My Command

Franka

 

“Noc?”

“Mm?”

Gods, I loved it when he made that noise.

I also loved how he held my fingers laced in his.

But in that very moment what I loved most was how he was lazily circling his thumb on the inside of my wrist, even if he did it as he drove (seeing as it was my view that it was probably far safer to operate his vehicle with two hands).

We were just then heading to his home after an utterly sumptuous dinner, the like I’d never had. Such flavors. Complicated. Rich. Spicy. Decadent.

This world seemed rushed. It was loud. It did not smell very good. I found it disconcerting there were only glimpses of nature here and there—along avenues, trees growing up from stone pavements. Although there was great beauty in (some) of the architecture, I was uncertain how I felt about the overall look, sound and smell of the place.

But the food was wonderful.

And Noc’s company…as ever, there was none better.

“On our journey to dinner, you mentioned your father and stepmother,” I noted.

“Yeah?” Noc prompted when I said no more.

“Although I know a good deal about King Ludlum and his history, that’s history from the other world. Due to circumstances being what they were, you know all about my family, and unfortunately in the case of my parents, you’ve met them. In discussions, you’ve mentioned your family but you haven’t shared much but anecdotes.”

Noc, ever generous, did not dillydally in giving me a reply.

But regardless, I thought with a smile, as he’d said, what was his was mine and therefore what he did was not dillydally in giving me just that.

Pieces of him.

All of which were mine.

“Probably won’t surprise you that it’s all the same,” he said. “My dad’s name’s Ludlum Hawthorne and he kept the tradition of saddling his kids with crazy-ass names that’ll have one purpose, they’ll get real good at fighting because every asshat in school that gives them shit about their names’ll get a fist in his face.”

“Oh dear,” I murmured, rethinking, if this was his lot since schoolyard days, of using that very same thing to annoy him (even if it was deserved).

“Yeah,” Noc confirmed. “It wasn’t fun, but they learned and eventually word got out and it ended. So I got a brother named Dashiell, known only as Dash or he gets even more pissed than I do when you call me Noctorno.”

“Right.” I kept murmuring.

“And our youngest brother is Orlando, we call him Orly. He got the short end of the stick because Noc isn’t great but it doesn’t totally suck. Dash is actually kinda cool. Orly is just bad.”

I squeezed his hand as a soft chuckle escaped me.

I didn’t chuckle long.

This was because he said quietly, “Same for our moms.”

I clutched his hand because I knew the wretched story of King Ludlum and the loss of not one, but three loves of his life.

Noc went on with his own story.

“Mom died in childbirth with me. Dash’s mom died of pneumonia. And Orly’s mom was with us longer than the Orlando of your world’s mom made it, but she eventually died of breast cancer. She was the one who got pissed about Dad teaching me how to drive.”

I turned to him as best I could with the obnoxious, but apparently mandatory, belt restraining me to the seat.

“I’m so sorry, darling.”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought it up,”

“Nope,” he said on gentle shake of my hand, “you wanna know, ask.”

I looked out the window in front of me. “I shall, my dearest, but we’ve had a lovely night. Knowing the way of our two worlds, I should have assumed that would be the case and picked a better time.”

“Babe, she was great,” he declared. “Only mom I had and she was a good one. She’s gone and I miss her. Think about her every day. And she deserves that. She deserves me talking about her. Keeping her alive that way. She took on my dad and two boys. Gave my dad another son. Gave us a brother, good kid, grew into a good man, proud he’s my baby bro. She made our family better and Dad didn’t suck at lookin’ after his boys. I was little but I remember he did it all and gave it his all. But when Judy showed, we really had it all.”

I looked to his profile. “Even if her time with you was cut short, I’m pleased you had that.”

“I am too,” he replied quietly and kept sharing. “Only thing I’d change was the way we lost her. Dash’s mom, Christina, I was too young, don’t remember much. Seemed like one day she was there, next she was gone. I know now it took a while, by that ‘while’ I mean a couple of weeks, but truth was, her pregnancy was a difficult one, she never recovered from having Dash, so when she got pneumonia, it was the worst thing that coulda happened. But I was a little kid, all I felt was confusion and a lot of bad shit I didn’t get and then it got worse. Judy, Frannie…” he paused, and through it the air in his vehicle became heavy, “fuck.”

He suddenly stopped speaking and I didn’t start. I just held his hand, turned my eyes from him to give him his time and stared at the road ahead of us.

He eventually continued, his voice thicker so I held his hand tighter.

