Downtime

by James Allen

  Ezra exhaled and looked at me with a certain apprehension. "Dr. Gilbride prescribed it when I first came here, to help me sleep, but--no." He grimaced. "I haven't been able to dose myself since Cambridge. It helped me through examinations, but then I found it extraordinarily difficult to give up."

  "Yeah, I know. It's addictive. And you can get to sleep without it. Let me help you."

  "I don't know if you can." He rested his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, exhausted despite his wakeful state.

  "Give me a chance?"

  Seeming to consider it, he looked at me, then simply nodded. I think he agreed not because he thought I'd succeed but because he was touched that I cared enough to want to try.

  As we got up, I took the bottle, intending to dump it out at the first opportunity. If I had to stay up all night to make sure he didn't take any of it, I would. I followed him up the familiar route to his bedroom, where I could see by the rumpled bedclothes that Ezra had at least tried to get some shut-eye. I could also tell by the way he sat at the foot of the bed, one arm hooked over the rail, that he didn't believe he was going to get a wink tonight.

  A little innocent distraction was necessary. "You don't have any really old clothes, do you?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Old clothes. For tomorrow. We're going undercover."

  His brows drew together. "Under cover of what?"

  I tried not very successfully to choke back a laugh. "We're going to disguise ourselves. Dress down, so we fit in with the crowd." I wondered if I still had those evidence baggies in my jacket pocket. Not that I'd find a nice pristine forensics lab to spirit them off to, but it didn't hurt to be prepared. I rifled through my jacket and found two bags, and a third in my wallet. Ezra watched me curiously.

  "May I see that?"

  "Sure." I handed over the wallet and he moved to the bedside table and turned up the lamp to study my badge.

  "Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI," he concluded with a faint smile. "Hmmm." He flipped past it. "What is this?"

  "License. So I can drive without being arrested."

  "Drive? A cab?"

  "No, a car--" Damn, I had to stop doing that.

  "A car..."

  "Horse and carriage, minus the horse."

  "Oh yes. I've read of them," he said with an eager nod. "There's a German model, I believe, which travels over ten miles an hour."

  I swallowed a grin. "Remarkable."

  Sheepish good humor shone in his eyes. "I suppose they're rather faster in your time." He took my license from the plastic to get a closer look. "Date of birth October twenty-seventh, nineteen hundred and sixty-nine. I still can't quite believe it. Do you know I shall be one hundred and ten years of age when you're born?"

  I snorted. "Be sure to look me up."

  The smile deepened as he continued. "Height six feet." He eyed me sidelong. "You can't be more than five eleven, dear fellow."

  "Five eleven and a half." Near enough to fudge on the license, anyway.

  Ezra laughed. "Five eleven and a half, then. Hair brown. Eyes brown." His attention shifted back to my face and his own softened. "Yes, they are. Quite brown."

  "You like brown?" I leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder. "I prefer blue, myself."

  "Do you? It's very..."

  He seemed to lose his train of thought. The trepidation I'd seen in his face the last time we were this close was gone, giving way to a desire he couldn't hide from me. My own was so fierce, I didn't try to conceal it. "Very what?" I eased off the glasses perched on his nose.

  He exhaled none too steadily. "Commonplace."

  That deep hazy blue was anything but commonplace. "I think it's my turn to teach you a little dance I know."

  "Now?" he said as I pulled him to his feet.

  "Don't worry. We won't wake anyone up." Lacing my fingers with his, I snaked my other arm around him and eliminated the remaining personal space between us. Two thin nightshirts didn't do a thing to prevent me from judging just how it felt to have every inch of him molded against every inch of me. It was a whole lot better than I'd imagined--and I'd imagined it pretty damned thoroughly.

  Ezra's imagination had apparently failed him as well. He sounded a little breathless as he asked, "You're sure this is a dance?"

  "A slow dance."

  "It is that. We're hardly moving."

  "Movement is not the goal of the slow dance."

