Clementine was caught between breathless want and joyful giggling as he opened his mouth over her and hummed. Giggling gave way to wanton spreading and gasping as he rubbed her with his tongue, still humming. And the next moment she was bucking under his mouth and crying out incoherently. Then she was giggling again as Benedick kissed his way back up to her mouth, where she could taste herself on his tongue. She buried her fingers encouragingly in his hair so he didn’t feel the need to stop.
Eventually he did, however reluctantly. He propped himself up on his elbow and gazed adoringly down at her, running his fingers lightly over her cheek and jaw, up to her ear, dotting her face with kisses as the mood struck.
‘Let me cook dinner for you,’ he said when he finally paused. ‘I promise I can do better than antipasto or spaghetti and cheese.’ He grinned then, impish and incorrigible.
‘Well this I have to see,’ Clementine replied, her answering smile just as irrepressibly delighted.
It took a long time to shower, change and go back to Benedick’s apartment because they couldn’t stop touching each other.
Benedick burned the shallots and garlic, overcooked the salmon and undercooked the rice. Dessert was counted a great success, however, when they took the honey walnut ice cream to bed with a bottle of champagne and made a gleeful, gasping, sticky, delighted mess of the sheets.
Chapter Twelve
Benedick idly flicked through the sketchbook Clementine had left on the table when she rose to pay for brunch and buy a loaf of olive bread for their evening meal, which he’d promised not to burn this time.
He knew she’d been drawing him over coffee. He knew she’d sketched him a few days ago.
He hadn’t known how many pictures she’d done. She obviously liked to draw him. Pages and pages of him were in there—his own face smiling and frowning, looking to one side, and down, and up. Three quarter and half profile. His eyes, his mouth, his hair. The dip of his throat. His hands and wrists. His shoulders, with the wings rising up behind him. One of the oldest was an image of him with a candy moth balanced on his finger.
She’d even accurately captured the droop of the right wing in a few strokes. She hadn’t tried to make him more attractive than he was, but the results were very flattering. He felt somehow cherished by the way her hand had captured his being in these pages.
Benedick looked up as she returned to the table.
‘What do you think?’ she asked.
‘I think you like my face.’
‘You have a great face,’ she agreed, ‘The lines of it are perfect. Your bone structure is beautifully defined but you have so much character too. Some faces are too handsome to be interesting to draw. You’re striking but fascinating to capture. Something in your eyes, I think. And your ears look like they’re keeping secrets.’
Benedick barked a laugh at that. ‘What does that mean?’
Clementine shrugged. ‘If I was a writer I could tell you. I could paint it for you though.’
Benedick peered at the side profile she’d drawn over coffee. He traced his finger around the shape of the pencil ear.
‘I suppose it must be the Golden Ratio,’ Clementine went on, tracing the elegant swirl of it with her own fingertip. When she did it, he could see how the shape of his ear spiralled from the inner cartilage, over the top and around the ridge to the lobe.
‘What do you know,’ Benedick mused, ‘I have a Fibonacci ear.’
‘You have a Fibonacci backside too. I’d like to sketch it sometime.’
‘Is that your sneaky way of inviting me up to see your etchings?’
‘Do I have to be sneaky? I could just invite you up to become one of my etchings.’
‘All right then. Etch me, Ms Torres. I want to see what you make of my secretive ears.’
Clementine laughed and tweaked his earlobes softly, then ran the tips of her fingers lightly over the rims of his ears. ‘I have an idea for painting you, actually. If you’ll let me.’
Benedick had closed his eyes to enjoy the sensation of that downy-light touch of hers that made him shiver to the tips of his wings, and made heat curl from his core to low in his belly.
‘I’d let you do pretty much anything.’
‘Let’s start with some studies in chalk, charcoal and ink and see where it leads.’ Her eyes were sparkling, her grin impish, when he opened his eyes to cheerfully accept the terms of her challenge.
***
Clementine’s phone was ringing as she and Benedick opened her front door. She’d left it on the kitchen bench, not wanting business to intrude on this warm morning-after glow. By the time she reached it and dumped her bag and sketchpads on the bench, the phone had stopped ringing. A moment later, the message alert pinged.
