Cipher

Chapter Seven

Andrew stopped at her apartment long enough for her to pack some clothes and trade her netbook in for a more powerful laptop. Sera had already cleared out, but she’d left a plate of freshly baked cookies and a note with her work schedule for the next week.

Kat tucked the folded paper into her jeans pocket and let Andrew wrestle her bags down the stairs. The drive to the new headquarters was short, and soon they parked beside the old building in the Warehouse District. It looked like it had once been a factory, and even the service-style elevator remained, though Kat had always taken the stairs.

Andrew slid shut the metal grate behind them and pushed the button for the third floor. “I haven’t done much decorating at my place. I spend most of my time now traveling or fixing up the other units.”

Decorating had never been her priority. Her apartment had been disorganized college-geek-chic at best before Sera, who did domestic, grown-up things like sew curtains and pick color schemes for the bathrooms and kitchen.

Even her efforts at chaotic comfort seemed impressive compared to the stark emptiness of Andrew’s loft. A small kitchen sat to the left, separated from the rest of the room by bar counters. The closest thing to decoration was the fact that he had punching bags hanging from the ceiling. An open door showed an equally Spartan bedroom.

Kat swallowed and glanced toward the television stand. Game consoles were stacked neatly, cords organized instead of tangled like they were at her apartment. “I guess if I can’t sleep, I can catch up on my gaming.” The lamest joke she’d ever made, but it helped cut the miserable sadness of imagining Andrew living every day in an empty, lonely loft.

“Feel free.” He dropped her bags by the couch. “There should be stuff in the fridge.”

He didn’t sound sure, and she didn’t want to look. It wasn’t like she could cook worth a damn anyway.

“I’ve still got gas-station junk food. And the cookies Sera made.”

“I can cook later, if you stick around. We could even go downstairs and make a family-style meal, hope Julio shows up. Right now…” He swayed. “I think I should take a nap.”

As far as she knew, he hadn’t slept much in forty-eight hours. Not impossible for a shapeshifter—but not comfortable, either. “Get some rest. I need to catch up on my mail anyway.”

He kicked off his shoes. After a moment, he pulled off his shirt, as well. “Can you stay close? I think it might be the only way I can sleep.”

Her heart ached so much that not even miles of naked skin could stir lust in her. Just sadness, and protective anger simmering at a low boil. People had known. Alec, Julio—they’d known that Andrew was living some empty shadow of a life, and they’d left him to stew in it for God only knew what reason.

He was so tired, and she could help him. She eased off her shoes, then her sweatshirt, stripping down to the sweatpants and tank top she’d purchased in Huntsville. “Can I lie down with you?”

Something flashed in his eyes, something almost like gratitude. “Will you?”

It wasn’t just a random hotel bed this time. It was Andrew’s bed. A place where he slept, where his scent would curl around her. She didn’t always understand shapeshifters and their instincts, but she’d never met one who issued an invitation to their bed lightly.

Most of her half-formed sexual fantasies had started with Andrew’s bed. Innocent ones from years ago, when he’d been human and she’d been virginal and basing her knowledge entirely on fiction and dubious web searches. Then the darker ones, fueled by anger and bitter longing and the desperate need to be the one thing Andrew wanted more than perfect control.

So many fantasies, and none of them eclipsed this moment, with him looking at her like she held the secret to peace in her hands. He was showing his weakness to her, and it melted her heart.

She didn’t need to sleep. She probably couldn’t, not after dozing most of the way back to New Orleans —and it didn’t matter a bit. “Let’s take a nap.”

Once in the bedroom, he didn’t pull back the covers, just crawled on top of them and held out his arms.

Kat went to him. She couldn’t have stopped herself, and it wasn’t until she’d settled against his chest that she worried about her empathy and the feedback and the miserable way her body heated at the slightest touch.

It hadn’t faded, which scared her, but it wasn’t as bad this time, which made it easy to rationalize.

They’d both been excited before. Years of wanting and not having had pushed them over the edge, no imprinting necessary. Now he was tired, and she felt more protective than sexy. Without the echo of his desire feeding into hers, she could enjoy the comfort of just being held.

They’d be okay. She believed it.

Liar.

He stroked his hand down her arm. “Relax.”

Closing her eyes helped, so did taking a deep breath. Pushing away worry, Kat focused on the present.

On the things she could control. On him. “We’re kind of cuddling.”

“Kind of.” His voice had already slowed, begun to slur. “It’s nice. I’ve missed stuff like this.”

