Anti Hero

by Skye Warren

  She had to remember that this was only temporary. Very temporary if his friend was coming back tomorrow. They’d figure out a game plan, and then she’d be on her own again.

  Alone again.

  She pulled out her laptop and set it up on the thick oak table. He watched while she booted up and typed in her password. The desktop appeared, with the background picture of a long, winding stream wedged between two vertical rock faces. It was a pretty panorama of the Shoal Creek park, no people in the picture, but suddenly she remembered exactly what they’d done on the day they’d taken the picture, and from the heated look on his face, he did too.

  It was a public park but lush with trees and rock formations. Not very populated either. They had splashed in a shallow bend, him in shorts only and her in a bikini, slipping over the rocky bottom until he’d decided to see whether the current could be used to good advantage. He’d spread her folds with slick fingers, letting the water rush across her clit. She’d come hard, her shouts echoing off the rock faces.

  That had been fun and games, though. Not like now.

  Now she watched the scruffy line of his neck as he swallowed. Her gaze slipped down his arms, his waist, admiring the angles that made up his body. When naked, he was all straight shadows and swooping lines, as if he were charcoal-drawn right in front of her and filled in with breath. He didn’t think he was a hero, didn’t even like the word, but God, his patriotism, his passion was written on every inch of his skin. The stars and stripes on the side of his torso, the eagle on his biceps. The Army Ranger shield on his back with intricate scrollwork, the names of his fallen team members scripted amid the scars on his body. He should have seemed bulky, his large frame on the almost dainty chair, but he moved with grace, even when his knee was bothering him.

  It was bothering him now. His thumb was absently running over the fabric of his jeans. The events of this afternoon must have aggravated his injury. She wanted to ask him to elevate his leg, to take off those constricting jeans and have her massage away the swelling, but he wouldn’t agree to any of that. He liked to pretend that nothing could hurt him, that nothing could touch him. No man was an island, but he’d built a pretty impressive moat.

  She met his eyes and found he’d been watching her. He’d seen her check him out and the desire in her eyes.

  His voice had gone hoarse when he said, “Show me where you keep your work files.”

  “It’s all in here. It’s organized by the topic here and then split into research, photos, and the actual articles within.” She flipped through a few of her more recent articles to illustrate, then turned the laptop sideways so he could take over.

  “How do you back this up?”

  “I don’t, really.” She stood and rummaged through the freezer, pulling out a bag of frozen peas. “I know that’s not good, but I use the Daily as my backup. If my laptop crashed, all the important stuff would still be on their servers.”

  “But if the servers at the Daily were to become…unavailable, this would be the only copy left?”

  She frowned, tearing off a few paper towels. “Well, maybe. But only certain files. Other reporters would keep their stuff on their computers.”

  “So this has to do with one of your stories. And in your gut, you already know which one. Tell me.”

  Damn. She did have a few open projects, as usual. The exposé on the city park permit forgery was getting dicey. But her gut had lasered in on the Moreland case pretty much as soon as she’d seen the smoke rising. That was the only story big enough to warrant this magnitude of violence, though it still shocked her.

  She’d stepped on a land mine, and her friends had suffered the blast. While intellectually she understood that she wasn’t responsible for the actions of criminals, regret tasted bitter in her mouth.

  “Senator Moreland. I think he’s dirty.”

  “Dirty how?”

  “Drugs. Human trafficking. Really bad stuff.”

  He whistled. “The guy who’s running for president? That Moreland?”

  She returned to her seat, pressing the paper-towel-wrapped bag of frozen peas against his knee. He looked up in surprise, the look in his eyes unfathomable.

  They were inches apart; she lowered her voice.

  “That one.”

  He gently took the bag from her. “How long have you been investigating into him?”

  She opened her mouth to answer just as he pressed the makeshift ice pack to her face. She winced at the soft pressure, the soft rebuff of her care. He wouldn’t let her take care of him now. She’d lost that right when she’d lost him.

  “Only a couple of months,” she answered, her voice coming out husky. “I thought I’d been careful, framing every interview from the campaign finance angle so no one knew I suspected more. Not careful enough, though.”

  He turned back to the laptop, leaving the bag in her hands. Fingers flying over the keyboard, he quickly found the right folder and began reading the contents of her latest research notes.

  Page down, page down, fast even if he was only scanning, and she knew he was soaking up the information. She’d seen him do it before with his own private investigator work, glance at a report and pick out the pertinent information when she would need to pore over it, to sort and weigh all the parts in her mind before coming to the same conclusions.

  Even though she knew it to be false, she still occasionally fell prey to the don’t-give-a-fuck exterior he portrayed. It was in moments like this, when he was too engrossed in his work, that he forgot to cover his tracks. Moments like in her apartment, fighting with the ferocity of an avenging angel, that she could see him as he really was.

  He closed her research notes and clicked over to the photos. The most recent ones were the articles the intern had scanned for her. They flashed on the screen, unreadable at the smaller size, some diagonal and a few upside down. If there was anything special, it would take some time to figure it out. More than a night. The newspaper clippings gave way to documents.

