by Frost, E J
“How ‘bout, ‘here, I found your coat’?”
“A month later?”
She leans against my side, but that’s not nearly enough contact to satisfy me. I pat the bed again and she stretches out next to me. I slide my arm under her shoulders, turn her so she’s cuddled against my side. She slides her thigh over mine. Rests her head on my shoulder, her hand on my chest. Nice. I like the way our bodies fit together, even when we’re not fucking.
“Don’t think I missed the part about gettin’ my coat dirty. What’d you do to it?”
She buries her face in my shoulder.
This should be good. “Tell me,” I say.
“It just got dirty.”
“Sure, coats do that all the time. All by themselves.” She makes a little choking noise against my skin. “What’d you get on it? Mud? Blood? Come? What?”
She puts her hand over her face. I catch her wrist and drag her hand back down to my chest. Kiss her temple. “C’mon, I won’t be mad.”
“Promise?”
How bad can it be? “Yeah, I promise.”
“Come.”
“You let someone come on my coat?” That is fairly disgusting. Maybe I don’t want it back.
She thumps my chest. “I came on your coat, you idiot!”
“You came on my coat.”
“It was an accident! It was a cold night and I’d had a bad day and your coat was so warm and soft. I could smell you on it and it made me feel close to you and one thing led to another—”
“And you ended up comin’ on my coat?”
“Stop saying it like that!”
“Like what? How many ways are there to say that you juiced on my coat?”
“You’re making me sound like a pervert!”
I roar with laughter and pull her tight to me. Kiss her forehead since she’s hidden her face in my neck. “You are a pervert. What were you doin’, humpin’ my coat?”
“No!” she wails.
She definitely was. She gets so sweetly wet when she’s aroused and I can see her making a mess on my coat if she was rubbing herself against it. “Pervy kitten.” I reach down and give her a little smack on the ass.
“You said you wouldn’t be angry!” she cries into my neck.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t punish you.” I give her another smack. Still not too hard because she’ll already be bruised from our first go-round. And both the idea of her humping my coat while she fantasized about fucking me and the smack have gotten the little monster’s attention, so it’s looking like round two is about to begin.
“I’m sorry!” she wails.
“You’re forgiven,” I say easily. And truthfully. I’m not angry with her. A little bemused by her obsession, but not angry. I wrap my arms around her and drag her on top of me. Tip her face up so I can see her expression, and kiss her soundly. When she’s panting and breathless and sure that I’m not really mad, I say, “Now show me what you did to my coat.”
She does. And it turns out that being ridden works for the little monster after all.
She falls asleep on top of me afterwards. I’m relaxed but not sleepy, so I prop myself up on some pillows and hold her while she sleeps. Occupy myself by contemplating ways to kill Kison Tyng.
Chapter 14
I don’t know much about Tyng, but fundamentally all killing is about waiting for the right moment and striking when it comes. To assassinate someone, you have to create the moment. That means getting close to the target. If Kison Tyng is like every other paranoid drug lord, he’ll have an array of defenses to hide behind. So the trick is finding a way to cut through those defenses, and create the moment.
Baby Tyng is a way in, but she’s not the only one. I’ve got a score to settle with Kincaid, too, and I like the idea of killing two birds with one stone. If I can get some leverage on Kincaid, then force him to get me through to Tyng, I can take them both at the same time. That has significant appeal.
And then there’s another option. If Tyng wants flesh from Kez, he might be willing to come out from behind all those defenses to get it. I’m not crazy about using Kez as bait, but she’s dangling on his hook already.
As I’m parsing through the advantages and disadvantages of the various routes to cutting Tyng’s throat, there’s a knock on the door. I lie still to see if Kez wakes. If she doesn’t, then whoever it is can wait until after she’s rested.
But she does. She lifts her head off my chest groggily. Her hand slides up to my shoulder. I catch it, squeeze her fingers gently, and whisper, “Someone’s at the door.”
“Oh,” she murmurs. She rubs her face against my chest and I smile at her. I like how comfortable she is with me. Feels like we’ve been together for a long time. I’ve never had that sense of ease with a woman before, and I like it.
