by Kit Rocha
She shivered and leaned closer, rested her forehead against his shoulder. "When I was ten, one of my tutors gave me a kitten. I only had her for a few hours before my father came home, but I fell in love with her. She would nuzzle my cheek and climb all over me... I had something to cuddle."
Jasper hooked his arm under her legs and picked her up. "Your dad made you get rid of her?"
"My father got rid of her, and then he got rid of the tutor, too. They told me at dinner, and when I cried, my mother slapped me so hard she split my lip. She said decent ladies don't cry, because tears are how wicked women make righteous men doubt their convictions."
A heartbreaking moment, and the saddest part was that it had to have been one of many, a string of confusion and shame. "I'm sorry, sweetheart."
She rubbed her cheek against his chest with a sigh. "I don't want to manipulate you. I just don't want to be alone, and I don't want to be with anyone else."
"Shh. Right now, it's time to sleep it off." He eased his bedroom door open with his foot.
Noelle huffed. "I wish you were drunk. Then you'd tell me things about you."
Oh, if only she realized. "I am a little drunk." He eased her onto his bed and tumbled after her. "What do you want to know?"
She seemed to consider the question with adorable gravity as she wiggled into a comfortable position with her cheek resting on his arm and her hand over his heart. "Where are you from?" she asked finally. "Eden, or the sectors?"
"Neither. I grew up on a farm east of here."
"In the communes?"
Nothing so sterile or acceptable. "A private operation. We grew corn for the distilleries, along with some other things."
"Oh, one of the illegal farms," she murmured sleepily. "We're not supposed to know about those. In Eden they tell us that nothing can live outside the communes, that the land can't support people. But I heard my father arguing with a partner once about whether or not to send the military police to shut one down. I think some of the councilmen pay to support private farms so they won't have to worry about rationing during the lean harvest years."
If they did, they relied on outfits more reputable than the one Jasper had worked. "My parents dropped me off when I was ten," he told her. "An apprenticeship, they all called it, but the only thing I learned was how to survive. I guess that's a trade all by itself these days, though."
Noelle lifted up onto her elbow and peered down at him. "They left you when you were ten?"
He couldn't meet her gaze. "Had to get to work."
She laid her palm over his cheek, her skin soft and warm above his beard. "That must have been so hard. And terrifying."
The farm had housed kids even younger, children who couldn't handle the backbreaking work. "I'd still be there if Robbins—the man who ran the place—hadn't traded me to Dallas to settle a debt."
"How old were you then?"
"Twenty-two." And Dallas had been in the beginning stages of building an empire.
The curling ends of Noelle's hair tickled his throat as she kissed his temple. "I'm glad he took you. You're worth more than any debt."
"That's what he thought, I guess. He still made me work it off, though—one year." After that, he'd been free to go, but where? Sector Four was as good a place as any, even before he'd proven himself loyal to the O'Kanes.
She settled close to his side but kept her fingers pressed to his cheek, absently stroking his beard. "You're all so strong. You've been through terrible things and you still live. I don't think I ever realized how numb I was until they threw me away. Like I was a shadow of a person."
She felt good cuddled against him, so good it dulled the razor's edge of the lust. "Sometimes...you have to hit bottom before you can figure out where to go."
"I've been slipping for a while. Ever since—" She broke off, tensing. When she continued, her words were lower. More intense. "My father had started negotiations for me to marry. After that, nothing mattered. I didn't care if I was ruined. I thought my father would cover it up to save face but all of the important men would know, and no one would have me after that."
"There are worse things than being alone on your own terms." Though maybe not in the city.
"I thought so, too. I knew my father would restrict me to the house for a few years to keep me from harming the family's reputation, but I didn't mind that. I'd have had access to a desk and the city's library. But then something else happened."
Jasper's stomach clenched. "What?"
As if she felt his tension, she made a soothing noise and stroked his chest. "Somewhere between deciding to let that boy touch me and getting arrested for fornication, I woke up. Even if my father had kept me in the city, I wouldn't have been happy locked up alone with my books anymore. I know I'm all tangled up inside, and I know it bothers you...but I'm sure about one thing. I'm not made to be untouched and alone."
