Page 20 of Hunted in Holly

Nicholas only laughed at that. “I can say the same about you. You are awildcatwhile you’re at your best, but when you’re beneath me, so trapped and so helpless...” He slowly dragged his teeth along his bottom lip while holding eye contact. “Fuck, Caroline. With that face you’re making right now, I’m not sure which one of us is more deeply ensnared.”

My breathing was shallow, and while I didn’t know what expression he was seeing on me, the hunger and desire I was seeing onhimwas purely predatory. And again, I told myself that knot in my stomach and the heat in my chest was fear.

Itwasfear. The fact that being shaken to my core was precisely what had my heart racing like this—my bodyreactinglike this—was a horror all its own.

Nicholas leaned down, still holding me between intertwined gloves, and he kissed the fingertips on my right hand one at a time. “Will you fight me to the bitter end, Dove?” He leaned over to my left hand. His gentle kisses, contrasting so dramatically with his cruel words, made me shiver. “Will you claw out my eyes, and put your teeth on my throat.” He fluttered butterfly kisses down my wrist. “Or will you accept that you’re not the hunter. That you were never the one in control.” Nicholas increased thepressure on our interlocked hands, just to make sure I understood that point. “You’ll be a good girl because, deep down, you know you were always going to be mine.”

Nicholas released me and sat back on his heels. Still on top of me. Still pinning me down. There was no physical contact nor bindings that kept my arms splayed beside my head in the snow, yet the way he was looking at me gave me an innate understanding that I wasn’t allowed to move. That there would be consequences I couldn’t handle if I did.

And I listened, because I knew he meant it.

“That’s what I thought.” One side of his lips lifted in acknowledgement of our silent negotiation.

Satisfied, he reached for my bag and started rifling through my things. “You hardly used any of this. What were you saving it all for?” He said as he tossed aside candy canes, another gingerbread bar, and a peanut butter cup. “I had so many fun gifts for you if you had taken the time to understand them.” He threw my knife into the nearby tree, then resumed digging like there was purpose to his intrusion. “Ah, there it is.”

With a wicked grin, he removed the mistletoe from my pack. He held it over my head symbolically, the smirk never leaving his face.

“Don’t move,” he whispered as he touched the small leaves to my cheek.

I did as I was told.

He feathered the plant down my neck, playfully rotating it against me. “Something you don’t know about mistletoe, Sweet Noel,” he fluttered it over the bust of my coat, “is that this was the most powerful tool in your bag allalong.” He tapped the leaves over my breasts, then started down to my stomach, sliding the plant over each of my green buttons. “The rope might have helped you climb, but it couldn’t hold me. The net was strong enough to catch a small animal, but it wasn’t ever going to hold back a monster.” He took his time dusting the mistletoe over my hips, twirling it on my center. “But a Saint will always have to abide by the law and customs created by Mother Nature.” He slipped the plant between my legs, and brushed the sprig languidly back up to the central hem of my pants.

His movements were too distracting to process what he was saying. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking,” He leaned forward, “about the fact that your very own magic,” he tucked the mistletoe into my coat, “is impossible for me to resist. When the original Queen of the South Pole created this simple, silly, superstitious plant, she gave it a very specific power. The human custom is a simple kiss, but for a Saint, I have no power to resist anything it touches. If you’d pinned it to a wild animal, I would have no choice but to chase it down. But instead, you kept it close to you, never taking it out of your little bag.”What?“It was created to keep the Saints in line—to keepmein line. Even the most powerful beings on this earth have a weakness. Slip the leaves in my food, and you’ll paralyze me. But hold it over your head, and I’ll do anything to possess you.”

My eyes widened, and my lips fell agape.

The mistletoe?

Mistletoe.

The plant that has been used for matchmaking for thousands of years was a binding spell to control a Saint?

How…

How could I not have realized.

Nicholas touched his lips to my cheek, exactly where he’d touched me with the sprig. My eyes only rounded further. “I’m a slave to nature, Sweet Noel.” He whispered against the tip of my nose, before touching down another barely there kiss. Immediately I recalled every inch of the trail he’d drawn over my body. “And you are now, and always have been, the incarnation of nature.”

He started kissing the side of my neck. He nudged aside the fur trimmed collar of my coat and nipped at my skin.

“Wait.” I panicked as he made it to the top button of my coat. “Wait wait wait—” He grabbed both sides of my jacket, and he yanked it open.

“Wait?” He slipped his fingers beneath my base layer top, and he pushed the material up to my collarbone. The sharp cold bombarded my bare skin, and my nipples were hard in my brassiere. My breathing stilled. I held a full breath in my lungs, when he touched those hot lips to the center of my chest. The heat of his mouth followed the contour of my small breasts until he reached the edge of the cup of my bra. I continued holding that inhale as he hooked his fingers around the edge and tugged down the lace barrier between us.

The cold that hit my nipple was instantly replaced by the fire of his tongue. He rolled the sensitive nub with articulate precision, then he drew circles around it with slow, provocative movements.

I exhaled in shock, and he followed my chest down as it flattened with my breathing. He engulfed my stiff peakwith his moistened lips, then he kneaded my nipple with the tip of his tongue, and grazed the nerves with his teeth.

It was cruel and too soon that he left my left breast wet and cold as he started towards the other side, still following the path he’d drawn with the mistletoe. He jerked down my right cup, and he started playing me all over again.

I was throbbing between my legs, and all I wanted was for him to set me free or put me out of my misery. His weight held me down in the snow, and I was completely beholden to his mercy, not even able to move enough to create friction where I suddenly and desperately needed it.

“Gods, you taste like pumpkin spice and warm coffee, Sweet Noel.” Nicholas rasped out the words, like he was the one losing himself to me instead of the other way around. He spread his tongue over my breast, and he licked me like he was trying to devour me.

He continued downward from my breasts, leaving them cold, damp, and very exposed in the wake of his affection, then he took a moment to remove his gloves, one finger at a time. I watched the curiously threatening display, my heart picking up a few more beats per minute as he casually tossed those gloves aside. Then he grabbed my waist with his warm, coarse hands, and he held me down while he resumed his exploration.

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