“It’s not piss. It’s ammonia from the stuff they use to clean the walls.”
“Whatever the fuck.” He doesn’t care to argue over minutia. “You deserve a bed at least.”
“You have a bed, you just won’t invite me to it.”
“And dinner.” He sighs. “You deserve dinner.”
Finally, the root of the issue.
Ella grabs him by his Kevlar vest and holds him close to her. “Don’t be jealous of Luka. There’s no need.”
“I’m not jealous of Luka. I’m jealous of what he can offer you.”
“Talk to Maydevine,” she urges. “Tell him everything.”
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“He wouldn’t approve, and that would only make things worse.”
“How could things be any worse? We’re making out in a stairwell.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t. As long as I’m still in the Academy, he has no legal recourse against you, even if he were inclined that way.”
“You’re saying he’s not?”
“I’m saying that you should give him a chance, so that you can give us a chance. Don’t underestimate him, Alex.” She leans in for a kiss. “Do the right thing,” she whispers. “Please.”
Click.
The door behind them opens and Alex flinches and backs away, unintentionally hurting Ella’s feelings. As a couple enters the stairwell and heads for the upper floors, Ella prepares to leave.
“I really have to go.”
“Don’t.”
“Call Maydevine.”
She leaves him there alone, the hollow echoes of her footsteps slowly fading into silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
What You Feel
Ella picks at her caesar salad, disinterested in the soggy leaves. Across the table from her, Luka doesn’t have to be a genius to know that something’s wrong. His steak, though cooked perfectly, isn’t enough to distract him from her obvious despondency.
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
Ella doesn’t even look up from her plate.
“El?” he tries again. “What’s wrong?”
Eventually, she gives up. She places her fork down on the edge of her plate and pushes it away from her. “I don’t think I’m feeling well.”
She reaches for her drink—a beer—and finishes it.
“You’re drinking well,” Luka is quick to criticize. “That’s your fifth one.”
“Why the fuck are you counting?”
Luka slams his cutlery down onto his plate. “You know what, you’re gonna have to spit it out.”
“I swallow, remember?”
“You’d better, later, otherwise this whole dinner was a waste of my time.”
Ella contains her outrage well, using his crude inconsideration to her advantage. “Keep talking. You’re making this easier every second.”
“Making what easier?”
“We’re done, Luka.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“No. I’m breaking up with you.”
“You’re drunk,” Luka dismisses her.
“I’m serious.”
“There’s no need to go off the deep end. I was only joking about the blowjob. Shit, I can’t even get a hand-job from you these days, never mind something that actually feels good.”
“You’re being an obnoxious little prick, and it’s completely unnecessary.”
“I love you.”
“No, you don’t. You just want to get inside my pants.”
“Hey, you’ve got no right to say that to me! I’ve been more than patient.”
“Well, here’s some good news for you, then: you’re free. Go fuck whoever else you want.”
Ella pushes her chair away from the table and storms off. Aware that the disturbance has brought some unwanted public attention to them, Luka tries to minimize the damage by sneaking out quietly after her. Unfortunately, he catches up to her on the street outside the restaurant and their fight continues in full view of the restaurant’s customers.
“Ella!”
She swings around to face him. “What?!”
“We need to talk about this!”
“I’m done talking, Luka.” She battles tears. “I like you a lot. Maybe I even love you, but not in the same way you love me—if that’s even true.”
“Is there someone else?”
Ella wipes tears from her eyes. “What difference does it make?”
“Is there?” he insists.
She remains silent.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He sighs. “Well, since we’re here anyway, do you want to know why I asked you out for dinner tonight?”
Ella suddenly remembers that Luka had news to impart. “Perhaps, whatever it is, it’s best left unsaid.”
“I’m transferring into the Police Division.” Abrupt and to the point.
Ella is floored. “What?” Barely a whisper.
“I sent the papers in last week. On Maydevine’s recommendation, I’ll finish up the school year at the Academy. I’ll graduate, then I’ll affect my transfer. It’s already been approved. I’ll do a six week induction course, and then I’ll be a qualified Agent.”
“Over-qualified, you mean.”
“No need to piss on my parade.”
“You’re calling that a parade? That’s like saying the old crazy guy who stands on the corner of Wilkes and Barg and whistles songs about the time he went to the moon is a rocket scientist—it’s a bit of a stretch.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Why, Luka? Why would you give up your place in the Hunter Division?”
Luka watches her carefully. “Would it make you feel like shit if I told you it was for you?”
Dead silence.
But not for long.
“Hey!” Behind them, their waiter yells into the street. “Are you two assholes gonna pay, or what?!”
“Sorry,” Luka mumbles, turning back and pulling up his sleeve to bare his wrist. “I wasn’t bailing. Honest.”
By the time he’s done paying the bill, Ella’s gone and he’s standing alone in an empty street.
*************************
As Ella walks by Alex’s apartment building on her way home, a voice startles her from the shadows.
