Fantastical

Chapter Nineteen Only You

After Tor smiled at me, his eyes moved over my face then over my head then they scanned my living room. Then his smile faded, his expression went decidedly ominous, his gaze dropped back to me and he growled, “What are you doing out of bed?”

I didn’t have time for Tor’s ominous look. There was a shitload of money in my TV cabinet, none of my friends were talking to me, Cora had hooked up with my world’s Noctorno and we had a date to have dinner with my freaking parents tomorrow night. I had to stay on target.

“Where have you been?” I asked, my voice pitched high, my fingers still curled into his wet shirt.

“Out in your world,” he answered and before I could say more, he did. “You were right, love, it’s colorless.”

“I know, but –”

“Gray. So bloody wet. And it’s loud.”

“I know, listen –”

“And grimy,” he cut me off again, “so much filth, even the air doesn’t taste good.”

“Tor, I know, but –”

“And so many bloody people, all in a hurry, all impatient, gods, hideous.”

“Tor!” I shouted.

“What?” he asked.

“We need to talk, we have problems,” I informed him and his brows drew slightly together as his arms curled me protectively closer.

“What problems?”

I opened my mouth to speak and didn’t know where to start. So I asked, “Have you eaten?”

“No,” he replied.

I pulled away, ordering, “Change out of those wet clothes, I’ll make you a bologna sandwich and we’ll talk.”

“A what?”

That’s when I lost it.

“Just change out of your clothes!” I cried.

The instant I finished my last word, his hand cupped my jaw and he bent to put his face in mine. “I’ll change, Cora, calm down. Whatever it is, we’ll sort it out. Right?” he said softly.

I looked in his eyes, sucked in breath and nodded, hating that his quiet, powerful strength could calm me but having to admit that it could.

His hand dropped away and he sauntered into my bedroom.

I dashed into the kitchen.

I was toasting bread and frying bologna when he walked in wearing another, more faded pair of jeans (that were, incidentally, even hotter on him than the others) and a white, long sleeved tee that was tighter than the other one and seeing as I’d never seen him in anything but black or, this morning, navy blue, its brightness against his tanned, olive-toned skin looked so good, it struck me momentarily speechless.

I pulled it together when his eyes dropped to the frying pan and he asked, “What, by the gods, is that?”

“Bologna,” I answered, he looked at me, I knew my answer meant nothing to him so I explained, “It’s a kind of meat.”

“It’s round,” he observed with barely concealed distaste.

“Uh… yes.”

“Meat is not round,” he declared.

Well, he was mostly right.

“Can we not talk about bologna?” I asked, he held my eyes for a second then he crossed his arms on his wide chest and leaned a hip against the counter which I took as an affirmative.

I flipped the bologna, snatched the toast out when it popped up and started talking.

“I think Cora is in trouble. I found a big stash of money in my TV cabinet. A lot of it, Tor. Too much to earn in two months in any legal way. I found out she’s playing poker and I think that’s how she’s getting it.”

I squirted mustard on the bread and turned my head to look at him.

“Poker?” he asked.

“It’s a card game. Gambling.”

His brows drew together and he clarified, “A game of chance for money?”

I nodded.

His lips thinned.

Oh boy.

“What?” I asked.

“Cora has a gift. Most would use it for good. I could see she would not.”

That didn’t sound good.

“What gift?” I asked.

“She excels with numbers.”

Oh dear. That could mean Cora was counting cards. Cora was playing poker and counting cards.

Shit!

“This isn’t good,” I muttered, grabbing a slice of American cheese and unwrapping it from its plastic.

“What’s that?” Tor asked and I looked at him to see his eyes on the cheese.

“American cheese.”

“And that clear sheet you’re removing?”

“Plastic wrap.”

His hand came out and he took the plastic from me. I slapped the cheese on one of the pieces of bologna and went for another slice as he rubbed the plastic between his fingers.

“Extraordinary,” he murmured.

“It doesn’t biodegrade,” I informed him, his eyes came to me, brows up and I slapped the second slice of cheese on another piece of bologna and continued. “Biodegrade, meaning break down. Return to nature. It never goes away. It’s manmade. It’s part of the reason this world is so… colorless.”

