by Angel Payne
“Huh?” He muttered it as the ninjas did just that, hustling out one by one. He recognized the disappointment in his voice, thickening as he repeated it in Franz’s direction this time. “Are we really just watching this? Captain, aren’t we gonna do anything?”
Franz tossed a dark stare. “You want to run that risk with innocents present, T-Bomb? Especially when armed support is on the way? I’m frustrated as hell too, but maybe you know something I don’t. Maybe that’s your twenty-two millimeter thug stopper in those swim trunks and not your dick. If so, then go get ’em, cowboy.”
He huffed. “Damn it, we’re trained for this.”
“And so is the LAPD.”
Fuck. He hated it when Franzen was right. For the second time today, his mind flicked backward in time, to summer days of nearly twenty years ago, when he and Fire Hamilton were feeling ballsy. They’d sneak into Old Man Stromberg’s orchard and concoct epic alien battles from a hay bale fort. They’d just be set to launch their “big attack” when Fire’s mom would call him in for dinner. Tait would trudge home, knowing dinner wouldn’t be waiting, which was no biggie to his deflated stomach.
He felt the same way now. It sucked ass enough that the ninja assholes had ruined a once-in-a-lifetime invitation to a celebrity’s Malibu beach house, but they didn’t have the decency to make the whole thing about something exciting like drugs, jewelry, money, or even sneaky paparazzi shots. Now that would’ve been cool. They would’ve been the shit back at base once those pictures broke, showing them kicking back in Bella Lanza’s fancy digs, eating grilled shrimp with the glamorous star…
He was getting to give these whack-offs another heavy snort when one of the minions bumped him in the haste of their retreat. And damn it if the shithead didn’t smell a lot like salon-quality hair conditioner. And fuck if the guy didn’t have the most perfect, heart-shaped ass he’d ever—
“Gaaahh!”
He was so far over the cliff from shock, he couldn’t even swear right. Apparently fate wasn’t sticking it and twisting it enough at that, because the ninja stopped and froze—letting him gawk longer at that beautiful backside. Letting him gaze up over hips and a waist that now, under second and third consideration, were too damn sleek for a guy on a team this well-trained.
Tait blinked. How had he missed this bozo before now? And why couldn’t he stop staring at the bastard, unable to control the sparks of strange recognition that popped through him, a case of déja vu set to his mind’s own speed metal song?
And why, as the guy turned back to stare at him, did he imagine that the space between the ninja’s hood and jacket parted enough for him to glimpse a ponytail—a coiled braid of black, lavender, and silver hair?
“Holy fuck.”
He rushed to his feet. Stumbled forward. Déja vu? Screw that mystical shit. He recognized that ass from solid, real memories—because he’d seen it before. Completely naked. Getting Dommed into a thousand beautiful shades of red, in a dungeon a thousand miles away, on a cold autumn night that felt thousands of years away. The Dom had been his buddy Zeke, and he’d been the scene monitor who’d never forget that submissive as long as he lived. He’d jacked off a few hundred times to mental replays of that scene. To thoughts about that woman and her daiquiri-in-a-bottle hair shit, and the way that tricolored hair wove around her breasts like dark seaweed on a pale mermaid. He even fantasized about hurting her the way Z had, just to make her smile like she had after their session…just to give her soul everything it so clearly needed from all that. And yeah, he thought a lot about holding her again, too. About curling her against him like he had when Z had to leave so suddenly after the session, feeling like fucking Zeus when she’d let him.
But that woman had been hauled off to prison ten days later. She’d aided the criminal who’d almost murdered Zeke in a revenge-driven zeal to capture Rayna back into white slavery. She’d finally had a surge of sanity about all that, and was able to use her proximity to the monster to aid the police in bringing him down, but sometimes a right couldn’t cancel a wrong. Tait had walked her to the police van. It had been a freezing, miserable day, but crazily, the sun sliced through the clouds as she’d turned to tell him good-bye. It had haloed across her head and glimmered in her eyes, stunning him into silence with their brilliant purple light. Sadness yet peace, resignation yet despair…it was all there, a goddamn universe in her gaze…and they’d locked it away.
