“Where are you going?” he asked, trying to draw her back to him.
“Honey, it’s late. I have to go.”
“I thought we were going to spend the night together.”
“Oh no. I can’t do that. Not the first time. It wouldn’t be right. And my car’s in the Courtyard parking lot. What if someone notices it was there overnight?”
Darrell frowned. “Are you still worried about Simon Wolfgard being jealous? Because he knows about us. He gave his approval for the guest pass I got for you.”
Sure, she’d wanted people around the Courtyard to know Darrell was her boyfriend, but it hadn’t occurred to her that Simon would know she was the woman up here with Darrell tonight. But Asia Crane, SI, would have expected Simon to know about this romp and figured out a way to use it.
Yes. Simon knowing she was here tonight was good. Better than good, because now he wouldn’t have any reason to question her scent being somewhere he might not expect.
She gave Darrell’s chest a quick kiss. “No, honey. I’m not worried about Simon Wolfgard in any way. I made it clear the other day that I’m looking for a real man, not a Wolf pretending to be something he’s not and never can be.” Okay, she hadn’t said it in those words when she took that last shot at flirting with Simon, but she didn’t think Darrell would ask the Wolf, so no one would know.
She felt a change in Darrell, felt the possessive way his hands now stroked her body.
“Then what’s the problem?” he asked.
“I already told you. I might not be able to resist being passionate with someone special, but I’m not the kind of girl who has dinner and breakfast on the first big date.” She stroked his chest. “Besides, I didn’t bring anything with me for overnight.” She pressed a finger against his lips before he could argue. “Don’t spoil it. Please. Just tell me how soon I can pack that overnight bag.”
“Just as soon as I can arrange to have the room again.” He rolled, pinning her. “But we have time for one more. Don’t we?”
“Oh yes.” She wrapped her arms around his neck as he settled between her legs. “We surely do.”
CHAPTER 19
“Hello?”
“Did you get my present? The items were selected just for you.”
“A special messenger delivered it, even though I never gave you my address.”
“Information can be acquired if one knows who to ask.”
“Well, I love my present. I can use a number of these items on my date tomorrow evening.”
“Would you like some company? That special messenger has a variety of skills. In fact, two dozen messengers from that company are now in the city. They’re trained to handle delicate or volatile packages.”
A light laugh. “No, thanks. I’ll do just fine on my own. And I expect to find a little bit of something to send back as a thank-you.”
“In that case, I’ll look forward to our next conversation.”
Asia hung up the phone and put on the thin gloves used in a hospital’s contagious ward. As she examined each vial in the carefully packed box sent by Meg Corbyn’s owner, she silently thanked Bigwig for all the information she’d been given about various drugs and the penalties for possessing them. At the time, she’d thought of it as useful information for her TV role. Now it was vital information for real life.
Some of the items in the box were easy enough to come by, because there were few, if any, aftereffects on the person who was dosed. Some were worth several years in one of the rough prisons just for possessing the stuff, and a life sentence if you were caught using it. One item was something she’d never heard of, something called gone over wolf. Until she found out what it did, she wouldn’t ignore the warning to use it sparingly.
Asia lifted the last vial, read the label, and put it back very carefully.
And some items would earn a person a one-way trip into the wild country. No prison. Nothing so kind. Just a long ride into the Others’ territory, and then you were set loose with no food, no water, no shoes.
There was no record of anyone surviving that particular punishment.
Her new benefactor, as she’d begun to think of Meg’s owner, might be able to pull enough strings to keep himself safe from the penalties for having any of these items, but she was under no illusion that he would be that protective of her. And she had no doubt Bigwig and his group of backers would distance themselves from her if she was caught with any of the prison-worthy drugs, let alone the one that carried an automatic death penalty. So it was in her own best interest to use that last vial as soon as possible.
And she knew just how it would do her the most good.
“You know what I would really like to do?” Asia said to Darrell as she drove down the access way and parked her car behind the Liaison’s Office. There it was protected from potential thieves and out of sight of patrol cars who might take too much notice of a car left in the Courtyard parking lot overnight. On Sunsday, the car being in the lot had been her excuse to leave. Tonight, having it tucked away meant Darrell was the only one who knew for sure she had come back to the Courtyard with him.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Darrell replied with a grin that looked a tiny bit off, just a little mean.
“Before that.” She turned off the car’s headlights and could barely make out the shape of the man in the other seat.
If any of the Courtyard businesses had outdoor lights by their back doors, no one had remembered to turn them on—not even the one she knew was at the top of the stairs she would be climbing shortly. Was a light too much courtesy to show a human, or had the Others assumed Darrell would take care of it?
That thought made her wonder if there would be clean sheets on the bed, and if anyone else had used the room yesterday.
“What do you want to do?” Darrell asked, that hint of mean gone as if it had never been there.
She leaned toward him, found the zipper on his trousers, and tugged it down an inch. “Take a little drive.”
“A drive?” His voice rose, almost cracking as she pulled the zipper down another inch. “Where?”
“To the Green Complex and back.”
His hand clamped over hers. She didn’t think his panting was solely due to lust.
“Asia, are you crazy?”
“Humans are allowed in the Green area.”
“Only if they have a pass! And even then it’s risky once you’re away from the Market Square.”
“But you do have a pass,” she said, putting a heavy dose of honey in the words while her fingers worked his zipper down another inch. She had slipped a few flakes of gone over wolf into his last drink at the Saucy Plate, just to see what would happen. And so far, the answer was nothing at all. Maybe she had used it a little too sparingly. “And I want to be the kind of woman who is brave enough to do something a little risky. Like spend the whole night with a man,” she finished as she tried to move her hand away from his zipper.
His hand tightened on hers almost painfully before he let her go. Withdrawing her hand, she sat primly, her eyes looking straight ahead.
“I just thought we could have a little adventure before . . .” She moved her body to convey embarrassment. “I wanted to do something special for you tonight. Something like that girl was doing in the movie we watched the last time. That you wanted me to do but I couldn’t. I even bought a book. You know. One of those manuals. Went to a bookstore clear across the city to buy it. But I guess you don’t want . . .”
He gulped air, and she knew she had him.
“We aren’t getting out of the car,” he said, a tremor in his voice.