“I should’ve called first. I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s okay.” Celia looked at her flannel jammies, thinking that if he had called, she might’ve put on something a little more substantial. Or at least sexier. “Come on in.”
She took him straight to the kitchen, not through the living room and definitely not through the dining room. There she waved a hand at the table and watched him take a seat while he still avoided her eyes. Without asking, she put a beer and a plateful of cheese and crackers in front of him. He opened the beer and took a long drink, but didn’t touch the food. When she sat in the chair next to his and took his hand, she felt the twitch and flex of his fingers, but he didn’t pull away.
“I was hoping I’d see you again.” She’d meant to sound playful and sexy. Light. She missed the mark by quite a bit, sounding sad instead, yet somehow unembarrassed that he might think she was the sort of desperate woman who clung to a one-nighter like it meant something more. Celia passed her fingertip lightly over Luke’s knuckles. They were rough and bruised, and she kept the touch gentle. She looked at his face and waited until he met her eyes before speaking again.
She had to wait for what felt like a long time.
“I’m glad,” she said quietly, “you came to see me.”
Then she was on his lap, straddling him, his face cradled in her palms as his mouth opened beneath hers with a desperation that might’ve been scary if it hadn’t been so fucking sexy. Luke broke the kiss with a small moan, but Celia didn’t let him turn his head. She put her forehead to his, her hands holding his jaw as she used one thumb to caress his bottom lip. He closed his eyes, but that was okay. His cock pressed her through his jeans, she could feel that just fine, so whatever was stopping him had nothing to do with a lack of desire.
She rocked a little, pushing herself against the bulge in his jeans. The chair creaked as Luke gripped it on both sides. He hissed out a breath and moved to kiss her again, but Celia held his face tight in her hands and kept his mouth from hers. By the barest centimeter, sure, but still. She held him still until he opened his eyes and looked into hers. Celia brushed her lips on his, and when he again tried to kiss her hard, she pulled away just enough so that he could feel her breath on him, but not her touch.
Luke drew in a slow, shuddering breath. He let go of the chair and put his hands on the small of her back, pressing just barely as she rocked once more against him. When she added a small grind of her hips, he let out another tortured breath and swallowed hard. He pressed his face to the tops of her breasts, the skin bared by the opened buttons of her top. Heat pressed her, then moisture when he kissed her there. It was her turn to moan at the touch of his tongue along her collarbone, then the wet, firm pressure of his lips tugging at her tight nipples through the thin flannel.
She found the back of his neck, his skull, her fingers sliding through his short dark hair until she gripped, tight enough to make him mutter. She tipped his head back to look into his eyes. Luke’s mouth was wet, his dark eyes fathomless and creased in the corners with more feathery lines than she remembered. The hair at his temples had gone silver. He’d aged in six months, from some sort of pain, that was clear enough, but it sat well upon his face.
“I’m glad,” Celia repeated slowly, voice low and steady, her gaze never shifting from his, “you came to see me.”
Luke shuddered, his every muscle going tight and then loose against her. He was bigger, could so easily have pushed her off him, could have lifted her the way he’d done that first night. But he didn’t. His eyes closed briefly but opened when she tugged his hair again, though they went half-lidded when Celia pushed up on her toes to rub herself along his bulging cock.
She reached between them to work the buckle of his belt. The button, the zipper. His cock was in her hand a minute after that. With her other she pulled up his shirt to expose his belly. Then her shirt to do the same. She pressed her body to his, his erection caught between them. Her clit pressed the heel of her hand, a surprising delight she took full advantage of as she moved against him.
This time, she let him kiss her.
Open mouths, tongues dancing, the brief clash of teeth. He pushed his hips upward, his cock sliding through the tunnel of her fingers and against her belly. The motion rocked her forward and back and the pressure built on her clit, just right. Celia cupped the back of Luke’s head as his kiss skidded from her lips. Cheek to cheek, she nuzzled his ear and heard the harsh rasp of his breath as they moved together.
