Chapter 7 The Monkey King

"I'm not the one who is confused," he said.

She stepped in closer to him. His chin came up as she deliberately invaded his space, but he didn't back away. "Me? Where am I confused?"

Such a complicated look. "That's a long story." He searched her face, looking for something… and not finding it. Dana backed off. She was pushing too hard. She knew it. And she didn't like the feeling that she was coming up short with what he expected of her.

She dropped the boots and her jacket again. Come, go, on, off – she was getting dizzy. He seemed determined to keep his distance, at the same time as he insisted that she stay. She knew what she wanted though.

She fingered the upper edge of his undershirt, not peeking out from under as much as planted there like a target. Peel off all his layers like an artichoke to get to the heart of the matter. She ran her fingernail under the stitching, a tiny vibration they could both feel. "So what's the story with the cop? Does he have something on you?"

"Don't you like cops?"

"Not much. Do you?" Three chains around his neck – they weren't even jewelry. Whatever they meant to him was lost on her. She recognized the Chinese monkey king on a little square pendant – she'd read it or read about it somewhere or other. A journey toward enlightenment or something. But they all felt lovely – strong and warmed from his body – as she curled them around her finger, brushing up against his skin just lightly as she did so.

Again a complicated, rueful look. "Nathan's all right." With full knowledge of what she was doing, of course. He didn't stop her.

"Nathan is a hot mess."

"That's a bad thing?"

She laughed at him. "Yes." She pulled on the chains with that entwined finger, bringing his head down towards hers.

*.*.*

He kissed her. She kissed him, met him halfway. A nice kiss. Nothing magical, nothing special.

Nathan had been right, of course. Their – discussion – in the parking lot, about how she was not Audrey, didn't know anything about the Troubles and it would be impossible to just tell her. Audrey had spent so much time and anguish trying to figure out her identity, but she never would have believed it any other way. They needed proof.

He didn't know what he'd expected, kissing her. He'd flirted with Audrey endlessly. He'd teased her about her work habits, wanted to look under her shell for the passionate woman he knew lurked there. But then there'd been Evi, and then before he knew it – she was gone. And then his life, life in general in Haven, had fallen down a black hole of the Troubles. Haven was no longer a haven for anyone – troubled or not – as the town fractured down lines seen and unseen. Normals against Troubled against… some shadowy conspiracy of power he and Nathan had not cracked even yet.

Usually, Duke needed little persuasion to follow through with an offer like that kiss had been. Helena/Beatty notwithstanding. That had made him cautious about the girls he took home for a couple months, but … this was Audrey, in one form or another, and he didn't want to screw this up.

She walked away when he did not say anything. Wandered away from the door, so he relaxed a little. There was no way he would let her just ride out of town, even if it took some sort of drastic measure. Up to and including something like tying her up and keeping her here by force. If necessary.

The Chief of Police owed him a couple favors, after all.

He'd be just as glad if he could charm her into staying, though. She seemed… open to the idea, at least. But that kiss had been like – no, not like, was – kissing a stranger. And maybe she was right too; he was getting confused.

He joined her on the deck, as the last light of the day turned indigo. Light from the deck below them spilled out on the water, along with the pleasant chatter of his customers; here was entirely private without being intimidatingly silent. He offered her the glass of wine again.

"You must have loved her very much."

There was a trembling uncertainty in her voice he didn't understand. He parked himself against the railing beside her, facing back to the apartment while she faced the water. It was no accident that he brushed up against her elbow. She didn't pull away. "I did. I do. As a friend. You saw the photos. She and Nathan –" He stopped, didn't know what to say.

Something had happened with Audrey and Nathan between the time she found out about his father and his curse, and when she'd disappeared. He was very afraid that it was about his curse, and the way Kyle Hopkins had died by his hand. That, despite his promises to her, despite his hatred of his father, even despite his attraction to her – she believed in his curse even more than he did, and that he would, one day, hunt her down as his father had. Something that had launched Nathan like a heat-seeking missile after him when she was abducted.

She bit back a surprised laugh. "That was Nathan? The same Nathan who…?" her hand flopped over, confused. "Oh, god, you're not going to make me feel sorry for the S.O.B., are you?" She sipped the wine. "Wait a minute –" and she turned a scalpel of a look on him, one he recognized as it pinned him like an insect to a corkboard. "You called him. Told him I was there. That's why…. Jesus. You must really hate him." The same look she'd used on him around the campfire, out hunting wendigos, after his confrontation with Nathan, and before he'd discovered he didn't know Audrey Parker at all.

"I don't hate him." After two years in hell, he didn't even know what to call his relationship with Nathan. He hadn't before them.

