Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2)

by Andrijeski, JC

  I was startled by an arm circling my waist.

  I twisted around to face him, stiffening in his hold, about to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, when he yanked me swiftly up against his body. I found myself pressed against his muscular form...and then, before I could wrap my mind around even that much, he was doing that thing where he crashed into me in some way, flooding me with presence.

  That presence was undeniably his. It was intense enough that it stopped my breath.

  Then it immediately heated my skin.

  I felt him relaxing into me...then opening all around me.

  He held me tighter in those silent few seconds, stroking my hair as he opened that part of himself more. I felt relief on him now, a near exhale along with that leaning into me, a relaxation of his walls that felt bound up in that relief.

  More than any of that, though...compulsion lived there, along with a heavier feeling, one that held more emotion, although I couldn’t make sense of what that emotion meant exactly. It might have been grief, or even depression...loneliness. Or maybe it was simply a more mundane product of isolation, alien only in its intensity and whatever it was about it that made it feel strangely organic to me. Whatever it was, whatever caused it, his presence seemed to weave into mine like a drug, making it difficult to think, to even care about anything else.

  Before I could recover from that, he kissed me.

  It wasn’t a particularly gentle kiss.

  His hand slid deeper into my hair as he did it, his fingers clenching as he opened his mouth against mine, using his tongue when I softened against him.

  I think I kissed him back in shock as much as intention...the first time at least.

  He ended that first kiss long enough to press his face against mine, to wrap his arms around me tighter, letting out a gruff, almost longing sound right before he kissed me again.

  That time, it felt like I was leaving my body totally.

  I felt that pulling sensation start––the one I remembered from the one time we’d kissed before. Some part of him pulled on me, on my mind...pulling me out of myself. At the same time, his presence strengthened...flooding into me, warming my skin...and then I was gripping his muscular arms. My fingers wound into his hair moments later as I leaned up on my tip-toes because of his height, kissing him back.

  He groaned against my mouth when I used my tongue.

  The next thing I knew, he’d slammed my back up against the door, his hand fisted in my hair. He kissed me again, harder.

  That one seemed to last a much longer stretch of time.

  I didn’t try to dial us back at all until he already had my robe undone.

  His hand caressed my bare skin around the bathing suit, right before he slid his palm and fingers around to my ass, yanking me tighter against him. I felt his erection as he pressed it into me, and let out a surprised sound even as he let out a lower groan.

  Only then did I pull away.

  I ended our kiss long enough to meet his gaze, pushing him back lightly with a hand.

  He let me, moving back without resistance, but I felt a coil of... something... slam into me, a denser heat that cut my breath all over again.

  “Gods,” he said, his voice still half a groan. He closed his eyes briefly, his hands tightening on my skin. “I don’t think I can wait until after we eat. I’m going to lose my mind if we don’t fuck soon... it’s all I can think about...”

  Shock rippled through me, even as other, more specific memories rose in my mind.

  I remembered he really wasn’t like other men.

  Not just in terms of the psychic thing.

  Physically. He was actually different physically.

  He’d shown me that the last time we got into this with one another.

  “Don’t be afraid of that,” he said, still breathless, that denser pulling in his voice. His arms wrapped around me tighter and again I felt that compulsion on him, that wanting to pull me inside of him as much as the physical wanting that rose with it.

  When I didn’t resist his hold, he let out another low gasp.

  “Miriam... you’re going to love it. I promise you. You’ll fucking beg me for that later... I promise you...” His desire worsened, blinding me briefly. “Gods. You have no idea how badly I want to do this. I’ll make it so good for you. I swear I will... I’ll make it take hours if you want. Hours and hours... it won’t hurt much at all by the time I get you there...”

  Fear had already taken ahold of my mind though.

  Not just fear around his body, although that was definitely there, too.

  I remembered the rest of it, as well. How he’d avoided me after what Ian had done. How he’d disappeared. He said he wanted this now, but he’d vanished... for weeks.

  I hadn’t heard a single word from him.

  When he lowered his mouth that time, I turned my head.

  Frustration seethed off him as soon as I did.

  I felt that frustration grow more intense, even as his arms tightened around me. He held me against his body and I felt his heart beating almost audibly against my chest, even as that more distant feeling of vulnerability worsened. I was about to try and talk to him again when another flood of...something...left him. That time, it felt like physical pain. I felt that pain somewhere in my lower belly, strongly enough that I gasped, putting a hand there. I felt it in my heart too, in my throat, even my hands. It grew more intense as I gripped his arms and waist.

  It wasn’t just pain though. I felt desire woven into it. That desire hurt worse than the nearly-physical sensations that first cut my breath. Moreover, I felt so much of him inside both feelings it took me another few seconds to disentangle myself all over again.

  “Please,” he murmured against my ear. “Please... fuck... please...”

  “Black,” I managed, realizing only then I hadn’t said a word since he’d grabbed hold of me on the other side of that door. “Black... no.” I shook my head. Pushing against his chest, I started to pull back for real. “No. We can’t just––”

  “Please,” he murmured, pulling on me harder. He let me push him back physically but whatever he was doing with his mind grew more intense. “Don’t be afraid of this, doc... please. You have no idea how far I’m willing to go to accommodate you here... I’ll do anything you want. Anything...”

