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ear. The shudder that wracked her frame had nothing to do with the cold. "Waiting up, were we?"
Sea-ah coughed pointedly. Mandla's shoulders shook with silent laughter.
"Fifteen minutes," Nick said, his voice roughened by fatigue and something else entirely. His thumb traced the inside of Maeve's wrist where it rested against his sleeve, too quick for anyone else to notice, slow enough to make her pulse stutter. "Debrief, then I'm yours." His gaze dropped to the sheer wrap clinging to her hips, the way the arctic wind molded it against skin still flushed from the sauna. "Thoroughly."
Maeve's laugh was a low, knowing hum. She leaned in, her breath a searing contrast to the subzero air. "And here I thought you'd beg for the bath first." She pressed a flask into his palm, peat-smoked Scotch, the good stock he kept hidden behind the ledgers, and turned without waiting for his reply. The deliberate sway of her hips dared him to follow.
Nick uncapped the flask with his teeth and swallowed hard, letting the burn carve a path down his throat. He caught Mandla's raised eyebrow and decided the debrief could wait. "You're dismissed," he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Full report at dawn." Mandla nodded, though his smirk lingered as he herded the mechanics toward the hangar, leaving Nick alone with the wind and the ghost of Maeve's perfume.
Pete mentioned he would have Lielani brew a special tea that would help him recover before walking off with Mandla.
A new sleigh team member walked past Nick. Barely 20, the newbie had a wild look in her eyes, her cheeks were flushed, and her hands still shaking from her first ride in "Santa's Sleigh." Nick pressed the half-filled flask into her palm. "Help yourself. You need it more than I do. You did well given the circumstances. Please go find Leilani," he said, pitching his voice low enough to ensure discretion, "and tell her Santa requests a tray. Heavy on the ginger." Her eyes widened, ginger was code, among the North Pole family, shorthand for anything that might steady the nerves or stoke the blood, and then she took her first deep pull from the flask. Her eyes flew wide, and the burn tore a cough from her chest. Nick smiled as she bolted away, boots skidding wildly across the fresh frost.
The walk home was always this: the slow thawing of his body, the creeping awareness of every bruise and strain. Tonight, his ribs ached where NORAD's radar had grazed the sleigh's hull, not enough to breach, but enough to rattle his teeth. He flexed his fingers, watching the tendons shift under skin still taut with adrenaline. Somewhere beneath the Arctic ice, the war room would be dissecting tonight's near-misses, Ukrainian SAMs dodged by inches, Sudanese rebels bribed with a crate of vintage cognac (Salma's idea, and a damn good one).
The scent hit him before he opened the door, jasmine and salt, Maeve's signature bath blend cut with something darker, muskier — the kind of indulgence she reserved for victories or catastrophes. Nick paused, letting his forehead rest against the oak. Steam curled under the doorframe, tendrils wrapping around his ankles like a living thing.
Inside, the bathroom was a cathedral of heat, the air thick enough to coat his tongue. Maeve reclined in their sunken obsidian tub, her body a pale flame against the black stone. Her hair fanned out in the water, copper bleeding into amber where the steam kissed it. Two tumblers of peated Scotch, his favorite, sat precariously balanced on the tub's edge, condensation pooling beneath them. She didn't turn when he entered, just arched one foot out of the water, droplets rolling down her calf like liquid mercury. "Took you long enough," she murmured. "The ice in your drink melted twice."
Nick shrugged off his thermal underlayer, wincing as fabric pulled at raw skin. "I intercepted your order." Maeve's smirk deepened as she finally turned, her eyes catching the low light like banked embers. "Leilani laughed when I told her. Said you'd ask for ginger after the flight you've had." Her fingers trailed along the rim of her glass. "I vetoed it. You'll eat when I say you eat."
The bathwater parted around him like molten silk. His sigh dissolved into the steam as submerged aches flared, his left shoulder where Sudanese shrapnel had grazed him, his ribs from the NORAD evasion roll. Maeve's foot found his thigh beneath the water, her toes kneading the muscle with practiced, possessive pressure. "Look at you," she murmured, swirling Scotch with her free hand. "All those mortal generals would faint if they knew Santa Claus bruised like week-old fruit."
