Angeli (16 page)

She flipped through images on her digital camera, not meeting his eyes. “Most tourists never see the bottom of the falls.”

“We’re not tourists.”

“We are until we have the bomb.” Her soles scraped the rough boardwalk as she leaned against the guardrail. “Has he called you yet?”

“I would have told you immediately.” Gregori’s repaired sensors read no people, no transmissions, no entities in the vicinity. Granted, Niko could have figured out a way to cloak himself, but it would have required him to invent new tech in the past three weeks. As far as Gregori knew, not even Niko was that gifted.

“Then there’s no need to go,” Adelita insisted. “We still have time.” A hint of desperation bled through her words. “These photos aren’t going to take themselves.”

He’d expected mulishness, not anxiety. Was this sightseeing not about the sights?

“Adelita, do you—”

The wind swirled an immense, white cloud of steam around them like a sauna, obscuring his vision. The stench of sulfur smacked into him like heavy rain. As did the acrid taste, leaching into his mouth and pores. His eyes watered, and his nostrils tried to close themselves. Almost instinctively, he flipped on his force field for climate controls.

“
Mierda
.” The dense fog muffled Adelita’s voice. “Where’d you go? Come here and let me stand in your shield. It’s too hot and funky. I feel like a boiled egg.”

He walked toward her through the haze. She smiled when he got close enough to see.

“This spring is 159 degrees Fahrenheit,” he told her. “The ambient temperature is 80.2 degrees. Let’s go somewhere cooler.”

Like San Francisco.

“Good idea.” She slipped an arm through his, and he altered his force field to accommodate her. “Mammoth doesn’t have as many active features. Pick me up?”

“We should talk first.” He didn’t want to drag Adelita to San Francisco, but he couldn’t waste his last hours cataloging the geothermal features of a planet that was doomed if he failed. The horde would be thick. Unavoidable. As a Shipborn, he wouldn’t be able to enter the kill zone undetected, so he’d have to deliver the bomb from a distance without using propellants.

He’d have to throw it. From the side, from above, from far enough away that he wasn’t sure it was possible. His chances were limited at best, and worse if the shades called in a swarm of daemons to snatch their prey out of the sky. He also had to hope a leviathan couldn’t be woken after the nexus closed, a hypothesis some Shipborn believed and some did not.

Lack of preparation would reduce his chances to minuscule.

“We should talk, huh?” She bumped his hip with her own. “When someone says that, it’s never anything I want to talk about. I vote no.”

“It’s not up for a vote.”

“The last time you said we needed to talk, you told me you weren’t angeli.”

“We have to discuss tomorrow.”

“Would you relax?” She bumped him again. “Nikolas said he was going to wait until the next scheduled armory inspection before stealing our bomb. He waits; we wait. So what if we waste the time doing something enjoyable?”

He glanced down to see if she was watching him, but her attention was on the gurgling hole in the ground. Stunted, dead trees surrounded the roiling geyser, which trailed mist into the clear sky. A different kind of kill zone. “We shouldn’t be wasting any time.”

She sniffed. “Don’t you like being here with…being here?”

Their days together had been so extraordinary, he couldn’t gauge his enjoyment. His liking. However, he didn’t need to be an expert in social interaction to realize she was asking more than it appeared on the surface.

He just wasn’t sure what. “How am I supposed to answer that?”

“With the truth.”

“Then I don’t know.”

Her head bowed. Several damp curls had escaped her bun. “How can you not know? I know.”

“Because every minute we spend here is another minute we aren’t pulling this off.” He resisted the urge to take her shoulders, to make her acknowledge the gravity of the situation. Yes, they’d hammered out a plan, but it wasn’t enough. If the bomb missed, there would be no second bomb. “This is a one-shot deal. No margin for error. It has to go right the first time.”

“I hate that truth.” She released his arm and zipped her camera into her backpack. “For whatever it’s worth, I appreciate that you humored me. I’ve always wanted to see Yellowstone,” she finished wistfully.

He’d been humoring himself, too. Carrying her here, there, holding her at every opportunity. It stirred his libido and tightened his throat until he thought he might yell. It let him forget for minutes at a time that tomorrow he was going to die.

