7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Sometime during the night, Enzo woke. He squinted across the room. Peter the coster was still out. He kissed Mina's nape.

She shuffled, murmured, then nestled into him.

He rubbed his hardness against her. ‘Can we do it again?'

Her lazy smile, still lit by starlight, played across her lips, and with a flutter of eyelids, she rolled onto her back and spread for him.

He was likely being too rough, too impatient, probably should have kissed her before he entered her, but he was hard to breaking and desperate to be inside her again. As he pushed into her gloriously wet body, pressing so deep their pelvic bones bumped with the force, she grunted with that same deep and throaty longing as she had earlier.

‘You feel so right.' She tipped her hips in to him so that he nested deeper. ‘You are all kinds of wrong, but so very right.'

He thrust hard, embracing his inexperience, hoping she understood how special she was, how perfect this moment was, and that while he had made excuses in the past, perhaps, all along, he had been waiting for the girl with perfect golden plaits and a shy smile to follow him. She spoke of him like he might be a corruption, but really, she was ruining him.

And he liked it, damn him. He bloody loved it.

Mina wrapped her ankles around his back and her heel dug into him. He collapsed as he spent, needing to kiss her as his body absorbed every bit of her magic.

‘Mina, Mina,' he mumbled as he rolled to her side and tucked her against him. ‘It is not the best, but Wild Court may not be the worst. At least, from up here, we can see the stars.'

She kissed his chin and settled against him.

If they had each other, what more could they want?

Mornings in the loft began with Peter snoring. Today, with the sun stretching between a confluence of smog and cloud, was no different. In his haze, Enzo registered a depression on the mattress, and without opening his eyes, he knew it was Mina.

She perched on the edge of the bed. She had already pulled her chemise over her head, and with a quick glance at the sleeping Peter, slipped on her drawers. So proper.

Except with him.

He caught her about the waist and pulled her back under the blanket.

‘Quiet, you'll wake your loft-mate,' she cooed in a laughing whisper as she snuggled against his side. ‘He looks exhausted, even as he sleeps. How is that possible?'

‘He works from sundown to sunup every night. I've offered him coin, but he's intent on being honest. It's brutal. An honest man in a dishonest city is a terrible thing.'

Mina took his hand and lifted it into the light. Her slim fingers traced the lines of his palms, like she was memorising them. Even a few months of service had marked her. Faint white scars and mottled burns patterned her wrists. Her fingertips flicked and danced over his with the bright optimism she always carried, and his heart strung a little tighter.

‘You don't have to break the rules just because they are there,' she said.

‘I'll be honest with you, always. I'll never cheat on you or lie to you. Just to annoy you, I'll be the most perfect gent you can imagine.'

Peter snored, the rookery rumbled, and the floor hummed with the morning activity of the multitude of people housed between the tired tenement walls. Mina slotted into the little gap between his arm and his chest like his body had been made for her.

‘Did you read your letter?' she asked.

Enzo swallowed. He took a slow breath and nodded. ‘It's not worth getting the jitters over. I've no fortune, no secret title waiting. It was just a page of the regular lies men tell their regrets.'

‘I can't tell you how many nights I lay in bed, in the dorm, dreaming about what might be in a letter. Me and the other girls would make up stories.' A blonde curl fell across her eyes as she shifted to rest her chin in the crook of her elbow, against his chest. ‘Molly always imagined she was a princess, and she'd been sent away to better understand the people. She promised to invite us to tea at her palace once a year, so that she didn't lose the common touch.'

Enzo chuckled. ‘What was yours?'

She giggled, as melodious as church bells. ‘I had a long-lost great aunt who lived deep in the Black Forest in Germany, in a house made of gingerbread. But she wasn't a witch, just a very good cook.'

Mina curled her fingers through his hair, tickling his neck. Oh, she was heavenly, with her little toes stretching and pointing against his shin, and one leg draped over his thigh like she solved the puzzle of their bodies. Surely there was somewhere in this city where he could push her against a wall and have her again. How would he wait until nightfall?

‘We were so lucky we were never hungry,' she whispered. ‘Can I read your letter?'

‘I told you, it's a page of lies.'

‘I know, but it's a letter . I'll never have one of my own. I just want to see one.'

Enzo scrabbled along the edge of the mattress until he found the sharp corner of thick parchment, then wiggled it out. He flipped it onto the blanket. He didn't even know why he'd kept the stupid thing.

Mina looked for a long time. Reverently, she picked it up, like it might break. She smoothed the creases, before sliding the paper from the envelope. The corners rustled against the blanket as she unfolded and then tipped it into a shaft of sunlight. Her lips moved as she whispered each word. She fidgeted, and her shoulders tensed.

‘This is amazing. Your father's offering you a chance to get to know him. And this symbol… is this his business?' She gave voice to her whisper, excitement building with each word. ‘He's offering you a room to live in, if you need it. And work, if you want it. When are you going to meet him?'

Enzo snatched the letter and scrunched it back under the mattress. ‘I'm not.' He mouthed more than spoke the words, with a pointed nod at Peter.

Mina frowned, and her eyes widened in confusion. ‘Why not?' she breathed.

‘He left me.'

‘But he explains that it was all terrible timing with your mother becoming so unwell, and no one to help, and after, he couldn't get to you.' Her mouth pressed into a thin line of worry. ‘If you work for him, we can leave this place. We can build a future.'

‘I am not leaving. I don't have airs thinking I'm better than others.'

‘I don't have airs.' She swung herself upright and grabbed her blouse from the floor, before shoving her arms into the sleeves. ‘I have hope. Hope is not arrogance.'

He gritted his teeth to keep his frustration contained. Typical bloody Mina, always trying to shove people in directions they didn't want to go. ‘You lot were all happy to imagine yourselves as Oliver fucking Twist, but not me. I know where I fit in the world. I know the truth. Life is shit. The best people like us can hope for is the strength to wade through it each day and pray we don't drown.'

Mina tugged on her skirt. ‘There is nothing wrong with dreaming.'

‘There is everything wrong with dreaming!' He'd only spoken the words at normal speech, but against her whispers and Peter's quiet snores, he may as well have bellowed them.

Mina's expression hardened as all her sunshine disintegrated and a harsh mix of pity and anger filled her eyes. ‘You think standing your ground makes you strong? It makes you selfish. You might be able to turn your back on a chance, but I cannot.'

Mina snatched her boots and stockings from the floor, and before he could wrap a blanket around his nakedness, the door slammed shut, and she was gone.

Across the room, Peter shuffled and rolled, the pallets creaking with the motion. ‘You went and muffed that up good and proper, didn't you Duke?'