Death Incarnate

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  Uncle John gives her a steady look. “Not if they come off.”

  Tiff blushes to the roots of her hair, and I just have to wonder: am I the only living person who succumbs to embarrassment?

  “TMI, weirdos,” Tara says with nary a pause.

  TMI? Yup, must be just me.

  We frown at her.

  “I'm ignoring the acronym for now,” Dad says smoothly. “Mitchell will stay in his own space.”

  “Damn straight,” Gramps and Pax say simultaneously.

  I roll my eyes, looking for a rock to crawl under.

  “I'm glad my baby sister isn't around for this. I couldn't handle it,” Jonesy says. “Too much of The Awkward going down.”

  “Micah's not a baby anymore,” Sophie points out.

  “Shhh, don't remind me.” Jonesy drags a hand over his short, springboard of black kinky hair. “I'm an uncle.” He gives a small shiver “And she never lets me forget it.” He winces in apparent pain.

  Sophie smirks. “At least she could have a baby—one of the lucky ones.”

  “Must be nice to be so beautiful,” Kim sighs, and we all look at her. Her laugh is nervous. “You know...” she waves a palm between Jonesy and Sophie. “The ideal.”

  They exchange a look, and I can't decipher their expressions.

  Tiff stifles a yawn. “Yeah, gorgeous.”

  Mom frowns, but laughs.

  “Sorry, I just don't care about how ideal they are. I'm beat. We'll discuss why they're so beautiful in the morning, before we have to go to Sanction and deal with that trumped-up load of bullshit.”

  Clyde rocks back on his heels. “Sometimes, offering a bit of levity when events have been grim is a handy distraction, Tiffany.”

  Tiff appears mollified.

  “Clyde,” Mom says, patting his arm.

  He covers her hand. “I am keenly interested in returning to Bobbi.”

  “And I want to see Nevaeh,” Jeff adds.

  “And what's happened to Garcia?” Dad asks.

  Gramps says, “Or his family?”

  Three people yawn into the sudden, reflective silence, and he laughs. “I'm not laughing because the thought of Peanut, Kyle, Archer, Target Practice, and his missus at Sanction is amusing. I'm laughing because not one of us can stay awake. We're all sleeping on our feet.”

  “Yup,” Ron agrees sagely.

  “Target Practice?” Sophie asks, covering a second yawn delicately with her hand.

  “Bry,” Tiff replies in a droll voice, like duh.

  Uncle John, Dad, and Jonesy chuckle. “Weller the Tank.” Jonesy shakes his head, doing a tired fist pump in the air. Pathetic vigor by his usual standards.

  “True.” Gramps claps his hands together. “Time to hit the rack.”

  I walk into the bedroom I always stay in when I visit Grampsʼs. It's little more than a closet. Two bunkbeds are smooshed against one wall, and a narrow, tall dresser stands opposite. A tall slim window faces the door I pass through.

  Moonlight spills its wan light across the sky-blue carpet. The outdated pile is hideous in the light of day, but at night, all that blue washes to silver, giving it a vague, ethereal beauty.

  I yawn then turn to look for Mitchell, who is standing just outside my door like a hulking shadow.

  “I'll be right here.” Our eyes meet. I never had any doubt.

  Of course he will; he's my zombie.

  I cock my head, saying lightly, “No one's going to steal me through the window.”

  Tara squeezes between the men and enters the room.

  I go from dreamy and relaxed to instantly tense. I don't have to be an empath to get that I'm not her favorite person.

  “Do you dream zap?” she asks into the tense deliberation of where my zombie will “sleep.”

  My mental fog is erased so fast, it stings. “No,” I reply in a low, hurt voice.

  “Good,” she says, breezing by me and plopping down on the lower bunk mattress.

  Poor Mitchell looks at the uneasy relationship between his zombie mistress and his displaced sister. He stands at rigid attention, offering the only thing he knows how to.

  Protection.

  Without a word, I turn and climb to the top bunk.

  Gramps leans his head inside the door. “Now would be a splendid time for me to have telepathy.”

  I know exactly what he means.

