KYRIE
Jack and I share only a few glances as the budget meeting drags on for nearly two hours, and we leave campus as soon as it’s done. We go straight to Jack’s house, and though I don’t feel like it, I prattle on about random shit on the short drive, keeping my happy little mask in place even though my mind is churning to the point of exhaustion. By the time we walk through the door to the sound of Cornetto’s excited wooing and the new robot vacuum’s whirling motor, I feel ready to down the rest of the Tequila bottle I didn’t finish the other night, no glass required.
But I don’t inhale the Tequila. I have to keep my head clear, even though I’m desperate to anesthetize this relentless, growing unease that crawls across my skull.
At the end of the day, I stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom, just watching my eyes, their color so like my dad’s, their shape so like my mom’s. Everything behind them is different from what my parents would have expected me to be. What they would have wanted. Maybe I should feel guilty for that. I’m their living legacy, after all. Yet I don’t.
All I feel is need.
A need to slide my knife into Haye’s throat. A need to feel his last breath tremble in my hand.
A need to protect Jack.
I’m clutching the edge of the square basin with a white-knuckled grip when he stops at the door as though my thoughts have conjured him.
“Thinking about Hayes?” he asks as he leans against the door frame, folding his arms across his bare chest, a pair of low-slung sweats clinging to his hips. I tear my gaze from the delicious display of muscle, a sudden ache protesting in my core as I drop my attention to my bleached skin stretched thin across the curves of bone.
“Maybe a little.”
“You’re worried.”
“Sure. I guess.”
“This plan of yours, are you going to share it with me?”
I meet Jack’s eyes through the reflection in the mirror. Though I smile, it has little energy left to shine very bright. “After I take care of a few things first, yes. Of course.”
“And how long will these things take?”
My shoulders rise and fall with a noncommittal shrug. “A couple of days at most.”
I let go of the sink and turn to face Jack. This is one lie I wish I didn’t have to tell. Regret unfurls in my chest like a blossom reaching for a distant light. I wonder if I’ve forgotten how to feel it. It’s raw and unfamiliar.
Jack doesn’t move, doesn’t press for more. If he knows I’m lying, he doesn’t call me out. Maybe he just thinks I’m rattled by Hayes, which is true. I am. He simply raises his brows, the question so clear in his subtle expression.
What do you need?
I come closer, each step slow and measured, and when I’m within reach, Jack unfolds his arms and straightens. My fingers trace his ribs as I slide my arms around him, mapping the ridges of muscle and bone in his back, his skin soft and smooth beneath my light touch. My eyes drift close as I press my cheek to the steady beat of Jack’s heart and sigh. It takes a breath, as though some gentle moments still take getting used to, but then his arms enfold me and keep me pressed close.
I relish the steady thrum of breaths and heartbeats for a long moment before I take a step back into the bathroom, pulling Jack along with me. Then another, and another, until we stop at the edge of the shower and I let go.
No words pass between us as I pull my t-shirt over my head, tossing it to the floor, discarding my sleep shorts next. When I straighten, I step into the shower and turn it on, not breaking the connection of our fused gaze. The cold water pelts my skin, drawing out a shiver when it prickles my scalp and falls over my shoulders, tightening my nipples to painful buds as it cascades down my pebbled skin. But I don’t turn the temperature up. I hold my hand out to Jack instead.
He doesn’t take it. Not yet.
The touch of his gaze starts from the tips of my toes and the water that slides down my ankles. It flows against the current of every rivulet that snakes down my shins, passing over ancient dents, marks of accidents long forgotten. His eyes heat a path up my thighs, lingering on my pussy and the narrow patch of hair that shines with cold water. When a long moment passes, he ascends through the spray of gooseflesh on my stomach, the skin paling as blood pulls to my core to keep my vital organs warm. Jack’s gaze slows again on my twin scars and darkens. From the moment we first met, our history was stitched in my skin, some threads ending where new ones intertwine.
