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.

In other words, gauche and daft.

I was neither.

Nor was Josette.

This wouldn’t do!

Damn Valentine. It was irritating in the extreme she’d brought us to this world, championed doing just that and disappeared after we’d arrived.

“I…well, Noc…” I got myself together and requested, “It would be most appreciated if you’d accompany us through our, erm, assignations here.”

Noc got closer, smiling encouragingly, saying, “You’ll be good, sweetheart. And you’ll like it. Women do this kind of shit in this world all the time and they love it. It’s considered a treat.”

“I’m certain it is,” I mumbled. “It would still—”

He cut me off by taking my hand, tugging it and giving Josette a look as he moved us a few steps away.

He turned his attention to me and lifted both hands to either side of my neck before dropping his face to mine and saying only for my ears, “Okay, baby, first, hair. When they get you in the chair, they’re gonna ask you what you wanna do with it, maybe recommend things you might wanna try. Be firm you want it trimmed only. They’ll do that. They might wash it, blow it dry with a handheld, electric blow dryer and style it. When they get to your brows, they’re gonna…”

He then patiently, and rather thoroughly, explained all that was to happen to Josette and myself at that “spa.”

“To end,” he concluded. “I’m a dude. Dudes these days do this kinda thing. Have pedicures. Get shit shaped. I am not that kind of dude. I’m also not the kind of dude that hangs with his woman while she has it done. If you’re anxious, I’m here, won’t step a foot out that door if you need me to stay. But if I didn’t think it would all be good, I wouldn’t even consider leaving. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded. “I understand, Noc.”

“So you want me to stay or can I go?”

I stared into his eyes as his words tumbled in my head.

I am not that kind of dude.

You want me to stay or can I go?

Can I go?

But he would stay.

For me, he would stay.

“I’m exceptionally fond of you, Noctorno Hawthorne,” I blurted.

His face blanked momentarily in surprise before the blank vanished and his gaze took on a heat I’d only thus far felt from him during loveplay.

“For future reference,” he rumbled, “you look at me like that while you say shit to me like that, you do it in a place that at the very least has a relatively private broom closet so I can take you there and fuck you against the wall.”

I swayed into him, lifting a hand to clutch his shirt to help hold me up as his words coursed up my legs to target the area between them.

This they did.

With precision.

“Yeah?” he pushed on a growl.

“Yes, Noc.”

“Now, do you want me to stay?”

“No, darling. I think Josette and I can manage.”

“Right,” he muttered, sounding perturbed, looking stimulated, and dropping his mouth to mine for a hard, closed-mouth kiss before he lifted an inch away. “Text me when you’re almost done, I’ll come get you, take you both to lunch then the mall. Good?”

I nodded. “Good.”

He looked over my head and then at me. “You’ll love it, sweetheart. Just relax and have fun.”

I nodded again.

His heated gaze shifted just to warmth. “I can go but only if you let go of my shirt.”

“Oh!” I cried, letting him go and watching my hand smooth his attractive shirt against his chest.

This was a mistake, seeing as his chest under his shirt was so warm…and so hard.

I pulled my hand away.

“Late lunch, early dinner, we tuck Josette away, back to my place for another marathon,” he stated roughly and again I lifted my eyes to his.

Warmth gone, heat back.

“Marathon?” I asked, fighting against melting from his heat.

“Do you have those in your world?” he queried in return.

“Running? Yes, there are games in Hawkvale where athletes from all over the Northlands—”

“Our marathon will not be running,” he promised.

My “Oh,” that time was much softer.

“Fuck, she says ‘oh’ and I’m in danger of coming in my pants,” he groused, looking annoyed.

I felt my eyes round before I felt my lids get heavy and my mouth get soft.

I watched as Noc took in my look and appeared to grow even more annoyed.

“Gone,” he grunted abruptly. Lifting a hand to snatch me around the back of the head, he bent it down, kissed the top, tangled his fingers in my hair and pulled it back. He bent in again to brush his lips against mine. “Text me,” he demanded, let me go and then he sauntered rather aggressively to and out the door without even glancing at Josette in farewell.

This was rude but I didn’t have it in me to consider that as I was at that moment memorizing his aggressive gait because it was such an agreeable sight, I never wanted to forget it.

Once I realized I was staring longingly at the door, I shook myself out of it, turned and saw the woman behind the desk who had greeted us as we’d walked in, as well as Josette, were both staring at the door.

Longingly.

This made me smile.

Exultantly.

I moved toward Josette.

The sooner we had our this-world treat, the sooner we’d again be with Noc.

So it was time to get started.

 

* * * * *

 

“Look at this. Look…at…this!” Josette demanded, striding into the lounge with its comfortable furnishings that was the waiting area of the spa.

I looked at this, “this” being her flipping her hair out at both sides with her hands then shaking it with her head tipped back.

She did not have a man who demanded her hair stay long so it had been cut to be just longer than her shoulders and styled in soft curls that were most becoming. Not to mention, as if by magic, blonde streaks had been added changing the color but a nuance, but that nuance was most appealing.

She righted her head and smiled hugely at me.

“It’s a miracle!” she cried.

It was, indeed, a very attractive hairstyle.

“You look lovely, my dear.”

