Morrie slumped against me. Sweat clung to my skin, and I could no longer feel my wrists. Quoth pressed his lips to my forehead. “Thank you,” he whispered.
I tried to say that he was welcome, which was kind of a weird thing to say after one’s first threesome, but my lips had gone numb and I couldn’t make words happen.
“Lean against me, gorgeous.” Morrie’s strong arms wrapped around me. He reached up and unhooked the cuffs. My body slumped against his. I couldn’t hold myself up.
He lifted the blindfold off my eyes. The face that stared back at me wasn’t the confident master criminal I usually encountered. Morrie’s icy eyes pooled with concern, his features drawn. Sweat dripped down his forehead. He gave me a lopsided smile. “Are you okay?”
“I—” I struggled to find the words. “That was amazing.”
“Good.” Morrie broke out into one of his self-satisfied grins, and just like that, his mask slipped back on. He scooped me up and deposited me in the bed. “Quoth is going to cuddle with you for a bit.”
“But you—”
“I need to be elsewhere.” Morrie slunk away into the darkness. I reached out a hand to him, but the door slammed shut. He was gone.
My lip trembled.What just happened?Morrie had just orchestrated the best sex of my life. He’d just somehow convinced me to have a threesome, and I had absolutely zero regrets. And then he takes one look at me with the blindfold off and runs away?
My mind swam. Therewassomething going on in Morrie’s head behind all that swagger and bravado. Had I just caught a glimpse of it? Was that why he ran, because he didn’t want to be vulnerable in front of me and Quoth?
Speaking of vulnerable…
Quoth lifted the edge of the sheet. I smiled, beckoning him in. He slid in beside me, wrapping his arms around my body and pulling me against him, tangling his legs in mine. I rested my head on his bicep and gazed into his eyes, watching the ring of orange flare around the outside of those deep brown orbs.
“He should be here,” Quoth said, his fingers trailing over my face and across my shoulders, raising trails of goosepimples.
“It’s okay. I have you.” I nestled my head into his shoulder, placing my hand on his chest, over his beating heart.
He sighed. “Mina, how did this happen? How did I get so lucky?”
“Thank Morrie later. I half wonder if he planned it to be this way. Did you know he told me I had to sleep with you and Heathcliff? He suspected you and I would dance around each other for months unless he thrust us together.”
“If that’s the case, I take back every bad thing I’ve ever said about him.” Quoth’s eyes crinkled, and he smiled.Oh, Isis, that smile…
“Don’t take back that time you called him the Neapolitan Ice Cream of Crime, because that was hilarious.”
He laughed, hugging me tighter. “Never.”
“Quoth,” I whispered into his chest. “I’m sorry if I tried to force you out of your shift at my mum’s house. I really thought you just needed a hard word, but I was wrong. You were so terrified.” My heart broke all over again remembered how his raven body had trembled in my arms.
“It’s okay.”
“I’m not sure it is. I thought I was helping, but I don’t understand what it is to be you, what goes on in your body, or in your mind.”
“I’m a grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore,” Quoth said. “You know everything you need to know.”
“You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that, even if Poe did. You are so much more to me. Please, don’t let me push you into going outside and doing things if you can’t—”
“Iwantto be a human, Mina,” Quoth’s voice quivered with venom. “Iwantto be able to be in the world with you. I want to be able to help you when—” he stopped.
“Finish the sentence. You want to help me when I go blind.” I didn’t trip over the word, the way I normally did. “I appreciate that, but I’m starting to realize that’s not your job. It’s mine.”
“I swore that I’d protect you,” he insisted.
“You did, and that’s very noble, if a little odd. But if I don’t at least do some of the protecting for myself, then I’ll never be able to look my poster of Sid Vicious in the eye again.” I laughed. “Actually, that might be a real problem soon.”
“You saw the colored lights again?”
“Yes.” I gave him a squeeze. “I’m still scared, but I feel like with you and Heathcliff and Morrie by my side, I can conquer the fear. And I want to be there for you while you conquer your fear. But I don’t want to force you, because that’s not how we roll, all right?”
