He shook his head, jaw clenched.
“She didn’t. So she can go fuck herself, too.”
“Black.” That pain filled my light, and my voice. I reached for him, caressing his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Black. I’m sorry for what I said.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. I said I’d tell you anything about me you wanted me to know. Just hear me on this, Miri. They aren’t my family. Don’t ever think I see you like them. Ever. Do you understand?”
I nodded. My vision blurred and I nodded again.
“Jesus, Miriam. You don’t even occupy the same part of my light as they do.”
Gripping him tighter, I nodded a third time. Protectiveness washed over me, so intensely he let out a gasp, wrapping his arms around me where I lay under him.
“And I don’t want you to fucking leave, all right?” he growled. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more right now. I know I’m doing everything wrong... I know I’m fucking dangerous to share a bed with.” Pausing as if thinking, he clenched his jaw, right before he shook his head. “Fuck. Miri. I get it, if you want to go. But it’s not safe right now. It’s really not safe. Gaos... I’d have a damned heart attack, no matter how you did it. I don’t think your uncle would let you go, anyway, not without––”
“Black,” I began, soft.
“I know why you want to go. I get it.” Pain coiled off him in another dense wave. “I don’t blame you, Miri. I know I haven’t been taking care of you––”
“You don’t need to take care of me, Black,” I said, fighting another wave of frustration.
“Yes. I do,” he growled. “You’ve been doing your part. I haven’t.” Clenching his jaw again, he met my gaze. “I have good reasons. I swear to the gods, I do, even though I can’t tell you what they are. And yes, I’m fucked up right now. Not just with the sex... with those goddamned dreams. With me nearly throwing that woman in the pool just now. And yes, some of that has to do with my childhood, and my life on Old Earth. But it has nothing to do with you, Miri. I need you to hear me on that.”
His jaw firmed as he refocused on my face.
“I want you to touch me,” he said, his voice gruffer. “I want you to touch me all the goddamned time. I just...” He shook his head, clenching his jaw again. “I can’t. I lose focus with you, Miri. Both of us lose focus.”
I bit my lip, forcing myself to nod.
I didn’t agree with him though.
“I know you don’t,” he growled. “But I’m right, goddamn it! I need you to trust that I know more than you, in this one fucking area. It’s a seer thing, Miri. It’s not about you and me.” His voice lowered to a mutter. “Even your uncle agrees with me.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “You’ve talked to Charles about this?”
“I had to talk to someone. Someone who isn’t us.”
“And he told you not to sleep with me?” I stared at him, incredulous. “And you believed him? Because he’s always been such a fan of our marriage? I mean, he couldn’t possibly be biased. After all, it’s not like he’s a liar. Or manipulative. Or a borderline psychopath, for that matter. Or constantly trying to pit us against one another...”
Black clenched his jaw. He didn’t answer.
“We’re not weaker together.” I hardened my voice. “We’re weaker like this. We’re weaker like this, Black.”
His mouth firmed as he studied my face.
After a long-feeling pause, he shook his head.
As he did, he rolled off me, letting me go.
I bit my lip as he did it, fighting not to grab hold of him, to yank him back, to yell at him again. I lay there instead, my hands clenched in fists as he sat up next to me.
“We need to get back to the party,” he said, gruff. “We’ll talk more later, all right?”
Still staring up at the ceiling, I fought another surge of fury. Some part of me couldn’t process everything that had been said, or how I felt about any of it. I wished I could just shut off my mind, turn it off long enough to reboot the damned thing, but I ended up just lying in the dark, trying to breathe through it.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he turned, staring down at me.
“I want you to marry me,” he said. “I want you to marry me, Miri... in a public goddamned ceremony. Our marriage is going to go public soon anyway, if it hasn’t already... unless you divorce me.” He scowled, looking away. “That’d probably be public by now, too.”
When I didn’t answer, he leaned closer, staring down at my face.
“Miri?” he growled. “Did you hear me?”
