by Battis, Jes
“You’re beautiful.” He rubbed his thumb across my cheek. “You can’t help it. There’s no way you couldn’t be lovely and sexy and amazing.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you take lessons or something?”
“I always tell the truth. It’s kind of my thing.” He smiled. “And you, Tess. You’re kind of my thing. Or kind of mine. At least, I want you to be.”
“Yours?”
He nodded.
I closed my eyes. “This isn’t allowed. I promised . . .”
“Whom?” His lips were close to my ear. His voice was scarcely above a whisper. “Whom did you promise?”
“Selena.”
“And . . .”
“And . . .” I frowned. “Other people . . .”
“And . . .” He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not even supposed to be touching you.”
His hand was around my waist. “You’re not touching me. I’m touching you. So, really, I’m the one who’s breaking the rules, not you.”
I chuckled softly. “Well, that’s a switch.”
His mouth hovered over mine. “I don’t care about traditions and regulations. I just care about you—us—in this moment. That’s all.”
His breath smelled sweet.
I groaned.
“We can’t be too loud. I don’t want Mia to feel like she’s living in a bordello.”
“Quiet as little mice.” He nibbled on my neck. “Promise.”
I practically yanked him down the hall and into the bedroom, checking to make sure that we weren’t being watched. The bed was a disaster. Stray panties were lying on the quilt, along with dirty, balled-up shirts. It smelled like hairspray, and a wet towel lay on the floor, next to the en suite bathroom. I’m sure there was an open box of Tampax in there as well, since Mia kept stealing them.
“Oh God,” I whispered. “This is terrible. I’m a pig. There’s nothing romantic about this at all . . .”
He kissed me again. “I don’t need romance. It’s overrated.”
I sat down on the bed, trying to brush away the stray clothes. “I’m sorry . . .” I said, in between kissing him. “I was going to clean, I really was . . .”
“Don’t let a serial murder investigation get in the way of your housecleaning,” he murmured, licking my neck.
I closed my eyes. Lucian settled on top of me. His hands were doing a lot of very skillful, interesting things. I twisted the edge of the quilt. Kneeling half on the bed, he slipped off his shirt. His tattoos were almost iridescent in the dim light of the room. There was a swirl of thorns, a Mayan snake, a raven’s feather, and other small lines of runic text that I couldn’t recognize. I kissed his chest, then his throat, feeling it throb underneath my tongue.
“Condoms?” he murmured.
“Bedside table.”
I pulled my huge, ugly T-shirt off. I suddenly felt very pale and small, my breasts hanging there, my hands on his shoulders. It seemed ridiculous to be almost naked but still wearing flannel pajamas. He kissed my breasts slowly, then his hand slid down my pajama bottoms. I breathed in sharply as his fingers curled around me, then inside me, one at a time. His movements were calm, almost lazy, as if we had hours and hours to kill doing nothing but this.
I no longer cared that I hadn’t shaved down there, or that my legs were rough and stubbly, or that my hair looked like shit. Lucian Agrado was happily, competently fingering me, and that was pretty much all I could concentrate on at this point.
I squirmed and lay back. He smiled. I fumbled with his belt. The buckle snapped against my knuckles. It stung, but I flung it on the ground. Lucian chuckled softly, unbuttoning his jeans. I slid them down. He wasn’t wearing sexy black underwear like last time. These were straight-up plaid boxers.
“Nice,” I whispered, stroking the fabric.
“I got them in a two-pack.” He kissed me. “At Costco.”
“A man who loves a deal,” I murmured, reaching into the narrow gap until I felt his dick. It was semihard. I pulled it out, tugging on the skin gently. He made a small sound and closed his eyes momentarily. Then he slid the boxers down and straddled me, jeans still around his ankles, black socks pushing against the bed. I yanked my underwear down, reaching for his dick again. It was warm in my hand.
I giggled.
“What?” His tongue was in my ear.
“I’m holding your cock.”
“You are indeed. And it’s very happy about that.” He rolled a condom on.
