I fumbled, catching the bag. “You’ll still be here? When I’m done?”
He sat, and with a log of some kind of grain-looking mush almost to his mouth, he quipped, “I could join you in there instead.” The slow once-over he gave me both chilled and seared me. A shiver ran up my spine at the long, hot look. Rubbing at my arm over my shoulder, I winced at the soaked fabric of my shirt sliding up and sticking into a fold.
Huffing through clenched teeth, I shook my head and turned for the bathroom.
“Leave the door open. I’ll start on storytime,” he called out.
And let you have a peep show? I settled on the door partly open.
I set the bag on the counter and removed a few garments that seemed feminine, or at least the ones that would probably fit me and not him. He’d snatched stuff without really looking, but hey, when one was breaking in, time wasn’t exactly generous.
Then, I peeled off my clothes and faced the shower.
Jeez…
There weren’t any speakers or mic. No interfaces for commanding the water or soap. All manual. Turning and twisting knobs and pressing a couple of buttons, too, I got water shooting out of the wide disc with holes overhead. I stepped in and screamed.
Chapter Seven
I jumped back, slipped, and gripped the curtain.
“Everly!”
Jake ran into the room, his footsteps sounding so soft and light against the roar of blood in my ears.
“Oh, my God!”
His arm shot into the shower to help me up. I clutched the curtain to hide and accepted his hand.
“Jesus,” he snarled at the same time I screeched, “It’s freezing!”
Once I stood, his hand lowered to the big knob on one side and spun. “This one is for hot water.”
My teeth chattered as I squinted at the faucet handles on the tub. “How was I supposed to know that?”
“It has an H!”
Studying the letter, I shivered harder. “That’s an H?”
His bark of a laugh pissed me off. “Yeah. Cursive.” His arm slid out of the shower.
Cursive? What in fresh hell was that? I rubbed at my face, sick of not knowing anything.
Warmer water streamed over me, and I stood still, letting the curtain fall back into place. Seconds passed, and heat seeped in. The contrast of cold to hot sent more goosebumps on my flesh, and I sighed, relishing this simple comfort after such a strange day of oddities—
I squealed again.
“Don’t let it get too hot!”
I grimaced at his tardy warning. The water didn’t regulate itself? What the hell.
Jake’s low chuckle sounded from the room.
“How the hell was I supposed to know?” I ground my teeth as I fiddled with both knobs. Cursive, manual handles. What would be next?
His sigh came too close for comfort. I yanked the curtain aside to see him seated on the closed toilet, munching away at that grain-looking thing.
“What are you doing?”
One shoulder lifted as he chewed. “Storytime, remember?”
In here? With a huff, I let the curtain fall back in place. If it weren’t such a thick fabric and dark blue… I guessed I had enough privacy. After an afternoon of disappearing men and a mysteriously passing out one, I took comfort that he was near.
And finally, some answers were coming.
“How do you jump time?” I asked.
“A device called a jumper, ironically. Pete named it.”
I squinted, thinking hard as I shampooed. Didn’t Brits call sweaters jumpers? Was this Pete from there? Probably a minor detail anyway.
“Look.” The curtain parted a few inches from the wall.
I made sure I was covered as I peeked into the bathroom. He stood now, leaning his tall frame against the wall, one foot propped up. In one hand he held that log of what he called food.
“What is that you’re eating?”
“A nutrition bar.”
I squinted at the compact rectangle. “Seems convenient.”
“Easy to eat on the go.” In his other hand, he held a stick. Made of metal, with dials and a framed, blue glass space at the top, the best I could compare it to was a toy wand. At the bottom, lines cut into the hilt, like it opened to a compartment. Above that, dials and twistable gears rounded the device. I stared at the emptiness of the glass cylinder, noting the pegs inside it, as though it was designed to hold something.
“That’s a jumper?”
He shrugged. “It’s a little beat up, and one of the first ones, but yeah.”