Nick caught her ankle, thumb tracing the Celtic knot tattoo above her heel, the one that twisted when she lied. "Fruit doesn't bleed out over Donetsk." He lifted her leg to press his lips to the scar on her calf, a souvenir from the Viking siege of Dublin. The taste of rosemary oil clung to her skin.
Maeve exhaled through her nose, slow, like releasing an arrow. Her other foot skimmed his abdomen, tracing the fresh scabs along his ribs. "Ice burns?" she asked, though they both knew the answer. The tub's water darkened where his wounds wept rust.
Nick flexed his jaw; she'd seen right through the lie he fed Operations. "Norwegian F-35s," he admitted. "Had to drop altitude fast." Her toes pressed against his throat, not quite choking, not quite caressing. A silent command: "more."
The bathwater rippled as Maeve shifted, her knees bracketing his hips. Her fingers tangled in his damp hair, pulling just enough to sting. "You rerouted through active airspace?" Her voice was honey poured over broken glass. The scent of peat smoke clung to her skin where the soap hadn't reached, the telltale residue of a druid's working. She'd been scrying again. Watching him.
Nick's palm slid up her thigh, finding the crescent-shaped scar behind her knee, the one she got wrestling a polar bear in 832 AD. "Had to." His thumb dug into the old wound, a counterpoint to her grip. "Russian SAMs had our signature." The words came out rougher than he intended, throat still raw from subzero winds.
Maeve's nails scraped his scalp. "Klaus reworked the torsion bars last summer," she murmured. Her other hand surfaced, dripping, to tap his sternum. "Beki's cloaking fibers could handle radar. And Biraj, " her breath hitched as Nick bit the inside of her knee, "Biraj's fluid alloys might fool thermal." The water sloshed violently as she yanked his head back, exposing his throat. "Or were you too busy playing martyr to check the R&D logs?"
Nick let her tilt his skull against her collarbones, the heat of her skin seeping into his vertebrae. The scent of gunpowder deepened, her magic restless. He exhaled against her pulse point. "Knew the risks."
Her laughter vibrated through him. "Oh, darling. I knew your ego first." The sponge she wielded wasn't gentle; it mapped him like a territorial survey, scrubbing away grime with broad, proprietary strokes. Lather foamed down his chest, pine resin and bergamot, biting into the muscle beneath. She lingered at the old spear wound above his ribs, circling until he hissed. "You reek of adrenaline," she murmured. "Even now." Her fingertip swiped through suds to trace his lower lip, salt-bitter. "Did they see you?"
Nick caught her wrist, licking the soap from her skin before answering. "Only the children." Water sheeted off Maeve's shoulders as she leaned in, her breasts pressing slick against his back. Her free hand slid down his belly, nails scoring faint red trails through the foam. "Good." The word was a purr against his ear.
She worked him over with merciless precision, not cleansing so much as reclaiming. The sponge rasped over his biceps, scrubbing away the scent of jet fuel and arctic wind until his skin burned raw. Every pass of her hands rewrote the memory of steel and ice with her own indelible marks: the press of her thumbs into his deltoids, the scrape of her teeth along his trapezius. When she reached his wrists, she turned them palm-up, exposing the chafed grooves where reins had bitten deep. Her tongue swirled over the abrasions, and he shuddered, not from pain, but the visceral knowledge that she was cataloguing each injury like a druid taking inventory of sacred ground.
The water darkened with suspended grit as she knelt between his thighs, her knees bracketing his hips with possessive ease. The sponge slithered lower, tracing the corded valleys of his abdomen in slow, spiraling patterns that left him breathing through clenched teeth. She hummed, a pleased, throaty sound, when his muscles jumped under her touch. "Still responsive," she murmured, dragging the rough side across his hipbones. "After sixteen centuries, you'd think I'd have worn you down." Her fingernail caught the hollow beside his navel, and his breath hitched audibly. She smiled against his sternum. "Liar."
