by Naima Simone
I’m home.
Here, I always find welcome, not censure.
Not rejection.
No conditions.
Hours later, I stretch my arms above my head, tired, back and arms aching, but a good ache. A good tired. The kinds that come from a hard and productive day’s work. And as I scrutinize what I’ve created so far, I’m satisfied.
Fuck, such a weak word to describe the huge mass in my chest. That never goes away. Never gets old. That sense of awe, of fierce pride, and indescribable, nebulous joy that comes from pulling on that image in your head and somehow coaxing your hands into forming it. It seems almost… blasphemous, like you’re somehow closer to understanding God when He created the universe. Yeah, if I ever tried to explain this to my parish priest, I’d be on my knees with so many Acts of Contrition, I’d be permanently crippled.
Still…
I trace the edges of the dilapidated, frail and lonely castle of a king. Immediately, Zenobia’s face flickers across my mind, vivid and blinding in its intensity. I can pick out every emotion, every nuance in her expression last night as she stared at my drawings. They’re branded into my brain, and if asked, yeah, I’d deny it. But here, in this warehouse where I’m alone with my art, I can admit that I dreamed about the awe, the reverence, the… the passion. The glimmer of tears.
Zenobia saw me.
I agonized over every choice of subject of artwork, of show. No matter how small—even if it fit in the palm of a child’s hand—or how big—if it was intended for the lobby of an office building. A lot of artists use their work to commentate on the shite-fest of this world, but I don’t; I create for me. Does that make me selfish and maybe even a little narcissistic? Possibly. Probably.
But it’s the truth.
My specialty is fantastical and mythical creatures. Because I got lost in them. They represent the world I wished I could escape to after Blake’s death. A world of magic, myth, steel, righteous war, and yeah, the fucking happily ever after. Everything my real life doesn’t contain. But as long as I’m working, I can pretend it does.
And this show’s theme had been one I’d wanted to do for a while now. The Last Unicorn had been one of my favorite books when I’d been a boy, and still is years later. While most people rooted for the unicorn and even the wizard, I identified with King Haggard. So struck by sadness and boredom that when he found something that made him happy, he went to any lengths to amass it, keep it. Lock it away. For King Haggard, his happy had been the unicorns. My unicorn is my art.
And when Zenobia had looked up from that table and stared at me, telling me with her lips and her eyes that she heard me, I’d felt visible for the first time since in eighteen years.
It was humbling.
Intoxicating.
Hot as fuck.
And it’s the last one that has me dreading returning back to Simon and Bridget’s house. Because though I resented Simon for warning me away from Zenobia, it didn’t negate that he was right. I’m only here for a few months until my show. And I’m a poor bet for anything resembling a relationship—just ask my ex. Zenobia, with her tough mouth, brazen manner, vulnerable underbelly, and doe eyes, doesn’t need my particularly corrosive brand of bullshit in her life right now.
Or ever.
What would a successful, ball-breaking, big-hearted nurse want with a selectively mute, abrasive, socially inept sculptor?
I could offer her a good fuck, and then what?
An image of that small, taut body with its breasts perfectly created for my big hands, nipped-in waist, rounded hips, gorgeous arse, and thick, beautiful thighs sends heat racing straight to my dick. In seconds, I’m hard and throbbing.
Jesus, she’s a drug.
No. A goddam virus that stays in the blood, resistant to any and all antibiotics.
Other treatments are available to me—staying away from the house, working, fucking other women. And yet, as Nate pounds on the warehouse door, I pack my shit up, eager to return to the source of my sickness.
I’m fucked.
And definitely not in the way my cock would prefer.
Chapter Seven
Axel
I pad barefoot into the empty kitchen. Nate dropped me off nearly an hour earlier, and after a shower and change of clothes, my growling stomach has finally driven me in search of food. My brain is on board the Give You and Zenobia Space campaign, but my gut is obviously in full on anarchist mode. It’s demanding to be fed, damn my pride or self-preservation.
Just as I tug open the refrigerator door, footsteps echo behind me, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Simon and Bridget’s house is big, but not that big. Avoiding Zenobia had been a fool’s wish. Slowly, shutting the door, I turn, but standing behind me is not the gorgeous woman with the silken almond skin and dangerous curves that I just jerked one out to in the shower.
