by Angel Payne
“And what about you?”
Reece asks it in a growl of tight wrath.
Tyce answers in a growl of tight grief.
“If I ensure you and Chase are both at this thing, they’ll perform the reconstructive surgery on this.” He gestures toward his deformity with fingers curled like claws. “I told them if I have to live the rest of my life as a caged beast, I refuse to fucking look like it.”
“Caged beast?” My echo is as taut as his declaration. “Tyce?” I demand. “What the hell are you saying?”
He drops his hand while circling a new look at the three of us. An expression filling him with such despair, the normal side of his face closes in on matching the marred side. “Faline wants her matched set of Richards brothers, and our father’s going to help her get it.”
Nope. He’s definitely not done.
Not by a horrific long shot.
REECE
Eight hours later, I’m enjoying the serene beauty of Paris at twilight on the outside but still dealing with the nuclear fallout of my spirit on the inside.
Emma walks along the Seine with me, beyond beautiful in another one of the ensembles from last night’s shopping spree. The dress is a little trendier than what she’d normally pick, but I’m glad I talked her into the ice-blue creation, with its one-shoulder bodice and fringe-enhanced hem, paired with high-heeled shoes that look as if a knot-tying certification would be needed before wearing them properly. I’m damn glad she went through the trouble, though. The intricate laces, crisscrossed up her elegant legs, make me fantasize about doing the same to her sometime using silk rope. Or whipped cream. Or streams of my come…
And now, no matter how halcyon this whole scene is, I’m officially in agony. Nothing says oo la la, Paris better than a raging erection in the middle of the Parc Rives de Seine, right?
And because it always wants the last laugh, my cock jerks even more when Emma pauses and leans over to pet a couple of fluffy pups being walked by a handsome woman on the arm of her guy. Like me, the man is dressed but not too dressed, in light wool straight-legs and a fitted blazer with a bright pocket square over a white dress shirt. Yep, that’s us. Just a couple of gents walking our ladies in another one of those French sunset dreams that have been nearly canonized in poems, songs, photos, and films throughout the ages. And why not? Nowhere else on earth is romance a more revered word. Nowhere else on earth is passion considered a celebration, audaciously carved into the buildings and grown into the flowers and reflected in the people.
And in the midst of all of it, all I can think about is wanting to kill my father.
She knows that too. My beautiful, near empath of a woman, who rises from the gawks of the dogs only to be confronted by all the commotion in my gaze, which hasn’t changed since Tyce dropped that warhead in the apartment this morning. And the bomb after that. And the one after that.
But Emma, who already knows that, returns to my side with the grace of a queen and the eyes of a healer. She reaches for my hand, hers possessing the strength she’s offered to me all day. Strength that asks for nothing but demands everything—because it has to. Because she needs to keep showing me that even if I fling my ugliest thoughts at her, there’s no way she’s going away. That’s a damn good thing, because I’m not sure the monster in me is bugging out anytime soon.
A monster who’s the son of a monster.
Another thought to which I give her full, hideous access.
Another blow she endures with just another heavy gulp, though she adds a tentative chew on the inside of her lip before tugging me along again.
To our left, more dogs chase each other across a lush lawn. To our right, lovers lounge on the grass adjacent to the water, many with picnic blankets and wine, though they’re all much more interested in each other than what’s in their bottles. One couple is even writhing and kissing with such gusto, they’ve knocked their wine over, sending russet-colored rivers through the bright-green grass.
And there’s the sight that finally nicks Emma’s composure. Not much, but enough that I see beneath her “amused” laugh to the aching female beneath. The woman wondering what it must feel like to maul her lover along the Seine during a candlelight-colored sunset, uncaring about spilled wine and barking dogs and mad scientist sadists who want to put her fiancé in a mutant trophy case along with his two brothers…
But I see it. I see her. I may be enraged and contemplating murder, but I’m not blind. Not when it comes to her. Please God, never when it comes to her.
