Sterling

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “ICE Eclipse,” she murmured. “God, I love this stuff.” He rewarded her agreement, his lips moving up her arm until she shivered and fixed him in a bright green stare. Desire and lust poured from her gaze. “I really love it.”

  He reached up and unzipped her vest, intending to enjoy her ICE-induced arousal. Time for her to get on her knees. He urged her downward, and she smiled, sensually sliding down his body until the buzzer went off on the door.

  She pursed her lips again. “The girls are arriving,” she said. “Bringing you all that money you’re making. They’ll wait until we’re done. They like their ‘Eclipse’ as much as I do.” She smiled. “Or we could make a party of it. Have them join the fun.”

  He yanked her up, kissed her hard, and then set her away from him. She was a toy, nothing more. “Business before pleasure. Need I remind you we’ve expanded our distribution tonight? Monitor the results as I pay you to do.”

  Only two weeks before, they’d had a dealer go MIA, and they’d been forced to regroup, rethink.

  Sabrina stiffened, sliding into the comfortable shell of badass bitch. “The results…” she said, zipping those perky nipples back inside her leather vest and heading toward her left, “will be as expected. My girls will deliver.”

  “Go see to it they do,” he ordered tightly, giving her his back, dismissing her to the duty he expected, staring out at the warehouse that he expected her to clear out twice a week, not twice a month.

  She had a dozen new women on staff on his dime, all trained to approach prescreened targets, frequenters of certain bars, clubs, casinos, and restaurants to convert them to users.

  Abruptly, an alarm sounded in the office, a warning the guards delivered the minute a wind-walker appeared on the property. Shit. Tad. But he wasn’t due for his ICE payment for days.

  Iceman reached for the remote to the security monitor to flip the channel, when Tad appeared in the office, Sabrina in front of him, held close to his body. She didn’t look happy, but she didn’t fight to get away. She’d learned the hard way when a previous confrontation had gotten her backhanded and flung across the room.

  “We need to talk,” Tad blistered out.

  Such brilliance. Like that wasn’t obvious. Clamping down on his immense irritation, Iceman crossed his arms in front of his chest. “So talk.”

  “Rebecca Burns,” he said, offering nothing more. Ah yes. The woman whose picture he’d been shown for identification and told to capture.

  And for reasons he’d yet to determine, the woman scared the crap out of Tad and his Zodius cronies. Interesting. What could one little woman do to a Zodius Nation? Whatever she had on them, he wanted it for himself.

  He arched a brow. “What of her?”

  Tad’s hand stroked Sabrina’s hair as if she were a pet. “You were to keep her away from ICE. You were to bring her to me. Tonight, she not only found her way to an ICE dealer, she found her way into the path of a Renegade.”

  “That’s impossible,” Iceman said. “None of my dealers gave that woman ICE. They don’t randomly deal. Not anymore.”

  “Ah,” Tad said. “But they did.” He tossed a DVD at Iceman. It hit the floor with a thud. “That came from your club where your men lured her to a back warehouse.”

  “We don’t have male dealers,” Sabrina said. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Tad yanked her hair back, and she bit her lip, whimpering. “Then a user,” Tad said, staring down at her a moment before letting her hair go. He eyed Iceman. “One of your customers, which means you have no control, and that is unacceptable. If you can’t do your job, I’ll get someone who can.”

  “Any customer who sells a dose of ICE does not get a replacement,” Iceman said. “That means withdrawal. I find it hard to believe that any man would be that foolish over a piece of ass.” He wasn’t convinced withdrawal was killing the Clanners, but he was making it work in his favor anyway. He was convincing users that buying the Eclipse boost made dosing safer.

  Fucking beautiful. Worked like a charm. And Adam got none of his Eclipse profits.

  “You watch the DVD,” Tad said, running his hand over Sabrina’s neck. “Or maybe you’d rather watch me bend your woman over the desk. She is your woman, isn’t she? She reminds me of Adam’s Lifebond, Ava—red hair, stubborn.”