“How’d it go?”
Her hand on her weapon, she spins around to face her stalker.
Alex.
He steps out from the darkness into the light of a streetlamp, smoking a cigarette.
Her hand relaxes. “Way to be a creeper.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
He offers her a cigarette, but she declines.
“I’m trying to quit.” She eyes him warily. “Were you seriously standing out here waiting for me?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.” He sits down on a nearby bench. “All I know is that I’m still awake and I don’t want to be.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“I tried, but it didn’t help.”
She sits down beside him, and although he can smell the alcohol on her, she seems lucid.
“You don’t seem shitfaced to me.” He sucks on the cigarette.
“I didn’t have to be.”
“What happened?”
“It’s over. Why? Did you think it wouldn’t be?”
“You wouldn’t be the first girl in the world to change her mind about something.”
As he leans back on the bench, Ella swings herself over him and straddles his lap.
“I’m not gonna change my mind.”
She unbuckles her belt, and Alex is too struck to do anything: too lustful to stop her, too anxious to touch her.
“What’re you doing?”
Ella unzips her jeans. “I want to show you how I feel about you.”
“I thought we agreed not to let it happen like this.”
“Not sex, you dummy. I just want to prove something.”
/>
She takes him by the hand and discards the cigarette onto the ground. Holding his hand up to her face, she kisses his fingers one by one, then directs his hand down below her beltline, coaxing him inside her clothes.
“El …”
“Sshhh.” She kisses him. “I need you to know how much I want you.”
His hand slips inside, his skin touching hers. As his fingers reach between her legs, he can barely contain his own arousal. Her body is so ready for him, and she gasps as he pushes two fingers deep inside her.
All at once, his heart and his cock feel ready to explode. “How is it possible?” He looks up at her.
“How is what possible?”
“For you to make me feel this way. I’ve never wanted anybody the way I want you.” He pulls her into another kiss. “Can I make you come?”
“I don’t know.” She smiles wickedly. “Can you?”
He can, and he does.
Experience tells him precisely where to find that special spot, just a few inches inside her. He strokes his fingers along the ridges of her cunt, seeking out that little button of skin beside her pelvic bone.
Within seconds, she can tell that he’s more practiced than any other boy—or girl—she’s ever been with. All Luka knows how to do is thrust his fingers in and out like he’s playing a miniature game of the hokey pokey. It doesn’t feel good, and it never once got her off—something which Alex’s skilled fingers are able to do in under five minutes.
And she’s not the only one who gets to reach climax. Although he would never admit it to her, she’s able to reciprocate the favor without even trying. He can’t resist her—he doesn’t want to—and he lets himself go as she writhes and bucks on his lap.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Multitasking
A grenade explodes and a fireball rips through an office building hallway.
Alex grabs Ella around the waist and pulls her through a doorway, avoiding the fireball and saving her life.
“Here’s a tip”—he keeps her close—“next time you toss a grenade, move!”
“And deprive you of the opportunity to save my life? Never.”
She pulls away from him and vaults out of the open ground floor window into the street, where Chimera are fleeing desperately from the fire. As they bottleneck in the entranceway to the building, she picks them off easily. Alex shows up just in time to watch her poke the last meat flag into the rectum of a dying Chimera. Walking past it, he stomps on its head to finish it off.
Tapping Ella on the shoulder, he turns her attention to a building further down the street. A juvenile Chimera, only a few weeks old, clumsily bats at a fly on the porch. Losing its balance, it topples down the steps onto the ground.
“A nest?” Ella wonders.
“Looks like it.” Alex reloads his PP-2000. “The mother won’t be far.”
As they approach, the baby creature notices them and shrieks in fright. In response, the mother bolts to the aid of her young. She peeks her head out of the doorway, but receives a bullet from Alex’s gun before she has even the slightest chance to neutralize the threat.
The distressed baby inspects her corpse, softly whimpering until Ella puts it out of its misery. The bullet not only kills it, but the force of the shot completely obliterates its soft skull. The headless corpse drops down upon its mother, their blood flowing together in a comingled pool around them.
Inside, Alex heads upstairs while Ella takes the ground floor. She wipes out four mothers and their young while they lie sleeping, and clears the rest of the floor. By the time she rejoins Alex, he’s blowing a Chimera out of a second floor window with a point blank shot to the chest.
Together, they clear most of the first floor. As Ella steps into another room at the end of the hall, she discovers that the roof—like so many others in the unreclaimed world beyond the city walls—is gone. The floor has been soaked with rain for centuries, and it’s beyond breaking point. All it takes is the suggestion of her foot upon it, and it gives way. She begins to fall, but feels something holding her back.
Alex.
He catches hold of her arm and pulls her to safety. Using all of his strength to keep her from falling, his own feet slip out from beneath him and he comes crashing down onto the much sturdier floor of the hallway, Ella landing beside him.
“Are you okay?” He reaches out to her.
