The Walls of Jericho

Parting

The sun’s high enough over the privacy landscaping that it’s slanting into the office already. With much disappointment, I review my email and find that my latest round of applications to KDS have been rejected. Annoyed and frustrated, I close my laptop and tuck it away to come back to later. Channing will be out of the shower soon, and I don’t need him finding me job hunting.

Rising, I stretch my back and gaze appreciatively out the office’s wall of windows at the vast stretch of the horizon. The underground world of Avernus aside, even having the only room in Mr. Adriani’s house that received any natural light was nothing like this. Absolutely nothing. This place is simply spectacular.

If you think about it, glass is an interesting technological development. The ancient process of glassblowing aside, it’s still kind of a stagnant human advancement all things considered. Sure, modern glass is stronger and more uniform. Like its predecessor glass, it lets in light and even heat, and our buildings would be dark, stuffy, cold, and damp without it, but its built-in drawback is that, by nature, it's transparent, or in some circumstances, translucent, even when you don't want it to be.

Normally, windows are made from a single vertical pane of glass or, in the case of double-glazed windows, have two glass panes that are separated by a thin air gap to improve heat insulation and soundproofing. That’s how they keep some heat and noise on one side or the other. To combat the rest of the light, heat and privacy issues glass creates, we, as humans, have invented an equally clunky and stagnant technology to cope. 

That ‘technology’ is curtains or blinds.

If you don’t believe it has, trust me that a lifetime of coping with the technological kludge of modern window dressings to manage these rather large shortcomings of window glass will actually train you of their necessity. In my case, there’s a cumulative impact from also spending the last six years working at Esteban’s diner and contending with the greenhouse effect through the diner’s front windows. From an interior design standpoint, we start to think of curtains and blinds as not merely necessity, but as neat and attractive.

In cold, pragmatic, logical terms, they're a pain in the posterior.

The Tassler house, which is how I refer to this place because I haven’t really accepted it as ‘mine’ or ‘home’, is a blatant flip of the bird to the limitations of both old technologies of glassblowing and interior design. It's a towering, glorious modern marvel. 

Not only does it have electric clothes washing and drying machines, a high-efficiency dishwasher, automatic vacuum cleaners and sensor-operated, automatically-opening doors, it’s outfitted with these magnificent electrochromic windows that can change from clear to dark, either automatically or at the touch of a button.

In my case, it’s kind of all automatic. Forgive me if I’m a little smug about that.

On its inside surfaces, the electrochromic glass has a double-sandwich of five ultra-thin layers that create the magic. These ‘sandwiches’ are made up of a separator in the middle, two electrodes on either side of the separator, and then two transparent electrical contact layers on either side of the electrodes. The basic working principle involves positively-charged ions that migrate back and forth between the two electrodes through the separator.

Normally, when the window is clear, the ions reside in the innermost electrode. When a small voltage is applied to the electrodes, the ions migrate through the separator to the outermost electrode. There, they soak into that layer and make it reflect light, effectively turning the glass opaque. The ions remain in that spot all by themselves until the fractional amount of voltage is reversed, causing them to move back so the window turns transparent once again. No ongoing power supply is needed to maintain the glass in either the clear or dark state—only to change them from one state to the other.

They’re truly an inspired human technology. One I wholly approve of as a technomage.

And as a relatively shy woman who has to wander naked from the bed with Channing to the closet to get my robe every morning.

There’s a storm visible on the ocean horizon rolling with an inexorable creep towards shore, but in advance of the overcast, I send the miniscule voltage needed to dim the electrochromic glass against the present sunlight with barely a second thought and grab my coffee cup to take into the kitchen.

When I round the hallway from the office, Channing descends from the staircase at the opposite end. As automatically as the windows, he beams one of his heart-breaker smiles that make me all melty, then lengthens his stride to capture me in his arms at the open kitchen entry.

“Mmm, you smell nice,” I comment, rubbing my jaw along the front of his shirt, enjoying the clean sand-salt-sea male fragrance that’s uniquely his.

Folding me against him, he nuzzles the top of my head. “So do you.”

I chuckle. “You don’t have to sell me so hard, beefcake. I haven’t showered and I was in the pool last night—I know I don’t smell good.”

