by Kate Pearce
And then he’s gone, waving to Thora on his way past, the taste of him still on my lips, and a sensation in my chest that I can’t quite rub away, even though I try.
Thora slips through the door before it finishes closing behind him.
“Priya’s papers will be here in a few days,” she says. “The Folies are running without a hitch, though we’ll have to hire a new bartender—ours has gone and enlisted.”
I nod, rubbing a hand across my eyes. “Priya is still somewhere safe?”
Thora’s grin grows impossibly wide. “I put her in one of the rooms in the clubhouse. There isn’t anywhere safer.”
I agree. The clubhouse is actually a warren of row houses, nestled together in an area of town that’s slowly become more industrial. The connected basements provide a perfect meeting space, as well as secure exits from each individual home. “How is she?”
“Settling in. She has a room to herself in the blue house—”
“With Katla and Etta?” It’s a good combination.
“Yes. They seem to have taken to her, though she still likes to spend most of her time alone.” Thora plays with the hem of her skirt. I wait her out. “I wish we could recruit her. She’s cool, tough, and brilliant. Her skills would be handy around here—she’s studied aether reactions and the properties of aether…” Thora sighs.
“It would be nice,” I admit. Even on short acquaintance, the woman’s impressive. “But her husband is too close. We need to get her to Chicogo. Farther, if possible. You know these guys—they aren’t going to let a woman go.” We both sigh in unison. “What we do is enough. It has to be enough.”
Thora nods. “I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.”
“I know you didn’t.” I smile tiredly at her. “I was reminding myself just as much as you.”
“You should go home,” she says, and lifts an eyebrow when I flinch. “What’s going on, boss?”
I sigh. “Two, the BUG, is waiting for me.”
She grins. “He’s too cute for you to call him a big ugly guy, Hela.”
I groan. “I know.” I must be tired, because the next words fall out of my mouth without my permission. “That’s why I did it.”
She puts her hand on my wrist for a second, and then looks away. “I know. I just wondered if you did.”
I drop my head to my desk. “It’s temporary, Thora.”
She gives me a searching look and then nods. “Might as well enjoy it, then.” She winks and gathers up the paperwork—all of it coded—and puts it in the small safe behind my desk. “Go home, boss.”
I take her advice, enjoying the ride home, the wind in my face and the road humming away beneath me, but I can’t stop thinking about the moment I get home. He’ll be there, sprawled in my favorite chair, or seated at my tiny dining set. Dominating the space.
Despite my unease, I can’t quite suppress a shiver. Maybe I’ll be fortunate, and he’ll be in the bedroom. The image of him, naked against my sheets, waiting for my arrival, is far more thrilling than any other I’ve conjured, and I’m smiling at it when I open the door.
He is not in the living room, but the small dining table is set for one. I can’t tell from here if he’s already eaten or if it’s set up for him to dine any moment.
Two steps out of my bathroom, his shoulders filling the doorway and blocking the view of the room beyond. He stops at seeing me, and then moves forward with purpose. “I didn’t hear you come in. I was waiting for you.” He looks me up and down, as if he’s assessing me, and then he nods. “Get undressed,” he says gruffly, and I stare him down.
“Are you quite serious?”
“We have an agreement, Hela. One which requires you to be naked. So, get undressed. Or would you rather I undress you?” His eyes smolder, and he licks his lips. It shouldn’t affect me, but blast if I don’t go weak-kneed. The reminder of the arrangement helps put me at ease. This not an emotional entanglement. This is simply about accessibility.
“Actually, I am rather tired. Perhaps you should undress me.” I’m teasing, but he grins and steps closer, his hands already moving toward the buttons on my shirt.
“I have wanted to get you out of this since the moment I saw you in it,” he growls, and I am suddenly nothing more than liquid need. His metal hand is hot through the thin fabric of my shirt, and I shiver as the back of it brushes my breast. The nipple stiffens to a hard peak.