No more than a foot long, maybe an inch in circumference, it wasn’t that impressive.
I caught him watching me inspect it. “Okay. That’s a jumper.” I shrugged. The movement dislodged a puff of shampoo bubbles from my head, and I closed one eye to avoid the sting of it landing on my cheek.
I could have sworn he almost smiled.
“That’s what I use to jump through time,” he explained as he pressed a button. It folded into itself, ending up as a shortened version no longer than a few inches.
Slipping back under the water, I rinsed off.
“You set the dials, and hold on for the ride.”
“That’s it?” I asked, my words garbled by the water.
“As long as you grip the handle and the endpoint sensor while you jump up—”
“You actually have to jump?”
“Yeah. Learned that by mistake, actually. The jumper forms something like a field around you, a buffer that will bring you to whatever time you’ve designated. Plus, anything on you and whatever’s in physical contact in that field.”
I tilted my head, imagining that bubble of space enveloping someone, and rushed through washing myself.
“Leo figured out that if you jump up and engage the jumper while you’re off the ground, it eliminates the problem of taking a part of the ground with you.”
“How?”
“If you don’t, the time jump will rip out a part of whatever you’re on. One time, Nick brought took a chunk of 1980s asphalt to the Renaissance.” He snorted. “Doesn’t beat the time I accidentally returned to the War of 1812 with part of the backseat of a taxi.”
“You really…have been around.” He and his…friends? This Pete and Nick he’d mentioned. A team of time jumpers?
A grunt was his reply. “Anyway, if you direct the sensor at something else, that goes back in time.”
“That’s what you did to me? Aimed the sensor at me?” I smoothed away the last of suds from my legs, wishing I could linger and lounge in here to massage my calves. While he was in the mood to explain things, though, I was eager to face him and truly pay attention.
“Yeah. Last night. That punk stabbed you, so I freaked out and sent you back.”
I stumbled, nearly slipping, and gripped the curtain. I yanked the sheet back, ripping some of it off the links overhead. “I was stabbed?”
He cocked a brow at me. Finished with his food, he rolled the jumper between his hands like it was a toy. “Why do you say it like that?” His gaze dipped and a wicked smile spread over his lips.
Dammit. I clutched the curtain back, refusing to believe I was… triumphant in that look of desire. I’d done that. I’d gotten him interested with just a tease of my boobs. Guys in my time would never think to ogle a woman like that. And I’d captured this one’s eye. What a heady sensation.
Focus, Everly. Screw this inexplicable pull to him. “I woke up, and I just knew it. I…” I couldn’t explain it and said as much. “But I felt it, like a memory, but not.”
“Makes sense. I rushed the process, and for a first-time jumper, it can mess with your memories during the jump.”
“Why, though?”
“Why were you stabbed?”
Well, that, too. “Why would you send me back if I’d been stabbed? Why not take me to a clinic, or find someone with a health scanner?”
“Jumping time heals you. It seemed easiest. Two things at once. You served a b
etter purpose alive, and I got you out of his clutches.”
Whose clutches?
Serve a better purpose alive? That sounded way too strategic. Not personal at all.
Then again, we weren’t old friends. He was a stranger to me. His kiss suggested, well, a want for something much more, or something purely physical, but I tried to tamp down the hurt at the cold way of phrasing my existence.
No, he’d only kissed me to shut me up. Dick move that it was.
But…he didn’t have to linger. Or seem so ready for more.
Or—
Stop.
I focused on the tangible, less insulting stuff. Facts. “Jumping time heals people?”
“It resets the DNA, in a way. I’m not a scientist. That’s Marcel. But the most I know is when you’re sent through time, recently acquired injuries disappear.”
“At the cost of a hangover?” I shut off the water and groped outside the curtain for a towel I’d hung up.
He put it in my hand, his fingers brushing against me. Even that mere contact tripped my heart to racing. Perhaps it was because I was nude, and touching anyone else demanded automatic intimacy?