Enquiries ongoing. Nothing new to report. Sifakis.
Clementine frowned at the unhelpful text, then turned the phone face-down. ‘On the sofa with you,’ she urged Benedick, shooing him playfully.
‘Aren’t I supposed to get naked and drape myself with a tiny sheet, if you’re going to corrupt me properly, Maestra Falena?’
‘Mistress Moth? Cheeky. If you’re to be my muse and properly corrupted, I should give you a bunch of grapes for your modesty.’ She plucked a single grape from the fruit bowl and handed it to him.
He took it with a raised eyebrow. ‘I don’t know whether to be insulted or wary of the designs you have upon my body.’
‘Designs,’ she assured him. ‘Fibonacci spirals, to be exact. Now. Sofa.’
Benedick sat obediently and expectantly. Clementine simply stared at him for a while, head tilted on one side, considering.
‘Shirt on or off?’ he prompted.
‘Off I think,’ she said, then turned her back to collect her larger art pad, her chalks and charcoals, a pot of ink and a brush. She wanted to see the effect of soft lines of smudged black and red underneath bolder ink highlights.
She turned back to find Benedick had arranged himself, shirtless, along the sofa with the split in his long kilt draped to reveal a flash of thigh above his bent knee and a shapely calf below. His left wing was tucked neatly along his back, the right resting elegantly over his hip and thigh.
‘Nice legs,’ she said, running the bristles of the paintbrush from knee to halfway up his inner thigh. ‘Now stay there and muse for a while.’
Benedick rearranged the kilt slightly and Clementine had to drag her eyes away from the extra glimpse of inner thigh this afforded her.
‘Tell me a story,’ she said as she sat in a chair opposite him. ‘Something true.’ She used the terracotta chalk first to dash down the shape of his chest, shoulders and legs. She smudged chalk behind and in front of the outlines, filling in his wings and kilt.
‘When I was about eight years old, I tried to convince Peri that I knew the secret route to Arcadia. He was six and very gullible. I warn you, this story does not cover me in glory.’
Clementine worked chalk into the sketch she was making with her fingers, adding darker charcoal lines to the details. ‘Oooh, a wicked tale. Go on.’
‘So I led the way down to the backyard, and he followed, trusting as a duckling, until we reached the fenceline. Our wings were still growing in of course, so we couldn’t fly far, but we could fly up and over a fence without too much difficulty.’
‘Should I take comfort from the fact that I already know you both survive this escapade?’
‘You should. Because I flew up first and held my hand out to help him to the top of the fence. And he made it up there just fine. He was a nimble little kid. Whereas I was more …’
‘Onigiri-shaped?’
Benedick laughed, his mouth dimpling in that delightful way she was rapidly growing to love. ‘A little ball of mischief. The thing is, I was getting him back for getting into my room on the weekend and defacing all my Kambera Wall-ball Club posters with bright red marker pen.’
‘Unforgivable!’
‘Exactly so. I had a keenly developed sense of justice even then. S
o I took him to the top of the fence by telling him the way to Arcadia was through our neighbour’s garden.’
‘When does the inglorious bit start?’ Clementine took up the inkpot and brush and began to add glistening lines to the chalk study, more strongly defining Benedick’s dark hair, the shape of his exposed leg, the drape of the kilt. A few strategic dabs and lines gave expression to his face. Dark eyes and dimples.
‘So down he went first into Mr Whitely’s yard and I started shouting directions for him to follow the path.’
‘Wasn’t he suspicious?’
‘Of course he was. He was six, not an idiot. But hope won over doubt, of course. Mum read the Lady Arcadia books to us every night and we loved them. Wouldn’t you risk fraternal humiliation on the off-chance of finding the passage through?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘So he followed my directions down the path towards Mr Whitely’s vegetable garden, which was hedged in laurel that grew taller than our Dad. The idea was that Peri would have to squeeze in between two laurel trees and of course instead of finding the passage, he’d be in grumpy Mr Whitely’s vege patch. With luck, Peri would get stuck between the trees, get caught by Mr W and shouted at, and possibly chased with a leaf rake.’
