Midnight Soul (49 page)

“I need to climax,” I repeated.

He bent at the elbow so he was closer to me,
not interrupting his thrusts but adding pressure with his fingers
between my legs.

“All of it,” he growled. “Repeat all of it,
Franka.”

“My love, I need to—”

“That’s it,” he grunted, driving deep,
circling hard, the pleasure overtook me, lifting my back from the
bed, forcing my head into the pillows, his name a pant of bliss
through my lips. “Yeah,” I heard him groan. “Yeah, Frannie.” He
sank in fully and whispered, “Yeah,” as I felt his body strain into
me and the deep, intoxicating sigh of his release.

After the sensations chased themselves away,
I relaxed into the bed, opening my eyes and watching Noc as he
lifted his head, which had fallen after his orgasm, and he gazed at
me as he stroked inside, tender and sweet before he pulled out.

And then I watched as he moved down.

He bent to my hip, touching his lips to it.
Along my outer thigh, halfway to my knee, another lip touch, and
onward, to the side of my knee for another one.

He shifted and I continued to watch as he
gently pulled his hand from between my legs where he’d been cupping
my sex in an intimate touch since my climax. He rested it on my
knees, keeping me twisted sideways in the bed, but he brushed his
lips along the side of my torso. Up, to my ribcage. Around, to
between my breasts.

Then his weight was pressing into my hips as
he looked into my eyes, his somnolent, sated—such beauty—and he
said quietly, “Do not move an inch, Frannie.”

“Your wish is my command, darling.”

A blaze of something I couldn’t quite
decipher flared in his eyes before he gave me a tender grin,
dropped his head again to kiss me between my breasts and he
retraced his path along my body before he left the bed to go to the
privy attached to his bedchamber.

I would know why he didn’t wish me to move
when he returned, extinguished the light on the nightstand behind
me and then entered the bed, fitting himself at a curve to my
length at the back. Pressing into me to reach a long arm to the
light in front of me, he put that out, then pulled the covers up
over us and settled in, an arm around my belly, snuggling me
closer.

But he said nothing.

He just held me and he did it close.

I felt his warmth. His strength. His
affection for me. All of this simply lying on our sides, his arm
around me.

“Thank you for a lovely first day in your
world, Noc,” I said.

“My pleasure, sweetheart,” he replied.

“Dinner was delicious,” I shared.

“Yeah, I got that, seein’ as you didn’t say
shit to me until you cleaned your plate. Thought, when you got
done, you were gonna pick it up and lick it.”

I did, actually, have that urge. Fortunately,
I was able to quell it.

I didn’t respond to his commentary as it was
slightly vexing and I was in no mood to be vexed.

Instead, I said, “Thank you for being so kind
and patient with Josette.”

“Not hard,” he told me. “She’s sweet and
funny and you mean the world to her.”

I had a feeling it was the last part that
caused Noc to show her his generosity of kindness and patience.

On this thought, I wondered how I had lived
the life I had and in the end it led me to Noc.

I desired an answer to that question at the
same time I thought it best not to question it.

No.

I should, just to experience it. Nurture
it.

Revel in it.

Noc pressed closer. “What’s on your
mind?”

“What makes you think something’s on my
mind?” I asked.

“’Cause we had four hours of sleep last
night, a busy day today, I just came hard, gave it to you harder,
and you said you were tired before we even hit my house. And now
you don’t sound it, don’t act it and you don’t feel it,” he said
his last with a squeeze of my middle.

“Cora told me police in this world were quite
intuitive,” I mumbled, wondering if that boded well or ill for me
and thinking, in most instances, it would be the latter.

“We are,” he confirmed. “Though I’m not a cop
anymore, but in ways I’ll never shake, once a cop, always a
cop.”

I stared into the dark a moment before
turning in his hold.

He shifted his position to allow me to do
this but he did it keeping me in the curve of his arm.

“You told me Valentine was going to get you a
position with this city’s guard,” I said.

“She was.”

I was shocked at what I read this to
mean.

“And you’ve decided, with the treasure
bestowed on you in my world, to be a man of leisure?”