So had she. Andrew’s breathing evened out, and Kat let herself ease into the pleasure of being in his arms. It felt foreign. New, even though it shouldn’t have been. Once upon a time they’d had casual touches and moments full of maybes.

They’d had her twenty-fourth birthday, when she’d gotten tipsy on tequila and he’d never commented on the fact that she’d landed a drunken kiss or two on his jaw before he managed to pour her into bed.

Five days later the world had ended. He’d almost died, and she’d killed two men, and all of those maybes had turned to dust.

Starting over felt like traversing a minefield. Every time they took a step forward, something blew up in their faces. Misunderstandings. Assumptions made in anger and left to fester over fourteen months.

Andrew’s time with Anna, her relationship with Miguel.

She’d brought trouble down on herself. On both of them, maybe, and the irony of it was that trouble might be the only thing that could keep them stepping forward long enough to get to the other side of their respective pasts.

Of course, to do that, they’d have to stay alive. Metaphorical minefields seemed a lot less terrifying when people started trying to kill you for real.

Andrew woke in a dream, with Kat draped over him, her head on his chest and her hips snug against his.

He didn’t think. He didn’t want to think. He wanted to roll her underneath him and kiss her, so he did, sliding his fingers into her hair to hold her still. Her lips parted on a sleepy murmur that turned to a moan as borrowed heat zipped up his spine. Her pleasure, vast and needy and wrapping around him until he had to admit it, even though he didn’t want to.

This wasn’t a dream.

Next on the agenda was figuring out if he cared. Andrew nipped at Kat’s chin and groaned. “You want me to stop, tell me now.”

She was breathing fast already, gasping little breaths as her fingers opened and closed on the covers. “I don’t want to stop, but I’m afraid I’ll ruin it again.”

“Make me come again, you mean?” Maybe, if he said it like that, she’d realize how ridiculous it was to worry.

Color flooded her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut. “My experience is limited, but most of it has led me to believe that guys don’t like coming in their pants.”

“It’s not the most convenient thing in the world.” He kissed her closed eyelids. “Wouldn’t call it ruining anything, though, not by a long shot.”

“Oh.” Her hands found his shoulders, tentative and shy. “Everything is all tangled up. I’ve wanted you for so long, before I even knew what I wanted.”

He had his own tangles, ones that twisted tighter at her words. “Don’t think so hard for once, Kat, and neither will I.”

“Even if it means crazy orgasms in under five minutes and you having to take a shower?”

His lips grazed hers. “Even then.”

She kissed him, hard and fast, clumsy with speed, like she was trying to squeeze in every touch she could before her hunger swallowed them both.

And it would. Already, he trembled on the edge of control. She was in his bed, her scent entwined with his, and it sparked to life the banked hunger that lurked inside him.

So he licked her lips and sighed. “Open.”

She made a quiet, aroused sound and obeyed. He took his time fitting his mouth to hers, letting every sensation shoot through him. She’d feel it, and maybe she’d know how much he needed her.

There was nothing slow about her response. He felt her thrill at the stroke of his tongue, felt hot need twist when she shifted her hips and he settled more firmly between her thighs.

Kat tore her mouth from his with a gasp. “Andrew, it’s too much. I’m projecting—what if I hurt you?”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes fluttered open, glazed and uncertain. “Promise me you won’t let me.”

So hesitant, so terrified, and it was all because of him. “You won’t hurt me. I promise.”

“All right.” She touched him then, slid her fingertips along his jaw and smiled. “I like your beard.”

“Yeah?” He tilted his head and closed his eyes to focus on her gentle caress.

“Mmm. If you were an action hero, you’d have to shave it off in a dramatic moment of renewed dedication.” Her lips brushed his cheek. “There might even be a montage.”

So carefully slow. “What if I want to keep it? Can it be a training montage instead?”

A tiny hitch in her breathing, and that control wavered. “I don’t think I should watch. You getting all sweaty and badass sounds a little pornographic.”

“Really?” He teased her with a quick nip of teeth on her earlobe. “That’s hot?”

“B-blame biology. Human evolution.” The words trembled, and she arched her hips, rubbing up against him with a soft moan. “I can’t hold it together much longer.”

Neither could he. Andrew gripped her thigh and ground against her, a low growl vibrating free before he could stop it. “Relax, baby.”

“Oh— oh, oh God.” Pleasure returned, twisting tighter with every desperate rock. Kat’s fingers clutched his hair, guiding his mouth to her throat as she arched her head back.