Kez stretches and cuddles against me, sliding her arm around my neck. She turns her head towards the door, even though she can’t possibly see anything in the dark. “What’s up?” she calls.
“Kezzy?” Chiara’s voice. “Nev’s asking for you. Are you okay—?”
Kez sighs and begins to disentangle herself from me. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
Before she rises completely, I catch her waist and pull her back down to me for a kiss. “I’ll come with you.”
“Oh.” She props herself on her elbows and looks down at me. “Are you sure? Nev’s going to be a mess. When she’s like this, she – she says things she doesn’t mean. Things that will just embarrass everyone later.”
That could be interesting. Particularly if what the beautiful girl has to say is about Kez. “D’you want me to stay here?”
“Um, no, I mean, I could use a hand with her. I just don’t want you to be put off.”
After finding out that this wasn’t all an act, that she came to me because she wants me, not just someone who will kill for her, there’s not much that could put me off. “Can’t be any worse than some of the things I saw in S.A.W.L., kitten.”
She smiles and gives me a kiss that tastes of gratitude, and rendang. “You’re amazing. You know that, right?”
“So I’ve been told.” I haven’t, actually. I’ve been generally unappreciated, even by the few people I’ve genuinely tried to help. I can’t remember a single one of them saying thank you. Nor can I remember anyone looking at me the way Kez is looking at me now. “You’re goo-ing on me. Get off.”
She lifts herself off me hastily. “The towel—”
“Sentiment.” I pretend to wipe off my chest. “Ick.”
She pushes at my chest, heaves a little mock huff. I chuckle. She sits back on her heels and looks around the dark room. “Do you mind if I turn the lights on? I’m never going to find my clothes in here.”
“Go ahead.” I close my eyes so the lights don’t flare in my cat’s eye. I hear Kez tap the control panel next to the bed, and the lights stain my eyelids red. I open my eyes and roll up onto one elbow. Watch Kez walk away from the bed. She really does have the most beautiful ass, especially when she’s wearing the marks of my hand across each cheek.
She crosses to her clothes rack and pulls a pair of soft, black pants off a magnehanger.
“No,” I veto the serviceable pants. We’re in a safe place where she doesn’t need to wear protective clothes. And we’re not gonna be up for very long if I can help it. I want to see her in something sexy that keeps us both in the mood.
She holds the pants out. “No?”
“Wear what you were gonna wear if you’d had to get noodles and knock on my gate.”
She purses her lips. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, don’t look.”
I close my eyes and wait until the sounds of her drawing on her clothes stop. When I open my eyes she’s standing next to the bed wearing a little black dress that falls to her thighs. The dress is some soft, knitted fabric, raveled in several places so her skin peeps through, pearl against the black knit. It reminds me of the ripped fishnets she was wearing when she first c
ame to me, in all the right ways. She’s pulled her dreads up and tied them at the back of her head so the curves of her throat and shoulders are exposed. My palms instantly itch to touch all that soft, sweet skin.
“That’s more like it.”
“You like?” She holds out her arms and turns a little so the dress swishes around her, showing off her slender curves.
The little monster’s already showing its appreciation. I rise off the bed and pull her to me. Run my hands down to her elbows so I can feel the dress’s softness. Slide my arm around her waist and hold her close while I look down at her and let the full force of my admiration fill my eyes.
“Oh,” she breathes. “Hale—”
“Let’s go take care of your friend. Then I’ll show you exactly how much I like that dress.” I cup her jaw in my palm. Splay my fingertips down her throat. Satisfy the itch. Her skin’s just as warm, sweet and silky as it looks.
“Okay.” She grins, that full mischievous grin. “You can come like that. I’m sure it’d make Nev feel better.”
I give her a smack on the ass, softened by her dress, and hunt around in the clothes on the floor until I find my pants.
