Edge of Nowhere Page 12

  He hadn’t really been cut out for relationships, either, according to Lucas and Rose—no matter how good it had all looked on paper. He’d dated Rose for two years in his early twenties. She’d even moved to Franklin Station so she wouldn’t have to take the elevator up whenever she wanted to see him. But he’d been working long hours, and she’d found someone else to occupy her time. She’d cried when she’d confessed, as if she were the victim. I can’t believe I did that to you, she’d told Emil. You’re so perfect.

  Emil didn’t like to remember that moment. Not because he’d been gutted, although it had hurt plenty. But even then, he’d known that if he’d spent more time with her, things might have gone differently. He’d made his choices and his career had won out. In a way, he’d left her a long time before she’d left him. A perfect person wouldn’t have done that. He’d failed. He wasn’t perfect. Still, he hated how Rose had made perfect sound like an accusation. Like it was a reason to sleep with somebody else.

  He’d taken up with Lucas for another two-year relationship—that was Emil’s romantic expiration date, two years—soon after. There hadn’t been any cheating in that one, but Lucas had essentially said you’re so perfect and exited stage left.

  “You checked off all these goals from your list—your education, your career—and now you want to check off ‘relationship,’” Lucas had said. “And you’re doing everything right! Almost. It’s like somebody gave you a lecture on being a good boyfriend and you made yourself a to-do list. Kiss Lucas when he comes home from work. Check. Make him dinner. Check. Have sex. Check.”

  Emil hadn’t understood what was wrong with his behavior then, and he still didn’t.

  “I have a terrible feeling that if I let you, you’d just stay with me forever out of some sense of duty. You do everything you’re supposed to, and God, an awful little part of me wants to keep letting you do it, but I can’t. Are you in love with me, Emil?”

  “Of course.” Lucas was good-looking and good in bed and they had a comfortable life together and Emil had no idea why he was making such a fuss.

  Lucas had narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying that because it’s what you’re supposed to say?”

  “I don’t know what you mean!”

  “Are you happy, Emil? Really think about it.”

  Emil hadn’t been able to say anything. He didn’t feel unhappy, exactly. But he supposed he didn’t really feel happy, either. He’d never thought about it—no, that wasn’t true. He specifically tried not to think about it. Because when the time came, he couldn’t say yes.

  “Right,” Lucas had sighed, when the silence had grown overwhelming. “That’s not really fair to either of us, then, is it?”

  Emil hadn’t argued. He’d been sad when both Rose and Lucas had left him. Looking back on it through the prism of what they’d said, he wondered now if it hadn’t been a checklist kind of sadness—the expected follow-up to the loss of his dull, empty, checklist happiness. He hadn’t cried. He hadn’t thought of them longingly after the fact. He’d just numbly gone on with his life. Maybe that made him a soulless robot or an empty husk of a person, but he’d come to terms with that. Feelings were chaotic and terrifying and inconvenient. Advancing his career came more easily to him, and luckily, being single and childless had made him an excellent candidate for Quint Services’ mission. Who wanted feelings when there were trips to undiscovered realities to be had?

  Kit stirred against him.

  Yeah. You’d be the most chaotic, terrifying, and inconvenient of all. Kit was all wrong for him. He couldn’t bring a criminal home to meet Zora and his parents. And yet Emil had never felt anything like what he’d felt when Kit grabbed him and kissed him. His brain replayed that moment on a loop any time Kit was near him, as if thinking hard enough about it would make it happen again.

  Kit felt warm against him. How long had they been lying here? Emil had lost track of time.

  When Kit had vanished last night, all Emil could think about was how nothing like that kiss would ever happen again. It was a foolish thing to want—they were both caught in the middle of something incomprehensible and neither of them could afford distractions—and yet he wanted it anyway. That was the nature of want. It was the nature of all feelings to run wild, free from the constraints of logic and reason. Emil knew better than to want Kit. But not only could he not stop wanting, he also kept finding himself in situations that stretched the limits of his self-control. Situations where they had to touch each other. Sometimes without their clothes on. In bed.

  And yet again, just like in the desert, Kit was vulnerable and not in control of all his faculties. Emil had to be the responsible one. It was his job to control himself. To behave morally.

