Twelve Shades of Midnight:

by Liliana Hart

  “We’ll have to see what the FBI says, and it’ll probably be a day or two before they get here, but after that, yeah, I think so. Except”—Rhys pulled her into his arms—“we have a street dance to go to. A fireworks display to watch.” He nuzzled her neck. “And a dream to finish.”

  “I vote for a different order. Dream first, then street dance and fireworks.”

  “Works for me.”

  They were halfway to the front door when she heard a loud popping sound, then the lights went out.

  Chapter Nine

  Without windows, the storage room was pitch-dark. Sienna was certain even Archie could see more than she could in the black, cavernous storage room.

  “That sounded like a transformer blew,” Rhys said. “Could be an ordinary blackout. The system was stressed.”

  “I don’t think it is,” she said. She could barely hear her own words over the rapid pounding of her heart. “This doesn’t feel right.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Is the mask telling you something?”

  “I-I think so.” There was no need to close her eyes against the darkness, but she did anyway, as she always did when she reached out to the mask. In her mind, she could see outside the building. Adam Helvig jammed a crowbar into the seal around the back door of Chuck’s SUV and popped the hatch open.

  She told Rhys what she saw. “It’s happening now,” she added, certain to her core this wasn’t an alternate dimension, that right this moment Adam was twenty yards away and breaking into the truck.

  “I think… I think the mask triggered the blackout,” she said. “To stop us from confronting Helvig. But why didn’t it want us to stop him?”

  All at once, she was pitched into a vision, Rhys with her. As before, this vision seemed to be an alternate dimension. A different now in the multiverse. In this world, Rhys stepped out of the building as he would have without the blackout. Unknowing. Unguarded.

  Adam startled and swung the crowbar blindly before Rhys had a chance to pull his pistol. He took the blow to the head and dropped.

  She’d followed Rhys out the door, and her world spun as she watched blood pool under his temple, running in rivers between the jagged gravel of the lot. She screamed and fell to her knees by Rhys’s body, weeping.

  Adam loomed above her, bloody crowbar in hand. His face registered horror even as he pulled back the bar, building momentum for a swing at her. He hesitated at the far end of the arc. Sienna grabbed Rhys’s pistol, flicked the safety, and fired as he swung. The iron bar grazed her temple—painful, but minor compared to the blow Rhys had taken.

  Adam fell backward—she’d shot him in the forehead—and she dropped the gun so she could tend to Rhys. She ran her hands over his chest, his neck, his face.

  No heartbeat.

  No pulse.

  No breath.

  He was gone.

  Rhys took a shallow breath in the quiet storage space. He was breathing. He was alive. His head throbbed, but nothing like the pain he’d felt a moment before in the vision, right before he’d died.

  Sienna let out a sob and reached for him in the dark. As he had done with her earlier, she ran her hands over his chest, feeling his beating heart, his rising chest, collecting signs it hadn’t really happened in the here and now.

  From outside came the sound of tires rolling over gravel. Helvig was getting away. Rhys pressed a fast kiss to Sienna’s lips. “I’ve got to go after Helvig,” he said, then bolted for the door with his gun drawn.

  Fortunately, the aisle was clear, and he made it to the exit in the dark without crashing into anything. He wrenched the door open and raced out into the bright night just in time to see a sedan careen down the main road past the power plant, toward town.

  Dammit. Helvig had the mask. Rhys pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1, but as he hit Send, he saw the words “No Service” flashing on his screen. The power outage had taken out the cell tower.

  The landline in the building should still work. He tucked his gun away and stepped back inside. Sienna waited just inside the door. “He’s gone,” he said and pulled her into his arms.

  The door closed behind them, enclosing them again in complete darkness.

  He cupped her face and planted his mouth on hers. He needed to call the police and report the theft, but right now, he needed to kiss Sienna more. His part of the vision had ended when he died. He had no idea what Sienna had gone through.

