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As soon as she heard Danny let himself out the back, Valkyrie opened the door.
Skulduggery. Looking exactly like she remembered him – all tall, dark, mysterious and incredibly yummy in his familiar dark blue three-piece suit, his shirt white and crisp, his hat angled at a perfectly rakish angle. The last rays of the sun accentuated the cutting sharpness of his cheekbones, leaving the rest of his face in deep shadow.
Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.
And Valkyrie had been alone for five years. Five long, lonely years. Five long, lonely years, and many a night filled with thoughts to warm her heart and heat her body, every time her mind had wandered to her long-time best friend and partner.
“Hi.” Her cheeks burned. Something nudged her leg. Xena.
“Hi.” His head tilted. “You’re blushing.”
“Your detecting skills are as good as ever.”
“Better, really. I’ve had five years to polish them, since I didn’t have a bumbling, mostly incompetent partner to keep dragging me down to her level.”
She couldn’t help it. She grinned like a lunatic.
God. She’d missed him. She’d even missed his insults. She’d definitely missed that voice of his, so full of warmth and still as smooth and velvety as all these years ago when she’d first fallen for it, too young at the time to realise what had just happened.
“How have you been?” she asked, feeling slightly awkward.
He gave a light shrug. “Great. I’ve solved hundreds of cases, saved the world a few dozen times, punched a couple of thousand people. You know, the usual. China’s been thinking about giving me a medal or award or something like that, just because I’m so amazing.”
Valkyrie laughed. “I’ve missed you too.”
He opened his arms then, and she fell into his embrace, getting her foot caught and stumbling over Xena. Skulduggery caught her before she could slide down on the floor. “You have a dog,” he remarked. “I do hope she’s house-trained.”
“House-trained and trained to stay away from bones, no matter how tasty they look,” she mumbled into his waistcoat. “She’s coming back with us, you know.”
He laughed, the low rumble making his ribcage vibrate against her chest. She inhaled, sharply. If she didn’t pull back from his arms now, she might not be responsible for her actions. Her injuries from the day’s heroic rescue activities were all but forgotten.
“You might want to let me go,” she murmured a moment later, certain that he could feel the heat her body was giving off.
One of Skulduggery’s hands, which had been resting on the small of her back, slid a little lower. Was that…? Did he just do it on purpose?
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered into her hair. His body had gone perfectly still. “What if I don’t want to let you go?”
She looked up at him now, wishing, not for the first time, that she’d be better at reading his facial expressions – or rather, that he had facial expressions she could read. No, scratch that; she’d grown very fond of his face, or what passed for it, but she had to admit his façade came in handy at times.
He looked down at her, his eye sockets large and dark.
“Valkyrie…”
Her fingertips grazed against his side. She could feel his ribs under her hands.
He took a deep breath. “Valkyrie, before we go back… I am only going to ask about this once. If you— If you don’t care for where this is going, just stop me. I will shut up instantly, and I promise I’ll never bring it up again, and we can pretend I never said anything. It’ll be awkward for a while but it won’t come between us, I hope.”
This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t possibly mean...
Could he...?
She nodded, sharply, not trusting herself to say anything.
“That day when we shut down the Accelerator… You told me something.”
“I did.” She didn’t need to try very hard to catch his meaning. That day, the things they’d both said, was seared into her memory.
“Did you mean it? Do you… If this was now, would you…”
“Yes.”
He took another deep breath. Habit, Valkyrie assumed. “Valkyrie… Before I do something really stupid – not that anything I do would be stupid, so perhaps inadvisable would be a better word – but in any case, before I do something I might yet live to regret, I need to know this: If I were to kiss you, would you mind terribly?”
She sagged in relief. “No. No, I wouldn’t mind terribly at all. I don’t think I would mind at all.”
“Good.” Skulduggery let her go. “You have no idea what this does to my ego.”
It was Valkyrie’s turn to tilt her head. “What?”
