ALTERED BY LEAD: UNDERCOVER SINNERS BOOK 2

by James, Tate

  "Do you need anything else while we're here?" His rumbling voice cuts through my melancholy musings, and I blink up at him. The sun is setting, and rose gold light creates a halo around his dark hair. Mace looks like some sort of avenging angel. All he needs to complete the look is a pair of wings and a huge ass sword.

  My eyes duck to his pants without really meaning to.

  On second thought, maybe he already has the huge ass sword taken care of.

  "Talia?" he prompts, and I give myself a little shake to clear my head.

  "Uh, I don't think so." I inspect the plethora of bags he holds for me—like the perfect shopping companion—and try to think what else I need. After he promised I had no need to worry about a budget, I suddenly found so many things I had to have. Mostly french lingerie which I already switched into in the bathroom. Just in case.

  Coming up blank, I shrug. "I think that's everything.” We even managed to secure a mattress, tying it to the roof of the Hummer for the drive back. It almost makes me sad for a minute there, knowing that we’re just about done with our day. It’s been nice. Too nice. Almost perfect. I even had my hair trimmed and dyed a dark chocolate brown. When I asked Mace if it suited me, all he did was grunt. I’m starting to realize that sound is a mark of approval.

  Mace gives me a nod and starts piling all my bags into the back of the vehicle. "Did you want to …" He trails off, and I wonder if maybe he just reached his quota of words for the day. Or year. He talked a lot on the way here.

  "Maybe what?" I ask, following his line of sight across the street to where a cute young couple giggles over a shared sundae. "Mace-y, are you asking me to get ice cream with you?" I can't fight the grin spreading over my face, made worse when he flicks those impossibly beautiful eyes my direction, a muscle in his jaw ticking.

  He doesn't reply, but snags my hand in his and tugs me across the road to the garish pink shop. Just before pushing the door open, he pauses and looks down at me with soft eyes.

  "I like when you call me that," he admits, his hand tightening around mine as he continues into the shop with me behind him.

  I snort a laugh. "You hate when I call you that."

  He gives a small shrug, his attention intense on all the different ice cream flavors in front of us. "I thought I did," he mutters, "until you didn't do it anymore. Then I missed it."

  My brows shoot up at this out of character sharing of feelings, but I don't want to ruin the moment by dwelling too hard. Instead, I clear my throat and assess the flavors myself. "Can I get a double cone, please?" I ask the girl behind the counter. "Chocolate and espresso."

  Mace places some money on the counter to pay for both of us, then orders his. "Bubblegum rainbow stripe and cookie dough."

  My face splits into a wide grin as I hear his choices, and I look up at him.

  "What?" he frowns back at me. "It's what I like."

  I raise my hands in a defensive gesture. "Hey, no judgements here, big guy."

  The girl hands over our ice creams and we wander outside with them. It's a nice day so we just kind of ... stroll, licking our desserts and enjoying each other’s company.

  I haven't forgotten that it's all fucking fake. It's constantly there in my mind that the guys have four million dollars resting on their ability to make me fall in love. But so long as I know, so long as I guard my heart, surely I can just enjoy their futile attempts?

  Just as we reach the little park, Mace stops and pulls his phone from his pocket. He glances at a message on the screen, then just grunts and shoves the phone back in.

  When he says nothing, I arch a brow at him. "Anything important?"

  "No," he replies, crunching on the last of his ice cream cone. "Just Hawke being a dick."

  I snicker. "I thought you two were like ..." I hold up my sticky fingers and cross them, indicating how close Hawke and Mace always seem.

  Mace's dark blue eyes narrow at me, and he catches my hand in his strong grip. "Do you want us to be like that, Talia? Maybe with you between?"

  My heart stops. Or speeds up. Who gives a shit about my heart, Mace is asking ...

  Oh fuck.

  He holds eye contact with me as he very deliberately brings my fingers to his mouth and licks the sticky ice cream residue off them. All of it. Very thoroughly.

  When he releases my hand, my knees are jelly and my cunt is screaming obscenities at me about all the dirty things Mace could do to us before we even get back to the Rogue Elk.

