Tsunami Blue (12 page)

“Of course I want this. More than you can know. But I want us to be ready.” He pulled me into him and whispered, “I want you to be ready.”

“Make me ready. Please.”

He kissed my lips softly and guided my hand down under the covers and placed my hand on his penis. I gasped at the sheer size of his erection. Maybe I wasn’t ready. And for the first time in bed with Gabriel Black, I felt real fear set in.

Sensing my panic, Gabriel turned and faced me. “Tonight, we prepare, Blue. You have nothing to fear. I could never hurt you.”

He moved my leg over his, opening me to his touch. I gasped as he touched me there, where the dampness and desire had grown.

Gabriel moved his fingers over my tiny bud in a rhythm that started slowly and built to a pace that had me panting. A strange sensation was building, strong and fierce. And when the feeling rose to the surface, I whispered his name over and over. My voice became louder as the sensation grew, and when the scream broke from my lips, Gabriel was there to meet it with a kiss to end all kisses. And as I collapsed, my strength gone and my body limp, he slipped his fingers into me, probing, teasing, stretching. I was slick with desire, and the sensation felt wonderful. I wanted more.

Gabriel whispered that this was how he would wake me up every hour on the hour. And soon enough, in a few days, he promised, I’d be ready for him.

All of him.

Chapter Seventeen

Gabriel’s twenty-four hours turned into forty-eight. The winds were up and the sea seemed angry to have so many ships gathered with a single minded purpose: finding me.

So the sea delayed the mission, tossing some of the small ships like corks caught in a whirlpool. One tiny vessel capsized. No one stopped to help.

But Gabriel hid me well, and the sea rewarded him by sending him smaller swells, less chop, and mist over the bow instead of freezing waves.

Every moment I listened for a message and watched for a wave. Unfortunately, if I saw it before I sensed it, there’d be no surviving it. No one would.

I was sicker than I’d ever been.

I still hadn’t earned my sea legs, and having to hide below from the Runners only enhanced my seasickness. The concussion didn’t help. I had to hand up a bucket to Gabriel periodically after emptying my stomach of its contents, which I found humiliating. But Gabriel understood and would ruffle my hair and wink as he took the foul container.

I longed for the fresh open air, my New San Juan Island beach, a run with Max. I looked at the dog collar Gabriel had hung on a hook meant for his Atlantis rain gear. He’d tossed the jackets in a heap to hang the collar where we both could see it. It was a constant reminder that once we were out of this mess, we were going back for him.

Gabriel had promised.

And I believed him. A promise from a Runner. Uncle Seamus would have had a good laugh over that one.

Trace had radioed over from his boat a time or two, and when I asked Gabriel about him, how he got his name, Gabriel said I wouldn’t want to know.

But I’m the type who likes answers, and I refused to drop it.

After he told me how people tended to disappear around Trace, like they’d never existed—you know, without a trace—I wished I had listened to Gabriel. I wished I hadn’t asked. I could have lived without knowing, especially the part about the human ears he kept as trophies.

But the night had been a different story.

Anchored away from the pack, Gabriel could sneak me above deck to breathe in the fresh sea air and gaze at the stars.

We huddled under a quilt, and as my head and stomach calmed, we “practiced,” getting me ready for him with an intimacy that seemed as natural as breathing. With the magic of his fingers and powerful kisses, we practiced and practiced until the sounds of my moans and muffled screams became too loud. Too dangerous. Guess there was a little Bambi in me after all.

I passed the night in Gabriel’s arms, sometimes playing our trade game, where he continued to cheat. I mean, come on.

But mostly, we slept. Even a man as strong as Gabriel Black had to sleep sometime. With his arms around me, his leg pinning my body, there was no escape. There was no place to run, to hide. And if I were honest, I didn’t know that I wanted to leave him. I knew only that given the chance, I would have to.

Now, forty-eight hours after my concussion and counting, we were at New Vancouver, the only remaining hub of humanity in the New Canadian Gulf Islands.

It had to be a sight from the shore, a hundred or more Runner ships approaching the harbor, sporting spinnakers and flags with the daggered 666. A handful of boats had skulls attached to their bowsprits. Gabriel said I was to avoid those vessels at all costs. 

Sirens cut through the afternoon fog, a deafening sound that scattered the people onshore like ants at a picnic. All because someone showed up with Raid.

I watched from my vantage point, my head peeking up through the forward hatch. It was the same hatch the boys had peered at Gabriel and me through when we had shared our first real kiss. Even if it had been for show.

