Fuse

by Angel Payne

  She straightens, possessing the pride of an Amazonian even with pink handcuff marks on her wrists and dampened curls between her thighs, reminders of the multiple orgasms I’ve just ordered her to have.

  Dear fuck.

  I’ve never been in more awe of the woman.

  Of any woman.

  Chapter Six

  Emma

  Why does the expression on the man’s face make me yearn to forget this fungus of a subject and just haul him back into bed with me? Only this time, he’ll be the one on the bottom. Maybe even wearing the handcuffs…

  But fate, with its sick sense of humor, lets a distinct group of sounds break into our sanctuary. They’re coming from the dining room and kitchen. Laughter. First Lydia and Joany together—but then joined by Angelique.

  Right. The subject. And the fact that it can’t be put on hold.

  But even before the glaring reminder, Reece turns our embrace into a handclasp. He maintains the hold while pulling me into the small sitting area adjacent to the bedroom. “While your rule-making la reine mode makes me want to lay my ‘scepter’ into your palm in a dozen ways, maybe it’s best that we get away from the bed.” As we pass the closet, he scoops my satin bathrobe off the hook just inside and then thrusts it at me. “And that you get into this as well.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  My comeback is automatic, perhaps even natural, given the growl beneath his words. At once, he casts back a look that’s almost censuring, upending the energy between us once again. “Ohhhh, no you don’t.” Then emphasizes the flip by laying me down onto the Craftsman-style couch—before sinking to his knees on the floor next to me. The muscles of his shoulders visibly bunch as he folds my hands between his. When he lifts his gaze again, its steady, steel-colored strength wraps around me. “You are my queen, Emma Crist. Your rules are my commands. Let’s hear every single one of them.”

  Well, damn it.

  I open my mouth because I owe him that much, not because any words will follow. I’ll get there, just not at the moment. Not as I work my mind around the sight of my strapping superhero of a man kneeling before me in his kick-ass leather pants and nothing else, the beautiful physical embodiment of the words he’s already given me without hesitation or constraint.

  Holy shit.

  I love him so.

  “Damn it.” The oath falls out of me just as the soft tears do, seeping even as Reece ducks his head over and under, leaning in like everything else in his world has fallen away. So of course, my tears get heavier and harder.

  “Okay.” He extends the word a little, vocalizing obvious confusion. “Is that a good ‘damn it,’ or…”

  “Both.” I sniff.

  “Both?”

  I fill my cheeks with air and then shove it all out. “You’re treating me like a queen, literally, but I may as well be stamping my foot like an ingrate. I’m a regular Christine freaking Daaé.”

  “Only you have the sense to love the man in the shadows instead of all the fops in the opera house.”

  I let out a watery giggle as he lifts one hand to shield a side of his face, ala the iconic Phantom.

  “Plus, I sing like a goose.”

  He lowers the hand to reveal he’s actually doing the lip-chewing thing. “Well, you’re not awful…”

  I whack his shoulder. “You’re pushing your credibility now, mister.”

  He shrugs. Not a bad thing, considering this man’s flexing muscles really do belong in some high-end graphic novel, no artist embellishment needed. After my overt ogling, I tilt a grateful glance his way. He’s letting the subject drop so I can recollect my thoughts—meaning he’s probably already figured out a bunch of them but is willing to let me sort them out for myself too.

  God. I really do love him so.

  Doesn’t stop me from yanking my hands away and tucking them between my thighs. Or from grumbling, “I’ll bet Angelique sings like a nightingale.”

  “Wouldn’t know.” Reece all but spits the reply. “And don’t care.”

  “That was really the right answer.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “And the truth also is, I’m still being an ingrate.”

  He leans back over. Pushes a thumb beneath my chin, compelling my face back up—and my stare directly into the burn line of his. “You’re being human, baby. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that.”

  I scrape my thumb across the rugged fullness of his lower lip. “Yeah, well…your very human fiancée is admitting to being very conflicted right now.”

  He dips his head just enough to suckle the pad of my thumb. “I know.”