Nobody was, least of all a woman as filled with life and curiosity and desire as Noelle. "I know what you mean." He kissed the top of her head. "Sleep. You're gonna feel like shit in the morning."
"Don't care." With a sigh of satisfaction, she squirmed closer. "At least I'll feel."
He waited until her breathing began to slow to whisper, "Me too."
Chapter Twelve
Noelle woke up dying.
Her skull pounded. Her mouth tasted like she'd swallowed cotton, and the roiling in her stomach reminded her she'd swallowed something far, far worse. Even shifting to her side made the room tilt and the churning increase until she whimpered.
"Don't move. It makes it worse."
"Lex?" The pillow smelled like Jasper, and the bed didn't feel like the pull-out couch. It couldn't be Lex's bed, either—the sheets weren't nice enough. "Where am I?"
"Jasper's place. He had to go." Lex rattled a small bottle. "Head hurt?"
"Not so loud, please." Noelle pressed her palm to her temple and tried to keep her head from throbbing so hard it split open. "I don't think I can eat or drink anything right now."
Lex touched her cheek. "You've got to. Water and aspirin, honey, that's all that's going to fix this."
Groaning, Noelle eased carefully onto her back and squinted up at Lex. "Where did Jasper go?"
"Business. Well, trouble," she amended. "Something's going down tonight. Got to prepare."
Noelle choked down the aspirin with as small a sip of water as she could manage and studied Lex's face. There was no hint of subterfuge, no sign that Jasper had dumped Noelle on Lex to get away from her.
That would be more comfort if Noelle's memories of the previous evening were clearer—or less embarrassing. "I think I was very drunk."
Lex grinned. "Does that mean you don't remember making out with me? I'm crushed."
It surfaced in a rush, a vivid memory of Lex's tongue swiping through her mouth before Noelle ended up sprawled on the table. She groaned again and covered her eyes with one hand. "I remember. I guess it's a good thing Jasper drank half my shots."
"Relax. As far as those parties go, it was damn tame." Lex stretched out beside her. "Bren said he got you back to my room, but I figured you must have dragged your drunk ass down here to have it out with Jasper."
She remembered that, too, far more clearly than she wanted to. "I changed my mind. Maybe I wasn't drunk enough."
Lex laughed. "Being passed out cold has its upsides."
"It probably keeps you in bed where you belong." Noelle eased onto her side and smiled at Lex. "I think it ended up all right, though. We talked."
"Good. He seemed square this morning, anyway."
That gave her hope. Between the humiliation of begging for something Jasper wasn't ready to give and the mortification of breaking down into tears, the evening should have been a disaster. But the moments she recalled most vividly were those spent cuddled against his side.
She couldn't remember how long they'd talked before she'd drifted to sleep, but the low rumble of his voice had chased her into dreams, a whisper that made her fee
l safe and cherished.
Moving slowly to avoid upsetting her body's precarious truce, she curled her hand around Lex's. "I'm glad I'm an O'Kane."
"Me too, honey." Lex propped her head on her other hand and looked down at Noelle. "I know what you want from him, and I need to explain something to you about the way things work here."
A different sort of queasiness stirred Noelle's gut. "Did he tell you what happened?"
"Jasper? He doesn't talk, not about that. But he doesn't have to." Lex tapped her temple. "I see the hunger, Noelle."
"How can you even tell what's what? I'm starving for everything."
"No, you only want some things. The others... Yeah, you're starving for those."
"What am I starving for?" No, that wasn't the real question. In her heart she knew, and so did Jasper. The question he wanted answered was the one she couldn't begin to unravel. "And why?"
Lex shrugged one shoulder. "I don't worry about why. Why doesn't matter. It won't change what you need."
"It matters to Jasper."
