He laughed, low and true, startling her into silence. “Oh, God,” he said. “That was so worth it.” Even if it took another moment of struggle to get control of it, another grunt of pain, a hiss, a restless shifting as a swell of it washed through him. “Not kidding,” he panted, feeling her worried gaze on him, her touch at the side of his face. And then, finally, as the piqued blade eased its grip on him, he tucked her in closer. “Be with me,” he asked her, and she relaxed again. She reached behind him to tuck the ultra light comforter back into place over them both.
For a moment, he thought of nothing else but the touching—the places they touched, the ways they touched. The warmth of her skin, the scent of her hair and her body. His own scent, just a little bit sharp—stressed—and the raw hint of blood lingering in the background.
Natalie whispered, “What are we going to do?”
“Make love,” he muttered, not truly thinking about it. “Repeatedly. Until I pass out.”
“I think,” she told him gently, “you might be just about to do that.”
He grunted a denial, and she held him a little tighter for just that moment, affection filtering through the worry in her voice. “I mean what’re we going to do about what’s happening. I think...” She took a breath. “I don’t think this has anything to do with the restaurant—that’s just a ruse. I think it’s been Compton all along. He’s had cameras in my home. The guys who came for me that night...they were on his payroll. That’s what I came to tell you.”
He considered that, and frowned against her shoulder. “Thought you came because you were wrong. About us.”
“Well, obviously,” she said, in a tone that made it clear he was lucky she hadn’t tacked the word doofus on to that response. “But I came now because of what I learned. I can’t make it make sense, but I know...somehow, Compton is tied up in this.”
“I know,” he said, and even if it still came out in no more than a mutter, there was heat behind it. “The alleys...they’re part of this, too, somehow. My brother. And I think...your ex-fiancé.” Ajay. Too much coincidence, to hear that name from her lips and then from the man at Enrique’s.
Her voice sounded subdued. Miserable. “Yes,” she said. “I don’t know exactly how, but...”
“We’ll sort it out.” He said it with utter confidence, and tucked her a little closer. Or at least he made the effort. They were already pretty much as entwined as they could get.
“But—”
“Tomorrow,” he said simply. “Tomorrow, we go to him.”
Silence, as she absorbed that. But her body remained relaxed against him. Her hand, comforting on his arm; her lips, just barely resting against his temple. Then she said, “Tomorrow.”
“Love first,” he said, so low she might not even hear it, except her body tightening around him told him that she had. “Repeatedly.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “But I think you’re going to pass out first.”
And he did.
* * *
Devin woke toward morning, and found she’d been busy. She’d cleaned up; she’d brushed her hair into gleaming brown and blond. She’d acquired one of his button-up shirts, old and soft and a red that looked so good on her that he instantly vowed to put it aside in his closet as a shrine.
She’d turned most of the lights off, leaving more intimate illumination.
And right. She sat on him, straddling him, rocking her hips ever so slightly. Just enough to bring a rushing swell of pleasure streaking through his body and up behind his eyes, a gasp in his throat and his head tipping back to ride it out...to absorb it. To revel in it. “How—?” he rasped, when he could.
She smiled, lips still kiss-plumped, a flush of pleasure spreading along her cheeks and neck and collarbones, tightening her breasts through that shirt. “Not all of you went to sleep.” As if to illustrate this point, she reached behind herself to lightly stroke and tickle.
He jerked—a gasp, a curse, his body arching. “Oh, yeah,” he said, when he could. “You—you—”
“Repeatedly,” she said, her voice a low and husky warning of intent. And though a faint worry fluttered in her gaze, reflecting words unspoken—while we can—she didn’t voice them. She ran her hands over his chest, tracing the dusting of hair, and followed the narrow line of it down his stomach and beyond.
His skin fluttered beneath her touch; he swelled within her. And though he waited for the habitual interference from the blade—demands and nudges and licking, fiery forays at his soul—it couldn’t reach him. Not now—not through the clarity of her touch.
“Repeatedly,” she warned him again.
“Okay,” he managed, all too aware that she’d turned the earlier conversation around on him. “How about—nng—uh—right—”
“Now,” she agreed.
Chapter 18
Morning found Natalie alone. On the bed, now and in her own pool of warmth beneath the blankets. For the moment, she heard nothing. No shower running, no kitchen noises.
Tomorrow we’ll go to him.
Surely he hadn’t gone on his own—
No. There. Something in the kitchen. A muted sound; water running. She relaxed. She let herself take in the sensations of being—here, now. All the intimate parts of her, tender and sore and even startled at so much attention after the dry spell since...
That was enough. Since before.
She touched her lips; found them sensitive—found them smiling beneath her fingers. A pleasant whisker burn brushed her cheeks; the rest of her more or less melted right down into the bed, not inclined to move this day or possibly the next; the very scent of him permeated the sheets around her, enveloping her in the reassurance of reality.
Yes. I slept here. I made love here. Repeatedly.
So many things she’d learned during the night—how Leo had wrested the blade from the wild man who’d attacked two youths at the La Luz trail head. How it had instantly changed him...and how those changes had shifted over time.
