The Winter Night & Holly Plumber

Hey all, this is my first foray into erotica, let me know what you think!

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We burst through the doors of the basement apartment and I hit hardwood on one knee panting while my apprentice turned and made a few subtle hand gestures that activated her protective wards.

As embarrassing as it was, I had just been about to bite the big one at the hands of a tiny hoard of iron nail-welding faeries, and would have if Holly hadn't saved my ass with her first rate illusion work. "Thanks for that Grasshopper, you really saved my ass back there."

My casual use of her old nickname sent a pained look across her face for the briefest of moments and I suddenly felt very guilty for having said it. Our relationship had taken a hit when I sort of died last year and left her and some other very important people in my life to fight an incursion of supernatural nasties on their own. Ahem, it's a long story.

The last time I'd seen my apprentice she was a skinny, rag-tattered shadow of a girl, but six months on the street with my godmother as her mentor had put a glint of steel in her eye and her specialty, illusion magic, which had been top-tier before, was now nearly flawless.

I looked down at the gleaming floor for a few more seconds and decided I'd be better of standing up than collapsing face-down like I felt like doing. That way at least my pride would be unwounded, which I could hardly say for the rest of me.

The puncture wounds all over my body screamed for attention as I got to my feet, but already the worst of it was fading. I had been the Winter Knight for all of six hours and had already faced off with some pretty hard customers, but I'll give it to Nab, I only felt like a car wreck when I should have felt like a hold-riddled train wreck. Small favors, I guess.

The first thing I noticed when I looked around was that my head, which, when I'm upright is about 6 feet 9 inches off the ground, was nowhere near the ceiling.

I peered around at the cavernous room we'd entered and whistled. "Hells bells, kid" I said, "

this

is your apartment?" Holly gave a sheepish quirk of her lips. "Yup." "How did you manage to pull this one off?" I asked.

I looked around the place some more. Although it was a basement apartment, that's where the similarities between it and my old apartment ended. Three of my dingy old apartments could have fit inside Holly's great room, which included an open floor plan living room, dining room and kitchen. The place had granite counter tops, recessed lighting, and a kitchen straight out of freaking iron chef.

"The svaltarves built it for me," she replied, "I did them a favor a while back while you were, um, gone. I'll tell you about it sometime, but let's get you patched up before you bleed all over my floor." I looked down at myself -- my shirt was torn to shreds and there was an expanding bloodstain on my jeans where I'd taken a particularly deep slash. Damn. A nail to the quad is never going to feel good, but I suspected something about playing for team Winter made me sensitive to iron, same as any other being of faerie. I'm no stranger to pain, but that shit freaking HURT.

"Go sit over there on the table" Holly said as she bustled down a short hallway. I walked over to an ash-colored solid wood dining room table that could have seated 12 comfortably. I fought back another impressed whistle and moved two chairs aside so I could sit with my legs dangling off the edge, as much as legs as long as mine can dangle anyway.

Holly walked over to a closet outside the bathroom and reached up on tip toe to retrieve a fairly hefty and extensive looking first aid kit. I had a good view down the hallway from my spot on the table, and tried not to notice the interesting things the motion did to the shape of her body under her fitted white tank top and green cargo pants. I felt some heat come into my face. The kid wasn't flaunting her figure in the outfit, but damn if I didn't notice it anyway.

Holly hefted the kit down and I whipped my head straight ahead, trying to look as if I had been contemplating the mysteries of the universe and most definitely

not

Holly's fantastically pert ass.

Even looking ahead, I felt steady eyes on my face, which meant I had probably not been as subtle as I'd hoped. More heat crawled its way up my neck as I remembered that Holly was a what amounted to a psychic sensitive, she could feel emotions the way most people could feel the weather. I had no doubt that she was getting some intense signals from me right now. I swallowed and tried to look innocent, which is hard to do when you look like something between a cowboy, vagabond, and an NBA player, but I tried. I couldn't help but contemplate how fantastically

wrong

these feelings were.

