Fantasyland: Midnight Soul Part 91

It was the last room I allowed him to enter.

The courtyard was lovely, elegant, private and serene, mature plants, with a handsome, built-in grilling apparatus I knew Noc would love (and he did).

My magic room would be a sunroom, bright and cheery, seeming outside when it was in.

The master suite, as it was known here, was luxurious with a separate shower and bath, both utterly divine.

And the kitchen was large and stylish, but welcoming, making Noc's a.s.sertion that it was the heart of the house very true.

I liked all those things.

But I'd decided this house was the one based on this room.

He was staring at a stuffed elephant on the bed.

"Darling?" I called.

His eyes came directly to me.

"I love it," he stated. "We're offering."

We were offering.

He liked his house. I did too.

But this tall, stately, elegant, s.p.a.cious place was going to be our home.

I felt my throat close.

Amara would sleep there.

Right there.

I knew it just looking at him.

I felt my face get soft and I smiled.

Noc's face didn't get soft. The look on his was fierce.

Even so.

He smiled back.

"Frannie."

"Yes, darling."

"Sugarlips, I'm home."

"Yes, darling."

Silence.

Then a shaking, "Babe."

"Yes, darling?"

I did not see the hand that came to the apparatus I held in my own.

What I saw on the television screen was the action pausing.

My eyebrows shot together, I twisted my neck to the side, bent it back and glared at Noc, who was smiling down at me hugely.

"I was making record time!" I snapped.

"Babe," he replied.

"Do you know how many efforts it took to get to that time?" I demanded to know.

"Babe," he repeated.

"You paused me!" I continued to snap.

"Babe," he said again, this sounding clogged, likely due to his visible hilarity.

"I'll never get that run back!" I groused and did it loudly.

"Love you. Think it's cute as all f.u.c.k you're Franka Drakkar and Franka Drakkar is a woman who'd be so into a f.u.c.kin' video game she wouldn't even look at her man when he came home from work. But just sayin', I just got home from work and I want my woman not only to look at me but greet me with a smile and give me a kiss, my preference, with tongues, even if it messes with her record time while it looks like she's racing a fake race car in a make-believe video version of Monaco."

I felt instantly contrite, set the apparatus aside and pushed myself up from his couch.

I then fitted myself in his arms, wrapping my own around him, lifted up on my bare toes and gave him a kiss.

With tongues.

When I rocked back, both of us held on.

"Welcome home, my darling," I said softly. "How was your day?"

"Best part of it happened just now," he replied in my same tone. "Though, that isn't strictly true since what you gave me this morning edges it out."

I didn't give him anything.

In bed and with everything else, it was always Noc doing the giving.

I melted into him.

"See you introduced yourself to the PlayStation," he noted.

"I didn't. Josette did before she left in a taxi to meet some friend of Glover's. They're at an establishment that has wine and paint. I don't understand what that means but she reports she's going to be drinking and painting on a canvas, even though she's never painted a thing in her life."

"That's strange," he noted.

"I agree," I replied. "But she seemed excited about it."

His arms gave me a squeeze. "Maybe you should have gone with her."

Was he mad?

"And missed time with you?"

That didn't get me an arm squeeze.

That earned me another kiss, this also with tongues, and it lasted longer.

When he lifted his head, he stated, "Dinnertime. Past dinnertime, actually. So you got a choice. I can throw some burgers on the grill or we can order pizza."

I liked burgers.

But pizza beat out everything.

Except, perhaps, lobster, but Noc didn't offer that.

And regardless, as I glanced to his entertainment station, I saw it was well after seven in the evening.

He didn't seem fatigued, but he'd left for work before seven that morning, thus I didn't want him cooking.

What I did want was whatever he wanted.

"You chose, darling," I said.

"Feelin' like a burger."

"How can I help?" I asked.

He grinned at me stating clearly that any help I may be able to give wouldn't be much help at all, but he then let me go, took my hand and guided us to the kitchen.

"When it's time, you can get out the chips and condiments. I'll do the rest."

These were things I could do.

I could also get him a beer, which I did. And I could open my own bottle of wine, I was relatively certain (I had watched him and a number of servants open a vast quant.i.ty of them), which I started to try to do but was halted.

"Babe, no," Noc muttered gently, ceasing his endeavors of opening up a package of meat to take the wine bottle and opener from me.

"I can pour myself wine, Noc," I told him.

"You snap open a beer for me, that's sweet, babe. But I get you your wine. Deal?"

I supposed.

Thus I also nodded.

He got me my wine leaving me nothing to do but sit at the counter and watch him form hamburgers with his hands.

I found this fascinating but mostly because Noc had beautiful hands and I'd watch them do anything, including manipulating meat.

As had become the norm, he didn't tell me much about his day because he wasn't at liberty to share too much about his cases.

We nevertheless found many things to chat about, as we usually did. How the purchase was going with my house. How Valentine seemed to be coming back to herself, still melancholy, but she'd begun discussing the things I would be doing with her and taking an interest in showing Josette and I our new world. How I'd be going to what was referred to as a "gynecologist" the next day to see about "birth control." And how Circe and Dax had not spent one evening apart since our dinner that was now a week and a half ago.

He went out to fire up the grill and I remained seated, ignoring the fact that it had now been a week and a half since that evening Circe and Dax had come for dinner, and in that week and a half I had found excuse after excuse to set aside the fact that I had not found the right time or the right way to approach Noc about my concerns.

He made this easy due to the fact he seemed most content with absolutely everything. My being a part of his life, in his home and bed. Spending time with Jo. Being involved in his new cases.

You had to look to know he carried pain.

But I'd looked.

So I knew.

I just wasn't doing a thing about it.

What I was doing was becoming quite adept at ignoring it or making excuses that it wasn't the right time to do anything about it.

On that thought, his phone that he left on the island rang just as he was walking back in from outside.

I looked to it, saw on the screen the word Dad, then I looked to Noc, stiffening.

"Your father," I told him.

Noc, who was always so very Noc, appeared delighted his father was calling, didn't hide this and went right to the phone.

I was not delighted.

I was pleased he clearly enjoyed hearing from his father.

But it was a father I would one day meet, of this I was certain. And when I did, I would need to impress him and even make him care for me, and this I was not certain I could achieve.

"Hey, Dad," Noc answered, moving to the refrigerator.

I slid off my stool and began to gather the detritus of meat wrappings to throw them away.

"Yeah, it's good. Like it. Caseload is way lighter than on the force, means more focus. Respect the men I work for. Team's tight too," he stated, coming out of the fridge with a tomato.

I pressed my lips together at the sight of the tomato and went to the cupboard for chips.