"What does he have on you?"

Okay, this conversation was getting away from him. There was just too much. "He doesn't- It's not like that."

"Cops are cops are cops."

Duke smiled to himself, realizing something for the first time. "You ask nearly anyone in this town, and they'll tell you that Duke Crocker is a low-life smuggler and general layabout. Two, three years ago I would have said exactly the same." He realized at that moment that he hadn't gone on a run or done any sort of deal but order supplies for the Gull in two years. He was turning into a law-abiding citizen, of all the freakish things. "Just – give him a chance."

*.*.*

Dana stepped one leg in between his. "I don't want to talk about him anymore." This time, his arms went around her much more naturally, and she felt like she'd won something. He kissed her, exploring with his lips and tongue as she felt the heat build within her.

Evidently he did, too, as his eyes remained closed and he ran his lips through his teeth after they broke apart. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked, ironically.

"I don't want to talk at all." There was still that braided rug inside, and even a bed. She'd used her body to get what she wanted in the past, she admitted it. She wasn't ashamed of it. This wasn't that. This was more like her body was using her, to get what it wanted. It was weird, and a little disturbing, and a little… out of her control.

The voices had stopped screaming at her at least. They were quiet. Unusually so, and she couldn't quite read their mood or intention. It was such a relief that it made her heady, like when a sixty pound pack was finally put down for the day. She wanted to bounce around like the astronauts on the moon.

Her laugh came from somewhere deep when he picked her up in his arms, one under her knees, one just above her waist. She weighed nothing, but she wrapped her arms around his neck to pull herself closer. He was too bright to look at directly and she could not meet what he was giving her with his eyes.

He laid her on the sheets, throwing back the dusty cover to the floor. She clung, trying to continue to kiss him, until he pulled up her shirt over her head and breaking her grip around his neck. He kissed her again, starting where jaw met throat and tracing his lips down her neck. He hit one spot, along the cord there, that made her groan, sending an electric shock from there all the way to her feet.

"Right there?" he laughed at her, and did it again.

"Duke," she breathed. She held off his third attempt, murmuring objections – too much of a good thing.

"I'll be back," he said, against her skin. Instead he continued down, down to the edge of her bra, and with a deft practiced movement, freed one breast and then the other.

"You've done this before," she accused him with a smile.

Deep brown eyes answered her with complex sincerity. "No. Not this."

She refused to let him take off her bra – unhooking it herself behind her back. She'd done this before too. He took off his shirt at her direction, and then she rewarded herself with peeling off his undershirt.

"Oh." Not what she expected. The skull with butterflies and flowers he could explain later. The verse under his left arm she didn't bother with. She was too distracted by the lacings of scars across his chest and the shiny patch of an old bullet wound. She didn't even know she said his name again as her fingers traced out his old pain. "Were you in the war?"

"There was a war," he said, but it didn't sound like agreement.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"Why shouldn't you ask?"

"Duke, shut up and kiss me." She reached for him. His mouth razed her throat while his hand undid the buttons of her jeans. She did the same for him until they both had to stop to kick the final remnants of their clothes to the floor.

She refused when he wanted to position her on top, planted her shoulders firmly against the pillows. She reached for, and held, the curving metal of the bedhead. A position she knew few men could resist.

He crawled up the length of her body, starting at her feet and laughing at her ticklishness there, and the back of her knees. He teased her thighs with his hands, alternating long firm strokes up her muscles with the silky caress of a down stroke, only to reverse the pattern just for the surprise of it.

She wanted to touch him, desperately, but now she'd committed herself to this position. More so, when his hands curved around her bottom, and she refused to turn over at his suggestion. His eyes questioned, but nothing further. She was a quivering mess by the time he made it to her breasts, after the crease where thigh met abdomen, after tracing the curves of her belly around to hip, after sweeping hip to waist to breastbone with his lips.

"Duke, please," He hadn't even really touched her yet and she was melting like cotton candy at the touch of his tongue. "Please."

"Buddha says: Do not dream of the future. Concentrate the mind on the present moment."

"Evil, evil man." Abandoning the bedhead, her fingers left long white streaks up his back. She ran her fingers through his hair, but it just flopped back into its own messy original position. She forgave him when he captured one breast with his mouth, and detained the other with his hand. Something hot enough to burn shot from there to her very center, something nearly forgotten. Pure and primitive and real, more real than anything she'd ever felt before.

"Now, Duke," she whispered. God, now. He heard her and she moaned for him as his fingers found her hot and wet, moaned his name as he slid inside her, filled her where she was empty.

"Audrey," he said.