I kissed him long and deep. Then I guided him in, breathing sharply as he slid forward, his mouth still pressed to mine.
“Unh—fuck,” I whispered. It was the most articulate thing I could say.
His fingers were wrapped in my hair. The rhythm was slow at first, then faster, then slow again. I shifted position, trying to get more leverage with the pillows, until my back was pressed against the headboard. He reached down, his fingers going to work again, and I gave a little start as fire traced itself along my thighs. Two of his fingers seemed to linger outside, gently prodding, but the other two were on a highly site-specific mission. I wrapped one leg around him. I flicked my tongue across his nipple, and when he groaned, I used my teeth.
He sped up, his breathing getting more ragged. I reached beneath him, pressing gently with my thumb. He ground his ass against my hand. Taking this as a fairly clear invitation, I found something more direct to do with my own fingers. It was clearly the right decision. He bucked against me, his mouth open, and I kissed him, biting a little, my mouth full of his taste and his scent.
I came hard and fast. My head struck the wall, and I felt my legs turn to jelly as the fire washed up every inch of me. Lucian made a crazy, unexpected noise—something between a grunt and a low, throaty whimper—and then I felt him come. He collapsed on top of me, still on his knees, panting into my neck.
The whole thing had taken six, maybe seven minutes. But all seven of those minutes counted, and I sure as hell didn’t need anything else.
I sank into the pillow. It smelled like cold cream. I laughed.
He was still breathing heavily. “What?”
“We forgot to close the door.”
We both stared at the open doorway in disbelief. I started giggling.
Lucian kissed my throat. “You think anyone saw?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly watching.”
“Oh? I thought your OSI training would take hold. Aren’t you supposed to be watchful and ever-vigilant?”
“That’s the Marines.”
He curled onto his side, one leg draped warmly across me. “Sleepy now.”
I sighed. “Thank God. You have no idea how tired I am. I was scared that you might want to cuddle or watch TV.”
“All I want to do is pass out.”
I settled in next to him. “We have to wake up early. Should I set the alarm?”
“I’ll wake up. I’ve got an internal clock.”
“Of course you do.”
He kissed the nape of my neck. “Good night, Tess.”
I murmured something in reply. His arm slipped around my waist, and then the darkness came down, like a summer storm, drenching everything and raising licks of steam from the imaginary pavement. I smelled rain.
Then I was gone.
20
I woke up in a neat little cocoon of bedsheets and, for a moment, wondered if I hadn’t traveled back in time to when my mother used to tuck me in tightly, grinning as she pronounced: “Snug as a bug in a rug.” My lingering hard-drug hangover, along with my sex hair, confirmed that I was not, in fact, six years old again. I was alone in bed, and early morning light was streaming through the blinds. I glanced at the clock: 7 a.m. Consciousness was a bitch.
And what had happened to the necromancer?
I briefly imagined Lucian waking up next to me, taking one horrified look at his surroundings, and then bolting out of the house. My room still looked like a nuclear testing site, and the panties balled up on the floor we
ren’t getting any more glamorous in the searing light of day.
I threw on a purple terrycloth robe—Derrick called it my Dorothy Zbornak robe, from The Golden Girls—and padded on bare feet into the hallway. I could hear the shower running. Maybe he really was still here. It seemed almost too good to be true.
I noticed that the door to the spare bedroom was closed. Feeling a bit like a lunatic mom, I pressed my ear to the door. I could hear snoring. It was far too low and symphonic to be Mia, so I guessed that Patrick had slept alone. Still not entirely convinced, I mounted the first three stairs, listening carefully. Mia’s room was closest to the stairway, and usually I could hear the explosive sounds of her banging around in there as she did . . . whatever teenagers did in their rooms.
I was rewarded with faint strains of music coming from her room. A moment later, she cranked up the volume, and Defiance, Ohio floated down the stairs and into the living room on a wave of cymbals. I’ll bet she heard me on the stairs. Damn, that girl had ears like a trained peregrine falcon.
And I miss that place behind my house
Where I hiked and climbed and played,
Where I ditched this noisy century
Or just hid out from the decade.
