Edge Walkers (12 page)

And touch.

Settling a hand on the curve where his neck met one broad shoulder, she found his pulse had settled to something that no longer pounded as if he was pushing his heart through a marathon. She pressed her hand over that steady beat. His skin lay smooth under her fingertips and his muscles twitching as he dreamed. She stroked her fingers over him, her thoughts drifting to impossible things, like Gideon alive, lying here with her, his flesh remade and no longer in bloody tatters.

She had him close enough to inhale his scent, and why should that feel like the ease of coming home? Maybe it was the last few hours. What was the saying about no atheists found in foxholes? She’d bet there weren’t any strangers there, either—just souls stripped fast and fused by the intensity of straying too near death. Hand tightening on Gideon’s shoulder, she frowned at the thought and at him. Maybe, for once, this was something she didn’t have to analyze into non-existence.

Maybe she could just be thankful to have Gideon.

* * *

Gideon woke to sharp need. He surged up from dreams of fighting Walkers, from heart-thudding confusion, and turned his face into softness. He breathed deep. His pillow smelled like skin—warm, soft skin.
Nice dream
, he thought, muscles relaxing again—no need this second to fight for his next breath or duck the next fatal thing.

Slipping into a half-sleep, he held onto a thread of awareness, to that stirring desire curling low in his belly. It could be good to want something, to remember what life could be like, humming in your veins. Half turning to settle back into the dream, he winced when the movement tugged at his skin. And he snapped his eyes open.

Staring up at Carrie, flashes of memories grabbed him. Adrenaline rushed into muscles that twitched. The sight of Carrie steadied his heart again, left him able to push out nothing more than a gasp of air. He put a hand on his chest. He wasn’t dead. Neither was she.

She’d fallen asleep with her back to the wall and one hand on him, with him tucked between her legs. If he stirred again, he might wake her. So he stayed where he was, heart slowing, breath and need moving under his skin into a sluggish heat.

It wasn’t a hardship to lie with her skin nestled against his.

He’d turned enough, lay almost on his side, so he could wrap his arm around the long, bare length of her thigh and cradle her hip and spread his fingers around her curves. Glancing up, he could see, under the sharp-edge of a white bra, dotted freckles in the flickering light. The swell of her breasts caught his stare. His mouth dried, thinking of how her skin would taste. The urge to reach up and touch her twitched in his fingers, but he settled for staring instead.

She had a soft belly, pale and not very flat with her half-lying and half-sitting. He liked that. It’d been so very long since he’d had any softness in his life. Closing his eyes, he breathed deep, took in the aroma of her skin mixed with a tang of earthy desire. He put his mouth over the cotton-covered mound next to his cheek. Just a kiss. He could offer that and a prayer of thanks, although he couldn’t really say he still believed in any god.

He could wish, however, that she had stripped everything off. He wanted more of her skin, and the taste of her of his lips. But she slept on, so he held still and let her scent drift over him.

She smelled like sweat—a whiff of deep musk. The illicit thrill of touching her dug into his skin. Part of that, he knew, was from the herbs Temple had given him.

He’d been through it before. He knew how it went. Healing, sleep—and then the body came alive again in all the most basic ways. Carrie stirred. She canted one leg up, twisted, turned into him and brushed her leg against him. Running a hand along the outside of her thigh, he traced the length of it. He slid his palm over all that glorious, pale softness. She let out another soft sigh and moved under his touch, rubbed into him. He pushed himself against her, the move instinctive. This time her fingers tightened on his shoulder.

Looking up, he saw her eyes slit open a fraction. She stared down at him, eyes bright between golden-tipped lashes, lips parting and curved. She shifted and her hand slid from his shoulder to brush over his skin. He took a breath, let his expanding chest push into her touch.

He let out a groan and pressed his mouth against the soft mound that pillowed his head. Smiling, body lazy and tense, he asked, “Revenge?”

The corners of her mouth lifted, but her eyes stayed half-closed. Sleep soaked her voice, left it rusted. “Complaining?” she asked. Her hand skidded lower, brushed and explored his skin. “I’m not.”

