Call Out (26 page)

“But you got it done,” I said, closing my
hand around the necklace.

“After the attack today, I broke down and
asked for help. Peterson told me what I was doing wrong, and after
that it was so damn easy I felt like…well, like the world’s biggest
asshole, to tell the truth. Like I said, you should have had this
before now.”

“At least I’ll have it if, or when, the next
attack comes,” I pointed out.

Ashe gave me one of his sideways grins. “I
have a feeling you’ll put it to use before then.”

And then it hit me – the attack wasn’t the
only thing that had prodded Ashe into getting the amulet made, and
protection wasn’t the only thing it would give me. This tiny shard
of cheap metal would put me a step closer to a normal relationship
with London. Not that any relationship with him could be normal,
but this would help.

On impulse, I hugged Ashe, and to my surprise
he hugged me back.

“Thank you.” I felt I should say something
more, but words failed me. “Thank you,” I said again.

“You’re welcome, princess,” Ashe replied as
he stepped out of the hug. He took the amulet from me and fastened
it around my neck. “There. It suits you.”

I laughed, the gravity of the moment broken.
“Guess I should go try it out.”

Ashe smiled and shook his head. “Trouble for
sure.”

I followed him out of the bedroom and – to my
surprise – down the hall to the room I shared with London. Ashe
strode into our room without even a cursory knock, and I followed.
He pushed the door closed with his foot as he turned to face
London.

“Drop your shields.”

London sat up with a sigh and leaned back
against the headboard. He looked from Ashe to me and back again and
then leaned back against the headboard. A few seconds later Ashe
moved his head in an abbreviated nod and turned his attention to
me.

“Anything?” he asked.

I concentrated for a moment just to be sure,
and then shook my head. “Not a thing,” I answered, surprised when
it came out as a whisper.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Ashe said. “I might
actually have gotten it right.”

“Might?”

“Proximity counts, Elizabeth,” Ashe said,
nodding his head toward London.

I swallowed hard and forced myself to take
the few steps between the door and the bed. Still nothing. I
reached out and took London’s hand, watching emotions I couldn’t
name flit across his face.

Emotions I couldn’t name. Glory
hallelujah.

I lifted my hand to stroke London’s cheek, to
smooth along his jawline. I had never wanted to kiss him as much as
I did right then – maybe not even while I was under the effects of
our combined emotions. I forced myself to look over my shoulder at
Ashe.

“Nothing,” I said.

Ashe flashed me a smile, and I beamed back at
him.

“What’s going on?” London asked.

I held up the little triangular pendant.
“It’s an amulet. A shield. Ashe made it for me.”

London reached out to touch the necklace, a
look of wonder on his face. His fingers brushed the metal, and he
snatched them back.

“Everything okay?” Ashe asked.

“Yup,” London replied, taking the amulet in
his hand. “Just didn’t know what to expect. It’s fine now.”

“Good.”

“What to expect?” I asked.

London looked up at me and gave me a small
smile. “I can feel the magic in it. It’s a little weird.” He
touched my cheek and added, “Not bad, just weird. And I’m guessing
it means no more second-hand torture?”

I didn’t answer, instead I asked, “Can you
still tell what I’m feeling?” I wasn’t sure if he’d felt my worry
or seen it on my face, and I needed to know.

“No. I’m back to having to guess.”

“Good.” I held his hand to my cheek.

“Thank you,” London said to Ashe. “Thank you
for looking after her.”

“Yeah, well, Elizabeth doesn’t seem to have a
very strong sense of self-preservation. Someone’s got to save her
from herself.”

I saw a mischievous grin spread across
London’s face and had only a split-second to wonder what he was
about to say before he said it.

“That’s very fatherly of you,” he told
Ashe.

Ashe made a sound of disgust. “I’m not that
old,” he said, opening the door and stepping out into the hall,
“and I’m sure as hell not too old to beat your ass and take your
woman.”

“In your dreams,” London replied.

“Sometimes, Stretch,” Ashe said, as he pulled
the door closed. “Sometimes”.

