Page 34

Needed a Hug

“G et out!”

And Helena did. With the speed of lightning, she was out of the building, hailing a taxi, and didn’t stop until she was back in her house. As soon as the door closed behind her, she went straight for her kitchen. She cast aside the kitchen carpet she had bought to cover the summoning circle and dropped to her knees next to it, laying her hands on the still w arm lines.

“Lares… I summon you,” she said.

Heat made her flinch back as the circle burst back into life. A figure appeared, kneeling in the center, his wings framing him. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked at her with his beautiful starburst eyes. He stood up to his full height, regarding her all t he while.

“What do you command, mistress?” Rafferty said in a low, rumbli ng voice.

Tears filled up Helena’s eyes. “I need a hug,” s he cried.

He held perfectly still for a moment as if trying to understand. Then he took one step forward and bent at the waist to wrap his arms a bout her.

“So do I,” he said.

She had brought Rafferty to her room, and they laid together on her bed. Curled side by side facing each other. He had shifted into his human form, except for his tail, which he used to stroke her leg up and down affect ionately.

When he had reappeared, he had been wearing the leather apron just like the first time. She didn’t ask what happened to the underwear he left with. There were several more in the pack. Now he was dressed in some more clothes she had bought him, a pair of jeans and a gray sweatshirt, in the hope that he would need them when he returned one day. His other fancier clothes she had dry cleaned and waiting for him, hung up properly in he r closet.

“How long can you stay?” Hele na asked.

“You should send me back in the morning,” he said, his finger playing with the end of her hair, twirling around the tip like a ring before letting it fall so he could do it again.

She wanted to say she would send him back never, but they already knew the price for that. She had scrubbed her kitchen every day since he left, and it was only now starting to smell and feel right. And she had just undone all of that work, but she didn’t care. She snuggled into her prize’s chest, holding him close and breathing in his uniq ue smell.

“I’m glad you’re here now.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there earlier,” he rumbled.

“So you can hear me?” she said, relieved for the conf irmation.

“Yes, it is both a pleasure and a torture,” he said and kissed the top of her head.

“Oh, I’m sor—” she tried to say, but he pressed his fingers to h er mouth.

“No sorries,” he said affect ionately.

She nodded her muted head, and he let her mouth go to brush his fingers through her hair o nce more.

“Man, I wish I could scrub the image from my mind,” she muttered.

“Of Chris?” he asked.

“No, of Yosef’s harvest moon!” she declared and rubbed her face against Rafferty’s chest, as if that could wipe it away. “I am such an idiot.”

“To be fair, when I heard you hear the thump, I had the same thought,” he said. “I also had the passing thought that it was what it was, but also that she could have been in real trouble.”

“Now I’m the one in real trouble,” Helena declared, needing to sit up so she could express properly with her hands. “You know we would make all kinds of jokes about that in the office, but it’s something else entirely to have it irrevocably confirmed! And she’s more than twice his age! Like four times his age!”

“So?” Rafferty asked, and Helena looked down at the hypocrisy for that statement lying nex t to her.

“I suppose you’re going to say that you and I are no different?” she sa id dryly.

His eyebrows popped up. “Oh. I guess I hadn’t thought of that. No, I was going to say… when I worked for the King, I’d see that kind of thing all the time.”

“Really?”

“There wasn’t a lot of privacy for any social class, if you know wha t I mean.”

“I guess I never thought about it much, but to be fair, I don’t think too much about what life was like for 160 0 France.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised they stopped mi d coitus.”

“Wow.”

Rafferty shrugged and turned onto his back so he could put a hand under his head.

“But I guess, how is it not different between the age gap of you and me? I mean, you’re hundreds of y ears old.”

“No, I’m not,” he said. “I died, remember?”

“Yeah, but you still exist,” she c ountered.

