Allie's War Season Four (143 page)

Her hand looked so small on his arm. The contrast turned him on more, even as he felt himself winding more of his light into hers.

“I don’t think I can wait,” he told her finally, fighting his breath.

She laughed, and the sound went through him. He felt it in his feet.

She pushed on his chest though, starting to disentangle herself, but he fought her with his light, not wanting to let go of her.

“Do you not want this?” he asked her. “Is it only me you are worried about? Hurting me? Or do you not want this with me? Don’t let me push you, cousin...please. Tell me the truth, and I will leave you alone...I promise I will. You have no reason to fear me...”

She stopped pushing at his chest, looking back at his face.

He saw the thoughtful look return there, felt her light start to open to his again.

He caressed the hair out of her eyes, tracing her mouth with the fingers of his other hand where he cupped her jaw once more in his palm. He saw her looking at his mouth, too, then at his eyes. He felt pain in her, enough that he let out a low sound, focusing back on her mouth. He struggled with his light to keep from pulling on her, from coaxing her into him.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me if I can kiss you...”

“You’re hurt,” she chided him, smacking his chest lightly. “You heard what that other woman said. You know the one I mean,” she said, frowning at him. “...The one who had her hands all over you every five seconds...”

His pain worsened, even as he ran his thumb over her mouth again.

“Were you jealous?” he said, unable to keep himself from asking.

She didn’t answer.

Seeing her frown, he let out another low sound, kissing her jaw.

“She knew this might happen,” he said, softer. “It is why they left us alone. They have been teasing me about you...ever since I first saw you in that horrible place. They were teasing you, by touching me. Mika and Rex, especially.”

“Teasing, huh?” She quirked that dark eyebrow again.

She was looking at him, though, and that anger had softened in her eyes.

“Yes,” he said, feeling another hard pulse of pain. “Yes. I will introduce you to all of them, cousin, and you will see. They are not bad people...and Mika was not trying to seduce me. Seers like to tease, but I will tell them not to touch me, if you like.”

Her smile returned. He saw so much warmth in her eyes and mouth that time, he pulled her mouth down to his. Kissing her carefully, he released her slightly, but she didn’t move away. He kissed her again, closing his eyes, inhaling her scent.

“Just kissing,” he murmured against her skin. “Only that...”

She let out a laugh, raising her head. “You just want to kiss. You ask me if I’m jealous. You want to introduce me to your friends...tell them not to touch you around me...” Shaking her head at him, she burst out with another laugh, still giving him a nearly incredulous look. “Are you asking me to be your girlfriend, Loki?”

She said it teasingly, but once he’d thought about her words, once he understood how she meant them, he found himself answering her question without hesitation.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am asking that of you, Gina.”

He saw her cheeks grow pink again, and his pain worsened. He found himself thinking that some of her reaction came because he’d used her given name.

“Can I call you that?” he clarified. “...Gina?”

She nodded, still looking at him in a kind of stunned silence.

Disbelief wafted around her light, but he felt desire on her, too...and something more. His words had touched her, somehow. They had touched her in an emotional way, and as he felt denser glimmers of that, his own pain grew unbearable again. Reaching up, he brushed the hair off of one of her cheekbones, caressing the skin lightly with his fingers as he did it.

“Do you want to be my girlfriend, Gina?” he said, his voice formal that time, polite. “We can talk about the particulars, if you like...”

He trailed, seeing that wrinkle return to that section of skin above her nose and between her eyebrows. Worried again that he was saying too much, too quickly, he reminded himself that she was human. She would not know what was happening with their light. She would not be used to the formalities seers engaged in to normalize such connections, or make them transition more smoothly...or the agreements they often made with one another to ease each another’s minds.

She might not even be used to the intensity of a strong light connection, period, depending on her romantic history...not even with another human.

It was unlikely, though. She’d had a child with a human.

She might even have been married...to the father, or to someone else.

The thought brought a thick wave of jealousy, but the other part of his mind remained relatively clear. He needed to ease her into this. He couldn’t pressure her with words any more than he could with his light, simply because he couldn’t control himself.

Thinking about this further, he frowned.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I am doing this wrong for you.”

Her eyes cleared slightly at his words.

Even so, he felt the distance she had put between them, and knew he hadn’t been wrong. A few seconds later, she shook her head.

“No...it’s not that. Not exactly.” Hesitating, she tilted her head, a gesture that felt almost like an admission of something. “Honestly, this all
feels
just fine. It’s when I stop to think about it that I realize how completely insane it is...”

Trailing again, she shook her head, staring off at the far wall.