Only now that I have seen, I feel like the heel on every loaf of bread within sight. We’re in fucking Paris, and I’m still brooding like I’m stuck in an Adele video. And I didn’t learn my lesson from trying to borrow from the woman last fall? And it’s not like Tyce’s announcement came as a strike out of the blue. Three nights ago, after seeing that incriminating photo of Dad and Faline at a Consorcio Sciences staff retreat, I was prepared for damn near anything.
Or so I’d thought.
“Wow.”
Emma’s sighing exclamation at last breaks into my brain. While my gut may still be contemplating murder ideas, I follow the trajectory of her gaze to where the dipping sun beams across the statues bracketing the Pont Alexandre III. The gold-winged horses, atop their high pedestals, look ignited and ready to fly over the waters that now swirl with reflected golds, blues, pinks, and purples.
“It’s…beyond beautiful.” After whispering it, she visibly holds her breath—as if she can freeze the moment by suspending her every motion.
“It is,” I murmur back, yearning for the exact same thing. The catch in my voice throws her off for a second, and she gives a little piff while lightly smacking my arm. “Ooohhh. You meant the river?” I use the absent wave of my hand as an excuse to catch hers, playfully kissing the center of her palm.
By now, we’re near the middle of the bridge, looking out toward the Eiffel Tower. The elegant icon is etched against the brilliant yellow sky—but now Emma’s the one not paying attention to the view. Her gaze is filled with as many shades as the waters below us as she intensely studies my face.
“Reece.” Her rasp is practically a plea, and I frown with curiosity until she says, “It’s all right. You don’t have to pretend, okay?” She rotates so we’re facing each other and fits her forearms atop mine. As she scrapes her fingertips against my biceps, she emphasizes, “This isn’t date night, and that’s all right. You don’t have to be Mr. Witty, Mr. Romantic, or even Mr. Richards. I don’t care. I just want you—and to just be here with you.”
For long seconds, I’m completely still. And stunned. No. More than that. Have I been thrown off the bridge, dunked in, and then yanked back up here to stand in just as equal a shock? The declaration is the last thing I’ve expected—even from a person this extraordinary. A woman from whom I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. “And if I want to be any or all of those?” My sardonicism is a small step back toward a mutual comfort zone. We’re dressed up. We’re out. Sometimes—many times—acting the illusion is easier than being the truth. For good measure, I slide out half a smirk and add, “Or maybe someone else? Like Mr. Wicked-on-the-Pont-Alexandre-the-Third?”
But as soon as I dip my head and tug on the backs of her elbows, she defies my pull. “Not even those,” she states firmly. “Don’t insult me, damn it.”
I’m stopped in place again—and don’t hold back my vexation. “Insult you? What the—”
“I’m your fiancée, Reece, not some mindless dance floor dolly you picked up in the Oberkampf—so please, please don’t start with the player-hunk charm as your smoke screen.” Her nostrils flare. “I said it’s all right not to pretend, and I meant it.”
I start in on an incensed glower, but fuck that shit and all she’s expecting from it. Instead, I give in to the half grin I really want, ruthlessly taking advantage of the tiny huffs from her pursed lips, timed with her anxious foot shifts. Clearly, she’s already debating her own damn words, and I couldn’t be
fucking happier.
As seconds pass, she keeps exposing more of her truth. Damn it, she wants to take this shit to a hot and heavy kiss as urgently as I do—but for some reason, she needs the justification of a verbal skirmish to get there. Maybe it’s because of all the insanity that’s gone down today. Maybe she really does need the outlet of the rage first. Well, fine. If she needs to play it that way, I’ll be anyone she wants me to be—even the “player hunk” she professes to diss but now reacts to with a pair of cute, hard nipples defying her dress’s lined bodice.
“Hmmm. Sorry.” But as I brush back an errant strand of hair from her collarbone, I let my fingertips ignite with faint blue glows against the creamy expanse. “But maybe…not sorry.”