Jack swallows before dragging his focus up higher, first to one breast and then the other, watching the rise and fall of their fullness with each breath. He pauses where my heart and its quickening beat lays hidden in darkness. His eyes follow the stream of water that flows between my clavicles, passing up my neck, lingering on my lips, pausing on my cheek where he sometimes likes to lay a gentle kiss to tickle my lashes. When he finally meets my eyes, I feel worshiped. Precious and unique.
Luminous.
Jack slides his pants off, kicking them back toward the door. The titanium at the crown of his erection shines the shade of dark gunmetal gray in the soft lights banked in smoked glass sconces. He takes my hand, not breaking his gaze away until the moment his lips touch mine.
It’s a slow sweep of tongues. A reverential progression of touch. A savoring of shared breath and heat in the cold spray of water. Perfume and vetiver, toothpaste, the last faint wisp of the red wine Jack had with dinner. All of it is washed away.
I’m lost in every press of Jack’s lips and caress of his hands across my skin. He kisses me like there could be a million moments like this laid out at our feet, ready to be plucked from the cold stream like delicate flowers.
Jack breaks our kiss to press his lips to my jaw, shifting my soaked hair back from my shoulder to follow the line of my pulse. He braces me close with one arm across my lower back, sweeping his other hand down to pass his thumb over my pebbled nipple. My fingers trace every inch of flesh they can consume, from the soft skin in the hollow of his neck to the broad plains of muscle spanning his shoulders, from the ridges of his spine to the firm rise of his ass.
Jack shudders when I fold my hand around his cock, letting my fingers map the bars and their round ball ends and the curved Prince Albert at the head.
When I shiver in the cold, he pulls back to meet my eyes.
“Are you going to be sweet to me, Jack?” I whisper.
Jack’s palm lays on my cheek and he looks through every torn layer of my soul.
“Jeg vil være alt for dig, elskede,” he says, and then presses his lips to mine.
When I hook one leg across his back, Jack cradles my thigh in his palm, his thumb stroking my skin. He pushes me up to the wall and my back slips across the cold tile as he lifts me. I fold my other leg behind him as I grip his shoulder with one hand and center his erection to my entrance with the other.
Our kiss breaks. But our locked gaze doesn’t.
“Min lysende stjerne,” he says as he slowly lowers me onto his length, his eyes never leaving mine. I feel every slip of metal as he glides into me. He watches me as though archiving the nuances of my growing need with his silver eyes. “Min elskede.”
“Tell me something I can understand.”
A faint smile tips up one corner of Jack’s lips. “You do understand.”
“Tell me something anyway. Something real.”
“You are mine.”
That is real.
The rhythm builds slowly, every glide of Jack’s cock a smooth stroke of pleasure. I wrap my arms around his neck, press my forehead to his. I stare into his eyes. Warm breath and heated skin and icy droplets clash between us. And I would change nothing.
I break our locked gaze, wrapping my arms across the back of Jack’s neck, relishing the warmth of his chest against my cold skin. He slides his hands farther up my legs until he grips my ass, guiding the rhythm of every deep stroke. I shiver as the metal balls and bars that follow the length of Jack’s erection glide across my flesh, igniting my nerves. He pushes my back harder to the tiles and kisses the line of my shoulder. When he lifts me a little higher and cants the angle of my hips to drive deeper into me, I moan his name. I trail my fingers through his damp hair. My walls grip his cock as he grinds through every thrust.
The pleasure builds to a breaking point. But I can feel him holding back. When I lay a hand to his cool cheek and coax him into view, I can see it in his eyes as his blown pupils filter between mine.
I know many of his fears are the same as mine. But I also know so many of his secrets. And I don’t think I can ask whether it’s fears or secrets I see in his eyes. Because I need to stick to my plan, and if he lets me in too close now, I might not be able to force myself through with it.
“Come with me,” l whisper against his lips before I press my trembling flesh to his. Jack moans into my mouth and my back squeaks on the tiles as he thrusts harder until the air rushes from my lungs with every pounding stroke.
