by Barb Taub
Her breasts pressed against his chest as her hands moved along his T-shirt, her weapon-calloused fingers stroking the long muscles of his back through the soft cotton. Finally he whispered her name, and she tilted her face.
His lips moved on hers, a featherlight press to the corner of her mouth, another to her top lip. His tongue flicked the seam of her lips, and when she opened slightly, he sucked her lower lip into his. She must have made some sound of agreement, because his lips stretched into a smile before he pressed back. He tasted like toast with dark, dark coffee. More kisses, tongues and lips wordlessly answering questions neither would ask. Yes, want. Yes, need. Yes, you.
The cinnamon scent from the candles mixed with the hint of clove oil and something smoky that was Yosh as he danced her out of the kitchen and into her little bedroom. He raised his head to whisper, “What do you want?”
She pulled her shirt off to stand in her sports bra, and threw her head back to meet his eyes. “I’m so tired of being alone. Always alone. I just want…connections.”
When he went completely still, she realized what she had said. Crap! I made it sound like anyone could scratch that itch. “No, I didn’t mean…” Her assurance melted away, and she slumped onto the bed. Now he’ll know I’m not strong enough. He’ll leave too. Everyone does.
She felt the bed dip next to her, but she stared at the floor as she tried to explain. “Yosh, I want you. But I haven’t done…this…in a really long time. I’m afraid you’ll see…”
His voice sounded like he was smiling. “You once told me…use your big-girl words.”
“I’m strong when I have weapons. I knew what to do when I had my gift. But that wasn’t good enough. Gaby left us. Then Connor didn’t even try to get back to me. And Marley and Harry… Well, okay, Harry died. But even before that, he left… At least I still had my connections and a job to do. Only…I don’t even have that anymore. And now, you know the truth is that I have nothing left. You’ll leave too.”
“Yes, I will leave.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. Of course he would.
“But I’ve already come back once. And I’ll keep coming back. As long as you let me in.”
She stared at him.
“And as long as you don’t mind me being a bed hog.”
She gave a watery snort. “You heard that?”
“So.” His hands cupped her face, turning her into his kiss. “Can we get back to the important question?”
“Mmmm?”
“Let me rephrase. I can see I have to be much more specific.” He stood to pull off his own shirt. His chest was carved into muscles stretched under golden skin.
Why was he still talking when that chest obviously needed to be touched?
“I’m not in charge of what you want.” He kicked out of his boots and placed a foil strip of condoms onto the shelf by her bed. She started to smile as he continued, “And you’re perfectly capable of going after what you need.”
She stood to press against his back so she could run her lips along the swirls of his tattoo, her hands sweeping around to the muscles of his chest as he unzipped his jeans.
Sliding jeans and boxers from his legs and toeing off his socks, he straightened to face her. “Wants and needs are pretty fairy tales for people who get happy-ever-afters. People like you and me? If we’re very…” He turned in her arms, face so close his breath warmed her lips. “Very…” His voice dropped to a whisper as her mouth opened. “Very lucky we get a happy-for-now.” His tongue swept into her mouth, and she tasted coffee and darkness and laughter before he pulled back again. “And for now, all I really want to know is…”
“You should stop talking. Now.”
He grinned back at her as her hands followed the light dust of hair on his chest that arrowed down to his belly button, pointing lower to the proof that he was indeed very happy-for-now. His voice deepened almost to a growl as her hands closed around him. “All I want to know is which side of the bed is your happy-for-now?”
She pushed him until he sprawled across the mattress, his back against the wall at the head of the bed alcove. His skin looked so dark against the pale pink sheets, and he was so aroused. For her.
“Warden Parker?”
She was still staring, not even pretending to move her eyes up to meet his. “Unh?”
“Aren’t you a little overdressed?”
