Midnight Soul (50 page)

In other words, gauche
and
daft.

I was neither.

Nor was Josette.

This wouldn’t do!

Damn Valentine. It was irritating in the
extreme she’d brought us to this world, championed doing just that
and disappeared after we’d arrived.

“I…well, Noc…” I got myself together and
requested, “It would be most appreciated if you’d accompany us
through our, erm, assignations here.”

Noc got closer, smiling encouragingly,
saying, “You’ll be good, sweetheart. And you’ll like it. Women do
this kind of shit in this world all the time and they love it. It’s
considered a treat.”

“I’m certain it is,” I mumbled. “It would
still—”

He cut me off by taking my hand, tugging it
and giving Josette a look as he moved us a few steps away.

He turned his attention to me and lifted both
hands to either side of my neck before dropping his face to mine
and saying only for my ears, “Okay, baby, first, hair. When they
get you in the chair, they’re gonna ask you what you wanna do with
it, maybe recommend things you might wanna try. Be firm you want it
trimmed only. They’ll do that. They might wash it, blow it dry with
a handheld, electric blow dryer and style it. When they get to your
brows, they’re gonna…”

He then patiently, and rather thoroughly,
explained all that was to happen to Josette and myself at that
“spa.”

“To end,” he concluded. “I’m a dude. Dudes
these days do this kinda thing. Have pedicures. Get shit shaped. I
am not that kind of dude. I’m also not the kind of dude that hangs
with his woman while she has it done. If you’re anxious, I’m here,
won’t step a foot out that door if you need me to stay. But if I
didn’t think it would all be good, I wouldn’t even consider
leaving. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded. “I understand, Noc.”

“So you want me to stay or can I go?”

I stared into his eyes as his words tumbled
in my head.

I am not that kind of dude.

You want me to stay or can I go?

Can I go?

But he would stay.

For me, he would stay.

“I’m exceptionally fond of you, Noctorno
Hawthorne,” I blurted.

His face blanked momentarily in surprise
before the blank vanished and his gaze took on a heat I’d only thus
far felt from him during loveplay.

“For future reference,” he rumbled, “you look
at me like that while you say shit to me like that, you do it in a
place that at the very least has a relatively private broom closet
so I can take you there and fuck you against the wall.”

I swayed into him, lifting a hand to clutch
his shirt to help hold me up as his words coursed up my legs to
target the area between them.

This they did.

With precision.

“Yeah?” he pushed on a growl.

“Yes, Noc.”

“Now, do you want me to stay?”

“No, darling. I think Josette and I can
manage.”

“Right,” he muttered, sounding perturbed,
looking stimulated, and dropping his mouth to mine for a hard,
closed-mouth kiss before he lifted an inch away. “Text me when
you’re almost done, I’ll come get you, take you both to lunch then
the mall. Good?”

I nodded. “Good.”

He looked over my head and then at me.
“You’ll love it, sweetheart. Just relax and have fun.”

I nodded again.

His heated gaze shifted just to warmth. “I
can go but only if you let go of my shirt.”

“Oh!” I cried, letting him go and watching my
hand smooth his attractive shirt against his chest.

This was a mistake, seeing as his chest under
his shirt was so warm…and so hard.

I pulled my hand away.

“Late lunch, early dinner, we tuck Josette
away, back to my place for another marathon,” he stated roughly and
again I lifted my eyes to his.

Warmth gone, heat back.

“Marathon?” I asked, fighting against melting
from his heat.

“Do you have those in your world?” he queried
in return.

“Running? Yes, there are games in Hawkvale
where athletes from all over the Northlands—”

“Our marathon will not be running,” he
promised.

My “Oh,” that time was much softer.

“Fuck, she says ‘oh’ and I’m in danger of
coming in my pants,” he groused, looking annoyed.

I felt my eyes round before I felt my lids
get heavy and my mouth get soft.

I watched as Noc took in my look and appeared
to grow even more annoyed.

