As the knock comes again and, seconds later, the doorknob begins to turn, I curse beneath my breath and vow to make Gimpy an outside cat. Assuming I still live here tomorrow. Assuming I don’t have to kill the person creeping into my house and go on the run from the law because I can’t handle a trial. Even a justified homicide trial. The thought of sitting under the cold, judgmental stare of a court official makes me want to stab myself to death with a fork.
I crouch behind the end of the bed, aim at the tall shadow easing inside the darkened living room, and try to breathe past the fear clutching at my chest. “I’ll shoot you,” I say, stopping the shadow in its tracks. “It’s legal to shoot to kill for breaking and entering.”
“But it’s not legal for you to keep a handgun without a current license,” a deep voice rumbles. “And I know that one is expired.”
“Cane.” I’m relieved. And surprised. And so happy that I find myself laughing hysterically as I put the gun back in the safe and stand on shaky legs. “You scared me.”
“Sorry,” he says. “I guess I forgot . . . I’m so used to coming in.” He shrugs, that familiar bunch of his broad shoulders that makes me want to throw my arms around his neck and squeeze. Instead, I fidget, trapped between what I want and what Cane’s refused to give until I make my big decision. “What happened in there?” he asks, motioning over his shoulder.
“The Gimp.”
Cane nods, knowing enough about my new cat not to be surprised. “Might want to consider declawing that bad boy.”
“Declawing would only take away one of his weapons, not the evil within. I can’t de-tooth him, so I figure . . . yeah . . . What’s up?” I wince at how awkward I sound.
“I needed to see you.” He stops in the doorway to the bedroom, and leans against the frame. He’s wearing a pair of dark jeans and that same T-shirt I saw him strip off earlier today and he looks . . . good. Long and lean and strong and safe. Cane is a big man, but he’s never made me feel anxious. Not physically, anyway. Emotionally, it’s a whole different ball game, one Cane plays with a big stick.
Hm. Big stick.
I didn’t mean that particular stick, but now that I’ve thought about sticks I can’t keep my eyes from dipping down and back up again, or my thoughts from wandering. A part of me insists that feeling lustful about a man I love is the best revenge for what Gerald tried to do. And I miss Cane’s stick. A lot. Sex with him is easy and shameless. Silly and intense, mind-numbing and soul-freeing. I miss his friendship, but being naked with Cane is what I miss the most. Our relationship isn’t all about sex, but we do our best connecting when we’re . . . connected.
I clear my throat, and try to ignore the X-rated montage flitting through my mind. “Why? What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Does something have to be?” He props his almost comically large hands on his hips, and I think about the way they feel wrapped around my waist, almost completely encircling it as he urges my body in all the right directions that feel so. Damned. Good.
I lick my lips. “No. I wanted to see you, too. I was just thinking about you. The second before you walked in.”
“That’s good to hear.” He smiles that sexy smile I saw this afternoon, and I’m reminded of my other reasons for feeling awkward. I don’t believe for a second that Cane is part of any police force corruption—if something like that is going on I’d bet on Dicker or even Dom or Abe before Cane—but there’s no doubt he was flirting with Theresa. Full-fledged flirt, with a side of smolder.
“Is it?” I lift a brow.
“Of course it is.” He takes another step into the room, but I stop him with a dubious grunt.
“I saw you this afternoon.”
“You did?”
“I did. Outside Swallows. With Theresa. Without your shirt.” I still don’t sound angry, and I think that confuses Cane.
It takes several seconds before he says, “Oh,” and a couple more before the “Ohhhh” comes again, longer and slower. I expect him to start making excuses. Instead, he smiles, teeth glowing white in the semi-darkness. “Jealous?”
I smile back, weirdly turned on by his refusal to explain himself. “Should I be?”
“Probably not.” He takes a step closer and then another, until I can feel the furnacelike heat of him. His skin is always hot to the touch. In the winter, I don’t need any heat but this man in my bed. In the summer, he sighs when my cool skin presses against his. With relief. Pleasure.
