by Kit Rocha
Grace looked so alarmed at the idea that Ana elbowed Nita and patted Grace’s arm. “Don’t listen to her. Nita’s an overachiever in that regard. I think she read too many pre-Flare tales about ladies of the court and their adoring knights.”
And for all her fondness for playing in the mud, Nita still carried herself with an inborn grace that drew attention. Added to the tailored bodices that hugged her generous curves, her flawless golden skin, huge brown eyes, and full, sultry lips, it was probably a miracle more guardsmen didn’t follow her around, begging to get their asses kicked by her overprotective brother.
Nita knew it. She winked at Ana with a laugh. “Those were my very favorite stories,” she agreed. “There are worse things than innocent adoration.”
The words were cheerful, but Ana knew Nita. Sure enough, the girl’s gaze snuck to the right, fixing on Hunter for one brief, heart-wrenching moment.
Sympathy tightened Ana’s chest. If the prohibition against Riders forming attachments was strong, the idea of a noble heiress like Nita tying herself to a man with a doomed future was inconceivable. It didn’t matter that Hunter came from a noble family himself--the ink on his arm condemned him.
Nita’s family would drag her back home by her hair and lock her in the cellar until she regained her senses if they even thought she was considering it. And Hunter knew it. He was too responsible to allow an attachment that would only lead to her heartbreak. If he ever found out about Nita’s crush, he’d do everything in his power to discourage it.
Maybe Ana was too hard on the children of the great families. In a sector built on the glory of following your heart, they were the only ones forbidden to love as they pleased. Money made up for a lot, but some boxes were too small to survive inside.
Nita caught Ana watching her and replaced her happy mask. “Maybe you should go find out what Deacon wants. He looks pretty intent.”
Ana glanced at him again. Intent was a weak word to describe his expression--it held all the heat and filthy promise of their last kiss, and it prompted her to squeeze her thighs together, as if that could relieve the sudden ache.
Trusting that Nita would see Grace through this first party, Ana rose. “I think I’ll do that.”
Deacon watched her as she started across the room, the corner of his mouth ticking up in a tiny smile. Ana judged the distance between them--and then veered hard left. When she reached the shadowed doorway, she glanced back over her shoulder, daring Deacon to follow her with one searing look.
She was nearly to the armory when his fingers brushed the bare part of her lower back beneath her shirt. She whirled and tangled her hand in his shirt, dragging him with her as she took another step back. “You have got to stop that.”
“Stop what?” He spread his hand wide across the small of her back. “Touching you?”
“Stop watching me.” Another step had her back to the armory door, Deacon’s body pressing hers against the wood. She groped for the doorknob with her free hand. “You’ve been doing it all fucking day.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I like looking at you.” He reached past her and twisted the knob.
The door swung open, and Ana nearly lost her balance. Deacon’s hand tightened at the small of her back, steadying her. She tugged at his shirt and swung them into the dark room. When she caught the door with her boot and kicked it shut, the only illumination was faint moonlight streaming through the high, narrow windows.
It was enough. She gave Deacon’s chest a shove, and was rewarded with the metallic clatter of his back knocking into a row of lockers. “And what are you thinking about while you’re watching me?”
“Different things. How strong you are. How you don’t let anything stand in your way.” Instead of straightening, he leaned against the lockers and raised one eyebrow. “What you look like when you come.”
Heat worked its way through her limbs and settled low in her body. “Well, that’s not fair.” His belt buckle was cool under her fingers as she rubbed her thumb over it, then slipped the leather free. “You got to see that a bunch of times. I only got to see you come once.”
“And you’re aiming to even the score.”
She didn’t know what she was aiming for. Sense had abandoned her. She hadn’t thought this through, hadn’t considered the angles. There were a hundred ways she could end up regretting this, and by tomorrow she’d have a list.