‘What a mean big brother you were.’
‘It was just desserts. But I made two key errors in coming up with my strategy.’
‘Let me guess. Peri was skinnier than your chubby little boy self, and he didn’t get stuck in the laurels.’
‘I applaud your intelligent analysis of this whole debacle. Yes. Bento Sasaki, Stealer of Baby Carrots and Summer’s First Strawberries, had been caught in the laurels and endured a lecture on respecting other people’s gardens only the week before. Secondly, and more relevant to this sorry story of bad intent and even worse planning, is that Mr Whitely had just that week bought himself a dog.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘That doesn’t begin to cover it. I’m at the top of the fence, watching Peri disappear into the laurel hedge and waiting for the show to begin, when all of a sudden I hear this bloodcurdling baying, and Peri pops out of the greenery running like a lizard from a cat. His wings are flapping away so he keeps rising a few feet then stumbling down again, because he can’t get coordinated, and he’s not looking behind him at what sounds like an Arcadia Hellfire Hound on his heels. But I can see this dog, and it’s taller than Peri and looks like he wants to bite little boys in half.’
‘What did you do?’
‘What any self-respecting, justice-seeking big brother would do. I screamed at him to run faster before the Arcadia Hellfire Hound ate him, my wings flapping so hard I was hovering above the fence. I was terrified, but no sun-blighted way was I going to jump down there and get eaten myself.’
Clementine was aware that this picture of Benedick languidly reclining on her sofa was at serious odds with the spark in his eyes and the way his wings fluttered in memory of that energetic prank.
‘Did the dog get him?’
‘I thought it would. It was baying and running, and Peri was running and flapping and screaming, and at the last minute he reached up to me, and I reached down to pull him up, and he flapped so hard he flew right up over my head and into our yard. Which was great for Peri.’
‘And for you?’
‘I went arse over pinion and landed flat on my back on the dog side of the dividing line.’
‘Oh no!’
‘Oh yes! The dog looms into my face, panting and howling, and on the other side of the fence Peri is screaming blue murder, and all the adults come running expecting to find me with my head split open and brains all over the pavement. And what they found was their onigiri kid on his back in the dirt being straddled by a huge, friendly and overly eager dog licking me from collarbone to eartip and wagging his tail so hard it’s making thwap thwap thwap noises on the fence.’
‘Oh, poor little Bento!’
‘Poor little Bento is right. I cut my arm on a stone when I fell and all I knew was that my arm was bleeding and a giant dog was eating me alive. I still have the scar.’
Clementine put the picture and inkbrush aside and dutifully went to examine the elbow he was presenting her, with a soulful moue on his lips to demonstrate the woe of this bygone injury. She took his arm in her hands and tutted over the tiny white scar in his golden skin.
‘That’s terrible. You might have died from your colossal injuries.’
‘Yeah.’
And suddenly he was sober and they weren’t talking about a tumble from a fence when he was eight years old anymore.
Clementine pressed a kiss to the tiny scar anyway.
‘I’m so glad you didn’t,’ she said, kissing the insignificant scar again, ignoring the deeper, worse ones that were hidden beneath the regrowth of his right wing. ‘I’m so glad you’re here with me.’
Clementine kissed his inner elbow, then his wrist. His palm and his fingers. His other hand reached for her and stroked her hair.
‘I am too.’
Clementine kissed his wrist again, kissed a line up his arm to his shoulder, then along his jaw to his mouth. She tucked herself along his torso, arms about his waist, her thigh slotted between his. ‘I’ll keep that Hellfire Hound away from you if I can,’ she promised.
‘He was only a Great Dane in the end,’ he murmured. ‘Some monsters aren’t as bad as you think when you finally see them up close.’
They still weren’t really talking about the Great Dane, and Clementine didn’t care. She just wanted to hold Benedick, and kiss him, and keep him safe from falling ever again.
