Checkmate.
When I pulled her off that stage, I had no idea just how important she could be. I knew that having her could only help, if only to see the looks on the face of every crooked cop and politician in this town when they saw her standing with me. My ally. Mine at last.
Fuck, she’s beautiful. Even when I hated her, I couldn’t help but admire the way her supple curves filled out her suit. The graceful curve where her mask curved over her cheekbone. The plush pout of her lips…
I thought the distance forged through years of combat and opposition would be enough. Now I know it will never be enough. One taste of her was enough to brand her in my soul, for my cells to remake themselves to better suit her desires.
I would see her enemies laid bare, decimated and bleeding before us.
Only the pull of the serum could tempt me from my bed so early this morning. Kaye was so soft and warm in my arms, so deliciously spent after our night together. I watched her chest rise and fall in the breaking dawn, my fingers drawing lazy patterns across her soft skin. We had only fallen asleep a few hours before, but already my body hungered for her. What I would have given to wake her with slow, gentle kisses, then sink myself deep inside her. But the siren call of the serum had been too hard to resist.
Shaking my head, I rise from my seat. Maybe a little bit of food and caffeine will get me back on track.
Outside the secret passage that marks the entrance to my lab, the house is alive with the beating of base. It pulses through the floor, spreading up through my bones. I follow that pulse, seeking the heart of that steady rhythm. In the kitchen, George sits on a stool at the counter, laptop open and blasting some Spotify playlist. Her mouth opens wide to flash her pearlescent, picture-straight smile. I push inside and see why.
Kaye dances while she cooks, her hips cresting and dipping in time with the beat. One hand rises above her crown, emphasizing her movements as she lip-syncs into the large, flat spatula in her right hand. She’s not bad, either. Her fighter’s body is graceful. Sensual. The smooth roundness of her curves hypnotic as the muscles bend and flex in time with the music, making my mouth water. My palms itch to draw her hips to my own, to reclaim that softness against the hard panes of my body.
Her eyes are closed, rapturously lost in the song. She looks good. Different. The tips of her hair brush the lines of her collarbones, which peek out at either side of a scoop-necked Florence and the Machine T-shirt I recognize as one of George’s. Kaye’s fuller figure fills out the shirt well. While George typically cinches in the fabric around her hips in a knot, it fits effortlessly on Kaye, swelling and dipping in all the right places. A pair of blue jeans showcase her long, strong legs perfectly and her full, firm ass.
I turn around to adjust my suddenly irritating pants.
“Are you giving us the Irish goodbye?” George’s voice snaps me out of any hopes I had of a stealthy exit. Why, why, why does she have to be so observant?
“I think you have to say hello in the first place to give someone an Irish goodbye,” I joke, turning to find both women watching me. George looks annoyed by the intrusion in thegood-natured and loving way of all people raised almost as siblings. Kaye, however, has a gleam of mischief lighting up her eyes as she appraises me and aknowingis hinted in the tilt of her head, the pink of her cheeks. She bites her lip, a movement that seems to have a direct tether to my groin. “And has anyone actually witnessed an Irish person use the Irish goodbye? Sounds like bullshit to me.”
“I don’t think that’s the point.” George focuses in on me with laser precision, the kind that says,I know you’re uncomfortable and it’s all I want in life to see you squirm. I glare at her.
“I’m making pancakes,” Kaye says. My eyes dart to her, rewarding me with the sight of a pleasing pink flush creeping high on her cheeks. “If you want to stay.”
As if on cue, George’s laptop snaps closed, music cutting off mid-lyric. “This is perfect! I’m running late for a study date. I’d feel guilty running out, but ifyoukeep her company…”
“You’re not subtle,” I tell her. I let my attention linger on Kaye as she turns to pour a fresh round of batter into the sizzling frying pan, the red flush creeping up the back of her neck.
“Thank you for spending the morning with me, George,” Kaye interjects over her shoulder, her voice having gone a little flat. “I had a lot of fun.”
“We’ll do it again sometime. That’s a promise.”
Kaye nods and continues flipping pancakes, adding them to a steaming plated stack off to one side. As she gathers her things, George catches my gaze and holds it until the door closes behind her.
Kaye’s shoulders sag as soon as the door closes. I watch her as she flips the last pancakes on the plate. I think she’s forgotten all about me until she takes another plate from the shelf and eyes the half-burned stack.
“On second thought, maybe we shouldn’t eat these.” She laughs.
“They’re just a little burned.” I shrug. I take the fork from her hand, stabbing into the top three in the stack and dragging them to me. “It’s nothing some butter and maple syrup won’t cure.”
I take a bite, crunching through the outer, smoky layer, but the inside is light and airy.
“Hanging out with George this morning… it felt nice.” She’s quiet, but clear. Firm, though a tremor of something fragile runs through her voice. “I’ve always been the odd one. The one with the secret to hide. Being Checkmate hasn’t let me make many friends. I felt almost normal.”
Her words echo of an ache I thought was long buried.
When I was young, there were plenty of people around in my life. I was the child that every parent urged their children to play with. Our family was influential. Wealthy. I was a nice, normal-looking boy. And then a genius. And an orphan.
People love an attractive orphan. It’s the tragedy of it all. No one wants to lose loved ones like that, but they all love to be adjacent to it. To feel the kiss of death’s cold breath and walk away to the warm sanctity of their homes.
Until I became wise to that kind of manipulation. Or so I thought. C certainly managed to play me. He saw how hungry I was for true companionship. I let it blind me and I lost it all. Everything I was. The woman I loved.
Humanity isn’t meant to live in solitude. We need others to not only survive, but thrive.