No doubt, she wanted him inside her, so deep it might even hurt a little bit, but that would mean letting go, getting off his lap, taking him upstairs. There wasn’t time for that, and Celia didn’t know why, just that with every rocking thrust, every biting kiss, her body was inching closer and closer to coming and there was no way she was going to stop until she was done.
Luke shuddered again when she twisted her hand around the head of his prick. His lips and teeth found the sweet spot just above her collarbone as his hands dug into her hips. He moved one hand between them, his thumb replacing her own hand, and that was even better, more precise. He drew in a sharp breath as she stroked him up, then down, and it guttered into a groan that turned her on even more.
The chair shifted, rocking onto its back legs for a second while Luke pushed himself into her hand. When it came back down, just that extra bit of movement was enough to push her over. Orgasm tingled, then rippled through her. Celia was looking into Luke’s eyes when the first burst of ecstasy hit her. She cried out in a low, hoarse voice. His name.
Luke buried his face against her neck, and again she felt the press of his teeth, the small sting of a nip. His cock throbbed in her fist. Wet heat covered her fingers, and the smell of him, so raw and intimate, eased another ripple of orgasm out of her. He gasped against her skin and held her so close she could no longer move but stayed still with the back of her hand pressed to his belly and her fingers curled around his cock.
Half a minute passed before they both relaxed and Celia sat back. Luke’s shirt had fallen down over his wet belly and her hand, too, and she twisted around for a handful of napkins from the small basket in the middle of the table. She cleaned her hand quickly without making a big deal out of it and settled back onto his lap with her hands linked behind his neck before he could move.
She put her forehead to his for a second, then kissed his mouth softly. Luke returned the kiss, but when it broke he put his face again to the hollow of her throat with a sigh so deep it lifted his shoulders. In the silence that felt as though it should be filled with words, Celia stroked his hair, her cheek on top of his head. She listened to the sound of his breathing slow and soft. She felt his muscles tense, then loosen as the minutes ticked past.
“Come to bed,” she said finally, when her butt had started to go numb.
She thought for sure he’d refuse her that. His eyes said as much when he pulled away to look at her. But after a second, he nodded and helped her off his lap. He stood, and if he was self-conscious about tucking himself back into his jeans or the stain on his shirt, Celia gave him the courtesy of busying herself with putting away the food before taking his hand to lead him upstairs.
In the kitchen doorway, Luke hesitated. “I should shower. I probably stink.”
He’d smelled of the faintest whiff of gasoline, the wind, leather, a hint of sweat. The combination had been far from a stink, but she nodded anyway. “Sure. Of course. You can use my shower.”
“I have…clothes,” he said. “In my bag. On the bike.”
She understood, then. It was an easy way for him to escape. She nodded again and stepped back. Let go of his hand. “Okay. I’ll just finish cleaning up the kitchen.”
There was nothing else to do but empty his hardly drunk beer, but she moved to the sink to do that and give him the chance to leave her. She listened to the thud of his boots on the floor, the creak of the front door opening and closing. She gave him five minutes before she went down the hall to the door, i
ntending to lock it, and as she put her hand on the metal plate of the lock, it opened.
He hadn’t left.
Upstairs, Celia pulled down the comforter and rearranged the pillows as she listened to the sound of him in the shower, which went on for a very long time. So long she knew the hot water had to have run out, that he had to be standing in the cold. At last she knocked lightly on the bathroom door and peeked inside when Luke didn’t answer.
He stood with his hands on the wall, head bent as what must’ve been frigid water cascaded over his head and shoulders. She could see him shivering from where she stood, but before she could even take a step forward, Luke leaned to let his forehead rest on the tiles. One big hand fisted at the side of his face for a moment before relaxing, fingers spread. Instead of speaking, Celia backed out of the bathroom and tucked herself into bed.
