pleasuretoburn (pleasuretoburn) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-09-24 12:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | noah restic, rhiannon lee |
Timing
Who: Rhiannon/Noah
What: Show and Tell
Where: Searchlight, Rhiannon's Place
When: Present
Content Warnings: Some suggestive content, mentions of violence
For nearly two years, the trailer at the end of Indian Street was home. The sun-bleached rectangle of prefabricated materials was the last on the left. It had a view of the crumbling hills surrounding Searchlight, which reminded Rhiannon more of mine tailings or piles of construction rubble than natural landscape. Yet they stood the test of time, ochre-tinged and hot, interrupted by patches of scrub bushes and reptilian residents. When she came to Searchlight, that sight from her porch steps was all she wanted. That, and to be left alone.
Gradually life changed. Strange faces became familiar. She fell in love, and love left. Neighbors observed and neighbors talked, and they exposed the hunter to her uncle’s tantrum. It was time to go. A dozen flat boxes were stashed between Rhiannon’s couch and the wall, awaiting assembly. A key to an apartment in Las Vegas dangled on a hook by the door on an old Stardust keychain.
She sat on a stool and listened to the rumble of the air conditioning and hum of the refrigerator, taking in the nuances of her space before she let it go.
The curtains stood open. The kitchen was clean but dated, its dish rack loaded with coffee mugs and brussels drying bristles-up. The only hint of how Rhiannon consumed meals was a crumb-filled toaster oven shoved in a corner next to a microwave and coffee pot. A small, well-used dinette set supported art supplies, canvasses, and notepads in disarray. The living room housed a collection of odds-and-ends furniture and two steamer trunks, the lids propped open because she’d recently gone through her weapons, spiritual artifacts, and journals to make sure she wanted to keep everything before she put it into a rented moving van.
In her bedroom, the windows were clothed in rich, thick curtains so she could block out the sunlight, and the walls wore multiple layers of matte paint. The color pallete was dark: plum, indigo, pops of wine-red. A selection of silver jewelry hung around an oval mirror. The nightstand was crowded with a candle on a saucer dish, her lighter, a pile of books, heavy ink pens, and a tarnished cigarette case with an inscription. The closet burst with clothing and an enthusiastic selection of boots. The adjoining bathroom was unremarkable other than the contents of her make-up bag spilling across the counter.
At the kitchen peninsula, Rhiannon scrolled her phone and thumbed a quick text to Frankie about an upcoming bout in Vegas, including her opinion on a fighter’s chances.
A few months after killing Doherty, Noah had traded in his old Audi for something more lowkey. It didn’t seem to fit anyway, afterward. There was something suffocating that he associated with it now. He felt better in the Honda Civic, the royal blue shade his favorite color. The drive from Las Vegas to Searchlight had been peaceful, no sign of nerves or apprehension. The pyrokinetic was, however, looking forward to seeing this side of Rhiannon, and he was glad he had a chance to before she moved.
As GPS finished guiding him to his destination, Noah pulled up to Rhiannon’s home and cut the engine and the lights. Smiling down at his phone, he texted her that he was outside before exiting the vehicle.
The alert dropped in front of her text as Rhiannon composed it. A smile softened her features. She left off mid-sentence and went out back, onto the small porch and paved patio, to meet him. A plateau fence lizard skittered out from an adirondack chair and hid by a potted cactus. Seeing Noah standing in her driveway took her off-guard because it wasn’t so long ago that she was making a deal with him never to come into this town, one she thought of at the time as hers. “Hey.” She made her way to the fender of his car. The hunter had kept her appearance casual, a vintage Siouxie t-shirt that had been washed until it felt as light as air, along with ripped jeans and her hair in a loose bun. An array of thin bracelets clinked past her wrist.
The way she faced him straight on, with one foot testing the ground in front of the other, said that she ached to touch him, but she kept her thumbs in her hip pockets.
“Hey,” Noah answered back. His hands were resting in the faded black denim of his jacket. He studied the way she looked first, and his attention was drawn to the dark, loose strands that came down from her bun and framed her face. He took a step toward her and his hands went to the pockets where her thumbs rested, hooking a finger into each one and pulling her closer.
“Hey,” he repeated, lower this time, before Noah kissed her deeply.
Rhiannon’s arms lifted, the gesture dreamy and slow. Her fingertips searched through Noah’s hair until she found a place to cradle his head that she liked, her response to his mouth soft and yielding but earnest. ‘I missed you,’ it said. The best thing about that kiss was knowing the way he would taste and how his mouth would fit with hers before it even began. “Hey,” she finished, sliding her thumb into the space between their lips. The pad of it traced the shape of his mouth and the shadow under it, a sign that she had quickly become enamored with the little things about him.
