They drove west through the day and half the night. Neither of them said
much. When they pulled the RV camper into a truckstop for gas, Mulder
looked at Krycek's face. It was bruised even worse than his own and the
nostrils were packed with cotton to help the broken nose heal straight.
"I'll get the gas," Mulder said.
Krycek gave him a particularly evil grin. "Hold on a minute." Disappearing
somewhat stiffly into the back, he reappeared with a tube and squeezed a
little of its contents onto his fingers. Mulder flinched back in annoyance
when Krycek reached for his face, but Krycek just smirked at him and
continued.
Makeup. Jesus Christ. "You do drag, Krycek?"
"Hey, it suits you." But the thin paste was unscented, and when Mulder
looked at himself in the side mirror, he saw that his bruises were almost
entirely hidden. "Should do for now," Krycek added. "But when you're gonna
be around people for very long, we're gonna have to mix you something a
little closer to your own skin color."
"Aren't you overreacting a little bit? So what if someone sees bruises;
it's not like anyone's looking for us."
"No, but I don't want to be noticed and remembered. You never know—Fuck
it, Mulder, just get on with it."
In irritation, Krycek pulled his long hair free of its tie-band and tossed
it back to tie again. Those few long silver hairs shone blue in the
truckstop lights, and Mulder turned away.
He felt like a complete fool as he filled the RV camper's tank and paid the
attendant, but nobody seemed to notice the makeup even though his face
itched with it. More importantly, they didn't pay any attention to the
bruises. Hell, maybe Krycek did know his job.
Mulder took another shower. Road trips always left him feeling scummy. In
the mirror, his face looked even worse this morning, as Krycek's had. The
swelling was beginning to subside, but the colors were darkening to purple
and virulent green.
Returning to the cab, he looked at the rumpled figure behind the wheel.
"You smell like roadkill, Kycek. How about I spell you so you can get
cleaned up?"
"Sure. Stay on Interstate 40. And don't moon the nice highway patrolmen,
okay?"
Krycek slid out of the seat without pulling off the road, so Mulder had to
squeeze in quickly to take the wheel. The rough brush of that body against
his own made him immediately hard again, and he was sure he heard the rat
bastard snicker.
It took him a minute to locate all the controls, and to believe that Krycek
was really going to trust him with his camper and his life. He briefly
entertained the fantasy of locking the connecting door to the camper and
driving to the nearest highway patrol station, but even if he hadn't known
that Krycek would get out of it somehow (and probably kill him for trying),
he was not going to give up this chance for real information at last.
Krycek was right; the past mattered less than the future.
"What the fuck is that for, Mulder?"
"The lap dance."
Colonization test sites. Consortium labs. Strange incidents of children
born with six fingers that followed the career progress of a particular
nurse across the Southwest. Mass graves in upper Michigan and what lay in
them. The secret deals that helped put a particular senator in office.
Additives to last year's flu shots in a small town near Seattle.
His voice was off-hand, calmly informative, even as he detailed atrocities
that made Mulder clench his fists until the dog nosed at him with an
uncertain whine.
Krycek seemed to share Mulder's opinion of many of the incidents, but on
others equally ugly he seemed to approve the results however they were
obtained. If Mulder had never hated him, he would now, and he knew he would
hear that soft voice, those flat comments, in his nightmares.
And then Krycek swerved abruptly onto the shoulder, slammed the driver's
door open, and vomited over the side until there was nothing left in him.
Mulder wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, even while he wanted to shoot
him in the back of the head, or grind the bastard's face into his own vomit
until he choked to death. Instead, he just waited and made himself say
nothing even as Krycek wiped his mouth and got back on the road.
The quiet voice continued as if there had been no interruption. "So, for
the next test group, Bueneke used two-year-olds and looked for ways to
prevent the kidney damage..."
Krycek seemed to be checking out a small apartment building; Mulder saw
nothing unusual. But Krycek parked around the corner several blocks away.
"Let's not scare the neighbors," Krycek said, and picked up the tube of
cover makeup again. Mulder took it away from him and did his own face,
unwilling to let Krycek touch him. When they were both finished, Krycek
headed back into the camper for a moment and reappeared in his old
pea-coat, handing Mulder the leather jacket to cover the Browning. Checking
the fit of his own weapon, Krycek headed for the building. Mulder followed.