I knew to Black, that was a question.
I couldn’t bring myself to answer him though, not in either direction. Truthfully, I still wanted to hit him, even knowing how completely insane that was, how insane both of us were acting. Thinking about it now, though, I realized we’d been acting insane for weeks. Maybe this was better. At least now, our insanity was out in the open.
At least this wasn’t us pretending like everything was okay.
“I’m going to start wearing a ring,” he muttered angrily. “I don’t give a fuck what you do... I’m wearing a goddamned ring. And I’ll explain it, if anyone asks. Fuck the ceremony, if you don’t want it. You don’t want to claim each other publicly? Fine. Just don’t get pissed when people assume I’m sexually available.” He gripped my hair, anger hardening his voice. “You’ll make a goddamned scene with someone, nearly kill them for touching me, but you won’t let me call you my wife on a dinner invitation? Why, Miri?”
Still staring down at me, he clenched his jaw when I didn’t answer.
“You threatened to leave me tonight,” he growled. “More than once. You did it in the goddamn elevator... in front of my fucking staff... you threatened to leave me. Is that what you want? Is it, Miri?”
Pain cut into me, blinding that time.
Feeling him react to that, I winced when his pain worsened, too.
After another long-feeling pause, I shook my head, closing my eyes.
Biting my lip, I forced myself to think.
“We’ll do the ceremony,” I said. My words came out cold, angry. Angrier than his. “But we’ll do it in San Francisco. When we get back.” Still thinking, I stared off to the side, my jaw clenched. “We can wear rings now,” I added after a pause. “We’ll look tomorrow, if you want, unless you already have something in mind. But I want to do the ceremony in San Francisco. I’m not doing it here. Around all these money-obsessed... jackals.”
I turned my head, glaring at him. “And this bullshit with you and Brick, and with you not touching me, will be over. Before the ceremony.”
Black blinked, his eyes widening as he stared at me.
“Do you want me to stay for dinner?” I asked, before he could speak. “Here, I mean. Tonight. After what I did out there. Do you want me to stay, or go back to our hotel? Is it going to be more of a scandal if I stay?”
A heated flood of light left him.
“Gaos, Miri.” His hand tightened in my hair. “What are you trying to do to me right now?”
“Do you want me to stay?” I said, frowning. “Or not?”
“Of course I want you to stay.” Pain came off him in another coil of fire-like light. “I’thir li’dare. Miriam. Stay. Please.” Hesitating, as if at a loss for words, he studied my face in the near-dark. “Jesus. Are you really mad at me right now?”
I nodded, feeling my throat close.
“Yes,” I said. “But I also know I’m not thinking clearly so I really don’t want to talk about it right now. Tell me what you need me to do here, how to help you. Do you want me to work the room in some way? Read people?”
He frowned, hesitating.
I could feel him wanting to talk about the other thing.
I felt him weighing it back and forth as he stared down at me.
Then, as if thinking better of what he’d been about to say, he averted his gaze.
“All rig
ht,” he said, exhaling. “See if you, Angel and Nick can find out more about what Garrison, Forsythe and Horne were up to… and if anyone else might have been working with them. If you find anyone who knows anything, go ahead and read them... but let Arden or one of the others know, too, so they can do the more in-depth scans.” He paused. “Not Ravi, though. Or Efraim. I’ve got them on something else.”
I nodded. “Okay.” Biting my lip, I looked down at myself, at the dress, the ripped nylons. “Am I going to be able to fix this? Or should we call someone?”
He stared down at the dress, then my legs.
“Fuck, Miri,” he muttered.
“Black,” I said, warning. “If you want me to go along with this––”
“I’m sorry.” He raised a hand in a peace gesture. I watched him tear his eyes off my mostly-bare skin, right before he met my gaze. “I’ll make it up to you. I swear to the gods I will, as soon as this is done... just give me more time. Please, ilya.”
Looking at him, I fought another wave of pain.
