Allie's War Season Three (53 page)

"Stop," I begged him. "Please. I won't if you don't..."

"Sorry, baby," he murmured. "I'm sorry...but you looked worried before..."

"I'm not worried now..."

"You're not?" His voice held an edge of humor, but more pain slid off his light. "Maybe just one more kiss, to be sure?"

"Revik...don't. It's not a good idea..."

"I want you," he murmured softer. "I want you more than I ever have, Allie...I don't care about the Lao Hu...not like that. I'm jealous, let me be jealous...and angry at that fucker Ditrini. But please don't think I look at you differently. I swear I don't..."

I fought to keep my mind moving in straight lines, still gripping his back. Closing my eyes when he pressed against me again, I nodded.

"Okay."

"Okay?" he said. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," I said. "Do you want to try to sleep now?"

He laughed. "No. But I will." He kissed my throat, massaging my shoulder. "I'll probably drive you crazy for the next year or so, by the way," he murmured, kissing me again. "I'm already looking forward to trying to fuck you every time we're alone for more than five minutes. Talking you into long lunches...dragging you into closets..." His voice deepened, turning more serious. "I feel like all we've done so far is jerk each other off, Allie...it's not enough. It's not even close to enough. I want things to be real with us this time..."

His eyes met mine when he raised his head, his expression holding that intensity again.

"...I'd rather wait. Are you all right with that?"

Biting my lip, I met his gaze, nodding. "Of course."

He kissed me again, holding my wrist against the mattress. His skin was so warm by then, I couldn't tell anymore if the dampness on both of us was only from the shower. Still fighting to control my light, I gripped his hair, bringing him closer against me. He let me, until both of us were pressing against each other again. At a certain point, he groaned, jerking back his light as he broke us apart. Raising his head, he released me all at once, moving over on his hands until he was lying on his stomach.

Once he was settled, he glanced up at me. He gave a short laugh at my expression.

"Gods, wife," he said. "Stop looking at me like that."

Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes, fighting embarrassment. Turning over to my own stomach, I shifted my head on the pillow to face him, then closed my eyes. My light was still coiling around me, looking for him, but I managed to pull it back enough that my breath started to slow, and I started to feel comfortable where my body sank into the mattress.

"Do you love me?" he said.

I gave another short laugh. "Revik...for crying out loud..."

"Do you?"

I nodded, rolling my eyes at him dramatically. "Yes. You ridiculous man."

Pain slid off his light. I closed my eyes once more, but he pulled on me again, drawing my gaze back up to his.

"Allie," he said. "Don't be afraid of me...please. I won't hurt you...I promise I won't. I have my reasons for wanting to wait, but they're not what you think...I swear they don't have anything to do with the Lao Hu. I adore you...you must know that."

I couldn't help wincing at his choice of words.

Moving closer to where I lay, he kissed my face, caressing my cheek with his as his voice dropped to a murmur. "No more separations...no more hidden personalities...no more talk about divorce. Please, Allie. Please, just try to trust me...just a little. I'll never leave you again, I promise...I swear to you I won't..."

Pain hit me as his words sank in.

It worsened as I realized that he was right, that he'd actually picked up on more in me than I'd even admitted to myself. I hadn't really been letting him in, not entirely. In fact, we hadn't fully made love since that time in the cabin...not if I was being particular about definitions. I'd always been hiding something from him, or him from me, or both of us from one another. Even the other morning had been as much about sex and our light as it had been about us. It was more like raw need from too much time apart...raging hormones and deprived light. That had been true even at the end, when he'd used that desperation to coax me open enough to play at trying to get me pregnant. We were still getting to know one another in some ways, so it was easy to get lost in the sex as somehow separate from the two of us.

I could see what he meant, about us jerking each other off.

Leaning over me where I lay on my stomach, he gripped my shoulder in one hand, pushing my hair aside from the middle of my back. I saw him looking down at the profile of my face before shifting his gaze to the tattoo of the sword and sun. Before I could say anything, he lowered his mouth to my skin, using his tongue, working his way down slowly from the back of my neck. I was fighting to control my light almost at once, especially when he started putting his own light into his lips and tongue, leaning his weight against my back until my breath started growing heavier again.

"Revik..." I protested. "Sleep. Remember? We were going to wait..."

He gave another low groan, gripping my hair more tightly in his hand.

"Gods," he murmured. "Maybe I could just get you off. It's driving me crazy...I can feel you doubting everything I'm saying to you..."

"No," I said, craning my neck to look at him. "I'm not doubting you. Not anymore. I was just realizing you were right." Still looking into his eyes, I pointed to his side of the bed, making my voice stern. "Go back to your corner, husband...now!"

He laughed a little, but moved back to lie facedown on the mattress. For a long moment, he just lay there, looking at me, caressing my face.

"I didn't tell you the truth about something, Allie," he said. "Not entirely."

I felt myself stiffen. "Which thing was that?"

