Good Intentions 3: Personal Demons (33 page)

“Maybe. I’m not only thinking about you, though, or only about her. It’s not enough for
me
, either. I always want more.”

“Y’know, even with all the crazy shit going on, it’s nice to have you here now,” said Alex. “I don’t mind having a long drive with you. I like it a lot, actually. It only sucks how we have to stumble into another crisis to make it happen. Wish you weren’t stuck choosing between Lorelei and me, either.”

The towel fell away. He still felt her eyes on him. She shifted around on the bench seat again, folding her legs and turning to face him as best she could. “It’s not about guardianship or magic ritual bonds. I love you, Alex. I couldn’t leave you hanging here all on your own.”

She leaned in to kiss his neck. Her fingers unfastened the top button of his shirt to stroke his chest. Alex felt his heartbeat and his breath quicken as Rachel caressed his skin. She never went so far as to completely block his view of the road or his hands on the wheel, but she created a major distraction to his driving.

He expected her to pull back. Appealing as this was, they had a lot of ground to cover and problems to overcome. Any second now, she’d stop unbuttoning his shirt and licking his neck and ear.

“Rachel,” he said as his blood stirred.

“Sshhh.” Her hand slipped up the back of his head to drag her fingernails through his scalp. His eyes fluttered. He didn’t realize what she was doing with her other hand until she had his seatbelt off and his pants undone.

“Wh-what…Rachel,” he tried again.

“I was worried about you, Alex,” she whispered into his ear. “So worried.” Her lips spread into a grin against his ear as she added, “And we’re both worried about Lorelei, right?”

Lorelei. That was a good point. From what they knew, Lorelei had been hurt in the fight. The curse left Alex all too easily aroused and distracted, but it also meant that giving in to his desires was always the best way to help her.

His foot came off the accelerator. “No no no,” Rachel taunted softly. “We have too far to go to stop here.”

“Yeah, but…” He let one hand fall off the wheel, sliding it around her hip. “Seems unfair. I can’t touch you back.”

“What’s unfair is you doing all the work while I sit here,” she countered. Rachel freed his growing need from his boxer briefs with a single, smooth tug. The lithe blonde slid over his lap to straddle his legs. She caressed his stiff flesh, sending his breath racing as she leaned in and kissed the other side of his neck so he could see past her…more or less.

“You’re already busy, lover,” she said. “How about you let me drive?”

The pickup rumbled on across the desert. Alex barely noticed the bumps and rattles now. Not with angelic lips kissing him everywhere above his chest except for his lips. Rachel’s gentle, exhilarating touch at his groin teased him to greater need.

He slid forward a little on his seat at her urging. His other hand came to the wheel, offering a loose embrace as she pulled up the bottom of her dress. He felt her knees against his hips, but more importantly, he felt her hand guide him in between her legs.

Rachel spent little time teasing herself with his erect flesh. Her eyes fluttered and she let out little moans for a few breaths, but she had no more patience for games tonight than he did. She sank down onto him with a loud sigh of delight, leaning her head against his shoulder to keep his view clear.

They groaned together with the first joys of penetration. Rachel stayed still, her body trembling against his while they both adjusted to the rush.

“Can you see okay?” she whimpered. Her voice left no doubt that she wanted and enjoyed this as much as Alex.

He swallowed hard. In truth, he had to sink into the seat a bit for this, but he could at least see to the outer reach of the pickup’s headlights. It wasn’t as if there was much of anything to hit out here. “Good enough,” Alex huffed.

“Fuck yes,” Rachel declared as she started into a slow grind.

Neither of them could offer much of a caress without throwing off his driving. They couldn’t kiss. They couldn’t get fully undressed without either stopping the truck or at least disengaging, and neither of them wanted that. It left them both focused on the intimacy of penetration and the sounds of one another’s breath.

“Is this comfortable for you?” Alex asked.

“No, but it’s fun,” Rachel grunted. She kept driving him wild. “I’ll turn around in a while. That should be fun, too.”

* * *

The desert got cold at night. Alex knew it shouldn’t be a surprise. He’d read about that a few times even before he could draw upon the memories of previous lives. The fact that it was January probably didn’t help at all, either.

He wished he could be back at the truck rather than sitting around all alone in the darkness. It wasn’t safe, though. The truck had taken him as far as it safely could. Now Alex sat alone in the night, with the Toyota left a behind a couple hundred yards back. Somewhere up ahead, perhaps another football field or so away, a long earthen berm stretched out in both directions. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. Rachel said so. Then she took off.

The supplies from the truck provided a couple of old tan fatigue jackets for warmth. He kept one draped over his leather jacket and the other wrapped around his legs, which he hugged close to his chest where he sat. He felt hungry and tired, though he knew he’d have been much worse off by now if not for a couple hours of constant contact with an angel. Unfortunately, his liberated clothes and other supplies didn’t keep him nearly as warm as Rachel could. Or Lorelei, for that matter.

Even in this life, he’d been colder than this, let alone in some of the others. That didn’t keep him from shivering or wondering when the hell she’d get back. In the meantime, Alex could only wait, watch, and listen as he sat somewhere near the border. He wondered just how far away he actually was.

A jet flew by overhead. Alex looked up, wondering if he might see any of its lights, but to no avail. Still, he saw plenty of stars. He thought it might be even more stars than he’d seen when camping in Washington. The night sky was beautiful here.

Focus
, he reminded himself. Discipline learned from his last life kicked in.
You’re sitting on a border in the middle of a war zone. Don’t get sloppy.
Alex brought his gaze back down to look in every direction, not that he would see much. Still, looking would at least make him listen more intently, too.

As it turned out, he never really had a chance. The angels appeared without warning, lighting up the night all around him with their halos. Alex leapt to his feet with the AK-47 at the ready.

