by Holley Trent
Mom closed her mouth and cut Chris a sideways look. Then she stood up straight, tucked her graying hair behind her ears, and pushed her glasses up her nose. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I have no fuckin’ idea what I’m doing, but I think I can read Marty a little better than you can right now.”
Mom shifted her weight, looked from Chris, to Marty, back to Chris again, and then returned to her neglected commercial mixer. “So, I’ll just…swing by and grab Shani at around nine forty-five, if that’s okay.”
Marty furrowed her brow again. “I—”
Chris slipped a hand up the back of her shirt and pressed his palm to her flesh. A little skin-to-skin contact always improved psychic connections. He’d need that edge until they were fully meshed. He’d need to touch a lot more than her back to speed along their bond.
“She’s a little nutty, but she’s trustworthy. My sister would give her a glowing reference.”
Marty looked up at him, her expression some devastating cross between fear and curiosity. He needed to tamp down one and boost the other. He wanted her to be curious about him. He wanted her to know everything about him and to not be afraid to ask. There were plenty of things he planned on asking her before he closed his eyes for the night.
“I don’t want to be that mother who says no to everything,” Marty projected.
Chris canted his head toward his mother, who—though fiddling with her phone, plugging in earbuds—was not-so-discreetly watching them. “I think she would know a little something about that. I was a year later than my friends in getting my driver’s license because she was afraid of the day when I’d have to leave the roost.”
Marty looked down at her feet, and shifted her weight.
“I’m not asking you to take a leap of faith.” He tipped her chin upward to make her see him. “I’m just asking you to try to trust a few safe folks. A few hours won’t hurt.”
“Experience has taught me not to agree with that last part, but I do believe your mother is worthy of trust. Funny how being here makes clearer to me that I should have been listening to my gut all those years about people who didn’t mean well. I—”
She pulled in a breath, smiled at his mother, and then gave a slight wave as she backed toward the door. “Uh. Quarter-to-ten,” Marty said. “I’ll…I’ll have Chris let you know.”
Chris barely had a chance to wave goodbye to his mother before he’d had to hurry after Marty. He caught up to her at the bakery’s front door, where she fumbled with the lock.
“Here. Let me. It sticks, sometimes.” He put his hand over hers, and she jerked away, her eyes wide and breathing ragged.
Shit.
He got her out onto the sidewalk and into the cooler night air, and got her moving back toward the apartment building—back toward Shani. “It’s all right,” he said. “Being closer will help.”
She said nothing, and in fact quickened her pace a bit.
He had to slow her down so she could think. He could help her see reason—help her soothe her turmoil if only he could touch her.
So, he touched her. He didn’t wait for permission or for pause. He took her hand because she was his, and she needed to understand that sooner rather than later.
CHAPTER SIX
Chris’s touch knocked Marty free of the dizzying anxiety that had started to build in her the moment she’d stepped into the bakery.
Pure panic. There was no other way to describe the feeling.
Being there in front of his mother and talking about Shani, Marty had been thrown back in time for a moment to the whirlwind courtship between her and her ex-husband, Lawrence. On their very first date, she’d met his mother. Lawrence had asked her to marry him a week later. Like a fool, she’d said yes because she’d truly thought he loved her. She learned later that he was more in love with the idea of her. He’d thought she was pretty and fun—vivacious. But marriage had apparently dampened her appeal to him. He’d gotten bored. After Shani was born, he was rarely ever at home.
“Not going to do that to her again.”
Chris squeezed her hand and kept her moving across the street. “Do what to whom?” he asked.
“I didn’t mean to think that aloud.”
“Maybe I’m an asshole, but I’m glad your telepathic control is garbage if you’re not going to voluntarily tell me things. Are you talking about Shani?”
Marty dragged her tongue across her lips and flexed her hand in his grip to prepare to pull away, but she didn’t want to pull away. She didn’t want to stop touching him, because his strong presence was the only thing she was certain of at the moment.
“Yes,” she said in a whisper.
“Okay. Hey, I want to show you something.” He paused in front of the apartment building’s keypad and tapped his card against the sensor. It beeped. He opened the door, and nudged her through. “Wait right there, please.”
Marty stopped in front of the dim stairwell, wringing her hands as he watched the slow-moving hydraulic arm of the door retract.
“Need to call the super and get that fixed,” he said. “Having a sophisticated security system is pointless if the damned doors don’t close all the way.”
“The door’s not that big of deal, is it? Everyone keeps talking about how safe Norseton is.”
“Not taking any chances.”
“Any chances on what?”
“On your and Shani’s safety. If you’re in the building, the shit needs to fucking work.”
Marty pushed up a brow and shifted her weight, not really understanding why he’d be so concerned. Her house back in Florida didn’t have a security system at all, except for the baseball bat propped behind the front door.
When the door clicked shut, he held out a hand again, and she walked obediently to him without questioning why. Her brain couldn’t handle any more questions.
