by Addison Fox
And then they exploded.
“First things first.” Brody’s husky whisper washed over her as he wrapped her in his arms and . . . oooh.
Oh my.
His mouth pressed to hers and with lips and teeth and tongue, they played a guessing game of what came next.
The hot press of his lips shot sparks to every region of her body as his tongue teased the seam of her lips. Helpless to resist the heady seduction, she opened for him, eager to learn the taste of him.
With powerful thrusts, his tongue swept through her mouth, drawing a low, deep moan from the back of her throat. With drugging tenderness, his teeth scraped against her lips as they tenderly drew her bottom lip into his mouth.
Hot suction pulled at her lower lip, the erotic tugs at her mouth shooting arousal throughout her body—arousal that pooled between her thighs; arousal she was helpless to resist.
Her mind might still be confused by who he was and what he’d brought into her life. But this—this was unmistakable.
He lifted his mouth from hers to look down at her, his lazy-lidded blue eyes searing into hers. “Now, I believe you said you had a few questions?”
Questions?
Right. Questions. What did she want to know? Something. Some things. What things? And then she focused on the lazy grin he had aimed in her direction and she sobered up quickly. “You did that on purpose.”
“Yes. Because I wanted to. Because I’ve wanted to for four days. It wasn’t to divert you from asking your questions. So shoot.”
Ava took a deep breath. “Where are we?”
“London.”
“How’d we get here?”
“I’ll explain it only if you promise to believe me.”
“Explain it first.”
“Promise first.”
“Okay. Fine. I promise.”
“We ported here. As in teleported. Telepathically transformed all our molecules and moved them through time and space.”
All the air left her body in a rush. “You did that?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know how; I just know it works. Anything in my life force, such as clothing, or anything I touch, comes with me in the port.”
She wanted to scream. Wanted to rage that it wasn’t possible and that people just didn’t do that. But the evidence was overwhelming. A few minutes ago she’d heard Big Ben ringing from across the water and now they were here.
Maybe her molecules hadn’t all reassembled correctly if she was actually buying this.
But it did make an odd sort of sense.
Of course, maybe it was just further proof of what her grandmother had always predicted: that some day her mind would—once and for all—snap.
“Where is that lion?”
“Can I get back to you on that one?”
“So there was a lion.”
“I’m not going to argue with what you saw.”
“Is it a pet?”
“Not really.”
“Brody. Come on.”
He smiled again. “No. Give me an easier one. I’ll explain the lion later.”
“Fine. Who was that man you tried to throw across the room?”
“I told you. His name is Kane and this is his apartment.”
“And Kane’s just a little ole security expert?”
“He is.”
“Then how come he can ‘port,’ too?”
“It’s a special gift we each have.”
A deep sigh rumbled up from the depths of her stomach. “The fact I am even sitting here buying any of this means you might as well tell me everything. And if you won’t, I’ll go down and try to pull it out of Mr. Sex-on-a-Stick.”
Her comment about Kane hit the mark she aimed for.
“I’ll tell you.”
“Are you sure? You’ve lied to me since you met me.”
“I haven’t lied.”
“You’ve misrepresented yourself at every turn.”
“I’ve answered almost all your questions. And tell me, Ava. Is this a misrepresentation?”
She sensed what he was going to do before his lips actually made contact with hers. Knew it wasn’t a good idea to enjoy this too much. Oh yes, she knew it, even as she responded to the soft caress of his mouth.
And the heavens help her, she didn’t care.
Didn’t care that she’d watched yet another man get killed—or something that looked like a man—less than an hour ago.
Didn’t care that she’d stared down a very large lion that somehow seemed to fit with Brody.
Didn’t even care that she actually, maybe, kinda sorta, believed she’d disintegrated to the molecular level and moved across space and time.
With that thought came another. She pulled her lips from his. “Are you a real man?”
“Flesh and blood.”
Her mind fought for some semblance of sanity through the haze of pleasure. But the other men? The ones who attacked her and the one who just died. “Are you positive?”
The light tone of his laughter rumbled through his chest as he ground his hips into hers as tangible proof. “What do you think, sweetheart?”
Shaking off the flood of warm shivers at the endearment, she pressed on, determined to get at least this answer from him. “But those men who held me up outside my apartment—they looked real. The one felt real, too, as his arms came around me. And then . . .”
He nodded. “And then what?”
“And his body just shriveled up and disintegrated. And he became this oily ooze.”
“That one falls in the same category as the lion. Can I take a message and get back to you?”
“Not if you expect me to kiss you again.”
Ava saw the light register in Brody’s eyes, the small crinkles that framed the corners of those cornflower blue orbs, when a loud thud reverberated through the loft.
Ava looked in the direction of the noise and saw a large man with shoulders like a highland warrior and dark, close-cut hair that stood up in spikes staring up toward the landing from the loft’s living room. He looked furious. “What the fuck is going on, Talbot? And why, for the love of Themis, are you porting fully conscious mortals?”
