Abandon The Night (3 page)

He spun suddenly, his foot squishing into mud and then jolting against a wedge of sidewalk, nearly tripping himself.
Bloody buggering hell.

What the fuck was he doing wandering in the rain looking for a rude female Robin Hood when there were plenty of other willing partners inside?

Galvanized, he started back.

But once he got inside, rain dripping audibly from his hair and shirt and rolling off the hems of his jeans, Quent knew he had too much of a bag on to go to the Pub. Though the pints were plenty and the waitresses friendly, and Elliott’s lover, Jade, often sang onstage in a definite foreplay sort of way, Quent walked past. His leather sandals squished softly.

Maybe after he changed into dry clothing—the suede jeans were already shrinking from the rain—and did something with his hair, he’d change his mind. But unlikely.

What he really should do…what he suddenly wanted to do…was to go back to the computer lab and touch that crystal again.

If Elliott hadn’t interrupted him earlier and pulled the stone away, Quent might have been able to get more from the gem. The blur of faces might have eased from the fast-forward of a video to a slower parade, and he might have learned something. Identified someone. Seen his father.

He might be able to discover where the Strangers lived or came from. And then he could do what he had to do.

After that…Quent had no thought. He’d probably die in the process, for surely he couldn’t simply kill a leader of the Strangers and walk away unscathed.

Inside his room, Quent moved directly to the closet and felt up behind the lip of its shelf. Force of habit, first thing he always did when he came back into his space. And when he realized he’d been checking to see if the latest of Zoë’s precious arrows was still there—it was—he felt yet another blast of fury that he was still playing this game.

That he still cared to play it.

“So that’s where you’re hiding them now.”

Quent froze. A rush of heat and anger, a sudden weakness in his knees, and the tug of a smile, conflicting and paralyzing, caught him for a moment. He collected himself, emptied his expression, and turned.

“What the hell were you doing out in the rain for so long?” Zoë said in her low, rusty voice. She looked like a Bollywood actress with a rubbish haircut—exotic features, cinnamon-skinned, and her ink black hair cropped and falling every which way around her high cheekbones and jaw. A wide mouth, pointed chin, high, plum-sized breasts, and long, lanky limbs completed the package.

She leaned nonchalantly against the wall across the room, behind the door through which he’d just come. The quiver and bow she normally wore over her shoulder rested on the floor. Her entire being shouted condescension and belligerence—but for her dark almond-shaped eyes. Even in the dim room, lit only by a small lamp in the corner, Quent felt the weight of their gaze. Hot.

Blood surged through his body. “Were you waiting for me?” he asked, his arrogance matching his haughty gaze. “Or was it just that you hadn’t discovered my latest hiding place?”

She stepped away from the wall, graceful and lean in her tight black tank top and baggy, hip-riding cargo pants, and moved farther from the door. Just into the room. Watching him. His mouth dried. The blood rushed through him faster, his heart pounded.

“You’ve gotten a hell of a lot more creative since the first time you stuck them under the bed,” she said.

Damn straight. Quent still remembered the impotent fury he’d felt when he discovered that Zoë had come into his room and taken back another arrow he’d retrieved…without seeing him. Without playing the game.

Without the wild, hot tumble on the bed or against the wall bang he’d come to expect.

His body felt alive, awake, ready, but he maintained the blank expression and a casual stance…although he had a feeling his bedraggled state might take the edge off his insouciance. “What’s so special about these arrows that you have to keep stealing them back?” he asked, keeping his voice idle as he retrieved the last one from the closet shelf. He’d touched it so many times that it didn’t bother him to do so anymore; same as the other parts of his room.

“What’s so special?” she retorted. “Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is to make them?”

Quent gave her a look that clearly said he didn’t care, but that he had other things on his mind, and was rewarded when he saw her swallow. Hard. He submerged a grin…and a flare of hope. “Right, then. You make them yourself?”

He tipped the arrow from end to end, and inside, the small metal weight rolled from one end of the hollow shaft to the other. It was a bloody brilliant design, and he could well understand how difficult it would be to create one, let alone multiple bolts like this. When the arrow slammed into its target, the little weight barreled into the tip. It lodged into a mechanism that shot a starburst of metal spikes from the sides of the point.

