Unexpected Affection

Roy still couldn't believe it.

He'd spent most of the evening preparing himself to deal with the fact that Michelle's mother, whose name he'd finally learned was Monique, was now one of his girlfriends. The situation was complicated enough without adding the emotional baggage of Michelle's past with her mother, the lingering memory of Monique's furious accusations at Walmart, and the uncomfortable knowledge that Roy's own magical wish had played a part in turning her hostility into affection.

He'd been expecting a difficult conversation, or perhaps several. He'd anticipated awkward silences, worried glances from Michelle, and the challenge of figuring out what place Monique might eventually have in the life he was trying to build with the women he loved.

Instead, the evening had taken a turn in an entirely unexpected direction.

Agnes.

Agnes!

Of all people. Of all the women in the whole world, of all the women who might have appeared in his life again, it had to be his racist neighbour Agnes.

Roy sat on the edge of the bed in one of Jessica's guest rooms, staring at the carpet as though the answer to his problems might be woven into its fibres. Agnes was beautiful, there was no denying that. Even among the astonishingly attractive women who had become his girlfriends, she stood out. Tall, blonde, with a figure that seemed designed to draw attention, Agnes had the kind of looks that could turn heads without any apparent effort. Roy could understand why other people found her appealing.

But when he thought of Agnes, beauty wasn't the first thing that came to mind.

He remembered the ugliness.

He remembered the dismissive looks, the casual cruelty, and the way she'd treated him as though his weight and appearance made him a lesser person. Worse, he remembered the prejudice she'd shown toward other people, the assumptions she'd made about anyone who didn't fit her narrow idea of how the world should work. Agnes hadn't simply been vain or unpleasant. She'd been racist, and she'd made no particular effort to hide it.

The wish had changed her feelings about him, but it hadn't erased what he'd seen.

Or had it?

That was the other problem. Agnes was supposed to be free of the wish. Roy had done what he'd needed to do. He'd taken her into her apartment and had a quickie before work, just as he'd done with Claire, Tabitha, Charlotte, Iris, Ava, and the young woman he'd taken into the Dust Closet at work. Each time, he'd believed the same thing: once the encounter was over, the woman would be released from his influence, and the wish would move on.

They were all supposed to be free.

Weren't they?

Roy rubbed a hand over his face. Varoonth had told him that the magic was changing. The bartender hadn't been able to explain what that meant, only that he could sense something different about the wish. At the time, Roy had been unsettled by the news without really knowing what to do with it. The wish had already caused enough upheaval in his life. Now it seemed there might be new complications he hadn't even begun to understand.

Shit.

The thought settled heavily in his stomach.

If the women he'd been with were still affected somehow, even after the wish had supposedly released them, what did that mean? Had the magic changed the rules? Was it leaving something behind in people, a lingering attachment that didn't disappear when the wish moved on? Or was he simply looking for a supernatural explanation because the ordinary one was too uncomfortable to contemplate?

Roy had just started to feel comfortable with the life he was building. The women he loved were moving in with him at Jessica's house, and he was beginning to imagine a future that felt less like a series of magical emergencies and more like a real family. Monique had joined the picture, although he still needed to figure out how to handle her relationship with Michelle and the pain that had come before it.

Now Agnes might be coming into his life, too.

And if she wasn't the only one?

Shit, shit, shit.

A memory surfaced, sharp enough to make Roy sit up straighter.

Ava.

All evening, something about Jessica's daughter had seemed different. At the time, he'd attributed it to the excitement of everyone gathering at the house, the discussions about moving in together, and the prospect of adding Agnes to their complicated little family. Ava had been unusually attentive, though. She'd greeted him with a long, enthusiastic hug, ignoring Michelle completely, all while holding on to him with an affection that had felt almost startling. During the conversation about Agnes, she'd listened to every word, her big brown eyes fixed on him with an intensity he hadn't quite known what to make of. Whenever his drink had grown low, Ava had found an excuse to refill it.

At the time, he'd thought she was being friendly.

Now, sitting on the bed, his thoughts turning increasingly unpleasant, the pieces fell into place. He thought back to the discussion about Agnes that he'd walked in on once he and Michelle arrived at Jessica's house. The very argument that had won him over, that had cemented the feelings of his girlfriends, had come from Ava herself.

