by Libby Drew
Restless, teabag in hand, he paced the kitchen, eye drawn to the trove of interesting items strewn about every spare flat surface. The space reminded him of Cammie’s living room, an eclectic combination of new and old. Snapshots covered the sides of her refrigerator. Young men and women. Small children. With no frame of reference, he had no idea how recent the pictures might be.
A small television, tucked into the corner of a built-in desk, caught his eye. Mindless entertainment would help distract him. He didn’t bother attempting to wake the TV with a verbal command, but snatched up the remote he found on a nearby shelf.
He was fumbling to find the power button when his elbow slipped, knocking something to the carpet. Cursing under his breath, he picked it up.
It was a journal. As soon as he realized that, he ordered his fingers to set it down. But curiosity got the better of him, as it always did. Television forgotten, he sat in the desk chair and opened the notebook to a page near the middle.
Writing filled the narrow lined space. Neat. Precise. Quotation marks caught his eye, breaking every line, a familiar format to anyone who read on a regular basis.
He grinned, flipping one page after another, and soon all thoughts of sleep retreated. Cammie wasn’t your everyday mild-mannered office help. She also liked to write stories. He found himself caught up in the antics of her main character. A P.I. very much like Saul, if he wasn’t mistaken.
Reegan squeezed his eyes shut on that thought. He’d only just managed to banish the man from his mind. Despondent, he closed the journal with a snap and sat slumped over the desk. How the hell would he ever get Saul out of his system?
“Are you going to brew that tea or just fondle it?”
The teabag crunched in Reegan’s fist. Cammie had come up behind him, silent in her fuzzy slippered feet. She’d changed from her tan skirt and print blouse to a long nightgown and robe.
Reegan held the Earl Grey in front of him. It swung from its string in a hypnotizing motion. “I can manage.”
“No thanks. I don’t like strangers fiddling around in my kitchen.” She plucked the teabag from his hands. “I’ll do that.”
Reegan tried not to let his relief show. “If you insist.”
A glass measuring cup appeared in her hand, seemingly by magic, and she filled it from the tap. “I heard the three of you talking before.”
Stomach dropping, Reegan said nothing.
“So I figure you have no idea what you’re doing in here, being from the future and all.”
At this rate, he’d die before he got anywhere near the portal. Just how many people could know about his true origin before the small ripples he was causing in the timeline turned to waves?
“I can generally manage in the kitchen.” For some reason, having Cammie think him inept grated on his nerves. “Have for most of my life.”
She popped the water into the microwave, pressing a series of buttons too fast for Reegan to follow. “My daughter is head chef for some hoity-toity bistro in Chicago. I don’t let her in my kitchen. If she’s not going to cook here, you’re certainly not going to cook here. Deal with it.”
“Making a cup of tea isn’t cooking.”
“I agree. So what sort of kitchen appliances do people have in the year 2145?”
They had one, as a rule. Which, unless one wanted to go vintage, ran strictly on voice commands. “Prepare” and “Reheat” sufficed for most of Reegan’s meals. But this wasn’t the sort of information he should be sharing, no matter how innocent Cammie’s curiosity.
He didn’t need a fancy machine to manage some classic redirection. “Thank you again. For taking us in.”
Cammie’s eyebrows rose above the rims of her glasses.
“You saved us. I’m not even sure you realize that.”
“I realize that.”
The microwave beeped its readiness, and Cammie busied herself with filling a mug with hot water.
Many years had passed since someone had mothered him. Being cared for by another drew a host of feelings to the surface. Cammie’s ministrations differed from the intense, overwhelming feelings Saul’s attention caused. More subtle, though no less attentive, they soothed him.
“You’re good for Saul. You and Silvia.” Cammie delivered this proclamation in a low voice, keeping her words confined to the kitchen. “Silvia, because the poor man is still one giant festering wound over what happened to his sister. This situation might be horrible for her, but it’s helping draw some of that poison to the surface.”