She sucks in a breath. It’s wobbly, even a little woozy—and it’s my dream high. Knowing what I do to her…that the electricity in my touch does this to her… It’s a heaven I never imagined my mutant beast would ever know, and it heats even more as she breathlessly pleads, “Reece…”
“Christ, baby.” I lift my other hand, gliding my soft glow along her opposite shoulder. “You’re beyond stunning.”
“St-Stop.” Lamely, she tries to smack my hand down. “I mean it, okay? You don’t…you don’t have to…”
“What?” I dip my gaze to watch frissons of arousal tumble down her sexy frame. Jesus. I wasn’t lying, not by one syllable. She’s the most exquisite thing I’ve ever seen, with the twilight in her hair, the city lights in her eyes, and the desire coursing through her body. For me. All for me. “What don’t I have to do, my little Parisian Bunny?”
She tries to step back, but every movement is a jerky stumble. “For God’s sake, Reece. Your brother didn’t just pull off his own mask, as it was, this morning.” As she starts pacing in a wide circle, her grimace is a contrast to the ornate joy of the bridge’s embellished lamps and springing cherubs. “If I’m still reeling over what he revealed about your dad…” She slams a hand to her forehead. “Holy shit. How could Lawson let himself owe so much juice to the Scorpios that he’s willing to let them take all three of his sons for the Consortium? What kind of a man does that? What kind of a person—”
She cuts herself off with a sob but muffles it by sliding her hand over her mouth.
Well, shit.
I rush back to her side, already hurling player-hunk Reece into the river in my mind, but it’s too damn little and too damn late. I wheel her around and clutch her close, roping an arm around her waist and securing another against her head. And though I squeeze my eyes shut, willing her to feel my acknowledgment of her misery, she’s already stiffer than any of the poles holding up the bridge’s lights.
“Obviously, he’s not a person,” I finally utter. “Not anymore, at least.”
And as soon as the words are out, I swallow against another urge to throw myself into the river—along with five gallons of disinfectant. Looks like it’s my turn to become a light pole, but as soon as she wraps her arms around my neck, suffusing my system in the warmth of her comfort, I can at least breathe again.
I can do this.
I can face anything—shit, even the insanity of what I’ve learned about Dad—as long as my Emmalina is in my arms, by my side, consuming my heart.
“How come you sound so calm about it?”
Her query, mumbled into my chest, makes me hold her a little tighter. I rub my lips in her hair, wordlessly comforting her, just needing to be her strength for a little while. Maybe longer. She’s spent so much time today helping me wrestle with this hell that she hasn’t had her own chance to go a few rounds with it.
“It’s kind of simple.” My pragmatic tone sounds strange and distant, though it’s reverberating in my own skull. But as she softens against me, I’m reassured she’s accepting it as truth now. “I’ve been sailing the rocky seas of Lawson Richards since I was a kid. While this is the largest tidal wave the motherfucker has ever thrown at my boat, it’s not the first.”
She turns her head, flattening her cheek against my chest, and adds a curious compilation of a sob and a growl. “The fact that you can say that so easily makes me hate him more.” But then the sob gains traction. “I’m sorry,” she mutters into my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, but—”
I stop her with a hand in her hair and the plummet of my mouth over hers. Not half a heartbeat goes by before she’s letting me part her lips and plunge in with command, both seeking and giving the electric connection that’s ours alone. Christ, yes. The last time I kissed her like this was this morning when she left for coffee with Angelique. Too damn long ago. Forever.
When I pull back up, I refuse to set her gaze free. While massaging my fingers against her scalp, I’m still sovereign with my hold. Another heartbeat of losing myself in her turquoise depths, and then I compel words back to my lips before I can give in to driving my tongue down her throat again.
At last, I command quietly, “Say it again.”
I don’t have to be more explicit. The understanding across her face is my complete confirmation. “I…I hate him.”
“Again. Only without any remorse. Do it.”
She jerks her chin up by a decided degree. The sheen in her eyes vanishes. “I hate him, Reece.”