She got close to where I was sitting, bent over me and started plucking carefully at my hair with expert attentiveness. “Gads, Franka, I see what they’ve done. Released some of the buoyancy by cutting layers into the length to take off the weight. Extraordinary,” she breathed, leaned back and examined my face. “And your brows are quite lovely, arched like that. All in all, I must say, you look even more beautiful than normal,” she declared. “Mas…I mean, Noc will be even more enamored with you when he sees you.”

I had no doubt this would be true.

And the reason why was not my hairstyle, which was really quite lovely, a change but not much of one, however it made an impact. Or my brows, which were always arched but the delicate sweep of them now was most effective.

It was simply because Noc was enamored with me and it seemed anything I did made him more so.

I tucked that thought safe close to my heart and smiled in a way I knew how it felt having it there showed on my face.

And it did, for Josette asked, “He’s lovely to you in all ways?”

“He’s more than lovely to me in all ways,” I answered.

“I knew he would be,” she whispered. “And this makes me happy.”

It did me as well.

I didn’t share that.

I reached out a hand and took hers, giving it a squeeze.

“Franka? Josette?” a woman called.

We both looked to her standing at the mouth of the area we were in.

“Time for mani-pedis!” she exclaimed, as if she’d said, “Time for you to select your sapphire the size of your palm!”

Josette, my sweet adventurer who greeted every new experience with excitement and delight, gave me an eager look then rushed to the woman.

I pushed up from my seat and followed more slowly, doing it realizing that for some reason I’d taken on this other-world adventure with trepidation. Perhaps because nothing had gone well for me in my past and I could not imagine a future where I could expect even a modicum of that and I was living in unconscious dread of when my luck would turn. Perhaps it was because I was Franka Drakkar and I had not yet gotten used to the new me, I feared I’d lapse into the old, and it would be me who would drive away all the good I seemed to be earning.

I followed Josette and the woman slowly, also realizing this was foolish and feeling my shoulders straighten at the thought.

Antoine had been right.

Kristian had been right.

Josette had been right.

And Noc had been right.

The four people I had allowed closest to me knew me better than I did myself.

The new me was me.

As such, it didn’t seem I was earning anything.

I simply was earning it.

So I should bloody well enjoy it.

As I felt a smile curve my lips, my step increased and I sallied forth on my next adventure of allowing someone (not Josette) to shape my nails.

It was not hand to claw combat with a bear.

But it was my adventure, my life.

I was going to cease fearing it.

I was going to embrace it.

Every second.

 

* * * * *

 

“By Hermia,” Josette whispered loudly from her place beside me, her entire body vibrating from the apparatus that was inside the seat that whirled and kneaded, tapped and pounded against our backs. “Another miracle,” she whispered, waving her pink-tipped fingernails my way.

I’d noted, with some envy, Valentine’s varnished nails, something we did not have in our world.

Now both Josette and my nails were the same, shaped and varnished, and the ladies were attending our feet, an utterly sublime experience.

Josette had chosen pink.

I had selected a rich burgundy, the color of my favorite Fleuridian wine.

“We must come here every week, Franka,” Josette carried on whispering.

This, once Noc taught us to drive a vehicle, we would do.

“Agreed,” I declared.

She again smiled hugely.

I looked down at the woman sitting on a low stool at my feet.

“Hail, young woman,” I called, her head twitched and she tipped it back to blink at me. “Can you please inform me of when you’re close to finished?” I requested. “Not,” I went on quickly, “that I’m not enjoying your ministrations. I am. Thoroughly. Just that my, well…erm…”

I looked to Josette and lifted my brows, uncertain how to refer to Noc.

She shrugged.

Ah well.

I turned back to the woman at my feet. “My lover requires me to text him when we’re nearly finished so he can collect us. We’ve both enjoyed our time here, tremendously. But I, for one, am quite famished and he’s to take us out to luncheon.” At her continued stunned expression, I amended, “Lunch and I’d rather not delay in waiting for him to arrive by texting too late.”

“Are you in character for some play or something?” she asked when I stopped speaking.

“In what?” I queried in return.

She stared at me.

She then inquired, “Are you from England?”

I stared back at her.

It was not lost on me I was much different in manner and speech to those of this world. Until I found my footing, at times such as these, an explanation might be required.

Therefore, I gave her one.

“We both are from Lunwyn,” I shared, flinging a hand Josette’s way. “It’s a land far from here. Though we speak the same language, things are much different there.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” she turned to her compatriot on a stool at Josette’s feet. “Have you heard of it?”

That woman shook her head.

“It’s very difficult to get to. Quite, undeveloped, as it were, in comparison, of course, with your,” I threw out my other hand again, indicating the soil under the floor on which we sat, “America.”

“Right,” she said. “Okay.”

“So, to end, are we nearly finished?” I asked.

“Yeah, uh, just, you know, the massage and polish. Maybe twenty minutes. But you should probably text now.”

I nodded. “My gratitude.”

“Right,” she mumbled then went back to my feet whereupon she commenced massaging them and my calves.

Marvelous.

I had to request another who worked at the establishment to help me liberate my phone from my reticule so I didn’t spoil my varnish and it was not easy poking at it with wet nails.

I accomplished it, a whoosh noise happened telling me it was sent, the phone sounded in my hand, making both Josette and I grin at each other like schoolgirls, but my grin deepened when I saw Noc’s name above a little bubble that was underneath my little bubble.

Be right there, sugarlips, it decreed.

Ah Noc.

My Noc.

A goodness I earned.

The best there could be.