Reegan could appreciate that reasoning. “He’s very protective of her.” Maybe even more so than Reegan himself.
“Is it any wonder?” Cammie clucked her tongue.
“When did Lisa…? When did it happen?”
“A year ago. Less than a week after he left his job with the MPDC.”
Speechless, Reegan gripped the edge of the counter. That kind of double blow would have destroyed a weaker person.
Cammie stared at him over the rims of her glasses. “You, however…”
Bracing himself, because those two words often preceded a thorough verbal beating, Reegan’s breath left him in a surprised rush when Cammie finished her thought.
“You’re the one who’s really helping. I’ve feared his ability to love might be gone forever.”
Suddenly dizzy, Reegan leaned back against the refrigerator.
“But that, apparently, was my mistake.” She presented him the tea, her smile broad.
After a couple of steadying breaths, Reegan took it. “We’re not…”
She waited while the heat from the mug baked his hands. “Not?”
“No.”
They weren’t. Reegan wasn’t. “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it,” he mumbled. He needed to get off his feet before his knees gave out and he ended up wearing Earl Grey. A small banquette took up one corner of the room, and Reegan made for it, balancing the cup in his palms.
“That’s what you do, isn’t it? Tell stories?” Cammie’s body shook with her laughter, and she swatted the words from the air as though they were a bothersome fly. “So you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
He’d forgive her. That’d be easy. Forgiving himself if it turned out he’d fallen in love, that would be more challenging. Was it even possible? “We’ve known each other less than two days.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Cammie squeezed herself into the other seat of the banquette. “I knew within minutes of meeting my husband that we were destined to be together forever. At least until death parted us.”
Leaning over the curtain of steam rising from the cup, Reegan shot her a lopsided smile. “My grandmother said the same thing to me about my grandfather.”
Cammie spread her hands as if to say “See? It can happen.”
Damn. He hadn’t meant to encourage her. “I like him.”
“The sentiment is returned, I assure you.”
“You know Saul pretty well.”
“He’s a sad man. Haunted by more demons than is strictly fair.” She punctuated each word with a sharp poke of her finger.
Filling his mouth with scalding tea might be a more attractive idea than dashing her hopes. “There’s no future for us, Cammie. It’s impossible.” Giving voice to the truth he’d been trying not to think about turned his stomach. He pushed the tea away. “I wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Won’t. If you were listening, then you already know. I can’t stay here. I have to go back.”
Cammie blinked like a wise owl. “Take him with you.”
The pain hit him hard, squeezing his throat closed. “I can’t.”
“He’s got nothing left here since that bastard partner of his betrayed him and he lost Lisa. Nothing worth holding on to, or at least he believes. I fear for him sometimes, that so little tethers him to the world of the living.”
Reegan had nursed a few of those own fears himself since me
eting Saul. The man’s business wouldn’t last the year. Maxie had said so. The dark possibilities behind that failure haunted Reegan’s thoughts.
“Cammie, it’s not that I don’t want to be with him.” He craved that more than anything. At the end, however this situation ended, Saul would be the most brutal loss of all. “It’s physically impossible. He can’t travel back with me.”
A shuffle of footsteps in the doorway warned Reegan of Saul’s presence before he ever spoke. “Why not?”
Reegan floundered. “Saul…”
Cammie wiggled off the bench when the silence became awkward. “I’m going to bed. Try to keep it down, boys. That girl needs some sleep.”
Reegan didn’t fool himself into thinking that all of a sudden she respected their privacy. She was fleeing, and he didn’t blame her. He waited, hunched over his mug, until Saul appeared in his peripheral vision, standing rigidly at his shoulder.
Reegan reached back, connecting with Saul’s hip. “Sit down. We need to talk.”
He sensed the usual sarcastic quip on the tip of Saul’s tongue. Or maybe he’d become so used to his responses, the conversation seemed to require it. What they were about to discuss required a touch of levity, so when Saul bit down on his response and sat as ordered, Reegan grieved the loss.