Tonight, she had the soft kiss of leather under her skin as she opened his belt. She had the giddy beat of her heart, the thrill of doing something so, so reckless. Damn near everyone who mattered in the world was a few dozen paces away...
And she was sliding to her knees in front of Deacon as her fingers worked the button on his jeans.
His eyes glinted as he braced one hand on the door, his arm flexing. “Everyone’s right outside.”
“Now you care?”
“Fuck, no.” He rubbed his thumb over her cheek. “But you do. At first I thought it scared you, because you want to keep this secret. But it’s turning you on, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.” She turned to catch his thumb between her teeth as his zipper rasped in the shadows. His calloused thumb was rough against her tongue, and she stared up at his moonlit face and met his shadowed eyes as she sucked hard.
He hissed in a breath, then scraped the pad of his thumb over her bottom teeth as he pulled it from her mouth. “Come on, Ana. You’re strong, remember? You don’t need to hide from the truth.”
Everyone hid from some truths. Ana had faced plenty of hers head-on, but this one had sharp edges and felt alarmingly self-destructive. Maybe she’d finally found her own inner darkness, the one trait all Riders shared in one form or another. The naked willingness to throw themselves into whatever danger they could find.
And when they couldn’t find enough of it, they created their own.
Ana curled her fingers under the edge of his underwear and pulled it slowly down. His cock was already hard and thick when she wrapped her fingers around it. His groan shot through her like an electric shock, and she was self-destructive, because even knowing they risked being overheard, all she wanted was to coax more of those sounds from him.
So she dragged her tongue up his shaft and closed her lips around the crown.
His fingers sank into her hair. “You left it down.”
She licked her way around the head before pulling back to feather a breath over him. “You’ll just mess it up if I don’t.”
“Is that--” Another flick of her tongue cut off the words. “Is that why?”
Ana answered by enveloping him with her mouth again, taking him as deep as she could. His fingers clenched in her hair until her scalp tingled, and the shivers continued down her spine. But it was still careful--too controlled, too deliberate.
So she set about unraveling his legendary composure.
He hissed in another breath when she teased her lips back up and shuddered when she sucked gently on the head. She cataloged his reactions, tormenting him with her hands and lips, licking from base to tip and finally gripping him in one hand as she slid her mouth down to meet her fingers.
But it wasn’t until a sudden tightening of his fist provoked another wave of heat and a deep shudder that her teeth accidentally grazed his shaft.
“Fuck.” His head fell forward. His eyes squeezed shut, and he wrapped his hand around hers, urging her fingers into a stronger grip.
There it was, the key to his self-control--the loss of her own. Ana moved her mouth back up his shaft, fast and messy, letting her teeth graze him again. With her lips brushing the head, she glanced up to meet his shadowed eyes. “Take it.”
He groaned her name and cupped her face, stroking both thumbs over her lower lip as he tilted her head back a little. “Your mouth? Is fucking deadly, woman.”
A drunk, giddy warmth filled her. Like the time Maricela had convinced her to drink a bottle of champagne--like the bubbles were beneath her skin and in her blood. “You like it that--”
&n
bsp; He urged her mouth open, held her head steady, then thrust forward between her lips, and it was hotter than it had any right to be.
There was something different in his loss of control tonight--a heady mixture of rough and tender. His fingers locked her head in place as his cock filled her mouth, overwhelming her with the salty, bitter taste and the stretch of her lips as he pushed deeper, to the very edge of her comfort zone. But his thumbs swept in soft, encouraging strokes, and when he pulled back and thrust again, he knew just how deep she could take him.
Sweet and hard. Messy and careful. Perfect. She sucked when he let her and moaned around him and didn’t care if it was sloppy and raw, because he was groaning with every stroke, low, guttural noises torn out of him as if against his will.
His hands closed on her shoulders hard, just shy of pain, and he dragged her up his body until they were face-to-face. He licked his lower lip, his burning gaze focused on her mouth. “I should have taken you to my bed.”
