by Angel Payne
Emmalina Paisley Crist.
The love of my life.
The woman who, crazily enough, loves me in return. Maybe to the same depths that I love her.
A truth I wouldn’t have believed possible until yesterday—but a truth I went ahead and tested, with my soul bared and my heart open and my fears unsheathed, knowing what I had to show her wasn’t a let’s-wait-until-the-new-crisis-has-blown-over kind of thing. If what we’re dealing with here is even a crisis anymore…
Holy fuck, let this all just be a tempest in a teapot.
A quick check of my phone doesn’t reveal any new messages from Wade and Fershan, who have stayed back in LA to keep taking punches at the dark web for any more shit linking—or, please God, delinking—my father’s apparent contact with the Consortium and the Scorpio cartel. Nor is there any kind of contact from Tyce, though that’s a hell of a lot less surprising. He cornered Emma in that restroom, risking that I’d jump to the conclusion that I did and try to rearrange his face in front of the mayor and most of Los Angeles’s upper crust, just to get an off-grid message to me. A message he never had the chance to relay—but bearing a preface containing two words that I must give him credence for. Two words I can’t forget. Will never forget.
Alpha Three.
But now isn’t the time for that black, black rabbit hole.
Right now, I take a second to tap back a message replying to the only text that really matters right now—from Foley, who notified me the second before he was airborne out of LAX and on his way here. That was four hours ago, so I know he won’t see my reply until he hits the ground at Charles de Gaulle, having informed me he was going to catch some z’s during the flight in anticipation of whatever storm we’re waiting to get struck by here.
Which, at this moment, still doesn’t seem to be manifesting. At all.
But rather than debate whether that fact is troubling or heartening, I bound out of bed with the sole certainty I do have. There’s not a damn thing I can do about it right now.
There is, however, something I can do in this moment.
Quick smirk.
Okay…somebody I can do.
Who can really hum a mean Elton John but sounds much better husking French profanities to me from the depths of her gorgeous, creamy neck. And then screaming my name as her sweet cunt vibrates around my plunging cock…
Surprise, surprise—and oh, how conveniently—that’s the very same body part taking the lead for my strides now, guiding me out to the dining nook like a heat-seeking missile on a no-abort call.
My brain tosses back an enthusiastic roger that as soon as I lay eyes on Emma. She’s already up and dressed, looking like a perfect Parisian beauty in one of the outfits I bought for her last night, when several of the stores in the Galeries Lafayette reopened for us. Normally I’m not a fan of the tourist-magnet mega mall, but it was the fastest way to ensure Emma got everything she needed for a while.
A while.
And exactly how long is that to be defined?
More uncertainty. More of this damn waiting on Lawson Richards, every second making me feel like a damn mutt in the rain, wondering if my humans are going to ever let me back inside near the fire…
Get over it.
And focus on the things you can control.
Like exactly how beautiful this woman’s new “song” is going to sound when she’s orgasming for the fifth time for you an hour from now.
Oh, yes. I’m going to settle for no less than five. That’s so doable. We got to four yesterday, and I barely fired up any of the fingertips for the cause.
She’s all mine. Right now.
No less than five…
Every goal-oriented cell in my body fires to life. Okay, the lazy ones roar to life too—propelling me in all my naked glory to the space right behind her chair and then in to swoop my mouth down on her neck in a take-no-prisoners snarl. She drops Elton at once in favor of a blissful squeal, which turns into a thready gasp as I slide a hand under her striped shirt and tweak fingers around her plump nipple. Fuck, that’s nice. As much as I adore her breasts when she’s aroused and erect, there’s something organic and fun about fondling a woman when she’s at full rest. Any lover can inspire a nipple to look like it’s ready for a porn short. A partner is the one who gets to touch it the rest of the time.