"Not even slightly." Lex leaned closer, held Noelle pinned with her dark gaze. "Jasper doesn't want to go too far because he's worried about what happens after. If you think it's all fucked up and wrong, eventually you'll hate yourself and him. You'll hate your life."
"Oh." Put that way, Noelle understood his fear. And as much as she wanted to brush it away, she couldn't. Not honestly. "I can't help it. I want to believe it's not wrong. I think I'm starting to, but I don't know."
"So take your time and enjoy the ride."
It couldn't be that easy. "What did you want to explain to me?"
Lex's brow furrowed. "The things you've been offering him—and what you've been asking for in return—it's fast. Even for an O'Kane. So don't be surprised if he hesitates, okay?"
Noelle closed her eyes as her stomach churned with more than the aftereffects of the liquor. "So the things I'm starving for aren't the things I'm supposed to want."
"Don't put words in my mouth, baby girl," Lex said, gentle but firm. "Fast, not wrong."
Except wanting them fast must be wrong, or at least naïve. "Help me understand. What makes it different from all the other things people do?"
"You really don't get it, do you?" Lex sat up then, her spine stiff and her dark eyes clouded. "You don't need him, Noelle. You don't need anyone, not anymore. You have the gang, and you have yourself. You can do whatever the hell you want."
Lex sounded as confused as Noelle, and she felt laughter bubbling up. Of course Lex couldn't understand her question. She lived in a world where all the lines were drawn, where her body and her mind were her own to give. Where giving had some meaning, because she knew how to hold back.
"I was trying to do what I wanted," Noelle confessed, safe behind the shield of her hands. "But no one can tell, can they? Jasper doesn't know if I can say no. None of us do, not even me."
"I think that's the heart of it," Lex admitted in a whisper. "Can you say it? You have to find out, for your sake and Jasper's."
It wasn't likely to happen while he was handling her so carefully, but a darker part of Noelle acknowledged that it might be harder to know when he stopped handling her gently. "To him? I don't know." She brushed her fingers over Lex's hip. "Maybe not you, either. I don't want to say no."
"Uh-huh." Lex twined her fingers with Noelle's. "Is that why you're hitting on me in Jasper's bed?"
This time she did laugh, even if the sound made her temples throb. "Only by mistake. The room isn't spinning anymore, but my head still is. How long until this goes away?"
"An hour or two? Could be all day."
Noelle fought a whimper at Lex's gleeful tone. "Nothing makes it better?"
"Not drinking until you pass out is a start." She urged Noelle over and pulled her close to her chest, one arm curled around her. "Go back to sleep. I'll stay."
Lex's warmth against her back made it easy to relax. That was the seductive lure of strength—you could close your eyes and drift, content to trust your safety to someone else's hands. "I'll get stronger."
"I know."
As long as Lex believed it, Noelle would, too.
Jasper carefully stripped the red plastic from the wire between his fingers. "Want to let me know why we're not just yanking the blasting caps and hauling ass out of here?"
"Because." Bren didn't sound nervous. No, he seemed perfectly at ease with a pair of wire cutters in his hand and a fifty-pound stack of plastic explosives in front of him. "If Trent has his goons check the device before tonight, we want it to look operational."
Dallas loomed over them, chewing absently on a toothpick as he watched them work. "Guess the girl wasn't playing you after all, Bren."
"Told you she wasn't."
Jasper hadn't been so sure. Still wasn't, truth be told. "How do we know this wasn't the plan? We get down here early to defuse Trent's little surprise, only the real surprise is when he blows it up in our faces?"
"We don't know," Dallas replied. "Losing your nerve in your old age, son?"
"That tends to happen pretty fast with my balls parked this close to a shit ton of RDX."
Bren grinned. "He needs those balls for pretty little Noelle."
"I thought your kitten already had 'em tucked in her pocket." Dallas laughed and shook his head. "She was showing her claws last night."
"We worked it out," Jasper muttered. "I am pissed at you, though. You could have warned me you were serious about Lex maybe wanting to keep Noelle all to herself."
"The warning was your warning. Lex takes what she wants."
