Bound Guardian Angel (18 page)

“Yes.” She jutted out her chin, owning her
guilt even though she felt bad about not telling him sooner. She
should have, but her mind had been elsewhere.

She glanced at Trace again. He was totally
fucking up her ability to function.

Micah’s eyes burned with aggression. “You
were there. You knew someone had broken into my apartment, and yet
you said
nothing
?” As the word snapped from between his
clenched teeth, he pressed ominously forward.

She took a measured step back, not wanting
to provoke him. “Yes. I’m sorry.” God, this was humiliating. Her
face felt ten degrees hotter than the rest of her body, and thanks
to Trace’s proximity, she was keenly aware of how it felt when
blood filled her cheeks. She would have rather remained ignorant to
the physical sensations of embarrassment.

Micah shook his head in disgust. “You’re
sorry?” He turned toward Trace and Sam. “She’s sorry. Can you
believe that shit?” He faced her again. “You fucking hypocrite. You
knew someone had broken into my apartment and said nothing, and yet
you come here . . . to
my
house . . . and have the goddamn nads to harass me
about taking Trace out of that hellhole without your goddamn
consent? You’ve got some nerve.”

His anger was justified, but it was too late
to go back to the moment Micah walked around the corner as she sat
with Sam on the couch sipping tea to say, “Hey, by the way, your
apartment was burgled.”

Besides, it had been daytime. The sun had
been out. It wasn’t like he could have left. So, really, by
forgetting about the break-in, she’d spared him and everyone else
unnecessary stress.

“How many times do you want me to say I’m
sorry, Micah.”

“Maybe if you said it like you meant it I
might believe you.”

Insufferable bastard.

She set her jaw and locked gazes with him
for a long, tense moment. “I said I was sorry. I meant it.”
Apologies felt all wrong on her tongue, but they felt even worse on
her conscience. As someone who knew what it felt like to be let
down, she didn’t like putting others in a similar position. Having
to apologize meant she’d done just that.

Micah began to turn away as he started for
the stairs again. “Yeah, well, your apology is for shit,
Cordray.”

She glared at his back. She deserved his
ire, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. “I forgot, okay? It’s
done. You know about it now.”

Micah whipped back around and jabbed his
index finger toward her. “I could have known about it ten hours
ago.”

“And done what? It’s not like you could have
gone anywhere ten hours ago!” She flung her arm toward the
curtained windows. “The sun was out!”

“I could have sent someone over from
AKM.”

“Please.” Cordray scoffed, bobbing her head
to the side as she glanced at Sam. “Would Micah really have been
content to send someone else to his apartment when he would have
been stuck here?”

Sam’s gaze danced between her and Micah.
“Ummm . . .”

“Leave her out of this,” Micah said,
blasting forward. “You don’t get to use my mate against me, not
when you’re the one who fucked up.”

“She does make a good point, though,” Sam
said cautiously.

Micah scowled at her then turned his
aggression back on Cordray. “You should have told me. End of
story.”

She refused to back down. “I did you and
everyone else here a favor by
not
telling you.”

“How do you figure?”

She gestured toward him as if the answer
should be obvious. “You would have driven us all insane if I had.
Look at you. You’re about to blow out of your skin as it is. If I’d
told you ten hours ago, you would have been cooped up inside,
unable to leave because of the sun, storming around here like a
pissed off rhino. You wouldn’t have slept, nobody else would have
slept, and you sure as hell wouldn’t have been able to fuck Sam to
delirium for three hours.”

Sam blushed and ducked her head.

“Yeah, I heard the two of you!” Had she
ever! Listening to Micah and Sam go at it had been torture, given
how much she’d thought about doing the same thing to Trace over the
past couple of weeks. “My point is, you would have been fucked up,
and you would have fucked up the rest of us, and we would all be a
lot more sleep deprived right now, so how about you cool off so we
can get to your place and figure out who this asshole is?”

Micah glared at her. “What’s this
we
shit?” He turned away as if dismissing her and started for the
stairs again. “I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

“Have it your way, asshole, but I saw the
guy. I fought with him. I know what happened.” Micah was still
walking away from her, so she decided to pull out the show stopper.
“I know what he took.”