It’s Calliope.
Shock and grief piledrive into me, and I lock my knees from stumbling backward. My fingers lock around the handle of the refrigerator so hard, so tight, I’m dimly surprised the damn thing doesn’t rip right off the screws.
In some distant part of my head, I faintly remember Simon mentioning Calliope relocating to the States. But I don’t recall it being here in Rhode Island. If I had, I wouldn’t be standing here in his kitchen, attempting to keep my arse from hitting the floor. And my heart from clawing its way out of my chest.
It’s been nearly ten years, but she looks the same. Youthful, lovely, kind. The same blonde hair and slim body she had when she’d been Blake and Simon’s best friend. The Three Musketeers, they’d been called. They’d been tight all the way to the end. All the way until the moment on that lake at her parents’ vacation house in Scotland, when choppy waters had capsized their boat and Blake, without a life jacket, had gone under and wasn’t found until three days later.
She and Simon had even been inseparable when they’d come to comfort me when Mum and Dad had been too gutted in their grief to do so.
I’d pushed her away, too. Only unlike Simon, she’d taken the hint and hadn’t pushed back.
“Axel,” she greets me, smiling, arms outstretched. I don’t stop her as she enfolds me in an embrace. Even manage to move my stiff arms to hug her back. “Simon told me you were staying with him while you worked on your show. I’m so glad to see you. It’s been a long time.”
Sadness lurks in her eyes, and I step back from it and her hold. Both are too much at the moment.
“Yeah.”
Her arms fall to her side, and red stains her cheekbones. An awkward silence descends between us, and though words jam into my chest and crowd into my throat, I can’t shove them out. I don’t know what to say to her. And even if I did, I don’t know how to deal with the bombardment of memories. The suffocation of memories.
Back home in England, they weren’t as difficult, as heavy as alive. Not with Simon and now Calliope as living, breathing testaments to my brother. To who I am in connection to them. To who I’m not in connection to them…
“Hey, I thought you were getting the dip—oh, hey, Axel. I didn’t know you were home.” Zenobia barrels into the kitchen, and I think Calliope and I both breathe sighs of relief.
She’s a damn lifeline, even if the sight of her in a pair of short-as-fuck cut-off denim shorts with ragged hems and a tight, yellow T-shirt that’s so thin I can glimpse the outline of a lace bra might just kill me.
She glances back and forth between me and Calliope, a tiny frown marring her forehead. And because in the short time I’ve come to know her, she hasn’t been one to mince words, she asks, “What’s up? You two look like you just bumped into each other after a horrible one-night stand.” Her eyebrow arches high. “And since I know you’d never cheat on Nigel, and you”—she shoots me a look—“were sitting in a pub with me last night, that can’t be true. So, what gives?”
When Calliope shrugs and parts her lips, Zenobia jabs a finger in her direction, her frown deepening.
“And don’t even think
about telling me ‘nothing’. I stab people with needles for a living.”
Shit. What was it with the needles?
Calliope laughs and holds up her hands, palms out. “Fine. God, I don’t know why I hang around you and Bridget. Might be fear.” She shakes her head, then crosses to the refrigerator, opens it and reappears seconds later with a small, white tub. “I know Axel from home. I was best friends with his brother, Blake.”
“Oh.”
Just that simple word, and yet it says everything. That and the softening of her eyes like sweet, melting chocolate.
She knows.
Zenobia knows about Blake. His death. And if the information is from Simon, then the dirty details of how it affected me.
Humiliation burns inside me, so hot, so consuming I’m shocked my skin isn’t ashen. It’s one thing for Simon and Calliope to know that I’m broken, but for this strong, capable Amazon of a woman?
Fuck supper—
“Right,” she drawls. “The accents should’ve been a dead giveaway. I mean, two Brits under a roof owned by another one? What’re the odds?” She waves a hand in my direction, accompanying it with a head jerk. “C’mon, you. We’re having a girls’ night, but you’re officially crashing it. Wine, pizza, and a Grey’s Anatomy marathon.”