Holly was in her mid-20s now, but I'd known her since she was in a training bra. As much as she would have liked it to be otherwise, over the years I had refrained from letting our relationship get anything close to intimate. But, damnit, it didn't help that she was a total knockout. Blond, just over 5'10" and built like the proverbial brick house, all curves and lean muscle with a generous helping of what could only be construed as fine art up top -- if one were inclined to notice such things. I had maintained a general principle of steadfastly

not

noticing these things about Holly, but my hormones and I hadn't exactly been on the same page lately.

Taking up the Winter mantle, the power that was endowed to the chosen mortal champion of the Winter court of faerie, had been a last resort move when I'd had nowhere else to turn in a bad squeeze last year.

The

Queen of Air and Darkness, Nab, had been trying to recruit me to the dark side -- oh the irony -- for years, and I would never have accepted if I hadn't been utterly desperate. It was a bargain I was willing to make to stop some major bad juju from raining down on everyone I loved at the hands of the Red King himself. The trade was worth it, and I'd do it again no question, but accepting that power had its consequences.

Consequences like I wanted to jump my old apprentice and pin her to the floor while I took her. Consequences like I wasn't sure how long I was going to be able to say I was still me.

Sure, I could lift a small car now, but at what price? My predecessor, Floyd Smith, had been a rapist and a monster in the end, but an uncomfortable consensus among beings who knew him say he hadn't always been that way. That was the influence of Winter.

Even though I knew it was wrong, I could feel myself tracking my apprentice across the room like a predator stalking its prey, taking note of her every step, every shift of weight as she moved. Her brisk motions said confident, but there was a set to her jaw, an uncertainty in her eyes that made me think she was more vulnerable than she seemed.

Despite my normally solid self-control I could feel the very essence of Winter -- the primal need to take, to hunt, to kill, to conquer -- roiling just below the surface of my skin. The heart of Winter is the bottomless hunger and lust that drives all life to survive, to find heat in the long darkness, and my instincts were telling me, quite loudly, that Holly would be deliciously warm and satisfying to this urge.

My hands curled into tight fists without me telling them to and I heard my knuckles pop. Winter made the point that we were all alone in this apartment, that she would never be more vulnerable than she is now.

Damnit, Connor. I scrunched up my eyes and blew out a hot breath.

I heard Holly come to kneel in front of me at the table and unzip the medical kit. Damnit, I didn't have time for this caveman bullshit, I had to get these urges under control double quick.

"So, you're an EMT now?" I said, trying for cavalier. Holly rolled her eyes at me and got to work stripping off my shirt in a business-like fashion "Come on Connor, you don't live in the Carpenter house, or on the street for that matter, without learning a thing or two about first aid."

The kid had obviously picked up a few lessons from the school of hard knocks since I'd been gone and the thought sent a pang what was equal parts pride and guilt flashing through my chest. I had disappeared on her when she needed me, but Holly was strong. She was a survivor.

My mind switched gears so quickly that it was disorienting when the Winter in me snarled that the girl would be a worthy adversary, and I was treated to the image of me standing up and forcing Holly against the wall, hard enough to drive the wind out of her. Conquering, asserting my dominance. It wasn't a question of if I could do it. Grasshopper had never been much of a fighter, but she was a talented wizard, and the challenge was tempting...

I coughed out loud to dispel the image and I felt my pants get a little tighter at the thought. I shifted uncomfortably as Holly started to dab at a puncture wound on my chest with a cold cotton ball. Keep it together Connor, this is Holly you're thinking about.

"Uh, Connor?" I had been squeezing my eyes shut and holding my breath without realizing it. When I looked down I was met with Holly's gray-blue eyes, closer to mine than they had been a moment ago, and looking up at me questioningly. I tried to still myself and managed, "It's nothing, it just stings a bit" I lied.

Her eyebrows rose up, but she didn't say anything else and I had the sense she was doing me a favor with that one. I gave her a weak smile and took in a shaky breath. I had to relax the whip-cord tension in my body before I did something stupid.

Holly moved behind me to dab at the puncture wound in my middle back -- damned tiny faeries -- and I found myself staring into the floor to ceiling mirror that ran the length of an entire wall. What I saw there was not a comforting sight.

