by Kay Williams
I didn’t think that South was asking enough of Lemon Grove either, she had cleared over half a million copies in less than two weeks and she was averaging about forty thousand sales a day, but I had bullied her along this far and I didn’t want to admit I had been nosey and snuck a look at her sales log. South obviously wasn’t used to working with the kind of large numbers she was currently earning, and though she wasn’t assuming she was going back to her five sales a day life she wasn’t thinking large enough either.
Thankfully by the sound of it Lemon Grove was and I thought that she was going to be okay.
“I want to talk about what happened last night,” I said carefully and South’s slight stiffening did not give me confidence that what was about to happen would be easy.
# # #
Harriet South
“I want to talk about what happened last night,” Heronsgate said.
I knew he meant the awkwardness after I had stupidly asked him to stay last night, but after the dream the memory potion had provided I couldn’t help but feel myself stiffen. I knew everyone had secrets, I had just never thought that Heronsgate could have such a large one.
Flying was classified as a High Tier Spell and required a deep Pool of Essence to Cast, for Heronsgate to be able to do it at will was amazing. How his family had managed to keep their Abstract out of the press I couldn’t even begin to understand, a day didn’t go by where his name, his company or his photo wasn’t in a paper in some way or another, to have never been caught out during a momentary lapse was extraordinary.
Heronsgate put his drink on the table and eased a little bit closer.
“I have come to the conclusion today that any answer would have been better than my ‘umm',” he confessed. “But I still don’t know how to answer the question.”
“If the question is really that difficult to answer then it wasn’t right the right time to ask it,” I said.
“It was the perfect time to ask it,” Heronsgate reassured me. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we first met. The more I got to know you the more I liked and the more I wanted to know. I just didn’t know if saying something like ‘No, I’m going to leave the gentleman at the door and have us naked in less than ten seconds’ was going to be welcome.”
It was either laugh and tease or blush and as I felt I have blushed far too frequently around Heronsgate I settle for the first option.
“You couldn’t get naked in ten seconds if your life depended on it. A fully buttoned shirt, lace-up shoes, cuff-links and a tie. You need a minute at least.”
Heronsgate just blinked at me and for a moment I felt like I had said the wrong thing, but then his eyes narrowed and he grinned wickedly before he pulled out his phone and set a timer for ten seconds.
“Would you like to bet on that?”
I laughed again and would have been keen to let him prove he could do what I felt was impossible but the offer only reminded me that there was something he could do that I needed to admit to knowing. There were always going to be secrets in any relationship; things we didn’t want friends to know about, stuff that happened which we didn’t want to share with new lovers, but at the same time Heronsgate was already very aware of his Abstract and there was no point in concealing the fact I knew about it.
“Yes. But I have to tell you something first.”
“About what?”
I wasn’t surprised when Heronsgate scowled. I had gone from being serious, to teasing him, to flip back to being serious again so quickly I would have been annoyed if I was in his place.
“After I woke up properly in hospital things were a little disjointed and I explained to my doctor that there were a lot of gaps and the memories I had didn’t make much sense. He said that my subconscious would have picked up on more detail but that these details just weren’t in the right place.”
“Harriet, you cracked your skull open,” Heronsgate said softly. “We were very lucky to be rescued so quickly and it was only that quick attention that meant that you didn’t suffer more serious side effects.”
“The doctor told me that a mild memory potion would help me naturally slot the subconscious thoughts into their proper place with what I could recall.”
“That’s good news, did you take it?”
“I did, I took a nap and the memories came back to me in a lucid dream. Plugging up all the holes and stabilizing what I did remember,” I answered, the innocent look on his face almost caused me to lie, he honestly didn’t have a clue that I was about to drop a bomb on his head. “I remember you flying.”
# # #
Henry Heronsgate
I flinched back, and from the expression on South’s face she looked as if she wished she had never opened her mouth.
I wasn’t ashamed of my Abstract, far from it, but I had never told anyone who wasn’t family about it either; not even my closest friends knew.
“When you were struggling with the door I knew I was slowing you down,” South said quietly closing the gap and gently placing her hand over mine. “I knew that if you had been on your own you would have been long gone and that by holding on to me I was going to kill us both. I didn’t have the strength to tell you to forget me, but I thought it.”
I didn’t know if I should have been angry at her for giving up on me so quickly, angry at myself for not comforting her in the moment, scared that her thoughts had become so dark, proud that she had been so brave or sad that it had happened at all. I did grip her hand as tightly as I dared and felt her return my strength.
“Letting you go would never have been an option.”
“I already knew that I owed you my life; I just had no idea how much you risked to save it.”
“I didn’t care if my Abstract was discovered. I just knew I had to get you help. I almost lost you and that scared me just as much as the carriage crashing had.”
