I traced muscles, caressing the lines of him, exploring his sides, his ribs, his arms, his thighs, his calves. I watched his light and skin react to my fingers, getting turned on when I saw it sliding into his dream, both calming him and making his muscles tense under my hands. I watched him swallow, his face taut. I’d barely started when he was shifting under my hands, jerking faintly, rising up to meet my fingers.
When I didn’t stop, his skin grew hot.
It got hotter the longer I touched him, until I was sweating lightly, just from being so near him. Pain came off him in a cloud, making me clutch at him briefly, nearly making me light-headed. I opened my light more, and he let out a low groan.
He still didn’t open his eyes.
I didn’t feel him wake, but after that, it was like a furnace ignited under his skin.
When I slid closer, a few minutes later, letting the comforter fall, and threw a leg over his waist, sitting astride him, he jerked violently.
He half sat up, his hands grasping reflexively at my hips.
He opened his eyes, breathing harder, and saw me sitting there, naked, the white comforter having fallen down to my hips and part of my back. For a few seconds he only stared at me in the moonlight, his chest moving in slow pants.
Then he let out a low groan.
He yanked me higher up his legs, so I was more or less sitting on his cock, which was hard enough that I gasped a little, pressing down against him.
Then I was looking at his face, gripping his hair in one hand.
“I know,” I said, whispering it. “I’m molesting you in your sleep again. Not cool.”
His fingers tightened abruptly on my hips.
He closed his eyes, longer than a blink. I saw his jaw harden, even as the muscles in his arms tensed, outlining every tendon in a detail that made me stare.
“Fuck me,” he said.
His voice was lower than mine, deep in that way that still drove me crazy, even after all of our time together in Thailand. If anything, it hit at me even more intensely now, pulling on that part of me that was connected to him.
He’d said the wanting part wouldn’t lessen any, with us together like this.
I could feel how true that was.
Somehow, it didn’t reassure me. If anything, it made me feel…
Well, not quite nervous. Nervous wasn’t the word.
It almost scared me. I could feel him like a second heartbeat, a second pair of lungs, a second pair of skin. I could feel that darkness under his feet, I could see those same stars––and he was right. It felt like me now.
Or not me––but mine.
It felt like mine now.
I probably would have noticed sooner, but I’d been avoiding feeling much of anything since he first told me about Nick. I hadn’t realized how much I’d closed, not just to him but to everyone. I’d closed to Angel too, and she probably needed me. She wouldn’t ask, not when I was so obviously struggling, but she needed me to go through this with her.
She didn’t even get to look for Nick in Europe, like I did. She didn’t get to tell herself she’d done everything she could to find him.
Ever since I’d heard about Nick, I’d closed off part of my light.
Now that it was open, I felt almost like I had in Thailand.
I felt that part of me drift back into the vast spaces of Black’s light, tilting out of control. I felt how it changed something in my light, sparking structures over my head that still felt so foreign to me, so new, I could barely acknowledge them as mine. I saw space there too, but it was the silent space, the stillness of a held breath.
“Miri… I feel it. I feel it, too…”
When I closed my eyes, not moving for a moment, his voice grew gruffer.
“Miri. Gaos. Do you want me? Right now, I mean. Tell me before I do something I regret…”
Opening my eyes, I looked down at him.
His irises were glowing faintly, a pale, tiger-like gold. His fingers dug into my hips, yanking me down on him harder, and his light flooded into mine, making me gasp.
“How do they do that,” I said, my voice still a half-breath. “How do your eyes do that. How do they glow like that…?”
His fingers wrapped into my hair.
He pulled me down to him roughly, kissing my mouth, hard. His light flooded into me as he opened himself more, and I let out a sound against his mouth, opening my light in response. His pain flared, right before his light grew hotter, more intense, wrapping into mine like a physical force.
It felt like he was fucking me with it… like he was already fucking me.
“Gaos, Miri.”
He pressed his forehead into mine, coiling more of his light into me, making me gasp. When he pulled on me to open more, flooding me with even more of his light, I let out a low sound, unable to help that either.
He kissed my mouth, still speaking to me in that soft voice.
“Gaos… your eyes are glowing, too. It drives me fucking crazy. They were doing that most of the time we were together on Koh Mangaan. They started right before I tied you up that first time. Remember? When we came up with those crazy safe words… when I lost my shit, and put that collar on you.”
I raised my head, looking down at him in bewilderment.
I remembered the safe words.
I remembered the collar, and him losing control.
I also remembered him using a belt on me with a precision that nearly brought me to an orgasm all on its own. It had been unbelievable.
I’d done some of that kind of thing before, especially with a boyfriend I’d had not long after I got out of the military, who’d been into bondage games… but nothing I did with Jack had been anything like what Black did to me. Black knew how to use pain with an exactness that drove me out of my mind. He got me right to the edge, then would leave me there, then roll me right back up to it, and leave me there again.
By the time he actually fucked me, I’m pretty sure I blacked out.
When I frowned, staring at him, he caught hold of my wrist.
