Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Two or three usually does the trick. It’s not a particularly complicated process.”
Her eyes search mine. “It’s different with me.”
“Aye.”
In so many ways, it’s different with Harriet.
I could go back to the department and ask to see Isabella again, but I’m worried it’ll raise more questions. I’d like to see this through to the very end, whatever that might look like.
I’d like to have as much time with Harriet as possible.
Harriet walks her fingers up my bare arm, then down again. Greedy for her touch, I tug at the blankets, making it easier for her to touch me.
“Did you see anything helpful?” she asks. “Last night?”
I try to remember what we witnessed in the whirlwind, but all I can remember is Harriet’s hair in my face, my palms pressed tight to her rib cage.
I had been so afraid she would slip out of my grip.
That I’d lose her in the spin of time. Everything happened so fast. “No. I was too busy panicking to be of any investigative help. You?”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t see anything that could be a key to moving you forward.”
Something pinches in my chest. Moving on to something different has been the driving force behind my existence for several decades, but it’s hard to consider it when I’m wrapped up in sheets with tiny bears on them. With a pillow that smells like Harriet’s shampoo.
I don’t want to be anywhere else. I want to be right here. She mistakes my hesitation for something else.
“Don’t worry,” she says quickly, nails dragging up and down my forearm. “We’ll keep looking. I was really good at those hidden picture things as a kid.”
“What hidden picture things?”
“The ones in the backs of magazines?” I give her a blank look. “Never mind. The point is I’m sure I can figure this out with a little bit more time.”
“Aye,” I agree, my voice a rough scratch. “More time.”
More time.
More time.
More time.
The entirety of my existence, I’ve been urging time to pass. Now I desperately want it to slow down.
“We’ll get back out there,” she reassures me, her strokes across my arm getting longer, deeper. I shiver, tilting myself closer. Goose bumps pebble my skin.
I didn’t even realize I could get goose bumps.
“Harriet.”
“What?” Her touch dances higher, over my biceps, down the slope of my shoulder to the top of my chest. She inches up my neck and I press my head back into her pillow.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice a low rumble.
“Oh,” she says. Her hand lifts. “I was just— Do you want me to stop?
I grab her wrist and pull her hand back to my bare chest. “No.”
She laughs, resuming her slow, easy pattern. “You said something last night—”
I crack one eye open, watching.
She spreads her fingers wide. My heart pounds beneath her palm. “I was rubbing your back and you were telling me how nice it felt. You said—you said no one has touched you in a hundred years.”
I fight off the burn of embarrassment. It’s not shameful that I crave touch when I’ve had so little of it. That after all this time, I enjoy Harriet’s attention.
“It’s been quite some time,” I agree. I pause again, swallowing. “I like how it feels.”
I shift on my back and the sheets tug lower against my hips. It feels brazen to do this in the soft light of morning, but my desire to feel Harriet’s hands against my skin outweighs any embarrassment. Her palm eases down over my abdomen, mapping new territory.
“Okay?” she asks.
I nod. My body feels like it’s coming alive under her touch, my muscles burning with impatience, my skin buzzing everywhere her touch wanders. She’s not following any sort of set path. Every time I think I know where she’s going next, she deviates.
She traces the stretch of skin along my side. Eases her palms over my chest. Her nails scratch across a patch of freckles and the ends of her hair drift over my neck. I make a bitten-off sound.
She laughs under her breath and taps her fingers across another thin white scar, just beneath my collarbone. “What’s this from?”
“Don’t remember,” I tell her, my eyes still pinched shut. My cock is heavy between my legs, everything leaden and weighted. I’m grateful for the blankets piled over my lap, embarrassed her innocent touch has twisted my arousal so tight.
“And this one?”
She eases her fingers over at a spot near my hip and my back arches. I couldn’t summon the memory attached to that particular scar if she put a knife to my throat and demanded it.
“I don’t know,” I slur, my words lazy and slow. “I don’t remember much from when I was alive.”
Her hair pools across my stomach. Something warm and wet brushes over my scar.
My hands fist in her comforter.
“That must be difficult for you. Not remembering.”
This is difficult for me. Holding myself still for her wandering touch. Trying not to react. Trying not to embarrass myself.
I open my eyes and stare down the length of my body at her.
My blood runs hot at the pretty picture she makes.
She has one hand propped at my hip, the other flat on my stomach, her body hovering over mine.
One of her straps has slipped from her shoulder again, caught in the crook of her elbow.
I can see the swell of her breasts. The hard point of her nipples through the thin material.
She’s looking at me with her bottom lip between her teeth, all that blond hair spilling over her shoulders.
She holds my gaze as her hand dips lower, nails scratching through the dark trail of hair beneath my belly button.
“Can I—”
“Please,” I gasp, not letting her finish her question. My hips rise beneath the blankets, chasing her touch. “Please, Harriet, I’ll—”
I’d do just about anything to feel her hands on me.
She shushes me with a smile, pushing herself up. She trails a single fingertip from one hip bone to the other and I let out a pitiful, whimpering sound, dropping my head back against her pillows. She grins at me.
“I want you to be sure,” she says.
“I’m sure,” I mumble back, lust drunk and lost. This feels like traveling through time. Like a rope tied around my chest, pulling tight. “Don’t stop.”
“I won’t,” she promises. She finds the blankets trapped around my hips and tugs. “Lift for me,” she murmurs.
