Authors: Christine Cody
Bloodlands (14 page)
He was talking again. “If I have to, I’ll find myself a place outside your home so I can keep watch. In good conscience, I won’t leave just after a man like Stamp has escalated matters.”
But it was more than that, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t leave just after he’d heard that Annie . . . or maybe Abby . . . had disappeared from New Badlands under shady circumstances. He’d be looking into that, too.
God-all, I had to be realistic about this. Smart. Think . . .
think
. . .
think
. . .
All right. Gabriel was serious about staying, whether it was inside my home or outside. Was there a way to lead him to answers that would satisfy his curiosity about Annie for the time being? A way to keep life just the same as it had been until things with Stamp could be resolved and Gabriel could move on and leave us in solitude?
I went out of the room, past Gabriel, feeling the tingle of his presence over my skin, even though I didn’t touch him at all.
Chaplin barked.
We’ll make sure Abby
isn’t
Annie—at least as far as Gabriel knows.
We’ll make sure Abby
isn’t
Annie—at least as far as Gabriel knows.
I understood what he was getting at. He wanted me to visit Annie’s domain to cover anything that’d reveal the truth about her.
So, for Gabriel, I laid out my first real big deception.
“Seems that the dog’s heart is gonna break if you do scoot,” I said over my shoulder while I moved toward my private quarters. “So
he
can play host until he gets tired of you, I guess.”
he
can play host until he gets tired of you, I guess.”
“Good enough,” Gabriel muttered. Then, louder, he said, “Meanwhile, don’t mind me while I take a look-see outside to make sure Stamp and his boys have really gone home. I’d like to be thorough, so it might take a while.”
Maybe he was going to try to find Annie’s outside door. God-all, I hoped not. It wouldn’t give me time to edit her belongings.
As I entered my quarters, my body was still quivering, clenched with heat, mostly because of that near brush against him. “It’s your hide, but make sure you take a weapon from the wall. You might need it.”
“Got you, Miss Mariah,” he said. “I’ve endured his crew a couple of times now, as well as what’s outside, so don’t worry about a thing.”
For a second, I wondered just how he’d survived out
there
. He hadn’t brought any weapons with him that I knew of.
there
. He hadn’t brought any weapons with him that I knew of.
I addressed Chaplin, hoping my voice wouldn’t tremor. “Boy, stay inside. Gabriel seems to have this covered.”
I heard our guest gathering materials in preparation to go outside, heard Chaplin jumping round and Gabriel telling the dog he’d have to stay put. All the while, I walked the length of my room, pushing down the tension that didn’t seem to want to leave.
Annie had never talked much about her personal history. Who
had
she been? More important, who was
Abby
?
had
she been? More important, who was
Abby
?
And what had she been to Gabriel?
A noise in the background signaled that Gabriel had climbed the ladder to the top entrance and, suddenly, my place seemed a bit emptier. I wasn’t really sure why, but the thought of not having him round was just about as bad as having him here.
Chaplin woofed in the main area, and I heard him settling down, probably near Gabriel’s blankets to wait for his return.
Blankets. Bed. Gabriel.
I tried not to think of all that, but I did, anyway.
Him, lying in those blankets. These past couple of days, I’d been free to look at him when he didn’t know it, and my temperature had come to near withering as I imagined what a man might feel like. . . .from the/div>
Throwing the feelings away—they made me too afraid of what might happen if I gave in to them—I decided to cool off my sweltering body, the simmering of blood and cells beneath the skin. I needed it badly before carrying out what I’d need to do about Annie
if
Gabriel wasn’t already going over there. So I went to a corner where the dirt met a wall of metal—my sensor-driven cleaning station, which allowed water to stream from the wall more efficiently than with the old-fashioned showers.
if
Gabriel wasn’t already going over there. So I went to a corner where the dirt met a wall of metal—my sensor-driven cleaning station, which allowed water to stream from the wall more efficiently than with the old-fashioned showers.
I began to unlace my cloth pants, starting at the ankle just over my boot, one strip uncrossing another.
Then, as the taboo thoughts returned, my pace slowed.
Blankets. Bed.
Gabriel.
With one side of my pants undone, I went to the lacings on the other, reaching my knee before I felt . . . something.
The same tingling that had licked at my skin when I’d passed Gabriel in the doorway.
My fingers hovered near my knee, over the rest of the lacings. He’d gone outside, right?
Or was he still . . . here?
A thrill swiped me, winding between my legs and making me go a little damp. Something within me shifted violently, and even if Gabriel wasn’t anywhere round, I imagined what it might be like if he saw me, one hip bared, one thigh . . . a calf.
Controlling my breathing, I got a little bolder, telling myself it’d be fine to entertain these new feelings for a moment. Just a moment. Bold was easy when I didn’t know if Gabriel was really here or not, and I continued unlacing myself, strip by strip, up my other thigh now, to my opposite hip, picturing all the looks Gabriel had previously given me—the visual strokes that I couldn’t help wishing were a show of his own thwarted need to be touched, too.
A languid throb made me ache in my sex, and as only a few lacings still held my pants in place, I hesitated, my hands shaking while I listened for any signs of movement, even of the breathing I didn’t always hear from him.
But . . . nothing.
Yet, even if he wasn’t here, I pictured that he was only holding his breath, and I inched my hand to my belly, under the edge of my shirt, where the cloth gaped away from my skin.