  “Those are all public records,” she said. “Anyone could have ordered them.”

  “But no one else did, I’m betting. Only you.”

  And look what it had done. She turned her face away as he clicked through the rest of them. How many people had been harmed in that blast? And Ernie. She would have to live with that.

  “Why are these files so big?”

  She glanced back, where he was looking at the file list of photos. “I have no idea. A lot of times the images we use for the paper are big. I wouldn’t even pay attention, but they take a long time to download.”

  “Yeah, if there are photographs going into print, they’re probably high resolution. But these are just scanned newspaper images. Grainy too. Though even if they were high resolution, it wouldn’t explain these numbers. A whole application would be this size. Or a lot of data.”

  She sometimes forgot, too, that he’d had pretty advanced training as a member of the army’s Special Forces. The physical training was at the forefront of her mind—how could it not be with that hard body? And more recently, his precision handling with weapons, his gun, his knife. The duct tape wasn’t exactly professional combat equipment, as far as she knew, but he’d seemed pretty comfortable restraining a prisoner as well.

  He also knew his way around technology. More than her, that was for certain.

  “Is there a way to see what the data is?” she asked.

  He opened a console window and typed. Text and symbols flashed on the screen. “Nah. It’s all just bytecode, not readable text. I know a guy who might be able to figure out what’s in here though. I can send these files over to him. The network here is secure, and we can trust him.”

  It seemed to be a question, so she nodded.

  He knew a lot of guys. The house, the tech stuff. He was a walking problem-solving shop, and he wanted to pretend he was just some shoot-the-shit slacker? She could have laughed, it was so ludicrous.

  Instead she kissed his cheek. The bristle was l
ong enough to tickle her lips instead of abrade them.

  His breath caught. “It’s getting late. You can hit the sack while I send this off.”

  She swallowed her disappointment. He still wanted her; she knew that. But he was pushing her away. “Think it’ll be okay if I grab a shower?”

  “Sure.” He nodded to the right. “The bedroom’s that way.”

  “Okay.” She was curious about the sleeping arrangements, whether there were multiple guest rooms or if they’d use the same one. But it seemed likely she’d get rebuffed at the moment, with him typing furiously and already focused on the task at hand.

  Grabbing her backpack from the floor by the entrance, she headed down the hall. And was shocked to find there was only one bedroom here. A very large master bedroom with an almost equally large bathroom. Prompted by her damned curiosity, she poked her head into the main area.

  “Is there another bedroom on the other side of the house?”

  He didn’t look up from his work. “It’s set up as an office.”

  “So, wait a minute. This house, which probably cost more money than I’ll ever make, has only one bedroom.”

  He grinned as he glanced up. “Hey, don’t look at me that way. I didn’t buy it.”

  I don’t need that kind of headache.

  No, he wasn’t interested in black ops or high-paying secret jobs. He wasn’t interested in her. She had to remember that. And maybe it was for the best, because a job like that would be dangerous. Those moments in her apartment proved that much.

  Chapter Eight

  The shower was big enough to fit five people, with two showerheads and a line of smaller nozzles down each side. It was distracting actually; she was used to the small, rather forceful spray that came out of her little nozzle at home. Eventually, the warm water worked its magic, loosening her muscles and turning the blood pumping through her veins to sludge.

  She wished Nate would join her. He wouldn’t.

  Not in the shower, not in bed. Despite the one-bedroom situation, she was sure he’d attempt to wedge his long body onto the small square-edged leather couch in the main area. He may have shown up ready to defend her, but he didn’t want her again.

  Leave it alone, Sofia.

  Except the curiosity had caught hold of her. That little hitch in his breath when she’d kissed his cheek. She remembered that same sound from before—when she kissed his mouth, when she kissed his chest, when she kissed the tip of his cock. It meant he was hard and ready and wanting, so why did he push her away?

  For the same reasons they’d separated, most likely.

  The damned real world again, intruding.

  This wasn’t the real world, this luxurious friend’s house with its granite sinks and oak rafters. She didn’t even feel real, just wispy and half-formed, like she could rinse away down the drain if she didn’t hold it together.

  She recognized the signs of shock in herself.

  Her chest felt tight, her muscles aching, everywhere. She needed sleep, but she was way too wired. If she lay down, she’d only replay the horrible scenes she’d been trying to block out. The spray of dust when she’d turned her face toward the explosion. The crack of the intruder’s fist against her face. The splatter of blood against the cabinets as he’d fallen.

  No. She wanted to feel alive, proof that this wasn’t some sort of waking dream, walking around after she was dead without even knowing it. She wanted to feel her breath, her body, instead of just floating above them.

  She wanted Nate.

  Stepping out of the shower, she gave herself a cursory pat down, knowing he appreciated the shine of her wet skin. He liked to lick each droplet of water from her, working his way down and then teasing her that she kept getting more wet, not less.

  He was sitting where she’d left him, at the kitchen table in the large open space. He rubbed his palm over his jaw in that way of his, the one that said he was stressed and tired and needed release she was ready to provide. They both needed this.