Micah halted on the first stair and flashed
her a vicious glance. “What? What did he take?”

“You want to know?” She crossed her arms and
gave him a moment to reconsider. “Then I go with you.” For her,
finding Skeletor was personal. He’d bested her in a fight, and that
was hard to do. She wanted in on the hunt to find him so she could
wash the bad taste of defeat out of her mouth by kicking his
ass.

Micah’s jaw clenched as he glared back at
her. “You’re pushing your luck, female.”

“Get used to it.” She turned toward Trace.
“You, too, because afterward, you’re coming with me.”

Strained silence gripped the air for several
seconds.

Then Trace pushed away from the counter as
he folded a pair of sausage links inside half a waffle. “Fine. I’ll
get my things.”

Micah started to protest. “No, Trace.
You—”

Trace held up his hand and stopped him.
“She’s not going to let up until I go, so let’s just do it.”

“But, you’re not ready.”

Trace stuffed half the waffle taco into his
mouth as he clapped Micah on the shoulder reassuringly and started
up the stairs. “I’ll be fine,” he said around a mouthful of
food.

Micah watched him go then turned his gaze on
Cordray. “If anything happens to him—”

“He’ll be fine, Micah. I’ll take good care
of him for you. Now get dressed so we can get going.”

Cordray was ready to get back to the ranch
and her kids, and the sooner they left Micah’s house and did recon
on his apartment, the sooner she could get home.

Shaking his head and still fuming, Micah
darted up the stairs and disappeared, leaving Cordray alone with
Sam.

The two stared at each other for a moment,
then Sam began putting food away and cleaning up the kitchen.

“You really should have told me about the
apartment,” Sam said quietly, unplugging the waffle iron.

“I know. I’m sorry.” There was that damn
word again.

“Why didn’t you?”

She had no excuse. At least none she wanted
to share. This morning, she’d been so consumed with her conflicted
feelings for Trace that everything else had slipped her mind. All
her mental energy had been devoted to tamping down her emotions and
a kind of desire she hadn’t felt in eight centuries.

She sat on the barstool Trace had vacated.
She could still feel the tingle of his presence. “I forgot.” She
lowered her eyes and smoothed her hands over the edge of the
counter just to have something to do.

Sam sighed then flipped on the faucet.

This morning, Sam had almost felt like a
friend. They’d chattered and laughed over tea and told stories to
one another. Now, a sense of loss compounded the tormented thoughts
already ping-ponging inside her mind. Loss of newfound friendship
and the hope that went along with it that maybe, just maybe, she
could lead a semi-normal life.

“You like him, don’t you?”

Startled, Cordray lifted her head to find
Sam standing in front of her. She hadn’t even heard her
approach.

She frowned. “What do you mean? Like
who?”

The corners of Sam’s mouth ticked upward.
“Trace.” She said his name as if her attraction to him was as
obvious as ice at the North Pole.

Cordray’s heart skipped a beat, and she
sucked in her breath as her shoulders stiffened.

Sam’s clover-colored irises brightened as
she smiled and scooped the silverware she’d laid out for breakfast
into her palm. “Thought so.”

Cordray gaped at Sam’s back as she dropped
the silverware into a drawer then began loading dishes into the
dishwasher. Sam knew. Somehow Sam had figured out what she’d tried
so hard to hide.

Clever female.

She only hoped that Micah and Trace weren’t
as perceptive as Sam, and that Sam knew how to keep her mouth
shut.

Chapter 11

Glass crunched under Micah’s feet as he surveyed his
apartment’s living room. The place was packed with CPD detectives,
police officers, members of building management, and one guy from
security. They were making enough noise for an army and may as well
have been scratching their balls for all the good they were
doing.

Cordray could feel the frustrated, helpless
aggression rolling off Micah, and for once, she kept herself out of
his thoughts. She didn’t need to see inside his head to know what
he was thinking, and she didn’t want to risk setting him off again.
He was already pissed, and right now they had more important things
to worry about than fighting each other. Such as finding out
Skeletor’s identity.