"Here, you stand in front of the door," Krycek said as he approached the
outside door of one apartment.
"What, not popular in these parts, Krycek?" Mulder hoped the asshole wasn't
setting him up to be shot.
Krycek was almost too focused to be exasperated. "I told you, asshole,
these people think I'm dead."
The doorbell buzzed, but Mulder saw no light in the peephole even as he
heard the lock disengage on the other side.
"May I help you?" asked a pleasant grey-haired housewife. Then she caught
sight of the man behind him, and her face tautened as if a mask fell away.
Her right hand moved into sight from behind the doorway, and Mulder could
see the wide aperture of a Desert Eagle pointed squarely at Krycek.
"Hi, Mom," Krycek said cheerfully. "I'm back from college and I brought my
dirty laundry. Hope you don't mind."
The woman looked past them into the street and motioned them inside. Her
gun did not waver.
The door closed behind them in a nice well-kept living room, but then one
wall slid aside and there were two other men there. One was a nondescript
middle-aged man with a bit of a belly, whose lethal potential was only
clear from his hard and level eyes and the shotgun trained on Krycek. "Oh
my God, it's the Russian!" he said. "We need to get more roach traps."
The other was a young black man in a wheelchair, sweet-faced and very, very
dark of skin. He was the only one of the three who bothered to cover the
FBI agent, and Mulder felt almost insulted.
The woman squared her shoulders, and suddenly her old-lady blouse and skirt
looked like the uniform of a military officer. This was no suburban
housewife; even at fifty she was nothing but steel and whipcord, discipline
and poise. Looking at the proud, clean arch of nose and cheekbones, he
began to realize whose agent she might be.
"Major Hanavi, Avram, and you must be Benyamin. This is Fox Mulder." Krycek
made a sweeping bow of introduction, but his hand was never far from his
own holster.
"I know," said the major. "I've followed his career for years. Sloppy
follow-through," she added, unimpressed.
Mulder put the names together with the hawk-proud face and ventured a
guess. "Mossad?"
She dipped her head minutely in what might have been a nod. "Once, perhaps.
And you're FBI."
"Yes."
"Interesting company you keep," the Israeli said flatly, but there was
something like a twinkle in her eye.
Krycek laughed out loud, and swooped in to kiss her ostentatiously on both
cheeks with the cheerful malice of an old friend, ignoring the gun
entirely. The young Benyamin asked uncertainly, "Ma'am?" But the major's
fingers flicked out in a tiny gesture and both men lowered their guns.
Avram, the older man, swept Krycek into a bear hug and then without a
change of expression slammed him face-first into the door with one hand
jammed up behind his shoulders. "You son of a bitch. Why didn't you tell
us—!"
Despite the pressure of the door against his already bruised face, Krycek
was still grinning. "I missed you too, sweetheart."
Avram growled and tightened the arm lock until Krycek's breath hissed
between his teeth.
Mulder felt like it was time to remind them that he was here too. "Don't
bother, Avram," he said brightly. "The harder you beat him, the more he
likes it."
Krycek shot him a dirty look, but Avram let go with exaggerated disgust.
"Must really be him, then," Avram said.
"Let's hope so," said Benyamin.
"Hope, hell," said the major. "Check them out."
And the guns stayed on both of them as Benyamin rolled his wheelchair over
to Krycek, took him delicately by the new wrist, and jabbed him suddenly
with a phlebotomy needle. "Well, his blood's red, at least."
For nearly half an hour, nothing of significance was said, as the young
black man carefully checked their eyes, the composition of their blood, and
whether their skin reacted to a clear gel he smeared on the back of their
hands. And then he brought out the lie detector.
Mulder was getting a little fed up with this treatment when Krycek reached
over and thumbed Benyamin's eyelid up. "Your turn," he said.
"What?"
"So you know we're human now, but how do we know that about you?" And
Krycek proceeded to do the same tests on the three of them with a certain
air of turnabout glee. Avram looked like he was going to protest, but the
major shook her head fractionally and he subsided.
Despite the tensions, they were all clearly old friends, and Mulder felt
like a complete outsider. The hell with that; time to remind them he was a
player too. "Well, if we're all satisfied with each others' bona fides,
should we get on with it? Or do you want to watch the game? I'll get the
beer."