Chapter Twenty-Four

After Ashe left, I scooted across the bed to
fiddle with my iPod, setting it on my mellow playlist and making
sure it was plugged into the docking station. When I turned around,
I found London sprawled across the bed, one hand resting lightly on
his now bare chest and the other flung wide in an invitation to
cuddle. I accepted, and he held me close.

“This is amazing,” he told me. “You just
don’t know.”

“I can imagine.” And I could. After days of
not being able to let his guard down around me – or most anyone
else – it had to be a refreshing change.

At first we simply lay there, snuggled up,
content just to be together. But after a while, our casual touches
became more measured, teasing. And then London surprised me by
pushing me over onto my back, rolling with me to settle in the vee
of my legs, propped up so he could look down into my face.

“Hi,” he said, smiling.

I smiled back. “Hi, yourself.”

He leaned in for a kiss, and I moved one hand
to cradle his head, my fingers tangling in his hair. The kiss went
on and on, and for once no wave of emotion rose up to threaten us.
Or at least not an overwhelming wave of our combined emotions; my
own tangled feelings were enough to deal with. I pushed away the
negatives ones easily enough and lost myself in London’s
kisses.

Soon he broke the kiss, moving to nip at my
earlobe and then to seek out the most sensitive points on my neck.
A whimper escaped my throat, and my legs wrapped around his waist
without running the idea by my brain first.

“Not fair,” I told him.

“So I should stop then?”

I answered by tightening my grip on his hair
and pressing his face back to my neck. He laughed, which I felt
more than heard, and then went back to his exquisite torture. It
didn’t take long for me to become a writhing mess and only a little
longer for me to come completely undone. Only then did he pull
back, urging me to sit up enough that he could help me out of my
t-shirt.

London eased me back to the mattress and
lowered his head to rub his slightly stubbled cheek against the
smooth, sensitive skin just above the line of my bra. He moved just
a little to one side, and I carded my fingers through his hair
again, holding him to me as he grazed my nipple with his teeth.

I expected to lose my bra then and for
London, like most other guys I’d known, to spend the next eternity
obsessing over my breasts. Instead, he trailed kisses down my
sternum and belly. He paused to deal with the button and zipper on
my shorts, pushing my hands away when I tried to help. Scooting
backwards, he dragged off my shorts and dropped them on the floor.
For a moment, he knelt at the foot of the bed, just looking at me.
I could feel myself blushing and had to fight to keep from trying
to cover various flaws with my hands. He’d seen me naked before,
but this was different. Without the magical reverb, I was free to
feel self-conscious and vulnerable.

In the next moment, I forgot about feeling
awkward as London covered my body with his again, kissing me until
I was dizzy with desire. He fumbled my bra hooks open, stripped the
thing off of me, and tossed it over the side of the bed. A few
minutes of licking and nipping, and he was scooting back down the
bed, stripping off the last of my clothes as he went. He stood at
the end of the bed, again just looking at me. This time I couldn’t
seem to stop myself; I found myself trying to hide behind my arms
and hands.

“Don’t,” London murmured, and I forced my
hands back to my sides. He beamed at me and rubbed my leg in a
comforting gesture.

A moment later he withdrew his hand to
unfasten his jeans, and as he stripped, I flashed back to the
vision he’d sent me. When he looked up at me again, he had the same
feral gleam in his eye that he’d had in the sending. I felt my
breath catch in my throat as desire curled into a hot ball deep
inside me. Just like in the vision, he stalked toward me like some
great jungle cat, sliding his hands up my legs as he crawled onto
the bed. And just like in the vision he licked his lips and lowered
his head – but unlike with the vision, he didn’t stop just when
things were getting good. He followed through this time, driving me
to grasp his hair in one hand and the sheets beneath me in the
other. It didn’t take much of his attention before the hand
grasping the sheets curled into a fist that I jammed into my mouth
to keep from screaming as he pushed me over the edge.

I lost track of the world around me for a
long moment, coming back to awareness with London trying to coax my
fist from between my teeth. I let him, and he kissed the marks I’d
left on my knuckles before covering my mouth with his.

“Okay?” he asked.

