But as soon as Marlene had touched Shabazz, he held her back from him, and then glanced at Big Mike and Rider, and then finally stared at Damali. She just nodded. Shit, what was there to say? Marlene studied the floor, as Shabazz pulled her against his chest. J.L. glanced at the group.
"Later," Big Mike suggested. "Was hard on everybody. We'll fill you in."
"The exciting life - vastly overrated," Rider commented with a yawn. He glanced at Damali and closed his eyes as though trying to keep the conversation light around Dan.
Good move. Rider did have a lot of sense for a wise ass in the group.
"Get some rest, dude," Damali said quietly to Dan as she stood, patting his shoulder and stretching. "Better learn how to catch forty winks in a chair and eat on the run, literally." She needed space. Time alone to process everything that had happened and she had learned.
"Where're you going?" Marlene asked in a weary voice.
Her expression was filled with pain and worry. Her tone was gentle, no longer having the den-mother stridence it often had. This time it sounded like a question asked to a peer, rather than to a child. That, too, oddly made Damali's heart hurt. She'd just lost the only mother she'd ever known; all she could hope for is that one day the trust would rebuild itself so they could be friends. But that would take time... did they have such a luxury?
Marlene's battery had to be on E, just like hers was. She was also beginning to learn that emotional stuff took a toll on second sight. Right now, Damali couldn't see a thing.
"You know where," Damali finally said with a sad smile, trying to leave the door to her heart cracked open for Marlene with the nonsarcastic reply. "To find a hospital vending machine for some chips and orange soda - and I promise to stay inside... I'll even take a concert light, and I've got baby Isis in a leg holster - momma Isis is in the Hum-V. Anybody else want anything?"
Dan looked at her in disbelief, covered his mouth, and dry heaved.
"Now you see why we weren't hungry after that gig in Philly? But noooo, you wanted to go get ribs, or Chinese food - noodles - after we'd smelled barbeque already, and splattered guts." Rider chuckled.
Damali walked away fast as she heard Dan hurl into his hands. Rites of passage; the first time out - the guardian team was a trip the way they teased the poor guy, but Dan was now in the fold. For better or for worse, their crew was formed by the happenstance of fate, as always.
Sudden hunger made her hasten her steps while she stuffed a light wand in her back pocket and tried to find the winding path to the vending area that a busy nurse pointed out.
"Hey" a familiar male voice said over her shoulder when she rounded a dim corridor.
She turned quickly, and then relaxed. "Oh, my God..." She breathed out in a rush. "Are you all right?"
Carlos nodded. "I've seen some things, though, in the last few hours that..." His voice trailed off and he just shook his head. "I was really worried about you."
"I know... you don't even have to tell me - but I'm okay, too. Carlos, I thought..."
His expression was so pained that she immediately filled his arms, and his hand went to her hair. He was cold, as though still in shock - just like Dan had been - his lowered body temperature no doubt the reason for the hard tremor that had run through him when she hugged him. She tried to warm him with her closeness, remembering what it was like the first time she'd had her own dark encounter, pouring all the tenderness and comfort she could into her touch. Sometimes that was the only antidote to fear - just human contact, which she now freely offered him, just like Shabazz had offered Marlene.
Her hands stroked Carlos's back and caressed his tense shoulder blades, and she nestled her head against his chest, closing her eyes to absorb the wonderful relief of connecting with him. Her prayer had been answered: Carlos wasn't dead.
Initially, a sensation of profound peace coated him with each gentle touch from her hands, but as her soft skin melted against his, its warmth created a burn that chased away the joyous freedom of feeling alive - replacing it with something else more primitive. Her skin and hair carried a fragrance that was an erotic lure as it threaded through his nasal passages and assaulted his mind. The feel of her locks under his fingers and against his palm awakened every nerve ending in him and permeated him with the desire to explore the other delicate textures she possessed.
When she'd nestled against him, her form fit so perfectly against his body, sending a shard of wanton agony the length of him that made his lungs now battle for air.
"Are you all right?" she whispered, peering up at him. "You didn't get hurt or scratched by anything, did you - that's not why you're here, is it?"
She'd pulled her head away briefly to look at him. Her sudden vacancy left a cool spot on his chest that immediately ached for her to return to it and cover it. His gaze locked with hers; he could feel his eyelids lower, her brown iris stare too intense for him not to react... her lips had parted to murmur her question, and the full lushness of her mouth fractured his reason as he struggled not to lower his own upon hers to consume it.
"Something was chasing Dan, and he got away... then I found my car, and got out of Dodge." He'd tell her anything to keep her within their embrace, to quiet her possible fears of him.
His words were escaping on stilted breaths as the sensation of her in his arms rocked him where he stood. He held her by her shoulders, allowing his hands the luxury of grazing her skin - the torture of it exquisite.
"After what I saw, I wanted to check some hospital records to see if I could find out what had happened to my family," he lied again. "But I have to wait until the admin offices are open in the morning." Baby, stay in my arms. Just a little longer, don't go.
Then she touched his face and whispered to him that it would be all right, baby. She had no idea... His mouth found the center of her palm, and it was all he could do not to moan into her flesh... Imagining what the rest of her felt like forced his surrender until he completely lowered his lids. Her whisper was the most effective weapon in her arsenal, didn't she know? He pulled a deep inhale of her through his nose and opened his eyes. Her face was upturned to his, her gaze seeking.
He could hear the blood rushing through her veins as her pulse quickened. She drew in shallow breaths that made her petite br**sts rise and fall under the thin fabric of her damp T-shirt...
the tips of them now tiny pebbles - he could feel them sting with a request that he couldn't address, not here. The scent of battle and earth was on her. She'd moistened and he could smell it, the faint, fragrant hint of her that splintered his facade of cool, made him swallow hard and start breathing through his mouth. The silence was deafening in this abandoned strip of space and time in the corridor, and it begged him to consider the possibilities.
Intense female energy fused rapidly to invade his will, making him remember exactly what he was, above everything else - all male. Her belly, her thighs, her thickening delta was touching him from his waist down... and the question that he'd always wondered about began forming in her mind... what if?