“I wish we had more time,” he said. “But we don’t.”

“I bet your general is a morning person. Bet that’s when he inspects stuff. If Nikolas hasn’t called yet, we probably have all day. All night.”

He shook his head. Crossed his arms.

She finally met his gaze, and there was nothing angry there, nothing stubborn, nothing irrational. There were only candor and sadness. “If you knew we had twenty-four hours before he brought the bomb, would you want to be here?”

“A day? No.” A hundred and twenty-four hours, but not twenty-four.

“What if this were a real vacation? What would you want then?”

What was the point of questions like these? “What I want doesn’t matter. It would interfere with what has to happen.”

Adelita seemed to crumple in on herself. With a hand that trembled slightly, she placed her fingertips on her forehead and closed her eyes. In a soft voice, she said, “You do realize I’m not dumb, right? I know there are things we should be doing. At the same time, why can’t we have a few hours for ourselves when they might be our last?”

She’d seemed so confident about the future, it surprised him to hear her admit the possibility of defeat.

“They won’t be your last hours.”

“Our last hours,” she corrected. “We’re in this together.”

He didn’t answer. He may have misrepresented a few details involving his survival in order to ensure Adelita’s cooperation.

Her hand dropped to her side. Her face paled, though the springs puffed out heated clouds like a dragon. No, she was no fool. She understood exactly what his silence meant.

“I’m going to do something you told me not to do.” She straightened her shoulders. “I’m going to do it anyway, and you can just deal with it.”

“What?”

“I need you to…” She cleared her throat. “I’m going to hug you. Then we can go.”

A hug wouldn’t kill him. “Okay.”

“It’s not a come-on.”

“I understand that.” His body wouldn’t understand, but his mind was in charge, for the most part.

“You have to hug me back.”

“I will.”

When she didn’t budge, he took three steps until they were toe to toe. “It’s all right. The plan is going to work.”

She looked at him with fear all over her face. “Can you promise it will work for you, too?”

Instead of telling her no, he took her shoulders awkwardly, patting her back. She sighed and relaxed against him. Her arms slipped around his waist, and their bodies molded to each other as much as his torso armor would allow it.

Gregori leaned his forehead against her hair. She smelled of sulfur and flowers and skin. Her body was curved, her grip on him snug. She latched her hands behind him as she adjusted her weight against the railing.

He waited for her to say something, to start talking again, but she didn’t. Her breathing slowed and deepened as if she were meditating. He slipped one hand up and caressed her neck. The elastic restraining her ponytail fell out, and her hair tumbled down her back.

The silence continued, punctuated by hissing steam vents, gurgling springs, billowing fog. Gregori closed his eyes and stroked her hair. Still she didn’t talk. Her face pressed against his shoulder, but her lips remained motionless. She wasn’t talking to herself. Muttering. Constantly in motion.

He couldn’t stand it anymore. “Are you all right?”

“Of course not,” she said. “No one is all right.”

“You don’t have to be a part of this. I can handle it on my own.” He kissed her hair. “I just need to map a route. Test a few ideas.”

“You should know one thing first.” She pulled far enough away to stare up at him. “If this were a vacation, I would fall in love with you.”

He definitely didn’t know what to say to that. Should he tell her he was halfway there himself? He tried, and found he couldn’t voice it.

She continued to watch him, her eyes pleading. “Would you—”

He caught her face between his hands and stopped her with a kiss, tasting her as though he had all the time in the world.

She was the reason it was worth risking everything for the chance to save her planet and her people. She was the reason he was going to die, so she could live.

When he slid his tongue between her lips, she opened for him, her mouth as yielding and sweet as she was not. They kissed for…he didn’t know how long. Slowly. And faster. He leaned into her, arched her back. She twined her arms around his neck. A soft moan sounded deep in her throat.

He’d meant the embrace to be a comfort, but it didn’t stay that way. His fingers dug into her hips as his cock hardened. He took her bottom lip between his teeth.

Adelita moaned again. When he lifted her onto the wide, smooth railing, she wrapped her legs around his hips and squeezed.

