When they got home, they had two extra suitcases to carry into Honolulu Heights because Hal wasn't about to leave all of those new clothes behind, even though Lena offered to have them shipped. He did leave a few things to wear during their next trip to London, in case there was a next trip to London. If there wasn't, he at least had the consolation of knowing that whoever stayed in that room after him would have to wonder whose clothes were already there.
They tried to make it into the house with everything at once, of course, and made plenty of noise along the way, so Tom and Alex had time to jump up off the sofa and meet them at the door. Lena could have sworn she saw Tom's arm around Alex's shoulder, and a flash of Alex's bare arms, as she walked past the window.
"Honey, I'm home!" Lena called out as she opened the outside door to the house and pushed a wheeled suitcase into the foyer. She had a garment bag over her shoulder as well, and Hal was behind her with even more stuff. Tom had opened the interior door just moments before and he froze, staring at her. Alex was just behind him, also staring.
Hal gently pushed Lena forward enough to step into the cramped space behind her. "Please allow me to introduce my girlfriend, Ms. Lena Perennis," he said with false formality. Lena did a quick curtsy, her red-haired ponytail bobbing as she did.
"You've changed," Tom said blankly.
"You're his girlfriend?" Alex went for the meat of the sentence.
"Well, we've only had the one date, but she introduced me to her father as her boyfriend, so I suppose I can introduce her as my girlfriend," Hal answered.
"Tom? Could you take this?" Lena pushed the suitcase toward him and Tom jumped into action, grabbed the suitcase, and unblocked the doorway so they could get the rest of the way into the house. In a moment there were three suitcases, two garment bags, and an overnight bag piled by the stairs.
"You met her father?" Alex once again went for the meat of Hal's comment. "Isn't he an angel or something?"
"This morning, yes," Hal replied coolly. "He dropped in unexpectedly before breakfast. He is an angel, and quite intimidating."
"You know that whole boyfriend-date thing was just to piss him off, right?" Lena reminded him.
"Yes, but as he is an immortal being and can apparently look in on you at any time, I assume that we will need to continue the pretense," Hal said glibly.
"Wow, that didn't sound creepy at all," Alex said. "Your dad spies on you?"
"This is the first time my dad has taken a personal interest in my social life," Lena said. "Apparently Hal made quite an impression on him."
"You've changed," Tom said again, looking at Lena.
"Real me," she said. "No disguise. Hal's idea."
"You're beautiful," Tom said simply. "I like it."
"Thanks, Tom, that's sweet of you," Lena said. "Now let's get the birthday boy's new clothes upstairs, okay?"
"All of these are yours?" Alex asked Hal. She grabbed two suitcases and rent-a-ghosted to Hal's room. Tom picked up Hal's other suitcase and a garment bag. Hal got his other garment bag and Lena's overnight bag, leaving her empty-handed.
"You've done quite enough," Hal said as she started to protest that she could carry her own things.
"I took Alex's jacket off," Tom announced without preface as they went upstairs.
"Well done, Tom," Hal said. "Is your long-term goal to remove all of her clothes, or just her outerwear?"
"Hal!" Tom turned beet red as he protested. "I'm just helpin' her believe in herself is all. I wouldn't be so forward as that."
"I can hear you," Alex said from the doorway of Hal's room. "Where you puttin' all these new clothes, anyway?"
"I shall purchase a new wardrobe and bureau online and have them delivered," Hal said happily. "In the interim, I must find someplace to hang these things properly, and I'm sure some of them will need ironed as well." He looked at Alex speculatively. "Do you iron, Alex?"
"I'm not your housekeeper, Hal. Do your own ironing," she said flatly.
He looked at Lena. She shook her head. "Don't look at me, you've seen my wardrobe."
Tom said, "I could have one of the housekeeping staff from the hotel come over, if you promise not to eat 'em."
"I am surrounded by barbarians," Hal replied as he began unpacking.
# # #
They were having tea, with actual tea, not coffee. Hal called it a cream tea and he demonstrated the proper way to eat the scones, clotted cream, and jam. Fortunately they were tasty enough to keep Lena from arguing about his choice of drink or his insistence on propriety.
Hal looked at the organ against the wall. "I don't suppose we could exchange that monstrosity for a piano?" he asked Lena.
