Rachel Caine - Unseen

But it worried us both, deeply, that she seemed to have aged so quickly.

She was almost to her bedroom door when she spun around and ran back to Luis, threw herself into his arms, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Tío,” she said, and then wiggled free to run to me and receive a hug, though I could tell that she did it more from duty than enthusiasm. “Good night, Cassie.”

“Sweet dreams,” I said, which was something I had heard Ibby’s mother, Angela, say to her once. I missed Angela. She would have known what to say, what to do ... but it appeared I had not done so badly, because Ibby smiled and kissed me on the cheek, too.

Then she ran down the hall, suddenly acting her age, and shut her bedroom door with a slam. Luis winced and shook his head. “Kids,” he said. “They don’t know how to shut a door without breaking the hinges, but I guess I shouldn’t complain; at least she’s not breaking my heart so much as she was. So. Food?”

“No.”

“Ah. Beer, then?”

“Yes.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with two frosted bottles, tops already removed. He handed me one and clinked the glass. “Cheers,” he said, and took a deep, thirsty gulp. His eyes closed in almost indecent pleasure. “Ah, damn, that’s good. I’ve been thinking about that all night.”

It was good, chasing away the ashy taste from my mouth and burning bright and cold down to my stomach. I sighed and sat down on the couch, only belatedly thinking of the state of my clothing and its effect on his furniture. But Luis motioned me to stay seated, and sank into place next to me. “I’ll flip you for the shower,” he said. I had a mental image of him tossing me head over heels, and couldn’t imagine why that would be any kind of decision-making choice. He must have seen my confusion, because he laughed and clarified. “A coin. Two sides, heads and tails. Understand?”

“Yes,” I said. I took another long, considering drink of my beer. “But there are two baths in this house.”

“Yeah, there are,” he said. “It was kind of a figure of speech, but anyway, the hot water heater’s crap. One shower at a time or we both shower cold.”

“Oh.” I considered that. I had experienced cold indoor showers before; it was surprisingly less pleasant than being caught in the rain. Perhaps it was the fact that one deliberately chose it. “Then I will let you go first.”

“Oh?” He was draining his bottle quickly, and cut a sideways glance toward me. “Thanks.” He didn’t sound especially grateful. I wondered what subtext I had missed in the conversation. Again. It was especially frustrating when I was tired and felt so grubby. I would have been glad to go first, and the fact that I had offered so selflessly seemed, to me, to be worth some gratitude on his part.

And yet, when his gaze lingered on me, I felt all that melt away. Luis and I had been ... close ... for some time, but never close , in the euphemistic way humans sometimes used the word. When he gave me that kind of considering look, it felt unexpectedly intimate, as if a door had opened between us. I wasn’t under any illusions that it was a change in our relationship; one of us always slammed the door shut at some point. My background didn’t lend itself toward absolute trust and honesty, and his—well, I suspected his didn’t, either.

And still he watched me. I stared back, my eyebrows slowly climbing, and finally said, “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” he said, and tilted his bottle up for the last of the beer.

“Really.” I sipped mine. I was less than half finished, but the beer combined with the exhaustion from the effort made me feel light-headed, in a pleasantly drifting sort of way. “That’s odd. It looked as if you had something on your mind.”

“Don’t you think I know when I’m thinking of something?”

“I would assume you would.”

“And you think I would tell you all about it.”

Ah. There was the interesting point. “Why wouldn’t you?” I asked. “Unless you think I am thinking something entirely different.”

“Cass ...” He sighed. “Damn, girl, I never know which way to jump with you. When it’s all action and danger, we’re synced like a sound track; when it’s just you and me, I never know what you’re thinking, or what you’re feeling, if you’re feeling anything. I look at you and you just ...”

“Just what?”

He shrugged, frowning. “You just reflect,” he said. “Like steel.”

That surprised me, and it hurt a little. “I am not steel,” I said. “I am human. Blood and bone and muscle, heart and feeling and vulnerability. Don’t I show that?”

“Not even a little. Not here.” He sounded almost apologetic about it. “Probably not your fault, you know. You’ve adapted so well to everything else, it’s not surprising you can’t shed that last little bit of Djinn.”

I drank a quick, cold mouthful. “I was a Djinn for aeons. I’ve been a human for months. Maybe you’re judging me a little harshly, Luis.”

“Oh, yeah, I know. I see your point. It just doesn’t make it any easier to get a vibe off of you, that’s all.”

“What vibe are you trying to feel?”

That made him look away at the empty beer bottle in his hands, which he turned slowly, finding something intensely interesting in the label. “Just want to make sure you’re okay, that’s all. And you get all closed up.”

He was lying. I was expert enough in human feelings to feel that , at least. And suddenly I understood what it was he was seeking—what it was that I’d been holding back, hiding behind my Djinn mask. I had not lied. I was human, and vulnerable, but my instincts were never to disclose that soft, unprotected side to anyone. Not even to Luis, who most needed to see it.

And the thought of letting down that wall, of exposing my true feelings to him ... that was terrifying, in the same way that it would be to stand on the fragile edge of a cliff with a killing drop below. If what the humans said was correct, I would float, not fall. But all my instincts went against it.

I reached over and touched my fingertips to his cheek. It felt rough against my skin, stubbled with a day’s growth of beard, and the sensation roused all kinds of odd feelings inside me—instinctive feelings, nothing summoned by my conscious mind. Curiously powerful rushes of chemicals in my bloodstream that overrode, for the moment, all that caution and hesitation.

He looked over at me, startled. The contrast of my pale fingers resting against his dark bronze skin made my heart run faster. I held his gaze this time, and the wall I’d put up weakened, melted, and was gone. “Now can you see?” I asked him very quietly. “There’s much between us, good and bad, but can you see past all that, to what I feel?”

He put the bottle down. I mirrored him, without stopping the slow caress of my fingers across his cheek, down the warm, damp column of his neck, the harsh rasp on his chin, the startlingly soft skin of his lips. They parted under my fingers, cool from the beer. “Hey, Cass?” he asked, and his voice had taken on shadows, weight, deeper registers. “Are you sure you know what the hell you’re doing?”

“No,” I said, with complete honesty. “I trust you to tell me when I do it wrong.”

“Jesus,” he whispered, with an odd expression of utter concentration. “Seriously. You know what you’re not exactly talking about, here? Because I’m not sure you do.”

I stared straight into his rich brown eyes and said, “I want to make love with you. Is that not what you want, as well?”

“Oh,” he said, after a second’s stunned silence. “I guess you do know what you weren’t talking about. Sorry. Just didn’t want to get that wrong, and madre , Cass, I still don’t know if you—”