Wrapped In Black

  It’s the UnHoly Trinity’s first Christmas in New Orleans. Nora decides she, Søren, and Kingsley need to celebrate with a very special gift-giving game—not a boring White Elephant Exchange, but a Black & Blue Elephant Exchange where the gifts hurt as much to receive as they do to give. And Nora already knows exactly what she wants…

  This erotic holiday novella takes place shortly after the events of “Christmas in Suite 37A” from Michael’s Wings: An Original Sinners Collection.

  Author’s Note

  This novella takes place during and shortly after the events of the Original Sinners short story “Christmas in Suite 37A.”

  This is the Unholy Trinity’s first Christmas in New Orleans.

  Christmas Eve

  The gifts under the Christmas tree were wrapped in black. Black paper, gold ribbons and bows. This was Juliette’s doing, an homage to the New Orleans Saints football team, though really, more of a tribute to their new life here. Kingsley was attempting to learn to love American football, but whenever he and Juliette had a game on, he spent the entire time trying to guess which of the linebackers (wasn’t that what they were called?) was one of Nora’s clients. That was new to him, not knowing the identities of her clients anymore. Then again, since moving to New Orleans, everything seemed new. New city. New house. New life. And, of course, new fears. It must be the French in him that saw the black boxes under the tree as slightly sinister, like a gift from an enemy, a gift that was also a threat. Although, now that he thought of it…Søren in his clerical attire…sometimes the best gifts come wrapped in black.

  He sipped his red wine, a Rosanella Syrah from his son Nico’s winery, as he carefully placed the rest of Céleste’s gifts under the tree. At least Juliette hadn’t wrapped their daughter’s gifts in all black. Hers were covered in playful paper—pink and white and red, printed with candy canes, snowmen, and dinosaurs. Dinosaurs? When did dinosaurs become a Christmas symbol? Were there dinosaurs in the manger and the Bible left that part out? Childhood was very different today these days. When he was a boy, his gifts were wrapped in brown paper with twine or last week’s Le Monde.

  With the presents tucked safely under the tree, he stood up, went through the library to the French doors (all of his doors were French doors, he told Juliette who only rolled her eyes) and looked out over the back lawn. It was December 24th, six in the evening, and Céleste was wearing a sundress on her swing-set though the sun had set nearly an hour ago. Juliette was gently pushing the swing, not too high, never too high, but high enough to make their little girl laugh and squeal.

  As he watched them, he caught himself smiling. Just smiling. Simple stupid happy grinning. He couldn’t help it. When Céleste laughed, he smiled. When she squealed, he laughed. He had been wrong about many things in his life, but this he got right—he knew he wouldn’t be truly happy until he was a father. Now he had two children—Céleste and Nico, one very much wanted, and one quite a surprise. For more reasons than one.

  Ah, well, that was just how life happened, wasn’t it? You got nothing for free in this world. Nora had found his son for him—the son he didn’t know he had but had loved from the second he’d learned his name and seen his face—but Kingsley wasn’t the only one who’d fallen in love at first sight. If Nico was to be believed, he’d fallen in love with Nora the day he’d met her. “Not,” as Nico had said to his face, “that it is any of your business.” Looking back, it wasn’t terribly surprising. Young men tended to fall hard upon meeting la Maîtresse. The only surprise in the whole insane scenario was that Nora had actually tried to tell the boy no, and for months. Not that she’d succeeded, but Kingsley appreciated the attempt. Apparently her loyalty to him ran a little deeper than either of them would have believed.

  He could be philosophical about it now, even amused. He hadn’t been quite so philosophical about it at the time.

  So he got a son but at the price of what he had with Nora. C’est la vie. He could live with that trade.

  But what, then, was the price for his Céleste? Fear. Even now, as he watched her swing a little higher than he would have liked, he imagined her tumbling onto the ground, hitting her head, blood everywhere, a mad rush to the emergency room.

  Luckily, gravity was on their side today, and she came safely down to Earth and into her mother’s arms.

  He opened the doors and let Juliette inside, Céleste thrown over her shoulder like a sack of flour.

  “Hello, Papa,” she said, waving as they passed. “I have to take a bath.”

  “You do,” he said. “You’re covered in grass. How did that happen?”

  “Someone,” Juliette said with an elegant arch of her eyebrows, “decided to make grass angels since there’s no snow.”

  “Did it work?” Kingsley asked.

  “No,” Juliette said. “But she had fun trying. Anyone here yet?”

  He took Céleste off Juliette’s shoulder and lifted her over his head and back down into his arms. Any excuse to make her laugh. “Not yet. They’re on their way.”

  “I’ll be ready soon.” Juliette kissed him on the cheek. He set Céleste onto her feet and watched Juliette lead her out of the sunroom and upstairs to her bathroom.

  How had it happened so fast? Only yesterday, she was a baby in his arms, barely seven pounds. Now she was walking and talking and demanding Griffin Fiske read to her and play ballet with her and kiss her goodbye, which he’d done last night since he was flying back to New York today. It had been nice having Griffin around again, even if he was moping over the not-terribly-surprising breakup between him and his Michael. Odds were always good that the boys would break up at some point. The age difference. The class difference. Griffin’s tendency to smother. Michael’s hidden but steel-strong backbone that would bend only so far. No, he hadn’t been surprised at all to hear that Griffin had finally found Michael’s hard limits. And he certainly wouldn’t be surprised if and when he heard they were back together. The course of true—especially—young love never did run smooth. He and Søren were proof of that.

