Devil's Tango (Running with the Devil Book 1)

by Claire J Monroe

  Oh, she was good. Damn good. Like some sort Machiavellian princess who knew exactly how to use that particular tone that specialized in unleashing the guilt monster. And there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she’d use that guilt machine to turn his silence into some sort of grievance against all womankind that’d earn him an indefinite stint in a worse hell than he was already in. Which sure as shit shouldn’t have explained why, once the doors to the antiquated contraption finally slid open, he took one giant step forward and muttered, “Two weeks.”

  He didn’t look back. He kept walking. At a good clip. He didn’t know where he was going, but damn if he was gonna turn around and glimpse her reaction to that little bomb. He’d be lucky if he made it through the night without her slitting his throat.

  “Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

  “You heard me.” He didn’t slow. But kept heading for the turn in the hall. “Two weeks.”

  There was no gasp. No shriek. No… nothing that gave him a clue how she felt about that. “Two weeks to remove the threat to my person and he stayed away for five years.” She paused and he felt her counting and calculating her timing before she burst out with, “Yeah, I call bullshit.”

  “Of course you do,” he muttered. Far be it from her to actually believe him when he gave her what she wanted. He turned the corner and found Lily-pup. Patiently sitting at another elevator door. “Thanks for not believing me, babe. Can’t tell you how much I missed that part of our relationship.”

  She brushed past him as a he slowed to a stop. “You’re an ass.”

  “So you keep telling me.”

  She stepped up to a keypad on the wall and tapped out a code that revealed a secret panel hiding a hand reader and retina scanner. “I never said I doubted you removing the physical threat in two weeks. You’re damn good at what you do.”

  “Nice to hear you admit it.”

  “But I’m not an idiot.” Maddie spun around and… aw hell, she was furious. Livid. Crackling with spitfire and damnation “There was another reason you stayed away and until you fess up, this—,” she waved a hand between them—“you, me, us and the relationship you claim you want is only sex! Disconnected, unemotional grudge fuck fests so I can get over you and move on!”

  Her message telegraphed loud and clear. Enough so that his inner bad ass snapped to attention and burst forth. Tired of the bullshit, Tango stepped back and let his true essence jump onto the superhighway that connected her soul to his then proceeded to refresh her memory that she was and would always be… “Mine.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Mine.”

  Maddie’s eyes widened on a gasp and she fell back a step as his guttural words slammed into her mind, body, soul, and was accompanied by that same red hot warmth that she’d felt back in the car. It surged into her body, slithered down her spine, and pumped life into nerve endings that were suddenly ready, willing, and more than halfway to orgasm. “What the… Van?”

  His expression was fierce, determined, his jaw set firm as the air around him shimmered with something so male and filled with testosterone that her ovaries sat up and begged for more.

  She couldn’t think. She was lost on a sea of feel and OMGs as sensations flooded her, caressing her from the inside out until she could literally feel him touching her, stroking her everywhere that mattered. Unable to stop herself, she fell back another step and slumped against the wall.

  He followed, pursued, stalked his way closer then braced his hands on either side of her head, and then…. BAM!

  A rush of energy hit low in her stomach and radiated out igniting aftershocks that should have been long dead and buried, but were suddenly flickering and sparkling across her skin. Under it. Over it. Deep inside. “Oh god,” she moaned.

  Her eyes drifted shut in a moment of pure bliss and she shouldn’t moan. Not again. But it felt so good. So right. It swirled around her neck, pulsed at the curve of her neck like a lover’s caress, then spread down her back and chest to skim across the tips of her breast and curve of her ass. She slouched against the wall and widened her stance as the energy probed and seduced her into a mindless wanton mess of need and want. “Van, please.”

  He didn’t lay a finger on her. Yet he was everywhere. Eyes closed she could feel him. All of him. And it was too much. Yet not enough. She was perched alone on a precipice that felt anything but lonely. He was with her. She felt him. Inside her soul. Winding him around her very essence until it’d destroy her with pleasure and she’d never be able to survive him leaving her again. And he would leave. He always left.