Biting her would send them both spinning, but he had to. He had to. He closed his teeth on the delicate, pale skin at the base of her throat.

She cried out. Not just with physical enjoyment, though that thrummed through him strong enough to shiver pleasure up his spine. In that moment, underneath sensation, he caught a hint of her, open and vulnerable and so relieved to be wanted.

So relieved to be his.

It tripped instincts he’d fought so hard to wrestle under control. Possessive, protective ones that demanded he close his arms around her, keep her safe from everything, including herself. “Kat. ”

She came with a gasp, all of her frozen for one breathless moment when she stretched taut beneath him.

Then her empathy slammed into him, bringing with it the blinding echoes of her release.

It was easier this time to lock it down, to ride the waves of her pleasure without letting them sweep him away. He distracted himself by stroking her hair, pressing his mouth to her cheek, her ear.

“Beautiful.”

“Andrew…” Just a whisper, husky and low. “I think I’m floating.”

Purely masculine satisfaction offset his own physical tension. “Good. That’s how it should be.”

“But you’re not—” She blushed. “Was it not so bad this time?”

When she looked at him like that, nervous and shy, it was as if the last year never happened. The trauma and hurt feelings melted away, leaving it easy to smile. “It was good.”

The sweet innocence vanished as she wet her lips and rubbed her foot against the back of his calf. “Are you going to take care of things on your own, then?”

She wanted him to, and she wanted to watch. Arousal spiked again, his blood roaring in his ears.

“You’d like that, huh?”

“Maybe.” Her toes crept higher, and she was stroking his arm now too, fingers drawing tiny circles on his skin. “Maybe if we’ve both taken the edge off, we can work our way back around to the kissing. It’s backwards…”

“No such thing.” He rolled to his back, bringing her on top of him. “You want me to come?”

The uneven tips of her hair tickled his cheek as she nuzzled her nose against his ear. “Yes.”

Control. She needed it, and she needed him to have it—up to a point. He raised his arms and folded them under his head. “Make me.”

Kat lifted her body slowly and ended up straddling Andrew’s thighs. Her perch afforded her the perfect view of his chest and arms. All jokes about training montages aside, he was doing something to look like he’d been chiseled out of the side of a mountain.

Ten months of private lessons with Zola might have slimmed some of the extra padding off her hips, but Kat was still soft. Soft all over, but Andrew didn’t seem to mind, and she couldn’t feel self-conscious with him watching her like the slightest move could strip away what was left of his self-control.

He didn’t touch her, but he spoke. “You’re gorgeous.”

God, she loved his voice. She loved his eyes, green and a little gray, and the way his eyebrows rose when he was deadpanning to make her laugh. Of all the things she’d missed without him in her life, the biggest had been laughter.

The way her heart fluttered when he smiled might be a close second. She dropped her hands to his chest and stroked down, tracing the well-defined ridges of his abdomen. “You’re just stupidly hot.”

He grinned. “Stupidly? Not ridiculously?”

“Stupidly.” She slid her fingers lower, until her fingertips found the edge of his jeans. “Ridiculously.”

The cool metal of the button made her shiver. “Absurdly. Unbelievably.”

He arched under her, and his voice went husky. “Any more adverbs you want to add?”

“I wasn’t very good at English classes…” Her heart skipped a beat as she pressed her hand to his jean-clad erection.

Andrew dropped his head back with a groan. “Harder.”

More command than request, and part of her liked it. Not a small part, either. Disobeying felt like an illicit thrill, but she didn’t want to grope him through his jeans. Instead she tugged open the button and eased the zipper down. “Can I touch you?”

“Are you going to ask, or are you going to take?”

Her hands shook. She took a breath, and smelled sweat and his aftershave. “I think I like asking. I like the way your voice sounds when you tell me what you want.”

His eyes flashed, and he tensed beneath her. “Touch me. Open my pants and put your hands on my cock.”

Oh, he liked it as much as she did. It thrilled through her, an echo of his instinctive pleasure, sharper when she reached for the waistband on his boxers. “Lift your hips?”

He did it easily, bearing her weight as well as his. Shapeshifter strength, and her hands were unsteady as she hooked her fingers under the edge of the fabric.

Unsteady didn’t begin to cover how she felt while she eased his boxers over his cock. From ten feet away, she was sure he’d look proportional. Up close and personal…

Kat swallowed hard and braced herself for the jolt as she curled her fingers around the undeniably impressive length of his erection. He hissed in a breath and wrapped his hand around hers, pressing her fingers more firmly against his hard flesh.

