And he’d reclaimed being so close to me? On purpose.
As though answering my unspoken thoughts, he spread his fingers along my back, digging into the tension in my muscle.
I sighed again, melting into what felt like such a natural fit against his side. Like we’d always slept together, could wake every morning like this.
For God’s sake. I just met him.
“Your foot should be fine, though. I changed the bandage, and it doesn’t look as inflamed.” He stretched his other arm up, wincing, and set it behind his head.
I must have really been out of it to not feel any of that. “How do you feel?”
He almost smiled. “Woke up next to you.” His thigh nudged between my legs, and I sucked in a breath at the friction. “I’ve certainly fared worse.”
Anteing up to his tease, I rubbed my leg against his growing erection. “You don’t say.”
Grunting, he arched up a bit. “Don’t torment me.”
“Are you okay, though?”
He let out a long, hard breath. “Will my answer sway you wanting to stay in bed with me a little longer?” Another nudge, and I caught myself from grinding into him.
I bit my lip and shrugged one shoulder.
He groaned, dropping his head back to the pillow as he shot his arm out. “I knew you were trouble the second I saw you.” Even though he used his other arm to crush me in a hug, he did it at the same time that he rolled me off him.
Standing, he nodded toward the bathroom. “Be right back.”
I watched, admiring his toned physique as he left me. He wasn’t limping as badly today, so maybe I could entertain the idea of bedtime antics with him without worrying about hurting him.
He returned a moment later, but as he took his spot again, duty called, and I went.
Holding one arm out, an invitation to get right back where we’d left off, he was nothing but a sinful temptation. “Still favoring it, huh?”
“It really isn’t that bad,” I said of my foot, climbing back in next to him. Some residue of shyness persisted, and I didn’t immediately curl against him. He remedied that with a firm hug, plastering me right back against his heat.
“The time jump will solve it.” He rubbed at his chest, over his pec, where a bruise was starting to form.
I reached up, snuggling closer, and massaged it. His moan was felt more than heard, and he relaxed into me, setting his hand on my hip.
How was it possible to just…fit? So well. His timelessness explained the lack of intimidation to touch me—something I relished for a change. But me? I was never this quick to trust anyone. Jake’s presence cleared the hurdles of my guardedness.
“How can we, though?” I asked after a moment, hating to ruin the peace. “How will we jump through time if we’re out of marces?”
I looked up at him, finding him staring at me with hooded eyes.
“Where do you get them?”
“I have to hunt for them. That’s what the Ravens and I do. Marcel—Marcel Raven—the oldest of the Raven brothers, stays at his estate in 1900’s England.”
My eyes widened, and I paused in rubbing his chest.
“Don’t stop.” He covered my hand with his. “Please.”
I smoothed my fingers over his chest again, and he stroked his hand along my arm. “1900 England?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s still alive?” Impossible.
“He’s not that old.”
I blinked once. Slowly.
His chest jumped as he chuckled. “He’s only aged forty-nine years.” After clearing his throat, he held me closer. “Marcel was born to a physicist in 1842. His brothers, Nick, Leo, and Pete, were each born a year after. He discovered—or created—the antimatter he’d so pompously named after himself in 1869, and since moved through time as he pleased. Or had to. When he met Louise, his wife, he settled in her time of 1900 to raise a family with her.”
“So he just…paused his life in the jump?”
“No? Yes? Look at it this way, he lived uh…twenty-some years since he was born.”
“Got it.”
“Then he skipped over the years to 1900 and continued aging there.”
I nodded, rubbing my chin against his shoulder. “I think I get it. It’s not a continuum of years but of you?”
“Yes.”
“What happened when he left 1869?”
“He didn’t exist anymore. He exists instead in 1900, or whatever time he jumped to.”
“So you can jump back in time and see an older version of yourself?”
“Not recommended, because of the grandfather paradox, but yes.”
“That’s weird.”