  Even if Kit stirred again and snuggled closer, even if he rubbed up against—

  Emil couldn’t finish that thought. He jerked his hips backward, putting space between them. Kit moved again, compressing the space between them to nothing. Emil bit his lip and closed his eyes and tried very hard not to be aware of his body, which was behaving decidedly against his wishes.

  Kit murmured something. Was he sleep-talking?

  “Pardon?” Emil said.

  “I said, that’s not where I wanted you to kiss me,” Kit said.

  Emil hadn’t kissed—oh no. He had. He’d given in to a ridiculous impulse to kiss Kit’s temple because he’d thought he was unconscious. But Kit was awake now and he’d been awake then and now Emil was caught.

  “And don’t tell me you didn’t want to,” Kit said, undeterred by Emil’s long silence. He sounded entirely too pleased with himself. Emil had to work faster to compile a convincing list of reasons that they shouldn’t, couldn’t move forward with any of this. Kit continued, “I have a state-of-the-art lie detector.”

  And then he rubbed his ass against Emil’s hard-on.

  Emil experienced a second of perfect, thoughtless bliss—the softness of skin, the warmth, the pressure, the friction—before coming back to himself. “Kit, this isn’t a good idea.”

  He tried to put on his most serious tone of voice, but it wavered a little. Kit had a fucking nice ass. And they were both so, so naked.

  “That feels like a lie.” Kit slid his body against Emil’s, up and down and torturously slow. “A big lie.”

  “Please,” Emil said, and he wasn’t sure what he was asking for. He couldn’t bring himself to say please stop, not when Kit was still writhing against him and telling him how big his dick was. God, but he was ridiculous.

  Kit lost the wickedness in his tone, stilled, and said, “Emil, I almost died at least twice today, and my prospects for tomorrow aren’t great. There is nothing you can say that will make me not want this. The only question now is whether you’ll let yourself have it.”

  “Wait, what do you mean, your prospects for tomorrow aren’t great?”

  Kit sighed, impatient. “Almost every time I entered the Nowhere, that thing found me. It feels a lot like it’s trying to kill me. Now, back to the topic at hand. You can take that as literally as you want, by the way.”

  Emil’s hand was still positioned over Kit’s heart. Kit laid his hand over Emil’s and moved their hands suggestively downward.

  “You must have been in and out of the Nowhere for hours, fighting with that thing. Aren’t you tired?” It was a desperate, last-ditch evasive maneuver, and Kit wasn’t fooled.

  “Yes, I’m tired. And hungry. But as previously mentioned, I’m also not dead.”

  “Kit, we—”

  “Do you not like me?” Kit demanded. “Because that’s not what it feels like right now.”

  Emil was prepared to evade, but not to lie outright. Still, his voice didn’t make it much above a mumble when he said, “I like you.” The confession was so inadequate, it was absurd.

  “You stopped us before and you’re trying to stop us now. What are you so afraid of?”

  This. Everything. You. “You were high the first time! And you were barely conscious when you showed u
p tonight! I can’t take advantage of you, Kit.”

  “I’m awake and alert and I’ll recite the alphabet backward if you want,” Kit said. “Trust me, you’re not taking advantage. I don’t know how much more clearly I can express myself.”

  In the quiet that followed, Emil sifted through all of his panicked objections and settled on saying, “I don’t usually do this.”

  “Yeah, well, me neither. I also don’t usually get chased into the depths of the ocean and almost-drowned by a physics ghost,” Kit said. “It’s not a usual kind of day. The question is—do you want to?”

  It was like the moment when Lucas had finally asked him if he was happy. A heart-pounding silence and then the truth. But it was nothing like that moment, because this time, Emil said, “Yes.”

  By some miracle, he managed not to say what does this mean for us or promise you won’t vanish afterward or any of two dozen other inappropriate things. By a second, wildly undeserved miracle, Kit twisted around to face him, threaded his fingers into Emil’s hair, and kissed him, quieting the racket in his brain. This, Emil could do. His partners had always been clear on that point. Pleasing people in bed was just one more skill that could be learned through practice and patience, and Emil was a good student.