“I’ve been thinking about it. Going back with you.”
Leave it to Saul not to pull any punches. Or to home in on the one topic certain to drive a wedge between them. Reegan hadn’t been thinking about it, except in fantasy, because that would be the only way it could ever happen.
He had to physically push the words out. “You can’t. I’m sorry. It’s impossible.”
“Because I’m from this time.”
Reegan gave a sharp nod.
“It’s never done?”
“It’s been tried. Around the time of the technology’s birth. I don’t fully understand it, but I’m well versed in the consequences.” He darted a glance at Saul’s face, unsurprised to see it blank and unreadable. “It’s connected to why travel into the future is still experimental. It sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it, if the dimension of time truly is a loop? But the initial trials ended mostly in tragedy. People were sent into the future to never return.”
“None returned?”
“A few did. And it baffled everyone because probes sent to the future returned just fine. It’s the people who gum up the works.”
Saul folded his fingers under his chin and stared into the distance. “But that’s not exactly what we’re talking about here. Our situation is a little different.”
“Technically it is, but to satisfy your unanswered question, they’ve tried it this way too.”
“This way?”
“Sent travelers back in time to bring people from the past into the present.”
“Same results?”
“Yes. It doesn’t always end in tragedy. On rare occasions, it works. They have no idea why some people arrive safely in the future and others don’t. There are theories, of course. Most of those are mystical in nature.”
“All science starts that way,” Saul intoned. “So.” He shifted in his seat, gaze pinned on Reegan’s face. “What happens to them? Do they just bounce back to where they belong?”
If only they did. Nobody would suffer more than a bumpy ride. “No. They disappear in the portal. Teams sent back to look for these volunteers never find a trace of them, in their time or ours. They simply…vanish.”
Saul looked to be carved from marble, he was so still. “I see.”
“I won’t take that risk with you.”
“No.” Saul’s nostrils flared on a deep inhalation. When he exhaled, the tension left with the air. He sagged against the back of the bench. “I know you won’t.”
Not I won’t. The deliberate wording gave Reegan a chill. It crawled up his spine to settle in the base of his skull. He’d known they’d been enjoying each other on borrowed time. Now Saul knew it as well. The final piece of information revealed.
Reegan curled his hands around the cup to disguise their trembling. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.” Saul rose stiffly and walked away. Reegan heard the door to the bathroom open and close.
He took up his teabag, dunking it several times before he blew out a disgusted breath and pushed the mug away. He couldn’t leave things like this. Screw the universe and its strange workings. He wasn’t leaving until they touched one last time.
Six steps brought him to the bathroom door. He knocked and waited. Saul’s voice sounded thin and tired when he answered. “Yeah?”
“It’s me.” No need to go into any more detail than that. About who he was or what he wanted. They’d crossed that bridge ages ago.
“Come in.”
Reegan entered, expecting Saul’s posture to reflect his voice. He’d envisioned him slumped over the sink, head hanging between his shoulders. The physical manifestation of everything Reegan had been feeling.
He got everything he didn’t expect, including a strong arm grabbing him around the waist before he’d even crossed the threshold. Saul spun him. Butted the door closed and pinned him against it, breathing heavily against the back of his neck. Reegan’s insides went from lukewarm to burning in the space of three seconds.
Saul didn’t speak. Just nuzzled, but not gently, scraping his cheek and chin on Reegan’s skin with enough pressure to redden it. Caught up in the sensations rocketing between his neck and groin, Reegan almost missed his anguished, broken words. “Do we really have the time for this?”
“I’m making time, damn it.” Reegan tried to turn, but Saul held him fast. “Ease up. I’m here now.” He tested Saul’s hold again. “Come on. I want to kiss you.”
That helped. The iron grip around his stomach eased, and Reegan wiggled around until his back was to the door and they were pressed chest to chest. He didn’t struggle for control, letting Saul take the reins.