Perfect for scrambling
ganga
brains. A bloody fine way to kill them, if a chap didn’t have a small explosive like the bottle bombs he and his friends used.

“Yeah, I make them myself, genius. And it takes a long damned time. So I’d appreciate it if you’d give it back to me.” She held out her hand as if she actually expected him to put the bolt there.

“Come and get it,” Quent said. His voice dipped way low and he met her eyes.

She met his right back. Hot. “My clothes will get wet.”

He smiled. Not with joy or mirth, but with promise.

Her lips moved, parted just a bit, softened, in blatant promise.

Fuck.
He had a hard-on the size of a cricket bat and she hadn’t even bloody touched him.

“Right, then,” he said, marshalling his control, keeping his voice nonchalant. “You can always take off your clothes. And then they won’t get wet.”

She turned away suddenly, and for a moment, for a catch of his breath, he thought she would reach for the door. Turn the knob,
leave.
But then, her back to him, with one swift, smooth movement, she whipped off her skinny little tank top. And sent it flying in a soft arc.

Quent smiled, this time with relief and delight. But he didn’t move. Not yet.

Her bare back was smooth and taut, and her cargo pants rode low on the gentle flare of her hips. He’d never found that look sexy until now. Ragged, dark hair brushed the nape of her neck, but that long, sleek expanse of mahogany skin from shoulder to bum made her look like a slender Shiva.

She kicked off her shoes, some nondescript dark ones that tumbled against the wall, and then he heard the quiet snap—
un
snap—of a fastener. Zoë turned back to face him then, and in spite of himself, he caught his breath.

Her hands at her waist, obviously ready to draw down her trousers, her slender, muscular arms alongside those high, palm-sized breasts with tight dark pink nipples…the dark hollow of her throat and the shadows near delicate collarbones…her long, slender neck. And the arrogant lift of her chin. Challenging him yet again.

Bloody buggering hell, did she know how to play him.

“What,” she said, drawing her gaze slowly, heavily, over him, “the hell”—she unzipped her cargos—“are you waiting for? Get out of those wet clothes.” The trousers fell, exposing lean legs and a little white swatch of panties that sagged a bit.

“Come here,” Quent said, in a desperate attempt to regain some control over the situation.

“You’re dripping wet…I don’t want to get cold.” Her challenging look swept over him and he knew he wasn’t going to be cold himself any time soon.

“If there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s that you’re not going to be cold,” he promised, tossing the arrow aside. She didn’t seem to notice.

“Is that right?” she challenged, her voice rough.

“What do you think?”

The next thing he knew, their bodies were smashed together. Somehow, her warm, sleek skin became plastered against his soaking clothes. Her hands shoving into the dripping mess of his hair, his palms cupping her panty-covered bum, their mouths ferocious and demanding.

Oh God. Yes. Thank you.

And then, it became all about Zoë. There was nothing but her—spicy, warm, sleek and strong. Her mouth soft and full, fitting to his, teasing away then coming back for more…her breasts pushing into his wet shirt, one of her legs wrapping insistently around him. Her hips lifting and grinding into his.

The bed bumped into his thigh and he cracked his knee on the edge of the table next to it, but he hardly noticed as they tumbled onto the brocade coverlet. He couldn’t get enough of her—the essence of her skin, somehow hinting of the same cinnamon flavor as its dusky color, the strength of her legs, twining, shoving between his, just as urgent to get it on as he was.

Her fingers pulled at the buttons of his jeans, difficult because the buttonholes had shrunk from the dampness, and Quent found himself almost laughing as she swore and yanked and bitched between kissing the hell out of him.

Good God, she can kiss.
Her tongue swiped deep and strong, teased and thrust as she sucked and licked and nibbled, then pulled away and breathed a sharp, furious curse. Then went back for more with full, sleek lips matching his, fitting, slipping and sliding as their breaths mingled and her fingers fumbled.

“Let me,” he said finally, removing his hands reluctantly from her smooth skin, where they’d been relearning that long, curving spine, down beneath the warm cotton of her panties. Zoë arched against him, her breath warm and labored against his neck as she tipped to the side, sagging next to him on the bed.

