Christmas in Charmed Castle

It would be the dash of her life. For her life. Blind and naked.

She squeezed her eyes shut to escape the unblinking eyes of the paintings before she made a run for the faint yellow light until the walls moved in front of her and caged her in their solid arms. Seraphine screamed, air leaving her lungs.

"It's me." Nathaniel's low voice came from the walls.

The walls ate him, too.

She screamed again, heart thudding, arms flailing against the enclosing walls. Tears sprang and filled the back of her shut eyes before more warmth clasped around her. Arms smoothed up and down her back gently, and his voice repeated into the top of her head, "Seraphine, you're safe. It's OK." Her name reverberated in the air and in her.

It's just him.

Then she leaned into him, legs giving out. She was OK now. Her fingers dug into the wool of his sweater. She could feel him, solid in her arms, and she was not cold anymore. She was safe. His hand came to cradle the back of her head, pressing her into him, and then she was breathing in the cinnamon and spices, letting the steady heartbeat fill her while the world reassembled around her. She was safe now.

And that was when she remembered her current state of undress; instinctively she wanted to pull away from him, but for once, she managed to think three seconds ahead. "Don't look."

"What?" he asked into her hair on a whisper.

She wrinkled her nose to stop the tickle in it. "I'm not dressed."

He chuckled, the sound vibrating through her. She'd never heard him chuckle or laugh in earnest, without sarcasm or menace. Suddenly she wished she could look. She wondered what he looked like when he smiled like that.

"Would you care to explain why?" His hand ran down from between her shoulders and stopped just above the flare of her backside, sending a different kind of shiver down her body.

"I was taking a bath," she said into his chest.

"In the hallway. While running and screaming." The amusement in his calm voice created a new blend of curiosity.

"Before—" Her subsequent words were hijacked by a sneeze.

Shaking his head, he said while sighing, "Let's get you warmed up." Then he tried to pull away, but she wouldn't let him, hugging him closer. "Promise you won't look."

"I can't see anything."

"That's not a promise." She sneezed again.

"I won't look," he said, although she had the feeling that he only promised because she was sneezing as if he was concerned about her. He was not concerned about anyone, especially not about her.

"It's not like you want to look at me anyway," she mumbled.

There was a beat before he asked, "Can we go back now?"

She nodded, and he let go of her before quickly turning around to face the room to avoid looking at her in total darkness. But he held on to her hand, tugging on it softly, leading her back into their room.

*****

Nathaniel had tried not to care when Seraphine walked out from the room. She'd survive; after all, where was she going to go? She'd come back to the room, make up some wild stories that'd probably and inconveniently tempt a smile out of him, and they'd continue on as they had for the past six months—colleagues, whose paths should never cross beyond the office elevator.

He didn't explicitly ask her to leave. She left the room of her own volition, and who was he to stand in her way? He was, according to her, the solution to global warming.

But how would she fare if she was alone? She had been scared the moment they stepped into the castle. And when the butler opened the door to the doll room, she stopped pretending she was not scared.

What if it was actually the butler? Nathaniel remembered too well how the butler looked at her like she was prime meat.

He glanced at the clock on his laptop before his gaze flickered to the door; he had left it ajar on purpose, so he could listen for her movements. It had been more than fifteen minutes; she had been alone all this time, and she had not come back. He hadn't heard a thing beyond the gaping door, and for some reason, the silence was worse than hearing her scream.

With an irritated groan, he threw his legs down from the warm bed and went out into the hallway to look for her. This was exactly why he wanted nothing to do with Seraphine; she put herself in a situation and waited for other people to get worried about her. And he was worried about her.

Then she bolted into his arms. Screaming. Naked. Shaking. Naked. Sobbing. And wet. Why was she wet? And naked.

But it didn't matter. She was safe. He got her now, letting her use him for support, letting her warmth get to him. She was not hurt as far as he could feel.

And then Nathaniel had to think about the porcelain doll room when his hands reluctantly came to a stop at the top of her ass. She was distressed. He shouldn't even be thinking about her breasts pressed up against him, but if this was how she felt with two layers of sweater and t-shirt...

Think about the dolls.

The truth was he did not need to see, not when he could feel every curve and shape, not when he was perfectly skilled at imagining the responses that he could tease from her, the way her long, lush curls spilled across the pillow when she threw her head back. He bet she'd look like happiness and sunshine when she came.

