by Tasha Black
An electronic hiss sounded from the machines innards, followed by a sickly whine, then the monitor went black.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Grant squeaked.
“I’m so sorry!” Erik said, suppressing a satisfied smile.
The metallic tang of ozone hung heavy in the air. The thing was fried. He had done more damage than he’d hoped.
“Jesus jumping Christ, man!” Royce yelled, “I keep telling you not to keep your damned Cokes near the equipment!”
“They’re not Cokes—”Grant started.
“No!” Royce cut him off. “Don’t start that again! You’re like a fucking kid with an Xbox and your little snacks. These machines are expensive, they’re fucking scientific!”
“Again, so sorry,” Erik said, as he backed to the door of the trailer. “I’m going to get out of the way.”
Grant and Royce were going at each other too hard to notice him.
“You don’t even know how this shit works!” Grant shouted as Erik stepped out into the sunlight and pulled the door shut behind him.
He had no idea how long it would take them to get the equipment up and running again. But he knew he needed to figure out what was going on before they did.
CHAPTER 5
J ulian found himself minding an unconscious passenger in the backseat of Grace’s car for the second time in a week. He looked around, hoping no one would wander by and see the prone man in the back, while she went into the station to make sure their way was clear.
But Tarker’s Hollow’s small downtown seemed to be empty. The light over the police station door reflected in the wet leaves on the parking lot, as the saplings that had recently been planted in front of the library swayed in the wind.
After a few minutes, a young male officer exited the front door and pulled out of the parking lot in a gray sedan. Julian counted silently to sixty and the door to the police station opened again. Grace stood silhouetted in the doorway for a moment, scanning the lot, then she strode toward him, her small body drawn up as though she were trying to look two feet taller.
He hopped out of the car to join her. Without speaking, they eased Garrett out of the backseat and carried him quickly into the station.
Julian hadn’t been inside Grace’s place of work before. It was smaller than he had expected. A bulletin board behind the large front desk announced three missing cats, a missing bicycle and a found pair of mittens. Also pinned to the board were instructions on CPR and a public service announcement about storm water run-off.
Not so much as a single wanted poster. How disappointing.
Grace slipped a key out of her pocket and opened the door that separated the lobby from the station proper. They brought Garrett around a reception desk covered in Halloween themed knick-knacks, past small conference room, to an area with two holding cells in the back.
Grace indicated with a nod of her head that they should lay Garrett on the floor. Julian was inclined to let him drop hard, but Grace was careful to support his head and neck. Good thing one of them was a professional. Julian was still seeing red.
He stood and wiped his hands on his thighs. He supposed it was silly but he felt dirty just touching the bastard.
Grace straightened and gave him an expectant look. Her tiny body somehow looked more feminine in the uniform than in her civilian clothes. Julian marveled at the way her slender hips seemed to swell against the masculine cut of the trousers.
Grace cleared her throat and he remembered why they were there.
“The wards I’m going to put on this cell will mean no one can make magic in it, not even you.” He turned to catch her eye to be sure she understood.
She nodded once and pursed her lips.
He got to work immediately, murmuring locking spells and tamping enchantments. He began in the deepest corner of the cell and worked his way toward the gate.
“When you do this sort of thing, you never want to mop yourself into a corner,” he joked.
Grace didn’t reply.
Of course, she was still angry at him. And making a lame joke wasn’t going to change her mind. He hadn’t been honest with her about why he was in Tarker’s Hollow to begin with. Maybe she would never forgive him. He probably deserved it.
At last, his work was done. He turned to find Grace staring at him.
He tried to smile, but she turned her back.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Sure,” he replied.
Wordlessly, they pulled Garrett off the ground and moved him into the cell.
The moment they entered, Julian felt the cold loss of that vague tingle of magic that always danced just below the surface of his skin. It was an awful, flat feeling and he had to force himself to take his time depositing Garrett on the cot instead of running out of the cell as fast as he could.
When the door was secure, Grace turned to him.
“It really worked,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Could you feel it?”
She nodded.
“Listen, Grace, I...” He found himself at a loss. This young woman didn’t want to hear what he had to say. And perhaps it was best that his infatuation with her came to an end.
She turned to face him and he sensed something in her dark eyes.
Hope filled his heart and loosened his tongue.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you, Grace,” he admitted. “I haven’t had anyone to be honest with in a century. I was afraid I might have forgotten how.”
He wanted to explain everything, but he forced himself to stop speaking, to listen.
“Have you really been alive for a hundred years?” she asked without making eye contact.
“I was barely out of my teens when I was recruited by the Order in 1892,” he replied. “So, I suppose it’s actually closer to 150. But I stopped counting once the candles no longer fit on the cake.”
“What’s it like?” she asked.
“Going from the telegraph to the iPhone? Not as crazy as the movies make it out to be. It’s not like I was frozen for a century and woke up to a brave new world. I adjusted to the changes gradually, just like everyone else.”
