That’s why I’m making a mess of things, right?” He picked up a dishtowel, carefully dried his hands, and then tossed the soiled cloth onto the counter.
She followed him into his bedroom where he sat on the edge of his bed and started unbuttoning the shredded shirt with shaking hands.
“Let me help.”
He eyed her warily for a long moment, then put his hands onto his lap and nodded.
As she unfastened the buttons on his cuffs then started with the ones at his neck and down his torso, he maintained his gaze upon her face, as if it would pain him to look down.
She pushed the trashed shirt back from his shoulders and then traced the outline of one nipple.
He finally cast his sights downward toward her rogue hand and grasped it, turning it over to lay kisses on her wrist and palm.
She was like the sweetest, most delectable candy and he couldn’t even afford one piece of her. One more taste and he’d be lost.
Maybe he was lost already.
He let her hand fall and sighed. “The redcap queen and brownie court sent us wedding gifts today. They were so thankful to have their items back. They never expected to see them again.”
“What good were they to us?”
To us. Probably just a slip of the tongue, but it tightened something in his chest anyway hearing her say it. “None. Giving them back would have been a demonstration of weakness on my part.”
“Doing the right thing is never weak. You should know that better than anyone.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
She knelt onto her heels and rested her elbows atop her thighs. “Probably not. My own dog doesn’t deserve me.”
“There’s only enough room for one of us to be pitiful right now.”
“Fair enough.” She grabbed one of Nick’s black brogues by the heel, slid it off, and then rolled his dress sock off his foot. Then she repeated it all on the other side, skimming her fingers up the bottoms of his pants as she went.
Gentle touch. Practically seductive, but certainly she didn’t want him seduced.
Nick leaned back onto his elbows. “Take off my pants,” he said, barely above a whisper.
She did what he asked, moving her hands up to his silver belt buckle, loosening it, then pulling the entire accessory free of the pants loops before dropping it on top of the red shirt.
She maneuvered her fingers behind his button and danced them over the skin of his lower belly, finding the top of his briefs. Button free of its hole, she unzipped his fly and then wriggled his pants and briefs down past his hipbones and beyond when he held himself up off the bed a few inches so she could manage the rest.
She didn’t look at him. Apparently the state of his ripped slacks was very important. She fussed over them, folding them carefully and looking around the room for someplace to put them.
Perhaps sometimes she needed to be told what to do, just like he did. She didn’t like being managed in public, but behind closed doors, maybe it was harder for her to know the next step.
He could help her, at least for a little while.
As she lingered in front of his open closet, he strode past her nude and flicked on the bathroom light. “I’m going to take a shower. “I expect you to be nude and in my bed when I come out.”
***
Gillian walked back to the bed and sat atop the indentation he had left and pulled her phone out of the pocket of her cardigan. She dialed Eldora’s number and put the phone to her ear.
“Is Nick coming? We’re holding breakfast for you two,” Eldora asked in lieu of saying hello.
“No, go ahead and eat,” Gillian said. “Tell Kori she can have my bacon and let the other girls know their gifts are hidden under my bed. Nick got himself into a bit of trouble. He’s licking his wounds and said he’s going to bed.”
Eldora was quiet for a moment on her end of the connection in not-quite-Germany and then with her usual prescience asked, “You’ll stay with him?”
“Until he sleeps it off, yes.”
“I’ll keep Kori from stalking the halls waiting for your arrival then. See you for supper, dear. And…Gillian?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” Gillian didn’t know what she was doing. She was hoping Eldora did.
Please know.
“Doing what needs to be done.” With that inscrutable statement, Eldora disconnected.
Nick’s shower seemed to take an unreasonably long amount of time for the size of a standard water heater, but Gillian needed all that time to nervously remove all her layers of winter clothes. Her boots and tights. Her suede skirt, the cloak, the ivory turtleneck with the coffee splotch.
Once Gillian was under the warm down comforter and beneath satiny sheets, she shed her bra and panties.
Then she waited.
And waited.
She had one foot planted in dreamland when Nick finally emerged.
He strode over with greater ease than he’d had a half hour before, but with still some stiffness. She could tell even in the dim light that his bottom lip was whole once more. Elf healing was an awe-inspiring phenomenon.
Would she be privy to it if she stayed? If she kept him?
He pulled the covers back, climbed in, and insinuated himself close to her. He wrapped one of his damp legs around hers and slung an arm around her torso. His cock nestled between her ass cheeks, and he pressed his face into her loose hair, inhaling deeply.
Tightening his hold on her, instead of groping, fondling, pressing—the only things he moved were his lips. “Good night, Gilly. I love you. I’m…sorry.”
“What for?”
He didn’t answer.
That scared her. The last time he’d held his tongue it was because he hadn’t been ready to tell her he needed her to be his queen.
Perhaps he thinks now that he doesn’t?
She’d quit a lot of jobs, but she’d never been fired from one. Knowing her luck, she’d be let go from the first job she wanted desperately to keep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gillian was alone in Nick’s bed when she woke.
She had no way of knowing how long he’d been gone, but her phone’s clock told her it was around dinnertime at the palace.
She found her discarded clothes on the glass coffee table Nick had obviously replaced since her fight with Hortense. She dressed, brushed her teeth with the spare toothbrush in Nick’s bathroom, and teleported to the palace, landing in the dining room.
The servants were still setting the tables, and upon spying her, bowed low and paused their work. “Good evening, milady,” they mumbled acquiescently.
“Hello.” She gave each young elf a tap on the shoulder on the way out of the main hall and then broke out at a dead sprint as soon as she reached the stairs. She hadn’t missed dinner, and was thankful enough at her good luck that she figured she should probably dress appropriately for the occasion.
It wasn’t every day that a queen told her husband she wanted to keep him, and asked him to keep her.
She ran past the open door to Eldora’s sitting room and immediately had a lady in waiting on her heels. “There’s coffee tonight,” Kori said, catching up to Gillian. “They got it just for you.”
