It was rare for Morgan to regret his artificial nature, but tonight he had cause. The marks that Naomi had left on him in their passion — the bruises, bites, and scratches — had all healed in the scant hours he had slept and faded so thoroughly that not even scars remained. He particularly regretted the loss of the bruise on his throat, for an exhibitionist impulse in him reveled at the notion of others seeing that he had been so claimed. Only memories remained now, no different from wounds he had taken in the line of duty that had healed just as swiftly despite being far more than skin-deep. A wedding band would be a better sign that I belong to her, Morgan thought. I should have picked a better time to propose, and done a proper job of it.
Naomi herself sat at the table nearby, watching him over the top of a paperback novel as she sipped her tea. She was reading one of the Brontë sisters again — Wuthering Heights — and Morgan hoped that she had not been drawing parallels between their relationship and that of Catherine and Heathcliff; he would have preferred that she had chosen lighter fare from that century, like Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. He could live with being the Mr. Darcy to her Elizabeth Bennett. At least it’s not the libretto for Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, he reminded himself. That doesn’t end well for either Siegfried or Brünnhilde, even if Nims does have the voice for the role.
As always, her gaze held him whenever their eyes met. Though she was frost-blonde and alabaster pale, her eyes were not the pale pink that would have marked her as truly albinistic. Instead, they were the same rich scarlet as her favorite shade of lipstick, which he had worn off her coral lips one kiss at a time mere hours ago.
He might have been a product of the Einherjar Initiative, but she was the Valkyrie who had chosen him — even if people who had seen nothing of her but her face called her a demi-fiend. Being as tall as he when barefoot, his black silk button-down shirt covered no more of her hips than they did his, the hem stopping at the top of her thighs. Rather than continue to stare at her — shaken by a statuesque beauty as distant and austere as a snow-capped mountain that few dared attempt and fewer still survived — he spoke up. “That shirt looks better on you than it does on me.”
Naomi’s tight, contented smile widened as she put aside her book. She had not bothered to use a bookmark; she never seemed to need one, which became yet another reason for Morgan to admire her. “Don’t sell yourself short. It looks damned good on you. It looked better on the floor, though.”
After pulling on his boxer briefs, Morgan joined Naomi at the table. “Thanks for ordering room service.”
“No need to thank me when it’s getting billed to your room,” said Naomi, indicating the full English breakfast spread across the table.
It would prove a substantial additional charge, but Morgan was determined not to begrudge her. She had to be at least as hungry as he, and occasional room service was well within his means. “Had we been at home, I would have offered to make you a sandwich afterward. I should have thought to order up a snack for us earlier, instead of falling asleep.”
Pressing the tip of Morgan’s nose with her finger, Naomi said, “As I recall, I fell asleep on you.”
“It would have been churlish of me to remind you of the fact. I suppose you grabbed my shirt because it closest to the top of the pile, and unlike Claire it’s not your style to answer the door nude.”
They both glanced at the pile of discarded clothing at the foot of the bed. Naomi’s clothes are at the bottom, for Morgan had undressed her first in his need to please her. His concern for her gratification was not merely gentlemanly, but a means by which he could exercise gentle dominance; he liked knowing that he had had a hand in her release.
“Definitely not my style,” said Naomi. “Even for you. I was tempted to steal your pants as well, incidentally, but they look best on you.”
Morgan followed Naomi’s gaze downward, imagining her in his underwear along with his shirt. “I see we’re dispensing with euphemisms like ‘borrow’.”
“Indeed,” said Naomi, playing with the lapels. “This is my shirt now. Any objections?”
Rather than immediately answering, Morgan took a moment to study her. The black silk subtly shimmered in the dim lights, a sharp constrast against both her skin and the avalanche of bed-touseled hair spilling over her right shoulder. It was a gesture that Christabel had never made, this playful theft of a garment that she would slowly imbue with her own scent as she wore it to feel close to him when he could not be with her. “You’re welcome to it, Nims. It really does look better on you.”
“I’m glad. We ought to talk about last night, though. I never thought you’d be so impulsive as to propose to me in the afterglow.”
Morgan filled a plate and began to eat to buy time, stung a little by Naomi’s remark about impulsiveness. Once he was done, he met her gaze again. “I was only impulsive in my timing. I had been thinking about asking you to marry me for a while.”
Leaning back in her chair, Naomi not only crossed her legs, but her arms as well. It was a defensive posture Morgan was not used to seeing her adopt in his company. Her question came softly, almost inaudible. “Why? Why me?”
”Why not you?” Morgan’s counter was as instinctive as if he were parrying a swordthrust, as was the riposte: “Who else but you, Nims? We’ve been friends for years. I’ll admit that at first it was childish infatuation on my part, but as I came to know you as a person I came to respect you. With that respect for you as a human being came love for you as a woman. We’ve worked together as musicians. You’ve fought beside me. It’s not merely because we’re good in bed together. It’s that I remember all the times you’ve talked about the marriage your parents made for themselves, have long suspected that you wanted something like that for yourself, and I want to help you make that happen.”
Naomi loosened a bit, taking a bit of toast covered with orange marmalade and nibbling at a corner. “There’s still a lot you don’t know about me. Or what I’m like with my lovers.”
“I know that relatively short flings are more your style. I never asked why. I figured that the others quickly wore out their welcome — and I hope to avoid their mistakes.”
That earned one of Naomi’s arch, ironic smiles. “I think it’s more often that I wear out my welcome with them. I’m a novelty, and every novelty eventually palls. It seems that I’m good enough for a romp, or even an affair, but not for anything long term. And I am probably too much my father’s daughter for anybody’s comfort; I have always been content to use somebody if they catch my fancy.”
