by Vivi Andrews
That had been way too good.
She was in big trouble.
Chapter Ten: Once You Go Super
Frost collapsed on the bed with Kim sprawled against his chest, more than a little dazed. He wasn’t entirely sure how they’d gotten here. Of course he knew, physically speaking, how he’d wound up in bed with his ex. It was all the non-physical crap that was stirring his brain to a boil, rather than letting him lay back and enjoy the afterglow.
And what an afterglow.
Jesus Christ, that had been epic. But it shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t have let it happen, let alone been the engineer opening the throttle on the train rocketing toward a gap in the tracks over a giant ravine.
Yeah, he decided he liked that analogy. It was suitably fatalistic to suit his current mood.
What the hell had he been thinking?
Hell, he knew what he’d been thinking. And what he’d been thinking with.
Stupid. He hadn’t been ruled by his cock in years. Five years, to be exact. This was what Kim did to him. Turned off his better judgment. This was exactly why this was a terrible idea. He was weak with her. And a super couldn’t afford weakness.
But then she stretched, her skin sliding against his, and his higher brain functions short circuited again.
“That thing you did,” she breathed against his chest, still sounding a little winded, “when you picked me up and put me against the wall like I weighed nothing…”
“I borrowed your telekinesis for a second,” he admitted. It had been a fucking genius move, if he did say so himself.
“Useful,” she murmured, then shivered delicately. “Jesus, the possibilities.”
He grinned. He should not be grinning, he knew. But damn if he didn’t feel good. His body was stirring again, recovering quickly and gearing up for round two—and he didn’t have the heart to tell his cock it wasn’t going to get to play with Kim again. Hell, if he was going to the devil, he might as well go all the way.
At least that’s what he told himself when she began nibbling across his chest.
He chilled just the tips of his fingers and tweaked her nipple, earning a sensual gasp. He rolled her beneath him and smiled down into eyes already going hazy with lust. “I seem to recall I can make you come just from touching your breasts,” he murmured, leaning to blow a kiss of frost across the tightening buds that tipped her gorgeous breasts. He really had neglected the poor darlings the first time. They deserved his undivided attention. He bent, knowing his tongue would feel like fire after the cold of his fingers.
“Jesus,” she whispered, her eyes rolling back.
He grinned. The possibilities.
****
“So who else tried to fuck you into submission?”
Frost glanced up from the cupboards he was ransacking for some late night refueling, frowning at her where she stood at his island in one of his old T-shirts. “What?”
“You said other superheroines had tried to fuck you into compliance. So who was it?” She knew this was a bad line of questioning to pursue. Displaying her jealousy for all the world to see when she had no right to be possessive of him was a good way to ruin the tentative truce they had going, but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about those unnamed superheroines since the two of them had migrated from the bedroom to the kitchen.
He turned back to the cupboards, though there were lines of tension around his mouth that hadn’t been there a minute earlier. “You notice I haven’t asked you anything about Justice.”
“That isn’t the same. You know who he is. You know it’s over. And you know it never meant anything.”
“Do I?”
“You’re the one who banned me from talking about him.”
“You said he was romantic,” Frost growled, tossing boxes of cereal and power bars onto the counter. He wore only a loose pair of pajama pants, but she endeavored not to get distracted by the man candy buffet, focusing on the actual food.
There wasn’t much to choose from. That was one thing that hadn’t changed. Neither of them had ever been able to cook worth a damn. If not for take-out they both would have starved long ago.
“He gave me a Taser. He trusted me enough to arm me. I thought it was sweet.” She snagged a strawberry power bar off the counter and peeled off the wrapper. “Did you sleep with DynaGirl?”
“Darla?” he asked with a satisfying degree of shock and disgust. “She’s like my little sister.”
She was also the superheroic hottie who had been nicknamed the Jessica Rabbit of Crimefighters and exuded unfiltered sex appeal as she saved the world. Kim had always wondered if that was what Frost really wanted—someone superstrong, super good, and supernaturally sexy. But they had grown up together, so maybe he didn’t see her the way the rest of the slavering male population did. “So who?”
“There wasn’t anyone else, okay?” he growled, ripping into an energy bar of his own. “No one serious. I meant what I said about not endangering anyone with my lifestyle.”
Somehow that didn’t make her feel any better. Knowing the other women he’d been with in the last five years were just scratching an itch, knowing that he hadn’t let himself care about any of them just made it that much more likely that he wouldn’t let himself care for her. Suddenly the energy bar tasted like sawdust.
“It really didn’t mean anything with Justice?”
And just like that the world had flavor again. He was jealous. She could work with jealous. “Justice is a good guy and he was always there for me when I needed him.” Unlike some people she could mention. “But it wasn’t true love or anything. We sort of fell into a relationship by default. At first we were just friends and everyone assumed we were dating, then it was almost easier to just start dating than explain to everyone twenty times a day that we weren’t. We got along well enough, but there was always something missing. Something that wasn’t quite right.” She finished her energy bar and rounded the island to his side. “Toward the end, we really only saw each other when we were doing public appearances together. Dating for the benefit of our audience.”