"I know I'm young, and it's obvious that you're a great boyfriend and all, but it wouldn't be fair for you to reject a woman who loved you just because she's kind of screwed up. If you don't give her a chance, she's going to be lonely for the rest of her life, and whatever is screwed up in her will probably just get worse."

Damnit.

She hadn't been talking about Agnes. She'd been talking about herself.

Ava was in love with him.

Roy stared at the opposite wall, struggling to accept the conclusion. Jessica's daughter had only just turned eighteen. She was a bright, athletic young woman with her own life ahead of her, and she had been warming to Roy for reasons he'd assumed were entirely innocent. She'd been kind to him, certainly, but there was a difference between liking someone and looking at him the way Ava had looked at him that evening.

He knew that look. He'd seen it often enough since the wish had entered his life.

Of course Ava didn't remember the time they'd spent together while she was under its influence. As far as she knew, nothing had ever happened between them. Yet if Agnes's feelings were genuine, if the wish had left her with a real desire to be with him, then Ava's feelings were most likely genuine, too.

Roy's stomach twisted.

He loved Jessica. He loved the warmth of their relationship, the life they were planning, and the way she'd welcomed him into her home without asking him to become someone else. Ava was her daughter. Whatever feelings Ava might have developed, Roy couldn't simply treat her like another woman who'd asked him on a date. There were relationships and boundaries here that mattered far more than whether he could add another girlfriend to his already crowded life.

He began unbuttoning his shirt, partly because he was getting ready for bed and partly because his hands needed something to do. The buttons seemed determined to resist his increasingly clumsy fingers.

"You're doing that thing again."

Roy glanced up.

Zara stood near the foot of the bed, watching him with a small frown. Her pink blouse was tucked neatly into the waistband, and her oversized glasses sat slightly crooked on her nose. The combination gave her a peculiar sort of charm, part office professional and part enthusiastic fantasy heroine who'd wandered into the wrong campaign.

"What thing?" Roy asked.

"The thing where you look like you're trying to solve a complicated puzzle, except the puzzle is made of horrible thoughts and the only prize is more horrible thoughts."

Despite himself, Roy smiled faintly. "Is that what I'm doing?"

"Absolutely. I've seen that expression before. Usually when you're thinking about work, or when you realize that somebody's made a completely illogical argument and you're trying to decide whether correcting them will make things better or just waste everyone's time."

"That sounds familiar."

"Well, you're doing it now, and I don't like it." Zara came closer, her expression softening. "You've been worrying all evening. I know there's a lot going on, and I know Agnes is a big surprise, but you don't have to solve everything tonight."

"I know."

"Do you?"

Roy opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Zara pointed at him. "See? That's the problem. You say you know, but your face says you're planning to stay awake until three in the morning constructing a decision tree."

"Only three?"

"Roy!"

He laughed, and some of the tension in his shoulders eased. Zara had always been good at that, at finding a way to make him smile even when his mind was caught in a spiral. Her enthusiasm could be exhausting when he was tired, but tonight he was grateful for every bit of it. There was something wonderfully uncomplicated about the way she cared for him. She didn't expect him to have all the answers. She simply wanted him to be happy.

"It's just a lot to take in," he admitted.

"I know. And I'm not saying you shouldn't think about it. You're allowed to be worried. You're allowed to be confused. But you also have to remember that you're not alone in this." Zara gave him an earnest look. "You've got all of us. You don't have to carry every single problem around by yourself."

The words struck closer to home than she probably realized.

Roy had spent so much time trying to anticipate the consequences of the wish that he'd fallen into the habit of treating every new complication as a problem he alone had to solve. He worried about whether the women were truly happy, whether their feelings were their own, whether he was doing enough to respect their choices. Those concerns mattered. He couldn't simply ignore them because thinking about them hurt.

But Zara was right about one thing. He wasn't alone.

He had people who loved him. People who wanted to help. People who could challenge him when he was being foolish and comfort him when he was overwhelmed. For all the strangeness of his circumstances, that was real, and it mattered.

"You're an amazing boyfriend, you know," Zara said, smiling brightly. "You worry about everyone. You listen to us. You try to make sure nobody gets hurt. And you make me feel like the luckiest woman in the world."

