Goes down easy(25)

He wasn’t about to argue with that.

“But there is one incident that won’t let you go.”

He hadn’t even swallowed and still he nearly choked, waiting, waiting…his blood pounding its way through his veins. God, he hoped she wasn’t going to say what he feared. He didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want anyone to know. He didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want to forget.

Dark eyes against skin that should not have been so deathly pale. Shackles securing the unwitting prisoners. Chains thicker than the human limbs they bound. Mewling, desperate noises.

“The men you freed don’t go a day without thanking you. They offer up prayers for your health and longevity.”

And still he waited, only this time he did so with his gut so painfully knotted he had to fight the urge to double over and crawl beneath the table.

“They wonder how long you were kept without being allowed to eat. Or to drink. They spill their own blood, hoping your God will replace what you lost with their offering.”

It had begun with his pride and his dignity, and had swiftly spiraled down until he came close to losing his mind. He’d lost enough that he’d no longer known night from day, minutes from hours from weeks. He’d lost enough that he’d no longer known if the faces he saw were real or monsters in his dreams…

He’d lost enough that he’d given up on living.

“They go to their wives at night and sleep close to the soft, precious bodies they never thought they’d see again. They don’t shut their eyes until they picture you at peace and at rest and in love.”

Those men, those men. He could see every minute of the torture they’d endured. Except he couldn’t see anything at all because his eyes were filled with the tears flowing down his cheeks.

A sob caught in his chest. He fought to hold it back. It escaped in the same heated, panicked rush as the men he’d released from their cage.

He heard the splash of water as they dived overboard, swimming for the life raft he’d cut loose hours before. He’d always wondered if they’d made it, if they’d lived, if they’d died.

He’d never wondered if they thought about him. He’d never thought himself worth it. He’d been a part of the group that had rounded them up and stolen them from their village, from their families. He didn’t deserve their prayers or their thanks.

If anything, he had deserved to die.





12





PERRY HAD spent the last half hour alone, pacing the kitchen, instead of heading upstairs to bed. She had a thousand questions she wanted to ask of both Jack and Della, but she knew that she never would.

She wanted to go home. She wanted Jack to go with her. Yet she wasn’t comfortable leaving Della alone.

All her indecisiveness meant was that she did nothing constructive during the wait except put clean sheets on the bed in the utility room, just in case Jack stayed.

Because, honestly? She had no idea what he was going to do after tonight. He’d run all the leads he’d mentioned, and that was before Book had made it clear that it was now Jack’s job to butt out.

She didn’t see that happening, but she was clueless as to what he was going to do. If he had any plans, he hadn’t shared them. And being kept in the dark was driving her insane.

But the real crazy maker of the moment was wanting to know what was going on in the reading room. And that she would never find out unless Jack decided to tell her. That was another thing she didn’t see happening.

In fact, she couldn’t help wondering if Della was getting any reaction from him at all. If the reading didn’t go well, if Jack came out of the experience still doubting Della’s gift, and had nowhere else to turn…

At the sound of the beaded curtain stirring, Perry turned and looked up from the refrigerator—into which she’d been blindly staring—in time to see Jack barge into the kitchen, and slam straight out the back door.

Frowning, she closed the fridge, thinking it was a good thing the new door was sturdier than the old, what with the way it bounced off the wall with a thud loud enough to wake the dead. She crossed the room to close it, but was stopped halfway there by her aunt.

“Don’t shut him out,” Della said, standing in the kitchen entrance, her face drawn, her eyes damp. “Go to him. He needs you.”

The words were an echo of what she’d said this morning. Perry started to ask what had happened, but closed her mouth at the shake of Della’s head and the walking stick she lifted to point the way.

Perry’s nerves shivered like flowers in the rain. She flipped the light switch, plunging the kitchen into darkness, and opened the door.

The moon was high and bright, the streetlamps on either end of the alley shining down. It was enough light for her to see where she was going, and to see where Jack was pacing a circle around the empty fountain.

She cut in behind him on his next trip around, and boosted herself up to sit on the concrete ledge. She didn’t want to say anything to set him off or to hurt him, so she grabbed the first innocuous thought that came to mind.

“This is exactly where Della was sitting when Book first met her. It was as cold then as it is now, but that night the fountain was on, and she was soaked by the time I made it here from Court du Chaud.”

Jack didn’t say anything, but his steps did slow. Perry wasn’t sure that was such a good thing since the aerobic exercise was the only thing keeping him warm. That, and the fury or rage or whatever was clearly burning him up.

She had no way of knowing, so she continued to talk. “There had been a break-in next door. It went down pretty badly, someone ended up getting killed. Book and his partner were the ones who responded.”

Jack had quit circling the fountain and was now pacing back and forth in front of her. He’d stuffed his hands deep into his pockets and hunched his shoulders for warmth.

She wanted to go to him, to wrap him in her arms, to take away whatever it was he was feeling. She wanted to know what had happened during the reading, but could only hear her aunt’s words insisting that he needed her here.

“It’s amazing she didn’t catch pneumonia. She was wearing pajamas, and not very warm ones at that. We finally got her inside, and Book stayed to take her statement.”

Perry’s teeth began to chatter, and she crossed her arms and huddled in on herself. “I’ve lost track of how many times she’s helped him since. And I keep wondering if they’re going to get together. They make such a great couple, though I’m pretty sure neither one…”

She let the thought trail because Jack had stopped. He stood on the sidewalk facing her, his hands still in his pockets, his shoulders still stooped.

But the moon was shining down just so, and she could see lines of pain etched on his face, the tracks of tears she doubted he knew he’d cried streaking his cheeks.

“Oh, Jack,” she said, her chest tightening until she thought she wouldn’t be able to breathe. “What happened to you?”

It was all she got out, and his only answer was to look away, jerk his hands from his pockets and scrub them over his face, shaking his head as he did.

The sound he made then was a mad howl of anger, a gut-ripping wail that tore her heart. She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to say. She caught back a sob and waited, because that was when he turned.

He turned, and he came toward her, and before she could do more than blink he was holding her head to keep her from moving while he covered her mouth with his.

He stepped between her legs when she spread them, cradled her face, slid his tongue between her lips and devoured her. She brought her hands up to his shoulders, clawing at the fabric of his shirt to hold on.

He was shaking when he moved his hands to her thighs and started rucking up her skirt until her legs were bare and he could get to her panties.

When he hooked a finger over the fabric of the crotch, she gasped into his mouth. When he found her wet and ready, he growled and pushed a finger inside. She gripped his shoulders to keep from falling back and further widened her legs.

And then his hands were at his fly and he was lifting himself out of his boxers and jeans. She held on to the ledge at her hips, bracing her weight there and hooking her heels behind him.

He moved in, tore her panties out of the way and positioned himself at her entrance. And then, his gaze locked furiously with hers, he pushed in.

It was an agonizingly slow penetration. He took his time stretching her open when what she wanted was to be filled with him now. But she let him take her, possess her, surround himself with her as it seemed he needed to do.

And then he began to move, and she scooted her hips forward, knowing this wasn’t about any emotion beyond what she’d seen in his face and heard in his voice.

It was about survival and being alive and being human and being good enough. It was a validation, and that was all she needed to know. She gave him all that she could of her body.

And when he came, when he tossed back his head and cried out his release, when he returned to her, wrapped her in his arms and held her until she felt she would break, that’s when she gave him her love.





THEY LAY together afterwards in the utility room’s twin bed. It was a tight fit, but neither minded. They’d shed all of their clothes, and the nearness allowed them to experience the pleasures of intimacy with nothing in the way.