  But somehow, that only hardened my resolve.

  I stepped out from in front of him, still fighting to get free of the rest of him. Not his body so much as that suffocating presence, and that intense pulling that only seemed to worsen the further I got away from him physically.

  I managed it, but I could feel my own resolve wavering. Even so, when I spoke next, I managed to keep my voice and expression completely calm.

  “We need to go eat,” I told him firmly.

  I looked up at his silence, meeting his gaze, my jaw nearly clenched.

  “Black?” I said, sharper. “We need to get food. Somewhere else.”

  After a bare pause where he only looked at me, his gold eyes glassed, he nodded, closing his eyes longer than a blink. Only then did I feel him dialing it back for real.

  “Of course,” he said.

  We both just stood there for a moment, staring at one another.

  I realized both of us were still breathing too hard.

  I felt my jaw clench again.

  “Wait for me in the hall,” I told him, my voice blunt.

  There was another pause, then he nodded again.

  That time, he averted his gaze for real.

  Four

  FIRE AND WATER

  WE ENDED UP at an umbrella-shaded table by the pool, which worked for me. It was outside, at least...and public enough that I could sit across from Black without worrying about a repeat of whatever the hell just happened in my hotel room.

  Somehow I’d managed to forget how completely different Black could be.

  Especially when he...

  ...well, when he was in the mood, I guess you could say. He tur
ned into a totally different person when it came to sex. I knew that, having glimpsed that side of him before. Yet somehow I’d managed to forget the sheer intensity of that in the weeks since. Moreover, I still had no idea what do with that information. I definitely had no idea how personally I should be taking it.

  Assuming I could take it personally at all.

  Even now, I found myself looking at him a lot too often. I fought not to stare, especially after he sprawled out on a deck chair, wearing sunglasses and with his shirt open as he gazed silently out at the pool, glancing periodically at an open newspaper he rested on one bare thigh. When I’d finally left my hotel room, he’d already changed into swim shorts and a white button-down shirt.

  His legs were muscular, I couldn’t help noticing. I’d never seen them bare before, at least not in direct sunlight. He didn’t have a lot of body hair there, either.

  Presumably he’d had the pool in mind before he brought me up here, given his clothes, but he hadn’t gone in. Rather, he’d ordered a beer, even though it couldn’t be eleven in the morning, and kept staring between the front page of that newspaper and the water. With the mirrored sunglasses I couldn’t even tell if he was reading it.

  I caught myself staring at his chest more than once after we’d ordered food and he still hadn’t spoken to me. Looking at him felt compulsive too, which borderline angered me for some reason. It didn’t help that I definitely wasn’t the only person in the vicinity of the pool checking Black out, even this early in the morning. The sunglasses blocked the strangeness of his eyes from view, which prevented any of the usual confusion some of those admiring stares might have garnered. As it was, the dense muscles of his chest combined with that perfect jaw and well-formed mouth drew long looks from both men and women.

  I honestly couldn’t tell if Black himself even noticed.

  I couldn’t remember the last time something like that bothered me.

  The fact that it bothered me now both annoyed me and caused me to withdraw from him. Some part of me wanted to pick that apart too, maybe in the hopes of making the unwelcome feeling go away.

  In the end, I just tried not to look at him.

  Eventually, he glanced at me, as if remembering I was there. Turning slightly, he tossed the newspaper onto the table in front of me.

  “There,” he said. “Headline story.”

  I flinched, then dropped my eyes to the paper.

  It was in English, but the words weren’t what drew me. Rather it was the picture of a small, blackened body that made up the front page photo. I grimaced as I looked at it, but some part of me couldn’t help recognizing what I saw, too.

  “It’s like the girl,” I said, picking the paper to look at it more closely. Immediately, my whole body tensed, including my throat, which wanted to close. “Is it Ian?” I said, my voice low as I glanced around us. “Is he killing here?”

  When I glanced up, Black faced me with the mirrored sunglasses. He exhaled as I watched, and I saw some of the tension leave his face.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, once. “I don’t think so.” Leaning closer, he tapped the column of words to my left of the picture. “Read it, doc. Different m.o.”

  I scanned through the print, picking out the details.

  Immediately, that sick feeling in my gut got worse, not better.

  “Children,” I said. I looked back at the photo. “This is happening to kids?”

  When Black didn’t answer, I tore my eyes off the photo once more. He was watching me; or I assumed he was, given the direction his sunglasses aimed.

  “This can’t be a coincidence,” I said, shaking my head.

  “It’s not.” He paused. “...Or, I don’t believe it is.”

  “But you don’t think it’s Ian?”

  “No.”

  I fought with warring emotions. Not like I wanted to contemplate the idea of my ex-fiancé, Ian, killing and lighting children’s bodies on fire, but at least it would have confined the crazy to a single person––a known quantity, as it were. I truly never wanted to see Ian again, in any context, but I also didn’t want him out there killing other people, simply because I’d managed to escape dying by his hand.

  “That’s why you’re here?” I said, glancing up. “Because someone is killing kids?”

