by Jenn Stark
Jack had favored the same kind of tank tops…but this guy carried it off way better than Jack. Maria lifted her hand self-consciously to Cara’s gold cross. Was this the Fed plant? Because he sure did look like a badass, she had to admit.
As if hearing her thoughts, the man glanced over to her—and practically drilled her to the mat with the force of his eyes. They glowed almost as intently as Bonnie’s had in the club. Not quite as crazily—the newcomer’s eyes were a steady golden amber, intense and unflinching—but enough that she sure as hell noticed the similarity.
Then the moment passed.
Maria rubbed her hand through her hair, going for nonchalant and failing miserably. This guy was going to be her partner? Mr. Tall, Dark, and Death Row? And what had Charlie called him? Warrick?
Yeah, well. The guy looked like he was ready to go to war, anyway.
With a slap on Charlie’s shoulder that left the old man grinning, Warrick turned and sauntered toward her, taking a second to greet the other boxers working out or warming up with the same kind of collegial cheer Jack had always effected so well. Everyone seemed to respond to him the same way Charlie had—open faces, welcoming smiles, easy banter back.
“You must be Maria,” Warrick said as he approached.
When she didn’t answer, he leaned on the ropes that cordoned off the mat area, glancing around appreciatively. There were two boxing rings shoved into the tiny gym, but those were strictly for sparring. Still, roping off the area where the heavy bags stood gave you the impression you were in the ring, which was good for motivation and keeping boxers in the zone, as well as doubling as extra sparring space.
“I heard you were a good sparring partner,” he continued.
“You did, huh?”
“I did. You up for it now?” Warrick pushed down the top rope and swung a leg over as Maria watched. His legs were thicker than those of most amateur boxers too. That group tended to be firm believers that only upper-body workouts in the gym were worth their time. Otherwise, legs were best served with fast-twitch workouts that helped drive speedy footwork. Warrick clearly hadn’t gotten that memo, though. The long slabs of muscle that defined his quads and made his calves look like he was a pro cyclist were…impressive.
“You’re making me shy.” Warrick chuckled, catching her mid-stare.
Maria jerked her gaze back to the guy’s face and, partly out of habit, partly out of nerves, she brought her gloved hands up. Warrick had his own powerful fists wrapped, but he wasn’t wearing gloves. She and Jack had practiced like this hundreds of times, however, with Jack taking her blows with his wrapped hands. Warrick dropped into a similarly relaxed stance, following her as she circled him.
“You new in town?” she asked. “I’d know if I’d seen you before.”
Warrick shrugged and winked at her. “New enough. Care to show me around?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Fresh blood!”
Warrick turned at the sound of Lou Celio’s voice. The burly man’s face broke into a wide grin as he came toward them. “You clearly aren’t an idiot either,” Lou continued. “Maria’s one of the best sparrers we got here. She’ll put you through your paces.”
“I’m counting on it.” Warrick said. “I’m only in town a few days. Heard this place was the only gym worth a damn.”
“You got that right.”
Warrick sent Lou such a disarming smile, Maria found herself believing that someone had told him that, that he really was some random guy looking to blow off some steam. Lou certainly did. The crusty old gym rat stared back at Warrick, as rapt as a thirteen-year-old girl with her first crush. What the hell was going on here?
“You got anything needs doing, Lou?” Maria asked, trying to keep her voice from sounding abrupt and almost succeeding. “I can clean up if so.”
“Nah, nah. You two work out. I got things covered today. Nobody’ll try anything screwy with Charlie on watch.”
“I heard that!” The old man chortled from the back, and despite herself, Maria’s heart gave a little tug. Compton wasn’t her patch anymore, wasn’t anywhere near her patch, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d grown up in this area. She’d never stepped foot inside Lucy’s gym when she was a kid, but the place still felt a little too much like home.
Maria took a step back, avoiding Warrick’s intense gaze. “I’m pretty much done working out,” she said. “You should lace up with someone more your size.”