I do as she asks, tilting my hips up, letting her gather the blankets. My embarrassment has evaporated, traded for anticipation instead. I don’t care that I’m painfully aroused from a few innocent touches. I don’t care that Harriet will see.
I want her to see. She deserves to know how much I crave her.
She yanks the sheets off and tosses them toward the end of the bed without looking, her hands resting against my hips.
I tuck my arms beneath the pillow under my head, gripping the feathered material hard.
My arms flex. The first time I ever used my magic, I felt like this. Like I was out of control.
Her eyes dart down and widen when she sees me straining at my briefs.
“Oh,” she says, her tongue wetting across her bottom lip.
“Yes,” I grind out. There’s no hiding from it now. I could probably come from just looking at her. “My apologies,” I add after another beat of heavy silence, not meaning it at all.
Harriet’s eyes snap up to mine. “Your apologies?”
She dips one finger beneath my waistband and traces the delicate skin on the inside of my hip. A spot, apparently, directly connected to my cock.
“Yes.”
She slips her whole hand beneath the elastic, the material stretching around her wrist. She keeps her touch deliberately away from where I want it most, her fingers brushing along the inside of my thigh. “Why are you apologizing?”
“I don’t know,” I moan. “It seems like the proper thing to do.”
She smirks. “My hand down the front of your underwear doesn’t feel like a time for proper.”
Christ. I hope not. She shifts and circles her hand around my cock, her touch far too light.
It’s not enough. I need more.
“Harriet. Please,” I beg.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No.” Yes. “Tighter. Please. Wrap your hand around me and—yes.
Like that. I need—”
“Shh.” She hushes me again and her weight shifts. She tightens her grip and the gentle amusement leaves her face as she moves her fist up and then down. I make a garbled, gasping sound. “I’m going to take care of you.”
“I know you will,” I say, nonsensical, too focused on the feel of her small hand drifting up and down my cock. Long, languid strokes. “You always do.”
She doesn’t even know how well she takes care of me. With her easy smiles and careful touches. Her too-soft heart and that smart mouth. She’s made me feel more alive in a handful of weeks than I have in decades. She’s lit up all of my darkest corners.
“Harder. Make it—make it rougher for me.”
She makes a satisfied sound and tightens her grip. A handful of strokes and I’m already close to the edge, my hips chasing her touch, pushing into her hand. My hands find her headboard behind me, fingers gripping at the edge. The wood creaks.
I clench my eyes shut, trying to hold on to my restraint. I don’t want this to end. It’s too good.
“Harriet,” I breathe, and she makes another low sound in response.
I feel it vibrate in my bones, a heavy press of anticipation that starts where she’s touching me and spirals outward.
It feels like the pull of my magic but warmer.
More insistent. It spreads to my chest and pulses out, thrumming in tune with the blood roaring through my body and the motion of Harriet’s hand.
“I’m close,” I tell her. “I’m—I’m close.”
Immediately, her grip lightens. “Not yet,” she whispers.
“No. Please.” The pleasure recedes, a sharp ache that steals the breath from my lungs. I’m frantic, needy, reduced to a mindless, begging version of myself. I open my eyes and push myself to my elbows, watching as she yanks my briefs down farther, keeping them trapped around my thighs.
“I’m going to take care of you,” Harriet says again, and before I can comprehend her intentions, her hands are bracing herself on my hips and her head is sinking over my lap. She takes me in her warm, wet mouth.
“Fuck.” I moan. One shaky hand rises to sink into her hair. “I’m going to—I can’t—you look—fuck.”
She lifts her eyes to mine and I gather up all her hair, using it to guide her tempo. She follows beautifully, moving down and then up and then down again. Her eyes don’t leave mine.
“Tell me.” I grunt. “Tell me I can.”
She gives me permission with a slow blink as she hollows her cheeks and sucks me hard.
Her tongue twists around me and—that’s it.
I’m done. I collapse into the pillows and fist both hands in her hair, giving in and fucking myself into her mouth roughly, pleasure roaring through me like a cyclone.
She lets me do as I please, moaning around me as my orgasm grips me by the throat.
I am nothing but sensation. Heat and lust and delirium. Raw power drifts around me, sending out sparks but landing like snowflakes.
I vaguely feel her pull away, her hands still braced against my torso.
“Nolan.” Harriet’s voice sounds very far away. “Nolan, open your eyes.”
“Can’t,” I pant, chest rising and falling.
Harriet snorts a laugh. She presses against my chest again.
“Look.” I crack open my eyes with effort.
The room is filled with swirling snowflakes, drifting lazily from the ceiling and landing against our bare skin.
I must have lost control of my magic when I—when I lost control of myself.
Golden sparks dance between the snowflakes, my magic buzzing beneath my skin.
Harriet holds out her hand with a laugh, trying to catch some as they dance away.
I can feel them melting against my bare chest as I blink dazedly at the ceiling.
Kisses of warmth instead of bites of cold.
My magic pulses again, and more snowflakes explode from the ceiling.
“You made a snow globe,” Harriet says, delighted.
I reach for her. I need her closer. She lands across my chest with a muffled oomph, snowflakes in her hair.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“No,” I tell her, my magic racing almost as fast as my heart. The snowflakes pick up speed to match, flecks of gold in between. “You did.”