  His breath was hot as he whispered in her ear, “Not this time.” Then his mouth moved. To her shoulder, to the base of her neck, to the tender spot where she could have sworn he’d bitten her when he’d come so deep, so hard, and so… oh god yes.

  He pressed a kiss on that hot spot and suddenly her body exploded in an aftershock of empty orgasmic goodness. And it was… fantastic.

  In that split second, moment, oh god, did time really mattered when her body was shimmering, shaking, and lost in a haze of blissful whatevers? No, ohmigod no, time was irrelevant, made no sense, yet almost as much sense as whatever words Van was mumbling so sweetly against her new favorite erogenous spot on her shoulder. Where he’d bitten her. Maddie smiled as her eyes drifted back open. “Mmmm, that’s beautiful. What language is it?”

  Language? What language? He wasn’t speaking in a… holy fucking shit, he was speaking in tongues.

  Snap! Panicked, Tango immediately slapped down the metal gates and shoved his inner beast back from whatever the hell crazy mojo the creature was working then ripped himself bodily away from Maddie.

  She gasped at the abrupt disconnect.

  He registered the sound and the shock on her face at his cutting the connection, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He had his own shit to deal with. Namely, him and his dumbass having opened the super fucking highway to his one and only anchor to sanity and goodness in this godforsaken world. Damn it all to hell!

  He’d let the beast take over because he’d let her get under his skin with that damn red hot poker and then he’d… what the hell had he done?

  Nooooooo, you fool! Release me! The beast roared. Now!

  Blink-blink. Oh gee, let me think about that? “No.”

  Tango’s muscles locked stiff as a potent raged flushed his system along with an ear bursting primal roar that had it been anywhere other than in his head would have shattered streetlamps for a clear hundred miles.

  Tango winced and cocked his head to the side as he tried like hell to dampen the octaves echoing in his head.

  You fool! She carries our sons. Fail to complete the soul rite and… They. Will. Die!

  Wait. What? Sons? What? Tango’s gaze dropped to Maddie’s stomach. Her stomach that she had both hands over. Cupping her belly like a protective mother cradling her… holy shit. His swimmers had locked on target.

  Maddie was pregnant. Tango lifted his head and met Maddie’s eyes. “You’re pregnant.”

  With our sons, the beast shouted.

  “What?” Maddie demanded in a breathless, albeit irritated, voice.

  Tango couldn’t answer. He was focused on ignoring the loud obnoxious voice in his head demanding to be acknowledged. Not to mention, he was spiraling down into his own rabbit hole that started with Maddie was pregnant and ended with… Baby boo wasn’t a maybe, but… a certainty that he knew was a fact.

  A fact that was an inescapable conclusion that he’d done gone and knocked her up.

  That in nine months she’d be swollen with his child and nesting in their home.

  A home that he couldn’t give her because his life wasn’t his own.

  A home that he couldn’t commit to being at on a regular basis, because he’d blown that one up and he worked.

  A lot.

  Out of town.

  A lot.

  At a job that required lies, secrecy, and putting not only her but their unborn baby—no, not
baby, but babies with an S. Two of them. Babies. At once. Not like God had intended one at a time, but… two? Really? Seriously? Two?

  None if we do not complete the soul rite.

  That got Tango’s attention and he stood up straight. “What did you say,” he bit out.

  Maddie and the beast spoke at the same time.

  “I did not say anything,” Maddie all but growled at him. “I asked you a question that you apparently aren’t going to answer and, so help me God, if you pull that connect and disconnect routine one more time, you won’t have to get shot by some two bit mercenary hell bent on ruining my day. I’ll do it myself!”

  Complete the soul rite, Gabriel. Bind our soul to her, to our sons. Without it they will die.

  He barely heard her as he was focused internally on the bomb the beast had dropped on him with a snapshot of the future that caused his stomach to drop. No. Anything but that. There had to be another way. Anything but the glimpse of a grave with a tombstone etched with Maddie’s name. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Excuse me,” she sputtered. “No? Oh hell no, you don’t get to say no. Give me your gun. Now. I’ll shoot you my own damn self.”

