Page 47 of Skinwalker's Bane
Peter nodded. He was frowning.
“What else is there?” Adam asked cautiously. He knew that look.
“It’s just…” Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m deconstructing the chemical nature of this thing and it’s… There’s something about it. I can’t pin it down. There’s a sense of familiarity about it.”
“You didn’t create it, did you?” Adam asked.
“This stuff is evil,” Peter said. “I’d have to be depraved to even dream it up. And then what? I forget I’d invented it while I merrily investigate?”
“Keep digging. Although I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that,” Adam said with a grin. Peter was dogged when he was trying to unravel an organic compound mystery.
They finished their chocolate and went their separate ways. Peter was a housemate and the least demanding of the three. He moved through life quietly, focusing on his peculiar interests. He didn’t leave messes around the apartment like Corin. He didn’t bring home a steady stream of strangers, as Lincoln had. Adam liked Peter for his unassuming ways, yet after six years sharing the same apartment, he still didn’t know him as well as Noa and Haydn did. He was just grateful that Peter was as weirdly smart as he was. The suits they wore outside saved their lives every day and that was all Peter’s work.
The next day, Captain Owens appeared live in the Aventine to tell everyone about the shard and Adam forgot all about Peter’s evil drug.
Chapter Twelve
The house AI announced Adam had arrived just as Zsoka Owens was finishing up her summary of the scientific findings about the shard. Devin had listened with close attention to the speech, trying to absorb all the technical details. There were a lot of them. There would be smart people all over the ship analyzing the assays, adding the weight of their opinions to the sum total knowledge of the shard.
It would turn the conversation about the shard from the ridiculous to the possible, which would help calm the hysteria that had been starting to build. Just a few minutes on the Forum, sampling the reactions people were posting even as the Captain was still speaking, told Devin this was going to work even more effectively than she had thought it might.
This was my idea, Devin thought, looking at the screen.The Captain is doing what I suggested.
Little fingers rippled along her spine, making her shiver. She would never have thought, as a small child, that one day she might be able to influence the Captain herself and help change the course of theEndurance’shistory.
This was much better than simply finding a way to improve a single person’s life by finding out what ailed them. This was powerful. Heady. She could easily do it again. And again.
Then the house AI told her Adam was at the front door and Devin forgot all about the Captain and changing lives, as she hurried to the front door to be there when the AI let him in.
She reflected that her own life had changed considerably in the last few days, in a way she would have not predicted, either.
The last two days of Adam’s recovery had been far from the remedial calm that Anar Bader had recommended. That first kiss had set off a frantic two days of sexual play that had depleted her body and mind and laid her nerve endings waste. Sex had never been a huge driver in her life—she had instead channeled her energies into her ambition to be Captain. Whenever she was near Adam, though, she turned into a woman she barely recognized. She could think of nothing but getting as close to him as possible. She had found herself tearing off the few layers he had bothered with in those two days, to reach every inch of him with her hands and mouth.
He made her feel things she hadn’t thought were possible for the human body. The pleasure had melted her brain and left her trembling.
At the end of the two days he had printed off a fresh set of coveralls and headed to the engine room for his first shift back after the beating. He had kissed her at the door before stepping out. Actually, it had been far more than a simple kiss. He had left her propped limply up against the wall, where she had stayed for minutes, letting her energy rebuild and her thoughts coalesce.
She had returned to work herself and had spent the day forcing her mind to the work over and over again. She would find herself at a standstill, blinking, returning to what she had been doing as if she had woken from a dream. Except it was no dream. It had really happened and her mind played over those moments of sheer delight, while her body zapped and pulsed in remembrance.
Devin had returned home earlier than usual, which meant she had only spent nine hours at the office, instead of the usual twelve. When she got to her house, she found Adam leaning against the front door, waiting for her.
She picked up his hand and took him inside.
Today had been almost a repeat of yesterday. After an intense night of primal sex and mindless pleasure, Adam had kissed her goodbye and gone to work.
Nothing had been said about what they were doing in the three days so far. Devin wasn’t sure she wanted to say anything, yet. This could simply be a moment for Adam. He was a skinwalker. They moved on quickly, before their lives were entangled in messy relationships that might suffer if anything happened to them, which often did.
While it lasted, though, she would enjoy the spine-stretching, muscle-sapping pleasure and not examine the relationship too closely, in case she ruined it with her probing. So she opened the door with a smile.
“You’re early,” Adam muttered, stepping inside. He took the door from her and shut it firmly. “Good.” He pushed her up against the same wall and kissed her, his lips hard and demanding.
She closed her eyes and enjoyed his hands on her body, loosening her shirt—he had become adept at unfastening buttons once she had demonstrated how they worked and now slid them undone at light speed—then pushed his big hand inside and settled his fingers against her flesh, making her moan.
They were both naked before he picked her up and took her into the bedroom and it was a long time after that before she could think coherently once more.
* * * * *
They were both starving, afterward, so Devin asked the AI to turn on all the lights and get the printer going, producing the meal she had pre-programmed. Adam blinked at the brighter light as he shrugged into the robe she had printed for him the first day he had spent in her bed.
