Beating Ruby (24 page)

“Let’s calm down and discuss this,” he said, aggravation filtering through his words as he walked toward me.

Alex was quicker to figure out that the fight had been lost already. He picked up his leather jacket from the ground and dusted it roughly. “All right, is a debrief too much to ask for?”

I proceeded to recap my exchanges with Anders to them. By the time I was done, he was dragging his palm across his face in a visible effort to digest the news. “Okay. So, you used some secret offshore account to bait Van Kreft’s most trusted advisor and arrange a meeting. Is there anything else we should know before we proceed any further?”

March appeared equally shocked and displeased, and to be honest, I didn’t understand them. It wasn’t like they had any better lead to offer, and I felt in fact quite proud of myself.

“I’ll need a cover,” I announced. “A fake identity, and some online tracks, in case they look me up. Alex, do you think the NSA could help with this, now that we’re best friends with that Hendry guy?”

“Best friends,”
Alex repeated, enunciating each word slowly as he looked at March. His attention returned to me. “I can make a few phone calls.”

March crossed his arms and towered over me with a stern expression. “You’re unqualified for such a mission.” I straightened, readying myself for the upcoming battle. “But what is done is done. I’ll take you downtown to shop for a proper dress.”

My eyes scanned his dirty, bloody shirt and the split on his lip. I gave him a rueful smile. “Okay. But first we need to take care of you.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Book of Island

“Island rose from the ground, and although her eyes were opened, she saw nothing: she didn’t get men yet.”

—
The Book of Island: Spiritual Teachings for the Dating-Impaired
(Possibly borrowed from Acts 9:8 of the Bible)

“You shouldn’t have fought with Alex. But . . . thank you.” I sighed, dabbing at the cut on March’s lower lip with an antiseptic swab.

“It was my pleasure entirely.”

I smiled. I had no doubt he could have taken care of himself, but I suspected he enjoyed being pampered a little, and in his own room, no less—no better way to assert that he had won,
Rawwrrr
. Once I was done, I went to dispose of the bloody piece of gauze in the bathroom’s trash can.

When I returned, March was still sitting on the bed, observing with attentive, cat-like eyes. “You should have told me,” he said.

“It was very sudden. I told him we were done, and I guess Alex . . . He lost his temper.”

March’s nostrils flared upon hearing this. “Don’t make any excuses for him.”

“I’m not. It’s just that I wasn’t sure what to say, and I was afraid that if I told you it would end . . . the way it did.”

I knew that cool glare wasn’t directed at me, but it made me shudder a bit. “My response was appropriate, and, dare I say, moderate,” he said tightly.

“You reacted like a caveman.”

At last, the harsh lines on his brow seemed to relax, and a boyish smile outlined his dimples. “Perhaps so.”

Now, if this was the
Book of Island
, a faithful account of the many miracles she accomplished during her life as a prophet—let it be known that Joy would have never assembled those Billy shelves without my divine power—we would be at the part where Island is blessed by a vision from the gods and suddenly sees the truth of things.

She was blind, and then,
ba
m
! She figures out something that had been eluding her for years, ever since that day when she was fourteen and a bum flashed her his noodle in Pretoria, in broad daylight no less.

Women have power over men too. The power to make them do (stupid) things. Out of desire, most of the time. Out of spite too—Alex had taught me that. But also . . .

I gazed at March, still sitting on his bed. Drops of blood had stained his shirt, forming an oddly beautiful pattern on the pristine cotton, as if red chrysanthemums had been scattered on the collar and front. He’d need to change it.

He probably noticed that my expression had changed. His smile faded, replaced by a question in his eyes, in the slight tilt of his head. I stepped closer, until my knees were brushing his. He remained silent. All shields up, guarding himself carefully, as usual.

Funny how mere days ago, I’d have self-combusted with shame at the very idea of doing something like this. I placed my hands on his shoulders slowly, feeling his muscles coil at this first contact. My eyes never left his as I straddled him and sat on his lap. My dress was pulled back tight by this new position, baring my thighs as my legs landed on the comforter on each side of his body. Our faces now inches apart, I watched as his dark blue eyes widened and his breathing quickened. March’s hands hadn’t moved, but I noticed the way his fingers dug slightly into the white comforter. He felt it too, that heat where our bodies made contact with each other.

His tongue darted out to wet his lips before he spoke. “Island, what are you doing?”

My fingers tightened around his shoulders, and I had to close my eyes for a second because maybe the similar tension building within me was more than I could handle. “I want to talk.”

One of his hands left the bed to graze my cheek. My toes curled. “Maybe we can do so . . . in a standing position.”

I squirmed forward on his lap, closing what little distance remained between our bodies. A sharp exhale fanned over my face that carried the scent of the coffee he had been drinking at the bar. Between my thighs, his legs shifted a little, in a desperate attempt to prevent further intimate contact. I pressed my forehead against his, struggling to collect my thoughts when our lips could practically touch.

“I don’t mind talking like this,” I murmured.

The hand that had been hovering near my cheek traveled down to settle on the small of my back, pressing me even closer. “Biscuit, this isn’t
talking
. . .”

While he was clearly affected by this sudden proximity, March was still capable of serving me some gentleman bullshit. I took it to mean he wasn’t yet quite where I wanted him. I started unbuttoning his shirt with trembling hands. To my amazement, he didn’t resist, the slight movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed the only hint that I was, in fact, playing with the limits of his self-control.

Emboldened, I pushed away the dark chrysanthemums of dried blood to reveal skin. And so much fuzzy, curly, silky chest hair. When my fingers abandoned their task to caress his chest and lose themselves in that wonderful rug, he wavered. His head lolled as if he had meant to bury his face in my neck, but he seemed to catch himself, merely grazing the shell of my ear with his lips, his breath hot and uneven. “This is a bad idea.”

