Midnight Soul (67 page)

I pulled an arm from him, lifted my hand and
cupped his cheek, running my thumb along the edge of his bottom
lip.

“Yes, I know that, it’s very you. But thank
you all the same.”

He didn’t respond. He just shook his head as
if to negate the compliment I’d paid, dipped it and brushed his
lips against mine.

“I need to check the potatoes,” he said when
he’d lifted away. “And you need to give our girl a breather.”

I nodded.

Noc’s arms gave me a squeeze.

I squeezed him back.

He drew his arms from around me but took my
hand and held it, even though we were simply walking to his
kitchen.

I waited inside it, watching Noc do something
peculiar, this being poking the potatoes with a fork.

I didn’t ask after this partly because I
didn’t care, but mostly because I had other things on my mind.

These other things being that I felt I’d
given it enough time.

So I went out to see to “our girl.”

* * * * *

“Frannie, get away from the window,” Noc
ordered.

“They can’t see me,” I retorted.

“Don’t you think you’ve spied on them
enough?” he asked.

I looked from the window, having been
watching Dax and Circe as they stood on Noc’s front porch, to
Noc.

“No.”

“He might kiss her,” Noc said, leaning
against the brick at the side the mantle of his fireplace, his
expression cross, his eyes on me.

“Good,” I replied, turned back to the window
and peered through the blinds. “I don’t want to miss that.”

I was barely able to swallow my surprised cry
when, seconds later, my hand was seized and I was yanked bodily
from the window.

I was then twirled, pinned with legs to the
arm of the couch and finding myself falling, ending with my back to
the couch and Noc on me.

“Leave them alone,” he demanded.

I caught my breath and decided not to be
annoyed by Noc’s machinations (or titillated by them) and further
annoyed at perhaps missing Circe and Dax’s first kiss.

Instead I decided it’d be just the thing to
dissect the entire evening.

“Once Dax broke the ice on your deck, they
barely looked at either of us all evening.”

Noc stopped looking severe and started
grinning. “I know, gorgeous. I was there.”

“And when we were in the kitchen refreshing
drinks and they were hidden behind your fireplace and they’d been
standing so very close and had to separate when we arrived, Dax was
so infuriated we broke their moment, I thought he was going to aim
a punch at you.”

Noc kept grinning. “Yeah, Frannie, caught
that too because
I was there
.”

“She came well into herself,” I remarked.
“She was most amusing. And then she’d be bashful in all the right
ways. It was delightful how she often couldn’t meet his gaze and
that becoming blush would hit her cheeks. Dax couldn’t take his
eyes off her.”

“You’re determined to do the blow by blow,”
he murmured in defeat, still handsomely grinning, therefore, I
knew, not minding a bit.

“Of course,” I returned. “The only thing
better than a successfully executed plot is, commending yourself at
length on your genius at successfully executing a plot.”

Noc started chuckling, doing this rolling
toward the back of the couch and adjusting us so we were both
sitting up but with me tucked so closely to his side, I was nearly
on his lap.

I gave a sidelong glance in the direction of
the door and murmured, “I hope he’s asking to see her again.”

“He’s so totally asking to see her
again.”

I refocused on Noc and smiled.

I then proclaimed, “This will mean we’ll need
to take her shopping for the perfect outfit. None of this
attempting to decide something from garments you already own.”

“A woman doesn’t need a new outfit for every
date,” Noc decreed.

He was very wrong in that but I sensed I’d
never convince him of it so I didn’t try.

“All I know is,” Noc went on, “if Circe wants
something new, she’ll have to take you. I start work tomorrow so
our
trips to the mall have become
your
trips to the
mall.” As an afterthought, he finished, “Which means we need to
find more time to get you back behind a wheel.”

“I do believe it would be beneficial if
Josette or I were able to traverse the city on our own and I do
think, at first, that will need to be me,” I agreed.

“You down with that?” he asked.