Benyamin puzzled him. During a quiet moment, Mulder leaned over to Krycek
and whispered, "What's with him? He, um, doesn't look Jewish."
But Major Hanavi heard him. "Sephardic," she said. "Our African cousins.
But you do look Jewish, though it's not in your file."
"A little on my father's side, I'm told," Mulder said in surprise. "But I
wasn't raised that way."
Avram snorted. "Salmon roll. Lox on the outside, cream cheese inside."
"Better than marshmallow," Krycek added helpfully.
"Enough," said the major, but she was smiling. "Now tell me why you've
brought him here." With a slight inclination of her head, she directed them
into the next room, behind the false wall. Benyamin wheeled over to the
bank of computer equipment and started to work as the rest of them settled
in folding chairs around a narrow table.
Krycek's tone was still light. "It's that big neon sign on your door:
'Resistance Recruiting Office.' He wants to join up."
"Hold it," said Mulder. "I'm not promising anything. I'm here to find out
whether I want to join up."
"Of course," said the major, but something in her eyes told Mulder that if
he tried to walk away, he would not leave the room alive. "You do
understand what we're fighting here?"
Mulder did not look away. "Yes. I've seen those bastard colonists, I know
at least something of what they mean, and I want to stop them."
"At any cost?" Her grim directness reminded him somehow of Skinner
Mulder hesitated. "Almost any."
She nodded to Krycek. "A man with morals. Good. Unlike you, little Russian."
Something flickered in those green eyes, but Krycek suppressed it and his
lip quirked at the corner. "Yeah, but I have some bad points too."
"Have you had the vaccine?" She turned back to Mulder.
"Six years ago," he answered, but he could not keep his voice from
tightening as he looked over at Krycek. "Involuntarily."
"Hey, what's your complaint?" Krycek said blandly. "It was my treat. I'm
the one who paid an arm and a leg for it. Okay, not a leg. I didn't tip the
waiter."
Major Hanavi ignored the exchange. "And unlike your talkative comrade here,
you never had an alien rider?"
"No," said Mulder. His slight shudder of disgust was unexpectedly mirrored
by Krycek.
"I did," Benyamin's soft voice said from the far end of the room.
The major bowed her head towards him in something like respect. "And that's
what happened to his spine, in case you're curious. His rider got in a
little trouble and crashed the vehicle." From the hard set of her eyes, she
was not talking about mechanical transport.
"But to continue—"
She broke off with a curse when, with a low ugly buzz, a light on the wall
flashed red.
"Well, chaverim, looks like we have company."
"What is it?" Mulder asked.
"Proximity. And serious metal; this isn't just the paperboy."
"Damn it!" Krycek said. "I'd have sworn we weren't followed!"
The major shook her head. "Someone's been nosing around for a week or two.
This isn't your doing."
A sideways quirk of Avram's head drew Krycek to his side and they bracketed
the door with the precision of long experience. But even before they
reached it, there was a loud CRUMP and the door buckled inward in a small
cloud of smoke.
Mulder drew his gun as the first trio of armed men leapt in, but Major
Hanavi drew him backwards into the computer room again. "Here," she said.
"We need to cover Benyamin." And indeed the young man seemed to be ignoring
the sound of gunfire from the other room as, with precise and steady hands,
he plugged a phone cord from the computer into one arm of his wheelchair.
Mulder risked a look around the door and got a clean shot off at one of the
intruders. Plain unmarked khakis and an olive ski mask; pale skin, and eyes
that appeared to be blue before the man crumpled out of sight, dropping an
automatic shotgun from limp hands. Krycek, damn him, was laughing as if he
hadn't had this much fun all year. And here was Mulder hiding in a doorway
like a coward—
"Done," said Benyamin, and removed the cable.
"Let's go," said the major. "I'll go first. Mulder, you cover our retreat
and then pull out with the other two."
Benyamin looked worried. "What if they already got to the truck?"
"We've got an RV," Mulder said, surprising himself with the claim of
ownership. "Two blocks south; right corner."
Somewhere in the other room, Avram swore, and the wall of the computer room
was suddenly ventilated with four new holes. Calmly, Major Hanavi pressed a
palm-sized button on one wall and Mulder was surprised to see the closet
open silently to the yard.
Benyamin switched off the computer with a faint sight of regret. "Three,"
he said quietly, and from the other room, both Krycek and Avram said "Check."