He ignores it and pulls the blouse from where it’s tucked into my jeans. He slides the fabric off my shoulders and down my arms, leaving me in my brassiere. At the look he gives me—as if his entire world has narrowed to the small part of my flesh he is looking at—and as his gaze travels, so does the heat of his notice, followed by the icy rush as the gooseflesh rises.
I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from begging him to touch me, to kiss me, to get me fully naked. I stand under his perusal and wait. His hands circle my waist, his fingers slipping beneath the waistband and then, slowly, moving around to curl beneath the front and loosen the buttons. One. By one. Brushing against the hair, there, so that it makes me even more aware of his touch, drawing closer and closer to the apex of my thighs, almost, but not quite pressing against the bit of flesh aching for his touch.
I arch into him, trying to press the contact, but he stays out of reach, and chuckles at my efforts, his laughter rolling over me like warm water.
Then, insane man, he lowers himself to his knees before me, and tugs the denim over my hips. His mouth is mere inches from the flesh still demanding his touch, but I know better than to arch toward him, to force the contact. He will act in his own time. As if to test my resolve, his breath huffs, hot and hard, against my flesh, and I tremble.
Once the pants pool around my feet, he cups the back of my knee and lifts me free of them, one at a time, his touch careful and solicitous. He rocks back on his heels and looks at me, every inch of my very exposed skin, and the expression on his face is worshipful. It’s hard not to revel in that look, to let it wash through me and make me feel powerful.
Then, finally, he leans forward, presses his mouth to my flesh, and my body bows, taut as a wire. His tongue is a warmth, a pressure where I need it most, and my eyes roll back into my head. He licks, suckles—I’m not even sure what he’s doing, but it feels like the most sinful pleasure. It goes on, long enough that I’d like to cry, to scream, the tension inside me building until I wonder if it will ever release. Then there’s a sharpness—he’s bitten me, a quick nip of his teeth—and immediately after there’s a suction, as if he’s kissing it better, and then, thankfully, my body seems to dissolve, like fireworks turning into confetti, and I feel as though I’m floating.
When I come back to myself, my hands are tangled in his hair, and his hands cup my bottom, helping to hold me upright. I give a strangled little moan and try to disengage from him, but he holds me too tightly. “You back with me, then?” he asks, and it seems to require an awful lot of energy to nod. “Good,” he says. “Have you eaten?” I manage another nod. “Better.”
He surges to his feet and his mouth, sticky with the residue of my juices, presses against mine. His tongue forces entry, and I’m still too weak with bliss to resist, even if I wanted to. “Hel,” he says, and I’m not sure if it’s my name or a curse. “I meant to get you to the bed.”
I realize at some point, he’d loosened his own jeans, and once again, he just barely frees himself from their confines and leaves the pants around his hips. He hoists me onto his hips and presses me into the wall, seeking entrance with his hardness, and I open myself for him, wrapping my legs around his waist and arching my back to allow him deeper.
He thrusts hard, slamming into me so that my shoulders slide along the wallpaper with a subtle burn. I resist the urge to scream, pressing my teeth, instead, to the solid mass of his shoulder, and then he growls, rolls his hips and slams home hard. Orgasm catches me unaware, washing over me so that I barely hear his own groan of release.
He carries me to the b
edroom, depositing me on the blankets, removing his clothes, and climbing in to curl around me. We might have slept a while, but when I open my eyes, he’s looking at me, and it’s amazing how, in the space of moments, his gaze has become uncomfortable, like a weight or an expectation.
“So…why Two?” I ask him, tracing patterns on his chest when I realize how abrupt I must have sounded.
“Because I used to only have one.” He waves his flesh hand in front of my face. “I was Tyr the One-Handed for a while, but once The Wild Hunt started up, they started to call me Two.” He pauses. “I got the replacement a few months later.” He lifts his metal hand, and understanding flashes through me.
I laugh. “Perverse people you keep company with.”
He gives me a lecherous, if tired, grin. “We’re well suited to each other.” He turns serious a moment. “They also call me Two because I’m second. In command.” He takes a breath. “I’m also Odin’s son.”
