Midnight Soul

by Kristen Ashley

  He opened his refrigerator, sticking his head into it and replying to its interior, “This is not my gig, baby, it’s yours. Find another way.”

  I stopped at his counter-esque/cupboard-esque area (known, Noc explained, as an “island,” which it was, in a small sea of kitchen) and shifted my bum up to one of the attractive stools there, murmuring thoughtfully, “Well, from what I know of this towing business where Circe works, such a service would be needed if I could arrange for Dax Lahn’s vehicle to be incapacitated.”

  I heard the slam and rattle of the refrigerator door closing and then Noc muttering, “And now she plans vandalism, at best, destruction of property, at worst.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Are all aspects of intrigue illegal in this world?” I snapped.

  “Uh, yeah,” he fired back, coming to a stop opposite me at the island.

  “This is most exasperating,” I shared, doing it most exasperated. “I simply wish to plot a love match. How can that be a crime?”

  “Again, Frannie, I’ll suggest that you just let be what’s gonna be. If they’re fated for each other, that shit is gonna happen. Just let it happen and try to be cool even if you hate the bridesmaid gown she’ll eventually choose for you.”

  His words took me out of our conversation.

  “Bridesmaid’s gown?”

  “You’re gonna get to know her, she’s gonna get to know you. Fact is, she texted me yesterday to suggest we all get together for dinner, including Valentine and Josette. We should do that. We do that, she gets to know you, she’ll love you. She’s awesome so you’ll do the same. When she falls in love with this guy, gets married, she’ll want bridesmaids and I suspect that time comes, one of them will be you.”

  “What’s a bridesmaid?”

  He gave a slight shrug that, with his broad shoulders, still was a powerful one.

  “You wear a fancy dress and walk down the aisle in front of her before she gets married. As far as I can tell, this position has three duties. One, to get the bride slaughtered during the bachelorette party, and by slaughtered I don’t mean dead, obviously. I mean drop-dead drunk. Two, to throw a shower for her so, and I’m speaking from the viewpoint of the man here, she gets really fuckin’ good lingerie and not a bunch of mixing bowls for the kitchen. And three, to hold her wedding bouquet when her new husband puts the ring on her finger.”

  Fascinating.

  “A wife gets a ring too?” I queried.

  He shook his head but said, “No. She gets two. The engagement ring, usually a diamond but it can be whatever, just as long as she loves it, and the wedding band.”

  One thing was quite clear about the difference in our worlds, the bestowal of jewelry upon marriage was one I very much liked, the significance of the symbol and the fact the wife gets a diamond.

  “I see you like that idea,” Noc observed, and I stopped thinking of diamonds and focused on him to see he no longer looked annoyed but now amused.

  “Any idea that includes diamonds I’ll like,” I replied.

  “I bet,” he muttered, his eyes crinkling, then he declared, “Choices. Steaks. Chops. Hamburgers. Or spaghetti. Got potatoes I can do up whatever way you want and veggies. Also got frozen garlic bread and salad. Just gotta know which way you want me to go.”

  “I’ll eat whatever you wish to cook, my love.”

  “Good answer,” he said, turning back to the refrigerator.

  He started taking things from it and piling them on the island before me when I reminded him, “We have yet to fall upon a solution to this problem for, I shall assert, we won’t be leaving Circe and Lahn to the fates.”

  “We aren’t fallin’ upon anything, sugarlips,” he returned. “Again, this is your gig, not mine.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll need your assistance, darling,” I shared. “I cannot yet drive and I have yet to acquire any skills with a computer. I’ll definitely need you for the first, I’m sure, and I may need you for the last.”

  “Frannie, I’m not gonna be your wheel man either.”

  “Wheel man?”

  “The getaway driver after you go off and commit a crime.”

  Balls!

  “You’re not being very helpful, my love,” I pointed out, seeking patience.

  “And you’re finally getting my point, sweetheart.”

