“No. But I do love the name.” He grins, but his humor fades. “How long do you think a known Manipulator would last in 2049?”
No one comments.
The hell with it. I raise my hand. “Does that mean you can force people to do stuff they don't want to do?”
Tate nods. “Yes.”
Shit. “That's scary.”
“That's why my identity is protected. That is why I handle things in the guise of a medical professional. I play doctor, and people think I work miracles.” He gives a slight shake of his head with a rueful laugh.
“Then the reality is not as weird, really,” Kim says.
“Yes, people don't want to think a Manipulator compelled them to lose weight through suggestion. Or cease a bad habit.” He tosses Mac a pointed look.
Mac grunts.
“They'd rather believe a pill or disc update or recharge got them golden,” Tiff says.
Tate shrugs.
Answer enough.
“So you want the kids to work for this humanity thing?” Caleb asks. “And if they say yes—can they have a normal life?”
Tate tips his head back and laughs. He crosses his arms. “Did you really just ask that?”
“Yeah, Dad—shit's never been normal.”
“Where's Clyde to address your language?” Caleb asks Pax.
“I know you hate my swearing and all my other stuff. But I'm not evil spawn.”
Caleb scowls. “I didn't say that, son.”
Not only have I been dumped into the middle of this alien earth, I landed in the middle of a family drama.
“We both feel like we're not doing enough, being enough,” Deegan says. “Drextel Tate, or whatever his name is, has given us an opportunity to use what we are to do something good.”
“Is this what you want, Deegan?” Jade asks.
Deegan nods. “If it's not some scam.” She shoots a narrow-eyed stare Tate's way.
Tate uncrosses his arms and smooths his slacks with relaxed hands. “Let's talk figures so you know how you'd be compensated.”
He says a number that I think would be high on any world. Really high.
“Hmmm, that's like winning the Powerball lottery back in the day,” Mac says, stroking his jaw.
Powerball?
“Use the credits as you will, but they are there as your compensation.”
Mac's hand drops to his side. “Who's funding this little shindig?” He squints at Tate, stubbing out his cigarette on the tread of his boot then looks around for a place to discard it.
“The United States government, of course.”
Mac tosses the butt in a three-compartment bin system under the center bin labeled compost.
“No way,” Pax says, throwing up his hands. “It's like the Helix Complex all over again.”
“Absolutely not,” Tate says, standing. “I wouldn't darken the doorstep of any of their precepts if someone held a gun to my head.”
An old expression. Because who uses guns anymore?
“Can't vet his ass,” Tiff remarks, rooting in her pockets and extracting a wrapper before placing some nasty bright-green substance inside it.
My stomach does a slow flop at the sight.
“No, you can't validate anything I'm saying, but I've not used my talent, even in the finest degree.” He looks at the red-headed guy again, his index and thumb nearly touching in demonstration.
“I can say that part's true,” the tall guy says, exchanging a look with his wife, Tiff.
John—that's his name.
“His Nullness will foil your Manipulator juju.” Tiff chuckles, her caustic glee lighting on Tate.
He's unruffled. “I also have a handy five-point ability. No one even knew if such a thing was important back when it was discovered that Randoms were rare, and babies rarer still.”
“What do you have?” Sophie asks. Curiosity floods her expression, making those seawater-colored eyes widen like stranded jewels in her face.
“I can detect new life.”
Every woman in the room stills.
Droppinʼ the bomb. I drag my hat down even lower.
“What do you mean?” Jade asks slowly.
“You know what he means, Mom,” Deegan answers for Tate.
“I know if a female is pregnant from the moment of conception. It was an unregulated and unimportant talent back in the day of infertility and paragenocide.”
“And now?” Sophie asks.
“Well, it's my most important talent. I can detect a pregnancy in one woman in a hundred thousand. It's that discerning. This talent saves lives. Usually two.”
“Handy little thing,” Mac says, “but how is that relevant?”