  “I’m sure Adam would appreciate knowing you have a hard-on for his Ava,” Iceman said, hoping to anger him enough to get him to let go of Sabrina. He didn’t give a damn if Tad screwed her, but he knew what sex with Tad meant—she could be tracked. That was a problem. “You should have fucked this Rebecca chick and marked her for your Trackers, and then you wouldn’t have me trying to find her while also running the ICE distribution process.” He bent down and snatched up the DVD. He wanted to know who the hell was pawning off ICE—if Tad had managed to get the facts right.

  By the time he straightened, the DVD in hand, it was clear there was no saving Sabrina. Tad had her bent over the desk, ripping away her vest. He’d have to replace her. Irritating. He didn’t have time for such delays.

  He turned his back to Tad and Sabrina, about to pop the DVD into the computer on the desk, when he was suddenly lifted off his feet and slammed against the floor, the air shoved from his lungs. Tad’s foot landed in his ribs over and over again, and then slammed into his chest.

  “You lie there and watch me enjoy your woman,” he said. “Then we will discuss how you will repay me for your failure.”

  Blood dripped from the corner of Iceman’s mouth, his physical vulnerability the price he paid for being unwilling to take ICE. But he had a team working on creating his own version of the drug, just as he was growing his Eclipsers. Tad could have Sabrina. He could relish his moment. It would only make the day Iceman killed him all the sweeter. This was his game, and everyone would know when he made his final move.

  Chapter 11

  Sterling had no idea why the woman in his arms felt so important to him, but as he carried Becca into the piece-of-crap motel room with powder blue walls and nary a piece of furniture, there was no denying what he felt. Protective. Almost possessive. Like she was his. Like she’d always been in some way. With a few awkward maneuvers, he managed to lock the door before carrying Becca to the lumpy, full-sized bed with an ugly floral bedspread. He was ready to figure out what was causing everyone around her to pass out so he could take her to Neonopolis where she could be truly safe.

  Flinging back the blankets, Sterling laid Becca on the mattress, tossing aside her shoes, and then covering her. Black hair fluttered over her pale, heart-shaped face, and he reached down and stroked it gently away from her brow. He didn’t even know he had “gentle” in him, not anymore, and not since, well, those days back in the library with her. And here she was now, bringing out the tenderness in him when he would have sworn it wasn’t possible. He checked her pulse; it was steady, and so was her breathing. Even her skin tone had color now. The ICE seemed to be finally working.

  A series of coded knocks sounded on the door. Sterling stalked across the room, rubbing his jaw, while mentally scrubbing the emotion from his face. Caleb, Michael, and Damion, all dressed in street clothes, awaited him on the other side.

  “You drove my fucking car,” Michael growled. “If we didn’t need you right now, I’d freaking kill you.”

  Sterling ignored him, too angry at Damion’s presence. He eyed Caleb and motioned to Damion. “Why is he here?”

  “In case you forgot,” Damion said dryly. “I’m the best Tracker we have. Becca is clear. No psychic residue.”

  Sterling cut an urgent look in Michael’s direction for confirmation. Michael might have limited tracking abilities, but he trusted him. He didn’t trust Damion.

  “No residue,” Michael confirmed. “But before you get all excited about what that means—check her neck for the Lifebond mark. A male Lifebond can shield his female from Trackers.”

  Sterling’s vision went momentarily red with Michael’s words, his blood—cold. Becca—another
man’s Lifebond? Why did that make him want to punch the wall? Caleb held up a bag, jolting Sterling out of his red haze of anger. “Kelly wants her to take the ICE in the bag that she’s already analyzed in case there’s some variation in the formula causing the fatalities. She included supplies to draw blood and some tranquilizers.”

  “Tranquilizers?”

  “If Becca’s asleep, she can’t put other people to sleep. At least, that’s the theory. Kelly wants to analyze her blood and make sure there are no red flags that could be dangerous to others before we move her. In the meantime, I’m having the west end of Neonopolis cleared, so you can take her there once we clear her to travel.”

  Sterling wasn’t tranquilizing her if he didn’t have to, but he needed the ICE. He took the bag. “I’ll control her.”

  “Kelly wants that blood ASAP,” Caleb added.

  Sterling nodded and dug the vials of ICE from his pocket, hesitating a millisecond as his eyes collided with Damion’s. He didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him, not with the ICE samples Becca needed to survive.

  Caleb and Damion turned to depart, but Michael stepped forward, as if he intended to enter the room.