“To hear my abuela talk about the old days,” Grace replied, “I think you may be understating things a bit.”
“Living longer than the accepted norm isn’t all its cracked up to be,” he told her. “I’ve been basically transient. When everyone around you grows old and you don’t, they start asking uncomfortable questions.”
“Hmm,” Grace mused. “I never thought about that.”
“Most people wouldn’t,” he said. “Nor about the fact that eventually, you simply stop trying to form relationships, because they all end the same way.”
“Oh,” she said with a look of sad understanding.
Suddenly, the hopelessness of it all didn’t matter to Julian. The flicker of compassion in her eyes was all it took for him throw caution to the wind.
“Which is why,” he said, “after all these years, it is so shocking to feel this way about you.”
“Stop,” she said, looking away.
“I’m serious. You know I am,” he said, trying desperately not to take her chin in his hand and turn her to face him again. If he could just see that warmth in her eyes one more time...
“What are you?” she asked softly.
“Does it really matter?” he asked, praying that he didn’t have to tell her anything more tonight.
She paused, and he watched her pulse thrum in the hollow of her neck. Then she slowly shook her head and turned to face him.
Her open expression took his breath away.
He lost himself instantly in the depths of those coffee brown eyes. Under her gaze, he was his best self, strong and smart and interesting. He hadn’t felt so alive in a hundred years.
Before they could change their minds, he scooped her up in his arms and strode out of the room.
Grace wrapped her arms around his neck instinctively in a warm embrace. He felt cradled and tre
asured in the circle of her grasp.
She hadn’t done any magic, but he could feel the need pulsing off her in waves. His own body responded instantly.
The hallway outside the holding cell area led back out to reception. He just had to make it out to the car and a few blocks to her apartment. They could do it.
Then Grace leaned forward to nuzzle his neck. She sighed and her tongue darted out to caress the place where his collar opened.
Fuck.
He turned into the conference room and closed the door behind them. Belatedly, he read the sign over the doorway, Interrogation Room.
So be it.
He set her on the ground. She tottered, finding her balance, and his heart raced knowing she was dizzy with need for him.
He inhaled slowly and rubbed his hands up and down her arms, trying to keep control.
When she looked up at him again with those luminous eyes he lowered his mouth to kiss her forehead, her cheeks, her nose.
He pulled back to see her smiling up at him and his heart ripped again.
He saw the whole of her before him, now in her twenties, now her thirties, now her forties, now with a bit of extra weight, now with gray hair, now with a cane, now in bed with a book, now without the book, now with her eyes shut, now with labored breath, now without breath, now in the cold ground with nothing but a carved up stone and Julian to remember who she had been.
His soul expanded out a thousand times in love for her and then dissolved down to nothing at her inevitable loss. And it didn’t matter. He would pay and pay and pay, and do it happily.
Her lips parted and he kissed her with a passion born of a lifespan of loneliness. Her lips were soft and he took her face in his hands to hold her still so that he could pour his pent-up love into her.
When she pressed her body closer to his he knew this could be over in minutes. But he wanted it to last. He would have to have discipline enough for both of them.
“Slowly, baby,” he whispered in her ear, and lifted her hands above her head to pin them to the wall.
CHAPTER 6
Grace was lost.
She must be lost, or she would never find herself in the interrogation room, wrists pinned above her head, panting with lust over a guy she didn’t like but seemed to love.
And she wouldn’t like this feeling of helplessness. She certainly wouldn’t relish feeling like a butterfly pinned to a board.
Would she?
Julian didn’t give her a chance to worry about it. His left hand held her wrists, but his right slid down her cheek, caressed her neck, then lower still to pop open the top button of her uniform, then the second.
He caught his breath as the tops of her breasts were revealed. She looked down at his golden head and wished she could tousle that boyish hair, but when she tried to slip a hand out of his hold, he only pressed her wrists harder into the wall.
“Be good,” he admonished her.
She wondered what she was supposed to say back, but he didn’t wait for her to answer. He was already opening the remaining buttons and sliding her shirt out from her pants. She must look so wanton, half naked with her gun belt still on.
Oh god, her service weapon.
“Julian, please,” she whispered.
He looked up and his expression was almost guilty.
“Julian, I need to remove my gun belt,” she told him urgently.
He released her right away. Her hands shook as she tried to take off the weapon just as she did every day. At last it was free and she draped it over a chair.
She stared at it for a moment. Taking off her weapon didn’t absolve her of her duty. What was she doing?
She turned back to find Julian unbuttoning his Oxford, and her doubts vanished.
Like magic.
The overhead light threw his smooth chest and chiseled abdominal muscles into harsh relief. She took a step forward, unsure if she wanted to touch those muscles with her hands or drip them with honey and lick it off.
She didn’t get a chance to do either. Julian had her hands over her head again before she could decide. And she didn’t even want to fight him.
“Good girl,” he whispered in her ear again.