The sneeze that broke his thought tugged at the heart that he didn't want to admit to having.

Leading her back to the room, he handed her his t-shirt and sweater without looking at her, listening to the fabric shimmying down her body and her soft sigh of relief, torturing himself with the stupid promise because he didn't want to argue with her when she was cold. Granted, he was in no position to argue, but that was beside the point.

He then headed back to the bathroom to retrieve all her belongings. When he returned, she was curled up inside the duvet, round eyes following him when he turned off the lights, took off his clothes and joined her in the warm bed. Leaving more than enough distance between them, shielding himself from her heat, he closed his eyes, shutting away the feelings she coaxed out of him with her tears.

This was going to be a long, merciless night. Perhaps he should sleep in the showroom.

"Nathaniel?" she called out his name, and he liked the sound on her lips, so he replied, even though he shouldn't, "Yes?"

"Why do you hate me?"

Her voice was unusually calm and forthright, catching him off guard. He didn't answer immediately, and then, "I don't hate you."

"But you don't like me."

"I wouldn't say that," he said. "At least not to your face."

"You see? This is what I meant. I never did anything to you."

She shifted and the bed bounced a few times before he said quietly, "It's not about you."

"Do you hate everyone?" she asked.

"I don't hate anyone."

A dry laugh in the dark. "Oh. Right. I forgot. You just don't have emotions."

It was his turn to laugh. "I'm not a robot."

"Because robots pretend to have emotions."

But that was how robots could open themselves up for pain. He shifted uncomfortably before asking, "Why do you care whether I like you or not?"

"Because it hurts to know that you don't like me." Her voice was soft and honest.

"Because everybody likes you."

She shook her head, hair brushing on the pillow. "Except for you."

He repeated his words, "Everybody likes you."

He knew she heard it when she went quiet.

Cloaked in the darkness, Nathaniel surprised himself when he called her name, "Seraphine?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you here?"

"Because I ran into you in the hallway."

He lifted the corner of his mouth. "I mean here on the investigation. You don't like ghosts."

"There are worse things than ghosts."

"Like running around naked in the dark hallway of a haunted castle?" He let the teasing through his voice.

She mumbled, "Why do you care?"

He rolled onto his side to face Seraphine's faint outline. "I'm not entirely heartless."

"But you are cold."

"It's easier like that," he said softly.

She rolled onto her side, facing him. "I can't find a husband," she said, matter-of-factly.

"Did you look in the yellow pages?"

"They don't sell fake husbands."

Chuckling, he resisted the urge to touch her hair, to feel the silken strands between his fingers. "Seraphine."

"Yes?"

"Yellow pages don't sell anything."

"Oh. I don't know what yellow pages are."

He was laughing before he realized it, and then he heard her soft laugh. "Why do you need a fake husband?"

"So that I'm not a disappointment."

She could never disappoint with her whimsical surprises. "How are you a disappointment?"

"I'm a thirty-one-year-old single woman. That's considered a disappointment."

"Two hundred years ago."

She made a small noise in her throat.

"Why fake?" he asked.

"I don't need a real one." Her voice was light and honest.

So Nathaniel asked, "Do you want a real one?"

Her whisper was closer, more intimate. "No one ever asked me that."

"I am."

"You don't count." The smile came through her voice.

"Why not?"

She scooted closer to him. "You don't actually care."

He wished he didn't care, but he did. He did care when her heat was so close to him. "Do you want me to care?"

She didn't answer him for a long moment. He thought she'd fallen asleep, listening to the rhythm of her breathing. Once in a while, her rising chest brushed against his. "Nathaniel?"

"Yes?"

"Why did you kiss me?"

His heart skipped a beat. "I wanted a roof over my head for the night."

"Why did you kiss me on the lips?"

Because he wanted to. "To make it look real."

"Did you like it?"

He heard her. "What?"

"I liked it."

A pause and a whiff of fruity scents.

Then he asked, "Do you want me to kiss you again?"

Nathaniel would later blame the darkness when his fingers found purchase on the side of her jaw. He felt the slight downward pressure in his hand, and before her nod was completed, his lips were on hers.