“She fought it. She gave it her all. Kept strong the whole time. Still amazes me how she’d come home from treatment, her and Dad would disappear in their room but we heard her puking, crying. God, the way she cried, Frannie, I can still hear it. So exhausted. Never heard anything like that, like she didn’t have the energy to do it but still couldn’t stop. Fucking hated hearing her cry like that. Wouldn’t want Judy to cry ever, but never like that.”

After gifting this awful beauty to me—awful, what had happened, beauty, Noc sharing the depths it made him feel—he took another moment and I did too, swallowing against the sadness that seemed to coat my throat in a layer of acrid dust.

“Next day, she’d be over it,” he eventually carried on. “Even on the days she actually wasn’t, she was in the kitchen giving us shit and making us some of the magic she made there. The cancer kicked her ass in the end, though, and that pissed me off. It still pisses me off. She fought so fuckin’ hard, she shoulda won. But it beat her and that wasn’t right. It wasn’t how it should go. Not for Judy.”

His last was hoarse.

He cleared his throat and finished softly, “Not for her.”

I didn’t have any idea what “breast cancer” was, but in my world we had terrible illnesses that were prolonged, nightmares for those who fell to them, much longer nightmares for those who had to watch them struggle and carry on with those memories.

Apollo’s first wife, I’d been told, had such an illness. Many believed it was the reason he mourned her so tremendously after she was lost. He’d been marked not simply by her passing but by being forced to experience, at some length, the excruciating torture of how she’d passed.

I was one who believed just that.

“Your father now?” I queried gently.

“Lost three good women, he’s not gonna try again. He’s got a lady friend. He says it ‘isn’t like that,’ but the only way it’s ‘not like that’ is that he refuses to marry her. Like having Lud Hawthorne’s ring on your finger is a curse, and I get why he thinks that and it’s none of my business so I don’t go there. She’s down with that. She loves him. She’s good with taking him as he feels he can give himself to her. They live together. Her name is Sue. She makes him happy. She’s a good cook. She’s smart enough not to try to be a mom to three grown men who lost their real moms in an ugly way. But she doesn’t hide she cares about our dad, likes it when we’re around and wants us to quit dicking around because she loves kids and she wants grandkids. ‘Even if they aren’t blood, the more the merrier,’ she says. Seeing as she has two already from her own kids, it’s just me, Dash and Orly who are taking our time. Last, she’s wicked funny. You’ll meet her. You’ll like her.”

By the gods, I’d meet her?

I’d meet a woman who was pressing her not-exactly-but-still stepsons to give her grandchildren, Noc being one of those stepsons?

Dear goddess!

“My mom was named Amara.”

My panicked thoughts vanished at his tone and my gaze immediately turned to him.

“Only thing I got of her is pictures but she was beautiful, Frannie. Most beautiful woman I ever saw, until I met you.”

I felt it again, as I’d felt it several times with some of the things he’d said when he’d stopped his vehicle and gave his words to me before dinner.

My eyes starting to sting.

“If I have a baby girl, first one I have, I’m naming her Amara,” he declared.

It was the most beautiful name I’d ever heard.

I swallowed in an effort not to expose the emotion I was feeling before I shared, “I think that’s lovely, Noc, and your mother’s name is even more so.”

His thumb stopped absently stroking and his hand tightened around mine, pulling them further up his thigh where he’d been resting them.

He did this as he murmured, “Good you’re on board with that.”

“On board?” I asked.

“You agree,” he explained.

I turned to face forward again, feeling the alarming sensation of my heart swelling.

A beautiful baby girl with Noc’s unusual blue eyes named Amara.

My word, did anything sound sweeter?

“You want kids?” he asked quietly.

“That was not my future,” I answered in the same vein.

“How’s that?”

“Anyone I loved was in danger.”

His thumb started stroking my wrist again as he reminded me, “That’s not the case anymore, Frannie.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“Then I’ll repeat, you want kids?”

I wanted a little girl with beautiful blue eyes and black hair named Amara.

And this desire, the like I’d never allowed myself to have, bubbled up my throat. A throat having been ravaged by emotion that night, that feeling grew, built and blocked it so it wasn’t my choice not to speak.

It was an impossibility.

“Frannie?” he called.

It took effort to clear the blockage.

I did it, but even so, my voice was not as I’d ever heard it when I replied, “It’s just occurred to me how much my life has changed since that night in the buttery.” I felt my fingers curl deep into his, not at my direction, but automatically as I continued speaking. “How free I actually am. How my life and my future are truly, for the first time, my own.”

