Black Is Back (Quentin Black Mystery #4) (42 page)

I WALKED IN quietly, not sure if he would be awake or asleep.

I couldn’t feel him, but he had a tendency to go into stealth mode when he was lying in here alone, even when I found him awake and staring up at the ceiling... like he was now.

He turned his head slightly when he saw me.

“You awake?” I said, more out of politeness.

He nodded, once.

Walking over to him, I sat down on the bed, looking him over. After I’d finished my routine once-over and didn’t find anything wrong, I shifted sideways and stretched out, kicking off my slippers and lying down carefully next to him. Propping my head up on one palm, I looked up at his face, studying his eyes.

“I invited Nick to stay. For dinner.”

Black didn’t say anything.

“Hope that’s okay,” I added. “You’re coming out, right? For awhile anyway?”

Black quirked an eyebrow, looking down at me.

I frowned. “What? I thought you two were okay now.”

“We are.”

“Then what?”

“Are we having dinner parties now, Miriam?” he said, scowling a little as he turned his head. “How am I supposed to interpret that, exactly? Are you going to tell me?”

I blinked in surprise. “Interpret what?” I said.

“You
know
what! You inviting people over, ordering food up here, buying groceries, drinking my good wine...”

I flushed, repositioning my head on my hand. “I’ll replace the wine, Black.”

He let out an aggravated sound. “No. You won’t. You’re not ‘replacing’ anything, Miri. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what
do
you mean?” I said, frowning. “Do you want me to kick them out? I wouldn’t have asked them over if I thought you’d mind.”

“I
don’t
mind,” Black growled. “You’re not listening to me, doc.”

“I’m
listening
to you just fine...”

“No you’re not,” he growled.

His gold eyes met mine. Something about the look there caused me to fall silent that time. When I didn’t say anything, he exhaled again, wincing when he forgot he was injured for about the hundredth time that day and raised his arm, probably to touch his face. He lowered the arm a bare second into the motion, gritting his teeth as he brought it back to the bed.

“Black,” I said. “I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

“Miri,” he said, giving me an exasperated look. “Goddamn it... no. You shouldn’t have asked. What you
should
have done is give me an answer to the question I’ve asked
you
about a hundred times now, instead of letting me sit here, in my own fucking house, and try to figure it out via the weird-ass code you’re employing to confuse me...”

“Code?” I blinked at him again, then fought not to smile. “Confuse you? What?”

“I want you to live here. I’ve
asked
you to fucking live here. With me. You still haven’t given me an answer. But you’re...” He waved a hand in the vague direction of the living room and winced again, grimacing in pain. “...You’re making me think it might be a yes. Without actually
saying
yes. So now I’m fucking paranoid, thinking I’m reading things into what you’re doing that I shouldn’t...”

“Black, for crying out loud...”

“Just give me a fucking
answer,
Miriam. Then you can have all the goddamned dinner parties you want. You can drink all my wine and invite Nick over to watch football on the widescreen with his cop pals. Hell, invite the whole Northern precinct here for strippers and caviar if you want. Just don’t...” He shook his head, those gold eyes meeting mine, serious now. “Don’t confuse me, Miri. Please. I can’t deal with it anymore. I need an answer. A real one.”

My mouth had firmed, the longer he talked. I tried to keep the confusion out of my own voice when I spoke, but didn’t really succeed.

“Didn’t you say we’re married now?” I said.

He turned, staring at me. “What?”

“You said we’re married, right? That we need to start thinking and acting like we are? And that we had to talk about how to start telling other people? And make legal and financial arrangements? And all the rest of the things married people do?”

“So?” he said, short.

“So, do seers normally
not
live with their spouses?” I said, still puzzled.

He frowned, lifting his arm again, and grimaced when pain shot through his chest.

“I’m going to handcuff you to the bed,” I said, frowning. “Jesus, Black. Injury. Do you want me to make a sign? Tape it over the bed?”

“It wouldn’t help,” he growled.

Staring at the foot of the bed from where he was propped up on the pillows, he shook his head a bare moment later.

“I’m still fucking confused, Miri. What are you telling me?”

I sighed, rolling to my back and resting my head in the crook of his arm. I took hold of his hand when I did, thinking maybe I could keep him from hurting himself with that arm, at least.

“I’m telling you maybe you weren’t the one making assumptions,” I said, stroking his fingers. I sighed, tilting my head back to look up at his face. “Do you understand?”

When the silence stretched, he scowled at me again.

“No.”

I exhaled. “Are you serious right now?”

“I’m serious that you can’t seem to
say
it, Miriam. And if you can’t say it to me, then we probably aren’t ready to do it...”

“I want to move in with you!” I said, exhaling in exasperation. “Okay? I want to move in. I kind of thought we’d already settled that. I thought that question was answered. Okay? Is that clear enough for you? Or do you need it in braille?”

His eyes shifted towards me.

I saw a smile touch the edge of his sculpted lips, right before he clicked at me, shaking his head with a faint scowl. Staring up at the ceiling, he made his voice annoyed when he answered, but I felt the exhale there, and the relief that came off him in a softer wave.