When he joined her at last, his skin was cool but not freezing, as she’d have expected. He’d taken the time to towel-dry his hair, and it stood up all over his head in soft spikes she wanted to smooth but didn’t. He slid in beside her, on his back, the inches of space left between them nothing like an invitation.
Celia moved toward him anyway, to put her head on his chest, one leg over his. Luke’s arm went around her. His hand tangled in her hair for a moment before smoothing it. Neither of them spoke, but that was all right, because the steady thump of his heart under her cheek was normal enough. So was the way his breath slowed and deepened. And finally, they both slept.
She woke in darkness, the light from the bathroom no longer lit. Blinking, Celia sat up and felt the space where Luke had been, half convinced she’d dreamed him. Only the faintest warmth proved he’d been real. She swung her feet out of the bed, her toes chilly on the hardwood floor. She’d left the window cracked open, preferring the night air even in winter, but it was closed now.
Downstairs, she heard footsteps. Quietly, Celia got out of bed and crept into the hallway to look over the railing. She’d see him leaving now, she thought. Out the front door and out of her life again. But Luke wasn’t in the hall, she could hear him walking in the kitchen. Then the dining room. The living room. At last the front hall, where he unlocked the front door…and locked it again. Tugged the door handle. Checked the windows to either side, and the transom on top.
He was checking the locks?
Before she could move into the shadows, hiding the fact she was spying, Luke turned to come up the stairs. He stopped with a foot on the bottom stair when he saw her.
“Celia,” he said. That was it. Just her name.
“Come to bed,” Celia said. “You can tell me all about it in the morning.”
And to her surprise, he did.
“I know how it sounds,” Luke said. “Believe me, I know.”
Celia had made them pancakes for breakfast. He’d woken without appetite every morning since being pulled from the cave. Eating had become something he forced himself to do to get the doctors off his back and keep up his strength. But now the smell of syrup and butter had turned him suddenly ravenous. He’d devoured a stack of six and was contemplating the two she’d left untouched on her plate. He settled for another mug of the coffee she poured for him, instead.
“It sounds crazy.” Celia refilled her own coffee and sat back in the chair across from him as she warmed her hands on the mug. “Really crazy.”
He added sugar, then cream. “I don’t expect you to believe me.”
Incredibly, she laughed with a shake of her head, then eyed him through the fall of her dark auburn hair. She’d been wearing it pulled on top of her head the night before, but it had come unbound during the night and tumbled around her shoulders in messy curls he wanted to bury his face in. He didn’t, though. Not in the light of day. Not after what he’d told her.
“Oh, Luke.”
The extra pancakes were no longer so appealing, and the ones he’d eaten sort of turned to stone in his gut. “I’ll go after breakfast. You won’t have to see me again.”
“Shut up,” Celia told him. “Don’t be an ass. If you want to run off and never see me again, you’d better at least own it, don’t put it on me like I’m making the ‘oh no’ face and running you off my land.”
He’d told her an abbreviated version of the story. The fall. The things in the dark, how he’d fought them off and been rescued a day later by a crew that found no signs of anything but Luke in the cavern. The time he’d spent in the hospital, first for his physical injuries, then for what everyone had thought were his mental ones. There was much to the story he hadn’t told her and wasn’t sure he ever could tell anyone.
“Anyway, what makes you so sure I don’t believe you?” She said this in a softer voice. She drew a finger through the syrup on her plate and tucked it into her mouth to suck it free of sweetness, the gesture totally sexy and yet not at all contrived. She caught him looking and smiled, just a little. “I’ve always been more a Mulder than a Scully.”
She was trying to make him feel better, but it didn’t work. “I wanted to tell you because I want you to be careful, Celia.”
Her smile faded. He’d done that, made her wary. Guilt pricked him, and Luke focused on the coffee mug so he didn’t have to look into her eyes.
“These things,” he told her in a low voice. “They’re real. They’re still out there. And they’re smart, Celia. They’re not animals, at least not like we think of them. They kill like animals, but…they talk.”