“I’m hopin’ that’s a good thing, baby, and it doesn’t freak you, because it is a good thing and you should rejoice in it,” he advised.

I looked to his handsome profile and announced suddenly and with not a small amount of fervor, “I want children, Noc. Girls. Boys. As many of them as I can have, stopping only when I feel like I cannot give them the love and attention they deserve if I had another.”

He again stopped stroking my wrist so his hand could clasp mine, but this time it did it fiercely, causing a twinge of pain.

“Good to hear,” he murmured.

That was his wish as well.

My.

It would seem I had to pull myself together or I’d be crawling all over him in this vehicle, and if I did such it would mean certain death.

Therefore, I demanded, “We must cease talking about this or I fear the results would be calamitous.”

“And why’s that?”

“I wish to kiss you,” I shared, but didn’t stop at that. “And do other things to you, and you may have demonstrated you can concentrate on more than operating this contraption, however, I would hope my crawling into your lap to deliver a kiss would not be such a thing.”

“You’re right,” he replied with humor. “You crawled into my lap and kissed me while I was driving, sugarlips, it’s likely the results would be calamitous.”

“Then let us get to your home and swiftly, Noc,” I ordered. “For I have need of a digestif, your lovemaking and a soft pillow. I’m afraid after the events of the last two days, I’m quite fatigued.”

“Your wish is my command, gorgeous,” he muttered.

I looked forward, murmuring myself. “What a lovely thing to say.”

More muttering from Noc. “Fuck, you’re cute.”

I made no reply. I no longer had qualms that he thought that of me. Indeed, it pleased me.

We spoke of nothing earth-shattering, and fortunately our journey wasn’t much longer before Noc executed an alarming maneuver of stopping in the street then going backwards at a disquieting angle in order to park very close to the edge of the pavement.

I did hope he was correct and I’d grow accustomed to his, as he called it, “SUV.”

Though I suspected I would (I was still Franka Drakkar), I also suspected it would take some time.

“We’re here, babe,” he said as I felt the vehicle’s engine cease running, and then I heard him open his door.

But I looked beyond the pavement to “here.”

I heard Noc’s door slam as I whispered, “Oh my.”

It was a home unlike any I’d seen before. There was dim light coming from the inside that I could see vaguely through the front windows of the house and the window over the door. The night hid the color his home was painted, but I could see that the woodwork was white. And there was a lovely, black, wrought iron fence before it spiking up proudly from the edge of the small lawn.

There was also a vast amount of intricate millwork along the portico and railing.

And among the three windows at the front of the house, the middle one was made of rather simple, but quite lovely, stained glass.

It was tidy. It was immensely attractive. It had personality. It was in no way grand or overwhelming, but instead well-tended and welcoming.

All very Noc.

He opened my door as I unleashed myself from the seat and he took my hand, assisting me to alight his vehicle.

I saw then the pavements leading to his home were made of brick.

A lovely touch.

“Shotgun house,” Noc stated as I continued to take in his home while he guided me there. “Told Valentine I was going to move to NOLA, I wanted to live in something that was NOLA. Only other thing it had to have was me bein’ able to own it and live in it fast as money could change hands. Her agent found this for me and it rocks.”

He’d opened the iron gate, led me through and was taking me up the steps as I asked, “Shotgun?”

He looked down at me. “Right. Forgot. You don’t have guns in your world.” He took me across the small veranda and let me go to stop at the door, explaining, “A gun is a weapon. Fires a bullet, or a small projectile, fast, faster than the eye can see. The bullet travels straight from the barrel to the target. There’s change in its trajectory due to distance and wind, but it’s minimal. Not sure you were in a state to notice it, but it’s what I used when I did my thing against those witch bitches on your world.”

I was not really in that state to notice. However, I did recall, vaguely. Obviously, there’d been other things on my mind.

He opened the door and I saw through to acres of gleaming wood floors, a brick fireplace with a beautifully carved wood mantelpiece that was freestanding in a room that went on the length of the house. Sitting room first, fireplace delineating it from a dining room and then the this-world kitchen was entirely visible at the back.

As was the back door.

“Shotgun,” Noc said, drawing me in, “means you could stand at the front door and shoot a shotgun straight through the house right out the back door.”

I looked up at him as he stopped us to close and latch the door behind him.

“Why would one do that?”