She inhales sharply, and I wonder if I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s clear she’s got a thousand thoughts running through her mind, and I wait her out. “It must be strange. Having him around.”
I trace circles on her shoulder with one finger. “In most regards, he doesn’t treat me like his son. But tell the rest of them that.”
She laughs. “I understand that all too well.”
I tense. Impossibly, for just a moment I’d forgotten who her father is. I look at her, and I don’t see any of him in her features. Her skin is dark, her hair and eyes almost black—her hair reflecting blue in the light, her eyes often reflecting nothing. Her features are fine, almost dainty, though she carries herself with such assurance that she manages to look fierce in spite of them.
Would I have touched her, had I known who her father was?
I doubt it.
Or perhaps I would have, if it had occurred to me that it might be a kind of revenge. Certainly he’s earned it, though looking at her, now, splayed against my chest, her hand resting over my heart, I can admit that she doesn’t. The thoughts jumble up and I find myself asking her what her father would think of us.
She doesn’t meet my gaze while she answers. “He’d have to stick around long enough to notice.” She heaves a sigh that seems to originate from her toes—I can feel her entire body move with it. “He isn’t around much. He gave me his birthright—my own realm!” she says with scorn. “He shows up for a week or so each time I cross realms, like any dad pacing a maternity waiting room, generally lays some information on me—never enough—and then disappears just when I think I’ve formed the perfect question to get whatever answer it is I most need.”
She pauses. “In short, he’s unreliable, infuriating, but I’m not honestly sure he would care what I do or who with.” She laughs. “Then again, he might surprise me and be outraged. Or proud of me — Odin’s son! Well done, girl.” She shrugs. “I really don’t know.”
We lapse into silence for a few moments, and I feel her tense and know she has something to say. I wait.
“Is that…what this arrangement is about? Getting back at my family?”
“No,” I whisper, and it’s true. “This is about you being a beautiful woman and me being a selfish bastard of a man.”
Her chuckle is low and sinful. “I’m selfish, too,” she says, and rubs against me as if to prove it.
“From now on, I think the rule needs to be that when you are home, you are naked.” I roll on top of her, thinking to take it slow, to punish her with wanting me. But as I hold myself above her, looking into those dark eyes like night skies to fly in, I can’t resist her. I kiss her, my erection pressed between us, the friction of her skin against mine almost too much to bear. “One of these days I will seduce you properly,” I tell her, and then I slide inside. She arches into me, taking me as deep as she can, and I groan loudly into the space between our mouths.
“It wasn’t seduction earlier?” she asks, laughter in her voice, but I can’t answer. Can’t speak of the way I want to taste her skin, the way I want to bring her to a kind of desire that makes the world fade into fire and need. I am lost to the feel of being inside her, and I plunge myself deep, chasing orgasm and the obliteration of thought.
5
I look through the paperwork and rub at my forehead. Something isn’t adding up, and I can’t find where the mistake is. I glance at the table where Two would normally sit and sigh when I realize—not that he’s not there—but that I was looking for him. How have I grown to rely on him so fast?
The thought sits uncomfortably, like a lump in my chest, and I’m rubbing at it absently when Thora pops her head around my office door. “Need anything, boss?” Her voice is cheerful, even though she’s been here all day. Her blonde hair is cut in a short bob that seems as un-tired by the day as she is.
I force a smile back at her and shake my head. “Is there still coffee?”
She produces a mug she’d hidden behind the door and I smile at her. “Have a few minutes for me?” she asks, and I motion her to the chair across the desk from me. “This is getting rarer,” she says quietly, and I look up at her. “Just us. No BUG.” She grins at the moniker for Two.
I look at her in concern. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how much he’s been here.” And I hadn’t, but every day for the last week, he’s spent six hours in the office with me, going over paperwork, tightening up security at the clubhouse, training the new guards we’ve put in place—believing them to be there in case someone targets us for our connection to The Wild Hunt, of course, and not because of the women who use the place as a safehouse.