  She sucked on his tongue with an urgency he understood. He’d felt the same way after watching her die at his side. Her hands ran over his chest, pausing over his heart, then moved lower to his abs and hips. One hand slipped under the waistline of his slacks, and she stroked his cock, which instantly thickened. Yet another sign of life.

  Oh, hell yeah, that makes me feel alive.

  Without a word, she unzipped his fly and ended the long deep kiss abruptly. He guessed she’d dropped to her knees by the rush of air and feel of her body brushing against his. Then her hot tongue was on his ever-thickening erection. He groaned, forgetting the pain of the vision. She wrapped her mouth around him and took him deep, making him wish the room wasn’t pitch-black so he could watch her go down on him, but then, there was something incredibly sensual about not knowing what she would do next, just feeling, accepting. Enjoying.

  He was alive, and being alive was fucking amazing. “Sienna—”

  “Don’t you dare tell me not here, not now. I need this. You need this.”

  “I don’t want to stop you.” Her mouth returned to his cock, and he groaned, then said, “But I should call the police.”

  “Is Adam gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then the call can wait. They’re probably busy with the blackout anyway.”

  She licked his cock from base to tip, and his brain was unable to find fault with her logic. “Right, then. I need to touch you… and we need those condoms.”

  She took him deep one more time, then released him and stood. “I’ll find the condoms while you strip.”

  Before she could step away, he slid a hand inside her jeans and stroked her clit. She made a soft, sexy noise. “You need to strip too. Now.”

  She undid her jeans, giving him better access, and he slipped two fingers inside her. He stroked her slick heat and kept his thumb on her clit while she struggled with her clothes. She toed off her shoes, and he released her to tug down her jeans. As he slid them down her curvy hips, he dropped to his knees in front of her. He ran his hands up her body, her bare skin telling him she’d pulled her shirt off and removed her bra. With his free hand, he cupped one breast while his mouth found the other and he sucked the nipple into a hard peak.

  “Condoms,” she said with a throaty pant. “Get naked while I find my purse.”

  He stripped as instructed while she searched for her bag. The sound of a zipper told him she’d located it. Later, they’d figure out how to get the mask back from Helvig. Right now, all he wanted was to screw Sienna’s brains out. He couldn’t begin to understand how he’d spent the day with her but hadn’t fucked her yet. He needed to make her his, to be deep inside her body, to hold her as he made her come, over and over.

  What was wrong with him? Where the hell were his priorities?

  She returned to him and, without a word, again took him in her mouth. She sucked on his cock, her mouth stroking up and down, giving him intense, building pleasure and an immeasurable sense of peace. This was right. Real. He was whole, and so was she. And together… together they would be greater than the sum of their parts.

  She was his destiny, and deep down, he knew he was hers.

  Sienna couldn’t get close enough to Rhys. She had to have him inside her—her mouth or her vagina, it didn’t matter. She just needed him deep. She needed to feel his thick cock to prove he was fully alive. With her.

  “Sienna,” he said with a sharp intake of breath. “Please let me fuck you.”

  She gave him one last, deep suck, then released him and stood. He kissed her,
his tongue delving deep in her mouth before he said, “Condom?”

  She handed him the packet and stroked his cock while he ripped it open. Once he was sheathed, he picked her up and placed her on the worktable closest to the door. The Formica top was cold against her bottom, but she was so hot with need, it didn’t matter. She spread her thighs and pulled him between them. The worktable was the perfect height.

  He rubbed the tip of his cock against her slick opening. “Fuck me, Rhys.” Like the shared dream, the pitch darkness gave her the courage to be herself, to say the word fuck and not be embarrassed it turned her on.

  He thrust into her, triggering a ripple of intense pleasure. “I wish I could see your beautiful body as I fuck you,” he said, sliding into her again with a slow sensuous stroke.

  “Next time,” she said. He touched her clit as he drove deep, and she lost the ability to speak as their bodies merged in a perfect, intense, life-affirming rhythm.

