* * *
Jason’s presence slammed into Vallon’s afterburn like a laser beam on point. Triangulation, and she fixed on him.
She swallowed back the moan in her throat, but couldn’t stop the rush of heat between her legs as she closed the front door behind her.
“What are you doing here?”
He looked too damned comfortable, in stocking feet and with shirtsleeves rolled up to expose a shadow of dark forearm hair that matched the shadow along his jaw. He shrugged.
“I got the impression you couldn’t talk freely where we were, so I thought I’d meet you where we could. Talk that is.” His gaze locked on the file box. “Here. Let me give you a hand with that.”
He reached for the box, and before Vallon could stop him, his hands touched hers.
Just the glance of fingers burned through her and sent the afterburn surging. Her vision doubled, worse than any bump on the head could do, and she staggered, ripped away from him, but he caught her elbow.
“Vallon? Vallon, are you all right?” He dragged her inside from the door as she tried to turn and run. “Damn it, Vallon, what’s the matter? Do I need to take you to a hospital?”
She ripped free and blinked back the haze of unthinking need that threatened to throw her into his arms.
“I need sleep. I need to forget this whole day even happened.”
She set the box on the ancient, leather-bound trunk that served as her coffee table and saw his glance lock there.
“Just some work stuff. You want some coffee? Where’s Fi? I take it she let you in.”
She doffed her coat and sodden shoes and headed for the kitchen, then stopped at a sudden thought.
“She did let you in?”
“She did. But then she got a bit strange and said she had to leave. She took off like a bat outta hell.”
Vallon sagged against the wall. “Dammit. I wanted to talk to her.”
“And I had to talk to you.” Even with her eyes closed she could tell he stood too close. Heat came off him in waves, and all her self-control wavered like hot air in a desert.
She didn’t want to open her eyes, but couldn’t help it when he caught her wrist.
“You look like you might faint.”
She pulled herself away, because she would not have another episode like their last meeting in the kitchen.
“I’m fine. Wait in here while I make the coffee.”
A hint of a smile said he knew damn well what she was thinking of, and damn it, he was too damn sexy and too available for both their good.
She forced herself into the kitchen, though she ached to deal with the afterburn. Her hands shook as she filled the coffee pot.
“You know, tea might be better.”
She whirled around in shock and that wasn’t like her. She was solid. He stood framed in the door, arms crossed as he studied her and must have seen her resentment.
“Sorry. I have a habit of sneaking up on people. My wife used to say I was a secret agent in a past life.”
She emptied the coffee pot and filled the kettle, considering how his dead wife filled his conversation, as her father filled her head.
“How long has it been since you lost her?”
A pause, and she glanced at him as she set the kettle on the stove, and then put a red rooibos teabag in the pot.
“Three years and two and a half months.”
And how many days, hours, minutes, she wanted to ask, because she knew he would know. Just as her internal clock could tell her how long it was since she arrived outside the house that wasn’t there anymore for the first time. Since she’d been an agent, she’d volunteered to fix the heritage blue house in place every time the darn bookstore owner changed it. A form of therapy, she supposed. She nodded at him and busied herself with the tea.
“Forget what they tell you; time doesn’t make it easier. You just get better at kidding yourself.”
The kettle boiled and she poured the water into the pot and turned, hearing a clink. He took a couple of mugs off the open shelves, raised his eyebrows for approval, and her mouth went dry.
She nodded.
He was trying too damn hard to be helpful and put her at her ease when all she wanted—no, needed—was for him to leave. Why hadn’t she told him to leave? That should have been the first thing out of her mouth, and instead she’d invited him for tea?
Kicking herself, she followed him into the living room, placed the cups on the table, and shifted the box to the floor. When he settled on her couch and looked up at her innocently, there was nothing she could do but sit down as far as she could from him on the couch and pour the tea.
“So, what were your questions, Detective?”
Another amused smile. “Detective, is it?”
“It’s what you are.” Keep it business-like because he was not her type. She didn’t have a type—only mistakes.
“All right.” He sipped his tea, but she couldn’t hold her cup. Her hands were shaking so badly he’d see, and the whole room seemed to pulse in and out as if she was trying to get a reading through fog. The connection to whoever was out there still held, and left her as nervous as Maggie in front of a dog.
“So how could Lamrey have gotten concrete in all his orifices if he wasn’t in that wall?”
The muddiness of her thoughts made it hard to pinpoint what she should say. She kept looking at him, and away, hoping perhaps if she did it enough times she’d get a reading.