“And yet I have my heart set on you. Got some kinks I need to work out.” He looked over at Louie. “Can I borrow a spare pair of gloves?”
“That you can.” Lou beamed. “Let me get some for you.”
Warrick tried not to stare at Maria Santos as he laced up, the gloves a slightly tight fit but nothing he couldn’t manage. He wasn’t going to be throwing punches so much as taking them, if everything went well here. He mostly wanted to see how the cop handled herself. So far, he wasn’t happy. Not because she didn’t seem competent…but because she was eyeing him with way too much mistrust.
That rarely happened—had never happened to Warrick, in fact.
He’d taken some time to get as many details as he could about Maria out of Jack. The Guardia lieutenant was a bruiser, a thug, and an alcoholic, but he was mostly tired at this point. He wanted out of the life, and he was grateful for the path Maria had given him. He planned on moving across country and living with his sister’s family until he could get on his feet, an offer that had been on the table for some time, or so he’d told the police piously. And in truth, though he’d been in and out of jail often enough over the past two decades, it’d all been for comparatively petty stuff, and he’d served his time. For everything he hadn’t, the cops had been willing to look the other way in exchange for information on the Guardia.
Warrick, of course, knew more about Jack than anyone, now. Stan Harris had allowed him thirty minutes with the lieutenant, but he’d only needed five to read the man’s mind. Now he knew Jack Mangia’s sins, his appetites. Knew his weaknesses too. A lifetime of drugs had taken its toll on Jack’s body, but his mind had still been more or less sharp. Warrick believed he’d make good on his promise to the LAPD of good intel, but not because of his sister in Florida.
Florida was simply closer to where Jack had stashed his money.
But now that he was in front of Maria, Warrick could tell she still considered him a problem—a Fed who would no doubt blow her cover. She also wasn’t apparently falling for his charisma glamour with anywhere near the same wide-eyed acquiescence that Stan Harris, Charlie, and Lou had. She remained skeptical of him, even after meeting him, and that was…unusual. Unusual and dangerous. Normally, only high-level demons were so discerning.
Since Maria Santos clearly wasn’t a demon, that left one of two options. One was that she was an exceptionally skilled psychic, what members of that community currently called a Connected. But Warrick dismissed that possibility out of hand. While he didn’t doubt that Maria had some level of intuition, the kind of psychic ability she’d have to have to block his charisma glamour would be fairly epic. If she was that kind of a Connected, she’d be able to levitate school buses.
Which left Warrick with the little gold cross around her neck. Not a completely plain cross either, but one that had a small circle of gold behind its crossed bars. All religious symbols held some sort of power, but this…this was something different. It had to have been blessed by a holy man or woman, someone of pretty impressive faith too. There was simply no other explanation.
“You ready?” Maria asked brusquely, already up in one of the main fighting rings.
“Always.” Warrick said. He hauled himself up into the ring and didn’t miss the flare of heat in Maria’s eyes. She wasn’t entirely studying him with irritation, that was for sure.
They began circling almost immediately. “Whaddya want?” Maria asked, the tone in her voice wry, as if she had no idea what he might hit her with.
“You strike,” he
instructed. “Whatever you got, I want to see.”
Her eyes narrowed as she took a couple of experimental shots, which he blocked easily. “I’m not the one on trial here,” she grumbled. Warrick watched as Lou and Charlie moved toward the front of the gym. The other guys had cleared out, so now, other than the owner and the caretaker, they were currently alone in Lucy’s. Still, that didn’t mean he could let his guard down. Anything they said could be overheard.
Maria seemed to think so too. Her next question was carefully vague.
“So, Warrick, huh? You’re just gonna waltz on in and take a look around, see what there is to be seen?”
“That’s sort of the idea. Jack and I chatted, and he said you’d be cool with it.”