And Dallas didn't sound happy about that. Jasper swiped the back of his wrist over his forehead and listened to the trickle of water in the corner of the small, dank basement. "And if they pair off?"
Dallas clenched his teeth around his toothpick. "Then they pair off," he ground out. "And since they both like dick, some lucky bastard can crawl all up in the middle of it."
Bren snipped a wire and frowned. "I don't get why the both of you don't just head it off. If you've shared a woman before, what's the big deal in making it two?"
Noelle was the big deal. Noelle, who—for all her sensuality and hunger—could still barely wrap her head around the idea of sex, casual or otherwise, with a single partner. The idea of any permanent arrangement with not one but three other people could send her screaming.
Unless she liked the idea.
Jasper shook his head. "Three possessive assholes in a bed is a few too many, especially when you're only talking about four people total."
Dallas chuckled. "Says you. To me, it sounds like a party."
It would be mind-blowing—for a night or two. "Long-term?"
"Maybe. Hell, long-term ain't the sort of thing you decide without a trial run or ten. And probably not while you're sitting on a bomb."
Bren flipped the wire cutters in his hand and held them out to Dallas. "Which we're not anymore."
Dallas didn't ask if he was sure, just took the cutters with a nod. "I want you up high tonight. No matter what goes down, Trent doesn't walk away from this pretty little trap."
"You got it."
Jasper rose. "I'll send Flash after the explosives later. It's hard to get your hands on this much of it. Makes you wonder how Trent managed."
"Someone backed him," Dallas agreed. "The real question is whether it came from the sectors or straight out of Eden. A couple of those bastard councilmen are clever enough to set us up to kill each other." His eyes tightened as he met Jasper's gaze. "Noelle's father, for starters."
The hair on the back of Jasper's neck prickled. "Even if that's true, it has nothing to do with her."
"Probably not." Dallas waved the wire cutters at the bomb. "This? This wasn't a couple days of planning. Even if it is daddy dearest, it has nothing to do with her—but that doesn't mean it never will. I knew that when I took her in, but if you care a damn about keeping her safe, you'll stop falling asleep every time I bring up city politics."
Burn it all down. Jasper's blithe, easy answer to the political machinations, the careful dance of offense and defense Dallas lived with every breath. But if it put Noelle in danger...
"I can learn," Jasper said, hefting the bag of tools they'd brought over his shoulder.
That earned him a searching look, Dallas's eyebrows drawing together as he flipped the wire cutters over and over in his hand. "Just like that, huh?"
"No, but I'm not stupid. I know what the right answer is."
Dallas snorted. "It's always been the right answer. Hasn't stopped you from telling me to go fuck myself before tonight."
"Maybe it's just time."
"Maybe it is." Dallas glanced at Bren. "You need time to scope out a good spot, or are we ready to roll?"
He checked his watch. "Fifteen minutes. I'll be ready."
"Good. Don't let that bastard shoot me."
"Jas won't let that happen." He picked up his bag and headed away from the door, deeper into the recesses of the darkened basement, out of sight.
Dallas shook his head. "Someday I'm going to teach that bastard to have a sense of humor."
"He has one, it's just massively fucked up and approaching inhuman." Jasper reached for the wire cutters, shoved them into the tool bag, and stowed the whole thing behind a crate in the corner.
They were almost to the stairs when Dallas stopped him with a hand on his arm. "I wasn't joking about the blowback we could get if word gets around Eden that Cunningham's youngest daughter is wearing O'Kane ink. Personally, I'd get some sick satisfaction over watching them devour that self-righteous ass…but he could decide to make the embarrassment go away."
The growl escaped before Jasper could stop it, a surge of rage at the possibility that Noelle could have lost everything and it still wouldn't be enough for her father. That he might want to ensure her silence. "I'd kill him first. Is that political enough for you?"
Dallas barked out a laugh as he started up the steps. "It's a start. She's safe enough for now. After we deal with the current mess, we'll see about making sure she's safe for good."