“What what?” The look on his face was a mixture of smugness and puzzlement; an odd combination on a skull.
“The kiss?” she prompted.
“Oh, that. No, it’s just that I talked to Fletcher when he dropped me here, and he said you wouldn’t. We sort of may have made a bet…” His voice trailed off as he saw the stormy look on her face. “Oh. I shouldn’t have mentioned the bet, should I.”
Valkyrie closed her eyes, counted slowly to ten in her head. She wouldn’t punch her partner. She wouldn’t. She’d done it before; it would hurt and more importantly, it would hurt her more than it would him. So no point, really.
“Gotcha.”
Valkyrie opened first one eye, then the other.
“Gotcha?”
“You didn’t actually believe that thing about the bet, did you?” He took off his hat, pulled the door close behind him. “I haven’t seen Fletcher in months. I flew here. Also, could we move somewhere a bit more comfortable? Your hall is nice, but it’s a bit boring. And I can see you’ve already packed, but since you neglected to tell me about—”
“Xena,” Valkyrie supplied numbly.
“—Xena – good name, by the way – I think we need to discuss travel plans. The arrangements I had in mind are not going to work.”
“Ah.”
She stepped back, let him pass. Her mind was still reeling. Did he actually want to kiss her? What was all that about? Was he just joking? Oh god, what if really was just teasing her…
He’d made himself comfortable on her sofa by the time Valkyrie got there. “There’s some blood on here,” he remarked.
“Danny’s,” Valkyrie muttered. “Probably.”
“Mmm.”
“Mmm?”
He patted the side of the sofa next to him. “That looks relatively clean. Come, sit. We have a lot to talk about.”
Valkyrie sighed, but didn’t really feel like arguing. Skulduggery’s odd behaviour aside, the idea of sitting down next to him, by his side, their arms perhaps touching… She couldn’t help it. The embrace and his asking about the kiss – especially his asking about the kiss – had very definitely lit a fire inside her.
Damn those five long, lonely years. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this horny over a man before. Not even over Dexter Vex with his shirt off.
Valkyrie had barely managed to sit down when his arm snaked around her. She smiled, enjoying the feeling. His touches, so rare once upon a time and then more and more frequent, especially whenever they went flying, was something she’d definitely missed over those years of self-inflicted penance.
She rested her head on his shoulder, exhaustion from the long day finally sinking into her limbs.
A kiss. She’d just told him she wouldn’t mind if he kissed her, and then he hadn’t.
Had turned it into a joke. Typical.
But still. That was an odd thing to joke about, even for him. Especially after five years apart. Five years of not seeing her, and the first thing he does is tease her about kissing?
Something wasn’t adding up here. Even in her tired state, she knew that much.
The only way she could make sense of his odd behaviour was if … If he was, in fact, feeling the same way about her as she did about him, and was falling back on not-very-funny jokes to cover up the awkwardness.
The five years would have passed more quickly for him – for him, five years was a drop in the ocean, probably – but it was still plenty of time for him to miss her. And before she left, she could have sworn that his feelings for her had changed in ways that plain friendship just couldn’t explain. Not just the casual touches, not just the increasingly frequent, and apparently sincere, comments about her good looks – complimentary comments, more often than not, and not even always prompted by her.
The light kiss on the cheek, before he knew that his plan would work.
Her hand went up to her face, as it had so many times over the years, to the place his surprisingly real-feeling lips had touched.
His head turned to look at her.
Neither of them said anything, for quite some time. Xena had sat and nuzzled at her feet for a while and then, apparently deciding that nothing interesting was happening after all, had curled up asleep on her bed by the wall.
“I’ve missed you,” she said at last, so quietly she wasn’t sure he’d hear her. Perhaps it was better that he didn’t; he’d probably make some stupid joke about how she’d already said it.
Instead, he pulled her a little closer. “I can’t blame you,” he said in a low voice. “I’d miss me too, if I was you.”