Saul’s lips crashed over his, thumping Reegan’s head back against the wood. Insistent fingers worked the buttons of his jeans. Reegan didn’t interfere. He cupped his palms over Saul’s waist and let the man work.
“Get that off,” Saul growled, glaring at Reegan’s T-shirt. His eyes held a sheen of moisture that Reegan tried not to think about too much. He stripped the shirt over his head as ordered and let Saul peel his pants down past his thighs. Only then did Saul pause, breath whistling through his nose as he stared.
His voice, when he spoke, trembled, words shattering as though they were a bottle of vodka crashing to the floor. “I want you,” he whispered.
Reegan cupped his face, lifting his chin so that their eyes met. He stroked his thumb over one sharp cheekbone. “So have me.”
“I didn’t—I don’t have anything.”
“There has to be something here.” He leveraged Saul backward against the sink top, rummaging through the plastic bottles lined up against the mirror. “Here.” He tossed a bottle of hand cream at Saul. “It might smell like flowers.”
Saul didn’t look to care, dropping it into the sink with a grunt of acknowledgment, before turning back with another searching gaze. It took Reegan several seconds to discern the look of expectancy. “We don’t need one.”
The struggle in Saul’s expression was plain. “Another benefit to living in the future?”
“It’s a plus, yeah.”
Saul hesitated, though his body wasn’t happy about it. Muscles taut, he vibrated with longing. Reegan reached to slip the buttons on Saul’s jeans, feeding that desire as much as he dared while the other man battled his misgivings.
Saul finally spoke as Reegan pushed his jeans down past his hips. “I’ve never…”
Reegan worked a translation as slid his own pants the rest of the way off and scooted backward onto the marble vanity. He pulled Saul between his spread legs. The man knew how to fuck, so that wasn’t it. That he’d proved. “Never?”
“Without protection.”
Ah. The condom hadn’t been
unpleasant, but Reegan couldn’t imagine having that barrier between himself and his lover on a regular basis. Yet those were the times Saul lived in. The opportunity to give him more this once stirred Reegan’s lust to even greater heights.
“Then let me show you what it’s like.” He urged Saul out of his pants and jerked the T-shirt over his head, leaving him naked. Cammie’s parting words rang in his head. “We need to be quiet.”
Rather than answer, Saul reached past him and flicked a switch on the wall. A low drone filled the air as the exhaust fan roared to life. “Now come here,” he ordered.
Little about this encounter would be soft or tender. Saul wouldn’t draw it out. His body language indicated that ability was beyond him, and Reegan knew he wasn’t far behind. Still, he’d try to start slow. He drew Saul close for a heated kiss, frotting against him with lazy thrusts.
Saul endured the slow pace for a few minutes before yanking Reegan off the counter and spinning him around. He buried his face in Reegan’s neck and rutted against his ass in quick, sharp movements. A thin coat of perspiration made the drag of his cock against Reegan’s cleft maddening. Waiting became torture. He scrabbled for the hand cream, unable to hold back a frustrated keen when it kept sliding out of his grip.
Saul lifted his head at the sound, pupils flaring at the sight of Reegan straining for the bottle. He surged to grab it first, then leaned back to place a firm but trembling hand on Reegan’s back. “Reegan?”
“It’s okay.” He knew that tone. That question. “No need to be gentle.”
He wasn’t gentle, starting with two well-coated fingers. Reegan hissed in air, then let it out, releasing what tension he could. Saul’s fingers sank deeper, and he gave an appreciative groan. Slippery hands pushed his legs even further apart, and Reegan obliged, bending further over the sink top. The fingers rotated, then retreated, and Reegan groaned at the sudden emptiness. “Come on. More.”
The words were still echoing in the air when he felt the thick, blunt tip of Saul’s cock at his entrance. Saul bent over his back, setting his forehead between Reegan’s shoulder blades, his body a mass of quivering need. “I’m sorry. I can’t wait.”