That information made something flicker in her eyes. Disbelief? Yet more wariness? “Uh-huh. Why now? The Guardia and La Noche have been cooking this new dish at the Citadel for well over a year. Why is the Spider suddenly interested?”
Warrick shrugged, improvising his answer. “You can thank Jack for that. The intel he shared clued us in that La Noche was much further along in their production cycle than we realized. Now that we know, we need to—”
He saw the shot before she threw it, which was the only reason he was able to avoid a solid blow to his jaw. As it was, Maria’s competent strike was no match for his speed, and he dodged it easily. She’d thrown so much into it, however, was so sure of her trajectory, that she fell off-balance, careening into him. He didn’t adjust his speed for that, and as a result, he was body slammed with nearly five feet ten of lean, toned human female—her skin warm and damp, the scent of her rising to wrap him with an intensity he’d determinedly avoided for more than six thousand years.
Need flared within Warrick, so sharp, he gasped, his blood raging through his body and pooling in his groin. Every single one of his muscles engaged, and a few of his organs too—though sadly, not his brain for the scant, glorious seconds that he allowed himself to hold Maria Santos close, to draw in her heat, her fire, and to feel the impossibly perfect length of her body along his.
Warrick’s eyes squeezed shut for a long moment, all the years falling away, all the thousands of years to when he’d first fallen to the earth, a Watcher, a Nephilim, apart from God but still blessed, still gloriously blessed to taste both the human and the divine. That was the true gift of the Fallen that no theology had dared share. That God The Ever Merciful had let them fall and not cursed them, not at first. Not until they’d let their glorified status go to their heads and they’d sought not to teach the mortals, but to run roughshod over them. Warrick had been one of the worst—not a ruler, not seeking to subvert, control…but merely deciding to vent his divine rage upon those who could not withstand it. He’d allowed his need for revenge to consume him in a moment of pure, unholy fury…and he’d paid the price.
Maria pressed hard up against him, and he came back to the moment in a flash.
“Got you—got you,” he managed, angling away from her so she didn’t realize how much his body had reacted. As he did, his mind clamored that most men in this situation wouldn’t have done that, would probably have taken Maria to the mat to show off for the small audience they had—but there was no way he’d be doing that.
“I’m good,” she said, bouncing lightly off his body as if she hadn’t noticed anything wrong. Her face was flushed now, her own breath coming fast. She started circling him again. “You’re not bad either.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Charlie and Lou already like you. And they don’t like anyone.”
“You don’t like me.” Warrick grunted as he took a blow to the stomach, barely turning to the side to absorb the impact.
“Yeah, so maybe I’ve got better taste. How long are you gonna be in my face?”
“Defend,” Warrick growled, and they changed positions, Warrick delivering new punches for Maria to parry. They continued to spar, Maria taking shots at his chest, his face, his stomach. He broke most of them, but she landed enough that she wouldn’t get discouraged and quit. He wasn’t really checking her punching skills, but her endurance, her resourcefulness. And she had plenty of that. She quickly adjusted to Warrick’s clear dominance and altered her own strike style, going for the unexpected, even the unwise. That was good. She wouldn’t be in a situation where she truly had to defend herself, but he needed someone who could think on her feet. Because what they were going into—
Another of Maria’s misdirections sent him spinning to the right, but this time, he snaked out a hand to grab her and pull her with him so the two of them dropped heavily to the floor, her long, athletic body splayed over him, her legs straddling his hips. In this position, there was no denying the fact that his body was rock hard. He barely kept from hissing out a sharp breath at the intimate contact. Focus.
“Okay, Warrick,” Maria said, her words tight and low as she tilted her hips forward to grind into him. “Anything else I need to know before we start working together?”
“Sure,” he said, holding her gaze. “We need to stick together. Like right next to each other, together, at all times.”
Her brows shot up. “Why? I can handle myself.”
“I don’t doubt you can. But you know these people, and I don’t. You can tip me off if anything seems like it’s going sideways. That might come in handy.” This was all true, but it wasn’t the real reason why Warrick needed Maria close.