If the sight hadn’t scrambled her circuits, the echo would have. Her eyelids drooped, and she struggled to keep her gaze focused on his large hand enclosing hers, on the sound he made as she slid her fingers slowly toward the crown.

Hot skin, soft over steel, and she was going to come again without anyone touching her. Kat tore her attention from their hands and sought his eyes instead. “How do I make you come?”

He laughed, a strangled, hoarse noise. “Keep breathing?”

“Might be a problem, actually…” She closed her eyes and concentrated on the pulses of pleasure coming from him, on finding the rhythm that twisted him up and the pressure that made him groan.

His arms dropped, but he only clutched at the bedspread as he thrust into her grip. “Fuck, Kat.”

Empathy wasn’t all bad. Not if she could use it to put that look on his face—jaw clenched, fingers gripping the comforter as if it was all that kept him from grabbing at her. So close. They were both balanced on the edge, an edge sharp enough to slice her open.

It might, if she didn’t let it go soon. “Come on, Andrew. Please. Come and take me with you.”

He did grab her then, reached up and dragged her down to his chest as the first pulsing wave of ecstasy shuddered through the room. He kissed her, open-mouthed and needy, groaning her name as his teeth scraped her lip.

Kat kissed him as his orgasm washed over her. He’d trapped her at an awkward angle, with one of her arms pinned between them, but she couldn’t bring herself to relinquish his mouth long enough to find a comfortable position. Everything was hot and desperate and now, and it didn’t matter that he’d come on her stomach and they couldn’t seem to get out of their clothes.

Her back hit the bed, and Andrew loomed over her, his eyes bright with lust. “You don’t understand how sexy that is, do you?”

She told him the truth, and it came out a breathless gasp. “No.”

“Not the empathy or the orgasms,” he rumbled. “You.”

No. Miguel had made her feel attractive. He’d given her anything she wanted from the start, though he’d known her heart was tangled up in someone else. But even at their best, when she’d been caught up in the novelty of sex and pleasure, he’d never looked at her like this.

They’d never been like this. Wild and out of control, her empathy overriding everything but base instinct. Kat lifted her hand to Andrew’s bare chest, over his heart. “This is… I don’t know what this is.

It’s like you’re inside my skin. You’re inside me.”

His thumbs stroked over her jaw. “Isn’t that where you want me to be?”

The joke was there, inviting her to laugh it off with dirty innuendo. Maybe he’d meant it that way. Old Kat would have clutched at the chance to lighten the moment with a suggestive smile and naughty words.

Instead she held his gaze. “Do you remember my twenty-first birthday?”

He nodded. “Everyone got drunk, so we went back to your place to play video games.”

The memory was so clear, even now. She could remember the dress she’d worn—one of the cheerful, pastel ones her aunt had bought just before her death. Blue flowers and butterfly clips in her hair, and she’d been so young, barely into her belated sexual awakening.

It hadn’t been so long ago. Four and a half years, but she hadn’t felt young for a long time. “I was in love with you by the time you left. I had a crush on you from the first day I met you, but that silly, geeky girl I was… After that night, she loved you with all of her silly, geeky heart.”

“That’s what kills me.” His eyes went dark. “That girl doesn’t exist anymore. Because of me.”

Always shapeshifters and their blame. Their guilt. “That girl doesn’t exist anymore because life sucks sometimes. People suck, Andrew. They do bad things, and the rest of us have to choose between stopping them or not. And sometimes we can’t win either way.”

“No, we can’t. We just have to keep going.”

“We did keep going. In different directions, because that was what you needed.” She closed her eyes, because she couldn’t let him see how much the next words hurt her. “I’m trying really hard to pretend that I’m not worrying about you waking up tomorrow and needing that again.”

“That depends.” His breath feathered over her cheek. “I didn’t know I was killing you all over again by staying away.”

“Everyone knew. They’ve treated me like a broken toy ever since. ‘Poor, stupid Kat got her heart broken and can’t move on.’”

“I’m sorry.” The words were thick, agonized.

“No, it’s not—” She took a breath. Her throat felt tight with tears, but she refused to cry. She refused.

“It was never that simple. I know it, and you know it. It’s easier to blame ourselves and each other.”

“I never blamed you.”

A lie, whether he knew it or not. “Andrew.”

“I didn’t. I don’t.”

“Why not?”