  Sterling blocked him. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “She has twenty-four hours of unaccounted for time with an addiction to a drug only Adam can provide. We need to interrogate the woman and ensure she’s not a spy, and you’re too personally involved to do it.”

  “Says who?” Sterling demanded.

  “Says me,” Michael replied.

  “Figures,” Sterling said dryly. Michael was known for being as cold-hearted as they came, the Dark Knight behind Caleb’s Superman persona. “Try using some of that decision-making and paranoia to get Damion the hell away from Caleb before it’s too late. Becca isn’t a spy.”

  Michael ignored the comment and focused on getting into the room. “I’m coming in.”

  He really wanted to punch the SOB. “When you pass out, I’ll be sure and give you a blankie and teddy bear.”

  “I’m not like the other GTECHs any more than you are,” Michael said, but he didn’t advance, as if Sterling’s words had given him pause.

  Sterling snorted. “Yeah well, I’m thinking about that. Becca was around a nightclub filled with humans, and they didn’t pass out. And then there’s me, who doesn’t pack as much GTECH juice as the rest of you. I didn’t pass out. And I hate to tell you this, Michael, but you aren’t human. Not even close.” Only recently he’d discovered he had gone off and grown an extra gene no one else possessed.

  Michael glared a moment and then apparently dispelled any concern. “She’s weakened by her withdrawal.” He stepped forward. “I’ll take my chances.”

  Sterling didn’t give a damn how powerful Michael was. He stepped forward, toe-to-toe with him. “I swear to the good Lord above, if you set foot in this room, I will find a cliff and drive Carrie over the side.”

  “I’ll buy another,” Michael said, his stone-cold expression a permanent feature.

  “That’s the worst load of crap you’ve fed me since you said you would never get the healing illness and then you did,” Sterling ground out between clenched teeth. “You can’t buy another Carrie, and we both know it. She’s got sentimental value.” He lowered his voice and added before he could stop himself, “If this were Cassandra, would you let you in this room?”

  “I’d kill to protect Cassandra,” Michael said, narrowing his eyes on Sterling. “Are you saying this woman is your Lifebond? Because that changes everything in my eyes if she is.”

  What? He opened his mouth to speak and shut it. For a rare instant, he was speechless, the idea that Becca and he were Lifebonds resonating far deeper than he realized. “All I’m going to tell you at this point is to back off, Michael. I’ve got this situation under control.”

  Michael’s gaze bore into Sterling’s, and Sterling knew Michael had noticed his lack of confirmation or denial. Tense seconds ticked by before he stepped back. “I’ll be nearby.”

  “Do us both a favor,” Sterling said. “Be nearby Damion, not me.”

  Michael gave a reluctant nod, and Sterling didn’t stay around for more discussion. He entered the room, slammed the door shut, and locked it. His cell phone buzzed. Reluctantly Sterling maneuvered Becca to the pillow and moved to the end of the bed where he’d left his phone. He punched the button to hear Kelly’s voice.

  “How is she?”

  “She almost died in withdrawal,” he said. “She turned blue like the other Clanner did and it took way too long for the ICE to kick in. At least half an hour. It took five minutes the last time I saw her dose.”

  “I’m not a Clanner,” Becca murmured in a hoarse whisper that drew his attention. He shifted toward her, finding those amber eyes peeking beneath heavy fluttering lashes. “They forced this on me.”

  His eyes met Becca’s amber ones, the briefest of contact, before her lashes fluttered, and her breathing slipped back into an even, steady rhythm. It was as if the very thought of being called a Clanner had ripped her from a healing slumber and elicited a rebuttal. He’d seen it in her eyes, heard it in her voice. Felt it in that momentary melding of eyes.

  “Sterling?” Kelly asked. “Is something wrong? How is she?”

  Tough, he thought. She is tough and brave and beautiful. “Considering she just woke up from what I thought was a near-death sleep to tell me she is not a Clanner,” he said, “I’d say she’s improving.”

  Kelly laughed. “Busting your chops and barely back from the dead. I think I might like this woman. And we both know you get off on having your chops busted.”

  Sterling crossed to the corner behind the table and yanked open the minifridge he kept loaded down with Dr. Pepper and cold M&Ms, his two favorites.

  “Is that how you justify your abuse?” he asked, snatching a soda. “By pretending I like it?”