He was watching my face, pupils dilated, his hand caressing my hair. Pain was coming off him more intensely again, echoing into mine. I saw him trying to pull it back, to control it so I wouldn’t feel it, and my own worsened.
As I watched him struggle, that anger in me worsened.
He was wrong about us. We were weaker this way.
I didn’t just think it, I knew it.
The damnedest thing was, I was pretty sure he knew it, too.
13
LAST WORDS
ANGEL SIGHED NEXT to me, toying with the stem of her wineglass. She’d been doing that more than she’d been drinking from it.
I wanted to echo that sigh.
At this point, I wanted nothing more than to go back to our hotel, find a movie on pay-per-view and order ice cream and maybe a foot rub from the hotel’s room service.
I’d promised Black I’d stay, though, so stay I would.
I knew Angel probably wasn’t sighing for the same reasons I was. Her reasons likely had a lot more to do with me. She was frustrated with me. She and Nick both were. They wanted me to talk to them––about that blond woman, about Black dragging me out of there, about both of us coming back looking, in Nick’s words, “like you’d been in a drunk fist fight.”
Which in my view wasn’t totally fair.
I did, after all, manage to find new stockings, thanks to one of Ben Frasier’s female “friends.” I fixed my make-up, too, and more or less my hair––although it didn’t look quite like it had when I got there.
Still, to Angel’s eyes, I didn’t look right. Neither did Black.
Pulling me aside, she asked me, point blank, if Black had forced himself on me––which of course made me break into a humorless and wholly inappropriate laugh.
When she pressed me again, I told her I was more likely to do that to him than he was to me right now, and further, I was the abusive jerk who hit him, not the reverse. From Angel’s expression, she didn’t find that reassuring.
Forcing Angel and Nick from my mind, I smiled at the man sitting next to me, doing my best to seem interested in yet another snarky monologue he was in the process of delivering. I’d lost track of what this one was even about––Rory F. Ungerman was well on his way to making my list of most irritating people I’d ever met, even as he tried his best to charm me and offend me in equal measure. I had a tendency to tune people like him out in my regular life, so forcing myself to pay attention was proving more difficult than I expected.
I nudged his mind here and there, pushing it toward the people and topics Black wanted to know about. Luckily, like most narcissistic types, he craved and collected information about the higher-status people around him, so he had plenty to share.
“Simply scandalous!” he was saying now, screeching with laughter as he balanced his martini glass on the edge of the table. The silver streak in his dyed blue-black hair bobbed when he jerked his head around to beam at me.“My theory? Polyamorous love affair gone wrong.” He gestured in the air, as if making newspaper headlines. “Tryst Turns Ugly in Gay Wall Street Love Triangle... what do you think? Spicy enough?”
I laughed, making Angel flinch next to me. She gave me an odd look, but I pretended not to notice as I nudged Rory with my arm.
“No... really,” I said, smiling conspiratorially. “What do you think happened? Some kind of business deal gone wrong? Office robbery? What?”
Rory snorted, waving broadly with the hand holding the martini glass.
“Why, terrorism, of course!” he said, blinking at me as if that were obvious. “Everyone knows the three of them had simply massive holdings in oil... just like your man, Quentin.”
I frowned, but erased it quickly when Rory glanced at me.
“There was already some whispering, you know,” he confided. “Whisper, whisper, here and there. Everyone wondering what they knew that none of us did. Garrison had been buying up even more stock of late, even though there was talk of increasing surpluses.” He smiled at me, looking lingeringly down my dress, eyes glassy from alcohol. “They were always such naughty boys... Garrison, especially. Horne, too. It’s almost like they knew some band of angry Chinamen was going to start blowing up oil reserves...”
“Did you say reserves?” Angel looked over, her light brown eyes suddenly sharp. “As in, plural?”
Rory let out another cackling laugh. I saw Angel fight not to grimace.
“Of course, darling!” Rory crowed. “Don’t you watch the news?”