“I’m lucky,” Noah remarked, not moving his lips too much because he liked the way she touched his mouth. “When I miss you, I just have to look out of my window.” He reached up and tucked some of the errant strands behind her ear, his fingers brushing against her neck. Reluctantly, he tore his gaze away from her and to her trailer, taking in the chair, the plants, all the marks she had left on this place. To think, he had almost missed all this because of a job.
“It’s no substitute for this, though,” he added, wrapping his arms around her.
“Good. If it was, I’d paint over it with a stick figure.” Rhiannon kissed his cheek and found one of his hands. “Come on,” she coaxed, tugging. “We should go inside before my neighbors start livestreaming.” The hunter was only half-kidding. She led him up the worn path to her steps, past a rusted metal wind spinner and a bowl of water left outside for a neighborhood cat. The screen door croaked a greeting as she held it for Noah and stepped into the living area. The air smelled faintly of a cone of incense she’d burned hours ago, a combination of ivy, rose, and honey.
He was immediately struck by the scent upon entering, not in an overwhelming way, but it hit him that this was how homes smelled. Rhiannon was leaving this place soon, and even in that transition, it was more substantive than the apartment he had occupied for years. “I would still like the stick figure,” Noah told her, taking in the environment with curiosity and something else that felt like need.
Most of all, he was struck by the warmth, both from the color palette and the various objects that made up a life. Solid. “I like this,” he added. “How are you feeling about leaving it?”
“If I could pick up the house and take it with me, I would,” she said, closing the door. “But Searchlight was only ever temporary.” Rhiannon went to the kitchen, which was in plain view, and took out a variety of glassware and a cold pitcher of filtered water. “Like any good member of my family, I’ve also got beer and vodka.” She gave him a slight lift of her brow. Since the summer, she had begun reclaiming the idea of herself as a Corrigan. An unfortunate uncle was temporary. There was more in her that was like them than different.
“Water is fine,” he told her. “I didn’t exactly come here to raid your fridge.” Noah ran his hand over her back, her t-shirt’s well-worn material soft and yielding beneath his palm. He looked down at the various art supplies before remembering something. The pyrokinetic took Rhiannon’s hand in his and turned it over to check the tip of her index finger.
“Was seeing if there was still spray paint,” he explained, eyes flicking up to meet hers. “I had a dot for a couple days after the Wheel.”
The finger was held still for his inspection. “You sure you’re not a cop?” Rhiannon teased. Had there not been paint, there may still have been a rough indentation from the trigger on the can for a while. “It’s strange. I did have a little something here. You know anything about that?” She angled her neck to let Noah see the skin under her ear where he liked to latch on with his mouth. That kind of extended contact left tiny, purple pin pricks, or even blooms of beard burn, whether intentional or not.
Subtle signs of what happened were everywhere. The rock Rhiannon took from their space on the Wheel was safe and sound in a small, wooden box on her dresser. It shared the box with an acorn from a bur oak and a blue piece of beach glass from Lake Erie.
She reached to the side and poured two glasses of water.
He ran his fingers over the spot, and there was a measure of pride there along with the marks from his mouth, and the desire to revisit them. But he could be patient. Noah wanted to see every part of her. “Every time I washed my hands, it faded,” he told her quietly before letting his hand drop to her hip. “I thought it would be sad, but it was the opposite. Just a secret between me and you.”
The pyrokinetic accepted the water and drank, mentally following the path of cold down his throat. “I think red is your color,” Noah told her.
“Think so? I’ll keep that in mind.” Rhiannon wondered if he based that on the way her skin flushed when he stood this close. “I liked the way you described that, by the way: a secret between us. It makes me want to conjure up more. A language between us that nobody else speaks.”
She took a sip of her drink because the temperature of it was distracting and it was probably too early to start tugging up the bottom of his shirt. She’d hate for Noah to think she wasn’t in it for the rest of him, too. She gave a telling clearing of her throat, a quick catch of her tongue between her back teeth, and eased past him into the open space.
“I think there might already be one,” Noah remarked, following her, his eyes on the nape of her neck. He was just able to tear it away, just. He pointed to a sketchbook, taking in its worn and stained cover; he could spot markings from what looked like pencil and ink, a few smudged fingerprints. “What do you put in here?” he asked softly. She didn’t have to show him, if she didn’t want to.
“People,” she answered, flipping it open to a gallery of faces, some strangers, some family, some neither. “Vampires. Anything I see when I’m hunting that’s interesting. Like this one. It was some kind of hybrid. I’d never seen scales like those before,” she said. “But it was vulnerable right here.” Rhiannon touched a soft spot between its neck and chest. She turned to another, a werewolf barely into — or out of — its transition.
A second pad sat off to the side. It was older, dated back to the prior year. She skipped through its many pages and stopped at a man at a bar, a cigarette between two fingers and a small drink in his hand. “Guess who?”