The major edged her head and gun arm out the new exit, checking both ways
before waving Benyamin on.
And Mulder, finally free to stop playing babysitter, did a low roll below
the sudden arc of automatic fire that stitched the inner door, and came up
firing from behind the couch. The spang of return fire told him the couch
was backed by a steel plate under the upholstery, probably for just this
purpose.
"Welcome to study hall," said Krycek, even as he fitted another clip into
his handgun from the cover of a small alcove. "Hope you brought your pink
slip."
Avram, grinning, put two shots through the head of the man who tried to
draw a bead on Krycek even as Mulder put one through his heart. "So you
decided to join us?"
"It's the engraved invitation," Mulder answered without thought, caught in
the same adrenaline madness. "That cream-colored paper with the gold edges:
too classy for words." There were at least six men down, their khakis dark
with blood, but no urgent targets inside. He thumbed the Browning bluenose
over to triple-shot and fired blindly through the doorway to discourage any
sudden rush.
"Monogrammed seal's what did it for me." Krycek spun suddenly and put a
shot through the high window as a shadow dropped across it.
"The other two are out," said Mulder. "We're supposed to pull back and join
them at the RV."
"Shit, you invited them over, and I haven't even tidied up?"
"And your doilies are in the wash." Mulder realized his teeth were bared in
a wide half-grin, half-snarl, and dimly realized that he ought to be
appalled at himself. Hell, he'd worry about it later.
"Damn." A moment of silence, but a watchful silence, as they waited for the
enemy's next move. "And yeah, of course they're pulling out. They gave us
three."
"Three what?" Mulder was beginning to be irritated.
Avram, who had ignored the rest of the byplay, flicked a brief look
sideways at him as if he were stupid. "Minutes, of course. Until the place
blows."
"Oh.—Hard on the neighbors, though."
"No neighbors," said Krycek. "Unless you've gotten sloppier, Av'."
"No. And we can trigger it sooner, if we—" He broke off as there was
another rush at the door, and Mulder felt an entirely adolescent glee when
he took out the lead man with another triple-shot to the chest before
Krycek even finished re-aiming. Dark spots decorated the khaki, and then
the wall was washed with red.
The smell of blood and body fluids grew even stronger, but sheer adrenaline
made it only another piece of information, devoid of emotional content.
Mulder wiped a spatter off one cheek and reset the bluenose for
single-shot, since his ammo was limited.
"All right," said Avram. "AK, you take point. I'll trail. Go!"
And the three of them were barely halfway across the yard, two men firing
at them from the doorway, when the building seemed to crumple behind them
with a sudden suck of fire.
But he didn't stop to wonder whether they had been FBI until after the
group rendezvoused at the van. No, he decided at last, wrong clothes and a
different set of maneuvers. He only hoped he was right.
"—and there's tiedowns in the back you can use for the wheelchair," Krycek
was saying over his shoulder as he turned the key. "Mulder, get your head
down. Dog! Shut up! These are friends."
"Where are we going?" Avram asked, his head and shoulders forward through
the cabin door.
"Got safe parking?" Krycek asked.
"Not for something this size," said the major from behind them.
"Then let's park it in a crowd of other travellers. Motel 6?"
"Turn right."
"Okay, got it."
Krycek kept a sharp eye on the mirror. "No sign of pursuit. Let's see, if
it's on schedule they shouldn't have a good sat—that's satellite camera
angle to you, Mulder—so let's hope they don't pick us up. I'd better find
cover later to change our roof silhouette, though."
Mulder found the words beginning to fall away, meaningless to his numbing
ears. Jesus. He'd just killed three, maybe four men he knew nothing about,
while defending a known traitor and three foreign nationals. Foreign spies.
And part of the FBI's job was counterintelligence. But more importantly,
the men had been shooting at him, and he was still alive, and some of them
weren't, and the blood and other matter drying on his hands and face
weren't his own.
Krycek swerved abruptly down a frontage road as the dog barked in protest,
and pulled the camper up cleanly in a parking lot between two other RVs and
a U-Haul. "Down," he said, and killed the engine.
"No signs of pursuit," said Krycek after an endless wait.
"So what do we do?" asked Mulder.
The major reappeared in the cabin door and said "We split up, just a
little. In case they saw us and have explosives. I'll get us a room."
