Amy's Advantage (27 page)

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged. “Perhaps we both are here for reasons other
than finding Magdalyne’s daughters. Perhaps we should stay out of each other’s
business completely.” Turning and hurrying up the path toward the farmhouse,
she left her words and the threat wrapped in them hanging in the frozen air
behind her.

Chapter Sixteen

“So, how about those Yankees?” Curled up against Jordyn’s
side in bed, with her head on his shoulder, Amy walked her fingers up his
chest.

He pressed her hand flat with his own and looked down at
her. “Baseball? You want to talk about baseball?”

She shrugged. “Just looking to make small talk until
breakfast gets here.” And give her body a few minutes to recover. They’d had
sex once more last night before they went to sleep, once in the middle of the
night and then again this morning when they woke up. The man was a machine.
Granted, this morning it
was
her fault, but she had been curious about
the cock ring and now she knew.

Jordyn released her hand to trace the smile on her lips.
“What’s that for?”

Shifting positions so she was lying halfway on top of him
with her arms crossed on his chest, she said, “You liked using the cock ring,
didn’t you?”

His eyes got that sexy, dark-gray gleam in them she had come
to recognize and relish. “What do you think?”

“I think I surprised you this morning and you enjoyed every
minute of it.”

His hand swept down over her back to spread possessively
over her ass. “And I think you enjoyed the vibrating knob on it that pressed
against your clit while you rode me.”

“That is definitely true.” She grinned at him, plopping her
chin down on her arms. “Vibrators are so much more fun to play with as a couple
than by yourself.”

“Is that right?”

“Most definitely. Take my word for it.”

He interlocked his fingers behind his head and rested back
on his open palms, closing his eyes. “I’ll make a note.”

“You do that.”

She let the easy banter fade into a peaceful quiet between
them, content for the moment to stay sprawled across the man who had kept her
sexually sated for hours. Even apparently relaxed, Jordyn’s features still held
an aspect of alertness, as if in any second he could be clearheaded and battle
ready. Obviously the man had fought his way through several skirmishes,
evidenced by the scattered and random marks around his body. A particularly
wicked-looking slash ran down the inside of his upper arm.

“What’s that scar from?” she asked.

He didn’t open his eyes. “You’ll have to be more specific,”
he said.

She shifted to release one hand, turning her head to rest
her cheek on the arm still across his chest. “This one.” Gently, she traced the
length of the mark with her fingertip.

“That’s from a
meglay
. A cat-like creature that is
intensely protective of its young.”

“Serves you right if you were messing with its babies.”

“Not me. Connyn. When he was young.”

“You rescued him?”

Jordyn grunted. “I’ve had to pull all the Heirs out of
trouble at some point during their training. Confidence runs in their blood and
it sometimes overreaches their knowledge and experience.”

Amy lifted her head and frowned at him.

Jordyn cracked his eyes open slightly at her movement.
“What?” he asked.

“You don’t look that much older than them.”

He closed his eyes and dropped his head back. “I’m a year
older than Amdyn.”

“Yet you trained him? All of them?”

“Sometimes, it’s the experience that matters more than the
years.”

“Oh.” She put her head back down, and for a moment, was
content to draw lazy circles on his chest with her fingers. “How long have you
been a soldier?”

Jordyn sighed. “Officially, I was inducted into the army
when I was fourteen.”

“Officially?” Her hand stilled on his chest.

His shrug bounced her head up. “I’d been fighting since I
was nine.”

Amy pushed herself up so suddenly that her elbow dug into
his rib cage. “They let children go into battle?”

Wincing, Jordyn sat up straighter against the headboard and
shifted the position of her elbow. “No. As a rule, they don’t. But I’d lost
both my parents in an attack early on and wasn’t much interested in the rules.
And to be fair, I lied about my age.”

“Still,” she said, angry that anyone would allow such a
young child anywhere near a war zone, “I think it would have been obvious you
weren’t old enough to sign up.”

