Another Kind of Dead Read online

  “Look.” I cross the half-dozen paces to stand in front of him—and right between his parted legs. “Just go to bed, okay? Get pissy with me when we go back on rotation, but right now, I’m off the clock.”

  Both eyebrows arch high. His lips part, and he moistens them with his tongue. Prepping an apology, perhaps? Or a simple agreement that, yes, it’s time for bed. I’m certainly ready to crash. Dealing with him lately has been exhausting. He keeps staring, not talking. I tilt my head and stick out my chin—something Ash calls my “Yeah? And?” face. Wyatt finally moves, and it’s to do something I don’t expect.

  He kisses me full on the mouth. He has to lean out to reach me, which leaves him teetering on the edge of the dresser. There’s no insistence, no tongue, no touching anywhere except our mouths. A sweet press of his lips to mine, offering hints of whiskey and mustard. It’s nice. I haven’t had nice in … well, ever. Which is likely why I haven’t slapped him yet.

  I don’t get nice. I don’t get sweet. I get fast and rough, in a storeroom with a stranger. It’s easier.

  This is fucking complicated.

  I pull away and take two steps back, his taste still lingering on my mouth. He blinks at me, owl-eyed, and I have nothing in my arsenal capable of comprehending the expression. So stupid me latches onto the first thing that presents itself—self-deprecating humor.

  “I said go to bed, not join me in bed. What do you want sloppy seconds for anyway?”

  A violent thundercloud darkens his expression. “You’re no one’s sloppy seconds.”

  Danger alert. Kiss aside, this entire evening is teetering on the cusp of becoming a full-blown disaster. “I’m flattered,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “but you’ll still be my Handler in the morning—even if you can’t boss me around for two more days.”

  He nods, blinking hard.

  I lift one shoulder in a shrug, hopefully conveying more nonchalance than I feel. “Besides, we’re all someone’s sloppy seconds, Wyatt.” I’m done talking to him while he’s carrying around so much booze in his bloodstream. I jack my thumb at the bed. “Now, buster.”

  Miraculously, he slides off the dresser and lands on his feet. I pull back the worn blanket and top sheet. He sits hard, and the mattress gives a few angry squeaks. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to unlace his own sneakers, I do it for him, aware of his eyes drilling metaphorical holes in my skull.

  Task done, he draws up his legs and falls onto his back, the already-beaten pillow puffing air as it’s smashed even flatter. I toss the sheet and blanket across his chest—my version of tucking in.

  Wyatt came here in some sort of pain, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to ask what’s got him so turned around. It was a mistake. The kiss was a mistake. It will be better for both of us if we wake up tomorrow and never mention tonight again.

  At the door, I pause to hit the light. The door is nearly shut behind me when I hear him say, “I’m sorry.”

  I don’t know if the apology is directed at me or his own disturbed memories, so I don’t reply.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kismet said to help ourselves to food and clothing, and yet it felt strange to walk into someone else’s apartment. Without the boys—even I was starting to think of them that way, even though all three were anything but—the apartment felt empty. Missing the spark of life that made a place a home.

  I wandered into the center of the living room, tense. Nervous, too, though I’d never say it out loud. The locks clicking into place did nothing to relax me. Wyatt lingered by the door. I didn’t turn around. I wasn’t ready to talk. Talking just complicated everything, and my life was complicated enough. My decision was made. Now I had to convince my heart to let go.

  “Are you hungry?” Wyatt asked, the suddenness of his voice startling me.

  A little. “No.”

  A pregnant pause. “Thirsty?”

  “I’m fine.” As if. “You know, Kismet was right about one thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  I one-eightied and smiled. “You do kind of smell.”

  His face went perfectly still. Then a grin cracked through, and he chuckled. “Guess I should take advantage.” With a wicked glint in his eyes, he added, “Of the shower.”

  “Have at it, Stinky. I’ll rummage for clean clothes.”