“Oh.” She looked down at her bra and jeans. When she looked back at him, she wondered if her eyes looked as wicked as her smile felt. “You mean these?” With a deliberate pace that had him groaning, she unfastened her jeans one button at a time and wriggled them off. She hooked her thumbs into the days-of-the-week bikini panties—Tuesday, which featured a line of little chickens marching across the yellow satin front—and raised a questioning eyebrow.
His slow smile was all appreciation. “You’ll have to explain those to me later.” As she slid them slowly down her legs and stepped out of them, he moaned. “Much later.”
Then she was crawling onto the bed, kneeling between his long legs. She looked at him, uncertain again. But when he grinned, she felt her wicked smile return. She pulled off her bra and batted away the hands reaching for her. “Don’t move or I’ll stop.”
“Promises, promises.” He made a show of clasping his big hands behind his head. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Her own hands started at his feet, caressing his toes, kneading the muscles of his calves as she worked her way up his legs.
“Carey?” His voice was a deep rumble. “Something in particular you’re looking for down there?”
“No, I’m good.” She learned the length of his thighs, ran fingers under and around his legs and onto his belly, deliberately ignoring the “something in particular” that brushed her cheek.
When he groaned, “Carey Parker, now you’re just being mean,” she laughed to hear him echo Claire’s favorite line. She moved on to the muscles of his stomach, the soft hair of his chest, the taste of his nipples. And all the while he whispered how beautiful she was, moaned that he wanted her, begged that he needed her. Happy-for-now.
She didn’t even notice when he ignored her command to keep still. His big hands were cupping her breasts, shaping them and swirling his tongue around her nipples. He pulled back and stared into her eyes. “Carey…are you sure?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m damn sure.” She was rocking against him, their mouths again fused, when he shouted her name. Her eyes opened wide, connected, and she wasn’t alone at all.
She lay against him, enthralled by his eyes. If they were the soul’s windows, then Yosh usually kept his windows carefully dark, shades and curtains drawn against any glimpses within. But now his eyes were warm, sleepy, and smiling just for her.
Her hand traced the multicolored swirls of the tattoo that swept from one side of his neck, across his left shoulder, and continued down his back. “What does it mean?” Instantly she regretted her words, as his eyes chilled, his curtains drawing closed again. For a long moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer.
His lips were on her hair, his voice somehow both deep and soft. “Everything comes at a cost. I wanted to remember the people who died each time I had a death vision. A soldier from my old unit is a witch. I tell her who died, and she sends me a drawing of that person’s true Name.” He was silent for several minutes before turning to face her again. “To tell the truth, I needed this break from my gift. I know my dreams let me save people, but…what about the ones who die afterward? Are the deaths of the people I care about most only a coincidence? Is it just their time, or am I somehow to blame?”
Carey had no magic answers. God knows I suck at this relationship crap. Time to change the subject. “Are you always this chatty after sex? Because if so, we’re definitely going to need some rules.” She pulled back to look into those beautiful eyes, warming again as she flashed the wicked grin that only seemed to come out for him. “You know, with just a little more practice, I’ll bet you could get
good at this.”
He groaned. “I’m down a few pints of blood, I just climbed—twice—over the top of a moving train, I fought three Outsiders, and I had my world rocked by a sexy little Warden. Show some mercy, woman.” But those bleak shadows were banished. She tucked that observation away for future reference, wrapped her arms around him, and held him until they both slept.
Chapter Twenty
June 2011: Metro
She rolled into the warmth at her back and was rewarded with an enthusiastic lick up her face. “Bain! We’ve talked about this. Yuck.” But she gave the dog a vigorous all-body petting anyway, smiling at Bain’s ecstatic moans.