 

* * * * *

 

Half an hour later, I was not thinking such kind thoughts about Noc.

I was grinding my teeth.

This was because he was laughing his arse off, doing it carrying me to his vehicle, with me wearing brightly-colored, flimsy, weightless pieces of nothing that looked like the footwear Josette had been wearing since she donned this-world clothes, except much less substantial.

I had been shuffling along, rather gracelessly (to my utter despair), holding my shoes and my bag, until Noc took pity on me and swung me up in his arms.

He didn’t take that much pity considering he did it as I’d mentioned, laughing his arse off.

Apparently, after a pedicure was complete, you either had to wait some time for your varnish to dry or you were to arrive in footwear that would not demolish the efforts your pedicure person put into making your feet look better than they ever had. Something you’d paid no mind to all your life. Something that seemed, from the moment the last brush of varnish went on, crucial to existence.

This bringing of the appropriate footwear being something I did not do.

Noc walked me out to his car, opened the door while still carrying me, and ducking us carefully to avoid slamming us both into the roof, he deposited me in my seat.

Through this, I had ignored his existence, a difficult task considering he was carrying me, but one I pulled off with aplomb (in my estimation), until that moment when I could no longer do so since he placed his hand on my jaw and forced me to look at him.

He was still laughing.

This meant I began glaring.

“We’ll get you some real flip-flops for the next time you go to a spa,” he said, continuing not to put the slightest effort into quelling his mirth.

“I’ve been in your world not but two days and I still can say with some authority I am not a flip-flop person,” I announced haughtily.

His waning laughter burst forth yet again and he felt, for some reason, the need to kiss me even while allowing the full force of his hilarity to continue to flow.

This he did.

When he ended it, he was only chuckling.

Regardless of the fact that his laughter tasted lovely on my tongue, I was still glaring.

He took in my glare and that made him no less amused.

“Will it help if I say you look cute, even shuffling like an invalid?” he asked.

“No…it…will…not,” I snapped.

Noc. Still no less amused.

“How about if I tell you, three hours ago, someone asked me if you could get any more beautiful, I woulda said it was an impossibility, but I’ve been proved wrong?”

“How about if I tell you, if you remove yourself from my vicinity, perhaps I’ll no longer wish to kick you somewhere unpleasant?” I returned with false sweetness.

“Is it vanity, baby?” he queried, now only grinning, which was no less annoying, “Or pride?” he finished.

“It’s both,” I admitted the complete truth without embarrassment.

He shook his head, the grin remaining in place. “That’s my girl. Someone says you’re cute and beautiful, you get pissed. Or in this instance, stay pissed. Someone asks if you’re vain or prideful, you claim that without a second’s delay.”

“It’s true.”

“It is, I’m sure,” he returned. “But you’re still cute and you’re definitely fuckin’ beautiful.”

I decided that was a good time to share something important.

This I did.

“I think, with this conversation, that it’s clear that even you, who I hold dear, cannot cajole me out of a pique by saying lovely things. That even for you, my piques, as they always have been, run deep and are lasting and require me having time to fume before they naturally die away. So I think that you need to kiss me, but do it swiftly, then exit my vicinity, drive me and Josette somewhere in order to feed us and do that immediately.”

“Even me,” he said instead of doing as I asked.

“Even you,” I confirmed.

“Even me.”

Something in the way he said that pulled me out of my irritation and fully into that moment.

When I arrived at that moment I saw that Noc held no humor. He was looking into my eyes, his shining with a light so beautiful, my soul lit in such a way it felt it would never go dark again.

“Even you,” I whispered.

He held my gaze and worlds could have collided. Millennium could have passed. Stars could have fallen from the sky.

Nothing could have intruded on our moment.

After some time (I fear, rudely, a good deal of it), a subtle clearing of her throat brought our attention to the fact that Josette (wearing flip-flops and having some experience in them so she had no issues) had followed us and she was currently sitting in the back of Noc’s vehicle.

This broke the moment, causing Noc to lean in, touch his mouth to mine, but after he’d done that, instead of doing the rest I’d demanded, he put his mouth to my ear.

“All my life, thirty-eight years, only you,” he whispered there before he promptly moved away and closed my door.

With frozen body but shifting eyes, I watched as he walked around the front of his car, what he’d delivered in my ear settling with the flutter of butterfly wings around my heart.

“I love him,” Josette whispered into the confines of the car. “Love, love, love him,” she went on, and before Noc opened his door, she finished, “For you.”

I did too.

By the goddess.

I…did…too.

 

* * * * *

 

“My word, Franka, have we arrived in the lap of the gods?” Josette asked reverently.

I didn’t answer, though if I had, my answer might have been yes.

Noc did.

“No, babe. It’s just the Nordstrom shoe department.”

Slowly, her head turned and her gleaming eyes lifted to Noc.

“Can I—?” she started.

“Have at it,” he told her, tipping his head to the vast area beyond us filled with tables and shelves covered in a dizzyingly delightful spectacle of this-world shoes. “You find something you like, let me know. I’ll get you a salesperson and we’ll sort you out.”

“I love you,” she breathed, eyes still gleaming.

I pressed into Noc’s side, my lips curved into a deep smile.

Noc chuckled.

Josette hesitantly approached the first table of shoes, staring at it reverently, her manner one of care, such as you would approach a large chest tumbling over with such treasure you couldn’t quite believe your eyes.