He tugged at her pants with his right hand. They were soon around her ankles.
“Be still,” he said.
Suddenly she was holding her own hands to the wall, as he caressed her cheeks, her shoulders.
Then he pulled her hairband out and her hair fell around her shoulders in soft ticklish waves.
“Look at me,” Julian said.
She obeyed him without question. His eyes were bluer than blue. The frank hunger in his gaze made her insides tighten.
Suddenly she was flying.
In her haze, it took a moment to realize that he had lifted her onto the table. He laid her down tenderly, easing her heated body onto the cool wood. Then he stretched out next to her, leaning up on his elbow and placing one hand possessively on the table’s surface next to her head.
“Do you want this?” he asked her.
But she could tell from his eyes that he already knew exactly what she wanted. Her whole body burned for him. Steam rose from the wood of the table where her skin touched it. She was sure he could feel the desire crashing off her.
She nodded, not trusting herself to open her mouth without begging.
“Not just this,” he gestured to their bodies. “Do you want this?” he asked, placing his hand on her heart. “Because it can’t be casual for me. And it won’t be easy for either of us.”
Her heart stuttered. How could it be anything but casual for him? He was only in Tarker’s Hollow temporarily, to catch bad guys. He was basically a soldier, answering to an Order.
But he didn’t look like he was trying to trick her. He looked... vulnerable. And somewhere deep inside she knew he was telling the truth.
“Grace Kwan-Cortez, I will treasure you, protect you, comfort you and love you with all my heart, for all your life,” he said softly in his deep voice.
Something sweet burst in her chest and she found herself crying. The tears slid out of the corners of her eyes.
“No, darling, no, don’t be sad,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss the tears from her cheeks.
“Please,” she breathed.
“Yes, my angel?” he asked, looking into her eyes.
Instead of answering she lifted her head to kiss him. He tasted like her tears.
Instantly, her body hummed with life. Each hair on her head seemed to ache for Julian’s touch.
He broke their kiss long enough to look up and wave a hand in the air.
“Sera,” he said.
An ornate old-fashioned padlock formed on the door.
“Hortus cresco,” he murmured.
The flowers in the framed nature plates on the walls around the table began to grow out of their frames and cover the floor with mossy vines and muted pastel flowers. They smelled like the potpourri sachets in Abuela’s sock drawer.
It was incredible.
He was incredible.
“That’s better,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck and stroking her belly.
She arched up to him in spite of herself. She wanted him more than anything, needed him to possess her.
“Be still,” he said again. This time, the darkness in his voice told her he was losing control over his desire.
Grace deliberately slowed her breathing and stared up at the ceiling. This was the room where she had watched the parking meter change dry, and tried to keep a straight face while questioning teenagers who were caught hitching rides on the fire truck. The mossy fingers of the magical flower vines had swiftly climbed the walls and reached toward the ceiling, but she knew very well that she was still at the police station, lying on the table.
To her surprise, she was at peace with this realization. There was nowhere she had ever felt more herself than in this place. And it seemed right that the first time she would make love, really make love, that it would happen i
n her true home and not the rented flat on Elm Avenue.
Julian’s lips brushed across her midriff, and all thought escaped her. She let out her breath in a ragged sigh and it took every fiber of her will not to lift her hips to him.
He hooked his fingers around the elastic of her thong and pulled it off her in one smooth movement. His hands roamed her thighs, smoothing her bare flesh. He nuzzled her hips and she tried not to cry out. They had only begun, how could she already feel this despair that he would never be inside her.
Grace could feel herself swelling in anticipation. When Julian slid a hand into her curls, she held her breath.
“Ohhh,” he groaned when his finger dragged against her wet and swollen flesh.
He buried his face in her neck again, kissing and biting at her wildly, without moving his hand.
Grace closed her eyes and bit her lip until she tasted blood, willing herself not to grind against his fingers.
“Please,” she heard herself whisper brokenly.
Instantly he was on her mouth, licking and worrying her lip. It stung a little, but when he rubbed his hand against her again she didn’t feel it anymore. Her whole world concentrated on that small place between her legs.
She was so wet, she was sure the table would soon be slippery with the evidence of her lust. Her sex was so hungry, so empty.
She could feel Julian hard against her hip. But the last time she had reached for him he’d punished her.
Grace moaned helplessly.
Julian’s hand disappeared.
She opened her eyes to see him slide the unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders. He spun her so that he was between her legs.
When he crawled toward her, she had to shut her eyes.
His tongue touched the base of her vagina and the pleasure was so intense she saw stars behind her eyelids.
He growled with pleasure and began to lap at her enthusiastically.
Grace’s control over herself was lost and she lifted her hips to meet his mouth.
His arm pressed against her hips, pinning her to the table.
And his tongue, oh, his ruthless, clever tongue. Julian caressed and teased her. Adjusting his rhythm to avoid giving her relief, he would lick up to her clitoris, then suckle it lightly and move downward again.
