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

that split in his mind too, maybe in more than two segments.
    I could almost feel him choosing words before he spoke.
    You’re changing a little more than I thought you would, he admitted after that pause. I just wish I was more...   you know. Experienced. With such things.
    I laughed. Jesus, Black. What are we, in high school?
    Miri...   stop making this a joke. Please. His thoughts grew serious, open enough to disarm me a second time, and to cut off my laughter. Not when I’m so far away. I’m sorry I said the thing about Solonik. Where I’m from there’s not this weird shame thing you have about rape. I wasn’t implying anything at all about consent...   I was being literal and saying you’d actually had physical intercourse with a seer. I haven’t done that with a female seer...   even forced. I have zero experience of the anatomy of how that works. I don’t know the angles of it...   He trailed, as if searching for words. ... any of it.
    Biting my lip, I nodded, thinking.
    It wasn’t just what he’d said.
    I could feel him trying.
    He’d been trying a lot with me, I realized.
    Pretty much every conversation we had, I felt him trying to communicate with me, to clarify things between us. Ever since Christmas, after those weeks where I’d refused to talk to him, where I got drunk and kissed Nick and Black flipped out, eventually admitting he’d never been with a seer and that he didn’t want me to have sex with anyone else. Ever since then, he seemed to take all of our conversations a hell of a lot more seriously.
    Realizing I wanted to do that too, I exhaled again.
    Okay, I sent. Thanks for explaining that. And I’ll stop teasing you about sex. Just stop talking about what a man-whore you are, okay? I got the memo. I don’t need to hear the details...   seriously.
    I felt him agree, even as more relief came off him.
    Understood. I don’t want to hear about your past lovers, either.
    I nodded, smiling a little. Sometimes his language bordered on old-fashioned.
    That warmth coiled deeper between us, making me sink into the mattress. It also made the emotional thing worse.
    Gods. He exhaled and that pain on him sharpened. You contacted me on a job for this? To make me afraid you were breaking up with me? I feel like I should go read seer sex manuals. I’m so turned on and relieved and fucked up right now I might need to jerk off...
    I laughed, unable to help it.
    Then he seemed to remember what we were talking about before.
    You don’t really know where I am, Miri? he sent. You’re not really coming here?
    But I did know. I did know where he was.
    Miri, you can’t come here. You can’t.
    Why not? Are you going to tell me the reason?
    That silence returned. I could feel more there. Things he was unwilling to say. Those things pulled at me, tugging on me in the space between us, fighting for me to understand them. He wanted me to understand them. He wanted it so badly. He wanted me to get some message there, but whatever it was, he couldn’t tell me outright.
    I was still fighting to understand, growing more and more frustrated with every passing second, when he exhaled. I winced, feeling a wave of what could only be depression steal over him. I felt more pain in that too.
    Miri, he sent. I miss you. I miss you so much. But you can’t come here. You can’t.
    I didn’t answer.
    I was still listening, straining to hear.
    The contract is time-limited, he continued. It’s more than half over. I’m coming back, Miri. I promise you I am...   as soon as it’s done.
    I nodded, pressing my lips together as I stared at his ceiling.
    But I couldn’t get it. Whatever he wanted me to hear, I couldn’t hear it.
    My thoughts turned bitter.
    You know they’re playing you...   don’t you, Black?
    There was a silence, then he exhaled again.
    Yes. But the truth is, from their perspective, I’m a risk to them. I’m a wild card in their eyes...   unaffiliated. So they see me as a potential threat. Their