“Always.”
Taking her by surprise, he plants a kiss on her lips.
“What was that for?” she wonders. “Gratitude for last night?”
“Maybe.” Another peck.
This time, the simple kiss turns into more. It lingers, and Ella’s stomach begins an acrobatic routine. She rolls them both over and positions herself on top of him, placing her palms flat against his chest and pressing her hips down against him. He tries to suppress his arousal, but can’t.
Ella grinds herself against him. “They didn’t mention this in the internship induction video.”
“It’s not really standard procedure.”
“No?” She keeps moving against him. “So you don’t treat all your female Cadets this way?”
“This is a first for me. Actually, I …”
His words melt on the tip of his tongue as her hand finds him between her legs and she runs her fingers over his length. Leaning forward, she supports her weight on one arm and finds his zipper with the other.
“I was rude last night. I should apologize.”
“What for?”
“I didn’t return the favor.”
He moans as she slips her hand inside.
“Jesus, El …”
“What’s the matter? Do you want me to stop?”
He answers her with another kiss, reaching for the back of her neck and keeping her close to him. “This is so wrong.”
“What’re you going to do about it?” she challenges him.
He makes no effort to stop her, so she sets him free, repositions herself, and puts her greedy mouth around him. Any hope he had of resisting her is gone with the slightest tease of her tongue against him.
Being careful not to make her take too much, he twists his fingers up in her hair and tries to relax. He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the floor, thoroughly distracted from his work.
He doesn’t notice that they’re being stalked. He’s so wrapped up in sensation—her lips, her tongue, her fingers working the base—he’s utterly oblivious to the silently creeping threat.
But Ella isn’t.
An immature Chimera, no more than six months old, is watching them curiously from the end of the hallway, and she’s got her eyes pinned on it.
It takes its first tentative step toward them, but she doesn’t stop giving Alex pleasure. She can tell by his breathing that he’s close already, and she wants to take him all the way. Slowly, she draws her HK USP, disguising the click of her holster behind a well-placed moan.
The Chimera, not yet at sexual maturity, doesn’t know how to swagger and rumble so it maintains a steady, silent approach. Keeping its head low to the ground, it naively believes it hasn’t been seen.
Ella raises her weapon over Alex’s leg and takes aim.
“El …”
Alex’s whisper alerts her to his impending climax, and she holds off on making the shot for as long as she can. Suddenly, she feels his body tense and his fingers clutch at her hair. Presto!
She finishes satisfying him, and feels his grip on the back of her head begin to relax. By the time he finally opens up his eyes, the Chimera is bearing down right upon them.
“Shit!” His eyes are as wide as saucers.
Ella takes the shot before he can rewire his brain for combat, and the animal falls. She rises up from his lap, wiping her lips, the HK USP still in her hand.
“I lost count at ten or twelve, but I’m pretty sure I’m winning.”
Alex lies back down on the floor, his head spinning and his heart pounding. “I’ve just seen the future.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yup. I’m not gonna get fired for being with you, I’m gonna get eaten by a Chimera because I can’t multitask.”
Ella leans over his chest. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.”
“We can’t do this, El.” He takes a deep sigh, ruffling both hands through his hair. “Not again.”
“All you had to do was say no.”
“That’s not fair. You can’t make me want you and then expect me to be able to push you away.”
Her expression turns as serious as his. “You know how to solve this problem, don’t you?”
“How?”
“Man up and talk to Maydevine already.”
“Man up?” He puts himself away and gets to his feet. “Do you really think it’s that simple?”
“Why are you so determined to believe that it’s not?”
“I’m not the man he wants for you.”
“So you keep saying.” She stands up and dusts herself down. “Honestly, I’m gonna get tired of hearing you beat up on yourself like that. What’s with the low self-esteem?”
“If you knew my background—”
“I do know your background.”
Alex looks surprised to hear that. “Maydevine told you?”
“That you grew up in the foster program? Yes.”
He seems broken somehow, as if some great secret has been exposed.
He looks ashamed.
“Then you know you’re too good for me.”
Ella holsters her gun, strides up to him and holds his face in her hands. “Here’s what I know: I know that your parents must’ve made some pretty serious mistakes; I know that the bad choices they made with their lives had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with you; I know that Maydevine has done everything in his power not to let you become a victim of your circumstance; I know that he cares for you a great deal; I know that I love you; that you’re a good man; and that I don’t give a fuck what other people think. Isn’t that enough?”
It is.
At least, it should be.
Alex scoops her up into his arms and kisses her.
Afterward, she holds him tightly, looking fondly into his eyes. “You think Maydevine was testing you when he confronted you about taking me to the hospital, and you’re right—he was. He was deliberately tormenting you when he was telling you all about Luka’s antics in my bed, but you completely misunderstood why. You think he wanted you to prove that you could keep your hands off me. What he really wanted was for you to admit that you couldn’t.”
Inamorato Page 17