  "Yes, the goal is rather evident," he agreed, not objecting as I dipped my head to press a kiss just under his jaw. In what seemed more instinct than conscious decision, he turned his face toward mine and sought my mouth. His kiss now was not the kiss of a terrified groom struggling with a life-altering choice; it was persistent and curious, testing waters he hadn't tested in a long while, if ever.

  I had to admit I found it a turn on, being kissed by a guy who wasn't too sure he ought to be kissing me but just couldn't help himself. As much as I wanted to crawl all over him and turn him inside out, I let him take his time. Men I'd dated seldom wanted to spend a lot of time just kissing and that had always been fine with me. But I was enjoying this particular unhurried lip lock, maybe because Ezra seemed to be, too. He opened eyes that had drifted shut and I saw a hint of hesitation in them. "Morgan..."

  "Mmm hmm?"

  "What of Reese?"

  A gentleman to the end. "Reese pretty much called it quits. Not that I blame him. You don't know what a pain in the ass I can be." As his eyebrows lifted, I conceded with a laugh, "All right, maybe you do. And that's the point."

  "You're not completely impossible. But it may be that I find you so attractive, I do not care."

  The kiss that followed that welcome assessment was all confidence and desire. I had to wonder who was leading whom astray as he backed me to the bed and nearly buried me in the downy mattress when he landed on top of me. God, had anything ever felt so good...

  "Clothes off," I whispered succinctly and he nodded, rising awkwardly on hands and knees so I could whisk his nightshirt as high as his chest before he tugged it off over his head. The sight of him hovering lean and naked over me damn near did me in right there. The warm weight of him settled on my legs as he reached for the hem of the shirt twisted around my hips. He eased it loose and, hands splayed on my hips, slowly pushed the cotton up past my stomach. His eyes had deepened to a twilight blue and they stayed on my face as his fingers grazed my stomach--that touch alone making me catch my breath--then glided lower. Accustomed as I was to moving from a few arousing kisses to heated groping in mere minutes, there was something mesmerizing about the pace Ezra had set, that I couldn't bear to speed up. Not yet.

  His light touch came to rest on an erection I hadn't thought could get any harder, and his eyes stayed locked with mine as those fingers familiarized themselves with the territory. I withstood several seconds of it before wrapping my hand around his wrist. "Jesus. You call me a demon."

  Lips curving, he pushed off my nightshirt and more than replaced its warmth with the heat of his skin on mine. He smelled better than any guy living in the muck and haze of nineteenth century London had a right to smell. The lingering scent of that crisply fragrant soap and his own natural smell had teased me for days, as had that vulnerable inch of skin between his jaw and stiff shirt collar. I nuzzled it now, inhaling the scent of him and wondered how I'd held out an entire week before giving in to this. Ready to give him a little of his own back, I dropped a hand to his hip, then slid it between us.

  Ezra seemed to stop breathing. I pressed a thumb along the underside of the twitching shaft in my grasp and then he was breathing again, fast and hot against my neck. He mumbled something too incoherent for me to make out and I squeezed him gently. "What was that?" I whispered, caressing him in precisely the tormenting way he'd done me a few moments ago.

  "I said you are a damnable monster," he choked but made no effort to stop my teasing touch.

  "That's what I thought you said." I wrapped fingers firmly around him an
d stroked once, tearing a low groan from his throat. "Show me how you do it," I murmured against his ear. "How you wicked heathens have your way with each other back here in the dark ages." The reminder that I was breaking the law didn't faze me all that much.

  Nor did it cow Ezra. Not sure what his preference might be, I was about to bring up the condoms I had in my wallet, when he took a different but just as acceptable route. I'd never been particularly quiet during sex, especially with a pair of warm lips doing their worst. Dragging the quilt over my head, I closed my eyes and gave myself over to Ezra's tender mercies. How I did manage to keep quiet, I had no idea. I think it was less a fear of incarceration than having to spend the night on the sidewalk.

  When Ezra slid along the length of my body to hover face to face, a sudden attack of shyness seemed to overcome him. "All right, was it?" he murmured.

  "Holy shit," I said when I could breathe.

  He shushed me but he was smiling. "I'm rather glad. I've not done it before."