South wrapped her other arm around my neck and I pulled her close with my free one.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered the heartfelt promise.
I felt myself smile, of course she wouldn’t. If South had wanted to out me she wouldn’t have made the confession she had; she would just have done it.
“I appreciate that you feel you had to say those words, but I already knew that.”
“How?” South asked.
Because I might not have known everything there was to know about her, but I knew enough to know she was protective of her friends, but the question did open up a gap for me to take advantage of; and now she knew about one of my abilities I wouldn’t be happy until she knew all of them, I wanted her to know that I trusted her.
“I’m a little bit psychic,” I confessed.
“What constitutes as a ‘little bit'?” South drew back with a frown.
“I can tune people in an out, mostly I keep people out; I don’t need your thoughts as well as my own day to day. I can only pick up on surface thoughts I can’t dig out your deepest buried secret or anything.”
“Unless I started thinking about it and you were listening?”
“Exactly,” I agreed. South nodded and didn’t look as put off by my confession as I thought she would.
“Can you transmit, or just receive.”
I can transmit.
I laughed when South jumped as I whispered the words into her head rather than speak aloud.
“Over what range?”
“The closer you are, the easier it is, but if I concentrate and I know who I am looking for I can find one mind amongst hundreds of thousands in a large city. If my dad is reaching for me and I am reaching back we can talk, but it is very difficult for us to maintain. The slightest distraction can break the connection.”
“I see.”
“And the only reason I was able to get that door open was because I have a superior strength that I forced it with.”
“Anything else?” South asked.
“That's it,” I smiled, grateful that it was all out in the open.
“Ri
ght.”
“Are we good?” I asked worried that her acceptance was only going to go so far.
“So long as we aren’t getting along simply because you are telling me what I want to hear,” South said carefully, as If she knew it was a silly worry to have and didn’t want to offend me.
“We are getting along because we have a lot in common,” I replied with a smile. “Because we have so much in common I have never had to listen in to tell you what you want to hear. I did listen occasionally to make sure I wasn’t putting you into a financially uncomfortable situation, like when I found your hotel package.”
My phone chose that moment to buzz with a message and as much as I didn’t want to let her go I had to sit up to read it.
“Problems?” South asked.
“No, dinner reservations for this evening.”
“What time do you have to go out?”
“I’m being picked up at half four,” I didn’t mind South that was asking me about my messages or my day but it was new. She had never been this nosey about it before. “Why?”
“I was just thinking that you could either spend ten seconds proving me wrong,” she said looking at her watch. “Or three and a half hours proving me right.”
Don’t say ‘umm’ I ordered myself.
“You're right,” I managed trying hard not to sound over eager. “It is going to take me much longer than ten seconds to get out of this suit.”
South grinned and I dropped my phone next to hers to pull her into my lap when she started pressing lush little kisses against my throat and neck. Tugging her gently back when she hit a ticklish spot. I caught her lips with mine and we leant into each other, giving and taking in equal measures, but she had to know this wasn’t anything simple for me, that I didn’t consider her a here-today gone-tomorrow part of my life. I had tried to tell her before, warning her I would come over for coffee and take her out but she took everything so teasingly I didn’t know if she had believed me.
“Things will change if we do this.”
“Not for the worse I hope.”
“Only for the better,” I promised. “Hopefully a long-term better.”
“You don’t have to keep dropping heavy hints, Henry,” South smiled. “If I didn’t understand what you are getting at I wouldn’t be here now.”
Smiling I planted a soft kiss on her nose.
“Just so we are clear, sweetheart.”
“Seriously,” she complained. “Only my mum calls me that, any other endearment you like, just not that one.”
I laughed and watched as she lifted my hands, with a little frown of concentration she carefully took off my cufflinks and unfastened my tie, at the rate she was going it would take us three hours to get undressed; not that I intended to complain. Slow and hungry was sorely under-rated in my view, but I was keen to get from the sofa to the bed.
Getting up I offered South my hand and she took it, pulling at my jacket and trying to untuck my shirt at the same time as we moved to the bedroom. I brushed my jacket out of her hands when she would have treated it more respectfully. Tugging her back against my chest I kissed her again as she wound her arms around my neck.
South moved her hands in massaging circles on my shoulders gently and I grew weak at the attention closing my eyes enjoying the feel of those hands. Hands I had dreamt and fantasized about stroking my body and soul, they ran through my hair easing it off my face as I kissed her again, I sighed softly as the kisses melted from something rough and demanding into something as tender and soft as her touch.
A couple of her fingers began to stroke my nape, I had never thought of it as an erogenous zone before, but the way she moved those fingers changed my perspective. Grazing them up to my hairline and then back down in-between my shoulder blades.
Up and down.
Slow and hungry.
Our kiss took the same rhythm, our tongues thrusting and tangling on the upward stroke only to pull away on the downward one.