  He strolled toward me, needing to pass in order to get to the bathroom, and my heart leapt. Then fell when he brushed right by. He whipped back a split second later, grabbed me around the waist hard enough to send heated flares up my healing back, and pulled. I tumbled into his chest, pulse racing, with a gasp he swallowed with a kiss. For its sudden buildup, the kiss was surprisingly gentle. His mouth moved softly over mine, tongue tracing gentle lines across my lips. Probing no deeper, even when I opened for him. Thumbs rose to caress the sensitive spots behind my ears. My scalp tingled. The abrasion of his beard scraped my cheeks. If a kiss could be both sensual and chaste, he’d mastered it.

  I didn’t shake myself out of it until the bathroom door shut with a loud clack. A few more kisses like that and I’d never be able to leave him. Just thinking it made my heart hurt and my stomach ache. My cheeks still burned from the brush of his unshaven skin and a wicked plan formed in my mind.

  I kicked off my shoes and socks and, ignoring my promise to find him clean clothes, darted barefoot around the apartment to the background music of running water, collecting a few things in the kitchen as I went. The two most important items, however, were behind the closed bathroom door. I briefly contemplated teleporting inside to get them. The quick shower shutoff decided for me. That had to be a record.

  Why not, idiot? Isn’t like you have a lot of time to waste.

  With one of the items in my hand, I staked out the bathroom door. Heard the clink of the shower curtain rings. Faint ruffling that could only be a towel over skin. The door pulled inward. Wyatt’s damp head poked out, searching. He caught me in his peripheral and jumped. Grinned. I smiled back. He glanced down at my hands.

  “Am I supposed to wear that?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I replied, twisting it around my fingers.

  “Just that? I don’t really think it’s decent.”

  “You got a towel on?”

  He stepped out, presenting arms and legs and everything they were attached to, the best parts hidden behind a cinched bath towel. Water trickled from his hair, down his neck, making thin rivulets across his shoulders. Every muscle was perfectly toned, his abs well defined, though he seemed thinner without his clothes on. I guess I wasn’t the only one not eating much for the past week.

  “I think the color clashes with my towel,” he said.

  “I won’t mind and you won’t see it.”

  His eyebrows arched dramatically. A playful grin quirked the corners of his mouth, showing me a side of him I rarely got to see. The man who knew how to tease and have fun when the world wasn’t crashing down around his ears.

  “Turn around and close your eyes,” I said.

  He obeyed without fussing. I stretched the candy cane–speckled necktie—who owned it or why was not something I wanted to contemplate—across his eyes and tied it tight.

  “Evy?”

  “Trust me.”

  “You know I do.”

  “Then hush.”

  I led him into the kitchen, turned him around, and helped him sit on the dining chair I’d put near the sink. He tilted his head curiously when I tucked another towel around his neck and secured it with a chip clip.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, and then darted into the bathroom to collect the last two things necessary for this little experiment. I deliberately dragged my feet on the carpet as I returned. No sense in startling him. He was already tense, straight-backed, hands picking at the towel covering his lap. His head turned toward me with a question on his lips and in the slant of his eyebrows.

  I placed one of the objects on the counter and shook the other a few times, then swirled an apple-sized amount onto my palm.
The sudsy scent of shaving cream made his nostrils flare. I smoothed it across his cheeks and chin, over his upper lip, and as far down his throat as his prickly dark hair went, covering it all in a marshmallow of white.

  “Tilt your head back.” I rinsed my hand in the sink and let the water run until it warmed, then held the razor under it.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  I laughed. “Nope. Want me to stop?”

  “No.” If his quiet tone didn’t convince me, the slight tenting of his towel did.

  I pressed the razor to his throat, struck by the sheer power of it. Wyatt had nothing to fear, no reason to think I’d use this submissive position against him. I’d die for him, and in some ways, it’s what I was preparing to do. For him and Phin and Kismet and Tybalt, and for all the innocent people in my city that Thackery had threatened.

  My hand started shaking. I pulled the razor away, held a deep breath, then exhaled.

