Underground Warrior (4 page)

The least he could do was try not to run around using the society’s name.

“Yeah. Them.”

“LaSalle.” She said his birth-father’s surname like something ugly. Since he’d gone by that name for almost ten years, her disgust felt insulting, no matter how he’d come to dislike the Judge. “Why were you in a LaSalle bungalow? Did any Comitatus agents see you take this?”

“I was helping a crew do a gut job on it. You know—taking down the moldy walls, pulling out the ruined insulation before a rebuild.” All the God’s honest truth. “And no, I didn’t see any Comitatus types hanging around. It’s pretty dirty work.”

She relaxed, and even smiled right at him, like he was someone special just because he did day labor.

“The LaSalle family’s big in the New Orleans Comitatus,” she explained, and he pretended he didn’t know that. “They’re a hereditary society. That’s how I knew your friends were involved. Donnell. Talbott. Leigh. All hereditary names.”

And his illegitimacy had kept him under her radar. “If they’re so secret, how would you know…?”

“I’m very smart.” Then, to his amazement, she smiled a real, happy smile at him, like she’d said it to tease him instead of to shame him. “And devious.”

The smile lit her pretty face and made her beautiful. It punched him in the gut, how beautiful this maybe wealthy and definitely too-smart-for-him girl was.

So did the sudden, echoing thought of
Mine.

So did the way he had to act on it. Carefully, damn it.

Suddenly, not scaring her became important again.

Sibyl wasn’t sure what changed. One minute Trace was grinning that between-you-and-me grin at her, which she loved. The next—everything shifted, almost imperceptibly and yet seismically at the same time. What happened?

He still smiled, but instead of looking at her, he was…
looking at her.
Searching for something that she wished she knew how to give him. But what did that even mean? Desperate to understand, she tried to catalog the change. His breathing had subtly changed. His pupils dilated, just a little. The air between them felt…hotter. Or maybe it was just
her
breathing and
her
vision and
her
thermoregulation that suddenly fluctuated. Either way, she barely noticed herself dropping her hands to her side instead of clasping her knees between them like a shield.

“So, Smartypants,” he said—and the silly name sounded as endearing as Shortstuff had, coming from him. “Are you dating anyone?”

Her?
The idea felt ludicrous. She didn’t have time to date—secret societies to uncover, anonymity to protect, vengeance to wreak. Having spent her formative years in a girls’ penitentiary, among hardened teens who’d practiced unhealthy relationships before their incarcerations, Sibyl wasn’t sure she’d know
how
to just date. Why did he want to know?
So, what’s with the crazy?

Was he feeling out just how big a freak she was?

Except…his breath sounded as shallow as hers. They seemed to be sharing this new, shifted reality, just like they’d shared the smile. So, was he actually interested? Had Arden Leigh, mother hen meddler, asked him to find out? Or…?

Unable to analyze the situation further against the deafening rush of her heartbeat in her ears—which she knew was actually just her pulse in her jugular vein or maybe her carotid artery, which were both closer to her ears, and why couldn’t she shut her mind off? Unable to manage anything else, Sibyl simply shook her head. Not dating anyone. Not her.

“So…sorry, but I’m kind of distracted, here.” Him, too? She’d felt alone for so long, but she wasn’t alone in this. Trace leaned closer, his arm over the seatback making him a human wall that would pin her into the leather corner. She didn’t mind. She felt her knees falling open, of their own will, to make room for him. “Can I kiss you?”

You mean,
may
you kiss me
—thank God she couldn’t talk, just now. She nodded a jerky, uncertain nod. Yes. Please.

He moved farther over her, all heat and solidity. She waited and held her breath. She remembered that having a man in her apartment fell under the “Things movies teach you not to do” category, because someone like him could overpower her, and even if she fought back, he’d hurt her, and nobody would hear her screams because these were really high-end apartments with great soundproofing…. But he
wouldn’t
overpower her. She realized why he seemed so tense, as he leaned incrementally closer. Why he’d asked first, when she generally thought of him as a man of action instead of words. He was being extra careful of her.