“You do though. You smell salty, yes,” he ducks his head and inhales deeply while he’s nibbling on my neck. “Hmm, taste a little salty too,” he teases, “but you always smell like spiced molasses cake to me. Delicious. I’d like to prop you up on the counter and have you for breakfast.”

Pushing away from him, I arch a brow. “Don’t you ever think about anything besides s*x and food?” I ask, turning towards the kitchen.

Channing grabs me, reeling me into his arms again. “Babydoll, I am a werewolf—basic instincts, remember? And all damn day long I have to think about everything besides s*x and food—where to deploy money and manpower, how to revamp strategic initiatives, who’s getting a raise and who’s getting fired. You’ll have to excuse me if I want to indulge myself on your delectable little body whenever you’re around. Besides, I’ll be gone the next two nights. It feels like agony already.”

“Agony.” I shake my head at his over-dramatization. Pushing away again, I pad barefoot into the kitchen. Stooping, I give a ‘good boy’ pat to one of the roombas as it zips by while my mate trails along behind in my wake. “We could barely walk after your overnight foray last week. That’s agony.” I set my coffee mug on the counter and reach for the cupboard to get one for him.

“Really good agony,” he murmurs in remembered appreciation against the crook of my neck and shoulder as he's stepping up behind me.

There’s an alpha ring to the sound of his voice and it makes my hair stand on end. I freeze, then gasp, clutching the edge of the granite counter. His breath feels hot against my sensitive skin as his teeth settle over the fleshy relaxed muscle there, nestling into the hollow where his invisible mark is with a gentle pressure.

He restrains me this way, inciting that primal drive with the easy assurance of a dominant male controlling his desired and secretly desirous female. It arouses me more than the feel of his hands slipping inside the front of my robe or the insistent hardness through his clothes pressing against me from behind.

With any impulse I might have mustered to squirm away thus quelled, he kneads one of my non-existent breasts with one large paw and curls the other around the damp warmth between my legs. My breath catches in my throat as one strong finger massages a pearl of wetness into an inviting slickness. He teases one massaging fingertip in a slow circuit around the awakened hooded bud, and the jolt of pleasure nearly lifts me off the floor.

If he’d pressed even a millisecond longer, this entire adventure would have been over. But he’s Channing, and he didn’t. Just one eddying caress, then he stops because he knows my body better than I do, and like a high-performance machine, it responds instantaneously to his slightest touch.

I’ve created a monster.

A monster I want now as much as I want his fingers inside me, the hard heat of him demanding insistently against my bottom inside me.

His teeth release the flesh he holds, just before my legs give out from under me. Then he sends another doubled, electric jolt into my feminine core when he glazes his tongue over the mark.

“The—theater,” I gasp out, gripping the edge of the counter to keep myself upright as he kneels behind me.

Channing caresses my calves, sliding his hands up under my robe as his lips and tongue tantalize and explore. He torments me with a firm circling motion of his tongue between my legs, while his warm paws skim my outer thighs.

I groan when he stops, then rises, his hands grazing over my hips to my waist. He lifts my robe with them, leaving me fully exposed to him from behind. “Sleep—sleeping,” I stutter in reply.

“Mmmm,” he growls in approval, sounding nearly as close to the edge of his control as I feel. The pad of his thumb strokes along my soft petals as his other hand presses in the center of my back, bending me over the cold granite countertop and guiding me to the position he wants. He steps back, gently nudging my bare feet apart with one heavy workboot.

My breath comes in rapid shallow pants as the deliberate positioning grants him more access to exploit my willing body. “Channing,” I moan impatiently, trembling as his clever fingers track the slippery evidence of my eagerness from one end of my sensitive opening to the other. “I promise I’ll never chide you about s*x again if you’ll make me climax in the next three minutes.”

He chuckles, and I hear the rustle as he deals with his clothes. “You won’t make it three minutes, babydoll,” he whispers confidently, then he deals with me.

I gasp, then catch my breath as with two fingers, he spreads me open and thrusts inside me. Bending over me, he laces his fingers through mine where they’re splayed across the unyielding granite and drives deep from behind. Pleasure spikes along my spine and into my brain and I arch to take him fully. His hard strokes stretch and fill me, and his hands pin me where he wants me.