No time for this. Or not much time. Was there enough? Gods, to be inside her body, and take that memory with him tomorrow.

When he freed the top button of her shorts and lowered the zipper, she offered no protest. She didn’t ask questions. Didn’t even open her eyes. But she did raise her bottom so the shorts would slide off her hips, down her legs, without a snag.

Her panties were brilliant scarlet against her smooth skin. He cupped the warmth between her legs. She rested her face against his neck and widened her thighs. She was damp already. He could smell her. Her quick breaths tickled his skin. When he slipped his hand inside the red fabric, she shivered.

The panties slid off as easily as the shorts. Dark curls covered her mound, and he parted her to admire the swollen flesh. She caught her heels on the second railing, bracing herself.

If he had hours, he would take her little by little and miss nothing. If he had days, he would take her for that long, too. But he had—less time than that. Gregori eased two fingers into her heat. She was wet. He grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her as he plunged his fingers in and out. He sought her clitoris with his thumb, the heel of his hand, pleasured her until her pulse quickened and her thighs began to tremble.

She plucked at the waistband of his pants below his armor, asking without words, but there was something he wanted to do first. Lowering himself to his knees, he kissed her thighs, biting the soft skin before licking her pussy and tasting her the way he’d threatened to what seemed like weeks ago.

She clenched her hands on the railing and gasped. Gregori licked her exposed flesh, plying her as she moaned. The taste and feel and smell of her imprinted on him like a brand. He licked her pussy until she begged him for more. Then and only then did he withdraw his fingers and shuck his pants as if they were on fire.

Before she lost any momentum, he positioned himself between her legs, his cock stiff. The head nudged her cleft.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

And she did. She did what he told her.

He pushed the tip inside. Her eyes widened. “Gregori.”

She was so snug and hot, he had to stop a minute and breathe.

He steadied her hips with one hand, her neck with the other. She wasn’t going anywhere. He slid deeper. Her slick channel pulsed around him. Deeper. His groin shoved against hers. Deeper. There was nowhere else to go.

He could come like this if he let himself. If he kissed her. If she told him again that she could love him. Instead he withdrew and returned, yanking her hips with each thrust. Her muscles tensed. She groped at his shoulders, his ass. He increased his pace, gritting his teeth, grinding against her as pressure built inside him.

She took his hair and kissed him. Her tongue slid between his lips.

He came.

The pleasure was so intense, light flashed behind his eyelids. He moved inside her, gasping. Their privates were slick with his come, her moisture. She whimpered, and he reached between them to stroke her clit.

Just a little more time. They needed a little more time.

When she finally cried out, he knew she’d found her pleasure. Her inner walls squeezed him like a heartbeat. He slowed his thrusts and concentrated on the little miracle of her climax, rippling up and down his still-hard cock.

Gregori buried himself as far inside her as he could go and wished they’d had sex in a bed instead of standing up. Easier, then, to relax into the afterglow.

“So you do know what you’re doing,” she murmured into his neck.

“Close enough.” He stilled his mind and felt each muscle in his body loosen when she clasped him with her arms, her legs, her pussy. Her arms around his neck grew heavier as she leaned against him with a sigh.

“I want to do so many things to you,” she whispered.

“Tell me.” They had a few more minutes.

She fingered the braid at his neck. “I want to cut off your hair.”

“My hair?” Gregori’s cock softened. He assumed there was no connection; he wasn’t fond of the long hair, either. “I thought you liked it.”

“You’d look better with short hair.”

“Hmm.” He slipped free of her and found a handkerchief in the pocket of his discarded shorts so he could wipe her privates. “You can cut it however you want. Later.”

She watched as he tended himself next. “I’ll hold you to that.”

They dressed without further conversation. The muscles in his legs and arms felt long and lazy. He could use a nap. Then another fuck, a slower, deeper one where he could relish her moans and quivers without haste. So many things they hadn’t tried, and most he’d never even done.

Maybe having sex with her hadn’t been a brilliant idea. As he watched the woman who was now his lover step daintily into her crumpled shorts, Gregori realized he was going to have to kick-start his brain with combat adrenaline before he could concentrate on today’s tasks.