Noc used his arm about me to curl me to his front. I took my gaze from Josette and lifted it to his.

“I cannot believe I’m asking you this,” he began. “I’m thinkin’ I’m breakin’ a seal I’ll regret. But you ready to learn how to shop?”

This confused me.

“Why would you regret this?” I queried. “You and I both are criminally wealthy. In this world, that would be literally. Thus I can afford to spoil myself, and Josette, without worry.”

His lips twitched before he answered, “Right. Probably good I explain. We’re gonna do this today. We’re gonna kick the shit out of it. We’re gonna set you and Josette up. Fill my Suburban with stuff that you dig that’ll make you girls happy and make you feel more comfortable here. And until you two can get around on your own, I have a feeling I’ll be doing that more than once. But just to warn you, when you get used to getting around by yourselves, you can ask me to go shopping with you once every five years. No more, but you could go with less. And if you feel like buying me shit, have at it. I have a feeling I’ll get off on watching you trying on clothes and shoes. I never get off on having to buy shit for myself.”

There was so much there, I had no idea how to begin.

I wanted to comment on the “once every five years,” but I suspected my best play with that was to let it lie and hope that I had many opportunities in my future to hit this quota.

So I focused on something else.

“You don’t enjoy purchasing garments for yourself?”

“Nope.”

I was even more confused.

“But, you always look so nice. Your selections are most attractive. They suit you completely. So much so they’d indicate you get great enjoyment out of making those selections.”

His eyes warmed at my words, and when I was done uttering them, he replied, “I failed to mention, Sue, my dad’s woman, likes to shop. Christmas and birthdays are off the hook. It makes Dad apoplectic. He keeps telling us we’re wearing his retirement. That doesn’t stop her. I haven’t catalogued it all, but I’m pretty sure nothing I’ve worn since I’ve known you I bought for myself.”

“Interesting,” I murmured.

His arm got tighter in a manner I wasn’t certain I liked.

When I caught the look on his face, I knew I was correct in having that feeling.

“And, just to put it all out there, Cora, the dead one, bought me a ton of shit when I was with her working undercover on that illegal gambling gig I was investigating.”

“Ah,” I whispered, quite in the know about this as it, too, had been shared with me (carefully) by the lovely, and alive, Cora, not to mention Noc had not spoken of it at length, but he also had not shied away from mentioning it before.

“Frannie,” he called, regardless of the fact I was right there.

“Yes?” I asked.

He was studying me closely. “Not that this is for Nordstrom shoe department, and I can make sure Josette is good for a while so we can go get a coffee if we need some alone time to hash it out, but things have changed with us and,” he kept studying me, “you seem down with that.”

“Well, I am,” I shared.

He looked dubious. “You are?”

I pressed closer.

“I am not your first lover, Noc, and you are not mine. It would be unkind to make you feel uncomfortable and definitely not contrite for having lovers before me, or further, making you feel unease in mentioning them when you speak of your life. But more, it would be a waste of words and emotion for both of us in going over such when it’s history. We’re together now and it’s only our future that interests me, not a study of the past we can do nothing about.”

He grinned. “Just in case you forgot, gonna remind you that you’re the shit, sugarlips.”

I smiled back. “Indeed I am.”

He bent and gave me a brush of the lips, lifted his head and queried, “Can’t believe I’m askin’ you this, but you want more shoes?”

I couldn’t believe he was asking that either.

Thus I didn’t answer.

I just broke free, took his hand and entered the lap of the gods.

 

* * * * *

 

I opened then closed the mirror which was actually a cupboard in Noc’s bathroom.

I did it again.

And again.

I smiled to myself at the ingenious use of space that included a charming hidden compartment and then opened it again in order to put the bottles I’d purchased at the mall inside it.

These bottles included cleanser, something I would need to use on my own face to rid it of the paint without Josette at Noc’s to assist me (and this, oddly, elated me).

Also moisturizing lotion, which the woman who sold us our cleansers shared with us was a crucial element in our “skincare regime,” this moisturizer having two varieties, day and night.

And then there was toner, something which was explained but I still wasn’t quite clear on its purpose, just that it was vital to my skin appearing “healthy” and required Noc to take us to a place called a “pharmacy” so we could buy “cotton wipes” in order to use it.

The perfume I’d purchased I’d set on the counter surrounding Noc’s basin. The bottle was far too attractive to be hidden away in a compartment, no matter how clever that compartment was.

“It’s called a medicine cabinet.”

I jumped at Noc’s voice and turned to see him leaning in the doorway, watching me, a look of soft satisfaction on his face.

I felt my spirit settle into that look and asked softly, “Why is it called that?”

“You put what you put in it just now, but it was invented back in a day when there wasn’t much of that stuff. Mostly it was where you stored medicine.”

“Ah,” I murmured, watching him and not moving because he was not moving, just standing in the doorway, leaning his shoulder into the jamb, his eyes gentle on me.

It was, of course, after our trip to the mall and Noc had returned Josette to Valentine’s, where she assured us she was quite happy to experiment with her newly-acquired skills with the microwave in order to make her supper that night and again watch the television. “Where I learn much of this world,” she’d said.

I felt some guilt, however, for I knew she was saying such with only a hint of truth. Mostly, she wanted to be certain Noc and I had time together.

This was her adventure too, and as such she shouldn’t be spending it sitting in an empty house (for Valentine again was not there upon our return or even when we’d left), eating alone and watching a box, no matter how interesting what played on it was.