Her hero. Her knight in faded T-shirt. Sweet, silly knight.

So Sibyl strained upward to close the last inch between them and kissed him first.

As soon as she did, she realized her mistake. She pressed her lips to his, which felt surprisingly soft despite the whiskers surrounding them—and then she had no earthly idea what to do next. So she simply smooched him, the kind of kiss someone would press to their mother’s cheek, then ducked her forehead against his hard, convenient shoulder. She felt more embarrassed than aroused. Not that she hadn’t liked it. But, wasn’t kissing one’s hero supposed to be more…more….

At least she was breathing.
Oxygen is fuel.
She’d only pretended to faint, that first time they met, after he’d rescued her. She would hate to do it for real.

To her surprise, Trace’s fingers wove into her hair, solid and gentle against her scalp, feeling a hundred times better than the shampoo massage at the Galleria. She leaned into the cradle of his palm and risked peeking back up at him.

He wasn’t laughing. Or disgusted.

Yes, he was grinning wider now, almost feral—but still with the intimacy of a shared joke. “Uhm…thanks,” he said, his voice more a rasp than a whisper.

Her lips tried to form the words,
You’re welcome.
She couldn’t seem to put any voice to them. He smelled so good—like real soap and honest work and…and him. The smell that she’d first sampled when he saved her life.

“My turn?” He grinned.

She nodded, desperate not to speak.

So he leaned closer to her. She found herself drawing back from him without meaning to, making him chase her until her shoulders hit the arm of the settee—he wasn’t using his hand to direct her head, just supporting it. His smile faded as he
did
follow her down, until he was hovering over her. He held most of his weight off her with one powerful arm, but she felt his jeans slide against her leggings and realized her mistake—she really was trapped—and couldn’t seem to mind.

Please,
she found herself silently begging.
Please let it be wonderful.

Then he pressed his lips to hers—didn’t just touch them, but pressed, and oh, it was. Wonderful. Could he kiss her? Yes, he
could.

So very, very well.

Trace’s lips didn’t feel as soft this time; they felt firm and certain as they framed her lower lip, drawing it into his mouth just the tiniest bit, just enough for him to lick it. That made her shiver. She parted her lips, to give him easier access to that lower one, which suddenly needed a lot more attention. He nipped at it, without actually using his teeth, and sucked on it, and then took advantage of her parted lips to slide that same, intriguing tongue into her mouth….

Thank goodness he was holding her head, because all of Sibyl’s skeletal and muscular strength seemed to melt right out of her fingertips and toes. She wasn’t thinking anymore, and the silence—silent but for their little gusts of breath, and the sigh of the settee cushions under their shifting weight, and a strangled little mew like a kitten’s from somewhere—the silence felt deliciously restful. All she wanted was to open to him—and his solidity and his heat—so she did. She opened her mouth wider against his, flirting her tongue against his, shivering her delight at the sensation. She slid her arms across his broad chest and around his ribs, drawing him closer against her breasts and tummy. Without any instructions, her legs slid around his waist, wide and surprisingly eager, her bare feet hooking behind his knees.

Trace chuckled into her mouth and shifted again, turning with her in his arms so that he lay on his side now and she lay cushioned between him and the seatback. No longer busy holding his weight off her, his free hand slid over her hip, his fingers flirting across her bottom before sliding up under her oversize shirt. She arched happily against the rough heat of his palm on the bare skin of her back.

Trace broke the seal of their lips to draw his damp mouth up her jaw, his hot breath against her ear as he rasped out, “You good?”

She nodded frantically, bunching handfuls of his T-shirt behind his back, trying to claw her fingers into him. She was very, very good.

“Good.” Now he nibbled down her throat, toward her shoulder. She tightened her legs around him, her feet against his hard, wide thighs now. Behind her, his calloused thumb massaged up under her arm, then down across the pillow of her breast and she pressed hard against him. He was pressing pretty hard against her, too. Luckily, she didn’t need thought to know what was going on with that. All she needed was animal instinct.

Who would have guessed she’d have so much instinct?

