Fast, dirty sex and a sleepy Lex snuggled at his side seemed to be the secret. He only wanted to work on one plan before giving in to sleep--his plan to talk Lex into exchanging her collar for something a lot more permanent.
Feel it. Feel us. Fuck, Lex--
"So then I decided I didn't care, and something about forgiveness and permission and which is easier, and you are not listening to me at all." Noelle shoved a wooden dresser out of the way with a little grunt of effort, endangering a precariously balanced stack of chairs. "This is ridiculous. I know Dallas is busy, but Jas says the new storerooms have been built for years."
Lex forced her mind back to the task at hand and steadied the swaying chairs. "Sorry, I'm being a dick."
Noelle waved one hand with a little pfft. "You're daydreaming. Not the same thing."
No good answer to that--nothing that wouldn't make her sound like a kid with a crush, anyway. "Furniture for Six, right?"
"Yes. Bren moved her into a room of her own before he left, but it's... Well, sparse is being kind." Noelle's brow furrowed as she studied the dresser. "I tried to talk her into picking out her own furniture, but that made her freeze up. She keeps saying she's fine with what she has, but she's lying. She's just scared to ask for anything."
Somehow, that possibility managed to perplex Dallas as much as Noelle. "She's having trouble believing hard work and loyalty can be enough. She thinks being an O'Kane woman has to mean selling sex, whether you want to or not."
Noelle's frown deepened. "I remember the feeling, but you and Dallas cleared it up pretty fast for me. Is where she's from so much worse than here?"
"I lived in Three for a while, way back before Wilson Trent took over." The early days, not long after the bombing that had crippled the sector. "I got the hell out as fast as I could."
"God." Noelle shivered and leaned against the dresser. "She breaks my heart, Lex. I caught her looking at a couple of the books Jas got me and offered to lend her one, but I don't know if she can even read. No one's ever taught or given her anything. Maybe I wasn't loved, but at least I was fed and educated."
"Shh." Lex caught a lock of Noelle's hair, wrapped it around her finger, and rubbed it soothingly against the other woman's cheek. "That's why Dallas brought her here. What we'll do for her."
Noelle leaned into Lex's hand with a shaky sigh. "That's what I was saying before, about asking forgiveness. I made Jasper let me into the closet where Dallas stores all the tech. He has a ton of broken tablets in there, and I think I can get one working. If it reads the books to her, maybe she can follow along and learn without feeling self-conscious."
"It'll be fine. And if he gives you shit about it, you send him to me, okay?"
"All right." Noelle dropped a kiss to the inside of Lex's wrist before straightening. "Honestly, I think I make her nervous. After the first day, I let Rachel handle her and left her alone. But this is something I can do to help." Her lips twisted wryly. "And I kind of like it. Is that crazy?"
Even Lex's eyes were burning from the dust, and she was used to far less immaculate surroundings than Noelle. "You like helping, or digging around in this junk?"
"It's not all junk." Wiggling between a desk and a dresser, Noelle laid her hand on an intricately carved headboard, the one piece in the immediate area that Lex would have picked out as extremely valuable--under the dirt. "They're so scornful of anything pre-Flare in Eden, but some of this stuff is just breathtaking. It's from a time when things didn't have to be purely functional. They could be art, too."
"Plenty of artisans left in the sectors," Lex observed. "If there's something you want, take it. If you can't find it, Dallas will get it."
Noelle stroked the high post on the headboard, her gaze wistful. "But isn't it a little sad for so many beautiful things to be tossed on top of one another in here? Why does Dallas keep them?"
Because his mother would have kicked his ass for being wasteful, for not clinging to every single resource that came his way--just in case. "Because he might need them