by Holley Trent
“Okay. Okay,” she said around the food and, conceding defeat, picked up her fork.
He nodded triumphantly once she’d managed to get some food into her mouth on her own.
“Do you badger Tarik like this? Oh, that’s right. He doesn’t eat. Must suck for him. One of my favorite pastimes is coffee ice cream. Most of the time, I can eat it without sobbing into it.”
Tamatsu stopped chewing.
“I’m joking.”
Only because she didn’t let herself cry. There’d been a lot of cold, lonely nights. While there were people she could have called over to share her bed for a few hours, she couldn’t let them into her heart. Her heart may as well have been empty. She always felt so hollow.
He pushed more food into her mouth as if chewing would solve her problems. It wouldn’t, but she had to admit she did feel a bit better at the fact that there was someone doting on her. Someone who should have been very angry with her still for stealing an irreplaceable thing.
He leaned back in his seat and wriggled a shiny black something out of the pocket of his jeans.
A shiny black something with a familiar fruit silhouette on the back.
“A phone? You got a phone?”
His eyebrows danced and a moment later, from within her tote, a chime sounded.
She practically dove for the bag and her phone within, and had read his missive twice before standing.
You once asked me why I look like I do—why any of us look like we do.
“Oh, yes,” she said as she retook her seat. She noticed her chair seemed suspiciously closer to him than it had been before her phone had chimed. “I was curious, but then your mouth became occupied with things other than talking.”
Smirking, he worked his thumbs slowly over the screen. He probably needed to develop muscle memory for the motions and learn where all the letters were.
While he tapped, she sipped wine and squirmed a bit in her seat. She could practically feel the heat radiating off of his legs, but didn’t think she could get away with moving her chair again. He’d notice.
He set his phone on the table, picked up his chopsticks, and her phone displayed the text.
Your conversational detours astound me, but I believe you sat on my face.
Noelle had never been the prudish sort, but there was something about seeing her past actions come back to haunt her in print that made them seem so much more salacious.
She turned her phone facedown on the table and, clearing her throat, nudged it away.
A minute later, the device chimed again. She was afraid to pick it up.
She looked at him. He tipped his chin toward the phone.
“Ugh. Fine, if I must.” She read:
Such an interesting way to wake up. The most pleasant sort of suffocation.
Oh shit.
Pinching the bridge of her nose and tittering reflexively, she wished for liquefaction. She hoped that the goop she became would evaporate, never to congeal again. That would eliminate her mortification once and for all.
Another chime.
You were never any good at multitasking, though.
“And now I have an angel criticizing me for my inability to sixty-nine,” she muttered breathlessly to the no one at her right. “This is unbelievable.”
I hope you haven’t gotten any better at it.
She looked up to find he’d narrowed his eyes at her.
“Better at it? I …” She cleared her throat and wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. “Well. I … I can’t say for sure if I have or haven’t, and besides, you should give yourself a pat on the back for being so good at distracting me. That means you were doing it right.”
I’ve forgotten how you taste.
“Oh, hell. What were you saying about conversational detours?” She tugged at her collar. It suddenly seemed excessively tight. “What were we discussing before?”
I’d be willing to let you know once I’ve had my refresher.
“Tamatsu,” she warned.
No reciprocation required. I won’t even take off my pants unless you have a particular desire to stare at my cock. Looking at me always used to excite you.
Her hands had suddenly gone clumsy and she nearly dropped her cell on the very hard travertine floor. Seeing as how the phone was no longer under warranty, she would have been spending about a hundred bucks out of pocket to replace the screen. Smartphones weren’t designed with spontaneous sexting in mind.
She dropped her phone into her tote, pulled the zipper, set the bag into the garage, closed the door, locked it, and then wiped her hands on her slacks.
And he was right there in front of her, six inches away, if that, and had barely made a sound.
He grinned down at her and she realized as he pressed one hand to the doorframe and then the other, that there was nowhere for her to go but out to the garage. Unfortunately, she’d already taken her shoes off.
Brain useless and body too nervous to react, she stared at his chest and watched it rise and fall.
Where’s your courage? Where’s the warrior maiden?
In hibernation, probably. She didn’t have any fight left in her.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
He shook his head hard and pointed to her, then nodded and pointed to himself.
She thought she understood. He was saying it wasn’t her choice, but his, and that might have been true, but she didn’t have to accept. She didn’t have to let him get so caught up in lust that he’d make a decision he’d regret for too many years to come. They were bad for each other in that way. They couldn’t even ask each other simple questions like most other couples because the touching trumped all else. The physicality dominated every encounter.
With one palm still pressed to the doorframe, he gripped his phone one-handedly and typed with his thumb.
She could hear her phone chime again and again in the garage. She half wanted to fetch it and read what he’d said and half wanted to capitalize on his moment of distraction to run.
Both. I’ll do both.
She leaned into the garage for her tote, and as she closed the door behind her, she darted around him, up the stairs, and then locked herself in her room.
