Free Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3) by JC Andrijeski Page A

his silence.
    When he still didn’t speak, my heart started beating harder in my chest.
    Black? What am I going through? What are you talking about?
    When I couldn’t feel anything from him, I felt myself listening harder, even as I fought to understand what I’d already reacted to. Before I could wrap my head around it, his presence surrounded me, filling me from all sides. I got a flicker of the dome where he sat, remembered where he was. Even as I did, his thoughts backpedaled.
    They grew subdued. Cautious.
    He sighed, as if giving in.
    I just meant...   the seer thing, Miri. The seer thing, you understand? You’re changing. I know you’ve noticed. We’ve talked about it. He hesitated. That time, I felt the barest hint of calculation behind his thoughts. Well. Perhaps not in so many words...   but I thought we’d talked about it somewhat. More or less. You said you’d felt things. You said I was different, too. You said we both felt different to you. Remember, Miriam... ?
    I frowned. My fingers wrapped around the pendant I wore, the one he’d given back to me. I thought you said that was nothing.
    It is nothing, he said at once. You’re only half seer. It’s not a big deal.
    How am I changing, Black?
    Even as I asked it, I knew.
    I knew some of it at least.
    His thoughts grew cagier. I can only feel pieces of it, doc...
    I tugged on the chain around my neck. Stop dancing, Black. Tell me. Changing how? I focused back on the ceiling, my face warming. You mean the sex stuff? I grunted. Like the fact I practically raped you while you were here?
    I told you why I said no, he sent. I explained that, Miri.
    I know you did. That wasn’t a dig. Not at you anyway.
    He had explained it. Finally.
    In part, at least.
    We talked about that during the same period when we first started talking again over Christmas. I still couldn’t quite believe his reasons. I don’t mean I think he was lying, but what he’d told me blew my mind a little.
    A ninety-year-old virgin, I mused. How is that possible?
    I’ve fucked humans, he reminded me. A lot of them, Miri.
    I grimaced. I know. I was joking...   and gee, thanks for that. I really needed that visual to go with my nightly dose of paranoia...   so, thanks, Quentin.
    His pain worsened when I said his given name.
    I felt embarrassment on him too.
    I am embarrassed, he admitted after a pause. That’s why I said it. I apologize.
    Relaxing, I shook my head where it rested on the pillow. His honesty still disarmed me. Especially when it came to personal things.
    Sighing, I sent, Why would you be embarrassed with me of all people? My jaw tightened. I got raped, Black. A psychotic seer raped me. That hardly counts as ‘experience.’
    It’s more experience than I have.
    Feeling my mind spark at that, he sighed, backpedaling again.
    ... You know what I mean. Anyway, neither of us knowing what the hell we’re doing isn’t exactly comforting, Miri.
    I rolled my eyes a little. Even so, I felt him dodging still and it frustrated me, partly because I couldn’t feel what was behind it. I knew he didn’t want to talk about this––about any of it, really––but I had no idea why. When I first met him, he’d been so blunt about sex it constantly caught me off guard. I would have said I was a difficult person to shock before him, but he’d done it pretty much every time we had a conversation.
    Whatever I felt on him now, it wasn’t shyness.
    I smiled wryly. You think I’m going to give you a bad grade on your seer sexual performance, Black?
    There was another silence.
    Miri, he sent, his mind stiff. It’s not a big deal. You’re only half-seer, but your needs are changing. You’re going to need...   different things now.
    Different things? I was genuinely thrown. Like what?
    Taking a breath, he hesitated.
    For a second I saw him again, leaning against a stone pillar, aiming the rifle down on a mosaic floor, at least eighty feet below him. He was focused on me, but I felt