Given how far we’d come and all that had happened? It seemed like decades ago.

Gabriel knew there would be no keeping me down below once we entered the harbor, so he’d outfitted me in a black hooded sweatshirt and shades with skulls on the side. “Cool,” I said. “They match my boots.”

“They hide your eyes, Blue. You may not realize it, but your blue eyes are legendary.”

“I did not know that,” I said sarcastically. “As you might recall, I don’t get out much.”

He’d given me that scowl I knew and loved. “Down, girl.”

Gabriel passed me on deck and reached down to push my head below. Again. I felt like one of those groundhogs in a carnival game I’d seen at age six, where when they popped their heads up, they got smashed back down by a toy mallet. I’d been good at it. I’d taken out all my anger and pain on those poor mechanical heads, and when I broke the game, Uncle Seamus and I had been thrown out of the park. I think he had been proud of me. It was one of the few times I’d seen him laugh.

I popped my head up again.

Danger was all around, but my excitement grew with each passing minute as we sailed farther into the harbor. My heart pounded a fast rhythm while adrenaline shot through my veins. I couldn’t wait to get to shore.

I wanted to see a cow and see how they made cream. I wanted pepper and salt; Gabriel was almost out. I wanted more matchbooks; I was thinking of collecting them now. I wanted to do my first trade; Gabriel would give me some freeze-dried packets of Christmas Blend, wouldn’t he? What were a few packets to Gabriel Black, the Juan Valdez of the West Coast? What might they be worth? A cool mill? Or how about one new pink bra? Or maybe a blue one, turquoise, like the colors in my tattoo. Gabriel could use a little color in his life. I almost laughed out loud, thinking the bras were more for him than me.

Giddy didn’t begin to cover what I was feeling. I’d lived a solitary life for so long that this was like a hundred Christmases rolled into one.

But most of all, I wanted to see children. Lots and lots of children. I wanted to tousle their hair and pinch their cheeks. I wanted to make sure they were real. I’d dreamed of broadcasting to a planet still alive and brimming with the hope for a future that only children could bring. And I had dreamed over so many years that one of them might be Finn.

“It’s not what you think, Blue.”

So lost was I in my thoughts, I didn’t hear Gabriel approach from up above. He’d lowered all the sails but one, rolled and packed the spinnaker, and tied off all the lines. I’d been watching along the way, learning what I could, but this time I was so distracted from the excitement, I doubted that much had registered this time.

“What’s not?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the shore. I was holding my sunglasses in my hand, clearly against the Gabriel rules, and shielding my eyes, squinting to see. I heard him sigh. He knelt beside me.

“Please, Blue. Keep the glasses on.” He touched my chin with his fingertips, turning my head to face him. He ran his thumb over the purple-and-blue flesh surrounding my right eye and pulled the hood lower. I could read fear in his eyes. “This is not a game. There are those who would kill you on sight, out of fear. There are those who would do much worse, out of hate.”

So we were back to that. I was the devil; I was a God. I was good; I was evil. I was pissed.

Didn’t these people know that I had just sailed in with the devil? Why did I get the bad rap? What had Tsunami Blue done but save lives?

“People fear what they don’t understand, Blue.” Gabriel was doing the mind-reading thing again, and it wasn’t helping. I was angry and I wanted to stay that way. If I stayed mad, I wouldn’t be so disappointed later when he told me I couldn’t go ashore. Okay, I admit it: devastated.

“Look, Blue.”

Oh, boy, here it comes.
I turned away.

“Blue,” Gabriel said in that smooth, annoying voice he used when he wanted to soft-pedal bad news, “you can’t go ashore.”

I didn’t look at him when I gave him the finger.

Out of respect for Max, I didn’t say it, but I had to express it. I had to do everything in my power to stay angry. If I didn’t, I might cry. And I was so damn tired of tears.

Gabriel sighed. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath as he peered through his expensive binoculars. Shaking his head, he lowered the glasses and knelt once more to talk to me. I didn’t want to talk to him. But I did want to know what had prompted the “brown word.”

“New Vancouver is a dangerous and ugly place,” he said.

“I just want to see a cow.” I felt like a little kid, and if I could have, I would have stomped my foot in anger.

“I know you do, Blue.” He knocked the hood back and stroked my hair. “But this is not the time or the trip. Look around you. Never have there been so many Runners in one place. Never.”