Mulder turned in surprise and saw a stranger there; an overpainted old lady
with a baseball cap and unflattering bike shorts, and a clashing red
t-shirt that must have been Krycek's. Even knowing it had to be the major,
he couldn't see her through the unpleasantly raddled face, the swaybacked
old body trying to impersonate youth by sheer gall. "Think I'll do?" she
said in a sharper twang.
Krycek gave her a critical once-over. "Your color's still high."
"I know," she said irritably. "But it'll probably pass for sunburn. I'll go
through the tourist rack on the way in, clutch a couple of shopping fliers.
Got any gum?"
"Nope," said Krycek. "You'll just have to fake it."
"Thanks loads, sonny," she said, and knobbed her ugly jaw as she started to
chew.
"Mmm?" Krycek, leaning over his keyboard, seemed not to be paying much
attention.
"Krycek, who the fuck were those men? If you just got me into a shootout
with BATF—"
"Hah! No, not unless some of them were moonlighting."
Avram laughed too. "Probably imported talent, or possibly your famous
patriot extremists; certainly on orders from the Old Men. Don't worry,
little Fed, we haven't pulled you into the wrong firefight."
"So how do you want to play all of this? Regroup here or head out? You have
good cover waiting where?"
"Later. When my head's clear." Her color was still high, her voice abrupt.
Krycek nodded.
"You owe me, asshole," she added.
"Guess so," said Krycek, and didn't seem too regretful. Mulder watched them
toss the concept—whatever it was—back and forth like a tennis ball, and
his jaw started to ache.
"What about him?" said the major, with a slight lift of her chin towards
Mulder.
Krycek turned with a smirk and gave him a full, insulting stare. "He
doesn't trust me out of his sight. So I guess he'll be playing prison guard."
"Whatever," said Major Hanavi.
Mulder was damned if he was going to ask what the hell they were talking
about.
Avram looked thoughtful. "Ben'd better stay here, since he's so goddamned
recognizable. And I'll back him up. Room's all yours."
The major locked the door behind him, tucked something under its edge and
something else in the corner of the window, and then stalked off to the
shower without another word.
"Seems pretty edgy," Mulder made his voice casual.
"Adrenaline," Krycek said. "She doesn't come back down easily." He shucked
his longcoat onto a chair, then reached up to pull the t-shirt over his
head. Mulder, still furious, couldn't tear his eyes away from the pale
curving body as Krycek parked a foot on the chair and bent to remove his
boots. God, those scars—
And then the major stepped back out of the bathroom, towelling her dripping
hair and wiping her face clean of the last traces of makeup. And she was
naked.
Her clean-lined body had begun to soften with age, but it was still taut
and trim: firm limbs, shallow but well-shaped breasts, a tangle of
unexpectedly tight-curled darkness at the joining of her thighs. A small
roseate mole on her right shoulder made her somehow realler, more
immediate, and Mulder felt himself swell in response.
Jesus, was this just supposed to be the casualness of fellow soldiers?
Should he just ignore her? Could he? But behind him, he heard Krycek's
purring growl and the sharp sound of a zipper.
The major tossed the towel aside and pulled the blankets off the nearer
bed, and Krycek stepped naked out of his jeans and ran his hands down her
back before she drew him down with her. No kissing, no declarations of
love, just body against body with a certain immediacy of need.
"Yes," she said. "Like that. Harder, damn it!"
Then she looked over at the dumbstruck Mulder. "Alex, does that Fed of
yours plan on helping, or does he just like to watch?"
Krycek looked back with a smirk, eyes glinting through the long sweep of
hair. "I don't know, Major. He may not be up to it."
Rage moved Mulder at last as he fought down the impulse to break Krycek's
face again with his fist. Damn it, I know I look stupid just standing
here, and I'm sure as fuck not going to let him think I'm chickening out.
Jaw clenched, he started to strip.
No problem staying erect. The major had started to hiss in response to
Krycek's ministrations, and Mulder hated himself for not knowing which one
roused him more. She was beautiful, unexpectedly wild and as young as she
needed to be. And moving over her, those long muscled thighs, that dancer's
arch of back and that lithe ass, all marked with bruises from Mulder's
hands, from the fight that had become something else...