Where I want to be.

Channing holds me firmly, thrusting himself repeatedly into me. He groans with me, pleasuring my body with his, careful not to shame himself by taking his release before granting mine. Straining with him, I moan as he drives the sweet agony to an unbearable pinnacle inside me and he covers my mouth with our entwined hands. Then he tips us over the brink, climaxing with me as I shudder uncontrollably in heady fulfillment beneath him.

Releasing my mouth, he brushes his lips along my jaw to my ear, then whispers, “That was two minutes. If I’m being generous. I win, so no more teasing.”

“I think we both won,” I giggle softly. “Except for this counter. It’s bloody freezing.”

“Ooh.” His brows draw together in sudden concern. Releasing my hands, he wraps his arms beneath me, lifting my body away from the frigid counter and buffering it with his arms. “Better?”

“Mmm, yes.” I settle into this slightly adjusted position with a contented sigh. “Do you have to be gone overnight?” I ask, suddenly reluctant to spend my day and especially my nights without him.

“I’m afraid so.” Channing sounds more dejected about it than I do. “I’ll FaceTime you tonight though, as soon as we land and I get to the hotel.”

“Land? You’re flying?” I twist my neck as far as I can so I can see him over my shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“We've chartered a plane to Dublin,” he advises. “Damien’s team there has developed a new tracker housing they’re testing tonight. If it passes, we’ll deploy it the next chance we get. I’m going to move now, babydoll.”

“Nooo,” I object with a pout, tightening my smooth silky muscles around him where we’re joined. “Five more minutes.” I grin hearing Channing’s tormented curse.

“Jericho—.”

He looses a string of heated expletives as I rhythmically tense and release a series of pleasurable waves around him. Breathing raggedly in low growls, he begins to move himself in and out of me extraordinarily slowly, working against my controlled contractions around him.

A wholly new pleasure pulses through me as my muscles strain against his stretching, filling heat. For countless long minutes, he continues the agonizing pace, letting one hand drift down my body so he can stimulate me more with his hand.

“Please,” I whimper, clutching at the countertop’s edge, desperate for something to hold to, my legs quaking with exhaustion.

“Not yet.” He brings me to the edge with both internal and external stroking, over and over, always backing away just before my release. “Consider this a punishment,” he pants through gritted teeth, then nips and holds my shoulder.

At last, his huffed grunts and low moans become wilder and more desperate, matching his rougher, quicker thrusting strokes. His finger against the hyper-stimulated bud between my legs increases the pressure, demanding a surrender I willingly give.

My back arches as the shattering orgasm crests and crashes over me. With a final hard thrust and a husky growl, Channing fills me with an immense torrent, the seeping excess flowing down the inside of my trembling legs.

“Jesus, Jericho,” he whisper-pants, collapsing on top of me so we’re braced against each other to keep from falling. “I swear you’ll be the death of me.”

Without warning this time, he withdraws from my sucking wetness and another warm rivulet of our mingled fluid trickles down the inside of my legs.

Better with me this way than the alternative if I die in contest with the dragon.

He straightens us together, making a decent albeit failing attempt to cover me with my robe. Abandoning the job to my trembling fingers, he leans against the counter behind him and tucks himself back into his jeans. By the time I turn to face him, we’re both as collected as we can get— both flushed, overheated and sweaty.

A silent exchange of dark passion and warm adoration passes between us, then he pushes himself off the counter. Cupping my nape, he kisses me deeply and roughly. When he steps back, I can see, clearly, he’s reluctant to go.

“Tell me you love me.”

Without hesitation, I reply, “I love you." The words mark him as mine more than my teeth upon his neck or ring upon his finger ever can. They own the Alpha who claims me with a bond that's bigger than the both of us.

His blue eyes close, as if to lock the words inside him. “I have to go,” he whispers with a faint anguish, “or I’ll never leave.” When he opens his eyes to mine, the white-blue whorls spin in slow circuits around his dilated pupils. “I’ll miss you.”

In the next instant, he’s gone.