“Basically. That was why I passed out earlier. I’d just jumped to 2071 to find you, but then I accidentally sent you to now. Then I made an even bigger mistake sending myself to 1920.” He groaned as I toweled off behind the curtain. “Freaking slipped the dial too far. I thought I was sending myself right after you.”
Only…one hundred years off. I almost laughed, envisioning too easily how he could have thumbed a dial too far.
“Whoops, huh?” I stepped out of the shower, clutching the towel to me.
He licked his lips and eyed me from my bare toes to my wet hair. “Eh… I’ve done worse.”
He liked what he saw? Me? Gee, how sweet. I slanted him a daring smirk.
He shook his head, blinking. “But yeah. Whoops.” When he reached for the hem of his shirt, I froze. One swift tug up, and it was off. Chiseled, firm skin stretched over muscles. Scars broke up the perfection of his torso, but nothing could detract from his gorgeous body. Masculine, lean with muscles, rugged with old healed wounds, and artful with tats.
Very nice. Very, very…oh my goodness…
I clapped my mouth shut as I openly ogled.
“I meant to send you back just a couple of days, but in the middle of getting my ass kicked, I couldn’t check the jumper’s settings. When he stabbed you, I had to get you out. Pronto.”
I staggered to the counter, leaning my butt against it, gobsmacked as he continued to strip.
He let the soaked shirt fall to the floor. Then his pants.
Did he have no decency? No modesty? Shame?
Nope. He was completely fine with showing himself.
I began to grin. Merry Christmas, Everly.
He’d turned toward the shower when he removed his boxers, giving me an unabashed view of his fine ass before he went behind the curtain.
So close. I licked my lips, realizing I’d held my breath.
Hanging on to the towel, I stared at the curtain.
Wait. When who stabbed me? I opened my mouth to ask, but he continued on.
“It’s a kicker, the side effects of jumping time. I’m used to it, but that’s because I know not to hop around over and over. I’ve been in three different times in less than twenty-four hours. That’s more than enough to knock a man out, especially if I was injured.”
I flinched at the mention of wounds again.
“That spot on your back?”
He scoffed. “Yeah. Those asses shot me in the back.”
Shaking my head, I reached for my clothes. A peek in the mirror ensured he was on the other side of the curtain, where I’d just washed up. I knew he couldn’t see through the fabric, but dressing in the same space…
Hell, I’d be bold. I dropped the towel and started to dress. “But you’re okay now? Since being shot?”
“Look at yourself.”
I jerked up from sliding panties on. Checked that the curtain was closed, that he wasn’t looking at me.
“Do you see any sign that you were stabbed?” he asked.
Oh. It was rhetorical. “No. I don’t. But…I had phantom memories of it.”
“That happens. Like I said, I rushed you through the jump.”
“Who stabbed me?”
“An agent.”
I zipped up and grabbed the shirt. No bra. Hmm. I’d have to make do and hope there wouldn’t be any running in my immediate future. “An agent? Like the guys in the coffee shop earlier?”
The water turned off.
With a gasp, I flung my arms through the shirt and tugged it down. Damn, he was fast.
I spun just in time to see his toned arm reach through the opening between the curtain and the wall. The towel disappeared into the steamy space.
“Yes and no. Agents are humans. Those two in the café were borgs one of the agents probably had dispatched after me when they realized I’d gone to a different time.” The curtain slid back, showing him with the towel tied around his waist.
Sinfully low on his waist.
I trailed my stare from his sharp jawline, now his pecs, all the way down the valleys and ridges of his abs. Straight to the V vanishing beneath the plush towel. Just below, I could make out the solid shape of his—
“Makes sense too.”
Jumping back at his voice, I blinked and backed up to lean against the counter once more. He’d been rubbing a second towel on his unruly hair, leaving it sticking every which way as he faced me now.
Heat seared my cheeks and neck, and I set one hand over my throat.
Does jumping through time induce excessive horniness or something?