Even as Mulder dropped the last of his clothes, the major drove her palm
against Krycek's shoulder and rolled them both over, rising to straddle
that willing body. She sat astride the length of him, not yet taking him
inside her, and Mulder could see between her thighs that Krycek was
well-shaped and uncircumcised. Sliding in by her right shoulder, Mulder
eclipsed the disturbing view and pulled her head back onto his shoulder,
feeling her skin surprisingly soft against him.
He tried to kiss her, but she pushed his face away, and Krycek said, "No.
She bites," even as she turned her head to prove it against the side of
Mulder's jaw. The sudden pain, the hot wet mouth, drove all ambivalence
from him, and he slid his hand down swelling softness to cup her breast,
stroke his thumb across the hardening nipple.
"Ah!" she said sharply. "Yes. Harder." And he slipped his other hand around
her side, and his palms were full and hungry as his teeth closed on her
shoulder. With a growl, she arched up against him, and Mulder could hear
from the wet sound, the sudden low gasp, that she had risen up to take
Krycek inside her. "Yes," she said again, and began to move.
He let his hands learn her, claim her, and he ground his aching cock
against her hip as she moved against him. This close, he could not help but
feel Krycek's thigh against his, and the tremors that shook it drove him
closer to the edge.
The major was purely selfish in her pleasure, demanding and focused
entirely on her own need. But her heat was contagious, her hard-won cries a
triumph for Mulder too. Sweating now, he tried to hold himself back and
make her come for him, cry out for him, and be damned to the
disturbingly beautiful traitor who struggled and panted beneath her.
Fascinated, he trailed one hand down to slide down the crack of her ass,
and her elbow nearly broke his rib. "None of that," she said, but any
rejection he might have felt was burned away as she clawed his hand back up
onto her breast and dug his fingers against her with her own. "Yes. Yes!"
And he could feel his control slipping as her hip and thigh pumped against
him with her own increasing pace, hot and strong.
"Ah! Ah!" and instinct made Mulder cover her mouth with his hand as she
screamed against it, screamed with all her strength and bit down on the
base of his thumb until he felt blood flow. But the pain didn't matter,
just the writhing of her whole fiery body against him as she spasmed and
the hot surge of her flesh drove him at last beyond the cliff-edge and into
an explosive fall. Her tremors kept him coming almost to the edge of pain,
and under her Krycek cried out one last time as she tightened on him, shaking.
For a moment, she held them locked to her as her quakes slowly subsided.
Then, with visible effort, she made her jaw open and loose Mulder's bloody
hand, and he slumped against her as she slid off Krycek to sink onto the
bed between them.
Sweat, and exhaustion, and breaths slowing together, apart...
Then she shook herself with a sigh of approval. "A good start," she said.
Krycek rolled his head sideways, grinning, and Mulder realized to his
chagrin that his own face revealed something like dismay. "Don't worry,
Mulder, it gets easier."
"Hah!" said the major. "Slower, yes." She seemed as proud of her own needs
as any man he'd met, and despite himself he grinned back.
For the moment, though, she seemed content to lie there as her breathing
slowed, so Mulder stirred himself only enough to run his hand down the
sweaty curve of her collarbone and the architecture of her shoulder.
Finally, she let out one last, long, shuddering sigh, and her arm nudged
further into his moving hand.
"Mouth, I think," she said, as if she were ordering from a menu. "Either of
you."
Krycek's sly voice itself was a challenge. "How about you, Mulder? That way
you can taste both of us."
"Like hell," said Mulder. "You do it; that'll shut you up for a while."
Himself, he sat up beside her and deepened the slow strokes of his hands,
shifting now to the sensitive hollows behind her breasts, now up along the
long curving ribs, now between—
But those wet lapping sounds made it hard to concentrate, and every time
his gaze shifted downwards, he saw that mouth straining, those green eyes
glinting under long, long lashes. Eyes that never stopped looking at him.
The major's spine shifted like a lazy snake, and her breasts moved with it.
Mouth? He'd show her mouth. Lips and tongue, he set out to investigate
hollow and hill and rosy peak, tasting the salt of her drying sweat and the
faint perfume from her shower, and something else that was uniquely her,
some faint clean exhalation of self.