Of course, my metaphysical musings now make me want to see both those tips looking like red gumdrops—and at least a dozen other sexual similes. That’s just the tip of the erotic iceberg for the places I want to take her pussy…and her mouth…and maybe even her ass again…
“Well, oh my, Mr. Richards.” She jumps to her feet a second after I circle in to plant my mouth on hers, resulting in the collision of my erection against her shoulder and then her stomach. “Someone’s already having an awesome morning.”
“Damn straight, my hot little lapin.”
An enchanting blush flows over her face, as she clearly remembers how I started using the French version of Bunny after taking her to bed when we got home last night. We’d screwed with long, slow intensity, leaving the drapes open so the moonlight could reflect off the Seine and through the bedroom sheers. It was damn sweet and damn good. Maybe I’ll love her the exact same way right now. At least until she has her first orgasm…
“Guess it’s a good thing I told Angelique I’d meet her at the café down the block.”
Or…maybe not.
Emma cups a hand over her mouth, obviously battling back giggles in response to my what-the-hell gape. Not that the disappointment is helping to dampen the morning wood, merci fucking beaucoup.
“Angelique?” I finally fire. “What the living hell?”
Emma lets her hand fall. Her new expression is more sober—though I don’t miss the wistful glance she affords my dick before she turns to face the window next to the nook. “I was up early,” she murmurs, “and came out here to read a little. And to think…a lot. As I watched dawn come over the garden, it just hit me all at once…”
“What did?” I fill in her silence with the new gravity in my heart too. I don’t just believe every word she’s uttering because of how they paint her face into loveliness I can hardly comprehend let alone accept as reality. It’s what I feel from her heart. The special recognition she’s come to, inundating the air with its incredible magic…making me speechless with gratitude.
“That when Angelique and Dario were here together, they probably thought they had dozens more times to treasure together. In a second, that all changed.” She drags in a ragged breath, also recognizing the substance of what she’s just uttered. With the light from the atrium limning her from behind, she circles back toward me, her arms crossed. “Life can’t be thrown away like you have more of it tomorrow.” She slowly shakes her head. “I’ve somehow always known that when it comes to you and me—but taking that truth and applying it to other people in my life…and yes, even to Angelique…”
As she goes into a verbal void, clearly grappling for the right words, I step over and pull her in with a tight, comforting clasp. “It’s okay,” I assure, breathing the words into her hair. “It’s really okay. And even a little awesome.”
“Yeah?” She snuggles her head against my chest, pushing out an emotional little sound—which, damn it, sends a new comet of heat straight down the middle of my body. Back to morning wood. A fucking Sequoia tree full of it.
“Christ,” I mutter.
“Oh, my,” she snickers.
“This is your fault, you sexy-as-fuck woman.” With a determined growl, I spin her away from me—another backfire, since her ass is outlined into a perfect little heart by the formfitting navy capris that go with the top. “Just get the hell out of here before I make you text Angelique that you’ll be an hour late.”
She flips a gawk over her shoulder. “An hour?”
“By the time you get back, it might be two.”
“By the time I get back, it’d better be two.”
I grin. Hard. “Deal.
”
“Will you be okay in the meantime?” she queries while grabbing her purse. “You want me to bring you back something?”
“Just a coffee.” While she’s checking to make sure she has everything, I fish my laptop out of my shoulder satchel. “I’ll find something to munch on while catching up on emails. We’re pretty well stocked for food.”
“And drinks and booze,” she adds. “I notice how Angie took care of all that too.”
Surprise, surprise, the sequel. Factoid of the day: pure shock is fantastic for whittling morning wood. “Angie?” I challenge with one cocked brow.
She answers me with a smile as brilliant and breathtaking as the sunshine now seeming to pour in through every window. Appropriate, since that’s how she drenches every inch of my heart in this ineffable moment.
“It’s a new day, Reece Richards.”
I smirk with deeper determination. It’s either that or sprint across the room, lay her out on the couch, and tackle her for a quickie for the road. But goddamnit, when has it ever been a quickie with her?