Brody disengaged himself from Ava and raced down the stairs. “Get in the kitchen. I’ll discuss it with you there.”
For once, Quinn didn’t argue, but just turned on his heel and disappeared as fast as he had appeared.
The knowledge he needed to deal with Quinn immediately had him staring back up at Ava. She hadn’t moved from the spot where he’d kissed her; a slightly dazed expression still covered her face in the form of a half-quirked lip and wide eyes.
“Why don’t you make that call to Dr. MacIntyre? There’s a phone in Kane’s room. Can I trust you not to call anyone else? I promise you’re safe here. I need to keep you that way.”
Although Ava didn’t say anything, she did nod, which Brody took as a good sign. He wouldn’t blame her if she still tried to make a run for the door, as he’d done nothing to earn the trust he so desperately wanted her to offer.
“I’ll come back and get you when I’m done with Quinn.”
He headed for Kane’s kitchen, throwing one last glance at Ava’s retreating back as she returned to the bedroom. Stark black appliances, black marble counters and black marble tile greeted him as he walked into the kitchen.
“Who’s your decorator, Kane? The Grim Reaper?”
Their Scorpio had managed to rustle up a pair of jeans and he leaned against the far counter, a cup of coffee in hand. “I like black.”
“Obviously.”
Quinn interrupted, his always-thin patience now nonexistent. “Talbot, what are you doing bringing her here?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Wrong answer.” Fury snapped its sharp teeth in Brody’s direction as Quinn paced the kitchen.
Brody gritted his teeth, absolutely unwilling to lose his temper with Quinn, their round less than forty-eight
hours ago at Equinox more than enough. As Fixed signs, the two of them thrived on constant rounds of head butting and today he flat-out wasn’t in the mood.
Besides. He wanted to get back to Ava.
“My job is to keep her safe. That’s what I’m doing.”
“And opening the rest of us up to exposure in the process? No one gets into our lives and into our homes, Brody. No one. The rules don’t change. And you agreed to them, all those many centuries ago.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have a choice. You know about the two Destroyers who attacked her outside her apartment. Another one came after us at the airport.” He’d leave out the fact the one at the airport was part of the New York duo until he could puzzle it out himself.
“So deal with them, Talbot; then erase her memories. It’s your job.”
“Yes, but she’s the first person I’ve stumbled on who I can’t make forget.”
Kane pushed himself off the counter. “She remembers everything?”
“Yep. I even erased her memories while she slept. It didn’t work.”
Quinn slammed his coffee cup on the counter, the movement so harsh it was a wonder he didn’t break the mug. “So bringing her here was an even shittier idea than I first thought.”
“You know, Quinn, I’m not sure when you started thinking of this little gig as yours to run, but we’re all in this together. I made a choice and I’ll live with the consequences. I couldn’t leave her exposed.”
Quinn nodded. “So what’s the next move?”
The tension lining Brody’s shoulder eased slightly. “We get the second stone and get out of London. And now that Ava knows we can port her home, we’re not flying the friendly skies back to New York.”
Ava paced around the small room. She’d called Dr. MacIntyre to reconfirm their late-afternoon appointment.
That had taken a whole minute, the woman’s impatience to get off the call clear, even through the phone lines. Brody had been gone nineteen more.
Was she insane to be here still? Just preparing to be another statistic in some crime log? And now that she was separated from the heady, sensual feast that was Brody’s mouth, the lack of a sexual haze was producing a good bit of clarity.
What was really going on?
Who was that very large man who had interrupted them? And why could he just order Brody around? And why didn’t he want her there?
Were they doing something illegal?
And again, what was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she running for the door? She wanted to trust her instincts; she wanted to believe that, no matter how large they looked, these men and this situation wouldn’t harm her.
Willing some order out of the chaos that coursed through her mind, she tried to line up what she did know.
Something—human or otherwise—had come into her life. She’d been a scientist too long not to accept that there were still many things outside the realm of human understanding. She could even go so far as to accept that life existed beyond their planet.
But men who disintegrated into pools of grease?
No way.
Okay. Put that in the what-I-don’t-know column. Next.
Although she couldn’t get a handle on who—or what—Brody was, he felt like a man. And he didn’t seem as if he’d hurt her.
No. Correct that.
He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that to the depths of her toes. Whatever else he was, he wasn’t the enemy.
A light knock sounded on the door frame before Brody stepped into the room. “Make your call?”
“Yep. We’re now on for three.”
He inclined his head toward the hallway. “Sorry about that.”
“Who was that?”
“That was Quinn.”
When Brody wasn’t forthcoming with anything else, she pressed on. “And Quinn would be?”
“Um. Well, that’s where it gets a bit tricky.”
“How so?”
“It’s complicated.” At his closed-mouthed stare, she knew she wouldn’t get any further details. His lack of faith in her hurt, especially as she was the injured party.
“You ask me not to run out of here and I don’t. Now I ask you for some degree of explanation and you won’t give it to me.”
“Ava. It’s not like that.” He paced, his large body appearing even larger in the small room, reminding her of a caged animal.
