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In all honesty, Harrow never had time to think about anyone else. She had a scam to keep in place and her home to run and bones to learn and the rock…
Perhaps that wasn’t entirely true. What she had seen in the grave that was her family’s only purpose for existing, why she existed as this horrid and twisted creature, was that girl. Lying so still and cold.
Gideon’s hand in hers was not cold or still. Gideon Nav wouldn’t know what the fuck still was if it came and shoved its tongue down her throat. Gideon Nav had never known the pressure of being Harrowhark, and that had been such a driving force for her their whole lives, hadn’t it? She had never had to be Harrow, and there was such a bitterness that swelled inside of her over such an insignificant thing. Because it wasn’t like she wanted to be Gideon.
Gideon’s hand was rough and calloused, warm in the cold saltwater as they floated in the pool. Silence had taken over, companionable and oddly soft between the two of them. Nothing about Harrow had been soft, and she wasn’t exactly inclined to say the same about her cavalier. And yet, they had been growing soft lately. Their roles had changed them, allowed them to understand each other in a way that Drearburh never had.
This meant that she had to think about Gideon more, let her fill up her thoughts in a way she hadn’t let her before.
“I have a question.” Gideon’s voice punctured the silence they had fallen into. Of course it had. Leave it to Nav to break everything around her.
“What?”
Her red hair floated around her head like a pool of blood, bright and distracting. Harrow kept glancing at it, as if it could suddenly turn into a real puddle. As if she would have to watch Gideon nearly die again. And she couldn’t. Not now. She had made a promise to keep the Locked Tomb safe, and that was something she had to hold onto going forward from here.
There was just such a real possibility that none of them would make it off this corpse rock.
“How the fuck do you know about my mags? Is it something you and Crux speak about in-- oof.”
Where their hands are connected, she tugged as hard as she could at Gideon’s arm. Frankly, she knew it wouldn’t do too much damage. She was a necromancer. She left all the muscles to Gideon. And - well, she had to admit that they were impressive, just a smidge. The curve of her arms, the flex of muscle as she tried to pull the cavalier under the water.
It was not a successful plan, but she did enjoy watching her spit out saltwater.
“Touchy,” Gideon growled. And when she tugged at Harrow, pulling her closer until she was inside of her orbit, Harrow actually thought she felt her heart skip a minute beat.
After spending a lifetime deprived of touch, she had never realized how much it made her skin crawl. How much it made her want more of it, until that uncomfortable feeling gave way to something else.
So she let Gideon hold her close. “Griddle,” she warned.
“Yes, my lecherous lich leader?”
Harrow could drown this moron, but then her world would be shattered. “I looked at them.”
A grin, bright and teasing and so annoying, spread across Gideon’s face, a light dancing in those strange eyes of her. “Holy shit, no you didn’t. There is no way, first off, that you would have even come into my hole of a room.”
“I did.”
“Seriously?”
“You really don’t read them for the articles.”
How would she have had time to? When Harrow had found them, she had felt so scandalized, a little sick. Who produced this garbage? How had it come to her planet? But the pictures, the round figures of the naked women, high, round breasts.
“Hey, you can learn a lot from them,” Gideon protested.
What Harrow had learned had nothing to do with words and everything to do with how her body had responded to them. Words? Who would bother to read at that point? Maybe it was because she had never been so confronted with nudity and sexuality. Home was not conducive to those kinds of feelings. How any children had been made was beyond her.
What Harrow had learned was that she did not look at all like those women.
She was boney and thin and regularly covered in some layer of blood or sweat. Except for right now, where she was just covered in salt.
One of Gideon’s arms encircled her waist, her hand inexplicably warm in the cold water. Harrow let herself be pulled in until they were chest to chest, legs brushing against each other as they kept themselves afloat. It brought her much closer to Gideon’s face, her gaze darkened and pupils wide, the annoying curve of her mouth. Streaks of makeup ran down her face, revealing skin that was still breaking out. She could only imagine how her face looked in return this close up.
“Breach of privacy issues aside here, how’d you like them?” It almost sounded as if Gideon was trying to purr the words.
Dead things were easy. They had always been easy for Harrow. It was the living that made her uncomfortable, and Gideon was a thriving example of what life could be.
“I didn’t.”
“What happened to our honesty thing here?”
“Why would I lie about that?”
Gideon fell silent, thinking that over. “I don’t know, to maintain this image that Harrowhark Nonagesimus does not get horny over tits and ass.”
She really wanted to rid Gideon of that shit-eating grin that was all teeth and undeserved confidence. How would skeletons do in water? Would there be enough room to slice a bit of fear into her cavalier’s heart?
“You’re so crude,” Harrow found herself saying as she closed the space between them. When they kissed, it was not as sloppy or unforeseen as it had been before. It was still awkward and unpracticed and so strange. Not in an unwelcome way, though. She wanted more.
