Unwrapping Mr. Roth (10 page)

“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. “Ex
cuse
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.

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.

She wrapped a leg around his waist and pulled him down even farther, forcing his length against her mound and rolling her hips.

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.

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 were 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.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re afraid of Nicholas.” Eldora said it blithely as if it were the most natural assumption, but that was the kind of rhetoric Gillian had never been good at parsing. “They may also deny passage through their lands or shut down.”

“The usual political crap.”

“More or less.”

Gillian snapped her fingers, remembering one of Eldora’s previous comments. “Wait, you said the king and
queen
give audience.”

Eldora’s smile was soft, but the glint of her eyes was unmistakably conniving. “I usually sat it out when it was my husband’s turn.”

“What kind of trouble are you trying to get me into?”

A waiter approached with a plate of little tarts and champagne flutes.

Eldora took two glasses, sipped from one, and seemed to be holding the other in reserve. “Nothing Nick doesn’t deserve.”

“But do
I
deserve it?” Gillian took two flutes, too.

The nymph’s pupils were visible and dilated to two different diameters and cheeks were deeply ruddy. She hiccupped and giggled.

“Oh, hell. How much have you been drinking tonight?”

“Not nearly enough, child.”

“You hate this shit, don’t you? That’s why you’re throwing me to the wolves.”

“I’m throwing you to the wolves because you’re a match for them. I’m not.”

“Are you counting your son as part of that wolf pack?”

Eldora just sipped and shrugged.

“Okay,” Gillian said. “I get ya. You want me to play queen? I’ll play queen. Let me prove to you this ain’t the job for me.”

She made her around the edge of the room, past a cluster of potted plants behind which was a giggling young woman with green-tinged hair in an ivory lace dress necking with some sandy-haired boy elf.

Gillian cleared her throat loudly and kept walking. She could deal with them later, but didn’t want them to think she hadn’t seen them.

She climbed up the few side steps to the throne and all the noise at the front of the room dissipated. All eyes were on
her
. She spread on her most beguiling smile and put a little tramp sway in her walk. Taking the throne beside Nick’s, she crossed her legs and passed a champagne flute to Nick.

He leaned across his armrest and glowered at her. “Are you here to make all the boys jealous of my magnificent bounty or to raise hell? If the latter—I can manage that all alone.”

“Neither. I’m here to be your queen.”

He took the flute with one hand and then grasped her free hand in his empty one. With all eyes still on him, he gave it a kiss, and then placed it on the armrest between them. “Not necessary.”

“Oh, I think so.” She had an idea, and she thought it was a
good
one. She figured if made a good enough mess, he wouldn’t be able to wait to get rid of her. Instant divorce, and she could go home with her head held high instead of her tail between her legs.

She leaned in a little closer to him, locking her gaze on his pale one, and whispered, “Or am I just a pretty face and warm cunt?”

He worked his jaw side-to-side and sat up straighter as the next elf in line moved up to the dais.

The first few requests from elves and other magicfolk were small things. One elf was having difficulty concealing his ears with magic. He worked amongst humans and was afraid to blow his cover. Another had experienced three crop failures in a row. Nick had them make arrangements with Agnes for a future appointment. The third came with a request that Nick, and Gillian by extension, take custody of his teenaged daughter until it was time for her to marry. He’d already rescued her from abduction once.

The girl cowered there with him, hiding beneath his arm. Her hair was lightly tinted lavender in the same way Kori’s was green.

Nick beckoned his valet forward. “Fetch my niece please.
Discreetly
.”

“Yes, sir.”

Moments later, the green-haired waif appeared on the dais, pressing wrinkles out of her dress with her hands and blushing from her hairline down to her collar. She performed a wobbly curtsey. “Yes, Uncle?”

Nick motioned the elf man and his daughter forward. “Kori, we have a new charge. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

The timid girl lifted her face to us warily. “Lea.”

“Well, Lea, of course you may stay until you wish to leave. We’ll have a room set up for you shortly.” Nick gave his valet an almost imperceptible head nod and the man glided away to make arrangements.

Lea nearly fainted with relief and if it weren’t for her father holding her up, her face would have smacked the floor.

“Thank you, your highness,” her father said. “You have no idea what this means for us. She’s my only child.” He guided Lea out of the way with Kori’s assistance and plopped her onto a chair out of the way of the dancing.

Gillian leaned in close to Nick and whispered, “If you keep it up, you may have to put them all into a separate wing. What’s that, eight?”

“Seven. Kori doesn’t count, really. She’s royal and your lady-in-waiting. Mother is working on setting up a boarding house on the property for them. I’ll need to find them a house matron. Someone trustworthy, which is obviously hard to come by in this realm.”

