Time Lost

by C. B. Lewis

  Jacob nodded, swallowing hard. Christ, with the break in the case getting him started, and Kit being a filthy little bastard, he wasn’t going to last any time at all. He slid his hands under Kit’s thighs, hauling him up. Kit clung to the back of his neck, panting against his throat, and they both groaned together as he lowered Kit down onto his cock.

  Kit’s thighs were tensing against Jacob’s arms, and his body was clenched tight around Jacob’s cock, and for a moment, it was almost all too much in one go. And then he had to go and make it worse, rocking his hips. He uncurled one hand from the back of Jacob’s neck to slide under Jacob’s shirt and rake his nails up Jacob’s shoulder.

  “Christ!” Jacob panted at the ceiling.

  He felt the laugh against his neck, then Kit lifted his head, that pleased, sleepy smile plastered all over his face as he kept rocking his hips, pushing Jacob deeper. He was right about it feeling bloody kinky. Kit was all tangled bare limbs, and the only places they were skin-to-skin were cock and arse and chest. Kit’s cock was rubbing against him with every rock of his hips, and Jacob was holding on to him, so bloody tight, arse and back, to keep him close, keep him moving.

  Kit kneaded at his shoulders, legs squeezing at Jacob’s ribs. His breathing was still even, and he was moving lazily as if they had all the time in the world, but Jacob could see the flush spreading across Kit’s chest and shoulders. His cock was throbbing against Jacob’s belly, and his lips drew back from his teeth, air hissing between them.

  “Could have done this down the station,” Kit whispered, meeting Jacob’s eyes. “On your desk. Anyone could have come in.” He yelped when Jacob’s hips stuttered against him, but he was grinning. “Ride you hard on that chair.”

  The images were enough to make Jacob pull him closer, harder, trying to kiss him to shut him up, because Christ, he didn’t want to finish like a horny teenager on his first try. Kit tilted his head away, laughing out loud.

  “Tell me you wouldn’t want to,” he challenged. “Bend me over the desk and bugger me with them right outside, knowing we were the ones to solve it.”

  “Kit,” Jacob growled. His fingers were digging into Kit’s back, and he was moving as sharply as Kit was. Both of them were breathing harder now, grabbing at each other, the bed creaking beneath them.

  Kit’s mouth was suddenly close to his ear again, his voice a hot breath. “You did it, y’know. They had no idea. And you… the eye, the time travel, the suspect, the connection.” He dragged his teeth down Jacob’s ear, making hot fire burst through Jacob’s body. “You’re the one who solved this one.” His fingers were tight on the back of Jacob’s neck, like he knew, knew exactly what his words were doing. “You got your—”

  Jacob grabbed Kit’s hair in his fist, pulling his head back hard enough so he could kiss him, his ragged groan spilling into Kit’s open mouth. His hips shuddered and stuttered as he came, panting against Kit’s lips, and he swallowed Kit’s delighted laughter.

  Kit was still moving against him, still hard, still wanting more. Jacob tried to gather his wits, but every time Kit moved, there was a fresh blaze of pleasure and that wasn’t helping. His hand was still on Kit’s arse, though, and he remembered….

  The smack of his palm against Kit’s tightly bunched buttock sounded like a gunshot.

  Kit squeaked, and Jacob laughed so hard it shook them both.

  “Two can play,” he panted.

  Kit leaned in closer, sandwiching his dick between them, and kissed Jacob again. It was softer, teasing flutters of lips, tongue, and teeth. Jacob stroked his backside, and swatted again, playfully, lightly, enough to make his lover shudder against him.

  It was sudden when it came, the urgency forgotten in slow, lazy kisses and gentle pressure. Kit tightened his hands on Jacob’s shoulders and he opened his eyes, staring at him as his cock twitched and spattered cum between them.

  Their lips met again, both of them catching their breath. Jacob could taste the salt of sweat on Kit’s skin, and Kit nibbled his lower lip.