“Woah, hey! It’s us!” said Rachel. “Down, boy. We’re good.”

The angels to either side of her looked much like the others he’d seen before. They dressed in white and enjoyed the natural glow of perfect health. To Rachel’s right was a man with dark skin and a tight beard. To her left stood a woman with long, dark hair and a skeptical frown.

“Alex,” Rachel began, “this is Abdul and Farizah—”

“You allowed him to see us?” Farizah interrupted.

“Well, yeah. You said you wanted to meet him.”

“We did not mean it literally.”

“Aw, for cryin’ out loud, who hears ‘Let us meet the mortal who has caused such upheaval’ and thinks it’s fuckin’ figurative?” Rachel complained.

“Rachel,” spoke up Abdul. “Our time is short and this place is dangerous for him.”

“Yeah, I’m good to go,” said Alex. He set down the gun so he could rub his hands together for warmth. “What do we do? How far is the border?”

Farizah gestured toward the berm off in the distance. “That is it.”

“Just that mound of dirt?” asked Alex.

“The berm, the trench behind it, and then fences with barbed wire. You will have to run. You cannot take a vehicle. It would be destroyed.”

“I’ve got you on the fences,” said Rachel. “And with any guards.”

“Do not stray in your path,” Farizah continued. She gestured off ahead to the left and right. “This way is mined. That way is watched by patrols, and they will cross this area soon.” She pointed off into the distance further to the left. “That way is Jordan. You cannot go that way. The border guards will see you, and they will shoot you with many bullets. The guards on the Syrian side will do the same if they find you, but they are not as organized.”

Alex blinked and looked at Rachel. “I can hide you,” she assured him. “It’ll be fine.”

“But you can’t fly me? Even that far?”

“No.”

“Why? I can’t be too heavy. You can flip a truck.”

“It’s not the same. The wings aren’t as strong as they look. They aren’t meant to carry more than myself.”

“You hauled a great big demon up into the air and threw him down onto a building that one time. Taylor and the guys saw it.”

“Okay, Harrow was a demon, not a mortal, so we interact differently. And that was mostly momentum, anyway.”

“You carried me and Lorelei out of—”

“Different dimension, different physics,” said Rachel, shaking her head.

His jaw dropped. “You went airborne with like
three werewolves
hanging onto you! Does Magnuson Park count as another dimension?”

The other two angels glanced at each other uncomfortably. “Werewolves?” asked the one.

“Is that how she killed Harrow?” wondered the other.

“Alex, c’mon. I can’t fly you around. You know I don’t lie to you. That doesn’t work.”

“Why not?”

Rachel glanced at the other angels with annoyance and let out a sigh. “Because angel wings aren’t that strong and it’s not appropriate, okay?”

“Not—since when do you care about what’s appropriate?”

“I care, alright?” she pressed through gritted teeth. “You wanna know the first thing I heard after my bosses said it was cool for us to be together? I got a bunch of ‘Oh now she’s gonna fly him around like he’s a Disney princess on a magical adventure.’ Seriously. It didn’t stop until I practically put my foot up someone’s ass. I’m not giving ‘em any ammunition now.” She shot the other two angels a warning look. “And don’t get any ideas.”

“Could we maybe jump?”

“That wouldn’t work, either,” she huffed, rolling her eyes. “You’d go all flippy-floppy with every landing and get all fucked up by whiplash. Even if I’m healing you all the while you’d still get hurt along the way and I can’t do that to you.”

He let out a grumbling sigh. “Angel aerodynamics are really that complicated?”

“Babe, do you honestly think I wouldn’t have fucked you on top of the Space Needle already if I could haul you up there?”

That stopped him. He hadn’t thought of that at all, but now that she proposed it… “I guess you’ve got a point. Okay. Consider it dropped. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Then another thought occurred to him. “Obviously you and Lorelei have, though, right?”

“Oh, absolutely!”

“Okay.” Alex shrugged. “Don’t hold back on my account.”

“We never do.” She turned back to the other angels, who seemed somewhere between stunned and appalled. “Oh don’t even look at us like that,” she grumbled. “What’s next?”

Abdul shook off the distraction. “Run in this direction. Go as fast as you can. You will see lights in the distance. It is a camp. A truck will leave tonight to return one of the officers to Damascus. You must sneak onto the back of that truck. The driver is a good man who would help you if he knew you were in need. He is not loyal to the army and he has rescued others during the war. Still, Rachel can hide you, and it is easier for him if he does not know.”

“Okay,” said Alex. “What about from there?”

“Same as this,” Rachel explained. “Once we get to Damascus, we find a place for you to hide and I go ask around with the other angels for someone we can trust to get you to Lebanon. It’s way easier for me to find help than it would be for you, y’know?”

“But aren’t there other people who need this kind of help?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we—?”

“No,” all three angels answered emphatically. Rachel winced. The others didn’t.

“Do you not think we have done all we can for the innocents caught in this war?” asked Farizah. “Do you not understand our purpose? We can speak with you directly because of Rachel and your bond,” she grumbled. “Even with that, we can only help you this way because you are here through sorcery and supernatural evil. No good can come of having you caught here, alive or dead. Your presence is a threat to far more than your own safety.”

“Yeah, but I’m not talking about myself,” said Alex. “I’m talking about helping others. You can’t do it, but I can…can’t I?”

“How and where does that end?” Farizah pointed out. “What are the consequences of your compassion or charity? Better if you had never come in the first place.”

“Do not cause trouble,” warned Abdul. “I am the guardian of the truck driver. He is a good man who does not deserve to be caught up in your problems. Times are hard as it is.”

“I kinda caught on,” Alex replied.

“You do not know nearly enough,” countered Abdul.