Some part of him didn’t want it reduced to a “thing” of any kind, but he couldn’t deny the more general truth to what she’d said.
He was still trying to decide what to say to her, when she released his hand again. He was about to protest, or maybe try to explain this to her in some way, at least how he saw it, when she leaned over him on the bed. Propping her hands on the pillow, just above his shoulders and to either side of his head, she looked down into his eyes. With their faces only a few inches apart, she frowned, studying his expression.
“Tell me something about you,” she said.
It sounded more like a command than a request.
“I was born in Afghanistan,” he said. Feeling his own face warm at the ridiculousness of his response, he forced a seer’s shrug, not quite meeting her eyes. “I am an infiltrator...a soldier. I work for the Sword...and through him, the Bridge.”
“That is not what I meant,” she said, blowing at her rough cut bangs a little in impatience. “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Have you been married?”
“No, cousin.”
“Why do you call me cousin?”
“Because you are human...and I am seer.”
That thoughtful look still in her eyes, she nodded.
He could feel she’d half-expected that answer, but wanted it confirmed. Adjusting her weight on her hands, she focused back on his face. Her cheeks turned pinker again, but he felt her resolve underneath, her wanting to know. Hoping it might help her, he made his light more submissive, more open to hers...but it worsened his pain almost at once, causing him to shift under her on the bed.
“Do seers actually date?” she said. “Or do you just screw around, like all the feeds say?”
At his silence, she hesitated, biting her lip. Loki found himself staring at that lip and the white teeth that teased it, feeling his pain worsen, coursing through his body like liquid.
“...Because I’ve heard you mostly just fuck like rabbits,” she added, maybe to break the silence. “But you knew that already, right? What humans think?”
“We...date,” he said. “We are mostly monogamous, truthfully.”
She quirked an eyebrow at him, pursing her lips. “Really? So why does everyone say the exact opposite about seers? Because I’ve been hearing that since I was a kid. From everyone,” she repeated, still watching his face.
He looked up at her, lost briefly in those dark eyes.
“You’ve heard wrong,” he told her, his voice suddenly denser. “You’ve likely met people who’ve only experienced seers as slaves. It is not...” He fought for words, then shook his head, clicking softly. “...Those seers are not allowed to be in relationships.”
His words didn’t offend her. She seemed to think about them instead, still watching his face.
“But you have casual sex, too?” she pressed.
“Of course.”
“So what is this, Loki?” she said, pronouncing his name carefully. “What are we doing here? Is this some kind of come on to get laid? Or something else?”
“That is what you are asking me?”
She rolled her eyes, giving a half-laugh. “Well, yeah. D’uh.”
Loki reached up a hand, once more sliding it into her dark hair.
He felt her flinch, but she didn’t pull away.
When he tugged her carefully closer, raising his other hand to touch her face, he felt her body grow soft. He fought with words as he looked at her, some way to describe what was happening to their lights. He would need to teach her a lot more, first...about seers, about the Barrier, about her own light, about why such things happened between seers, and, even more rarely, between seers and humans.
He looked up at her and thought all of this.
Then he decided it could wait.
He pulled her down to him, caressing her cheek with his hand, sliding it around her jaw, then down her neck. His pain worsened as he explored her skin. He felt her light open to his, her fingers wrap around his shoulder, her other hand gripping his forearm where he held her. He felt her breathing quicken...in nerves, in anticipation, in desire. His pain worsened as he watched emotions flicker across her face, as he watched her try to control them.
“You’re hurt,” she said, her voice catching. “...And probably doped to the gills.” She closed her eyes, longer than a blink. He heard the tremor in her voice and his cock hardened more, causing him to shift under her. “We should wait on this side of things, Loki...”
He nodded, still caressing her skin, moving his fingers under the collar of her shirt to her shoulder and the back of her neck, which he massaged slowly, feeling her body and light react, growing even softer over his. His other hand tightened in her hair, and he felt her fingers tighten, too, where they held his bicep, clutching at him when she felt his muscle tense.
Her hand looked so small on his arm. The contrast turned him on more, even as he felt himself winding more of his light into hers.
“I don’t think I can wait,” he told her finally, fighting his breath.
She laughed, and the sound went through him. He felt it in his feet.
She pushed on his chest though, starting to disentangle herself, but he fought her with his light, not wanting to let go of her.
“Do you not want this?” he asked her. “Is it only me you are worried about? Hurting me? Or do you not want this with me? Don’t let me push you, cousin...please. Tell me the truth, and I will leave you alone...I promise I will. You have no reason to fear me...”
She stopped pushing at his chest, looking back at his face.
He saw the thoughtful look return there, felt her light start to open to his again.
He caressed the hair out of her eyes, tracing her mouth with the fingers of his other hand where he cupped her jaw once more in his palm. He saw her looking at his mouth, too, then at his eyes. He felt pain in her, enough that he let out a low sound, focusing back on her mouth. He struggled with his light to keep from pulling on her, from coaxing her into him.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me if I can kiss you...”
