Britney bounced her way into the back seat, and I parked it in the passenger side. I watched with more than a little amusement as Vigilante scooted back the driver’s side seat and squeezed his long legs in underneath the steering wheel. It was a tight fit, and he looked uncomfortable.
Served him right for being so bossy.
We headed down the road, flying south on the highway, passing through bigger suburbs into the countryside. As we drove, I found myself more curious about this mysterious masked man whom we’d placed our trust in. From the direction he was driving us, it seemed Vigilante didn’t live in the city—which kind of struck me as odd, since most superheroes tended to flock downtown, where all the action happened.
It was much easier to make a name for yourself busting bank robbers, rather than your errant twelve-year-old cow-tippers, but what did I know? I only worked for a superhero. I didn’t fight alongside him.
I turned on the radio, clicking through the stations.
“Ooh, ooh,” Britney gasped from the backseat, “turn it back to one-oh-four point one! I love that song!”
I flipped back. It was some R and B jam.
The car bounced up and down as Britney shook her booty in the backseat. “I am…getting so hot, I’m gonna take my clothes off,” she sang, off-key.
Vigilante chuckled, shaking his head. “Interesting. Is she always like this?” he whispered, casting me a sideways look.
Whoa. When he smiled it totally transformed his face. His eyes brightened, and I noticed a sexy dimple right beside the corner of his mouth. Goosebumps trilled across my skin at the sudden, kicking realization that he was a very attractive man. I bet he was even sexier under that mask.
I swallowed hard, licking my lips.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and then he glanced back at me, a curious look in his eyes. Why was he staring like that?
Oh, wait, he asked me a question. Snap out of it, Jenna!
“Who, Britney? Sometimes, she’s worse,” I finally replied, then laughed a bit too loud in a bad attempt to cover up my uneasy awareness of him. “And don’t get her started with the Black-Eyed Peas. She plays their CDs over and over.”
Yet another reason to be happy Britney was leaving soon. If I had to hear “Let’s Get It Started” again, it would be time for a little skeet shooting.
We turned off the highway and drove into Brunswick, about a half hour south of downtown Cleveland. Not too shabby of an area—Brunswick has some nice houses. Definitely out of my price range, though.
About five minutes later we pulled into the drive of a nice two-story white house, at the end of a decent stretch of road dotted only with a couple of houses. The front lawn was pristine and well-watered, its bright green grass trimmed close. Small potted flowers flourished along the edge of the front porch stairs. Not quite the bachelor pad I’d expected. Especially for Vigilante. He seemed like the kind of guy to have a hole-in-the-wall apartment with dark, closed blinds, and nothing in the fridge except a case of beer and a half-eaten wheel of cheese.
A surprising thought hit me like a pie in the face. What if Vigilante was married? Maybe he had a litter of little superkids running around. This whole time I’d assumed he was single, but plenty of superheroes had significant others—Mason and Rowena, case in point.
A heated flush covered my cheeks as my heart sank involuntarily. I remembered hugging him tightly, the feel of his muscled arms as he’d wrapped them around me. I’d enjoyed feeling small and protected in his arms. And I don’t think I was the only one who liked it. Unless I was hallucinating, a distinct possibility given his utter indifference to me since the hug, it had felt like his heartbeat picked up a bit right before he let me go.
Wait, what if he thought I was a hussy?
Oh, for crap’s sakes. It was a grateful hug with a rescuer. Nothing more. Who cared if he was married or single? I wasn’t interested in the likes of him anyway. I liked my men straightforward and not bossy, thank you very much.
We got out of the car, grabbing our bags from the trunk and heading to the front door. From within, I heard a dog’s frantic barking.
“I’m here, Corey,” Vigilante said, opening the door. A golden retriever dashed out and ran circles around him, its tail wagging furiously.
Britney gasped. “Oh, he’s beautiful!” She thrust her face right in the dog’s. Corey’s wet tongue slathered across her cheeks. She giggled, letting him lick her right on the mouth.
I shuddered, fighting the urge to ralph. Nasty. I liked dogs, don’t get me wrong, but not to the point of wanting to bathe in their spit.
“Come on,” Vigilante said to us, heading up the hardwood staircase. “Up here.”
We followed him up the stairs and down a hallway, stepping on a soft, red oriental runner. All the doors were closed, and there were no paintings or photos on the clean white walls. No kids’ toys littering the hall. No crayon scribbles near the baseboards. No women’s shoes tucked away in the corners or pantyhose draped on railings.
Either Vigilante was a neat freak, or he lived here alone. So what was his story? What kind of superhero would buy a family home just for himself? More and more, this felt like a puzzle I needed to crack.
He opened a door on the left. “Britney, you’re crashing here.”
She danced inside, plunking her bag on the white bedding. “Cool, thanks!” Her room was simple in décor, with white wicker furniture and neutral taupe carpeting.