  A weighted breath leaves me. His credibility is in fine shape, because I believe him a hundred and fifty percent. He does know—and more than that, he understands. But I can also see the flickers of conflict in his gaze, tiny silver knives beneath his gorgeous grays. He’s beginning to comprehend the rest of our situation too. Angelique has put everything on the line, perhaps even her life, for our team—including the failed attempt to get Kane safely out of the hive, as well as everything she risked to deliver the intel to us in person. And there’s the not-so-little factor that she’s also his brother’s grieving girlfriend.

  So no way can we just turn the woman away now. But if she stays, then what’s that situation going to look and feel like? Her history with the Richards men isn’t a normal one by any stretch of the imagination—even using the king-sized rubber band’s worth of stretching that’s required here.

  So where’s the line we draw between comping her room but restricting the amenities?

  I’ve never been happier to see harsher angles take over Reece’s face. Whew. He’s being racked by the same weird dilemmas, a conclusion backed by the fresher alloy in his eyes and the determined set of his jaw. I just hope he’s got a better plan than I do wavering at the crossroads of conscience and possessiveness.

  Until he’s suddenly jerking me back to my feet and stripping the robe off my shoulders. Yes, in one incredibly slick move. Yes, even for him. Yes, with an unmistakable quirk across his lips—even as I gasp out, “Mr. Richards? What the hell?”

  A new shrug. A fiercer wolf beneath his smirk. “I like you better in naked Amazon mode.”

  “Huh?”

  “Go with it.” He presses close enough to rub the beautiful slabs of his pecs against my pebbled breasts. “You think clearer this way.”

  I jolt my eyebrows up. Attempt a haughty inhalation but wind up with jerky little gasps that add to the friction between our chests. Holy God, what he does to me…all the static and magic and turbulence he brings to me. But if this is what he calls clarity, I’m turning in my sanity card this very second.

  Maybe I’ll be doing that regardless—as I jump at least a foot, even with Reece steadying me, when there’s a booming knock at the bedroom door.

  “What the hell?” he growls, though most of it is stifled by another round of the noise, sounding more and more like someone’s gotten hold of a full battering ram and is using it on the portal.

  “Reece!”

  I jerk again when Sawyer’s bellow all but blasts down the wall. What’s going on? He’s using Reece’s first name. Not Richards or Boss-alicious or Assjerk or Bolt Burger. The guy has only gone first-name basis with Reece on occasions I can count with one hand. But the times he’s done that and gone to this level of thunder and lightning about it?

  Zero.

  Reece, clearly putting all that together a few seconds faster, yanks me against his chest with a fierce grip. “Foley!” he roars over my head. “What the fuck?”

  “Sawyer! Stop!” It’s Lydia now, though she interrupts herself with a bunch of grunts, conveying her valiant fight to hold him back. “You can’t just—”

  But Sawyer cuts her off by opening the door. Correction. Opening it and slamming it to the wall so hard, I’m shocked the thing is still on its hinges. Or maybe it’s not—not that I’m given a chance to double-check, being yanked in by Reece so my naked form is f
lat against him.

  “For the love of fuck, Foley!” He rips a pashmina from a hook in the closet to cover my important bits in the nick of time. “The house better be burning down—”

  “It isn’t,” Sawyer snaps.

  “Then what the hell—”

  “It’s worse.”

  “What is?”

  “The city.”

  “The city…where?”

  “It’s burning down.”

  “What are you talking about?” I blurt it the second Lydia helps me scramble back into my robe, my movements sharp but shaky. My blood is running on alternating taps of scalding and freezing, the trepidation only enforced by the glance I get from my sister. She already knows why Sawyer looks like he’s just seen the start of a zombie apocalypse and the implosion of the sun at the same time. She knows—because her red-rimmed gaze tells me she’s seen the same damn thing. “Shit, you two.” I cinch my robe so hard, the pressure bites into my waist. “Do we have to play charades here?”

  Sawyer answers that with a fierce shake of his head, which breaks him out of his strange catatonia. He wheels around, snatches the TV remote, and clicks the green button.

