Storm Front: NA Fantasy/Time Travel (Tesla Time Travelers Book 3)
Page 19
“Every time, Evy,” he whispers, crushing me to him. “Every time.”
I kiss him with abandon and for the desperate confirmation I haven’t lost him. I still don’t have my own home to go to, and I’d like to stay here until I can find a new place to live, but while I love Constantine’s small, cozy place—The one where we’ve shared so much, learned about each other, the only place in the world where I’ve exposed any vulnerability, there’s one other place I need to be.
For the immediate future, I want to prove I’ve learned from my biggest—and worst—mistake. I take Constantine’s hand and loop lighting around us, immediately taking him back to Papi’s so I can ensure every single member of my family is safe.
We arrive in the kitchen and the mood is better than when I left. Ilif’s showered, or gone and come back. His face still looks like shit and his shirt’s seen better days, but I’m glad he’s here. He greets Constantine warmly and they shake hands. Mami’s cooking and eagerly kisses Constantine on both cheeks. Other than the time-traveling, Roman-warrior bits, it’s a normal evening.
I relax and sit on a stool. We’re all here, I’ve managed not to endanger any of them, or lose a single one—It’s been a long damn day.
Papi leans over and claps Constantine on the shoulder. “Maybe take her to bed, eh?”
He nods solemnly and picks me up, cradling me against his chest. I direct him toward my room and he manages not to be completely stunned at the size or softness of the bed as we crawl in.
I’m too tired to undress, so Constantine does it for me, leaving my T-shirt and panties on before ridding himself of his own clothes. Tucked tightly behind me, he holds me like he’s never going to let me go and I sigh, relaxing into him. Safe. We’re all safe.
We sleep like the dead… For a while…
I wake in a panic, freaking out about the torture device strapping me down, then I slowly recall the events and turn in Constantine’s arms. He’s awake and watching me. I trail my fingers across his face. “You could have died.”
He kisses my fingertips. “I would not have wanted to live had your sister perished.”
My eyes water at the thought of losing her and my throat constricts. No one understands the depth of my love and connection to my family like he does, but he wasn’t supposed to give his own life for hers. “Thank you,” I whisper as tears slide to the pillow. “But losing you would have destroyed me.” I swallow and force the words. “Did destroy me.” The agony of it is so fresh it steals my breath. I sniff as a new wave of tears overtakes me. “Every time I come home without you, not knowing whether you’re alive or dead…”
“I know.” He traces the line of my nose, then brushes his fingers across my cheeks. “It is the same for me. Being apart from you is my greatest torture.”
“But when we’re together, I can’t protect my family.” I don’t want to have to choose. Too many bad things have happened when I’ve stolen this time with him and I can’ t take not being with him. He’s the other half of me whether in battle, or strategy, or here, in bed.
“We are all together now. And under my protection.”
I give him a watery smile and he traces my lips. For now, that’s enough and I can’t rob today of its pleasure by worrying about what tomorrow has in store for us. My tongue darts out and touches the tip, then he presses it across my teeth and inside. I suck it and watch the desire bloom in his eyes. He shifts our legs and presses his thigh between mine, sliding it higher until it rubs against me. I bite him. Now I’m done scolding him, maybe I can show him glad I am he’s alive.
And mine.
I roll on top of him and pull my T-shirt off. He rubs my thighs and hooks his fingers in my panties and gives them a hard tug. The fabric ribs and he eases the thin barrier from between our bodies. My lids flutter as his skin warms against mine and I move against him. His hands travel across my body, reading my curves by touch. I’ve missed this and can’t seem to get enough; my palms caress the breadth of his chest, relishing the luxury of our open-ended schedule. No one is here to interrupt us, nothing is going to blow up, or die, or attack us. If I wanted to explore every inch of him, I could.
And I do. Oh, I do.
I reach over and flick the button on my iPod, drenching us in sexy, pounding music. He jumps and I laugh, then he relaxes, overcome by his own desire, dragging his fingers across my thighs and tugging me back on top of him, but I’m not ready yet. For once, I get to take my own sweet time in loving this man. This man who’s given me everything at the highest cost to himself. I refuse to take any second with him for granted, most certainly not when I have a million of them at my disposal. I’m in no hurry to be anywhere but right here.
