Lead Heart (Seraph Black Book 3) (38 page)

“I don’t think I can take another hour of this,” Cabe admitted softly. “Let alone however many nights it’s going to take to get Silas’s attention. If you bring another guy into one of these rooms I’m going to bury him. I don’t care about the no-touching rule. I’ll bury him just for looking at you.”

I had been standing inactive for too long. I needed to comfort him in some way, so I moved from the stage to where he sat, pulling his hands away from his face and planting a knee on the bench beside him. He stared at it as I gripped his shoulders, using him for balance as I lifted my other knee, and then he dropped his head back to stare up at me. It didn’t escape me that he avoided looking at anything between my knees and face.

“I don’t know how to dance on the pole,” I explained, smoothing a hand over his shoulder. “Can you tell me what to do?”

He closed his eyes, his forehead lined with tension. “Just dance.” His voice was so low I almost didn’t catch the words. “Listen to the music.”

He wasn’t even going to watch. I found that oddly comforting, though if I had been a different girl, I supposed it might have offended me. Instead, I knew that he had closed his eyes out of respect and restraint. I smoothed my hands over his shoulders again, trying to thank him and console him at the same time. The music was loud and thumping, a song I didn’t recognise. I wondered if they turned the music as loud as they did so that people didn’t have to speak to each other. I had no idea how many ‘15-minute dances’ Cabe was permitted to monopolize, but I figured that it didn’t matter as long as he paid for the time accurately.

Closing my eyes, I tried to block it all out, everything but the smooth vibration of music and the assurance of Cabe’s body so close to mine. It was in those moments that I realised something astounding.

I had never danced before.

It seemed preposterous, but if I
had
ever danced before, all memory of the event was wiped from my mind. The slight movement of my body as I tried to follow the flow of the music was completely alien. I began to even block out Cabe’s worry and my own fear. I forgot about the plan in pursuit of a new task—a skill that my body was attempting to master. My mind emptied of all emotion and the familiar urge to strain my muscles, to
challenge
myself, flooded through me. I followed every shift in the music, every change of the singer’s tone, and as one song rolled into another, my body relaxed into something fluid and eager. This was different to gymnastics. It wasn’t the same as learning the piano, though I had also enjoyed that. This called to something inside me, it clawed its way into my chest and made itself at home as though it had always belonged to me. I had so rarely ever pursued anything for my own enjoyment in life, and I was beginning to understand all that I had been missing. I had been missing my own taste for experience, my own hunger for an activity that sparked joy inside me. Other teenagers had picked up instruments or pursued sports, but I had been so busy trying to stay invisible, trying to stay sane, and trying to stay safe that I had completely neglected any normal pursuits of simple pleasure.

“Little dancer,” Cabe whispered, drawing me slowly back to the real world.

Someone was knocking against the wall beside the curtain blocking us off from the rest of the club.

“Everything okay in there?” It was a deep male voice, probably a security guard.

“U-um, yes!” I called back.

The man grunted in reply and walked away, and that was when I realised… Cabe was touching me. His hands were on my hips; completely visible to the cameras in the corners of the room. I supposed that they were going to allow the touching as long as I allowed it, as nobody burst into the room after the guard walked away. Maybe I would get into trouble later, but I didn’t really care.

Cabe didn’t seem to care either. He was staring at me, a spark of amazement in his toffee eyes. My movements had halted, my body seeming to remember that it didn’t know how to dance, but Cabe shook his head, his hands catching in the dangling strands of my hair that hung between us. He tugged gently, bringing my face down to his.

“You’re incredible,” he whispered. “I don’t care about anyone else right now. You just lost yourself right before my eyes and I want to be lost with you like I want my next breath. Do it again, Seph. Take us away from here.”

His words melted into me, and I found my body obeying before my mind had even caught up. It wasn’t so easy to return to my dream-like haze when I was aware that Cabe was watching me, but I soon realised that it didn’t matter. My body didn’t want to float away with the music anymore. It wanted other things. It wanted to move in a different way. I gave my body what it wanted, feeling a rush of heat drop through me at Cabe’s soft groan.