“You’re hurt,” she chided him, smacking his chest lightly. “You heard what that other woman said. You know the one I mean,” she said, frowning at him. “...The one who had her hands all over you every five seconds...”
His pain worsened, even as he ran his thumb over her mouth again.
“Were you jealous?” he said, unable to keep himself from asking.
She didn’t answer.
Seeing her frown, he let out another low sound, kissing her jaw.
“She knew this might happen,” he said, softer. “It is why they left us alone. They have been teasing me about you...ever since I first saw you in that horrible place. They were teasing you, by touching me. Mika and Rex, especially.”
“Teasing, huh?” She quirked that dark eyebrow again.
She was looking at him, though, and that anger had softened in her eyes.
“Yes,” he said, feeling another hard pulse of pain. “Yes. I will introduce you to all of them, cousin, and you will see. They are not bad people...and Mika was not trying to seduce me. Seers like to tease, but I will tell them not to touch me, if you like.”
Her smile returned. He saw so much warmth in her eyes and mouth that time, he pulled her mouth down to his. Kissing her carefully, he released her slightly, but she didn’t move away. He kissed her again, closing his eyes, inhaling her scent.
“Just kissing,” he murmured against her skin. “Only that...”
She let out a laugh, raising her head. “You just want to kiss. You ask me if I’m jealous. You want to introduce me to your friends...tell them not to touch you around me...” Shaking her head at him, she burst out with another laugh, still giving him a nearly incredulous look. “Are you asking me to be your girlfriend, Loki?”
She said it teasingly, but once he’d thought about her words, once he understood how she meant them, he found himself answering her question without
hesitation.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am asking that of you, Gina.”
He saw her cheeks grow pink again, and his pain worsened. He found himself thinking that some of her reaction came because he’d used her given name.
“Can I call you that?” he clarified. “...Gina?”
She nodded, still looking at him in a kind of stunned silence.
Disbelief wafted around her light, but he felt desire on her, too...and something more. His words had touched her, somehow. They had touched her in an emotional way, and as he felt denser glimmers of that, his own pain grew unbearable again. Reaching up, he brushed the hair off of one of her cheekbones, caressing the skin lightly with his fingers as he did it.
“Do you want to be my girlfriend, Gina?” he said, his voice formal that time, polite. “We can talk about the particulars, if you like...”
He trailed, seeing that wrinkle return to that section of skin above her nose and between her eyebrows. Worried again that he was saying too much, too quickly, he reminded himself that she was human. She would not know what was happening with their light. She would not be used to the formalities seers engaged in to normalize such connections, or make them transition more smoothly...or the agreements they often made with one another to ease each another’s minds.
She might not even be used to the intensity of a strong light connection, period, depending on her romantic history...not even with another human.
It was unlikely, though. She’d had a child with a human.
She might even have been married...to the father, or to someone else.
The thought brought a thick wave of jealousy, but the other part of his mind remained relatively clear. He needed to ease her into this. He couldn’t pressure her with words any more than he could with his light, simply because he couldn’t control himself.
Thinking about this further, he frowned.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I am doing this wrong for you.”
Her eyes cleared slightly at his words.
Even so, he felt the distance she had put between them, and knew he hadn’t been wrong. A few seconds later, she shook her head.
“No...it’s not that. Not exactly.” Hesitating, she tilted her head, a gesture that felt almost like an admission of something. “Honestly, this all feels just fine. It’s when I stop to think about it that I realize how completely insane it is...”
Trailing again, she shook her head, staring off at the far wall.
It occurred to him that maybe she was avoiding looking at him. When she gazed down at him next, however, her dark eyes had sharpened, as had those gold and green glints of lighter color in her irises.
“Okay, I have another question,” she said. “When’s the last time you had a girlfriend, Loki?”
Loki thought about that, too. Frowning slightly, he tried to answer her question as accurately as he could. Then he realized his answer might only make her more nervous.
“It has been quite some time,” he admitted.
“How long?” she pressed.
Glancing up at her, he felt his jaw harden somewhat. “We live much longer than you,” he said, hearing the defensiveness in his own words. “I’d wish you to remember that, cousin, before you judge my words too harshly...”
Something about that amused her, though. She grinned at him, rubbing his forearm with one hand and distracting him all over again.
“An older guy, huh?” she said, her dark eyes teasing. “How long, lover boy?”
“Over twenty years,” he told her, deciding to keep it at that.
He saw her eyes widen slightly, but the smile didn’t leave her face. She heard the evasion behind his words, too, or must have, because she quirked her eyebrow again.
“How much over twenty years?” she said, softer.
He rolled his eyes, clicking at her, and she laughed, forcing him to laugh, too.
“I answered your question,” he said, mock-scolding her. “Do not get greedy, cousin...you have enough leverage over me already, I assure you.”
“So I guess you’re not going to tell me how old you are, either, then?” she said.
“Absolutely not...” he began.