  “But I'll have to settle for my limited vocabulary.”

  I smile at the ceiling and turn on my side, looking at him. Some things are the same, and I'm grateful for that constancy, at least.

  I sigh.

  “Do you think this big fella can watch for things?”

  I jerk my head back, feeling my brows pull together. Slowly, I nod. “He's a zombie, Gramps.” Uh... duh.

  His return nod is even slower. “But things are getting complicated, Deedie.”

  He has no idea.

  “If someone threatens me, then they'll die.” It's something I believe to my marrow, as Grandpa Kyle would say.

  My eyes meet Mitchell's over Grampsʼs shoulder.

  He smiles.

  It's not a nice expression, full of warm and happy vibes, but a sinister one. Full of intent and promise to follow-through.

  As Uncle Clyde would say, it’s a proper zombie look.

  “Your world sounds pretty bad. The way you talk about murder like it's nothing.”

  I can feel Tara's judgmental eyes boring holes through the mattress I lie on.

  I keep forgetting that the death of Mitchell and Timmy on Tara's world—in her time—is fresh.

  But death is my reality. I've never known anything different.

  Will my zombie kill to defend me? Yes. It's not something I have to ask for.

  It is a part of their very design.

  Killing Machines.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sophie

  I can't sleep.

  Exhaustion is so wild inside me, it won't shut up.

  I yawn, flopping over on my side, and dangle a foot out of the covers and over the edge of the bed.

  At least I'm clean, and there was a spare razor hanging around, so I could mow the bush.

  Geez, what a God-awful disaster. With a heaving, weary sigh, I close my eyes for the hundredth time.

  At least my period is gone. Short thing. Don't know what that means, if anything.

  I clench my eyes against the tears, and still, they drench my lashes and slide out the corners of my eyes.

  I'm forty-two.

  I could get pregnant. Hell, any man would have sex with me. Children are so rare right now, they would do me for the chance to be the Male Who Impregnated a Female. Any female.

  Kind of akin to having a foot-long dick.

  Whatever.

  Someone raps softly on the door of the closet-sized bedroom, which Mac put in back when we were just kids. He said the boys couldn't be with the girls.

  Like that worked.

  I give a very unladylike snort, thinking of how many secret makeout sessions I had with Jonesy.

  I snicker. Pig.

  “Yeah,” I call out softly, not wanting to wake the others. I figure it's Jade. Tiff wouldn't seek me out. We're chill, but we're not cut from the same cloth.

  The door swings open, lightly tapping the stop jammed into a slim wood baseboard.

  The moon strikes the figure standing within the rectangle of where the door just was, the pale rays washing ebony skin to burnished ivory.

  Jonesy stands there, and my breath hitches in my throat. After all this time, he still affects me that way.

  I'm never speechless. I'm not one of those dumb bitches that says later, “I wish I would've said this or that.”

  Sophie says whatever's on her mind.

  “Hey...” I sit up, pulling a sheet to my chin, trying for casual.

  Jonesy smirks, eyes sinking into the crevices of where my breasts heave.

  He walks in and softly closes the door behind him. My eyes roam his body, though all
I want to do is will him to leave.

  Because I love him.

  I've always loved him.

  Keeping Jonesy out of my pants has been a twenty-year, part-time job. (In between all his hoes and wives.)

  We've never done the deed. By design. Mine. I don't want to be another hole for him to stick his dick in and leave. I have self-respect. I value who I am.

  But I would be stupid to not understand how vulnerable I am. How vulnerable we all are right now.

  “Hey,” he says back, his face solemn.

  His expression gets me worried, and I sit up on my knees. “What's wrong?”

  “We gotta talk.”

  Ah-weird. “Okay.”

  He walks over to the narrow twin bed and sits at the foot.

  I don't ogle his abs that don't hang over the waistband of cowboy print pajamas that were maybe Mac's a hundred years ago.

  Not. At. All.

  It doesn't matter that Jonesy is six feet one of prime black stallion male. Nope.

  I'm all about keeping my distance.

  Keeping it.