That image brought her back to the question of the lion.
And that only pissed her off all over again.
“Then what’s it like?”
“Please don’t ask for what I can’t tell you.”
As from a balloon with a small pinprick in its base, some of the air deflated from her anger. She didn’t know how to answer his plea, but, if she were really honest with herself, she couldn’t exactly fault him, either. There were things she didn’t tell anybody—ever.
It still didn’t mean she liked being kept in the dark.
“You’re more than an archaeologist.”
He reached over, placing a hand under her chin. With slow, soft movements, he turned her face toward his and leaned in. With a small sigh, he pressed a chaste kiss to her lips, then laid his forehead against hers. “Yes.”
“But you can’t tell me what more means.”
“I can’t give you specifics.”
“What about broad strokes?”
Ava couldn’t hold back a small smile at his sigh. She’d always been persistent and it was nice to see it finally pay off. “All right. In broad strokes, I’ve devoted my life to protecting humanity from the evil that lives in the world.”
Humanity’s protector?
“And those other men? The naked one and the ogre who just stormed in? Are they the same as you?”
“More or less, yes. I mean, we’re all different people, but they have sworn the same oath as I have.”
Images of their time on the plane came back to her and she recognized, in that brief instant, why she trusted he wouldn’t hurt her. For all his muscle—all his apparent supernatural abilities—there was a very real man inside.
“Does it bother you? To be different? Separate from people? This protector thing that you are. Doesn’t it get tiring?”
He pulled back slightly to look at her. “What?”
“I know what it is. To be separate from others. It gets lonely. Much of it’s been my fault, but I’ve isolated myself from others, some of it by circumstance and sometimes by choice. I rarely connect with others. Rarely match with anyone. Family. Friend. Lover. And I guess I just see something in you that reminds me of that.”
He hesitated and for a moment she thought she overplayed her hand, had said too much. What had made her even start down this path? Was it simply a tactic to get him to open up, or had she actually been the one to open up?
And then he nodded and laid his forehead back against hers, and Ava knew it didn’t matter.
She’d shared something of herself with someone else.
And that mattered.
A lot.
“You want me to play this how?” Ava glanced at the three large, powerful men standing in front of her as they shoveled Chinese food into their mouths, and she marveled at how far she’d come. A year ago—heck, a week ago—she’d never have dreamed of questioning their authority.
Now, butterflies filled her stomach, but she was speaking up, using her voice, asking questions.
Why she trusted them, she couldn’t quite say. And well, if she were honest, it was Brody she trusted. The other two she continued to eye cautiously, as one would a great big guard dog. Yeah, the animal acted as a protector, but you also knew better than to turn your back.
Clearly, this strange foray into the supernatural would ultimately be good for her.
Unless you get yourself killed by some stray voltage, Ava Marie.
Ava took a quick gulp of her warm Diet Coke. Don’t go there. Do. Not. Go. There.
Brody interrupted her thoughts as he took the lead on the briefing. Still, she could
tell it wasn’t easy for either Kane or Quinn to keep their mouths shut. The neon blinking sign of narrowed eyes and stiff postures said it all. “Kane and I worked it out this morning. We want you to go in and play the brainless bimbo scientist with attitude with Dr. Lorna MacIntyre.”
“And why should I do that? I’ve spoken to the woman several times. I’ve been a competent colleague with her as we’ve worked on this project. I can’t just turn into a moron. Oh, excuse me, a bimbo moron with attitude.”
Kane let out a discreet cough, but she could see the light in his dark gray eyes. “I think the term we originally came up with was ‘flighty scientist.’ ”
Her suspicion those eyes didn’t crinkle up in that übersexy way very often only added to her concern about this little plan the boys had cooked up. “Oh, that makes me feel so much better about it.”
Quinn offered up a helpful smile. “And with attitude is just, you know, giving it the whole I’m a big, badass New Yorker and I can handle anything.”
“I still don’t understand why you think this is the right approach.”
Brody sighed as he reached for his Egg Foo Young. “Because either MacIntyre’s aboveboard and will just think you’re a”—he had the decency to wince—“flighty bimbo or, she’s actually working for someone else and will underestimate you.”
“Why would you think she’s working for anyone?”
At raised eyebrows from all three men, she narrowed her eyes in response. “What has you all so suspicious?”
Quinn laid his empty container on the counter. “Very little has gone smoothly on this project from the get-go. From the discovery of the stones to the deaths during the discovery of the prophecy to the attacks on you. We can’t be too careful.”
“And you think another museum’s involved in this? That someone internally at the museum is involved in this?” Ava’s stomach clenched at the very thought.
Brody’s voice was gentle. Soothing. “We can’t be too careful.”
Ava laid her half-eaten meal on the counter. “Before I do this, there’s something I want you all to answer for me.”
She kept her gaze leveled on Quinn—waited until he nodded his head. “What’s that?”
“You owe me an explanation of what I’m walking into. I want to know who these people are. And who are those men who keep disintegrating into pools of grease? Does that happen to you if you get hurt?”