  “I’m keeping you,” Kit said suddenly, his arms tightening around Jacob’s shoulders. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Jacob splayed his hand low on Kit’s back. “Yeah?”

  Kit brushed the tip of his nose against Jacob’s. “Mm-hm. I like your bum.”

  Jacob snorted and tipped them both down to sprawl on the covers, Kit’s legs and arms around him at all angles. “You’re a tit,” he said fondly, wiping at Kit’s chest with his shirt. “And you ruined my good trousers.”

  Kit peered down between their bodies as Jacob got the condom off. “Joint effort there,” he said, smiling as Jacob leaned toward the side of the bed to drop it in the bin. “Looks like we’ll just have to get your clothes off.”

  Jacob laughed. “Ah, I see. Your cunning plan of jizzing all over me suddenly makes sense.”

  Kit tapped the side of his nose. “You’re onto me.”

  Jacob smiled. Maybe his whole world had been turned on its head, but at least he had someone with him who knew what that was like and could still help him to smile through it.

  Together, they got rid of the stained clothes, and Kit draped himself over Jacob, nestling against him. He was quiet, and with the lights down and the silence, Jacob almost thought he was asleep.

  “Jacob?”

  He tilted his head to look down at Kit. “Mm?”

  “I’m serious.” Kit’s blue eyes were uncharacteristically solemn. “I… kind of like you. A lot.”

  Jacob curled his fingers into Kit’s hair, drawing the younger man up to kiss him. “I know,” he murmured. “I like you too.”

  In the half-light from the street outside, Kit beamed like it was Christmas.

  Chapter 50

  SOMETIMES, KIT thought ruefully, a new position and a keen lover were a bad combination.

  Jacob left the hotel room before he did, and so far, no one had said anything as Kit walked into the police station, but he couldn’t help feeling he was doing a pretty good impression of a cowboy. His arse was aching like a bastard, and it was carrying into his legs.

  There was a group of people in the lift when he got in, and he tucked himself as near the door as he could. He leaned against the wall, sipping his coffee and counting down from fifteen. The doors opened just as he reached zero.

  The main room was empty when he entered, so he avoided the amused looks as he waddled to the nearest chair and sat stiffly down. He was early—Jacob and his bloody seven o’clock wake-up jog—and as far as he knew Temple had locked away everything he was meant to be working on.

  He took another sip of his coffee, spinning the chair slowly around with one foot, and glanced up at the incident board.

  He’d never paid much attention to it, not when he knew practically everything that was on it, and probably a few things that weren’t. Something, though, caught his eye. He frowned and set his coffee down on a desk, then got up and approached the board.

  It was a digital board, which meant he could flick the images along, and he leaned closer, examining each one.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Kit yelped in alarm at the voice from behind him. He spun around to see Anton standing in the doorway. The man didn’t look pleased to see him, but that wasn’t a surprise. Even with his discoveries in the eye, he could tell Anton didn’t like him. “What are these meant to be?”

  Anton raised his eyebrows. “I thought you were our technical wizard.” He pulled off his overcoat to hang it on a stand by the door. “Those are what we call ‘hard drives.’”

  Kit looked at him impatiently. “Are you just going to keep on being a tosser or are you going to help me? These hard drives. Are they the ones that were found with the girl? The ones she was meant to have stolen from Tom’s place?”

  “Yeah. We had the pieces digitally reconstructed.”

  Kit looked back up at the board and flicked through the images. “And there’s exactly the right number that were stolen?”

&n
bsp; “According to Mrs. Ashraf, there should have been six. We have the pieces of six.” Anton approached him. “What are you seeing?”

  Kit turned to look at the other man. “These weren’t Tom’s hard drives.”

  Anton was silent for a moment. “You’re sure.”

  “I know the machines Tom worked on.” Kit flicked through them again. “They might have been compatible with the machines he was using, but he wouldn’t have upgraded to this model. When you do work like we do, you don’t buy cheap shit.”

  Anton ran his hand over his eyes. “This is either really good or really bad.”