He teleported in after her a moment later, shaking his head.
“Shit.” She’d forgotten he could do that because she had a Swiss cheese brain and she was really losing her grip.
He held up his phone and pointed.
Taking a deep breath, she dug her own out of her bag and read.
Back on track. 1 - I didn’t choose the place I fell to. I was made to somewhat resemble the local population, though had I gone anywhere else, my features would have been somewhat similar.
A follow-up on his earlier statement. They got sidetracked so easily.
2 - You can ask me whatever you want, and I’ll answer, notwithstanding distractions.
She tried to look away, and he gave the top of her hair bun a little bop.
3 - I didn’t fall to have my choices limited. I choose who to touch and whom to be touched by, knowing full well the consequences the touch may unleash.
Oh gods.
Another bop to the hair bun.
I choose to touch you. If you have some previously undisclosed moral restrictions that disallow this, please inform me.
“Morality has nothing to do with our situation, and you know that.”
He cocked a brow.
“Ball’s in my court, then? The fault’s back on me?” She’d been repeating the same excuse again and again and he wasn’t buying it. She wasn’t certain she believed it, either. The damage had already been done. She was hoping that she wouldn’t cause more—not to be the enabler in a potentially toxic thing.
He dropped onto his knees, staring prayerfully up at her in a way she didn’t deserve, but that she couldn’t keep resisting.
He could have been asking anyone else, but he was asking her because as much as he was hers, she was his, and he was risking his comfort and sa
nity for her. She wanted to argue that no touch was worth that much, but she would have been lying.
There’d been far too many nights when she would have given up everything she’d acquired. She’d have given up every penny she had to her name to get him back in her life, into her bed, and into her … everything.
“I …” She slid a finger beneath her hair elastic and loosened the tight band. Her head hurt. “I don’t deserve this. I don’t—”
He fisted the bottom of her suit jacket and tugged her down to her knees, right where she belonged. She belonged on the floor, not him.
“You could probably do better if you tried,” she whispered. “There’s bound to be someone else who can …” She swallowed because she didn’t like the words, and they were acid in her mouth. “Someone who can give you what you need without all the drama and the …” Another swallow.
He held his hands up to both sides of her face, millimeters away from skin, and stared at her as if she were an experiment he wasn’t quite sure how to start. She was really quite simple to figure out.
“Tamatsu …”
His gaze fell to her lips, and she licked them nervously.
“I won’t say no to you, but I want my reservations on record.”
He leaned in closer. One large, warm hand brushed the skin of her left cheek, and then the right. His stare softened, and grin widened. His thumbs explored the ridges of her cheekbones briefly before he nudged wetness from her cheeks.
“Don’t do that,” he said into her mind. “My choice. I choose this.”
“You’re a fool,” she whispered.
“Mm-hmm.” He brushed his lips over hers and drew in a deep breath. “I most likely am.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tamatsu had seen Noelle afraid before, early on in their acquaintance, but for an entirely different reason. She hadn’t been afraid of him back then, but for her people’s wellbeing.
His heartbeat skipped at the thought that she, once bold and assertive, had become paralyzed by his company. He couldn’t believe that they’d been thrown together only to stay apart. In spite of the things he’d done in his long life, the Fates couldn’t be so cruel. He’d put in the work. He’d do his part to pull them back together.
“You’re wearing so much today.”
Her scoff was weak as she closed her eyes. “Just another kind of armor. Put on a suit and shoes with heels of at least three inches, and you feel like you can slay dragons … of a certain sort.”
“And this is what you want to be doing? Slaying dragons?” Keeping one hand on her cheek, he worked her suit jacket down the opposite shoulder. After so many centuries of avoiding intimate touch, he didn’t want to disconnect for even a second. If he were going to condemn himself to the hunger, he was going to go all in and savor every bit of her warmth. He was going to consume everything she had to offer.
She shrugged out of the garment and let it pool on the floor behind her.
“Some days, yes,” she said. “Most days, no. I certainly understand the appeal of holing up on a secluded little farm the way Clarissa is. I think when elves get to a certain stage in life, we want to root somewhere quiet and let the world go on around us. Clarissa got there first, but she’s always been the grounded sort.”
“And you were a wanderer?” He lifted her hand to her shirt buttons, hoping she’d get the hint.
She did, and he was glad, because he wanted to do other things with his hands.
He worked her hair free of its elastic and pins and made a pile of the accouterments on the floor beside her knee.
“There’s definitely some appeal to commandeering my own little corner of Earth and becoming a local institution. Everyone would know the grumpy elf who lives at the corner and hates having people cut across her lawn, but who gives out the best candy at Halloween.”
“I suppose you have to pay penance for your sins somehow.”
“Mm-hmm.” She wriggled out of her shirt. There was a camisole beneath that, and a bra.
Still too many layers.
He raked his hand through her hair and sighed silently and indulgently as he arranged the strands around her shoulders.
