The Saint

Well … how nice.

“You’re in pain,” he said. “I can feel it all through you.”

“I like pain,” she reminded him.

“No one likes this kind of pain. I would know.”

She lowered her eyes in sympathy. The man who’d raised Nico as his son had died five months ago. A month after that, she’d shown up and told him he had another father, which had torn the stitches on his still-healing grief. If anyone understood the pain she felt right now, it was Nico.

“Let me ease your pain tonight.”

“How?” She looked up at him. “Can you bring people back to life?”

“I can bring you back to life.”

She almost told him he was as arrogant as his father, but before she could speak, he kissed her.

Nervous as a virgin, her lips trembled under his. If it had been anyone but him, she would have wondered at this newfound shyness. She’d never been shy, never been demure, never been innocent. And yet, this was Kingsley’s only son, and by sleeping with him she would lose something far more dear to her than her virginity had ever been.

“You’re shaking,” Nico said against her lips.

“I’m scared.”

“Scared? Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m here,” he whispered. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

He was here. That was why she was afraid. But the fear didn’t stop her from opening her mouth to receive his kiss. He kissed along her jawline to her ear, nipped at her earlobe. Over the pulse point in her neck, he pressed a long, languid kiss. The heat from his mouth seared her all the way to her spine. His kisses were neither tentative nor hurried. As he kissed her, her muscles slackened, her skin flushed with heat and the fear faded. For the first time in days, she felt human. Since meeting back in December, she and Nico had been in weekly contact. Emails, phone calls—he even wrote her letters by hand. Letters she read and reread and answered. Letters she burned before anyone found them.

Her head fell back as Nico kissed the hollow of her throat. He placed his hands on either side of her neck and rubbed his thumbs into the tendons of her shoulders.

“What’s this?” he asked as he lifted the chain of her necklace.

Nora wrapped her hand around the pendant. She couldn’t talk about it yet. It meant too much to her. Especially now.

“A saint medal. It’s a Catholic thing.”

“I know about saints. I am one, remember?”

“Saint Nicholas brought me Christmas early this year,” she said, smiling as he kissed her throat. “Although sleeping with him will put me on the naughty list for eternity.”

“It’s my list. I’ll be the judge of that.” He slipped the strap of her nightgown off her shoulder and traced her bare shoulder with his fingertips. Her body shivered with the pleasure from the touch of his work-roughened skin.

“You’re so beautiful in white.” Nico whispered the words into her ear as he ran his hand down her back, caressing the silk of her gown.

Nora said nothing. She’d bought the white gown to wear for Søren on their anniversary, a celebration that wouldn’t happen now.

She released the medal and it fell once more against her skin. She wrapped her arms around Nico’s broad shoulders and pressed her br**sts to his chest. He wore a basic black cotton T-shirt and work jeans. She wore a silk nightgown. He’d been working all day and had come to her with mud on his boots. She’d been mourning all week and came to him with sorrow in her heart.

“I want to spend all night inside you,” Nico breathed against her neck.

She pulled away from his embrace, but only to take him by the hand.

“Come upstairs,” she said. “We can sleep when we’re dead.”

She led him up to the bedroom. He released her hand to tend to the fading fire. He fed it with paper first, then kindling, then threw a log on top of the smoldering flames. The room warmed and glowed red from the heat and firelight.

“You’re good at that,” Nora said. “Do you have a fireplace at your house?”

“Two of them,” he said. Two of zem. Nora bit the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing. She’d learned from Nico that he’d spent a year in California and another year in Australia in his teens. Even though he lived in France now, he’d mastered English to the point that his accent was faint. Still there, but certainly not as pronounced as Kingsley’s deliberately exaggerated accent. But every now and then Nico’s accent came out in full force. “You should come to my home. I’d like you to see it.”

She’d refused all invitations to come to his home and instead met him in neutral locations—Arles, Marseille. She knew once they were alone together in his house or hers this would happen. And so it had.

“If I come to your house, will you put me to work?” she asked as she came to stand next to him. The fire crackled and a burning ash landed near her foot. Nico brushed it away with his bare hand.

“Everyone works at Rosanella.”

“I still can’t believe you are what you are.”

“Why not?” He smiled up at her.

“Kingsley does not get his hands dirty. Not in the literal sense anyway.”

“You think he’s ashamed that I’m a farmer?”

“You make wine. He drinks wine. He’s proud of you.”

Whether he’d admit it or not, Kingsley had fallen in love with the idea of being Nico’s father. “My son the vintner,” he said sometimes, and Nora saw the pride in his eyes. It broke her heart that Nico had yet to feel any pride that Kingsley was his father.