Midnight Soul (56 page)

I thought of all the many times I had found
my way (stealthily, I will admit) into someone’s study to peruse
their engagement diary (or into another room to view an altogether
different kind of diary) and shivered at the idea of it being a
criminal act.

“Find another way,” Noc demanded as he turned
and prowled toward the kitchen.

I pushed up from his sofa and followed him,
explaining, “I’m uncertain how to do that if I don’t know where
he’ll be. In my crystal ball, they’re always tapping at their
computers, but obviously they don’t dictate aloud what they’re
tapping. I can hone in on it but when I succeed, I don’t understand
what I’m seeing, and most of the time, by the time I acquire the
vision, the screen doesn’t display the diary since the person I’m
watching has moved on to something else.”

He opened his refrigerator, sticking his head
into it and replying to its interior, “This is not my gig, baby,
it’s yours. Find another way.”

I stopped at his counter-esque/cupboard-esque
area (known, Noc explained, as an “island,” which it was, in a
small sea of kitchen) and shifted my bum up to one of the
attractive stools there, murmuring thoughtfully, “Well, from what I
know of this towing business where Circe works, such a service
would be needed if I could arrange for Dax Lahn’s vehicle to be
incapacitated.”

I heard the slam and rattle of the
refrigerator door closing and then Noc muttering, “And now she
plans vandalism, at best, destruction of property, at worst.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Are all aspects of intrigue illegal in this
world?” I snapped.

“Uh, yeah,” he fired back, coming to a stop
opposite me at the island.

“This is most exasperating,” I shared, doing
it most
exasperated
. “I simply wish to plot a love match.
How can that be a crime?”

“Again, Frannie, I’ll suggest that you just
let be what’s gonna be. If they’re fated for each other, that shit
is gonna happen. Just let it happen and try to be cool even if you
hate the bridesmaid gown she’ll eventually choose for you.”

His words took me out of our
conversation.

“Bridesmaid’s gown?”

“You’re gonna get to know her, she’s gonna
get to know you. Fact is, she texted me yesterday to suggest we all
get together for dinner, including Valentine and Josette. We should
do that. We do that, she gets to know you, she’ll love you. She’s
awesome so you’ll do the same. When she falls in love with this
guy, gets married, she’ll want bridesmaids and I suspect that time
comes, one of them will be you.”

“What’s a bridesmaid?”

He gave a slight shrug that, with his broad
shoulders, still was a powerful one.

“You wear a fancy dress and walk down the
aisle in front of her before she gets married. As far as I can
tell, this position has three duties. One, to get the bride
slaughtered during the bachelorette party, and by slaughtered I
don’t mean dead, obviously. I mean drop-dead drunk. Two, to throw a
shower for her so, and I’m speaking from the viewpoint of the man
here, she gets really fuckin’ good lingerie and not a bunch of
mixing bowls for the kitchen. And three, to hold her wedding
bouquet when her new husband puts the ring on her finger.”

Fascinating.

“A wife gets a ring too?” I queried.

He shook his head but said, “No. She gets
two. The engagement ring, usually a diamond but it can be whatever,
just as long as she loves it, and the wedding band.”

One thing was quite clear about the
difference in our worlds, the bestowal of jewelry upon marriage was
one I very much liked, the significance of the symbol
and
the fact the wife gets a diamond.

“I see you like that idea,” Noc observed, and
I stopped thinking of diamonds and focused on him to see he no
longer looked annoyed but now amused.

“Any idea that includes diamonds I’ll like,”
I replied.

“I bet,” he muttered, his eyes crinkling,
then he declared, “Choices. Steaks. Chops. Hamburgers. Or
spaghetti. Got potatoes I can do up whatever way you want and
veggies. Also got frozen garlic bread and salad. Just gotta know
which way you want me to go.”

“I’ll eat whatever you wish to cook, my
love.”

“Good answer,” he said, turning back to the
refrigerator.

He started taking things from it and piling
them on the island before me when I reminded him, “We have yet to
fall upon a solution to this problem for, I shall assert, we won’t
be leaving Circe and Lahn to the fates.”