  "You're kidding. Does that mean no one's ever..." I trailed off, letting him see my broad grin and his eyes widened. Before the half-hearted protest left his lips, I had him on his back. Not too worried that he'd rouse the house--he'd already proven to be a lot quieter than me--I took my sweet time pressing more kisses from the tender hollow above his collarbone to his trembling stomach. By that time, he was incapable of any sort of protest, even if he'd wanted to stop me. Having picked up the non-verbal clues to the sort of caresses that took him over the edge, I was rewarded by nearly being thrown off the bed as he climaxed.

  I buffeted his fall back to earth with kisses. It was a funny thing, but I didn't remember ever enjoying kissing so much. Whether it came out of experience or natural talent, Ezra knew what he was doing. Once he got going, I didn't want to stop. But he had a whole lot more than kissing in mind yet. "Now that I have shown you our heathen practices, you must show me the way of it in your enlightened age."

  I didn't expect to spring anything on him he'd never heard of, but it was fun trying. We finally had to acknowledge that heathen practices hadn't changed much from one century to the next. It was hours before, beat beyond the ability to move, we fell asleep. But the first light of dawn had barely filtered into the room when I woke to the sensation of a soft kiss on my neck.

  "Are you very tired?" he whispered and I couldn't help a drowsy grin. Bottle up a healthy sex drive for too long and you end up with a tsunami on your hands.

  "I'm tired as hell," I whispered back and covering his hand with mine, maneuvered it so that he could feel for himself just how little it mattered that I was. Fingers encircled me, caressing with damnable accuracy just the way I liked. How the hell had he picked that up so fast? I crawled on top of him and kissed him. "What're you doing to me, Ezra?"

  "Atoning for ruining your life?"

  "Yeah?" As his hands locked in the small of my back, I tangled my fingers in his hair and kissed him again. "You've made a good start."

  Chapter Thirteen

  By the time a subdued autumn sun brightened the room, we were back under the blanket, melted into a comfortable tangle of arms and legs. "We really should get some sleep, you know."

  "Yeah? Nice to be sleeping again, I guess. At least you were for a little while," I added with a wicked grin.

  "Yes, I do sleep when you're here, don't I? I wonder why."

  "The ghosts are scared of me?"

  "I hate to disillusion you, but the ghosts are still about. They do stand off a bit, though. More than they used to. Perhaps they don't quite know what to make of you."

  "They're still around?" An unsettling idea crept into my head. "Were they watching us?" Oh, Jesus... "Sully wasn't here, was he?"

  Ezra seemed to find the idea a lot funnier than I did. When he could stop laughing, he kissed my cheek affectionately. "My dear fellow, they're always about. They fade in and out, but they don't always stay away." His lips twitched. "I hadn't imagined you the bashful sort."

  "You've got to be kidding. You don't mind an audience?"

  He thought about it. "I suppose I'm rather used to one. But..." He shook his head at my perturbed expression. "They aren't hovering about the bed, if that's what you're thinking. I don't believe they feel drawn to pay us any mind, in the state they're in. And no, your Sully hasn't been around for a bit," he said, his voice soft with sympathy. "It took so much for him to visit with you before. It may be a while before he comes back."

  Visit...

  Such a normal way to put something that didn't seem normal in the least. But there were a lot of things normal to Ezra that didn't seem so to me. "Mind if I ask you something? What's it like, over there?"

  "Over there? Ah. There. Yes."

  "Well?"

  "Haven't the foggiest."

  "Ez--"

  "Well, to be honest, I think it's rather like this."

  "Like what? Sleeping with someone you like?"

  He smiled at that. "Yes, rather. It's being warm and comfortable. Content."

  "Sounds good."

  "I never knew how good," he agreed softly and was asleep in moments. I drifted off again, musing that if someone would just bring us something to eat, we could stay here forever.

  But no one did, and around eleven we reached a simultaneous realization that man cannot live by mind-blowing sex alone. The kitchen was empty but Kathleen and Hannah had left sandwiches for us. I was relieved no one was around. The grins we couldn't have chiseled off with a sledgehammer and our shared inability to keep our hands to ourselves might have sparked some curiosity.