Two states, seven months, and thousands of miles later, a masked soldier turned and looked at him—and hit him with that universe again.
“Holy fuck.”
There was no hesitation to it this time. Only his laugh of raw joy.
The soldier gave him a desperate shake of his—her—head. Right before she spun for the door to the terrace and raced through it.
Tait didn’t think twice about giving chase.
He caught her a couple of feet past the terrace’s light. Now that he had her secure, he let his mind give way to the full, phenomenal reality of this. Of her.
“Luna.” He breathed the word. “Goddamn. Luna.”
He got to rejoice in that for about a second. After she thwacked a hand across his face at full strength, he got busy dealing with his stinging skin, his bleeding pride—and the violet glower that bore into him with the subtlety of a power drill.
“Stay where you are, Weasley. I don’t want to hurt you.”
As he watched her trudge down the sand and blend into the night, he failed to erase the music of her voice from his head—especially as she’d wrapped it around the nickname that she’d given him that night he’d held her in the dungeon. Weasley. He’d laughingly accepted the title, reminding her that in the world of teenage wizards from where she’d pulled the name, Weasley was the one who finished off the tale with the beautiful genius witch on his arm.
He laughed again now, but had no idea why. As he turned and got ready to face the curious gapes of the other guys, he muttered, “It’s a little too late for that, woman.”
Chapter Nine
Ava crossed the threshold from her garage into her kitchen and peered around in bewilderment. Turning the light on over the sink didn’t help the confusion. She ran fingers over the folded dish towel, the coffee cup she’d scrubbed and put in the drainer this morning, the miniature herb garden that grew in a wood box on the windowsill. Though Zeke and Rayna had gotten up after her and had still been snoozing in the guest bedroom, everything was exactly as she’d left it sixteen hours ago, at six a.m.
But nothing was the same.
She folded her arms around herself, feeling like she hugged an alien. When she’d left this morning, she’d been sore from pushing it hard at the gym. Now she ached in newer, stranger ways. Her face throbbed from her face-plant during the struggle with Bella’s strange intruders. Her arms carried bruises from where the jerks had grabbed her. But below her waist, the pain took on a different edge. It had been months since her last date, let alone one with a man she’d allow in her bed. Technically, that wasn’t where Ethan had been, either—but her body, with its most tender tissues aching in the most intimate ways, sure as hell didn’t know the difference.
And neither did her heart.
That had to explain the nervous jolt of her stomach as Ethan entered in her wake. His footsteps, though mellow, were loud thumps in the silence of the house. Rayna and Zeke wouldn’t be home for a while, as a bunch of the guys were still ravenous after their dinner was interrupted at Bella’s. He pressed against her from behind, ensuring the dervishes in her stomach now formed parades through the rest of her body. Without a word, he offered back her car keys, which dangled from one of his impossibly long fingers. She murmured her thanks for him driving her home, the only words she could seem to get out while her pussy throbbed from the memory of that finger exploring her with deep, dominating thrusts.
So much for the dervishes being fair about this.
Ethan didn’t move for a long moment. Dios, he felt good there, so large and strong be
hind her. “You doing okay?” he asked quietly.
“Uhhh, yeah.” She forced the casual tone as she turned to face him. “I’m…just wiped. After the cops asked all those questions, and after Bella—”
She chopped herself short. One side of Ethan’s mouth quirked as he drawled, “Go ahead, say it. After Bella added more bling to the tragedy queen crown? Spread on a new layer to the melodrama pie? Made Sarah Bernhardt roll over in her grave and barf worms?”
She covered her mouth and giggled. “Something along those lines.”
Through another thick pause, he simply stared at her. When his study dropped to her mouth, her lips tingled with excitement, awareness. Oh God, how she wanted him to kiss her…
He pushed away instead, pacing to the dining nook and bracing his hands on the back of a chair. “That welt on your face really makes me want to punch a hole in the wall, but it gave back a little, at least. Punched my ticket out of Casa de Drama. So now I owe you.”
“Oh, shut up.”