Because she was the human who’d originally summoned him, whatever glamour Warrick chose to effect would be ironclad whenever Maria was nearby —even to another demon. If they were separated…that glamour might not hold up as well. He wasn’t worried about humans seeing through his glamour, of course. He’d convinced Stan Harris and Jack Mangia easily enough, not to mention Charlie and Lou. But demons were a different story.
Maria stared back at Warrick, then she nodded once, definitively.
He thought she’d roll off him then, but instead she leaned down, her face close to his. “I’m going to do you one better,” she announced, her words quiet and fierce. “Everyone at the Guardia knew Jack and I were involved, and that protected me. Now he’s gone, and that protection is too.”
Warrick felt anger curl deep in his gut. “You’ve been threatened?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t, but I don’t want to be either. So we’re going to add a new wrinkle to your cover, right now. You showed up to the gym looking for Jack, found me instead, liked what you saw. With Jack on ice and none of us sure when he’ll be back, given how many times he’s been jailed, I decided I liked what I saw too. You and I pick up where Jack and I left off—and as far as anyone knows, we left off hot and heavy.” She rocked against him again, and this time he did hiss in reaction. “I think you can pull that off okay.”
Warrick held Maria’s gaze, but when he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “One problem with that. I know Jack couldn’t have sex. Couldn’t even react this way.”
Maria narrowed her eyes at the admission, clearly not expecting Jack to have shared that little nugget of information, but she remained undeterred. “Aren’t you the crack interrogator? That doesn’t matter. He was all over me, and now you will be too—starting right now. There are eyes and ears everywhere in this gym, except in the showers. That’s the only place here Jack and I could have a decent conversation.”
Warrick blinked. “The showers?”
“Hot and heavy, baby. And we gotta talk.” Not saying anything more, she slid off his body and rolled to her feet. Warrick found he instantly missed the contact.
“I’d say Maria won that decision.” Charlie called from the far side of the ring as Maria held out a hand to Warrick.
He took Maria’s hand and allowed her to pull him upright, blinking away a thin line of perspiration that dripped from his brow. How long had it been since he’d even worked up a sweat?
“I’d say you’re right,” he called back, and the old man went back to sweeping the nonexistent dust from the floor.
Then Maria grinned at Warrick, her smile all teeth. “Showers,” she said, cocking her head toward the back.
He grimaced as she spun away from him, then forced his expression to relax into one of keen male interest…exactly like he was supposed to. Showers.
God help him.
Chapter Five
Maria stamped down the narrow hallway of Lucy’s the way she always did, then banged her fist on the heavy door to the locker room. When there was no response, she pushed through and kept walking all the way to the concrete shower room. There was no door on that room, but the showerheads were deep enough inside that nothing got wet that wasn’t supposed to.
She yanked off her gloves, T-shirt and bra, then kicked off her shoes and socks, making quick work of her hand wraps. She deposited the whole mess on the short bench inside the shower room and stalked to the second spigot from the last. There was nothing magical about that spigot, but it was habit. She’d gotten through a lot in her life with habits.
She turned the water on full blast and waited.
Though there were two individual bathrooms that Louie kept remarkably clean, there was only one locker room at Lucy’s. Other than her, very few women ventured into the boxing gym, and then not for very long. Rather than figure out how to accommodate a female clientele, Lucy had made the locker room more or less female-first. If there was a female who wanted a shower, the guys needed to clear out and wait until she came out. Anyone so much as gave a hint of complaint, the men who bothered her would lose their membership privileges.
There’d never been a problem. This was a group of guys who valued their workout space far more than they cared to hit on a woman who knew how to throw a punch.
But Maria had introduced a caveat to that system—that Jack could, should, and damned well better be in the locker room with her. When she’d started, she’d claimed she wanted the added layer of security, and Jack had quickly agreed. He didn’t realize how much she’d known about him, and he was happy for the illusion their relationship provided.