Midnight Soul (70 page)

But he wouldn’t want that. Not in that
moment. Everything about him screamed it.

So it cost me, but I stayed put.

“Okay, I’ll say it. She’d hate this shit and
you know it. Every fuckin’ year, Dad, we do it for you and because
Dash gets somethin’ out of it. But it’s mostly for you. I want you
to have what you need. But you know Judy would fuckin’ hate it.
Thought it every fuckin’ year, kept it to myself. Talked to Orly
about it. He kept it to himself. You pushed it. Now you’re hearing
it. Judy’d think that shit was fucked up. And my guess, deep down
you know it.”

I realized I was holding my breath, drew in a
deep one, and held that.

“Think that’s a good idea. We’ll leave it at
that and talk more later. But like I said, I promised I’d do it
here. And I’ll do it here.” A very short pause before, “Right. Love
you,” he pushed out tersely. “’Bye.”

With that, he hit the screen of his phone
with his thumb and tossed it with a rather volatile clatter on the
island.

Then he scowled at it.

“Darling?” I whispered.

He turned his scowl to me.

I swallowed at the range and depth of
emotions in it, anger, frustration and hurt.

“Is everything all right?” I queried
carefully.

“You been standin’ right there, gorgeous, and
you don’t know the answer to that?” he asked, his tone edged
sharply with sarcasm.

What did I do now?

I’d never had this Noc.

I didn’t even know there could
be
this
Noc.

I decided to start with something benign.

“You’ve told your father about me?” I
asked.

“Love my dad. He’s not a colossal dick like
yours, so I fall in love with a woman, she’s all but livin’ with me
and I see my future with her in it, he’s the first one I tell.”

This delighted me in all ways except the tone
with which he shared it.

“You hadn’t shared that with me,” I told him
quietly.

“Well, sorry, babe. Now you know,” he replied
shortly, grasped the plate with the burgers and stormed out of the
kitchen to the deck.

I drew in breath and followed.

Before I even got close to him, he warned,
“Not in the mood to talk about it, Frannie.”

I stopped and stared at his back, noting his
movements of putting the burgers on the flame were stilted, but
noting this only vaguely.

My mind raced for something to say.

It seemed to take eons but I finally caught
on it.

“I’m here for you when you are, my love.”

“Right,” he bit off.

“Like you always are for me.”

“Yeah,” he stated dismissively.

He wanted no more words said.

Yet I sensed I should not leave it at
that.

I hesitated a moment before I admitted,
“You’re clearly feeling something upsetting and I want to help, but
I don’t know how.”

He turned, dropping the lid on his grill, and
growled, “You can help by opening up the chips. I’m fuckin’
hungry.”

He then prowled right by me and into the
house.

I kept my eyes to the grill, deciding the
next day I was going to start practicing slicing tomatoes at
Valentine’s.

I could open a packet of chips.

But it was becoming clear that after
experiencing the exquisite glow of realizing you’d found the man
you’d love for eternity and he’d found you right back, life
intruded.

I needed to be brave and face that life head
on. I needed to be able to cope with whatever came at me. But more,
at Noc.

I needed to learn to do what he did.

Support. Nurture. Care. Understanding.

And I had no skills in those areas.

I couldn’t even slice his tomato.

But I could learn to slice a bloody
tomato.

And I had to learn it all.

* * * * *

Noc pulled me down on his cock, I gasped at
the silken violence of it and watched as he came.

We were both seated, me in Noc’s lap, my legs
wrapped around his hips, his legs stretched beyond me.

He’d already given mine to me. So in his
moment, I simply held him in my arms, and when his head fell
forward, his forehead resting on my shoulder, I buried my face in
his neck.

“I love you,” I whispered there, and for
once, words of such grave import felt like they meant very little
at all, for I knew I should be giving him so much more.

He turned his lips to my skin and kissed me
before he whispered back, “Love you too, Frannie.”

His words did not feel the same as mine.

They felt like they gave me everything.

With nothing further, he pulled me off him,
set me gently in the bed and exited it, not going to the bathroom
before he twitched the covers over me.

Nurture.

Care.

He was back in no time, pulling me into his
embrace, burrowing into me, holding me tucked close, my back curved
into his front.

He said nothing, and after a short period of
time, I sensed him drift to sleep.

I did not.

He’d held his mood throughout the evening,
therefore I was surprised with his continued distance when he’d
instigated lovemaking.

I was surprised but I did not demur.

It was what he needed, what I always wanted,
and last, it was the only thing I knew how to give.

He deserved more.

I did not know how to give it to him.

But as I lay in his embrace, feeling his
strength and heat swathing me, protective and fortifying even in
his sleep, I knew the time I allowed excuses to delay me were
over.

There would be no more excuses.

I needed to give my Noctorno more.

And I You

Franka

“Franka.”

The sharp tone pulled me from my musings and
I focused on Valentine where she sat opposite me in her magic room
in her home.

She was staring at me irritably.

“Did you hear a word I said?” she queried
with the same irritability.

Unfortunately, I had not.

“I beg your pardon. I have a number of things
on my mind,” I shared.

“This has not escaped me,” she retorted.
“However, I take the needs of my clientele very seriously and as
I’m offering you your first assignment, regardless that it’s as
simplistic as casting a love spell, it’s important for you to be
very clear on the client’s needs.”

“Of course,” I murmured.

“To make a point that needs not be made, it
wouldn’t do for you to erroneously cast a spell on the employer our
client hates, even if he’s rather handsome and exceptionally
wealthy, when it’s the maintenance man she’s secretly in love
with,” she continued.

“Yes, obviously,” I replied.

She gazed at me. “Not that I wish to become
involved, but is everything well with you and Noctorno?”

It was not.

Oh no.