He stared down at the drawing, drinking in every detail. How foolish he had been, to think he moved about unseen and unnoticed. Instead of feeling dismayed or worried, though, it made Noah smile. Rhiannon had gotten every detail right, and it was surreal to see himself as he was. The pyrokinetic looked into his own eyes. There was so much more there now.
“They’re amazing,” Noah told her. “All of them.” And then he gave in and kissed the spot below her ear, but it was gentle and said what he didn’t yet have words for.
She smiled and found herself bending away from his mouth because it tickled. “Thanks,” she said, meeting his eyes. “But these are what I love.” Rhiannon slid a canvas from behind the table and propped it against the couch cushions. The painting was of a mother and child, but it was a dark thing obscured in murky colors and thick shadows. “What do you think, new bathroom art?”
She sat cross-legged on the carpeted living room floor and leaned her weight back on her hands. While Noah stood, she looked him over, from his hair to the way his jacket fit on his torso, to the way he wore his pants.
Noah swept his eyes over each detail, first the little things before looking at the piece as a whole. From the thickly applied paint in certain places, to the curve and plane of shadow. It brought to mind a question he wanted to ask her, but he hesitated, unsure.
“Is this you and your mother?” he asked quietly, as if by lowering the volume of the voice, it would soften the inquiry.
“Maybe.” Rhiannon’s teeth cut into her lower lip as she looked at the dark-haired woman and her child. “It was in a dream. I wasn’t sure, it was… Y’know how when you’re dreaming, sometimes you aren’t part of it? You’re above it. So you don’t know if you’re watching your life or someone else’s. The mother, she could be Ciara, or she could be me. I only know she’s a hunter.”
Rhiannon’s fingernails lightly scratched at the thick carpet. “I don’t know why but it feels better to get things out of my head and on a page. I usually start here. I try to handle it alone, and if it doesn’t work, then I go pick a fight.” She gave Noah an amused look.
Noah carefully set the painting back and walked over to where she sat. He watched the carpet fibers slide through her fingers. It reminded him of the thing she did to his hair that made him feel like he was at home. He joined her there. “What happens if you can’t find a fight? Or can you always find something?” Maybe it was a silly question.
“No. I can’t always find something.” Rhiannon rubbed the outer corner of her eye. “I drink too much, or I do something reckless until I wear myself out. And if that doesn’t work, I pray. Or maybe I call you.” She sat up straighter and took Noah’s hand. The palm of it seemed normal. Was normal. It was his mind that was complex, but she couldn’t shake the image of him holding fire within it. “Will you show me what you can do, right here?” Rhiannon traced the outside edge from the web of his thumb, along the base of his fingers to the place where his wrist began.
“You can always call me,” he told her, looking down at their hands. “But I understand the appeal of wearing yourself out, being too exhausted to think once you finally throw yourself in bed.” Noah had been there many times. Sometimes, it was the only way to get any rest at all.
“This is the first thing I learned how to do,” he told her. A yellow-orange flame sprouted from his palm. After all these years, it took little care or concentration, but Noah would never take it for granted again.
“Oh wow,” she murmured. Rhiannon angled her face and leaned lower to look at the fire licking the air. It was no bigger than what might spring from the wick of a candle, but drummed up from nothing: A beautiful, warm source of light emerging from the palm of Noah’s hand. Underneath it, Noah’s skin wasn’t even pink. The heat came from him, but it didn’t touch him. It was difficult to wrap her brain around this, or how she ever thought he might be empty inside. No empty person could do this.
“Hold still?” With great care, she placed her fingers above the fire, as she sometimes did with her lighter when she was bored or it was cold out. She felt the radiant heat and glanced up at him. Rhiannon took a breath and gently blew it at the flame to see if it would flicker or remain still.
He obliged, keeping his hand steady. Her breath was warm and tickled his palm, but the tiny fire didn’t budge. “When it’s still a part of me, only I can put it out,” Noah explained. “Or you would have to make me unconscious somehow, or really distract me. Sedatives, too, but you would need a lot.” Only a few people had ever figured that one out. “But if it travels from me to someone, or something else, then the usual stuff works.”
The pyrokinetic fell silent. This next one took a little bit more focus, a little more energy. The flame grew and slowly shifted to a white bulb with curling blue fingers of fire extending from it.
Rhiannon smiled. The globe was harder to look at directly and made her living room feel like she’d cranked up the heat, or opened the door to an oven. If the blue was an indication, and if supernatural fire worked the way that the ordinary kind did, this burned much hotter. “It’s like you’re holding a star,” she observed. “Does it feed on oxygen when you hold it like this, or just you?”