  She kept her eyes open, seeing nothing as they rocked together, but when she came, she imagined a colorful burst of light—her own personal aurora borealis or watercolors in the sky. He came moments after she did, his body tightening between her thighs as he let out a hard, hot groan.

  Spent, he leaned down and kissed her, still sliding inside her, but slow thrusts now. “I didn’t think sex could be as good as the dream, but that… that was amazing. Better than the dream. Better than anything.”

  The dream. She’d forgotten the mask had manufactured the attraction between them. And he was right. It had been better than the dream, which could be a sign that even if the mask had manufactured the attraction, it was now real. Right?

  All she knew was she couldn’t imagine not having Rhys as part of her life moving forward, but the thought of needing him after the spell wore off terrified her.

  She tried to quell those doubts and enjoy the feel of his firm body against hers, his hips between her thighs. His mouth on her neck. Clutched tightly together in the pitch-dark, it felt like the sort of moment when people made declarations, and her throat burned with foolish words it was far too soon to say.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if now that he’d had her, she’d be out of his system.

  Dream complete. End of desire.

  He shifted, sliding out of her. “For the record, this was a worktable, not a desk. I never said we couldn’t have sex on a table the first time.”

  She laughed, remembering their earlier discussion. Would there be an eighth time, or a hundred and eighth, or was this going to end as abruptly as it started? She felt a chill at the thought. She was in over her head, had none of her usual defenses up. What would he think when he realized she was too serious and boring for him?

  He was probably an adrenaline junkie—weren’t all the bomb guys in it for the adrenaline? There’d been plenty of adrenaline to feed him in the last twenty-four-plus hours, but what about later?

  The happy buzz of sex left her. “What now, Rhys?” Oh crap. She’d asked him point-blank. Stupid, foolish mistake. “I mean… the mask was stolen by Adam. What should we do? Go back to Chuck’s house?”

  The lights flared, and she blinked against the sudden brightness, their nakedness startling even though they’d been as close as two people could be moments before. She scrambled off the table and dove for her clothes. Her body was hardly as perfect as his. It would’ve been nice to maintain the fantasy of beauty that darkness had provided for a few more minutes.

  “What’s going on, Sienna? Why are you running away?”

  With her back to him, she couldn’t see his expression as she quickly pulled on her clothes.

  Dressed, she turned to see his beautiful body. Unabashed in his naked perfection. She wished she could be that open. That free. “I’m not. It’s just… getting late. It’ll be midnight soon. We should go to the street dance. We don’t want to miss the fireworks. And maybe the Pelligrew brothers will be there.”

  “We’re going to let the FBI handle it from here.” His tone was sharp, coldness creeping at the edges.

  “I suppose you should call your contact there now.” She grabbed his phone from his pants pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it—barely.

  Confusion warred with anger in his eyes. “I will. But I want to know why you’re shutting me out first.”

  She gathered his clothes and deposited them on the table next to him. “I’m not.”

  “What the fuck, Sienna? Is this a wham, bam, thank-you sort of screw for you? Because, as I said earlier, I don’t want inconsequential with you, and I thought we were on the same page.”

  “We were. We are. I’m just…” She sighed and twisted a finger in her hair. “I’m scared that now the dream has been completed, you won’t want me anymore. I’m giving you an out.”

  He set his phone on the table and grabbed her hips, pulling her clothed body against his naked one. His expression softened, and she thought a smile played around his lips. “Sweetheart, I want to fuck you again right now, with the lights on, so I can watch your face as I make you come. Repeatedly.” He kissed her neck. “The only thing that’s stopping me is the lack of soft surfaces. I want you in a bed so you’ll be comfortable as I lick you and slide my tongue inside you. I want to explore every inch of your body. I want to order you around like we did in the dream, because I want to fulfill every damn sexual fantasy you’ve ever had, and when we’ve exhausted those, I want to come up with new ones. Finishing the dream was only the beginning of what I want from you.”

  Each word raised her temperature, taking her from hot to inferno. “I want—” She cleared her throat. “I want all of that too.”