“Complicated, more like.” He resumed rubbing along my arm, lighter now, like a sensual feather-touch tease. I couldn’t tell if it tickled or comforted me more.
“Marcel’s estate is sort of like our home base. Before we head out on missions, we make sure to take enough marces to make our way back to him.”
“You and—”
“Nick, Leo, and well, it used to be Pete. I took over his spot.”
“Not Marcel? He stays put?”
Shaking his head, he said, “He stays at the estate. He’s…an eccentric man. Genius, no doubt, uncannily intelligent, but he’s got his quirks.”
“Hmm.”
“And he can’t jump, not as well as the brothers and I can. Marcel is paralyzed from the waist down, and his left arm was amputated.”
“What happened?”
“Train accident. Long story.”
“You did say it was storytime tonight.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Not that one. Not my story to tell. Anyway, when Marcel created the vials, Edward was mayor of his countryside village. His courier spied on Marcel, learned of the science, and stole cases of the marces, along with some of the jumpers.”
“What for?”
“Greed. He’s built up a corps of agents he sends out to get more marces. He can’t make them, so he hunts after them, seeking out the locations Marcel hid them. When his research and creations were first taken from his lab, he asked his three brothers to go find the jumpers, first of all. Then he traveled—through time and over land—to hide more marces so Edward couldn’t get to them. Kind of a harebrained, last resort to hide resources from his enemy.”
“What did Edward do with the jumpers?”
“Do, not did.” He slid down the pillow, lying on his side next to me.
“He’s still alive too?”
Nodding, he brushed the hair from my face. “He prefers the future. Around the 2100s. Where he switched to using borgs to seek out Marcel’s work instead of the few agents he has.”
“Wow.” I played with the fine dusting of his chest hair near the area I’d been rubbing. “Is it like…a game of capture the flag then?”
“That’s a good way to look at it. When he realized the trouble Edward was causing in history, Marcel knew he had to end his research. So he asked his brothers to retrieve the jumpers and marces to destroy it all.”
“What’s Edward doing that’s so bad?”
“He wants power. I’d go so far as to say he wants to rule the world. The Raven brothers and I have been fighting to find the marces and jumpers to stop him as much as we can. To undo the messed-up things he attempts throughout history.”
“Such as?”
He grunted. “Wars? Famines? Thefts? Murders? Anything to get wealthier and to get more resources.”
I raised my brows. One man did all that?
“He manipulated Hitler’s rise to power. He masterminded the downfall of the Russian’s czars. He’s behind Lincoln’s assassination… Need I go on?”
I shook my head. I got the picture. “So, your missions are to follow leads and look for marces he might be able to get his hands on? To stop him from screwing up history to his nefarious aims?”
Nodding, he added, “And to retrieve the original jumpers. Marcel made maybe a dozen of them. Edward’s been able
to duplicate them, but they’re not as lasting as Marcel’s originals.
“We—the Ravens and I—meet up every one hundred days at the estate to check-in, get back up, and make sure we have enough marces to get back. I would have been all right on this job, but I used my spare to send you here, and then I pulled a McFly sending myself too far back chasing you.”
A McFly? Seemed like a minor detail to ask about later.
I was the reason we were stuck here.
But, I hadn’t asked to be transported through time in the first place…
However, basking in the security of his embrace, simmering in the low embers of desire he sparked in me, I’d be hard-pressed to admit I was suffering.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
He framed my face, rubbing his thumb along my jaw. “’S not so bad.”
My heart raced faster at his husky murmur.
“I’m not complaining,” he admitted, kissing my cheek near my ear.
A breath shuddered out of me, and I arched into him. “Me neither.”
He dragged his lips, spreading hot, wet kisses along my jaw. I fisted his hair.
“But…why me? What lead could you have that brought you to me? Why would Freddy—”
He kissed the corner of my lips. “We think Pete dated Helen Olson years ago. We think he might have left a crate of marces with her, hid them at her place.”
