Chapter 29
Quoth
Iswallow as Mina’s eyes travel to mine, as she bites her lip while Morrie’s fingers trail over her perfect breasts.
I thought watching would make me sad. I thought it would make me hate Moriarty.
Instead, it’s the hottest thing I’ve seen in my life.
Mina blinks with recognition, and the corners of her mouth turn up into a brilliant smile. She grips the staircase tighter and pushes herself back against Morrie, grinding herself into him while her gaze fixes on me, and I am utterly gone.
I am so desperate to fly down there and join them, so needy for her lipstick smeared over my skin and her soft hands on mine and and and all the things that I’ve never dreamed of wishing for, and they feel so close and yet so utterly far.
My skin prickles, my feathers dangerously close to the surface.
But instead of being a wrong thing, it feels somehow right and good to exist in this place between man and bird, between wishing and wanting and having.
I groan, pressing my hands firmly into the hard wooden step so that I don’t touch myself.
Mina and Morrie might be the ones who are naked, but I’ve never let anyone see me this vulnerable.
Then it’s over, the spell broken. She cries out, and he spills into her, and it’s done.
Mina turns away, scrambling for her clothes, her cheeks flushing with colour.
Morrie reaches for her, but she ducks under him and heads for the stairs.
I flatten myself against the wall as she runs past, hand cupped between her legs.
“I need a moment,” she calls back down. A second later, the door to our apartment slams.
Morrie leans back against the bookshelf, still completely naked. He runs a hand over his close-shaved hair. He smirks at me, but the smirk doesn’t quite reach his eyes. I wonder if he knows what I saw when I watched them – if he even knows that when he’s with her, he softens. He cares about her.
“That was…” his chest heaves. “She’s incredible.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Don’t apologise, birdie. You can watch me fuck Mina any time. And if you decide you want to do more than just watch next time…” he winks. “I think she’d be into it.”
I can’t sit here with him all naked and sweaty and think about that, so I stand and head upstairs.
With every movement, wings brush against the inside of my skin, feathers press and flutter in my chest. I open the flat door as silently as possible, listening for Mina in the shower so I can sneak back up to my room and maybe deal with the tightness rubbing against my jeans.
I find one of my t-shirts slung over my perch and pull it on.
I still don’t hear the water running. I peek around the corner of the hallway.
Mina stands at the end, her hand on the door handle of the time-travel room.
Panic seizes me. I surge forward, but before I can say anything, she twists.
Nothing happens. It’s locked.
This time.
Now I’m standing a few feet from her, and I don’t want to be even more of a creepy stalker than I already have been, so I say softly, “Hey.”
She whirls around, her eyes widening as she flops her shirt over her chest. “Argh! I’m not dressed.”
“I can see that.”
“Someone locked this door.” She glares at the time-travel room.
“It’s always locked.”
“But then how—”
“That’s a conversation to have with Heathcliff.
” I make a show of looking at the ceiling, even though tearing my eyes from her feels like breaking off a piece of myself.
“I came up here to apologise to you. Also, you can use my room to change if you want. I know the bathroom isn’t exactly hygienic. ”
“I appreciate that, but I think I’ll just—” I hear a dull thump as Mina drops her clothes on the floor, and it takes every ounce of self-control I possess not to look. The ache in my jeans is becoming unbearable.
“I didn’t mean to spy on you,” I choke out. Don’t look don’t look don’t look. “I heard a noise like someone screaming, so I came down to see if you were okay, and there you were. I didn’t see much, if that’s what you’re worried about. Morrie’s white arse covered most of the view.”
That was a lie, and we both know it.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I was disrespectful. I apologise.”
“It’s fine. I…” Her voice cracks. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
I hesitate, my heart thudding against my ribs, unsure if I should respond to that. “I know. Heathcliff was raving last night about kissing you.”
“He was? What did he say?”
“Basically, that he acted like a right tit. Truthfully, I think he’s a little afraid of you.”
“Morrie said that, too. Why?”
“Because he didn’t think he’d feel anything for anyone after he lost Cathy, after he read what happened to her, and what he did afterwards. And then you showed up in the shop and he doesn’t know what to think now.”
“Are you saying he likes me?”
“Very much,” I whisper.
“Great. So my boss has a thing for me, and I just slept with his friend. I’ve messed everything up.”
Her voice hitches, and that’s it, I have to look. I jerk my neck an inch to the left, and out of the corner of my eye, I see her with her head in her hands.
I step towards her, my whole body aching to hold her even as my cock aches for something else.
But I don’t want her to know about that, not after Morrie.
So I stop a foot from her, and I’m desperate to touch her, to reassure her, to hold and…
other things. But I have to be safe. I know how much safety matters.
“You haven’t messed everything up,” I say carefully. “This isn’t an ordinary bookshop you’ve walked into. Heathcliff likes you. Morrie likes you. They both know that fact, yet neither wishes to enter a competition for your affections. Instead, they care only that you are happy and safe.”
I suck in a breath.
Here goes.
“I like you, too.”
The words are like acid in my chest, burning through my ribs, liquifying my organs.
My skin surges with a wild, uncontrollable itch, and the world shrinks away as Mina’s eyes burn into mine and her lips purse and then I am no longer Quoth.
I burst into feathers and pain and ruin, and I fly fly fly as far and fast as I can.
For who could fall for a grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore?