by Libby Drew
“Reegan.”
Saul’s strangled gasp signaled the beginning of the end. Reegan’s arms fell to the bed, and he surrendered, letting Saul drive him to the edge with his deep, desperate movements.
Saul succumbed to his orgasm with sharp snaps of his hips. He growled Reegan’s name, the tone so full of wonder and possessiveness that any hope Reegan had of holding back vanished. He arched up into Saul’s heaving body, coming between them in wrenching pulses.
He’d had sex with a ghost, and nothing in his life had ever felt more real.
*
The cot wasn’t designed for two grown men. Every time Saul shifted behind Reegan, the springs gave an ominous creak. The mattress, as far as he could tell, was stuffed with pea gravel, and it sagged in the middle, squeezing them together. That fact alone made up for the lack of support and the musty-smelling pillow Saul had produced from the closet. Pleasantly buzzed, sated, Reegan dozed, hypnotized by Saul’s fingers drifting over his hip and down the outside of his thigh.
He could have slept that way, and slept well, but Saul’s warm fingers disappeared and he spoke in Reegan’s ear. “What is this woman to you?”
Christ, he didn’t want to have this conversation now. Reegan cleared his throat and tucked his face into the pillow. “An old friend.” The closer he stuck to the truth, the better. And Silvia was an old friend, of sorts. “We haven’t seen each other in a while. Tonight was the first time in years.” The first time he’d thought of her in years. So why the pull of attachment and loyalty? Reegan still couldn’t figure that out.
“You said something about her having a fight with her husband.”
That tone in Saul’s voice. Reegan didn’t trust it. “Yeah.”
“Did he hurt her?”
The question had been growled, a definite threat. If Reegan admitted he thought D’arco was abusing his wife, Saul might be more willing to help. On the other hand, he could make a lot of trouble for them all by getting more involved than necessary. “I’m not sure. I won’t know until I find her.”
“But you suspect.”
He wasn’t going to let it go. Damn it. “I do, but it’s all circumstantial, and I’ll be honest. The woman I knew wouldn’t have put up with that.” Just saying it made him feel better, but Saul’s bitter laugh made him jump.
“They never think they’ll put up with it. And then they do.”
Before Reegan could decipher that, Saul hauled himself over the side of the cot. Instantly, Reegan felt colder, more alone. Saul’s had been a special comfort in light of the coming trouble. “Where are you going?”
Saul raised an eyebrow as he pulled his jeans over his hips. “Did you think either of us would be able to sleep crushed together like that?”
Yes. Reegan clamped his mouth shut before the embarrassing admission drove a wedge between them. Free to stretch out, he rolled onto his back. His cheek throbbed, and he gave the bandage a tentative tap.
“Does it hurt?” Saul stood over the bed, hands on hips. The sharp bites Reegan had left on his neck were clearly visible. They gave him a perverse sense of satisfaction.
“Do those?”
Saul’s look of confusion cleared when Reegan pointed. The line of his shoulders softened. “No, not at all.”
Damn that voice. Reegan wanted to tug him right back down onto the cot, saggy mattress be damned. How unfair. It wasn’t often he found a compatible lover, who knew just how much to touch and take. To find it here, in the past, where there was no hope of a future… He probably deserved it.
Saul stepped close, and Reegan met his hand when he reached out. The touch sent lust zinging from his fingers to his core. He pulled gently. “Come back.”
Saul struggled with it. Reegan saw it in the smile he swallowed and the way his body leaned toward the bed. “It’s almost dawn.”
How that mattered Reegan had no idea. He clamped his fingers around Saul’s and tugged.
Still, Saul resisted, although real regret laced his voice. “Thought you were in a hurry to find this girl.”
Conflicted, Reegan loosened his hold, and Saul retreated across the room. A tactical retreat. Reegan still wanted to slide those jeans back down Saul’s hips, and the feeling was obviously mutual. He laced his treacherous hands behind his head. “Yeah, I am.”
“Then we should get a few hours of sleep.”
“Yeah.” The word tasted sour.
Saul flicked off the small lamp, throwing the room into darkness. “I’ll just be on the other side of that door. Knock if you need anything.”
Reegan nodded, a gesture he realized too late Saul wouldn’t see in the dark. But before he could speak, Saul disappeared, closing the door behind him.
Reegan turned onto his side, cradling his aching cheek against his palm. As exhausted as he was, the minutes stretched without the sweet of oblivion of sleep. “Where the hell are you, woman?”
The clock was ticking. The incident tonight proved it. Hit by a stray bullet of all things. His interference was seriously screwing with the timeline, and Silvia couldn’t be faring any better. What if she died before Reegan got to her? The thought set his head pounding in concert with his cheek. Saul was a bright spot in this mess, but Reegan was starting to suspect even mind-blowing sex wouldn’t stop what waited for him on the other side of the portal.
Beyond the door, Saul moved around the office. He wasn’t sleeping either, and talk of Silvia, of her husband in particular, had given him a haunted look. A connection existed there. Not a good one. Reegan ran his palm over his uninjured cheek and massaged the base of his neck, but it didn’t ease the dull pounding.
He’d just have to wait until morning. Let events unfold and fly by the seat of his pants. Never before had the prospect felt so daunting.
Chapter Seven
“Oh my,” a woman’s voice said. “Aren’t you yummy looking?”
The appreciation and hunger in the tone, as well as the smell of fresh baked goods, made Reegan’s stomach growl loudly. He didn’t want to count the hours since his last meal. The promise of food made him crack an eye open, then immediately shut it against the blinding light.
“Are you okay, young man?”
She had to mean him, but more than a decade had passed since someone had called him young. And what was she doing in his apartment?
“Dim lights eighty percent,” he pleaded with a whimper.
“That’s the sun, my dear. I don’t have the power to turn it down.”
Memories from the past day rushed in. Reegan shot straight up in bed, eyes blinking past the bright light to focus on the tiny elderly woman sitting a few feet away at the desk.
Not his apartment. Saul’s office, over a hundred years in the past. He pulled in a deep breath, then another. “I’m still alive.”
“Indeed you are, handsome. Rough night?” The woman pushed a white box across the desk, string still hanging from the sides. “Try one of these. Guarantee they’ll take care of that hangover.”
“I don’t have a hangover.”
“Of course you don’t. Stay away from the nut roll. It’s a bit doughy.”
She walked around the desk to plunk the bakery box into his lap, which was thankfully still sheet-covered, then settled back into her seat. Thick bifocals hung from a jeweled cord around her neck, and she hummed as she sliced open mail with a letter opener.
Reegan blinked at the doughnut box, distracted by the warmth he felt leaking through the bottom. Curious, he peeked beneath the lid. “They’re covered in sugar.”
“Indeed they are.”
“Real sugar, like from sugar cane?”
She looked up from the mail, offering a patient smile. “What other kind is there?”
Synthetic, of course. “Unbelievable,” he murmured, digging into the box. The mosaic virus had made mass-produced cane unviable since 2089. Some was still grown and harvested in sealed greenhouses. Not enough to satisfy demand or make it an affordable substance for Reegan.
Sweet
Jesus, one of the perfect puffy rings was covered in the stuff. He shoved it in mouth, groaning in bliss when it crunched between his teeth. The last time he’d tasted real sugar had been…he couldn’t remember when.
“Would you like your shirt, dear?”
Reegan froze, mouth full of sweet pastry, then swallowed past a dry throat. Saul had lent him a T-shirt last night, but they’d gotten distracted before he’d had a chance to put it on. He had no idea where the garment had ended up.
In fact, the only thing between him and Grandma at the moment was a thin sheet and a box of donuts. He stopped himself, barely, from dropping his eyes to look for bruises or bite marks. Saul hadn’t been gentle. “Yes?”
Her mouth spread into a wide smile. “You don’t sound sure.”
He scowled at her grin. “Yes, I’d like my shirt.” The one on the floor by her desk would be nice. It looked like the one Saul had given him.
The woman homed in on it like a bloodhound and snatched it off the floor. “This one? It’s Saul’s favorite, by the way.”
Okay, now she was playing him. “That works. Thanks.”
She balled it up and lobbed it in a graceful arc. It landed in his lap, and the woman breezed by his cot to rap lightly on the inner office door. “Saul? Your friend is awake.”
Reegan shoved the doughnut into his mouth and shouldered into the shirt. Just in time. The door swung open to reveal his host, hair squashed flat on one side and sticking straight out on the other. He wore the same pair of jeans he’d had on last night when he disappeared behind the door. Wide, confused eyes grew sharper by the second. “He’s not a friend. He’s a…”
The lady leaned forward. “A…?”
This should be interesting. Reegan dropped back onto his elbows and munched on his doughnut.
The woman lowered her face so her glasses slid down her nose. Saul had several inches on her, but he stuttered like a schoolboy until the woman sniffed and turned away. “Never mind. I don’t need to know.”
Reegan snorted sugar.
“Cammie.” Saul’s voice sounded thin and lost. “This is Reegan. And yes, he’s a friend.”
The admission, though no doubt said to appease Cammie, made Reegan’s insides do a flip. In more sane circumstances, Saul was the type of man Reegan would have happily called friend.
“I thought I told you to take the day off.” Saul ventured into the room, scratching at his stomach. Reegan followed the motion of his fingers while he reached for another doughnut.
Cammie wielded the letter opener like a pro, slicing through one envelope after another as if both Saul and Reegan were invisible, and after a tired roll of his eyes, Saul scooped Reegan’s pants off the floor and tossed them over. “Feel like a shower?”
It would be nice. Or he could walk around smelling like sex all day. That didn’t sound half bad, though he wouldn’t be able to concentrate for shit. “Sure.” Rather than don the pants, he scooted to the edge of the bed and wrapped the sheet around his waist. He crossed the room with as much dignity as possible, leaving the box of heaven behind, and Saul swung the office door closed, pointing Reegan toward the bathroom.
“Take your time.”
It didn’t sound like a suggestion. Cammie was doing her best to look innocent, but Reegan suspected that as soon as he made himself scarce, she was going to get a tongue-lashing. He snagged a belt loop on Saul’s pants before he could escape. “Is that your mom or something?”
“Funny. Is there anything you need?”
“How about some company?” His sleep-deprived brain was clinging to the memory of how their bodies felt sliding together, and those heady impressions outweighed any rational arguments. His skin stung in places where Saul’s blunt fingernails had caught. A light, rosy rash was sprinkled over his chest, courtesy of Saul’s stubbled cheeks. The man liked to nuzzle. He knew if he checked, he’d find more evidence. Finger-shaped bruises across his hips and bite marks along the line of his throat. Remembering how they got there fired him up all over again. “Does your shower hold two?”
“It barely holds one.” Saul tempered the rejection with a soft smile, the first Reegan had seen that didn’t carry anger or sadness of some sort.
“Damn.” Unable to control himself, Reegan set a hand against Saul’s chest, caressing the sleep-warm skin. The touch sent shivers down his arm.
“Yeah.” Saul’s rough voice complemented the flare of lust in his eyes. “Some other time.” He took a purposeful step back, and Reegan let him go. Gaze burning, Saul crossed into the outer office. His shadow loomed on the other side of the glass, then turned so Reegan could see he’d crossed his arms over his chest. The woman said something. It came through as little more than indistinguishable murmurs to Reegan’s ears, and Saul answered. “Let it go, Cammie.”
Grinning, Reegan made for the bathroom, clutching his sheet in one hand and the remnants of his doughnut in the other. The small tan tiles that covered the floor felt like ice against his bare feet. Hissing, he tiptoed to the pedestal sink and stared into the mirror. He needed a shave, but would bet all of Maxie’s petty cash that he wouldn’t be getting one. The invention of sonics was a decade away, and he’d never used an actual metal blade on his face.
It didn’t seem wise to make a try of it this morning either.
Reegan shuddered. As much as he loved the past, and this time period in particular, the savageness of its everyday rituals boggled his mind. He poked around the small sink, finding little more than a toothbrush standing upside down in a used Dixie cup.
Now that was something he needed and felt competent to handle. As long as he could find another one hanging around somewhere. He ducked, peering under the sink. No hidden storage there. The only other fixtures in the bathroom were an evil-looking hook hanging halfway out of the drywall, a white shower curtain, and a small stack of clean towels piled on the back of the commode.
His eyes wandered back to the mirror. Ah, of course. He cleared his throat. “Open.”
Water dripped from the showerhead. The mirror didn’t open. Reegan scowled at it. Saul hadn’t struck him as the type of person to have an etiquette package on his appliances. “Please open.” Nothing. Who password-protected their toothpaste? Irritation seeped in, finally ousting the stubborn fog of lust he’d woken in. He turned and yanked the door open.
Saul stood on the other side, head tilted, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Who are you talking to?”
Reegan turned and pointed at the mirror, only to have his brain catch up to his mouth just in time. He let his arm fall to his side. “No one.”
He endured Saul leaning around to peer behind him. “Everything okay?”
“Of course. Do you by chance have an extra toothbrush?”
Saul gave a slow nod, bemused gaze locked on Reegan. “I was thinking you might want one. I always keep one or two extras.” Reaching out, he touched his index finger to the mirror and pushed. Reegan heard a click, and the mirror popped open, revealing the shelving behind it. Saul plucked a packaged toothbrush from the top shelf and held it out.
A pressure latch. How quaint. Delighted, Reegan shut the cabinet, then carefully used his finger to push against the glass. The cabinet popped open. Grinning, he snatched the toothbrush from Saul. “Very interesting.”
Saul’s gaze panned between the mirror and Reegan. “If you say so. There’s a razor there, if you want one.”
Reegan eyed the molded plastic instrument with distrust. “Better not risk it.”
Saul swallowed the last of the jelly doughnut he’d been holding, leaving behind a spot of red at the corner of his mouth. His posture had shifted from amused to wary. “Where did you say you were from?”
Reegan wasn’t a great liar. The intricacies of spy work gave him a headache, and he couldn’t even bluff at poker. In Saul’s line of work, he’d pick up on a blatant untruth in a heartbeat. There was only one solution for a situation like this—distraction. Tossing the toothbrush into the sink behind him, Reegan
dropped his sheet and pushed into Saul’s space. Deliberately, he licked at the spot of stray jam clinging to his lips, then nipped the shell of his ear.
With a gasp, Saul clamped his hands on Reegan’s bare hips, a groan vibrating in his throat. “Didn’t get enough last night?”
Reegan took the question for rhetorical, especially when Saul manhandled him into the small space and shouldered the door closed. With a cheeky grin, Reegan kicked the sheet into a cushy pile and sank to his knees, scratching his fingers over Saul’s stomach and thighs. “Think I owe you a little something.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
Saul had to realize what his noble attitude did to Reegan. There just weren’t that many unselfish people in the world, in any time period. “It’s not a matter of owing. It’s a matter of wanting.” He tickled the skin around Saul’s navel. “Now get ’em off.”
Saul may have been honorable, but he didn’t hesitate once he’d made a decision. He had his pants unzipped and pushed over his hips in short order. No underwear this morning, a fashion decision Reegan had never understood, but one he was coming to appreciate.
He leaned in, running his cheek along the heated shaft. “Good morning.”
“It is.” Saul’s smile still held a hint of amusement, though his gaze had grown soft. Affectionate. Reegan’s heart stood up and took notice of that. His brain sent out a cursory warning, but it broke apart under Saul’s wandering hands. They drifted over Reegan’s shoulders and pushed into his hair. “Do I need to say please?”
Reegan might have asked that of some men. In this case, there was no need to beg. “No. Just try to stay on your feet.”
“Is that a challenge?”
It was now. Reegan’s answer was a long, slow lick up the length of Saul’s erection. There might not be time to stretch this into an hour-long activity, but he wasn’t going to rush either. Not when Saul trembled from trying to keep himself quiet. Drawing out those sounds of pleasure would be a special challenge.