Page 59 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Jane had given away a soft, red secret. Only fair, since she’d discovered his, but that did not necessitate a… a plundering!

And plundering seemed to be just what Sir Nicholas had in mind.

If he had anything in mind at all. He was growling, stepping between her legs, spreading them as his hand climbed toward her hip.

Acquainting himself with parts of her body no man had seen before was the Christmas Eve intruder. Here was her shadow made flesh,

Jane had spent seven days questioning herself.

Sir Nicholas and the intruder could not be the same person.

Simply could not be. Who ever heard of a kiss and an arse revealing a man’s identity?

Not Jane! No one, likely! But if it was true, then the man who would find himself up against a line of hardened soldiers come Christmas Eve was…

her friend. The man she’d thought she might marry.

And even if he’d killed that notion before it had fully bloomed, she refused to see him hurt.

So she’d tucked the children in and made her way down the lonely night path to Bowen Hall.

She’d let herself in through the unlocked front door when a knock produced no results.

She’d wandered the house when a call for its inhabitant produced no man.

She’d followed the sounds to a side room on the ground floor when she’d heard a muffled curse, the crackle of flames in a grate.

And she’d stood frozen in the open doorway when she’d seen him, huge and still, curved over a large, beaten table near a gigantic fireplace.

His hair glowed with the nearby fire, all red and gold and sweat slicked.

Sweat slicked, too, the back of his neck, stained bronze by the interplay of shadow and light.

His muscles, poised and flexing with miniscule movements, tested the strength of his shirt seams. Trouser seams, too.

Sir Nicholas. No mistaking that hair. Or that arse.

Not now she knew. And she’d seen that vest before.

All of it familiar yet so very different at the same time.

So much, suddenly, like the man she’d met past midnight a year ago.

She’d watched, helpless to do anything but follow a bead of sweat that rolled down the line of his neck. And she may have… made a sound. A moan, a groan of hunger. Could have. She’d certainly found herself experiencing a singular desire to lick that line of sweat, to taste its salt.

He’d heard her, he’d turned, and good God, there’d been more.

Chest and arms, square jaw with scruff ranging across it.

His eyes had glowed. She’d never seen an alchemist in action.

A riveting sight. A seductive one. She’d thought of Sir Nicholas as a jeweler, lithe and precise, not as a blacksmith, his big body buzzing with magic.

Her body had begun to buzz, and it still did, as she teetered on the edge of the worktable, teetered on the edge of respectability.

The open V of his shirt put the sweaty sheen of his chest at her eye level.

She’d never felt so impetuous, enthralled.

A woman like her could never give in to desire.

Not outside the marriage bed. Too dangerous.

But then, a woman like her didn’t have many choices, either.

Husbands were not for her, and this man had told her no in quite clear terms. He would not marry her.

The memory of rejection alone should ice her ardor.

But a bead of sweat rolled down the muscled slab of his chest, and she licked her lips. His skin looked so warm. What would it feel like?

His focus dropped to her lips. He might—he would—kiss her. She saw the intention in every line of his body. And she, God help her, would not stop him. She held her breath as he took possession of her, the heat of his body burning sweetly as he inched closer, gaze hot and hazy.

He bypassed her mouth and went straight to her ear and whispered, “Will you be naughty with me, Jane?”

That woke her up. She slapped a hand to his chest. He wanted her and she wanted him, but she needed him, too, in an entirely different way. And he’d rejected her.

An easy game to play.

“No,” she snapped.

His gaze whipped up from her mouth to her eyes, and—oh, perhaps shed made a mistake in that single syllable. A shiver of danger rippled down her spine.

“No?” His voice a soft growl.

She managed to nod despite every muscle tightening in preparation to flee. “No.”

“You come to my home, my forge, in the middle of the night, when I’m hot with silver magic, and when I finally see”—his hand a burning manacle on her ankle, squeezed—“my red stockings on these perfect legs, you… tell me no?”

“It is what you told me. A week ago. In your garden.” Who was she to challenge him?

No power to hold over him, to force his hand, to take what she needed from him.

She had nothing, and he everything, including her body in his hand, his stockings warming her legs.