He sighed and propped up on one arm, traced the side of her face until she looked at him. “You saved my life. You did what you had to do, and you’ve tormented yourself over it. You don’t deserve to have me wondering if maybe you shouldn’t have done it at all.”

Her heart might have stopped beating. “If I should have let them kill you?”

Andrew hesitated. “Maybe.”

“I don’t—” No. No talking without thinking. Maybe it was cowardice that drove her back from the edge, but it was too big. Too much, and she wasn’t ready to traverse a path that could well lead them back to the ugliest truths of that night.

Instead she lifted her hand and touched his cheek. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

Amazingly, he smiled. “So am I, now. But it took a while, and I didn’t want you to feel that.”

She couldn’t find it in her to smile back. He didn’t know that she was the reason their attackers had changed forms to begin with. He didn’t know that she’d lost control and brought violence down on them.

For all her mockery of shapeshifter guilt, she was as bad as they were. Worse, because she didn’t even have the courage to own her mistakes.

“Stop.” There was a cajoling lilt in his voice, one she hadn’t heard in a long time. “Come on, smile for me.”

She didn’t have the guts to charge forward. But she didn’t retreat, either, and at least it was something.

A step.

Smiling, she turned to kiss his palm. “You should go back to sleep. Sera’s pulling an early shift at Dixie John’s tomorrow, and if I don’t turn up and let her yell at me, she’s going to be unlivable.”

Andrew brushed a kiss over her chin. “We can stop by for a late brunch.”

“Good. And after that…” The zip drive was buried in one of her bags, wrapped in a scarf for safekeeping. “You have a key to Alec’s place, right?”

“Course I do.”

“Instead of hitting the parts store or Craigslist, I thought we could head over there. He’s the only person I know who still uses a computer with a zip drive.” Though use might be a generous term. As far as Kat knew, the last time anyone had booted the damn thing up had been when she’d done it a year ago just to see if she could. “It’s worth a shot.”

The corner of Andrew’s mouth twitched. “You’re brilliant. If anyone’s going to be stuck in 1995, it’s Alec.”

“Then all I have to worry about is platform and software and encryption…” She closed her eyes.

“Andrew, can I ask you something?”

He wrapped a lock of her hair around his finger. “Sure.”

“Are we sticking together because I’m in danger? Or are we…starting something?”

He stared at her for a long moment, considering. “Starting something, or picking up where we left off?

Either one works, I think.”

“Except we didn’t leave off with crazy orgasms.” She settled her cheek against his chest, mostly because it was easier to say the words when she didn’t have to look at him. “We were so close to starting something. Or maybe we weren’t and it only felt that way to me because I wanted it to be true.”

He combed his fingers through her hair. “We were, but…something wasn’t right yet. Me, I guess.

People around here don’t exactly have nice, uncomplicated relationships, you know? Being comfortable, being friends… It felt so good I didn’t want to let it go.”

His heart thumped under her cheek, just fast enough to prove his casual words a lie. He’d been scared, and she could feel the echoes in him, as clearly as she could feel the pleasure he took in touching her.

“You were human,” she said softly. “I never was, not entirely. It would have been complicated.”

“It seems stupid now,” he admitted. “It feels like I wasted so much time.”

“No.” At least there was one thing she could reassure him about. “I skipped grades, a few of them. I graduated early, went to college early. I was never really around people my own age, so I missed out on the social stuff, and the empathy only made it worse. I was young a few years ago, Andrew. I wasn’t ready. But I would have been so afraid of missing my chance, I couldn’t have said no. Not to you.”

“And with both of us not ready…”

Maybe it would have worked. Maybe it would have been a mess, and ruined any chance they had.

Either way, there was no going back. “I know we keep saying we’re not going to talk about the big stuff, and I don’t want to, not yet. But I need something to hold on to.”

“I’m here,” he said simply. “I’m in it, Kat. Not going anywhere, and we can figure it out together.”

“So we have a thing.” It brought a goofy-feeling smile to her lips. “Can I wear your letter jacket?”

Andrew laughed. “They don’t let you letter in being a giant dork, remember?”

“Depends on where you go to school.” Peace settled over her, following the path of his fingers as he stroked her hair. She yawned and snuggled closer. “If you don’t have a letter jacket, we’re going to have to rethink this whole thing.”

“Obviously I’m worthless without one.”

“Obviously.” Another yawn, and this time she didn’t try to fight it. “Except you’re warm. And surprisingly cuddly, for a big mean council member.”

“That’s exactly what it says on my business cards.”