The Drafter

And then she found it, gasping with release as waves of ecstasy pulsed through her, shaking them both.

 

Jack groaned. His hands sprang from her hair as he clenched his fingers into the bedspread, shuddering. She could feel him inside her, and her body responded again as their motions with each other slowed and stopped, warmth eddying between them until all was still.

 

Panting, she slowly unkinked her hands from his backside, not remembering having put them there. Smiling, she looked up at him, liking what she saw in this moment of unguarded contentment. Sweat sheened his tanned skin, making him glow, almost. His eyes were still closed, his breathing heavy but slow.

 

She turned to see his hand dug into the bedspread beside her ear, still white-knuckled. There was a sock under the bed that she didn’t want to forget, her talisman button beside it. Not wanting time to move, she pulled him down to her to breathe him in. The floor was hard and the smell of dirt in the carpet unnoticed until now. A line of sun glowed in from under the door, and the scent of cheap soap and coffee added to her contentment.

 

At peace, she looked at Jack, seeing that same happiness in the faint lines just now starting in about his eyes, seeing the reaffirmation that they belonged together. He wants to retire? She wished this would never end, but she’d be content if she could hold on to it forever and never forget.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER

 

SIX

 

 

“Did you remember to plug in the car?” Peri asked as she trundled her overnight bag past the row of Sity bikes waiting for warmer weather. Her building loomed over her, and she couldn’t wait to be back in her apartment, finding herself.

 

Looking tired, Jack pocketed their access card and held the door for her. “As always.”

 

The stairs were unheated, and it was cold despite the low February afternoon sun shining into the glass and cement stairway of the residential tower. Peri’s bag thumped up the steps behind her, conspiring to make her shoulder ache and her black eye pound. They could take the elevator, but it was slow and their apartment was only one flight up.

 

She’d picked the place out five years ago, liking the balcony overlooking the engineered pond and surrounding shops and restaurants collectively known as Lloyd Park. Even then her job had paid enough that she could have afforded one of the larger units on the top floor. But she couldn’t jump out of a top-floor window and survive the landing. The second floor, on the other hand, was perfect. Jack had moved in six months after becoming her anchor, but it still felt like hers.

 

Jack jogged past her on the stairs at the last moment, his dress shoes scuffing as he got to the fire door. “I said I’d bring that up for you,” he said, and she puffed her bangs out of her eyes.

 

“And I said I had it,” she muttered, her mood bad. She hurt, and that brought out the worst in her.

 

“As you wish,” he said, his dry humor making her smile as he pushed open the fire door. He’d been distant and preoccupied since defragmenting the draft, and a return to his normal, cheerful self was a relief. Perhaps he was worried about Bill. Their handler was a stickler about her mental state, demanding tests and sessions when their earned downtime would accomplish the same thing.

 

Peri followed Jack into the warmer hallway, giving the solar panel–covered, snow-edged parking lot shared by the twin residential towers a last look as it glowed in the setting sun. Detroit was a pretty backdrop, Opti a short ride in by magnetic rail or car. Much better, Peri thought, remembering streets so choked with cars that you couldn’t drive, and then the frightening emptiness when everyone who could left.

 

She’d watched Detroit falter, was there when the city fathers tore it down to use the old infrastructure to create defined pockets of clean industry, commerce, and housing, then connected them with green relief and quiet transport all layered over the original foundry steel. Though still known for her cars and music, Detroit had become home to the developing human and technology interface industries. Her Mantis was a part of that, a pretty, monstrous bauble that showcased Detroit’s new technologies. Hiding the Opti military installation amid the new medical park hadn’t been difficult.