He spun her around, lifting her as he switched their positions. The bank of lockers was cool against the skin bared by her shirt, but his fingers were hot on the button of her pants as he worked them open.
“Beds are overrated,” Ana gasped out, bracing her hands on the lockers on either side of her as his fingers plunged into her underwear. He circled her clit lightly, a torment when she was so turned on his fingers slipped against her.
Growling, she slammed a fist into his shoulder. “Stop teasing.”
Deacon nuzzled her cheek, then caught her earlobe between his teeth and bit down just as his fingertips pressed hard on her clit. Pleasure jolted through her, bringing her hips up off the locker. She wrapped one arm around his neck and clung to him as the next rough stroke of his fingers did something funny to her knees.
But nothing could stop the moan. It came from somewhere deep inside her, and she struggled to hold it in, struggled to stay quiet. She dug her teeth into both lips and pressed them to his cheek, muffling the noise as it spilled out in a broken whimper.
She sucked in a breath before he could circle his fingers again. “Don’t let me scream.”
“Uh-huh.” He caught her mouth in a bruising kiss.
Her world became Deacon. The air she dragged into her lungs tasted like him. The moans that escaped disappeared into his kiss. His body held her upright as his fingers tried to destroy the ground beneath her feet.
He’d paid attention last night. He’d memorized the speed and pressure and rhythm she’d showed him, and he used it without mercy. He didn’t even bother working his fingers inside her, and she would have killed him if he’d paused long enough to try, because her heart was already in her throat and she went up on her toes, straining, reaching--
His teeth closed on the tip of her tongue in a teasing scrape, a tiny shock, and she tensed. When his tongue swept over hers, suggestive, matching the tempo of his fingers on her clit, she shuddered and gave in.
It was the brightest orgasm she’d ever felt, blazing all the hotter when her head thumped back against metal, driving home the reminder of where they were. Every time she stepped into the armory she’d remember the way this felt--crushed up against a locker, coming in helpless waves as his fingers drew out the ecstasy and his mouth muffled her cries.
Pleasure careened toward hypersensitivity, and she whimpered and twitched her hips away. “Enough,” she gasped, turning her face just enough to pant the word. “I can’t--I need a second--”
“Shh.” Deacon eased his hand free, balancing her weight between his body and the lockers as he touched her face. “Ana...”
She panted and turned her face into his hand, still shivering at the tiny aftershocks. But when she forced her eyes open, Deacon was watching her like she was the most precious, beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and she knew with sudden certainty that this was what she’d remember every time she reached for her locker.
Deacon, stroking her cheek, staring at her like she’d invented sunrise.
The quiet moment shattered with a rough knock on the door, and Reyes called out through it. “Sorry, boss. Gideon needs us.”
Ice flooded her veins. Not because of Reyes’s words--though Gideon interrupting a party had to be bad--but because Reyes had knocked. No one knocked on the armory door--on any public door--unless they knew that something private was happening on the other side.
Deacon lowered her until she stood firmly on the floor and steadied her before stepping back. She watched him through a numb haze as he calmly fixed his pants, as if his impressive erection hadn’t been grinding into her hip a few seconds ago.
Reyes knew. Hell, everyone probably knew. She could walk back through the events that had led her here and clearly identify every reckless choice she’d made. Every adrenaline-filled dare. Every intoxicating flirtation with danger.
She hadn’t just played with fire. She’d watched the flames die down and had reignited them again and again, because something inside her rebelled at anyone saying no, you can’t do that--even if she was the person saying it.
Ana had taunted the flames. Now she’d find out how much of her house was going to burn down.
“Hey.” Deacon straightened her shirt, then buttoned her pants. “You’re here because you deserve to be. You worked your ass off. This doesn’t change that.”
She blinked and forced herself to focus on his face. “You can’t know that. No one can know that.”
