by Tate James
Austin looked confused, but River filled him in on the details of my meeting with Sergei. Though he appeared concerned, River said nothing more on the subject.
20
Once again, I was sparring with Cole in the basement gym and growing increasingly frustrated at my inability to best him. I had been dialing back my strength to a more believable level, but even so, he commented a couple of times that I seemed unusually strong for my size. Even when I did allow a little extra oomph behind my fists, he still won due to his superior training from his days in the UFC. Not to mention the fact that he weighed probably three times what I did, so it would be a little obvious if I were able to pin him easily. It was the weekend, so I had insisted on a much longer session than we had been managing after school during the week, and my body was feeling it already.
“Stop,” he commanded suddenly, even as I gritted my teeth and clenched both my jaw and my fists in frustration. “Just stop. You’re getting all fired up for no reason. I have years more experience than you and significantly more body mass. You’re not going to beat me any time soon, so stop stressing out over it. Besides, I doubt you’ll often come up against someone with my training.”
He considered me with his fierce eyes, and I shifted awkwardly. For the most part during our training I’d been able to avoid his gaze, but every now and then I found myself pinned to the spot by his intense focus. My palms grew clammy, but thankfully he broke his musing quickly.
“I have an idea,” he said before roaring up the stairs. “Caleb! Get down here!”
The thundering of footsteps down the narrow staircase announced Caleb’s arrival, and he bounded into the room with a lazy grin on his face.
“What’s up, big guy?” he asked, flicking a glance at me in my workout clothes.
“I need you to fight Kit. She needs to test herself against someone different,” he rumbled, perching himself on one of the weight machines.
“Sure, sounds fun!” he accepted without an ounce of hesitation, then immediately launched himself at me. The sudden flurry caught me off guard, but he wasn’t taking me seriously. Reacting, I had him in an arm bar within seconds. When Caleb tapped out, Cole huffed a disappointed sigh.
“Should have known you would go easy on her,” he grunted, then turned his face toward the stairs again.
“Austin! Get your ass down here!” he bellowed, and I swore the walls quivered.
The three of us waited while Austin made his lazy way down the stairs then completely ignored me as he looked at Cole. “What do you want?”
“Fight Kit,” Cole ordered succinctly.
Austin raised an eyebrow. “You’re telling me... to hit the princess?” A cruel smile crept over his face, and suddenly this didn’t sound like such a good idea.
“I’m telling you to try,” Cole rumbled, getting comfortable on his perch again.
“Uhh, are you sure about this?” Caleb sounded even more concerned by this turn of events than me, but Cole silenced him with a stony glare.
I stepped back out onto the thin mat covering the concrete floor and tightened the Velcro on my thin cushioned gloves while Austin strapped on the pair Caleb tossed him. Bouncing lightly on my toes, I twisted to keep him in my sights as he prowled around the edge of the mat like a caged tiger. Very different from his twin, Austin didn’t seem to have any qualms about inflicting maximum damage on me.
He seemed to size me up for a moment then, entirely without telegraphing the motion, he darted in and clipped me in the side before swiftly dodging my return strike. I swallowed a groan of pain; he hit hard! Hearing a disappointed grunt from the sidelines, I picked up my game and refocused on the fight with Austin. Channeling my dislike of him into my moves, I managed to land a few punishing hits. Unfortunately, he was quick and very calculating and landed far more punches than I did. His satisfied smirk after each blow left me furious.
Letting my anger fuel my moves, I was able to catch him off guard and sweep his feet out from under him. Down didn’t mean out. Cole had taught me that the hard way. I followed through with a punch to the jaw intended to knock him out, but the slippery bastard rolled out of the way right at the last second. Too late to stop my momentum, my closed fist plowed into the thin mat, and the sickening crunch of bones snapping filled the air.
Letting out a strangled noise of pain, I curled around my damaged hand, breathing hard and waiting for my familiar rush of adrenaline to heal me, but all I felt was anger and frustration. God damn it.