“W-why?” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Why does that make sense?”
“So he could avoid the side effect of jumping through time after me.” His bare shoulder lifted in a casual shrug. “Edward—the agents’ boss—can send borgs in their place.”
I blinked, resisting the urge to drool over him.
Stabbing.
Jumping through time.
Borgs.
Agents.
“You said an agent stabbed me last night?”
He nodded, reaching for the clothes he’d left on the counter. A pair of boxers slid up underneath the towel, and once they were on, he let the covering fall. Nope. Still no modesty, or not much. I rubbed at my throat, resolved to pay attention to the life-or-death stuff, not the lure of what I’d bet would be timelessly awesome sex.
“Yeah. Sorry, I couldn’t make it in time, but I’d only just found the lead about the marces you might have.”
“Marces?”
He paused dressing, leaving only unzipped jeans slung low on his hips. “In my pocket,” he said, nodding toward the pants he’d dropped.
I retrieved the jumper from his pocket. It was now a third of the size of what he showed me, and I handed it over.
Propping his hip to the counter, he turned to me, his pants zipped but still shirtless. “Come here,” he urged me.
I inched closer.
“Jesus.” He moved to stand next to me. Flush against me. “I’m not going to bite.”
I pulled my lips in, biting down on the flesh to truly shut up.
“Unless you ask.”
Now I exhaled. Hard and fast.
“I’m trying to show you a tiny button, all right? It’s easy to miss. If you wanna get close to snuggle, that’s something else. Maybe another time, but—”
“Shut up.”
Shorter than him, I could only see the edge of his smile, standing this close to him. I refused to make direct eye contact. I had no clue what might happen if I did.
“This button opens it.” He pressed a minute dot on the rod, and it shot out of the opposite ends, rendering it to the foot-long length it was when he’d first shown me.
“This,” he said, sliding a slim clasp, opening the compartment cover on the hilt, “is where vials of marce a
re stored.”
The space was empty, but slots and cushioned curves clearly indicated where small cylinders could fit. Five slots. All empty.
“Marce is the antimatter that powers the jumper.”
“Huh.” I halfheartedly nodded.
“Very rare material. Marcel, the alchemist who’d discovered it, lost a lot of his stock.”
I leaned back to face him now. “And you got a lead that I had some? In 2071?”
“In a roundabout way, yes.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never seen any vials of marces. Or any antimatter whatsoever.”
“You probably wouldn’t know what it was if you had.” He pressed the button to shorten the jumper and set it on the counter. As he pulled a t-shirt over his head, water from his hair sprayed at my face. “All that matters is I wasn’t the only one who had a lead on you.”
“How’d this agent find me?”
He stooped to tug socks on, one foot then the other. “Edward’s guys are sneaky with intel and spying.”
“Okay, but me? How’d he figure I had some of this stuff?” I was a nobody! Then and now.
“Beats me, but the agent must have known something last night because he sure didn’t want me to talk to you. I tracked you all day, seeing how close he was to you.”
“Who—I don’t know any agent. Of any kind!”
Time travel or not, I remained off the radar of LEOs. I was comfortable in my ordinary citizen status.
He shook his head, slipping his feet into shoes. “He didn’t look like an official. They blend into the culture of the time they are sent to, go deep in their roles as need be.”
Even still… “Who—”
“That punk who seemed like he was trying to get in your pants. Freddy.”
I gawked at him. A blush flared.
“Ah. Who’d gotten in your pants.”
He’d gotten in them, all right, and failed to impress. I stammered. “Freddy stabbed me?”
Jake nodded, rubbing his hand through his hair.
I shut my mouth and winced at the spray.
“Freddy?” It was less of a stilted squeak that time.
Another nod.
“He…he…he used me?”
“Don’t take it personally. There’s no level they won’t stoop to. I caught him demanding you take him to Helen’s house. He had you restrained—”
In the Wrong Year (Double-Check Your Destination Book 1) Page 6