But for now, I was back at Noc’s where he said he’d make me dinner while I put away the purchases I’d made to keep at his home and where I’d be sleeping.

Needless to say, Josette and I very much enjoyed our time at the mall. We’d done as Noc said we’d do, filling his Suburban to the brim with our bags.

In other words, there was a good deal for me to put away.

And I had been doing just that while Noc had been in his kitchen cooking.

I was surprised he had these skills but only because, in my world, a man such as him would have servants to do these things for him.

In this world, it seemed everyone cooked for themselves, which I found most odd and vaguely alarming for there might come a time when I was expected to do the same and I had no desire to do so.

I didn’t think much on that. I thought simply of going through my marvelous purchases and putting them away while I smelled the pleasant aroma of Noc’s efforts filling the house.

“Is dinner ready?” I queried when Noc said nothing and continued not to move.

“Not quite,” he replied.

I tipped my head to the side and asked quietly, “Is all well?”

He looked to my perfume bottle on the counter and back to me.

“Absolutely.”

He said this firmly but his manner was peculiar.

“You seem in a strange mood, my love,” I whispered.

With a suddenness that was astounding, his energy filled the room, wrapping me in its warm embrace with such fierceness, it almost made me gasp.

But even as this happened, his reply was calm.

“No, baby, just enjoying our first night of normal.”

“Our first night of normal?” I inquired.

“Life can’t be all drama and adventure, Frannie,” he replied. “Travel between worlds. Trips on galleons. Dinners with a queen. For us, it’s gonna be this. Your shit in my medicine cabinet, your perfume on my bathroom counter, dinner in the oven, a glass of wine waiting for you in the kitchen when you’re done putzing around.”

“You’ve poured me a glass of wine?” I asked, for some reason thinking this was the height of thoughtfulness.

“Yeah, sweetheart. I know how you like to unwind.”

He did. I always had a glass of wine prior to dinner as well as during it.

He looked to the empty bags on the counter and back to me.

“You need any help?”

I shook my head. “No, darling. And I’m almost finished.”

He lifted a hand in a casual gesture and dropped it. “Take your time. Made shepherd’s pie. It needs to bake, but even when it’s done it can rest until you’re ready.”

I smiled at him. “Thank you.”

He nodded, his gaze sweeping me from head to foot and back again before his beautiful lips formed a tender smile and he moved to leave.

“Noc?” I called.

He stopped and looked into my eyes.

“This new normal is lovely,” I told him. “And it being what our normal shall be, I look forward to much more of it. And you know I always enjoy spending time with you.” I felt my face soften and continued, “Especially when we have time alone. However, I do feel I should look after Josette and not leave her in her own company quite so much. I know she’s content with giving us time,” I hastened to add. “But until she finds her footing in this world, is able to get out, do more for herself, meet other people she can spend time with, we’re all she has, especially with Valentine absenting herself. I—”

He lifted a hand again, this time higher. “Say no more, baby, I hear you. I know she’s bein’ cool for us. But you’re right. We gotta see to her. I’ll take you both to Bourbon Street tomorrow night. Have fun, get you hammered on hurricanes, have more fun. Sound good to you?”

I knew his use of “hammered” was not what it seemed so I nodded.

“Is that all?” he asked.

It was not all.

I wanted to tell him that his world was advanced. The telephones. The televisions. The cars. What we’d been introduced to that day: escalators. And so much more. All of it was impressive. There was so much of it, it was astonishing. There was so much more to learn, myriad amounts, and the idea of that was exciting, as each new discovery had been. There was almost nothing similar between our worlds and he’d been right, because of that, this was the grandest adventure we could take.

Even so, from what I could tell, regardless of the delicious food, the conveniences, the wonders of manicures and pedicures and the existence of Nordstrom shoe department, I preferred my world. The simplicity of it. The quiet of it. The clean of it in look and smell. The unmolested beauty of the landscape you could see all around, even in the cities, something you couldn’t see here no matter how far you looked, unless you were close to the water and even then it was often cluttered with boats and bridges.

That said, there was nowhere on this earth, or my own, I’d prefer to be but standing in his bathroom with Noc but feet away.

“Babe?” he prompted.

I shook my head and did it shaking myself out of my thoughts.

“Yes, darling, that’s all. I’ll join you shortly.”

He nodded, tipping his lips up slightly, and he turned from the door.

I watched him disappear and took a long breath.

I let it go, turned back to the empty bags and began folding them away.

 

* * * * *

 

I sat astride Noc, my torso up, my eyes on my fingers, which were trailing lazily through the dark hair scattered to perfection on his chest. I then trailed them down, my thumbs dipping into the ridges at his stomach, tracing each box, taking their time. And again up, my fingers worshipfully brushing along the grooves of his ribs.

My touch was light, not meant to be stimulating, we’d both found our pleasure (for my part, Noc had guided me there twice).

No.

I had a sated Noc on my hands, our first night of normal coming to an end, and I found myself in the position of being able to enjoy simply touching him, learning him, stroking him, giving to him.

I drew an idle line over his pectoral and shoulder, running the tip of my middle finger down the outside of his arm, murmuring, “You’re quite talented in the kitchen.”

And he was. His shepherd’s pie was simple fare, but it was also rich and flavorful.

“Give you and Josette some lessons,” he said and my gaze darted to his. “We can all cook together. And when it’s just us here, you and me can do it.”