For a heartbeat, they lay there, breaths rough and unsteady, and their eyes met. Caught. Quent felt as though something sharp and sudden pierced him, something uncomfortable, and saw Zoë catch her breath, then her eyes shutter. He thrust the moment away by yanking violently at the stubborn fly of his increasingly tightening jeans. Fucking last damned time he wore suede. The buttons exploded, popping and dropping as if he’d just undone a row of snaps, and then she was there, sliding her calloused hands down into his warm package.

He groaned aloud as she covered him, deft fingers closing around him, freeing the pounding center of his universe. And then the little sigh-groan Zoë gave when he slipped free nearly sent him over.

Jeans still around his hips, damp and heavy and awkward, he pressed her back onto the bed, half covering her and sliding his hand down past the stretched-out elastic of her panties, to her slick warmth. Oh God, she was full and wet and ready, and she shifted and sighed, shoving herself against his palm.

“You sure you came here for that arrow?” he asked, watching her face as he fingered her.

Her almond eyes, half shadowed by the dim light, closed and her lips parted for a soft puff of breath. “Damn right…It’s mine.”

He shifted his fingers, teasing them against her, coaxing and stroking, watching her breathing change, her eyelids flutter. “Then why don’t you go get it,” he suggested. “Don’t let me keep you.”

He settled his mouth over the closest of her hard, gathered-up nipples, sucking it suddenly and firmly as she tightened and arched next to him…then a blaze of pleasure barreled through him as she gasped and shuddered her orgasm beneath his fingers and lips.

Oh yeah, luv, that’s it. Let me show you how good it is.

He coaxed everything he could from her, waiting, teasing softly till she settled, then did it again. This time, leaving her clawing for breath, even writhing a bit…and reaching for him.

“Guess I’ll be going now,” she said in a raspy voice. Her full lips twitched up at one side. “Now that you mention it.” Her fingers closed around him and gave two—count ’em, two—quick, long strokes…then she was over him, and up and off the other side of the bed.

Quent’s breath exploded in a great gust and he flipped over toward her. But instead of being halfway across the room, as he’d feared, there she stood, right by the bed, a wicked, wicked smile on her well-kissed lips. Naked.

“Zoë,” he said, not caring if he sounded desperate. He was. Oh, bloody fucking hell, he was desperate…so desperate he thought about begging. Bloody Quent Brummell Fielding, begging for a woman.

“Well, shit, if you’d take off your damned clothes, I might be convinced to stick around,” she said. “They’re cold as hell and sticky too.”

Quent let out his breath in a gust of humor as he realized that, indeed, he was still fully clothed except for the raging hard-on thrusting from his open fly. He tore off his shirt and peeled the bloody jeans off, and when he’d slapped them to the floor in a damp pile, he looked up.

She moved toward him, pushing him back onto the bed, none too gently. The next thing he knew, Zoë had settled over his hips, her hands flat and warm over his chest, and lowered herself down.
Oh God…God…

He squeezed his eyes shut, clamped his hands on her to keep the bloody damned minx from moving before he could regain control. Her deep, low laugh teased him like a smoky whip and he opened his eyes to meet hers, to read the same lust blazing there.

She tightened around him, he groaned as the pounding surged harder, almost lost it, and brought himself back.

And…
no.
In this way, he would be in control. With a swift move, he flipped her onto her back. Zoë half laughed, half gasped in surprise and delight as he took over, as he wasted no time before he brought them into the long, sleek rhythm.

The ride turned frantic, and Quent lost all sense of details but for the soft gasps and sighs, the slide of leg, the scrape of nails, soft lips, the rising, gathering pleasure, and everything became slick and hot and pounded through him, barreling to the edge…and over.

At the last second, he remembered, somehow, and twisted away with a deep grunt of release and effort…blinding pleasure trammeling through him as he reached what he needed. And held on as he slipped into the hard-won ease of sleep.

10 June 2010

6:00 A.M
.

Devi is up and making coffee while I log in to check email so that he doesn’t notice. He’ll scold me if he knows, for we are on holiday. Three more days, and I’m back at the office to revise another design for the die shop. But for now, Dev and I have our first holiday since our honeymoon, and we are enjoying every moment of it. Even though we haven’t left home and there is much work to do, it’s nice to have a break from the rigors of the office.