He walked a few more steps down and opened a door on the right. “And here’s your room.”
I went inside. The bedspread was a rusty orange color. The walls were a pale blue/grey, and a small silver vase sat on a dark brown dresser.
“Where’s your room?” I blurted then wanted to smack my own forehead. Wow, could I sound any sluttier? Why not just strip off my clothes and start dry-humping his leg while I was at it? I made a mental note to try talking a little less, so as to keep from sounding as stupid as possible.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, one eyebrow high on his forehead as he scrutinized me. The mask was a stark contrast to his eyes, and I couldn’t tear my gaze away.
My heart thudded hard in my chest as I suddenly imagined him walking over and kissing me with his sexy mouth. I had the unusual urge to take his half-mask off to see what he looked like, to brush my fingers across his skin and follow my fingers with my lips.
I shook my head, trying to dislodge my thoughts. I didn’t have time for guys, and hadn’t since I’d started working for Mason. Besides, this man was hired to protect me. Nothing more, nothing less. It was a business transaction, and that’s exactly what I needed to remember.
Even if he did attract me like no man had in a long time. A long, long, loooong time.
Of course, the mask probably helped play into that. Women love superheroes for their secrecy and mysterious demeanor—the monikers, the “uniforms,” and often the masks that disguised what was probably a boring, regular face. Except I had a sneaking suspicion Vigilante was just as hot without his mask on.
He waved his hand in front of my face. “You okay? You look like you just zoned out.”
“I’m fine,” I mumbled, remembering he’d asked me a question. “I wanted to know where your room was just so I’d know where you were. For safety’s sake.” Good save, Jenna.
“Oh, I see,” he said, his eyebrow still elevated. That had to be his favorite look for me—I’d seen that one damn eyebrow more times than not by now. “This is actually my bedroom,” he continued. “I’m going to crash in the other spare bedroom down the hall.”
A surge of skin-tingling awareness crashed over me at the thought of slipping between the sheets of his large bed, where he crashed every night. Wait, what if he slept in the buff in here?
“I can’t take your room,” I blurted. I grabbed my bag and slung the strap over my shoulder. “I’ll sleep in the spare room.”
“I insist.” He took the bag off my arm and put it back on the bed.
“A
nd I insist on not inconveniencing you,” I said, reaching for the bag again. “Seriously.”
He reached for it at the same time, and our hands connected, skin brushing skin. We both froze, a weird charge coursing through me at the unexpected contact. Then he flinched and jerked the bag out of my hand, plunking it on the bed.
“I don’t care,” he said through gritted teeth, keeping his hand in place on the strap. “You’re staying here. Now stop being so stubborn.”
With a heavy sigh, I plopped down on the edge of the bed. “Fine.”
“Go ahead and unpack. I’ll get started on dinner.” He left the room.
God, what a stubborn mule he was. I could tell this was going to be a rough few days with him, given his proclivity to bossing me around. No, this would not do—I’d have to put him in his place somehow. I slung my toiletries on top of the dresser and unfolded my clothes, flinging them across the sage green chair in the corner.
I finished unpacking in about five minutes then lay on the bed and stretched out for a minute, trying to unwind. I turned my head right and noticed the bedside table drawer cracked open. I found myself wanting to crane my neck to take a peek inside.
No, that’s bad. I’d be pissed if someone went digging through my stuff. But I couldn’t deny my curiosity about this enigmatic man. Who was he? What kind of things did a superhero like Vigilante keep in his bedside table?
With a mind of their own, my fingers reached out and pulled the drawer all the way open.
There was another black half-mask tucked away in there, as well as a box of condoms that looked well past their expiration date. The picture on the box had an early 1990’s-looking couple, the guy complete with a raging mullet, lounging casually on a blanket in a field of daisies.
What the hell was this? Why would a guy who looks as attractive as Vigilante have a box of old, unused condoms in his drawer?
My pocket vibrated. Startled and embarrassed by my discovery, I closed the drawer before I could see anything else in there. I grabbed my cell and unlocked it.
“’Lo,” Amy said to me in her typical short, fast way of speaking. I could hear traffic in the background behind her. “’Sup?”
“I’m so glad you called.” I sucked in a deep breath then spilled the beans about everything, from Rowena’s anger at me, to the crystal, to Vigilante. Well, not about the condoms in Vigilante’s dresser drawer or how I found myself unwillingly attracted to Vigilante, perhaps even more so now that I’d seen he was obviously getting as much action as me.
Which was to say, none. He had to be as sexually pent-up as I was. No wonder there was so much tension between the two of us. Well, we’d have to get over that and move on. Not that it was going to be hard for him. The way he’d angrily jerked his hand from mine when grabbing my bag showed me he wasn’t thinking of me in the most favorable terms.
When I finished dishing to Amy, her side of the line remained silent.
“Um, hello?” I asked.