I kiss the scar on his collarbone, then the one on his shoulder, traveling lower, kissing my way across his pecs and lower… lower, brushing my mouth across each one of his abs, watching them dance in anticipation as my breath touches them a second before my lips do. His fingers unplait my hair and it falls in silken waves across his body. He moans and squirms beneath me, gripping my shoulders and trying to pull me back up so he can have his way with me, but I brush his hands off and pin them to his sides. He lets me, enjoying the sweet, exquisite torture of my lips against his hot skin.
My mouth travels lower and I take him in my mouth, expecting a fierce reaction from him and he does not disappoint, lifting his hips and grabbing a handful of hair. His fingers dig into my shoulders, curling around my neck, tugging my earlobes, and he can only take it for a few minutes, before he flips me over and nestles between my thighs. Desire rips through me and I want him now. He rises above me and I’m caught up in the sight of him, so strong, so protective, so alive. My hands span his chest, then slide higher over his collarbone, cupping his shoulders, then linking behind his neck.
He dips his face and suckles my lower lip drawing it gently into his mouth, then his fingers curl behind the back of my knee and lifts it, wrapping it against his hip. We slide together like we have all the time in the world, and for once, for one blissful reward of all we’ve given, we do. I want to watch him, but as he moves inside me, my orgasm threatens to overwhelm me and my lids flutter closed.
I cling to him, moving my hands and hips and legs in rhythm with his strokes, taking us both higher until I can’t stay grounded in the moment and lose myself to the shattering force of the orgasm. Colors and lights become my reality and we become one, every movement a joining of his time and mine until we’re somewhere of our own making.
In the morning, a soft rap on the door wakes me and before I’m fully awake, Constantine is out of bed and answering bare-assed.
Ilif clears his throat and tries to avert his gaze from Constantine’s naked glory but I laugh at his awful attempt. “A moment with Evy, please.”
Constantine looks over his shoulder and I nod. “We should probably eat, anyway.” I throw on sweats and a top and follow Ilif to the back living room. Constantine stays behind in the kitchen and Papi teaches him about coffee while Mami makes breakfast at the stove. Tiana and the little girls play on the floor. It’s a strangely normal morning and I wonder if this is how it always looked in the homes of the lightning riders who came before us, the ones who knew their place from the very beginning.
Ilif pulls me to the side. “I’ve told you father most of this, but I thought you should know.”
I must still be dreaming. He didn’t really tell me he wanted to keep me apprised of his plan, did he? “Okay.”
“Though your Constantine prevented the explosion of the lab, Penya still managed to destroy much while she set her creative little bombs. She damaged enough in the process it affected the workings of the alterations. In her final act of defiance, she’s destroyed my greatest success.” His mouth turns down and his face crumples like he’s going to cry.
“I don’t know what any of means. Are we grounded or can you figure it out?” I can’t let him sink into another depression like what she did to him before. I swallow and yank on the lapel of his su
it—the left one.
I’d be okay maybe taking a day off. But not forever. Not now I’ve reconciled myself to who I am. I like riding, and yeah, we’ve had some bumps, but I won’t let Penya take it from me, if she managed it in death.
He sighs. “Your father and I talked through many solutions.” He shakes his head.
“We’ll need more help from Tesla?” (something — I cut that )
He smiles tenderly and drops my hand, clasping his own at his waist. “Yes, well, difficult to predict crazy,” he says, bringing my thoughts back around to the ultimate deception. “Penya was always an outlier, and I should have seen it then, but…” He looks away and presses his lips together until they disappear in a single line. “We all have our weaknesses.”
There’s a wistfulness there can only belong to one emotion—one I never thought Ilif capable of. He’s shown me so many sides of him over the last few days… sides I want to know more about because he’s almost tolerable when he’s not a walking douche. But the thought of him being vulnerable and in love… that’s a side I never would have imagined, not until this surge of emotions from him. I narrow my eyes. “You were a thing, weren’t you?”
