Natural Consequences (44 page)

“We don’t know if there is a normal with this,” Onyx reminded him.

He nodded slowly. “I feel like I’m me again, but… but it’s there. I know things happened, I know it kind of shapes things, but I couldn’t tell you accurate stories.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Onyx considered. “Let it process. The important thing is you feel like yourself, right?”

“Yeah. Thank you.” He turned to face the couple. “What now?”

“Depends,” Molly shrugged. “You feel like you’re all right in the head now? No shame if you just want to go home and go to bed or see your ladies or whatever.”

He didn’t answer out loud immediately. It would be difficult, looking back, for any of them to remember whose face cracked with a mischievous grin first, or whose eyes first glinted with a wordless invitation. But they would all remember who broke the tense, eager silence.

“I’m starving,” Alex said coolly. “Can I take you both to dinner? Go someplace nice? Anything you want.”

Onyx smothered her grin and nodded. “I could eat,” she admitted.

Molly’s jaw dropped. “Motherfucker.”

“What?”

“You’re gonna be like that?” she said, exasperated and trying not to laugh. “All this bullshit and
now you’re gonna play coy with us?”

Though his good mood was obvious on his face,
Alex masterfully held his cool composure. He stepped in close to Molly and gently took hold of the lapels of her leather jacket. The redhead said nothing and let it happen, her eyes wide with surprise as her body stirred. The bridge was no longer a cold place.

Alex gently pulled her close and kissed her, softly at first but soon building with lust and desire. Molly’s hands remained at her sides, but she could have melted. When her eyes finally opened as their lips parted, Alex gave a little nod.

“I’m worth it,” he assured her, and then stepped away.

Onyx let out a half-irritated, half-amused sigh next to her lover. “He really is,” she grumbled. She took Molly’s arm and tugged the bewildered redhead into motion back to her car.

Matters of safety and security remained unresolved. The day’s activity revealed only partial information, providing her with little that she could act upon decisively. She had planted a few seeds that might or might not germinate and followed up on leads that, while going nowhere, at least eliminated possible complications.

Enemies still stalked the city for those dearest to her. Mystery and mistrust still dogged her from within her small circle of friends.

For all that, Lorelei felt quite satisfied as she relaxed in the large bathtub. Water hot enough to scald a mortal surrounded her, along with bubbles and the soothing scent of her candles. She had lived in homes more opulent than this—palaces, even—but for the moment, the succubus was beyond content.

Desire ran through her—not just her own endless desire, but specific lusts and longing from her mortal lover, now fully embraced. The simplest, most obvious of Lorelei’s schemes stood ready to come to fruition. She relished in his lighter, more spontaneous trysts, but those that came through deep and genuine affection were always much better. For all its ease, her sense of anticipation and accomplishment at helping this along left her feeling quite smug indeed.

Light from a dearly familiar source chased away the shadows. Lorelei’s eyes opened and turned to the door, which had never opened. As usual, the angel simply stepped right through. The aura of light from her halo and her body remained muted and timid, more likely a result of her mood rather than a result of deliberate consideration. For all the passion of the previous night after their brief argument, Rachel knew not all was settled. So did Lorelei.

“Hey,” Rachel said.

Lorelei’s quiet, self-satisfied grin remained. “My love,” she acknowledged.

“I feel weird. Good weird.”

“You’ve felt this before.”

“Yeah, I know, and… and Alex isn’t here.”

“He is not.”

“I mean I figured he wasn’t with you, ‘
cause I can recognize
those
fireworks,” Rachel explained.

“Oh? We’ve fallen into a routine?” murmured Lorelei.

The angel smirked at her. “More like you’re the only one who takes it off the charts every time.”

“I am not,” Lorelei said mildly, her eyes meeting Rachel’s with meaning. “I know full well what you two share.”

The blonde huffed. “Yeah. Well. Point being, this is… uh…” She shuddered and couldn’t keep the grin off her face. The demon in the bathtub felt it, too, though her outward reaction was not so obvious. “Is he with the witches?”

“Yes.” Lorelei reached out of the bathtub to briefly slide her hand against a towel hanging nearby before picking up her cell phone. A single push of a button revealed a brief text conversation. “They have helped him lay to rest the turmoil of his past. I know no details as yet, but if one reads between the lines it is clear that his situation is vastly improved.

“He has taken them to dinner,” Lorelei continued, looking meaningfully at the angel, “and plans to stay the night with them.”