Noah closed his hand, snuffing out the flames. And just as before, his hand looked completely ordinary. “I’m not sure,” he admitted to Rhiannon, looking up at her. “This one is more draining. It all is, but at different rates. The most tiring, though, is making something catch fire without touching or being near it. I’ve passed out before, accidentally.”
He took the same hand and pressed it against her cheek. Just his normal body heat could be felt. “That’s what Elfleda offered me. Unlimited fire, none of the pesky fatigue.”
“What did you have to do for it?” Rhiannon turned her face into the touch. The trust it took to let one another touch with hands that could hurt, or to reveal secrets or strengths and weaknesses, was no small thing. She let her eyes close and imagined that fire of his keeping her warm. They could be such different people when they were alone together.
“Do you want it now?” Rhiannon slipped away from his hand and made a long reach across the living room for a plastic cup that held a collection of pens. After sifting through the plastic barrels, the one she selected was black with a flexible felt tip. She turned Noah’s arm over and found a spot on his forearm, near the inside crook of his elbow. Rhiannon uncapped the pen and began to draw.
“She put me in contact with a witch, one that’s entirely devoted to the Lady,” Noah told her, watching the pen glide across his skin. He didn’t mind being her canvas. “But nothing really happened after that, and maybe it’s for the better.” He leaned onto his free hand and allowed her better access to his arm. His gaze returned to the painting Rhiannon had shared with him.
“My parents are dead,” Noah told her, and if the statement was abrupt, his voice was calm. His pulse ticked upward a bit, though. “Because of me.”
Rhiannon kept her hands steady. “Because they hurt you?” The cool, black ink floated across his skin. She didn’t look up from her work, but she took a break to fan it with her hand before starting in again. The closer she leaned to his arm, the more hair slipped from where she’d tucked the loose pieces.
He reached up and tucked the loose hair behind her ear, carefully so he wouldn’t bump her while she worked or obscure her vision. “I couldn’t go out and live my life knowing they were secure in their new house, thinking they had gotten away with it.” Noah paused, looking down at the black ink, the closest thing to a tattoo he had ever gotten.
“They wanted me to disappear, and I wanted to take that dream away.”
She kept her face low, not wanting him to see the hint of a smile that didn’t make it to her eyes. “I…” Rhiannon stopped when a growing lump in her throat felt warm, the way guilt did. “I got angry a few months ago. It’s a long story, but my uncle came here. He didn’t like it when I left and he wanted to hurt me, so he put a bounty on anything here that isn’t human. I was furious.” Rhiannon stretched Noah’s arm to look at the doodle and continued with a different color pen. “It wasn’t just that. It’s the way he hunts for money. I found out he’s got a new house in a nice neighborhood. I had this daydream of burning it down, and part of me wanted him to be in it. I didn’t tell anyone I felt like that. I pretended I wanted peace, but I really wanted him to die. Even though I still care about him. Some people deserve it.”
The drawing on his arm was compact, the fine lines creating knotwork, loops with no start or finish but evocative of mirrored hearts, obscured by thorny vines and roses winding through it and forming a perimeter.
He sat and listened to her talk, trying to ignore the part of him that wanted to immediately go out and find her uncle, and hurt him for hurting Rhiannon. “Well, that’s the problem,” Noah spoke quietly, eyes following the loops and lines. “The people who know us also know exactly how to hurt us, efficiently and completely.”
The pyrokinetic looked up and fixed her with a gaze that spoke of a sad kind of triumph. “But it’s not all a wash, because we know how to hurt them, too. And maybe sometimes it’s enough for them to know that we can, and to always wonder when we will.”
Rhiannon stopped drawing to watch him. “The only real way to hurt Sean is to make him lose respect. He’s capable of doing that all by himself, but I think -- I think I fucked things up between him and Robby, my cousin. And that feels pretty good.” She released her hold on Noah’s arm and capped her pen. “Do you want to see something beautiful?” She crawled over to an open trunk on the floor and sifted through its contents until she found a weapon wrapped in cloth. The sheath and handle were silvery and of ornate design, including a cross. There was an inlay of bone in the handle. The blade was made of silver alloy, since pure silver was too soft to hold a sharp edge for long. “These are passed down in my family.”
It was beautiful. Noah appreciated lovely, lethal things. He moved closer to study the pattern, the way the polished bone could almost be mistaken for pearl. When Rhiannon held it, he could see it becoming an extension of her, fluid and deadly. Elfleda’s dagger had fascinated him but didn’t whisper in his ear. This weapon was a window, and it meant so much more to be invited in. “Who had this one before you?” he asked.
“My mom,” she said. “They showed it to me when I was ten, but it was given to me for my fourteenth birthday.” Rhiannon flipped the weapon to show him both sides. She cleaned it from time to time, but she also liked the parts that had sustained mild damage. “Here.” The hilt struck his palm, as if she wasn’t taking no for an answer. She blinked up at him. People were interesting to watch when they held sharp objects.
