I wasn’t certain I’d heard him correctly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You think all I want is your pussy.”
The first was uttered as a statement that was also an incredulous question.
The second was uttered just as a statement.
An insulting one.
I lost my concern at his anger and got that way myself.
“Well, I should hope not,” I snapped, pulling out from under him, undecided about what to do once I was free of him, though focused on doing just that.
However I was with Noc. He was a man. A dominant one. A strong one.
Not to mention, he already had his arm around me.
It being thus, he simply used it to drag me right back where I was.
“I need to use the commode,” I lied.
“You so do not,” he returned.
“You’re correct. I don’t need to use the commode. I need a moment away from you for I’m angry at you and my temper is formidable. It being so, I’ve found it best, if I can’t use it to an advantage, to absent myself when it flares.”
“Franka, to make things clear, just in case the impossible is happening and you’re missing any of this, what I want from you is not just sex. It’s anything you got to give to me. Including your formidable temper. So, babe, if you got somethin’ to say, say it. And if you don’t mind, it’d be cool you started with telling me why you’re pissed when you just said straight out that you thought all I wanted from you was being open to fuck you.”
By the gods!
How on earth could he think that’s what I said?
“I did not say any such thing,” I rejoined.
“You did.”
“I did not.”
“I got a good memory but I don’t need it seein’ as it wasn’t even two minutes ago you said, ‘you wish our direction to be about you being open to have sex with me.’ Are you denying that now?” he asked.
“Of course not,” I answered.
Noc pulled slightly away, the temperature in the room decreased and that chill frosted his words as he commanded, “So again, explain to me how it is you’re pissed when you just said all I’m angling for is your pussy, which means you think that’s all I’ve been angling for when it comes to you.”
Bloody hell!
He’d lost his mind!
“I did not say that, Noc,” I snapped.
He pulled away further and his voice started rising when he returned, “You fuckin’ did, Franka, and you just fuckin’ confirmed you did.”
My voice was rising too. “I did not, Noctorno!”
“Do not call me that,” he gritted between his teeth.
“Do not claim I mean ridiculous, offensive things when I don’t,” I retorted.
“Then tell me what you meant,” he ordered.
“You’re fond of me,” I bit out.
“Yeah,” he bit back.
“You missed me when we were apart.”
“Uh…yeah, been over that. What’s this—?”
I interrupted him. “And you’re very aware I felt the same for you with both. So, my assumption, indeed my hope would be that what we had would remain. Being fond of each other. Enjoying each other’s company and therefore spending a goodly amount of time in it. But our direction…now…is the addition that you wish to be open to have sex with me.”
He had no reply to that.
This was not a surprise.
He’d jumped to conclusions, he should have known better and, again, I had no direct experience, but I would assert it was a good guess that a man such as him—regardless of the profoundness of his ability to be gentle and kind—would have an overabundance of pride.
So when he was wrong he would not be eager to admit that.
This was something that angered me even more.
And because of that, I did not keep my mouth shut.
“I can’t imagine how, in all the time you’ve spent with me, Noctorno, that you would ever consider I’d think such about you. I have a midnight soul, it’s true, but light shines upon it every once in a while. I feel its warmth when it does and it means everything to me. Everything. So much of everything, you’ve given me your light and there are precisely five beings I’d take a lash for…Kristian, Josette, Timofei, Frantz and you.”
“Frannie—” he whispered, his tone much changed.
But I was angry.
In other words, there was no stopping me.
“And just in case you missed any of it, I thoroughly enjoyed your lovemaking. I’ve never had the like. It’s abandoned. It’s somehow freeing. You make even when I’m giving something to you about you giving something to me, and I don’t know how you accomplish that but it’s a thing of beauty. So, to be honest, even if I didn’t have all the other parts of Noctorno Hawthorne that you’ve given me, parts I cherish, I would not mind in the slightest that all you wanted was my pussy.”
He again did not reply.
I had nothing more to say and since he wasn’t letting me go, I was forced to wait it out for it was undignified to struggle.
As I waited, I started making plans, doing this in my head. These being finding Valentine with magic, demanding she come, take me to her and Josette, and that she do this immediately. If she did not, I’d do it and she’d not yet taught me how to spirit myself. She told me not to practice without her either.
“The results, chérie, if you did something wrong, could be drastic,” she’d warned.
If she didn’t do it, I still was going to. I didn’t care if I ended up in oblivion (for a spell, that obviously wouldn’t do for eternity).