“Cook together?” I asked.

He held my gaze and repeated after me, but not in a query. “Cook together.”

“Mm,” I mumbled noncommittally.

There was silence as I averted my attention (and hopefully his) to drawing my other finger from the inside of his elbow, up his biceps, over his shoulder and down, where I flattened it over the bulge of his pectoral.

A pectoral that was slightly shaking.

I again looked to his eyes.

They were laughing.

“You have no intention of learning to cook, do you?” he asked.

“Erm,” I hedged.

“Babe, people cook here.”

“I had guessed that with the kitchens being an integral part of the home, open, right in the living space. Even Valentine’s home has an enormous space off the kitchen with sofas and lounges, which makes the area appear communal.”

“That’s because the kitchen is the heart of the house.”

It was not.

The parlor was.

Everyone knew that.

Though, apparently not in this world.

“Interesting,” I mumbled, and didn’t even try to hide I thought it was not.

His pectoral shook under my hand again.

I wished to roll my eyes but I didn’t.

“Frannie, we’re both stinkin’ rich, you way more than me, which means you could probably hire a cook. But you shouldn’t because cooking is fun.”

I could not imagine this was anywhere near the truth therefore I made no reply.

However, I did put it on the list in my head of things to see to, to discuss hiring a cook with Valentine, once I’d found a home, of course.

“Right, I’ll be the one who cooks,” Noc declared and my attention refocused on his face. “Just want you sittin’ there with me, drinkin’ wine and doin’ whatever when I do it because I’m thinkin’ from your attitude it’ll also be me cleaning up. That means, to earn your meal, you gotta keep me company.”

At his behest, after dinner, we’d left the dishes in the sink.

It hadn’t even occurred to me he’d eventually have to tidy them and it definitely hadn’t occurred to me he might wish me to assist.

I added a housekeeper to my list of new acquisitions.

“You can take the girl outta the House but you can’t take the House outta the girl,” he muttered, smiling broadly while watching me closely. “Everyone’s blood is red. Your blood is the red of the Drakkars. If it wasn’t, it’d be blue.”

My brows drew together. “Blue blood?”

“Royals, nobles, back in the day, way back in the day,” he began, “didn’t get out much. Common folk, they were in the sun. Worked there. Walked where they had to go because they didn’t have carriages or sometimes even horses. Couldn’t avoid it. The whiter the skin, the more noble someone would seem. Their veins were visible, looked blue, easy to see through that pasty-white skin. Blue bloods.”

“So this is a slang word for your aristocracy,” I surmised.

“Yup,” he affirmed.

“I much like being in the sun. My skin becomes an attractive shade when I am,” I shared.

His pectoral started shaking again. “Although I look forward to the day I’m introduced to you in a bikini, I bet you’ve never worked in it.”

“Of course not,” I huffed, for I had not worked a day in my life and did not intend to.

Practicing the craft didn’t count. That was simply who I was and when I began to earn alongside Valentine, I would accept the money, of course. Money was money and the more of it you had, the better everything was. But they’d be paying me, essentially, for being me and doing what came naturally, something I had no issue with.

His smile remained fixed even as his lips ordered, “Fuckin’ kiss me, Lady Franka.”

This I could gladly do.

And I set about doing just that, sweeping both hands up his chest and bending over him.

Resting my breasts to his chest, he circled me with an arm low at my back, his other hand drawing languid patterns on the skin of my outer thigh, and I kissed him.

It was as lazy as our mood, slow and deep.

And it was delicious.

When I lifted my head I saw a contentedness in his eyes, the tranquil lines in his face, both making him more handsome than ever, which was quite a feat.

His expression settled in my soul as I traced his collarbone and shared softly, “You often tell me of my beauty, but I wonder, do you know the greatness of yours?”

“No one has run screaming when I walked into a room,” he joked.

I pressed closer, running a light caress along the cords at the side of his neck, smiling at his jest. “This, undoubtedly, is true. Though it minimalizes the sheer perfection that is you.”

His eyes sparked, his hand at my thigh gripped and his arm at my back slanted up so he could tangle his fingers in my hair, all this as he growled, “Frannie.”

“It’s true,” I stated. “It makes me feel most fortunate.”

The intensity ebbed as his lips quirked. “And why are you fortunate, babe?”

“You chose me.”

“You chose me,” he returned.

“Yes, but you’re perfect and I am not.”

He shook his head on the pillow. “I’m not perfect, Frannie.”

“Yes, you can be vexing, but mostly, you’re perfect, and physically, and this is always in the eye of the beholder so you cannot argue it, my dearest, so don’t try, you’re most definitely perfect.”

For a moment he continued to hold me as he had.

But then suddenly, I felt him still under me.

“Noc?” I called.

“You’re also perfect, you know,” he whispered, a curious tone to his voice making my belly pitch.

“As you are the beholder, I can’t argue that either,” I replied in a manner that shared openly I couldn’t argue it, but I also didn’t agree.

“You’re perfect, Franka,” he declared, firmness now in his voice that was almost scolding.

I bent to him, touched my mouth to his and moved a hint away before I whispered, “Thank you, my love.”

“Do not think you can get away with that shit.”

I blinked at his words, the abrupt and unexpected change in his mood and lifted my head further.

Noc rolled so I was no longer atop him but he was atop me.

He didn’t allow me to become accustomed to our new positions before he asked, “This part of that midnight soul garbage you’re determined not to let go?”

