Son of Krampus (Holidays of Love)

by Ellen Mint

  A vision flew through his mind of her stripped of all clothing, her natural makeup smeared away, only the pale light of the alarm clock washing over her face. How ethereal she’d seemed, her whiskey eyes dancing as a smile flitted about her face. She needed nothing to be beautiful.

  “Good evening,” a waiter spoke just behind Emeric’s field of vision causing him to jump. He hadn’t even heard the door open, much less the man walk over. Trying to swallow the throbbing heartbeat of surprise, as he turned to find the man with arms cupped behind his back, Emeric caught a small snicker on Nadire’s lips.

  “Would you like to start with any beverages? There is a full bar service available,” the waiter continued his spiel, covering over Emeric pinching away his mental stumbling.

  As his father liked to say, “Every village has a beauty. No reason to get hung up on one.”

  Nadire rose, her fingers wrapped around the wine list. “Yes, I believe a bottle of…” She began to the waiter before glancing at him. “Or do you need to order for the table?”

  She thought his ego so large it needed to be stroked at all hours. Though thinking of stroking wasn’t helping. Parting a hand through the dusky atmosphere, Emeric said, “It’s your show.”

  “This,” she pointed at what she wanted, “if you please.” The waiter smiled, his head bowing at the selection as he collected the first of many menus.

  “Oh,” she suddenly exclaimed, her fingers glancing against the man’s arm, “and a small bottle of saki as well.”

  “Right away, ma’am.”

  The man was smitten, or at least knew where his tip was coming from, as his eyes wouldn’t leave her face. But with her transaction finished, Nadire returned her napkin to her lap and began perusing the dinner menu. Emeric watched the man hustle out the door, no doubt with a warning of the Myra family’s reach hanging over his head.

  “Saki?” Emeric asked, turning back to watch her lush eyebrow raise. “And dinner at a sushi restaurant, no less.”

  “This is surprising to you?”

  “A bit,” he admitted, eyeing up the menu Americanized for fussy palates. Lapping a tongue over his teeth, Emeric said to her in Japanese, “They are not exactly worshippers of the Christ child.”

  A laugh puffed off Nadire’s cherry lips. After placing the menu down and folding her hands atop it, she answered him back in Japanese, “Good food is good food regardless of where it comes from.”

  “I only thought,” he stumbled, switching to German without pause, then tugging it back to a shared English, “that your family wouldn’t have much interest in a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense.”

  “On the contrary, my father adores Japan. He finds their interpretation hilarious, and stops for a bucket of chicken every year.” Nadire shrugged as if she put up with such an occurrence.

  Emeric snorted at the thought of not the man he met but the pink-cheeked white man with a bucket of fried chicken perched upon the red velvet seats. Perhaps he’d even toss a few to the reindeer flying out front. “Does he take pictures with those in line?” Emeric asked.

  “Often,” Nadire grumbled, clearly prodding into a sore spot. “It’s Christmas Eve so to them they all see…”

  The jolly fat man. The image others dreamed up of how he should look. The glimmer that became the truth instead of reality.

  “My father doesn’t have the luxury to stand in line and wait for fried poultry, I’m afraid. People grow rather perturbed at the sound of hooves.” Emeric flinched at the regret stinging his voice. He didn’t hate their family’s traditions, their honor, their gift bestowed upon them to carry out the holiday’s lifeblood. But there were consequences that, even all these years in, could still sting.

  Nadire’s glitter-rimmed eyes darted up to him, her succulent lips parting as if she wanted to say something. No doubt it would be yet another scolding, or her pointing out that it was his father’s choice to appear as such. Some foolish speck of Emeric’s heart wanted to hear her sympathize but that seemed impossible.

  Regardless of what she was going to say, it was interrupted by their friendly waiter arriving with the bottles. He popped the cork, at first defaulting to let Emeric sniff it as if he cared. Nadire shook her head at the old practice, certain there wasn’t mold floating in a restaurant bottle of wine. After pouring them both a full glass, the waiter took their orders quickly.