But somehow, she found the courage to continue.

“P-perhaps if you change your answer, so will I.” My God, she’d gone mad.

She swallowed the bile rising in her throat and tried not to tremble. This was just Sir Nicholas. Her friend.

But he was so much more now, too.

“I cannot.” His lips barely moved as he spoke, and his words were like hammer strikes against an ungiving anvil.

“Then neither can I.” But… she wanted to. Another reason to curse herself and look to the heavens for help. For strength.

He cursed and buried her face in her neck, inhaled deeply. His hand on her nape squeezed gently. “Jane,” he groaned, “what am I going to do?”

Jane. It been Jane since he discovered her watching him in the doorway. And a part of her knew it should be Jane, Jane, Jane forever. Seeing him undressed, seeing him for who he really was… She wanted to see more, but she needed him to give more, too.

“Can I make you forget marriage, Jane? Make you forget sense and reason?”

Maybe. “N-no.”

“You hesitate.” He kissed her neck just beneath her ear, a sensitive little spot, a discovery for him and for her.

Mouth parting, tongue flicking, replacing reason with instinct and impulse.

The part of her that followed rules quite melted away, and the part of her that cursed like a sailor quite took over.

He thought to convince her to give in with touch.

But… what if she could convince him? Convince him she didn’t need luxury. She didn’t need money. She just needed someone to keep her days steady and her future clear. And if that someone made her feel like this—achy and sensitive and terribly curious—well, she could not imagine a better situation.

“I think I can make you forget,” he murmured into her skin. “Your body leans into my touch. Your pulse races.”

“Perhaps.” She closed her eyes and jumped into a scheme, into madness. “I can make you forget your objections to marriage.”

“Don’t hurt yourself with hope, Jane. It won’t happen.”

“We’ll see, won’t we.” She was breathing heavy now, her skin screaming, her heart impossibly loud in her ears. “Who falls first. Me into your bed or… you into wedlock.”

“Fuck.” He hung his head and tossed the curse toward the crackling fire. He cursed again. “You won’t win this game, Jane.” Slowly, he lifted his head, showed her he meant every word with the hard line of his jaw, the glittering marble of his blue eyes.

She raised a brow and said much more calmly than she felt, “Let me touch your arse, Sir Nicholas.” Oh God, how humiliating. She’d hoped it would sound more seductive, but she sounded like a schoolteacher asking to see a student’s work.

His inhale was swift and loud, his lips still very near her ear, the intake of his breath a sensation across her skin. “I’m not going to stop you.”

She took the swiftest path down his back. All the way down. Fingernails tracing. The pads of her fingertips learning. The flat of her palm caressing. Hesitating at the waistband of his trousers.

“Go on.” His voice rough, demanding.

On she went. She’d never thought to touch either backside—that belonging to the intruder or that belonging to Sir Nicholas. But she was awfully glad she had. God, it was firm beneath the wool of his trousers, the muscle thick and tight.

“It’s marvelous,” she breathed. “It is the first thing I ever saw of you.” Not true. It was the first thing she saw of the intruder.

But Sir Nicholas… her first sight of him had been in the full sunshine of early autumn.

She’d noticed his hair first. Who wouldn’t?

But then she’d seen his smile—wide and jolly and filled with everything the children needed.

Everything she needed. Next, she’d seen his blue eyes, crinkly and wrinkled at the corners in a way only constant joviality could cause.

She had envied him. But then when he’d proved himself the type of man who shared his joy as easily as he shared the air around him for breathing, her envy had slipped away.

To know that the jolly, red-haired man and the fabulous arse were two parts of the same person…

her belly flipped, her hands tightened on his muscle, squeezed, and she used the grip to pull herself closer to the edge of the table, to press her needy center against him.

He rolled his hips, and she discovered another part of him. Long and hard and, if anatomy books could be trusted, ready. For her.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, her hands wandering up his ribs to tangle in the front of his shirt. “Last year?”

“Because everyone deserves joy. Everyone deserves magic.” Every word hot on her neck, her jaw, and punctuated with kisses. Conversation could not interrupt the magic happening between them. The revelation seemed a part of it, binding them.