Calliope rolls her eyes. “Which, might I add, isn’t the least bit indulgent.”
“Well, when they make a hit series about hot, horny yoga instructors, I pinky swear we’ll binge it. In the meantime, it’s my night to pick, and Grey’s it is.”
Before I can tell her no and escape back to my flat, Zenobia crosses the short distance separating us and wraps her small hand around my bicep and hauls me toward the living room. For such a tiny package, she contains the force of a hurricane. I outweigh her by at least fifty pounds and stand a foot taller, but the shock of her touch rips through me, propelling me forward.
I’m a puppet, and she’s pulling the strings.
Minutes later, I’m seated on one of the huge armchairs at the end of the couch, three slices of pizza piled with enough meat to clog every artery in my body, and watching residents compete for surgeries, have sex with co-workers, and generally fuck up.
And damn if it’s not oddly addictive.
“Did George just get hit by a fucking bus?” I bark, shooting straight up in my chair, my hands gripping the arms for dear life. I gape at the screen. Horrified.
The hell? Did that just happen? Damn, not George.
“I know, right?” Zenobia shakes her head, then tilts her glass up for a big gulp of wine. “All’s I have to say is, don’t piss Shonda off because you will not just die, but die a horrific, humiliating, ACME-anvil-dropped-on-your-ass death.”
“You knew this?” I demand. Snarl, really. Because, goddammit. She let me get attached. “You knew he was going to die and let me sit here and watch this?”
“Aw, sorry, Axel,” Calliope coos, but ruins it with a burp. Pink stains her cheeks, but she giggles and follows it up by downing the last bit of wine in her glass.
Zenobia immediately reaches over and refills it almost to the rim.
“But at least we didn’t let you watch Derek get hit by a truck. Now that was just traumatizing. I didn’t watch Grey’s for two seasons after he died.” Calliope shudders and, cupping both hands around the glass, sips in commiseration.
I. Fucking. Gasp. I might even have pressed a fist to my chest. Directly over my pounding heart. “Derek dies?” That’s it. I’m out.
“I think you broke him, Calliope.” Zenobia snickers, and my brother’s best friend reaches over—without spilling one drop of wine—and pats my knee.
“No worries, Axel,” she says, obviously trying to console me. “Next time we’ll watch Sons of Anarchy.”
I blink. Because one, I have no idea what Sons of Anarchy is. And two, next time? They want me to join them for this girls’ night again? The thought of it has warmth unfurling in my chest and stretching wide… and mentally scrambling away like a scalded cat.
“Yeah, ‘cause nobody bites it in a show about a motorcycle gang.”
Calliope whips her head in Zenobia’s direction. “It’s a motorcycle gang. That’s pretty much expected.”
Before Zenobia can reply, a knock on the door echoes through the room. I shoot from the chair like my arse is on fire. “Got it,” I mutter.
Leaving them to their continued argument, I cross the living room and enter the foyer. A peek out of the door’s glass pane reveals a tall, slim man on the other side. It’s late, and this guy’s a stranger, and I’m not taking any chances with either Zenobia or Calliope’s safety.
“Zenobia.”
She cuts off mid-debate and glances my way. When I jerk my chin up, she climbs off the couch and approaches me.
“You know him?”
She peers around me then grins. “That’s Nigel. Calliope’s husband.”
At the sound of her husband’s name, Calliope jumps up and bounds over to us like a wankered gazelle. Just as Zenobia opens the door, she leaps into Nigel’s arms.
“Hello, darling,” she purrs. “I’ve missed you.”
“I see girls’ night was a smashing success,” Nigel says, his smile indulgent and accent posh.
“You need help getting her to the car?” I offer.
He switches his smile from his wife and glances at me, his gaze sharpening even as he extends the arm not wrapped around his wife. “Nigel. And you are?”
“Axel.” I grasp the offered hand and shake it.
When I don’t add more, Zenobia sighs and nudges me in the side with her elbow. “A hot as fuck Viking just opened the door to the house his wife just spent an evening in. You have to give him more than that,” she grumbles, then turns to Nigel with an eye roll.
