As Cold As Ice

by Mandy Rosko

  Jessica clenched her fists, but her voice came out with a tone of begging she hadn’t intended. “Please. I swear to God he’s normal.”

  Markus drummed his fingers on his fancy desk. He watched her with eyes that spoke of amusement, with a hint of curiosity. He didn’t care if Ethan was normal one way or another; he just wanted to see Jessica come undone. He was trying to make her weak, which meant he wanted something from her.

  “What do you want to know? What do you expect me to tell you to prove he’s normal? That you can let him go?”

  Markus leaned forward. “Before I put you on the Proxy Project, I want to make sure you don’t already know where a safe house is. One of these hidden places where paranormals like to gather.”

  Jessica’s heart sank to floor-level. She steeled herself immediately, summoning the anger. Being angry was a lot better than showing any cracks in her defenses.

  “If I knew where to look to find a safe house, then the hunters wouldn’t have found me. It would’ve been the first place I went when I blasted those pencil-pushers and the collectors back at Jack’s house. So no, I don’t know where any safe houses are, or where Jack took his fire-starting paranormal girlfriend.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Markus said, leaning forward, his hands brushing against papers on his desk, as if he was going to arrange them and ask for Jessica to be escorted out.

  She wasn’t done yet, though. She was still angry, severely fucking pissed off, and she let that show in her voice. “I would hand them over in a second if it meant getting my brother out of here.”

  The conviction in her voice must’ve been, well, convincing, because Markus turned his eyes back up to look at her.

  Jessica glared at him with all the satanic demon fire she could summon inside her. She wished that was her power. Something so super evil, really give Markus and the other normal people who hunted her and every other paranormal a reason to fear her.

  Markus folded his hands together. She had his full attention. “You would give up your friends?”

  “Jack wasn’t my friend. He was an ex-boyfriend, and I have no idea who his girlfriend was. I met her once, so yeah, it’s not too hard to figure out that I would hand them over on a plate to get Ethan out. I don’t want him in a cell in your basement, and I don’t want him in a cell in prison. Stop wasting my time with all this training and buddying up to the other inmates here, put me on your new project, and let me work so I can make it so.”

  Markus smiled at her, as if that was exactly what he’d been hoping to hear. “Very well. I knew I could count on you. We’ll keep an eye on your brother for now.”

  “Don’t put anymore paranormals in his cell with him.”

  One of the stormtroopers beside her pushed his gun against her shoulder, reminding her he was there, with a gun, and that she didn’t get to make demands about anything.

  She glared at the man.

  Markus came to a decision. “I have yet to find anything that would suggest he’s hiding some unnatural power, so yes, for the moment, no more paranormals will be put into his cell. He did still harbor a fugitive, however. If you want that off his record, you’re going to have to find me a safe house. Not just one, either.”

  “How many?” Jessica asked.

  “As many as it takes.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jessica was quickly dismissed from Markus’s office. She wasn’t brought back down to the training area with the other recruits. Instead, she was taken to her living quarters.

  So stupid. It was more comfortable than where Ethan was staying, but it was still a cell. She didn’t have the luxury of coming or going whenever she wanted, and she didn’t want to be there.

  The decor was drab and plain, the furniture cheap, but it looked like a palace compared to that cell in the basement. For a while, she’d forgotten about how utterly pissed off she was to have to be in there at all.

  Jessica circled the room like an animal, something that wanted out, wanted to destroy anything in its path. She did want to. With a yell, she grabbed a lamp, yanked the cord out of the wall, and nearly launched it at the stupid flower painting above her bed.

  Her arm stopped before she could send the lamp flying.

  Not only would breaking the damned thing accomplish nothing, but she’d have more of those ridiculous-looking stormtroopers in there with their guns pointed at her.

  Maybe that was what she wanted. Maybe they’d throw her downstairs and she could at least make sure Ethan was all right. If it was even him at all.

  It had better not be him.

  Shortly after she put the lamp back down on the nightstand, there was a soft knock at her door.

  She already had an idea of who it was because no one ever knocked. There was only one person she could think of to give her that courtesy.

  “Come in,” she said. Her chest was heaving harder than she thought it was.

  The door opened, and Soren stepped inside of her room.

  She glared at him, but he hadn’t even shut the door. He didn’t approach her, either. “Come with me,” he ordered.

  Jessica followed, but only because she had no choice, and no reason to deny him.

  Soren brought her back down to the arena. Jessica looked around, noted how all the ice and water was gone, how the leather seats had been replaced with something new, fancier, and probably a lot more comfortable and expensive. She shook her head.

  Soren shut the door, and when he turned to her, the questions Jessica really wanted to ask spilled out of her before she could stop them, angry and fast. “Was that real? Did you know about it?”

  Soren had his hands up, shaking his head as he approached her. He put his hands on her shoulders, and she let him.

  “That’s not him. It’s just a program. I didn’t know that was about to happen, but I promise it’s not him.”

  The instant relief was soothing. She felt like she could breathe again. “You’ve been down into the cells then?”