  Kingsley glanced at his watch. He really ought to change clothes. Yet he stayed by the French doors looking out at the empty swing-set. Empty now because Juliette had dragged their daughter up to her bath. But how long before it was empty because Céleste had outgrown it? Until she’d outgrown her sundress? Outgrown her little pink bed? Outgrown her Papa reading her bedtime stories every night? How long before she noticed her parents were not married? How long before she noticed the locks on the rooms in the house she wasn’t allowed inside? How long before he had to explain the gun cabinet and what Papa used to do for a living? How long before she started to notice that Papa and Uncle Søren were—

  “With that look on your face, I’m afraid to ask what you’re thinking right now.”

  Kingsley turned. Søren stood in the open doorway to the library. He looked even more distinguished than usual in his tailored three-piece suit. As his pale blond hair faded to silver with every passing year, with the waistcoat, the stern, and intelligent eyes, he looked like the world’s sexiest college professor. Made sense. Although still a Jesuit, he no longer had his own church but instead taught pastoral studies at Loyola.

  “I’m thinking you look very handsome,” Kingsley said. How many of Søren’s students were as madly in lust with the good Father Stearns as he was?

  “Thank you,” Søren said. “You’re lying.”

  “I was thinking you look very handsome. You make me wish I’d gone to college. I would have loved fucking my professors.”

  “I’m sure they would have loved that as well. Now tell me what you were really thinking about.”

  It was an order, and Kingsley knew Søren expected him to obey it. He remembered a line from that stupid Grinch cartoon he’d watched with Céleste last night—He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick.

  “I was thinking about Nico,” Kingsley said. “That I won’t get to see him this Christmas. Maybe not any Christmas.”

  Søren gave him a look of sympathy. “Believe it or not, I know how you feel.”

  “I know you do. Your son doesn’t know you exist and probably never will. My son wishes I never existed.”

  “That is not true.”

  “Ah, he doesn’t completely despise me anymore. We’ll call that progress.”

  “Do you blame me for not getting to see him more often?” Søren asked as he stepped into the room. “I promise, I haven’t banned him from New Orleans because of his relationship with Eleanor. Though I’ve been tempted.” He smiled to show he was joking even though Kingsley knew…he probably had been tempted.

  “Non. I can go to him as easily as he can come to us. But I don’t think he’s ready to share the holidays with us yet. Us. Me.”

  Once he’d said it, Kingsley realized it was only a half-lie he’d told. He hadn’t been thinking about Nico and Christmas right then, but it was something that privately weighed on his mind and had ever since he called Nico a month ago asking him to spend Christmas with them here. His son had been very polite when he’d said, Non, merci. No excuse. No explanation. Just non.

  “I know your relationship with him is…complicated. To say the least,” Søren said.

  “Almost as complicated as yours.”

  Søren laughed ruefully. “I have no relationship with him at all. Which is a necessary evil, I suppose.

To keep us both sane. It is a shame, though. When I divorce my feelings about him and Eleanor from who he is as a person…he’s an impressive young man. What he’s done with his life, his work ethic, his devotion to the family vineyard. Any father would be proud of have him for a son.”

  “Until he starts sleeping with your ex-domme.”

  “Until then, of course.” Søren raised his eyebrows.

  Kingsley walked over to him, stood facing him. All the better to see his eyes and what secrets they were keeping. “How are you doing with that?”

  “Eleanor and Nico? Fair is fair. I’m in no position to judge.”

  “That’s a non-answer.”

  “Yes, it was,” Søren said. “Either I can give you the real answer, or you can kiss me.”

  “I can’t kiss you. You’re better dressed than I am.” Kingsley had a suit upstairs waiting for him, but he was still in his jeans and white button-down. Very appropriate for a day at home with his daughter. Not nearly as appropriate for Christmas Eve dinner.

  “Doesn’t happen very often,” Søren said.

  “I’ll change, then I’ll kiss you. Ten minutes.”

  He started out of the library. Søren put his hand on the doorframe blocking Kingsley as he tried to pass by him.

  Søren said, “Kiss first.”

  There was no arguing with his tone.

  Kingsley heard the water running upstairs in the bath. Odds were low that Céleste would see them…

  With a grin—a very different one than he wore when watching his daughter on the swing set—he lifted his chin and waited. Søren brought his hands to Kingsley’s neck, the thumbs stroking his jawline… The slight but firm pressure of those hands on his neck instantly raised Kingsley’s heart rate, sent his blood pumping.

  Breathless, he waited until Søren had made him wait long enough. Their lips met in a kiss, soft, growing harder, heavier as Søren slipped his tongue into his mouth and Kingsley returned the compliment. Søren even pushed him gently against the door frame, back to the wood. This wasn’t a hello kiss between old lovers but a wet, hot kiss that belonged to the night with no clothes between them and no chance of interruption. The kiss went on, going deeper, getting hotter. Søren pushed his hips into Kingsley’s, pressing him even harder against the doorframe.