“I quite like driving. Your interstates are
somewhat alarming but we’ll work up to that.”

He gave me a proud smile. “Yeah, we
will.”

The door opened and both of us turned to it,
me having to twist exceedingly to look over my shoulder, Noc simply
having to turn his head to look over my other one.

Circe was inside.

And oh.

My.

Word.

“He so totally kissed her,” Noc whispered in
my ear.

He so
totally
did.

She seemed barely awake. Sleep walking.

And dreaming good dreams.

“Circe, babe, you good?” Noc called
quietly.

For a moment, she was lost in her own world
and neither Noc nor I said anything for it was clearly a good place
to be.

Suddenly, she started and looked to us.

“I’m sorry, what?” she asked.

“Did he kiss you?” I asked back.

“Frannie,” Noc clipped.

“I…he was…” Circe stammered and then started
beaming. “Yes.”

My
word
.

“I take it he’s a talent with that,” I
noted.

She glanced at Noc and bit her lip.

“No offense taken, Circe,” Noc muttered to
her unuttered words, sounding amused.

“This is, um, awkward,” she glanced to me and
back at Noc. “You are, of course, a very good kisser.”

I took no offense either to her saying
without saying that she thought Dax was a better kisser and I felt
it safe to say, should a woman have comment on this about my man,
it would be me who would.

“Of course,” I agreed. “And I could assure
you that Dax could kiss me and I would say that same thing. But I
wouldn’t be looking like you after he’d done it.”

“I’m glad you understand,” she said,
obviously relieved.

“Did he ask you out?” Noc queried.

“Tomorrow night,” she told him, moving to
Noc’s armchair and sitting on it, but only on its edge, like she
needed to be at the ready to burst from it given any good
reason.

“Not letting any grass grow,” Noc said under
his breath.

But I found this concerning.

“This gives us very little time to go
shopping for an outfit,” I declared then asked, “Where’s he taking
you?”

“Well, he’s cooking for me at his house,” she
answered.

I stiffened.

Noc made a noise like he was choking…

On laughter.

A kiss on another man’s porch.

Dinner at his home the next night.

Circe would be bedded by this time on the
morrow, I was certain of it.

Therefore, plans needed to be laid as soon as
possible.

“It’s imperative you take off work tomorrow,
and first thing when the doors at the mall are opened, we’re
entering them.”

Circe looked confused.

“I have a lot of clothes, Franka.”

She probably did.

However, at the mall we’d be seeing to
that.

But our primary mission would be
undergarments.

I was thinking pink.
Pale
pink. With a
good deal of delicate lace.

“Humor me,” I ordered.

She studied me and moved her study to
Noc.

He must have communicated something to her
silently for her face relaxed, and when she looked again to me, she
was smiling.

“All right, I’ll take the day off.”

“Excellent. And now for a
digestif
.” I
twisted to Noc. “You’ve been cooking and hosting for hours. I’ll go
get them,” I offered.

“I don’t fuckin’ think so,” he replied.

I stared at him, surprised not only at his
words but at the ferocity with which he’d uttered them.

He rose but bent deep, putting his face in
mine.

“I take care of my girl,” he declared,
straightened and looked to Circe with a far less fierce expression.
“All of them,” he finished and sauntered away.

Well, he definitely did that.

I watched him go and continued to watch him,
doing this knowing I wore a supremely smug look on my face and not
caring a whit.

I did this until I felt Circe’s regard.

The instant I caught her gaze, I asked,
“Happy?”

Something settled on her face and it took her
a moment to reply. When she did, it was so quietly, I nearly didn’t
hear.

“So this is what it feels like.”

I leaned her way, fully her way, dropping to
the cushions of the couch to rest my weight in my forearms.

When I did, she shifted further to the edge
of the seat and leaned toward me, perched precariously there as we
assumed the pose of girlfriends in this world and any other.

“You see,” I whispered, “it’s so beautiful,
when it’s yours, it’s difficult to believe it’s real.”

