Espionage #2
She was still grinning, her eyes wickedly crinkled.
He could practically see the sparkle of glee, even on the tiny display.
And her smile was… He couldn’t think of a word.
Just that it was ten times as compelling as her rage, her queenly arrogance, even that hint of vulnerability he’d glimpsed earlier.
Pure and unfettered. The sort of smile a man dreamed of evoking.
It seemed somehow familiar.
Her lips moved in speech, and he had a bare moment to mourn that he’d never installed a microphone on the drone, because he couldn’t read lips. He wanted to hear her voice desperately, even knowing it would ring of mockery.
But he didn’t need to know the words she was saying to know what she was saying.
I win.
With perhaps a dash of fuck you.
And then the camera fell, briefly showing another flash of the blue sky before it was obscured by sand again, glowing with sunlight, then fading to absolute darkness.
She’d buried it. Just like she had his siege tower.
And though he spent a few minutes hoping for a Bugs Bunny tunnel to appear, delivering his drone to him like magic, there was nothing. She wasn’t giving it back.
“That fucking drone cost three thousand dollars,” he muttered out loud. Maybe if he wiggled the joysticks more—
But no. If it was underground far enough that no light was getting through, he was just going to strip gears and bearings, fuck the drone up even more than whatever she’d done to down it. He’d have to see if he could dig it up later, hope that nothing had been damaged beyond repair.
And goddammit he hadn’t managed to find another path to his destination. He’d been distracted by the silk and the curves and the breasts and that barest glimpse of areola…
This is what you get, he berated himself, for using your penis for a brain.
It was funny, sure. He could laugh at himself, at how easily he’d been seduced into losing one of his greatest assets, his only tool for recon. His very expensive only tool for recon. But it really wasn’t funny at all. He sank back in his camp chair and groaned.
Science wasn’t supposed to come with enemies and sieges and dangerous women.
It was supposed to be boring. He liked it boring.
He’d been looking forward to meditative day after meditative day, taking samples and jotting down notes and enjoying the clear sky, the way the stars shone far away from the city.
Plenty of time alone, to get used to the aloneness, to accustom himself to being a single man…
Except he hadn’t missed Sarah once since he’d first arrived here.
He glared at the cacti across the way, at the shadows edging toward noon.
His work wasn’t done for the day, but he was sure as shit done for the morning.
So he worked his way out of his armor, piece by piece, hanging each of them to air out.
His T-shirt was drenched with sweat, just from the short venture out in his full kit.
That went on the rack, too, and he stretched, a faint breeze cooling the last hints of perspiration on his chest, then stalked around to the back of the Jeep.
The portable fridge-freezer was still buried under lumber. He leaned the boards up against the Jeep and leaned in to flip open the lid, frowning at the contents. He didn’t usually drink in the morning, but mead was kind of like a mimosa, wasn’t it? Brunch material.
Ethan grabbed a chilled can of Dune Bloom and stomped back to his camp chair.
The mead burst like sunlight on his tongue, honey and prickly pear, and he relaxed at last. It wasn’t all that hot, really, but he rubbed the cold can over his cheeks anyhow, then across his chest. The faint shock was what he needed to clear his mind. To conquer frustration and return to strategy.
What did he still have in his arsenal?
A fuckton of lumber, that was one thing. Two tall stepladders. Power tools. A solar panel to charge them and a generator for backup. He could get more wood, too, if he needed it. Rent a U-Haul trailer, fill it to the roof with future bridges and ladders and barricades.
And the drone might be gone, but he still had the recordings. Not the full-resolution files, of course—those were on the SD card buried along with the drone—but he always streamed to the controller for a secondary recording so he could review his footage before recalling the drone.
He pulled up the wide aerial shot and fished his canteen and sketchbook out of his backpack.
First things first. A successful siege starts with a map of the terrain.
Mara burst out of the earth at the top of her hill, gasping from more than exertion.
She’d gone hunting for the accursed green Jeep as soon as she’d buried the drone, glamouring herself to invisibility and following his footprints along the wash.
They were deeper going toward her hill than away, which gave her pause until she remembered his ladder and bridge.