He tugged the ends of my hair again and our mouths met. I wasn’t even sure who had initiated the kiss, only that the sensation of his lips crushing insistently against mine in that moment was the most incredible feeling in the world. I was technically in the worst position I had ever been in before in my life—and yet I had never felt more liberated. While everyone else was driven to restrict me, control me, punish me or protect me, Cabe only wanted to set me free.

I dug my fingers into his hair, holding on tightly as his tongue scraped against mine. He wasn’t grabbing me in any way, but I preferred it that way because my body was allowed to move however I wanted. My skin was burning and my dancing was bringing me closer and closer to Cabe, pressing and rubbing against him in search of a relief that spun constantly away, only deepening the burn in my limbs.

Cabe tore his mouth from mine with a breathy expletive. “Seph… pretty girl… no…” His head fell onto my shoulder, his hands gliding over my thighs until he was gripping just below the leather shorts I wore. “You need to stop now.”

“It feels good,” I mumbled. “I never get to feel good.”

“It feels
too
good.” His grip on my thighs turned painful, his fingers clenching. “You’re emotionally overcharged and you want an escape but no matter how badly I want to… I can’t take advantage of it right now.”

“Please,” I whispered, my head ducking so that I could whisper the word against his ear.

My voice sounded husky, needy, and I realised that he was right. I was acting out in some way, chasing whatever oblivion his body was promising mine, but I couldn’t help it. It was addictive, the drive to simply
let go
, the need to release all of the panic that constantly threatened to suffocate me.

I knew that words weren’t going to sway him, so I took the lobe of his ear between my teeth and tugged on it. His body tightened immediately, his head pulling back from my shoulder so that he could glare at me. I immediately wanted to hide away from him because I knew that I was every bit as messy on the outside as I had become on the inside. My eyes were damp with his looming rejection and my face felt hot with either shame or need, I wasn’t sure. I could feel that my lips had become swollen, and wondered what other signs of my looming insanity showed in my face. His eyes were all over me, taking in every detail, and then more, dipping inside me and
knowing
me. Just when I thought he would set me aside, his hands were palming my ass and his mouth was back on mine, his hips surging up to meet the slow reaction of my body. I felt immediately feverish, an inescapable quake in my limbs and a liquid fire in my veins; he caught each sound that escaped me, taking control of my body’s instinctual movements and guiding me toward a feeling that swept into me with the violence of a hurricane, leaving only the fluttering of debris to blow through my shattered body as I faced the fallout.

I slumped against him afterwards, trembling fiercely as my rampant heartbeat skipped and stuttered over itself. He cradled me to his chest and I no longer cared how strange this would look to whoever watched behind the cameras. I needed the comfort provided by the solidness of him after feeling as though the very ground had just been yanked from beneath me.

“You released your emotions to us,” Cabe whispered brokenly. “If Silas felt that… he’ll… he’ll be here.”

I blinked at him, the emotion still clogging my throat and my chest. His eyes were burning, his arms shaking as much as mine, but I could feel the coil of need that still thrummed from his body through the bond.

“You planned that?” I choked out.

He made a sound caught between a growl and a groan, his eyes flaring to life with even more heat. “I had to do it, Seph. I had to get you there before you pushed me too far in a room full of cameras.”

Between us, something vibrated. Cabe closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before standing and setting me on my wobbly feet.

“Yes?” he snapped into the phone. “I’m with her. I’m not going to tell you that.” His eyes were still closed and he was now pinching the bridge of his nose, a tight expression taking over his features. “What the hell do you
think
it was, Noah? I don’t have time for this right now. No, you’re right, I shouldn’t have had time for that either. Are you serious? Of course I didn’t break the rules—you do know where we
are
right now, don’t you? Fine. No, you can’t talk to her.
Not right now
. Give her a minute to calm down.” He hung up the call, but then swore roughly and dialed a number, flashing the phone back to his ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hang up on you. I’m a little on edge right now. Oh… okay… one second.” He pulled the phone away and faced me, covering the receiver.

