Black As Night: A Quentin Black Paranormal Mystery (Quentin Black Mystery Book 2)

by JC Andrijeski

  I started undressing him. He didn’t wake up, not at first. I don’t know why he didn’t, or why neither of us really snapped out of that fugue state before it went too far.

  I know when I put my mouth on him, he was suddenly wide, wide awake.

  “Miri! ...i’thir li’dare... gaos...”

  His shock slammed into me. His fingers fisted my hair.

  “Gods... Miri... Miri...”

  For a brief instant, I thought he’d pull me off––or tell me to stop.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, that shock turned into a desperate spark of urgency, so intense it blanked out my mind. He let out a heavy cry, one I felt in my fingers, then all the way down to my feet. His voice got lower, changing in tone, shifting downwards in a way that––I admit––made me completely fucking crazy. By the time he started talking to me again, I don’t think I’d ever been so turned on in my life. Unfortunately, it got worse with every word he said.

  “Miri... Miri...” His fingers tightened until they hurt. “Oh, gods... Miri...”

  I felt him force himself silent. I also felt him wanting to say more.

  I felt his panic, a kind of paralysis of indecision, right before his pain slammed into me again, pure liquid sex, intense enough and hot enough to stop my heart. I let out a groan without taking my mouth off him and his whole body turned liquid too, breaking out in a sweat as he writhed on the mattress, briefly losing control.

  “Gods... Miri... Miri...” He spoke another language, even as that pain coming off him worsened. He was saying my name again then, arching against my mouth.

  For a few seconds, I don’t think I knew where I was.

  I was being careful... really damned careful... but I still let out a startled cry, taking my mouth off him briefly when that harder part of his cock extended. When I kissed him again, curling my tongue around that same part a few seconds later, he let out a choked cry, his whole body tensing in shock. That time, the pain that hit me stopped my heart, nearly made me lose consciousness.

  “Miri...” His voice got lower, heavier. “Fucking gods... Miri... Miri...”

  Affection washed into me from him, a possessiveness that stole my breath.

  He was speaking that other language to me now.

  His tone had changed. It remained low, thick with desire, but it sounded loving almost, like he was speaking endearments.

  “Liliere... liliere ilya... untielleres. Gaos... Miri... Miri...”

  I found myself wrapping my arm around his waist, holding him as I massaged him with my other hand. His whole body arched, right before he shuddered, letting out a more drawn-out cry. I couldn’t think past what came off him now. Both of his hands were in my hair, gripping me so tightly I could barely move, but he didn’t pull me off. That pain slammed into me again and again, along with so much pleasure I couldn’t feel anything past it.

  He started to move with me, showing me pictures in my mind, showing me how to angle my mouth and lips so he wouldn’t hurt me.

  “Fuck...” It was nearly a yell when I started doing as he asked. “Fuck...”

  He arched against me harder, and then he was flashing other images at me. In them we were fucking, hard, violently.

  “Open your light...” he groaned. “Miri... open... gods... open to me...”

  I tried to do as he asked.

  Some part of him collided into me, once more stopping my heart.

  When I curled my tongue around that harder part of him again, I felt him leave his body. I wondered if he’d blacked out, then he was groaning, his voice lower––that maddening lower tone that made my hands clench, that made me want to hurt him.

  He felt that, too, and he cried out louder.

  That pain coming off him got instantly worse.

  “I’m going to come,” he managed. “Fuck... I can’t... jesus, I can’t stop... Miri... Miri...”

  In my mind he told me I could take my mouth off him.

  Then he was groaning, begging me not to, even as...

  He let out a pained cry, longer, from deeper in his chest.

  He was climaxing then.

  When I stayed with him, his fingers clenched in my hair, his other hand gripping my shoulder so tightly I writhed under his fingers. For a long moment he didn’t move other than to jerk against me, his whole body wrapped and pressed up against mine. He moved in short jerks, conscious of my mouth, but I felt the restraint there, even as he seemed to leave his body again, letting out a more pained cry. I found myself gripping his waist more tightly with my arm, holding him there while he groaned and spasmed, that pain flooding into me like liquid.

  “Miri...” It came out a murmur, still half a groan. “Gods... Miri... Miri... untielleres... liliere, ilya. Gods... Miri... I can’t fucking believe you... I can’t believe you just did that...”