Had he carried them all the way to her hill?
Clearly he was more determined than she’d thought.
Also strong. She would be stronger, of course, since she had magic behind her movements, but the thought still made her shiver with worry.
A large part of her defense counted on her deduction that he did not want to damage the cacti she was blocking him with.
But if that turned out to be wrong… Or if he decided that preserving the landscape was less important than his work…
But she had the advantage. She could pass invisibly, sabotage him in ways he’d never expect or possibly even believe. Learn his plans ahead of time and counteract them. And she had rage on her side, rage and grief. She’d been confident of her victory when she arrived at his campsite.
And then he’d looked at her.
Not at her, of course. She was invisible, her weight not even denting the sand that supported her.
But his glare had gone right through where she was standing and she’d felt it like a knife, the intensity of those gray-blue eyes, stabbing cold and deep into her gut, pinning her in place like a butterfly on a board.
And when he’d finally turned away, that wound hadn’t faded. She’d remained frozen. Mesmerized.
She’d stood and watched, telling herself it was strategy. That she was waiting for the moment he revealed another weakness she could exploit. Another tool she could sabotage.
Except all he was doing was undressing, removing pieces of red and black and black and red and tossing them over a rack.
His shirt beneath had been damp, translucent, spread in wrinkles like gauze over his strong chest and back, and then he’d taken that off, too, exposing the line of his back and the sharp wings of his shoulderblades, glistening with moisture.
His movements had been sharp and erratic, practically crackling with leashed energy as he’d stalked to his Jeep.
While his back was turned, Mara had moved closer, until she was standing under his wide sunshade.
She had felt dizzy, the danger of the moment sending lightning sparks of awareness out to her fingertips, and when he turned back from the Jeep, she’d held back a gasp.
He was just so large, even with his armor off, the hard muscles of his chest far wider than her hands would span.
He had sat grouchily before her, his long legs stretched out in a relaxed sprawl almost far enough to meet her feet.
The crack of an opening can had sent another jolt through her, one that somehow made her take a step forward, and another, until she was standing between his spread knees, close enough to smell the damp denim, the musk of sweat, the honeyed floral scent of whatever he was drinking.
His lips had been a sensual pink curve against the silver of the can’s rim, and she’d licked her lips without thinking, holding her breath as he stroked the wet can against his cheek, leaving a faint trail of moisture and pinkness in its wake, and then down to the strong swell of his chest, droplets of condensation gleaming faintly in the diffuse sunlight, trickling along his pale skin, catching on his flat pink nipple, which hardened under her gaze, and she leaned forward to taste it and—
And she’d fled. Not just across the wash but all the way back to her ring of cacti, the barrier that she now knew was going to be entirely ineffective against the real danger.
She had not been prepared for this. Not one bit prepared.
Mara wanted him. She wanted him, this huge arrogant obnoxious brute who had invaded her peace.
Now that she’d seen it—recognized it—it was unmistakable.
The tingling sensitivity of her skin, the shuddering warmth in her stomach, the liquid heat deep within her bones like lava.
The way he’d even invaded her dreams. Even now, part of her was reaching back through the sand, yearning, quivering at every shift of his weight upon the earth.
It was ridiculous.
He would return in the afternoon, undoubtedly. She had to prepare her fortifications, find a way to block his progress. But this was a greater problem. She could not wait.
With an annoyed huff, Mara fell to her knees, setting her hand gently upon the sand. She closed her eyes and sent her energies into the ground, aligning the crystal matrices, sending vibrations along the pathways she knew but had left untraveled for years.
The response came quickly, as she should have expected. An amused chuckle bubbled out of the earth, and the sand beneath her fingers that her magics had smoothed into a still pool swelled and bulged into a smiling face.
“Well,” said Ofelia through the sand. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
Mara tried not to roll her eyes. “It is an emergency,” she replied. She ran her sandy hand through her hair.
The sand could only show the contours of her friend’s face, not the gleam of eyes or the tint of her skin, but the quirk of Ofelia’s eyebrow spoke volumes. “Do I need to come?”
“No,” Mara said on an exasperated laugh. “No, it is too foolish a reason for a visit.”