  Black nodded, once. “Yes.”

  “Did someone hire you?”

  Black made a noncommittal motion with his hand, somehow evoking a bird’s wings tilting in flight. Like a lot of his gestures, it was weird but I got the idea.

  “More or less,” he added, somewhat unnecessarily.

  Frowning, I let the newspaper fall to the table. “Do I even want to know what that means?”

  “You’ll find out today,” he said. “I was going to bring you to meet a few people.”

  I nodded, feeling my frustration rise at the vagueness of his answers.

  My eyes kept wanting to return to the newspaper and the burned body of what I now knew to be a child. A boy, one they believed to have been kidnapped from a village outside Bangkok. He’d been called “Mii” by his parents and three siblings, which meant “bear” according to the paper. He’d been nine years old. In death, his arms had been spread, tied to the front of some kind of statue. I didn’t recognize the statue’s name, but the paper said it lived inside one of the famous temples in Old Town, so not far from where Black had been held by the police.

  The open-armed position, the presence of a religious statue––it really did evoke the death of the girl Black and I found in that underground exhibit hall in San Francisco.

  She’d burned eventually too, but a bomb had set her on fire.

  Grimacing from the memory, I pushed the paper away from me.

  I couldn’t believe that the manner of the child’s death could be a coincidence.

  “It’s not,” he said. “I already told you that.”

  Feeling him watching me again, I avoided his stare.

  “So are you going to tell me?” I said finally, my eyes focused firmly on the pale blue water of the swimming pool. “...What I’m doing here, Black?”

  He didn’t answer me at first.

  When the silence continued, I gave up and turned. He still faced me, although I couldn’t see his eyes through the sunglasses to know if he was actually looking at me. I was about to speak again when the waiter came back, putting down a plate of fruit and sticky rice in front of me, which is about as much as I could handle right then, in terms of food. Even more welcome was the lemon smoothie and the tall glass of iced cappuccino that he set down next to my plate. I now had three drinks in front of me with those two and ice water, and truthfully, I would have been happy with three more, even without the mango and rice.

  I felt like every drop of water had been sucked from my body between the plane and the hot breeze on top of the building.

  The waiter placed a wooden platter covered in pork and chicken skewers in front of Black, along with a bowl of some other meat mixed with vegetables I couldn’t identify and a second beer.

  I couldn’t help an amused smile that tugged at my lips.

  “Hungry?” I grunted, watching him as he began pulling curried chicken off a skewer with his fork, presumably so he could eat it faster.

  “You’re mad at me again, doc,” he said, his voice low.

  I still couldn’t tell if he was looking at me with the sunglasses, but I suspected he was.

  Sighing, I fought with another pull of that irritation.

  Watching a twenty-something European woman with a perfect body saunter by in a blood red bikini, her eyes darkly fixed on Black’s chest with only a deliberate pause to aim a scathing glance towards me...didn’t help.

  “Are you going to tell me why I’m here?” I said, biting back my irritation with an effort. “Because there are other places I’d rather be. Dead kids aren’t really my specialty.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Well, then it’s not something I want to work on,” I said, sharper.
“Ask Nick. I hate these kinds of jobs. I really hate them, Black.”

  “All the more reason to help me,” he said, without missing a beat.

  I felt my jaw clench when the blond with the generous chest walked by us again, smiling deliberately down at Black on her way to the bar.

  “Is it because of what I did?” he said.

  If he noticed the blond in the bikini, I couldn’t see that either.

  “...Just now,” he said. “In the room. Is that why you’re mad? Or is it something else?”

  He paused long enough to stuff a forkful of chicken curry into his mouth. He really was hungry. That hunger practically radiated off him, making me hungry too, another something I wondered about, since that kind of echo-effect had happened with us before. I felt my face flush when I remembered the ways in which I’d felt that echo-effect the most intensely.

  Forcing that from my mind, even as the memory mixed badly with the image of a burned child, I watched him chew. Even so, my face continued to warm as I felt his stare intensify.

  I wondered if he was trying to read me again and I was picking up on that.

  I also wondered if he was having any luck.

  “Yes,” he said swallowing the last of his mouthful. “...and no. Not enough, doc. Not nearly enough. Enough to have a hard on. Enough to want to know more.”

  I bit my lip, forcing my eyes off him again.

  “How can you talk about hard ons right now?” I grimaced, motioning at the paper. “After looking at something like that? That’s pretty fucked up, Black...even for you.”

  “I’ve been looking at that for weeks,” he said, taking another bite of the curried chicken and chewing energetically. He leaned back over he table. “You didn’t read down far enough, doc.” Reaching towards me, he tapped the paper with one finger, leaving a smear of yellow-colored curry on the newsprint.

  “Tenth victim,” he added. “...Tenth they’ve found, anyway. There may have been more before they picked up on the pattern.”

  “How could they not pick up on a pattern of burning children alive?”

  “The kids are all poor,” he said, his voice holding more of an edge. “Well...until recently. A lot of them were connected to trafficking rings.” Clearing his throat, he tapped the paper again with a finger, smearing more sauce on it. “You really should read the whole thing, doc...”