It occurred to him that maybe she was avoiding looking at him. When she gazed down at him next, however, her dark eyes had sharpened, as had those gold and green glints of lighter color in her irises.

“Okay, I have another question,” she said. “When’s the last time you had a girlfriend, Loki?”

Loki thought about that, too. Frowning slightly, he tried to answer her question as accurately as he could. Then he realized his answer might only make her more nervous.

“It has been quite some time,” he admitted.

“How long?” she pressed.

Glancing up at her, he felt his jaw harden somewhat. “We live much longer than you,” he said, hearing the defensiveness in his own words. “I’d wish you to remember that, cousin, before you judge my words too harshly...”

Something about that amused her, though. She grinned at him, rubbing his forearm with one hand and distracting him all over again.

“An older guy, huh?” she said, her dark eyes teasing. “How long, lover boy?”

“Over twenty years,” he told her, deciding to keep it at that.

He saw her eyes widen slightly, but the smile didn’t leave her face. She heard the evasion behind his words, too, or must have, because she quirked her eyebrow again.

“How
much
over twenty years?” she said, softer.

He rolled his eyes, clicking at her, and she laughed, forcing him to laugh, too.

“I answered your question,” he said, mock-scolding her. “Do not get greedy, cousin...you have enough leverage over me already, I assure you.”

“So I guess you’re not going to tell me how old you are, either, then?” she said.

“Absolutely not...” he began.

She leaned down before he could get much further, and they were kissing again.

That time, she parted her lips, and he let out a soft groan, wrapping his arm around her neck and upper back as he pulled her tightly against him.

For a few minutes, he could feel only her tongue on his, her body pressed against his bare chest and abdomen. He fought to control his light, even then, trying to get to know her lips, the way she explored his mouth with her tongue, the feel of her light in his. Ending their deeper kiss, she raised her head slightly, planting small kisses on the edges of his lips, her breath catching at each one. Losing control over his light at this, he gripped her hair tighter, massaging her upper back with one hand as she began kissing his jaw and then his neck.

He could feel her worry ebbing and then growing more intense, the unfamiliarity of this for her, her unsureness about his race, about the fact that he was a stranger to her mind. He did what he could to hold back, to follow her lead, but felt his cock harden painfully again as her light continued to explore his, pulling on him, probably without her realizing it.

When her hands started to follow her light, he forced himself to lie there, to endure it, but within minutes he found he couldn’t look at her, either, particularly not her face.

Gina, get a grip,
he heard her thinking.
You can’t sleep with this guy right now...no matter how hot he is. He just got out of a damned coma. His leg might be broken...

His pain abruptly worsened.

He spoke before he thought about whether that was a good idea, either.

“I want to,” he told her, murmuring against her mouth when she leaned over to kiss him again. He gripped her hair in both hands, pulling her against him even as he returned her kiss. He intensified that kiss within seconds, putting more light into his tongue and lips, feeling her react by writhing against his chest, her hands tightening on his bare skin. He paused only to murmur against her mouth.
“I’thir li’dare
...I want to so badly, Gina...so badly...”

He felt her react to him saying her name again, too.

She liked it when he said her name.

She thought it was sexy, that his need was sexy, that the way he clung to her was sexy, that his lips and tongue felt fucking amazing when he kissed her mouth, and she already wondered how that tongue would feel kissing other parts of her. He felt her wondering how he could have gone so long without a girlfriend, looking the way he did, with that damned voice and chest and face and how good he was with his mouth and hands.

He felt her wondering if he’d been telling the whole truth when he said that Mika didn’t want him. He felt her liking him speaking Prexci to her, even if she couldn’t understand it.

Yet,
he told himself quietly.
She wouldn’t understand Prexci yet. I would remedy that...

Looking up at her face, it occurred to him again that he was lost in this already. He was lost, and maybe she was, too, even if she didn’t know it yet.

The thought made him feel strangely guilty.

But only a little.

It was the last thought he had, before he pulled her mouth down to his again.

15

A REAL FIGHT

TRUTHFULLY, BY THE the time I was ready to go in there, I was nervous.

Part of the problem was that too much time had passed by then.

I got pulled into an incident with the infiltration team unexpectedly, which threw me on a number of levels. One, the time thing, like I said...I’d been on my way to go talk to Revik when it went down. Two, I had no idea the operation was even taking place.

So, yeah, when it went south, I was lost and also kind of pissed off, on a number of levels.

I’d been aware, of course, of the extraction team sent to Flushing, Queens, to look for Dante’s mother. I’d even known that they’d found her...alive...which had been a minor miracle. But I had no idea Revik diverted that team to D.C. sometime the night before, while it was still daylight in New York and following their successful extraction of Dante’s mom.