“Aging only happens in this reality. My existence elsewhere, there is no measure of time, which is why it’s thought of as eternity. Time is but it doesn’t progress. Only being here is there a linear change, and I’m here for such small slips of time at most. But elsewhere, we all sti ll exist .”

Helena struggled to take all that in. “So you’re saying we… all of us… we’ve all always existed?” s he asked.

“As far as I understand it, yes,” he said.

Her mind blew at that bit of confirmed information. “So… from that perspective, you and I are about the same age?”

Rafferty shrugged. “You could think of it that way. If you need to.”

“How old were you when y ou died?”

“Nineteen or twenty, about. I’m not exac tly sure.”

That surprised her even more. “So if we’re measuring by time spent in this existence, I’m twenty-six , so you…”

“Would still be younger than you, yes, if we add all of the little slips of time of my being in this reality together,” h e agreed.

Helena flopped back onto the bed. “And the hits keep coming. That’s just amazing.”

Rafferty turned again to lie on his side facing her, this time his hand propping up his head so he had a downward view. “Helena, may I kiss you?”

“Oh!” she said, sideswiped by the requ est. “I…”

Her hesitation was the wrong answer, and he pulled back from his slight lean forward. “My apologies for asking. But you said I should ask. But I should n’t have—”

“No, no, don’t pull away,” she said, reaching for his face. “You just caught me by surprise. It’s been a roller coaster kind of day for that.”

And she moved in to press her lips to his, closing her eyes. First he froze, then his hand came around and cupped the back of her head gently. His lips were firm under hers, like he didn’t know what to do with them, but she massaged gently, showing him what she wanted him to do. When he had relaxed enough, she slipped her tongue just within the edge of his mouth. He groaned in his throat and broke the kiss. He didn’t pull away far though, setting his forehead against hers as he gasped fo r breath.

“God, you are merciless,” he whispered.

“What? What’s wrong? Didn’t you like it?” she asked, worried.

“I loved it,” he whispered and pressed his lips to hers again, returning it more boldly this time. Somewhere on the edge of Helena’s awareness, as they kissed over and over again, she was conscious of the flutter of leathery wings behind him, but it wasn’t until his tail curled around the leg she had thrown over him like a snake that she became aware he ha d shifted.

She made a surprised mew sound in her throat, and his eyes flew open. A second later, he shifted back to simp ly a man.

“Dammit,” he cursed and rolled over to sit up, his back fa cing her.

“It’s alright,” she tried to say, but the damage had already b een done.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t… I couldn’t hold it,” he said, disgusted with himself.

“It’s alright,” she insisted. It didn’t seem to do any good.

Abruptly, he stood and went toward her door. “I need to cook s omething.”

Helena exhaled in a huff of defeat and dropped her pleading hand to the bed. “Dammit,” she muttered and then clambered up to go a fter him.

Going into her kitchen wasn’t great. The whole place had a fresh batch of that weird burning tire/pumpkin spice smell to it, but to her surprise, Rafferty tossed the carpet she had purchased back over the smoking lines of the circle. She watched as she expected it to catch fire, but it didn’t. It even seemed to curb the smoking. Rafferty certainly didn’t seem worried, and he walked back and forth over it like it was any o ther rug.

Helena hovered near the door. “What are you going to make?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said as he stared into her refrigerator, taking stock of what was in there before shutting it and going for the cupboards. After a while, he turned back to her, then cocked his head at her hovering by the door. “You can come in. It’s safe, ” he said.

“Oh, okay,” she said, crossing the threshold and letting the swinging door shut behind her. “So, I won’t get sucked down into hell or anything?”

“No, you’ll be fine. You’re going to have to clean again, but the way is shut,” he said, “How do you feel about a pot pie?”

“Uh, that sounds surprisingly normal for you,” sh e quipped.

“Don’t worry. The way I make it, it’ll be life changing,” he said and started pulling ingredients to assemble on the counter.

“I’m never worried when you’re around,” she lied, but it was one she wanted to believe.