I was shocked at this idea because the
Noctorno Hawthornes of
both
worlds were no men of leisure.
So much not, I couldn’t credit it, wondered at it and was troubled
by it, the last in regards to it possibly having something to do
with me.

“No,” Noc replied. “With that I paid my way
eating and drinking through four countries in your world, bought
twelve cases of wine in Fleuridia, my new Suburban and this house,
which, with the reno on it and the neighborhood it’s in, wasn’t
cheap. But I put the bulk of it away because I’ve learned in life
shit can happen and it does, without fail, so you gotta be
prepared. A good way to be prepared is have more than a million
dollars’ worth of gold illegally converted into cash, which is then
illegally invested in foreign investments that, if I take any out,
I’ll get back in cash so the IRS won’t cotton on I took a trip to a
parallel universe that made me a millionaire, an explanation they
won’t buy. This means I gotta keep that windfall on the down low in
order to avoid a prison sentence, because no matter how smart you
think you are, the IRS will catch you. And I actually
did
earn that treasure in a parallel universe, but they won’t believe
that and since I don’t have an explanation they
will
believe, I gotta break the law.”

I had opened my mouth to ask but I didn’t
need to bother, Noc answered me.

“And the IRS is the department in the
government you pay taxes to, sugarlips. They frown on anyone not
doing that and they get pretty nasty when that happens.”

“Tax collectors in my world are much the
same,” I shared.

“I bet,” he muttered.

“Although I will take this opportunity to
note I’m delighted to hear that you acquired so much Fleuridian
wine, your explanation does not negate my question.”

“Sorry, Frannie, what I’m sayin’ is, that
money is not gonna be used so I can be a man of leisure.” I could
hear he found something about that amusing but he didn’t explain
what that was as he continued talking. “I decided not to take a job
with the ‘city guard,’ but instead work for a private firm that
pays more, is more flexible with hours and will hopefully offer an
interesting caseload that’s not like I’m used to so I’ll be doing
something different, all of this giving me a needed change of
pace.”

“And this is desired by you?” I queried.

“I didn’t know it was until Valentine gave me
the option, but from what the guys who own the firm told me about
what they do, it is.” I heard his head move on the pillow as I felt
him dip his face closer to mine and his voice was reassuring when
he continued, “It’s good, sweetheart. It’s what I want. I’m lookin’
forward to it.”

“Well, then that’s fine,” I replied.

“Glad you’re down with it,” he muttered with
amusement.

I was down with it but only because he
was.

“Now,” I carried on, “I’d like to know, when
you said, ‘shit can happen’ and then stated it does, ‘without
fail,’ what, precisely, you mean.”

His reply was instantaneous.

“Your parents abused you, probably in terms
of mental and emotional abuse, since birth, but the physical shit
hit at age five. The only mom I knew got cancer, fought it hard,
and died anyway. Your boyfriend was kidnapped by witches and
tortured to death. Your world almost was taken over by evil forces.
During an investigation, I hooked up with an other-world woman who
eventually led me to her this-world twin, someone I connected with,
meaning I got roped into helping save your world. What, precisely,
I mean is that shit can happen, crazy shit, shit that’s
in-fucking-sane, and it does. Without fail.”

This could not be argued.

That said, I had a curious feeling he was not
sharing all with me.

I looked into his shadowed face, and due to
the hour, the mood, and our location, decided that perhaps now was
not the time to press that.

He’d said everything that was his was mine to
have. He was Noc, therefore I believed him.

But that didn’t mean I needed to demand
everything from him immediately.

“Are you tired?” I asked.

Another smile in his answer of “Baby, wasn’t
ten minutes ago, you can’t have forgotten I did all the work.”

Well!

“This is correct,” I retorted. “I also have
not forgotten that you did all the work regardless of my attempts
to, at first, share that endeavor, and then later beg you to
stop
doing all the work and provide me with what you were
working
toward
.”

“Yeah,” he murmured warmly. “I didn’t forget
that either.” He tilted in and touched his mouth to mine where he
said, “You beg real pretty, sweetheart.”

Blast, but he had a talent for titillation
mingled with vexation.