“Yes, it is, Miss Crist.”
After giving me one more lingering look, making me weigh the decision to really make her push off with Angelique, she’s out the door and down the stairs. Of course, I rush back into the bedroom to get in one more eyeful of her, though I’m respectful enough to the neighborhood to throw on a pair of sweats first. Sort of. “Thrown on” is an upgrade from how I position them just to the point of covering what’s necessary for common decency, ensuring the woman sees exactly what will be awaiting her attention when she returns. The torso. The V. The trail of dark hair thickening and then disappearing beneath the gray flannel…
She stops to sigh. Then again. Then, with a soft laugh, turns and heads for the quaint café a short block away.
I’m tempted to stand at the window and watch her until she disappears in the crowds on the sidewalk, but it’s obvious the wuss bug has already crawled in and claimed too much of my blood. I push away from the window, yanking my pants up to a decent level this time, and add a navy short-sleeved Henley on top in honor of the predominant color of Emma’s outfit.
Wuss Man, hear me roar.
The tiny trumpets accompanying the rally are enough to get my ass plunked at the dining nook to attack my mounting emails with vigor. Summer will be officially starting in Southern California in a few weeks when the Memorial Day holiday hits. At the Brocade, we’re rolling out a new water park area to entice more families to visit the hotel, but I’m still in a semi-playful sparring match with Neeta and the management team about giving the theme. They’ve all proposed to call it Bolt Bay. I wonder why in hell that’s even an option when we have two dozen world-famous beaches down the road as inspiration.
I groan as Neeta pings back my IM, citing the market research and focus group feedback numbers indicating how much more revenue we’ll make from fucking Bolt Bay.
And all I have to sacrifice for that is my goddamned dignity.
“Says the guy who dressed matchy-matchy with his woman today?”
I’m saved from my neurotic grumble by a firm knock at the apartment door.
After messaging Neeta that I’ll be right back, I jump up and hurry across the living room, checking my watch as I go. An hour has flown by, meaning the two hours I’ve promised Emma are closer at hand. She’s obviously aware of that too, meaning her time with Angie must’ve been fun but brief. Thank fuck.
“Hey. Welcome back.” I throw the deadbolt free and twist the knob but take just one extra second to lower my sweats until I’m nearly showing butt crack goodness again. “I thought you checked for your key when you were…”
My voice trails off.
Correction. My choke ushers it into silence.
As I blink at who’s really standing in the hallway, a subtle smirk spreads across his broad mouth. A mouth still marred from the trio of damn fine punches I landed to it three nights and five thousand miles ago.
“Hey, dickwad.”
Outwardly, Tyce is still the epitome of trendy cool and male model chic, but just as blatant as his black tailored ensemble, his ten-thousand-dollar smart watch, and the entire salon full of product atop his black waves, there’s a strange glint in his cobalt eyes, reminding me of the darkest parts of the forest when we went to camp as kids. A darkness none of us ever wanted to be lost in.
It’s almost enough to sway me. Almost the visceral detail that pushes me over into believing he’s friend not foe and that the cryptic connection he forged to Emma back in LA was worth a trusting step back now, really believing he’s representing Alpha Three in some strange way.
But the thing is…he’s here.
Here.
At a location nobody else is supposed to know about. A location, Angelique assured me, that even the Consortium never learned about.
Have they now?
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
He blinks for a couple of seconds, looking like I’ve actually decked him again, before unleashing the old Tyce snark as he leans against the doorframe. “Well, you see, it’s cookie season, and if my troop sells just fifty more boxes of the caramel chocolate ones, we’ll get to take a trip to the zoo. And oh yeah, ice cream afterward.”