He took my hand and drew me deeper into the space, grinning and answering, “They wouldn’t. That’s just a nickname for these kinds of homes. Places like this were built because it gets hot. When it does, you open the doors, a breeze can get through when you do, cooling the space.”

It could, indeed.

Clever.

“Also,” he went on, “they’re narrow so you can fit a bunch of them on a street. This one was a double-barrel. That means it was two houses once that shared a wall. Someone renovated it, pulling them together. The length that’s now communal space was once all there was to the house, but now I also have three bedrooms and two baths.”

He stopped us in the kitchen, which was long, but narrow, and had a number of quite impressive cupboards, which included a kind of cupboard-esque/counter-esque seating area in the middle.

He let me go and turned to a cabinet door, opening it.

“Will whiskey work for your digestif?” he asked, putting odd emphasis on digestif, like that word amused him.

“Yes, darling,” I murmured, taking in his furnishings and décor.

Not surprisingly, it was all very masculine. Somewhat like a high-born member of a House would decorate a hunting lodge, but with this-world differences, obviously.

I felt Noc touch my waist and turned from my perusal of his abode to him to see him offering me a glass of amber liquid.

I took it and barely did so before he moved into me, maneuvering my position then pinning me with my back against the counter.

I felt my lips curl up.

“Like it?” he asked quietly.

“Very much,” I answered. “It’s very attractive. Very masculine. Very inviting. Thus very you.”

He shook his head slightly, his eyes lighting, his chin dipping, saying, “My Frannie has a way with a compliment.”

“I share this trait with you,” I replied.

He bent closer, his movement taking his nose a whisper away along the side of mine, his lips right there, before he lifted away and took a sip of his drink.

I drew in breath, delighting in his tease and taking a sip from my own glass to calm my reaction.

Marvelous, this world had excellent whiskey and Noc had the taste to procure it.

“Frey,” he said suddenly.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked, confused at this and thinking our next activities would be quite different and have not a thing to do with my cousin in the other world.

Noc focused on me. “Frey and Finnie. They’re together. Having babies. But the Finnie of this world, Valentine says, is a lesbian so she’s not gonna be finding her Frey.”

“A lesbian?” I asked.

“She likes only women.”

“Ah,” I whispered, feeling my lips curl again, for the rumors had been rampant, with most refusing to believe it, but I just knew the deposed Winter Princess was a guenipe. “A guenipe,” I stated.

“Say what?”

I focused on him. “We call them guenipes in my world. Most usual, for women and men to prefer the same sex, or both sexes, as a matter of fact. Most undesirable when the woman happens to be the Winter Princess and responsible for carrying on the royal line.”

He nodded. “I can see that.”

I took another sip of his excellent whiskey and noted, “This does not offer balance of the worlds for she would not be likely to carry on any line here either.”

Noc shook his head. “Nope.”

“Perhaps I’ll look into my crystal ball tomorrow, find the Frey of this world. Not,” I added swiftly, “to spy on him or meddle. Simply to assuage my curiosity and, I’m guessing, yours.”

He grinned. “Crystal ball.”

I understood his amusement and returned his grin. “I know. It seems absurd, this being precisely what I thought at first, but it’s most useful.”

Noc had no comment to that.

He had something else on his mind.

“You done with your digestif?” he asked, tipping his head to my glass.

I was not.

And yet I very much was.

But in response to his question, reading the look in his eyes, thus what was on his mind, I lifted my glass slowly, took a sip just as slowly, and removed the glass from my lips at my leisure, all this staring into his eyes and watching them heat as I did so.

When the glass was away, Noc dropped his head again, his nose coming close enough it almost touched mine. Dipping it under and around, his lips so very close, his heated eyes unceasingly peering into my own.

“You like to tease, baby?” he whispered.

“Perhaps,” I whispered back.

It seemed he was moving in to take my mouth, and I held my breath, but just as he got near enough to capture my lips, he retreated, again only a whisper away.

I tipped my head back, wishing to erase that whisper, but Noc changed course, lazily running a phantom trail with his lips along my jaw, my cheekbone and back to my lips, right there, but not there enough.

My heart was beating a swift tattoo, the area between my legs tingling, growing moist, and I swayed slightly into him, wanting to remove even the limited distance we had.

But Noc put his drink down on the counter behind me, his hand spanning my hip and holding me steady.

And away.

I felt his lower lip brush mine but the touch was so light, it was like a dream.

Thus I felt my nipples strain the material confining them, a pleasurable discomfort.