“Hold on,” he muttered against her collarbone. She almost whimpered as he slid his hand out of her hair—she’d felt so safe, so precious, with him cradling her like that. But he grasped her hips to hold her as he rolled again, so that he lay on his back and she was straddling him, looking down at his combined hunger and satisfaction. That was okay.

She rolled her hips, savoring the hard press of the denim-constricted bulge that she straddled, and that seemed to make them both very happy. So did his un buttoning her shirt, surprisingly deft with such big hands, and trailing his fingertips around the outer curve of both breasts.

It felt—wonderful. Primal. Essential. But she flushed and ducked her head, feeling suddenly inadequate. When Trace raised his eyebrows in silent question, she murmured, “I’m not very…”

“C’mere.” Now sliding his hands behind her back, he drew her down closer to him and covered one of her breasts with his hot, wet mouth. She heard that strange, kitten-mew again. When he began to apply his tongue, and a little suction, the noise sounded something like a sob.
Her
noise.
Her
sob.

A glorious forever later, he switched to her other poor, neglected breast, covering the first with a callused hand—which more than covered it, him being so big and her being so small—so it wouldn’t get too cold. “A mouthful is plenty,” he noted, before filling his mouth again.

Sibyl’s hands kneaded against the soft cotton covering his chest, feeling the springy sensation of hair beneath the material. She ground herself harder against his crotch. She wanted…she wanted…. Of course she knew what she wanted. Just because she hadn’t had sex before didn’t make her ignorant. This was the twenty-first century, and she hadn’t come of age surrounded by nuns. But she didn’t want to have to think, was afraid thinking would get in the way of all this surging sensation, and without thinking she couldn’t get to how…or when….

So she just writhed on him and savored it all.

Eventually he was warming the second breast with his thumb, and brushing the curtain of hair back from her face, which freed his mouth for her to kiss him some more. He thrust upward against her, and she liked that, too. No wonder the girls in juvie made such a fuss and stayed with losers for this. But Trace was no loser. At one point, between kisses, he gasped, “Do you want…?” She nodded.
Yes, yes, yes.
She wanted.

But he didn’t do anything other than worship her breasts and watch her face, looking somehow pained, so she kissed him again.

He laughed in the middle of the kiss, though he clearly wasn’t laughing at her. “So…?”

So?
A cold wash of panic diluted some of the passion flooding through her. He wanted her to make the next move. But she didn’t know the next move. Should she undo his jeans? That would mean scooting back off his searing heat and hardness, which she didn’t want to do. Trying to take off his shirt would mean moving, too, and letting him stop touching her. She liked it better when he was making the decisions about this.

Trace waited.

“You do it,” she pleaded, and his brows drew together in confusion.

Increasingly frustrated, she defaulted to the cruder, clearer words most of the girls in lockdown used. “Do me.”

But his mixture of confusion and—disappointment? That stopped her. So did the way his hands stilled against her temple, against her breast.

“What?” he challenged, and now he sounded…angry? And she didn’t know why. Not that men seemed to need a reason to be angry with her, but…she’d liked him being different.

Okay, he really wanted her to do it? She reluctantly scooted back on his thighs, so that she could better reach his jeans. She struggled with the metal button at the top of the closing, and Trace drew a deep, shaking breath, his eyes falling shut.

She used that moment to take a deep breath herself, and studied the zipper. Zippers were about as easy as it came, except his was really straining against the erection beneath it, and she didn’t want to hurt him, and maybe she should slide her hand into his pants, between him and the zipper, to protect him, except she wasn’t sure there was room, and…

She looked back up at him, and he was waiting with the oddest expression on his face.

“I don’t…” But she couldn’t admit she didn’t know how. She just couldn’t. Knowing things was her only real talent, the only reason he’d come here. “
You
do it.”

Trace groaned and rocked forward. He caught her under her arms with both hands, lifted her easily. The next thing she knew, he’d leaned her against the suede arm at the opposite end of the settee and was looming in over her, and she felt a little scared of what would happen but she felt a lot more relieved than frightened because she knew,
knew
he wouldn’t hurt her, and she wanted it to be him—