The Devil You Know

by Kit Rocha

  “It’s not going to be fair to your opponent when you track him, sight unseen, through a pitch-black room and lay him out flat, either,” he retorted. “Focus, honey.”

  Maya danced a few feet forward, twisting toward the sound of him again. “Well, yeah. But it’s fair when the unfairness is good for me.”

  She didn’t wait for him to answer but lunged in another attack. This time, he stepped into it, pressing his body against hers. Her swing connected, but without her weight behind it, she didn’t have enough leverage to make it count.

  Gray spun her around by the shoulder and wrapped his long arms around her, trapping her fists at her sides. His breath warmed her ear as he leaned in and rasped, “Oh, this will be very good for you, Maya. Trust me.”

  She stopped breathing.

  She stopped everything.

  For a heartbeat—or what would have been a heartbeat, if she weren’t definitely actually in cardiac arrest—her brain simply couldn’t process anything. Then her heart gave a shuddering thump and she felt everything.

  She felt him.

  His chest against her back felt like safety. His arms pinning hers was a thrill of danger. She could fight him, the way Dani and Rafe seemed to fight in a way that was clearly totally sex even if they pretended it wasn’t.

  Or she could melt into this bliss and find out what very good felt like.

  She let her head fall back against his shoulder, shivering as it bared her throat to the heat of his soft exhale. Her skin tingled everywhere he was touching her and everywhere she wanted him to be. “Gray.”

  His voice rasped over her nerve endings, low and lazy. “Again?”

  No. Yes. Hell, how was she supposed to think? But his arms dropped away, freeing her, so she reacted the way Dani had trained her to react—swift and vicious and definitely cheating.

  Even as she drove her elbow back toward his ribs she knew it was a mistake. Her back was still pressed to Gray’s chest and the flex of muscle gave her away. He caught her elbow and spun her around for a dizzying, disorientating second. Then her feet left the mat.

  She only had seconds to brace. But Gray didn’t let her crash into the mat. Her back thudded softly against the padded surface. Her breath left her in a woosh anyway as he stretched out above her, almost-touching her everywhere. “Cheater,” she accused hoarsely.

  “Completely legal move,” he countered. “You’re the one dropping the ball here.” He rolled, and she found herself on top of him, straddling his stomach. “The fight’s not over until it’s over. If they take you down, don’t give up. Use it.”

  She braced herself with her hands on his chest, savoring the feel of him even through his shirt. But just for a moment. The world was bright even behind her blindfold, as piercingly real as she could ever remember it being. She rolled smoothly to her feet and stepped back, confident in the placement of her feet because she knew exactly where she was.

  Perfect recall really was a damn superpower.

  Two more steps put her in the center of the mat. She bounced on her toes, smiling in the direction Gray was, and listened to him as he rose almost silently. Almost. She’d spent so much time pretending she wasn’t watching him, and it was all there in her memory. A perfect road map to his slightest gesture, to the way he moved, to the way he fought.

  Her awareness of him wasn’t a distraction. It was her secret weapon. So she smiled and crooked a finger at him. “Come get me.”

  He dove for her. It was fast, the creak of the mat and the whisper of his clothing the only real warning. But Dani had lunged at her a thousand times on this mat. Her brain knew the sounds of it, and her body knew the response.

  She pivoted at the last moment, turning in to him and grasping his arm. He was bigger than Dani, but she’d practiced this with Rafe, too, and Rafe was like Gray—a mountain of muscle. The adjustment was instinct and his height made it easier. Maya used Gray’s momentum to execute a flawless shoulder throw.

  The thud of Gray hitting the floor was sweet victory. Maya laughed and danced backward, bouncing in her glee. “Try again.”

  So he did. Again and again, they clashed. More often than not, she ended up on her back with Gray’s body pressing hers into the floor, but she held her own. Each time they lingered a little longer, the tension prickling as his breath tickled her ear or her hands pinned his wrists.