  Tango looked up at Maddie. She was fuming. Not surprising given she wasn’t tuned into his crazy channel which totally explained why she was well on her way to a full blown tizzy—again—that’d have her at a point of no return in no time. “Maddie—”

  She held out her hand. “Gun. Now.”

  No time to think and incapable of reading her in, he scrambled for the fastest, most expedient way to diffuse her pending eruption and armament. Escape route popped into his mind and, before he could reconsider it, he shook his head at her then tapped his ear to suggest he was on the ear com. Cop out, yes, but he prayed it’d work.

  It did. Thank fuck.

  “Annoying, arrogant, self-centered… workaholic,” she ranted under her breath as she bought his excuse then let out a muffled scream and spun on her heel to slap her palm on the flat screen for a biometrics scan.

  “Need options,” Tango demanded of his beast.

  Another image flashed behind his eyes. Him unlocking the gates and fully merging with the beast and becoming the biggest, baddest, badass this world had ever seen. On the heels of that was the absolutely knowledge that nothing but death, destruction, and war would come of that. Indiscriminate style.

  The beast snorted with annoyance. One time, Gabriel. One single time I take over and you can’t let it go.

  Tango gave his own snort of annoyance as he kept an eye on Maddie pounding out her access code on a keypad. “Once was enough.”

  It’d happened when he’d been a kid. Barely twelve. One minute he’d been a normal kid, the next he’d been possessed by some crazy hell mongering beasty who had death on the mind and a sword in hand. It hadn’t been pretty. Or frothed with survivors. Other than him.

  Stubborn idiot. Deny us our full potential and our mate will die.

  “Not if I can help it,” Tango muttered. “I want options. Now.”

  It wasn’t that he outright hated the beast that resided inside him. He didn’t. Trust was a different issue. But one thing he knew and appreciated was that his inner baddie was a veritable font of information with a near encyclopedic knowledge of all things magical, paranormal, and other worldly. It was both scary and extremely useful in his line of work. So he didn’t doubt the beast knew a way around the situation. One that damn well better not include Tango lifting the ban on a full on merging of their innate talents into a single, rage filled, uncontrollable, damn near impossible to kill whatever the fuck.

  Reincarnation.

  It was official. Tango was shocked stupid. “That’s it? That’s your option?”

  A warrior can run from his destiny for only so long, Gabriel.

  Tango considered the situation while Maddie did her thing at the retina scanner. He replayed the images and flipped through the knowledge the beast allowed him. There wasn’t another way. But there had to be. “Find another way.”

  There is no other way. You must chose, Gabriel. Sacrifice yourself or… our mate.

  “Sonofabitch,” Tango cursed under his breath. Maddie being sacrificed wasn’t an option.

  Agreed.

  Frustrated to an almost point of no return, Tango scrubbed a hand over his face. “What do I need to do?”

  You know.

  He shook his head on an eye roll that kept Maddie in his periphery as she completed the security protocol needed to open the elevator doors. “Specifics, dumb ass.”

  Convince her to accept us again, then complete the soul rite.

  Tango’s gaze met Maddie’s head on. She stood inside the elevator giving him that look that said… acceptance and lovey dovey soul binding shit was not going to happen. Ever. Again. In any lifetime. Let alone this one. We’re fucked.

  Pretty much. You do realize there’s only one way out of this, right?

  “Shit.” The beast was right. There was only one path before him. A well-worn path that many a man before him had taken and never returned to their former glory. A road frothed with danger and one he’d managed to avoid thus far. But those days were over. Gone. Which was why he drew in a deep breath, mentally tucked his ball up nice and safe, then gave her the only words she’d ever be open to hearing him deliver with sincerity.

  “Maddie, baby, I’m… I’m sorry.”

  Sorry? He was sorry? Oh hell no, he did not get to say he was sorry and expect her to simply roll over and take it and… the nerve of him!