Another knock rattled the door, and Deacon sighed as he reached for it. He stopped with his hand on the knob, then pinned her with a questioning look. “You crawled my ass for assuming no one would want me around after they found out about my past. You trusted them with that. Why not with this?”
The words landed hard, but there was no time to think about them. Summoning up every lesson she’d ever learned about compartmentalization, she rolled her fear and uncertainty and doubt into the tightest ball she could manage and shoved it aside. Not perfect--and not healthy--but it would do for the night.
Her hair was a mess. She ran her fingers through it, straightening the curls until they at least looked like a purposeful chaotic tumble. Then she squared her shoulders and jerked her head in a nod to Deacon.
By the time he pulled open the door, she was a Rider. The only thing she’d ever wanted to be.
Chapter Fourteen
It wasn’t strange for Gideon to call the Riders together without notice when shit was going down. He had interrupted parties, projects, mealtimes. Hell, Deacon had only abandoned the habit of sleeping in his boots sometime in the past few years.
But he never, ever brought his baby sister with him, and that killed Deacon’s lingering arousal faster than anything.
Maricela stood behind Gideon, her face pale and drawn. She’d twisted her hands in her skirt until it looked like the fabric might rip, and she kept her gaze cast down toward the floor.
Gideon, on the other hand, was furious.
The placid, benevolent leader of Sector One was gone, replaced by the steely-eyed man who’d formed the Riders through sheer grit and will, the man who had ridden out with them to deal his own share of necessary death.
He crossed his arms over his chest, every muscle rigid, and waited until Ana slipped into an empty seat around the huge strategy table. Then he stepped aside. Deacon saw the effort it took him to unclench his jaw and soften his voice as he reached out a hand to his sister. “Maricela, tell them what happened.”
She blanched even paler. “I--I was visiting one of the temples. To bless the evening prayers.”
It was a common enough occurrence, though she usually attended in the mornings. “Which temple?” Deacon asked.
“East. I didn’t plan to stop in, but I was coming back from a dinner visit, and I had time...” She trailed off, nervously licked her lips, and glanced at Ivan. “I had guards with me.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” Gideon put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a half hug. “Just tell them what happened, and we’ll get you ba
ck to the house.”
“I didn’t find it until I was nearly home. I was looking through the prayer requests.” She slipped one trembling hand into her pocket and pulled out a playing card. “This was tucked inside one of them.”
Deacon’s blood turned to ice.
As if he couldn’t stand the thought of her touching it any longer, Gideon plucked it from her fingers and tossed it onto the table. It slid across the polished surface, stopping in the middle with the suicide king facing up. “They put it right into her goddamn hand.”
And the guards had let them, because there was no overt threat, no attempts at violence--just someone masquerading as a faithful follower, pressing a card into Maricela’s hand along with all the other written prayers and gratefully bestowed trinkets. A devious psychological taunt with a crystal-clear message: look how easy it would have been.
No wonder Maricela looked like she’d seen a ghost. It was a peculiar feeling, obliviously staring down death only to realize later just how close you had come to it.
Deacon picked up the card. He felt about a hundred years old as he turned it over in his hand. “The guards aren’t equipped to deal with cat-and-mouse mind games.”
“No, they’re not.” Gideon’s eyes were still impossibly hard. “Which is why I want a Rider assigned to each of my sisters full-time until we’ve resolved this. And I want to resolve it soon.”
There was one Rider dedicated to serving the Rios family above all else, and Deacon turned to him now. “Ivan, will you escort Maricela back to the palace? Stay with her until further notice.” The guards would protect her from most threats, and he would take care of the rest.
Ivan rose and silently circled the table. When he reached Maricela and Gideon, he held out his arm, and she clung to it like only he could keep her from drowning. They walked out, and Deacon tilted his head toward Gideon. “Will Isabela tolerate a personal guard?”
“Not gracefully. But when I remind her that her ten children and four beloved spouses make for tempting hostages, she’ll capitulate.”