I thought how strange it was that a kid like Mia and a guy like Lucian Agrado—who knew how old he was?—would like the same band. So many of their songs were about anxiety and loss, but they were also just kids themselves. Too young, it seemed, to really know how mourning worked. Yet, a clear vein of sadness hummed to life, somewhere in the center of my body, as I listened to their voices.
I thought about how I used to hate Elder, how I dreamed of turning eighteen and getting the hell out. It didn’t matter where. But I’d never really escaped. Like a powerful gravity, it pulled me back, with strands of guilt, fire, and love.
The familiar streets where I’d grown up, the cars parked on wooden blocks, the boarded-up corner stores, the grassy field of my old middle school, where I got trashed on Smirnoff Ice and tried to piss standing up against the wall of the gymnasium, only to fall down, laughing and snorting as my boots kicked up the soaking turf. I thought of the powers and the demons and all the immortal strands that slept beneath those ancient intersections, the traffic lights changing from red, to yellow, to green, as vast giants turned beneath the earth. And I thought of my parents and all my childhood friends, animated by their own fierce lives, having no idea that the awkward, tawny-haired girl with the braces was fighting monsters and harboring vampires in her spare bedroom.
It wasn’t so bad, Elder. It was a place, like any other. And the ties that bound me to home weren’t entirely constricting. They were like those veins and arteries in my body, pumping blood forward and back: a dark latticework of flesh, bone, and miracles that made me think—if only I listened hard enough—that even 100 kilometers away I could hear the dense rumble of my hometown breathing, quietly, next to me in the dark.
I walked through the living room, pausing at the kitchen entrance as I heard laughter and smelled something cooking. My spirits rose. I peeked around the corner and saw Derrick standing in front of the stove, tending to something in a cast-iron pan. (He’d insisted on getting cast-iron pans because he claimed they had a “food memory” that made everything you cooked in them taste good. I think he was just being fussy.) Breakfast smelled like heaven.
I leaned in a bit farther, and my suspicions were confirmed as I saw Miles standing just off to the side. He was pulling on his shirt—I guess he’d gotten out of the shower immediately before Lucian hopped in—and I was momentarily distracted by his lithe, muscular body. He had a swimmer’s build, and his chest was dusted with blond, almost golden, hair, which I hadn’t expected.
He also had a tattoo on his left shoulder. It was le petit prince, standing with his rapier in all his blue and red finery, and below him, in flowing script: Vous êtes responsable, pour toujours, de ce que vous avez apprivoisé. They were the words of the wise fox to the little prince: “You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
Derrick and Miles were signing rapidly to each other. I saw what looked like the handshape for “bad,” but it was hard to tell, especially with Miles, whose long, graceful fingers moved with uncanny speed.
Derrick motioned to himself, then brushed the palm of his right hand down his cheek twice. He reversed his palm, touching his chin, and then flicked it sharply downward, as if indicating something negative. Then he made a quick C shape next to his forehead, lowered his arm, and made a similar gesture beneath his right shoulder; it looked like he was outlining a badge, or making the sign for the RCMP.
Oh.
I rolled my eyes as I got it: “I’ve been a bad boy, Officer.”
Miles grinned, touching Derrick’s chest with one hand while he signed with the other. I caught the sign for “power”—one hand outlining a bulging, invisible muscle—and then what may have been “search” and “seizure.” Boy. I’d never realized until now how dirty ASL could be.
Derrick laughed softly. Then he leaned in, eyes closed. They kissed. It was like my kiss with Lucian—slow, almost lazy, but still charged. Miles put his hand gently on the back of Derrick’s neck. Derrick was a bit taller, so Miles had to reach up to do it, which was kind of endearing. Derrick half turned, trying to keep his eyes on the frying pan, but Miles pulled him back, saying something inaudible. Derrick giggled, then wrapped an arm around the other man’s waist, tugging him closer. Miles still had his shirt half on, and Derrick’s fingers stroked his back.
“Gay porn!”