Noah wrapped his fingers around the handle, feeling the weapon’s weight before running his thumb over the intricate design. “I’m going to try something different,” he told Rhiannon, still looking down at the blade. Instead of his usual habit of sinking into thought, he would say it out loud for her. It seemed only a fair trade. “I’m thinking about those four years between you seeing this, and having it.”
Gently, as if it were a sleeping animal and he was trying not to wake it, he turned the handle over in his hand. “And what it must have meant when that day finally came.” He looked up at her. “I know what it’s like to have to wait.”
“To be found worthy,” she said. “For someone to decide you’ve done enough.” Rhiannon thought about her bones, the way they’d look under x-ray. That dark-eyed, freckled young girl had slept with Ciara’s t-shirt hidden in her pillow case, wanting her mother’s weapon more than anything, enough to do anything. There had been a lot of questions from outsiders who didn’t know what was happening under her roof.
The sight of Noah holding her favorite thing made Rhiannon feel light. “What else are you thinking?”
He looked at the way the wisps of dark hair framed her face, and watched them move when she spoke, her breath making each strand that hung near her mouth dance. “I’m thinking that I feel very sorry for anyone who would try to keep me from you. Because there’s nothing and no one I wouldn’t burn,” Noah added. “But mostly, if you ever want to know what I’m thinking about, it’s you.”
She took the dagger out of his hands and put it back in the trunk. Rhiannon sat facing Noah and placed one leg on either side of his hips. She slipped closer until she was on his lap. “I wouldn’t let anyone take this from us, no matter what I had to do to keep it,” she said, the circle of her arms and legs locking him close to her the way a strong length of chain might do. Her body was protective of what she wanted. “I already need you.”
“I’m here,” he told her, wrapping one arm around her waist. With his other hand, he ran his thumb over her bottom lip before leaning in and kissing it. “I’m yours.” Noah had never spoken those words to anyone else, had never been compelled to before. Rhiannon was bringing a lot of new things out of him. His fingers crept beneath the hem of her shirt. “Thank you for showing me,” he added. As his hand moved upward, sweeping over bare skin, his breathing quickened; Noah needed her, too.
“You’re welcome.” The bridge of her nose rested alongside his. Rhiannon thought she could stay like this forever, belonging to him, a peculiar kind of belonging that didn’t take anything away from her. She felt utterly, beautifully like herself. Her fingers threaded into and out of his hair, the strokes calming and firm. “Is there anything else you want to see?”
What a question. He buried his face against the space between her neck and shoulder, thinking. Meanwhile, his hand swept up and down from her hip up to her ribcage. “I want to see everything,” Noah answered, closing his eyes as her fingers combed through his hair. “I don’t know where to start.”
He leaned back so he could look at her again. “Where do you sleep?”
“My room’s right down the hall.” Rhiannon used her hands to pull her weight off Noah so they could stand up. The air conditioner rattled softly as she led him down a short, dim passageway past the bathroom to her bedroom. The curtains were drawn tight, but a modest amount of warm light came from a cylindrical lamp with angles cut into the crystal, which threw geometrical shapes on its surroundings. The scarf he’d given Rhiannon hung from the corner of her bed. Everything about the space was soft, private, and vivid with the dark color palette she preferred.
She slipped off her bracelets and set them on the nightstand. Somewhere in the room, a faint thrum of white noise kept them company. “I’m basically nocturnal,” she said, explaining the isolation of her bedroom from the outside world.
Noah took in every detail, an unfamiliar feeling like a quickly plucked guitar string when he saw the scarf. “I like it,” he told her. “I hope you can recreate it in your new place.” He reached down and touched one of the pillows, imagining watching Rhiannon sleep there. He hadn’t ever pictured himself like this, or being invited into a space like this.
“Maybe you can redecorate for me,” he added, the corner of his mouth turning up.
“Oh no,” she said, easing herself onto the edge of the mattress. Her knee poked through the shredded denim of her jeans. “I’d rather see what you like.” Rhiannon reached across and squeezed his hand. “I can be the paint and the brush. You tell me what to do.” Her memories of his apartment resurfaced. She’d been extremely distracted last time, with barely the presence of mind to note the kind of soap he liked, but she imagined herself searching out the spines of any books he owned and opening them to flip the pages, or seeing if he kept music in his home. Did he like digital or vinyl? Did he have a drawer full of take-out menus? Where did he eat?
How would it sound when Noah laughed? Was he ticklish?
Rhiannon lightly pinched the spot above his hip bone to see what would happen.