Tate looks around the room. “At the moment? Well, the pregnant women here... get special protection. They're untouchable. And that, folks, is worth noting.”
Holy shit.
I jerk away from the wall and straighten, looking at the assembled women.
Who the hell had time to have sex?
Slowly, from the obvious expressions of the women—mostly everyone.
Deegan's face flames hardest.
Who in the hell did she have sex with?
Because it wasn't me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Deegan
One day prior
I wait until Tara is asleep then silently clamber down from the top bunk and tiptoe into the hall.
Mitchell is by the door.
His slightly glowing eyes meet mine.
He doesn't ask. “I can't,” he whispers to my unspoken question, dipping his chin.
“It will protect me.”
He shakes his head, saying quietly, “I'm dead. I can't—wow—I won't get you pregnant. And you're young, Deegan, so young.”
I put my hand on the flat muscular planes of his chest, smelling the vague scent of the old Ivory soap Gramps keeps stocked at his house.
“You didn't disintegrate in the shower, I see,” I say lightly.
He shakes his head silently.
I slide my hand between his pecs, and Mitchell's breath catches. Under the fabric of the borrowed T-shirt are two pieces of metal on a chain made of many tiny metal balls. Dog tags, was his answer when I asked.
Turning my head, I lay the side of my face against his chest. The heartbeat I made when I raised him beats steady beneath my skin.
His hand cups the back of my head. “I think you're pretty—God knows I do. But I feel like a perv. Not gonna lie.”
I smile against his warm chest then lift my head, gazing up at him. “I'm seventeen, and legal in this world.” I cock my head. “How old are you anyway?”
“I was twenty-two when I got lit.” He gives a slight shake of his head, pulling away and rubbing a small circle on his chest. “I mean, maybe I'm a little younger now that there's a new death history.” His Adam's apple dives in his thick neck as he swallows the memory of the fresh grief—trying to save his family and coming up short one family member. Timmy.
Sadness engulfs me, and I let my forehead fall against his chest. “That-you say that like your death is meaningless.”
His fingers card my hair, tipping my face back, his eyes searching mine. “My death was meaningful. If I didn't die, you wouldn't be here, Deegan. If I didn't die, I wouldn't have you.”
A tear slips out from the corner of my eye, and his thumb swipes it away. “Then why won't you protect me?”
His face transforms with sudden anger. “I would lay my life down for you, mistress.” Mitchell uses the ancient words of his kind, the undead, his lips twisting with the irony of the comment. “I will not commit to anything that will hurt you.”
“How will you loving me, hurt me?”
His thumb sweeps down and caresses my jaw. “I am yours without sex, Deegan. Why add that? I'm dead.”
I take his hands in mine, and our knitted hands rest between our chests, though my hands land on his flat belly.
“I don't want anyone else,” I say in a low voice, “and if
something happens to you, they won't hurt me if I'm pregnant. They can't use my talent against me.”
“Newsflash... I don't think I have any live ones swimming around.” His ebony eyebrows rise.
I tell him about Uncle Clyde.
“He has kids? Like live kids?”
I muffle my laugh with my hands, nodding quickly at his shocked expression.
“Well, hell, that's something.”
“It is.”
“Do you want to be a mom?” He gently cages my face with his hands and I fold my smaller hand over his larger one and nod.
“I know what not to do. And considering that my life's in jeopardy—yes. Also, there isn't a girl alive in my time that doesn't dream of being a woman who can have a baby. It's our reality.”
I catch his frown even in the near-dark of the hallway. “I don't want to have you raising a child by yourself.”
I smile. “I won't be.”
Mitchell gathers me close, snuggling me in against his huge frame. “I would never willingly leave you, Deegan.” He smooths my hair back. “You gotta know that.”
I know. His emotions are so strong, I can feel them like an echo through our death bond.
I have to know. “Do you think you'd want me if I weren't a corpse-raiser?” I whisper.