Mia exploded past me into the kitchen. Miles went red and pulled away, feverishly tugging his shirt back on. Derrick’s hand lingered on his back.
“You wrecked a moment,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s me, the moment wrecker.” Then she wiggled her eyebrows at them suggestively. “Don’t let me stop you, boys. I’ve watched Queer as Folk. Nothing surprises me.”
“The real-life version is still a bit different,” Miles mumbled. “And I don’t exactly look like Gale Harold.”
“Naw, you’re prettier, Sedge.” Derrick kissed him on the neck. He looked embarrassed, but also slightly pleased. Miles was obviously shy. I hadn’t seen Derrick with a man in a long time, but he seemed to have gotten a lot more confident over the years. Maybe he was just in a better place now.
I smiled crookedly. “Sedge?”
“I told you that nickname in confidence,” Miles growled at Derrick. His soft, nasal voice couldn’t really sound all that threatening, but his eyes flashed.
Derrick shrugged. “No secrets in this house. Besides, I like it.”
At least I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten lucky. Mia glanced from me to Derrick and then back to me again. She sighed explosively.
“I’m going back to my room. You all have impulse-control problems.”
She swept out of the kitchen, running into Lucian on her way out.
“Morning.” He smiled at her. Derrick must have lent him some clothes as well, because he was wearing an old shirt with a Joe Average print that looked stretched around his arms and shoulders. His biceps were distracting.
Mia scowled at him. “You all suck.” Then she clomped upstairs.
Lucian blinked in her wake. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No. She’s just a teenager.” I beckoned him in. “Derrick and Miles made breakfast. In between smooching.”
“Well, well.” He grinned at them, pulling up a seat. “It’s about time. Why did you two wait so long? We thought you might never get your groove on.”
Derrick narrowed his eyes. “Were you two placing bets?”
Lucian leaned back in his chair. “Only about who was pitching. I figured you were both switch-hitters, but Tess insisted you’d be in the dugout.”
Derrick turned three shades of red.
“That was an inside thought, Lucian,” I said, glaring at him. “You weren’t supposed to repeat it.”
He s
hrugged. “No position is better than any other. Sometimes it’s nice to catch a few fastballs, if you’re in the mood for it.”
“Right.” Miles smoothed his hair, which was useless. It looked perfect. “Can we end this sports analogy now and have some breakfast?”
“Coffee’s in the pot.” Derrick pointed. “The good stuff from JJ Bean.”
I practically lunged across the kitchen, pouring two cups and handing one to Lucian. “We don’t have any sugar. Or cream. I think we have some orange juice and an old carton of molasses, though, if you want to get really adventurous.”
“Black is fine.” He sipped it affably. “I tend to live on diner coffee.”
“So . . .” Derrick handed me a plate of fried potatoes with chorizo sausage and green peppers mixed in. “What did you two get up to last night?”
“Tess and I had intercourse.”
I almost spit out my coffee and dropped the plate at the same time.
“Really.” Derrick’s left eye seemed to twitch. “And how was that?”
“Just splendid.” He took another sip of coffee. “Tess, would you agree?”
I stared fiercely into my mug. “Mm-hmm. Yes.”
He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I’m glad.”
“So what’s the plan today?” Derrick handed Miles a plate.
“I’m going to the lab. I have to talk to Selena. After that, I think we should meet downtown and figure out our next move. Patrick can’t be left alone.”
“We’ll stay on him,” Lucian said. “I have to meet with Duessa.”
I blinked. “You do?”
He nodded. His look was placid. Obviously, he wasn’t going to tell me more.
“Grab Wolfie, then,” I said, “while you’re there. I think we might need him.”
“Will do.”
“Miles”—I turned to him—“I might need some information from the CORE’s Ontario offices. Is that cool?”
“Of course. I’ll do everything I can. The bureaucracy there can be tricky, but I’ve got friends in Data and Records.”
“Perfect.” I drained my coffee and stood up. “Let’s all meet across the street from the lab at noon. Public restaurants and cafés are best, I think. I don’t know what this thing’s range is, but it seems to prefer the dark corners and alleys.”