She took her time with his legs, kneading the knotted quadriceps with fingers that knew exactly how much pressure bordered on pain. The bathwater sloshed as she lifted his left calf onto her shoulder, her thumbs digging into the tendon behind his knee. His groan vibrated through her collarbones. "You flew too long," she accused, working the stiffened muscle with druidic precision. The scent of bergamot and peat rose between them as her hair draped over his shin, each strand clinging to his damp skin like a brand. "Should've handed off to Mandla after Greenland." Her teeth grazed his kneecap in punctuation.
The sponge was forgotten now. Maeve's palms slid up Nick's inner thighs, mapping the tension that even adrenaline couldn't erase. When her fingertips brushed the sensitive crease where thigh met hip, his entire body twitched, a barely restrained jerk that sent water cascading over the tub's edge. Maeve's laugh was low, victorious. She pressed her lips to the frantic pulse in his femoral artery, inhaling the salt-and-iron scent of him. "Tell me how many," she murmured against his skin.
Nick's fingers flexed against the porcelain rim. "Eighteen intercepts," he admitted through gritted teeth. "Ukrainian MIGS got creative near Lviv."
Maeve's mouth moved upward in response, not a kiss, but the slow drag of her canine along damp skin, leaving a pale trail that flushed red within seconds. Her hands ascended with deliberate leisure, fingertips spidering along the sensitive junction where taut muscle yielded to softer flesh. The scent of their shared Scotch clung to her breath as she exhaled against him, heat blooming where her lips hovered just shy of contact. "And the rope burns?" she purred, tracing the angry marks encircling his waist with her tongue, first the ridged welt near his navel, then the deeper abrasion along his hipbone.
Nick's inhalation hitched when her teeth closed over the crest of his pelvis. Water sloshed as his grip on the tub's edge whitened, tendons standing in stark relief. Maeve cataloged every reaction with druidic precision: the jump of his pulse beneath her lips, the involuntary flex of his abdomen when her nails grazed the lowest ridge of his ribs. She pressed her advantage, palms sliding up his torso to bracket his sternum, thumbs finding the twin grooves where his clavicles dipped. "You smell like gunpowder," she murmured against his throat. Her tongue flicked out to taste the hollow beneath his jaw. "Not just intercepts. You landed somewhere hot."
His chuckle vibrated through her palms, half-amused, half-caught. "Dnipropetrovsk. Orphans in a bombed-out school." The admission came rough-edged, his breath deepening as she bit down lightly where his carotid throbbed. Maeve's knee displaced water as she straddled his thighs, her silk robe dissolving into the steam. Her breasts brushed his chest as she leaned in, her lips tracing the path of a shallow graze he'd failed to mention along his shoulder. Salt and adrenaline bloomed on her tongue, fresh enough that her own pulse answered.
She guided him inside with the practiced precision of centuries, her body yielding just enough to make him groan. The water magnified every sensation, heat against heat, her inner muscles fluttering in slow, deliberate pulses that mirrored the rhythm of her tongue now exploring his ear. Nick's hips jerked upward instinctively, but she countered with a hand splayed low on his abdomen, holding him at her chosen depth. "Tell me," she demanded against his temple, rolling her hips in a slow grind that made his thighs tremble.
His confession tore loose between clenched teeth, how he'd risked a daylight drop over Mariupol, sleigh shimmering with cloaking runes as artillery flashed below. Maeve rewarded him by sinking deeper, her walls gripping him in time with each harrowing detail. She cataloged the way his pulse raced as he described the moment a Ukrainian drone passed overhead, her own breath hitching as she imagined the infrared glow of his body through the thinning magic. Steam curled between them as she increased her pace, her nails biting into his shoulders, not punishment, but a visceral claim.
The water sloshed over the tub's edge as she arched, her red hair clinging to both their skin like living flame. Nick's hands found her hips, fingers pressing bruises into flesh that would heal before dawn, but the marking ritual held primal significance. She rode him with slow, grinding precision, each rise and fall timed to extract another shredded confession, how he'd jury-rigged the sleigh's shield matrix over Khartoum, how NORAD's new radar algorithms had nearly triangulated his position near Anchorage. Every withheld truth earned a sharp roll of her pelvis that left him gasping, her body a crucible burning away his lies.