I nod by the same measure before bringing my other hand up to frame her head. “Now tell me you love me.”
Not a dictate this time.
A supplication.
Met by her instant, unhindered adoration.
“I do love you. Oh, God…with everything I am, Reece. With every shred of my heart and corner of my soul.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.”
At first, I give her my thanks with a long, determined breath. Then with a longer mash of a kiss. Then with a new lock of my stare as I testify, “Good. Now you’ll understand when I have to kill him.”
EMMA
I yank my head free from his hold. I’m tempted to add the rest of me to the retreat too, but I decide to give him time for a retraction. A wink or a snicker to tell me he’s not done with player-hunk Reece yet, and this is his way of letting the guy have just a little more fun…
At the expense of my Zen setting.
Okay, that’s a stretch. Nothing’s been Zen about any of my “settings” since the moment this man barged in on his brother and me in the bathroom at Griffith Observatory—but right now, he’s slicing apart what threads of the stuff I’ve managed to stitch back together in the last seventy-two hours. With big damn scissors. And a steady, stern stare that flutters my pussy and challenges my sanity in the same freakish swoop.
He’s got to be kidding.
I rock back an inch more, giving him ten more seconds to come clean about it.
Fine, then. I’ll lead the damn beast to water myself. “You’re kidding.”
“You tell me. Am I kidding?”
And then there’s dealing with an ox who believes he’s a camel. With two full humps.
“Okay.” Stay calm. Stay reasonable. Maybe he’ll explain how this new life goal happens without him ending up in the hands of the Paris police or the Consortium. “And when, exactly, are you planning to make this happen?”
I’m not concerned with how; nor do I want to know. One check of his jaw’s harsh slashes, and I know he’s already fantasized a dozen ways to rain silver fire and blue brimstone down on Lawson.
“During the Virage dinner party, of course.”
Did I just compare him to an ox? And I gave him that compliment…why?
Because right now, I’m gaping at a man who’s traded places with an ostrich. And left his brain clearly jammed three feet below ground somewhere between the apartment and here.
He even lets me shove free from him as if the muscles between his shoulders and hands have turned to feathers, though I suspect I caught a strange break. Nothing has relented about the grip of his gaze, which the moonlight is rapidly turning into daggers, matching the harsh blades of bone his jawline has become as well.
Fine by m
e. If he wants to go hardcore avenging angel and earn wings out of his ass—with the ostrich stance, he’s already halfway there—then I’ll be happy to give him some walls to crash through on his way. And hope to freaking God they’ll bash some sense into him instead.
“Okay, so indulge me one more teeny question here.” As demure as I’d like to be about it, I can’t stop my hands from bracing to my hips. Considering the thigh-high shoelaces and their platform bases sufficing as my “shoes” tonight, I need all the help I can get. “What part of jacked-up-beyond-all-definable-logic do you not understand about this new mission?”
One corner of his mouth ticks for a second. Not a smirk…more like a notation. “Hmmm,” he grunts. “That’s more colorful than I’d anticipated. I’m impressed, Bunny.”
I laugh. All right, it’s more like the bark that belongs to the moment when the Camp Crystal Lake counselor goes into the woods with Jason. “Bunny isn’t here right now, Ox.”
A higher lift of his lips. “Ox, eh?”
“Wasn’t my first choice.” Every syllable is a defined bite. “But I’m being kind because I love you.” God help me. “Your turn for shelling out the grace now. No, wait.” I throw up a hand, one finger pointed. “Screw the grace. You owe me this. Why the hell is this remotely close to a viable plan?”
“Emmalina.” Crap. It’s not the good kind of Emmalina, either. It’s the kind I’d expect from my father about to tell me a Justin Timberlake concert isn’t happening on a school night. “This is the only plan.”
I repeat the Crystal Lake bark. “And now you’re really joking.”
A deeper tilt of his head. Hair falling into his face, not helping me set aside the stark beauty of his face in the golden glow thrown down by the lamps. “Jokes aren’t usually the best call for a subject like this.”