  It didn’t surprise Emeric that Nadire knew precisely what she wanted down to every minor substitution. When it came time for him, he simply pointed at her and said, “What she’s having.” The move certainly tipped her in surprise, giving Emeric better footing in this contest of arms, and it did sound good to him.

  As the waiter vanished, yet again leaving them alone with each other, Nadire tugged up the purse at her feet. She produced a small envelope to pass to Emeric. “Our list of documents and records we require from you and your father,” she said, folding her hands like a vise as he spun the white envelope in his fingers.

  So that was why she had to see her lawyers. He should open it, go over the contents, and return to his rented house. There was no reason to remain and play at this charade, no legal reason certainly.

  Pocketing the unopened letter, Emeric hefted up his shot of saki to place to his lips. It was probably his foolish imagination that she smiled sweetly at him saving work for later.

  “I must also ask for an extension,” Nadire spoke up, not surprising him in the least.

  “Trying to run everything through a dozen lawyers to black out any important information?” he threw out quickly, but she shook her head.

  Gazing through the wall, she sighed. “My father is…I am having troubles acquiring every letter you requested.”

  “What, the great Saint Nicholas doesn’t keep meticulous records? I rather thought he was known for his lists.”

  Nadire snorted, “There’s the List and then there’s every other scrap of paper he hordes for prosperity’s sake.” That didn’t sound like a woman trying to move a rook and take his bishop. Her voice was wistful as if she wanted to complain about her father with the enemy.

  “Well, no one’s stopping you from asking him.” Emeric would not rise to her bait, his heart guarded.

  Gentle brown eyes swung to him and his wall collapsed. “Does your father tell you everything about his life?”

  “Yes,” he spat out quickly without thinking.

  “You’re lucky.”

  The cultured, beautiful, polyglot woman rolled her fingers around her wine glass as if she hadn’t the strength to lift it. As if every worry in the world rested upon those bare shoulders.

  “I’ll give you a month to fax me the documents,” Emeric sputtered out.

  A smile flitted about her lips, bringing one to his until she lifted her head and said, “Here I was only going to ask for a week. You’re quite generous.”

  Damn it. How did he keep losing in this game?

  Because, for the first time in his life, he was up against an equal. Oh, Emeric could charm if he wanted, not only with his innate animal magnetism most couldn’t understand, but his old fashioned manners. The right smile and refined speech opened so many doors. On anyone else he could also read what their darkest deeds were, often picking at those to reveal an opening for the sharp barbs.

  But she was a closed book to him. And, there was no denying—as tendrils of hair curled against her neck, her enchanting eyes closed tight to enhance the drop of wine upon her tongue—that his libido was throwing him off too.

  Placing the wine glass down triumphantly, Nadire folded her hands as if she had to rub them for warmth when her eyes fell into his. He was smiling like a loon, he could feel his lips twitching upward from a simple stare, yet he couldn’t stop. A tender blush rose below her rouge, her face softening at his shared gaze but she wouldn’t look away either.

  He ached to reach over the table, draw his fingers to her fallen hair, and tuck it behind her ear. To feel her crimson lips panting pray
ers against his flesh, and those heels bounding against his shoulders.

  “Ah,” Nadire spoke, shattering the thought. Her face turned to the arrival of the soup course. Steam floated up from the miso placed before him, the scent reminding Emeric he was famished, but his hand was frozen as he watched Nadire gently cup back her hair in thought.

  Shaking away the image of his hand over hers, he hefted up the spoon and dug in. “God’s garters, this is delicious,” he gasped.

  “One of the best, in the area of course. Far better beyond the borders naturally, but they do a few good dishes here,” Nadire showed off. As if he could forget for a second her family’s connections, their power, and their feckless choice to do nothing with it.

  Emeric made it halfway through his soup without speaking a word. He let his thoughts stew in his brain but wanted to cool his tongue. This required a delicate touch to weave into the conversation.

  “You must travel often,” he began.

  “Says the German man that speaks Japanese,” Nadire easily volleyed back.