No hurry, this time, and his own body was only beginning to wake again. His
fingertips feathered the cream-pale softness, learning where to linger,
where to tease, as his mouth began to move up the long column of her
throat. So she didn't like to be kissed? Now, when the first fury of her
passion was satisfied, she seemed less demanding, less abrupt, and he was
determined to taste that softened mouth.
And through it all, he made himself ignore the stronger musk of a man whose
very skin breathed with her sex and his own.
Cradling her breasts now, Mulder ran his thumbs suddenly over the
tightening nipples and swallowed her sigh with his own lips. She didn't
bite or protest, opening to press softness against softness, and his tongue
moved in to claim his triumph. She met him with equal passion but no
surrender, and he lowered his body against her side, touching skin against
skin for her full length.
His skin shuddered as long dark hair brushed against his hip, and a hand
momentarily trapped between them shifted its hold.
That dark head still moved between her thighs, but Mulder could still see
the half-veiled hint of a green gaze watching him. Hell, let him watch;
Mulder had nothing to be embarrassed about.
The major surged up for a moment, her mouth breaking free to gasp as a
smaller tremor took her. For a moment, every muscle locked, and then she
let herself subside again.
Her voice was almost normal. "Go ON!"
Krycek made a silly exasperated noise, and Mulder had had enough. Leaving
her breast, his right hand travelled down to slide between the bastard's
mouth and her wet heat. Forget that asshole; forget that mouth licking us
both once, twice. Mulder opened her to his touch as if there was no one
else there, sinking one finger and then the rest into her secret self, not
to penetrate but to fill the length of her slit, rippling to stimulate her
in more places than one.
For a moment, Krycek took one of Mulder's knuckles between his teeth.
Mulder grinned down at him. "You hurt my hand and she's going to kill
you," he said softly.
"Hah!" And then Krycek's head pulled back, just a little, and another hand
was interlacing with his, another set of fingers fluttering and rippling
along her sweet wet length. Mulder gave him a minute to catch the pace, and
then his own thumb rubbed deeper, stroking up the arc from vulva to
clitoris and down again until she surged against them and cried out.
"No, don't stop!" she managed as another spasm took her, then another, as
she climbed from peak to peak beneath their touch.
Finally her own hands came down to catch their wrists and hold them still
against her belly as she fought for breath. "Ohhhh... Oh, that's good...
Good...
"Good..."
After a minute, she shifted her body like a cat stretching and smiled. "Oh,
yes... I think I'm ready to be fucked now.
"One of you hard again? Or you can warm each other up for me."
Mulder felt his smile grow almost feral. "My turn, I think. So, Krycek,
think I need warming up? You can suck my cock."
Krycek's eyes darkened in something that was only part anger. "No, Mulder,
I wouldn't dream of insulting the readiness of your little dick."
The major laughed. With an analytical air, she took Krycek's cock in her
hand and weighed it like a marketplace sausage, and then rolled sideways
and did the same for Mulder.
"Well?" asked Mulder arrogantly.
"You're longer," she said. Mulder grinned at Krycek. "But," she added, "Not
by much, and he's a bit thicker."
"Hell, he always was thick," said Mulder, and rolled over to poise his body
above her. But something in that watching green gaze made his spine itch,
and he looked back over his shoulder to say, "Why don't you make yourself
useful, Ratboy? Maybe come up here and hold her head, see if you can help
her relax? I wouldn't want you to get bored back there and forget that this
is the major's treat."
"You flatter yourself," said Krycek dryly, but Mulder thought he saw
something else in his eyes as Krycek moved to do as he had suggested. The
major shifted, and Krycek ended up sitting against the head of the bed with
the major's back resting against him, her head in the hollow of his chest.
Even as Krycek's hands came up to rub her shoulders, Mulder lowered his
head to take one more sweet mouthful of breast, then the other, and began
to tease between her thighs with his ready cock. Her skin was so soft, and
she was so strong under it, that the feel of her legs alone would have been
hard to withstand if he had not already come once.
But he knew he was good, and his arms would take his weight for a while, so
he made her want him before he took her. Or before she took him, however
you named it. After a minute of this teasing, she laughed a half-growl deep
in her throat and pulled him down to her, taking his full weight and
digging her nails deep in his back. "Do it," she commanded.
And without pause he drove up and in.
