“That’s kind of you to say,” she replied quietly.
“Perhaps, but mostly it’s true,” I returned.
Her lips curved.
“It may be the damage my words caused make it so we cannot have what I have with the others who’ve found love across worlds,” I carried on. “But my Noc has grown to care about you both. So although it is not mine to ask anything of you, for him I do so regardless. And what I ask is that we endeavor to get past the awkwardness between us so that Noc can enjoy his time, time that’s rather brief, with the two of you.”
“I know what happened to you,” she whispered.
I fought lifting my chin and replied, “I know you do.”
“My ex, the other Apollo, Pol, beat the absolute crap out of me, doing it repeatedly. Once doing it and I lost the son I carried.”
I blinked in shock and distress.
“When I went to my parents for help,” she continued, “my father closed the door in my face.”
“By the gods,” I breathed.
She nodded and went on to tell her startling tale of woe.
“I went on the run and I didn’t let anyone close to me. Not for ages. Not until Apollo.”
I said nothing.
“In other words, Frannie. I get you.” She looked beyond me, back up to the grand manse in the countryside of Fleuridia she shared with her husband, his children by Ilsa, and their little Valentine, and again to me. “The awkwardness was because, well, even having changed, you’re kind of intimidating and I didn’t know how to broach it with you.” She gave me a grin. “I’m glad you knew what to do.”
“Well, I’m…” I cleared my throat, “glad too.”
Her grin became a smile, she moved into me, coming to my side and hooking her arm through my own.
Thus, she moved us again forward. “So now, tell me. I’m dying to know. How did you react to my old world? I have to admit, I’d love to take Lo there. See how he feels about airplanes and Jacuzzis. You have to tell me everything. What did you think the weirdest thing was? And the most wonderful?”
I shared this with her and she threw her head back and laughed when I told her both were my introduction to the glory of toilets.
And from there, Lady Madeleine Ulfr and I wandered a lane lined in lavender.
And as we did, we became friends.
* * * * *
Noc
“She’s much changed.”
Noc didn’t take his eyes from the window as he watched Frannie and Maddie wandering down the lane, arm in arm, heads bent together even when he felt Apollo come to stand beside him or when Apollo said those words.
“No, she’s not,” Noc replied
“I knew her well before you, my brother,” Lo stated carefully.
Only then did Noc give the man his eyes.
“No you did not.”
Apollo Ulfr held his gaze.
Then he lifted his chin.
Both men turned their attention back out the window.
And they stood there watching the women they loved wandering a lane, their skirts and the fields of lavender waving about them in a gentle breeze, their bodies bathed in sunshine.
* * * * *
Lunwyn
Franka
I was riding Noc’s cock, both of us sitting up, our eyes locked, when his arm clamped about my hips and he held me down, full of him, and shifted to his knees.
He then dropped me to my back, covering me and again moving inside.
Through this, my gaze on his never wavered, nor did it when his hand found mine, linking our fingers and pressing them into the bed as his other hand moved, pushing deep, up my spine, the back of my neck, to curl against my scalp.
“Don’t stop lookin’ at me,” he growled.
“I won’t,” I whimpered, arching into him, our position, his words, neither lost on me.
Like our first time.
Exactly.
“So goddamned beautiful,” he grunted as his thrusts picked up speed. “Always so goddamned beautiful.”
“Darling,” I breathed, grinding into him, moving urgently, the need nearly overwhelming me.
“Hold on, Frannie. Not yet. Look into my eyes.”
“You have me,” I whispered, and he very much did, now in every way.
My hands were roaming his skin, hungry.
His strokes gathered power as he drove into me.
I moaned, losing hold.
Noc felt it.
“Don’t lose my eyes, baby.”
“I…won’t, my love,” I gasped.
His face darkened, his fingers in mine clenched, I felt the metal at one biting into the webbing and he groaned, “Now, Frannie. Let go.”
As the sound of his climax powered through the room, the softer wisps of my own filtered through it and I arced into him, pulling him deep, clasping him to me, and Noc poured himself inside me, unhindered.
I was shuddering through the final glorious moments when he collapsed on top of me, sinking his face into my neck.
I took him happily, memorizing the feel of him I’d already never forget, the smell, the sound of his harsh breathing whispering against the skin under my ear.
In these times, we never needed to speak.
And this time, so different, but yet the same, this was something we still did not need.
However, Noc felt something had to be said.
And he said it by raising his head, taking off some of his weight, and then lifting our hands he still had laced together.
He brought them to his lips, his eyes on me, and kissed the large Sjofn ice diamond there that nestled perfectly with the plain gold band underneath.
He wore a band as well, on the hand that still held my head.
I’d slipped it on under the bemused eyes of a Vallee in a Dwelling of the Gods just an hour before.