The figure sitting on the table was looming, even sitting down, layered in wiry muscle, and covered in cuts and bruises. A face that was a bit too rough and angular to be traditionally handsome about ten years ago was now positively roguish with the addition of a few prominent scars I'd gathered over the years. Dark hair, dark, intense, eyes and a few days growth of beard had me looking like someone you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

I realized Holly had stopped moving behind me and was watching me take stock of myself, a little wide-eyed, in the mirror. I could almost hear what she was thinking -- that I looked like a man to whom violence came naturally. I had been in the game for a long time and had always tried to use my power for good, but hell, she wasn't wrong.

The question was, with Winter's urges screaming at me to do unspeakable things, could I still claim that I was on the right side? My body was almost vibrating with the tension.

I couldn't read Holly's expression, but I knew she could sense the struggle going on inside me. She let out a little woosh of air of her own. "I'll need to get a look at the wound on your leg now" she said, without making eye contact, and walked back around the table.

Ah. I thought of several things I'd like to say to that but settled on "I don't know if that's a good idea."

The words were almost a growl, and I felt Holly hesitate where she stood, not quite in front of me. Her eyes searched my face. "Are you OK Connor?" she said softly. The compassion in her voice was almost too much.

"No" I frowned "I'm not quite myself right now if you haven't noticed." My voice dropped to almost a whisper "I..I don't want to hurt you."

Holly didn't say anything but she didn't move away from me either. I got the sense that she knew what I was warring with and was giving me a moment to myself under control. A few minutes passed and Holly looked up at an expensive-looking clock on the wall. "We really need to clean that wound out Connor, you could get an infection," she said in a soft voice.

I grumbled under my breath. The last thing I needed right now was to take my pants off in front of this smokestack of a young woman, a girl who had trusted me with the blind devotion of the religiously zealous since before she had a learners permit. A girl who's fifteen years your junior Connor! But, goddamn it, she was right.

Holly just stared at me, one well-formed hip cocked out to the side impatiently as I stood up and fumbled with the belt at my hips. I shimmied out of my jeans and plopped back onto the table in my white boxers, hiked up the right leg, and tried to think bland, platonic thoughts. Holly, still in EMT mode, knelt down and put her face close to my leg to get a better look at the slash. She let out a little hiss, "Jesus Connor, you're lucky they didn't get you a little higher, you would have bled out in minutes."

I don't know if I even really heard what she said. Everything in the room that wasn't Holly abruptly faded into the background and I found myself staring intently down at my apprentice's smooth blond hair, her face just inches away from a part of me that hadn't been touched by a woman in far too long. The surge of lust that shot through my body crossed the border from intense into painful. I let out a low groan and looked away.

You didn't have to be a sensitive to pick up on the tension pouring off me, but my apprentice was. She had since stopped moving at all, and from her spot on the floor, slowly tracked her eyes up to take in my wild expression.

"Connor," she said, her voice had gone rough, "you know I can feel what you're feeling. It's..it's okay," I looked down past her slightly glazed eyes in time to notice her obviously-pierced nipples tighten into hard points against the front of her thin white tank top. She closed her eyes and let out a shuttering breath as she felt another wave of seething lust come off me.

I don't know if my senses were heightened along with my recent power-up, but it wouldn't have surprised me to know they had been. In that moment, my attention seemed to swell to take in everything all at once. I could feel Holly's fever-hot skin just a few inches from mine. I could hear her heartbeat quicken under my piercing gaze. And what's worse, I swear I could smell her. She smelled wet. Fuck.

I shook my head hard to try to clear the animal out of it and barely managed to find my voice. "Look, kid," I felt the front of my boxers jump in silent protest to what I was about to say, "you're my apprentice, your father is one of the best men I know, this would be violating every kind of code I have. We can't do this. It wouldn't be right."

Holly looked down and made a disgusted sound in her throat, and hurriedly resumed dressing the wound on my thigh. "Oh come on Connor, you don't have to be such a goddamn superhero all the time" she sounded annoyed, "I'm a grown woman and I can make my own decisions." She paused.

Her voice grew softer as she continued, "You know I've always.." her eyes flicked up to mine, and she ran her tongue across a lower lip that was full, and distractingly pink, "...you know how I feel about you."

