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She took a deep breath, closed her eyes. "Good to be just in bed with a man. Lavender and guy. Someone needs to bottle that".
"What did you mean when you said that you weren't so sure anymore?" Valentine asked, curiosity getting the better of him. Or maybe it was a game he was playing with himself, with her as the prize. Or the other way round.
She thought for a moment. "I used to just be able to... turn everything off and enjoy fucking. But I'm starting to know you better. There's a lot of stuff in there I think I like. That weird little smile you wear".
She touched the corner of his mouth.
What the hell.
He reached up, took her wrist, kissed her gently on the back of her hand, then turned it over and kissed the palm. He released it and she reached up to play with his hair.
"Shit, now I've done it", she said. She lunged across the bed as quickly as one of the snakes tattooed on her arms, kissed him.
The rest came in a frenzy of pent-up desire, effervescent as champagne and just as intoxicating.
* * *
Valentine woke with a start in the predawn. Reapers! He found he was sitting up listening in anxious silence. No ... the
strange cold place on his consciousness wasn't there, wasn't real; it was echoes of memory and nightmare.
"You okay?" Gide murmured.
"Cramp", Valentine lied.
"You're sweating".
"Yeah. I'll be right back".
He washed his face in the bathroom, still listening. Then he went out to the balcony, looked around at the darker-than-ever world under a pinkening sky. He heard someone sweeping on the balcony below, smelled fresh bread, the feminine musk of Gide on him.
He returned to bed and slept hard.
* * *
They spent the rest of the weekend mostly in the bedroom, trying something Valentine had never experienced before: room service.
Saturday passed in brilliant sun and wandering clouds, and they restored themselves from bouts of lovemaking with coffees and teas on the balcony, sitting on an old bench with one of the bed pillows cushioning their backs. Gide, like her father in his better days, was also a big reader and they poked through worn, yellow-paged books collected from the hotel's small library together. They dressed for dinner and later discovered a second night together more delectable than the first.
They hitched back west on Sunday, riding in the bed of a king-cab pickup carrying a trio of captains who reminded Valentine of one of the poker hands that brought him up.
Saying good-bye to Gide was hard. But like all such days pried from the routines of war, the brevity made the memories that much sweeter.
* * *
Four days later he saw his first action. "Courier duty", they called it. Valentine buzzed out over Seattle's waters in the dead night, low
and slow as he dared. Any watching Reaper might mistake him at a distance for a fast-moving patrol boat.
They'd modified the exhaust of the PAAT to lower the noise and make its voice resemble the oversized motorcycle it was. Valentine sensed a slight loss of horsepower but it just meant he couldn't do much in the way of fancy climbing turns.
The entrance to Seattle's harbor now had two tall lights marking it, constructed from old radio masts. The north rose up from an island and the other was on the coast. Allegedly some poor bastards made the long climb to the top of each four times a day, keeping watch on the water approaches to the city.
He wondered if they'd mark him as a potential smuggler.
He kept well clear of the southern tower but used it as a waypoint. He picked up a little altitude over the southwestern peninsula, saw the three lights, one blue and two red, laid out in an equilateral triangle.
Two of the lights went out as he passed overhead, leaving only the blue. He banked the autogyro and made his approach.