When she leaned forward to capture his next evasion between her breasts, the heat of her skin became his world. Her nipples brushed his lips in deliberate provocation, the scent of rosemary soap and her arousal thick in the steam. She pinned his head there, the weight of centuries in her grip, letting him feel the hammer of her heartbeat beneath silken flesh. His muffled groan vibrated against her sternum, her laugh low and rich as she denied him speech, just as he'd denied her full disclosure. The bathwater rippled with his aborted thrusts, his hips straining upward only for her to retreat, keeping him suspended in exquisite frustration.
She released his mouth only to lick a slow stripe up his throat, tasting salt and adrenaline still sour on his skin. "You'll tell me about the children," she murmured against his pulse point, not a request, but a command wrapped in velvet. Her teeth grazed his jugular as her hand slid between their bodies, fingers finding the scar tissue above his left hip. The puckered ridge was new, still angry where shrapnel had torn through cloaking spells. Her gasp was pure fury, her rhythm turning punishing as she confirmed what even his confession had omitted: he'd been hit. The water turned choppy with her movements, sloshing onto the heated marble floor in reckless arcs.
Nick groaned, fingers digging into her waist as she rode him with deliberate, slow precision, each downward stroke a calculated interrogation. "They needed the toys," he gritted out, hips jerking when she clenched around him. The scent of rosemary twisted with something darker now, the iron tang of old blood rising from his wounds as she worked them open anew. Maeve's answering growl vibrated against his collarbone; she hated his martyrdom almost as much as she loved his devotion. Her nails scored down his chest, leaving ephemeral red trails that glowed faintly under her druidic touch, a magical brand marking every lie he'd told by omission.
Their rhythm fractured into something primal, punctuated by hissed curses and the wet slap of skin. Maeve dragged her teeth along his shoulder, tasting gunpowder lingering in his pores. "You smell like Kyiv's burning districts," she accused, rolling her hips in a cruel parody of comfort. Nick arched with a choked sound, his body betraying him, pleasure short-circuiting his tactical evasions. The water sloshed violently as he seized her thighs, flipping them so her back met the marble with a gasp. He loomed over her, dripping and dangerous, but she just laughed, spreading wider. "Show me how you outran the missiles," she taunted, hooking her ankles behind his waist. Her heel found the fresh bruise on his lower back, the one from when he'd barrel-rolled the sleigh through a hail of drone fire.
Nick's answering thrust knocked the breath from them both, their mingled sweat indistinguishable from the bath's rising steam. The conversation dissolved into wordless sounds, her involuntary moan when he hit deep, his guttural groan when she raked nails down his flanks. Between gasps, Maeve caught his wrist, pressing his palm against the still-angry scar where shrapnel had grazed her ribs last winter. The unspoken threat vibrated between them: "Your pain is mine to punish."
Her thighs trembled as she arched, teeth bared not in pleasure but defiance. Nick recognized the shift; this wasn't surrender, but another tactic. He growled approval into the damp hollow of her throat, biting hard enough to make her cry out. The sound ricocheted off marble walls, mingling with the slap of water displaced by their frenzy. She retaliated by clamping down viciously, drawing a ragged "Fuck,!" from his chest as her internal muscles milked him toward the edge.
"Talk." Maeve's command was reduced to a breathless snarl, her legs locking around his hips to prevent retreat. Nick's answering thrust wasn't penetration but declaration, his cock twitching inside her as adrenaline and arousal blurred into one molten current. He dragged a palm up her sternum, pausing to thumb her pulse point, wild rabbit thrums beneath his calluses.
The scent of bergamot and gun oil clung to their mingling sweat as she twisted suddenly, reversing their positions with druidic precision. Her knees bit into his ribs where Ukrainian shrapnel had grazed him, drawing a ragged "Christ, " through his teeth. "Still lying," she purred, riding him with the same reckless angles he'd used dodging NORAD satellites. The bathwater sloshed violently as her nails found the freshly healed slash across his shoulder, making him arch off the marble with a guttural curse.
