Clean & Dirty by Nalini Singh
Clean And Dirty
This story is an entry in my ongoing series of vignettes exploring the everyday lives of the Psy-Changeling characters - glimpses through the windows of their day to day world.
Clean and Dirty features Vaughn and Faith. For those new to the series, Vaughn is a jaguar changeling and a sentinel in the DarkRiver pack, while his mate, Faith, is a cardinal F-Psy or foreseer (born with the often painful ability to see the future...though she also has a more fun ability, as you'll see in this story).
Timeline: This story happens around the same time as Play of Passion
, but it stands totally on its own.
I hope you enjoy!
Faith thought Vaughn was the most talented sculptor she'd ever seen, his works vibrant with life and fluid with energy There was just one problem. "I don't understand how marble dust can take over our entire living space when your studio is in another area." She wiped her hand along the edge of a table and it came away white.
Vaughn, the amber-gold of his hair dulled by the same dust, gave her a smile that was pure cat. "You look really clean."
"No. Absolutely not." Laughing, she held out a hand in an attempt to halt the jaguar in human form who'd begun to stalk her, slow and silent. "I mean it, Vaughn!" She ran around the sofa when he continued to prowl toward her with unhidden intent.
"What?" Pure innocence in his expression as he came to a stop. "I just wanted this datapad."
Eyes narrowed, she watched him flick through the magazine she'd downloaded on the thin device but hadn't had a chance to fully read. "We really have to clean the house." Though it wasn't technically a house, but a set of connected caves made both functional and lush by Vaughn's artistic eye. It still stunned her, the beauty he created from hunks of cold marble and stone.
"Okay." Apparently absorbed in an article, he tapped the screen to turn the page. "Did you see this? It's about the world's most expensive coffee."
Her ears perked up. "I like coffee."
"Huh, I don't think you'd like this coffee."
"Why?" Since he appeared genuinely involved in the article, she began to pick up the cushions from the sofa and stack them on a nearby armchair, thinking they could dust that off last.
"This coffee," Vaughn said, "is made from animal droppings."
"Very funny. I'm not that gullible."
"I'm serious. It says civets eat the coffee berries, then the coffee makers collect their droppings and pick out the beans." A small pause, another tap. "They used to farm the civets"--a growl low in his throat--"but that was banned decades ago and now the coffee is even more expensive because the coffee makers have to hunt wild civet droppings."
Staring at him, a cushion in her hands, she shook her head. "I don't believe you."
"Here." He held out the datapad...and would've pounced when she reached for it if she hadn't caught the gleam in his eye and run backward and around the other sofa.
"Vaughn." Her attempt to sound stern was utterly ruined by the laughter that overtook her body.
Trying again when he put down the datapad and resumed his stalking, she pointed a finger. "House! Cleaning!"
"I'd rather make you dirty, Ms. Faith NightStar." Jumping over the sofa with feline ease, he chased her into the bedroom.
At a dead end, she used a minor psychic ability to create a solid illusion of tall sunflowers between them. It was meant to surprise him enough to give her time to get over the bed and down the other side, but she found herself watching delightedly as he tried to touch the leaves with a wondering hand.
"I still can't work out how you do this," he said as she peppered the illusion with impossibly tall poppies. "Do an elephant."
"An elephant?" Intrigued at the challenge, she visualized the animal in her mind...and the flowers winked out to be replaced by a miniature pachyderm.
Vaughn grinned and ran his hand over the elephant's big, floppy ears, as if he could almost touch the motes of light and shadow. "This one's the best you've done yet." He pounced with a jaguar's feral grace before she realized his intent. "You're mine now, Red." Holding her hostage, he shook his head to cover her in marble dust.
Her escape attempts foiled by laughter, she gave in and grabbing his dusty face in her hands, kissed him, both of them laughing the entire time. Vaughn was reserved with those he didn't trust down to the bone, but with her, he could be as playful as any cat. It melted her each and every time he got like this.
Nuzzling him, she wrapped her arms around his neck. "You are so pretty."
He nipped at her lower lip. "Watch it." Still grinning, he said, "Maybe we can borrow Judd for an hour and he can telekinetically magic away the dust."
She giggled, and it was a silly, girlish sound. A sound she'd never made as a girl or as a young woman, trained as she'd been to be Silent, without emotion, her every action monitored for signs of mental degradation. Even now, she only ever did it in Vaughn's presence. "What if I wear a French maid's outfit and use a feather duster?"
A gleam in the near-gold of his eyes. "All at once, I'm inspired."
***
An hour later--and despite the fact that she didn't have a French maid's outfit handy--their living space was sparkling clean, and so were they. Wrapping a towel around her body after stepping from the beautiful waterfall shower that Vaughn had built by hand, she let down the hair she'd pinned up, and turned to watch him finish rinsing off the soap on that golden-skinned body rippling with the lithe muscle of a predator.
Never, she thought, would she get enough of her mate. His touch, his scent, the sound of his voice, his laughter, his teasing, the untamed jaguar at the heart of his nature, each and every part was forever intertwined into the fabric of her life.
Stepping out, he turned off the shower and crooked a finger. It didn't take Faith even a second's thought to obey the sensual command; grabbing another towel, she patted him dry, her lips moving over his spine as she indulged in her need to be close to her mate. "You made that up about the coffee, didn't you?"
Taking the towel from her to hitch it around his hips, he turned and demanded a kiss that threatened to make her forget her own name, before saying, "No," and tugging her to the living room. Datapad in hand, he sat down on the sofa with her curled up on his lap. "Read this page."
Still suspicious, Faith began to scan the article...and felt her eyes widen. "What?! Who--I mean why would-- No, it's completely beyond my comprehension." Exiting the article with a firm tap to her jaguar's purring smile, she leaned her head back as he kissed her throat, one of her arms wrapped around his neck, the damp strands of his hair brushing her skin.
"So," he said with another lazy kiss, "no go to that coffee as a birthday present?"
"You do that and I'll give you the most ugly sculpture I can find, and make you keep it in your workspace."
"You bargain tough, Red." He ran his hand down her ribcage and to the dip of her waist, then slid lower to cup her hip with a raw possession she loved. "After all that manual labor, I'm starving."
"We have a half hour until we have to leave to meet the others for dinner," she said, deciding not to confess that she'd had him move a few pieces of furniture multiple times simply to watch the muscles flex in his arms and naked upper body. A woman, she thought with an inward smile, was permitted a sinful secret or two when it came to a man as rawly sexy as Vaughn. "Do you want a sandwich?"
"No." A second later and she found herself trapped underneath a grinning jaguar who ripped off her towel and said, "I think I'll just snack on you instead." A growling bite at the curve of her neck, his teeth very, very careful not to hurt.
Instead of shying, Faith wrapped her arms around him. She was no longer the woman she'd been when they first met, a woman who believed herself weak and easily breakable. No
Vaughn jerked up his head when her teeth sank into his shoulder. Then he grinned, and tumbled her on top of him and she knew they were going to be very, very, very late for dinner.
Nalini Singh, Clean & Dirty
(Series: Psy-Changeling # 9.20)
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