“Here,” he said, soft, kissing my palm. “Look, Miri. Look.”
He held my palm up to my face, right up to my eyes.
A faint light illuminated the lines in my hand, green and gold. I stared at it. I blinked, then stared at it again, moving my hand closer and further from that faint light. I blinked one eye, and saw the light extinguish briefly on that half of my hand.
Black burst out in a laugh, watching me.
When he spoke, his voice was deep, gruffer than before.
“Gods. You’re driving me fucking crazy right now. Are you going to fuck me or not? Because I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.” Pain rippled through his light. “I kind of want to hit you with a belt now, too, after what you were just thinking.”
Pain coiled through me, making my eyes close.
“Was it really that good?” he murmured, combing his fingers through my hair where it hung down on him. “Maybe I need to practice my technique. Read some books. I admit, until we did that, I hadn’t played in that particular sandbox in a while.”
Jealousy rippled through me, just like it had on Koh Mangaan.
Every now and then, reminders of who he’d been, things he’d done before he met me, still hit at my light and heart in ways that felt almost animalistic.
He felt that, too.
His pain worsened exponentially, enough that I let out a low gasp.
I stared down at him, half tempted to smack him.
“You get off on my paranoia?” I snorted. “Gee. Thanks, Quentin.”
He quirked an eyebrow at me, a faint smile touching his sculpted lips. “Do I get off on my wife having violently possessive thoughts about me? Hmmm. Let me think…”
When I smacked his chest, he chuckled, still stroking his fingers through my long hair.
He leaned up, kissing my mouth, pulling on me sensually with his light.
“…Definitely, doc,” he murmured. “Definitely get turne
d on by that. Hitting me isn’t really going to help with that, I’m afraid…”
I let out a low gasp when he pressed his cock up against me, moving in a sensual ripple that made my pain instantly worse. Still gripping my hair in one hand, he reached down to position himself under me, watching my eyes. When I tilted my hips to follow what he was doing, his eyes closed, right before he broke out in a sweat.
I slid down on him with a deliberate slowness, watching his face tighten. Balancing my weight and feet on his thighs, I held him there when he tried to angle up deeper into me, making his light flare in frustration.
When we fell into a slow, heavy rhythm, a few minutes later, I felt his pain worsen. I opened my light more, and he let out a groan, digging his fingers into my hips.
I have to admit, it felt so damned good, being lost in his light.
I let everything else go.
I pushed out every other image that wanted to rise: Nick, my Uncle Charles, Brick, Nick’s body, Brick coming to San Francisco, the riots spreading over the country, vampires killing college students, everything that happened in that cave in Koh Mangaan…
I felt Black losing control.
I felt him fight back aggression, a desire to take control of what we were doing, to flip me over to my back. I opened my light more, fighting to match what I felt coming off his. I enveloped more of him, feeling those structures in my light, the ones high up above my head, wrapping into his, controlling and containing them somehow…
Until they weren’t.
I felt his control leave him abruptly, so quickly I couldn’t react until he writhed under me, grasping me in his arms. He held me firmly against him, slamming up into me, his hands gripping my thighs, forcing me deeper. When I let him, opening my light even more, his light flared out, a shocking, nearly blinding flash of light.
Like in that cave, I honestly couldn’t tell if that light was physical or not.
Then I saw them.
I actually saw them with my eyes.
Wings unfolded from around him, wrapping tightly around me.
I let out a shocked, turned-on gasp when they clasped around my back. He wrapped them tighter around me, pain spiraling off him in a dense cloud right before… something… something my mind made into a tail… penetrated me from behind.
I let out another shocked cry, writhing over him.
His eyes were closed now, his jaw taut. I felt his pain worsen, even as some part of him watched me, measuring my reaction, his light opening more. I watched his face as it softened, feeling that dark, strange light of his seem to swallow me. I looked into that abyss, and every part of me let go, surrendering to what I felt there.
I think I might have said his name, but I honestly don’t know.
I do know that, somewhere in that, I lost my hold over his legs and light. I found myself sitting on him, my legs flush with his hips, when the hard part of his cock extended.
His arms clasped around my waist, holding me down as he did.
I went away for a while after that.
I’m pretty sure Black did, too.
17
Mirage
THINGS FELT DIFFERENT with us again.
We didn’t talk about the wings, about the glowing eyes, about what he’d done to me with his light. We didn’t talk much at all that night.
The next morning, I felt almost shy with him.
We went surfing again, that time under the cliffs of the beach house he’d rented.
I was puzzled at first, when Black woke me up. It’s not like we could fit surf gear in the MacLaren. I wondered if the house came equipped with boards and wetsuits we could use, or if Black planned on going out there naked and just body-surfing in the freezing cold waves of the winter Pacific.
The day before, a guy had been waiting for us in a parking lot by the lighthouse cliffs, having been sent there ahead by Black’s people with a small truck filled with wetsuits and surfboards. When we got out of the water, we’d returned everything to him, since none of it except maybe the wetsuits would fit easily in the MacLaren, especially with the top down.