“So you’re still suggesting he was in the wall?”
A nod. Another sip and she realized she’d made a serious mistake sitting with him in the mood lighting that was all she kept in the living room. She stood up.
“Craziness.”
“Is it? Sort of like the fact all the records and my memory say there was only a false alarm in Pioneer Square, but your hair and clothing smelled like smoke. It’s like what I see has no relationship with what really happened. Sort of like a veil over my eyes, and I’m only allowed to see certain things.”
He’d thought about this too much, and Landon and Chief Gleason would go nuts if they heard this coming from a non-Gifted.
Or had she been wrong?
She -reached- and his form was replaced by the simmering dark flame that filled most people, but there was something different. Gold sparks rose through the darkness, breathed out a hint of licorice and spice.
Vallon froze, dropped out to ordinary sight and found him, eyes narrowed and studying her. Had he been changed or not? He didn’t seem dangerous.
“So where did you go?”
She shivered and stood, turned to the front window where the rain streaked the glazing into rippling, street-lit color.
“It was strange. Like you looked right through me and I….” His face was puzzled. “It was like I felt it.”
And that sure as hell shouldn’t be.
“Why do I feel it, Vallon?”
His words and his breath warmed her neck and she almost punched him. Whirled, and his hands steadied her when the damned afterburn almost collapsed her legs.
Flares like sunspots at his touch. Her vision changed to one of heat waves and rippling shadow, and all her boundaries fell away.
She existed in no man’s land. No place at all. And how could anything matter to the outside world when she was trapped inside one of those unbounded places that everyone else in the world had forgotten existed.
She looked him in the eye, saw he felt it too. She reached up to stroke his face. Hard angles and the grit of new beard thrilled through her palm.
“This is wrong, you know. We’re on opposite sides of this thing.”
A small shake of his head. “You’re wrong. We’re on the same side until my theory’s shot down.”
His palm came up to cup her head and he leaned down to kiss her with a salt-sweet touch.
“Well far be it from me to shoot a man’s theory dead.” She caught his hand because there was nothing else to be done with the afterbur
n pounding in her head and turned and led him to the stairs. He hesitated. “I’m not going to do what we did last time. My bedroom’s there.”
But he knew that. The scent of his spring morning and sea scent hung on the stairs as if he’d checked out the house in her absence. Had he gotten into her locked basement?
No time to think on it now. Up the stairs to the back bedroom with the yellow duvet-covered bed and the empty picture frames at its head. She hadn’t known what else to fill them with so she’d hung them as they were: a reminder of danger. She left the lights off and turned to him, stripped off her top and stepped up to him.
“So?”
“Pretty bold, Vallon Drake.”
“And you like that. It’s what attracted you in the first place.”
“Maybe.” He leaned down in the grey light from the street to trail a kiss from her lips down the side of her jaw to the arch of her neck and she could have purred, but the afterburn forbade it—demanded so much more. “Or maybe it was the danger you presented. My partner says I’m on self-destruct mode. Destroy my career.”
She stopped him with a kiss. Bit his full lower lip and demanded that he answer. He did. Ravenous and powerful, he shoved her toward the bed, followed so they could continue their hungry exploration. She pulled his shirt off and she ran her hands over the rough hair of his chest—down to his trim waist and the buckle of his belt.
Disobedient hands shook as she tried to work it. He brushed them away and freed himself, stepped out of his trousers and impatiently unzipped her jeans as he shoved her onto the bed. He hauled them off her, then lay down beside her.
“Better. Much better.” His palm ran light as rain down her side and sent her shivering in delight.
Enough.
She pushed him onto his back, was up and straddling him so that only her silk and his briefs separated them. Ran herself along his body and he groaned.
“So. We going to do this or what?” Her voice was hoarse with afterburn. If they could just get this done she could think clearly again.
In answer he hauled her down, quick fingers flicked her bra free, slid it free of her shoulders, and tossed it aside. Hands down her back, slid into her silk panties to cup her ass, as he sat up to suckle her breasts.
Sparks shocked her. Her breath was harsh in her ears as she grabbed his head, wanted more teeth and pleasure, but also pain. Just enough to remind her she lived and hadn’t disappeared with her father.
He rolled her off of him and stripped off her panties, his briefs, and she shoved him back down, straddled him again. She closed her eyes, arched her back as he entered and—she moved. Rocked. Shook.
Like the earth, and she moved with him, bucking as he held her in place, as they strained together, as she demanded and took, as he rose to her.