“Did you ever figure out what wasn’t right?” Frost asked.
Besides the fact that he wasn’t you? “He’s a good guy. A great guy. A real knight in shining armor.”
Frost’s expression darkened ominously. Kim smiled internally.
“But it turns out I like my guys with a little more edge, a little more darkness turning all that pure white honor into sexy grey ruthlessness.”
He turned to her, caging her between him and the island. Her heartbeat instantly accelerated in a conditioned response. Damn, this man turned her crank. Every delicious, morally grey inch of him.
“Which one are you, Trouble? White? Grey? Black?”
She knew he wanted her to profess her innocence, promise that she was a good girl, but the truth was more complicated. “I don’t know what I am. I’m still figuring that part out.”
He loomed over her. “You’re not supposed to tell the super enforcer that you’re thinking of turning villain.”
“It’s not like that’s my goal, but it isn’t as simple as what I want. It never has been. I’m a reporter. I was never supposed to be part of the story, that was never who I wanted to be, but I didn’t have a choice about that. So I learned to deal to with it. Now everything is changing again and I’m just trying to figure out where I fit. I’m not a reporter anymore, but I don’t know how to be anything else. I’m always the girl digging for the story—”
His cell phone rang and she broke off, twisting to grab his jeans because she was closer to where they’d been flung over the ottoman in their earlier rush.
“Kim…”
“You should get this,” she cut him off, suddenly regretting everything she’d said since they walked into the kitchen. “A super never ignores his phone. It could be an emergency.”
She plucked the phone out of his pocket and started to hand it to him. She didn’t mean to look. She wasn’t try
ing to pry, but the word JUSTICE splashed over the screen in giant letters was hard to ignore.
Irritation flashed. Of course it was Justice. The man who had sicced Frost on her to begin with. He was the only reason she was here. Not because Frost had cared enough to look in on her, but because he owed Justice. God forbid Frost actually care about her.
She was flinging the phone at his face before she even formed the conscious decision to do so. “You better get that,” she snapped, spinning on her heel and striding back toward the bedroom. She needed to find her underwear.
Chapter Eleven: A Rock Hard Alibi
Frost cursed and watched Kim stalk back into the bedroom before answering the call.
“Your timing sucks,” he said as a greeting.
“I don’t care how late it is,” Justice snapped, sounding as angry as Frost had ever heard him. “You were supposed to be watching her.”
“I am watching her.” Watching her walk out of his bedroom in nothing but her underwear and begin collecting her clothes where they were scattered around his living room.
“Not closely enough,” Justice snarled. “She just blew up Little Vic.”
“What?” Frost shot out a hand to grab Kim’s upper arm and stop her when she would have stormed back to the bedroom with her pile of clothes. “What happened to Little Vic?”
She stopped struggling in his grip, her gaze snapping to meet his.
“He was at The Hole in the Wall tonight. Half the town saw Kim walk in there after him, then twenty minutes later the entire place goes up with Little Vic inside and no trace of Kim. She must have learned to teleport. I’ve been trying to call you for hours—”
And he hadn’t heard his phone because he was balls deep in Kim. “She didn’t do it.”
Justice wasn’t listening. “Pretty damn clever. Walk in with a bomb and teleport away at the last second so everyone thinks you were vaporized in the blast. She would have gotten away clean too, except one of the camera guys just woke up and told doctors that she vanished before the bomb went.”
“Then he should have told doctors that I was there too and I vanished with her and there was no fucking bomb when we were there. She didn’t do it.”
“Is Little Vic alive?” Kim asked, her voice low enough that Justice wouldn’t pick it up.
Justice growled into the phone. “Shit. I can tell you’re telling the truth, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t teleport back in with a device after you left her. We can’t really confirm the timeline because the one guy who regained consciousness is having trouble remembering.”
“She didn’t do it,” Frost repeated. “Did Little Vic survive?”
“He’s critical. One of the camera guys was killed instantly and the other two are in pretty bad shape. Luckily it looks like the rest of the bar patrons were smart enough to get the hell away. Still, by the end of the night she could have four dead bodies to answer for.”
“Goddamn it, she didn’t do it, Justice!”
“You can’t know that. We all know she has the potential to teleport. If she’s figured out how, she could get across town and back in a matter of seconds—”
“Justice. Let me be very clear. Kim has not been out of my sight for a single second since we left The Hole in the Wall when Little Vic was very much alive. She. Did. Not. Do. It.”
A pause. “She’s there.”
“Right in front of me.”
“At two in the morning.”
The implication made his back teeth grind, even though it was perfectly accurate. He didn’t like the way Justice said it. “Thanks for letting us know about the situation. We’ll look into it immediately. In the mean time, you can help us do damage control by telling everyone who needs to know that Kim has a rock solid alibi. Thanks, Justice.”
He hung up before Justice could protest. Beside him, Kim leaned against the island, staring fixedly at the floor. She gave a soft snort. “A rock hard alibi.” She chuckled again.
He eyed her, looking for signs of incipient hysteria. “Kim?”