"Do you play the piano?" she asked.
"I am sadly out of practice and am not particularly skilled, but I wouldn't mind having an actual instrument in the house instead of that." He glanced disparagingly at the organ. "Perhaps Alex would sound better if she could play on something that was vaguely in tune."
"Good point. I don't play particularly well either, although I have dabbled with it. I am best with the 8-string lyre," Lena said.
"You play the lyre? Isn't that almost a cliché for someone with your heritage?"
"I learned to play the lyre long before cartoonists began drawing angels in robes and halos playing musical instruments," she replied.
"I prefer the lute," he said. "It is an excellent solo instrument and young ladies are particularly taken by it."
"Hmph. That sounds like the guy who learned to play guitar so he could pick up chicks," Lena said.
"Some truths are eternal," Hal said, deadpan. "Chicks dig guitar players."
Lena nearly spewed her tea laughing at his uncharacteristic comment. "Dude, I would totally dig you playing the lute," she responded in an intentionally vapid voice.
"Sadly, mine is no longer playable. My soundboard has cracked and is beyond repair."
"Well, luckily for us we have the Internet, and we can find almost anything we want, including lutes and lyres and pianos. We can check it out after our tea," she said.
"You are making a mess of that scone. Here, let me have it, I'll do it for you," Hal said as he took over preparing her second scone. Lena pretended to be offended but she secretly congratulated herself on being just clumsy enough to get him to do the job for her. It saved her listening to him critique her efforts any further.
"I don't suppose we could put butter on one of those?" she asked, just to see him puff up, affronted by her suggestion. "Never mind, I'll quietly submit to your attempt to Anglicize me with your formal tea etiquette, but only because I know what tomorrow brings."
"And what, pray tell, does tomorrow bring?"
"A smoker, so you can finally fix me that rack of ribs you owe me," she said with a smirk.
"Dear god, you remember that?"
"You bet your bollocks, Fangboy. I may even require you to wear a cowboy hat while cooking, since you have delayed paying up on your wager for so long."
"The only consolation I can find in that statement is the knowledge that there will be no photographic evidence of my humiliation," Hal said. "Sometimes it is good to be a vampire."
"Sometimes it is good to be a shape changer," Lena said.
"You wouldn't!"
"That, sir, depends on the quality of your cooking."
# # #
While Hal and Lena moved cautiously into a new kind of closeness and sense of equality between them, Tom moved reluctantly into the very serious world of Dominic Rook's human-werewolf coalition.
Tom begrudgingly attended the first meeting of the werewolves who had agreed to help develop a structure of law for their species. He was overwhelmed by their stories and their commitment to protecting humanity from themselves, and he was humbled by the efforts some of them had made to attend. They came from all parts of the U.K. and Ireland to meet with Dominic Rook at the archive, a display of mutual trust that didn't go unnoticed.
Rook had set the meeting for the first Saturday after the full moon because it was a good time for everyone to travel and the wolf would be a less strong influence in the meeting's participants. There were 14 in attendance, including Rook and one of his assistants who would work as a scribe. Allison Larkin was not among them.
Rook laid out the premise and stepped aside, giving the werewolves a chance to speak freely of their own concerns and priorities. He listened carefully and noted the individuals who seemed most sympathetic to his ideas in order to have further conversations with them away from the group.
They started talking hesitantly at first, sharing simple ideas; nobody wanted to open up. Then a middle-aged gentleman stood up and took off the jacket that he wore over his short-sleeved knit shirt. His arms were scarred and mangled. He began to speak.
"I was 23 years old. The thing practically tore my arm off. Some of this—" he held out his arms "—comes from time spent in the dogfights. Seven months. Seven deaths. I know they were not my fault, but my guilt will stay with me until my last breath. I tried to stop myself. I told the humans to attack me before the change, to give themselves a chance. Most of them were too afraid, or too slow."
"They put another werewolf in the cage with me for the last fight. I don't know who he was. He did this, attacked before we changed, chewed on me like an animal. I broke his neck. I have no guilt over his death. There are good and bad in every race and every species."
"I had human friends who came looking for me. They helped me escape. This is my way of paying them back for the risks they took. It is my way of making up for the deaths I've caused. If we can do this, if we can find a system of law for our species, if we can find a way to protect humanity from the worst of us," he paused and took a deep breath. "Well, we can call ourselves men and women then, can't we? Not monsters or beasts."