The muscle in his jaw ticks. “If by thing you mean a beautifully manipulative woman filled with evil and the man she used and destroyed, then yes.”
I wouldn’t have described Penya as beautiful, but perhaps she was someone different when they met… and love sees beauty where others do not. “You loved her. And your wife found out?”
His nod is barely perceptible. I want to feel bad, but I’m also wary of his genius ability to tell me what I need to hear. He knows my buttons and I wouldn’t put it past him to use something like star-crossed love to lure me over to his side. That one never would have worked in the beginning, but now I have such a new understanding of the emotion and the depth of my commitment to the ones I love. It would be a perfect ploy now… but he and I have been through a lot together and I want to believe he can be a good man. Maybe with the tragedy of Penya put to rest, he can finally put his science first again. It’s been a long time since he’s been unencumbered by the oily deceit and lies are unique to jilted lovers.
I will keep this alliance with him, but I’m going in eyes wide open. If he screws me again, it's my own fault, but for now, I’ll see where this goes. Besides, he had me at Nikola. I would give nearly anything to see him again, to spend time in his genius. “What’s next?”
“I’d like to start the program again. It will require a trip back to see Nikola, to explain what happened and to request his assistance with repairs.” He looks at me and my heart leaps. For the first time, I’m torn between leaving with him right now to return to my friend I miss with an ache in my soul, and staying here with the people I love so dearly.
“If you’re willing, is. You, and Vic, and Tiana. Not only will I need your lightning to aid in getting me where I need to go, but I believe there is much good left to do.” He bows his head. “It would be my honor to work alongside you.”
“Alongside?” I can’t help it, but of all the words I thought he’d use to describe how we work together, that’s about a million miles from any guesses I’d have had. I blink back the rush of surprising emotion.
He nods—emphatically this time. “Truly. As partners.” He extends his hand, asking me to seal the deal with a simple handshake. “You’ve earned it.”
Behind me, everyone has come into the room, standing quietly, waiting to see what I’ll do. What would it be like, the three of us—plus my warrior, of course—riding the lightning on an invention crafted by the greatest genius who’s lived? No longer at odds with each other, with our abilities, but embracing it wholly, correctly, purposefully… I’m still not willing to let Ilif micro-manage me, but I have a feeling we can forge an agreeable working relationship.
I meet his gaze, slide my palm against his, and shake. “Deal.”
His grin is genuine and not one I’ve been privy to before now. I think, maybe, Ilif and I have stepped into an entirely new level of trusting each other. Hopefully one won’t get us killed.
There’s a collective sigh and the energy shifts to an excited anticipation.
I let go of Ilif’s hand and turn to them, feeling strangely at peace and whole about what’s next for all of us, together as a team aligned in our focus and desire to change the world as we were meant to.
Once, I thought I’d underestimated everything about Penya. That was never true; only what she wanted me to believe. It was she who underestimated everything about me. I have my team.
A storm is coming.
“When do we start?” Tiana asks.
Thunder rumbles in the distance. I used to be so afraid of storms, of the pain they inflicted in me. But what is pain but information? We can choose to run from it, or we can turn and face it, listen to what it’s telling us, then choose the truth we want to believe. Or we can run from the truth, ignore the pain over and over. Pain only goes away when we face it, when we call it out, when we take what it’s telling us and listen.
A storm is coming.
And not just the one overhead tonight. We’re about to rain one down on history and discover all the truths. Including the ones I wasn’t ready to accept.
END OF BOOK THREE
This adventure is far from over.
The Tesla Time Travelers series was always intended to be more than a trilogy and I’m grateful for every single fan of Evy and Constantine who want to read more. Rest assured, there are many, many more adventures to come for this team.
Now, go tell your friends.
Book Four: Eye Of The Storm
FACT V. FICTION
The trip back to see Nikola in this book was balm to my soul. I’ve missed him. Amazing work is continuing at the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe.
The DNA research for this one was fascinating. There are studies proving that we are capable of changing the sequencing that we start with and there’s more to come of this, I’m sure.
As for parallel universes, there is some amazing new insight that continues to pop up that seems to prove that they exist. I never questioned.