Midnight Soul (38 page)

“Welcome home,” Noc said, and my eyes shot
from the beads dangling down my front to Noc’s. “
Laissez les bon
temps rouler
.”

How odd, he was speaking Fleuridian. He’d
never done that before.

At that point, before I could ask after this,
it seemed he became aware that there was more of me that had been
transported, not just my face.

He leaned back an inch as his eyes traveled
down my body and I watched his expression begin to change.

Gods.

I had nothing against harlots. I’d fallen in
love with the male variety of a harlot and had happily acted as one
myself without shame.

Now, however…

“Valentine selected it,” I stated quickly,
referring to my attire that Noc was right then gazing at fixedly.
“I can be risqué but—”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

I went silent at the timbre in his voice.

His eyes moved, made it to my feet, and
slowly, they traveled up.

Halfway to my face, it came as a growl.

“
Fuck
.”

It had been some time, but his tone was not
lost on me.

In entering the period of my recent
(prolonged) celibacy, I had declared I was done with that part of
my life.

Of course, Noc changed all that, and if I was
honest, he did it months ago.

But if he had not, he would have done it with
that one word, the look on his face as he said it, and the tone
with which he uttered it.

And it would seem, in but seconds, any
questions (lamentations, anxieties, fears, trepidations) I had
about what would become of Noc and me upon our reunion, he
answered.

In one word.

Even if that word and the way he said it had
answered it, what he did next
really
answered it.

That being the fact I suddenly had his hand
at the small of my back.

It didn’t press in.

It
hauled
me in and I was plastered
against his long body.

The instant I was, his other hand dove in my
hair, tangling and gripping.

There was no pain at his touch. Thus the gasp
that came from my mouth and drifted across his descending lips was
indication of an altogether different feeling.

I closed my eyes after his lips crushed down
on mine.

It was not instinct but instead a driving
need that made me lift my hands and filter my fingers in his thick,
soft hair to hold him to me.

And it was not generosity but pure greed that
made me open my mouth to invite him inside.

He accepted the invitation with a low snarl
down my throat, his head slanting, his hand at the small of my back
gliding around and curving at my hip so he could hold me closer to
him, all as he deepened the kiss.

He tasted good. Fresh and warm and spicy.

He smelled good, all of those same
things.

And he
felt
good.

Like coming home, and I knew the feeling even
though I’d never felt that
in my life
.

I burrowed into him as I accepted the
invasion of his tongue, his talented workings scuttling along my
skin, from my hair to my toes, gathering specifically between my
legs, forcing me to press my hips to his, grind them against him,
seek something I
needed
.

Intimacy.

Connection.

Just Noc.

I pulled one hand from his hair to wrap my
arm around his neck, going up further on my toes to push even
closer.

I did not hear the calls or whistles or
shouts.

But vaguely, only because of what happened
after it came, I heard, “Serious, dude, get a freakin’ room.”

Noc broke only the connections of our mouths
and we panted at each other’s lips, our gazes sultry and hooded but
locked as he muttered, “Great fuckin’ idea.”

And then I was teetering for a moment, bereft
of Noc’s hold.

But only for a moment.

His hand closed around mine and he turned,
dragging me behind him.

The earth beneath my feet was paved with an
odd, continuous (though uneven and broken in parts) stone, but I
couldn’t really pay attention to it or any of the rather active,
raucous, loud and smelly goings-on around us.

I had to concentrate on walking on my
heels.

This did not go well.

I tripped, emitting a faint cry, caught
myself and called out, “Noc, I—”

He stopped, yanked at my hand so I completely
lost balance, but did it falling toward him. He released me but
only to bend at his waist whereupon I had his shoulder in my belly.
Promptly I was
on
said shoulder, one of his arms wrapped
around the backs of my thighs, and we were advancing through the
street at the great speed Noc’s long strides afforded us.

“You
go
, brutha!” someone shouted.

“Right the fuck on, man!” someone else
shouted.

“Oh my God, I think I just had an orgasm,”
someone further said.

The first two were male voices.

The last was a woman.

I could pay no mind to this. Noc was marching
down the crowded street and the way he was doing so—as I put my
hands to the sides of his waist and peered around him to the
front—I saw the throng part to ease his way.

He made the mouth of the road, turned left
and kept striding down a slightly less populated, but much wider,
avenue.

All I could see were the contraptions on the
road.

Automobiles. Cars. Trucks. All that Noc had
described, but far more fanciful in real life, vied for space on
the thoroughfare.

By the gods.

He couldn’t be telling it true.

It
had
to be magic.

I stared at this until Noc stopped moving,
bent, put me on my feet, took my hand and looked into my eyes.

“You think you’re good to go now?” he
asked.

I didn’t know the answer to that.

But I was with Noctorno Hawthorne of the
parallel universe. Thus there was only one answer to anything he
requested.

“Yes,” I whispered.

He nodded shortly, turned to face forward and
resumed walking (quickly), pulling me with him.

Fortunately, we didn’t go far. There was a
door to our left that Noc turned toward, pushed through, and he
continued pulling me along with him as we walked through what
appeared to be a large, elegantly-appointed, rather elaborate
entrance hall.

He took us directly to a long, tall desk,
behind which a man and a woman, oddly (albeit different sexes) both
attired in what looked to be poorly-fitting uniforms, were
standing.

“May I help you, sir?” the male asked,
looking from Noc to me and back to Noc.

“A room,” Noc stated. “King-size bed.”

The man cast his eyes down at the desk and
his fingers started tapping on a peculiar apparatus that had
letters and numbers on it.

I stared, transfixed.

“How long will you be staying?” he queried,
not lifting his head (which, distractedly, I found rude).

