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It was already dark when the shuttle putted to a stop at the resort, the breeze warm and heavy with humidity and heady with flowers and ocean salt, just strong enough to blow my hair in my eyes. I glanced at my watch: almost six. Well, six here-- eleven at home. Six was a bit early for it to be pitch black, at least in Chicago. But at home the moon didn’t hang upside down either, nestled in with constellations I couldn’t name, so it wasn’t much to base my expectations on. I was sweating, hot even without the sun, my shirt sticking to my back, my jeans weighed down, but at least I’d taken Detective Brigatti’s advice and packed sandals in my carry-on.
I’d never been to Hawaii before-- it was too far, too expensive, too much work to make the time for. Greg and I had talked about going somewhere, a late honeymoon, but everything had ended in too much time at work and too many fights and then we were over. Rick and I had done a cruise, leaving from Miami and going through the Caribbean, our suite a gift from his parents. I’d heard he and Lisa were doing the Mediterranean.
The shuttle rattled away, and I hefted my duffel over one shoulder, slung my bag over the other, and made it about three steps towards the lit, open lobby, the concierge visible through the wide spaces where walls should have been, before Kincaid detached from the shadows and almost got a jab in the neck before I recognized him.
“Murphy. I surrender,” he said, putting his hands up and stepping back, his smile flashing just long enough to get on my nerves and just quickly enough to make my skin tingle and my libido take notice.
I snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it, Kincaid. Thanks for the traditional aloha heart attack.” I bent and slung my bag back over my shoulder, swung my duffel at him and he caught it easily. “I thought I was supposed to get laid.”
We shared a smirk. “That’s on the menu,” he said. “But why don’t I show you the place first?”
“Promises, promises,” I grumbled, and caught him with a tap to the side with my elbow as I pushed forward, just light enough to make contact, to say hello without getting mushy about it. “That’s what you said last time.” When he’d stopped by, the night after Raith, and I’d wanted to fuck something or hit something or both, and we’d sparred in my little living room until we were drenched and shaking and then ate two large pizzas and drank a twelve pack.
And then he’d left me with my hangover in the morning and nothing else to show for the night. I got a phone call a week later, and then a few months after that, and then even more months after that he’d offered this, his condo on Maui, part of a complex a resort owned most of and that rented his unit out for him when he wasn’t here.
He lead me around back of the lobby and by the restaurant, all murmured conversation and clinking dishes and candle and torchlight from the patio, then past a swimming pool lit up and glowing blue, a few kids splashing in it, and then the hot tub, stuffed full with their parents, and then down a little shadowed hall and up to the door of a ground floor suite. My stomach let off a sound like a jet engine warming up, startling a laugh from Kincaid, making him jerk his key card through the door lock too fast.
He handed me the card, dropping my bag on the floor. “I’ll go order some takeout,” he jerked his shoulder at the restaurant. “You like pasta?”
“Yeah. But no macadamia nuts,” I told him, “or olives. Definitely cheesy. Something with meat.” My stomach growled again. “Cheesecake if they have it.”
“Didn’t feed you on the flight, huh?”
I snorted. “Lunch in LA was a long time ago, Kincaid. And one pack of peanuts over the Pacific does not constitute a meal.”
“Pasta,” he nodded. “Tortellini? With chicken? Pesto-basil, bolognese, or cream sauce?”
“Whatever you want to be sucking face with later.” I slid the card through the lock, pushing the door open and swinging my bag in first. I handed Kincaid his key. “I’m nothing if not considerate.” He smirked and I let the door shut.
I slung my bags into the alcove by the door; I don’t like to unpack in other people’s houses. Or chintzy rental condos, whatever. I was only here for a week.
The door clicked open behind me. “On second thought, why don’t I call for the food.”
“I’ll read your diary,” I said, strolling in to look around the rest of the interior, see what kind of a house Kincaid kept.
It was a nice little place. To either side, the entranceway split into t-stops with three doors, and opened up onto a decent sized kitchen-- for a condo-- and a big sitting room that gave way to a patio. It was clean, dusted, but the decorations were still standard. He didn’t have a gun safe, at least not one built in anywhere I could see. No bolt holes. This wasn’t a home to him, it wasn’t even a base of operations; it was an expensive hotel room. A convenient bed.
Frankly, if he’d brought me to one of his real bases of operations, I’d have been nervous. First sign of red roses or jewelry and I was out.