  Disbelief colored his words.

  I felt him coming back even as some part of him realized what we’d done.

  I felt him trying to wrap his mind around the fact that I’d done it.

  The same thought hit me, bringing a sudden rush of fear... then shame... right before that pain expanded off him again, intense enough to make me gasp. I’d taken my mouth off him by then and pressed my face against his stomach, fighting to think straight, to think about what I’d just done. He hadn’t told me to stop.

  Even so, before bed, he’d told me he didn’t want to.

  He’d also told me before that rape could look different for seers.

  He said seers had less control over their reactions, especially if they hadn’t had sex in awhile, and that humans took advantage of that fact where he was from. He said there, on the Earth where he’d been born, rape of a seer had been considered “legally impossible.”

  Conflict, then a harder shame constricted my chest.

  I felt him thinking about it, too––what I’d done, the fact that I’d started it while he was asleep. His desire slammed into me again, so intensely I gasped. It turned him on so much I couldn’t see or feel anything else for those few seconds.

  “Gods. Miri...” He forced himself silent.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling that shame worsen. “I’m so sorry, Black...”

  “Miriam...” His pain worsened. “Don’t apologize. Please don’t... don’t fucking apologize...”

  I felt him wanting to say more. I felt him desperately wanting to say more to me but feeling like he couldn’t.

  His fingers wrapped deeper into my hair, gripping me there, stroking and caressing and fighting a near violence that slammed out at me every few seconds as I felt him going over it again in his mind. Both of us were still panting and I felt him fighting for words. His desire kept hitting me in waves, making it impossible to think.

  “Gods... Miri. I need to talk to you. I know I do. But I can’t tonight... I can’t...”

  “Why not?”

  Again, I felt him struggling for words.

  I felt him thinking about asking me for sex, meaning intercourse––about us fucking, him extended, like he’d been imagining while I gave him head. The thought wiped out his rationality briefly. I felt that harder pulse of desire intensify right before he groaned, gripping me tighter in his hands, holding my cheek against his bare abdomen. I’d somehow managed to push his shirt most of the way up his chest but I didn’t remember doing that either.

  I felt him consider returning the favor then... meaning going down on me. It didn’t take him long to shove that aside too.

  In his mind, that definitely wasn’t a good idea.

  You just want a fucking excuse... I heard him think.

  I felt the conflict on him worsen, and still he didn’t speak.

  I felt him restraining himself from speaking, forcing himself to remain silent as he lay there, staring up at his ceiling.

  “Please...” I said finally, unable to take it anymore. “Please. I want to. I want to, Quentin... if you’re worried about me, then don’t be. Please...”

  He let out another lo
w groan.

  I realized part of it was that I’d called him by his first name.

  Before I could think about that, I could already feel him pulling it back.

  “No,” he said, breathless. “No... we can’t... we can’t... Miri, we can’t...”

  Confusion slid through me.

  He didn’t feel like he was done.

  He also didn’t feel angry at me.

  “I’m not angry, Miri... gaos,..” He forced himself silent, then shook his head where it rested on the pillow. He let out another low gasp, pressing against me. “Miri... I don’t know how to tell you how incredibly fucking not angry I am... please believe me. Please. Don’t worry about that... gods. That’s not why I’m saying no.”

  Relief hit me at his words.

  I believed him.

  Even so, I was puzzled. He didn’t feel finished––he didn’t feel remotely finished. Truthfully, he didn’t feel anything like men normally did after they’d just had an orgasm. None of that post-coital contentment emanated from him. There was none of that brief fatigue after coming down, no indication that it had calmed him or satisfied that craving on any level.

  Instead, he felt frustrated. He felt like someone I’d been teasing for the last twenty or thirty minutes... not like someone I’d just helped get off.

  I felt him hear part of that, too.

  I felt him react to my thoughts, but I couldn’t tell how, since he was shielding me from his mind again. I felt his desire worsen briefly though, even as he forced himself silent again, maybe before he would have explained it to me.

  Then something else struck me.

  Solonik had gotten more turned on after sex too.

  Especially the first few times.

  At my thought of Solonik, Black was pushing on me gently, pushing at my shoulders, disentangling his body from mine. He pulled up the shorts I’d mostly taken off him, knotting the ties around his hips while I watched. He climbed off the bed altogether a few seconds later, tugging his shirt back down to cover his bare abdomen. I saw him deliberately slowing his breath, even as he rubbed his face with a hand, not looking at me.