The ideas poured out then, as one after another stood and spoke, sometimes speaking together to finish each other's thoughts.
"What about accountability? The choice to kill may be taken from us one night a month, but we have time to prepare for that night. Where does culpability begin?"
"How do we find the new werewolves and teach them to be safe? How do we stop other werewolves from infecting humans? How do we decide who deserves rehabilitation and who deserves death?"
"What do we regulate? What do we decide is right and wrong? Do we dictate lives or judge choices after they have been made?"
Tom spoke of Bobby, the gentle man who didn't have the mental capacity to understand what had happened to him, and whose life of isolation only made it harder for him to cope with a human world. Bobby was dangerous because he was untrained in how to protect humans from the wolf, and because he didn't have the ability to make smart decisions in dangerous situations. What about the Bobbys? Should they be punished simply because of an accident of fate?
"It has to be a process, a growing and evolving thing," one woman said. "It has to be flexible enough to consider each case and each exception as it arises. It has to be structured enough to be trusted within the werewolf community. This is a tall order, ladies and gentlemen, a very tall order."
"We are pioneers in a way," said another, "but we don't have to invent the wheel. We just have to adapt legal processes for our own use. What we do with this case will set a precedent. We must be careful and thoughtful. We must be fair, rather than kind or vengeful. We must do what is best for our future."
A history professor stood up. "The first question is, 'Do we have the right to judge another werewolf?' If the answer is 'Yes', and I think it is, then we move to the second question. 'What actions do we have the right to judge?' I say that we judge only those actions taken during the werewolf phase rather than attempting to regulate our entire lives. And I say we judge only those actions that threaten humans."
And so the discussion became for focused, on specific behaviors and results. It opened up again into the vast considerations of punishment and rehabilitation, and focused again on the question of who the decision-makers should be and how they should be chosen.
And what about Mr. Rook and the Department of Domestic Defense? Does his bureau become a police agency for the werewolf system of law? Can one have a secret police force within an unacknowledged legal system buried in a government bureaucracy? That, Rook assured the group, would be the easiest part of their task, as the personnel were already in place and it would simply be a matter of the negotiation of authority between Rook and the werewolves.
This creation of a system of laws for werewolves was a weighty thing, a tiring thing. It was a burden that Tom McNair didn't want and one that he believed he personally would never need. He had come to the meeting hoping to find a way to excuse himself from it, but he saw that he shared the burden with good people who struggled like himself with a weighty thing, and like himself were determined to do what was right. So he stayed, listened, and thought, and spoke his mind.
He was the only one who had been a werewolf since infancy, and his life story and careful training by McNair would serve as a guide for others who didn't understand how to manage the wolf. His honesty and courage and good heart would show others that the wolf didn't have to win, that the man was the master in the end, if he accepted the beast and managed it properly.
Tom was disappointed at first that Allison wasn't involved, but as he thought about it later, and as he talked at length with Hal, Lena, and Alex about the long day, the determined group, and the decisions that were being made, he decided that he was glad. When Allison Larkin was in a room there was little space for anything besides her opinion. Perhaps the werewolf legal system wasn't a good place for her after all, not just yet.
Tom was an honest man; he told his friends how he felt about Allison's absence from the group, but it hurt him to realize that his first love wasn't as perfect as he had believed her to be. Alex saw Tom's discomfort and knew that he felt disloyal to his absent girlfriend. He believed that he should want her involved in this important project. Maybe Tom needed a pep talk and a reminder that adults love each other for who they truly are, lumps and bumps and all.
Alex was in the habit of spending at least part of the night in Tom's room now. He was pleased when she joined him before he fell asleep; sometimes she would park in a chair and sometimes stretch out on top of the bed next to him. Tom had become Alex's safe place during the long dark hours when the world around her slept.
That night she spoke to him quietly about what it meant to grow up and learn that nobody should be put on a pedestal. She used the example of her parents, and how when she was a child she thought they were perfect. They weren't. Her mother had hurt her deeply; her father had struggled and done his best and was her hero, but he wasn't perfect either. Alex loved him even more for it, because his weaknesses made him human and real. She hoped Tom understood what she was trying to say.