“To each other?” she asked quietly. “Like dolphins? Or whales?”
“More like ants. No, like hornets.” Luke spent most of his time trying to push away the low-frequency hum of thoughts from the things he still had no name for, but the constant buzz hovered around the edges of his mind without ever going away. “What one knows, they all know. They communicate mentally, mostly. Yeah, to each other.”
He forced himself to look at her. “And…to me.”
A hint of alarm flashed in her eyes. He couldn’t blame her. All of this was more than crazy, it was fucking insane.
“One bit me.” He held up his hand, the scars white. “More than one, actually. They…fed. On me. I don’t know how or why, but somehow I got linked in to their hive mind, or whatever it is. I can’t really understand what they’re saying. It’s not language, not human language anyway. But I can hear them getting louder if I get closer.”
“Why…why would you want to get closer?” Celia’s voice was rougher than it had been a few minutes ago, and more guilt sliced him.
Luke felt his expression go completely grim. “So I can kill them.”
Celia didn’t recoil all the way, just enough to put an extra inch or so of distance between them, but it was enough to twist his guts even harder. She got up from the table, her plate in hand, and put it in the dishwasher. She kept her back to him, and said, too carefully, “You kill them. These things that aren’t animals.”
“They’re not people, either, Celia.” Desperation edged his voice, a plea for understanding, and Luke knew she couldn’t possibly understand. That it wasn’t fair of him to even ask. “They’re things that live in the dark and come out at night to feed on…”
He stopped abruptly, pushed back from the table. He didn’t want to remember the nest he’d found a few hours from here. The small bones, the toddler-sized skull that had fit into his palm. The tiny pair of red sneakers that closed with Velcro. The creatures had been sleeping when he found them, clinging to each other and the rock ceiling in the abandoned tunnel that had once been part of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. He’d burned them, burned everything.
“They’re angry and aggressive and organized,” Luke said around the lump in his throat. “I don’t know how many there are, but even one is too many. All I know is, those things are out there, and they kill. They eat. Shit, they probably breed…and they’re not all hidden away underground any more. They’re out in the world, and it’s up to me to stop them.”
“Why you?” She didn’t turn to look at him. Steam from the water
she was running in the sink wreathed her. “Why does it have to be you?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. Fate? Destiny? Revenge.
“I mean…do you really think you’re the only person who knows about them?”
It was unlikely, but in his travels back and forth across the state, following the hum of the creatures’ minds as they scattered ever farther apart, Luke had never come across anyone else hunting them. At least, none who’d survived it, though some of the bones or half-eaten corpses he’d discovered in most of the nests might’ve been from hunters as easily as from unlucky hikers or the homeless.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I might be. I hope not.”
Celia let out a soft breath that didn’t quite become a laugh. Her shoulders lifted and fell as she circled her sponge on the griddle she was washing, taking much longer than seemed necessary to clean it. Luke wanted to cross the kitchen and press himself along her back, turn her. Kiss her mouth and tell her everything would be okay.
But he knew it wouldn’t.
“You need to change the locks on your windows here,” Luke said finally. “And the back door. They’re all loose. Think about getting a good dog. They don’t like dogs.”
“How about a gun?” She glanced at him over her shoulder, tone light.
He frowned. “You probably couldn’t kill one with a gun, Celia. They’re fast. Really fast. You have to get close enough to them to use a knife—“
“I think you’d better go,” she interrupted in a hoarse voice. She looked at him then, her dark eyes wide, lush mouth twisted into a frown.
He knew it had been too much crazy, no matter what she’d started off saying. Still, he couldn’t help setting his jaw and straightening his shoulders. “You could get hurt with a gun. Promise me you’ll fix the locks.”
“And what else, Luke? Stay inside after dark? Stay out of caves?”
“That would be a good idea. But they don’t all live in caves now,” he added. “I don’t know why or what happened, but now most of them live alone instead of together, and they could be anywhere. A culvert, under a bridge…a basement, if they could gain the right access.”