The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix)

by Kristie Cook

  “I, uh, never really knew her myself. Someone I met in passing.” Leni looked up to me, obviously wondering if I caught the conversation.

  I couldn’t help but bring it up later, once the camper was dropped on its site and the truck driver had skedaddled, probably off to prey on some other pretty girl.

  “Bex?” I asked Leni as I leaned against the kitchenette’s counter while she opened a can of cat food. Ghost had leapt out when we opened the camper door, surprising both of us. We hadn’t known he’d been inside when we locked up before leaving. “What was that about?”

  She set the food on the floor for the cat, then shrugged. “No idea, really. She just . . . she felt so familiar and Bex’s name popped into my mind. Weird, right?”

  “You could say that.”

  “She could barely take her eyes off you. I’m surprised she managed to give me correct change.”

  I shrugged. “Didn’t notice.”

  She gave me a crooked grin. “Yeah, it must happen all the time. You probably don’t notice it at all anymore.”

  Actually, I did. I used to anyway. “Before you, I noticed everything about every girl around me, especially if they were looking at me. All I can tell you about that girl is she had red hair and her name’s Bethany. Which I only know because of you.”

  She eyed me for a moment, as if considering whether to believe me. I grasped her hips and pulled her to me. I pressed my finger to her chest.

  “All I see anymore,” I signed with one hand before leaning down and grabbing that taste of her I’d been craving all day.

  She reacted the way I was used to—arching her body against me, opening her mouth for my tongue, allowing my hands to finally explore. I didn’t know if it was the connection we had or if she really was better than everyone else I’d ever been with combined. She kissed me expertly, her mouth and tongue moving exactly the way I liked. Her hands rubbed the back of my head and she may has well have been stroking my other head, it felt so good. And her body. Damn, it was perfect. When she allowed me to pull her top over her head, I thought I’d lose it right then. I wanted to rip her bra off with my teeth, feel those soft tits of hers, suck on them until her nipples were as hard as my dick. I forced myself to go slow, to enjoy every second, every inch of her dark honey skin. Trying not to scare her away with how bad I fucking wanted her.

  I clamped my hands on her waist and lifted her to the counter. She wrapped her legs around me, holding me close while I reached back and pulled my shirt off. Her gaze heated as she stared at my nipple rings, and her pink tongue slid over her lips. She didn’t even have to touch me, and I nearly exploded.

  My hands tightened against her back, sliding up and down, one grasping at her curls and the other at her bra clasp. She let me undo it. Let me caress her, let me lick and suck at her, arching her back to give me better access. Damn, she tasted better than I imagined. My free hand slid down. My fingers dipped inside her shorts, and all I could think about was that if she felt this good on the outside, how was I ever going to live through feeling her on the inside. My fingertip bathed in her warmth and wetness as my hand barely grazed over her sweet spot.

  She jerked backward and pushed me away.

  I froze and looked up at her face, already flushed with heat but now reddening even more. Her green eyes were wide. Frightened. She was scared? I stepped back, holding my hands in the air.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I signed. She nodded, but still held herself away, her arm over her tits. Hiding them. Oh, shit. I rubbed my hands over my head, not able to ignore the smell of her on my finger. Which didn’t help my effin’ hard-on. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

  She didn’t answer, but the way she pressed her lips together—and everything else—was answer enough.

  I blew out a frustrated breath. “I knew it.”

  Now her face hardened. Keeping herself covered with her arms, she spoke with her mouth. “Knew what? That I’m not experienced enough for you? Not good enough?”

  She grabbed at her bra, pushed her arms through and yanked it on. “This was wrong. I should have never . . .”

  I grabbed her hands, stopping her, and shook my head. We stared at each other in a standoff for a long moment, then I finally let her go, only so I could speak.

  “I’m not good enough,” I signed, and her hard expression softened. “You’re pure. Pure perfection. And here I am slobbering all over you like a dog.”

