Nine Inches of Snow and the Ebony Princess (19 page)

He’d tried everything to make the kid's adjustment a little smoother, everything short of conducting a séance and channeling Sage so that the boy could have one more moment with his dead mother. If he could have done that, though, he would have, and not just for Ransom's sake.

More than a year later, he still missed his sister; she’d been his other half, his better half. She’d saved his life. He couldn't have paid her back if he’d tried, but the mess he was making with Ran's life was a piss-poor effort if he’d ever seen one.

Zane took a deep breath and collapsed into his swivel chair. He pressed a thumb and finger to his burning eyes, knowing they were bloodshot from another sleepless night spent worrying about his next move with Ran. It was as if he were in a chess match with a master against whom he had no hopes of winning.

A shiver went up his spine when he leaned back and the chair squeaked under his 190-pound frame. He jerked up as if he’d sat on a tack someone had placed in the seat.

Zane felt it right away—rainbow colors of emotion bursting bright behind his eyes—fear, frustration, indignation, and fight-or-flight adrenaline spiking through his veins. Ever since Ransom was born, he'd had this link to the kid, had known when he was hurt, sick, tired, or in trouble. He didn't know if this was because he and the boy's mother were twins, with all the intimate connections this entailed, or if it was because he had been Sage's coach and one of the first to hold Ran in the delivery room, forging his own bond with him. But he knew the connection existed.

Lately, however, it hadn't given him any insight into the teenager's troubled psyche.

And…it wasn't all Ran who Zane was feeling right now. There was another, her emotions red-hot and seething, merging with and overwhelming his nephew's until they were almost one.

What the hell was happening to him?

Zane leapt to his feet, breaking the connection. He staggered to his office's open window, leaned a forearm against the jamb and pulled in the warm Indian summer air.

He’d never been sucked into a link that strongly before. It was as if he was in Ransom's skin—feeling the boy's confusion and tension, grappling with a woman over something—not just an observer feeling some of his nephew's emotions.

And what was the boy doing outside the school at this time of day unless he was cutting classes…again?

Damn it!

Zane turned back to his office as the phone rang and reached for it with a heavy heart. After the recent spate of prank calls he’d been receiving at the school and at home—phantoms from his past position with CAPS resurfacing to haunt him—Zane didn't have a positive feeling about what or who was on the other end.

* * * *

Ransom sat alone in a musty room that was just this side of municipal-dreary,
NYPD Blue-
interrogation-room scary. Time-bitten wood furniture abounded—the table he sat at, the chairs surrounding it—all complemented by a soldierly row of scratched, dented, and mismatched metal filing cabinets.

The place could have been mistaken for a large storage room but for the five-by-five cell that dominated a corner of the decrepit wood floor.

Ran swallowed hard as he glanced at the steel monstrosity then looked away.

He’d done his dirt before, especially since his mom had passed and he’d moved to the city—five-finger discounts here, graffiti and other vandalism there, a little pot with his friends behind the school before first period. Nothing violent though, and definitely never a breach of conduct as bad as assault and battery.

It suddenly hit Ran that he was in serious trouble, more serious than he’d ever gotten into before. He’d never been arrested, never been "taken downtown." But of course, he’d never gotten caught at anything before today. He didn't know whether to resent or admire the Kung Fu Mama, whose resistance and skill had landed him in his current predicament. Snatch and run, that was all he had to do, and he’d messed that up as badly as his mother had messed up his life when she’d left him.

He missed his mom, was angry at her, too, for getting sick and checking out on him. Sometimes both emotions ran through him concurrently, so strong that he didn't know whether he was coming or going, so confusing that he didn’t how he felt about her death.

Ran tried to take his example from Uncle Zane. Man had been strong about everything. Ransom didn't think he had seen his uncle shed a tear or heard him utter a complaint—not during the wake, the funeral, or the burial. Through it all, he’d been cool, going about the business of the day, selling their house, moving Ran down to the city and enrolling him in the school where he now worked. Everything was done with clockwork precision, so fast and easy it made Ransom's head spin now to think how much his life had changed in the last 365-plus days.