Damn. I did know how the kid felt about me. She had been carrying a torch for me that would make the Statue of Liberty jealous, and that was what was so hard about this. I shook my head slightly and my too-shaggy hair waved in front of my eyes.

"You don't know what you're asking me for Holly. I'm not the same person I used to be. There are thoughts in my head right now that would make a porn star version of Genghis Kahn blush" I quirked a small smile. "Dark things. I don't know if I could..." I looked defeatedly down at the floor past her still-kneeling form, "..trust myself not to hurt you. You're, uh, kind of breakable to me now."

Holly's brow furrowed and she finished dressing my wound, slapping on a patch of gauze with a little more force than necessary. "Goddamn it kid, that freaking hur..." The words caught in my throat as I felt two warm hands settle lightly down onto my thighs. "I'll be OK Connor" her voice sounded soft and breathy, "let me help you."

My eyes snapped up to study Holly's face. I was about to start in about how she had already helped enough, when suddenly her expression changed, and a determined look flashed into her eye.

And just like that, my apprentice made two mistakes.

A half second before Holly reached out to take my painfully obvious erection in her left hand, my right shot out and encircled her wrist with crushing force, fingers overlapping. She sucked in a surprised breath and let slip a little whine of pain.

That was her second mistake. The soft little whimper what escaped her lips was like a splash of gasoline on the fire that had been just barely contained inside me. Suddenly I didn't want to contain it anymore. I couldn't. I wasn't even close.

Holly was right, I was sick of always playing the good guy and getting shit on for it. I had tried coddling her, warning her off as delicately as I could, my mind snarled. Who did this little bitch think she was? I was the wizard here, and she the apprentice -- how dare she defy me!

I knew that the thoughts weren't entirely my own, that the Winter mantle was amplifying my most primal emotions, but in that moment, I just couldn't bring myself to care. If she wasn't going to listen to me, then Winter insisted that I had better teach her a lesson about who was in control, and it had a

very

clear idea of how to get the message across.

I don't even remember standing up. The next thing I was aware of was being on my feet, crushing my apprentice's body against the mirror-wall, pressing hard with the considerable weight of my body.

Holly's eyes were open but dazed from the impact, her breathing shallow and warm where her mouth was half-pressed against my bare chest. Like a prey animal after the predator's first attack but before the fatal blow, she was stunned.

She let out a little moan and her head lolled bonelessly to the side. The force of my rush must've been hard, because the mirror where my apprentice's head had hit it was spider-webbed in a neat little circle. Oops. Part of me thought maybe I'd gone too far, the other, louder part thought it wasn't far enough. I felt a wolf's smile spread across my face.

The pure riotous fury bubbling out of me informed me that she hadn't suffered nearly enough for her insolence, and my grip on her wrist tightened as I pushed harder into the mirror, grinding my erection into her hip. She whimpered, somewhere between excitement and pain, the sound pure ecstasy.

She tried to shift and struggle under my weight, an instinctive reaction. I shivered and pressed harder. "Oh no you don't little girl" I growled into her ear, my breath several degrees colder than it had been moments ago, "this is what you wanted, remember?" Holly brought her eyes up to meet mine. God knows what I must've looked like to her just then. She grimaced, "Well yes, b-but, you're hurting me Connor,"

I brought my free hand up and gripped her fine blond hair tight to the scalp, drawing out another gasp. "Good." I said, low and rough.

Holly is a tall for a girl, but even so the height difference was limiting my access to her sweet body. Couldn't have that. I jerked back from the wall, releasing her wrist, and she abruptly collapsed to her knees in front of me with an "Oof." My fist in her hair kept her from going down onto her hands, but she would probably have bruises where her knees hit the hardwood.

I held her there while she took in what was in front of her. I was still clad only in my white boxers, and my erection throbbed insistently through the fabric, inches from her face.

"Oh my.." Holly breathed, blue eyes widening even more. She stared straight forward, her expression something between awe and uncertainty. "I mean, I had always imagined, Connor, but I didn't expect..this" she trailed off.