He started her up the stairs, led her two flights, and then took a right down the hallway.
“Wait,” she said, digging in her heels to the hallways decorative red-and-gold carpet. “Two more flights.”
Chris grunted and gave her a tug. “This way.”
“Erin’s place is upstairs.”
“Mine is right here.”
“But I—”
He gave her hand a silencing squeeze. His grip wasn’t painful in the slightest bit, but still managed to take her breath away. His touch sent a quelling ripple through her body that soothed her brain’s turmoil and made her forget whatever had been on the forefront of her mind.
Words like, “safe,” “wait,” and “listen” flooded her mind.
Chris glided the pad of his thumb across her jaw and then tipped her chin up to him. “You can sense her from here, can’t you?”
“Shani?”
“Mm-hmm.” He leaned against his apartment door and spun his key ring around his index finger.
She gave her head a slight shake, and opened her mouth to say no—that she didn’t think she could—but Chris’s expression of incredulity gave her pause.
“How am I supposed to know?” she asked.
“Filter out the junk. Hone in on what you know is her.”
“I don’t know how to do that. I’m not like you.”
He leaned in close, his warm breath scalding the delicate skin of her ear and starting a cascade of urgent tingles down her core that made her gut clench and hands itch to grasp him.
She didn’t, and she celebrated that small victory because it meant she wasn’t under some spell. She had free will and wasn’t going to follow Chris blindly the way her mother had with her father.
“You’re more like me than you’re not,” Chris said. “Maybe you’ll be frightened to hear this, but I can sense her on the web much better now than at dinner. I held her earlier. I learned her distinctive psychic weight, and to me, it’s clear as day that she’s nearby and that she’s not awake. You have to know that.”
“I don’t know what I know.” While she’d always had a knack f
or knowing when Shani was out of bed when she wasn’t supposed to be, most mommies she knew could do that. That wasn’t magic—that was simply her knowing her baby really well. “I want to go upstairs,” she said.
Chris passed the pads of his thumbs over her eyelids, so she closed them, letting out a ragged exhalation.
He kept his hands on her cheeks, holding her face gently as he whispered into her head, “I won’t stop you from going if you really want to, but I think we need to finish so you’ll understand.”
“Finish what?”
He passed his hands over her hair and she ducked out from them, patting down the wiry spirals that always stood on end around the edges.
“You don’t want me to touch you?” he asked.
“My hair is… I don’t like my hair being touched.”
“By me or anyone?”
She pressed her lips together, smoothed her hands over her edges again, then fidgeted her ponytail. She tightened the elastic, poked down the lumps in front of it, then went back to smoothing her edges once more.
“Marty.”
“Okay,” she said with exasperation. “I guess I don’t mind when Shani plays with it. She plays with her own just as much.”
“It’s like yours.”
“And my mother’s. I try not to instill any sensitivity in her about how she looks, but she may absorb some of mine over time.”
“What is there to be sensitive about?” He raised his hands slowly to her cheeks. Those were okay. As long as he didn’t touch her hair again, she wouldn’t be triggered again over such a stupid thing.
He traced slow, small circles over her heated flesh, and she closed her eyes.
His touch was an unexpected balm that she’d discounted at first. She always came down from her mild anxiety attacks without too much fuss, and she’d thought her brain was regulating just fine on her own. It wasn’t her brain doing all the work, though. He was helping. He was pushing the recovery along.
Calmness bloomed beneath his fingertips and seeped down her neck and spine. It made her unclench the fists she’d been making. It made her drop her shoulders from their high-up positions near her ears.
“Tell me,” he said.
She breathed.
In, out.
In, out.
This is moving too fast. What is he doing to me?
“I ask so I don’t offend you in the same way someone else obviously has,” he said. “I’d like to touch you, but I want you to enjoy my touch.”
She opened her eyes and rolled her gaze up to him. “Are you for real, or are you just feeding me a lot of lines?”
He furrowed his brow and ceased his massage. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because you’re saying all the right things.”
“And that’s wrong?”
“Perfection is suspicious.”
“I see. So, because I want to feel all the textures of you and because I want to know why that would make you flinch, I’m untrustworthy.”
“Past experience…” She gripped his wrists and put his hands back on her shoulders. That was a safe place and, there, his hands couldn’t push magic into her body in the same way he’d been doing when touching skin. “Past experience makes trusting anyone with certain anatomy a hard prospect.”
“What did he do to you?”
She knocked his hands away and took a big step back. “You don’t get to ask me that. You don’t know me.”
“I’m trying to correct that.”
She was so grateful that he kept his distance, but at the same time angry that he would dare. Their positions seemed wrong. Her body said that farther away was wrong and that he should have been in front of her, or beside her at the very least.
“What is happening here?” she whispered. “What kind of game are you trying to play?”
“Marty, you’re around magic and you may not believe it, but you’re carrying a lot of your own.” He pressed the apartment key into the lock and pushed the door in. “This isn’t a game. This is about you coming home and me being biologically driven to get you settled in as quickly as I can.”