However, it was the first part that made me
involuntarily press my body into his.

In response, Noc drifted his hand down my
spine and cupped the cheek of my bottom with it, saying, “You gotta
let your man get some rest, sugarlips. Then he’ll give you what you
want and be able to do it the way you like it.”

“I was not requesting more, Noc,” I
returned.

“Your mouth wasn’t, but your body was.”

I said nothing for this was true and there
was no denying it.

“You gonna let me sleep?” Noc asked.

Him sleeping would mean him not annoying
me.

Or exciting me.

“Yes,” I answered.

“You gonna sleep?” he asked.

I had things on my mind, particularly the
“shit” in Noc’s life that had hit without fail, shit that was not
his stepmother dying, something which quite clearly had wounded him
deeply, a wound that had not healed, nor ever would.

“Yes,” I lied.

“Sleep now and then mall tomorrow,” he
muttered. “Get you more clothes so you can leave some here.”

This was an excellent plan.

I snuggled closer to him, saying softly,
“That sounds good.”

“Show you and Josette around the kitchen. How
to use the stove, microwave, shit like that.” He continued to plan,
the drowsy beginning to permeate his tone. “She at least knows how
to use a microwave, she won’t have to eat popcorn from a bag if
she’s hungry.”

“That also sounds good,” I replied.

“We’ll find out the schedule Valentine has
set up for you to look at places and—”

I interrupted him. “Darling?”

“Yeah?”

Running a hand soothingly over his back I
whispered, “Sleep. We can plan tomorrow, tomorrow.”

“Right,” he mumbled, his hand at my arse
curving around to bury itself between my hip and the bed, this
pulling me even closer. “’Night, Frannie.”

“Good night, my dearest.”

“My dearest,” he muttered. “My Frannie, so
fuckin’ cute.”

I held him and stroked him and felt his big
body loosen against me, his head falling forward so his forehead
rested on mine, his hold relaxing but the tilt of his body in sleep
meant I took on some of his weight.

And gloried in it.

I felt replete from a lovely dinner,
delightful company, meaningful sharing, excellent whiskey and
exquisite lovemaking. Much had happened in a short time and my body
and mind were exhausted because of it.

Even so, it took me some time to find my own
peace because, no longer wrestling with the many changes in life
I’d endured, I could finally focus on something that wasn’t me.

And what I focused on was that fact that the
man whose bed I lay naked in, whose naked body lay rested against
mine, the man who had stolen into my heart and captured a large
portion for himself that I knew, no matter what the future might
bring, would always be his…that man was still a mystery.

And that troubled me.

Deeply.

Every Second

Franka

“I’ll drop you off, do some shit,” Noc
declared. “Text me when you’re almost done, I’ll come back and get
you. But, just to say, they cut off too much of your hair, I’ll
lose my mind. Be warned and make sure that doesn’t happen,
sugarlips, because that shit goes down, I promise you it won’t be
pretty.”

Noc and my plans made over the breakfast he’d
offered me that morning (he called it bagels and cream cheese, I
called it delicious) had been thwarted for the day.

This meant Josette and I now stood in the
rather elegant entryway of an establishment where Noc had taken us
due to the fact that Valentine had left a note with Josette. This
note proclaimed she’d made an appointment for us to take care of
our persons in a this-world way. This in the form of us going to a
“spa” to have our hair “styled,” our brows “shaped” and our nails
“done.”

They’ve been informed you’re both new to
these experiences so have been instructed to have a care with you,
my
chéries.
They’ve also been paid and tipped. All you need
to do is enjoy.
She’d written.

Although I did understand the concept of
having my hair styled, the rest of it was entirely foreign to me
(and Josette). Even if Valentine had shared with the staff that we
were “new to these experiences,” we were, indeed,
new to these
experiences
. I didn’t want anyone near my hair (which Noc had
just declared a rather healthy interest in), my nails (unless that
person was Josette, she was quite talented with filing and shaping,
not to mention taking care of my hair), but mostly my
brows
(what did one do to brows?) not knowing a thing about it thus
having no choice but to appear just that way.