Pushing up a little, so she was sitting now, she leaned over him. She found the waist of his jeans, traced the button fly front. With a twist of her fingers, she popped open the top three buttons. She pushed his jeans down and left them riding low on his hips, trapping heat, adding pressure to what was already almost too much.

Reaching for her waist, he tried to drag her around and under him and down next to him, but she put her hands on his shoulders, pushed him onto his back. With his head still between her legs, balanced in her lap, he let her take his wrists. She tucked his hands under her hips so that he lay with his arms stretched up, his body framed by hers. “Shhhhh…lie still. I’m not sure you’re up to this.”

“Up?” he said, and glanced down to where he was very up. But he did as she asked. She ran her fingers along the edge of his bandages and started unwinding.

It took time and he squirmed when the cloth tickled. She stopped once, traced the edge of a scar still pink and the skin around it stained dark with now flaking blood. He watched her hands work on his skin, watched her face, fascinated by the subtle play of golden lamplight and the way she was examining, discovering, experimenting. She was so certain and so cautious—and when had anyone ever been this careful with him?

Bandages off, she threw them to the floor, and her eyebrows pulled together, formed a line between them. He tried to move again, but she put a hand on his chest, her palm flat, her touch firm.

He looked up at her and glimpsed something else this time—uncertainty dark in her eyes. Long lashes veiled that look as her eyelids lowered. The tip of her tongue wet her lower lip.

Urgency curled low in his belly. He wanted to offer up whatever she needed from him because this wasn’t about his body waking and demanding to remember the glory of living. Not anymore. But he held still so she could do whatever she planned.

Leaning over him, she smiled. Her fingers flowed over him—nails a rough edge, pads a velvet stroke—leaving him gasping and his hips lifting.

“More…please,” he told her when he could find the words and the breath to get them out.

“You sure?”

He opened his eyes to answer, but he didn’t have the ability to ask for this. How could he say,
yes, take me apart
? He needed that…this. Maybe, afterwards, he could put himself together right again. Or maybe he’d stay shattered in her arms—broken but somehow made good because of that? Ah, he was babbling. Right now, truth was he’d settle for simple feeling—for something that wasn’t worry and stalking and deadly.

She answered by taking one of his hands out from under her and lifting his wrist to her mouth. Putting her lips over his pulse, she licked, used her teeth to nibble before she bit, sharp and gentle by turns. With a groan, he twisted. He wanted to turn and bite back. But she held him with one palm feather-light on his chest. And he left himself open to her doing this because he knew how it was to need some kind of control back.

She nibbled again on the inner edge of his wrist, her teeth a soft scrape over the pad of muscle. Turned his hand loose, she asked, “Can you get those off?”

He didn’t have to ask what she meant and he kept his stare on her as he pulled his hands free and reached for the remaining buttons on his jeans.

Her gaze followed his hands and her eyes widened and glazed. He watched the flare of her nostrils—her breath quickened and that sent another hot rush though his veins. Pushing off the tight fabric, the pressure eased and he let out a sigh of relief. She ran her fingers over his chest again, her stare now on her hand and on his skin. Her face flushed and her lips parted. Her tongue slipped out to wet her lips as if she was thinking about tasting more of him.

Leaning forward, she touched her mouth to his chest. When she straightened, she smiled. “It’s—I want…I want to see how it takes you.”

Heat washed over him, rose from his groin to spread over his chest in a dizzying wave. He stared at her, knew he’d give her anything. But he didn’t understand—not really. He wanted her hands on him, not his own pulling pleasure out of his skin. However, if she wanted this...

He realized that maybe she was looking after them both, giving him what he needed and keeping enough emotional distance to keep herself safe. A smart woman. But disappointment twisted low in his belly. Her hand closed over his.

“Let me see you,” she said, her voice breaking on the last words, spilling out far more than she must have intended with rough, dark needs of her own. “I want this to be…for you.”

He understood—and a tremor shook him. He’d be more than stripped bare. But she wanted to see him—really see him, and this was the fastest way to that. Her hand tightened over his, closed his finger and hers, and he stopped caring what anything meant.