Their rhythm fragmented into primal staccato, her hips pistoned downward just as his thrust up, collisions timed to punctuate confession. "Three MiGs," she gasped, fingers twisting in his chest hair. "Not two." His pelvis snapped harder in admission, the slap of wet skin echoing off the tiles. She laughed darkly when he shuddered, her internal muscles clamping like a vise around his swelling cock. "Thought you'd glide past Greenland's radar with that pretty corkscrew?" Her teeth scored his collarbone as she ground down, forcing the strained whimper he'd swallowed over the Baltic.
Their rhythm fragmented into primal staccato, her hips pistoned downward just as his thrust up, collisions timed to punctuate against his skin as she rode the wave of his surrender. Every tactical omission was met with a strategic clench, her body weaponizing pleasure until his hips stuttered against hers. The bathwater had long since cooled, but neither noticed; their skin burned too hot, too alive with the friction of accountability.
The water between their bodies grew murky, a cocktail of sweat, bath salts, and the slow bleed from his reopened thigh wound. Maeve arched against him with the precision of a predator who'd found the kill switch, her internal muscles fluttering in Morse code against his cock. Every contraction translated to another classified coordinate: "You think I wouldn't notice the fuel discrepancy?" Her teeth grazed his jugular when he tried to buck deeper, denying him until his confession spilled faster than the blood down her inner thigh.
Nick's hands slid from the tiles to her hips, fingers digging into the Celtic knots inked along her waist, his silent counterattack. With a grunt, he lifted her bodily from the water, pinning her against the fogged mirror with a wet slap of flesh on glass. The sudden cold shocked a gasp from her lungs, but her legs only tightened further, heels locking at the small of his back as if daring him to retreat. Steam curled around them like battlefield smoke when he finally spoke into the hollow of her throat: "Three MiGs over Bering. Didn't want Sisa rerouting the sleigh." His hips jerked sharply upward on the sleigh, turning the word into both apology and provocation.
Maeve's laugh was muffled against his collarbone, her breath scalding where it hit his damp skin. She dragged her nails down his spine, slow, deliberate, until they caught on the fresh scar tissue from Ukrainian radar fragments. The resulting twitch of his muscles sent another rivulet of pink-tinged water between them. "And the Kherson orphans?" she purred, rolling her pelvis in a lazy figure-eight that made his vision white-out for half a second. When his grip slackened, she took ruthless advantage, sliding down just enough to hover the swollen head of him at her entrance. The threat was exquisite: total withdrawal unless he surrendered the last truth.
Nick's growl vibrated through both their chests as he retaliated with a brutal upward thrust, seating himself to the hilt in one fluid motion. Maeve's gasp dissolved into a moan as her head snapped back against the mirror, fracturing their fogged reflection. Her inner muscles convulsed around him in wave after wave of punishing pleasure, a living, breathing lie detector no amount of tactical training could deceive. Every withheld syllable triggered another seismic contraction; he could feel her druidic magic threading through his nerves like live wires, rewriting agony into ecstasy until his thighs trembled with the effort of staying upright.
The ancient Gaelic curses spilling from Maeve's lips were barely recognizable, words last spoken by her ancestors during blood rites under oak groves. Her fingers carved half-moons into his biceps as her climax built to a crescendo, her body arching away from the cold glass only to be dragged back by his grip on her hips. Nick watched, rapt, as the flush spread from her chest to her throat, her carotid pulse hammering against his tongue when he bit down. He could feel her unraveling, that precise moment when her interrogator's control shattered into something wilder and far older, the primal Maeve who didn't calculate but "consumed."
The rainbow aura erupted around her like a sudden corona, threads of gold and violet twisting through the steam. It wasn't the tame refraction of light through water; this was living magic, the kind that tasted of iron and lightning when he licked it from her skin. Nick laughed against her shoulder, the sound roughened by exertion and the thrill of her surrender. "There's my druid," he murmured, driving into her with a snap of his hips that sent ripples through her iridescent glow. Her answering scream dissolved into a string of curses that would've made a Viking blush, her nails now scoring parallel tracks down his spine.