"The imprints..."

I winced, averting my gaze. "Jesus, Revik."

Pain hit me though, hard enough that I couldn't look at him right away.

"Allie," He tugged on my arm, trying to get me to turn my head. "I didn't lie. Not like that. I
didn't
feel them during sex. But something happened while we were in hibernation..." Still looking at me, he went on more cautiously. "Whatever it was is probably why I didn't feel anything when we were actually together..."

"What was it?" I asked, forcing myself to turn. "What happened?"

When I met his gaze, I saw him studying mine, hesitant again.

"Just tell me, Revik," I said. "It's too late to stop now."

"I saw a lot of it," he admitted. Seeing me flinch, he added more carefully, "...At least I
think
I did. I remember a lot. It was pretty detailed, Allie. Some of it was detailed, anyway..."

Shaking my head again, I closed my eyes, probably to avoid looking at him. I felt my light starting to close and he must have felt that as well, because he shook me harder that time.

"Allie...don't. Dammit...please don't..."

When I looked up, his eyes were serious, even pained.

"Please," he said. "I really meant what I said about letting this stuff go. I don't want you to have to worry about me like that again." Hesitating, he added, "...It really feels like neither one of us should be worrying about that. We should be focusing on other things...and trying to trust one another, like we never got a chance to do after our time together at the cabin."

He waited, still watching me cautiously.

"Do you understand?" he said.

After a pause, I nodded. I forced myself to look at him again. When I did, his expression held so much worry I made myself relax.

"I think so," I said, caressing his arm. "You're saying we should get over it. That
I
should get over it, too...not live in that old place."

"...I don't mean that we won't fight," he added. "Or that we won't get jealous or that I won't be a possessive dick on occasion...or that I won't end up on the couch some nights for one of a million other reasons..." He hesitated, still watching my eyes. "I'm sad about what happened to you there, Allie. I'm sad that you were there at all. I won't lie...I'm really sad about it right now. I don't think that will go away overnight, which is why I asked for some time. But it feels like it's really
over
. To me, anyway. This is just...I don't know. Me processing, I guess..."

Still studying my expression, he made his voice more emphatic.

"But I'm not going to freak out, Allie...or ask for a divorce, or accuse you of wanting to be with someone else. I want to trust you...more than anything I want that. And I want you to trust me. I don't think we should be focusing on this stuff anymore...I really don't."

Hesitating again, he continued to watch my face.

"Do you know what I'm talking about?" he said. "Or is it just me who feels this way?"

Thinking about his words, I rearranged my weight on the mattress, watching his face. After another pause, I nodded, feeling my shoulders unclench a little more.

"No," I said. "It's not just you."

Relief touched his expression, even as he gripped my arm more tightly.

I smiled back, resting my chin on my folded hands. Closing my eyes then, I sighed, feeling my body start to unwind in more subtle increments against the bed. He rearranged his arm under his head, moving closer to me so that our legs were touching. That intensity shone briefly in his eyes once more, right before he kissed my cheek, sliding his fingers down to massage my neck and then my back.

He was tired though. I could feel it on him again, and I could feel that sadness he'd been talking about, too. Instead of pulling away from it that time, I opened my light, enveloping him as much as I could. I saw his eyes close briefly once I'd done it, then another pulse of relief left his light, even as he kissed my neck.

I waited for both of us to finish arranging our bodies on the mattress before I leaned my side against his. When I glanced up next, he was already closing his eyes. I barely heard his breath start to slip into that deeper, more rhythmic cadence of sleep, when I found my own quite effortlessly doing the same.

14

DANTE

DANIELLA ANITA VASQUEZ, or Dante, which was what all of her friends called her, as well as being her hacker name, laughed, nudging her best friend, Pip, in the shoulder.

Damn, it was early.

Like, early enough that she wished she'd drank at least another four high-octane sodas before coming down here. But they needed to do it before the heavy traffic started, which meant after the bar crowd was mostly asleep or in coffee shops fueling up, and before the more ambitious tourists and shoppers ventured out of doors.

She'd managed to capture the advert man...which told her the rest would probably work, too.

Still holding the portable monitor between her hands, Dante used the code she and Mavis had worked out in his basement the other day, trying to hijack the signal. Mavis was a friggin' genius with the code jumping. He'd managed to hack into info on the nets about illegal seer tech, which as it turned out, formed the basis of most of the
real
security systems for anything bigger than a mom and pop...and there weren't a lot of mom and pops these days. Everything was owned by some huge company, which in some ways made things easier.

Mavis gave Dante all the info he found, and between them, they'd figured out that the reason they couldn't crack most of the security encryptions was, essentially, that they weren't actually encryptions at all. The organic machines acted more like guard dogs than code in the strictest sense. Some of the more sophisticated ones didn't even speak solely using binary. Which meant, fooling them required figuring out how to wave the best bones in front of their noses.