The mess is fairly messy. Nev’s shaking, sick and weepy, when we find her in the house’s big communal bathroom. She’s out of the tub, sitting on the floor in a pile of towels. The one wrapped around her head like a turban has slipped over her eye. Another gapes around her chest, showing me more of her swollen breasts than I want to see. She doesn’t make any attempt to cover herself when Kez and I walk in.
Kez drops down onto one knee in front of Nev and immediately begins tucking in the towels. “Nevie, how’re you doing, honey?” she asks gently.
I lean against the bathroom door, far enough back that I don’t have to look at Nev’s tits while Kez covers them, close enough to help if Kez needs me to. I take in the bathroom while avoiding the cleavage display. Kez has splashed out on this ‘fresher. There’s a huge tub that’s still half-full of steaming water. Separate shower and a walled enclosure for the zap can. Nicely private. A row of three sinks. The floor looks like tile but is warm and slightly resilient underfoot. More tiles stretch half-way up the walls; the upper walls are covered with flexypane. Most of the panes show shifting floral designs that complement the patterns on the tiles. The panes over the sinks are mirrored, while the panes opposite the tub have been quartered and display several different vid programs: news flash, some kinda documentary about Kuseros’s oceans, and a couple of game shows. All the moving images can’t be restful for Nev’s Hex-addled brain. I reach over and tap the screens until the ocean documentary fills the panes. Rolling waves, that’s better.
“That’s queasifying,” the beautiful girl says sourly.
I glance at Kez, who shrugs. I tap the vid again and pull up one of the news flashes. Bloodied and beaten water rioters in the streets of New Brunny. Much better.
“We must have just missed that,” Kez observes.
We might have caused that. Dropping the E.M.P. bomb certainly didn’t help the situation. But Kez is involved with the beautiful girl, so I don’t offer any comment.
“Nevie, do you want to try eating something?” Kez asks.
“No. I just want to lie down.” A petulant whine creeps into her voice. “I’m so cold.”
“Okay, honey. Can you walk?”
“I don’t know.”
Kez glances at me. “Snow, could you—?”
I nod. Cross the room to the beautiful girl and swing her up into my arms. She really is frighteningly light for how pregnant she is. “Where are we going?” I ask Kez.
She tips her chin at a door across from the one through which we entered. “Through the kitchen and game room. First door on the right.”
“Can I sleep in your bed?” Nev whines. “I can’t get warm in mine.”
I glance at Kez and lift an eyebrow. If Hex-head sleeps in Kez’s bed, I’m sleeping somewhere else. Kez keeps her eyes on Nev’s face, and keeps her expression gentle, but she shakes her head firmly. “We’ll get you warm.”
Before Nev has a chance to protest, I begin moving. Kez trails me, pressing her hand against my upper back as I pass her. I like having the reminder of her presence there, and I figure she’ll steer me if I turn wrong.
There aren’t many ways to turn. Through the empty kitchen and lounge where the boys were playing games before dinner. The big screen is dark. Couches empty. Left down a hallway that separates the bedrooms from the greenhouse area. The hallway lights come on as we enter, as does the bedroom light when I turn right as instructed. Otherwise, the house is dark.
“Where is everyone?” I ask Kez.
“Duncan said he was going to Bounce after dinner. Ape and Gig probably went with him.”
“What’s Bounce?” I ask.
“It’s a club,” Kez says. “They’ve got some harnesses rigged above the dance floor so you can flip around in the air over the dancers. It’s fun. We go a lot.”
I glance over my shoulder at her. “You like to dance?”
She nods, big blue eyes meeting mine.
“Me too.”
The blue eyes crinkle into a smile. “Horizontal mambo?”
“My specialty.”
That gets me the full mischievous grin I want. I wink at her before turning my attention to navigating the beautiful girl’s room. It’s almost as messy as Junior Pimp’s. And, I discover as a brown and black shape streaks out from under a clothes-draped mound that might be a chair, there are rabbits in the wreckage.
I sweep junk off the bed with my forearm and dump the beautiful girl into the cleared space. The towels slip again, but I’m getting inured to the sight of her tits. The only thing I’m really interested in seeing is how quickly she can fall asleep.