“
We
aren’t fallin’ upon anything,
sugarlips,” he returned. “Again, this is your gig, not mine.”

“I’m afraid I’ll need your assistance,
darling,” I shared. “I cannot yet drive and I have yet to acquire
any skills with a computer. I’ll definitely need you for the first,
I’m sure, and I may need you for the last.”

“Frannie, I’m not gonna be your wheel man
either.”

“Wheel man?”

“The getaway driver after you go off and
commit a crime.”

Balls!

“You’re not being very helpful, my love,” I
pointed out, seeking patience.

“And you’re finally getting my point,
sweetheart.”

We stared at each other over the island for
long moments before Noc broke the silence.

“You think you can help out by cutting up a
tomato for our salad?”

I was aghast.

“They’re slimy,” I declared with
revulsion.

“You eat them,” he returned.

“I eat them. I don’t
touch
them. I eat
escargot too but I don’t touch those either.”

At my words, Noc burst out laughing, doing it
rounding the island and arriving at me whereupon he captured my
head at the sides in both hands, tipped it back and delivered a
very deep, very wet, very long kiss on me.

He lifted away and looked into my eyes.
“Cora, the dead, was a pain in my ass. Every minute I spent with
her and then everything I learned about her was not good. But I’ll
always be thankful for the day she crossed my path because her
doin’ that led to you sitting right here being you. If you told me
I was gonna fall for an uppity, blue blood, snobby chick who won’t
even slice a tomato, I’d tell you you were crazy. But here you are
and thank fuck for that.”

My heart was fluttering, my knees were
trembling (even seated!) and I feared I was about to burst into
tears or fall from my stool in a dead faint.

I could certainly not do either of the last
and to cover how all he’d said made me feel, I ordered, “Stop being
charming after you’ve denied me something I very much desire.”

His hands slid down to the sides of my neck.
“Baby, you can’t best the challenge of setting up Circe and Lahn in
this world, then you better hang up your gloves as the heavyweight
champion of scheming.”

My back straightened. “I’ll do no such
thing.”

“Then time to get creative,” he dared.

I glared at him. “You don’t think I can do
it.”

“What I think is, you can’t drive. You’ve no
idea how else to get around. If you commit a crime, I’ll spank your
ass, after I bail it out of jail, of course. You don’t know how to
use a computer, and even if you did, no way you’re gonna acquire
hacking skills in a matter of hours. You do know how to use a phone
but you still peck at it biting the side of your bottom lip with
concentration so I’m not thinking you’ll be surfing the web on it
anytime soon. And last, for whatever Valentine reason Valentine
has, she’s left the building so you’re flying solo. Although you
probably could do this blindfolded with one hand tied behind your
back in your world, in this one, you’re just gonna eventually have
to give up and let nature take its course.”

“I do not
give up
,” I retorted.

“Then this is gonna be interesting,” he
decreed.

“And I
do not
peck at my phone biting
my lip,” I carried on.

I mean really. How gauche!

“You texted Josette when we got home to tell
her we got here safe and to make sure she was good, and you bit
your lip the whole time you did it,” he shot back.

I feared he spoke truth.

Thus, I harrumphed even as I made a silent
vow to cease doing such immediately.

Noc grinned.

I went back to glaring.

His grin became a white smile.

I returned a different kind of smile and
informed him, “You do know, darling, that when I’m perturbed, I’m
not in the mood for intimacy.”

He didn’t hesitate a moment with his
rejoinder.

“You do know, baby, that you trying to use
denying me that body of yours as punishment for me not giving you
your way means, after you suck me while I play with you for a
really fuckin’ long time, you’re gonna have to beg
real
pretty for me to make you come.”

Vexing.

And titillating.

Blast!

I stopped smiling insincerely at him and
again glared.

“You’re good, you know it,” he murmured, his
eyes dropping to my mouth. “But don’t think for one second I don’t
know you want what I just said and you want it now.”

We’d enjoyed our lovemaking quite thoroughly
since it began but I had yet to taste him there.