She knew they had things to talk about. Travel arrangements to discuss. Catching up to do. She wanted to know what he’d been up to without her; he looked much the same, but there was a slight weariness to him which she’d never noticed before. Had he felt as alone as she had? Surely not – he’d stayed behind, in Ireland, where all his friends were. The ones still alive, anyway. She didn’t think he’d taken on a new partner while she was gone, but she didn’t want to ask, just in case.
Her hand found his and she gave his gloved fingers a light squeeze. She didn’t want to talk, not yet. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this, here, now, would be her – their – one chance to add something to the relationship. To accept and surrender to the feelings that, she thought, had been there for some time, occasionally danced around and carefully hinted at, but never said aloud. If they didn’t do this now…They’d go back to the partnership they’d had, all work and jokes and saving the world, if the world still needed saving, but she couldn’t help but think it wouldn’t feel the same.
Something had changed irrevocably in the last few years and if they didn’t do anything about it now… There might never be another chance. They’d keep their feelings, such as they were, to themselves. She might go and find herself a boyfriend, someone who would give her the things Skulduggery wasn’t ready to give, and she would feel only half fulfilled, having to share her life between the only person who could ever truly understand her and someone else to go back to in the evenings, or whenever she needed company of another kind.
She didn’t think she wanted that. She wanted both, together.
“Skulduggery,” she said at last, having made up her mind. If she was wrong – if he really had just been joking – well, it would be awkward, but they’d had awkward moments before. He’d make another joke, they’d go back to Ireland, and they’d never mention it again. It’d be okay. Probably.
“Yes?”
“I think I’d like to try that kiss now. If you’re still offering.”
“Ah.” He tilted his head, the angle quizzical. “Would you— Would you prefer me to turn on the facade?”
She considered it for a moment. Her daydreams had mostly not involved a face; if there was one thing about Cassandra’s visions all those years ago that she couldn’t get out of her head, didn’t really want to get out of her head, it was the image of herself – no, Darquesse, but wearing her face – kissing him, kissing his skull, his teeth. She’d always wondered what it would feel like. Would she like it? Would it feel odd?
“Not right away,” she said eventually. “Maybe later.”
“Right.” He shifted slightly. “Ah… Should I… or would you rather—”
In her daydreams, they’d just fallen into each others arms. No awkwardness, no hesitation, no doubt. She’d hugged him, and he’d hugged her, and they’d share a passionate kiss, and she’d take his arm and lead him to her bedroom – or to a sofa, or the coffee table (it was a sturdy one in those daydreams), or just the nearest wall – and they’d just take it from there.
In reality, things weren’t going to go nearly as smoothly.
But at least he wasn’t objecting. At all, by the looks of it.
She grinned, grabbed hold of his tie – dark blue, with a small pattern, a part of her mind noted absently – and pulled him closer, squeezing her lips onto his teeth.
Okay, Darquesse had made it look a lot easier.
She pulled back after a moment and looked at him. “Uh. Is there some special way to do this so it’d work or…”
“Your mouth was closed,” he said. “If you just part your lips a bit – yes, just like this, this should work – and maybe use your tongue, and then I can angle my head a bit—”
He proceeded to demonstrate what he meant, and Valkyrie’s mind exploded. She felt her palm heat up, as her magic and desire entangled inside her, her mouth busy and her mind even busier, cataloguing all these new, amazingly wonderful sensations.
She was kissing Skulduggery, and he was kissing her back, his teeth parting just enough to let him take gentle nips at her lower lip, his hands roaming around on her back, along her sides – when had he pulled them both down? she hadn’t even realised she was lying on top of him now – his gloved fingers taking quick, exploratory darts under her T-shirt which had somehow escaped from her jeans and rolled up a bit, so her back was now bare and she felt every little movement his hands made, her own hands squeezing his narrow shoulders, pulling at his tie, trying to unbutton his shirt—
Her T-shirt was on the floor by the time she had to stop to catch her breath. She blinked. His tie was undone, his hat, which he’d carefully placed on the armrest earlier, was on the floor next to her shirt. His waistcoat was unbuttoned, half his shirt buttons undone as well, his ribs visible in the gap. Her fingers had paused on his belt. She realised, vaguely, that the top button of her own jeans had come undone at some point.