  Maddie harrumphed her way into the transport elevator that’d take them directly to the only entrance she was permitted to lead visitors through. Was the warehouse visitor policy annoying? Yes, but nowhere near annoying as Van giving her that puppy dog eye look that came right along with a seemingly sincere apology.

  And yes, it was seemingly, because she didn’t buy it for a minute. Because she felt him. And knew him. Better than he knew his own self.

  He wasn’t sorry. He was just giving her the words to placate her, make her calm down and… well, it wasn’t going to work. Not now. Not after everything she knew about him and what really was going on. She’d given him every chance to come clean and fess up, but did he? Noooooo.

  Sure, he’d tried. Barely. Maybe. Not enough. Because she was done. She’d had enough of the games, lies, and secrets surrounding his secret life and job. And the sooner she got them to the warehouse, the sooner she could boot his butt back out the door to go pick up his team then do what she had been itching to do ever since Fritz had worked.

  Inside the elevator, Maddie turned and flicked a thumb over her shoulder. “Shut up and get in. Now.”

  He scooped up the bags then did as she ordered. Quickly. Without complaint. Like a good little soldier boy taking orders from a superior. Irritating man. Pretending to be something he wasn’t and never would be.

  And no, she hadn’t forgotten he’d declared her pregnant. She just wasn’t dealing with it. Not right now. Not when she could barely think, let alone speak after what he’d done to her in the hallway. What the heck had that been? An energy transfer yes, but those words? They’d meant something. Something beautiful and connecting and not lonely and… then he’d yanked it away.

  Again.

  It was one thing to fuck her to within an inch of her life, but it was another to dangle a freaking carrot in front of her on a trick wire that resurrected every durn insecure feeling of abandonment she’d ever experienced in her whole freaking life. Grrrr, she growled to herself. That will not happen again.

  Van was about to get a rude awakening. A glimpse into her job and his annoying, arrogant, irritatingly... male self would respect her. He would trust her. And by golly, he would open up and freaking commit. Fully. Wholly. Completely.

  Or else.

  Path forward laid out in her mind, Maddie pressed the last button in the command code that’d take them to the warehouse’s front door—half a mile away—then assumed her position in the cor
ner of the elevator with Lily seated between her legs.

  Van frowned and nodded at her. “There a reason Lily’s doing that?”

  “Yes,” Maddie answered as the elevator lurched sideways and Van fell into the wall. “The elevator is multidirectional.”

  He righted himself and she could tell he refrained from cursing under great duress. “Babe, I get that you’re mad, but—”

  “Mad?” she interrupted. “You dare accuse me of being just mad? After you disrespect me in every form, fashion, and way available to you—”

  “Disrespect you? I never—”

  “One,” she ticked off on her thumb, “you leave without respecting me enough to share the plan. Two, you set me up in a job just so your friends can baby sit me. Three, you—”

  “I set you up for that job, because it’s what you wanted. Your smarmy Brit boss is the one who offered to keep an eye on you because he knew I needed to know you were safe,” he fired back.

  “Caliv is not my boss,” Maddie shouted at him. Too familiar with the path this elevator took, she grabbed the railing as the direction shifted again. “Did you really think Michael Sinclair wouldn’t find me? After what you did to the Nexus Suit? Did you really think that you, Caliv, or any one of his Delta teammates would be enough to stop Sinclair from getting what he wanted?”

  The blood drained from Van’s face and he went sheet white. “Whaa… what did you say?”

  Lily whimpered and Maddie dropped a hand to stroke behind her ears. “You heard me.”

  “You… Sinclair. How?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “Hell, fucking yes, it matters,” he roared.

  “No, Van, it doesn’t,” she countered. “Because unlike you, I know how to turn down an offer that’s too good to be true.”

  The elevator shuttered as it started to slow to a stop.

  He looked dumbfounded. “Wait. What? You turned Sinclair down?”

  “Yes, Van, I did. But I almost didn’t. And the only reason I didn’t was because the offer required me to cut ties with everyone in my life and, even though you weren’t around, I chose not to do it because it’d mean never getting a chance to tell you the truth.”