I don’t feel the cold water anymore. Only the pleasure that consumes me, spinning through my nerves as it devours my senses, leaving me numb to everything beyond the release that crashes in waves beneath my skin. I feel made of light, drowning in it, my head thundering with heartbeats, sparks flaring across my vision as I press my eyes closed. A tight cry escapes my lips when Jack pulls away to bite into the tender flesh at the junction between my neck and shoulder. He grinds into me with a growl as he releases, his cock pulsing as he spills into me.
We stay clutched in our embrace until our breathing starts to slow. Jack seems just as reluctant to let go as I am. My mind would be content to stay here forever, but my body protests the cold far too soon, and when my teeth start to chatter, Jack lowers me with a flash of a smile before he sets me on unsteady feet. He turns the water temperature up, the first hit of hot spray a welcome prick of needles in my skin.
“Bed?” is his only question. I nod and he lays a kiss on my lashes before he steps out of the shower to dry himself off and brush his teeth, casting a brief smile over his shoulder before departing to the bedroom.
Once he’s gone, I sit in the shower with my knees tucked into my chest until the water scalds my flesh to red blotches.
When I dry my hair and climb beneath the covers, Jack is nearly asleep, waking only long enough to drape an arm over my waist.
But I don’t sleep.
I wait.
Jack’s breathing deepens. The twitches of dreams pass. If there are nightmares, they don’t wake him. When he’s slipped beyond the realm of dreams, I rise and leave the bed, motioning for Cornetto to follow.
We head downstairs in silence and shadow. I don’t turn on a light until I’m in Jack’s office, going first to the closet to retrieve the bag I stashed behind a box of academic journals. I change into the clothes within. A black t-shirt. An old camo sweater my dad bought me before our last hunting trip together. My favorite green hiking pants. Even my hiking boots are laced, my jacket zipped to my chin. By the time I sit at Jack’s desk, everything is ready to go.
Except me.
I pull a pen from the caddy on the desk and open one of the drawers to retrieve some paper. A leather sketchbook lays on the thick stack of unblemished sheets of Jack’s personal stationery, and I place it on the desk before me. My fingers hover over the cover for a long moment as I try to convince myself that this is too private an item to open, but in the end my curiosity wins and I flip through the thick, creamy sheafs of paper.
Some sketches are studies of hands. Delicate but strong. Expressive and elegant. Others are silhouettes, their features feminine but vague. Sitting as though deep in thought, or gesturing to someone not shown on the page. Looking out the window toward a shadowy landscape in rough strokes of charcoal.
I flip another page and my breath catches in my throat.
It’s a woman resting her chin in her hand, her expression pensive as she watches something in the distance. The details are rendered with meticulous precision in different strengths of graphite pencil.
But her eyes are vivid blue.
The next page, another study of her face, this one much closer up. The same style, the shading so fine that the pencil strokes are barely visible. Blue eyes with a dark center that pales toward the deep ring around the iris, variegated shades streaking away from the pupil. The color is exact, precise.
I flip more pages. Different poses. Different emotions. The same woman with blue eyes.
Me.
I slap the cover shut and force the air to move in my lungs past the fist that seems lodged in my throat. Only three breaths. That’s the longest I’ll let myself delay.
When the third breath has passed, I take a piece of fresh paper from the pad in the desk and write my letter, folding it before placing it in my pocket.
On the second sheet, I write only three words:
Frozen solder distraction.
I keep the second note in my hand before I turn to Cornetto, who sits at my side, his russet brown eyes tracking my expressions. He lets out a soft whine and I caress his silver fur, resting my head to his.
“You can’t come this time,” I whisper, and he whines again. Somehow, he always knows when I go hunting without him. “You have to look after Jack. Go back to bed, Corndog.”
With a final whimper, Cornetto turns and trots away to head back upstairs.
I turn off the light, and for a long moment, I simply sit in the comforting dark.
When I’m finally ready to go, I place the second note on the kitchen counter. Then I leave Jack Sorensen’s house and stride away into the star-riddled night.