She wanted more of the sensation of Gideon’s teeth nipping at her lips and the metallic tang of blood that filled her mouth. She wanted more of the way that her tongue felt electric when Gideon’s slid along hers. She wanted more of the way she was gripped and groped and of Gideon’s shitty, stupid hair in her fingers as she tugged her head back.
“Harrow.”
“Gideon.”
“If it’s not tits and ass, what is it?”
Harrow groaned, pushing herself away from this idiot. She made her way to the edge of the pool, hearing the splash of water as Gideon chased after her. Warmth enveloped her again as Gideon pressed herself against her. Warmth gave way to a startling flash of heat that settled between her legs.
But Gideon was careful and cautious, not holding onto Harrow, giving her space, giving her some aspect of control. Or maybe that was just what she wanted to think; Nav was not very good at giving way to control.
Except maybe recently, maybe with a modicum of trust, allowing Harrow herself to make decisions as long as Gideon was informed.
“Muscles,” Harrow finally said, her voice pitched low as if she were afraid that someone would hear her. “Muscles do it.”
Much more gently than she would have expected, Gideon turned Harrow around to face her. Harrow didn’t flinch away.
With a triumphant grin, Gideon flexed. “You like these?”
“I hate you.”
“I’m starting to think that you really don’t.”
Gideon’s mouth on hers was hot and hungry and greedy. It was as if they had destroyed a wall built up between them, and now they had no idea what to do with the empty space. Well, actually, it did seem like they knew what to do with it. They closed that space, desperate to be against each other, on each other. Gideon lifted Harrow out of the water, onto the lip of the pool, before also climbing out, crawling over Harrow’s body.
Shit, those arms. Harrow huffed, slowly laying back as Gideon straddled her hips. She leaned down, placing her hands on either side of Harrow’s head. Red hair stuck to her face, curling around her ears, her cheeks. It was much easier to reach out and brush her hair back than she had expected, watching as Gideon let her eyes flutter shut so very briefly, it could have been an illusion. And then that amber gaze was back on her face, searching, waiting.
Harrow’s hands moved down, down, down until her fingers could grip Gideon’s arms. “I’m not a damsel.”
“Sure, I never rescued you at all while we were here,” Gideon said.
Harrow glared. “I’m not dainty.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you’re not Dulcinea? Newsflash, Harrow, I’ve known that for a long time.”
She pursed her lips, jaw clenching. “Okay.”
Gideon shifted, moving so that she could rest on her hip while still hovering over Harrow. Her knee moved from next to her hip to pushing between her thighs, resting too close, so close.
“You’re jealous,” she whispered in Harrow’s ear, teeth scraping the outer shell. A shiver ran through her.
“I have never been jealous of anything,” Harrow hissed.
One hand came to rest on Harrow’s ribs, Gideon’s thumb just below her breast. It moved into tiny circles.
“Are you sure?”
Was she? Yes. It irritated her to see Gideon moon over the sad wisp of a dying woman. She was too preoccupied with trying to protect and save and care for Septimus. That was not their mission. But she was not jealous.
“Let us put it this way, Griddle. I’m the one with your knee between my legs.” And to prove her point, and because let it be said that Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus was quite bold and daring and innovative, and because Gideon was staring down at her with a gaze that could set any woman on fire with her quirked up lips and blown out pupils, Harrow rolled her hips until she could place herself right up against that knee.
It was not enough. There were too many layers of clothing between the two of them. They were already soaked to the bone, and she was soaked in another way, all heat and electricity and everything the dead were not. But once Gideon had gotten over her initial shock, muttering stupid things like ‘fuck’ and ‘wait really’ under her breath, she took one of Harrow’s hands and laced their fingers together (one life, one end) and slammed it hard against the floor, pinning her.
A moan was startled out of Harrow. She had never, in her life, made a sound as needy as that.
Gideon’s other hand was now on her boney, unimpressive hip, fingers digging into cold skin through wet clothes. And she moved her leg, not gently at all, but in determined and frantic movements, her knee just barely brushing against her clit, just barely touching her at all, even as she ground back against it.
There was something exciting about not getting exactly what she wanted.
Her back arched just a smidge. Gideon brought her face down, into her neck, breathing hard against her skin. The fingers that had dug into her hip now made their way to her backside, squeezing one cheek in what felt awfully like a pinch.
She dug her nails into Gideon’s scalp, felt the hiss of her hot breath.
Her fingers tangled into her mop of red hair again, and she tugged not so gently until Gideon could look at her again. “Stop.”
Mouth parted, lust written into every line of this stupid girl’s face, she came to a screeching halt. Various muscles twitched. Harrow’s muscles twitched. She ached between her legs. She ached with wanting to fulfill what they had started. She wanted Gideon Nav inside of her, and she wanted to feel if Gideon had gone wet and trembling.
She wanted a lot of things.
“Stop?”
“We’re getting carried away.”
“And?”
Harrow pushed at Gideon until she moved away, off of her, away from her. “We can’t afford to right now.”
Gideon buried her face into her hands, groaning, “I hate you.”