Seraphine tasted like forest fruits and tangerine, like Christmas tea, only sweeter and more intoxicating. He nibbled on her lips, taking his time to lick and to savor. Nathaniel swiped his tongue on her lower lip, sucking on the plump flesh, his cock stiffening.

He should stop; he shouldn't enjoy kissing, for Nathaniel did not kiss women that he fucked, not on the lips. Kissing her felt too intimate, too warm, too dangerous. And he didn't want to fuck Seraphine. But she sighed, opening her mouth, urging him inside.

And all he wanted was to be lost in that sigh, in the pure pleasure and happiness.

*****

Nathaniel was not cold when he held her in the hallway, when he set his lips on hers, when he pulled on her lower lip with his teeth, and when his tongue slid across the tip of hers.

He couldn't be cold because he was setting Seraphine on fire. Cupping her face, he tilted her to provide him a better angle. Her finger played at the soft hair on his nape, and she felt him tremble at the touch and deepen the kiss, exploring the soft inside of her mouth.

She'd never known kissing could be enjoyable, lingering and erotic as her pleasure pooled at her core. She moaned, and he smiled against her. Seraphine had thought of kissing as the bread that they put on the table that later showed up on the check without her explicitly asking for the bread.

But as Nathaniel tugged at her lips and stroked her tongue, her desire built and throbbed. Kissing Nathaniel was the entrée that preluded a slew of explosive experiences.

"Do you like it?" she asked again into his lips when he pulled away to catch his breath.

He didn't answer her with his words, but dropped his lips back to her, trailing along her jaw and capturing her earlobe between his teeth, and then on a low whisper, "Yes, I like kissing you."

Then the words came pouring like hot viscous syrup. Or was it not his words? "I like how you arch your back and tilt your head, how you smell like berries, and how your lips taste like happiness." He nibbled at her neck before pushing himself up, skimming his hands on her sides underneath the t-shirt she was wearing, branding her skin.

"You know, I didn't need to look to know your breasts"—he drew circles around the outline of her breast, stealing her breath—"would fit right into my hand—"

"But you don't know for sure," she said when he drew the fifth circle. The fifth one was always the excessive one.

He laughed, and her hands came to cup his face to feel the valley of the dimples before straying lower, caressing and teasing the plane of his chest and the hard length at the end. "Should I find out?" His calm voice was edged with a huskiness that she could get used to. Wouldn't get enough of.

Seraphine arched her back into his hand and sighed, "Yes, please."

Nathaniel was right. It fit perfectly into his palm. He squeezed the soft tissue before tugging at its tip. "Now, I do wish I could see your face when I do this"—he rolled the nipple between his fingers, and she gasped—"or when I have my lips on it." How could she ever think he was cold?

Slowly, he let go of her breast to roll up the hem of the t-shirt, pushing the fabric over the swell of her breasts. Her fingers threaded into his soft hair as he lowered his head to lick her nipple. And pleasure radiated from where he was flickering his tongue to the inner muscles at her core.

"Nathaniel," she moaned his name when another wave of warmth trickled down her body. He answered the call of his name with a growl and set his other hand to the other straining tip.

As her fingers tightened in his hair, so did the muscles in her core. With a cry, she came shuddering, trembling and undulating beneath him. Nathaniel held her through her orgasm, cajoling the waves of shivers until her toes curled and the tickle spread out from the bottom of her feet.

And then she was laughing uncontrollably when he reversed their positions and laid her on top of him. And he, too, broke into laughter when she giggled at his touch.

"Sorry," she mumbled in between the gasps, lowering her hand to his erection.

He caught her wandering hand and asked with incredulity. "What are you sorry for?"

"That I came without...you know," she said. "And the laughing..."

Bringing her head down, he said against her lips, "Don't ever apologize for that. I love how you own your pleasure."

Seraphine blushed. She'd never come with this little action, and she didn't mean to giggle. She had wanted to be sexy, like the girls in porn. But the joy rolled in before she could stop it.

He caught her lips again, nibbling at the flesh. She sagged against him and felt the hardness nestling between her thighs. And then she remembered.

She twisted free from his arms, lowering herself along the length of his body before he pulled her back up and laid her next to him, returning her to her side of the bed.

"We had enough fun for tonight."