# # #
Hal and Lena were saying goodnight; Hal stood at the door to Lena's room, on his way to shower; she sat on her bed, already showered and in her oversized t-shirt.
"Will you allow me to do for you what you did for me in London?" he asked. His curse was no longer a threat to her, she had said so herself. It was her choice to follow the edict against commingling; she had admitted that as well. Hal had decided it was time to push her in the direction of returning to their former intimacy.
Her stomach caved in and a thrill ran through her at the thought of what he was offering. "Buy me clothes? Take me to a show?" she asked lightly. He didn't bother to reply. "No, I won't. I can't," she said.
"Why not?"
"There is a line I cannot cross, Hal. I can't allow you that much intimacy or control of me."
"You don't trust me." He kept his voice neutral and kept himself in control. He had anticipated her objection and prepared for a civil, adult conversation, after which he would join her in bed and make her forget about the damned little gadget that pestered his ego like a mosquito in summer. He took a step into her room.
"No, I don't trust you," she said. "I've read your dossier, remember?" Hal's dossier was based on historical record kept by the Seraphin Nepos, with additional input from other archives that were unaware of the fact. It had been sent to her by Ammon's people and included details of his behavior since he had become a vampire. Lena knew about Hal's weakness for women, so she also knew that intimacy with her would be very risky for him.
"I doubt that everything is in my dossier," he said. "There have been exceptions." He took another step.
"I'm glad to hear it," she said.
"You believe that I will take advantage of you." Again, Hal stated an argument that he expected to hear from her.
"When have you not tried to take advantage of me?" she replied. "It happens every day."
"That is harmless flirtation and you know it. I have developed great self-control during my dry periods. I would be happy to demonstrate." He took one more step and was in front of her bed. She looked up at him.
"There is also the matter of my blood. I know you are still drawn to it, Hal. I can't let my guard down." She sighed and shook her head. "So no, thank you for your offer, but I am not able to accept it."
Hal had believed that he was able to hide his continued attraction to her blood. Apparently she was even more perceptive than he realized. Shit. As he sat next to her on the bed he detected the delicate scent of her arousal. It was a good sign, but a sign that he needed to be wary of his own response.
"It is much less of a problem now, and as I said, I have developed great self-control," he said, still hoping to persuade her.
"So have I, which is why I am able to refuse you."
"But you don't want to refuse me."
"What I want isn't the issue, remember? This is all about what I need to do to keep you alive."
Finally Hal began to lose his temper. "Why is it so hard for you to accept a gift from me?"
"Because I don't believe that giving me a gift is your motive. As you said, I don't trust you."
"Fine, you can Duck tape my mouth shut, you can tie one hand behind my back, you can even tie me to the fucking bed again, but for Christ sake, woman, let me do this for you. Please." Hal had never in his life begged a woman to let him not have sex with her, until now. He didn't understand why it had become so important to him, but it had.
"I'm not really into bondage anymore," she replied. In truth Lena wanted him badly, but she believed that the allure of her blood affected him more than he was willing to admit. Her blood, combined with Hal's particular fondness for attacking females, made her hesitate to let him get too close to her.
"I warn you that I am not giving up on this," Hal said. "I will ask you every day until you relent. My siege engines are in place. I will even wage a war of attrition if I must. You will not be allowed to escape. The score must be settled."
He had become intoxicated by her scent and the clarity of her desire for him, and had spoken more boldly and directly than he intended. He stood up to leave. "Goodnight, my lady."
In a moment his hand was on the doorknob so he could pull her door closed behind him as he left.
"Hal?"
He stopped, his back to her. He closed his eyes in anticipation as the word 'Please' formed on his lips.
"You will keep your clothes on. You will not get on my bed." Lena was listing the rules he would have to follow in order for her to accept his offer. "You will do no more than I did for you, and you will touch me in no other place and in no other way. When you are done you will leave, and you will not ask again."
"Agreed." He breathed again, and grinned a lopsided grin as he turned back into her room.
"Lock the door," she said.
"Take off your pants," he replied as he did what she said, and turned out the light as well. He was trembling slightly, and took a steadying breath.