“Yes, Franka, I see,” she whispered back.

“He was lovely to you when we left you to
yourselves outside?” I asked.

“He was…” she shook her head, “He’s so large,
it seems impossible to believe, but he’s so gentle, it’s
startling.”

Oh yes.

I was very right.

Just like in the other, Dax Lahn of this
world was absolutely perfect for his Circe.

“Please tell me he used his tongue with the
kiss,” I begged.

A flush hit her cheeks but her eyes lit. “He
did.” She leaned forward, nearly toppling off the edge before she
gave up and I had to sit up as she situated herself close to me on
the couch.

We immediately bent our heads together.

“He tastes…I don’t know, does it seem odd
when I say he tastes like, well, like…
man
?”

How delicious.

“It most assuredly does not,” I replied.

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” she
breathed.

My eyes slid to the kitchen when I shared, “I
know precisely what you mean.”

She let out a giggle before she strangled
it.

I took her hand, my body shaking.

I couldn’t hold it back. Laughter burst
forth.

And to my utter delight…

Circe’s followed.

Excuses

Franka

Early the next morning, a gods-awful racket
sounded, jerking me from my slumber as dread set in that that sound
could only herald the end of our world.

I shot bolt upright in bed.

As abruptly as it started, the sound stopped,
and I turned fearful eyes to Noc to see him stretched toward his
nightstand, touching the clock there that I’d learned was
illuminated by a magic known as “electricity.”

“By the gods, darling, what on earth was
that?” I asked.

He rolled back to me, looked at my face and
grinned a heavy-eyed grin before he curled up and wrapped his arms
around me, pulling me down and rolling me to my back with his
weight on me.

“It’s an alarm, Frannie,” he answered.

“I could tell that. Why was it sounding?”

“To wake me up. I gotta get ready for work
and before I go in to do that, I gotta drop you at
Valentine’s.”

This alarm contraption was clearly another
amenity of this world and a needed one considering Noc did not have
servants to wake him at the appropriate time.

Which gave rise to questions about how the
servants in my past had woken at the appropriate time in order to
do the same for me.

“Babe.”

I moved my focus from my thoughts to him.

His lids were still heavy with sleep but the
look in his eyes was not sleepy in the slightest.

“Fuckin’ you first,” he declared, his head
descending. “Start the day right.”

Oh yes. That would indeed start the day
right. I knew this as a fact since Noc was a man and men on the
whole tended to wish to start any day as such. It was just that Noc
was the kind of man who did not wish something to happen, he
made
it happen.

He did so every morning and it absolutely
started each day right.

This he set about doing right then and I
would learn that prior to his going to his place of employment he
would need to see to both our pleasures in limited time.

Noc had skill with this and it wasn’t the
first time he’d demonstrated that to me.

However, it was the first time he’d situated
my legs up his chest, my ankles to his shoulders, his hands in the
bed for power and control, his eyes devouring me, his body
positioned so my eyes could do the same.

This they did.

Deliciously.

“Fingers to your tit and clit, baby, wanna
watch you help me take you there,” he growled his order, pulling
out half way and circling while I positioned my hands as I’d been
told.

His gaze dropped to them and he pulled out to
the tip before he surged in and stayed.

My.

So lovely.

As lovely as it was, I needed more.

From Noc, I always needed more.

“Please move, darling,” I breathed.

“Pull at your nipple,” he demanded.

I gave him what he wished at the same time
giving myself a bolt of beauty from breast to womb. The latter
convulsed and I heard his grunt as it did. I dug my ankles into his
shoulders uncontrollably.

I had more difficulty focusing on him when I
repeated on a gasp, “Please, darling,
move
.”

He did as asked, going faster now and putting
all his weight into one hand so his other could cover mine, his
fingers over mine at my nipple, squeezing and pulling.

He needed do no more.

I ground into his strokes, my back arching,
my lips parting and it quickly overwhelmed me, doing what Noc
always made it do, consuming me.