Page 68 of The Naughty List Agreement

He groaned.

“Bad pun.”

“Good images.”

He’d taken off the leather apron he’d worn all day but there was still a rustic sexiness to him. He was very much the toymaker in the shop, and she’d seen him working with his hands to fix a toy to a child’s particular but confusing specification. She’d watched those long fingers move over the wood too often. Her eyes should have been fixed on her own work but he drew her in.

It was the same way that snow eventually settled on the ground, but for her there was no settling. Just that wild feeling of blowing around him, trying to get closer but never really getting there. Her emotions were bubbling up with that heat that she only experienced when Nick was close to her, drawing her in.

Her hand fell to his chest, her fingers going between the buttons of his shirt until she touched skin. His pupils dilated and her breath caught.

No surprise that her breasts felt full and her core empty and aching. He was a craving and she was tired of denying herself.

Bringing mortals to Hearthvale wasn’t forbidden. It existed outside of the mortal realm in the wintery north, but with that magic contract the first Nick Bari had signed, had come the entire realm, and he’d recruited elves who’d been living among mortals to come and share eternity with him.

Nick’s parents lived in the real world and moved between the two realms to visit him and their old friends. But with Cora, it was different. She mattered to him and he wasn’t ready to probe how deeply. The complexities of this woman would probably take him all of eternity to figure out. Her knot in the Yearweave still troubled him.

But at least the coffers were moving in the right direction. There was still plenty of Black Lumen, but the Gold Lumen was starting to move ahead. The relief Nick felt when he noticed that was immense. It made him believe that spending his time in Pine Falls with Cora was paying off.

“Let’s go,” he said. Taking her hand in his, he thought of all the ways he could transport her back to the Hearthvale. Probably the easiest would be to contact one of the sleep elves and get her to go to sleep, but that felt borderline creepy, like he’d drugged her.

He wasn’t about to do that. Instead, he turned to a white lie. “About my place…”

“Yeah?” Her response wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. There was that tinge of disappointment coupled with cynicism.

“I live behind Frosty Jack’s. When we entered my workshop there, we were close to my house,” he said.

“Okay. I’m not judgy about homes. Mine is probably bigger than one woman needs but it was in my budget,” she said quietly.

“Of course. I like your place.” Her home revealed so much about her. Each piece of furniture or painting on her wall had been deliberately chosen.

She shrugged. “It’s hard to make a home. Did you find that when you moved into your own place? Like, I knew all the things I didn’t want but then everything I thought I wanted was based on magazine or fashion trends. Turned out I didn’t love those either.”

He linked their hands together as they walked through the cold December night toward the car park. The first day of the last month of the year always felt special to him—the beginning of the season of light.

He had a lot of important dates this month, but being here with Cora made him smile.

“My home is a bit like that. I moved into my parents’ old apartment when they retired. At first I stayed in my childhood bedroom while I remodeled all the rooms. I moved into the main bedroom earlier this year. It still feels odd.”

She laughed. “I can’t imagine what that’s like. I love your family, by the way. Even your weird uncle and aunt.”

“They are a bit of an acquired taste. I should have warned you before you came over for Thanksgiving.”

“It might have scared me off.”

He doubted it. Cora never allowed fear to keep her from doing something. He’d been surprised that she’d complimented him on the ideas he’d suggested for the festival, but shouldn’t have been. She was generous with her praise in equal measure to her criticism. That was part of what made her her.

They drove out of the festival grounds and he fiddled with the radio until he found the station playing all Christmas tunes. “Hope we get to hear your fav. Hearing you belt out the chorus is still a highlight.”

“I bet. I’m not going to win a talent contest with my voice but when I’m alone I don’t mind singing. I struggled at the tree lighting,” she admitted.

“The joy⁠—”

“Ugh. I don’t want to hear any more about joy,” she said. “I’m sick of joy.”

“You can’t be,” he said. “That’s not possible.”

“True joy isn’t easy to find. You can’t plan your way to happiness. It has to be spontaneous.”