Chapter Twenty-Two
Nolan
hen I was a boy, I got the notion that I could fly.W My mam tried to dissuade me, of course, cuffing me across the back of the head and telling me to sort out the washing instead. That I could fly to do that, if I was so bloody eager.
But the idea stuck with me and a week or so later I attempted to jump off one of the small cliff faces in our small fishing village. I didn’t fly, but I did manage to twist my knee into a right mess. I couldn’t walk straight for close to a month.
I haven’t thought of that memory in ages, but I’m thinking of it now, my entire body pulsing like I’ve hit every sharp edge on that outcrop once again.
I wake with a jolt, my throat tight and my eyes dry. My head is pounding like someone’s taken a shovel directly to my temple, but there’s a small, warm body nestled against mine.
Awareness drifts over me in lazy waves, ebbing closer and then further away again. Elusive.
Harriet, I think blearily, the body in front of me wiggling. The last I remember, we were spinning through time. Colors and lights and … too much sound. Another wave of pain crashes through my skull.
I tug Harriet closer, my hands flexing.
I hold on to her.
She’s here, I try to assure myself. She’s safe.
You didn’t let go.
“Whamph—” I mumble, my mouth filled with cotton balls. I lick my lips and try again. “What happened?”
Harriet shifts, the weight of her pressing in the cradle of my hips.
She stretches her legs out, then tucks them back against mine.
A gruff sound floats out of my chest. Some of my dreams have started exactly like this.
My head gives another dull throb and I moan. I’d ask if I was dead, but I already know the answer.
I rub my palm over a silk-covered hip. “Harriet?”
“I’m here,” she whispers. Her voice is sleepy and slow. Rougher than usual. It eases over my shoulders and settles somewhere low in my belly, right where her body is pressed tight. “Are you back?”
I blink open my eyes and squint. Soft morning light filters in the room through a gap in the curtains. We’re wrapped in a cocoon of soft flannel sheets with a thick mint green comforter on top. The sheets are cream colored with tiny bears on sleds all over. I stare at them in confusion.
I’m in Harriet’s bedroom. More specifically, I am spooned against Harriet in her bed, clutching her like one of the bears printed on her sheets.
“Back?”
“You’ve been in and out all night.”
I frown. In and out of … what? Consciousness? It would certainly explain the headache threatening to split my skull open.
“’M back, I think.” I try to move, but I feel like I’ve been hit by a cargo vessel. I’m weighed down with lead, marbles rolling around in my brain.
“What happened?” I burrow down farther in the blanket nest and realize I’m missing my shirt. I shift my legs. My pants, too. “Where are my clothes?”
“I assume they’re wherever mine disappeared to.” Harriet eases away from me, sitting up with her shoulders pressed to the plush, green headboard. It’s almost a perfect match to the pajama set she’s wearing. Silky and slinky, mere scraps of fabric against her creamy skin. She tosses her hair back, watching me carefully. “What do you remember?”
My attention is caught on the delicate strap of her camisole. “What?”
“What do you remember?” she asks again, her mouth moving slowly around the words. “About last night.”
Everything is thick and hazy, like trying to look through the bottom of a cloudy glass. I turn on my back in her bed with a grunt, ridiculous sheets tangled around my torso, and dig my fists into my eyes. “My magic was out of control. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.” I remember the bone-deep panic when I tried wrapping my fist around that golden strand of magic and couldn’t grab ahold of it. It grabbed ahold of me instead, curling around my arms in thick, glittering bands.
I remember spinning, flashing images. Memories from Harriet’s past and mine, twisting so quickly together that they became indiscernible. Images that mirrored one another so closely that it was almost as if they were
merging, occupying the same space.
I remember landing back in the Crow’s Nest. A sharp pain at the very base of my skull. Tingling in the palms of my hands, and then—
Nothing.
I don’t remember anything.
“Did I pass out?” I ask Harriet.
She nods, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “You did.” She reaches over and brushes her fingers across my forehead. There’s a tender spot there, right above my left eyebrow. I tilt my head into her touch and her fingers shift up, dragging through my hair.
Harriet smiles. “You knocked your head pretty good against the counter. I thought I was going to have to summon some sort of spiritual healer.”
“There are no spiritual healers,” I explain, eyes closed. There are no doctors or nurses that take after ghosts, because ghosts don’t get hurt. We’re not of this world. We don’t bleed. I shouldn’t have been able to manage a bruise. “How did you get me back here?”