  Her body shook with what must have been a chuckle, the way her mouth held a small smile. “I want you to slobber all over me. I want you, Jeric. All of you. Just . . .” She glanced away from me, then back. “I need patience, that’s all. I know you’re not used to girls holding out on you, but that’s not me. I’m not like that.”

  I returned her smile. “I don’t want you to be like them. You’ll drive me up the damn wall, but I’ll be patient. At least . . . I’ll do my best. Don’t get too mad if I screw up, okay? I can’t help myself with you.”

  Her eyes darted to my nipple rings, and her hand floated up to touch, but she pulled it back at the last second. “Yeah, me, too.”

  I took another step away before I lost control already and dove into her. I held her top out at arm’s length.

  She pulled it over her head, and when her face came into view, she seemed to be trying to decide something. Then she looked me in the eye and signed, “I’m not all that pure, you know. You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  Her eyes gleamed with a sinful secret, but then she shrugged.

  “Just thought you should know,” she added, “in case it makes a difference with whatever’s going on with us. If we need a snow-white, pure-of-thought princess to save our asses, I’m not her.”

  I shook my head, then gave her a teasing smile. “Someday you’ll tell me those wicked thoughts in that head of yours.”

  “Someday,” she said, returning my devilish grin as she hopped off the counter. “For now, we should read.”

  “There’s a bar and grill across the street. Can I take you out for something to eat first? If I can’t have you, I need something else in my mouth.”

  Chapter 22

  “I think Sammy needs to go out,” Micah said as he rolled onto his elbow and squinted at Sammy, who desperately tried to claw his way through the front door.

  “Sammy, stop!” I ordered, but my dog ignored me. “He’s never acted like this before.”

  “Maybe he’s embarrassed.” Micah grinned as he pushed a damp strand of hair from my face before brushing a kiss over my forehead.

  A glance at the clock showed several hours had passed, so no surprise Sammy had to go. But I still should have known his behavior was more than a need to pee. I must have been too hyped up on what had happened—the most totally radical, righteous, awesome experience I’d ever had—to notice, though. I smiled giddily at Micah, a thrill of pleasure running through my body, and although part of me wanted to lay here with him, naked and content—no, more than content and not even self-conscious anymore—another part of me wasn’t sure I could, even if Sammy didn’t insist on a trip outdoors. When I rose to my feet, I felt surprisingly strong, powerful even, and full of energy.

  Micah rose, too, and wrapped his arms around me, pressing me against his naked body. His lips skimmed over my neck and collarbone.

  “I’ll take him out. I don’t want you to get dressed,” he murmured against my skin.

  I turned my head to catch his lips with my own, and the kiss alone about sent me into another orgasm.

  “I don’t want you dressed, either,” I said, running my hands over the perfect lines of his chest. “We’ll go together. Just a few minutes then we can be naked all night, if you’d like.”

  His fingers trailed a feather-light line down my spine, then he grabbed my ass, making me squeal. “Oh, I’d very much l
ike.”

  He kissed me hard and long, and I about gave in when Sammy started barking. With a groan, we pulled apart and dressed hurriedly, paying little attention to what we actually wore, or to Sammy, who was tearing up my brand-new door.

  “Okay, okay,” I said to Sammy as my hand clasped the knob.

  As soon as the door opened, Sammy bolted through it, a yellow shot of lightning blasting into the night. Micah and I stumbled after him, still wrapped in each other emotionally and physically, our arms encircling each other’s waists. At least, until we heard the collision of Sammy’s body into another form and the grunt of a human voice followed by a ferocious canine growl. My arm dropped from Micah’s waist and his from mine as we both stiffened.

  Adrenaline, not fear, shot through my body when I took in the many shadows surrounding us. The Shadowmen outnumbered us three-to-one, but I felt confident we could take them on. My muscles coiled, ready for a fight. And when they attacked, my body moved like it never had before. My temper had driven me into previous fights, but those hadn’t even been real. They’d been catfights, as much as I hated to admit it. But this—this was real. And I thrived in it.