  The urge to kiss him was overpowering. But she denied herself, breaking away to grapple again. The moment she kissed him, everything would change. There’d be no pulling back, no slowing down. She craved it with an intensity that should have made her dizzy but instead sharpened her focus.

  Tracking him got easier, as if his presence prickled along her skin. Maybe she had an entire sixth sense that was attuned to Gray. If so, she was drunk on him by the time she narrowly avoided a grapple and tripped him in a desperate move. They went down in a tangle of limbs, and Maya ended up straddling his stomach, breathless as she hastily pinned his arms with her knees.

  “Okay, I give.” Gray’s smile was audible through his light panting.

  Maya dragged the blindfold off, and the sight of him slammed into her. Mussed hair, lazy smile, blue eyes that burned with a heat that should have singed her from the inside out instead of warming her all over.

  She’d pushed too far. She had to pull back, had to put some barriers between her sensation-drunk brain and the intensity of the world. But the temptation was too much. She reached down and traced his lower lip with one trembling fingertip. “You’re beautiful.”

  His smile didn’t fade so much as it melted into something warmer. More intimate. “So are you.”

  God, she loved that smile. She traced his upper lip, unguarded enough to admit the truth. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Touch takes so much trust for me, and the last time I got to know someone well enough to want it…” Her breathing hitched, but the dark memories couldn’t intrude. Not with Gray so warm beneath her. “I’ve never tried again. I never wanted to.”

  “And now?”

  She let her fingertip trace up his nose, lingering over the little bump, then higher to caress his brow. His face was stern and serious, all the easy humor and warmth subdued and locked away. But not for her. Never for her. She knew where to find it—in the subtle quirk of a brow or the way his eyes crinkled just a little whenever laughter sparked in their Gothic, brooding depths.

  Knowing him made the craving so much fiercer. “Now I just … want. All the time.”

  Gray sat up, heedless of her knees pinning his arms to the mat, and caught her easily when she slid down his body. “But you’re not ready. It’s okay, neither am I.”

  A shiver claimed her, followed by a warning throb in her temples. Would pleasure overwhelm her the same way pain could? She’d never had to worry about it before. Her inexperienced explorations with Simon had been joyous and exhilarating but not exactly intense. And the pleasure she gave herself was gentle and easy.

  Straddling Gray’s thighs with their bodies pressed together so tight she could feel the pounding of his heart might feel joyous and exhilarating, but the hunger it sparked sure as hell wasn’t gentle or easy.

  She dropped her forehead to his shoulder and closed her eyes, but her deep, steady breath only dragged the scent of him into her lungs. Sweat and coffee and just a hint of pine, because he must have washed his hands with the soap in the kitchen. She inhaled again and let it go on a shaky laugh that sounded intoxicated. “You smell good.”

  His hands clenched on her hips, then immediately relaxed. “Yeah?”

  “Mmm.” The urge to squirm closer was nearly overwhelming. Maya locked her body with effort, her fingers twisted in his shirt. “I think I’m drunk on you.”

  “I know the feeling.” His lips brushed her jaw, featherlight, a caress so fleeting she might have imagined it—except for the desire that rocketed straight to her core.

  Then she was moving, Gray’s hands lifting her as if she weighed nothing. “Time to knock off for the day.”
>
  I’m sorry. She bit her lips before the reflexive apology could escape. Instead she relaxed into his arms and whispered what she really meant. “Thank you.”

  He murmured something against her hair, his voice vibrating in her bones, but she couldn’t turn the sounds to words. Sensory overload had never hit her like this before. It wasn’t the familiar painful drip of sensation wearing down her stubbornly reinforced mental protections but a distracting cacophony sweeping her away on a wave of scent and touch and sound.

  Gray’s footsteps on the hardwood floor crashed like meteors plummeting to earth. She could taste him even with her lips pressed firmly shut—the tang of salt on her tongue as if she’d given in to temptation and kissed his throat. The scent of pine grew forests in her imagination, so vivid she cracked open her eyes to make sure they were still inside.