His hips jerked as he thrust into that interlaced touch. He turned his head and kissed the inside of her thigh, raked that softness with a shallow bite. Her arousal dampened his cheek, scented the bed with memories he’d thought forgotten—what long Sundays had once been like, and late nights under thick blankets, and how two bodies could merge into something more. He pushed into her hand, into his fingers which tangled with hers, and remembered how achingly sweet life could be.

Sensation tightened in his lower back, and heat washed through him and into her touch. His shoulders pushed back and into her as he shuddered and the universe contracted and sent him falling.

He came with an explosion of white behind his eyes.

And the world cracked open.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Going through experiences I barely have theories to explain changed everything. I had to let go of trying to think things through and start praying like hell that my instincts were sound. — Excerpt Carrie Brody’s Journal

Mouth dry, Carrie watched Gideon’s eyes close. Eyebrows pulling tight, lips parting, he let out a moan and a long breath. It sounded like pleasure and pain and something loosening in him that needed to be let go. His hips lifted and his body tensed—and he was warm and pulsing underneath their interlaced fingers. God, he was beautiful like this—muscles taut, face tensed and lax by turns, body taken in physical joy. She realized she’d needed to see him like this, alive and vibrant. She’d wanted to know what he liked, and she’d never been all that shy, but she hadn’t been able to frame the questions. Not with him. That set off the alarms in the back of her head. So did this craving for more of him.

She wanted to lean over him and fit her mouth to his and swallow those sounds falling from his lips. She wanted to wrap herself around him and stay there. She wanted things her body ached for, things she hadn’t allowed herself to dream about while awake and aware. She wanted to hang onto the strength of him. God, they didn’t need the complexities of deepening a physical attraction, but everything seemed so pure and right when the world narrowed to skin and touch and this.

Her body contracted in sympathetic pleasure, desire heavy and pulsing in her veins, and she tried to hang onto the science of it. Just chemicals, she told herself—her hormones released in reaction to his pheromones. But she tightened her fingers around him, closed her legs to wrap him close, and the old fears surged. What if she lost him?

Hell, she would lose him—she knew that already. This wasn’t…they had no future and her throat tightened as memory stirred. This wasn’t like…ah, but it was. It was far too like another bedside vigil when she’d lost perspective, and had lost her temper, too, had let fears and too much caring rule her. She’d fought with her mother that last night. She’d failed her, had gone on to fail her father as well. She’d been an idiot, had failed on all the most basic levels—as a daughter, as…well everything, except as a scientist. She’d hung onto that because reason meant order and not a mess of a life.

Putting one hand on Gideon’s chest, she pressed down. The points of his cross dug into her skin. She fought her emotions, gulped a breath, told herself this was for Gideon—to help him. Never mind that she loved holding him like this.
Do not think about how good he feels.

But she did. And she knew that tightness around her heart was a weakness neither of them could afford. Not here.

Looking up and away from him, she tried not to feel him stir against her with the last of his pleasure loose in his limbs. She bit her lower lip and blinked away the sting blurring her eyes.

Not…not…not…losing it. But maybe she was. Because she could smell ozone searing the air. And darkness split the ceiling.

A jagged, blurred rip formed, big enough to fit a fist through. She focused on it because it was something to think about that wasn’t the yawning needs inside her.
Think, observe—do what you do best
.

With a start, she observed she was staring at the New Mexico high plains—at scrubby pinon, twisting cedar, endless sky and dark hills, and clumps of rabbit grass popping up from the rolling landscape.

The edges of the tear wavered, contracted, expanded. It was like looking through shredded gauze and she bit her lower lip, narrowed her eyes. The perspective seemed wrong, as if she was looking through the lens of a camera on the ground—the rabbit grass seemed enormous. She took her hand off Gideon, reached out, touched the edge of the rip and watched her skin darken. Bright lines flowed from the tear, contracted around her.

She gasped as energy tore into her, sizzled into her bones, pulled like a riptide. The drag moved from fingers to wrist, caught her arm. It wasn’t one of ‘them’—not a Walker. No edged balls of lightning fell from the Rift, no sense of any intelligence or malice bled into her as the energy wove into her. But she knew this.