Until Devin had killed him in self-defense, and eventually found himself in exactly the same situation.
No wonder he’d latched on to her little exercises with such dedication.
I can find more.
She’d been a young woman in a difficult situation, battling to regain her life. But she’d been healthy; she’d had determination. She’d had plenty of incentive. That hadn’t made it easy—not any of it—but when she’d found things that helped—things that gave her confidence and eased anxiety and kept her focused on her goals—she’d been able to stop looking.
I can find more.
What was she, if not a woman who had trained herself to do just that? Find what was needed, when it was needed? Make it happen?
The thoughts got her out of bed. Feet on the floor, she discovered that she still wore his soft old red shirt...marginally. She buttoned it, headed to the bathroom to tidy up and padded through the house to find him in the kitchen, just as half-dressed as she.
No welcoming smell of coffee here; he glanced up from a small blender as she hesitated by the end of the breakfast bar, and though he grinned at her—his mouth looking every bit as kissed-all-night as hers—there was something somber lurking in his eyes.
He lifted the blender. “Want some protein?”
No coffee. Okay, she could deal. But she eyed the blender most dubiously.
Some of the spark returned to his eye. “It’s chocolate.”
“Oh, well, then.”
He pushed a button and for thirty seconds made a whole lot of noise, pulling two glasses out onto the counter while he waited. “Meal replacement stuff,” he said, thumbing the blender off. “Lots of calories, but after the blade pushes up a healing like that—”
“You’ve got a lot to replace,” she noted.
He nodded, pushed a glass in her direction, lifted his in a small salute and drank the thick liquid down.
Natalie sniffed hers; gave it a tentative taste. Not food, but...not bad. She waited for him to fi
nish. “How are you?”
He rinsed the glass in the sink, turned it upside down in the half-sized drainer there and turned his back to her, tugging his old T-shirt up from the fresh boxer briefs beneath.
Oh.
“My back,” he reminded her after a moment.
“Oh,” she said, raising her gaze. “Right.” Maybe she should blush, but then again...after the previous night, maybe she was just taking in what was hers to take in.
So she smiled, and damned if he didn’t flush. She reached for his shirt, brushing skin, and bit her lip when his butt cheek clenched in response. But now...now was the time to face what lay ahead. She lifted the shirt just another inch, and found the healing wound. Healing being the operative word.
“Wow,” she said.
“It doesn’t fool around when it wants to make sure I’m available for its purposes,” Devin said dryly. “At the moment, it feels threatened. But putting me back together like that...” He shook his head. “It doesn’t leave me much to work with. I can slug back protein shakes and meal replacements all day—it’ll still take time to come back.”
Still raw, still angry; still clearly injured. But his voice sounded normal; his breathing was light and casual.
“Your leg?” she asked, suddenly a little numb.
“I can get around.” But a glance told her it hadn’t made half the progress, and he turned to share a wry look. “Call it triage healing.”
Natalie ran a worrying thumb over her lower lip—realized what she’d done, and stopped herself. Not one of her good signs. “Do you really think we should go back today?”
His gaze went hooded and dark. There in the kitchen, half-dressed and walking-wounded, he suddenly became the dangerous man she’d first seen in that dark parking lot. That his face was paler, his hair scruffed up in guy bed-head...didn’t make a bit of difference. “No, I don’t think we should. Except I don’t think we have any choice.”
“Uh,” Natalie found herself saying, and leaving it at that.
He shook his head. “You didn’t say anything to Compton when you left, did you?”
She shook her head, shifting her feet on the cold tile of the kitchen floor.
“So we have a window. He knows you’re gone, but he doesn’t know why.”
“Once I realized there was a camera...” she said slowly, going over those moments in her mind, “I didn’t say anything at all. I never even turned on the light.” She met his gaze, gray gone to dark. “It wouldn’t be hard to convince him that I found myself emotional over our situation and left. He knows my past. He knows how I had to pull myself back together.”
Right. Pretend to be as weak as she’d been when Compton had first found her. The very last thing she wanted to do.
“Might not come to that,” he said, gently enough so she knew he understood all her unspokens. “All we really need is for you to be able to get into the main house unchallenged. But the longer we wait, the less likely that is.”
“And then what? Confront—”
He shook his head, sharply. “I want a look around. That hallway...the blade almost took me there a number of times. You saw it.”
“I didn’t understand it,” she admitted. “But I saw it.”
“I still don’t understand it. But we need to know.” But still the dark look, the borderline glower. Not at Natalie. At...himself?
“Those are all reasons to go back,” she said. “But why not go? You said—”
He turned away from her. “Because I’ve got a week before I’m what I should be, for starters. I’ve got no business heading into enemy territory like this, and no damned business at all asking you to do it beside me.”
“Enemy territory,” she said, and shook her head. “I can’t believe—”
The man who had given her a job to grow into. Goals, when she so badly needed them. A stranger, meeting her in a newly dedicated alley and offering a helping hand.
Except he’d apparently never truly been a stranger. He knew Ajay...somehow. Probably Ajay’s doing, one of his schemes. And he’d known her—what she needed. How to reach her.