  The concrete immediacy of it was familiar and reassuring. They fit their lips together and Emil let his tongue slip against Kit’s. As they kissed, he drew his hands down Kit’s lithe body, around the dip of his waist and the curve of his ass. Even exhausted, Kit was adorably reactive, clenching his hands in Emil’s hair and moaning into his mouth when Emil trailed one hand down his hipbone and into the crease of his thigh. He hadn’t touched Kit’s cock yet, but one glance down proved it was already straining and eager, wet at the tip.

  The sight inspired Emil to break their kiss, although he couldn’t resist kissing his way along the sharp edge of Kit’s jawbone, or sucking a kiss into the tender skin just below his ear. Kit gasped at the graze of Emil’s teeth, and he liked the sound of it. He bit the side of Kit’s neck and was rewarded again. Tracking kisses over his collarbone and down his bare chest and belly made him squirm, and brushing his lips over the tip of Kit’s cock elicited a throaty “Fuck.”

  Emil couldn’t even think about how hard he was. If Kit touched him—maybe even if Kit didn’t touch him—this could all be over embarrassingly fast.

  When Emil finally wrapped his hand around the base, Kit bucked his hips. Emil lowered his mouth over Kit’s cock, sliding down until his lips met his hand. He moved his hand and his head in concert, slicking Kit down, then sliding up until he could run his tongue over the slit at the head. Kit’s hands fisted tightly in his hair, not pushing or pulling but just hanging on for the ride.

  Emil loved giving head. He loved tasting Kit, feeling the weight of his cock on his tongue, listening to him breathe and whimper. And he loved making himself wait, growing harder and harder with every tiny twitch of Kit’s body.

  With his free hand, he cupped Kit’s balls. He reached under with his middle finger, rubbing the sensitive skin there, pressing against it. Kit thrust hard into his mouth when he did that, his hips snapping forward of their own accord, so Emil moved his finger down ever so slightly, until he was circling the rim of Kit’s hole. Kit gripped his hair almost painfully hard at that touch. A little pressure and Kit was groaning and spilling into his mouth, hot and salty.

  “Fuck, fuck,” Kit said. “You are so fucking good at that.”

  Emil swallowed and kissed Kit’s cock, flush with triumph. He laid his head on Kit’s belly. All the blood in his body and all the thoughts in his head flowed down to his own erection, which was pointing straight up toward his navel, dripping and aching. One or two strokes and he’d go off. Even the thought of Kit’s fingers brushing the length was almost too much.

  Kit tugged at his shoulders, urging him to move back up the bed, and Emil went. When he arrived, Kit kissed him deeply, not caring about the taste in his mouth. He stopped for a moment, his hands in Emil’s hair and his dark gaze fixed on Emil. “Wow, you’re just… wow,” he said, breathless and dazzled. “I don’t even think you know how beautiful you are. I want to make you come.”

  He reached down between them and wrapped his slender, clever fingers around Emil’s cock. He slicked it down in one stroke. Emil took a shuddering breath. “Slow,” he pleaded. “I’m not going to last.”

  Kit slowed his hand. He slid up Emil’s length at a glacial pace. “Yeah?” he asked. “You loved sucking me off that much?”

  “Yes,” Emil said, his eyes closed. Kit’s hand felt so fucking good. It had been a damn long time since anyone else had touched him. Kit was slow and delicate and Emil was already wrecked, quivering in anticipation. He wanted the end but he never wanted this to end. He could hear his own breath catch.

  “Beautiful,” Kit murmured, tracing Emil’s bottom lip with his thumb. He’d done the same thing when they’d been in the desert, and the memory came over Emil in a hot rush: how ready Kit had been, how pushy, how much he’d wanted Emil. Sober, Kit wasn’t much different. He still stroked Emil’s cock like it was his favorite thing he’d ever touched. “Will you come for me?” he asked, slipping his thumb into Emil’s mouth so there was only one way to answer.

  Emil’s orgasm ran through him right then, a burst of pleasure that left him shaking and spurting into Kit’s hand.

  “Fuck,” Kit said appreciatively. He leaned over to drop a kiss on Emil’s temple.

