Sexual Healing #2
But he gave her the creeps, and he always seemed to be around.
It was pretty obvious that he was following her.
Mitch had told the bouncers at the Purple Moon to keep him out of the club, but he always seemed to be lurking nearby, after hours.
“It’s a relief to have you along, Mr Dugan,” she said quietly, hoping not to alert Drew to any danger.
It was true. Sean Dugan had an imposing presence, even though he looked at her as if he’d never seen a woman before. Maybe he’s never seen a redhead?
In any case, Sandino wouldn’t dare come near her with a man like Dugan standing with her. “Did Mitch show you any pictures of the creep?”
“Creep?”
“You know, Sandino – the guy who’s been following me.”
“Uh, no.”
They walked towards Sheffield Street and when they reached the corner Erica tossed the sandwich to the homeless amputee who hung out in the same place every day. He shouted his thanks and they moved on.
“You feed the . . .”
“He’s harmless and, well, look at him. He needs help.”
She led them to her eight-year-old Corolla and unlocked the car. “Andrew, into the back.”
“I know, Mommy.”
“And you, Mr Dugan,” she said, “can ride shotgun.”
Three
D499 wasn’t quite sure what had just happened.
The colours here were more vivid than any he’d seen in his time, the sounds louder and the smells far more intense.
He could not get over the height of the trees.
They were tall and . . . majestic was the only word he could think of, even though it was an archaic usage.
Federation trees were mere shrubs compared to these.
And they only grew in neat clusters, or straight rows that lined the laz-tracks.
The pure sensuality of the woman – Erica – was something he couldn’t possibly have anticipated.
She wore a light blue sweater, which hugged feminine curves that had obviously been bred out of the women of AD 2743, and black pants, which fitted her like a second skin.
He felt the punch of something hot and sultry, and so intense he could barely swallow.
She had red hair. Red. It was something D499 – or rather, Sean – had never seen before.
It looked smooth and glassy like sheets of styron, and had streaks of gold running through it.
Amazing. Her eyes were green and her lips were full and pink.
Sean’s gaze was drawn to them so often, she was sure to notice if he didn’t get his bewilderment – and his Deviant urges – under control.
With the assumptions she’d made about him, he hadn’t had to use the ruse he’d come up with to get close to Andrew. But he wasn’t quite sure what she expected of him.
In consternation, he dragged one hand across his mouth and got into the vehicle, folding his long legs uncomfortably into the small space.
She had the engine started before he could bring himself to turn back and look at the child whom she’d called Andrew.
Could this be the Andrew Gibson-Booth he’d come for?
“Buckle up, Mr Dugan,” said the boy.
He didn’t know what the child was talking about, and in his hesitation Erica leaned over him and reached for some sort of wide belt hidden beside his shoulder, which she pulled across him and fastened into a metal holder that lay between their two seats.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply as she did so, taking in the pleasant scent of what could only be her warm, feminine body. Scents that had all but disappeared in his time.
What a mistake that was.
She drove out into the street and Sean turned his attention to the business at hand. “Where is the boy’s father?” he asked Erica. Even her name was sensual, the sound of it resonating through his brain almost as much as her enthralling scent.
“My daddy went to heaven before I was born,” Andrew said.
Sean tried to mask his shock. He knew that the father of the man who’d developed Fusion XJ had died a few months prior to his son’s birth. Which meant that the child – this child – was the inventor.
And Sean was meant to stop him, using whatever method he deemed necessary. Many of the members of GreenPiece believed Andrew Gibson-Booth would have to be killed.
Sean swallowed hard. He was no child-killer.
But what was he supposed to do? GreenPiece had sent him back to deal with the scientist who’d invented Fusion XJ.
Clearly, the records they’d pieced together were wrong.
Gibson-Booth must have patented the process years later, certainly not in 2015, as they’d concluded.
Sean had come twenty or thirty years too early.
The boy resembled his mother – he had fair skin, though his hair was more yellow than red. His bright, intelligent, green eyes watched the road.
Sean could easily slide ahead in time in order to deal with Andrew as an adult, but he could not quite bring himself to leave the Erica Gibson-Booth of 2010, possibly to face her twenty or thirty years in the future.