When I gave Black a bewildered look the next morning, he explained that he’d had the same guy clean up and drop everything off at the beach house while we were at dinner. He’d also been the one to pick up and hide the keys for us to use.
Black, as usual, had a way of taking care of things before I’d thought to ask the question.
That time, we went out early, before sunrise.
Only a few other surfers shared that part of the ocean with us. They gave us space, but all seemed friendly enough, despite the reputation of territorial Santa Cruz surfers.
Going out on the ocean that early was eerie.
Then, when the sun came up behind the cliffs, it was gorgeous, the water sparkling with pink and gold sunlight as we bobbed on the rolling waves. For the first time, I saw the bluff and the beach house in daylight, and I was a little blown away at how perfect it all was, with the big bay windows over those massive rock walls, the scoop of a small beach, smooth with golden sand and decently sized even during high tide.
Seals swam over to look at us in curiosity. Pelicans and seagulls winged overhead as sand pipers scuttled up and down the shore.
Apart from the sound of the surf and the gulls, it was strangely quiet.
Maybe it was the quietness, or the night before, or just exhaustion from being wrung out the previous twenty-four hours, but I felt myself relaxing into the ocean and Black for real. For the first time since Thailand, I felt almost at peace.
That morning, the waves were better than they had been the day before.
We stayed out there for hours, catching wave after wave, racing each other into shore, laughing when one of us wiped out––usually me.
It was nearly noon before Black asked if I wanted to go back in.
Climbing up the stone stairs to the house, we left our suits and boards in the garage, rinsed off in the outdoor shower, and walked around to the deck. There, someone had already left us brunch: Eggs Benedict with salmon, bowls of blueberries and strawberries, French-press coffee, sourdough toast, buckwheat pancakes with butter and real maple syrup––the latter probably being brought especially for Black, since he dug into those first.
I never even saw him make the call.
Knowing him, he’d arranged it all the night before, or maybe at four o’clock in the morning, before he woke me up to surf with him.
Either way, we ate leisurely on the balcony overlooking the water… then spent another hour or so on an even more leisurely fuck in the jacuzzi… and then another one in the giant shower of the master bedroom before we finally put on real-person clothes.
By the time we were getting ready to leave, around five o’clock that afternoon, I was genuinely sorry to go.
I asked Black if we could rent the house again, maybe the following weekend even, if only to detox from having to deal with Brick and his henchmen for three days.
He laughed, then handed me a key. He informed me he’d already bought it, that we could come down here whenever the hell we wanted––that I could come down here whenever the hell I wanted, too, with or without him.
We talked a lot more on the drive back up the coast on Highway 1 than we had on the way down.
I barely remembered the drive down now. It was like I was underwater for all of it, maybe even in shock… like real shock, like some part of me just checked out.
But the whole drive back, we talked.
We didn’t talk about Nick, though, or Charles, or riots.
We didn’t talk about fucking vampires.
I curled up against Black in the convertible MacLaren, and we talked about possible venues for the wedding… and food… and how big and crazy we wanted to make it… and whether we’d invite a few members of the press or just let them show up… and how many of his friends we’d invite… and whether we’d incorporate any seer traditions.
Black entertained me, telling me about a few of those t
raditions, including one that would essentially require our entire wedding party to drop acid.
The only time Charles or Nick came up was when I mused aloud about whether or not I should invite Nick’s family… and when Black asked me how likely I thought Uncle Charles would be to crash the wedding and/or reception.
The sun set to our left as we wound up the coast.
When we finally got back to the building on California Street, it was dark.
I climbed out of the MacLaren and wrapped my arms around my torso, shivering. Black noticed and went into the trunk, pulling out my coat. He held it up so I could slide my arms one by one into the sleeves. He was still talking, telling me little things about changes he’d made to our security detail and the organization of the team.
I was listening, noting with some relief that there were no people and no press waiting for us this time, as we exited the car.
We were about to walk into the building, when Black nudged me.
“Hey, what about North Beach tonight? For dinner.” He nudged me again playfully, coiling his light into mine, pulling on me. “We could take Cal up on his offer for a kick-ass meal. Eat until we feel sick, get some wildly decadent plate of Italian desserts and eat all of it, then come back home and fuck like rabbits to burn it off.”
When I rolled my eyes at him, laughing, he nudged me again, coiling an arm around my waist and hugging me close to him.
“Don’t worry.” He smirked. “I’ll wake you up nice and early so we can go running tomorrow morning, too.”
Snorting humorously, I turned towards him with a narrow smile.
“Over my dead body.”
“No Cal’s, then?” He exuded disappointment. “What about the wharf? I don’t feel like eating here tonight. And I’m starving.”
“I’ll go to Cal’s,” I said, my voice humorous, if faintly warning. “But only if you promise not to threaten his life this time. Or act like a lunatic if I give him a hug. Or start ranting about how we’re married if I’m in any way polite to him…”
Black chucked, even as my voice trailed.
I didn’t hear what he said in response.
I didn’t hear anything for a few seconds.
TO BLACK WITH LOVE: Quentin Black Mystery #10 Page 24