  Kit retreated to the nearest seat, perching on it gingerly. “You mean that Tom’s data is still somewhere out there?”

  “That’s the bad side,” Anton agreed, “but this also means it’s very unlikely she jumped. If she was trying to top herself, why would she take the time to replace the hard drives with fakes and keep one memory drive in her pocket? This means she was put there by someone who didn’t think we’d notice the hard drives were wrong.”

  “If someone still has the drives, though—”

  Anton looked at him. “I don’t think there’s any question of who the someone is.”

  Harper, Kit knew. It was a work of bloody and ruthless stupidity, especially for someone with no idea of the complexities of time travel. Somewhere in the future, Harper had access to a faulty gate, loosely based off Tom’s designs. That meant somewhere in the future, he knew enough about the origins of time travel to send someone back to steal the working design. If he had succeeded, and Tom hadn’t been the creator, then somewhere in the future, Harper wouldn’t have known about it to begin with.

  Kit stared at the board. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  Kit looked at the other man. “We’re not going to find them.”

  “Course we are. We just need to find all the places he might have stashed—”

  “No, no, no,” Kit interrupted. “I know we won’t find them, because somewhere in the future, he uses them. He wanted to make sure no one else got to time travel before he did.” He rose from the chair and tapped open the folder that showed the footage from the eye. He brought up one of the freeze-frames of the gate. “That’s why his plan was bollocksed. He got someone to build it for him using Tom’s old schematics.”

  Anton frowned. “I don’t follow.”

  “When Tom started out, he couldn’t pinpoint the destination. He fixed the place first, but then time was the problem. It was hit or miss, sometimes by days, sometimes by years.” Kit tapped the glowing image of Harper’s gate. “This must have been based on his original designs. They must have assumed it would work. That’s why they ended up in the wrong time.”

  Anton stared blankly at the board. “Shit. Shit’s right.” He blew out a breath. “And it’s not like we can charge him with it, either, can we? I mean, we can’t let anyone know what they’re going to do in the future, or we’ll fuck up the future, right?”

  “Welcome to the wacky world of time travel,” Kit said morosely.

  Anton rubbed at his jaw. “So we get him in the here and now. Nail him for what happened to that girl and get him locked up for a good long while.”

  Kit blinked. That would explain why it would take Harper over twenty years to get the gate built if he ended up in jail. The stupid bastard had screwed up his own life twice over: once in the future and again in the present to unsuccessfully improve the future.

  Still, it wasn’t like he could confirm that for Anton.

  “Yeah. Yeah, sounds like a good plan.” He stepped back. “Can you get me the drive you have? Temple wanted me to keep working on it.”

  By the time Temple arrived, he was well into the decryption. Whichever key Sanders had used on the drive, it was one of the more complicated ones, and Kit looked up bleary-eyed when Temple tapped on the edge of his desk to catch his attention.

  “Any luck?”

  “Just about,” he said, dry-mouthed. “It’s running a last cycle. You?”

  She sat down on the edge of the desk. “One thing our friends forgot when they dropped the girl at the tracks: this country is infested with cameras. Maybe the ones at the station weren’t working, but there are only so many roads they could have used to get there, and my people are thorough.”

  Kit stared at her. “You got it?”

  A smile split Temple’s face. “Got teams on the way to the last place it was sighted.”

  “So you’ve got him!”

  She patted him on the shoulder. “Easy, tiger. We may have the pod, but we still need to make the connections between it and Harper himself.”

  “Oh. Right.” He rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah. Should have thought of that.” His slate chimed and he looked back at it. “Huh.”

  “What?” Temple rose and stepped behind him, looking over his shoulder. Both of them stared at the screen and the screeds of data. “What is this? Is it some kind of code?”

  Kit shook his head, frowning. “No.” He looked up at her. “It looks like time-stamps.”

  Temple turned suddenly and strode across to the incident board. She pulled up a folder and flicked several of the files toward him.