I lost my shirt and trousers but discovered she was right about my shoes, it felt like it broke the mood when I had to sit on the bed and bend to unlace and toe them off, but by the time I looked back up South had decided to pull her T-shirt and jeans off and get caught up.
South slipped to straddle my lap, and I took her mouth again and her hands began to roam my back more freely. It was easy to roll her beneath me and urge her up the sheets at the same time as pulling off the last of our clothes. South shifted to wrap her legs tightly around my waist allowing me to ease her open even further as my body found its own rhythm of thrust and parry. Deep firm strokes that made her issue little cries and purring sounds into my mouth. At the same time I moved slowly enjoying every inch of her tight sex.
I lost all sense of time to pleasure, heat and skin, but it wasn’t until South whispered the intimate request that I join psychically with her and share in her pleasure and send mine back that we both lost all control.
# # #
Harriet South
I woke and my stirring roused Heronsgate who had both his arms curled around me, the sheets were in a tangle of disarray from our afternoon’s activity, but from the living room I could hear a phone buzzing and chiming for attention. Heronsgate kissed my forehead and slipped from the bed, I peeked out of my lashes as he walked out of the room and wished I could have frozen the view. I pushed myself up and wrapped the sheet around my body, the room shouldn’t have been cold, but without Heronsgate’s warmth I shivered and goose bumps raced down my arms.
I wasn’t surprised when he came back and immediately began to gather up his clothes shooting me an apologetic look as he dressed.
“That was my four o’clock alarm.”
“At least you will have an appetite now,” I teased.
“Funny,” he smiled, kneeing on the bed he cupped my cheeks and kissed me. “I should be back by ten, come up for a drink before bed?”
“Your bed or mine?”
“Both,” he grinned. “Do something for me?”
“What?”
“Buy yourself a new laptop before I buy one for you.”
“You are not buying me a laptop,” I complained.
“Why not?”
I smiled at his expression; he wore that same handsome pout as he had at the airport when I said I couldn’t fly with him.
“One, because it wouldn’t come with an English adaptor so I would be able to charge in my Drive at home, and two, because it would default to the American spelling for everything and I don’t want to have to waste time teaching it proper English.”
Heronsgate laughed but didn’t push the issue, he kissed me again and it wasn’t until he had left that I realised he hadn’t promised not to buy the equipment and I had made the mistake of telling him why I didn’t want him to purchase some random piece of technology for me.
But I had asked him not to, so he wouldn’t necessary go out and buy it anyway? Would he?
Of course I will.
I jumped at the sound of his voice in my head, the transmission crystal clear and laced with his amused tones.
I don’t need a new laptop. I thought the words carefully.
You do when the one you are using is five years old.
Eight. I corrected him automatically only to instantly regret it when I realised I was only giving him more fuel.
I heard his laugh before it was gently cut off as if he had closed the door, of course he could still be listening but there wasn’t anything I could do about that so I just had to hope that he was the gentleman he always came across as and let me have my own thoughts.
I climbed out of bed and straightened the sheets a little grateful that afternoon naps had been fairly common during my stay and it wouldn’t look too out of character for them to be ruffled. I retreated to stand under the shower; the hot water and the soap taking the scent of Heronsgate’s aftershave with it.
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t known what I was getting myself into, but I still felt miles out of my depth. Heronsg
ate was addictive, every time I got a little taste I just greedily wanted more. I had waited for my novelty to wear off; for a man who could have anything and everything, I kept telling myself, I had to be easily dismissed, but instead he had flattered me and pushed for a friendship since the airport, but that had all changed the first time we kissed, after that we had become an ‘us’ and the couple hints hadn’t been hard to miss.
I shut off the water and grabbed fresh clothes from the closet, dried and dressed.
I collapsed on the sofa, I was hungry and with Heronsgate occupied and after Rosemary’s meltdown over lunch it was probably going to be best if I ate alone, but I did have a text to send before Heronsgate got too busy.
‘I need to make a confession.’
‘Good or bad?’
Heronsgate must have showered faster than I had if he was answering so quickly.
‘I’ve been on my own a while. I won’t mean to be insecure but I might get that way so you’ll need to call me on it.’
‘You are acting insecure.’
I hadn’t meant for him to start straight away but he had a point.
‘No one likes a smart-arse.’
‘I expect you to love my smart arse, not just like it.’
How I was supposed to reply to that?
‘White flag. I surrender. In this battle of banter you win.’
‘I take that to mean you do love my smart arse.’
‘I wish I'd never started this conversation.’
‘Good. It was a silly text to start with.’
I smiled, I had complained about being insecure and he had soothed it in his own unique way.
‘Enjoy your dinner.’
‘See you at 10, sweetheart.’
‘See you then, chickenscratch.’