God, so sweet and hot—Wet and ready, and tight despite everything, and
even here she had a strength beneath the softness that drew him in. Her
hips arched to cradle him more closely, her legs came up to bind him to
her, and as her head tossed back in sudden pleasure, Mulder raised his eyes
to the other man's in triumph.
Then he focused himself on the task at hand. Damn, she felt good, and if
they were alone he might have lost himself in her. But this was a challenge
against two opponents, the major and that smirking ratfuck, and by God he
was going to win it.
Shutting out as much sensation as he could, he set himself to give her
pleasure. Here, this angle made her moan, and she liked this—and if he
delayed here, made her wait a moment, her response was stronger when he
finally moved. His hands now freed, he let them learn her hips, her thighs,
her cheeks, the long firm curve of her belly; learning how to waken her
further.
She liked a long night of it? Very well, she'd had her warmup. But by God
he was going to make her come so hot and hard that she'd be satisfied, and
that cocksucking traitor could wave it in the wind as far as he was concerned.
There. Oh yes, there. Slow sea-tide strokes that made her pleasure deeper,
richer, before it would be satisfied. His hands on her hips holding her,
and holding her back, knowing the perfect rightness of each move, each
angle that brushed her clit or pressed back against other places that
welcomed him. Yes. There. Oh yes, he could feel the tide rising in her, the
body beginning to shiver uncontrollably against him even as his hands held
her to the rhythm that would carry her through. Yes. There. Yes.
And then, even as she thrashed back against the man who held her from
behind, even as her breath seemed to catch fire in joy too great for
screaming, Mulder felt another hand slide down to touch where they were
joined. Felt those long fingers close around the base of his cock, cupping
his balls and the woman's mound with the same intruding exploration.
And Mulder lost his distance, lost the restraint that held him back, and
even as his muscles tightened with something that was not quite rage, he
felt the pleasure take him. His cock in her, and the hot pulsing core of
her, and it was real and there and too much and he spasmed against her and
the long fingers holding him and came and came and came.
But the hand on his shoulder moved slightly, and he looked up to see that
they were both still cradled against Krycek's lounging body, and the
laugh-lines tightening around those watching eyes were not those of a man
who had lost.
(End of Dover Beach II)
To Be Continued
Dover Beach
by Nonie Rider
Part II: The Tide Is Full
Nothing happened between them that night; they were both too tired and sore
even to fight. And the next morning, Krycek fed the dog, made them quick
sandwiches in the RV's kitchen, and headed out again.
A sudden wicked thought made him check his wallet. Yes, he could manage a
twenty. He kept it concealed in one palm, and when Krycek, long hair still
dripping water down his back, slid across Mulder to take the wheel with
another flourish of his jeans-clad hips, Mulder waited until the transfer
was complete and then tucked the money into Krycek's belt with a smirk of
his own.
Early that afternoon, without preamble, Krycek started to talk.
Early that evening, it looked like they were going to reach Oklahoma City
just as the rush-hour traffic lightened up, but without comment Krycek
suddenly swung onto an off-ramp and headed south. The pillared watertower
was marked "Moore" when he pulled off the road and into a suburban street.
It took another twenty minutes for them to get Krycek's story out of him.
"Oh," said Benyamin in surprise. "So you're Cicada? That Seattle file you
e-mailed was really helpful." Then he subsided in embarrassment, and Mulder
suspected his dark skin concealed a serious blush.
Part 2: Retreating, to the Breath of the Night-Wind
Mulder swore under his breath as he tripped over a bloody heap half masked
by the hedge. Two men; close-up work. Clearly, the major hadn't won free
without trouble. Jesus, a force of over a dozen enemies in this raid for
sure, and probably half again that.
Part 3: Round Earth's Shore
"Who were they?"
Krycek had finished explaining his uplink to Benyamin when Major Hanavi
returned. The old-lady impersonation dropped away like a raincoat, and she
was all business. "Room 205. Upstairs, other side. Good separation."
Mulder was seething as they entered the motel room. Krycek had cheerfully
handed him the bag of clothes and toiletries as if Mulder were just a hired
flunky. But damn it, he knew Krycek was just waiting to get his goat, and
he was not going to give the rat bastard the satisfaction.
Part 4: From the Long Line of Spray
He surfaced slowly to consciousness after a long dark drifting, and felt
her breathing evenly in his arms. She was asleep, and trusted him to hold
her, and he had won.