"Done." He heard her movements, and as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness he saw her, wearing her t-shirt, lying stiffly on her back on the bed. Hal knelt beside her bed and watched her face as he rested a hand on her thigh.
She twitched. "Give me your other hand," she said.
"Keeping me honest?" he teased.
"You know it, Fangboy."
They held hands along the side of the bed, a way for her to control herself as much as him. He felt the contact quiet his curse and agreed that it was a good idea. He heard her blood singing through her veins, but her quickening pulse encouraged rather than distracted him from his plan. He would be fine. He would avoid her throat, and as for the other area where her blood would be most enticing—Hal blocked the vision from his mind. His fangs would stay a good distance north of that territory. That wasn't part of his agreed-upon services.
She wound her other hand into the sheets and dug in, determined not to reach out to him in any way. He noticed and grinned to himself again. She would need something to hang onto by the time he was finished.
(Warning, dear readers: Sexually explicit material ahead. I have no subtlety when it comes to this kind of description.)
Hal leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "Are you ready?" and breathed an extra breath into her ear as he did, sending shivers through her body. She nodded and spread her legs to give him access.
"This would be easier if I were asleep," she murmured, referring to his dream in London.
"Would you like me to wait?" Hal asked as his long, sensitive fingers stroked the folds of her labia.
"No-o."
"You've been denuded," he whispered.
"Laser hair removal. I love modern technology," she replied.
"I'm fond of it myself." He slipped his fingers between the folds of flesh and slid smoothly into the slick wetness and heat of her body.
She moaned softly, "Mmmmmm, I've missed this."
He moved to her ear again, sucked on her ear lobe for a moment, and tickled her ear with his tongue so his breath would have even more effect against her moist skin. He whispered, "It has been a long time. Let's see if I remember where everything is, shall we?"
She nodded.
He brushed his fingertips against her clitoris, eliciting a gasp and a jerk. He circled it a few times, applying light pressure, and watched as she began to twitch in response to the pleasure he created.
"I see I found the 'on' button," he breathed into her ear.
Hal pushed deeper into her and moisture bubbled around his finger as he slipped inside her vagina and stroked her sensitive tissue; his thumb returned to her clitoris and circled it in a compatible rhythm. She arched in a spasm of pleasure, her muscles tightened firmly around his finger, and Hal suddenly wanted to possess that tidy space for himself with a fierceness that frightened him.
She heard the sharp intake of his breath through clenched teeth. He had stopped moving.
"Hal?" she whispered. No response. "Hal, please." She meant please keep going, and please don't ruin this for me, and please don't prove me right when I said I couldn't trust you. Her 'please' carried a lot of meaning, and he recognized it. It brought him back to the control that he needed.
"Yes, my lady," he whispered, and he continued the rhythmic movements that she enjoyed so much, proving both his dexterity and his memory of where everything was for her. He stroked and teased her, and whispered encouragement as she allowed herself to sink deeper and deeper into the pleasure he provided.
He brushed his lips against her ear again and suddenly she turned her head and kissed him; the hand that had clutched her sheets now clutched his hair and held him against her when he tried to pull away. Kissing went beyond what she had done for him, but she refused to release him, so he acquiesced. He returned her kisses, slipping the fingers of his free hand into her hair and cupping the back of her head.
As he enjoyed sliding his hand through her luxuriant hair, Hal realized that his hand had been gripped tightly by Lena's only moments before. Suddenly he felt Lena's hand unbutton his trousers and slip into his pants. He jerked away from her.
"No," he said. "That isn't part of the agreement." She wasn't supposed to do anything for him; this was about her.
"Come back," she whispered breathlessly. "Please." Her 'please' meant that she wasn't pleasuring him, she was taking what she wanted from him, satisfying herself, and he understood that.
He returned to her and she hungrily pulled him into a kiss as she wrapped her hand around his erection. Hands and mouths kept time with each other as their breath quickened and she arched and convulsed with the strength of her orgasm. That didn't mean Hal was finished with her, however. He slowed the rhythm of his kisses and his fingers, brought her down gently, and held her on a plateau of pleasure as she continued to shudder and twitch.
She held his cock like it belonged to her, matching Hal's rhythm on her body with her own strokes on him, which meant that when he slowed down, she did too. Hal wasn't ready for her to slow down, in fact he needed the opposite, but he fought down the urgency of his own need and stuck to his plan for her.