I’d wanted to do it before his threat.

And he was drattedly correct. I wanted it
more now.

I did not deny what he said or confirm it.
Mostly because I knew denying it would eventually be proved wrong
and that would be irksome and confirming it would make him smug,
which would be equally irksome.

So I did neither.

When he again looked into my eyes, I said,
“It’s good to know you don’t fight fair.”

“Like you had any intention of ever fighting
fair,” he replied.

“Of course I didn’t,” I confirmed
blithely.

His smile came back. “That’s my Frannie.”

“Indeed it is,” I stated arrogantly.

In a dizzying shift, his mood changed from
audacious to tender as he agreed softly, “Yeah, indeed it is.”

After that, he tilted in and took my mouth.
This time it was short, not deep, but very sweet.

When he moved away, he murmured, “Gotta feed
my girl.”

I drew in breath and nodded.

He let one hand slide lingeringly along my
jaw as he removed both. And while he walked away, to hide my
response to his words and caress, I took a fortifying sip of my
wine.

If you told me I was gonna fall for an
uppity, blue blood, snobby chick who won’t even slice a tomato, I’d
tell you you were crazy. But here you are and thank fuck for
that.

Well then.

Fine.

So he wouldn’t assist me in making a love
match of Circe and Lahn.

And yes, Valentine was no longer there to
lead the charge because she was nursing a broken heart.

And it was true I was in a new world and had
only been in it for five days. I knew very little, and of the very
little I knew, much of it were things I would need to know in order
to carry out any plan (should I eventually fall on one that wasn’t
unlawful).

But Noctorno Hawthorne had fallen for me.

Fallen for me.

So I figured I could do pretty much
anything.

And so I figured I would.

* * * * *

“
Frannie.
”

Noc had made a mistake.

In all our lovemaking, at which he was
exceptionally talented, and
dominant
, he had not yet allowed
me to demonstrate the fullness of
my
skills.

And thus, when I finally got my mouth on him,
I was able to do just this.

Needless to say, I was very good at it. And
thus, needless to say, Noc had become consumed by it and had thus
been unable to bring to fruition his earlier plan.

Even though his voice communicated something
very clearly, I was
much
enjoying what I was doing. The
taste of him. The weight of him. The rigidity. Each ridge and vein
tantalizing my tongue. Each grunt and groan urging me to move
faster, draw deeper. The feel of him straining to hold his
control.

“Baby,” he gritted, and I lifted my eyes to
his from where I lay curled between his widespread legs, his knees
up. I felt the wash of wetness at the heart of me witnessing the
darkness in his face even as I carried on and he reached out to me,
his fingertips skimming my cheek on their journey to glide into my
hair and cup the side of my head. “Warning,” he finished thickly,
in a way it was clear he could not force out more.

I felt my eyes turn lazy (or lazier), did not
heed his warning but instead increased my ministrations.

“Right,” he bit out and it happened.

Without losing purchase of his cock in my
mouth, he shifted to his knees, drawing my head up with his hand
fisted in my hair so I was no longer curled between his legs but up
on my hands and knees.

And then I was no longer in control of
pleasuring his shaft.

He was thrusting it into my mouth.

Yes.

Noc.

Dominant.

And
divine
.

I closed my eyes and moaned, feeling my inner
thighs tremble.

“Fuck, shit,
fuck
,” he grunted, his
one hand staying fisted in my hair, his other one cupping my head
to assist in holding me steady. “Take me, Frannie.”

Oh, I’d take him. Any way he’d give himself
to me.

Including like this.

Especially
like this.

I moaned around his cock and reached a hand
between my legs, my finger just skimming through the wet to where I
needed it when Noc forced out, “Unh-unh.”

He then pulled out of my mouth, reached down
to me, and with a hand at my wrist yanking me up, he cast his other
arm around my waist, lifting me so my naked body collided with his
own.

With no choice, I rounded him with my legs.
When I did, he fell back to his calves, held me to him with his arm
at my waist, leaning our bodies and reaching with the other hand to
the nightstand.