Sliding his phone closer, which he’d been using off and on throughout dinner to communicate with what he called his “subjects,” Rory swiped the screen with a finger then began scrolling down the feed of whatever social media app he was using.
Stopping on a video, he flipped his phone sideways, showing it to me and Angel.
I stared at the small screen as fires raged, sirens blaring through his phone’s tiny speakers. The orange and red flames covered what must be acres of land, from the size of the people and fire engines in front. To either side was water, a curved stretch of shore like a bay or inlet. Thick, black smoke belched into the sky as helicopters fought to fly around it, dumping chemicals on the rising flames. It didn’t look like they were even close to having it under control.
“Where is that?” I said, my voice gruff.
“Louisiana,” Rory said. “Near NOLA. It’s another government facility.”
Angel and I exchanged looks. She rose to her feet, pulling out her own phone and dialing a number before putting it to her ear. Touching my arm, she nodded towards Nick, who sat on the opposite side of the table and a few seats down.
I looked back at Rory.
My mind remained in his, even as I watched Angel walk away.
That one is terrifying, I heard him think in Angel’s direction. Great ass, though. Sexy in a leather and chains kind of way. Wonder if Black’s screwing her on the side. Wouldn’t put it past him... he’s such a slut. Rory glanced in the direction of the bar, right before he looked at me. Then again, maybe this one’s really scared him straight. Pity. I’d heard he wasn’t adverse to a little cock in the mouth on occasion...
My jaw tightened. I watched him check out Black a second time, who was once more lounging at the bar, talking to Ben Frasier and a few other suits.
Seeing me catch his leer, Rory grinned at me, his eyes still glassy from alcohol, but holding a shrewder scrutiny, as he looked me over.
Wonder if she’d be up for a threesome? Or a four- or five-some? I know we’ve still got some X lying around somewhere. I’d love to watch Ben pound her in the––
I cleared my throat. “So you really think it’s terrorists?” I said innocently, keeping my expression oblivious.
He didn’t roll his eyes, but I felt the sentiment pass through him.
“Well, it fits, doesn’t it sexy-pants?” he said, nudging my shoulder and smiling. “You can’t possibly believe this is the result of some kind of office-robbery gone
wrong?”
I was about to answer, when Marcus, the dark-haired Wall Street guy who’d approached me earlier with his blond friend, leaned over and spoke in my ear.
“What about a dance, gorgeous?” He grinned at me, more obviously drunk than Rory. He also spent a few seconds longer staring down my dress. “They’re clearing the floor now. We could get out there before all the other louts arrive.”
I glanced over to where he’d motioned. Live musicians had been playing classical music during dinner from one corner of the patio. Now, a D.J. station had taken the string quartet’s place. Floor tiles lit up as staff cleared tables away.
Before I could answer, Rory wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
“How rude!” he declared. He winked at me as Marcus flinched and straightened. “She’s clearly mine right now. You need to take your horny cock somewhere else, little boy. Find yourself a toy no one else is playing with.”
His voice was loud.
Loud enough that Black looked over, along with Frasier and a few others who leaned by the bar. It occurred to me Rory had done it for that very reason.
Maybe he was hoping for another scene, only with Black choking someone this time.
I saw Black glance at Marcus, then at Rory. I saw him look at me last, right before he forced himself to look away, his expression deliberately smooth.
Marcus grabbed hold of my arm, tugging me from the chair.
“One dance,” he said, his voice slurring. “Black won’t mind.”
I felt more than saw Black get up.
Before I could say anything, and before Black could do anything, someone else stood between me and Marcus, moving so quickly and quietly I hadn’t seen him coming. Inserting himself in front of me, Cowboy caught hold of Marcus’s hand on my arm. He did something to it that made Marcus cry out.
Whatever it was, Marcus let go of me so fast I nearly lost my balance.
Black Of Mood (Quentin Black: Shadow Wars #2): Quentin Black World Page 18