I smirked up at him, feeling smug. “What do
you think?”

He grinned down at me for a moment before
kissing me again. Again he kindled my desire, and then fed the
fires a little at a time. We kissed and touched and tasted, made a
couple of lame jokes about the freakin’ huge box o’ condoms, and
then my legs were around London’s waist again and he was inside me
at last.

We moved together like we’d been made for one
another, without any of the awkwardness that sometimes rears its
ugly head. London took control, and I was glad to let him. He
brought me to the edge again and again before finally, finally
pushing me over into shuddering, clawing, jaw-clenching ecstasy.
London wasn’t quite there, but I was content to bask in the
afterglow and urge him toward his own happy ending.

Afterwards, we lay side-by-side, only our
hands touching, until our blood and skin had cooled a little.
London surprised me by curling against my side and pressing his
face into the juncture of my neck and shoulder. I stroked his hair
and nuzzled his face, pressing a kiss to his sweaty forehead. His
lips moved against my neck, forming silent words. I had a feeling
they were the sort of words that he wasn’t ready to say aloud and I
wasn’t ready to hear. I hugged him closer and kissed his forehead
again before mouthing two silent words of my own: “me, too.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Over the next couple of days, London and I
followed our best friends’ example, stealing every moment we could
to be alone together. The other guys didn’t seem to mind, or at
least they didn’t bitch about me and London the way they had about
Brian and Dylan. Then again, they’d never complained in front of
Dylan, so maybe they were just giving London hell behind my back. I
didn’t know, and I didn’t really care.

Quinn used his not inconsiderable resources
to learn what he could about Julia. He managed to find out who had
recruited her, an older agent who still worked as a recruiter. In
spite of the fact that the man was still an active agent, Quinn
didn’t trust him enough to let him come to the safe house. He
arranged a meeting and reported back to us.

“Grimes is one of the most respected
recruiters in the agency,” he told us over dinner. “Apparently
there’s no one better.”

“I remember him,” Ashe said. “Never knew him
that well.”

“I did,” Carmichael chimed in. “He’s the one
who brought me on board. He’s a good guy. One of the best.”

Quinn smiled across the table at Carmichael.
“That’s what everyone says about him, and I believe it. Anyway, you
could have knocked the guy over with a feather when I told him what
Julia’s been up to. And he confirmed that she’d definitely not a
mimic. He’s not sure how she’s managing what she’s managing –
especially since, according to him, she’s always been really bad at
thaumaturgy.”

“So that’s two options down,” I said. “That
leaves us with....what? She’s just developed new skills at
random?”

Ashe shook his head, but it was Quinn who
responded. “I think that leaves us with option D.”

“Which is?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

Carmichael snorted. “Not real helpful there,
boss,” he noted. “If Grimes didn’t know how she’s pulling off
sendings, I’m guessing he didn’t know how she masked her
magic.”

“Actually, I felt really dumb when I brought
that up. I answered the question myself not two seconds after I
asked it.”

Everyone looked at Quinn for a moment,
waiting for enlightenment. I shifted in my seat, and felt the
not-yet-familiar slide of metal against my chest.

“Amulet,” I said, my eyes meeting
Quinn’s.

He gave me a smile. “Bingo.”

“Her ring,” London said, laying his fork
aside and sitting back in his chair. “She had this ring she wore
all the time. She said it was her mom’s and that it...that it
reminded her that we shouldn’t live our lives just for ourselves.
That there was a bigger picture.”

“That fits with what Grimes told me about
her,” Quinn said. “He couldn’t believe that she’d gotten involved
in anything that would involve hurting anyone. He said she was a
big believer in the greater good.”

“Yeah, well,” Dylan said, “so were Hitler and
Mussolini.”

London pushed away from the table and
stumbled out of the room, his face pale and drawn. I started to
follow, but Ashe waved me down.

“Best let me handle this one, baby girl.”

I nodded and slid back into my seat, my heart
heavy. The hurt I felt for him was an almost physical weight in my
chest. I pressed a hand to my ribs as if I could relieve the
pressure there, even though it was all in my mind.