“What do you want?” I asked in what I hoped was a sultry voice, at the same time that my palms found their way under his shirt.

“Island . . . You know exactly what I want right now.”

My eyes darted to his left hand, still clenching the comforter in a white-knuckled grip. “But you won’t take it. You could have slept with me in Tokyo, but you didn’t. And yet—” I pushed the shirt off his shoulders, only to be rewarded by a furtive nip on my neck that nearly derailed my thoughts. “You’re back. And you want something else. What do you
want,
March?”

He pressed a line of kisses along my jaw, his mouth searching mine. “I just want you to be safe. To be happy.”

“I’m not!”

My cry of frustration echoed in the room. He wrapped his arms around me, locking me into a tight embrace, and straightened on the bed to balance us in this new position. When his lips brushed the tip of my nose, I thought he was at last going to kiss me, but he maintained a “safe” distance between our mouths.

“Biscuit, it’s always perfect in the beginning.” He searched for his words in between breaths. I waited for him to go on, each second ticking between us an eternity. “But in the long run, no one ever changes, and you won’t want to be there—”

“I’ve been in your trunk. I’ve been on Rislow’s table. Don’t tell me what I can handle or not.”

One of his hands moved to cradle the back of my head, his fingers threading through my hair. “I need to wash everything at least twice. Sometimes I wake up at night to check if objects are in place. There’s a rifle under my couch and a gun under my pillow because I never know when someone might come knocking at my door to settle an old score.”

I listened to him, basking in the heat of his skin, the way our scents mingled, his soap, my perfume, earth, grass. I felt powerful, almost light-headed, because for once I understood things he didn’t. My palms splayed on his chest; I pressed a single kiss on the pulse beating fast in his neck. “But you’re not checking anything right now. Your shirt is dirty and you’re
not doing anything about it. Tell me why you came back,” I insisted.

In my arms, March seemed to slump a little; his grip on me relaxed. “Because I thought I could change . . . for you.”

For you
. I pressed my forehead to his and took a deep breath. It took me a few vertiginous seconds to process his words, let them flow through me.

His face moved away, though, just enough to look into my eyes, as if trying to pierce a mystery. “But I was wrong. You need someone normal, with a stable job, a name, a phone number, papers—someone safe.”

My chest tightened as I thought of Struthio, of the office, the emu on the brochure. March had tried his best to become a good citizen, had turned his entire life upside down in a matter of months, but he still believed it wasn’t enough. That
he
wasn’t enough. I bit my lower lip hard. Already, I could feel my eyes and nose prickling.

He cupped my cheek with his hand, his thumb wiping a lone tear I hadn’t felt roll down my cheek. “Biscuit, please don’t cry.”

I sniffed. “I-I think my dad would like it if I dated a guy who has his own brochure.”

March hugged me tight. The sexual tension between us seemed to have now evaporated—no doubt because I had ended up sobbing like a kid. He combed his fingers through the wild curls in my hair as he spoke. “But I haven’t found a good first name yet, and I’m not safe for you.”

“Why don’t you have a first name?” I mewled into his shoulder.

“I didn’t know what to put in that field, so I just left it blank.”

Renewed tears built up in my eyes at this. Somewhere along the course of those fifteen years spent killing, March had truly, completely lost himself, to the point where he wasn’t capable of writing down his birth name anymore. I straightened in his arms to cradle his face, traced each angle, each line. “I like ‘March.’ You don’t need to find another name; I don’t care.”

“Just March?” he asked quietly.

“Just March.”

His eyelids dropped; he seemed conflicted, even as his hands roamed down my sides and settled on my thighs, making the decision his cautious, rational mind couldn’t. When he opened his eyes again, there was a new determination in those dark blue irises.

Slowly, March brought his head down until our mouths were brushing each other. His lips parted, and with my first taste of him since that night in Tokyo came a sense of being home. Hesitant yet thorough, hungry but never wild—a kiss like no other, the sum of his flaws and qualities. I realized there was something sweet laced with the coffee on his tongue; I remembered the little Swiss chocolate that had been sitting on his saucer and smiled against his mouth before resuming kissing him eagerly.

A sigh of disappointment escaped me when he pulled away with a final tug at my lower lip. His dimples appeared, framing an impish grin. “A point well made, Miss Chaptal. But we still have a lot to do before tonight’s dinner.”

My love bubble burst with a resounding pop. Why was it
never
the right time to be swept off my feet in a passionate storm and all? I pushed on March’s chest with all my strength in an attempt to force him down. It worked, but I think it was because he let himself fall on the fluffy comforter with a chuckle, without offering any resistance. I followed him, lying by his side, my right hand never leaving his chest. Because now, all that
precious
hair was
mine
.

“We need to set some rules,” he said, his eyes on the ceiling, half closed.

I groaned. “Already?”

“Rule number one: from now on you’ll be honest with me, as I’ll be with you.”

My mouth opened to make some snide comment about this statement, but he took me by surprise. “When we’re done beating Ruby, I’ll tell you about the code your mother left for you. But I’d like to tackle one issue at a time, if you don’t mind.”

Past the shock, I rested my cheek against his chest, reveling in the simple, evident connection between us as his arms wrapped around me. “Okay, you win this round; I won’t pester you until we’re done. For now I’ve got some shopping to do to look my best tonight. I need to go downtown.”

I felt the peaceful rise and fall of his rib cage, heard the smile in his voice as he answered. “Just let me change and I’ll take you there.”

“Can I drive?”

He rubbed the top of my head absently. “Depends. What’s the speed limit in town?”

“I’m sure it’s written on the signs.”

“Wrong answer. I’m sorry, biscuit. Maybe next time.”

Dammit!