Oh balls.

Not this.

“Darling, we’ve had a lovely day and a very lovely evening. Let’s not ruin it with such talk.”

“That gonna be your gig every time I bring it up?” he asked.

I smiled up at him, wrapping my arms around him. “I hope so, as it would mean we’d have many lovely days.”

“Franka, don’t be sweet and cute, which right now is sweet and cute and pissing me off.”

It wasn’t me behaving in a way that would piss someone off.

It was Noc for we were both enjoying our togetherness and now he was ruining it.

On this thought, my eyes narrowed. “Can I request that if this is so important to you and you wish to discuss it, that we do it at a later date?”

“And when would that date be?” he asked back.

“I don’t know except for the fact it would be later.”

He stared down at me, appearing perturbed.

Then, abruptly, he lifted himself, readjusted his legs so it was he straddling me, and he whipped me to my belly.

I drew in a sharp breath.

He pulled his knees in so they were clamped to the outsides of my thighs and now he was not only straddling me, but imprisoning my lower half for the weight of him settling on me, the power of him restraining me, I couldn’t move.

This was not meant to be stimulating.

This was something else that I knew I was not ready for, then or perhaps ever.

“Noc,” I hissed.

“This is perfect,” he stated, running a flat hand over my bum.

“I’m pleased you think so, now—” I tried, attempting to pull myself up.

Noc’s hand in my back pushed me down and again I gasped in surprise.

I felt his other hand dive deep, shoving between my legs, and suddenly he was cupping my sex.

“This is totally perfect, Franka.”

“Noc,” I pushed out.

His hand left my back and tangled in my hair.

“This is perfect.”

“Cease, you don’t have to—”

Both his hands left me and went to the bed on either side of me.

This was not what made me stop speaking.

He’d shifted his hands so he could lower himself to my back.

“And this is perfect.”

I grew still.

I felt him move even if I couldn’t quite feel what he was doing. My guess was that he was running his lips along a scar.

One of many.

I closed my eyes tight.

“You feel that, Frannie?” he asked.

“Please get up,” I requested.

He did not get up.

What he did was move upwards so his mouth was at my ear.

“You don’t, do you, sweetheart?”

I opened my eyes but looked only at the pillow. “Again, I’ll ask you to get up.”

“You know how you’re perfect?” he queried.

I knew the glaring evidence of my imperfection was right in front of his eyes but I did not point that out to him for I didn’t wish to and he could bloody well see it for himself.

I remained silent.

“You don’t feel much at your back. I gotta go hard if I want you to know I’m touching you there. And the reason that’s perfect when you think it’s imperfection is that they took that from you. They crippled you here. This will never be the same,” he said, and I could feel him running his hand down my back, putting pressure into the touch so I could experience it. “They did that, Frannie. They took that. And you survived.”

“Yes, I am aware. I was there each time,” I returned cuttingly, beginning to get angry at discussing something I did not wish to discuss and he very well knew it.

“You survived.”

“I am aware.”

“They did not survive.”

I quieted.

“They’re beaten and broken and as good as dead. Their lives are over. You, though, you’re here and getting pedicures and worried about making your girl eat dinner alone, carrying these marks not as their brand, but your badge of honor because you survived. I know. I know the elves could have healed you, taken this away.” His hand soothed deep down my back. “I know Frey offered that to you. And I know you refused. That makes this perfect, that you took from them what they did to you and twisted it into something that was yours. Something that was beautiful. Something that means you’re a fighter. A warrior. Victorious. And you wear their mark as your medal of valor.”

I held my breath, no longer angry.

Now I was fighting trembling.

Noc continued talking.

“You don’t think you’re perfect but you are, Frannie. Every inch.”

My voice was frail and wavering, I hated it but for the life of me I couldn’t strengthen it, when I begged, “Please stop talking.”

He shifted and I felt his teeth sink into my skin at my shoulder blade. The sensation was there and gone before I felt him smoothing the area, pressing deep with his thumb.

“I look at this and see beauty. I touch it and love how it feels. I taste it and it tastes as gorgeous as the rest of you.”

Gods.

He was undoing me.

“Stop talking.”

He slid his knees out, straightening his legs, covering me with his big body, his weight bearing into me, his flawless chest with its perfect array of hair pressed into the mess of my back.

Putting some of his weight in one forearm in the bed, he shoved his other arm under me at my belly and held me close, his mouth back to my ear.

“You say my light shines on your soul, do you think for one second you’d be in my bed right now if your light didn’t warm mine?”

I again closed my eyes tight and it came through my lips before I even knew I had the thought.

“I want to be that for you.”

“Fuck,” he bit out. His word scoring into me like a lash, Noc lifted, turning me again to my back. Insinuating his hips between my legs so they opened to accommodate him, I felt his palm cup my cheek and heard his demand. “Open your eyes.”

I did as commanded.

“The first I knew of you, you loved a man so deeply, you put your life on the line twice, first committing treason, which I know in Lunwyn is a hanging offense, and then facing those witches. Does that come from a soul that’s midnight?”

“Noc—”

“You don’t know it, don’t see it, but even before your relationship shifted, you treated Josette with more care and respect than any of those people treated what they considered their inferiors, save Cora, Circe and Finnie, who aren’t from there and don’t know how to act the blue blood even though they now are. And don’t think she didn’t know it, Frannie. Don’t think Josette is here for whatever you pay her or for an adventure. She’s here for you. She’s here to be with you. She’s here because, to her, you’re family. Is that kind of loyalty earned by a dark soul?”