“Now, see, when you say things like that, do you realize how sexy you sound?” Noah asked, the quirk of his lips turning into a real smile. His fingers found her bare knee, his nails bunched together in the center before extending outward in a light scratch. He buried his other hand in her hair as he stood over her.
“Hey!” He looked down at the spot she pinched, the nerve endings making him twitch. “No looking for weak spots.”
“Oh, you have those?” Rhiannon looked up at him, a smile making her eyes shine. “I was unaware. Are there more?” One hand tickled his armpit, while the other -- much sneakier -- slipped between his legs and caught the sensitive spot at the top of his thigh. The brunette wasn’t so naive as to think Noah hadn’t been touched by other people, and often, but there was a difference between physical need and play, or affection.
“No,” he immediately lied, trying to stay still and impassive as Rhiannon got ever closer to actually finding his weak spot. “This isn’t doing anything to me.” But Noah was already thinking of how he would get revenge later. But then again, sometimes he could be impatient.
He put one hand on each of her shoulders and pushed her gently but firmly back onto the bed before sliding them beneath her shirt, caressing her stomach. “I bet I can find yours, though,” Noah told her confidently.
“I don’t think you can,” Rhiannon said, not at all affected by being guided onto her back, a position she rarely gave to anyone. She stretched an arm between Noah’s to lightly touch his abdomen, right between his navel and the waist of his pants: little, dancing movements of her fingertips and nails. “Maybe down here..?” she asked, watching his face. There were a host of other places she could try if not.
“Nope.” Yes. He swallowed, covering it by ducking his head and kissing her earlobe. She was an inch or so away from the slightly hollow dip that sat next to his hip. “Is that a challenge?” Noah added, loosely straddling her, giving her an appraising look. He let his hand hover, unusually playful. If he had been an outside observer, the pyrokinetic might not have recognized himself, or the slight color that appeared over his cheeks as she toyed with him.
“I think…” He let his fingers rove down her thigh. “It might be…” A pointed pause, and then he went beneath her knee.
Rhiannon stiffened, her eyes wide. “No, no, no, no!” Her knee jerked away from his hand, the rest of her body surging with the effort to bolt. It was a powerful reflex, one that almost sent Noah flying across the mattress. She laughed. “You better be careful, you could get killed.” She tugged on his belt. It made enough wiggle room to stick her fingers into the concave area between his hips.
Despite losing his balance and nearly toppling over, Noah felt a stab of pride and victory at having guessed correctly. That was short-lived, however, until she returned the favor in kind. He immediately doubled over, breathless. “No,” he whispered, though the words were strained through muffled laughter. “Okay, okay, you win. You always win.”
He let out an exhale and sat back up. “Let’s both agree to never abuse our newfound power.”
“I’m not gonna agree to that,” she laughed. Refrain from using her strength to destroy him at tickling? Sure. Refrain from surprise attacks in private? Never. Rhiannon rested against the bed. She could feel an explosion of color on her cheeks. “You sound way too cute when you’re helpless. You’re cute when you’re not helpless, too, but that’s a whole separate weakness of mine.” She stared at him while her breathing returned to normal. She felt herself on the precipice of something; she closed her eyes to give herself a chance to find the substantive parts of her surroundings. Bed beneath her. Cool air surrounding air. Reassuring weight on her lower half.
Noah brushed the hair away from her forehead and leaned forward so that his torso hovered above hers, propping up his weight with a hand against the soft mattress. “You are dangerous,” he smiled, watching her lie there with her eyes closed, her dark eyelashes catching his attention. It reminded him of how he had woken up the next morning to see her lying next to him, like Rhiannon had promised.
“Is this what it’s like?” he asked her quietly.
“What what’s like?” Rhiannon’s eyes remained closed, but she knew where he was. The mattress dipped slightly under his hand. She reached up and took a delicate hold of Noah’s neck. With her fingers on the outside, her thumb could stroke along his Adam’s Apple and into the valley underneath it. Now her other hand was envious and wanted somewhere new to explore. It crept inside his shirt and found the hard lines and softer spaces of his ribs. Breathe, she told herself. Be here.
He closed his eyes, too, leaning into her touch. At first he was silent, focusing on his pulse which he could hear in his ears. It wasn’t that Noah was nervous; he knew that Rhiannon would understand him. And that was a good feeling, to be seen and understood, one that he was still becoming accustomed to. “I’ve seen people describe it in different ways.”
The pyrokinetic placed a hand flat on her stomach. “Butterflies. Falling. All the cliches.”
Rhiannon opened her eyes after his drifted shut. She stared at the dark features in a pale face. Found beauty and character in all of them. “Yes. This is what it’s like.” She rubbed his back, all of it that she could reach, making his shirt ride up in the process. She knew exactly what was happening in her body and her mind, a combination of dopamine and physical craving and belonging, a single-mindedness that made it hard to think about anything else and laughed at the idea of reasonable timelines. Anything could remind her of him, and she was driven to him like she was to food or water or air. Early stage love. One she was nervous about even while she engaged it, because she needed to be able to let go if he decided to walk because he didn’t like the weight of it or to explore where else he could find it.