“Gone,” he grunted abruptly. Lifting a hand
to snatch me around the back of the head, he bent it down, kissed
the top, tangled his fingers in my hair and pulled it back. He bent
in again to brush his lips against mine. “Text me,” he demanded,
let me go and then he sauntered rather aggressively to and out the
door without even glancing at Josette in farewell.

This was rude but I didn’t have it in me to
consider that as I was at that moment memorizing his aggressive
gait because it was such an agreeable sight, I never wanted to
forget it.

Once I realized I was staring longingly at
the door, I shook myself out of it, turned and saw the woman behind
the desk who had greeted us as we’d walked in, as well as Josette,
were both staring at the door.

Longingly.

This made me smile.

Exultantly.

I moved toward Josette.

The sooner we had our this-world treat, the
sooner we’d again be with Noc.

So it was time to get started.

* * * * *

“Look at this. Look…at…this!” Josette
demanded, striding into the lounge with its comfortable furnishings
that was the waiting area of the spa.

I looked at this, “this” being her flipping
her hair out at both sides with her hands then shaking it with her
head tipped back.

She did not have a man who demanded her hair
stay long so it had been cut to be just longer than her shoulders
and styled in soft curls that were most becoming. Not to mention,
as if by magic, blonde streaks had been added changing the color
but a nuance, but that nuance was most appealing.

She righted her head and smiled hugely at
me.

“It’s a miracle!” she cried.

It was, indeed, a very attractive
hairstyle.

“You look lovely, my dear.”

She got close to where I was sitting, bent
over me and started plucking carefully at my hair with expert
attentiveness. “Gads, Franka, I see what they’ve done. Released
some of the buoyancy by cutting layers into the length to take off
the weight.
Extraordinary
,” she breathed, leaned back and
examined my face. “And your brows are quite lovely, arched like
that. All in all, I must say, you look even more beautiful than
normal,” she declared. “Mas…I mean,
Noc
will be even more
enamored with you when he sees you.”

I had no doubt this would be true.

And the reason why was not my hairstyle,
which was really quite lovely, a change but not much of one,
however it made an impact. Or my brows, which were always arched
but the delicate sweep of them now was most effective.

It was simply because Noc was enamored with
me and it seemed anything I did made him more so.

I tucked that thought safe close to my heart
and smiled in a way I knew how it felt having it there showed on my
face.

And it did, for Josette asked, “He’s lovely
to you in all ways?”

“He’s more than lovely to me in all ways,” I
answered.

“I knew he would be,” she whispered. “And
this makes me happy.”

It did me as well.

I didn’t share that.

I reached out a hand and took hers, giving it
a squeeze.

“Franka? Josette?” a woman called.

We both looked to her standing at the mouth
of the area we were in.

“Time for mani-pedis!” she exclaimed, as if
she’d said, “Time for you to select your sapphire the size of your
palm!”

Josette, my sweet adventurer who greeted
every new experience with excitement and delight, gave me an eager
look then rushed to the woman.

I pushed up from my seat and followed more
slowly, doing it realizing that for some reason I’d taken on this
other-world adventure with trepidation. Perhaps because nothing had
gone well for me in my past and I could not imagine a future where
I could expect even a modicum of that and I was living in
unconscious dread of when my luck would turn. Perhaps it was
because I was Franka Drakkar and I had not yet gotten used to the
new me, I feared I’d lapse into the old, and it would be me who
would drive away all the good I seemed to be earning.

I followed Josette and the woman slowly, also
realizing this was foolish and feeling my shoulders straighten at
the thought.

Antoine had been right.

Kristian had been right.

Josette had been right.

And Noc had been right.

The four people I had allowed closest to me
knew me better than I did myself.

The new me
was
me.

As such, it didn’t
seem
I was earning
anything.

I simply
was
earning it.

So I should bloody well enjoy it.

As I felt a smile curve my lips, my step
increased and I sallied forth on my next adventure of allowing
someone (not Josette) to shape my nails.