He looked at the plastic and then set it aside.

Acutely aware in a way I’d never been before of the waste I was creating, I opened another slice and slapped it on the last piece of bologna. Gathering the pieces of plastic, I took them to the garbage thinking I was never going to buy American cheese again and then I decided to take us back to target.

“If Cora’s gambling, and counting cards, that wouldn’t be good if someone suspects. But we have another problem,” I told him.

“And that would be?” he asked as I went back to the frying pan, turned off the burner and used a spatula to slide the pieces of bologna on the bread.

“I had a visitor today,” I told him. “The Cora of your world somehow managed to hook up with the Noctorno of this world. They’re together. The clothes you’re wearing are his. He’s the one who told me about the poker. It seems while you’ve been carrying on with me, she’s been carrying on with him.”

The air in the room suddenly changed and it was not a good change. It was also not a bad change.

It was a very bad change.

I turned my head to look at his face and I instantly realized my mistake.

He’d been in love with her. Maybe, by the look on his face, he still was. The news that his wife was cheating on him, regardless that he’d flagrantly cheated on her, was not going down very well.

Still, I felt for him and whispered, “Tor –”

“He visited today?” he asked in a soft, dangerous voice.

“Uh… yes.”

“He was here?”

“Um… yes,” I breathed for his expression nor tone had changed.

“With you?”

Uh-oh.

“Uh…”

“With you, Cora?” he pushed.

“Yes, of course, we… talked.”

“And you know they, as you put it… hooked up?”

“Uh…”

“How do you know this?”

Oh boy.

“Tor –”

“How do you know this?”

I wasn’t going to get out of it. So I answered, “He kind of… hugged me and, uh… kissed me.” I watched Tor’s face turn to stone and finished lamely, “Twice.”

The air in the room changed again, it got heavier. So heavy, it was hard to breathe.

“He touched you?” he whispered.

“He surprised me,” I said quickly. “I had to, uh –”

“Put his mouth on you?”

“Tor –”

His eyes narrowed. “Twice?”

“Um –”

Suddenly I was across the kitchen, my back to the wall and Tor was in my space, his hands on my neck, his thumbs in my jaw forcing it up so his eyes could lock on mine.

“He does not touch you again,” Tor growled.

“Tor, he doesn’t know what’s going on. I had to –”

His fingers tensed and his face came to within an inch of mine. “He does not touch you again.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Repeat it,” he commanded harshly.

“He does not touch me again.” I kept whispering.

“I will deal with him.”

What?

“What?” I asked. “How?”

“I don’t know but I will. You do not deal with this man. This man does not touch you. He does not see you –”

I wrapped my fingers around his wrists and interrupted, “Tor, he can’t see you either. You both look exactly alike!”

“Precisely,” he clipped. “You’re in love with me and I’ll not give this… other bloody me an opportunity to muddle your head.”

There it was. He wasn’t jealous and hurt about Cora cheating on him. He didn’t care about that at all.

He was thinking about me.

God, I hated it that he could still be sweet, protective and possessive, all of which I liked when I was trying to convince myself I hated him.

“Tor!” I cried. “He’s not going to –”

“Cora, we’re not discussing this.”

“This is insane! If he sees you, he’ll freak! You can’t –”

“Leave him to me,” he ordered.

“Tor, seriously –”

His fingers tensed again and he growled low, “Cora, I said, leave him to me.”

I glared at him, my mind conjuring the vision of a Noctorno to Noctorno faceoff and just how freaking weird that would be.

Then I snapped, “Oh, all right!”

He relaxed but his hands brought my face up the inch it needed so he could brush his lips against mine.

My lips tingled.

God, I liked it when he did that.

“Stop kissing me,” I whispered, staring into his eyes.

“No chance of that, love,” he whispered back then let go and walked to his plate. “Is this finished?” he asked, pointing to his sandwich.

I stood where he left me, glaring at him. Then I stomped to the bag of Cheetos.