“Oh come on, Princess,” Austin sneered. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up because the floor gave you a boo boo.”
I ignored him, closing my eyes tight and clenching my jaw. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I took some deliberately slow breaths, trying to manage the pain.
“Shit, Kitty Kat, are you okay?” Caleb rushed over to me and gently peeled my injured arm away from my chest so he could inspect it. “Fuck,” he cursed, seeing the odd angle of my wrist and rapidly swelling fingers.
Tears tracked down my cheeks as he yelled at Cole to check where Wesley was and smoothly swept me up in his arms to carry me upstairs. I was generally pretty good at handling extreme pain with a stiff upper lip, but it had been a really long time since I’d been hurt this bad, and my control threatened to slip entirely.
As Caleb cradled me, careful not to bump my hand, Austin’s indignant anger followed us. “How hard were you planning on hitting me?”
21
In the living room, Wesley and River were sitting around the table poring over the papers and blueprints that my mysterious helper had left me. They rose as we burst up the basement stairs, and Wesley sent Cole to fetch the first aid kit from his bathroom.
Caleb set me down gently on the couch but continued to hover, his hands on my shoulders, until Wesley glared at him.
“Caleb, back the hell up man. You’re stressing me out,” he snapped. “Go get me one of those floppy icepack things from the freezer.”
Sitting on the coffee table, Wesley took my arm, holding from the elbow, and laid it across his lap. With precision, he peeled away my gloves as Caleb came running back in holding the ice pack.
“Can you move your fingers?” he asked me quietly, and I shook my head, still unable to speak. Cole returned with the first aid box, and Wesley fished out a roll of bandages and started gently wrapping the flexible icepack around my hand. I whimpered quietly in pain while he worked.
“We need to get you to a hospital for x-rays,” Wesley told me, but River frowned at me from behind him. He looked pointedly at my hand, then back at my face with confusion in his expression. He was probably recalling how I’d healed myself in the alley.
Before he could comment or ask about it, I said, “River! Can I speak with you?” Surprisingly, I could handle the pain now that the offending limb had been wrapped up. He twitched his eyebrow up, as if to say there was nothing stopping me, so I grit out, “In private?”
Confusion reigned, but I dodged eye contact with anyone. At River’s sharp nod, I forced myself upright and ignored the throb in my hand as I followed him to his bedroom. Once inside, he shut the door firmly.
A door wasn’t much of a barrier, and I didn’t want the others to overhear us.
“All the rooms in this house are sound-proofed. You can only hear between them if the doors are open. Your secrets are safe in here.” The reassurance helped.
Though relieved, I had no idea where or even how to begin explaining this, so I lurked near his dresser, inspecting the impersonal decorations while River stood with his arms folded, watching and waiting for me to speak.
“Kit. What do you want to tell me?” he prompted. Maybe he hadn’t noticed my healing after all?
“Uh,” I stammered. “Um, actually it’s nothing. Don’t worry. We should get to the hospital like Wesley said.”
“Stop,” he commanded as I tried to slide past him and leave the room. His forceful tone sent a shiver through me. “I think you were going to tell me why your wrist
isn’t healing like your face did in that alleyway?”
No such luck. He did remember. Crap. Nothing in his ruggedly handsome face suggested I couldn’t trust him. Retreating to his huge bed, I perched on the edge of it. At this point, what choice did I have anymore?
“Okay, so it’s not an exact science or anything, but as far as I can tell, I can only heal myself during a surge of adrenaline. Or rather, I call it adrenaline, but it might be something else; I haven’t exactly asked a doctor about it, you know?”
River nodded slowly, choosing to sit in an armchair near the bed. Elbows on his knees, he leaned forward and studied me.
“So what causes this ‘adrenaline surge’ to happen? Why did it happen in the alleyway with a minor injury but not now with this more serious one?”
“Ahhh well...” I dodged meeting his gaze and glanced at the rug. It was a nice rug. Very fluffy. “So, it usually happens when I’m in some form of danger or scared or, um, you know... excited.” God damn my body for the hot flush at the idea of River getting me excited, but the memory of his lips on my skin still haunted me.