He wanted to be cool and unaffected like his uncle, but then again, not, because if he didn't cry for his mother, then who was he supposed to cry for? Ransom wondered if anyone would miss him as much when he died. It wasn't like he was old and grown like his uncle, or had more than thirty years on earth, with so many friends and connections. It wasn't like he had a wife, or even a girlfriend.

Maybe his Uncle Zane would miss him, but Ransom seriously doubted it. Even his uncle wouldn't miss him, with the atrocious way he’d been behaving the last year.

Who would?

Ran put his head on the table, inhaled the moth-eaten smell of old wood, and cried for the first time since his mom died.

* * * *

A little more than a year in New York and Nova had become complacent, desensitized to all the dangers that living and working around the city entailed.

She hadn't noticed any of the things she usually did, oblivious to strangers who might have been watching her. She hadn't realized she’d been marked, dismissed, and followed several times over from the moment she’d crossed the street from her office building to walk the narrow caverns and cobblestone streets of lower Manhattan.

She’d been so positive and energetic leaving for lunch, too.

After the calamity with Josh and his cart, she’d gotten back to Mr. Nelson and smoothed his ruffled feathers before heading out of the office to her much-deserved ice cream treat. On the go, she’d taken her phone and headset to stay in touch with the office.

She'd reached out to and counseled a couple of clients, then called the office and consulted with the financial analyst, assuring him she’d be back for her meeting no later than two-thirty that afternoon.

Her mind had been going a mile a minute, touching on different deals she needed to make and people she needed to see.

She’d been mildly aware of her surroundings and that she had strayed many blocks away from her office. She usually only had time to run downstairs to the cafeteria to grab a bite, if she wasn't out with a client on a business lunch.

Nova had only vaguely noticed the band of boys several yards away, leaning against the wall of a nearby building. She hadn't given them much thought, other than "typical urban teens," before that one kid broke from the pack and made his way over to her.

She’d experienced a flash of recognition when his fingers brushed her shoulder, the psychedelic images from the brief contact assaulting her vision so powerfully that she’d had to close her eyes against the overwhelming onslaught of memories and sensations.

A lifetime of her father's insistent military physical training and self-defense classes had kicked into gear and she’d pinned the boy to the pavement without conscious intent; it was only after the struggle was over that she considered the danger she’d put herself in. Jeesh, she could have gotten killed. She realized that now, when the small bruise beneath her eye spasmed as if to remind her of her stupidity.

Thing was, she didn't think the kid meant to hurt her. She’d felt his panic when she resisted, knew he’d expected her to be an easier target. He wouldn't have picked her otherwise.

That didn't excuse his uncouth behavior, and she couldn't wait to have a word with his parents, just to give them a piece of her mind. Nova doubted that it would do much good, doubted that his spending the last hour at the police station had taught him a lesson.

The time she’d spent here, however, had taught her more than she ever wanted to know about this cog in the criminal justice wheel. Big-city chaos reigned, with phones ringing off the hook, officers bustling in and out with perpetrators, and typewriters whirring a mile a minute. She would have been more unnerved if she weren't used to all the excitement. On a good day, her job rivaled this precinct decibel for decibel, especially when sales activity increased and the pace got very hectic.

Nova wondered how her perp was faring. It was difficult to think of him that way when she knew that, despite his height topping her five-eight by at least an inch, that he probably wasn't much more than thirteen. There was something so lanky and awkward about his movements, as if he wasn't comfortable in his own skin or was still adjusting to the growth spurts typical of early adolescence. He looked like he would break things with his childlike ungainliness.

And one of those things was almost you!

His youth certainly didn't negate the seriousness of his transgression, and she had a serious bone to pick with him about her PDA and headset. The cell and headset alone ran a little more than half a grand, and either he or his parents
were
going to reimburse her for them. Not that monetary compensation could, in any way, shape or form, salve the wound to her person, which was minimal when compared to that of her ego.