  I restrain the urge to sit on my hands.

  “Soph,” he says in a tentative voice and takes my hand before I can retreat—or protect myself.

  “What?” I ask, my voice thready.

  He meets my eyes. His are as serious as I've ever seen them. “I want to be the man to make you pregnant.”

  I gasp, trying to pull my hand out of his.

  He moves too fast for me to avoid—Jonesy's always been a natural athlete—grabbing my waist and heaving me in a deadlift to his lap.

  “No,” I say out of reactive instinct because that gesture made me stop thinking, effectively squashing my intellect like a scurrying bug.

  He cups my jaw, while his other hand palms the small of my back, exactly where a woman is most sensitive, and a little noise escapes from between my lips.

  His eyes peg my mouth.

  Oh. My. God.

  “We used to make out here when we were kids,” he says softly.

  I nod numbly. “Yeah.”

  His thumb strokes my jaw.

  I tremble at his touch, and a dire tear worms its sodden way down my face. “You'll crush me. I can't stand it.”

  Jonesy shakes his head, thumbing it away.

  “You don't want kids,” I say, meeting his eyes.

  He leans down, pressing his full, warm lips against the thudding pulse at the hollow of my throat, and I groan.

  Can't help it.

  He catches my skull with his hand and nips at the tender flesh of my neck, and the underwear I'm not wearing gets drenched.

  Great, Soph—good call.

  “I want a kid with you.”

  Lifting my head, I look at him. “Are you just trying to screw me?”

  He spontaneously grins, “Definitely.”

  “Knew it,” I say, trying to unlock my ass from the killer boner pushing up underneath me like a tree trunk.

  He locks down on me, and I can't move. Those muscles of his are steel holding me to him.

  “Not for what you're thinkinʼ, sweet girl.”

  The ice of my heart melts, a big chunk calving off from the old endearment he whispered two decades ago.

  “I wasn't ready for all the woman that ya are.”

  I smile. “I still don't think you're ready.”

  He gives a helpless shrug. “Don't matter.” He runs a finger from my cheekbone, and a trail of fire follows that touch until his fingers spread between my breasts.

  My breaths pile up, one after the other.

  Our chemistry was always scorching, and that doesn't change. In fact, age will sometimes make a woman's sexuality closer to the surface.

  “There's not another woman for me.”

  “That's not true,” I say between hot breaths. “There's been plenty of bitches.”

  “Yeah,” he says, but not regretfully, more like he had to live that part of his life in that way to arrive where he is now.

  I don't know how I get to that feeling running between us, that insight, but I land on it, and I can't get off.

  “I never had kids with any of ʼem.”

  That's true. But most women of breeding age are infertile.

  I frown, capturing his hand just as he cups the underside of my breast and his thumb sweeps over my nipple.

  Of course it hardens like a stone pebble under that expert stroke.

  “So what are you saying?”

  He shakes his head, his dark eyes running over with pooling desire.

  But I’m not flattered. I've seen him look at plenty of vaginas like that.

  I'm not the sum of my parts. I'm a human being with emotional shit, goddammit. I need to be taken seriously.

  “I'm saying I don't want you just for now. I'm saying I want you forever.”

  I close my eyes, more tears slipping out.

  “Nah, don't cry, Soph. This is supposed to be true.”

  My eyelids flip open. “Supposed to be?”

  “I didn't press shit. I knew I'd fuck it up. So I've waited all this time, until I could give ya what you needed.”

  “What do I need?”

  He shadows my face with gentle hands. “All of me.”

  I swallow my sharp words, and my should'ves.

  And kiss him first.

  Leaning forward, our mouths fitted tight, I slip my tongue between the seam of his lips, and he sucks it in a single, deep, hard, wet pull.

  My arms twine his neck, and he softens my backward landing on the bed.

  I'm fragile beneath him. Not just because of our size difference, but because my beating heart sits on top of my chest. Visible. Open. Ready for slaughter. I take a shuddering breath.

  “I can't survive you using me,” I admit with tortured reluctance.

  He shakes his head.

  “I'd kill the man who did that to my Soph.”