A glimmer of amusement lit his eyes as he lifted a long curl
away from her right eye and tucked it behind her ear. “Your outrage on my
behalf is unnecessary. If that commander hadn’t allowed me to join his company,
I would have moved on until I found one who would. As it was, his unit was
deployed in an area where I’d been running a personal campaign of guerrilla
warfare for several years and I knew the topography and the Sleht’s weaknesses
in the field there better than anyone. He couldn’t afford
not
to let me
join.”

“It still isn’t right,” she grumbled.

His thumb brushed over her cheek. “He just straightened out
the path I was already on.”

“How long has this war been going on?”

“On and off for generations.” Jordyn picked up her hand and
wove his fingers between hers, lazily rubbing her palm with his thumb. “When
the Original Five split our world into factions, our defenses weakened. Rulers
became more focused on fighting each other than in keeping the world safe as a
whole.”

“Is that how the Sleht managed to get in?”

“Yes. They slipped in through a portal that had gone
unguarded due to the wars, but were mostly ignored at first because they
appeared peaceful and only moved into the wild places. Occasionally, there’d be
a skirmish with an outlying town, but nothing to draw the attention of a king from
the war he was fighting. The Original Five and their immediate descendents
didn’t consider them a problem.”

“So what happened?”

“They became a problem.” He lifted her hand and kissed the
back of it. “If I were as religious as my grandmother, I’d say it was
orchestrated by the gods.”

“Really? I’d rather think the gods would be more helpful in
defending the world than allowing enemies in to destroy it.”

“The emergence of the Sleht kept us from destroying
ourselves. Nothing brings opposing factions together like a common outside
threat.”

“Is that where the curse came from? The threat of the
Sleht?”

“No. We brought that upon ourselves. The Sleht and many
other things are more or less a result of our ancestors’ choices.” A fierce
gleam of determination lit his eyes. “But we will take back our world. We
are
taking back our world.”

Looking at the hard lines etched by the muscles that defined
his body, she asked, “Did you always want to be a soldier?”

Unwinding her fingers from his, he placed her hand on his
chest over his heart and pressed it into place with his on top of hers. “As far
back as I can remember.”

“That’s what Aurora said about Andrew.”

“It must have been good to have Aurora there when you found
out about Andrew’s death.”

“It was…different.” Repositioning herself to sit up next to
him, she tucked herself under his arm. “I didn’t know Andrew was dead. I wasn’t
on any of the paperwork that obligated the army to notify me. All I knew was
that he stopped writing and calling and my letters came back unopened or just
disappeared.” It was her turn to shrug. “Aurora found letters to me and from me
in all his stuff they eventually shipped back to her and wanted to meet the
woman he’d fallen in love with. I was part of her closure, she said. There were
some fairly confused moments right after I opened the door.”

Amy grew quiet, lost in the memories of that first meeting.
Jordyn’s fingers trailed down her arm. “I don’t know who was more shocked when
she showed up at my apartment,” she said. “Me when I found out about Andrew or
her when she found out about Chloe. There was a lot of crying, hugging and a
little yelling.”

“Yelling?”

“Aurora was a little upset that I hadn’t contacted her
earlier when I found out I was pregnant.”

Jordyn trailed his fingers through her hair. “Why didn’t
you?”

“Eventually I’d planned to, because even if Andrew wasn’t
interested in me anymore, I figured he had a right to know he had a child. It
was in my mind that once I found her, I’d send a message through her to him,
since the army was a dead end, but I didn’t know where to start. All I knew was
that she was somewhere in Texas, but dear god, Texas is
huge
. And she’d
changed her last name when she started modeling
.
It was a mess.”

She shook her head. “Then life got complicated.” Memories of
the mornings she’d thrown up until she thought she’d turn inside out, losing
her puny, but much-needed waitressing job and nearly getting kicked out of her
tiny apartment crowded together in a tumultuous jumble in her mind. Jordyn
lifted his hand to twirl a curl around his finger, but made no comment. ”The
army was less than helpful—”

“Did you tell them you were pregnant?” he asked.

“Not exactly.”

He tugged the curl sideways until she was looking up at him.
“That’s a yes or no question.”