But I’m barely hearing anything else that comes out of her mouth. A lightning bolt of lust strikes me center mass, crackling through me, deafening me except for the roar that contains four words: hot as fuck Viking.
Is that how she sees me?
Behind my zipper, my cock stirs, hardening and lengthening until it’s seconds away from punching through the damn front of the jeans. It’s one thing to want this woman, to imagine being wedged so fucking far, deep and tight inside her that I can’t breathe without feeling every quiver and ripple. But it’s a whole ‘nother thing to know that she looks at me and sees something besides a rude, socially clumsy giant.
Goddamn.
Why can’t we rewind twenty seconds, and I could walk away as soon as she opens the door? Turn back time so I don’t hear what those four irreversible, earth-shattering words.
Because now I’m so close to becoming that marauder of the North that she called me. I want to hunt her down, pillage, conquer. Stake my claim. Mark her body with my mouth, my fingers, my cock, just as I want to immortalize her with my metal, with fire.
I step back. From her cider and dewy earth scent. From the finger-curling temptation of those shamelessly feminine hips. From the beauty of those curls.
From her.
“Axel is a friend of Simon’s from back home, Nigel,” Zenobia explains. “He’s staying with him and Bridget for a few months.”
“He’s Blake’s brother, darling,” Calliope whispers, soft enough that her explanation barely reaches me, but loud enough that I catch the sadness saturating her slightly slurred speech.
Nigel hums a sound in his throat as he bends his head over his wife’s and presses a kiss to her hair. Then he looks at me again, an understanding in his gaze that has my skin crawling, itching, needing to slap at it. Hiking up my chin at him, I whip around and escape.
Pausing next to the coffee table, I grab the empty pizza boxes and bottles of wine and head for the kitchen. The boxes don’t deserve all the aggression I pour into ripping them apart, but ain’t shit in life fair.
“Here. Let me get those bottles.”
I don’t stop decimating cardboard, but my muscles tighten in reaction to that husky voice. My gut clenches, and my c
ock… Well, that greedy, randy bastard stands at strict attention as if she were a lieutenant and it’s enlisted in the British Army.
The kitchen is filled with the harmony of me ripping boxes and her washing wine bottles. Curiosity pokes at me. What is she saving them for—recycling? Rebottling? Making her own wine?
She finishes rinsing the glass out, wipes the bottles off with a paper towel, then sets them on the counter to dry. When she catches me looking at her, she narrows her eyes on me.
“I can see the wheels turning in that head of yours. And I also know you’re trying really hard not to ask. But go ahead, Axel. Ask.”
She’s right. I’ve made a habit of not asking anyone questions, of not getting in their business—because they always seem to return the favor—that’s it’s become second nature. Shoving the last of the cardboard in the rubbish bin, I inhale and face her.
And because it’s her… because my fascination with her is a ravenous thing… because my inexplicable need to know more about her is only matched by insane hunger to be buried balls-deep inside her, I do the one thing I’ve never had the least bit desire to indulge in with anyone else.
I pry.
“What’re you saving those for?”
A simple, rubbish question for someone else. For me? A huge step in a direction I have no business taking. Toward a woman I have no business thinking about, jacking off to, fucking craving.
“You’re not the only one who rescues stuff people look at as junk.” She smirks and spreads her arms wide.
Only Christ Himself would’ve been strong enough not to glance down as her breasts lifted under her tight T-shirt. And I’m nowhere near as sainted as Jesus. I’m that branch of the family He doesn’t like to talk about. So, my gaze lingers on the soft-looking flesh rising above the V-neck. Traces the lacy pattern of her bra beneath the thin material. I jerk my focus away. But not before I catch the outline of her beaded nipples.
Fuck.
I flex my fingers, curling them into my palm, straightening them. Foreseeing another night of them strangling my dick.
“I’m a self-proclaimed DIY queen,” she continues confessing. “I like to repurpose things. Like, those wine bottles might become dish soap dispensers, a mini-garden or tiki torches. YouTube videos are goldmines for ideas.” She snorts. “I used to drive James crazy, just showing up from thrift store or yard sale shopping trips with bags and bags of things.”