  The light hurt. She flinched, and Gray’s arms tightened protectively. The brush of fabric across her skin was overwhelming. She tried to block it out, but the heat of his body remained, burning her everywhere he was touching her.

  It vanished abruptly. She gasped—in relief. In loss. Her fingers curled and found the familiar soft weight of her heavy quilt, and she realized he’d carried her to her room. She swayed, then stiffened her spine, desperate to not fall over.

  “Maya.”

  Oh, that voice. Low and smooth, but with a rasping undertone that could have been tension or worry. He didn’t touch her—he knew better, he always knew better, but she could imagine him standing just in front of her, his hands hovering on either side of her shoulders, ready to catch her if something happened.

  “I’m okay,” she lied. “I just need a second.”

  “Should I get Nina or Dani?”

  “No. No—” She forced her eyes open, and the sight of him hit her low in the gut. Oh God, she wanted to touch him. She wanted to cling to him, drown in him. If her brain had to shatter apart, this was how she’d want to go. Falling into him and riding the pleasure down into oblivion.

  Maya gripped her quilt and managed a shaky smile. “I’ll be okay. I promise.”

  His fingers grazed one of her braids. The gentlest touch. His smile warmed her to her toes. Then he was gone, and she collapsed back to her bed, arms splayed wide, too raw to even put on her music.

  Shit was seriously dire when even the empty, safe rhythms of FlowMac Pop might push her over the edge.

  It was hard, gathering her thoughts back into coherence. Usually the discomfort was its own motivation, but she didn’t hurt this time. Her thoughts were like a litter of enthusiastic puppies, and chasing down one to corral it into order gave the others free rein to scatter in every direction.

  She’d been waiting for the drop. The inevitable punishment for using her brain to its full capacity, for letting go of that precious control. That was what she’d been promised—an inevitable, painful crash.

  This was the opposite. A high, every bit as incapacitating but anything but painful. She could feel the warning flashes at the edge of her senses. It would hurt, if she didn’t pull back. But right now she felt wild. Invincible. And oh, she could see the lethal danger in that. How easy would it be to make reckless decisions right now?

  Her senses were razor-sharp. Her mind encompassed whole universes. She could traverse Southside blindfolded and never falter. Her fingertips itched for a tablet. She wanted to do something. Reorganize their metadata system. Figure out a new automation system for scanning their backlog. Hell, she had some manuals on robotics, maybe she could build a system …

  “Stop,” she whispered. She forced her eyes open and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. Nina had helped her paint it black in her first months here, a project that had given her a sense of ownership over the space. Maya had reconstructed the stars that she’d never been able to see from the roof of their penthouse across the inky-black canvas, constellations hidden by the light pollution of Atlanta.

  Polaris. Ursa Minor. Cassiopeia. Perseus. Ursa Major.

  She listed them in order, spiraling out from Polaris, then listed them backward as she spiraled back in. Her breathing slowed to match, inhaling as she expanded into the universe, exhaling as she contracted back down to the center.

  To the North Star. The way home.

  This was it, the truth Nina had told her to find. The truth about her brain. Birgitte had lied with the truth after all.

  Maya didn’t have to hold it all in. She didn’t have to make herself small. But she couldn’t let it all go, either. Not all the time. Not recklessly. She had to find the balance, how to use enough of her mind to soothe that restless itch without overextending herself.

  Unless it was important. Sometimes, the high would be worth it. The crash, too. She’d have to learn where her lines were, and decide when to cross them.

  She rubbed her fingertip against her thumb, remembering the firm softness of Gray’s mouth, the warmth of his skin, the tenderness in his eyes.

  Even if she drowned in him, Gray would be worth it.

  TECHCORPS PROPRIETARY DATA, L2 SECURITY CLEARANCE

  It’s time to harvest a certain asset. Send recruiters to the orphanage.