I opened one of doors on the right. It was a bedroom, fair sized, done up in greens and yellows, decorated for a generic kid. Ivy’s, when they were here, probably. The bookshelf against one wall, mostly empty, the easel in the corner; they told me more about her than anything here did about him. The thought wasn’t a fuzzy one, for all that she’s a decent kid. I’ve dated single fathers before. I don’t want to again.
So far, Kincaid was respecting the not-dating lines we’d drawn.
I could hear him on the phone, stuck my head into the kitchen to see-- the cordless handset cradled under one ear, a menu in front of him, a quick “mahalo,” and he was hanging up. “Ten minutes,” he said. “Main bathroom’s there,” he pointed at the door beside Ivy’s. “Another there.” To the left. “My bedroom’s there.” The last of the three doors on my right. “Spare bedroom down there,” the hall on the left again, “two twins, though, better for tourists, and the laundry’s beside it. You can have the sofa bed if you’re a snorer.”
I pulled a face at him and caught him with my hip as I walked past, opening his fridge. “Nice place. What do you have to drink?” I pulled out a beer and eyed it suspiciously. Not a name I knew, had pineapples on the logo. “This any good?”
He grunted and handed me a bottle opener. “Not bad. Grab me one too. I’ve got wine and rum for later.”
I did, and we drank in silence for a few minutes, me leaning against his fridge, him against the counter, the air conditioner whirring away, a gust of cold making me shiver. It was nice, though. The heat of the place had settled over me like a winter coat as soon as the plane had landed, heavy and wet and tropic in a way that home never was, not even on the hottest, boiling days of summer. “So, what do I have to look forward to?”
He shrugged a shoulder, drained his bottle. “Weather’s nice. Reaches the mid 80s, but the wind keeps it comfortable. We’re right on the beach, a nice one, and there’s a pool. Lots of beaches-- it’s a damn island. I’ve got a Jeep.”
I nodded, took another drink. “Didn’t really come to get a suntan,” I said. “But I wouldn’t mind one. Too.” He chuckled, a breathy, throaty sound that hit me in the same place as the flight and beer, warm and gold and sleepy beneath my stomach. I curved my back, pressing against the fridge, and caught him with a smirk. “But don’t try to tell me you invited me all this way just to go swimming, Kincaid.”
“I had some other things in mind,” he said, tipped his bottle at me. “Your ass. How your face gets all red when you’re breathing hard. ...Your ass.”
I tracked my gaze down to his feet and back up. “You been thinking about me that much, huh?”
“Thinking about it enough to invite you over,” he said, and I drained my bottle.
“One hell of a booty call.”
“You came.”
I shrugged, put a bit of an edge in my smile. “Nice to get laid somewhere where I won’t get an 11:30 call from the precinct.”
He matched my grin, finished his own beer. “You came,” he said again.
It was true. So was what I’d said. My nerves caught up to me, twisted in my stomach, my cheeks flushing, the beer rushing to my head-- because I’d drunk it fast, on an empty stomach. You’d think I’d know better. Know better than to take off halfway around the world when a guy promised to drop his boxers just because I was horny and twitchy and needed to work it out, and this was the best way to do it without bloodshed or road rash or bruising up my knuckles. Maybe a trip to Hawaii should have had more behind it than wanting to get laid uninterrupted, and maybe he was thinking that too, staring at me, his shoulders and mouth tight, but I liked the way he looked, I liked his attitude, I liked that he wasn’t scared of me--
So really, it didn’t have to be, I could make a trip for any damn reason I liked, and when I realized that, some of the tension eased up. Him, too.
He went to the freezer, dumped some ice into a bowl and pulled a bottle of wine down from a cupboard to rest in it. “I’ll go get the food. Change into something pretty.”
“Fuck you,” I said blandly. “I’m taking a shower. I smell like an airplane.”
I had my head bent over the bathtub, rubbing down my hair with a towel when Kincaid came back. I hooked the bathroom door with my foot and pulled it open, letting a bit of the steam escape. “You get me cheesecake?”
“Chocolate raspberry,” he said, the door opening more, his shadow leaning in. I peered around my shoulder, flexed my ass and watched him leer. “And pineapple and blueberry. Didn’t know what you’d like.”
“Those are good. You get yourself anything?”
He snorted, retreated. I could hear him moving down the hall, turning into the kitchen. “Chocolate-coconut mousse,” he shouted back, after a moment.