It was not hand to claw combat with a
bear.

But it was
my
adventure,
my
life.

I was going to cease fearing it.

I was going to embrace it.

Every second.

* * * * *

“By Hermia,” Josette whispered loudly from
her place beside me, her entire body vibrating from the apparatus
that was inside the seat that whirled and kneaded, tapped and
pounded against our backs. “Another miracle,” she whispered, waving
her pink-tipped fingernails my way.

I’d noted, with some envy, Valentine’s
varnished nails, something we did not have in our world.

Now both Josette and my nails were the same,
shaped and varnished, and the ladies were attending our feet, an
utterly sublime experience.

Josette had chosen pink.

I had selected a rich burgundy, the color of
my favorite Fleuridian wine.

“We must come here every week, Franka,”
Josette carried on whispering.

This, once Noc taught us to drive a vehicle,
we would do.

“Agreed,” I declared.

She again smiled hugely.

I looked down at the woman sitting on a low
stool at my feet.

“Hail, young woman,” I called, her head
twitched and she tipped it back to blink at me. “Can you please
inform me of when you’re close to finished?” I requested. “Not,” I
went on quickly, “that I’m not enjoying your ministrations. I am.
Thoroughly. Just that my, well…erm…”

I looked to Josette and lifted my brows,
uncertain how to refer to Noc.

She shrugged.

Ah well.

I turned back to the woman at my feet. “My
lover
requires me to text him when we’re nearly finished so
he can collect us. We’ve both enjoyed our time here, tremendously.
But I, for one, am quite famished and he’s to take us out to
luncheon.” At her continued stunned expression, I amended,
“
Lunch
and I’d rather not delay in waiting for him to arrive
by texting too late.”

“Are you in character for some play or
something?” she asked when I stopped speaking.

“In what?” I queried in return.

She stared at me.

She then inquired, “Are you from
England?”

I stared back at her.

It was not lost on me I was much different in
manner and speech to those of this world. Until I found my footing,
at times such as these, an explanation might be required.

Therefore, I gave her one.

“We both are from Lunwyn,” I shared, flinging
a hand Josette’s way. “It’s a land far from here. Though we speak
the same language, things are much different there.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” she turned to her
compatriot on a stool at Josette’s feet. “Have you heard of
it?”

That woman shook her head.

“It’s very difficult to get to. Quite,
undeveloped
, as it were, in comparison, of course, with
your,” I threw out my other hand again, indicating the soil under
the floor on which we sat, “America.”

“Right,” she said. “Okay.”

“So, to end, are we nearly finished?” I
asked.

“Yeah, uh, just, you know, the massage and
polish. Maybe twenty minutes. But you should probably text
now.”

I nodded. “My gratitude.”

“Right,” she mumbled then went back to my
feet whereupon she commenced massaging them and my calves.

Marvelous.

I had to request another who worked at the
establishment to help me liberate my phone from my reticule so I
didn’t spoil my varnish and it was not easy poking at it with wet
nails.

I accomplished it, a whoosh noise happened
telling me it was sent, the phone sounded in my hand, making both
Josette and I grin at each other like schoolgirls, but my grin
deepened when I saw Noc’s name above a little bubble that was
underneath my little bubble.

Be right there, sugarlips, it decreed.

Ah Noc.

My Noc.

A goodness
I
earned.

The best there could be.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, I was not thinking such
kind thoughts about Noc.

I was grinding my teeth.

This was because he was laughing his arse
off, doing it carrying me to his vehicle, with me wearing
brightly-colored, flimsy, weightless pieces of nothing that looked
like the footwear Josette had been wearing since she donned
this-world clothes, except much less substantial.

I had been shuffling along, rather
gracelessly (to my utter despair), holding my shoes and my bag,
until Noc took pity on me and swung me up in his arms.

He didn’t take that much pity considering he
did it as I’d mentioned, laughing his arse off.