  The Shadowmen charged us, four on Micah, two on me, and Sammy still fighting with the one he knocked down when he flew out of the apartment. Billy Idol-dude tried to grab me from one side and a guy with dark skin, hair and eyes reached for my other side, as if they thought they could snatch me and run. They had another thing coming. My elbows came up, knocking both of them in their chins, and I twisted away from their grasping hands. I spun and clocked dark-guy with my fist in his jaw, making him stumble backwards. A kick to his groin brought him to his knees. Another to his head knocked him out. His form shattered into a million pieces that flew upwards, tiny shadows headed for the sky.

  Before I could draw a breath, Billy Idol-dude grabbed me from behind, his arms encircling me and caging mine to my body. I squirmed and flailed and kicked my heels against his shins. His grip on me didn’t loosen. With a full body thrust forward and down, I flipped him over my head, but he held onto me and took me with him, making me land face up, laying on top of him. In a swift motion, he rolled us over, flattening me against the deck. The sweet, woody smell of the new lumber filled my nose.

  With one arm still around me and his body pinning me to the deck floor, the guy’s other arm slid from underneath us. His elbow jabbed and pushed between my shoulder blades as he released his other arm. I bucked against him, trying to pull my knees under me as he jockeyed for a new position, but his weight suddenly felt as though it had tripled, holding me down. A large hand—larger than it should have been with long, spindly fingers—grasped the back of my head and jammed my face into the rough wood. The man’s weight shifted, and then his face was close to mine, hot, rancid breath huffing against my ear.

  Something pointed and sharp grazed along my temple and cheek, and a two-inch long, purplish-green claw came into view in the corner of my eye. What was this thing, this Shadowman? His fingers had been normal when I saw him at the store. At least, I thought they had. I hadn’t really looked that closely at him, but surely I would have noticed this.

  “Your friend was . . . delicious,” he drawled in my ear, his breath curling down to my nose and making me gag. “I bet you are, too.”

  “Fuck you,” I snarled. I tried to throw my head back to head-butt him, but his hand tightened, and his claws dug into my scalp.

  So I jerked my elbow up, landing a blow into his ribs. With a grunt, his weight shifted on me enough to change his center of balance. Faster than I thought possible, I threw my arm up again, putting my whole body into the move. My elbow connected with his face this time, pushing him more to the side, and the inertia of my body threw him off completely.

  I jumped to my feet, swinging out a sidekick as I did. His hands flew up and latched onto my foot, bringing me down to my knees with a painful thud. I kicked my foot back at him and broke free from his grip. My heel landed hard against his temple, making his head snap to the side. I sprang to my feet again and landed another kick to his ribs, right where I’d elbowed him earlier. The sound of a breaking bone cracked through the night. I went to kick him one more time, now in the groin, but when my foot should have connected, it met nothing but smoke.

  Shock and then elation filled me. Strength, ability, speed . . . I’d never fought with such power before. I spun around to help Micah, but he’d just swung a fist at his last guy, and before it collided into the side of the Shadowman’s face, the form disappeared like the others. We shared a stunned look, then we both turned for Sammy. My dog sat on the far side of the deck, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth as he panted. His tail switched with the smallest of wags. A black dust darkened his golden fur, and his guy was gone, too.

  “We did it,” I gasped, and I grinned at Micah. His mouth began to pull into a smile, too, but then his eyes darkened as he stared at me.

  “You’re hurt,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me inside to the bathroom.

  A glance in the mirror showed a trail of blood dribbling from my hairline.

  “It’s only a scratch,” I said, inspecting it more closely.

  Micah still took great care in cleaning the wound, for which I was grateful because the thought of the germs in that guy’s discolored fingernails—or claws, whatever they were—sickened me. We investigated the rest of our bodies, and Sammy’s, too, but the small cut on my head seemed to be our only injury. Although I felt fine, pumped even at how I was able to kick not just one guy’s ass, but two, Micah’s earlier thoughts of getting naked again had disappeared.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said as we lay snuggled in bed.