I stood, smirking, wiped down my neck, my back, pulled on the loose sleeping shirt I’d grabbed from my duffel and a pair of underwear, and followed him into the kitchen. “Sounds good. You feel like sharing? Mm-- smells good, too.”
He’d spread the takeout containers across one of the counters and the breakfast bar, stacked some plates and cutlery and wine glasses, was rattling around with a corkscrew. “You going to eat any of the dinner, or just all three desserts?”
“Hey, it’s vacation.” I popped the lid on one of the takeout containers and served out some of the salad; tried again on the next container and leveled out half of the creamy tortellini. “I’ve got a whole week to get fat.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” he said, passed me a glass of wine and snatched the plate I’d served up, picking up some pasta with his fingers and slurping it down, chasing the sauce down his wrist with his tongue.
I made a face at him and passed over a napkin before I served up a second plate, sipping from my glass-- good wine, a bit rich but so was the meal, and we folded down on his couch instead of at the little dining table or the breakfast bar. We were perpendicular to the patio, and I unlocked and slid the door open an inch or so, just enough to hear the waves. The pool and hot tub crowd were muted, distant voices I had to strain to make out. There was no view with the sun down. Just shades of dark and black, a few low burning lights out on the resort grounds, no real delimitation between ground and sky and ocean. I pulled the curtain shut, leaving just enough room for the air to flow without doing too much damage to the air conditioning budget.
I’d been hungrier than I’d realized, cleared off my plate after a few long moments of systematic attack. “Oh god,” I said. “That was really good.”
Kincaid reached over and refilled my wine glass, reaching down to brush my stomach with the movement, leering. “You save any room?”
“For dessert,” I said, bluntly teasing instead of flirtatious, but gave him a wicked smile. He was comfortable, surprisingly so for all the time I’d known him, but it was easy to be casual, easy to be myself. I didn’t want to make this something serious-- but I might just be okay making it a friendship. He was kind of a dick, though, so maybe not. Although that was probably why we got along. “There’s still cheesecake. And that mousse.” I shoved at the couch, trying to get myself into a more upright position.
“Cheesecake will keep,” he said, leveraging himself up from the sofa with a grunt. At least I wasn’t the only one who was susceptible to the gravity sink of comfortable furniture. “Mousse, not as well.” He put one of the leftover takeout boxes in the fridge, grabbing two spoons and bringing the other over. “I’ll help you work it off,” he added, faux-solicitously.
“You count your own calories,” I said. “I want chocolate.”
Kincaid came through, handing me a spoon and putting the new takeout container the coffee table between the empty plates, popping it open to show a little chocolate covered ball set in a small plastic bowl. He dove in, breaking the thin chocolate shell and stealing a third of the mousse in one go. I gaped at him, and dove forward, smacking his spoon away when he went in for the rest of the mousse. I got at least half of the remainder on my spoon, and then into my mouth. I moaned, surprised-- it was amazingly good. Coconut isn’t even my favorite, but when in Hawaii.
Kincaid took advantage of my distraction, finishing off the rest of the dessert with a smirk, and collapsed back on the couch hard enough to make it shake. He reached down and popped the button on his jeans, patting at his belly.
“So hot,” I deadpanned, standing and scooping up the mousse bowl and the plates and glasses and taking them to the kitchen sink.
“Just giving you easier access,” he said, wriggling his hips.
“So I gotta do all the work around here, huh?” I said, leaving the dishes to soak. I put a little menace in my hips on my way back, trying to goad him up onto his feet.
He grabbed me by the wrist to pull me down as soon as I got close enough, so I tumbled against his side knee first, just shy of a kidney shot. He exhaled sharply and let go of my wrist, grinning at me lopsidedly.
“Are we actually going to screw this evening?” I asked. “Or do we just go off and lay around in a food afterglow.”
He considered this. “I could screw.”
“I see,” I said, breathing deep, the meal settling, energy filling up where I’d been over-hungry before, “great. You could. If nothing better comes up. How nice to know you’ve given--” He was up and shoving the couch back until it hit the wall in one too-fast movement, one of his big hands sliding under my hip to wrench me upright before I went back with it.
I kept my balance enough not to fall, and to twist when he tried to get a better grip on me. I couldn’t stop his momentum, but levered myself up so my legs were wrapped around his hips when my back hit the wall next to the patio door.