  Kelly snorted. “I know you do. It’s your deep psychological way of dealing with a misguided sense of no self-worth.”

  Sterling ground his teeth, the comment going down about as well as broken glass. “I’m not the patient, Doc,” he said. “Can we focus on Becca?”

  “Ouch,” she said. “I guess I hit a nerve. Get me the blood. Damion hacked the German cancer center’s records. I’m working on helping her and hoping she can help us.”

  Damion… if he had to hear that name one more time! Sterling claimed a chair and sat down at the wobbly mockery of a table. Ten minutes later, Sterling hung up, having taken a verbal lashing for not drawing Becca’s blood before dosing her, and with instructions to allow Becca to sleep until she woke before moving her.

  Sterling set the phone on the table and glanced at Becca where she rested a few feet away. His gut clenched at the sight she made. Innocent in slumber—soft and feminine.

  He picked the phone back up and called his bud Eddie at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and had him check up on the two Clanners. The phone went back on the table, his eyes back to the bed—to Becca.

  Tension charged his body, and he tried to dispel it, turning the empty soda can around and around, his mind spinning with it. His eyes followed the movement, focused on the can, not Becca. In bed. Making him think of, well, Becca in bed with him, when she might hate him when she woke up. Worse, she might be the Lifebond to another.

  He stopped spinning the can. That made no sense. A Lifebond would be fully converted. ICE wouldn’t send her into withdrawal. Then he cursed under his breath and leaned back in his chair. Or would it? Could GTECHs dose on ICE for an extra boost?

  Abruptly Sterling got up. He stalked to the bed, a man on a mission. Becca lay on her side, and he approached her from behind. His knees went down on the mattress. His hand slid to her hair and pushed it aside.

  She moved, turning onto her stomach. Like the Renegade that he was, a man who knew what he wanted, he pursued. Sterling climbed fully onto the bed, leaned over her, and brushed her hair away from her neck where the L
ifebonds would have formed a tattoo—a circle within a circle if she belonged to another man, an unbreakable physical connection, bound in life and death. He stared at the creamy white perfection of the delicate skin and let out a silent breath of relief. No Lifebond mark. Unable to resist, Sterling ran his fingers over the bare spot at the base of her neck. He was one step closer to being able to trust her. And he wanted to… more than he should.

  “Mmmmm,” she murmured. “That feels good.” The words purred out of her. Soft. Seductive. Like a woman talking to her lover.

  His hand froze there on her neck; the bittersweet rush of uncontrollable raging hormones and pure, hot lust shot through him, thickening his cock. He inhaled, telling himself to back away. She was asleep, drugged for all practical purposes. He started to move, but she reached for his hand and then turned over. She blinked him into focus.

  “You came for me,” she whispered. “I knew you would come.” There was a hazy, blank expression on her face that said she was home but not taking calls. She was still dreaming, experiencing some effect from her near withdrawal perhaps. Maybe not even seeing him. Maybe seeing someone else. But as she stared up at him with hope and relief overflowing from her into him, he wasn’t about to take away the peace he sensed in her. The woman had been through enough. She deserved some peace.

  “I came,” he assured her and pulled the blanket around her, the air in the room churning fast and hard. His knuckles slid over her cheek. “Rest… so you can heal.”

  She reached up and wrapped her hand around his, dragging it to her chest and lacing her fingers with his. His heart froze at the intimate act, and when she nuzzled her chin to his fingers, her lashes fluttering to a close, the message was clear. She had no intention of letting him go.

  He wasn’t sure how to react or why his chest felt like a steel thousand-pound ball had been placed on top of it. He was a wham-bam, see-you-some-other-time kind of guy, who didn’t do the touchy-feely kind of stuff—a necessary evil of being Renegade. It wasn’t fair to be anything but a wham-bam guy when you woke up every day facing death. Inviting death. Laughing at death. Especially when the female could be put in jeopardy, on Adam’s radar, just knowing you. So Sterling did what was right, and he avoided intimacy—it wasn’t like relationships had been lucky for him. His mother was gone. His father too. His grandmother—well, she had died, but she’d had ten years of sobriety and happiness after he’d left. All that said—right here and now with Becca, he wasn’t sure he had it in him to pull away.