Aunt Helen? With a man? I could have laughed if I wasn’t so aroused and tuned in to him. “At her place?” The same house she’s lived in her whole life?
“Yeah,” he murmured as he slid his hand up my shirt, taking my breast in his hot hand.
I panted, pressing myself into his hungry possession, excited by the roughness of his skin on mine. “But…she…never dated.”
He mumbled a sound of disagreement, sucking at my pulse point, kneading my breast. “Pete, he got around.”
I swung my leg around his waist, pulling him more over me. Closer to where I was wet for him. “With Aunt Helen, though?” I scoffed.
“He was the heartbreaker. Going through time, enjoying women at every stop.”
“A lover at every year instead of every seaport?”
With a gradual push, he got me onto my back. Sucking at my nipple through my shirt, he pinched the other.
I cried out, tightening my legs around his waist. “Is that what…” I swallowed hard, pushing him back to take my shirt off. “Is that what you’re doing with me?”
He dropped back down, covering my breast with his mouth before biting.
“What am I doing?” he asked against my wet flesh.
“Taking me before your mission, your time’s up here?”
Staring at me with wicked mischief, he dragged his mouth to mine. As he kissed me, tasted me, he slid a hand to cup my ass, holding me to him.
“Is that what you want?”
Chapter Eleven
What I want? It had to be pretty damn clear what I wanted.
I answered by fisting his hair to lock him to me. Grinding against him, I earned a low growl that I felt from his chest.
“I want you.”
“All in due—”
“Time,” I finished for him, gritting it out. “Funny.”
His lips curved at mine before he resumed a downward path.
“Do you think Helen might have kept something from an old lover?” he asked, licking at my nipples.
I couldn’t think, couldn’t reply with his tortuous tongue on me.
He tweaked my lonely one. “Do you think—”
“You want me to think? Seriously? I can’t, not when you’re doing that.”
“All right.” He leaned to get up. “I’ll stop.”
I choked out a gasp. “What? No! Please no.”
“Hey, I’m on the clock. I need answers.”
So, this was…an interrogation with a bonus? Whatever. I pushed his face back to my chest. “No. I can’t see my aunt ever being with a guy, let alone keeping his love trinkets.”
Jake’s mumble vibrated between my breasts. I speared my fingers through his thick hair, and he grunted. Scraping my nails over his scalp got me a shudder. “Fuck, that feels good.”
“Where’s Pete?” I asked. “Couldn’t he tell you where these marces could be?”
“Dead.” He shifted, crawling lower on the bed. Kisses preceded his fingers as he aimed for the top of my panties.
Excitement at him loving on me faded a bit. “Dead?”
“On a mission.” He slid the thin fabric off, the dampness on my flesh exposed, chilling me.
“I’m s—”
“Later,” he scolded. He slid his finger along my slit then pushed two into me.
I jerked up, sitting and gasping as he lowered his mouth to lick.
Watching me, he brought me closer to the hardest, fastest climax I bet I’d ever experience. Each lick, pinch, and suck drove me nearer to losing my mind.
“Jake,” I whispered between gasps.
“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured as he laved my clit.
I fisted the sheets, rocked into his face. “Please, Jake, just…”
“Come on, sweetheart,” he whispered, pumping his fingers faster. “Let go.”
When he set his lips down to suck once more, I keened, arching my back.
“Let go, Everly,” he said on a low growl.
I did, biting on my lips so I wouldn’t scream. I let go, in the most soul-wrenching, beautiful defeat I’d ever allow.
All for him. Because of him.
He stroked his hands up my body as I caught my breath, wheezing for air to restart my blissfully fucked mind.
“Jake,” I said, reaching out to hold him close as he climbed up the bed.
He shushed me with a kiss. I didn’t mind this time, him silencing me with his lips. Because just as he could summon my quiet, he could invoke my rawest scream too. Grinning, my cheek against his, I gave in to the drowsiness that followed in the wake of the best orgasm I’d had in all of my time.