Mitchell pulls away again, gazing deeply into my eyes. Slowly, he nods. “I thought you were beautiful from the minute I laid eyes on you. Sure, I've got that pull because you raised me. I mean”—he shrugs—“I guess that's what it is. But as a man...” He touches his chest lightly. “I saw you as a woman. I was pretty fucking crestfallen when I found out you were sixteen.”
“Well, I'm seventeen now. A year past emancipation.”
He nods. “Yeah. It's taking some getting used to for me. Girls in this time seem older. I mean—hell—Tara's older than you, but she doesn't have that sad knowledge in her eyes that I see in yours.”
Time halts, our breaths mingling.
Then I rise on my tiptoes, arms twining around his neck. His body is stiff when I softly press my lips to his.
My lips move over his mouth for a solid half minute before, with a soft groan, Mitchell wraps me in his embrace.
His tongue enters my mouth, and I sigh with anticipated pleasure.
Mitchell scoops me up next. “Where?” His breaths are short.
I tell him. Pretty sure no one will be in the attic.
He takes me there.
*
Carefully, Mitchell arranges me on a partially deflated air mattress.
“When it was too cold in autumn, Gramps would have me and Pax sleep up here where the heat of Indian summer still hung out.”
Mitchell nods, his eyes running over me.
I realize what I like best about him. He's not a chatty guy. He's deep.
He says what needs to be said, leaving pockets of quiet between our words.
As Mitchell sheds his shirt, I gaze up at his naked chest. The dog tags glint in the waning moonlight seeping through an old-fashioned skylight.
“You ever been with a guy?” he asks abruptly.
I laugh, heat infusing my face. “Ah, that's a negative.”
He winces. “So even worse, you're a virgin too. Heap on the guilt, Deegan.”
I sit up, palms flat against the bouncing mattress. “You're the only one who can make yourself feel guilty, Mitchell.” I touch my chest between my breasts. “I want this—us. I have from the beginning.”
His eyes flick to mine and stay there. “Really? It's not some zombie-AftD bond?”
I shake my head, but admit, “Probably some. We can't separate the bond totally. But I sure didn't feel like this when I raised other dead people.” I repress a shudder.
Not. At. All.
“Nobody knows for sure, but I think who someone is when they die matters. If it didn't, then why have I been cursed with only raising people who murdered?”
Mitchell's face bleeds to sober, and I hasten to take away the hurt that I see hovering at the edges.
He leans down inches from my face.
I press my fingers to his lips. “What I said so badly a sec ago is that these feeling are unique to me and you; they're real enough. It's almost like we were meant to be.”
His smile is rueful. “Your dad and Pax don't think so.”
With a little shrug, I say, “I don't know what guy my dad or Pax would have approved of. And you being dead doesn't help our case.”
A tiny smile curves his lips. “Probably. But I'm not some loser. I'd make an honest woman out of you.”
I don't understand the expression. “I am honest. In all things. I don't lie. Besides, I have a telepathic brother.”
Mitchell ducks his head, and I feel a vague sense of embarrassment. I sit up on my knees and take one of his hands that hangs loose by his side as he kneels in front of the makeshift bed.
“What's wrong?”
His steady, deep-blue eyes that are nothing more than a shadow in the gloom of the attic meet mine. “What I meant is I'd marry you, Deegan Hart.”
Lifting his hand, I lay my face against it and whisper, “You don't have to do that. This is enough.”
Mitchell draws me into his arms. “Not for me.”
*
His big body is stretched out beside mine, feet dangling off the end. “Were you always this big?”
Mitchell laughs, drawing his fingers up my bare side and making me shiver.
“Not when I was a kid. My dad was tall. Danish blood,” he says simply.
“No genetic talk,” I reply, grabbing his hand before his light touch turns from sexy to ticklish.
His head kicks back with another laugh. “I gotcha. Grandpa is a big-wig gene guy.”
I nod. “Yeah. Heard a lot about genes growing up. Sooo done with it.”
He rolls over, still wearing his underwear, and lays a leg over mine. Trapping me.