He leaves before me, early enough to see to things along the way—getting groceries from the local market, checking in on the tenants, as he calls the women who stay at the clubhouse full time. And then he telephones to tell me that dinner’s on, and I hurry home to join him in a meal, and of course, to fulfill our arrangement.
Thora shakes her head. “No, I didn’t mean that. It’s nice having him around. He’s useful. He unloaded crates today. Shirtless.” She grins at me and I shake my head.
“How is Priya’s paperwork going?”
Thora sighs. “Slowly. The photographer had some issue with the film he used to take her picture. There was a problem with the ink for the passport. The diploma will be here Friday, though, and I’ve lined up three references for her.” Thora twirls the hem of her skirt around her finger. “I’m going to miss her,” she says quietly. “I’ve taken to visiting the blue house to see her on my way home.”
I know what she’s not saying. We’ve had the conversation before. Rescuing these women, helping them find new lives, it’s good, but—Thora carries an anger with her that they’re the ones punished for their husband’s behavior. But we’ve never come up with a better plan.
“Is she getting stir crazy, yet?”
Thora flushes. “I’ve brought her a few motors to tinker with. She’s been extracting the aether and…well, I don’t really understand what she’s been doing, but she seems quite happy.” She grins. “Etta was even teaching her to ride.”
I grin. Etta’s a good teacher.
“She even met Two the last time he came out.” Her voice is deliberately innocent.
“How did that go?” I’ve worried about it—Two is so undeniably male, and Priya’s been through enough.
“She was quite impressed with him.”
“But…he’s a man.”
Thora laughs. “Do you think she can spend the rest of her life avoiding men? At first, it’s hard for some of the women to be around men, and it’s easy to respect that, what with the clubhouse and all. But as they recover—don’t you think it would be nice to have an example of a guy who isn’t all bad? One who treats a woman right? One who protects her and cares for her without smothering her or restricting her? One who loves without hurting?”
Her words make me hurt. “I think you have the wrong idea about us, Thora.” The words come out a whisper, and I realize it’s because I don’t like to hear i
t aloud. I put the papers down, and she laughs, and then looks up at me, wide-eyed.
“I think you might be the one who has the wrong idea,” she says.
I sigh, because I don’t know what he is. Not a friend. He started out as a nuisance, at best. At worst, a spy. He makes me question my code, like no one before him ever has. The Belles come first, now and always. And when I think about what we’re doing, it all seems so very clear: I need to keep him at arm’s length and maintain my priorities. Our arrangement will end, he will go back home, and life will go back to normal. “We’re simply enjoying ourselves until Allfather comes back. He’s Allfather’s second, for Pete’s sake. He’ll return with him.”
Thora gives me a look full of disbelief, and when she realizes she’s not going to make any headway, she glances at her watch—a tiny, gold thing that looks too delicate to function. Then she looks at the paper piled on the desk. “Are you sure you don’t need me to stay?”
“Go.” I tell her. “Enjoy a drive with your young man. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She turns, her skirt flaring with her movement, and sashays toward the door. The tap-tap of her shoes and the jingle of her keys fade as she moves toward the doors.
I look down at the paperwork and suddenly see why the numbers haven’t been adding up. We’re paying almost half what we were for our hooch. And it’s being delivered, rather than us picking it up. Two. He must have done something. I’ll have to ask him what—
Thora gives a startled yelp. I’m around my desk and heading for her before she manages to call my name.
There’s a woman in her arms, as if Thora caught her as she fainted. The woman’s black coat is wet and slick like a seal’s skin. Beneath the hem, a flash of red shows, and flat black shoes. Long, dark hair spills over Thora’s arms, and I hurry to her side to help support the unconscious woman. Without a word, we support her body between us and maneuver her to an upholstered bench, kicking the table out of our way. Once she’s lying down, the light catches her face and reveals blood, caked to her skin and matted in her hair.