Carey found Yosh in the empty car she used for a gym. She spent a few minutes appreciating his sweaty body as he finished a set of push-ups and moved into what looked like an exceptionally murderous Tai Chi routine. Then she stripped to sports bra and shorts and moved into her stretches, culminating in a vertical split that drew a perfectly straight line from the toe pointed to the ceiling down to the floor. She heard a whispered, “Mercy!” behind her and flashed her wicked grin before whirling into a lightning series of kick, kick-punch, turns. Heart rate elevated, she finished her morning routine with staff work, followed by double swords flashing so fast they were a blur, and then knife and shuriken practice. Before she could move to the cool-down and meditation, she felt arms around her, lifting her and laying her on the pile of mats in one corner. They were both sweating, panting with heat, but his whisper was hotter. “You and those swords are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. And all I could think about was…”
“Sparring?”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
»»•««
“Eggs for breakfast? A shocker.” Carey smiled as she came into the kitchen car, running her fingers through curls still damp from her shower. Yosh turned from the stove, dividing his pan of scrambled eggs onto two waiting plates. “I guess it could be worse. At least the imps left us a bag of fancy coffee beans.” She handed him a cup of espresso, which he sipped moodily before hunching over his plate of eggs. The big guy was so not a morning person.
She brought her cup over and leaned her back against the counter next to his stool. “Have you ever heard of civet coffee from Indonesia? Seems that the coffee berries are fed to mongooses.” She took a sip and cocked her head. “Or is that mongeese? Anyhow, they poop out the beans, and that’s what goes into civet coffee.”
He spat out a mouthful of coffee onto Bain. Both of them looked at her in dismay. She laughed. “I’d like to try that coffee someday, but it costs hundreds of dollars a pound. This Jamaica Blue Mountain is pretty good, though.”
“Carey Parker.”
She joined in smoothly on the chorus. “Now you’re just being mean.”
She tried out her wicked grin again, and he was reaching for her when the Metro’s bells-voice announced next stop Seattle. Her grin disappeared. “You have to go.”
“No, I really don’t.” He cupped her face, kissed her, whispered with a desperate intensity. “We could both go to Null City. Have normal lives where we go on dates, fight over the TV remote and break up, have hot make-up sex, maybe get married and make some little warrior girls…” His voice was dark temptation mixed with the scent of cloves and the feel of his two-day beard. “Did I mention the make-up sex?” Their kiss made promises neither could say out loud.
She wrapped both arms around him and gave herself the gift of a few moments of that dream before she looked up. “We’ve talked about this. Harry said Gaby might be in France. And Poppy said that was the last place they heard from Gaby. It’s too big a coincidence. I know you think it’s too dangerous for me to stay here, but I literally can’t leave the Metro until my SA is done or I might not be able to ride it again. So it has to be you.” She knew she was right. She knew he had to leave. But she didn’t have to like it.
“I am coming back to you.” He leaned in for a hard kiss. “And you’d better be here waiting.”
She tried a smile for him as the Metro pulled out of the station. He raised a hand but didn’t smile back.
»»•««
Over the next two weeks, Carey’s frustration with wasting her time on the Metro grew. She heard from Harry, texts or rare phone calls when he could get through. Every message was the high point of her day, but he didn’t have much news. Director Jeffers or Claire occasionally reached her through the spelled phone when the Metro was in the Seattle station—and in their when.
Kurt Jeffers said that Yosh had checked in twice and was heading for a town in the south of France. Over Yosh’s objections, Jeffers wanted another Warden to accompany him, and Laurel volunteered. Claire, sounding frustrated, said they hadn’t been able to identify the source leaking information to the Outsiders, but that one of the newer Wardens, Jennifer Aix, was critically injured in an ambush and not expected to live. She remembered her, a tall, laughing girl. Some months ago, Carey had left money in the staff lounge for a wedding present. Or was it a baby gift? Damn.
Then came the day Frankie was waiting for her at the Seattle Metro station, holding a one-way ticket to Null City. Carey picked up her suitcase and led the other woman through the train and into the kitchen car. Frankie seemed numb as Carey pointed her to a stool and started the espresso machine.
“I made a copy of this for you.” Without meeting her eyes, Frankie slid a photo onto the counter. Eyeing it upside down from the other side of the kitchen island, Carey recognized the picture of the five of them from that last Agency picnic. Setting cups of coffee in front of each of them, Carey climbed onto the stool next to Frankie. She waited.