  But something catches his attention over my shoulder and the fire in his eyes frosts over.

  "What?" I stammer, still catching up. One second, I think we’re just going to sit right there on the park bench and fuck like bunnies and the next, Mace looks like he wants to murder someone. Which, admittedly, is not that different from his normal face.

  I spin around, searching for whatever’s doused his mood. It takes me a moment, but when I spot it …

  "What the fuck?" I exclaim, but Mace is already reacting.

  He strides over to the noticeboard and brutally rips the poster from its sticky tape, balling it up in his huge fist.

  "Come on," he says to me, but this time when he grabs my hand, it’s not the same. It's not cutesy and exciting, like he just needs to touch my skin in whatever small way possible in public. This time when he grabs me, it’s with urgency.

  I don't think twice before dropping the remains of my ice cream on the grass and hurrying back to the Hummer with him.

  Once inside the armored vehicle, Mace passes the scrunched up paper to me, then aggressively pulls the Hummer out into the street.

  So much for our date.

  I smooth the paper out and take a closer look at the damn near unbelievable poster. Sure enough, there's a picture of me from some snooty charity dinner I'd been to with my mom about six years ago. My hair is perfect, my makeup flawless, and the demure chiffon dress with the high neckline custom fitted. I look like the perfect Russian princess. And according to this poster … a missing person.

  "Who would do this?" I ask Mace, my eyes glued to the old picture of me. Of the fake smile pasted to my lips, the diamond necklace around my neck like a fucking noose, of the pain in my eyes. No one else would see it, but now that I've experienced life, it's all too achingly clear to me.

  Mace's hands tighten on the steering wheel and he says nothing. He doesn't need to. There's only one person arrogant enough to put out a ‘missing person’ on me.

  My father.

  * * *

  The drive back to the Rogue Elk is tense and quiet, but long enough that by the time we pass the Welcome to Trail, Oregon sign, Mace's knuckles are no longer white, and the anxiety in my stomach has faded.

  "We'll handle this, Talia," he tells me, his promise rumbling through the vehicle like an earthquake. "He won't get his hands on you. Never again."

  I turn my eyes back to him, a little startled.

  He can’t know that for sure. Konstantin has reach. He has his elves. He has a never-ending drive for vengeance. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m scared. No, I’m terrified. Because the last thing in the world I want is to end up at my father’s mercy.

  "This is the lead we need. Isn't it? He's resurfaced." I try to make my voice steady, but I’m not sure Mace is buying the act.

  His dark brows lift just a fraction as he glances over at me. "Maybe," he says finally. "Maybe not. Your father is very good at this game."

  I shrug. "Okay, so we're no worse off."

  His jaw tightens and a small frown line creases between his eyes. "Unless someone recognized you in Ashland today and called the number. Then our position is compromised."

  I purse my lips, thinking on that. "It is surprising that he’s managed to track us out here, but he doesn’t know exactly where we are or he would’ve come for us already, right? And there's no way he has the resources to search every inch of Oregon hunting for me." Instinctively, I close my hand over Mace’s where it rests on the gear shift. As crappy as my bed is, I've kin
d of started thinking of the Rogue Elk as home. For now. I’m not quite ready to leave, not when my emotions are still such a tangled mess.

  “Likely not,” Mace agrees, but he’s tense. He knows as well as I do that the poster we saw is a ticking clock, counting down the seconds until an inevitable confrontation. At some point, I will have to face my father, even if it’s from behind the barrel of a gun. “But this is still an unfortunate discovery.”

  I say nothing for a while, dropping my hand back to my lap. Mace glances over at me a few times, like he’s trying to get up the nerve to tell me something. Shocking, considering a big dude like him is afraid of very little—especially not of me.

  “Talia, I asked to speak with you today because I had something to tell you.” My heart thunders so hard and so fast that I swear, it gets lodged in my throat. But instead of giving away my emotions, I take a page from Mace’s book and force myself to stay calm. I can’t let these guys know how much they’re getting to me. “But I think you already know.”

  “Do I?” I echo, my fear at seeing the poster mixing with my sudden desperation to hear what Mace has to say, so that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. I’m just a sweating, shaking mess of a girl.