“You tease too,” I accused softly.

“Mm…”

This he murmured as his face got even closer.

But not close enough.

Gods, he was better at this even than me!

And it was marvelous.

I put a hand to his stomach and drifted it up.

“I would very much like you to kiss me, darling,” I requested.

“Yeah,” was all he said as a reply.

“Now,” I demanded, swaying closer, and he allowed the touch of our bodies but didn’t give me his mouth.

“Now?” he asked.

“Now,” I repeated.

He ran the tip of his nose along the flare of my nostril and then adjusted so I could feel the hairs of his brow brush mine.

My breath started to get heavy.

“How much you want my mouth, Frannie?” he asked.

“Quite a bit,” I answered, trailing my hand around his side to his back and up to his shoulder blade, pressing in.

He resisted.

I felt my panties dampen.

“Noc,” I breathed.

“Say please,” he ordered.

My eyes narrowed even as my womb convulsed.

“You’re very bad,” I admonished.

“You think you ask pretty you won’t get your reward?” he inquired.

That was an excellent point.

“Say please,” he urged, giving me the barest trace of his mouth. I sought more, but he denied me. “Say it, baby.”

There was nothing for it.

“Please, Noc,” I pressed my breasts into his chest, “may I have your mouth?” I whispered, and I got my reward from the burn in his eyes even before he gave me my real reward.

“Absolutely,” he growled and then he gave me what I asked for.

I was so attuned to him, I nearly dropped my glass in an effort to clutch him to me the instant I tasted his tongue, forgetting I even held it.

Fortunately, Noc had more presence of mind and before the kiss heated, my glass joined his on the counter.

My arse also joined the glasses on the counter when Noc suddenly yanked up my skirt, lifted me and planted me there, pushing in, forcing my legs open, rounding me tightly in his arms so my intimate parts were pressed to his hardening ones and his mouth devoured mine.

When I was grasping his hair, whimpering down his throat and grinding my hips into his, he lifted his head and looked down at me with eyes ablaze.

“Ready for bed?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I breathed.

Noc grinned.

Then he lifted me off the counter, put me on my feet, yanked down my skirt, took possession of my hand and pulled me out of the kitchen.

 

* * * * *

 

“No, please,” I begged.

I was close. So very close.

As I had been, time and again, repeatedly, while Noc spent what felt like ages taking me in a heady variety of positions, some of them I didn’t know existed.

And as he took me, touching me, kissing me, nibbling, biting, licking, suckling, thrusting inside me, he brought me to the precipice of climax.

And then he’d pull out, whip my body into a new position and start all over again.

This time, I was on my back, Noc between my legs.

But he’d pulled out and was hooking me behind my knee. He lifted that leg across the front of his body, forcing it to the other side. He found the back of my other knee and bent that in line so both legs were angled the same, inner thighs pressed together, the outside of one leg pushed to the bed, but my hips were twisted to the side, my arse and pussy offered to him.

I caught his gaze as I tried to catch my breath.

He imprisoned my gaze while his other hand wrapped around his cock, he found me and drove inside.

My lips parted, my eyes closed and my neck arched.

“Look at me,” he grunted, thrusting deep.

I forced my eyes to open and again found his.

“Twist at the waist, Frannie, hands over your head, press them against the headboard. I wanna watch you move with me.”

I didn’t hesitate even a moment to adhere to this command.

His eyes dropped to my breasts that were surging with each plunge.

“Fuck yeah,” he groaned, putting a hand in the bed at the small of my back, arm straight, giving him leverage, as he removed his other arm from the backs of my knees and shoved his hand between my legs, finding my sensitive nub.

I lifted my top knee higher to give him better access and my entire body spasmed.

“Noc,” I gasped, my back arcing, the pleasure rippling over me, driving me down into his thrusts.

“Whose cock are you taking?” he asked.

“Yours,” I forced out.

He drove home and ground inside.

I whimpered.

“Whose?” he demanded to know.

I stared into his striking face, which was now harsh with pleasure, and knew the answer.

“Mine,” I whispered, beginning to tremble not only with what he was doing to me but the force of his meaning.

He started thrusting again.

“Whose pussy is this?” he bit out.

“Yours, darling. It’s yours,” I gasped, my trembling turning to tremors.

“Fuck yeah, it’s mine.”

“My love, I need to climax,” I begged and only vaguely watched something fierce, frightening and exquisite brand itself into his features.

“Say that again,” he ordered.

“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.