“Should have known you were an up against the wall kind of guy,” I said, a little breathless, trying not to let him know he’d almost winded me. “Hate to break it to you though, sport, unless you’ve got a box for me to stand on--”
I bit down on my lip, catching the gasp before it got out all fluttery, tilting my hips to bear down against the thumbs he’d slipped in along either side of the crotch of my underwear. “Right to the point,” I said. “I appreciate that--” I didn’t catch it that time, things going moan-shaped at the end, his thumbs pressing just enough to make things flex and open but not enough to slip inside.
He pulled off before he did more than brush my clit, but the close call was enough to make my stomach go warm and tingly, goosebumps breaking out along my thighs where they rubbed up against his shirt. I was getting wet. A bit escaped me, and his thumb caught it, smearing it into my pubic hair, pressing a little harder-- I arched back against the wall, breath getting short, waited until he smirked, and used the extra leverage it gave me to tuck my legs in close and push off.
All my weight against one of his hips was just enough to throw him off balance. I hit the ground and twisted, followed through with a hip check, and knocked him back onto the couch, landing on top of him a second later, one of my knees between his.
“What about my easy access?” I said. “I really am doing all the work here.” He snorted at me, tugged at my shirt, and I went down to kiss him without fighting it.
I dragged my hand up the inseam of his jeans, thumb against the taut denim; he made a nasty, growling noise against my mouth, and I got distracted enough by his hands coming up under my shirt that it took a while to tick over and figure out why I felt like something was missing.
Where the hell had he put his dick? Was I doing something that he wasn’t up for? He didn’t sound like he wasn’t enjoying himself.
I frowned, didn’t break the kiss because he kisses surprisingly well for such an asshole, but I went fishing around his groin, trying to make sense of the topography with the heel of my hand.
Then he growled and clamped his thighs around my wrist, hips rocking hard.
“I need that,” I said mildly. Not very mildly. My voice was already husky, blood all fired up by the foreplay cum combat.
“Oh, I need it more,” he purred, but he unclamped his legs and let me have my arm back while he grumbled and struggled out of his pants.
He’d gone commando, and I could see and now smell the faint dampness he’d left on the crotch of his jeans just before he flung them away. It was kind of sweet and kind of heady, and pretty familiar.
There was something he’d neglected to mention, and while I’d already half figured it out, I did have a moment of... I don’t know, annoyance, maybe, that he hadn’t thought to tell me.
He looked at me, puzzled by my irritation, followed my gaze to the blond puff of curls over his mound and the cleft of his labia, looked back up at me.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Thought we had that conversation. No, huh? So, sometimes, when a daddy demon and a mommy human think each other are really hot, and come from a century where birth control is less than an exact science, they have a baby. And sometimes, to humans, that baby’s a bit of a surprise, and is big enough for a man, but strong enough for a woman.” He winked, thrusting his hips at me.
I sighed, and resisted my first impulse, which was, I admit, to call him a dick. Thought we’d had that conversation. Of course he had. “Not a deal-breaker,” I said instead, shooting him half a glare. “Anything else I should be ready for?”
“The earth to move. The ground to shake. Choirs of angels,” he said, and flicked his tongue at me. I rolled my eyes and tackled him back across the couch, wedging my leg back between his.
He rolled up against me, thighs locking around mine, and growled happily as he went foraging under my shirt again. His big fingers found a nipple, tweaked gently.
“Not hearing angels yet,” I told him, just to be an asshole. “Don’t think that’s the angel button.”
“There’s an order to this,” he said. “That button’s much lower.” He tried to roll me over, I tried not to get under his weight, we fell off the couch, rolled, and sent the coffee table crashing away. We froze for a second, but it hadn’t broken and I personally stopped caring for a while, and started getting my shirt off.
He was on me mouth first as soon as it was gone, kissing and mouthing a wet heat across my breasts, cupping both in his big warm hands. The friendly wrestling adrenaline turned into friendly sexy adrenaline and little pleasant tingles spread out across my skin as he mouthed a nipple.
I scratched my fingers under his shirt for a little turnabout, tugged on his chest fur, palmed one of his pecs-- breasts? I dug my fingers into it, getting a happy little grunt for the effort. Strong, but soft, more surface give than I would have expected, if I hadn’t already had a look between his legs. I remembered a painting I’d seen at the Art Institute, one of the few times I’d actually gone out to do things in my city lately that didn’t revolve around crime scenes, paperwork, or monsters trying to eat people. An old painting, oil. Venus telling Jupiter he was an asshole or something, and built like she was ready for the WWE, muscles from her feet to her neck, arms bigger across than my thighs, her visible breast pulled tight by muscle.