***
Their discussion became all about the subtext, and solemn and sad, and Benedick didn’t want to have any of that. He wanted Clementine’s laugh and her sardonic commentary on the adventures of the Onigiri Kid, and to have her kiss his inconsequential scars better. He wanted her to gasp and clutch at him, and giggle breathlessly as he delighted in her body, and she in his.
‘Who’s going to keep you safe from me?’ he said, sitting up, pulling her into his lap as he did so. He mock-growled and play-nipped at her nose. ‘Rawr!’
‘Wicked Hound,’ she admonished him with all due sternness, tapping him on the nose with a wagging finger. ‘Go and eat someone your own size.’
‘That’s the plan,’ he said before lick-nibbling at her throat.
Benedick held her tight in his arms and rose, and Clementine hooked her legs around his waist so that he could lift while they still nuzzled and kissed.
Benedick’s wings spread, and though the right didn’t open enough and he wobbled a few steps, Clementine was light and easy to hold. Benedick pressed his open mouth to her warm throat and licked at the pulse in her neck.
Their passage to Clementine’s bedroom was halting—Benedick kept losing his balance and his wings brushed into the walls in turn, knocking a picture from its hook. Just when he was ready to curse in frustration, Clementine hitched herself higher in his arms and rolled her hips against him, gripping him more tightly with her ankles crossed over the small of his back.
‘Sun blight the picture,’ she breathed in his ear. ‘Take me to bed.’ She bit his earlobe and growled playfully in his ear. ‘I want to ravish you.’
Benedick rumbled an enthusiastic agreement with this plan and managed to carry Clementine through the open bedroom door. Then he tripped on a pair of careless shoes and they tumbled towards the bed. With a startled cry he twisted as he fell, landing with spread wings on his back and Clementine on top.
‘Benedick!’
Benedick was too busy laughing to reply.
‘Benedick, are you all right?!’
‘It’s a softer landing than Mr Whitely’s backyard,’ he told her, running his hands down her back and to her bottom again. ‘And you promised to ravish me.’
‘I did.’
‘I’m ready to be ravished, then.’
‘Oooh.’ Clementine regarded him with a wicked smirk. She sat across his hips and began to
unbutton his shirt, dropping kisses onto his chest as skin was revealed. ‘I keep my promises, you know.’
‘Good to hear it.’ Ever since he’d confessed to her his persistent grief he’d felt lighter. The sorrow was still with him, but Clementine’s response had allowed him to feel that pain without being burdened by guilt for feeling it. Little had changed, yet everything had changed. Not quite unbodied joy yet, but sometimes, like now, he felt that such joy was possible again.
Clementine claimed his full attention again by pushing his shirt open and bending to tease first one nipple then the other with her darting tongue. Benedick moaned his approval and arched his back to encourage her. With a quick grin, Clementine slid back on his legs so that she could unfasten his trousers. Her fingers, still faintly stained with chalk and charcoal, left smudges on his body, on his belly and thighs. Then she moved up his body again, straddling his heat, to kiss him.
Benedick’s fingers unthreaded her shirt too, pulled it over her head and returned to caress her throat, the dips above her collarbones, down her sternum to her soft breasts. He kissed where his fingers had trailed over her skin.
Slowly, in sweet degrees, Benedick and Clementine stripped one another down to bare canvas, and painted sweet exploration on each other with fingertips and tongues, with the clasp of hands and thighs, with sighs and moans and earthy imprecations. At last, Benedick’s wings spread involuntarily wide and shivered, and Clementine’s back arched and her muscles clenched, and the two of them flew, wingless, into climax.
Afterwards, with sated, happy laughter, they curled around each other in Clementine’s bed.
It’s nice, not having to be needed, thought Benedick dozily, gently pushing threads of Clementine’s black hair off her forehead and behind her ears as she hummed her pleasure at the sweet attention. It’s nice needing her, though. Loving her.
I think I might. I think, might I love her already.
***
Clementine wore a simple scarlet sarong, which tied up over her breasts and showed off her slender legs. Like all the clothes she wore while painting, it was spattered in spots and smears of colour. She had long abandoned the chalk portrait for the prepped canvas and was working lines of paint with a piece of sponge and her thumb.
Grounded Page 15