“Hhhhuh.”

“This is no spontaneous tryst,” warned the succubus, “nor is it a matter of lust alone, though I feel an abundance of that, as well. Two young women, both of whom mean a great deal to him, and both of us connected to his pleasures… and you know his other connections to me.”

For once, Rachel was at a loss for words. She stared at her lover.

Lorelei’s smug grin remained. “If there were ever a night to hide away from the world and have me all to yourself…”

“They went to dinner?” Rachel asked, her voice shaking.

“They have only just arrived, and likely haven’t been seated. If you have affairs to put in order, you have perhaps an hour.” She paused thoughtfully. “I could ask him to stall, if you like?”

“Nonono!” Rachel blurted. “An hour’s good. Fuck it, I don’t even wanna wait an hour, I’ll just—shit, I gotta find someone to keep watch, and—“

“May I be of assistance in some way?” offered the succubus, still relaxed and smooth in the face of the angel’s obvious excitement.

The thought broke Rachel from her rush of thoughts. “Tell him thanks for the warning shots?”

“I shall convey your love.”

“You’re the one gettin’ all of
that
tonight,” Rachel quipped before she dove through the closed door once again.

* * *

“The challenge here is to not eat yourself into a food coma,” Alex grinned as the waiter collected their menus and moved off. “I’ve only been here a couple times, but as far as I can tell everything’s awesome.”

“I refuse to go home sluggish,” said Onyx. “You can take us here again sometime and I’ll pig out on lobster. Not tonight.”

“You come here with your girlfriends?” asked Molly. “Do they actually eat?”

“They eat when they feel like it. I’m the only one who needs food.” He paused, his eyes still on the redhead. “We’ve been talking about me and my life all day long.”

“What’s wrong with that?” she asked, sipping her beer with a grin. “We’re interested. You’re an interesting guy.”

“I’m not a narcissist.”

“Wow, check out the five-dollar words,” chuckled Onyx.

“No, seriously. This is back to the conversation in the shop today. I don’t know Onyx nearly as well as I’d like—“

“Got to know her pretty well already from what I gathered,” quipped Molly.

“—and I’ve spent more time with her than I have with you.”

Molly swallowed another pull of her beer. “Are we dating?” she asked. “Is that what this is? A date? Are you dating both of us?”

He grinned back at her. “That’s for you to decide. Tell me tomorrow.”

“This sure is an attitude change after dodging us for a month,” said Onyx. “Is this the new you or something?”

“
I’m… feeling a lot better. About everything. I don’t even know where to begin.” He paused. “How different do I seem?”

Onyx
fell silent and openly stared. Alex knew she saw things ordinary men and women could not. She shared a look with Molly as if to silently compare her impressions to her partner’s. “You’re still you. Whatever changed from everything we did today, it didn’t turn you into a player.” She paused. “We can both still take you at your word.”

“I owe you more than I can say for today, but that’s not why I’m so interested in you. Both,” he added, glancing at Molly.

“Does that take effort?” Molly asked with obvious amusement.

“What?”

“Splitting your attention like that. Two women at once.”

“Hey, I’m not gonna pretend I’m a pro at this,” Alex shrugged. “It’s only been a month, like you said. Rachel and Lorelei are full-on serious about each other, too. It’s not an act just to get me turned on.”

“Does it?”

“Hell, yeah!”
The ladies laughed. He continued. “Ever since Lorelei and I got together and my sex life got crazy, I’ve felt like there was something wrong about it all. Like I’m doing something awful by letting sex take such a priority between her and I, or for fooling around with other women. I keep wondering if something’s just
wrong
about all this. But then I think, ‘Says who?’ Society? Strangers whose opinions I shouldn’t care about anyway?

“Hurting people is bad. Lying is bad. Everyone has to take responsibility for themselves. Past that… nobody has a lock on how people should handle all this. Nobody has
the
right answer. It’s all just a matter of opinion. I’m interested in you. It seems mutual. My girlfriends are fine with it. Why should I give a damn what anyone else thinks?”

“You don’t have to justify for us,” shrugged Molly. “Our Practice holds that sex is morality-neutral. Like you say, it’s not how much you hook up or with how many people. It’s about the context and the way you go about it.”

“Still kinda playing with fire, though,” Onyx noted. She glanced at her girlfriend. “We got away with it once. Doesn’t mean we won’t get burned.”