I sigh, thinking about it, and sigh again when his arm wraps around my waist. “But I’d love it if you were.”
I tip my head back to stare up into his face. So familiar. More familiar than Hitch’s, though I spent three times as many years as one half of Hitch’s whole. But I fell so hard and fast for Hitch. It was sparkly and epic, filled with high drama and higher feeling, filmed in glitter vision from day one. And now, so much time has passed, and he’s not the same person he was before, so much so that I’m beginning to wonder if I ever saw the real Hitch. Maybe all I saw were the sparkles.
With Cane, the love crept up on me. He was a friend before he was anything more. He was always handsome, but one day I woke up to find him still asleep beside me and he was beautiful. Love had made him beautiful, but I could still see the face of my friend behind the sparkle.
I know Cane. I love Cane. And it could be so simple, if I’d only let it be.
Why can’t I let it? Why? My eyes burn yet again, but I blame the whiskey for the sting and the way my voice cracks when I ask, “Do you still . . . love me?”
He cradles my head in his big hand. “I’ll always love you, Lee-lee. You should know that by now.”
“I’ll always love you, too.” The stupid tears spill over, tickling my cheeks. I brace my hands on his chest, the feel of his muscles dipping in all the familiar places making me want to cry harder. “I miss you so much.”
“I’m right here.” He guides me back to lean against the wall and kisses me. Just once. Soft and sweet, but it’s enough to make my entire body ache. “I’m always here. Whenever you want me.”
“That’s not true.” I fist my hands and press them into the pec muscles he spends way too much time perfecting in the DPD weight room, banishing my tears with critical thoughts about how obsessive compulsive he is, reminding myself how annoying I find his healthy eating habits and his ten cans of whey protein shake mix taking up all the counter space in my kitchen. “Not. True.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You put us on a time-out.”
His lips press together. “Guess I did.”
“You’re such a girl.” I give his chest a one-two punch. Hard, but not hard enough to break free of his arms. “Withholding sex is a girl trick. You get that, right?”
“A girl trick?” His bemused smile makes me punch him again.
“Yes.” Punch. “Withholding the pussy until you get what you want is the oldest manipulative tactic in the history of female kind.” Punch, punch. “But it never works! Because how is anyone supposed to make a rational decision when their mind is all fucked up from pussy deprivation?” Punch, punch. “And it’s even less acceptable coming from a man.” Punch. “Women have been oppressed for centuries and were forced to use sex as a way to gain power.” Punch. “Coming from you.” Punch. “This is just.” Punch. “Gross!”
I pull back to punch his chest again, but he catches my wrists in his hands, holding them still. “You’re right,” he whispers to my fists. “I’m sorry.”
“You are?” The fight drains out of me, my fingers go limp, and I’m suddenly very aware of his heat and his touch and the certain light in his eyes that says I’m not the only one who’s very aware.
“Yes. I am.” Slowly, deliberately, he pulls my wrists over my head, pressing them into the wall above me. My lips part, and my breath shudders out with a sigh. “I’m not your father.” He shifts closer, pressing that sculpted body against mine, making my insides turn to electrically charged radioactive goo. “And I don’t wan
t to be.” One hand slides down my arm, over my elbow, down, down, until his hand’s on my breast and I’ve got free fingers to curl around his neck, and pull his lips down to mine.
So I do. I curl. I pull. “I don’t want you to be, either,” I whisper into his mouth, kissing him with the words, pulse pounding faster as he pulls the neck of my tank top down, eliminating the thin barrier between my skin and the rough pads of his fingers.
Currents of deliciousness sizzle through my body and the ache inside becomes a need that gnaws at my frayed edges, eliminating worry and fear, banishing the awareness of everything but this man and his strong body and soft lips and . . .
God . . . his lips. Skilled and perfect, melting me from the inside out. By the time he gives me a moment to breathe, I can’t. I don’t want to. I want to drown in him, sink into the warm ocean of Cane and never rise to the surface.