  Then instead of settling back into bed, he let go of Emil and bolted upright. “Fuck,” he said, in a completely different tone. It shook Emil out of his languor. “Something is really wrong.”

  10

  A Tremor

  Something was wrong with the Nowhere. Or something had been wrong, and now it was far, far worse. Kit had felt a shift. He was caught between a reckless urge to run toward it to find out what it was and a more sensible urge to run back to Earth—but he couldn’t go into the Nowhere, not after the day he’d had. Even if he had the strength, that thing would find him.

  At least he didn’t have to die without knowing what Emil sounded like when he came. He’d never had sex like that in his life. It felt like the first time he’d ever had sex, period. He’d sucked off Travis Alvey plenty of times, but that felt like something they did to pass the time. It was always very clear what was between them: Kit put his mouth on Travis’s dick in exchange for the same. It was a quick, easy way to an orgasm. Once, Kit had tried to kiss Travis—just for fun, not for any gooey feelings—and Travis had grimaced and pulled away. Sometimes he weaseled out of reciprocating the sex, too. But Emil had treated cocksucking like an art or an act of prayer, something he did for its own sake, something he took joy in. And he’d wanted to kiss Kit.

  Kit touched his lips. He hadn’t known it could be like that. The memory was almost good enough to distract Kit from the world falling apart around him.

  Emil was already out of bed and pulling on sweatpants and a t-shirt. He tossed something at Kit. Kit didn’t reach out in time and caught the fabric with his face instead of his hands. When he pulled it off his face, it became clear that it was a t-shirt. It was, in fact, the t-shirt Emil had been wearing on Saturday night when he’d introduced Kit to the team. It was white with the Quint Services logo printed on the front in black, and Kit was simultaneously enticed by putting on Emil’s t-shirt and repelled by putting on this one. Aidan and Laila were still in that room, strapped into their hospital beds, slowly starving.

  Does Emil know? The thought hit Kit hard. He’d assumed no, since Emil seemed so moral and upstanding. But Emil still worked for Quint Services, which was anything but.

  There was no time for this. Emil said, “Tell me where we need to go.”

  “Lange’s lab.” It was the only possible answer.

  “Shit,” Emil said. “Dax and Lenny are breaking in there tonight—right now, actually.”

  Kit pulled on the t-shirt, which fit him like a tent, and then picked up the pair of g
ym shorts Emil had tossed onto the bed. They had a drawstring waist but were still comically large on him. He wouldn’t be caught dead in this outfit normally, but today was a day for not getting caught dead. Emil tossed one more thing at him, and Kit dodged on impulse. It was an energy bar of some kind and it landed harmlessly on the bed.

  “You need to eat, right?” Emil asked.

  Kit nodded, grateful. How had Emil even remembered that, with so much else going on? He picked it up, unwrapped it, and bit into it as he hurried out of the room after Emil.

  Emil had put on sneakers, but Kit hadn’t forced his saltwater-encrusted boots back onto his feet, so he was barefoot. The lab was only a short way down the corridor. The thought of that room made him shudder, and yet he went anyway. Emil wasn’t a runner. He couldn’t know how wrong it was in there. He was stupid—and brave, but mostly stupid—and Kit had to go be not-stupid for him.

  Emil proved this chain of thought remarkably on point by saying, “Listen, I’ve been thinking, and next time you encounter that thing, don’t run from it.”

  “If you had time to think, I must not have done a very good job,” Kit joked, but it came out sounding tired. He ached everywhere and this speed-walk down the hallway was making him regret not staying in bed. Fear alone was keeping him upright and mobile.

  “I’m serious,” Emil said. “If you keep running, you’ll have to run forever. You have to grab it and find out more about it—or fight it, or even kill it, if you can—or you’ll never solve the problem.”

  “Have we met? Do I look like I could fight off anything?” Kit asked. “Running away is my best and only skill. And why do I have to solve the problem? Maybe if I wait, it’ll go away. Or someone else will solve it for me.”

  Emil scrunched up his face, puzzled by that attitude, but they rounded a corner and it gave Kit a moment to change the subject. “What if Heath and Winslow are at the lab? Maybe I’m not the only one who knows something is wrong.”