“Wow.”
He looked smug. He’d perfected that look, somehow, and that was one of the things she could always tell, facade or no facade.
She shifted a bit, letting go of his belt buckle, her fingers coming to rest somewhere in the general area where any other man would have sported an impressive bulge by now, going by her admittedly somewhat limited practical experience.
“I… Uh.” She took a deep breath. “That was— Yeah.”
“It was, wasn’t it.” A statement, not a question. Still smug.
She grinned, punched him lightly in the shoulder. “So… What happens now?”
His fingers drifted down along her bare arm. She shivered.
“I thought you’d know?” He looked slightly puzzled. “I distinctly remember a conversation, once, in which you randomly informed me you’d already had that. The birds and the bees…?”
Valkyrie stuck her tongue out at him. “Yes, I do know. I know how it works, normally anyway. I was … I guess I just wondered if we’d, well. Do you want to continue or…”
“Unless you think we’re going to fast?”
She laughed. “I’ve waited years for this. Years. We’re not in a hurry anywhere, are we? No world to save? No crime to stop right now? Your phone isn’t going to ring, calling us away from here?”
“Not as far as I know, no.” His hand moved from her arm, brushed against her cheek gently instead. “And if this is what you want, I’m not going to object or do you the disrespect of doubting you. I do, however, feel that this is the moment I’m obligated to point out that I’m a skeleton.”
“Really? You’re a skeleton?” She rolled her eyes, her fingers exploring the cool smoothness of his ribs. “All these years of seeing your clothes torn, picking up your bones, and I never realised.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Should it?”
He gave a light shrug. “Not everyone has been able to deal with it, regardless of their initial curiosity.”
He’d never mentioned past dalliances to her before. No reason why he should have, of course, but the realisation that he’d, also, done this before took her aback for a moment. He’s been a skeleton for a long time, she reminded herself. Of course he’s not spent all these centuries without… without occasional company. The skill, the experience, in that kiss itself should have given it away.
The realisation, though, that he’d had to put up with nothing more than curiosity, sometimes followed by disgust – not that he’d said as much but the implication was clear – from some of those flings…It had never even occurred to her that he might have had to deal with that.
“I can’t promise you that I won’t find some of it awkward,” she said, quietly. “But I can promise that it’s not curiosity that makes me want to do this.” She pressed a quick kiss on his ribs, deftly unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. “Not only curiosity, certainly.”
“I’d be surprised if you weren’t curious at all. Probably even a bit disappointed,” he added, a little wrily. “Don’t worry if it’s awkward. As you said, we’re not in a hurry, and unless you turn out to really dislike the experience – I won’t be hurt if you do, just so you know – we’ll have a long time ahead of us to work out any kinks.”
She raised her head, looked at him. “You’re not just going along with all this to please me, are you? This is what you want?”
He pulled her closer and nipped at her earlobe. “Oh yes. You have no idea. I— I probably shouldn’t say this, but I have wanted this for a bit longer than, strictly speaking, legal. I never expected anything, of course – I’m not, um. I’m not saying that I… What I’m saying is that one day I looked at you, and you were all…”
Valkyrie laughed. “One day you looked at me and realised I wasn’t that little girl any more who had forced herself on you as your partner.”
“Yes. And you had just broken up with Fletcher, and I knew you still had something with the vampire, and I never – I never expected you to look at me in that way. I had no intention of doing anything that would have changed our relationship, such as it was at the time.”
“Quite honestly?” she asked. “I don’t think I would have minded if you had said anything at the time. You do realise I’ve had a crush on you forever, don’t you? I just didn’t expect you to feel the same way about me. Especially with people like China around…”
“I know you had a crush on me.” The smugness was back in his voice. “It was really very obvious. It was only my superior sense of tact that kept me from ever pointing it out.”