“I was able to rouse you enough to get you up off the floor, but you were— largely unaware.”
Her attention drifts to her bedspread as she plucks at a loose thread. My eyes narrow in suspicion. It’s not like Harriet to censor her thoughts. Not with me, anyway.
I root around for my patience, limited though it may be. “What does
largely unaware mean?”
“You were … saying things.”
“What sort of things?”
“You talked about my hair a lot,” she says. The hair in question spills over her shoulder. “You said I had universes in my hair, whatever that means.
That you wished you could wrap yourself in it like a blanket.”
Okay, well. At least now I understand her hesitation.
“That’s, uh …” Tragic. Embarrassing. Wildly accurate. I scratch behind my ear. “Did I say anything else?”
“You said some things about your dad. People I didn’t know and places I didn’t understand. Flying? Cliffs? There was a whole speech about peppermint that somehow morphed into how tired you are.” Her mouth twists down in a frown and her hand finds my forearm over the blanket. She traces an absent shape there. “You asked if I had any more lemon drops and you were … very affectionate.”
“Affectionate,” I repeat.
Amber eyes meet mine and then drift away again. Her cheeks flush pink.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t—” I tell myself to settle. “I didn’t do anything inappropriate, did I? I didn’t … make you uncomfortable?”
I am almost painfully aware of my bare skin beneath the blankets. Did I strip down? Did I force myself into her bed? I think of the way I was clinging to her when I woke up. Did I force myself on her?
Harriet must recognize my panic because the tension in her face eases, her touch against my forearm becoming more intentional. “No, Nolan. Whatever you’re thinking, no.” She shimmies down in the bed, her knee knocking against mine beneath the blankets. “You didn’t do anything.”
A smile brightens her face. “It was nice, actually. You were like— like a big, cuddly bear. You kept saying how much you liked my hugs. And once I got you back here and wrestled you into bed, I was too afraid to let you sleep by yourself. You seemed … drunk, almost? Magic drunk. I tried to help you change into something more comfortable, but you—you just sort of whooshed all your clothes right off.” I groan as she laughs. “Except your briefs. You’re still wearing those.”
“Small miracles,” I manage. My eyes catch on her shiny green pajamas.
“And you?”
“Me?”
I nod at her top. “You said your clothes met a similar fate, but you seem to be wearing them.”
“Oh.” She looks down at herself and laughs. “Barely. You, ah, whooshed my clothes away, too, and you gave me these instead?” She plucks at the material of her top. “You said you dreamed about it.”
Christ. I press my lips together and look at the ceiling. “Ah.”
Harriet huffs a laugh. “I tried to take the floor, but you insisted upon sharing the bed, and well. Here we are.” She pokes at my bare shoulder.
“You’re very clingy in your sleep, you know.”
I don’t know. I haven’t shared my bed with anyone in quite a while besides Builín, and she’s not exactly forthcoming with details.
Harriet presses the back of her hand against a yawn, one arm stretched above her head. Her tiny green shirt rises and I get a glimpse of creamy, pale skin. My little episode last night got something right, at least. She looks deliciously sleep rumpled. A pillow line on her cheek and her body loose.
Lazy smiles and warm skin.
I watch her face carefully. “If I made you uncomfortable, I—”
“Nolan, stop,” she cuts me off. “I already told you that you didn’t.
You were fine.” She tucks her knees to her chest and rolls to her side. “Are you feeling better?”
I mirror her position and shove an arm under a pillow, nudging my leg forward so I’m tucked against her beneath the covers. I’ll blame my episode if I have to. I still feel vaguely fuzzy, but my headache is receding to something manageable. “I am.”
“Good. I was worried.” She pushes her hair away from her face, then tucks her hand beneath her cheek. She looks impossibly soft here in her bed. In her ridiculous sheets and ridiculous pajamas. “Why do you think your magic—”
She makes a vague gesture and puffs out her cheeks. Like an explosion.
I huff a laugh.
She smiles. “Why do you think your magic went wild?” she asks.
“I don’t know. This is the longest I’ve ever been on assignment.” The word feels clumsy on my tongue. I haven’t thought of Harriet as an assignment for a while now. It’s an improper label, though I wouldn’t know the proper one if it slapped me across the face. She’s in a category all her own, and I’m not entirely sure what to do with that.
“Maybe my magic is rebelling. Forcing my hand. It’s shoving everything at us at once because of the delay.”
“How many memories do you usually visit?”
“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.”