  “That bet Hawke came up with, it has nothing to do with you, not really. It’s because he doesn’t know what to do with his own feelings.” My mouth drops open, and I have to blink several times to clear away the shock of his words.

  He admitted it to me. He actually told me the truth. Maybe too little, too late considering Weston already brought it up, but still …

  “Just for the record, I never considered playing the game. If you ever confess your love for me, I want it to be about more than just money.” Mace eases the Hummer into the gravel lot in front of the Elk and shifts into park. The house is so far off the beaten path, the boys don’t bother to hide the vehicles. If somebody makes it all the way up here, we’ve already been found.

  “Mace …” I start, choking on my own words, confusion warring with a soft, sweet feeling inside of me that I don’t want to acknowledge. He glances over at me, and the air inside the car changes. Heats up. Burns.

  As usual, when I’m overwhelmed with emotion, I go back to my worst vice of all.

  Sex.

  Throwing my seat belt off, I crawl over and squeeze between Mace’s massive chest and the steering wheel. It’s a tight fit, but one of the pluses of driving such a ridiculously large vehicle is the size of the interior. When Mace shifts the seat back a few inches, I find that we’ve got plenty of space.

  We’re meant to be pressed together anyway.

  Our mouths crash together, his huge hand cupping the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair. He was always one of the nicest guys outside the bedroom, but in it … Mace grabs a fistful of my hair, taking control of the kiss. His tongue parts my lips, demanding, asserting. His kiss is menace and affection wrapped into one, a dichotomy that I could get drunk off of.

  He’s everything my depraved inner self wants: a man to love me, but a beast to fuck me.

  Reaching between us, I free Mace’s thick shaft from his pants, my fingers so small in comparison as I stroke and tease him, eating up the growling groans spilling from his throat. When he reaches down to go for my cunt, and finds the pants in his way, he simply grabs onto my ass with both hands, and tears the fabric.

  Pulling back slightly, I gape at him as he rends the pants right down the middle, finding the delicate lavender lingerie I’ve hidden underneath.

  His blue eyes are dark with lust as he looks up at me.

  “Talia, you naughty girl,” he snarls, and then he’s shoving my tank top up to find the lacey bra underneath. His hot mouth comes down, covering the purple fabric, sucking the hardened point of my nipple through it.

  I throw my head back, digging my fingers into his dark hair, gathering him against me. He sucks my tits at the same time he reaches down, hooking my panties aside, and then encouraging me to lift up on my hips.

  When he grabs my pelvis and pushes me down, spearing me on his thick cock, I groan with ecstasy, the adrenaline from finding the poster heightening the sexual tension between us. It’s just too much, all of this avoiding each other, and fighting, and worrying about feelings …

  We needed this.

  We needed each other.

  I bounce up and down on Mace’s long, thick shaft, feeling it hit the end of me, knowing that if I were any other woman, I probably wouldn’t be able to fit him. It’s a miracle he fits inside of me at all, but I take great pleasure knowing I can handle it, that I can sheathe him fully inside my wetness.

  He lifts his face from my breasts, putting his hand on my neck and forcing our mouths together again. We’re a tangle of tongues and teeth and saliva, but through it all, he never loses control. He’s always in control.

  And I love it.

  The horn blares as my ass presses up against it, and Mace moves his hands to cup me, squeezing and kneading the soft curve of flesh. He grabs hold of my pelvis and slows my movements, back to those long in and out strokes he likes so much.

  When he comes, it’s like the releasing of so much pressure, so much tension. He snarls, and the sound reverberates throughout the car, like I’ve bedded some animal, some beast that I’ve finally tamed. Unlike in the kitchen, he actually finishes inside of me, blowing his hot load deep.

  He then takes my fingers, sucks them into his mouth to wet them, and guides them to my clit, watching with heavy-lidded eyes as I finish myself off and then collapse against him, both of us panting heavily against one another.

  “Talia,” he begins in a soft rumble, like thunder in the distance. “Do you—” He cuts off when the front door of the old hotel bangs open, and Hawke stomps down the old wooden steps with a face like a storm cloud. "Go easy on him," Mace says before Hawke reaches us. "He's confused, but he means well. And I will not let him hurt you."