Roy's chest tightened with affection. "Zara..."

"No, I'm serious!" She lifted both hands, talking faster as she warmed to her subject. "I know things are complicated, and there are probably about a hundred things you think you should be doing right now. But you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be you. That's the part I like best."

For a moment, Roy could only look at her.

Zara was so different from Agnes that the contrast almost hurt. Where Agnes had once judged him by his appearance and dismissed him as someone beneath her, Zara looked at him with a kind of wholehearted delight that made him feel as though he'd been handed something precious. She was clever, funny, affectionate, and entirely unafraid to be herself. Her enthusiasm could turn the smallest moment into an event, and her love made him feel appreciated in ways he'd never expected to experience.

He wanted to protect that. He wanted to give her the happiness she gave him.

Which, he realized, was precisely why he couldn't let his worries consume every moment they had together.

Zara seemed to reach the same conclusion, though her solution was rather different from anything Roy would have come up with.

"Okay," she announced, stepping back from the bed. "New plan."

Roy regarded her cautiously. "Should I be worried?"

"Probably not. Maybe. Depends on your opinion of my tactical abilities."

"That doesn't sound reassuring."

"Just trust me."

With that, Zara reached for the hem of her pink blouse and began to slip it from her shoulders, wearing an expression of fierce concentration that made it clear she was attempting something she considered both daring and sophisticated. The blouse came free, revealing her bra, and she tossed the garment onto a nearby chair with a flourish.

Roy watched, his worries briefly interrupted by curiosity.

Zara planted her hands on her hips, turned around, and gave him what she apparently believed was a seductive look over her shoulder. Then she began to wiggle her rear end at him.

It was, by any reasonable standard, an extremely enthusiastic performance.

The movements were a little exaggerated, the rhythm uncertain, and the expression on her face suggested she was trying to remember instructions from a guidebook she'd only skimmed. After a few seconds, she glanced back to see whether Roy was appreciating the show. When she caught him smiling, her own face brightened with triumph, and she wiggled even harder.

Roy laughed.

Not the polite little chuckle he'd offered earlier, but a genuine laugh that escaped before he could stop it. The ridiculousness of the performance, combined with Zara's absolute commitment to making him feel better, broke through the knot of anxiety he'd been carrying around all evening.

She spun back to face him, looking pleased with herself.

"See? I knew I could do it."

"Do what?"

"Make you smile!"

"You certainly managed that."

"Excellent. Objective achieved." Zara gave a little nod, as though she'd just completed an important military manoeuvre. Then her expression shifted into something more mischievous. "You know what? Aw, screw it, let's just do it!"

Roy barely had time to register the change in her tone before Zara launched herself at him.

He fell backwards onto the mattress with a surprised laugh, the bed dipping beneath their combined weight. Zara scrambled up over him, her hands finding his shoulders as she leaned down to kiss him. There was nothing hesitant about it. She kissed him with the same unrestrained enthusiasm she brought to everything else, as though she'd decided that the best way to interrupt his worrying was to give him something much better to think about.

Roy wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back.

The familiar warmth of Zara's body against his, the softness of her lips, and the way she smiled between kisses brought him back to the present. For a little while, there was no Agnes to worry about, no unanswered questions about the wish, and no need to decide what the future was going to look like. There was just Zara, who loved him, and whom he loved in return.

Zara sat up long enough to tug his half-unbuttoned shirt the rest of the way open, then leaned down again and kissed a path along his collarbone. Her glasses bumped against his chest. She made a small frustrated noise, pushed them up her nose with one finger, and kept going.

Roy's hands found the zipper at the back of her skirt. The metal slid down with a soft rasp. Zara wriggled helpfully, and together they worked the tight black fabric over her hips until she could kick it free. The pantyhose followed a moment later, peeled down her legs with more determination than grace. She nearly toppled sideways in the process, caught herself with a laugh, and tossed the crumpled nylon toward the chair where her blouse already waited.

"Still improvising," she said, a little breathless.

"I can tell."

She grinned and reached for his belt. Roy lifted his hips to help. Trousers and underwear joined the growing pile on the floor. Zara sat back on her heels for a moment, looking down at him with open appreciation, then climbed over him again and settled her weight across his thighs.