  Soren shook his head. “No, but he’s not down there,” he said quickly at the look on Jessica’s face. “He’s not. Okay? I know he’s not.”

  “How do you know?” Jessica asked. “How do you know for sure?”

  Soren’s lips thinned. He seemed to be struggling with something inside of himself, and his grip on Jessica’s shoulders became almost painfully tight before he spoke. “There’s a reason why I stay working here, even though I’m a paranormal,” he told her.

  He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t step away from her.

  He just stared at her, and through the haze of anger and panic that had been rushing through her, like boiling-hot and freezing-cold water combing all at once and too damned fast, Jessica started to get it.

  She didn’t say anything, either. She just nodded, which caused Soren to release some of the insane pressure he had on her shoulders. He visibly relaxed.

  Jessica just felt like something of an idiot.

  Why hadn’t she seen this coming from about ten thousand miles away? Sure, she’d sort of suspected, but she’d brushed off the suspicion mostly because Soren was…he was Soren.

  He didn’t look like the kind of guy who would be working with people on the outside, secretly handing over information and other weaknesses Head Office had, but he was. That was the only explanation for why he claimed to know so much about Ethan.

  There was so much more she wanted to know. If Soren was working with paranormals on the outside, did that mean Ethan was at a safe house? Was that why Soren knew the image on the vid screen in Markus’s office wasn’t real? Was he in contact with Ethan? And did he know where the safe houses were?

  Was he warning them about the Proxy Project?

  There was a chance, a very big chance, that Jessica was taking this the wrong way. That what Soren was really trying to say without actually saying it was that Markus had let him in on a joke that was designed to make Jessica go nuts and reveal everything she knew to him.

  Which wasn’t that much,
thankfully, because at that moment in time, she wasn’t sure whether or not she would have done it. She didn’t know if she would have turned Jack and Cindy over, and any other paranormal they were hiding with, if the trade meant freeing her brother and keeping him from going to prison. Part of her thought she would’ve turned over anyone and everyone if it meant keeping the only family who liked her, and she liked back, away from Markus, and that part scared the ever-loving hell out of her.

  Though they were in a place that didn’t have any cameras or bugs recording audio, Jessica kept her voice low. If Soren didn’t want to speak about it, it was probably because he was paranoid about saying any of this stuff out loud.

  And rightfully so. “Swear it. Swear you believe he’s not down there.”

  Soren’s voice was just as soft as hers. “I know he’s not down there. Trust me on this.”

  Jessica let out another breath. She was still so damned buzzed by everything that had happened in the last hour, all the stupid emotions running through her and making a mess of everything, but she couldn’t help it, either. She was a wreck. Her hands were actually shaking, trembling like a scared little girl.

  And when had she put them on Soren’s shoulders? She was clutching the man like she needed him to hold her up.

  They were close. Very close. She felt his body heat through that damned white jacket, and since the adrenaline from her scare was wearing away, it was being replaced with something just as strong. Something that consumed her thoughts and her attentions just as much.

  Jessica pulled at the buttons of Soren’s white lab coat.

  His hands went to hers, gripping them, stopping her, and all she could think about was how warm he felt, how even the callouses of his large hands felt good when he touched her.

  “Jessica,” he breathed.

  “Are we being watched? Or is anyone listening in on us?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not likely, considering where we are. I told you that.”

  “Then don’t say no. We don’t have to talk. I won’t say anything that’ll make Markus suspect you like me.”

  Soren smiled. “After everything I already told you, if he did have the foresight to bug this room, then he’s already going to know about that. He already suspects I’m not shooting straight with him as it is.”

  Jessica didn’t unclench her fingers from around the buttons of his coat. She couldn’t. She ached too damned bad, and her entire body was clenching, At least her fingers had something to hold onto.

  “Please,” she begged. “I need this.”

  She needed him, but that would be giving too much away.

  Jessica looked up into Soren’s eyes. She didn’t even try to hide the incredible amount of frustration there.

  Soren’s nostrils flared. Jessica could watch the way his pulse hammered in his throat. His eyes didn’t change that time, but they were hard. Those blue orbs stared down at her like he wanted to fuck her against the wall, and at the same time hated her for making him want something like that so badly, to want to go against his morals and have sex with a prisoner.

  He swallowed hard, and there was a slight, barely visible shake of his head. “You…you—”

  “Know absolutely what I want,” Jessica finished for him. “And if you don’t believe that, then take me back to my room right now.”

  More nostril-flaring that just made Soren look all kinds of dangerous and sexy, and then his mouth fell down on hers in a desperate and bruising kiss.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He didn’t push her to the steel table that time. He kissed her and shoved her backwards until her back struck a concrete wall.

  They both made shocked noises and pulled away from each other when the impact with the wall made their teeth collide. Clearly, neither of them had expected that.

  “You okay?” Soren asked.

  Jessica nodded, letting her tongue slide over her teeth to erase the sharpness of the pain, which was, thankfully, dulling and leaving her.

  “Just peachy. Don’t stop,” she said, grabbing Soren’s face and yanking him back down.