  We stared at each other over the island for long moments before Noc broke the silence.

  “You think you can help out by cutting up a tomato for our salad?”

  I was aghast.

  “They’re slimy,” I declared with revulsion.

  “You eat them,” he returned.

  “I eat them. I don’t touch them. I eat escargot too but I don’t touch those either.”

  At my words, Noc burst out laughing, doing it rounding the island and arriving at me whereupon he captured my head at the sides in both hands, tipped it back and delivered a very deep, very wet, very long kiss on me.

  He lifted away and looked into my eyes. “Cora, the dead, was a pain in my ass. Every minute I spent with her and then everything I learned about her was not good. But I’ll always be thankful for the day she crossed my path because her doin’ that led to you sitting right here being you. If you told me I was gonna fall for an uppity, blue blood, snobby chick who won’t even slice a tomato, I’d tell you you were crazy. But here you are and thank fuck for that.”

  My heart was fluttering, my knees were trembling (even seated!) and I feared I was about to burst into tears or fall from my stool in a dead faint.

  I could certainly not do either of the last and to cover how all he’d said made me feel, I ordered, “Stop being charming after you’ve denied me something I very much desire.”

  His hands slid down to the sides of my neck. “Baby, you can’t best the challenge of setting up Circe and Lahn in this world, then you better hang up your gloves as the heavyweight champion of scheming.”

  My back straightened. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  “Then time to get creative,” he dared.

  I glared at him. “You don’t think I can do it.”

  “What I think is, you can’t drive. You’ve no idea how else to get around. If you commit a crime, I’ll spank your ass, after I bail it out of jail, of course. You don’t know how to use a computer, and even if you did, no way you’re gonna acquire hacking skills in a matter of hours. You do know how to use a phone but you still peck at it biting the side of your bottom lip with concentration so I’m not thinking you’ll be surfing the web on it anytime soon. And last, for whatever Valentine reason Valentine has, she’s left the building so you’re flying solo. Although you probably could do this blindfolded with one hand tied behind your back in your world, in this one, you’re just gonna eventually have to give up and let nature take its course.”

  “I do not give up,” I retorted.

  “Then this is gonna be interesting,” he decreed.

  “And I do not peck at my phone biting my lip,” I carried on.

  I mean really. How gauche!

  “You texted Josette when we got home to tell her we got here safe and to make sure she was good, and you bit your lip the whole time you did it,” he shot back.

  I feared he spoke truth.

  Thus, I harrumphed even as I made a silent vow to cease doing such immediately.

  Noc grinned.

  I went back to glaring.

  His grin became a white smile.

  I returned a different kind of smile and informed him, “You do know, darling, that when I’m perturbed, I’m not in the mood for intimacy.”

  He didn’t hesitate a moment with his rejoinder.

  “You do know, baby, that you trying to use denying me that body of yours as punishment for me not giving you your way means, after you suck me while I play with you for a really fuckin’ long time, you’re gonna have to beg real pretty for me to make you come.”

  Vexing.

  And titillating.

  Blast!


  I stopped smiling insincerely at him and again glared.

  “You’re good, you know it,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to my mouth. “But don’t think for one second I don’t know you want what I just said and you want it now.”

  We’d enjoyed our lovemaking quite thoroughly since it began but I had yet to taste him there.

  I’d wanted to do it before his threat.

  And he was drattedly correct. I wanted it more now.

  I did not deny what he said or confirm it. Mostly because I knew denying it would eventually be proved wrong and that would be irksome and confirming it would make him smug, which would be equally irksome.

  So I did neither.

  When he again looked into my eyes, I said, “It’s good to know you don’t fight fair.”

  “Like you had any intention of ever fighting fair,” he replied.

  “Of course I didn’t,” I confirmed blithely.

  His smile came back. “That’s my Frannie.”

  “Indeed it is,” I stated arrogantly.

  In a dizzying shift, his mood changed from audacious to tender as he agreed softly, “Yeah, indeed it is.”