“Not yet,” I stated, shook out some Cheetos on the plate next to the sandwich, dropped the bag on the counter, rounded him and got him a can of Coke from the fridge. Then I picked up the plate and offered it and the Coke to him. “Now it’s done.”

He was staring at the plate and before he had to ask, I answered.

“Cheetos, they’re kind of, cheese flavored snacks.”

He took the plate and can and his eyes came to me. “The only thing I recognize is the bread. The rest is clearly not natural.”

He was right about that.

“We’ll go to a grocery store tomorrow. Now you’re eating processed food because the selection isn’t all that hot at the corner store.”

“You went to the market?”

“Yes.”

His face turned slightly ominous again. “Cora, I told you to rest.”

“I know you did Tor!” I snapped impatiently. “But I couldn’t. My house was a mess. My bathroom a pit. My sheets dirty. And I had to figure out what Cora had done with two months of my life. I couldn’t lie in bed and rest. I tried. My mind wouldn’t let me. I had to get things sorted so I sorted them. I survived. I’m breathing. So now, will you do me a favor and just bloody eat?”

He stared at me. Then he grinned.

Then he noted, “My wife likes order.”

“I’m not your wife,” I shot back.

His grin turned to a smile as he turned to the door and muttered, “You will be.”

I looked at the ceiling.

Bloody hell.

Then I followed him to see he was moving to the round, four-seater dining room table I had in the corner.

“What are you doing?” I asked, he stopped and turned to me.

“Preparing to eat,” he answered.

“I don’t eat at the table,” I informed him. “No one in America eats at the table unless it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, a birthday or they’re weird.”

He looked at the table in a way that nonverbally said he felt it was strange I owned a set of furniture that I would use only three days of the year (this, a look from a man who had three entire dining rooms) then he looked at me. “Where do you eat?”

“On the sofa in front of the TV,” I replied, walked to the sofa and, no other way to put it, collapsed mainly because I needed to. I was exhausted and my body was beginning to ache again.

He followed, sat next to me, looked about him and then lifted his bare feet up to the coffee table and put his plate on his lap. I took the can from him, he watched as I popped the tab, his brows going up at the hiss then his lips twitched. He took it back, sipped at it, swallowed, shook his head, set it on my side table and commenced eating.

I watched, waiting for a response.

After three Cheetos and his second bite of sandwich, when I got no response, I prompted, “Well?”

He swallowed his bite of bologna and cheese sandwich and stated, “It’s not bad.”

I felt my mouth form a small smile.

“It’s also not good,” he went on and for some reason, I burst into laughter.

When I was done laughing I noticed Tor was not eating. He was watching me with a look so tender it was a shock when I felt it slice clean through me. The pain was so perfect, it felt exquisite, better by far than any orgasm he’d given me (and he’d given me lots and all of them were good) so I bit my lip and looked away.

I was trying to shove that feeling out of my soul when Tor murmured, “Only you.”

It took a lot but I forced my eyes to his face to see his were moving around the room.

I shouldn’t ask, I really shouldn’t ask but I asked.

“Only me, what?”

His eyes came to me. “Only you could put color in a colorless world.”

My lungs seized and then I followed where his gaze had been and I saw my space through his eyes.

I’d painted the walls a soft peach. I’d strung string after string of fairy lights covered in sherbet-colored daisies all around the top edges. I’d chosen carefully selected, but all fanciful and vibrant, prints for my walls. I had a comfortable armchair in bright pink with a deep purple chenille throw tossed over it, at its foot, a grass green, poofy, rectangular ottoman. We were sitting on a peacock blue sofa with sunshine yellow and orangey-red toss pillows. On the square coffee table in front of us was a collection of glass orbs, all of different sizes and colors. The dining room table was glass topped but the chairs were covered in raspberry fabric, a huge glass vase in the middle of the table with whirls of multiple colors swirling through it. There was a wide rug over the wood floors that reflected nearly all of the colors I’d chosen for the room, not in a dizzying way, but a subtle one (I thought). And all the lamps in the room had different bases and different colored shades, turquoise, lilac, pink, royal blue.