  And then it was over, just like that. Søren broke the kiss and stood back and waved his arm as if to say, You are now dismissed.

  Kingsley stared at him, then sighed. “Sadist.”

  “It’s why you love me.”

  “True, true,” Kingsley said as he walked—painfully, due to the erection—away. “It’s also why I hate you.”

  He heard Søren laughing softly as he started up the stairs.

  Nora would never get used to Decembers in New Orleans. Christmas Eve and the high was sixty-seven. With Griffin gone back to New York, she had her house to herself again. Not that Griffin would have complained to see her walking around the house in her bra and panties, trying to remember where she put all of her cocktail gowns.

  Finally, she found them in the back of the closet in the guest room—a row of black and red dresses she hadn’t worn in months. Oh, and a pair of Griffin’s boxer briefs somehow laying draped over the closet bar. She tossed them over her shoulder and onto the guest bed. She flipped through her dresses over and over again, trying to decide which one would be just the right amount of slutty for Christmas Eve. Briefly she entertained the fantasy of sticking Griff’s underwear in an envelope and mailing them back to him. Instead, she’d just keep them for the next time he came to visit, hopefully with Michael if they worked things out and got back together. Which they would, she hoped. Well, Griffin had promised to call her and let her know what happened with their big dinner date tonight. Funny, it was like Griffin sensed something about her and Nico’s secret relationship. He was twelve years older than Michael, and a few nights before he’d left for New York, he’d asked her if she thought there was any hope for something long-term when you were in love with a younger man.

  Or, Griffin had wondered, had it all been doomed from the start?

  She’d been very tempted then to tell him everything about Nico. She couldn’t bring herself to do it while Griffin was staying with her, though. The number of questions he would have asked about the whole thing…she would have had to gag the man just to keep her sanity. And Nico’s privacy. Privacy was not a concept Griffin Fiske had much use for. He would have put up billboards of him and Michael after they fell in love if Michael had allowed it, which he wouldn’t have.

  And someone really needed to tell Griffin about Kingsley and Søren, too. Both of them had mentioned that Griffin needed to be told before he found out some other way and was wounded for life. It would have hurt her, too, in his position. Griffin had taken over Kingsley’s place in New York, running the 8th Circle. Basically, he was the new—and much less scary—King of the Underground. He’d be crushed to discover they didn’t trust him with something as important as King and Søren’s relationship, hers and Nico’s. Well, she’d tell him later if she needed to distract him from the heartbreak of things not going as well with Michael as he’d hoped.

  After looking at every dress twelve times, Nora finally decided on a sequined black cocktail dress with a plunging neckline. Slutty, yes, but also the sequins made it sort of Christmas-y. She’d just stand by the Christmas tree lights and let them reflect off of her.

  This was a lot of effort for a simple Christmas Eve dinner among friends. But this was the one thing Juliette had asked from them for Christmas. She wanted to celebrate with a traditional, formal Réveillon de Noël with all of them. And Nora had to admit, she didn’t hate the thought of seeing Søren in his three-piece suit.

  Nora got dressed in her bathroom. She wore her hair down but with a silver barrette and matching chandelier earrings, subtle make-up but for her red, red lips, and her favorite shiny black pumps with the ankle straps. Søren had a strange predilection for those shoes. He liked to strip her naked except for the shoes and flog her senseless. Then in bed, he’d undo the ankle straps with his teeth. Whenever she wore the shoes, it was an open invitation for him to come back to her house and do just that.

  Except…with all those oysters she planned on eating…sex might not be medically advisable. Oysters might be an aphrodisiac, but not when you ate your weight in them.

  She decided to wear a different pair of heels. No ankles straps. Just in case.

  Kingsley’s house was one street over, and she could walk there via the alley that separated their backyards. But not in these shoes. She’d have to drive. As she was leaving through the back door in the kitchen, her phone started vibrating inside her clutch handbag.

  She didn’t get many phone calls. Her clients sent texts since they knew better than to call her. And on Christmas Eve? Probably spam. She dug her phone out anyway, then smiled.

  Nico.

  “Hi, Moosh,” she said when she answered.

  He replied with a laugh. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

  “You could hear it more if you called me more often.”

  “I like our letters.”

  Letters. He was the most old-fashioned young man she’d ever met. He wanted letters, handwritten. Calls were only for exceptional occasions.

  “I do like our letters, yes, but it’s good to hear your voice, too. Merry Christmas.”

  “Joyeux Noël.”

  “You’re up late.” It must have been one in the morning in France.

  “Christmas party. And I am a little drunk, and I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too. I love when you drunk dial me, but I’m on my way to your father’s house for our Christmas party.”

  “Is he going? Or will he be at church?”

  He. Søren. Nico preferred to refer to him obliquely. She knew how he felt.

  “He’s going. He doesn’t celebrate mass as often now that he’s teaching.” There was a priest shortage in America, Nora knew, but not in New Orleans.

  “Is he spending the night with you?”

  Nora sighed. “Do you really want me to answer that?”