  Though he’d shaved, she could still feel a distinctive scratch against her face. She was going to get stubble burn, and her lips were going to swell from all the kissing and gentle, teasing bites. Her hair was probably going to go all over the place, too, and that was exactly what she wanted.

  She wanted him to fuck her so hard that she really felt it, even when they were done.

  Soren’s large hands moved to Jessica’s breasts, his palms kneading them through the thin, black cotton recruits wore. That, coupled with the feel of her lace bra beneath her shirt and his hands, pulled a soft moan from Jessica’s mouth. Soren swallowed it up, his tongue gliding inside of her mouth, and she sucked on him hard.

  It wasn’t anywhere near enough, and yet, because of the last orgasm he’d given her, and the insane amount of frustration that came with it, Jessica was still very close to bursting.

  She put her arms around Soren’s waist, yanking him closer so their bodies were flush together. His knee came up between Jessica’s legs, and… No. Was he actually?

  Holy Jesus balls, he was. And thank God he was still kissing her because otherwise she would’ve said that out loud and made herself look completely stupid.

  Soren’s knee was pressed firmly against Jessica’s sex. If only her damned pants weren’t separating them, but it didn’t matter. It so didn’t matter when it was giving her the friction she needed in that moment, and Jessica took it. She claimed it, thrusting against his thigh and breaking off their kiss when she had to throw her head back, open-mouthed moaning even through the flash of pain when she conked her skull against the concrete.

  The sound that left her was almost animal. Nothing at all like anything she would’ve let come from her if what Soren did to her didn’t feel so damned good. He wasn’t even touching her skin-to-skin yet, but then he was, yanking her black cotton recruit shirt up enough so her bra was exposed. Then he pushed that out of the way, too.

  The air was cold on her nipples, but his hands were warm. When he leaned in and pressed his tongue to her right nipple before grazing it with a hint of teeth, the shock of pleasure was enough. Jessica puffed out hard breaths as her orgasm warmly erupted inside of her, pushing its way out of her body the only way it knew how—with a scream.

  Soren didn’t seem to like that, the scream part at least, and his mouth was back on top of hers, silencing her somewhat. Not enough. Even to Jessica’s own ears, her muffled moan was still so loud between them. Her need for him, to have him inside of her, seemed like it was a literal screaming thing in the room with them that should’ve been drawing attention to everything they were doing, yet didn’t somehow.

  Despite the new silence, Soren must’ve been worried that one of those asshole guards in white were around, somewhere nearby, and one of them would make trouble if they heard a woman screaming because she was getting wet.

  Jessica could barely suck back the oxygen to speak when his mouth separated from hers. His lips were a little shiny with saliva, and he looked good like that.

  “I don’t think anyone will bother us,” she said. “Even if they hear me scream, whether they thinks it’s pain or pleasure, that’s too common for anyone to check on.”

  “Yes, but I don’t want to take the risk that some new guy comes to investigate anyway.”

  That was a good point. Soren had probably lasted as long as he did working inside of the hornets nest by being careful and a little paranoid. Even though this room was supposedly safe, he didn’t want to be the guy who got caught because he’d dropped his guard and let his dick hang out for everyone to see.

  “So, you want me to be quiet?” Jessica asked. “You might have to help me with that.”

  Soren smiled at her, as though what she’d said had amused him.

  And Jessica was legitimately taken aback by how beautiful he was when he smiled, so casually and carefree like that. Way too soon, the look melted off his
face, coming back to reality.

  They were sneaking around, about to have sex in a basement where rich people came to watch paranormals pulverize each other, even kill each other, for fun.

  It seemed a whole lot less romantic when she thought of it like that, but she couldn’t handle waiting for him anymore. “This is probably the worst time for us to be doing this,” Jessica said, thrusting her hips forward, pressing her cunt down on his thigh for more friction. “But I need it.”

  Soren nodded, his eyes half-lidded as he thrust against her. “Yeah, but I’m sure I can make something up if we’re caught.”

  Jessica couldn’t hold back the low moan bubbling in her throat any longer. She needed to let it out. She grabbed Soren’s face and yanked him down for another kiss, releasing her pleasure into his mouth as she rode against him. Fuck. He felt so nice, and it was even better when they yanked their clothes off. The only terrible thing about it was that it required them to separate their bodies for a few seconds, and even then, they didn’t get completely naked.

  Jessica had to yank her pants off all the way, though. She wasn’t about to have them, or her plain, not-at-all-sexy Head Office-issued cotton panties around her ankles. She hated that feeling, but Soren was more than free to keep his pants on. He insisted on it, even. All he had to do was get them out of the way enough so he could pull out his erection.

  The only thing Jessica insisted out of him, aside from finally getting his penis free, was that he had to take off that stupidly annoying lab coat, and his shirt.

  His chest needed to be exposed, bare minimum. “If I’m going to be standing nearly naked with my bare ass against this cold wall, then you’d better show me your chest.”

  Soren smiled again, and this time it lasted longer. “Want to see the goods, do you?” he asked as he tossed away his lab coat and lifted his shirt above his head.

  Jessica actually licked her lips. Her blood heated, her sex aching a thousand times more than before the more skin he exposed.