"But you didn't—"

He kissed her protests away, and then softly, he said, "Good night, Seraphine."

*****

Seraphine woke up cold and alone in the bed. It was still dark out the window; twilight not yet turned into day. Something flickered in the fake Bosch ceiling painting. Staring at the giant owl, she hugged the duvet closer to herself.

Her phone, now fully charged, delivered the time along with sixty-five messages, all from her mother. Swiping away the notifications, she sighed but dared not look up to the ceiling again.

She'd spent enough nights lying in some random guy's wrinkled sheets, wondering to herself what she'd seen in him the night before.

But now she was wondering where Nathaniel was so she could tell him what she saw in him and that she had been thoroughly and completely wrong about him—especially the part about him being cold.

There was nothing cold about him last night.

And so she quickly got herself dressed and crept into the hallway, making herself as small as possible to avoid the judgment of the paintings and vanishing down the spiral staircase to the kitchen for breakfast.

Nathaniel was talking to the butler about footsteps before she pushed open the French doors. The two men turned their heads towards her briefly and resumed their conversation.

The butler left the kitchen when the service lady brought Seraphine the breakfast and disappeared behind the French doors soon after.

Once they were alone, she smiled at Nathaniel, who stood by the window, returning her gaze with his steely blue eyes as though nothing had happened last night.

Her brow furrowed. Something is wrong.

Was it all just in her head last night? She cut the breakfast pancake in half, the knife grating on the plate with a sharp squeal. Clenching her fingers around the cutlery, she called out his name. "Nathaniel?"

He raised an eyebrow at her before sitting down on the far end of the table. Pulling out his phone from the pocket, he started scrolling.

Staring at the top of his golden hair, she said, "About last night—"

"It was a mistake."

She knew what mistakes felt like, and last night didn't feel like a mistake. It felt like a beginning. "It was not."

"You had your fun last night." He looked up at her, blue eyes revealing no emotions before dipping his head back down. "Let's just move on."

"Fun?" Seraphine put down the fork. She kept the knife in her left hand. In case she needed to show him how she truly felt; she figured the knife might come in handy.

His thumb didn't stop swiping on the screen when he said, "You did, didn't you?"

She scowled. "Well, yes, but I thought there was more than just fun."

He shoved his phone into his pocket and met her eyes. "You're too smart to be needy, Seraphine."

"Perhaps I'm being needy, but you must've felt it, too, last night."

There was a long moment of silence before he lifted his gaze and looked at her with utter impassivity. Her voice faltered when she asked, "Didn't you?"

"No."

He stood up and headed for the door that led into the vast garden.

And then Seraphine's phone rang with a resonance that could wake up the entire castle and all the lords and ladies, the nefarious spirits and footsteps in it.

It was her mother.

*****

Nathaniel strode past the chapel on the side of the main structure and swerved into the barren woods at the split. The path wound and twisted into the small hill ahead, fading into the distance.

He needed to have some time alone, for alone was how he had always been. And he didn't want to let Seraphine change that—no matter how much he enjoyed kissing her, and how much he wanted to kiss her again—as unlike her, he knew the consequences of letting someone in, only to lose them in the end.

Following the winding path, he strolled under the bare branches, freezing air lapping at his skin. He didn't remember the last time he felt remotely affected by a one-night stand.

Because it wasn't just a one-night stand.

He shook away the thought, and then from behind him, "Nathaniel?"

He spun around but said nothing.

She was holding a mug in her hands.

"I wanted...you must be cold." She extended her arm and handed him the mug she was holding close to her heart, but she quickly reversed her action and brought the mug to her cheek. "Oh. It's not hot anymore."

He watched the vapor come out from the mug, misting the dry air; he wondered what was in it.

They stood there like that for a moment, the mug hanging in between them, held on its handle by her bare hand with no glove on.

Sighing, he took off his gloves and handed them to her before taking over the mug from her.

It was glühwein. "How did you get this?"

"I found a bottle in the kitchen." She looked up from pulling on his gloves and smiled at him.

He never wanted to see how beautiful she was, but she was. Standing amidst the winter landscape with the chapel in the distant background against the silver sky, Seraphine and her bright red winter jacket imbued the scene with color. Her long hair curled softly, framing her delicate face. A wash of peachy pink from being in the cold highlighted her cheeks.