  “Good.” He kissed her hard and fast. “While I call the FBI, why don’t you call the local police? After we’ve made our reports, we’ll head to the street dance. If we run into Helvig there, I’m going to kick his ass for killing me earlier.”

  Chapter Ten

  The street dance was in full swing when they arrived, not long before midnight. From the size of the crowd, it looked like every resident and tourist was present. Food and souvenir booths were set up along the waterfront park, and the parallel street was closed off for dancing. Max Midnight, the band Archie had mentioned, was set up on a platform at the end of the street. The sound carried for miles, and there’d been no need to string up lights, as the daylight would continue for weeks.

  On the drive to town, the electrical workers they’d seen earlier had all shifted to the blown transformer. Sienna suspected the mask had visited one of those workers and caused him or her to make a mistake that triggered the blackout. She hoped dearly no one would get in trouble for the “accident” that had saved Rhys’s life.

  She took Rhys’s hand and squeezed it, caught in a mix of emotions. Being with him made her giddy, but fear and apprehension over who they might meet in town had her stomach in knots. Someone had taken a shot at him today, and later, Adam Helvig would have killed him had they stepped outside at the wrong moment.

  Was the shooter Adam or one of the Pelligrew brothers? Had whoever it was poisoned Chuck?

  “Adam would be a fool to show up here, and we agreed to avoid the Pelligrews. So why are we here?” she asked Rhys.

  He grinned. “It’s a street dance. We’re here to dance.”

  She paused. How long had it been since she’d gone dancing? Not since grad school, at least. But then, she’d cut out all fun in grad school, not due to her coursework but because she’d caught her then-boyfriend—and fellow grad student—getting a blowjob from another student in the department study room. After that, she’d focused on school and nothing else. Somewhere along the way, she’d given up on having fun. On the night of her graduation, she’d tried to rectify that by picking up a guy at a bar, but the experience hadn’t been what either of them would call a good time.

  So here she was, three years later, wondering if she remembered how to dance.

  “Please? Dance with me?”

  She nodded, and he led her to the cordoned-off dance are
a.

  “We have just enough time for two more songs before we take a break to watch the fireworks,” the lead singer of Max Midnight said, then they launched into “In the Midnight Hour.”

  A familiar soul tune with an easy beat, it was a good song to break her dance abstinence with. She started swaying her hips, and slowly, the rest of her body joined in. It was like riding a bicycle—or sex. Her body knew what to do as long as she didn’t let her head get in the way.

  Rhys wore a sexy grin as he moved in time with her, and they brushed against each other with a seductive sway. The world was reduced to her, Rhys, and the beat. The song ended, and the band changed to a female vocalist for the last song of the set, the sexy jazz standard, “Midnight Sun.”

  Rhys took her into his arms for a slow dance. The perfect song for the moment. Was there anything more romantic than dancing at midnight in the full light of day, with Kotzebue Sound and the Bering Straits to the east and south and low, rolling arctic hills to the west?

  His arms tightened around her, their bodies pressed together as they rocked to the music in a rhythm that mimicked languorous sex. By the time the song ended, she was ready to drag him back to the house, forget watching the extravagant daylight fireworks display.

  Rhys, however, was eager to see the fireworks and led her to the beer garden, where he found them seats in the packed space. “We should be able to see the whole show from here.”

  They ordered drinks, which the waitress delivered quickly. Sienna sipped her beer, an Alaskan brew she’d never tried before but discovered she quite liked, and looked out over the water. “So. You really like fireworks, don’t you?”

  He smiled. “I’m a guy. They explode. Need more information?”

  She laughed. “Not really.”

  “Seriously, though,” he said, settling back in his seat with his gaze fixed on the barge floating on the Sound from which the fireworks would be launched. “I did two tours in Iraq, defusing IEDs, C-4 bombs, unwilling suicide bombers, you name it. When everyday survival depends on understanding explosives, something like this is interesting and more than just a pretty show. I want to see the setup, how it’s designed. It’s part of who I am now, I guess.”