Mads Mikkelsen Characters x Reader OneShots

Your dad's gonna kill me (Nigel x Reader)

Word count: 8658 words

Smut warning!!

Potential triggers: age gap, bar fight resulting in mild injury

A/N: How is this only my third proper Nigel OneShot after almost 3 1/2 years of writing, even though he's my fav Character??? I need to write more stories featuring him, man. (Drop some ideas w/ him maybe, please and thank you.)

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Your father had always celebrated your birthday as though it were a diplomatic event rather than a private occasion.

By eight in the evening, the house was filled with people you only vaguely recognized, all of them carrying expensive bottles and offering congratulations that sounded suspiciously rehearsed. Men who had frightened you as a child now kissed your cheek and told you how beautiful you had become, while their wives examined your dress, your jewellery and the guests surrounding you with effortless precision.

You turned twenty-five, but within the walls of your father's house, you still felt like the little girl who had once been instructed to remain upstairs whenever his associates came to visit.

Only tonight, one of those associates was looking at you differently.

Your dad's closest friend, Nigel, stood near the back of the room with a glass held loosely in one hand. He had arrived late, dressed in black and carrying no gift bag, although that had not surprised you.
Nigel rarely seemed concerned with the rituals everyone else followed.

You had known him for most of your life, though never particularly well.
He disappeared for months at a time, returned without explanation and spoke to your father in conversations that stopped whenever you entered the room.

As a child, you had found him intimidating.
Somewhere along the way, that intimidation had become harder to separate from attraction.

His attention moved over you from across the room.

The dark dress you wore was elegant rather than revealing, but the way Nigel looked at it made you suddenly conscious of every place where the fabric followed your body.

You lifted your glass toward him in silent acknowledgement.

Nigel's mouth curved - just slightly, more like restrained amusement than anything else.

He crossed the room several minutes later, moving through the guests without appearing to hurry, though people shifted out of his path before he reached them.

"Happy birthday."
He said and gave you a peck on the temple.

"Thank you."
You replied as you felt a slight blush creep up your neck at the action.

"You look...overwhelmed."

You glanced around at the crowded room.
"I'm surrounded by seventy people, and perhaps ten of them know anything about me beyond my father's name."

"Eleven."
He mused.

Your eyes returned to him.

Nigel took a slow drink, his gaze not leaving yours.

"You think you know me?"

"I know enough."

"That sounds ominous."

"It wasn't meant to be."

You tried not to smile, but he saw it anyway.

His gaze softened by a fraction before travelling down to the bracelet around your wrist. It was delicate, set with small diamonds your father had given you earlier that evening.