“I don’t dislike children, after all,” she said, and he stilled his hands, waiting.
Listening. This was an opinion that mattered to him, even if it hadn’t long ago.
“Do they perplex me? Absolutely.”
“So you’re fine with them?” he asked. “Other people’s children?”
And your own? he wondered silently.
“They make me laugh.” Her smile was fleeting. “They’re so innocent and I worry about corrupting them.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not good.”
“But you’re passionate and decent.”
“Is that enough?”
“It can be.”
He unbuttoned her pants. He’d need to get her on her feet again to get them off her, but that could wait. She was still fumbling with her top parts. “You’re stalling.” He skimmed his fingers along the line of skin between her waistband and the bottom of her camisole.
She squirmed.
He smiled.
She was so responsive—always had been. He prevented himself from devoting any more mental energy to who might have been witnessing her shudders and listening to her moans during the long gap in their acquaintance.
“Am I the only one who’ll be undressing?”
“Are you suddenly shy?”
“Maybe a little. You’ve got to take pity on me. The last time I saw you in all your glory, I couldn’t see the wings.”
“They do tend to distract.”
“So you hid them from me?”
“You’re getting distracted right now, are you not?”
“I missed our banter.”
And I missed you.
Using his shoulders as handgrips, she pushed herself upright and divested herself of her remaining clothing. Pants first, followed shyly by her trouser socks. She muttered something about them not actually matching, though he couldn’t tell the difference. They both looked black to him. Next came the camisole.
He stopped her there, cinching her narrow waist between his hands and just holding her.
She’d upgraded her underwear since the last time he saw her in such a state or, rather, she was actually wearing some. Pale gray-blue with lace and a little satin bow in the front.
“Armor?” he mused, pressing his lips to the indentation of her belly button.
She sighed, and squirmed. “Underwear doesn’t have to be ugly. A girl’s got to have a few things she splurges on.”
“And you splurge on underwear?”
“And shoes.” She cringed and ground the big toe of her right foot against the carpet. “And perhaps knives, but I do actually use those.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Are you going to undress?”
“Perhaps I’ve changed my mind.” He skimmed his palms up the sides of her thighs and hooked his thumb beneath the elastic near her hipbones. “Perhaps I like this balance. Me dressed. You not.”
He wriggled her panties down a few scant inches and drew in a breath at the sight of what was there.
Or rather, what wasn’t.
She cleared her throat and rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. “Modern grooming, you know.”
“So thoroughly?”
“It grows back.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with how hair works, seeing as how I have some myself.”
He may have seemed put off by her new habit, but he wasn’t, really. He liked having a new texture to explore, and he put his lips there, where she’d once had hair.
She chuckled and squirmed. “My, you don’t wait around, do you?”
“You’d keep me waiting longer?”
“You were waiting for your voice. Not for … Gods.” She gave his hair a hard tug when his tongue probed into the top of her slit.
He’d only wanted a taste to be sure her essence was the
same. He couldn’t remember, and it didn’t really matter. He was still going to devour her.
“Would you prefer to sit on my face?”
“Yes.” She cringed. “I mean, no. I’m not going to sit on your face. I’d like very much to keep my wits about me, and that’s sure as hell not going to be possible if you’ve got your tongue spearing me.”
“If not my tongue, then something else. What difference does the organ make, really? You’re going to scream no matter what.”
“I believe you’re trying to drive me insane. You know damned well we can’t—”
“Quiet.” He tugged her panties down in one hard yank and pushed her feet apart as far as he could without completely destroying the elastic of her underwear. He liked that underwear, and hoped to see her in it again, once he’d seen what else she had on offer in her lingerie drawer.
“Why can’t we?” He lashed his tongue along the crevice between her thigh and her sex, and as her fingers tightened against his scalp, she whispered to the ceiling, “Oh, gods.”
“I don’t think they’re particularly invested in the matter. If calling on them for aid makes you comfortable, might I suggest a couple of specific ones?”
“I could name a few, too.” Putting her head back more, she writhed.
She may have wanted to escape, but she wouldn’t—not since they’d gotten the business underway.
“I don’t remember you being this short.” Rolling his gaze up to her, he rubbed his chin against the place she should have had hair, and pondered strategy.
“I’m the same height I’ve always been,” she said breathily. “I think we simply didn’t spend much time on our feet, and you don’t remember the logistics.”
“Don’t get smug. I’ll compensate.”
The genie was already out of the bottle. Pandora’s monsters were out of their box. He wasn’t backing off. He could probably manage a bit of strain to his neck, but not without some awkwardness … and not without being rid of the panties he liked seeing caught around her ankles so much.
He slipped his fingers between his lips to wet them. There’d be plenty of other opportunities for oral sex gymnastics. Also, they’d have plenty of time for the more depraved things he’d decided during their long cooling-off that he wanted to do to her. There were some perks to being immortal.