Air stained with their sweat and moans. The bed quaked and groaned as the tempo increased. Increased and the afterburn built, built, built, steaming behind a dam ready to burst.
She shook. Jason shook. The bed, the room. As she threw her head back and yelled triumph as Jason sat bolt upright and yelled.
“Cheryl!”
And that was just plain wrong. She dropped into herself, suddenly cold.
“Vallon! Vallon! Vallon!”
The screams came with the explosion in her core and Vallon collapsed on top of Jason, slick with sweat, the afterburn flooding out like a golden tide pulled by the moon of the earth. To sleep.
“Vallon!”
Not him. Not Jason, who cradled her against his chest murmuring apologies for calling her Cheryl.
The bed shuddered and her eyes flashed open.
“Vallon!” From outside.
The room shook. Pounding came from the door downstairs, and the walls streaked and faded. Window glass wisped away.
Rain splattered her back, then her upturned face, catching her in the eye. A gossamer ceiling. Roof joists, like ribs, misted and were gone. She began to drop through the bedding. Through the man in her bed, and her nose filled with licorice.
“No!” She bolted upright and grabbed Jason. Dragged him off the melting bed. “Grab your clothes.” She already was. “Come on! Come on!” Her damn pen and vellum were downstairs.
He stood dazed, like a beautiful deer alone in the headlight of power streaming up through the earth. Already his form wavered at the edges, fingers stretched long as if his hands blew away; his black hair broke into a thousand tiny pieces—all dragged away in the wind of the change. Terror filled his eyes, when they finally met hers.
“Whhhhaaaatttssss hhhaaaappppeeennniinnnggg…?”
She grabbed his hand and -reached- for the earth but a power was there before her—golden—licorice-scented and pulling more power from somewhere than Vallon had ever seen before. She tried to find power, but licorice was in the air, the earth—black tar on earth breath. Nothing for her there.
She grappled with the power, used everything she had to spread herself into a wide veil to protect her home, but without pen and ink it couldn’t be done. Licorice rent her efforts like knives.
Jason moaned. His shoulders blew away even as she dragged him, stumbling, down the diaphanous stairs. They came to a gap where they were totally gone.
“Hold on. Dammit, hold on.” Even if the bastard called her Cheryl he didn’t deserve this. No one did.
They had to get out or they’d end up like Simon. She grabbed Jason’s arm, pulled him close. Wrapped the arm holding their clothes around his waist. “Jump. We have to jump.”
She did, and he stumbled with her, barely catching on stairs that gave under her feet like swampy soil. She sank in to her knees and she scrambled up, helped Jason right himself and dammit, dammit, dammit they had to move. Run, jump, or they weren’t going to make it.
The ceiling slowly, inexorably folded toward them, assuming a new incline. She kept glancing at Jason, keeping his form solid in her thoughts, her own power draining away as she fought the assault that would take them both.
How could she hope to stand when Simon—a fully-trained, prime-of-his-life, Agent — had been caught in a wall?
Around the corner of the stairs, and the living room flickered below them. The couch shimmered and was gone. The coffee table faded to silver as an old photograph fades.
“No!” She grabbed Jason, leapt for the floor, for the coat rack that held her tools. When she hit, she sank in to her chest. Jason, released, collapsed to his knees. He looked at her.
“Vallo -?” The powerful wind wisped away his face.
“Jason! Jason!” -Reached- and clawed at the golden wind. She felt someone—Chavez?—there with her, feeding her power, but then Chavez was gone, depleted.
Vallon fed the image of Jason’s face into him and the wind seemed to part around him. His features returned. His shoulder reformed.
From beyond the door the screaming continued. “Vallon! Vallon! No! Stop!”
Fi. The door rattled in the wooden frame. So there was method in the attacker’s means. The door would be locked solid, Vallon was sure. Her house was a trap and the trap was meant for her.
“Vallon!” The way Fi screamed, she’d wake the whole neighborhood and that was the last thing Vallon needed. Ridiculous she’d think it, as she hauled herself up out of the ensnaring floor—only to sink in again.
“I’m here, Fi. I’m coming.” She grabbed Jason’s hand, but his fingers were gone.
No! She flooded power into him; his hands solidified for a moment, but she sank deeper into the floor. Deeper, and there was no way she could reach the door, or her tools, or safety.
“Run, Fi. Run.” She held onto Jason and felt herself fall. Was this how Simon had felt?
Chapter 18—Winked Out