She tucks herself into a ball in the middle of the bed. Pulls the rumpled covers around herself and shivers down into them. Kez starts clucking like a mother hen. She tugs on the covers. The beautiful girl doesn’t want to relinquish them. She twists herself deeper into the mess.
I lean against a wall – the only clear spot in the room – and watch the short tug of war.
Kez wins and gets the bed straightened out. By the time she does, Nev’s eyes are leaking again, whether from pain, frustration or just self-pity, I can’t tell. Kez sits on the edge of the bed and tries talking to the beautiful girl, who responds in whiny monosyllables. The whining climbs to a higher, more strident pitch. None of it is revealing, or interesting. It’s just noisy. A never-ending litany of poor me. Kez’s efforts to calm Nev down by brushing her hair don’t seem to reduce the noise level any.
Finally, the whining gets too much for me. I climb onto the bed behind the beautiful girl and pull her back against my chest.
Kez’s eyes meet mine over her friend’s shoulder. Those big blue eyes narrow; there’s a look in them that could be . . . hurt.
I watch Kez for a moment. I want to shut Nev up, but not at the cost of hurting my kitten. I don’t know why she dislikes seeing me hold Nev, but it clearly bothers her.
I wink at Kez to reassure her. Gesture for her to continue brushing the beautiful girl’s hair while I massage her neck. A lot of the whining has been about how cold she is, so I tuck her against my chest and let my body heat warm her. The whining drops to a tolerable level, and then off completely as I rub my thumbs up and down the vasal nerves behind her ears. Finally, she drops into a stupor. Once I’m sure she’s unconscious, I lower her into the nest of blankets and slide off the bed.
“Wow,” Kez says. “I’ve never seen her fall asleep that fast.”
“Magic touch,” I tell her, wriggling my fingers. “Get some more towels.”
The beautiful girl will need them by the time she wakes up. Stimulating the vasal nerve reduces heart rate and blood pressure – to the point of unconsciousness – but it also cranks the bowels into overdrive. I’ve heard Hex makes you constipated, so maybe one will offset the other, but I doubt it. She’ll wake up messier than she wen
t down. She deserves it for being so fucking noisy.
After we’ve got the towels positioned and the beautiful girl tucked under the covers, I grab Kez around the waist. She squeaks, struggles for a moment, and then lets me throw her over my shoulder.
“Where are we going?” she asks breathlessly.
I bounce her on my shoulder, run my hand down over the curves of her ass, so easily accessible in this position. “Back to bed,” I tell her. Where we belong.
Chapter 15
We fuck all night. Fast and furious, slow and gentle. Every way I can imagine, until my dick is so sore that even brushing up against Kez’s soft ass makes me wince. We fall asleep wrapped around each other. Best sleep I can remember. No nightmares. No jerking awake, shaking and reaching for ghosts. When I do wake, gently sliding from sleep to warm, drowsy awareness, Kez is right there, tucked tight against me.
She wakes when I do. With one of those soft, sleepy, incredibly sexy murmurs. Her arm tightens across my chest. “You’re still here.”
“Where else would I be?” I whisper back, not wanting to disturb the stillness of the sleeping house. The boys came back in a brief rush of noise about an hour ago, while Kez was enthusiastically riding me again. Since then, the house has been quiet.
“I don’t know . . . I mean, guys leave.” She snuggles against me.
“Yeah?” Whoever did was an idiot. This might not be the best part about sleeping with Kez, but it’s pretty fucking close. I nuzzle her hair. Breathe in that soap scent that makes everything feel so fresh and clean. “Who?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She doesn’t get off the hook that easy. I shift onto my side, trap her against my body. “You owe me for sayin’ my name. Tell.”
She sighs. “I don’t think any of the guys I’ve been with have stayed the night. Chain lived here and he always went back to his own room. I figured, I don’t know, maybe the rabbits put them off. At least a couple of them usually sleep on my bed.” She lifts her head a little. Surveys the end of the bed where, by the warmth and weight, I’d guess at least two rabbits are resting, although I haven’t bothered to look. “Or maybe I snore.”