“I just want you,” he whispers, his other arm wrapping tight around my waist. “Naked. On that bed, with your legs wrapped around me, and me so deep inside you I don’t—”
I stop him with another rough kiss and shove him back toward the bed. I can’t take the dirty talk right now. Not until we’re both wearing a lot fewer clothes and his skin is hot on mine and his big hands are everywhere.
He falls back onto my rumpled covers, and I go for the bottom of his T-shirt, ripping it over his head before going for my own tank top and finding his hands already there. I lift my arms, blood whooshing in my ears as he rips it up and over my head and I feel his breath hot on my skin and his tongue teasing the sensitive flesh where his fingers were a second ago.
So good. So wickedly good.
I suck in a breath, digging my fingers into his arms as my head falls back and the ceiling spins. “I missed you.”
“I missed your tits,” he murmurs as he kisses his way up my neck.
“Bet Theresa doesn’t let you call them tits.” I find his lips, and kiss him hard, refusing to let him pull away. My hand dips between us and I find the button on his fly and then the zipper and then he’s pushing me back onto the bed and I’m shoving his jeans down his legs with my toes, moaning with triumph when I free the hot, hard length of him.
He’s burning up, rigid, but so soft at the same time. For a moment, I’m reminded of the scalding softness of fairy flesh and my rhythm falters long enough for him to pull his mouth away.
“Theresa and I were starting up the sprinkler in the alley.” He unsnaps and unzips my jeans, pulling them down my legs with a swift shush, throwing them into the pile of clothes on the floor. “The air-conditioning at Swallows blew and she wanted people to have a way to cool off.”
“You two looked pretty cool,” I say as he slips his fingers under the sides of my panties and pulls.
He pauses, meeting my eyes with a look that’s as serious as sin on a Sunday morning. “Nothing’s going on with Theresa and me. You’re the only woman I think about.” His hands fist in my underwear. “You’re the only woman I’ve been with in almost two years.”
I realize it’s the same for me. I haven’t been with anyone else since Cane and I went on our first date. But before I can wonder what that means—why I’ve stayed faithful when I didn’t have to, after I promised myself I wouldn’t be sucked into another pointless exercise in monogamy—my panties are gone.
And Cane’s hands are on my thighs, pulling them apart, and his body covers mine and he’s telling me that I’m the only woman he wants to be with. And then he’s pushing inside me, and my entire body strings tight before breathing a giddy, pleasure-infused sigh of relief.
Finally, finally, finally, he’s with me again, and I’m not alone in the way that only Cane can make me feel not alone, and he fills every aching inch and all the other aching places that no dick can touch. But his love can. And his words can, and the way he whispers my name like it’s the sweetest word he’s ever known can.
And they do. Again and again until I’m crying and laughing and coming so many times I lose track and decide counting is overrated.
And hours later, when we’re sweaty and sticky and worn the eff out from effing and my head is on his chest and my fingers are brushing back and forth across the springy hairs there and he’s sleeping the heavy, solid sleep of strong men and healthy animals everywhere, I am still not alone.
Even in his sleep, I can feel the heart of the man I love beating in time with mine. “I’d bet my left tit you’re dreaming about me,” I whisper into his skin, smiling when he gives a sleepy grunt that sounds like an admission of guilt. At least to me.
And then my eyes slide closed. And I sleep, and dream of very scary things.
This time, the old fairy doesn’t bother with words. He goes straight for the shock and awe. My dreams are a relentless, bloody assault on my sanity, filled with images of Grace being ripped to pieces by the fairies, Cane being ripped to pieces by the fairies, Hitch and Marcy and Fernando and Deedee and Theresa and everyone else I’ve ever cared about shredded before my eyes.
I can hear them screaming, feel how cruelly they’re suffering as they die, watch their eyes fly wide and their hands reach for me like I’m the only person in the world that can stop the agony. But I can’t. I can’t move. I’m buried in the mud, cold, trapped. I can’t even close my eyes to block out the misery of the people I’ve destroyed.