  Kit opened them up. There were masses of numbers that made no sense, but suddenly, he realized what she had spotted. In the mass of digits she was showing him, he could see the numbers from Sanders’s drive at intervals.

  The more he stared, the more the other numbers started making sense.

  He touched the desktop, illuminating the surface to give himself a wider workspace, and cascaded the files to spread across it. Temple was speaking, but he wasn’t listening now. He had an idea what was going on, and it was all falling into place. Time-stamps were matched up with the numbers in her files, and he pulled up maps.

  His fingers danced across the desk, dragging and matching what he could, trying to make sense of what he couldn’t. It shouldn’t have made sense. The information in Temple’s files was at least a decade old, and there were a lot more numbers on her files than there were on Sanders’s drive.

  Dates cross-referenced with grid-points matched up.

  Almost 60 percent of the numbers were on both sets of data.

  Kit sat back, staring at the desk. “My God.”

  “What?” Temple demanded impatiently. “What’s this all about?”

  Kit shook his head in disbelief. “He wouldn’t have. Not without all the research… he knew what a risk…. Jesus Christ.”

  “Kit,” Temple said sharply. “What the hell is this?”

  He looked up at her. “That gate in his basement, it wasn’t something new. We all thought he had to be working on something new, but it wasn’t that.” He touched the scrambled list of numbers in her file. “This must have been all the possible destinations from the first time they tried to use the gate, back when they started.”

  “And?”

  Kit felt shaken. Sanders had always been so methodical in his actions. When Mariam said he’d been trying to find his wife, he’d assumed that Tom would have been mapping out details, working out the exact location, building the technology to take him back to the right time, but Tom hadn’t been doing that at all.

  “He was trying to find her,” he said quietly. “His wife.”

  “We know that. He was—”

  “No,” Kit looked up at her. “He was literally trying to find her. Every date on this list was a date his gate connected to. It wasn’t a teleporter or to go into the future or anything else. It was to take him back to try and find her.”

  “But I thought….” Temple shook her head. “You said he put rules in place. All that research. All those secrets. Why would he have those in place if he was breaking them anyway?”

  Kit could only shrug helplessly. “I don’t know.”

  Temple tapped her fingers on the back of his chair, then sighed. “All we can do is send it up the line. Maybe it’s something your boss will be able to explain for them. Maybe not.” She patted him on the
shoulder again. “You did well.”

  “You already had the numbers,” he said. “I just recognized what they were.”

  “And let us know Harper still has the drives, so we have more cause to keep looking into him. Not to mention giving us his connection to our two future victims.” She smiled. “You’re not very good at accepting compliments, are you?”

  Kit shrugged. “When Harper’s been charged and the case is tied up, we can try again. Right now—”

  “Right now you just found out your boss was more of a scheming bastard than anyone realized.”

  Kit looked down at his hands on the desk. “And Jacob’s still out of a job because of it all.”

  “That old bugger’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Don’t worry.”

  “Wish it were that easy.”

  Chapter 51

  JACOB TAPPED his knuckle against his lower lip, studying the wall.

  When he’d returned to the hotel after his jog, Kit had already left for the police station, so he’d showered, changed, and set out himself. Nagy was the one to answer the door of the home he shared with Schmidt, and he didn’t look at all surprised.

  They had spent the previous day working together on the police files stolen from Jacob’s own slate, and now that he was sure he wasn’t about to be arrested for it, Nagy was more than willing to let Jacob continue. He’d left Jacob to go through the files again, and had retreated back up the stairs.

  Without anyone around or any distractions, Jacob was going through every bit of data he had at his disposal. It wasn’t as if there was much left he could uncover, but it felt better to be making the attempt than just sitting on his hands and waiting.

  His current focus was the old man who had dispatched the two unfortunate time jumpers.

  It had taken him a long time to figure out why there was something familiar about the man, and it wasn’t until he’d pulled up a comparison headshot of Patrick Harper, and overlaid it with the old man’s face, that it all made sense. Those pale eyes. That high, domed forehead.