Definitely not.

One could say, tragically accurately, I had
not been dealing with things well.

But last night I made things worse.

Starting the morning some days ago after his
father’s phone call, Noc had decided that he was going to ignore
what occurred. He’d swept away the distant mood he’d treated me to
the evening before and again became Noc.

This was, until he came home that evening and
I attempted to broach the subject.

“Told you last night, not in the mood to talk
about it,” he’d replied brusquely.

“Will there be a time you’ll be in the mood?”
I’d inquired hesitantly.

“I am, I’ll let you know,” he’d stated
conclusively.

And the subject, according to Noc, was
done.

I will admit, my approach was weak and I’d
allowed him to dismiss the discussion mostly because he again
became aloof and I didn’t like it. Indeed, it frightened me enough
I knew it would take some time for me to gather the courage to try
again.

Therefore I gave it that time (again weak,
gads!)

That time included the weekend.

A weekend where Noc worked on the Saturday,
but it was the first he’d done so in a way I felt he was doing it
to avoid me.

But after a morning driving lesson on Sunday
(where he allowed Josette to go on actual streets and where I had
the hair-raising—but eventually I’d settled into it—experience of
driving on a freeway), he’d relaxed. This meant I felt my Noc with
me again as we spent the afternoon and evening drinking and
munching on a variety of food in a bar with Glover while watching
some sport on television.

I told myself as the days passed that I was
allowing Noc time to cope in his head with whatever had gone on
with his father, so when I approached him again he’d be more
conducive to such.

But mostly I was bolstering my courage.

This I’d decided was bolstered enough last
night, a now-unusual evening when Noc came home from work before
six.

It started out well considering I’d perused
his cupboards and had managed to arrange (quite artfully, to my way
of thinking) some crackers and slices of cheese on a plate for him
to nibble on with the beer I’d opened for him when he got home.

I did this, for nearly every evening he
arrived home and declared he was hungry. Although I couldn’t cook a
splendid meal for him, I could do something to assuage his
hunger.

Noc had put a slice of cheese on a cracker,
doing this with his arm around my shoulders, holding me tucked to
his side, and declaring through a smile, “Next thing I know, I’m
gonna be coming home to beef Wellington.”

I couldn’t stop the face I made, one likely
of revulsion mixed with terror, which made Noc emit a deep bark of
laughter before he kissed me quickly and pulled away, putting the
cracker and cheese into his mouth.

As he munched, I decided to broach the
subject later, when he had a full stomach and thus would be in good
humor for a variety of reasons.

He was indeed in good humor.

I made note of that and decided henceforth to
be certain there were a variety of nibbles in the house I could
arrange artfully on a plate for him to be treated to when he came
home.

Alas, his good humor vanished the moment I
mentioned his father’s call.

“You need to let up on that, babe,” he’d
stated tersely, drawing away from me where we were snuggled on the
couch, Noc sitting with feet up on the coffee table, me nestled
into his side with my legs curled beside me on the seat.

His terse tone brooked no further
discourse.

Even so, I knew I could not be weak. I could
not give up. Not on Noc.

No more excuses.

“There are things, darling, that I think we
should discuss and they aren’t entirely what occurred during that
call with your father. However, I sense that there was something
there—”

“Franka,” he started, taking his feet from
the table, and the frigid way he said my name not only made me snap
my mouth shut, it made my insides freeze. “You’ve made an art of
sticking your nose in shit and I see you’ve decided to stick it in
this. What I’ve been sayin’ that you’ve not been hearing is that
this is not somewhere you can go.”

I didn’t wish to persevere.

But I had to.

“I thought you said what was yours was
mine.”

“And what I’m sayin’ now is that
I
don’t even want this, so I’m sure as fuck not givin’ it to
you.”

That didn’t make sense.

“Noc—”

“Let it go, Frannie.”

“But—”

His face transformed to granite, and having
that hard look aimed at me, my throat closed.

“I’m warning you. Let…it…
go
.”

And with that, he left me on his couch and
prowled to the bedroom, his closing of the door behind him telling
me I was not invited to follow.

I did not follow.

I sat still on the couch, staring at the
door, hearing his words.

I’m warning you.

Warning me of what?

Let it go.

The coward in me wanted to do that.

But I knew I shouldn’t.

Some time later, when I’d gathered the
courage to join him in the bedroom, I found it dark, and as far as
I could tell, Noc was asleep.

I joined him in bed and didn’t wake him.

But I did curl into his back which was turned
to my side of the bed.

He did not shift to further accommodate my
cuddle.

It was the first night we did not end the day
making love.

And it was the first night I did not sleep
within Noc’s embrace.

Thus it was not a surprise I was awake hours
later when he woke, doing so without the aid of his alarm.

He did not turn into me.

He got out of bed, doing it cautiously as I
feigned sleep, and he went to the bathroom, prepared for work, and
left the bedroom—and the house—leaving me abed undisturbed.

And thus we had the first morning when we
started a day without making love.

However, after I’d dragged myself from his
bed, I’d found a note propped on the coffeemaker that read:

Sugarlips,

Coffee’s good to go. All you have to do is
flip the switch.

Just call Valentine to come get you when
you’re ready.

See you tonight.

Love you, babe.

-Noc-

Although the note started and ended in ways
that were heartening, he’d made his point very clear.

His warning was understood.

It was now my decision to heed it or proceed
as planned, even if, in truth, I had no plan.

“Franka!” Valentine snapped and again brought
me back to reality.

“My apologies, I not only have much on my
mind, I slept little last night,” I attempted to excuse my
rudeness.

“Are you prepared to take on this
assignment?” she asked.

“Will I have your oversight?” I asked in
return.

“Of course,” she answered.

“Then yes, I’m ready,” I told her.