“I’m okay. My ex thinks I’m a mass murderer, but I’m fine.”
“He doesn’t think that anymore.”
“No, good point. Now he thinks I’m a slut.”
“Kim?”
She lifted her gaze to his and when she did, her eyes were surprisingly clear. “Little Vic?”
“Alive. But in critical condition, along with two of the TV people. One of them died instantly.”
She cringed. “Jesus. I never should have gone there.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it is. Someone is trying to get to me, to frame me. Or stop me from learning more about the man who hired Vic. Why else would they go after him like that?”
“They might not have known you could teleport to safety. The real target could have been you. Or me.”
She glowered at him. “That isn’t comforting, Frost.”
“Right now the only comfort I have is the fact that we have proof that you didn’t do it.”
“What do we do now?” she asked, a stark vulnerability in her eyes.
“We tell the police that you’re innocent, set them on the trail of the real bomber, and then we do everything we can to figure out who the hell is behind this.”
“Right.” She sorted through the pile of her clothing until she came up with her cell phone, not seeming to notice that she was still in her underwear. “I don’t even know who to call.”
“Maybe we should get dressed first,” he urged, but she was no longer listening. Kim was frozen, eyes wide, staring at her phone. “Kim?”
“He called me.”
“Wha—”
“Little Vic. He called me. It must have been right before—Oh my God, there’s a message.”
Her hand was shaking. He wrapped his own around it, steadying her. “Put it on speaker.”
She called up the message, still clutching her clothes, and he moved to stand behind her, wrapping his arm around her waist and tucking her against him. She leaned into him, though he doubted she was even conscious of the support, as focused as she was on the automated voice announcing the time of the call.
“Kim?” They both sucked in a breath. It was Vic all right—with a panicky edge to his voice that hadn’t been there even when Kim had a gun on him. “Shit, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but I got a call right after you pulled your little vanishing act. The Boss, the one you were asking about, wants to see you. Tonight. Two a.m. Pier 42.” He sighed heavily into the phone. “Listen, I had to give you the message—I didn’t have a choice about that—but don’t go, Kim. I know you don’t have any reason to trust me. Shit, I’ve given you a lot of reasons not to, but you gotta believe me. I always liked you. It wasn’t my call to kidnap you like that. I didn’t want to, but I was scared not to and the perks—fuck, it was a good deal for me, everyone knows that, but I always felt bad about nabbing you like that and now I’m begging you, just ignore this, okay? Don’t go. This woman, she’s dange—”
Static crackled on the line and the message cut off abruptly.
Kim’s grip was white-knuckled on the phone. “Was that the explosion? Did we just hear him get blown up?”
“He wasn’t blown up. He’s still in surgery or something. Critical.”
“But that was the bomb. We heard the bomb.” She twisted, pulling away from him enough to turn and meet his eyes. “He said it was a woman. At the bar he said it was a guy, but on the phone he said the woman was dangerous.”
“You aren’t going.”
He knew the moment the words left his mouth that he should have said that differently. On the plus side, the last of her shock dissipated, but on the not-so-great side she might kill him. Her eyes flashed dangerously and she stepped out of the circle of his arms. “Excuse me?”
He held up his abruptly empty hands, feeling a distinct empathy for lion tamers. “Just listen for a second. It’s obviously a trap.”
“You think?” Sarcasm drenche
d the words. She stalked to the ottoman, dropped her stack of clothes on it and began shimmying into her jeans.
He swore and reached for his own discarded clothes, shucking his pajama bottoms and dragging his pants on commando rather than going back to the bedroom for his briefs. “You have no idea what you would be walking into. You aren’t invincible.”
“No, but I’m pretty damn close.” All that gorgeous creamy flesh disappeared as she rapidly buttoned her shirt. “A bomb can’t hurt me. I can pull a TK force field around myself and repel any shrapnel that might be coming my way. I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that bombs are the only weapon in this villain’s arsenal. You don’t even know who you’re going to meet.”
“Which is why it is all the more crucial I go. I’ll never get answers from here.” The holster settled around her hips.
His blood chilled. She was back to true Kim Carruthers form, rushing into trouble without a second thought, but now she was even more foolishly overconfident because of her new super power. She had no idea how vulnerable she was, and how much the thought of anything happening to her—even the slightest scratch—killed him.
He couldn’t lose her. Not now.
“Kim, listen—”
But she wasn’t listening. She was hot on the heels of a story, every fiber of her being focused on that payoff—the Truth.
“If you’re so worried I can’t handle myself, come with me.” She grinned as she deftly slid bullets into the revolver. “We do make a good team, Frost. You might as well stop fighting it. Besides, you can teleport us there. We’re late already.” She checked the time on her phone before sliding it into another slot in her holster. “You get my back and I’ll get yours. Just like a real super power couple.” She grabbed her boots and sat down to yank them on.
He knew what she wanted. His parents had that. DynaGirl and Lucien Wroth had it. Lots of super couples fought the good fight together. But he couldn’t do that. He wasn’t built that way. He couldn’t watch her go into danger without absolutely losing his mind. Not Kim.