  I snort a sarcastic laugh, but there's no time to respond before Hawke practically rips the door open.

  "Hi honey!" I purr with a sickly sweet smile. "Did you miss me?" Carrying my snarky bullshit a step further, I slide off of Mace and practically throw myself into Hawke’s arms.

  I intend to just give him a quick smooch—you know, committing to the cheery ditz act for a few more seconds before flipping him off and telling him to go shove his bad mood where the sun doesn't shine—but things ... escalate.

  I blame my tryst with Mace for it, Mace and the lingerie.

  The second my lips touch his, time seems to stop. Or ... my brain sure as fuck does. Suddenly I've totally forgotten what a total bitchy asshole Hawke's been for the last two months. I've forgotten the hours on days on weeks of grueling physical training he's been putting me through with zero praise on my progress. I've totally forgotten the fucked up fucking bet that he cooked up.

  Fuck.

  All that matters is the soft warmth of his lips. The way his breath catches lights a fire in me and that light, teasing smooch turns scorching hot.

  On the edge of my consciousness I hear Mace bark a curse, but I don't care. Hawke's strong hands grip my waist and my back slams into the side of the Hummer with enough force to knock the air from my lungs. He doesn't give me a moment to catch my breath, or ask if I'm okay. Not Hawke. He just takes and fuck if I don't crave his controlling, greedy touch like I used to crave cocaine and champagne.

  My legs wind around his waist, my whole body supported by the heavy crush of his body against Mace's truck, and I moan when his steel-hard erection grinds against my cunt.

  For a moment, it's all consuming. If Mace and Weston hadn't got me off so fucking well in the last twelve hours, I'd have already come right then and there. But that small reprieve in hormones gives me the mental slap I need.

  "No!" I shout, shoving Hawke off me with all my strength.

  Two months ago, I'd have barely pushed him an inch. Thanks to his training—and a healthy dose of surprise, I suspect—he staggers back severa
l steps then lands on his ass in the dirty gravel driveway.

  I just barely manage not to land on my ass myself, and I thank fuck for the solid vehicle at my back keeping me upright.

  "No," I repeat, my voice like granite. "You don't get to touch me like that. You gave up that right weeks ago." The fact that I initiated the kiss is irrelevant, and he damn well knows it.

  "Talia," Mace rumbles from behind me, but I shake my head. I don't even look at him. I can't. My eyes are glued to Hawke's furious, hurt face like I'm watching a car crash, or a sunrise, or ... something.

  "No. Hawke fucking knows I'm right." I sneer at him as he slowly picks himself up from the ground.

  He takes his time to brush dirt and dust from his pants and by the time he's done, all traces of emotion are gone. The only telltale sign that he’s pissed off is the tightness to his strong jaw.

  "Do we have a problem, recruit?" He damn near spits the words at me, betraying a whole lot more emotion than his face is showing.

  "No," Mace replies for me.

  "Yes," I snap at the same time. "We have plenty of problems, sir. Where shall I start?" His sarcastic question was like a floodgate getting opened and now I can't catch my runaway mouth to save myself.

  Screw it. We're overdue this fight.

  Hawke's glare is cold enough to freeze the Australian Outback, but I'm fucking done taking his shit. He wants to have this fight? I'm all for it.

  "Fucking hell," Mace mumbles under his breath, "I'll be inside if you need me." His dark gaze swings between both Hawke and me, so I'm not sure who he's talking to. Hopefully Hawke. Hopefully he's worried I might rip his friend’s balls off with my bare hands then stuff them down his throat.

  Probably not, though.

  Neither of us speak as Mace reluctantly heads inside the Rouge Elk, shaking his head and letting his boots clomp heavily over the old wooden veranda. But at least I feel good about what happened with him, about our conversation, about his promise not to let Hawke hurt me. All of that gives me strength

  "If you have something you need to get off your chest, Miss Petrova, I suggest you do so now." Hawke's voice is back to a careful neutral, but his lips are still slightly puffy from our violent but exquisite kiss. "I won't tolerate insubordination on my team, and I've let you sulk for too damn long already."