She drove through traffic, and Sean’s attention was violently whipped away from his quandary by the speed they were travelling in her uncontrolled vehicle. There were no laz-tracks to keep this and the rest of the speeding vehicles in place, nothing preventing them from careening into one another.
“How fast does this vehicle travel?” he asked.
Erica shot him a sidelong glance and he felt more than a small degree of alarm, wishing she would keep her eyes on the road. “You’re not from Chicago, are you?”
He swallowed, hanging on tightly to the sides of his seat. “Why do you say that?”
“Your white knuckles,” she responded with a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ve been driving in this kind of traffic for a long time.”
He shuddered as Erica pulled to a stop in front of an old house and got out of the car. Andrew did the same, so Sean followed suit.
“I’ll pick you up in the morning, sweetheart,” Erica said to her son, “as usual.”
“OK,” the boy replied.
“I love you, baby,” she said, crouching down to pull the boy into a tight hug.
“I’m not a baby,” Andrew said as he kissed his mother’s cheek. “I love you, too, Mommy.”
“Behave for Carolyn.”
Even at a distance, Sean could feel the strength of their bond and the power of their emotions.
And he realized that it was yet another aspect of humanity that had been lost with the development of Fusion XJ.
Love wasn’t a highly valued item in his time.
Logic and progress, intelligence and order were the qualities that mattered.
As Erica turned her son over to the smiling woman at the house, Sean tried to sort out the situation.
Erica was on her way to work, and she had just dropped her son at a place where he would be under supervision overnight.
Now she would go to her lab, and she obviously believed that Sean was associated with her work there.
He was not going to disabuse her of that belief until he could figure out what to do. About Andrew.
“Ready?” she asked him.
It must be an idiom, because of course he was ready. She was the one who’d needed to stop. He nodded and got back into the vehicle. Reluctantly. She resumed driving, and he found himself adjusting to the speed, and becoming even more aware of her.
The vehicle’s cabin was small, the seats close together. His thigh was touching hers, and the slight contact made the electrons in his skin switch charges.
At least, that’s what it felt like.
Her scent intrigued him, as did the sway of her hair. She glanced at him, her gorgeous eyes appraising him, looking at him in a way that was completely unfamiliar. Sean wondered if—
No. She could not possibly be showing sexual interest. Could she?
“Where are you from?” she asked.
He swallowed. “Atlanta.” It was the first ancient city that came to mind.
“You don’t sound southern,” she said. She licked her lips and Sean’s eyes locked on to the sight of her moist, pink mouth. He wondered how they would feel against his.
He shrugged as casually as he could. He’d had a lifetime to practise suppressing his libido and he could surely continue to do so now.
“Do you have any family back there?” Her voice was soft, the timbre alluring.
“No, I’m on my own.” That much was true. He had no one here, or in 2743, either. “What about you?”
“Just Drew and me,” she said. “He’s all I’ve got.”
Something in her voice jarred him. If he was not mistaken, it was the sound of complete and utter devotion. She would do anything for her child.
And Sean felt the strangest yearning to feel that kind of dedication. To be the one she cared for.
He pressed his hands against his thighs and tried to focus on the problem he faced rather than the fierce attraction and confusing emotions that were flooding his body and mind, but failed miserably.
He wanted to know what it would feel like to touch Erica Gibson-Booth, to link with her in the primal way of humans – body to body, soul to soul. So much for controlling his libido.
“Why did you take food to that man on the street?”
“Poor guy is homeless,” she said. “It’s not his fault he got his legs blown off in the war.”
Sean gave a short nod and realized he had just seen, first hand, a not unusual result of the mid-world wars that had plagued the planet for decades. His era’s info-discs had not demonstrated the human losses so dramatically.
Nor had they exhibited any of the kindness that had been shown by people like Erica, who cared.
Four
He was looking at her as though he wanted her for dessert, but not in the creepy way that the patrons of the Purple Moon Club ogled her.
She reminded herself not to scorn those clowns at the P.M.C.
too badly, because it was only because of them that Erica was able to pay her bills, and Drew’s asthma meds were expensive.
Her body hummed with awareness of Sean Dugan. He might want her for dessert, but she couldn’t stop thinking of him as the main course. He ran his big hands down his thighs, his discomfort at their proximity palpable.
He was attracted to her, and he hadn’t even seen her dance.