J&A TnT #7: It’s been such a long time…

It’s November, and I’m the final Jason and Azazel book is available for sale. In celebration, every Tuesday and Thursday (TnT), I’ll be posting scenes from previous Jason and Azazel books. Obviously, if you haven’t read the series, thar be spoilers in these parts. Read at your own risk!

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The reunion scene from That Last Onset:

The door flew open. It wasn’t bright in the tunnel room, but it was even less bright inside the hut. I could see her outline, but I couldn’t see her. Not really. She was frozen inside the door, not speaking, not moving. Finally, she spoke. Her voice was hoarse. “Jason?”

My breath caught in my throat. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t.

“Come in,”she said. To Graham, “Give us a little bit.”

His face twitched, and I could tell he didn’t like that, but he only gestured with his hand for me to go inside.

For a few seconds, I didn’t think my legs would move. But they did. I took several shaky steps, and I was inside the hut. My eyes adjusted as she shut the door behind us. It wasn’t big. There was a sleeping pallet along one wall. It took up most of the room. A rickety desk was slapped up against another wall, right next to the bed. That left us about three square feet to stand in and stare at each other.

Her brown hair was pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, so her face looked clean and fresh. She had a tiny scar running down the right side of her forehead. It puckered red against her white flesh. I’d never seen it before. I wondered what happened. She surveyed me, arms drawn tight across her chest, her expression severe. She looked like a drill sergeant. Whatever softness I remembered about her seemed gone. She looked hard, as if she were carved from stone.

I took off the baseball cap and ran a hand through my hair. I didn’t know what to say. My heart was thudding against my rib cage so loud I was sure she could hear it.

We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Then she shoved me. Hard. “Bastard,”she spit out.

I took it. I looked into her eyes and took it. She was right.

“Why’d you leave us?”she asked.

I searched for my voice. When I found it, it wavered. “I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.”

She snorted. “Right. So you thought if you abandoned me with your baby, that would be the opposite of hurting me.”

I flinched. “At the time, all I could think about was how much I’d screwed everything up. I thought you’d be better off without me.”

Her expression hardened even further. Her scar seemed to pulse. “Fuck you.”

I gave her a bitter half-smile. “I could say I was sorry, but would it really matter?”

“Try it and see.”

“I am sorry,”I said. “I regret so much. Everything I did to you. I wish I could take it back.”

She shook her head. “No. Didn’t make a damned bit of difference.”

I started to open the door. “Maybe I should–”

She stopped me, her hand on my arm.

I turned and gazed into her eyes. Something softened there.

Her hand wound its way up my arm, over my shoulders, to cup my cheek. She stepped closer to me. She moved her face closer to mine and then–

We were kissing. It was urgent, as if something that had been locked up inside both of us was being let out, and it was ravenous. My hands went around her waist, and I crushed her against my body. Her hands tangled themselves in my hair, holding my face against hers. I traced the curves of her back with my fingers. She sighed against my mouth–a sound of relief and longing and desire.

And then she wasn’t touching me anymore. She was on the other side of the hut, her back against the makeshift wall. She was breathing hard. “Fuck.”

Yeah. I was struggling to catch my own breath. I’d forgotten the taste of her. How sweet she was. What it was like to have her in my arms.

“That is why it’s such a bad idea to be around you.”Her voice was shaking.

“Right,”I said. Because we got all consumed with each other, and it was so easy to let the rest of the world go to hell. It was so easy to want to watch everything burn, just for the reflection the flames would make in her eyes.

Buy Gasp:

Amazon
Smashwords
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Paperback on the way!!