Valkyrie made to punch him and Skulduggery laughed. “Sorry. I knew you had a crush on me, yes, but I assumed that was just it – a teenage crush on your older, dashing, attractive partner. It was only to be expected. In any case, even if I’d had reason to assume it went deeper than that, and with your rather amusing drooling over every other even mildly good-looking man around I really didn’t think it did, it would not have been… You had other things on your mind back then. The last thing I wanted was to put any kind of pressure on you.”
She kissed him then, putting her newfound experience into good use, and it didn’t take long until her jeans, and a moment later, his jacket, waistcoat and trousers, joined the rest of the pile on the floor. He made to get up, still wearing the now rather deeply creased shirt, gloves and socks, and she pushed him down again.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I can’t just leave my suit on the floor!”
“Why not?”
“I’m going to need to wear it later.” He glared at her. Impressive, with his deep, dark eye sockets, Valkyrie had to admit. “And the dog hair! It’ll be everywhere.”
“So?”
“Do you really want to draw attention to us? You’ll look fine, everyone expects young people to look crumpled and as if they’ve slept on the floor for two weeks, but what about me? Exquisite, tailored suits should not look like they’ve been used as a dog bed.”
Valkyrie sighed. “Two minutes. And I expect the rest of your clothes to come off in that time as well. Gloves, too. The least you can do is give me something to look at while I’m just left here, all hot and bothered.”
“Hot and bothered, hmm?” A nip at her earlobe again, the teeth moving lower down then, to her neck and collarbone, his still-gloved fingers reaching behind her to unhook her bra. Valkyrie had never realised just how erotic the smooth softness of leather against her bare skin could be; for a moment she was close to reconsidering her order about the gloves.
He stopped just at the last moment, leaving the bra in place. “I’ll get back to that. Two minutes, you said?”
Valkyrie growled, but let him go. “Two minutes.”
She watched him look around for a few seconds, finally deciding to settle on the back of the chair. The suit was neatly folded and placed on the back of the chair; his shirt followed moments later. It was a little odd to see him standing there, Valkyrie reflected, wearing nothing but gloves and socks (no underwear of any kind, her brain had noted). She could see right through him, both through his ribcage and his pelvis. His bones looked bleached: not blindingly white, but clean and light – no sign of any discoloration. A few nicks and scars were scattered here and there; she knew he didn’t bother to see a doctor for every scratch he got in a fight.
She liked the view. Perhaps it was a bit strange, the part of her brain that was still able to think semi-rationally, admitted; she didn’t think most people her age felt the same way about skeletons. But then again Skulduggery was no mere skeleton, and she’d always found him attractive, a curious mixture of masculine power and vulnerability. His well-tailored suits had a part in this, of course, but it was also the thought of the frame of bone and magic underneath that had made her catch her breath more than once.
She realised, with a sudden start, that Xena wasn’t asleep any more. Valkyrie closed her eyes. Please, she thought, please let her remember her training. I know this is a particularly delicious set of bones, but even so.
Skulduggery had paused as well, his head tilted, one sock already off and the other one in his hand. “Good doggie,” he said, although there was no conviction in his voice.
“Xena?” she called out. “Go back to sleep. My bones. Not for you.”
The dog let out a low whine, but settled back down in her bed.
“Your bones, hmm?” Skulduggery pulled off first one glove, then the other.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“No.”
Valkyrie scooted over to make him space when he settled down on the sofa again. It was really rather cramped, but since they’d started there, she didn’t feel like going all the way to her bedroom. Maybe later, a voice – not Darquesse, never again Darquesse – suggested.
