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.