“Are you kidding me?” I’m planted to the spot, unable to move forward or backward. I’m furious, but I’m cognizant enough to realize it’s anger because of fear. A lot of fear. And right now, not even for myself. If Tyce has been putting us all on, perhaps even acting in collusion with Dad, then the Consortium’s in on this shit and we’ve been made. I’ll be dead inside ten minutes—which doesn’t stress me out as thoroughly as fast-forwarding my mind to Emma’s eventual arrival and realizing she’ll be next on the asshole’s list.
But if I can get to my phone still lying on the dining nook table next to my laptop…
Yes.
There’s still hope—slim but better than standing here with my dick in my hand—of notifying her to stay away. To get her ass into a car and over to the airport, where Sawyer will be arriving in a few hours.
My thoughts clear because of the strategy, and I jerk my head at Tyce. “Get your ass in here.”
I wait, letting him stroll—stroll—past me into the living room. “I know this is kind of crazy.”
“Yeah. Fifty boxes? Don’t those caramel things move the fastest?” I keep it to a drawl, matching his for sarcasm, though the tone is deceptive. There’s nothing relaxed or mirthful about me right now. I rake him over with a watchful gaze, checking in all the normal places for all the normal things. Bulge of a gun, outline of a boot sheath, even the line of a wire…but my Spidey senses are completely fried. Though his clothes fit his form like a well-made glove, they’re completely black and very thick. About as close to leathers as cotton-blend shit can get.
“Usually they do.” Weirdly, Tyce’s steps have stiffened since he entered. Eventually, he comes to a complete stop, his back still facing me. “But this might be giving some of my customers second thoughts.”
I have only a second to process how his voice has gotten weird, along with his stance. No longer is his wisecrack delivered with his worldly whisky murmur. It’s dry and labored, like a corn husk put to vocal cords…
The same way one entire side of his face looks as he turns back around toward me.
“Holy fuck!” But even his marred features aren’t the instigation behind my stupefied gasp. That honor goes to the fact that even the smooth side of his visage isn’t his. There’s something familiar about the male model perfection there, but I can’t even stop for that dig right now. I can’t comprehend or care about anything at the moment except for one glaring, horrifying fact.
My brother is gone.
“Reece. It’s all right.”
Only…he’s not.
The voice is still there. Tyce’s voice. Kind of. Buried beneath the three-packs-a-day rasp is the buttery assurance of the man I know.
The brother…I trust.
�
��Reece.”
“I…I don’t understand.” I have to clench my teeth to stay the heat behind my eyes. Jesus, if this is freaky for me, I can only imagine what he’s going through.
Hold the fuck up.
I can imagine what he’s going through.
“Holy. Shit.” I pace across to him, hating how I lean over as I go as if I’m approaching a damn rabid dog. “This is what they did to you…isn’t it?” I reach out, cupping his shoulder, shaking as hard as he does at the contact. “You’re not doing this for Alpha Three, are you, Tyce? You…you are Alpha Three.”
The stranger-brother in my grip shudders again. The motion takes over him, rushing down to his feet and then back up again, consuming both sides of his face in a terrible grimace. A stare of pure pain, loneliness, anger, and bitterness.
“Jesus,” I choke. “Tyce.”
We fall against each other, clutching hard and holding on, struggling to comprehend the enormity that a horror now binds us thicker than blood—a nightmare that isn’t even over.
Perhaps it’s barely begun.
And because of that, my mind all but detonates with a tumble of new questions. When was he taken? How was he taken? Are his abilities the same as mine? How did he escape the Consortium? And most pressing, how the hell did he know about this place?
I’m on the brink of demanding his response to that one when a key rattles in the apartment’s door, accompanied by the music of two women joined in laughter. Sure enough, before I can think of what to say or even how to hide Tyce, Emma bursts in with Angelique at her side—though they both stop cold as soon as their gazes land on Tyce.
There are a thousand questions in Emma’s eyes.
There are a thousand tears in Angelique’s.
Only then do I realize that the most bizarre twist of the day hasn’t even happened yet. That comes as soon as Angelique finally finds her voice and stammers out one word in a querulous question.