“What is it?” Unease curled into me, chasing away the bone-melting warmth that had taken up residence inside my limbs.

“Noah said that Miro wants to talk to you.”

I reached out a shaking hand, afraid because Cabe hadn’t allowed Noah to speak to me, but he didn’t seem to want to refuse Miro.

“H-hello?” I stuttered.

“Walk outside,” Quillan demanded, his voice grave.

The line went dead before I could reply. I handed the phone back to Cabe, hanging my head.

“Don’t,” he said gently, catching my chin. “Don’t feel guilty. We knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but you’ve settled into the bond and there’s no going back now. You can’t hide your reaction to us anymore, and we can’t hide our reaction to you. There’s no moving backwards, Seph, only forwards.”

I nodded, but his words didn’t inspire any confidence in me. Not with the threat of Quillan’s disapproval. In that moment, I hated his compelling personality, because I was helpless to fight my own fear of his censure. I pulled back the curtain and stumbled out of the room. The guard at the end of the hallway held his hand out to me, and I turned to Cabe, who passed over a stack of money that was clearly more than what he should have paid, if the guard’s expression was anything to go by. Clarin was standing nearby, possessively hovering over Poison, who had her eyes fixed on us. I passed by them with my head down and they turned to follow, leaving the club with me as though we had simply been borrowing the facilities instead of begging for jobs.

They seemed to understand that something had transpired, because they stayed silent as we spilled outside. Quillan was before me in an instant, a heavy coat wrapping around my shoulders before the cold air could even graze my skin. He buttoned it all the way, ignoring my fumbling protests, and then he was steering me away from the others.

“Dude,” Noah grumbled, “what the hell?”

I tensed further at Noah’s voice, but couldn’t bring myself to look up.

“You two have already proven that you can’t keep your damn hands off her,” Quillan snapped, all control fleeing his tone. “So she’s coming with me. Silas felt that… what happened… so he’s coming for her. You can be sure of that. We don’t need the club anymore.”

He opened the passenger door of his car and I awkwardly climbed into the seat, casting a single glance toward the others. Cabe seemed troubled and Noah’s jaw was clenched in anger, his bright eyes narrowed. Poison and Clarin were confused. Quillan closed the door, cutting off my view, and I curled my legs to my chest, nudging off the heels.

When he got behind the wheel, he only gripped it, seemingly unable to start the car. “Just so you know,” he gritted out the words between clenched teeth, “I’m not angry at you. Don’t get the wrong idea.”

“You look angry.”

“I’m… I… I can still
feel
it.” He had masked his tone from me again, so I couldn’t tell if he was disgusted with me or not.

I curled myself up tighter.

“Seph… sweetheart…” He released a heavy breath. “I’m not angry at you. You haven’t done anything wrong, I just can’t… explain myself right now. I have to get you somewhere safe. Danny might follow Silas to us. Or Silas might decide to rip Cabe’s throat out.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“The Komnata. Silas will track us there.”

“Should I tell the others?”

“They’re following.”

I turned around, surprised to find that he was right. The others had already piled into Poison’s car, which was pulling up behind us. Quillan had been waiting for them apparently, because he finally turned over the engine and pulled out onto the road.

We drove cloaked in a heavy silence, but the pressure of it lifted after a while, making room for something more comfortable and familiar. Quillan seemed to have calmed down, and the main emotion now radiating to me through the bond was his usual mix of guilt and sadness. I tucked my hands into the pockets of his coat, wondering if he had brought it just for me. He didn’t usually wear coats, which meant that he had anticipated the possibility that he would need to drag me out of the club half-clothed at some point. He had even been waiting outside.

My hands curled into fists inside the pockets, making the material bulge. I tucked my chin down to my chest, breathing in deeply. The coat was beginning to warm with my body heat, and it smelled like him, but it wasn’t much of a comfort.

“I’m sorry, Mir—”

“Don’t apologise,” he cut across me, his tone gentle but insistent. “I overreacted. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“You’re right.” I pulled one of my hands free and raised a finger before his face. It was shaking.