“Were you merely using me earlier?” Morgan doubted it, but he still wanted to hear it from Naomi one way or the other.
“Yes.”
“Bullshit,” said Morgan. “You could have gone back to your room once your itch was scratched. You wouldn’t have fallen asleep in my arms. You would not have stolen my shirt. You would not be asking — by implication at least — for reassurance that I am determined to at least try to not be like all the others who have hurt you.”
“Christabel wasn’t the only one who got close to you so that she could spy on you,” said Naomi. “I’m no less a Mata Hari than she had been. I was under orders to tame you. Do you truly want to marry a woman who has standing orders to cut you down if the Phoenix Society determines that you are beyond control and a danger to innocent lives?”
“So, you were the Shamhat to my Enkidu? That is actually a bit of a turn-on, the thought of you taming me with your wiles.”
Though Naomi seemed to have reddened a bit, her tone was firm. “Dammit, Morgan, I’m not flirting with you right now.”
“I meant it. If somebody is to put me down because I’ve completely lost it, I want it to be you because I know you won’t pull the trigger until you’re sure. I just want to ask one thing of you.”
”What?”
“Don’t try to make it a fair fight. Don’t give me the slightest chance to fight back, lest I hurt you.” Realizing that he had asked Naomi to assassinate him, if it came to it, he flashed a smile at her and added, “You need never be gentle with me.”
That tight, ironic little smile was back. “Never?”
“Not unless you want to,” said Morgan. “I’m a New Yorker, remember? I can take it.”
“And you’re not afraid to date the devil’s daughter?” said Naomi. Leaning forward, she cupped his chin. “Seriously, we need to think this through. If Magnin is right about us, neither of us will die of old age. You don’t look a day over twenty-five. If you’ll pardon my self-flattery, neither do I. We could live for centuries, if not millennia or even aeons. If you’re serious about vowing till death do us part, I’m not sure I should make that promise or let you do so.”
“You’re afraid I’ll grow tired of you. Do you even know me at all? I am not here for any reason but that I enjoy your company.”
“It’s only human,” said Naomi, looking away. “And if you don’t, I might. It might not even be because I wanted a different lover, but because I miss the freedom I possessed in my solitude. Why do you think I’ve stolen your shirt? I want something of yours to keep me warm when I’m alone.”
Rising from his seat, Morgan took Naomi’s hands in his and led her to sit on the bed beside him. Though he had wanted to kiss her until her objections melted away, he refrained. This was not the time for such persuasion. Nor was it the time to be selfish, to think only of the fulfillment of his own romantic fantasies, or to have his imagination full of wild ideas and big white beds.
Naomi’s voice was as soft as her hands in his. “What are you thinking?”
It took a long moment for Morgan to find the words. “I don’t believe that I could ever become weary of you, Nims. You’re a different woman every time I meet you, though the differences are too subtle to be perceptible except over time, and the passing of time has only enhanced your beauty, rather than diminishing it, bcause I know you better than I did at sixteen.”
“If I didn’t know you well enough to understand that you meant it, I’d think you were utterly shameless.”
“I’m plainly that as well, considering that I did not think to close the curtains after I let you in,” said Morgan. Naomi reddened just a touch at that, but he continued before she could comment. “But I’ve been selfish, thinking only of my own happiness. I’m not so desperate to be your husband, let alone your lover, that I’m willing to poison our friendship. If I can only be your part-time lover, to be your first choice when you want a man in your bed, I think I can be content with that.”
“We both know that isn’t what you want,” said Naomi.
“You know how the song goes as well as I do,” said Morgan. “You can’t always get what you want. So I’m trying to get what I need, and I need to be part of your life in some capacity. Maybe the sort of marriage your parents have isn’t what you need, regardless of your admiration for it. What matters is that if your father is right about us having all the time in the world, then we can chart our own course.”
“You’re smiling. Have you noticed?”
It seemed an odd observation to make, but Morgan went with it. “Of course I am, because I’m thinking this through instead of just following the script I thought I had to follow in order to be a man instead of just a machine. What does it matter if we’re only together a year or two before we part?
“Suppose we had children?” Naomi seemed wistful as the notion escaped her lips.
Morgan shrugged. “We could stay together long enough to see our children grown. Or, if you insisted, I can let go of you while still being their father. Eventually, we might meet again, with new stories to tell one another over dinner. We might get to seduce each other all over again. We could have a thousand love stories, instead of just the one most people are lucky to get. Our romances could be as novels to which we periodically return, finding new or previously missed elements with each fresh reading.”
The way she had melted against him suggested that she liked the idea, as did the way she had pushed him into his back and draped her body over his. “What if I were to meet somebody while we’re apart?”
“None of my business,” said Morgan. “Unless you wanted to tell me about it. After all, I never asked about Christopher Renfield.”
“He got married, so you need not worry about having him for a rival.”
“I never did. You’re not a toy to be fought over. I don’t own you. Now, what if I were to meet somebody while we’re apart?”
The sting in her kiss told him everything he needed to know. Naomi’s words only confirmed it. “No matter who they are, they won’t be me, and I suspect that you will always come back to me.”
Resting her head on his shoulder, she slipped a hand into his hair and snuggled in closer. “I will always come back to you, too. At least, I want to believe that I will.”
“You don’t have to believe it,” said Morgan as he pulled the blankets over them. “I will believe it on your behalf, and I will always have a shirt for you to steal.”