  “But I’m fine,” I protested. “And you would only make me more fine.”

  In fact, I felt sure making love to him would be good for me, but he wouldn’t listen.

  “We have the rest of our lives ahead of us,” he said.

  I sighed, liking the sound of that. Whatever qualms either of us had had with each other were gone now. Our out-of-body experience while making love had brought us even closer together, proving we belonged to each other and nothing could tear us apart.

  “Tomorrow, then,” I relented.

  “Absolutely.”

  I eventually fell asleep and into a fit of dreams. They started as a nightmare, first of Bex fighting for her life and losing and me watching her die. Then Shadowmen chased Micah and me down the street, then the beach and even across the water. We ran and ran, and at first I had no idea where we were going, but then the Victorian mansion came into view. Micah and I had found it, nestled on a tiny island. We tried to run for it, the Shadowmen on our heels, but as hard and as fast as we ran, we never came any closer. Like we were running in place, going nowhere.

  “We can’t get there from here,” Micah said, giving up.

  “Make love to me,” I responded, and the statement didn’t feel odd at all, a perfectly normal reply in a dream although our lives were on the line. Micah took me into his arms, and the dream became spectacular.

  Right when it came to the good part, though, my subconscious returned to the other dream. One moment, Micah and I were naked and thrusting against each other, the next moment, the Shadowmen surrounded us, and then suddenly, we were standing on the front steps of the mansion. The door flew open, as if welcoming us, and as soon as we entered the luxurious house, warmth and the sense of safety enveloped us. We were home.

  “We made it,” Micah kept saying, over and over again.

  “The Shadowmen can’t get us here,” I replied every time. “This is where we need to be. This place will heal me.”

  That last statement made less sense to me than the one about making love. I glanced down at myself, looking for injuries, but found none. Then my head started pounding, a quiet drum in the background at first, but it escalated to a loud bass r
ight in my ears.

  When I awoke, the bliss of last night had disappeared, replaced by a dull headache, sadness about Bex, and an epiphany.

  “We need to go to the mansion,” I said aloud before I even opened my eyes. “I know right where it is.”

  “I think I do, too,” Micah murmured next to me.

  My eyes flew open, and I turned my head toward him.

  “Did you dream about it, too? Did you see where it is?”

  His brow wrinkled. “No. I feel a pull in my gut. The feeling to where is more distinct than before, more specific.”

  I rolled onto my side to face him. My head ached with the movement. “We should go there. At least check it out. There has to be a reason we’re both dreaming and envisioning it.”

  He lifted his hand to my temple and pushed my hair away from my forehead to inspect my injury. I winced. He frowned.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it. Do you remember how it happened?”

  “He dug his gnarly fingernails into my head. It’s just a scratch. Really.”

  “I guess . . . kind of looks like there’s a bruise around it, too.”

  “What?” I moved to get up and see for myself, but my head felt like the Terminator’s robotic hand crushed my skull, worse than any hangover I’d ever had, which was saying a lot. I lay back down. “Ugh. I have a bitchin’ headache.”

  Micah brought me a glass of water and some aspirin, then he took Sammy outside. After a few minutes, I couldn’t hold it anymore and had to get up to pee. The headache seemed to be subsiding already—or was at least masked by the aspirin. Unfortunately, the ugly mark on my head that looked like a blackening bruise didn’t go away so easily. Neither did my heartache over Bex.

  I moved like a slug throughout the morning as I loaded our bags into Micah’s truck to take to the laundromat, while he finished the flooring in the kitchen since he hadn’t been able to yesterday. The pain in my head hadn’t gone completely away, but remained as a dull ache, more annoying than anything, though it seemed to be growing, into my neck and over my shoulders.