  He snorted at the reminder of his own showing off. “My father spent a few decades there. He needed an escape after…” Pain swirled through his soul, Emeric too slow to swallow it down. The sly eyes of the cold, Saintly daughter darted over him, reading it, noting it, planning to exploit it. “It was interesting, a lot of days in small villages. My father even thought to try fishing. It didn’t take.”

  A smile rose at that. “Mine can handle casting, but that’s it.”

  “He’s not very good at retirement,” Emeric mused about his own father, but it was probably the same for hers. Nadire’s polite smile faded at that, leaving the man wondering if any of Nicholas’ children had attempted a coup in the past. His father said there was a brother as well, one not seen often.

  “Tell me honestly and true,” she said, her voice stark as she raised her head to him. “Did you plan to find me at that convention? To…seduce me?”

  She thought he was trying to twist her up into knots? Emeric wasn’t the one in a sinful dress, though there were a few antique pictures of him in a kilt resting in archives. Licking his lips, fearing they’d crack from the dry air rising, he admitted, “I could lie.”

  “True, but I suspect a man who has justice tattooed on his arm cannot easily escape such a straightforward question.”

  Damn, she was good. Even without being able to see his sins, she read him like an open book with illustrations. Taking a deep breath, Emeric met her eyes. “No, I had no idea who you were.”

  “Even though you planned to meet my father the very next day.”

  “Technically, I had no intentions to run into Saint Nicholas. It was kismet.”

  Nadire snorted. “An odd choice of words for having to face the man you’re trying to ruin.”

  “Ruin?” Emeric spat, a laugh rolling in his throat at the thought. “How, pray tell, can I ruin a man with the backbone of jelly?”

  Her hackles raised instantly, Nadire’s candle flame eyes lighting like dynamite. “You have no concept of who you’re speaking about.”

  “No? Let’s see. Once he was Saint Nicholas of Myra. Born in the cliffs and sea air of what is now Turkey, yet he associates himself with snow and cold. A man that rewarded the good and punished the bad. Now, he appears in cargo pant ads, treacly romance movies, and used car lots. Your father is nothing more than a marketing scheme. A joke.”

  “Shall we talk of your father then?” she thundered, a hand smashing into the table and rattling the half-empty drinks. “Which sin should we begin with? Oh, how about his long history of child abuse.”

  “You don’t know the truth,” Emeric growled, his shoulders hunching upward as he refused to meet her vengeful gaze.

  “Which one? The legends of him kidnapping children, or whipping them? Chaining them up?” Nadire pounded the table with each guess, Emeric finally releasing his controlled rage and staring defiantly into her eyes. She had no concept of what she claimed to know. All hearsay and conjecture from decades of propaganda.

  Nadire snorted, her lips smacking against her teeth. “Leaves behind switches to remind children to behave?”

  All the wind knocked out of Emeric’s sails as she landed upon the one truth in the lies. “My father is not who you think he is.”

  “Well neither is mine!” she roared, shooting out of her chair. “This was…I don’t know why I tried.” Nadire fumbled in her purse, steam practically gushing from her ears as she seemed to struggle to find her wallet.

  Emeric stood as well letting his napkin and attempt at civility tumble to the floor. “Why did you invite me? Why…?” He waved a hand at her shameless dress, about to point out how cruel a trick it was, but the words clogged in his throat. The truth, buried at the back of his brain, was that he was grateful to glimpse such a wonder even if she did it for nefarious reasons.

  “Why bother with a dinner setting?”

  Her fumbling froze, Nadire’s chin falling to her chest. “I thought to find common ground, but the fool I am to think such a thing possible when you’ve already got a chip on your shoulder the size of an aircraft carrier.”

  “Me?” Emeric laughed. “That’s rich coming from a woman practically bathed in milk and honey each morn.” He sneered at the abstract thought, but that cruel libido drew up an image of her body submerged in the cream and he choked at the temptation.