She gingerly rubbed the cheekbone under her left eye, still smarting more from the fact that she’d let her guard down, something she didn't do often, than from actual pain.

"Here ya go, ma'am."

Nova looked up at the uniformed officer as he held out a plastic baggie packed with several ice cubes.

"It'll help," he said when she didn't respond.

"Thank you." She took his offering and immediately plopped the baggie on her cheekbone. The cold did help, soothing the pain and slowing the throb to a dull tingle. Nova caught one of the officer's hands before he could leave, prepared to ask if the kid's parents had arrived, but was electrified with a sudden flash of familiarity at the brief contact.

She’d seen him before, and in this very police station!

"Ma'am?" He frowned down at her.

Nova stopped gaping long enough to return his look. She swallowed hard, tried to hide her confusion. She’d almost blurted out her realization, and that would never have done. She couldn't let the men in white coats take her away now, when she was so close to meeting
him
.

Curious, she moved the homemade ice pack away from her face and searched the floor for the auburn-haired detective. When she found him shaking hands with someone near the entrance, the ice pack slid from her grasp and dropped to the floor.

"Ma'am, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, officer." She was more than fine now, for making his way across the crowded floor, right behind the auburn-haired detective, was the stranger from her visions.

ADULT EXCERPT

BETWEEN DARKNESS

AND DAYLIGHT

By Gracie C. McKeever

Copyright © 2007

Zane gasped as she encircled his semi-erect penis and thumbed the pearl of pre-come gathered at the head. He caught her around the shoulders and set her back a little before she could sink to her knees. “Not this time.”

She frowned at him as he guided her back against the tile wall and sank to
his
knees in front of her.

Nova held up the condom she had in her hand. “But I brought this.”

“That’s good. We’ll use it in a few. But right now, I’ve got some unfinished business to take care of with you, Ms. Foxx…”

He took a deep breath to appreciate the musky-sweet scent of her, spicy vanilla and woman mixed together to create a refreshing concoction. He lowered his face to her cunt. “Spread your legs for me, baby.”

She did, bracing herself against the wall as he opened her with his thumbs and licked her slit slowly, experimentally, finally savoring the taste of her, finally savoring the texture of her moist folds before he slid a finger inside her.

“Oh, yesss,” she hissed, fisting her hands in his damp hair and hooking a leg over his shoulder to give him better access.

Zane took full advantage, pumping his finger before he joined it with another and scissored them, brushing and teasing her inner walls. He closed his mouth over her swollen clit and sucked, matching the furious rhythm he set with his fingers to the one Nova set with her bucking hips.

She moaned, gyrating and writhing against his mouth until Zane plunged his tongue into her pussy and stroked inside her, fully intending to find out just how many licks it would take to get to the center of her.

Nova suddenly stiffened, then trembled and came apart around him, curving her leg around his neck to bring him closer. Her hot juices gushed into his mouth as she keened and he caught her hips and held her close, absorbing her pleasure and holding on until her vibrations subsided.

Zane stood and pressed himself against her, taunting her opening with the head of his stiff, aching cock. He bent his head to nibble her earlobe, licked his way down the side of her throat then back again to circle the outer shell of her ear. “Last time I didn’t get to enjoy you like I should have. Like I wanted to.”

Quivering in his embrace, she opened her eyes, her expression dazed and drugged as she watched him “You didn’t?”

“Nowhere near.” He slid the condom out of her listless fingers, tore into the packet with his teeth and one hand, staring at her the entire time. His dick jerked and throbbed when Nova slowly licked her lips and returned his look with a heated one of her own.

She reached for his hand. “Let me.” She took the condom and proceeded to roll it down over his jutting shaft to the base, holding him a moment longer then was necessary, loving him with her hand, pumping up and down before massaging the head of his cock with her thumb again. “I don’t think I enjoyed you the way I should have either.”