Chapter 17: Santa's counterattack
The fire in Nicholas’s bedchamber had dwindled to a sulking heap of crimson coals. The room, larger than the one above but somehow less lived-in, held a perpetual scent of pipe tobacco, pine sap, and cold stone. Festive trinkets sat on shelves like dutiful soldiers, gathering dust. The grand four-poster bed dominated the space, its curtains partially drawn.
Mimi’s sharp, echoing cry from moments before still seemed to hang in the chilled air. She lay on her back amidst the scattered sheets, her small body looking almost childlike against the vast mattress. Her short brown hair was damp with sweat at the temples. Her perky breasts, heaving, bore the red marks of Nicholas’s beard.
Nicholas stood at the foot of the bed, a mountainous silhouette against the dying firelight. His belt was open, his trousers pushed down just enough to free his thick, heavy cock, which stood rigid and flushed. The jovial twinkle was gone from his eyes, replaced by a dark, possessive intensity. Hearing the answering thumps and cries from above had ignited something competitive and primal in him.
“Come here,” he growled, his voice rough.
Mimi, still shuddering from the force of his initial possession, pushed herself up on her elbows. Her eyes were wide, a mix of awe and trepidation. She was naive, but not stupid; she understood the unspoken game being played out between the floors. She crawled to the edge of the bed on her knees.
He didn’t wait. His large hands, strong from decades of toy-making, seized her hips and yanked her forward. Her bare knees slid on the silk until she was at the very brink, her small ass perched on the edge. He tore her flimsy panties down her thighs with a single, brutal pull, the fabric snapping.
“Nicholas—” she started, a whisper.
“Quiet.” It wasn’t unkind, but it was absolute. He guided himself to her entrance, which was already slick from her earlier arousal. He rubbed the broad head through her folds, a torturous, teasing gesture that made her whimper. “You heard them. This isn’t for fun tonight. This is for keeps.”
He positioned himself, his hands gripping the soft flesh of her thighs, his thumbs digging in. He looked down at her, at the obscene contrast between his girth and her delicate frame. “I’m going to fill you up, Mimi. I’m going to pump my come so deep into your little cunt it’ll never wash out. You’re going to take every drop. You understand?”
She nodded, her breath coming in quick, frightened puffs. She loved him, loved his size, loved the way he made her feel both fragile and cherished, even when he was rough. This was different. This was a claiming.
He pushed in.
Not slowly. Not carefully. One brutal, driving thrust that buried him to the hilt in a single, searing stroke. Her body convulsed, a silent scream etched on her face. Her back arched off the bed, her tiny hands flying to his wrists as if to push him away, but she had no strength. She was stretched impossibly, burning, full to the point of rupture.
“Fuck,” he hissed, his head falling back. “That’s it. That’s my girl. Take it.”
He began to move, and there was no rhythm to it, only a relentless, deep plunging. Each withdrawal was almost complete, each return a brutal re-conquest. The bedframe, sturdier than the one above, groaned in protest. His balls slapped against the curve of her ass with a wet, rhythmic smack.
Mimi’s cries returned, torn from her throat with each impact. “Oh god! Oh, Nicholas! It’s too—it’s so deep!”
“It’s where it needs to be,” he grunted, his breath ragged. His fingers tightened on her thighs, sure to leave bruises in the shape of constellations. He leaned over her, his belly pressing against her, his face close to hers. “Right on your cervix. You feel that? That’s the door. And I’m knocking it down. I’m gonna flood your womb. Gonna get you pregnant. Gonna put a baby in this sweet, tiny belly.”
The filthy, specific words, so similar to the ones whispered above, unlocked something in her. Her fear melted into a white-hot, desperate arousal. Her tight channel, which had been stretched to aching, began to clench and spasm around him, pulling him deeper.
“Yes!” she screamed, abandoning herself. “Do it! Fill me up! Get me pregnant! Please, please, breed me!”
Her capitulation shattered his control. His thrusts became frantic, animalistic. The careful Santa Claus, the master planner, was gone. This was just a man trying to out-claim another, trying to imprint his seed deeper, more permanently. His hips slammed into her with a final, jackhammering fury.
With a roar that shook the dust from the bed curtains, he came. It was a violent, emptying release. He held himself deep, grinding against her as pulse after hot, thick pulse erupted inside her, flooding her depths. She felt it, a scalding rush that seemed to have no end. Her own climax ripped through her, a silent, shuddering convulsion that locked her muscles around him, milking him for every last drop.
He collapsed forward, catching his weight on his arms just in time to avoid crushing her. They stayed like that, locked together, his cock still twitching inside her as he emptied the last of himself. Their panting filled the silent room. The coals in the fireplace settled with a soft sigh.
Slowly, carefully, he withdrew. A gush of his release followed, staining the sheets beneath her. He didn’t seem to notice. He lifted her, her body limp as a ragdoll, and placed her properly in the center of the bed before sinking down beside her.
For a long time, they just breathed. The house was utterly silent now. The competition was over. The echoes had faded.
Mimi curled into his side, her face pressed against the coarse hair of his chest. “Do you think she…?” she whispered, not needing to finish.
Nicholas stared at the canopy above. His hand rested on Mimi’s flat, damp stomach. “Clara is a woman who knows what she wants,” he said, his voice returning to its normal, rumbling timbre, but laced with a new, weary complexity. “And she’s never asked for much.”
He thought of the laughter that had slowly faded from their chambers, replaced by polite conversation. He thought of the years of his absence, buried in lists and workshops. He thought of Elias’s young, earnest face in the stables.
“She might,” he finished, almost to himself.
Upstairs, there was only silence. A deep, waiting silence that felt heavier than any snow. Nicholas pulled Mimi closer, as if for warmth, but the chill seeping into the room came from within. He had won his contest, proved his point in the most primal way possible. But as he lay there, feeling the girl’s steady breath against his skin, he wondered, with a sudden, quiet dread, exactly what it was he had lost.