When Hal decided she was ready for round two, he shifted position and began to casually swirl his fingers over and around her clitoris while his thumb slipped inside her and pressed on a sensitive area of her vaginal wall to heighten her response. She pulled away from his kiss to whisper in his ear, her voice catching as she felt the increasing intensity, "Will you—come?"
"That is up to you, my lady," he whispered back.
"You should," she said. "What you're doing to me—oh my god!—has to count as more than one—sweet Jesus!"
Hal chuckled in her ear. "I am at your disposal."
"Move your hand," she said, as she pushed him aside and slid her own hand into her genitals to moisten it for him. He knew what she was doing. Friction was not his friend, and as an experienced lover Lena understood that.
She wrapped her wet hand around him and began to move, swirling her thumb across the tip of his penis as he did the same with his fingers on her clitoris. The additional sensation of her slick grasp amplified his pleasure and a thrill ran through his body as he continued pleasuring her. Their pace matched and quickened again, and he carefully remoistened her delicate areas so as not to hurt her. Friction was not her friend either.
Thanks to Hal's expert manipulations Lena's second climax was a powerful eruption that curled her into a ball around his hand and released extra fluid, a female ejaculation. He felt it and knew that he had achieved what he had set out to do, which was to give her multiple orgasms of different types. However, he was beginning to react strongly to her excitement and felt himself shifting into a kind of arousal and hunger that he knew was dangerous. He needed to refocus.
Hal locked his mouth over Lena's and held them tightly together; she kept a hand on the back of his head to keep him with her as she followed the rhythm of his plunging tongue to bring him to climax. When Hal came she continued to stroke him until he was through; she knew that it took several seconds for him to finish.
She was coming down from the high as well, and Hal decided that he had done enough to make sure she never thought a gadget could replace him. His hand rested on her genitals, her hand lightly held his. He laid his head next to hers on the bed as their bodies relaxed and their breathing returned to normal.
She asked, "May we use your shirt for clean-up?"
"Of course," he said.
The bottom of his shirt front was already wet, so she carefully held that part of it away from him as he pulled it over his head and took it off. They helped each other clean up the residue of their pleasure. He gave her back her pants, which she had dropped onto the floor.
Hal stood up, his shirt in one hand. He waited a moment until he was steady on his feet, then tucked himself into his pants and buttoned his trousers.
"Goodnight, my lady."
"Goodnight, Hal. Thank you."
"You're welcome. My pleasure." He closed the door behind him as he left. Hal went immediately to the bathroom, where he showered and removed every trace of her scent from his body. He even washed his shirt while he was there. He knew that he wouldn't be able to rest as long as her tempting presence was with him.
Lena didn't go to sleep right away after Hal left. She took some time to think about what had happened between them and make sure that she was comfortable with the end result. She had kept control of Hal and of the situation; she had enjoyed kissing him and those kisses had gauged his increasing excitement. She had kept his mouth occupied and away from her danger zones and she had made sure that he was satisfied when he left her room.
Hal had done a spectacular job of satisfying her as well; she felt herself flush a bit just thinking about it, a residual effect that lasted well into the next day. Lena decided that overall they were even in the satisfaction department, standing at two orgasms each. Equilibrium had been established and there should be no further concerns about who should get what from whom.
Lena overslept the next morning and wasn't in a particular rush to get to the dance studio that day. She said nothing about what had occurred the previous night, but Hal caught her flushing a light pink from time to time and suspected that she was remembering it fondly. He was okay with that.
Hal made no mention of what happened between them either. He had followed her rules to the letter and protested when she chose to break them. He had proven his self-control, to her and to himself. He had proven that she could trust him. He was willing to wait until she came to him for more, as long as she didn't take too long.
It was nearly a week later before Hal got any kind of response from her. He went to his room for the night and found an envelope on the bed with his name on it. He opened it and read her note:
Dear Hal,
You miserable son of a bitch, you have completely ruined my fun. My little toy is no longer sufficient and I blame you. You did that on purpose, didn't you? Asshole!
Sincerely, Lena.
He laughed out loud and went to bed happy in the knowledge that his plan was working. She may not know it, but his siege engines were still in place and the war was far from over.