  “How dare you,” Nadire cursed, her purse forgotten to the table. She stepped closer, seeming to cut Emeric off from his escape. On instinct, he stepped away from his chair, but there wasn’t anywhere for him to go. “How dare you act as if you know me. You know nothing about me. About my family you intend to destroy!”

  He held his tongue, his height looming over the woman who looked as if she intended to smash him into the wall. Could she? Emeric knew little of the gifts bestowed upon their family, but it was possible. Sensing that her prey was backing off, Nadire stepped away, gifting him breathing room.

  With her back turned, her focus on gathering her purse, Emeric lapped his tongue over his lips. Chuckling under his breath, he said, “I know you’re no saint.”

  Nadire whipped upon him so fast he barely saw her move. A palm landed on his chest, shoving him into the mosaic wall of a koi pond. He tried to dig his heels in, to stop her from whatever she was doing, but Emeric’s previous guess was right. There was an otherworldly strength there. Or she was just that angry at him.

  A hard edge of the mosaic frame bounced against his spine, Emeric trying to not wince at the diamond eyes slicing through him. Her skin glowed as if her rage turned radioactive, her cheeks red and jaw gritted while she stared him up and down. There was no noise save the slow intake of breath lifting her barely clothed chest higher into view.

  Emeric swallowed, his stance firm even as his cruel eyes kept darting down her voluminous cleavage. Blood pounded through his body, his heart rate increasing from the single touch of her hand. Nadire stared at where her palm lay flat to his chest, almost as if in shock it was there, but she didn’t remove it.

  In a voice low and dusky, she growled, “You don’t know me.”

  Forgetting every manner drilled into him, every battle tactic and skill at mastering an opponent, Emeric leaned closer. Her face filled his vision, his forehead nearly swiping across hers. With his breath wafting against her skin, he said, “You don’t know me either.”

  Fingers latched onto his hair, both knuckles digging deep to pull his lips the last inch to hers. Thunder rolled through his gut, lightning sparking from her ravenous touch. Each taste of her hot tongue lapping against his lips, his swirling to tug her lip in between his teeth to nibble, caused Nadire to buck against him. Moaning as his body reveled in the memory of every hungry touch from their first meeting, Emeric lashed his hands around her skirt. He relished in the taut flexing of her bum raised up by the help of those heels.

  Let her walk all over him in them. Rip off his clothes. Manhandle him until he was nothing more than putty in her grip
. Use him to her pleasure for an eternity.

  “Your entree has…Oh!”

  Shit! Their waiter walked partially in to find the lone diners shoving their tongues down each other’s throats. The plates of sashimi and sushi undulated as the man struggled to find his balance. Guilt radiated off not only Nadire but Emeric, both trying to extract themselves from the other’s orbit.

  “I’ll, um…” The waiter glanced out to the rest of the dining room as if trying to find help. “I forgot the soy sauce. I’ll be right back.” With that, he turned to run, their dinner still on his tray.

  For the love of Christ. Emeric tried to smack the back of his head against the wall before he remembered the no doubt priceless mural. What was his problem? He had self-control. He wasn’t some mindless animal, regardless of how others liked to portray his family. But one touch from her and…

  Nadire hovered around her purse. She didn’t sling it on her arm, but she kept dipping her hand into the bag as if planning to mace him. Be a bit overkill as she did start it.

  They could resume their dinner. Forget once again that that happened. At least discuss things like adults.

  God, she was trembling. Whether in disgust or guilt he couldn’t tell, but goosebumps rose all along her naked shoulders, Emeric’s gut sinking in regret. Damn it, he didn’t kiss her first. Why did he feel any pain for it?

  “Leave,” thudded from her lips, her teeth chattering as if she was frozen.

  He should have expected that much. It made the most logical sense after this outburst for the pair to split. No doubt, he’d only be seeing letterhead from Trevor here on out.

  “I…” Emeric began when Nadire’s eyes snapped to his.

  A wildfire burned in them, her nostrils flaring as she took a deep breath. “We should leave. You have a place?”

  “Yes?” Confused, he jabbed a thumb backward as if trying to point to it through the restaurant. “A house I’m renting until…”