A midwinter nights dream, p.8
A Midwinter Night's Dream,
p.8
“Eleanor?”
“Just thinking of the wedding vows—in sickness and health. I’m sick as a dog, probably contagious, and you’re here anyway. It is like we’re married.”
“What matters more?” Søren brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “The ceremony and saying the vows? Or living them when it counts?”
“Marriage is a sacrament, though,” she said, smiling weakly at him.
“Love is a sacrament.” He squeezed her hand. “Oh, and don’t worry. Most priests get flu shots. When you drink after as many people as we do…”
Funny. For Christmas that year, Eleanor had asked for a threesome with Søren and Kingsley. A silly request, as silly as asking for snow in winter in New York. Whether she asked for it or not, she was definitely getting it.
She’d wanted to spend the night with both of them in bed. And here she was, in bed, with both of them there—Søren at her side and Kingsley asleep in the hospital armchair. Maybe not as fun as a kinky threesome, but somehow she knew it was a bigger thing she’d received, a better, truer gift.
And there would be plenty of threesomes when she was well again.
“Kingsley,” Søren said, whistling softly. “She’s up.”
Kingsley stirred and opened his eyes.
“Hi, King,” Eleanor said from her bed. She waved tiredly at him. “Sorry I ruined your Christmas Eve.”
He walked to her hospital bed and leaned over her.
“Not giving me a blow job by the tree is how you ruin my Christmas Eve, Elle,” Kingsley said, pointing at her face. “You die, you ruin my life.”
Eleanor winced. “Was I that sick?”
“You had a fever of 104. And you were talking out of your head when I brought you in.”
“Shit, what did I say?”
“Out of nowhere you looked up at me and said ‘Get a hair cut. You look like a pirate.’”
“I was dreaming,” she said.
“About me?”
“You were a former cross-dressing teenaged kinky prostitute named Princess.”
“Ah, in my dreams,” Kingsley said, hand over his heart.
“Søren also beat you and fucked you half to death.”
Kingsley rolled his eyes. “In his dreams.”
Søren slapped Kingsley in the stomach with the back of his hand.
“Go home, Princess,” Søren said. “Get some sleep.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Kingsley said. He held up two fingers. “Second time in two years you’ve ended up in the E.R. Two’s the limit.”
“Yes, your majesty,” she said. Kingsley turned and started to leave. As he was pulling on his coat at the door to her room, Eleanor said, “Hey, King? Thanks for taking care of me.”
He bowed his head, magnanimous as a true king. “My pleasure.”
“King?” Eleanor said. Kingsley turned back around. “Leave the tree up. There's always New Year's Eve.” She winked at him.
“It's a date,” he said, then left.
When he was gone, Eleanor used the bathroom, drank a glass of water and then sank gratefully back into the hospital bed. A nurse came, checked her vitals, gave her ibuprofen, and pronounced her on the road to recovery.
“Will you stay the night with me?” she asked after the nurse left.
“All night,” he promised.
“You’re a very good husband,” she said.
“In your dream?”
“I meant now.” She squeezed his hand. “Merry Christmas, My Lord.”
“Merry Christmas, My Lady.”
He kissed her again on the forehead and she closed her eyes. Then Søren spoke again.
“Eleanor? Did you say…you said in my bedroom at Edenfell in your dream, there was a red velvet tufted desk chair?”
“Right. You sat on it and I sat on you while you forced me—entirely against my will—to look at kinky porn and talk about sex with you.”
“There was a red velvet tufted chair in my father’s room in New Hampshire growing up. It had been at Edenfell for a hundred years in the master’s bedchamber.”
Eleanor’s eyes opened, opened wide. She stared at him. No way. There was no way she could have known or guessed that…
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“No.”
* * *
Merry Christmas from Søren, Nora, King, and Tiffany Reisz
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About the Author
Tiffany Reisz is the USA Today bestselling author of the Romance Writers of America RITA®-winning Original Sinners series from Harlequin's Mira Books.
Her erotic fantasy The Red—self-published under the banner 8th Circle Press—was named an NPR Best Book of the Year and a Goodreads Best Romance of the Month. It also received a coveted starred review from Library Journal.
Tiffany lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband, author Andrew Shaffer, and two cats. The cats are not writers.
Subscribe to the Tiffany Reisz e-mail newsletter and receive a free copy of “Something Nice,” a standalone ebook novella set in Reisz’s Original Sinners universe:
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THE BOURBON THIEF
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THE SIREN (Book #1)
THE ANGEL (Book #2)
THE PRINCE (Book #3)
THE MISTRESS (Book #4)
THE SAINT (Book #5)
THE KING (Book #6)
THE VIRGIN (Book #7)
THE QUEEN (Book #8)
THE CHATEAU
PICTURE-PERFECT COWBOY
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The Original Sinners Novellas
THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE
THE GIFT (previously published as SEVEN DAY LOAN)
IMMERSED IN PLEASURE
THE LAST GOOD KNIGHT (PARTS I—V)
LITTLE RED RIDING CROP
MISCHIEF
THE SCENT OF WINTER
SOMETHING NICE
SUBMIT TO DESIRE
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The Original Sinners Collections
ABSOLUTION (Australia Only)
THE CONFESSIONS
MICHAEL’S WINGS
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Harlequin Category Romances
THE HEADMASTER (e-Shivers)
HER HALLOWEEN TREAT (Blaze)
HER NAUGHTY HOLIDAY (Blaze)
MISBEHAVING (Red-Hot Reads)
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A Midwinter Night’s Dream
Copyright © 2018 Tiffany Reisz
All rights reserved. No part of this publications may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, 8th Circle Press, Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.A.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Andrew Shaffer
Front cover image used under license from iStock by Getty Images
www.8thcirclepress.com
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Tiffany Reisz, A Midwinter Night's Dream