“You’re not making a whole lot of sense.”
“Magic, Marty. Yours. Mine. Throw in a bit of the will of the gods, and you get these impulses. Don’t you feel them?” He hit the light switch, illuminating the living room.
Modern and masculine. Leather, dark wood, and stainless steel. Not a single drop of estrogen to be found.
“Paul must still be upstairs.” Pulling her along behind him toward the rear of the unit—towards the bedrooms she was guessing, as the place seemed to have the same floor plan as Will and Erin’s apartment—he put his phone to his ear.
She followed him without objection because she did feel those impulses. They made her want to twine her fingers into his and not let go of him until she was sure he was real and that the words he spoke were all truth.
She wanted him. He was so easy to want.
“Hey, Will?” he said into the phone. “Listen, I’m downstairs in my apartment. Is Shani asleep?”
“I want to talk to Shani.” Marty reached for the phone but Chris leaned away and hit the speaker button.
“…minutes ago,” came the tail end of Will’s response. “Paul is telling me about some medical data, and I think Shani’s down for the count, to be honest. She’s not going to move much with Erin next to her. You know how we are when we sleep. Chances are very slim she’s going to wake up before a REM cycle or two if someone’s touching her.”
“Erin’s in bed with her?” Marty asked.
“Oh, hi, Marty. Yeah. I think we were boring Erin. She said she was going to be right back and that she was going to see if Shani was still warm, and when she didn’t come back in five minutes, I went to see why. She’s facedown on the bed on top of the covers. She took her shoes off before she plopped down, so I’m guessing she planned the whole thing.”
I bet she did.
Marty hadn’t known Erin long, but she knew her well. The scheme sounded exactly like something Erin would do. She’d do everything she could to help Marty relax and let her guard down and, apparently, keep company with the doctor downstairs. She knew Marty hadn’t dated in far too long, and she knew Marty was like Chris—that she craved touch and hadn’t had any.
Still, her obligations were more important than satiating physical needs or assuaging her curiosity about the man with the magic fingers.
“I’ll be up there in a minute,” Marty said.
“Why?” Will asked.
“Because—”
“Come on, Marty. Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“You’re a floor down from me right now, and I’m catching your thoughts a bit before you speak them. Don’t tell me you’re inconveniencing Erin. I’m certain there are few other places she’d want to be as much as where she is right now.”
“I’m sure she’d prefer being in your bed.”
“After the long run we did today, I don’t think that’s likely. Shani takes up less space.”
“Don’t blow smoke up my ass.”
“Don’t hurry back. Bye.” Will disconnected the line before Marty could make any further rebuttals, but she was going to make one, anyway, and to Chris. “I—”
“Let’s finish this,” Chris said. “You’ll feel better in a bit.”
“I’m not even sure what it is that we’ve started.”
He pulled her along to the back bedroom and, not bothering to turn on the light, guided her to the bed.
He backed her against the edge, and she sat.
“Chris—”
“Martina.”
In the dim light, she watched him loosen the top buttons of his shirt.
She swallowed convulsively as his elegantly strong fingers worked farther down the plackets. “You…you don’t get to call me that.”
“Why not?”
“No one does.”
“So why not me? I think it’s pretty.”
“You do?”
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Because everyone with the same opinion had a certain bias. Of course my mother likes my name. She picked it.”
Her ex-husband had teased her about her name, starting from the day he’d seen it on her birth certificate when they’d applied for their marriage license. He’d said she should drop the extra “a” because “Martin” suited her brassy personality better.
And then he’d laughed, and she did, too, because it’d just been a joke.
The whole marriage had been a joke to him.
She cursed that stupid piece of paper that had given them legal permission to connect. Belonging to someone should have been harder.
There should have been more magic.
She sucked in some air, and on the exhalation said, “You can call me what you’d like as long as you’re being nice.”
“I don’t gain anything from being ugly to you.” He stepped into the closet and emerged a minute later wearing only a pair of tight gray boxer briefs.
Whoawhoawhoa.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a man in a similar state of undress, and certainly not one with a Viking’s tall, muscular build. The bulge he was sporting between his legs triggered a sudden gag reflex she hadn’t realized she had.
Shit. Fuck. I bet he tastes good.
She squeezed her eyes shut and made the universal gesture for, No, stay there. “Chris, I didn’t come in here to have sex with you.”
“Why did you come in here, then?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t…not. I had to.”
“Again, why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Believe it or not, I’m not trying to sound like a pedant. I’m needling you because I think you do know, and you just can’t articulate what you’re feeling yet. I’m going to help you do that.”
“By fucking me?”
“Trust me, we were going to get around to it eventually, anyway.”
She could sense him moving closer, and that wasn’t psychic shit—just her plain-old human skin doing its job—and pressed a palm over her eyes in case she had a moment of weakness and opened them.