My heart speeds.
“I'm scared.”
His serious eyes meet mine. “We don't have to. I've made my thoughts on everything crystal clear.”
I nod quickly. “I'm a girl. I know it'll hurt. I'm intimidated because I don't know anything—and I know everything.”
“Shh, Deegan.” He rolls over the rest of the way, splitting my legs with a gentle knee and placing his elbows at either side of my face. “You told me it's impossible for me to hurt you.”
I nod. I know this—in my head.
My heart quakes with my uncertainty. What if Mitchell decides I'm stupid? Or not good enough? Or—
“Stop thinking.” He smooths the furrow between my brow with the pad of his thumb. “Let's just kiss and begin from there.”
“You've done it before?”
“Sure.”
“Sure?”
He nods and smiles. “I'm older, and with all that happened, I wasn't really gunning for a relationship.” Mitchell goes in for a kiss.
Wet, long and deep, it takes everything from me. My thoughts, my doubts.
His large hands cup my face as he slowly lowers some of his body weight on me. “I am now,” he whispers.
Gunning for me, I think and giggle.
“Stop laughing, or I'll get a complex.”
My eyes travel his lean and muscular physique, latching on to what makes him male.
Don't think he could ever have a legit complex. Mitchell is mouthwatering.
He must see something in my expression as I stare at what's between his powerful hips. “Forget it. That's for later. Just kiss me, Deegan.”
“Okay,” I whisper, meeting his eyes a second before I close my own.
Mitchell kisses me until I don't care... about anything.
*
“What...” I put a halting hand on his head. “What are you doing?”
His nose is at my navel, and my lips are swollen from our kissing. His fingers are rimming the edge of my panties. Mitchell rolls his eyes up to meet mine. “Going to kiss you.”
“We already did a lot of that.”
I see the blush, even in the swollen murk of the space. Mitchell moves his jaw toward my vagina. “Down here.”
Oh my God, thank everything in the universe I showered forever. And shaved.
“Ah—why?” I say, a little breathlessly
Mitchell shifts uncomfortably. “I know girls like it.” His eyes shift away for a moment then come back to mine. “I like doing it. To you.” His voice has gone low with some emotion I can't quite identify.
He seems so uncertain, so vulnerable. “Okay.” I bite my lip. “You're not going to hurt me?”
Mitchell flinches. “Hell no, Deegan, it's about your pleasure. All normal guys want that. To see a woman like what they do to her.”
I lie back down, my fingers still on his head.
When he goes lower and moves my panties, my breaths freeze at what his tongue does.
He separates the folds of my sex and circles my clit with his tongue.
“Ah,” I say at the hot wetness of the sensation. So this is what all the fuss is about.
“Feel good?” he murmurs softly against my flesh.
“Ah-huh.”
He goes lower with his tongue, pushing my thighs apart with his big hands and finding my center with his mouth.
Mitchell kisses me with deliberate care, a wet press of lips. Delicious pressure surges inside me, running to the surface of my body like molten lava.
“I feel...”
“Good?” he asks. “More?”
“Yes,” I turn my head, tugging on his hair, which he ignores. Many kisses follow the first, and when his finger presses the sensitive nub of my flesh, I arch.
“Please,” I cry out.
His finger slides inside, finding my barrier, and that sweet pressure explodes around his seeking digit. Pulsing flows out from the deepest part of me and engulfs Mitchell's finger. He rides the sensation, gently pushing in and out.
“Ah!” I say louder than I should, falling to lazy pieces on the bed. “That was amazing.”
His head jerks up, and a grin slides into place. “Told ya. And I won't be insulted by how surprised you sound.”
I try to feel embarrassed that Mitchell's face is between my legs, but the look he gives me melts me on the spot.
His expression is somewhere between adoration and reverence.
“I love you, Deegan Hart.” Mitchell's voice catches softly on my name, and I fight tears. Not sad ones. But hopeful ones.
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