  My lips twist, and the smile dies to passion when he cages me between his powerful arms and seats his erection on top of my mound, gently splitting my lips.

  “Your Soph?” I ask softly.

  “You always were.”

  He slides my pajama pants off and jerks his own down, revealing his naked beauty to me for the first time.

  I close my eyes against it. The sight of him nude and erect above me is almost too much.

  I've fantasized about this exact moment so much, I thought I had the Fantasy Jonesy image burnt into my brain.

  But the reality is so much more.

  “I just didn't know it.” He goes to a push-up stance with his hands.

  “Ya know it now?”

  My breath catches as he begins to slide himself between my slick folds, and I groan, inadvertently spreading my legs.

  “Oh yeah, baby—I so know it.”

  “Stop.”

  His face is pained. “I won't force you, but I want to give you a baby, Soph. Our baby.”

  “It might not work. We're not in bot world or whatever crazy place that is.”

  “Doesn't matter. I'll die trying.”

  I nod and when he subtly moves, I think he's going to plunge into me, but he doesn't. He hikes his sculpted butt in the air and moves nimble fingers to the men's button-down shirt I'd borrowed.

  “I'm not gonna just go for it, baby.” His tongue starts at my throat, and he licks a soft, hot, wet line to between my breasts.

  With a palm, he gently cups the weight of my breast and slowly squeezes it. The nipple pops between his dexterous fingers, and he laves the aching flesh, and I arch into his touch.

  “Not rushing shit—God, you got nice tits.”

  I chuckle, and he does something to my nipple that steals the laugh into a gasp.

  “That's right, no laughing with Jonesy. Only howling.”

  “Howling? I don't—ooh—don't stop that.”

  His dark eyes roll to mine as he does what he's doing to my nipple.

  “I love your face right now,” he says as he releases my nipple with his mouth, but
his hand stays on my breast as he kisses and licks lower.

  When he reaches the neat little tuft of hair above my mound, he sinks a finger between my folds and presses my clit, now moist with my arousal, and I bite my lip to stop the scream.

  The bundle of nerves gives a pulsing throb to his deft touch.

  “Gorgeous,” he says, and my eyes spring open.

  I thought I would be embarrassed, but I can't be.

  Jonesy is inspecting every bit of me like he just found treasure he's been searching for his entire life, and it's all his.

  I've wanted this for so long.

  “Spread your legs, Soph. Let me see all of ya.”

  I move my legs apart. I have to remind myself this is Jonesy. He wouldn't hurt me on purpose.

  His large hands go to my inner thighs, and he grips them, spreading me almost too wide.

  “Hey,” I protest weakly.

  “Nope, girl—let me take care of you. I'm not in a rush. Tomorrow might be fucked, but we have tonight. Me and you.”

  Then his mouth is on me, and his hand covers my scream.

  I thrash beneath him, and he's relentless, bringing me to the edge with a lick of my clit. I pulse as he pushes his tongue inside me over and over.

  I arch off the bed, and he releases the sensitive bundle of nerves with a sucking pop. Gripping my body, he lifts my limp form and seats me on the top of his thighs. My juices run, and I squirm, making a mess on him.

  “Love your pussy, baby.” He gives a casual swipe to his face, still glistening with the million orgasms he just gave me.

  “Now I'm gonna have some.”

  “Okay,” I say in a dazed voice.

  He gives a satisfied grunt. “Bareback, baby.”

  I nod. That's how it's done if you want to have a kid. Two plus two equals four.

  “I'm a sizeable guy. Fair warning,” he says, and my eyes widen.

  “Not that I don't like to go down on you, but making you ready”—he nods almost to himself—“kinda critical.”

  His muscles harden as he positions himself underneath me. Kicking my knees wide, he lifts me and readies himself.

  I look down and tense. I can't do him—he's gigantic.

  He reads my expression. “It's all right, relax. You're wet. I'll be gentle.”

  Then he's inching into me, and I grab his shoulders.

  We still, my bugged eyes looking into his.

  His widen when he finds out. “No way, Sophie.”