Rhiannon realized she was biting the inside of her lip. She leaned up and kissed him once to cover it, glad he could not feel the internal swooping in her stomach.
He was handing her a loaded gun and trusting her not to hurt him, Noah realized. He had never been in a situation like that before. What’s more, he was falling for someone who hunted monsters professionally. Something deep inside him seized, tensed up. Logically, he knew she was strong, capable. Her kiss helped stem the rapid flow of thoughts, calming him. Noah shifted so he was lying next to Rhiannon.
“So what happens next?”
“Um…” Rhiannon took his hand and laced it with hers. She looked at the ceiling in an effort to keep things light, so she didn’t immediately confess all her fears to him as she was terrified she might do. “Do we make it Facebook official? Or is it selfies?” Pretending not to understand the social norms in this area was easy, since she didn’t follow them. Rhiannon sneaked a look at Noah, her gaze flickering between his eyes and his mouth. “Public displays of affection. Sitting on the same side of a booth.” She lit up with amusement. “No, it’s you letting me wear your jacket!” She tugged playfully on his hand. “And in between all of this, we have so much sex. Just ever-escalating sex until I know every one of your fantasies. Actually we can skip to that part and you can just tell me one right now.”
“Well, I don’t have a Facebook,” Noah stated, with a hint of humor in his voice. “So we’ll just have to do all those other things.” He tried to imagine them on a date, normal stuff. Holding hands. There was a milkshake with two straws in it. He was doing the borrowed mental image thing again.
“Especially the ever-escalating sex.” He turned onto his side and scooted close to Rhiannon. His eyes were shining with something wicked, and for once, he fought to keep a straight face. “Parking enforcement officer. You’re about to boot my car unless I can convince you otherwise. Who doesn’t love an ‘abuse of mild power’ fantasy?”
“Oh, I do love a good boot.” Rhiannon kicked her shoes off to get comfortable next to him. Their knees fit together perfectly. She slid her fingers into his hair and adopted her softest, most intimate voice. “How many tickets do you have, and why is it sixty-nine? Am I driving an electric cart? Do you bend me over the hood?” She tried hard to hang onto her supportive lover's face.
She ran her knee up and down his hip. Desperate not to be the one to laugh.
He grabbed her knee and held it still, though careful not to accidentally touch that spot. “No, you handcuff me,” Noah told her. “Because somehow you have handcuffs. And…” His face was starting to hurt, and a laugh had almost escaped when he spoke. He took a moment to steady himself for the next part. “And you tell me how bad and naughty I am for parking in a bus lane. All those inconvenienced commuters.”
Rhiannon wound her fingers into the fabric of his shirt and swallowed. “You’re dirty,” she said, eyes wide with disbelief. The fingers twisted and then smoothed the fabric back into place. “I bet I gag you with a court summons, too. Now… this is an important detail. Do I tear open my fluorescent vest or do I wear it the whole time?” In her private thoughts, Rhiannon begged her subconscious not to make an actual sex dream out of this conversation.
He gave her a fabricated look of disbelief that she would even question it. “No, the vest stays on. That’s a big part of it. Without the vest, how do I know you’re a figure of authority? The whole punishment thing doesn’t work without it,” Noah explained. The pyrokinetic reached down and slid a hand under the waistband of her jeans.
“You threaten to issue me a citation.” Noah leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “Then I hit you with, ‘you know you want to be bad…use the red ink.’”
Rhiannon burst into laughter. “Fuck!” She covered her eyes with her forearm. “Even in fake sexual fantasies, you’re the devil on my shoulder.” She kept giggling at the visual as she felt his hand move on her shaking stomach. “I don’t even know if I have an angel. It’s just me versus your questionable influence.” She slid her arm away to look at him, the backs of her fingers stroking first the left, then the right side of his face.
“Right…fake. Totally fake.” Noah nodded. “Just disregard the vest that might show up in a few days. Totally a mistake on Amazon’s part.” He fell silent, just watching her, and behind his eyes there was awe and maybe a dash of disbelief. “Sometimes I have this dream,” he told her, the amusement fading from his voice, “that I’m back there. That the life I thought I lived was only my imagination.”
He looked at her forearm, the tiny constellation of freckles that dotted it. “Once I get past the shock of it, I feel…relief. The relief you get when you think you have a second chance at something. The problem is I always wake up once that feeling comes. I think if I had that dream now, all I would feel is the clawing, desperate need to get back to you.”