  As soon as the screen fills with an image, Reece clutches my hand. Grips it with brutal force. I barely register the pain—because I’m doing the same to him.

  “Dear fuck,” he finally utters. Then steps slowly forward, taking me with him…

  As we gape at a live feed of downtown LA…

  That really does look like a zombie apocalypse has hit it.

  The cone at the top of City Hall is no longer there. Same with the corrugated crown that defines the top of the US Bank building. There are burn marks all over Disney Hall, as if a titan with matches has indulged some parkour fun all over the distinctive metallic wings. The Wilshire Grand’s iconic spire has been toppled over and teeters at the top of the skyscraper, looking like a giant needle about to tumble off the edge of a table.

  A giant threaded needle.

  But what’s forming the “thread” that’s blowing in the wind at the end of the thing?

  As if Reece has sheared the thought from my brain, he pushes even closer to the screen, aligning shoulder to shoulder with Sawyer. “What the hell am I looking at?” he demands. “What is that shit?”

  “Strands of electricity.” Surprisingly, Lydia supplies the answer. It gives me an excuse to really look at her, though the shock of doing so makes me gulp on a throat gone utterly arid. Even the night we spent in Faline’s captivity didn’t turn my girl gladiator of a sister this glaringly scared.

  “Oh, my God.” I mumble it so fast, it’s nearly one word of rushed horror. “The Brocade. Neeta…and the team…”

  “No casualties at the hotel,” Sawyer supplies—sending a look to Reece that’s as transparent with its bad news as the man was with the good.

  Sure enough, Reece follows up with a low growl. “No human casualties.”

  Sawyer, already watching Reece track a glare to the area where the distinct golden glass of the Brocade’s spire should be, doesn’t bother sugarcoating the rest. “Neeta was smart. She evacuated it from the top down. Thankfully, the hotel was only half occupied. They got everyone out before—”

  “How much is gone?” Reece’s interjection is like a vocalized dagger.

  Still no needless sugar from Sawyer. “Top fifteen floors. And all of the rooftop garden, of course.”

  As I gasp, Reece grabs my hand and squeezes. The garden has been a project of both our hearts and employed twenty of RRO’s most promising candidates for careers in sustainable design.

  But other than that silent show of commiseration, Reece maintains his outward mien of clipped efficiency. “What the actual fuck has happened?” he finally challenges in a vicious snarl.

  Foley pumps out an equally rough breath. “Not what,” he counters. “Who.”

  At once, the leap of Reece’s fury explodes the impact of his aura on the air—a whomp of energy so powerful, even my stare pops for a second. With discernible effort, he ramps it back, only to let it go once more as he snarls, “Faline.”

  Sawyer’s exhalation is heavier now. “She’d probably be our preference…compared to this,” he mutters.

  “Excuse the fuck out of me?”

  Reece has barely spit it before being handed his answer—and his figurative heart, still beating on a symbolic platter—via the new image consuming the screen. It’s taken from a TV camera at street level, where a horrifically familiar figure stomps toward the lens with sweat-drenched hair, wild eyes, and lips pulled back to reveal a full seethe of locked teeth…

  And a hand, closing into a downward fist, so the tattoos emblazoned across the grimy knuckles are pushed together to form a complete image.

  A scorpion.

  “Holy…shit.” Reece grates it out in two disbelieving bursts. I’m not sure my mind has caught up to even that level of shock yet. Am I really watching this? Is this really happening?

  As the questions explode through my senses, the creature on the screen finally lowers his hand. Replaces it with the bulk of his face.

  A face I can’t believe I’m staring at right now. Not against the backdrop of the city he’s just torn apart. Not with all that vicious purpose in his stare and that smile quivering at the edges of his lips. Not like this. Nothing like this.

  Because just four weeks ago in Paris, he looked very different. Totally different.

  I was watching all those features dissolve in grief as he signed the release forms for the body of his fallen husband.