  "Whitechapel today?" Ezra asked in the midst of dumping half the sugar bowl into his coffee.

  "I'm thinking I'd better go to Whitechapel on my own, Ez. Wait, let me explain," I said as he started an immediate protest. "You've got enough ghosts hanging around you already and you're not very good at discouraging them."

  "I can't let you go alone," he said as if that were the end of the discussion. "Besides, I may be of use. I have been involved in murder investigations before, you know."

  "Yeah." I studied him. "That must not have been too pleasant."

  He sipped the coffee. "Not all ghosts understand right away that they may decide how the living see them. Those that present themselves in the aspect in which they died..." He frowned. "Well, I imagine it's nothing worse than a detective such as yourself sees all the time."

  "Getting used to it is not a good thing." I sighed. "Okay. You're sticking close to me, though. What about those old clothes?"

  Ezra had nothing tattered enough. It took a trek up to the attic to dig through trunks of clothes left behind by former tenants to find something suitable to wear slumming. Ezra seemed as amused as a kid on Halloween by the prospect of disguises. "We will have to muddy our boots to take the shine off them."

  I buttoned on a long coat that was short a few buttons and doffed a faded top hat. "Spare a sovereign for a hungry soul, Guv'nor?"

  Ezra's eyebrows lifted. "Planning to dine at Verrey's, are you?"

  "Pricey, huh? Taking me there tonight?" I grinned at him.

  "You forget, I am a poor man now," he said gravely, but nothing could dampen the sparkle in his eyes. "I shall be living in a garret in Whitechapel presently. Now that I think on it, this may be an opportunity for me to hunt up new lodgings."

  "As if Derry and Kathleen would let you go." Taking a handful of his coat, I pulled him close and kissed him. He draped his arms around my shoulders and the kiss deepened. We tumbled onto a dusty sofa, then clutched at each other as it threatened to topple over. Ezra buried his face in my neck, laughing, and I joined in.

  It took us another hour but we finally got out the door. Sparing Ezra's wallet, we took the train, which might not have been so bad if the compartment hadn't been choked with cigarette and pipe smoke, worsening air already stunk up by gas lamps. Between the smell and nerve-wracking dark that made the subway back home seem a luxury, I was glad to get back into the open air, even if that air was nearly as n
oxious.

  The west side of London might be comfortably nineteenth century but the east side had some catching up to do. Women stood waiting for a turn at a water pump and if the water was used for anything other than brewing up a pot of tea, the grimy kids pushing each other as they waited on the curb were no indication. People crowded the sidewalks and street, eating, drinking, working, striking up a conversation with any passing soul--which in itself was more alien to my eyes than the primitive conditions.

  I fished out the map Ezra had lent me and the case file I'd started on a scrap of paper, nothing more so far than just a few remembered facts and what relevant information I could glean from newspaper articles bordering on tabloid sensationalism. That was what the murders were to a lot of Londoners, a shocking news story in a part of town they'd never set foot in, at least not without a police escort.

  As representative as Ezra was of that particular group, his reaction to lively Whitechapel was not entirely what I'd expected. Sure, he looked a little pensive as he took in the squalor around us, but sympathy and fascination mingled with that uneasiness.

  He stayed close as I headed into the marginally less crowded roadway. "What trouble are you leading us into, may I ask?"

  "Buck's Row." I handed him the map. "Where Polly was killed."

  "Polly?" He slowed to look at my rudimentary case file. "Morgan..."

  "Yeah?"

  "Do you always become so intimately involved in your work?"

  "Aw, come on. Not you, too."

  He smiled. "You're rather pestered, I take it. Mr. Sullivan?"

  "Yeah, good old Sully's one of the pestering legion. But I can't change the way I work and I'm not interested in trying."

  "Passion is a very admirable quality. But..." He glanced sidelong at me. "I had the impression from Mr. Sullivan that it wasn't so much your level of involvement as whether or not there was anything in your life apart from work."