Frankie lifted her coffee, looked at it as if she had no idea how it got there, and set it down untouched. Wrapping both hands around the warmth of the cup, she stared at the photo with a look of blanked shock. “Laurel is dead.”
Carey thought about how much she needed to fight someone. Getting hit, or stabbed, or even shot was easy compared to this. After all, those things could be healed. She heard a voice she didn’t recognize as her own ask, “Outsiders?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know…” Frankie’s cup jerked, and coffee splashed onto the counter. “A man named Iax brought her body to the Agency, but I couldn’t… He said the rumors they’d been following in France were a trap, and they were ambushed. But then he was so sick, there was no way to ask him for details even if I’d wanted them.”
Frankie didn’t move as Carey went to her room and returned with a bottle. The scotch had been waiting for her at the Seattle Metro station last week with a note. “Rx for next blood donation—Yosh.” She poured a generous slug into each of their cups. “Frankie,” she tried. Then, “Laurel…”
“Do you think I don’t know?” At last Frankie looked at her. “If I was killed, Laurel would make them pay. But I’ve already fought my war. Carey, I know it’s not fair, but you’ll…”
“They’ll pay, Frankie. I promise.”
Carey, who could count her friends and have fingers left over, knew when the train pulled away from the woman standing alone on the platform at the Null City Metro station, she was saying good-bye to two of them.
Sitting on her bed, Carey raised her glass to the group photo propped next to the open iPad with the Halloween picture. Draining the whiskey, she set it down and blindly ruffled Bain’s ears with one hand as she stared at the fading train tattoo on the other. “It’s time to leave, Bain.”
She sent a text to Harry, and to her surprise her phone rang almost immediately.
“Harry. It was my friend Laurel. The Outsiders…”
“I heard from Kurt. How are you doing?”
“Not good.”
“Carey, they know you’re on the Metro. If we could get someone to take over the rest of your SA, would you be willing to go to Null City?”
“I didn’t know it was possible to get a sub. But if I did, I wouldn’t go to Null City. Even if I hadn’t promised Frankie, I couldn’t just go sit there and wait for them
to attack Null City. Not when I could be doing…something…to prevent thousands of deaths.”
“You can’t prevent anything if you’re dead yourself,” Harry argued. He begged, pleaded, and finally threatened to come get her himself.
That last made her curious. “You can leave Watcher Court?”
“Yes.” He hesitated. “Maybe. I’m not sure what would happen. Ramiel, the Prince of Fallen Court, thinks I’d be okay as long as I stay in Raqia.”
“What’s Raqia?”
“The name comes from a creation story which says the earth and water were separated from the heavens by Raqia. It’s often translated as sky, but a more accurate word would be expanse. In this case, Raqia is the expanse where Watcher Court, Fallen Court, and the Between are located. Kurt Jeffers thinks I could even go to Null City. And almost everyone thinks I could go on the Metro. Maybe. My friend Raguel is a brilliant inventor in Fallen Court, and he’s trying to figure it out. But he says for now I should stay where I am.”
“Sounds like good advice. For you.”
“Carey.”
“But thanks for giving me the idea of getting someone to fill in for the last of my SA term. I’ve got a pivot task to win, a brother and sister to find, a missing roommate, and a bunch of sorry Outsiders to introduce to a world of hurt. The sooner I get on that the better.”
Harry groaned.
“It’s really your fault, you know. You’re the one who taught me if I can’t walk away, I should fight as dirty as it takes to win. Well, Harry, I can’t walk away from this one, so I’m going to fight—just as dirty as I can.”
“I can’t believe I ever said anything that stupid.”
Carey’s smile was, she knew, little more than bared teeth. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Over the next two days, she had similar texts and phone calls from Claire and Jeffers. “It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she told Bain. “Yosh will be next. He’ll try to get me to go Null City, and I won’t listen. Somehow, I’ll find a replacement SA, and we’ll get back to work.”