  Internal Memo, August 2066

  SEVENTEEN

  The moment the door closed with Maya on the other side of it, Gray sagged against the wood. He whispered silent thanks that he’d managed to hold on that long and lifted his left hand. It was shaking—not trembling or wavering, but jerking unsteadily—and his knees felt weak, wobbly.

  Somehow, he needed to get down the stairs.

  Gray moved slowly, inch by hard-won inch, one hand braced against the wall until he reached the open stairway. There was no one in the living area or kitchen downstairs, no one to watch as he painstakingly navigated the stairs, locking his knees so that he wouldn’t tumble down them.

  With only four steps to go, his legs gave without warning. He clenched both hands on the railing to hold himself up as he waited for the rolling waves of weakness to crash over him and subside.

  He was certain Maya had been confused when he’d pulled away, maybe even thought she’d done something wrong, but it was better than her seeing him like this. For a moment, he imagined it—pictured her horrified reaction to him now, frozen on the stairs, barely able to stand—and panic knifed through him.

  That got him moving again.

  Finally, he slipped through the door separating Nina’s warehouse from the one belonging to the Devils. He gritted his teeth, steeling himself for the seemingly endless journey to his bunk.

  “What the hell?” Mace stood in the newly framed and still-empty doorway between their makeshift living area and the emerging clinic, his brows drawn together in a stormy frown.

  Gray couldn’t quite quell his dismayed groan, but busted was busted. He might as well avail himself of the medic’s presence. “A little help here?” He reached out, and the sudden shift in his center of gravity almost sent him crashing to the floor.

  Mace threw aside the half-crushed box of gauze pads and dove, catching him as he stumbled. He looped Gray’s arm around his neck and started back toward the examination room. “When did this start?”

  Somewhere between sparring with Maya and holding her on his lap. It had been a delicate moment, full of warmth and openness and trust, and he felt just as betrayed as she must to have lost it. “About ten minutes ago.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Training.”

  Mace’s jaw tightened as he lowered Gray to a folding chair—the exam tables and other specialized equipment were in place but covered with plastic to protect them from the sawdust that hung in the air. All the consumable goods they’d procured were still packed away in sealed boxes, protected from the construction—bandages and med-gel and basic medications.

  Several of those boxes were open now, their contents laid out in neat, orderly rows. Mace must have been inventorying the supplies. He dug through one of the boxes and resurfaced with a pen light.

  He flicked the tight, foc
used beam into Gray’s left eye, then his right. “Were you alone? Why didn’t you call for someone?”

  “I was with Maya,” Gray confessed, bracing himself for a lecture.

  It didn’t come. Mace eyed him knowingly, sighed, and tore open another box. After several moments of searching, he retrieved a bottle and shook out two small, beige tablets. “Here, try these. Under the tongue.”

  Gray shoved away his outstretched hand. “Uh-uh. I hate that shit. It makes me loopy.”

  “You hate the benzos,” Mace countered. “This is a fast-acting dopamine agonist.”

  As if Gray knew what the fuck that meant. “English, please.”

  “It’ll help with the tremors, but it won’t knock you on your ass.”

  Grudgingly, Gray took the tablets. By the time he slipped them under his tongue, Mace was checking his pulse with two fingers laid along the side of his neck.

  What a difference a few days could make. “Last time you had your hands this close to my throat, you were trying to strangle me,” he observed mildly.

  “I feel better,” Mace admitted. “Since Knox refuses to lock me up, I had no choice. Had to get myself under control.”

  “Don’t forget Dani and her Mace sedatives.”

  He snorted, then gestured around at the tiny clinic space. “Being here helps. I think it grounds me.”

  Gray agreed. Moreover, he understood. When he had his rifle set up, waiting for a shot, he slipped into this liminal space between thinking and just … being. It was meditative in a way, more familiar to him than his own name. That was Mace when he was in the zone. He got this look on his face, like the whole world just made sense.

  “Good,” Gray managed finally. “Because if you haul off and stab Knox again, I’m pretty sure Nina’s gonna fucking kill you.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “She may have already sworn an oath to that effect, yes.”