She finished rolling her eyes in time to catch the teasing glint of his smile. But as their gazes locked, his lips sobered. There were no other lights on except the little one she’d just flipped, making his eyes look like a pair of sapphire crystals. His nostrils widened, taking air deep into his chest. He looked like he wanted to pounce on her any second. Ava’s breath burned in and out of her lungs while she imagined him doing just that. Like breathing was doing her any good right now. The air between them now felt like soup. The hot, thick, stomach-warming kind.
“I’d better call for that cab,” he finally said. “Franz said something about going to the La Brea Tar Pits tomorrow.”
“Y-yeah,” she stammered. “Sure. That’s a good idea.”
Neither of them moved. Their silence was so potent, a wave crashed on the beach and sounded like it was a foot away instead of a block. And the soup pot went right back to simmering.
“Ava?”
“Huh?”
“I need to use your phone.” He held his cell up. The screen was black. “Mine’s dead, remember?”
“Shit.” She attempted a little laugh. “Sorry.” On knees that felt like rubber, she crossed to her bedroom door and pushed it open. The creak sounded like cannon fire. Normally, she loved all the eccentricities of the classic Hermosa bungalow but tonight, everything felt new and strange, dipped in a bath of Ethan Archer’s presence. “It’s—errrm—on the nightstand, under the magazine.” She felt safer hanging out in the doorway as he lifted up last month’s Vogue and toppled the fabric swatches that were resting on top of it. “Sorry,” she repeated. “The, umm, other magazine.”
She forced herself to dash in, fish the phone from beneath the latest issue of W, and jab it up at him. Ethan accepted it, though didn’t do anything with the device. Once more, he barely moved. Once more, the corner of his mouth tugged up. And once more, he looked dangerously fascinated with her. And so beautifully kissable.
Shit, shit shit. She tore her gaze away, refusing to put together the facts—this man, my bedroom, hours until dawn—into a conclusion that gave her any action plan except getting her ass into bed as soon as the cab came for him. The fallen swatches were a good distraction. She dropped to her knees and began piling them back on top of each other.
Ethan still didn’t get the hint. There was no telltale dial tone overhead, no beeping four-one-one to ask for a connection to the cab company.
Instead, he crouched next to her. Because that made a lot of sense. Ava kept the grouse to herself and finished reassembling the stack.
“What is all that?” he asked.
“Fabric samples of the dresses Bella’s wearing to the haute couture shows in Paris in a few weeks. She needs makeup and hair looks for each ensemble.”
“Which you’re supposed to design.”
“Duh.”
“In your spare time.”
“Well, yeah.” She rose to set down the squares on the nightstand again but made the move too fast, giving herself a head rush. Wisely, she kept that tidbit to herself as she plopped to the bed, next to where he lingered on the floor, shaking his head with a peeved glower. “Okay, what?” she snapped, wondering if she’d regret it.
“You seriously have to ask that?” He stressed the point with a growl. “C’mon. Custom-designed makeup? For some stupid oats show?”
Regret was definitely crossed off the reactions list. Laughter, full and bright and consuming, was another thing. She flopped backward, unable and unwilling to stop the mirth. “Not oats.” She giggled. “Haute. It means ‘high’ in French, as in ‘high fashion.’ She flicked her knee, gently clipping the side of his head with it. “I can’t believe foreign language fanboy doesn’t know that.”
He snorted. “Paid my dues to the couture crowd during my polo years.”
“Hmmm.” She smiled at the ceiling from the image that bloomed in her head. Ethan’s ass, hard and high, shown off to perfection by a pair of those tight white polo pants. His long legs tucked into a pair of rugged black boots. His sculpted abs hugged by a shirt in royal blue, complementing his eyes… “I’ll bet you were good at it.”
After a second, he answered wistfully, “I liked my horse.”
She rose and rested back on her wrists. After nudging him again, she flashed a little grin. “I bet he liked you, too.”
Ethan turned his face forward. His profile went tight, the noble lines only more beautiful with the new definition. When he spoke, that quiet determination branded his words, too. “I don’t want to talk about polo.”