Her bra came off next. She unhooked it herself, dropped it somewhere behind her, and leaned forward so that her bare breasts brushed against his chest. The contact made her sigh. Roy cupped one soft curve, thumb brushing over the nipple until it tightened under his touch. Zara made a pleased little sound and rocked her hips, the heat of her pressing against the length of his cock.

"You're still thinking too much," she murmured against his mouth.

"Less and less by the second."

"Good."

She reached between them, wrapped her fingers around him, and guided him into place. The first slow push brought a soft, satisfied noise from her throat. Zara sank down until he was fully inside her, then stayed there for a moment, eyes half-closed behind her glasses, simply feeling him.

Roy rested his hands on her hips. The soft give of her skin under his palms, the way her body held him, the quiet concentration on her face as she adjusted to the stretch. All of it pulled him further from the tangle of worries that had followed him into the room.

Zara began to move.

She started slow, rolling her hips in a steady rhythm that let him feel every inch of her. Her hands braced on his chest for balance. Her glasses slipped a little further down her nose with each motion, but she ignored them, too focused on the angle and the friction. Roy thrust up to meet her, matching her pace, watching the way her expression shifted between concentration and pleasure.

"That's it," she breathed. "Just like that."

Her rhythm grew more confident. The bed frame gave a soft complaint under them. Zara leaned forward, changing the angle, and the new pressure drew a low sound from Roy's throat. She smiled at the noise, clearly pleased with herself, and did it again.

One of her hands slid between their bodies. Fingers found her own clit and began to circle in time with the rise and fall of her hips. The dual sensation made her breath catch. Roy kept his hands steady on her waist, guiding her when she needed it, letting her set the pace the rest of the time.

The first tremor ran through her a short while later. Zara's thighs tightened around him. Her free hand clenched against his chest as the orgasm rolled through her, soft at first, then sharper. She kept moving through it, riding the waves until the last of them eased and she slumped forward against him, laughing quietly into the side of his neck.

"Your turn," she said, still a little breathless.

Roy rolled them carefully so that she was beneath him. Zara's legs wrapped around his waist at once. He thrust into her with deeper, steadier strokes, watching her face for every small sign of pleasure. She met him eagerly, heels digging into the backs of his thighs, encouraging him on.

The building heat in his own body sharpened. Zara's hands slid down his back, then lower, pulling him closer. The deliberate squeeze of her body around him pushed him over the edge a moment later. Roy buried his face against her shoulder and held on as the climax took him, thick and deep, pulsing into her until his arms trembled with the effort of keeping his weight off her.

For a while neither of them moved. Zara stroked his hair. Roy stayed inside her, breathing against her skin, reluctant to let the closeness end. Eventually he eased out and settled onto his side, bringing her with him so that she could tuck herself against his chest.

When she drew back, her glasses had slipped down her nose.

"Was that good?" she asked, looking suddenly hopeful.

Roy brushed a strand of black hair away from her face. "That was very good."

"Good. Because I was improvising."

"I gathered."

"I had a whole plan, but then I realized that the plan was taking too long, and you looked like you were about to start worrying about the plan, so I abandoned it."

"That sounds like a sensible decision."

"Thank you. I'm capable of those occasionally."

"Occasionally?"

"Don't push your luck, handsome."

She kissed him again before he could answer, and Roy happily let the conversation end there.

For all the confusion and stress that had crept into his life, there were still moments like this. Moments when the world narrowed to the person in his arms, when affection was uncomplicated and laughter came easily. He couldn't make every problem disappear, and he couldn't guarantee that the wish wouldn't throw another surprise at him tomorrow. But he could be here, with Zara, appreciating the love they shared instead of letting fear steal the evening from them.

Zara was a treasure. A wonderfully odd, endlessly enthusiastic, irrepressibly affectionate treasure.

Roy held her close and smiled against her hair.

Tomorrow, he'd have to think about Agnes. He'd have to consider what Ava's feelings might mean, and whether the wish had left more behind than he'd understood. He'd have to navigate the complicated future he was building with Jessica, Michelle, Elaine, Monique, and all the others who had become part of his life.

There would be time for all of that.

Tonight, he had Zara, and Zara had made it very clear that she intended to remind him just how loved he was.

For now, that was more than enough.