As I glanced around, I felt my blood pressure rise a notch. Make that two. My heart skipped a beat, then settled back into a regular rhythm. But just barely.

I’d been so caught up in the harbor and the activity onshore that I had just dismissed the Runners and all their ships. I now realized Gabriel was right. There was nothing little about this gathering.

Gray and black sails filled the sky, blocking the few winter sun rays struggling to get out. Sirens still blared at will, while the harbor filled as more and more ships entered through the breakwater. The noise grew, and the cursing and shouting floated across the water. A fight broke out on a ship close to us, and two men ended up in the freezing sea.

Only one surfaced.

The other was slowly drowning, and I watched in horror as money, even though completely worthless, changed hands to see how long he lasted.

He didn’t last long. Some unknown assailant helped the man along by throwing a knife into his neck. Others joined in, using the man for target practice. His body quickly filled with arrows and knives and even a gaff hook.

And these were the men who sought me. In numbers too vast to count. I felt the color drain from my face. I put the hood up and the glasses on.

The water turned red, but the worst was still to come. The sharks swam in and the feeding frenzy began. With five rows of razor-sharp teeth, jaws that unhinged, and a lust for blood greater than a Runner’s, the sharks made quick work of what only minutes ago had been a living, breathing man.

The only consolation as I dropped back into the boat tumbling on the V-berth? At least his screams had stopped.

Gabriel was being invited to a party.

“Guess I’m not welcome.”

“Be thankful you’re not, Blue.”

I didn’t have to think about that long. I crossed my booted feet and propped them up on a sail bag. “Will you be late, dear?”

“Funny.”

It wasn’t supposed to be funny. It was supposed to be a roundabout way of asking if he’d be home before dawn. Or before a day or two. Or maybe a week, for all I knew. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been at a Runner party before. Seamus had been legendary for them.

The other thing that concerned me were the female voices floating across the harbor from the other boats.

Gabriel looked good enough to eat in black jeans and a black thermal that hugged every hard line of his body. He’d donned that lethal-looking belt he favored, which only added to his dark and dangerous appeal. Gabriel Black was cut, lean, strong, and beautiful.

And he was mine.

I touched the back of my head where I’d hit the deck. It was tender and still had a swollen knot the size of a golf ball. Not that I’d ever played golf. You needed dry land for that. Dry, flat land. But yeah, a bump that hard might have shaken up my brain some. At least enough to get it wrong about Gabriel Black. He was not mine. Would never be mine. I didn’t want him to be mine.

I heard the sea outside the boat whispering to me,
Are you sure, Blue? Are you sure, Blue? Are you sure?

 “Yes, I’m sure, damn it.”

Gabriel paused midway through putting on his duster and looked at me in surprise. “Sure about what?”

Well, if that wasn’t embarrassing. The sea, as usual, laughed. I shook my head. “It’s not funny,” I whispered.

“Blue?”

I glared at Gabriel, mad that he’d caught me being a freak. Mad that I was a freak. “Just go,” I told him.

He shrugged and walked past me. As he started up the ladder, he stopped, came back, and knelt beside me. I stared at my hands. He lifted my chin and kissed me on the nose. “Remember what we talked about. Don’t go topside, lie low—”

“Make no noise,” I joined in, “and if I have to fight, survive.”

“No one will dare board my boat without permission. It’s understood in my circle. It’s a death sentence.”

His circle. The Runners’ circle. I couldn’t ever forget.

I looked into his eyes, black like the night he was about to venture into. He grinned and twin dimples danced to the surface. I gave him a halfhearted smile. Then he surprised me with a kiss, deep and passionate and wonderful.

“I’ll be home in plenty of time to practice.”

It was a good thing Gabriel had given me that kiss. Because when a dingy hit our hull moments later and a female voice, sultry and seductive, called out to him, I just might have tripped him on the way up. Or broken his leg. Or worse. I peeked through the porthole and saw a tall, luscious blonde sitting next to him.

Too damn close.

I wasn’t worried about her seeing me. She only had eyes for Gabriel. Great.

Her platinum locks bore a stark contrast to his midnight hair, and I couldn’t help wondering how different the strands would look tangled together. How unlike my dark head, where you couldn’t tell where his hair started and mine left off. I had a pit deep in my stomach as I saw her reach up and run her hand down his back. I felt sick and I knew damn well it wasn’t from my head or the sea or the blood of a stranger.

It came from my heart.

As they rowed away I saw him flash a brilliant smile, complete with twin dimples.
Great. Just great
.