I rested my fingertips there, and the muscles jumped, unused to contact. I’d been taught to treat the body as a temple, but years had passed. Time, and circumstance, had altered everything.
And no one was round . . . at least, I was pretty sure no one was.
Maybe I could make this new pressure in my body, this new frustration, go away. So I slid my fingers lower, hesitating, a tremble lining the inside of my stomach.
Careful . . .
I slipped my hand even lower, biting my lip as I touched the slickness between my legs.
Closing my eyes, I inserted my fingers into the folds there.
Wet. And when I pressed up against the sensitive bump, I drew in a breath as hunger emerged, eating at me.
But I kept on imagining him, my repressed yearning unfolding, opening me up now that I was alone in my room, solitary enough to let go for a minute, lonely enough to need it.
Fantasy took over. What if he hadn’t ne out yet and he
was
still here, watching? Maybe his fangs were going sharp, just as my fingers were pressing harder against my sex, as I stroked myself, my legs going weak, my blood heating, my bones beginning to melt.
was
still here, watching? Maybe his fangs were going sharp, just as my fingers were pressing harder against my sex, as I stroked myself, my legs going weak, my blood heating, my bones beginning to melt.
My knees gave out, and I sought my bed for balance, grasping at the covers with my free hand while the other one got me wetter, higher, more excited than I’d been in . . .
Ever.
I sank all the way to the floor, my cheek against the bed, my eyes open enough so that I could see through my lashes the sparsely rendered room—the walls, the darkness of the doorway . . .
Then beyond, where I thought I saw something in the shadows.
A glimmer . . . Two glimmers . . . Red . . .
Watching.
The threat of complete exposure, real or fantasized, interrupted my rhythm, my fingers still insinuated in my sex, my breath suspended, my skin pounding.
I wanted this too much to stop now. I craved this. Had to have him there, even if he wasn’t.
So I stroked myself again, harder, never tearing my gaze away from the red eyes . . . the watching.
Redder, I thought as I imagined how he might want me, too.
Redder . . . the hunger building . . .
Then, just as I came to the edge, so close, so near, the red. . .
I groaned and grabbed at the blankets on my bed.
The red blinked out, extinguished, and I wondered if it’d even been there at all.
Either way, the loss of the illusion tore at me, and when I tried to get back to where I’d been at the height of the fantasy, when I could’ve chased this tight agony all the way out of my body, I failed. Failed again. Failed until my throat burned with a sorrowful tightness, burned right along with my blood, which wouldn’t stop its heating rise.
My body still pushed at itself, still stimulated to the point where I pressed against the bed, the pains growing and stretching, my gaze going dark as I kept thinking of Gabriel. . . .
9
T
eddy Danning had imbibed way too much turtlegrape after tonight’s work shift for him to go straight to sleep.
eddy Danning had imbibed way too much turtlegrape after tonight’s work shift for him to go straight to sleep.
He was still too wound up after what had happened earlier, when he and the others had returned from the scrubdweller gathering where Stamp had allowed them to put the fear of ages into the Badlanders. Sure, the crew had come back to Stamp’s domain after that, to continue installing a water-farming system in the aquifer, but that hadn’t killed Teddy’s energy.
So he’d ended up here, outside under the cloud-mottled night sky, drinking himself halfway to boredom as the rest of the crew obeyed directions and stayed underground for the night.
Pushing back the whale-hide hat he’d purchased in the hubs, where Stamp had recruited him, Teddy wondered what he’d gotten himself into by signing on to this job. He missed the urban hubs. Missed the games there, especially, because if there was one thing Teddy was, it was a doer, and the Badlands wasn’t offering much in the way of allowing him to exercise that quality.
A rustling sound came from the brush to his right, and from his seat on the flat rock above the New Badlands in all its stark fucked-up-ness, Teddy took up a stone and heaved it at the disturbance.
He smiled while a fox scuttled out, its eyes capturing the glow of the moon as it fixed its gaze on Teddy.
Aggression.
They’d see who was king of the rock here.
He found another stone and sent it at the creature just to watch it dance.
The little thing hissed, flashing a sharpened tongue, but Teddy wasn’t afraid of the desert mutant.
He set down his canteen and stood, reaching to the belt of his trousers for his taserwhip, thinking it might be fun to see if the fox whined as much as the old man had earlier.
Unfortunately, in the time it’d taken for Teddy to change position, the creature had already disappeared.
Teddy hopped off the rock to the dirt below. That damned little thing had been fast, but there weren’t a lot of places to hide out here, and he was in the mood for fun.
“Hya, Foxy,” he said, creeping over the dirt, his whip unfurled. “Dn’t b shy.”
After their shift, Stamp had told his crew to stay inside—to mind the dangers of night—but Teddy had never been great at taking orders. Not in prison, not on the streets, not even in the organized gang he’d tried out before he’d quit it. Besides, he wouldn’t venture too far.
“Foxy,” he said again, wandering away from his own rock, coming upon a stand of boulders piled against each other in a semblance of a hill.
The taciturn moon peeked over the ragged top of it, lending light as Teddy caressed the “on” button of his whip.
“C’mon,” he urged.
When something broke out of the brush at the base of the hill, Teddy jumped back. But lickety-split, he enabled the whip’s electricity, and the device hummed as the fox scurried past him.
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