Well what do you know, I was fucking an oil painting. I scraped his nipple with a flick of my thumbnail, got a jerk and a hiss and felt it swell up, already hard but tightening, flicked again and tugged-- he gave a wicked little hip roll and clamped his thighs around one of mine, the teasing he’d been doing with his mouth and lips stilling.
“Earth moving?” I suggested sweetly, and he grumbled around my breast, so I pinched, threw in a nasty little twist, and he gave a shivery little shimmy, panting, and bit down hard enough to make me jerk and yelp. I blinked down at him as a red flush spread across his upper back.
“Whoa, whoa. Did you just-- oh god, you did, you lucky bastard,” I said, laughed, and then again, louder than I meant to, when he rose up, a perfect red bite mark left behind on my breast, and slipped his hands under my hips and lifted, hauling us around and up.
I don’t know how he kept his knees working that fast after orgasm, but he had me back up against the wall, moving in that too-fast, too-strong, not-all-that-human way, one hand pinning my hips, the other tucking in under my underwear.
“Oh--” I said, and “oh that’s better,” when his thumb found just the right spot this time, circling and rubbing hard enough to make my knees flex jerkily in the air. “Keep doing that,” I said, starting to go breathless. Christ, he could actually use those fingers. “Ground’s getting shakier-- shakier.”
“There’s the face I was looking for,” he said, way too even-toned. I glared at him with one eye, the other squinted shut, arching up against the wall, pushing back down against his grip, getting a little hit off of how easily he was keeping me off the ground. “All red. Can’t see your ass this way, though. Later. Going to let me fuck it? I’ve got all the stuff.”
I bit at my lip, trying to get the sounds my mouth was making back under control. The jerk was looking way too smug, my underwear a wet tangle around his hand. “Only if you let me at yours,” I traded, rubbing against his thumb with each wiggle of my hips. “I was really-- really looking forward to that.”
“Deal,” he said, and flicked me back with his own thumbnail, reaching over to close the sliding patio door beside us just as I started to scream, smirking at me all the way through.
Asshole.
So of course he was one of those lucky bastards who do multiple orgasms like it’s no work at all. My jaw was sore and my clit and labia were tingling happily with the memory of his tongue and lips, and my thighs were buzzing and chafed from rubbing up against his, and I really didn’t want to get up to wash my face and rinse my mouth out, but the alternative was falling asleep on the floor.
“Get up,” I said, elbowing him.
“Mmm,” he said, and stretched hugely into another position and settled back down.
“Fine,” I told him, and climbed shakily to my feet, staggering over to the kitchen sink to splash water on my cheeks and slosh it around my mouth. “I’ll drink all the rum without you.”
“No,” he moaned pitifully, and made a show of dragging himself a few feet, limp and boneless. “That kind of treatment was banned under the Unseelie Accords.”
“Soldier up,” I advised him mercilessly, and started rattling around for a cup and something to drink.
“Hey, you’re the reason I don’t want to move,” he accused me, looking way too satisfied for it to stick.
“It’s hard to be a man,” I said without much sympathy. Then: “-this isn’t some painful secret, is it? You’re okay with being male? I can call you he?”
“I don’t actually care,” he said. “Male works, male’s easy. It’s what’s on my passports.”
I gave him an eyebrow at the plural. “Passports.”
“What? You don’t know that I don’t have dual citizenship.” He paused and started ticking off fingers. “...Hexadecimal citizenship. Roughly.”
“Christ.” I just shook my head, because the friendship with benefits thing was going to work a lot better if I didn’t ask questions like that. Or ‘where did you get that extremely non street-legal weapon?’ or ‘how old are you really, to the nearest century?’ or ‘so what major regimes might you have had a role in toppling?’
He levered himself up to his feet, and held himself up with the counter. His face was still sort of slack and stupid looking, but he took the glass I shoved at him while I kept the bottle he’d had stashed in the freezer. Mmm, good rum.
“Take it easy, Murphy,” he said, a few minutes later, utterly facetiously innocent, holding out his already empty glass, just a few sad ice cubes at the bottom. I raised my eyebrows at him to tell him what I thought of that, and took another long swig straight from the bottle. “We’ve got all week.”