He cleared his throat, his expression thoughtful. “So... that night with Simon...”
“I was definitely scared!” I said firmly, lest he correctly assume it was another emotion fuelling my healing that night. “And it would seem that today, despite how much of an utter fucking dickhead Austin has been to me, I never actually felt like I was in any real danger. I mean, I was scared of what I had just done to myself, but anger and frustration were my primary emotions, and from experience I’ve found my little trick only works off my most dominant emotion at the time.”
He frowned at me for a moment before speaking. “Clarify.”
I sighed. I hated trying to explain this because it barely made sense to me as it was. “As far as I have been able to work out, it has something to do with the adrenaline rush I get from dangerous or exciting situations, but in this situation with Austin, I was mainly just pissed off at him and myself for letting him get to me like that. So no adrenaline, therefore no healing.”
“Hmm.” River didn’t say more while he processed the information. Standing abruptly, he loomed over me, and my breath caught at his nearness. “Your wrist looks pretty badly broken, and it will definitely exclude you from this mission to the testing facility until it heals.”
No one was excluding me. “What do you suggest then? None of you scare me like that; my foolish subconscious seems to trust you all too much.”
He leaned forward, placing his palms flat on the bed on either side of me, forcing me to lean backwards a little. My gaze went to his sensual mouth like a moth to a flame.
“But excitement should work, hmm?” His question sent another shiver through me.
My pain-addled brain could hardly comprehend that we were heading in the same direction I was currently fantasizing, but I was definitely not objecting.
Flushing, I managed a nod as I didn’t trust my voice. He leaned in closer, pausing when his lips were close enough to mine that a deep breath would push us together, and my eyelashes fluttered shut.
“Well,” he whispered, his warm breath fanning across my mouth, “if it will help, it seems rude not to try. Don’t you agree... love?” As he purred the endearment, I lost my tenuous hold on dignity and closed the distance between us. River rewarded my choice with a low growl as his mouth closed over mine.
He snaked a hand up to grasp my hair, gripping firmly and controlling my head as he teased my lips apart and delved in, exploring my mouth with a confidence that made my knees shake. His solid body pushed against me until we were flat on his bed, and I hiked my knee up to brace against his waist. Taking advantage of the space created, he moved his hips in line with mine and coaxed a breathy moan from me as his hard length rubbed me through our clothing. Drunk on the smell of pine and the taste of his lips, I touched his face then hissed at the sharp pain in my hand.
He pulled back and studied me and then my hand. “Well, that won’t do now, will it?” he murmured as his hot mouth descended to my neck. With a smooth motion, he encircled my good wrist and brought it above my head where he pressed it firmly to the comforter. Then he raised my bad hand to join it.
“These,” he said as he tapped my unhurt palm lightly, “are not to move from here. Am I understood?”
“Uh-huh.” Willing to agree to anything right now, I groaned. He paused, pulling back from my sensitive throat and looking me sternly in the eye.
“I don’t think I heard you correctly. I said, am I understood?” He quirked an eyebrow, and his gaze was a metallic inferno. I fought a grin, trying to give him my best serious expression. Such a control freak.
“Understood, Sir.” I exhaled the obedience, and he made an animalistic growl, roughly pushing up my tank top and deftly flicking open my front clasped bra. Cupping my full breasts in his palms, he locked his mouth onto one of my tight nipples. His hot mouth sent a fluttering of pleasure through me, and I made a noise of encouragement. He took his time, rolling my sensitive peak in his mouth while his fingers tweaked the other. He gave me a firm nip with his teeth, pinching the other side simultaneously, and I sucked in a sharp breath of pleasure. I bucked my hips impatiently, and he clicked his tongue at me in warning before lazily trailing kisses further down my belly. By the time he reached my waistband, I was a whimpering mess. He peeled down my yoga pants and panties together with excruciating patience then threw them across the room before running his strong hands back up my naked thighs.