She leaned down before he could get much further, and they were kissing again.
That time, she parted her lips, and he let out a soft groan, wrapping his arm around her neck and upper back as he pulled her tightly against him.
For a few minutes, he could feel only her tongue on his, her body pressed against his bare chest and abdomen. He fought to control his light, even then, trying to get to know her lips, the way she explored his mouth with her tongue, the feel of her light in his. Ending their deeper kiss, she raised her head slightly, planting small kisses on the edges of his lips, her breath catching at each one. Losing control over his light at this, he gripped her hair tighter, massaging her upper back with one hand as she began kissing his jaw and then his neck.
He could feel her worry ebbing and then growing more intense, the unfamiliarity of this for her, her unsureness about his race, about the fact that he was a stranger to her mind. He did what he could to hold back, to follow her lead, but felt his cock harden painfully again as her light continued to explore his, pulling on him, probably without her realizing it.
When her hands started to follow her light, he forced himself to lie there, to endure it, but within minutes he found he couldn’t look at her, either, particularly not her face.
Gina, get a grip, he heard her thinking. You can’t sleep with this guy right now...no matter how hot he is. He just got out of a damned coma. His leg might be broken...
His pain abruptly worsened.
He spoke before he thought about whether that was a good idea, either.
“I want to,” he told her, murmuring against her mouth when she leaned over to kiss him again. He gripped her hair in both hands, pulling her against him even as he returned her kiss. He intensified that kiss within seconds, putting more light into his tongue and lips, feeling her react by writhing against his chest, her hands tightening on his bare skin. He paused only to murmur against her mouth. “I’thir li’dare...I want to so badly, Gina...so badly...”
He felt her react to him saying her name again, too.
She liked it when he said her name.
She thought it was sexy, that his need was sexy, that the way he clung to her was sexy, that his lips and tongue felt fucking amazing when he kissed her mouth, and she already wondered how that tongue would feel kissing other parts of her. He felt her wondering how he could have gone so long without a girlfriend, looking the way he did, with that damned voice and chest and face and how good he was with his mouth and hands.
He felt her wondering if he’d been telling the whole truth when he said that Mika didn’t want him. He felt her liking him speaking Prexci to her, even if she couldn’t understand it.
Yet, he told himself quietly. She wouldn’t understand Prexci yet. I would remedy that...
Looking up at her face, it occurred to him again that he was lost in this already. He was lost, and maybe she was, too, even if she didn’t know it yet.
The thought made him feel strangely guilty.
But only a little.
It was the last thought he had, before he pulled her mouth down to his again.
15
A REAL FIGHT
TRUTHFULLY, BY THE the time I was ready to go in there, I was nervous.
Part of the problem was that too much time had passed by then.
I got pulled into an incident with the infiltration team unexpectedly, which threw me on a number of levels. One, the time thing, like I said...I’d been on my way to go talk to Revik when it went down. Two, I had no idea the operation was even taking place.
So, yeah, when it went south, I was lost and also kind of pissed off, on a number of levels.
I’d been aware, of course, of the extraction team sent to Flushing, Queens, to look for Dante’s mother. I’d even known that they’d found her...alive...whi
ch had been a minor miracle. But I had no idea Revik diverted that team to D.C. sometime the night before, while it was still daylight in New York and following their successful extraction of Dante’s mom.
Presumably, he’d done all of that while I was up on the deck, staring at the wake of the aircraft carrier. Or maybe after I’d gone to sleep that night.
No one could even tell me what he’d sent them to look for.
Not even Balidor, who had been involved peripherally.
Apparently Revik only talked to Oli and Yumi regarding the actual mission parameters and even they didn’t have details on the actual target. Revik sent all of that, encrypted, directly to Loki, along with schematics, an approach plan, and several contingencies. Later, Yumi and Balidor got called in by Loki himself as backup.
Both Oli and Yumi updated me with everything they knew as soon as I asked, but no one could tell me what had happened to Loki yet, since there’d been radio silence since the Chinook left the White House grounds.
Either way, I was pissed.
Granted, I could see the hypocrisy in that, given that I’d just delivered orders to send us to Dubai without talking to Revik beforehand...but I was kind of blown away that Revik had done all of that right after the mess in Macau, and from the tank, no less.
From what Balidor told me, there had been casualties, too.
I was supposed to get confirmation on that later, as well as who we might have lost, once the team ended their radio silence. I hoped like hell Revik had a good reason for getting some of our infiltrators killed. We weren’t exactly flush in high-ranked seers these days.
Moreover, a significant chunk of those we had were completely untried in the field. It was going to take a hell of a lot longer than we had right now, to train up those we’d found among the Lists and refugee camps who had high ranks in potential.
So yeah, none of this put me in the best frame of mind.
But I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to talk to Revik.
I had Balidor call ahead, so I wouldn’t take him completely off guard. I overheard Balidor tell him that they’d been forced to bring me into the D.C. operation, too.
Allie's War Season Four Page 93