“Yes,” he grumbled. “Since it’s actually verbalizing the desire in a language we both speak, without any cryptic, indirect hints or cultural cues... it’s clear, Miriam.” Exhaling another pulse of relief, he moved his other arm, then grimaced, relaxing back into the pillows on the bed with gritted teeth. “When?” he said, staring up at the ceiling.
“When
are you moving in?”

“I’m seriously going to handcuff you.” I could feel the pain on him, being so close. “I’m actually not kidding anymore, Black. I’m going to tell Thing 1 and Thing 2 to bring velcro straps the next time they come by and tie you to the damned bed.”

Thing 1 and Thing 2 is what we’d taken to calling the two seers my uncle employed as bodyguards for me and Black while he recovered. I’d probably heard their real names at one point, but I’d stubbornly refused to remember them.

Either way, both of them were “on loan” from my Uncle Charles to Black Securities and Investigations, at least until Black was on his feet again. My uncle clearly didn’t trust our security to be handled solely by humans.

“Are you going to not answer that question either?” he said, real annoyance leaking into his voice. “Or are you just
fucking
with me right now, trying to distract me from being horny and stuck in here without being able to do anything about either?”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it.

Sliding up towards him on the bed, I leaned down, kissing him on the mouth. When I kissed him again, letting him deepen the kiss that time and use his tongue, he reached for me and winced violently again. I raised my head, scowling at him.

“Jesus, Black... you’re like an infant!”

“When?” he said, his voice demanding. “When, Miri?”

“Whenever you want. You pick the day. I’ll tell my landlord once you do.”

“Tell him tomorrow.”

I laughed. “Okay. When should I say I’m moving out?”

“Tell him tomorrow,” he repeated. “I’ll call my moving guys. They’ll take care of it. Tomorrow,” he added, in case I missed that part. “We’ll buy off the rest of the lease. You can start ripping up my apartment tomorrow too, if you want... remove walls, change out all the furniture. Give my wine collection away. Whatever, Miri.”

I gave him a bemused look. “You have your own moving guys?”

He shrugged, studying my face. His gold eyes lost all of their humor. “Are you serious about this, Miri? This isn’t because I’m injured? Or because you’ve resigned yourself to being stuck with me? You actually want to do this?”

I gave him a mock frown, like I was thinking, tapping my lip with a finger. Hesitating, I glanced down. “...But I
am
stuck with you, right?”

He rocked his head back, exhaling in frustration.

“I just wanted to be clear,” I said sweetly. “You asked me to be clear, right?”

“Give me a fucking blow job,” he demanded, his voice a growl. “Since I can’t fucking
do
anything... it’s the least you can do. Especially if you’re going to come back here for the sole purpose of driving me insane...”

“Is it? Is it the very
least
I can do?” Seeing his expression, I burst out in a laugh, shaking my head. “No blow jobs, Black. You can’t even behave when I kiss you on the mouth.”

“No blow jobs? Seriously?”

I shrugged. “Maybe when I get the velcro.”

He glared at me, looking me up and down with mock sternness. “Fine. I’ll just call you by your other name during dinner. That seems fair.”

“My
other
name?” I frowned. “Do I even want to know what that is?”

“You already know what it is... Mrs. Black.”

I blinked at him, startled. Then, seeing the humor in his eyes, I rolled mine, flushing in spite of myself. “They told you? About the hospital?”

He grinned wider. “Kiko might have mentioned it. And Dex... and Lisbeth.” He quirked an eyebrow at me. “...And Angel. And Glen. And that guy, Hawking.” He gave me a more annoyed look. “I’m pretty sure that damned jar head has a crush on you now, too.”

“He was a Ranger.”

“Whatever.”

“And just
where
did they get the idea that I might be Mrs. Black, Quentin?” I said, lifting an eyebrow. I saw him shiver when I used his first name. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t go around telling people we were married. Or putting your name down on ‘next of kin’ forms or ‘in case of emergency, call Mr. Black’ forms...”

He gave a nonchalant shrug. “I might have put something down... somewhere. You know. In case something happened.”

“Like you being shot in the chest by someone who’d decided you were the Antichrist?”

“Yeah,” he grunted, glancing at me. “Like that.”

He started to lift his arm to rub his face, then grimaced before I could howl at him and let it fall back to the dark blue comforter.

“Anyway,” he said, ignoring my scolding. “Who else am I going to leave my money to? Lisbeth is sweet, but she’d probably give it all to the church. Kiko would just send it to her family in Japan. And Dex would spend it on diamonds for that crazy girlfriend of his...”

Laughing, I shook my head, then wanted to smack him again when he started to lift his arm and I had to practically pin him to the bed.

Still, weirdly, I was touched.

Annoyed, yes... but also touched.

Thinking about it, watching those gold eyes as they flickered from my mouth down the rest of me, I guessed I’d probably be feeling a lot more of both things from now on.

* * *

Want to read more about Miri and Black?

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BLACK CHRISTMAS (Plus Bonus Story “Black Supper”)

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