“Trace,” Micah said, tilting his head toward
his sidekick.

“Yeah?”

“Get these people out of here.”

Using his tongue to slide a matchstick from
one side of his mouth to the other, Trace acknowledged Micah’s
request with a quick nod then turned toward the humans still
milling around the apartment. Barely lifting his hand, he captured
every one of them under compulsion. Instant silence replaced the
nonstop chatter.

She’d only seen Trace use his freakshow
influence once before. Inside Bain’s courtroom, when he’d held the
guards under his control to protect Micah. God help her, but seeing
him wield his power again turned her on as much now as it had
then.

As the humans began moving robotically
toward the door, waves of energy wafted around her like ribbons of
silk. They circled her, caressed her, and lit her senses on
fire.

She drew in a long, trembling breath as his
energy touched every part of her. Her pulse hitched. Her nipples
tightened. Her core clenched. If just the energy he put off was
enough to make her feel this way, how would it feel to actually
have him against her body, inside her, licking her nipples with his
tongue instead of his aura?

It was suddenly too hot inside the
apartment. Too sultry. Too so-help-me-God-but-I-need-to-come. She
shrugged out of her coat and pressed her fingers to her brow as she
fought the arousal building inside her like the impending eruption
of a volcano. She hadn’t had an orgasm since Gideon, and she didn’t
want her first one since to be in front of Micah and Trace while
they were supposed to be investigating a crime scene.

She sat down in a side chair and pressed her
legs together, but that didn’t help. Trace’s energy was invading
her like a Viking hoard, pillaging her body indiscriminately, and
all she could do was pray he would get those humans out of there in
the next ten seconds before she humiliated herself.

“Jesus, can’t you hurry it up already?” she
barked.

The door slammed shut as the last human
exited the apartment.

Trace lowered his hand, and the unbearably
pleasurable sensations shut off. Thank God! She’d only been seconds
away from the most incredible cataclysmic orgasm she’d ever had.
Not that she wouldn’t mind that kind of pleasure, just not in front
of an audience. Not in front of
him
.

Trace turned toward her and plucked the
matchstick from between his sensual lips. “What’s your problem?”
His strong brow scrunched over his heavily lidded eyes.

Why did his eyes always make him look like
he was seducing someone? Trace rocked bedroom eyes like no one
she’d ever met.

She gathered herself against the fading
sensations as they released her nerves then stood, brushing her
hands down the front of her black shirt. “Nothing. You just move
like molasses. You’d think with all that fancy power you could get
the job done a little faster.”

Any faster, and she might actually have
splintered into a million euphoric pieces.

Trace’s sexy mouth twisted into a knowing
smirk. “Sometimes slower is better, baby.”

Bastard! Had he used his energy on her on
purpose?

“You son of a—”

“Stop it, both of you,” Micah said, turning
away from the heavily tarped window to face them.

Cordray squared her shoulders and set her
jaw. If Trace thought that little stunt had been cute, she had news
for him. Just wait until they got to her ranch. She would make him
pay for his repugnant antics.

“Cordray,” Micah said sternly, snapping her
attention back to him. “Spill. Now. I want to know what happened
here.”

With human ears no longer invading the
space, they could finally talk openly.

She glared at Trace then paced away from
them, more to get out of his circle of influence than anything. “I
don’t know who he was or why he targeted you, but one thing was
clear. He gets off on the thrill of the chase. He’s an adrenaline
junkie. The greater the risk, the more interested he is.”

“Good.” Micah toed a shard of glass. His
eyes were narrow, angry slits.

“Good?” she asked.

His malevolent gaze shot toward her as if he
wanted to use her as a replacement for the real thief and expend
his aggression on her. “Yeah, good. Is something wrong with your
hearing?”

She wasn’t above taking her lumps for
forgetting to tell him about the burglary the moment she saw him,
but she’d be damned if she was going to continue letting him treat
her like a verbal punching bag. “How about you cool out? I’m not
the bad guy here.”