Rhiannon took a deep breath. “Tell Dream Noah that it doesn’t matter if we wake up in different places. You could be a kid again, learning morse code and leaving messages, and I could be a girl coming home with a bloody lip and a handful of some kid’s hair.” She smiled. “One way or the other, we’d end up back here. It just might take a while. And if something comes between us tomorrow, same thing.”
She ran her finger around the back of his ear. “That’s how it is when you belong with someone, and I definitely belong with you.”
“I’ll give him the message,” Noah told her, closing his eyes for a moment and just being next to her. He wondered who would occupy this home after Rhiannon, if they would have any idea the kind of person who had been there before. It was strange because he knew a hunter required discretion, and so did he, but for the first time he wanted to tell people. Look at what I’ve found. It hit home that he didn’t really have friends or family.
“I like belonging with you,” he said, opening his eyes. “I’m glad it happened now. I don’t know if I could have…before.”
“No, before it would’ve been different for both of us.” Had she met Noah in Chicago, she might have seen things in black and white: that he deserved to be alive but not much else… That he would be useful to know and exchange favors with, period, end of story. She would have vehemently denied they had anything in common, just for the sake of appearances. “We probably would’ve traded insults, slept together, and been resentful that it was good.” Rhiannon smiled softly. “Even if you were like this, I wasn’t ready for you.”
“Perfect timing, then,” Noah commented, giving her the kind of smile that was becoming reserved just for Rhiannon. He would let her see everything. She could have everything. Which reminded him. He leaned back to reach into his pocket, and fished out a small black cloth pouch with a drawstring closure. Inside was a key to his apartment. The pyrokinetic had been unusually self-conscious in the hardstore store as it was cut. What before would have felt cliche and dumb and dangerous now felt...right. “This is for you.” He held it out to her on his palm like an offering.
Rhiannon eyed him. “Yeah?” What an interesting expression on his face. She took the bag and opened it. The slim, metal object fell into her hand. It was immediately recognizable as a house key and it made her chest fuzzy and warm. Rhiannon ran her index finger along the cut edge. She didn’t trust herself to know the right thing to say, so she went with:
“Key to a storage locker full of cremains?” She looked at his hazel-brown eyes and her stomach flipped again. As long as she appeared calm, she thought, quietly turning the key in her fingers, the silver and nickel catching the low light of her bedroom.
“Yep, that’s exactly what it is,” he agreed, watching the key move in her fingers. Such a tiny object, and yet it meant access to him where he was most vulnerable. Of course, Rhiannon could always kick his door in, but the repair costs would definitely become expensive. “I was hoping you could help me catalogue them. I prefer alphabetical first, then chronological.” Noah leaned in and kissed her forehead, then the corner of her mouth.
She caught his chin and kissed him squarely. “Thank you for my key, Noah.” She stared a little longer, thinking about how wild it was that god or nature or both had put together a man who looked, sounded, and moved like him. “I was wondering if you’d do one more thing for me. Just one teeny, tiny thing?” Rhiannon pinched her fingers together. “What’s the reverse of christening a new place? Debasing an old one? Could we do that later?”
Noah ran his tongue over his teeth and glanced between her and the mattress beneath them. “How sturdy is this bed, exactly?” he asked in lieu of an answer. As he spoke, he pulled her closer by her waist. There was a light feeling inside him. Another vulnerable gesture had gone over well, which put him at...what? Three for three? If he wasn’t careful, three words he had never said in a certain combination before might slip out.
“We can’t ignore tradition,” the pyrokinetic added, tugging down the waistband of her jeans.
“I know,” she said, lifting her hips for him. “And I think it might be on its last legs. It wouldn’t be the worst thing if we broke it.” Rhiannon passed the key onto her nightstand. With an arch of her back, she pulled the hem of her t-shirt overhead and threw it across the room, where it knocked a ring holder and its contents off the dresser. She smiled. It was not an accident that she had worn a new bra and underwear for the occasion, something black lace and impractical. Definitely not for hunting. “Listen…” She reached up and shook a corner of the headboard hard enough to make the fastenings creak.
If she had not drawn his attention to the sound, he never would have noticed it. His attention was elsewhere. He ran a finger along the border of her bra, the lacy edge contrasting with the smooth skin beneath it. “I see what you mean,” Noah told her, his voice low as his hand cupped her breast while the other reached down between her legs, where the seam of her jeans was, before continuing its earlier work of tugging them down her hips. “Let’s see what we can do about this bed.”
Rhiannon closed her eyes, the lashes a dark contrast to her cheeks, and surrendered herself to what Noah was doing with his hands. As her chest rose and fell and the rest of her world fell away, she only cared about him. Only wanted him. The unfamiliar feeling of lightness returned and the only word that seemed to fit was ‘happy.’