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If looks could kill, George would be ghost-locked right now. But Norrie White is still human – too human, really. She corners him in secure storage late one evening. He’d been cataloging salt bombs because Lockwood and Lucy had been too busy flirting and the case they have tomorrow actually appears to be a very boring couple of wraiths, for once.
She slides the door shut pointedly behind her, flipping her burnt sienna hair over her shoulder. George can’t believe it’s actually that red; he suppresses the urge to run his fingers through the tangled locks. She prowls forward, hands curled into loose fists, and he thinks he might get a chance. After she decks him. After all, this tension has been brewing, hovering on the horizon like a thunderstorm, for days.
“Are you going to hit me?” He goads, straight to the point. “You and Lucy are so violent.”
“Shut it,” she snaps, looming into his space, pressing him against the shelves. He’s curious, he tells himself, even as he feels his pulse in his teeth and his heart thumping against his ribcage.
“Well?” he glares, slipping his glasses into his pocket. This close, George can see the freckles mapped across her nose and cheeks. He really likes these frames.
Norrie’s fingers grip the wire shelving on either side of him, and her hair brushes his arm when she leans forward, apple and ginseng scent of her shampoo washing over him. “Be nicer to Luce,” she says softly, her breath hot against his cheek. “You made her cry this morning.”
He doesn’t bother to deny it – there’s no point. “Lockwood’s my best mate,” he says crossly, leaning away from her. The metal shelving is digging into his low back. Norrie bares her teeth.
“Lucy is mine,” she snaps back. “Be. Nice.”
He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, then finally meets her gaze. She’s unbearably pretty, if you like that sort of thing, which – who is George kidding. He’s in love with Anthony Lockwood, of course –
“I know you fancy him,” she says, softly, like she’s not shattering him into pieces. “Seen the way you watch ‘im.”
Enough is enough. “You know nothing about me,” he hisses, hands circling around the tender flesh of her arms, just above the elbow. He’s not the fittest of the four of them, by any stretch, but he does his training three times a week, watching Lockwood in his threadbare t-shirt, joggers hanging off his hips as he moves smoothly through his parries –
“Don’t I?” murmurs Norrie, and she’s got the queerest expression on her face now. She’s almost of a height with George, so all she has to do is stand on tiptoe to brush their mouths together.
Her lips are soft and plush, hit of strawberry from her lip balm sweetly artificial. Then she’s drinking in deep, breaching into his mouth. He can taste tea on her tongue; the heavy black Irish tea she favors, smoky on the flesh of her gums. It’s intoxicating.
Norrie pulls back long enough for him to catch a breath, to watch her mouth shape into a wicked grin before they’re kissing again. His hands have relaxed from the tight grip on her arms to fall to her waist, pulling her closer. He’s filled with the scent of her, the taste of her, warm skin against his lips and under his hand and pressing against his hips. It’s heady, dizzying, and he can feel the low chuckle humming up from her chest.
“What the actual fuck?” he gasps, tearing himself away from her greedy mouth. His fingers dig into the flesh of her hips, his body betraying him.
“Lucy likes Lockwood,” Norrie murmurs into his ear, before licking a hot stripe along his neck.
“No fucking shit,” he snaps, or tries to. It comes out as a shaky gasp.
“Lockwood likes Lucy,” Norrie continues, wiggling against him in a way that is exceptionally distracting.
“I know,” George groans out, finally giving up, letting his fingers slide further down to cup her arse, pulling her flush against him.
“Lucy likes you,” Norrie says softly, meanly, having gone fully off the rails.
“What?” he says, stumbling back and smacking the back of his head against a box of flares, then losing his footing spectacularly and falling onto his arse. He glares up at her, clutching his head. She’s a blurry vision above him, hellfire about to rain judgment on him or some bullshit like that. He’s confused and he’s aching and –
There’s a hand in front of his face. Delicate, belying her strength and the rapier calluses he knows are layered there. He eyes it suspiciously.
“Are you just going to – “ he waves his hand at her, encompassing the last five minutes. “I might be safer down here.”
She rolls her eyes, or, at least, he thinks she does, and reaches down to haul him to his feet.
“She likes you, George,” she repeats, licking her lips, and George unconsciously licks his own. He shakes his head, and she clucks disapprovingly. “Don’t have to believe me,” she shrugs. “But if you break her heart I’ll break your fucking nose, savvy?”
“A-Alright?” He manages incredulously, then, because apparently he’s a masochist, he mutters, “See? Violent.”
She nods, as if everything is settled. Which it is fucking not. But then she’s pulling him close, hitching herself up on the sorting table and wrapping her incredible long legs around his waist. Her skin is hot – she’s burning him up and he’ll gladly swelter in this heat to taste her mouth again. He smoothes a lock of her flaming hair between his fingers. There’s something arterial about it, like seeing his capillaries flayed open, electric impulses bleeding along his skin. He feels a little crazy.
“Wait,” he says, before their lips touch, before he loses himself to this hazy, seductive insanity. “You delivered your threat, why — “
“Oh,” Norrie laughs, startled. “Thought you were the clever one? I like you, too.”