He really had to stop because I felt them brimming and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold them back.

Especially when Noc saw them and shifted his hand at my cheek so his thumb swept below my eye. Releasing the tear into the pad of his thumb, he skimmed the wet along my temple as he dipped his face close.

“You grew up without any love,” he whispered, and gods, gods, I saw it in his eyes as well. The bright gathering there, his own wet gleaming. “I have no fuckin’ clue how you survived, baby. I’ve known love every day of my life and I cannot imagine the man I’d be if I didn’t. If my life was void of it. If I had to find my way without that as the single-most prevalent guiding force from the minute my mom died giving me life to this moment with you. I could only hope that I’d become what you’ve become against every odd. A woman starved of love her whole life and yet so fuckin’ full of it, she’d stand holding a hook with blood running down her thighs just so the brother she adored wouldn’t have to do it. You don’t have a midnight soul, Frannie. Your soul is so bright, I look too close, I’d be blinded.”

“Please.” My voice broke, I swallowed and finished on a return whisper, “Please stop talking, my love.”

“I will you answer this. Do you have a midnight soul?” he asked.

“Apparently not,” I continued whispering.

And apparently, I actually did not.

“No, you do not,” he affirmed. “Am I gonna hear that again?”

I shook my head.

“You gonna think it?”

I shook my head again (though it was perhaps more hesitant than the first).

Noc, of course, did not miss it.

“You think it, baby, you give that shit to me and I’ll remind you what makes you. We got a deal?”

I nodded.

“Promise me,” he demanded.

I drew in a trembling breath before I gave him what he asked.

“I promise, darling.”

He let that drift between us before he dipped closer and spoke again gently, his thumb caressing the apple of my cheek.

“There is not a single soul on this earth who has not done things they regret, Frannie. Multiple things. Years of doing stupid shit or mean shit or thoughtless shit or whatever. It’s part of growing up. It’s part of life. It’s part of surviving. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone finds their way. You were who you had to be. It’s just the way it was. And now it isn’t that way and you aren’t that way either. You said earlier it’s our future, not the past that interests you. But you’re still livin’ in the past, sweetheart. Let it go. Be with me. Really be here with me. Because I love you here, baby, and what we got, it’s a beautiful place to be.”

He was right.

Very, very right.

That was that past. That was the way it was and now it wasn’t that way anymore.

I wasn’t that way anymore.

I was free to be the real me.

“You’re right, Noc.”

“I know.”

The arrogance of his words made me give him a shaky grin.

His other hand came to my opposite cheek and he swept the tear that dropped there across that temple.

“I dislike weeping,” I muttered.

“God gave us a variety of ways to get hurt out and do it clean. Blood cleans a wound. Tears clean a different kind of wound. You might not like it, Frannie, but you shouldn’t stop yourself from doing it. Clean the wound so it can heal. Then move on.”

By the gods, I really could take no more.

“You do know you’re demonstrating my earlier point, being handsome, having a magnificent physique, being thoughtful, kind, patient, intuitive and wise, all this meaning you’re rather perfect, do you not?” I noted.

Noc continued his acute study of me before his expression cleared and his lips tipped up.

“You wanna think I’m perfect, sugarlips, be my guest. My point was never about arguing yours.”

This was true.

But I was done.

“Can we go to sleep?” I requested.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

I actually was.

Exhausted.

It seemed coming to terms with your wonderfulness took a good deal out of you.

I nodded.

His voice quieted. “Then yeah, gorgeous, you want, we can go to sleep.”

“Are you tired?” I queried.

“Not so much.”

“Then—”

“You’re down with it, I’ll turn on the TV. I watch, you sleep. You can’t get to sleep with the TV on, I’ll turn it off and read. Cool?”

I nodded.

Noc dipped in for a lip brush but when he was done, he pulled only slightly away.

“That was heavy, you okay?” he asked gently.

I nodded, though in truth I wasn’t.

But I suspected I would be.

“Gonna be a hard promise to keep, the promise you made me, but want you to keep it, Frannie.”

I drew in a deep breath and let it go.

“I’ll keep it, Noc,” I promised again.

His face again assumed a version of the sated contentment he’d had before. It did not run as deep but it was still there.

He was pleased.

Which made me pleased.

He dipped in for something much deeper than a lip brush before he rolled off me and rearranged us, the covers, and turned off the lights, but he turned on the television that was resting on a cabinet at the other side of the room beyond the end of the bed.

He lay with head and shoulders propped on pillows, holding me tucked close to his side, my cheek to his ribs.

I held him around the stomach and stared at the perfect hair on his chest, feeling his finger again drawing languid patterns, this time on the skin just below the small of my back.

Healthy skin, where I could feel his caress and what he wished it to communicate to me.

And I felt his caress.

But more, I felt what he wished it to communicate.

I was there, really there, with him, where he wanted me to be, where he liked me to be, a good, safe, healthy place. And he wanted me right there, and a man like Noc would not chose a woman to be right there if she did not deserve to be.

The sound of the television strangely did not distract me from falling asleep.

Strangely, it and Noc’s warmth, his nearness, his touch, his simply being and being with me lulled me to sleep.

And when I slept, I slept deep, snuggled up to sheer perfection.