  After that, he tilted in and took my mouth. This time it was short, not deep, but very sweet.

  When he moved away, he murmured, “Gotta feed my girl.”

  I drew in breath and nodded.

  He let one hand slide lingeringly along my jaw as he removed both. And while he walked away, to hide my response to his words and caress, I took a fortifying sip of my wine.

  If you told me I was gonna fall for an uppity, blue blood, snobby chick who won’t even slice a tomato, I’d tell you you were crazy. But here you are and thank fuck for that.

  Well then.

  Fine.

  So he wouldn’t assist me in making a love match of Circe and Lahn.

  And yes, Valentine was no longer there to lead the charge because she was nursing a broken heart.

  And it was true I was in a new world and had only been in it for five days. I knew very little, and of the very little I knew, much of it were things I would need to know in order to carry out any plan (should I eventually fall on one that wasn’t unlawful).

  But Noctorno Hawthorne had fallen for me.

  Fallen for me.

  So I figured I could do pretty much anything.

  And so I figured I would.

  * * * * *

  “Frannie.”

  Noc had made a mistake.

  In all our lovemaking, at which he was exceptionally talented, and dominant, he had not yet allowed me to demonstrate the fullness of my skills.

  And thus, when I finally got my mouth on him, I was able to do just this.

  Needless to say, I was very good at it. And thus, needless to say, Noc had become consumed by it and had thus been unable to bring to fruition his earlier plan.

  Even though his voice communicated something very clearly, I was much enjoying what I was doing. The taste of him. The weight of him. The rigidity. Each ridge and vein tantalizing my tongue. Each grunt and groan urging me to move faster, draw deeper. The feel of him straining to hold his control.

  “Baby,” he gritted, and I lifted my eyes to his from where I lay curled between his widespread legs, his knees up. I felt the wash of wetness at the heart of me witnessing the darkness in his face even as I carried on and he reached out to me, his fingertips skimming my cheek on their journey to glide into my hair and cup the side of my head. “Warning,” he finished thickly, in a way it was clear he could not force out more.

  I felt my eyes turn lazy (or lazier), did not heed his warning but instead increased my ministrations.

  “Right,” he bit out and it happened.

  Without losing purchase of his cock in my mouth, he shifted to his knees, drawing my head up with his hand fisted in my hair so I was no longer curled between his legs but up on my hands and knees.

  And then I was no longer in control of pleasuring his shaft.

  He was thrusting it into my mouth.

  Yes.

  Noc.

  Dominant.

  And divine.

  I closed my eyes and moaned, feeling my inner thighs tremble.

  “Fuck, shit, fuck,” he grunted, his one hand staying fisted in my hair, his other one cupping my head to assist in holding me steady. “Take me, Frannie.”

  Oh, I’d take him. Any way he’d give himself to me.

  Including like this.

  Especially like this.

  I moaned around his cock and reached a hand between my legs, my finger just skimming through the wet to where I needed it when Noc forced out, “Unh-unh.”

  He then pulled out of my mouth, reached down to me, and with a hand at my wrist yanking me up, he cast his other arm around my waist, lifting me so my naked body collided with his own.

  With no choice, I rounded him with my legs. When I did, he fell back to his calves, held me to him with his arm at my waist, leaning our bodies and reaching with the other hand to the nightstand.

  He opened the drawer so violently the lamp on top tumbled and fell, coins clinked and dropped to the floor, things I didn’t know what they were came out of the drawer, all this before Noc straightened us, coming back on his knees and handing me a condom.

  “Fast,” he growled.

  I looked into his eyes, shivered in his hold and nodded my head quickly.

  My fingers fumbled but I went fast, finally rolling it on his beautiful shaft successfully. I barely had it to the root before Noc shoved my hand aside, wrapping his around his cock.

  He found me and drove inside.