Oh fuck, there was that exquisite pain again.

I turned my head to him, saw him sitting on my sofa in jeans and a tee, feet up, eating bologna sandwiches and Cheetos, chasing it with a Coke, looking relaxed and totally at home after a day out, by himself, in a world that couldn’t be any more different from his home and it hit me.

“And only you,” I blurted.

His eyes held mine when he asked quietly, “Only me, what?”

Oh well, might as well say it.

“Only you could be catapulted into a different world, a world totally unlike your own, and take it all in stride.”

He wasn’t just taking it in stride. Just like in his world, he seemed in command of the situation. Not only at-ease but like he had it all under control and I suspected, with very little effort, if he didn’t have it under his control, he would.

Just like always.

I loved that about him and I hated that I loved it.

Hoping to hide my feelings, I babbled on, “When I got to your world, I was totally freaked out. The first ten, fifteen minutes, I thought it was a dream. The rest I knew wasn’t and I was scared shitless.”

“You forget, my love, I was prepared for your world,” he told me and I felt my brows draw together.

“You were?” He nodded. “How?”

“You told me about it. About the cars and the buses and the planes and the asphalt and the sidewalks. You told me about the buildings made of glass rising into the sky. People talking to other people on their phones in the streets. Others sitting in front of those…” he hesitated, “boxes, tapping at them with their fingers.”

“Computers,” I reminded him, stunned.

He remembered everything I told him.

Everything.

He smiled. “Computers.”

“You thought I was making it up,” I whispered and his eyes went dark.

“But now I know you were not.”

“You thought I was,” I semi-repeated.

“But now, Cora, I know you were not,” he also semi-repeated, this time softly but also firmly, that tender look back in his eyes.

I swallowed.

It was Tor’s way of apologizing. And it was a good way.

Then I decided I’d had enough. I couldn’t take more. He was going to get to me and he couldn’t. What he did hurt, too much. And anyway, he didn’t belong in my world and I didn’t belong in his. It was unnatural and anything could happen. Nature had a way of righting itself, sometimes violently.

I’d given in once, giving him all I had and taking what I could get in return.

And I loved it.

But it could be taken from me. He could be taken from me. At any moment a blue mist could form and whisk him away.

I had to stay on target. I had to sort out my life. And I had to guard my heart.

Which was going to be hard with a seasoned warrior obviously intent on laying siege to it.

But I had to try.

“Do you want to watch TV?” I asked into the void, his eyes flashed his displeasure at my change of subject then they settled.

“Will you rest if we watch this… TV?” he asked back and I nodded. “Then yes, I’d like to watch TV.”

I sucked in breath then turned, leaned down the couch, opened the drawer to my side table and grabbed the remote. I hit the button and resolutely ignored him as I switched channels until I found an innocuous sit-com. Then I settled in, partly turned away from him, and focused on TV (mostly for my sanity).

Not long after, I heard his plate hit the coffee table then the remote was slid from between my fingers.

My head twisted to him and I cried, “Hey!” but like a man, of his world or mine, he took over the technology, hitting buttons on the remote so the channel changed, the contrast changed, the volume changed and then he found a decent volume along with a cop show.

Figures.

Then he tagged me around my chest and pulled me down to lying beside him, wedged against the back of the couch, as he stretched out on his back, head to a pillow against the armrest.

I pushed up and snapped, “I was comfortable.”

“You’re more comfortable now,” he returned, telling the God’s honest truth.

“Am not,” I lied, pushing up on his chest.

“Cora, you are.”

“Am not!”

The hand attached to his arm that was wound around me slid up to the back of my neck and he pulled me inexorably forward until I was close to his face.

“You promised, we watch this TV, you’d rest,” he reminded me.

“Yes!” I clipped.

“Then… rest,” he commanded.

I glared at him. Then I saw the determined look on his face.

I knew what that meant.

So I informed him, “You’re annoying.”

He chuckled and forced my cheek to his chest.

I kept my body perfectly solid to communicate nonverbally that he was a jerk.

That was, I did this until I fell dead asleep.