Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

We did go at it a ridiculous number of times last night. “Sorry.”

He rolls onto his side and draws me against him. Belly to belly. Chest to chest. Warm and tight. I kiss the firm curve of his shoulder, settle against him, finding the best places for arms and legs. Fitting into him until we’re locked together like a puzzle. He kisses me back gently, without any heat. Just soft, sweet kisses.

“I’m gonna sleep for a week,” he sighs into my skin.

“Oh.” I hadn’t realized our trip took so much out of him. “Okay.” I’m enjoying the cuddling, but I’m not staying in bed much longer. Time to get up and move mountains.

“Stay with me,” he murmurs, tucking my face into his neck. I close my eyes and enjoy the moment. I never thought cuddling with a demon could be so nice.

My eyes won’t stay closed, though. I feel stunningly energetic this morning. I’m not a morning person on the best of days and we must have been up half the night – although we did start pretty early and I’m not sure whether our trip to Hell took any time at all – but I feel really well rested. Like I’ve slept for a week.

I begin to wriggle out of his arms. He tightens them around me. “Where’re you goin’?”

I kiss him a few more times, stroke the furry mass of his dreadlocks. “I’m getting up. I’m not tired at all. You sleep in.”

He grumbles. “Stay.”

“No, really, I’m getting restless. I’ll just keep you awake if I lie here any longer.”

He grumbles a few more times before he finally loosens his grip on me. He cracks open one dark eye as I begin to shift away from him. “Promise me somethin’ before you go.”

“Mmm?” I slide up onto my elbow and look down at him.

“Don’t do anything you know’ll piss me off.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I poke him in the chest. “You can’t expect me to stay in bed. First of all, I’m not tired. Second, I have to go to work—”

He sighs and runs his hand down my back. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Just say it before you go.”

“What? That I won’t do anything to piss you off? Okay, I won’t do any—”

“No, that you’ll be my seggurach. Fuck, Tsara, what d’you think last night was all about?”

“Oh.” My mind goes blank. “Oh, um, I, uh.”

“Fuck.” He rolls away, disentangling himself.

“Wait, wait. Jou, wait.” I scoot after him. Plant myself over him. Catch his head in my hands and kiss him deeply. He kisses me back. I wind myself around him and we lie there entangled for a long time, kissing. Not speaking. His kisses become slower, less purposeful, until finally he’s just breathing into my mouth, his lips slack against mine.

I hold him until I’m sure he’s really asleep, then slip out of the bed, dress as silently as I can, and trot off to the T station.

It’s standing room only on the train. I cling to a pole and watch the dark tunnel flash by beyond the train’s windows. Think about what I didn’t say. What he wants me to say, to feel, to be.

I’m still not sure I can.

I stand, and think, and hum The Shamen’s “Move Any Mountain” to myself.

Customer service has its own special magic, and whatever it is, I don’t have it. Fortunately, Evonne does, and when I ask her to reschedule my afternoon appointments so I can keep my date with Timmi, she does so without complaint, in her effortlessly cheerful way that makes the clients feel like we’re doing them a favor. She pops her head into my office after my one o’clock to tell me she’s cleared my afternoon. I thank her and put a sticky note on my phone to remind myself to buy her another bag of Bruegger’s Gingerbread, then turn off my computer and make my way out into the light drizzle.

Timmi’s offered to send the Museum’s car for me, but being chauffeured to the private museum for my personal tour is way too O.T.T. for me. I take the train.

Timmi’s waiting for me in the front door of an attractive brick building that looks exactly so many other attractive brick buildings in and around the Harvard campus. The door’s framed by two of the eponymous columns, which support a semi-circular porch under which Timmi stands, out of the rain. When I run up the three short steps, she takes my arm and leans in for an air-kiss.

“I’m delighted to see you, my dear,” she says.

“Hi, Timmi.” I return the air-kiss. I’m happy to see her, too. Maybe it’s stupid – to feel so flattered by the interest of someone I barely know. Who just wants to share her knowledge. But it’s less stupid than being flattered by the interest of the demon who wants me to be his freaking seggurach.

Whatever. It’s nice to be wanted.

“What would you like to see first?” Timmi asks as she guides me through the massive oak front doors and into the museum.

I stop in the lobby and goggle.

It soars up three floors, to a huge domed skylight that lets in the gray afternoon light. In the corners of the room, four terra-cotta-colored pillars support the glass dome. At ground level, the natural light is warmed by wall sconces that flicker with amber witchlight. The atrium is filled with the soft susurrus of water, which slides down three of the marble walls in a glassine veil. The water disappears into a groove at the base of each wall without a splash. A breath of highly oxygenated air teases my hair back from my face, rising off the nearest water-wall in an exhalation that should be woodsy but is metallic instead.

I don’t know what I expected. Brick and dark wood and low ceilings, maybe. Like the Witch Museum in Salem, which only has an aura of very human sadness, but no magic. Not this. This