  I don’t know what I thought he was doing exactly.

  I guess I expected him to go to the bathroom. Not because he had to go necessarily, but as a way to create distance between us, to break the mood. My second choice might have been the kitchen, for similar reasons.

  He didn’t go to the bathroom though.

  I don’t know if he went to the kitchen, but if he did, it wasn’t to get a drink of water while he collected his thoughts before returning to me.

  He walked out of the bedroom and shut the door.

  I was lying there for quite awhile before it dawned on me that he wasn’t coming back.

  * * *

  Read More here:

  BLACK ON BLACK (Quentin Black Mystery #3)

  * * *

  WANT TO READ A NOVELLA SET (MOSTLY) BETWEEN THIS AND THE NEXT BOOK?

  Check out a Black & Miri Christmas novella:

  BLACK CHRISTMAS

  Miri Fox just returned to San Franciso after a harrowing ordeal in Thailand––an ordeal no one really understands except her boss, psychic detective, Quentin Black. But Black leaves Miri and San Francisco not long after they return to the States. Worse, he disappears with no explanation, no warning and without telling her when he’ll return. Miri won’t answer his calls now and Black is desperate. Can he win back Miri’s trust, after betraying her when she needed him the most?

  * * *

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  QUENTIN BLACK MYSTERY WORLD encompasses a number of dark, gritty paranormal mystery arcs with science fiction elements, starring brilliant and mysterious Quentin Black and forensic psychologist Miriam Fox. For fans of realistic paranormal mysteries with romantic elements, the series spans continents and dimensions as Black solves crimes, takes on other races and tries to keep his and Miri’s true identities secret to keep them both alive.

  THE BRIDGE & SWORD WORLD is a dark, unique and gritty apocalyptic world and alternate history of Earth. It features a young woman grappling with her role in bringing about the end of one world and the start of a new one. Follow Allie Taylor and her antihero partner in crime, Dehgoies Revik, as they fight terrifying enemies and one another in a passionate story spanning centuries, and filled with unpredictable twists, turns and betrayals.

  THE GATE SHIFTER SERIES is an unusual science fiction series, centering on shifters from another world altogether, called morph. Earth humans remained blissfully ignorant of the existence of alternate dimensions until Nihkil Jamri tries to save private detective, Dakota Reyes, while he is surveying Earth.

  THE ALIEN APOCALYPSE SERIES is a dystopian new adult series about tough girl, Jet Tetsuo, who grew up on Earth following an alien invasion. Forced into living among her conquerors, she has to navigate a treacherous world full of enemies who pose as friends, even as she becomes their most famous fighter in the Rings, a modern day version of the coliseum.

  Read More from JC Andrijeski

  http://jcandrijeski.com

  “Seeking Truth in Made-Up Worlds”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JC Andrijeski is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author who writes paranormal mystery, apocalyptic and cyberpunk-y science fiction, and fantasy, often with a metaphysical bent.

  JC has a background in journalism, history and politics, and currently occupies herself by traipsing around the globe and reading whatever she can get her hands on. She grew up in the Bay Area of California, but has lived abroad in Europe, Australia and Asia, and from coast to coast in the continental United States.

  She currently lives and writes full time in Bangkok, Thailand.

  To learn more about me and my writing, please visit jcandrijeski.com.

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  BLACK AS NIGHT

  Quentin Black Mystery #2

  Copyright © 2015 by JC Andrijeski

  Cover Art & Design by Damonza

  http://damonza.com

  2016

  Published by White Sun Press

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  PROLOGUE: Buddha

  ONE: Phone Call

  TWO: Following Orders

  THREE: Separation Anxiety


  FOUR: Fire and Water

  FIVE: Mr. Bouros

  SIX: Change of Plans

  SEVEN: Lawless

  EIGHT: Mine

  NINE: Solonik

  TEN: No More Miriam

  ELEVEN: Under Lock and Key

  TWELVE: Family

  THIRTEEN: Code Red

  FOURTEEN: Hunting

  FIFTEEN: Convergence

  SIXTEEN: Outmatched

  SEVENTEEN: City of Angels

  SAMPLE of BLACK ON BLACK (Quentin Black Mystery #3)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CREDITS