Skulduggery made himself comfortable, or as comfortable as he could, taking care to not put too much weight on her. Not that he had much – Fletcher, in spite of his slim, toned body had been much heavier – but from the angle of his head, she knew he was eyeing her fresh injuries.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Really. Chewed some of those lovely leaves earlier and I’m fine now. It’s just scratches and I’ll heal soon enough. I’ve been through worse, you know.”
“Indeed.”
He looked calm; almost reluctant, she thought. To distract him from whatever thoughts were clearly pressing on his mind, she reached out and pulled him close to her. “You were going to get back to something, I recall,” she murmured into his… into where his ear would have been if he’d had one.
“I was, wasn’t I?” He looked at her. “Would you rather stay where you are or…?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you ask entirely too many questions at times like these?” Valkyrie grinned. “Not that I mind listening to your voice, especially after all this time, but really, it feels like we’ve spent more time talking about the, uh, the birds and the bees, than actually doing anything… I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little impatient here.”
“Patience is a virtue you’ve never had, that is true.”
His hand had found her still bra-clad breast and Valkyrie sucked in a sharp breath. In the heated moments shared before, they’d been so focused on getting rid of the clothes that she’d not even noticed how carefully he’d avoided touching anything beyond her back or shoulders or arms.
He took his time, his cold, bony fingertips tracing patterns on her skin, stopping for a moment on the tattoo China had given her to fight Darquesse. It was dormant now, of course; she never expected to have the spell of invulnerability activated again, but it was one of many things that tied her and Skulduggery together in a way she could never hope to achieve with anyone else.
Valkyrie’s own hands were busy exploring the sharp lines and angles that made up the body above her, the occasional shifting of his body and soft sounds her only guide in determining what he found pleasurable or too intrusive. At least it was obvious he was enjoying it, if some of the more appreciative sounds were anything to go by – sounds which reverberated deep inside her, forcing her conscious mind make an effort to keep her own magic from reaching out to him, burning through the bones.
It suddenly occurred to her to wonder what he’d done with Vile. Was he still locked inside him? Was she, in those moments when she’d accidentally dug her fingers in a bit too deep, actually poking at his darker nature?
But then Skulduggery’s fingers finally dipped inside the waistband of her underwear, and then there wasn’t anything but a thin, thin layer of air between them until even that disappeared and she couldn’t think or feel of anything beyond the sensations his clever hands were giving her, the rasp of his ribs against her breasts, the shifts in the air against her skin, her back, her arms stoking the flames inside her even further and she lost all ability to think or reason, holding on for dear life to the one conscious thought she still had, which was that she couldn’t afford to lose control now, not completely, not entirely, and then Skulduggery’s whispered “just let go” made her do just that and she bucked against his hand, barely aware of the white light shooting out of her hands—
It was the smell of smouldering bone that brought her back to her senses. She raised her hands to her face, still trying to catch her breath. The white light was gone, and Skulduggery was leaning on one elbow, his head tilted.
“I must say,” he remarked, one patch on the side of his ribs darker and still smoking, “that this was the first time I’ve managed to make someone literally set themselves as well as me on fire with my bedroom skills. Or sofa skills as it may be.”
Valkyrie winced. “Are you okay?”
He looked down at her. “Remarkably, yes. I’ve had worse. And… Well, it was exhilarating, I admit. While I don’t generally mind being a skeleton these days, and while physical intimacy is something I’ve learned I can enjoy even in this form, there is a – a certain limit as to how much pleasure I can usually take from sex. It turns out that having electricity shot right into my system feels unexpectedly amazing. The burned ribs perhaps less so, but again, I’ve had worse.”
She smiled, too exhausted to laugh. “So you wouldn’t be opposed to doing this again?”
“Not at all.” He adjusted his position to trail a finger down her cheek. “In fact, I think we need to experiment a lot with this new magic you have.”
“Fine by me.” Valkyrie yawned. “For now, maybe we could just go to bed. We can talk about travel arrangements in the morning. If you don’t mind waiting with getting back home until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is fine.” Skulduggery dipped his head, gave her a light kiss. “I don’t mind at all.”