Feversong (Fever #9)(139)
I kissed him. And kissed him. Then I had him leaning back against a bookcase, I was his second skin, and we got lost in a long dreamy kiss that told me exactly how the night was going to go.
I looked for Ryodan to say goodbye before we left but he was nowhere to be found.
“Freeze-frame me, Dani,” Dancer said eagerly as we stepped outside, and I couldn’t resist. We were on top of the world, young and in perfect sync with each other’s hearts. He loved being in the slipstream, said it helped blow his mind open to new ideas.
As I kicked us up into that other dimension and the starry tunnel unfolded around us, he kissed me, which totally broke my concentration, and we stumbled down, cartwheeling along the alley, laughing. Then he had me turned around against the brick wall and my jeans were down and so were his and my sword was shoved aside and he was kissing the back of my neck and pushing inside me from behind and I knew later tomorrow I’d gouge D&D into the wall in this very spot and I laughed thinking that if I did it everywhere we had sex, the whole city would be graffitied with D’s in no time.
“I love you, Dani Mega O’Malley,” Dancer said against my ear as he moved inside me. “More than the world is big. Deeper than the sky is blue. Truer than the universe is vast. I love you more eternal than pi.”
A fierce elation exploded in my heart and I gasped, “I love you the same way, Dancer.”
Then the only sounds in the street were the ones a man and woman make when they live out loud and in every color of the rainbow.
I woke up a little after noon the next day to sun slanting across our bed and lay curled on my side, wondering if Queen Mac had anything to do with the sultry clime drifting in the open window.
I trusted she knew she couldn’t turn Dublin permanently into southern Georgia without seriously screwing up our rainy, verdant isle. But I’d happily take a few days of this weather, knowing how much Dancer loved it. He needed some long lazy hours in the sunshine to recuperate from the pace of recent events.
“It’s the day, Shazam,” I whispered, glowing inside. That one. The one I’d been waiting for forever. Today, Ryodan and Barrons were going to start stacking Silvers to rescue my beloved friend. And life would be perfect. Me, Shazam, and Dancer. What more could I ask? My heart was so full of happiness it felt like it might explode.
We’d had sex three times last night. I’d bowed out the fourth, pretending I was sore (like that could even happen), achingly aware of how exhausted he’d been. “We have all the time in the world,” I’d told him, hoping it was true. Pacing ourselves was the key to getting a long life with him.
Going to sleep next to him every night. Waking up with him every morning, feeling the warmth of his body next to—
I went still.
So still I might have been made of stone.
Warily, I opened all my senses to their fullest.
I sleep on my side, one arm under the pillow, backside pressed up to him. Dancer sleeps flat on his back, arms usually over his head. He breathes easier that way.
He was behind me, his hand grazing my hip.
His cool hand.
I pondered that. He might have gotten up to get a glass of milk or something and his hand was still cool from holding the glass. Or maybe he’d had one of the grape Popsicles we’d made a couple nights ago from grape juice and a couple of bottles of iced wine we’d found. I’d roll over and find his lips were purple from sucking on one. Everything would be fine.
“Dancer?” I whispered.
Nothing.
“Dancer?” I said.
Silence.
Loudly, brightly, “Dancer, wake up. It’s the day. We’re going through to Shazam today. You two are going to love each other. We’re going to be a family.” And we were doing it together; he was coming off world to Planet X with me, we’d decided last night. Even though I was worried about his heart, I’d agreed to not cage him and he wanted to be there with me, to celebrate a joyful reunion. Or comfort me if it didn’t go as we hoped.
I have super senses. Super smell, sight, strength, speed.
And hearing.
There was only one person breathing in our bed.
I exploded up, spun midair and slammed my hands down on his chest. “Dancer!” I snarled. “Wake up!”
He was still, eyes closed.
Pump, pump, pump.
I read about this. Never did it. Learned in case I needed to. Thirty pumps at the rate of 100 to 120 per minute. Tilt head, lift chin, pinch nose, breathe. Two breaths. Each lasting a second.
Pump, pump, pump. Breathe.
I kicked up into the slipstream so I could do it faster and straddled him, envisioning the heart inside his body, that lovely, unfairly penalized muscle, and pretended I was wrapping my hands around it, massaging it back to life as I worked.
Pump, pump, pump. Breathe.
I vibrated as intensely as I could because Mac told me that Ryodan said (and how he knows is beyond me) that I give off a subtle electrical charge when I do. I hit full intensity, pumping at the same time.
No breath. Not a twitch or even a flicker of eyes behind his lids.
Pump, pump pump, breathe.
Pump, pump, pump, breathe.
The tears came long before I stopped trying to bludgeon and breathe and vibrate his body back to life.
Burning, hurting, scarring so motherfucking deep.
My head whipped back and I snarled at the ceiling with grief and fury and white-hot rage. “Why?” I shook my fist. “Give me one good reason! Tell me WHY you son of a bitch! Why not me? Do you take everyone away and leave me here just to torture me?”