The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

there, Shaw couldn’t help but wonder why he’d signed up for a job that kept them apart for weeks at a time. Maybe it was time for someone else to defend the Lattice, he thought, as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek.
    “You’ve had quite a day,” she whispered in his ear, their soft helmets pressed against each other.
    “You weren’t following along, were you?” Shaw asked, surprised.
    “No. I caught some highlights after I left work, that’s when I saw you were coming in. My day’s full enough without spending it jumping into yours too, By,” Ellie said. She was the only person in the world Byron Shaw wanted to call him “By.”
    They kissed again.
    “So do you want to talk about it now, or wait?” she asked.
    “Wait. Definitely wait. Right now I want nothing more than to take you home, throw you on the bed, and get out of my own head.”
    They were officially trying. Sure, they could have just used the Lattice to look inside Ellie’s fallopian tubes for an egg—and they had agreed that they would do just that if she weren’t pregnant by January—but until then, “trying” was way more fun.
    Their lovemaking was not a frenzied passion built up after weeks apart but a slow and almost casual act with conversation and laughter.
    They dressed afterward and left their Vandeventer apartment for a late dinner in the Central West End. They slid into a booth at a restaurant around the corner and ordered a St. Louis style pizza. Ellie smiled softly at him and he looked back at her, soaking in her dark brown hair and sharp green eyes. He loved her slightly hawkish nose. He loved watching the end of it dip when she spoke, pulled down by a one-size-too-small upper lip.
    In his vainer moments, Shaw thought they made a good looking couple. Any man should be happy to be on Ellie’s arm, he thought. And as for himself, he only hoped he could keep up. His military trained and maintained physique was slim—but tight all over and wound like a coil. He might not be able to beat her in a marathon, but in short quick bursts of energy, he was faster than anyone he knew. Shaw’s sandy brown hair and light blue eyes softened him enough that he didn’t appear as threatening as his body might have suggested, a quality he was supremely thankful for, because without it he was certain Ellie wouldn’t have given him a second glance.
    “The next time I’m mad at you I’ll try to remember to jump back here and see what you were thinking. Judging by your expression, it’s something rather sweet. Or rather dirty, I’m not sure which,” Ellie said, bringing him out of his thoughts.
    “It’s what happens when I haven’t seen you in a month.”
    “No, it’s not, Byron. It’s something different.”
    “So what is it then?”
    “Excitement?” She guessed. “Freedom?”
    “Maybe. I’m looking forward to working from home for a couple days. Things can get … confining at the Installation.”
    “You’re not going to be able to do this all in jumps, though, are you?”
    Shaw shook his head. “Probably not. I’ll do as much as I can from home, though.”
    “I heard from Sagan and Naila. He wants to organize a party for his big brother while you’re in town. Since you saved the world and all that.”
    Shaw rolled his eyes. “Tomorrow night, then. Anything after that and I can’t promise I’ll still be here. Who knows where this search is going to take me.”
    Ellie nodded. “It’s amazing to think—that someone could arrange an attack and not be traced by the Lattice, I mean.”
    “It’s not that the Lattice missed them, it’s that the links between the raid today and whoever masterminded the whole thing are so tenuous they didn’t come up in the first jumps. I’m going to be hunting for those tiny little connections. Depending on how well-planned this raid was, those contacts might have occurred a long time ago.”
    Their pizza arrived and Shaw and Ellie dug in. Scooping a slice onto her