I didn’t know how long I’d dozed, but when I woke, I was alone. Fear spiked fast, and I jolted upright. Where was Jake? Borgs? Had they come and taken him?
Terror at losing Jake, someone I’d known for such a short period, seized me.
I narrowed my eyes, scanning the hotel room.
Water ran. I was sure of it.
Naked, I exited the bed, pausing only long enough to whip the sheet off it and wrap it around me. I ran to the bathroom, the best I could with my foot.
As soon as I saw the hazy form of a man under the spray of a shower, I sighed.
His motions, though… Tilting my head, I stepped closer.
This room had a door to the shower stall, instead of a curtain, like the last place. Jake hadn’t closed it all the way.
Tiptoeing closer, I ventured into the world of voyeurism, watching him jerk off. One hand pressed against the tiles, the muscles in his forearm corded as he flexed. Mesmerized at the water glistening over his strong body, I stared, shocked when he came, spraying his cum to the wall.
“Everly.”
It was a faint whisper, and I stared at his face.
His eyes were still closed as he slumped against the wall.
Did he know I was here, watching? Or had he…
Desire coursed through me. He’d…pictured me as he’d gotten off.
“Like what you see?”
I jumped at his gravelly voice, finding his eyes open as he smirked at me.
Never mind what he’d done to me and what I’d just witnessed here. A blush stole up my neck, and I covered my throat with my hand. Staring at his cock, I licked my lips.
His chuckle was nothing short of naughty.
“Sorry, I’ll…”
“No, no, no.” He picked up the shampoo. “Don’t go. I was thinking while you napped.”
I raised my brows, amused and entertained that he could be so glib about his nudity with me. Take it or leave it, that was his attitude, unlike the careful protocols set in my time. Co
ming from a society where women bartered on men when they were presented for arranged marriages… Yeah, this was a nice change. A man not afraid to hide himself.
“About what?”
He smirked at me, washing. “Well, you. Hence this shower to rub one out.” He cleared his throat. “But what you said too. About Pete.”
“I’m sorry he died,” I interjected. I’d only heard his name in passing, but the reverence in Jake’s tone inferred he’d lost a friend.
“Thanks.”
“But if he’d died, couldn’t you just jump back in time and warn him off whatever killed him?”
“Doesn’t work like that.” He stepped under the spray to rinse, and I followed the trail of suds down his back, ass, and legs.
“How does it work?” I crossed my legs as I sat on the closed toilet.
“When you die, you die. That’s it. There’s no undoing it.” He stepped under again for a second, rubbing at his neck to rinse. “Marcel likens it to the soul dying. Pete died in 2019, all right? He was aged forty-six. If I jumped back to any time before his death date and told the then-Pete about his death, he could alter his actions until that death date, but he couldn’t jump past that time.”
“So there can be multiple versions of the same person until they all die?” I scrunched my face, thinking about the abstract problem of this math. Sure killed my libido.
“Kind of. Again, we try to avoid interacting with former versions of ourselves. It’s too risky.”
“But to warn someone from death, wouldn’t that be worth the risk?”
“No.” Again, he paused to rinse. “Because you cannot undo death.”
“All right.” I shook my head, still not really getting it. “Then how’d you meet Pete? How’d you get into this stuff if you weren’t one of the Raven brothers?”
Cocking his head to the side, he seemed to attempt massaging his back. Eyes closed again, he explained. “Pete jumped to 2008, on a mission to track down Edward’s right-hand man. Word was he had two jumpers he’d stolen. I was thirteen at the time, and he’d stumbled upon me when I was—” He heaved out a deep breath. “When my dad was trying to sell me into captivity.”
I covered my mouth. “Slavery?” I thought…I’d always thought that was an urban legend, that trafficking people was a myth. Something parents told kids to scare them into behaving.
In the Wrong Year (Double-Check Your Destination Book 1) Page 9