Why?
She looked at Devin—his weight shifted off his bad leg, his shoulder stiff to guard his back.
This was why.
She’d been there. She’d talked freely of it to him—but she’d been unable to answer questions about the two men in the alley, whom he’d somehow thought she’d known. Because Ajay had always believed it—that she was stepping out on him. Eventually he’d stopped asking...and then evidently decided to use her another way.
Attacked in the parking lot, drawn together under Compton’s roof...watched. Manipulated.
It didn’t matter how hard she tried to return to that nice clean world view where her boss was an intelligent, driven and wealthy man who did good things with his life....
Recent facts told her otherwise. Her instinct, stirring back to life, told her otherwise.
“Yeah,” Devin said, watching her—the whole story of it that must have been playing out across her face. “I know. It’s hard. But once we figure out what it’s all about...it’ll get easier, then.”
“I hope you’re right.” She threaded fingers through her hair, combing it away from her face. “And we can’t wait. So, we go.”
A day or so earlier, she might have missed the faint wince at the corner of his eye, or the way his gaze went subtly distant. This day, she knew better. She left the protein shake on the counter and closed the distance between them, bare feet and red shirt and concern. “What?”
She thought, from the faint desperation in his eye, that he would have given everything to have been across the room again. To have been in a different house altogether. Or even to find whatever it would take to break the gaze between them.
Instead he let her see the desperation, and the darkness. “Because the blade wants me there,” he told her. “It wants to go. And that might be the biggest single reason not to.”
She shook her head. “But I thought you listened to it. I thought that’s how you found me.”
“Like that, yes. But this...” He rubbed fingers across his brow. “Leo felt it, the last days. The blade, curious about things. Nosy. Demanding. More than just the usual—the hunting. And, Natalie—” Here came that desperate again. “I’m trying, but...it’s already coming back at me. Fog, there around the edges of what makes me...me. I’m trying—but I don’t know if I can stop it.”
She saw that fear—felt it strike deep within her, a cold slice of weakness up her spine. She swallowed it back. “We can stop it,” she said. She lay her hand on his arm—a lover’s touch in the territorial familiarity of it, but not a sensual touch. Distinct fingers, a distinct hold. A grasp on reality.
But even as the clarity of it surged up through his expression, so did a ferocity she hadn’t expected. “That’s not why I’m with you! Not why I wanted you—God, why I want you again, right here, right now—”
And for a moment she thought he’d follow up his words, the tension between them crackling and his expression so nakedly possessive—she thought he just might toss her up on this counter and take her.
For a moment, she thought she’d let him.
But somehow the moment passed, even if it left them only inches apart, his breath stirring her hair and his body tight, forgetting it had ever been hurt at all. He bit his lip in what looked like regret; he turned his head away.
“Devin,” she said, refusing to release when he would have pulled away, “if I’d ever thought that, I wouldn’t be here, and you know it. You know that.”
Right. That might have been a nod. It might have some subtle shift of air around them. Her fingers weren’t kind, now, clamping down as she gave that arm a little shake. “Don’t you dare stop me from doing what little I can do to help, Devin James.”
Something in him gave way. He ducked his head, looked up at her from lowered brow. “When you put it that way, it makes me sound kind of stupid.”
“Then don
’t be.” But she softened her hold on him, gave that arm a gentle rub.
“As long as we’re clear.” His head didn’t come up, but his eye held a gleam she’d come to recognize. “I still want you. Right here. Right now.”
Her hand slipped lower, confirming the truth of his words—evoking a surprised and startled noise from him. “And so you should,” she told him, and glanced behind him, a pointed look. “Maybe you should just keep that counter clear in the future.”
* * *
Natalie drove.
Cleaned up, tucked away in her tidy slacks and his red shirt, purse-borne makeup only pretending to obscure the whisker burn, the love nip on her neck, the bright glow of her cheeks...
Natalie drove, and Devin watched her. Without even pretending not to.
They’d had his protein shakes, they’d stopped for donuts—healing hangover, he’d explained, at her askance expression. Right, street fighting vengeance kickboxing dude with demon blade, chomping down on the sugary carbs. But hey, a craving was a craving.
With the blade in his life, he should know.
With the memory of Natalie in his arms, he should damned well know.
Not that he couldn’t multi-task, flipping closed the cheapo prepaid phone she’d picked up. “Finally. Enrique’s at UNM. They won’t say crap over the phone, but they didn’t tell me to rush in and see him just in case, either.”
“You can call one of his other guys?” Natalie suggested.
Pure irritation set his jaw. “Not until I have my own phone back,” he said. “We’ve got a calling tree, but that’s where I keep it.”
“Then we need to see him soon,” she said simply. She might not know the details, but she clearly understood enough.
He shifted, easing his leg—stretching it as he could. That it burned with a deep, hot and abiding fury was a given—the extra kiss of the blade’s healing. As did his back, and deep within his chest.
Distractions. Moments of endurance. He was, after all, breathing.
“You’re sure—” he started, and Natalie didn’t let him finish—a little amused, a little exasperated.
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