  She crossed the wood floor. It was chilly beneath her feet, the cold shooting up her legs, pebbling her skin, and making her nipples hard before she’d even reached him. He turned as she approached.

  His whole body tensed, eyes dark and threatening. “What are you doing?”

  She would live if he rejected her. At least that was what she told herself.

  Instead he felt like some vital part of her she needed back. A deep breath after being underwater for so long, strands of sunlight through the surface her only source of warmth.

  “We were always good at this part,” she whispered.

  Lines formed between his eyes. He kept his gaze glued to hers, eyes dark with intensity. “It’s not a good idea, Sofia.”

  “Why not?”

  “If I touch you, I may not be able to stop.”

  He was so careful with her. Once, careful had been the only way she could let a man touch her. He’d been the one to teach her pleasure. The one to teach her trust. The one to show her that rough could feel good too. “Then don’t stop.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking for. These months without having you, without—” His voice broke on a rough sound.

  Without what? Her mind flinched away from the thought of him with someone else, but he might have moved on. He might have only come to protect her, his heart taken by someone else. Someone with more courage than her.

  “Did you…move on?” she asked softly.

  His eyes darkened. “Move on? I haven’t touched anyone else, Sofia. I can’t touch anyone else. I can’t even look at anyone else. I’m yours, whether I’m with you or not.”

  Then she couldn’t wait anymore. She ran her fingers through his hair, finally touching the satiny strands. Using her grip on his hair, she tilted his head up. Maybe she’d been wrong about his ability to submit in bed, because he followed her tacit order and looked his fill. His tongue slipped out along his lips, and she knew he was imagining tasting her, sucking her. Hell, she was imagining it. Already slick and ready for it.

  His voice had dropped. “I can’t take advantage of you. You’re tired and scared and—”

  “I’m not scared of you.” He wasn’t anything like those men, those red bandannas.

  She stepped into the circle of his arms, his breath, and felt warmer than a hundred hot showers; she felt whole. He thought he wasn’t a hero? God, he couldn’t stop protecting her—even from himself.

  She wanted so badly to lose herself in him, to be as she was in bed with him—nothing but a woman being loved by a man. No complicated life drama, no dangerous men out to kill her. Just a stream of groans and shudders and kisses all along the rough-haired skin of his body.

  “I want what we had before,” she whispered.

  His eyes closed on a groan that sounded like pain. “Sofia…”

  A flicker of concern pierced her haze. “Is it your knee? Is it hurting bad?”

  His laugh was raw. When his eyes opened, there was a feral gleam. “You think a busted knee is going to keep me from you? I could break every bone in my body and still fuck you just fine. I could be broken to shit, but I could still make you come with just my tongue.”

  Her body turned liquid at the memory of his tongue against her folds. “Then why?”

  “It’s my heart that won’t survive you, gorgeous.”

  She barely had time to process the words before he was moving, a blur of masculine skin and muscle. In a flash he was standing over her, around her, and his knee seemed to be working very well as he backed her against a wall and shoved his leg between hers.

  “Do you need to come, Sofia? Is that the problem? You only had to ask. I’ll always take care of you.” His hands roamed her slick skin, one cupping the back of her neck, the other sliding in a sinuous curve down her breasts, her hips, and curling back up to where his leg spread her open.

  The first touch of his finger was like the gong of a bell, reverberating through her body. She’d expected their physical connection to c
enter her, to bring her back into her body, but just the opposite was happening. She was floating away, becoming all sensation.

  He added another finger, still lightly stroking her sex, gently probing. Though her body clamored for more, faster, now, she clutched his arms and submitted to his languid pace. The longer he spent on her, the harder she would come. The more he touched her, the faster she could forget.

  Finally he slipped one finger inside, then two, teasing the entrance.

  “Tight,” he said, nipping at her earlobe. “So fucking tight.”

  She moaned in response.

  His breath puffed cool against the damp skin of her neck. “Haven’t you been working yourself with that toy? I know how much you liked it.”

  Her breath caught. The purple one that reached right to her G-spot. He’d bought it for her when they’d first been together, when he had taught her about pleasure and all the ways she could find it. With his fingers, his mouth. With the thick toy as he leaned over her, thrusting it inside her until she came. He sucked her nipples the whole time, whispering how sexy she was, how wet. It had been weeks of orgasms, her body strung out, before he’d finally made love to her.

  But the plastic was too hard, too impersonal after they split up.

  Now his fingers slipped deeper, seeking the same spot within her. And finding it. Ohhhh, her hips bucked into his hand. He stroked her there with the same maddeningly slow rhythm. Just one leisurely caress followed by another while she was frantic and urgent and whimpering into his mouth.

  “Well, Sofia? Have you been using it?”

  “No,” she moaned. “Just the…the vibrator.”

  The little bullet-shaped vibrator pressed to her clit would get her off quickly. Her climax was never as hard as with the purple toy—or with Nate. Just a moment’s relief before bedtime.

  “I like that one too,” he said, and his thumb found her clit. He didn’t play there, just rested his thumb as his fingers worked inside her, and the dual pressure pulled her up on her toes, drew her whole body up tight.

  “I want—I want—”