“The night,” Noc answered.

“Two people?”

“Only two.”

“We have availability,” the man declared,
looked up and gave Noc a courteous smile. “How will you be
paying?”

Noc let my hand go to pull a billfold out of
the back pocket of his jeans, and I watched all that happened next
with fascination.

I stopped watching when Noc shoved the
billfold back in his jeans, took a tiny envelope from the man and
grunted, “Thanks,” when the man invited us to “Call should you need
anything and enjoy your stay.”

Then I again had my hand in Noc’s and he was
towing me toward a wall that had four shining-gold double doors
(that couldn’t be real gold, surely), all inexplicably situated
close together.

He stopped me near them, reached out and
depressed a button in the wall between the doors.

I watched him do this.

I stopped watching when that hand came right
to my face, cupped my jaw and forced it back so I was looking up at
him.

My, but he was handsome.

“We’re about to get in an elevator, baby,” he
declared.

I had no idea what that meant.

I also did not care one whit what that
meant.

I only cared about the heat in his beautiful
eyes.

“We’ll walk into a little box, you’ll feel it
move. It takes you up and down automatically so you don’t have to
use stairs. We’ll be going up,” he explained then asked, “You get
that?”

It occurred to me vaguely that with the
variety of things he shared that they had in that
world—motorcycles, automobiles, these…
elevators
—much of it
doing things “automatically,” that there might be a reason Noc ran
around the Winter Palace frequently to “keep fit.”

If one didn’t even have to climb stairs in
this world, such inactivity could make one quite unhealthy.

This thought, vague as it was, flew from my
head as a
bing
was heard and I looked in that direction.

A set of the golden doors was sliding open in
a way that made me stare in shock, but I had no time to recover.
Noc’s hand left my face, grabbed mine, and he pulled me to them,
through them, and we were as he said, in a little box.

And that box was really quite little. I’d
been in privies that were larger.

Not to mention, Noc told me it was going to
move.

Upward.

Taking us with it!

I felt a frisson of panic gather at the small
of my back and my eyes shot to Noc’s.

“Noc, I’m uncertain—”

My attention shifted instantly to the doors
as they slid closed.

My heart bolted up to my throat and my body
locked.

Then my back hit the wall of the box, Noc’s
body pressing it there, and both his hands were at my jaw tipping
it up.

Before I could draw in a breath, his mouth
crashed down on mine, his tongue slid inside and the panic
disappeared.

There was no box.

There was no world.

There was only Noc, his touch, his
taste…
him
.

He kissed me even as I felt my belly fall
(and it wasn’t only because of his kiss).

He kept kissing me even as I heard the soft
whoosh
noise of the doors opening.

He stopped kissing me to grab my hand and
pull me down a carpeted hallway that was wide and elegant and
exceptionally brightly lit.

I was breathing with difficulty, trying to
focus on walking without falling, something that was not easy
considering my focus wanted to be on the tingling occurring at my
lips, along my skin, and between my legs.

He stopped us at a door, pulled the tiny
envelope the man gave him out of his front pocket and opened it. He
then took a flat, rectangular doodad from it, touched it to a space
above the door handle and I blinked in surprise as I heard a
whirring noise at the same time a section at the top of the area
Noc touched with the doodad lit green.

“My word,” I whispered, staring at the green
light.

How could Noc say this world had no
magic?

It seemed to be everywhere!

Noc opened the door, pulled me inside and
stopped us both.

He touched something on the wall and the
space we were in illuminated.

Just.

Like.

That!

And there was more magic!

“My
word
,” I breathed.

He took a placard that was hanging from the
back door handle and suspended it from the front, pushed the door
closed, flicked a metal doohickey at the jamb that looked like a
rather clever door latch that could not be opened from the outside
(an excellent safety feature in this, what appeared to be, large
public inn), and then he caught my hand again.

Before I could take in where I was and all
that had happened, I was standing at the foot of a large bed, my
back to it, Noc standing in front of me.

I looked up at him.

“Noc—”

“Shut up, baby.”

I blinked up at him.

He twisted at the waist, and with a flick of
his fingers, he flung the doodad across to a bureau behind him. It
landed on the top but even before it did, he’d twisted back to
me.

“Noc—”

He lifted his hands to my jaw again and I
quieted.

“Missed you,” he said softly.

I stared into his eyes.

He did.

It was written right there, right there for
me to see.

With a wide variety of other things.

All of which I loved.

“And I you,” I replied.

“Done missin’ you, and really fuckin’ glad I
am,” he stated.

Still staring deep into his eyes, I did
nothing but nod.

I was done too and I was very,
very
glad I was.

“Yeah,” he muttered like I spoke my words
aloud, his gaze falling to my mouth.

“Noc.” I said his name with a different
purpose this time, swaying toward him.

“Shoulda known that mouth would be sweet,” he
murmured.

I had the feeling Noc needed to take hold of
me somewhere other than my jaw, for if he kept speaking words like
that while gazing at my mouth, my legs were going to give way.

He dipped his head so I could feel his breath
caress my lips.

“But in all the time I spent wondering how
sweet it would be, never in my wildest dreams would I imagine it’s
as sweet as it is.”

Yes.

He needed to hold me elsewhere or I’d crumple
at his feet.

“Noc,” I whispered yet again.

He didn’t kiss me as I expected him to
do.

Wanted
him to do.

No.

His hands went from my jaw to my bottom, his
fingers clenched in, and I gasped when I was lifted up.

With no choice, my legs curled around his
hips, and in no time he’d entered the bed on his knees and placed
me on it.

He then placed
him
on
me
.

It was
then
he kissed me.

And it was then something happened that had
never happened to me.