  “Christ.” Reece walks forward while stabbing a hand through his dark waves. That doesn’t prevent a shock of them from falling forward again at once, blocking the silver flashes in his glare as he grits, “Jesus Christ…”

  “Wrong dude wanting to change the world,” Sawyer mutters. “Or in this case, a major metropolis.” He exhales as if the entire top of the US Bank tower has fallen on him. “Though I definitely prefer my friend Jesus over Kane fucking Alighieri.”

  Reece doesn’t get a chance to respond to that—because on the screen, Kane has pulled in a breath and starts to speak.

  “Well, hello, LA. How are you all enjoying this afternoon’s entertainment?” The second he proclaims it, I’m sure my jaw collides with the floor along with Lydia’s. Reece and Sawyer grit theirs so tightly, their teeth could be buzz saws. Either way, the shock is tangible. The creature on the monitor looks like Kane and moves like Kane, but nothing about his talk show host pleasantry is anything close to the strong, sedate warrior we’ve all come to know and like.

  We came to know and like.

  What the hell did those bastards do to him?

  I’m about to ask it aloud, but the pseudo-Kane on the screen sweeps his other hand up, instructing the cameraman to pan toward the Wilshire Grand’s teetering spire. When the lens dips back down to him, he goes on. “As you can likely tell, this program is not brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Bolt Man—though the Scorpio cartel is thrilled to invite him on our show as a special guest star, should he be in the neighborhood and wish to drop in.”

  “Mon dieu.”

  None of us looks away from the screen, seeing as how the new arrival to the room—my damn bedroom—has invited herself in, despite how we can hear everyone else watching the same broadcast down in the living room. But right now, the only boundary I’m going to stress is keeping my hand firmly fixed to Reece’s. Keeping him strong for this. Keeping him grounded for this.

  Probably because I sense exactly what’s about to happen with this.

  Starting with the blaring ring of Sawyer’s phone.

  He picks up and answers tersely but instantly clicks the device into speaker mode. “He’s right here, Mr. Mayor.”

  For a second, the connection is dominated by the static from a violent huff. Reece slices into it by barking, “Troy. I guess ‘good afternoons’ are out for now.”

  “Where the hell have you been?” the mayor bellows. “I’ve
been trying you for the last hour, damn it!”

  Reece’s lips flatten. He flashes a lightning-flared look at me, but in that split second, his message resonates to the bottom of my heart. No regrets. Ever. Not when it comes to one damn moment of being with you.

  “Who—what—the hell is this thing?” the voice from the phone charges. “And why does it want to tear apart my fucking city?”

  Sawyer leans in a little. “We’re not certain yet, but I’ve already got a team working on it.” He makes a gesture to Reece, indicating he’s already sent Wade, Fershan, and Alex to the command center for that exact purpose. “Trouble is, this guy is formerly one of ours.” He leaves out that it was literally as recently as a month ago and that Kane is fully capable of leading a lot of bad guys past the ridge’s security perimeter and straight to the gates of our home as well. “Though we’ve got a strong hunch the Scorpios are now controlling him via some sophisticated Consortium technology.”

  I don’t miss Reece’s side-eye toward his lieutenant or the look Sawyer flicks in return. Obviously, sending the tech team down for research has already gleaned vital information. As the same conclusion wallops Reece, he jabs at the mute button on the phone.

  “They’re controlling him?” he spits out. “In what fucking ways? With what sophisticated technology?”

  “We’re working on it.” Sawyer’s riposte is all teeth and complete business.

  The second Reece unmutes the line, it’s taken over by another enraged grunt. “That doesn’t help me, gentlemen,” the mayor barks.

  Reece steps in again. “All right. What can we do?”

  “You can get your Team Bolt asses to City Hall!”

  “Finally.” Sawyer whips his head to the side and mutters it under his breath. “Was thinking he’d never ask.”

  Reece isn’t so cavalier and immediately explains why. “Troy, I’m an hour out.”

  “The hell you are,” the mayor rebuts. “I’ll patch you through to the Chief of Police, and she’ll get your coordinates. We’ll have a chopper up in three minutes.”