“In mine, too, Nicky. That’s why I keep to myself, mostly.”

He gave her an inscrutable look.

“What?”

“Do you trust
me
?”

She didn’t answer. She did trust the elfin mobster, and she didn’t know what that said about
her
.

Holly, Hortense, and Honoria walked next up the carpeted queue and paused at the bottom of the stairs.

Eldora slunk over in her long dress and positioned herself behind the thrones. Gillian looked up and back to see the nymph narrowing her silver eyes and giving her daughters a warning look.

“Mother, it’s more trouble than it’s worth,” Nick said.

“What is?” Gillian asked.

“Oh, nothing, Gillian. I’m just prepared to do what needs to be done if they don’t toe the line. I’m sick of all the disrespect. I’m a laughingstock.”

“Mother, your reputation—”

“Screw my reputation.” Eldora hiccupped. “What good does it do me being so good and pious all the time, anyway, if everyone is mocking me behind my back?”

Gillian furrowed her brow. “No one’s mocking you.”

“Oh, trust me, Gillian. You may not catch wind of it. They wouldn’t dare do it in your presence, but I get around enough to know what they all think of me.”

Holly cleared her throat impatiently.

Nick beckoned them forward closer, growling with impatience.

“How may I aid my dear sisters?” he asked flatly. He was leaning the side of his head against his fist and looking rather bored.

“We come, like so
many
of your subjects, to request land of our own to develop as we see fit,” Holly said. One side of her ruby lips mouth turned up into a smirk.

Nick yawned and patted his open mouth.

“There are plenty of parcels still available at the North Pole,” Eldora said to Nick in a hoarse stage whisper.

“We want something
fertile
,” Honoria said.

Nick tilted his head toward Eldora and tapped his chin introspectively. “Did we ever unload that property in Nebraska?”

Eldora pursed her lips and shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. The elf that originally asked for it thought it was too rural.”

“Fertile, though.”

“Yes. Massive corn yields.”

Horty stamped her foot. “You know what we want!” she shrieked.

The ballroom went quiet again. Even the orchestra stopped playing, leaving dancers twirling without accompaniment for a few beats. Nick gestured at them to resume their music and they picked up the melody once again.

“The forest goes with the throne,” he said.

Ah.
Gillian thought she was starting to get the gist of the confrontation. They were asking him in public for what they’d be long denied. Nick would seem like an ogre if he didn’t concede to what most folks would have thought was a trifling request. They’d think they had another petty king on the throne.

“Sod off,” Horty spat. “You don’t even want it. Father didn’t want it, either. You’re just holding onto it for spite.”

Gillian whistled low.

Nick was unbothered, as always. “It’s tradition.”

“Just like it’s become a tradition for us to keep begging for scraps?”

“Mark my words, big brother,” Holly said, pointing one knife-tipped finger at Nick but squinting at all three of the people on the dais. “You won’t do us this boon? You will
never
have an heir. We’ll see to it, won’t we girls?”

Gillian couldn’t help but to be offended, and when she was offended, she acted. She’d hoped the Ho’s had learned that lesson by then, but she was more than willing to give them a refresher course if necessary. If not for her sake, for Eldora’s. The lady didn’t deserve the venom.

“We certainly will,” Horty said.

“Hardly a problem,” Hortense agreed.

Eldora streaked past Gillian and Nick in a blur, and was almost down the stairs when Nick grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back.

He dropped her ass-down onto his throne and sat on her lap. “Let me deal with it, Mother.”

Kori returned to Gillian’s side and knelt. “Oh, boy. You better fix this, Gillian.”

Gillian leaned over, and keeping one eye on the scowling triplets, whispered, “What exactly does Eldora plan to do?”

“Well, one of the ways parents put wild children in check is to drain their power. It’s a temporary kind of thing. Lasts a couple of years at the most, but most people think it’s sort of barbaric. If Grandmother did it…”

“The disrespect would be even worse.” They’d think the gentle nymph was out of control, even if she were in her rights to be. Gillian didn’t want her humiliated like that. She didn’t deserve it. “Thanks, Kori.”

Kori nodded and slunk back to the potted trees, using the adults’ distraction to her advantage, probably.

I’ll deal with you later, kid, whether I’m queen or not.

First, the matter at hand. Gillian crossed her legs in the other direction and motioned a server forward for another glass of champagne. “What exactly is so alluring about the Black Forest?” she asked the Ho’s.

Their faces suddenly went serene. “It’s beautiful!” Honoria said. “The most magical place on Earth.”