  “Evy?”

  “I’m fine. Just relax.”

  The gurgle of running water and scrape of the razor over skin was all I heard until the unmistakable raspy sound of his increased breathing overtook them. I ignored it, as well as the tenting towel and the growing ache in my abdomen, and continued the intimate act.

  His upper lip was last, the cream falling away to reveal clean skin that would be shadowed again in a few hours. I rinsed the razor, patted it dry, and used the towel around his neck to wipe away any excess cream. A dollop tried to hide behind his left ear. Leaning close, back aching, I inhaled the clean scent. Exhaled. Wyatt made a soft noise in his throat, recognizing the nearness of me. I pressed my cheek to his—first one, then the other.

  “Close enough?” he asked.

  “Definitely.”

  Strong arms circled my waist and pulled me onto his lap. Instead of removing the blindfold, he traced the shape of my face with featherlight touches, the pads of his fingertips blazing a hot path on my cool skin. Over my cheeks, across my chin, down the slope of my nose. The seam of my lips. I flicked out my tongue and tasted his finger—the barest hint of soap still lingered. He shuddered. His erection strained hot and hard, even beneath layers of terry and denim.

  I remembered the first and only time we’d made love—literally a lifetime ago—but the memories were faint. Like watching an old movie slightly out of focus. It was all there—his gentle, questing hands and possessive kisses, the strong slide of him in and out of my body—distanced and unclear, marred by my new body’s lack of physical memory. Knowledge without experience.

  I hated it and loved it, because I got to try something no one else could—two first times with the same man.

  I pulled off his blindfold and let it flutter to the floor. He blinked hard, eyes readjusting to the harsh kitchen light, and settled his hands on my hips. My fingers grazed his chest, the pads of my thumbs brushing over his nipples. He made a sound deep in his throat—something caught between a growl and a groan.

  His right hand tangled in my hair and drew me down, and finally we kissed. Our mouths moved, lips parting, and I drank in the taste of him. His tongue darted into my mouth, stroked across my teeth, until it was met by mine. A delicate dance began as flesh teased flesh. I dragged my fingers down his bare arms and earned a soft moan. His free hand drifted from my hip to my butt and squeezed, sending a shock of heat searing straight to my core.

  Wyatt’s mouth left gentle, tasting kisses across my cheeks to my neck. I breathed him in, holding firmly to the knowledge that this was Wyatt. I shifted on his lap, unsure what to do with my hands. So I directed his instead. I untangled his hand from my hair and slid it down to the hem of my T-shirt, pressing it against my stomach.

  The rough pads of his fingers tickled my bare skin, but he didn’t take the hint. I helped him out by yanking the shirt up and off, my hair tumbling back down around my shoulders in thick waves. Much like our positions a week ago on our apartment sofa, and I actually froze.

  “What?” he asked, a tiny sparkle of panic in his expression.

  “Just waiting for the Earth to move.”

  He blinked, and I could see the retort forming in his mind. Then he smiled warmly. “For a second, I thought—”

  “I was having a flashback?”

  “Yeah.” He swirled his finger in my belly button. “Or you’d just remembered you forgot to lock the door.”

  “You locked the door, dummy. Besides, even if it wasn’t, after the pointed look Kismet gave me in the car when she dropped us off, I think she’d recognize the necktie on the doorknob as the universal sign to keep out.”

  Wyatt blanched. “You didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t, but I won’t let myself regret not being with you while I have the chance.”

  Grief flickered across his face, there and gone so quickly I might not have noticed it if I weren’t staring right at him. I knew him, could practically hear his thoughts, begging me not to think of this as our last time together. To think of it as the first of many, and to continue believing we’d find another way.

  His fingers skated across my ribs to my back, pausing where the bandages started. The itch-ache of healing was persistent and constant. The wounds would be gone soon. “They won’t bother me,” I said, answering his unasked question.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Then don’t say no.”