Me. I did this.
Deedee howls as a strip of her scalp is peeled away and blood rushes into her eyes, and her pain is my fault. If I’d left Donaldsonville, the people I care about would have been safe. The fairies would have left them alone. If only I’d run away. Run away, run away, r—
“Rnnn way,” I mumble as I throw off the dream, pushing it back with an exhausted shove of my thoughts. But it’s hard. So hard. An incredible effort that leaves me limp, my brain a wad of dough that’s been pounded too long. Lumpy, rubbery, useless.
“Blerrr.” I curl onto my side and bury my face in my hands, shivering.
I’m covered in a full-body sweat, my head is pounding, and my stomach is full of acid. I could blame the whiskey, but I wasn’t drunk when I went to bed. It’s the dream that did this. The damned fairy is eating my brain from the inside out.
That has to be it. Somehow, he’s sending these dreams. It’s the only explanation that makes a lick of sense. That’s why I saw him in my head and then on the road in real life. He’s trying to scare me away, and he’s going to play dirty until he gets what he wants.
I can’t blame him. If there were someone around who could control my behavior and kill me with a thought, I’d want them gone, too. I haven’t had much time to consider the greater implications of what I did to those fairies yesterday, but the old guy obviously has, and he’s determined not to let me fulfill my fairy-destroying potential.
More than my own suspicions, more than the dead Fey I saw squished on the road when I drove back by the scene of yesterday’s attack, my nightmare-filled sleep convinces me I’m onto something big. Huge. Maybe life-altering for everyone in the Delta.
What if I can get rid of the fairies? Forever? What if I can take back everything we’ve lost, and make things the way they were when I was sixteen, before the terrorist attacks on the petrochemical plants and the chemical spills that mutated the fairies and the constant lingering terror that has left so many people shadows of who they could have been if fairies had stayed the stuff of story books and legends?
The idea should be intoxicating, exhilarating. I should be filled with hope and wonder and the fire of Things to Be Done. But all I feel is . . . dread. Big, black, nameless dread hovering over my bed, making me want to hide under the covers.
I don’t want this responsibility. I don’t want to decide the future. I don’t want to be held accountable for changing the fate of every soul living in the infected Delta. Because a part of me wonders if getting rid of the fairies will make things better, if it might not, in fact, make some things worse.
I don’t care for spiders or rats or snakes—especially snakes—but they
have their place. If the snake population was suddenly wiped out, we’d soon be overrun by mice and rats and all the other disease-bearing critters the snakes used to kill. The fairies are a part of the bayou, too, and have been for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. Yes, they’re larger now and they kill people as well as insects, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re a part of our world. I can’t know what ripple effects eliminating the fairies would have on everything else living in the infested states.
I suppose I shouldn’t care. My sister was killed by fairy bite, so were Hitch’s mom and sisters, so were countless other people, and more die or are infected every year. Cane lost his sister to a containment camp a few weeks ago. He’ll never hug her again. Because of fairies. Screw upsetting the ecosystem, I should be gearing up for a mass extermination.
But it still doesn’t feel right. In the beginning it was so clear—I wanted the fairies dead. I wanted them all burned alive as payment for Caroline. But now . . . when I think about the world before and the world after . . .
There are things that were better then, hell yes there were, but there are things that are better now. People pull together. Racism and classism and sexism and homophobia still exist, but not with the same raging intensity. People connect because we are all people, united by our common enemy.
“Like Hitler.” I jab myself in the eyes with my thumbs, rubbing until I can stand the invasion of gray morning light cutting through the curtains.
Tolerance created by a common terror isn’t worth the terror. And who am I to decide if life is better or worse than it was? I’m immune. I’ve got a free pass, at least for myself. I live in fear of losing the people I care about, but I can wander outside the gates whenever I want.
Or at least I could. Now, the rules are changing, and all this thinking is probably going to amount to nothing. It’s going to come down to them or me, and I’m not going to choose the fairies’ lives over my own.