Page 66 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

“Will you take care of me tonight? Show me what to do? Tell me what to do?” She wanted to lay there as he drove her high like he had in the workshop, safe in the knowledge that his protection would not blink out with the night stars.

Knowing that should she ask him, he would give her control once more.

He rolled onto his side, his body a wall between her and the cruelties of life.

A kiss was his answer. Thorough and lazy and igniting little tremors in her chest. He wrapped a hand around her neck and deepened the kiss, and then he smoothed that hand lower over one breast. His ring slid against her nipple, brought it to life.

She gasped. He squeezed. She arched. He rolled his thigh between her legs and lifted, grinding muscle against her center.

Lifting her breast, he gasped away from the kiss and laved his tongue across her nipple.

Tongues and lips and touching. She could no longer trace what he did and when.

She moved only how she wished, how he moved her.

He drove her wild, and everywhere his ring swept across her skin, little bursts of pleasure settled deep into her bones.

When it lingered on her ribs, she thought it made her heart skip, and when it settled at the pulse on her wrist, she thought her veins might jump out to meet him.

And when she flattened her palm against his spine to feel the elegant strength of it, he went a little wild, too.

In the heat and fury of exploration, only one thought was clear—wherever he touched her with his ring, her body sang, and when she touched him with that band of silver, he writhed with pleasure.

“The rings,” she gasped between kisses, “are they supposed to do this?”

He threaded their fingers together and lifted her hand, sucked her finger into his mouth.

When her finger slid out, her ring was gone, and he held it between his teeth.

Dipping, he dragged the sliver between her breasts, circled her navel, then dragged it back up to circle each nipple.

The path he drew on her body made her mindless.

She scratched at his back, grinded her hips against him.

She was throbbing with pleasure, and she needed… she needed—

“Yes, darling, I do think it’s the ring.

” Such a wicked gleam in his eyes. And soon she discovered why.

Holding the ring between finger and thumb, he drew it down her body once more, into the curls between her legs.

And there he used that hot bit of silver that seemed to make every inch of her body sing to rub circles into the little pearl hidden there.

Clitoris, the book had called it. She called it a miracle.

As he teased it with her ring, he slipped one finger into her, then another, hissing with pleasure as he stroked in and out of her.

Good. “So good.” But… “More.”

“Not yet.”

“Yes.” He’d have nail marks down his back in the morning.

“Not”—he gritted his teeth and stroked faster as sensation built like a star at her core—“yet.” The ring dragged over the pearl.

And that star shot up into the sky, fell to earth. A gasp, a cry he muffled with a kiss as she rocked beneath him, frantic, grateful to be shattered so completely.

After several moments, she lay still but for the heavy beating of her heart, but Nico was not done. Every limb heavy, but still she wanted more.

Somehow, he’d put her ring back on, and it felt, already, at home there. With lazy movements she stroked his shoulders, his back. Everywhere hard and warm.

“More,” she whispered. Then she wrapped her hand around his shaft.

“Fuck.” One mighty jerk of his hips pinned her body to the mattress. His eyes were silver now, all desire. No compromise or patience. Not anymore.

She played with it, learning its shape and size and feel—big and warm, silky and hard. But she did not get far with her explorations.

He pried her hand away. “As sweet as this is, darling, I’m taking you now.”

“Please.” She tangled her hands in his hair. “Please.”

Positioning his hips over hers, he teased her swollen sex with the head of his shaft.

He rested his forehead against her. Inhaled, exhaled as he eased into her.

A tight fit, and she held her breath. But then he kissed her slow and lovely and languid, and she forgot to be afraid.

And he slid inside her deeper. Easier this time.

“More,” she broke the kiss to say.

“Everything.” A final hard thrust and they were joined.

And then he started moving slowly, his silver eyes daring her to look away.

She wouldn’t. Of course she wouldn’t. Never would she look away. And when he kissed her with each slow and steady stroke, pleasure began to rise within her once more. Faster, deeper.

Until he broke.

One final thrust, his body arching above her, muscles like rock beneath her touch. She felt his pleasure through her ring, felt the rise and explosion of his climax in her pulse. Where silver connected them. And it sent her over the edge again.

Nico woke up with a lovely leg thrown over his hip, and a proprietary arm flung across his chest. Jane’s wild hair crossed over his face, and he blew it out of the way with a chuckle.

She did not share beds well. She stretched out like a conquering army with no idea in sleep that she was supposed to be a short little thing, tucked tidily under his arm.

Of course the bed was terribly narrow. Not much room for two. Imperative to overlap.

Nico loved it.

He kissed her cheek. “I love you,” he whispered

She made a little grumbling snore and turned her head away from him, but she did not wake up.

So he lifted a hand and studied his ring.

Alchemist’s rings bound the wearers. He knew that.

But to experience it was entirely different.

He could never have guessed it would feel like this—like an invisible thread had sewed them together, like their pulses fluttered to the same rhythm.

Hell, if he’d not been mildly obsessed with her before, he would be now.

She was the breath in his lungs, a need in his bones.

His father had worn his ring until his death.

He’d said it made him feel as if Nico’s mother still lived, as if he could feel her from beyond the grave.

Nico had thought it exaggeration. Now… He rolled onto his side and brushed the hair out of Jane’s face, caressed the curve of her cheek with his knuckles. Now he knew it was true.

Another truth—the sun was rising, and the household would soon be waking. Being caught coming out of Jane’s bedchamber would not only shame Jane it would shame the entire hospital. Could become a scandal that would make it difficult for the children to find families. He’d never let that happen.

Slowly, trying not to wake her, Nico slid out from underneath Jane’s arm and leg.

She rustled in the sheets but did not wake.

A damned heavy sleeper. He chuckled and peeked out the window.

He’d considered the window from the other side before.

First floor. A thick wall of ivy climbing nearby.

Not a glamour, either. He’d tugged on it once.

Seemed strong enough. To hold his weight, though?

He should just go out the door, especially since a coach was approaching.

It trundled nearer slowly, a big black thing pulled by four black horses.

“Ominous,” he mumbled.

“What is ominous?” Jane yawned and lifted her head. She blinked at him from beneath a wild halo of honey hair. God, she was delectable.

“There’s a coach coming down the drive. All black.”

She stopped blinking and moved like lightning, gathering the sheet, wrapping it around her body, and jumping out of the bed to join him at the window. “Bloody hell.”

“What is it?” He tried not to be aroused by the curse word that had slipped so easily from her lips. Clearly, this was not the time.

“That is my brother’s coach.”

“Fuck.”

She pushed him toward the door. “Get out. Now.”