“I have faith,” Molly told her. “Like you said…
he’s still the same guy we scoped out in photography class. Creepy stalker behavior in cemeteries aside.”

“Do you always
scope people out like this?” Alex asked. “Like with the aura-reading thing?”

“
I have to concentrate a little,” answered Onyx with a shake of her head. “It’s not hard, but I have to think about it. If I saw everyone’s auras all the time, I’d probably go nuts. Or at least stagger around like I’m stoned.”

“I have to concentrate more,” Molly admitted. “She’s better at that than I am.”

“But you’ve been doing this longer, right? You’re a couple years older than Onyx. How long have you been working magic?”

“Practicing,” the ladies both corrected. Molly grinned more. “You’re determined
to make this conversation about us, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but I’m not trying to
dodge questions. Ask me anything,” he said, “but I asked you first.”

Molly shot Onyx a curious look, and got only a shrug in response. “I already got a first date out of him.”

“You got lunch at Dick’s and an afternoon shagging,” Molly countered, “and everyone can make their own stupid puns in their heads without sharing out loud.”

“Just sayin’ he already knows me better than
he knows you.”

Molly’s eyes turned back to Alex. “You realize
you’re scoring all kinds of points with the way you look at me, right?”

“How
am I looking at you?” Alex said. He kept looking at her the same way.

“You
know
you’re doing it!” she accused playfully. “You know you’ve got a look.”

“What’s it say?”

“It says ‘rawr,’ mostly,” Onyx muttered with a grin.

Alex laughed, looking down at the table for a moment to control his brief blushing, but his eyes—and his look of controlled, intense interest—came back up to Molly once more. “
It’s still your turn.”

“I’m from a big family in
Phoenix. They disowned the living hell out of me when I came out of the closet. I thought I was fully lesbian, later figured out I’m bi, but whatever. I realized I wasn’t a good Christian on top of all that, so yeah. That was the boot. Friends weren’t much help, either. The only family I had who didn’t freak out on me was my uncle—“

“Her hot uncle,” Onyx chimed in.

“—who lives up here in Seattle,” Molly finished as she poked Onyx. “He took me in, helped me finish high school and get on my feet. I was nineteen when I met Onyx. She was almost done with seventeen.” She gave a little grin. “And just for the record,
she
made
me
wait.”

“
I wasn’t ready yet,” explained Onyx without a shred of guilt.

“
Nothin’ wrong with that,” said Alex. “Still. That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Fuck no, it wasn’t,” Molly huffed. “You see how hot she is. Hell, you’ve seen her naked.”

“Mostly,” he corrected. Molly’s eyebrow went up. Onyx just waited for Alex to finish. “She didn’t take off her bra.”

“Oh, man,” Molly grinned widely, “you’re in for a treat.”

“He lives with Lorelei,” Onyx reminded her. “Like anyone could compete with that. Except maybe an angel, right?”

“It’s not a competition,” Alex
replied. “I don’t look at it like that.”

“I’m not worried,” Onyx told him. “I’m just saying.”

He shook his head again. “Hey, I know I’m a letch. I’m a horrible letch. Always. But I don’t rate women’s looks on a scorecard. It’s not like that. I’m either attracted to someone or I’m not. I don’t have a minimum acceptable height and weight ratio or any bullshit like that.”

His pair of dates shared another
heavily loaded look. Both had wry grins that spoke volumes to one another. Onyx twirled the mixing straws in her drink. “So your relationship with Lorelei and Rachel is permanent as can be, right? Not just because of magic, but because that’s how you all
want
it?”

“Yes.”

“And anything else that takes place outside that relationship is secondary to you and the two of them, right?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Not to short-change anyone, but yes.”

“No, honesty is good,” Onyx said. “Perspective is good. Do they have veto power in your extracurricular activities?”

His lips pursed. “Yes. They haven’t claimed it, but yes.”

“Would you put up with whatever boundary-setting bullshit Molly and I had to do in order to keep ourselves happy with each other?”

“Yup,” Alex told her.

“Even if our expectations were inconsistent and we kept changing the boundaries?”

He made a face. “What, you don’t have a manual ready to go for this?” he laughed. “Yes. I understand. We’re all just making this up as we go along, right?”

Onyx fell silent as she stared at him. Alex didn’t look away. Molly waited until she couldn’t anymore. “Does he mean it?”