Nick's own climax built like an avalanche, slow, inevitable, catastrophic. He could feel the telltale tightening at the base of his skull, the way his vision tunneled until all that remained was the sight of Maeve unraveling beneath him. Her thighs trembled against his ribs, still locked in their tactical vise around his waist, but the rhythm had changed. No longer the punishing clench of interrogation, just the frantic, fluttering pulse of her pleasure rippling through him like Morse code. One hand fisted in her hair, he dragged her head back to expose the vulnerable arch of her throat. The scent of their sweat and spilled bath salts clung to her skin, something wild and herbal beneath it all, the ghost of sacred groves and standing stones.
When he came, it wasn't with a shout but a growl, low and guttural, the sound reverberating through Maeve's body where they were still joined. The force of it drove her sideways into the obsidian of the bath, her cheek pressed against the cool stone as the last aftershocks wracked them both. Nick watched, fascinated, as rainbow fractals of her magic pulsed in time with his slowing heartbeat, tendrils of gold weaving through the condensation between skin and mirror. His fingers traced them absently, smearing the patterns into something new, something temporary. He caught Maeve's wrist when she reached back to claw at him again, pinning it against the tile with a wet slap. "Still auditing me, darling?" His breath was hot against her ear, still ragged. "Or just getting greedy?"
The druidic glow dimmed reluctantly, clinging to her collarbones like a second flush. Beneath it, her body was a battlefield, his teeth marks on her shoulder, the angry red crescents of her own nails scoring her thighs, the delicate constellation of bruises where he'd gripped too hard. Beautiful. Ruined. His. The thought curled possessively in his chest. Maeve arched against him, gasping when the movement jostled the fresh bite mark, but her smirk was pure victory. "Both," she admitted, voice wrecked.
Nick laughed, a low, satisfied rumble, and kissed the pulse still hammering at her wrist. The scent of her arousal clung to his skin, mingling with the metallic tang of old blood and the lingering ozone of her magic. He traced the curve of her ribs where her skin was cooling too fast, soothing the places he'd gripped too hard. Her breath hitched, not in pain but in awareness. The bathwater had gone tepid, swirling with the evidence of their clash.
Maeve exhaled sharply through her nose and flexed her fingers against his bicep. A shimmer of gold threaded through the condensation on the tiles as she murmured something ancient under her breath. The water rippled, responding to her command, warming to the precise temperature that always made Nick groan. He did, deep and grateful, pulling her tighter against him so the heat could seep into the ache in his lower back. She was furnace-hot where her thighs pressed against his hips, the magic coiled in her muscles radiating through him in slow, possessive waves.
His fingers traced the ridge of her hipbone, still faintly glowing, before settling on the curve where her waist flared. A territorial claim. Hers. The scent of crushed pine and her sweat lingered between them, underscored by the sharper tang of his adrenaline leaching slowly from his pores. Nick let his head tip back against the rim of the tub, eyelids heavy. The silence wasn't empty; it thrummed with the kind of intimacy only centuries could forge. Maeve shifted, pressing her spine against his sternum, and he adjusted without thinking, one arm looping around her ribs to anchor her there.
She moved like water when she stood, deliberate, unhurried, herding droplets down the slope of her shoulders as she reached for the decanter on the ledge. The ice had melted, but the whiskey would still hold its bite. Nick watched the flex of her triceps as she poured, the way her wet hair clung to the dip of her lower back. Every motion was a language they'd written together: the tilt of her wrist when she handed him his glass, the way her thumb brushed his pulse point as their fingers brushed. "To another delivery accomplished," her smirk said, clinking their tumblers together. The liquor burned a comet-trail down his throat, settling warm alongside the deeper heat of her magic still humming beneath his skin.
He set his drink aside with a soft "clink" against marble, fingers lingering on the stem. "We got an hour before the food arrives," he murmured, thumb stroking the inside of Maeve's knee where it bracketed his thigh. Her skin was fever-hot, even now, her druid blood always ran hotter after cuming. "Got any ideas to pass the time?"
Her grin was a slow, wicked thing, the kind that made his pulse jump even after sixteen centuries. She didn't answer with words. Instead, her nails scraped up the ladder of his ribs. Maeve laughed, a low, throaty sound as she rose from the bath, grabbed some oil and a towel, and moved sensuously toward the roaring fire.
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