“Okay. I can just teach you some more French words.”
“I want to talk about tonight.”
Tension shot its way back through her muscles. “Wow. You know how to throw bombs of all kinds, don’t you?”
That did nothing to loosen him. “Ava, when those asswads found you in Bella’s bedroom, they didn’t…try anything, did they?”
His tone, which clicked from unswerving to unsettled in twenty seconds, at first confused her. When his intimation finally registered, she blurted, “Oh, no. God, no.” She wanted to laugh again but saw he was nowhere near the same mindset. “They were on a mission, Ethan. That goal definitely didn’t include a sloppy seconds quickie with Ms. Lanza’s stylist.”
She waited for his relieved sigh. It never came. His scowl darkened as he snapped, “You’re not a sloppy second. Do not say shit like that around me, Ava.”
She scooted back against the headboard. “Yes, Sir.”
That earned her a sharp uptick of his left brow. After another moment of consideration, he pushed up onto the bed with her. Ava tucked her knees in front of her chest, hoping it bought her an instant to come up with a line of such perfect wit, he’d have no choice about dropping his moody scrutiny. But her brain had officially hit the Pause button, the one with the user’s manual that came with an extra warning. Engaging button will induce endless fidgeting and suck all the air from your lungs. Use with caution.
Her head actually did swim a little. Here she was, in her most personal space, watching him fill it…as she’d dreamed of him doing so often. Here he was, dark and glorious, a fantasy fulfilled against the backdrop of her very real life in its yellow-and-aqua normalcy. How many times had she thought of him with her head against these pillows…and touched her most sensitive folds while imagining his hands on her skin, and his long, thick cock inside her core…
“Those words roll so easily off your tongue, Miss Chestain.”
There was no moment needed to interpret his meaning this time. She dared to look into his eyes for her response. “You’re the first person I’ve ever given them to, Sergeant.”
He pivoted, tucking in a knee to face her more fully. “Because you want to respect me with them?”
She nodded slowly. Thanks to her thudding heart, it was all she could muster. Dear God, what was she doing? She couldn’t dance on this edge again with him. He’d invaded her head once today. Filled her body. Made her scream with exquisite pleasure. He’d g
iven her incredible new fantasies for nights in this room…to be revisited alone.
Alone was good. Was what she’d fought for. Had moved two states and over a thousand miles from that damn military base to achieve.
“But I don’t feel respected.”
She gave him a double take. A real, utterly lame double take. Luckily, she was too pissed to be embarrassed. “Excuse me?”
“I’d rather not.” His features took on the texture of golden marble. Smooth. Entrancing. Beautiful. But deadly if used for force. Imagine that.
“Rather not what?” she demanded.
“Excuse you.” He curled his hands over the tops of her knees. His fingers, long and confident, spread and stretched like flesh cages. He planted his chin on top of them, which brought their faces within inches of each other. “I’d prefer to keep you right here, so we can easily move to the next subject.”
Before she could sputter a syllable of protest, he reached and stroked her jaw then her cheeks. He used just the tips of his fingers, with such soft purpose…the exact touch he’d used to catch her tears in the wine room this afternoon.
Mierda. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? Remembered it likely would be coming after his growled promise as he’d let her get dressed? This is far from over, Ava.
“M-maybe we really should call it a night.”
“Not until we discuss this afternoon.”
“Ethan—”
“You said some troubling things, Ava.”
She yearned to jerk away. And damn it, she would have if he’d used any weapons other than those caressing fingers, that intent stare. It was genius and devious in the same move, and she was helpless against it. She fought a furious flush at remembering the shit that had gone down after the magic in the wine room.
“You said some troubling things, too,” she retorted. “And it wasn’t fair.”
“Why?”
She squeezed her eyes against the new intensity in his stare. Sucked in a sharp breath. Her chest hurt. Her head hurt. He was storming her heart’s fortress with a titanium battering ram, letting in light to corners that didn’t want it. Making her cringe from the blaring heat and paralyzing fear. She couldn’t let him do this. I’m sorry, Ethan. I can’t.