  I grasped his shoulders as my spine formed an arc, my head falling back. The low moan ripping from my throat, he pummeled me with his thrusts and I did my best to hold on for the ride.

  “God, fuck, fuck, my Frannie, so goddamned hot,” Noc rumbled, beginning to lift me and drive me down to meet his lunges.

  I righted my head with a snap and lifted my hands to the sides of his neck, gripping him there, my forehead hitting his, my body lurching at his command.

  “Fuck me, Noc,” I demanded.

  “I am, baby,” he grunted.

  I seized his jaw in both hands, my voice throaty. “Fuck me, my love.”

  He stared into my eyes. His flaring, burning, blazing, he fell forward so I was on my back in his bed, Noc covering me. With me stationary and Noc able to center all his power at his hips, he fucked me.

  It took no time at all before I came, dragging my nails down his shoulders, crying out loudly, clenching my legs around his driving hips, lost in Noc. His filling me, claiming me, fucking me in a way no one could come after him, no one could have me again. I was no one but his, he was no one but mine, destined to be together, connected, balancing…bloody…worlds.

  I heard it, felt it, the tension, the increased rhythm, the shorter strokes.

  My climax began to fade and I opened my eyes just in time to see the beauty of Noc’s head slanting back sharply, the veins in his corded neck popping, the quick succession of grunts that led to a low rumble. I watched, fascinated, feeling him pour this beauty inside me, wishing there was no barrier to keep me from absorbing it, until his head fell and he buried his face in my neck.

  I held his weight and stroked him while the tension in his body released, and finally I felt the workings of his mouth at my neck as he rested himself on a forearm in the bed, his other arm curved under me, around me, the fingers idly caressing the skin of my hip.

  I turned my lips to his ear. “I want you.”

  For a brief second, Noc grew still then he lifted his head and looked down at me, smiling.

  “Babe, still deep inside you, on top of you, not sure how much more of me you can get,” he teased.

  I moved a hand to his face, mine, I knew, was serious.

  “I hope you feel it as little as me, but even so, I don’t like it there. I don’t like it between us. When you give me your seed, I want it. Even if it doesn’t take root, I want it in my womb. I w
ant it to be a part of me. Thus I need to ask Valentine to return to my world and acquire some pennyrium for me.”

  Noc said nothing.

  But he no longer looked teasing. He was staring at me in a way I could not decipher but it warmed me to my toes.

  “Noc,” I called when his silence lengthened.

  “I wanna go the distance with you.”

  My body around his tightened and I opened my mouth to speak.

  He was not done.

  “I wanna make a baby with you.”

  I clamped my mouth shut.

  Noc did not.

  “I wanna make as many as we can as long as they know we love each of them with everything we are. I don’t give a fuck if you’ve got my baby growing in you year after year until your body won’t do it anymore.” He drew his attention to our continued connection by flexing his hips. “If I could, I’d fuck you for hours, days, goddamned years, nonstop. I want part of me in you every breath you take. I can’t do that so I want it that any time your mind wanders, you think of me inside you however that can be. My cock taking you. My cum buried deep. My kid growing in your belly. What that means. What we got. What we made. What we built between us. The fact that I love you so fuckin’ much, I’d commit treason for you. I’d perpetrate crimes for you. I’d go to prison for you. I’d break my back to give you everything you wanted from cutting the damned tomatoes in your salad and pouring you a glass of wine to wrestling the world into my arms and laying it at your feet.”

  I lay under him, frozen.

  Then I burst into tears.

  Loud, obnoxious tears.

  Noc pulled out (alas) and rolled us to our sides, gathering me into his arms, holding me close, his hand stroking deep at my back, his other arm tight around my waist as I sobbed against his chest, my body shaking uncontrollably with the power of emotion sweeping through me.

  And with deep regret, this happened for a long time.

  And with even deeper regret, when it began to subside, I started hiccoughing with the wealth of emotion still needing to be expressed.

  I loathed crying.

  And worse, hiccoughing.

  Ulk.