Saucy Side: Knave of Hearts (Ferro Version)

Featuring: Ferro Parker

AU set in Georgia, 1946

You awake to the rustle of someone climbing in through your bedroom window.

He’s back.

Georgia’s most infamous thief promised that he would return to steal your heart. You laughed at the time—how could you trust the word of anyone, let alone a thief, who called himself “Glitch”? The only other place you’d heard that ridiculous word was on the radio, whenever announcers admitted to an on-air mistake over the static broadcast.

You teased Glitch about his moniker the first time you met him at one of your parents’ galas. He claimed the word came from “glitsh,” the Yiddish word for “slippery place.”

“Because,” he said, brown eyes gleaming with amusement, “slippery places are my business.”

Missing his innuendo, you asked if that meant he worked at an ice rink. He laughed, the rich sound sending a tingle of warmth and awareness all the way down to your toes. Then he asked you to dance, and you said yes, and he slipped off his gloves and slowly removed yours so that your palms burned as your fingers interlocked in a way not required by the waltz. For the first time in your life, everything felt perfect. Glitch twirled you out the doors of your parents’ ballroom and kissed you in a dark corner of the gardens next to a plot of overgrown verbenas. And that kiss, in the dark, to the far-off refrains of the orchestra indoors . . . that kiss was perfect as well.

Then he left, and you discovered that your mother’s sapphire necklace had gone missing.

The next morning, a note was left on your silk pillowcase. Its envelope was filled with purple verbena petals. Inside was a poem, written in looping cursive, that promised Glitch would return.

Fool that you are, you waited. With the War over and Nick discharged from France, you finally dared to dream about escaping from the social expectations that came from being born a Wiseman. You fantasized of disappearing into the night with a dashing thief who had no need to return in order to steal your heart, because he’d already claimed it.

You continued to wait. Parties came and went. You waited, but he never returned. You only knew that he hadn’t left the city because of other thefts; headlines burned with speculation on the mysterious thief who made a fool out of Savannah’s elite by lifting their necklaces straight from their necks and their pocket watches from their pockets.

You spent two months waiting until resolving to give up. Your fall back to earth had been three months ago.

Now, almost half a year after that magical, world-shattering, foolish kiss . . . Glitch is back just as he promised.

After a moment’s deliberation, you open your eyes. “Why are you here?” you ask.

Your mattress dips as he sits on the edge of your bed. “I didn’t mean to arouse you . . .” he pauses playfully “. . . from your sleep. But I promised to return.”

You turn your head towards him without getting up. In his dark suit and demi-mask, Glitch almost disappears into the night. But his wide, teasing smile gleams in the moonlight—the smile of a man with the soul of The Cheshire Cat.

“That promise was made six months ago,” you say stiffly, praying that he can’t hear the rapid thrum of your heartbeat over the outside cicadas. “You’re late.”

“Do promises have an expiration date?”

“You stole my mother’s necklace.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m feckless.”

“You never wrote.”

“I left a note.”

You sit up abruptly and glare at him. “Are you doing that deliberately?”

Glitch smirks at you, leaning closer until his nose almost touches yours. “Doing what?”

“The rhyming.”

He chuckles softly. “You found it endearing last time.”

“A lot has changed since then. I’ve matured.”

“Have you? I haven’t.” Glitch inches even closer. His lips brush against the shell of your ear as he whispers: “You still shiver at my voice.”

“I do not—”

Glitch seals your protest with a kiss. Unlike the first time when he kissed you in the garden, this kiss isn’t an instant explosion of want and need. His lips are as gentle as a benediction, moving against yours in a beseeching prayer for atonement. Then it deepens, his tongue twining with yours, and his hand grasping the back of your neck.

“Lord, how I’ve missed you,” he moans into your mouth. “I’ve missed you so much.”

You swallow his litany of apology, your fingers clenching the fabric of his suit as you pull him closer. But it’s not close enough. It will never be close enough—can never be close enough. This thief owns your heart, and you’re unable to reclaim it no matter the proximity.

Your chests press so closely together that you feel Glitch’s heartbeat pounding, its beat fluttering and accelerating as your hands explore his shoulders and down the dip of his back.

“I’ve missed you too,” you admit.

His moonlight grin widens. Then he’s pushing you back onto the bed, dexterous fingers undoing the top buttons of your nightshirt as you fall.

“I’ve decided to keep your heart,” he whispers into the crook of your neck.

You gasp as his lips trail downwards. “Only if you pay for it.”

Glitch pulls back, and he stares at you intently. “It’s not my usual method as a thief,” he says, “but for you I’ll make an exception.”

“Good.” Your arms reach around him, bringing him back down. “Because I’m taking your heart as payment.”

Glitch rests his head against where your heart—no, his heart—beats. “Careful. Or you just may make an honest man out of me yet.”