“Please...” I begged, desperately trying to keep my hands in place. River placed a teasing kiss against the crease at the top of my thighs, and I mewed.
“Please... what?” He smirked, lightly running his fingertips along my wet folds.
“Please, Sir.” I gasped, and he rewarded me by sinking a thick finger inside. He rumbled a satisfied noise and licked a slow line to my throbbing bud, then sealed his lips around it and stroked me with his tongue.
The stinging itch of my bones knitting themselves back together again distracted me, but the sexy Brit between my legs ramped up the intensity of his strokes. Alternatively sucking and flicking my clit with his insistent mouth while his powerful fingers pumped into me, he captured my attention. He slid another finger in, and I moaned loudly, nearing the edge. No way I could last much longer. The tension coiled within me, and my heart thundered like a wild horse. When he scraped his teeth across the sensitive bundle of nerves, I shattered. A loud cry ripped from my throat, and I grabbed River’s broad shoulders with curled fingers. My nails bit into his flesh as I held on as the orgasm quaked through me. Time ceased as I rode the waves, and then I collapsed, a boneless puddle of pleasure.
The smug smile on River’s face greeted me as the spots cleared from my vision. He nuzzled his rough stubble on my thigh then lifted to take a long look at his shoulders where several bright streaks of blood stained through his crisp white shirt.
“It would appear that my kitten has claws. I take it your hand is feeling better then?” he inquired wryly, giving me a heated look. “You disobeyed a direct order. I have half a mind to tie you down next time.”
Shuddering from arousal at this suggestion, rather than the fear, I stared at him.
River moved along my body then claimed my mouth once more in a forceful kiss. I reveled in the rough scratch of his facial hair on my soft skin. Sliding my newly mended hand under his shirt, I caressed his velvety skin and enjoyed the steely strength of his muscles beneath. Eagerly, I unbuckled his belt and flicked the button open on his pants, desperate to return the favor. Then a sharp knock on the door interrupted us.
We both froze, but when the sound didn’t repeat, I slipped my hand inside his pants. I had expected to encounter more fabric, but instead all I found was bare skin. Wonderful. I wrapped my hand confidently around his thick shaft, and the knock came again, more insistent this time. I bit my lip, looking at River for a decision. With a sigh, he dropped his head heavily to my shoulder.
“Bugger.” He groaned, then slowly rolled off me and buried his face in a pillow. We both lay still for a minute, and I prayed whoever it was would give up, but the knock came a third time. Giving in to the inevitable, I rearranged my bra and tank top before looking around for my pants. River still had his face in a pillow, so I jabbed him in the ribs, and he popped his head up in question.
“Where are my pants?” I asked, trying not to laugh at the situation. He reached over the far side of the bed and retrieved them from the floor. When he returned my pants but kept my panties, I raised an eyebrow. He simply winked then tucked the turquoise lace into his pocket before he zipped his pants and buckled his belt. I dragged my pants back on and grinned wickedly at the knowledge that we were both now going commando.
“You’re going to need to explain that.” River nodded towards my freshly healed appendage, and I agreed. I needed to tell them everything; it was past time for it, and they’d proven themselves to be trustworthy. Or as trustworthy as I was likely to find under the circumstances.
I checked my appearance in the dresser mirror, but my face was still flushed and my lips were swollen red. It wouldn’t be hard to guess what we’d been up to. I was still running my fingers through my wild hair when River opened the door.
“Everyone is getting worried out here. Kit’s wrist looked really bad, and Wesley is adamant she needs to go to the hospital.” It was Caleb, and he glanced from my flushed face to River’s un-tucked, bloodstained shirt.
“Tell them not to worry; Kit will explain in a minute,” River responded in a tone that brokered no arguments. “We’ll be there shortly.”
He shut the door again without waiting for Caleb’s reply, and my stomach churned with guilt. River must have seen something in my expression because he crossed the room to cup my face in his hands.