“Then no. I didn’t know if I’d be believed or who to go to.
Plus, I thought he’d dumped me and we hadn’t exactly gotten around to talking
about whether or not he even wanted children in the few weeks we actually spent
with each other. Then I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to keep Chloe on
my own. I was confused and broke and embarrassed about the whole thing. I’d
even spoken to adoption agencies.”

Jordyn traced the outer line of her bottom lip with his
fingertip. “What changed?”

Suddenly, fierce tears were welling in her eyes. “Chloe was
born. And then everything changed. She was mine and I was not going to let her
go. It was hard, but we were making it.”

“And Aurora?”

“She’s a little bossy. Once she got over the shock and
anger, she insisted we move to Houston to live with her where we could all be a
family. She had a great little place with plenty of room for all of us. Do you
have any idea how much a lingerie model makes?”

“No.”

Amy snorted and lay back against his arm. “Aurora made
plenty to really help us out, that’s for sure. At one point she’d also dated
some bigwig broker who multiplied her investments. And then she gave us the
insurance money Andrew had set up from the army. I’d put most of that away for
Chloe’s college.”

“Until you went on the run?” He tapped her arm absently in
thought. “I wondered how you were financing your flight across the country.”

“You make it sound as if I had been a wanted fugitive.
Though your comment brings up an interesting question I have for you.”

Jordyn didn’t respond and after the moment drew out into
silence, she patted his leg. “You know that remaining mute doesn’t do anything
to inhibit me in a conversation, right?”

He sighed and dropped his head back against the headboard.
“Yes, I’m well aware of that fact.”

“Good,” she said with a smile. “How does your team finance
their stay in alien worlds? I mean, you guys have been in this world for, what?
A dozen years?”

“The point team came through the portal around twenty years
ago. It took some years to discover which world your mother had jumped into.
Until Bethany was found, we didn’t know for absolute certainty.”

Amy sat up and turned to look at him. His gaze dropped
immediately to her breasts. “You’ve been here for two decades?”

He traced the outer curve of her left breast with his fingertip.
“Not me personally. Several teams have come and gone. I came through with Amdyn
the first time.”

“How many times have you been here?”

With a shrug, he said, “Several. We searched multiple
worlds. Whoever sent your mother through the portal in the first place laid a
network of false leads to other places. So we went wherever a lead took us.”
Leisurely, his finger followed the circle of her areola, causing her nipple to
pull tight. “Though the heirs kept being drawn back here. It took a long time to
get anywhere in this world. I’ve never seen a place so mired in paperwork, run
by people unwilling or unable to give straight answers.”

“So once you get into a new world, what do you use for
money? I mean, you guys drive nice cars or trucks and that farmhouse compound
couldn’t have been cheap.”

“It all depends on the world we’re entering. Sometimes the
economy is fairly straightforward. You go in and take what you want. Other
worlds require a more subtle approach. This world,” he said as he flicked the
sensitive tip of her aroused nipple, “has both.”

She swatted his hand away. “What do you mean, both?”

Locking his fingers together behind his head again, he
leaned back and said, “There are some cities, compounds and areas in this world
where, if you can overpower their forces, you can just walk in and take what
you want.”

“Did you do that here?”

A flat, unreadable curtain fell over his expression. “I did
not.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You
all
didn’t or just
you personally?”

“You’d have to ask them.”

“Right.” She rolled her eyes and shoved a couple of curls
out of her face.

Jordyn reached forward and tweaked the nipple he’d teased
earlier. “Mostly, we try to honor the laws of the worlds we enter. There are
other ways to make enough money to finance a quick trip or to set up a running
business if we need to stay embedded in the world for any length of time.”

“Like what?” She held his hand still against her breast,
pushing his palm against her nipple. His teasing was making it hard to
concentrate.

“Ever play poker with a telepath?”

“Well, no.”

Jordyn’s lips kicked up a fraction at the corners. “Wise.”

“Good god. That’s not exactly fair.”

“I do believe
all’s fair in love and war
is a
favorite expression in this world.”

“So what’s cheating in a poker game considered? Love or
war?”