  “I’m not.” His voice was so quiet, almost a hoarse whisper. “This just feels like some cruel déjà vu, that’s all. Making love to you hours before you leave and don’t come back.”

  A lump clogged my throat. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and hugged him tight, even as he enveloped me in his. He wasn’t wrong, and that scared me. A month ago, still Original Recipe Evy, we’d been together in a cheap motel, and then I’d gone off to chase a lead, only to end up kidnapped, tortured, and eventually dead. Now we weren’t in a motel, and I wasn’t the woman I’d been, but his emotions hadn’t changed. He’d loved me then, and he loved me now.

  I hated how heartlessly life seemed to be repeating itself.

  “The future isn’t guaranteed, Wyatt, we both know that better than most. So let’s stop living in the past and dreaming of the future. Let’s just enjoy the now. Please?” My voice cracked on the final word.

  He pushed against me, and I slid off his lap, sure I was in for either a fight or a rejection. I wasn’t prepared for him to stand and scoop me up. I wrapped my arms around his neck and snuggled against his shoulder, inhaling him as he walked us across the living room, toward the bedrooms, his answer given without words.

  The first bedroom had a single twin-sized bed. Not completely ideal, but better than a sofa or the floor. Wyatt lowered me to my feet, and I didn’t have time to wonder whose room we were in before he seared me with a kiss. His tongue dove into my mouth, and I surged against him, his arousal pressing hot against my belly. When had he lost the towel?

  Well, that wasn’t quite fair. Reeling with the intensity of his kiss, I reached around and fumbled with my bra clasp, desperate for more skin on skin. It snapped open. The straps slid down my shoulders and arms, and then it was on the floor. He kissed each breast with butterfly touches. I gasped, twining my fingers in his hair, holding him there unnecessarily, because he seemed in no hurry to stop.

  Heat and desire made my legs tremble. I finally pulled him away, and he grunted a halfhearted protest. I silenced him with a finger to his lips. He kissed the tip of it, his eyes half-lidded and flaming with want.

  Aware of the silver cross dangling between my naked breasts, I unfastened the necklace and tucked it into my pocket. I undid my jeans and pushed them down, slapping his hands when he tried to help. I kicked the jeans and underwear away.

  “God, Evy,” he whispered, staring hungrily at my naked body. My hips jutted too sharply; my stomach was too concave. He didn’t seem to notice the flaws, the reminders of the hell I’d survived. Part of me was embarrassed by his appraisal—a small bit of Chalice rebelling against my nudity.
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br />   I took a step forward and kissed him with feather-lightness. Just a reminder of who he was. I ached for him in a way I’d never ached for anyone. I wanted gentle; I wanted nice; I wanted both with him. I needed them with him, even if only once.

  I cupped his cheeks in my palms, then slid them down his neck to his shoulders, across his pecs. Just feeling and memorizing the way smooth skin stretched over taut muscle. Watching his chest rise and fall. I circled behind him, hands skating across his ribs, then up each ridge of his spine. Gooseflesh prickled the back of his neck. I traced them again, down to the thin scar in the middle of his back. He inhaled sharply.

  So many different adjectives to describe him perched on my tongue without falling. In the past, sex was about getting off quickly. I’d never taken the time to truly appreciate a man’s naked body—especially one as toned and well proportioned as Wyatt’s. It had never seemed important, until now. Everything about him was stunning—and I had to let it all go.

  Grief tightened my throat. I pressed my forehead to his shoulder. Somehow his hands found mine, pulled them to his hips and squeezed.

  “Evy?”

  I couldn’t speak, certain I’d burst into tears if I opened my mouth and verbalized my thoughts. I had to be strong for both of us. Being left behind a second time would be ten times harder for Wyatt than leaving was for me. Right?

  Yeah, and there’s this bridge for sale.…

  Wyatt released my hands and turned to face me. I didn’t look up, even when he cupped my cheek and tried to lift my head. He stroked my hair, his thoughts hidden, but affection clear in his gentle touches. “Talk to me, Evy, please?”