More silence for a long moment. “Wow,” she finally said. “I don’t even know what to say. Are you sure you didn’t…misunderstand Rapida?”
“Kind of hard to misunderstand when there’s a weapon pointed at your neck,” I said, touching the scab under my chin where Rowena’s fingernail had scratched my skin. Her nails, which grew long and razor-sharp during fighting, could definitely be classified as deadly ordnances.
“I see. So now she’s pissed at you, and you’re guarding the changing crystal.” I heard Amy sigh on the other end. “This is a disaster. As usual. How do you always get in these sticky situations?”
I tried to suppress my irritation at her nagging tone. After all, she was a powerful ally to have on my side. “That’s why I called you,” I said as levelly as possible. “I hoped you could help me out.”
Amy’s one of those superheroes naturally born with her talent, instead of one who fell into radioactive sludge or whatever. We’re not sure where her superhero abilities came from, as we have no other superheroes in our family that we know of. But our family found out quickly about Amy’s ability to set fire to things with just her mind when she’d blazed my mom’s living room curtains one day after kindergarten.
A great boon for her when fighting crime, yes, but I’d learned the fine art of walking on eggshells from growing up around someone who would accidentally set fire to my stuff (including my own long, thick, beautiful hair as a kid, which I still pined for), just for pissing her off. Stephen King’s Firestarter had nothing on my sister.
And of course, I’d had no superpowers to defend myself, so I grew up in Amy’s shadow. Never as accomplished, as important to the city as my revered older sister. Amy was known as Hellfire to everyone else but our family. My mom called her Amazing Amy, or Awesome Amy, or any other “A” adjective my mom could think of.
My dad had died when Amy and I were little, but he’d called her fond little nicknames too. On the back of one of Amy’s childhood pictures he’d written in big block letters, “Amy—destined for greatness.”
Not that I was jealous of her or anything. Right.
“Hey, I just had a thought,” Amy said. “Are you sure Mason is cheating?” Her voice was unusually soft. “Maybe he and Britney are just good friends. Maybe he just enjoys her company.”
I couldn’t hold back the snort of laughter. Because Britney was so well known for her sparkling conversation skills. Unless Britney’s boobs started talking of their own volition, Ames and I both knew Mason wasn’t drawn to her for her brain power.
“Riiiiiiight,” I said.
Amy chuckled. “Yeah, good point. Okay, I’ll see if any of my connections have heard anything about the people trying to steal the crystal. In the meantime just lie low until we can figure out what to do. Sounds like Vigilante’s watching over you.”
I shrugged, my eyes darting to the door to make sure I wasn’t being overheard. “Hey, what do you know about him?”
“Not much. Quiet guy. Kind of an outsider. He doesn’t hang with the rest of the heroes, you know. I think his parents were superheroes too, but they died a few years ago trying to save the city from a really bad villain.”
Aha. Maybe this was his folks’ house, and he’d inherited it when they died. That seemed to make more sense. How sad—probably why he’d chosen to stay here, so he could keep them alive in a way. While Amy and my mom were crazy, I couldn’t imagine how rough it would be to lose them. I’d just been a baby when Dad died, so there wasn’t any connection there, just pictures of him in photo albums and plastered around Mom’s house.
My heart softened a bit toward Vigilante. “I see.”
“Gotta go. Call you later. We’ll come up with a plan.” Amy hung up.
I slid the phone back into my pocket, wondering how I was going to get a wink of sleep between Vigilante’s sheets.
Chapter 5
We hunkered down at Vigilante’s house, the weekend passing uneventfully. Thankfully no more attempts on my life were made—I had to grudgingly admit that hiding out with him had been a good idea after all. We’d also managed to sneak to the store and get Britney a better hair color to fix her orange mess. It was now a prettier auburn shade.
Unfortunately my pseudo-detective attempts at uncovering more about Vigilante were unsuccessful. He was one tough guy to crack. Over the weekend he probably said no more than a dozen words to Britney and me, preferring to spend the bulk of his time tucked away in his home office or working out in the gym in his basement. Other than the mysterious box of condoms, the guy had almost nothing personal in his house for me to analyze.
Even his home office had only a closed laptop and printer, and his desktop surface was clean as whistle. The room looked totally unlike my desk at home, crammed into the corner of my living room and covered in papers like a forest had puked all over it. The smartass in me thought maybe I should ask him for tips on how to stay organized.
On Monday morning Vigilante, Britney and I ventured out and dropped Britney off at the Clevelan
d-Hopkins Airport, making sure her plane took off safely before we left the airport. I was a bit surprised Mason didn’t come to see her off, given all the trouble his clandestine relationship caused, but perhaps he felt it was better to keep closer to home. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
Honestly I hoped he’d spent the last couple of days kissing Rowena’s ass to make up for his indiscretion. That would be a smart move.
Vigilante and I drove back to downtown Cleveland so I could work. I felt strangely uncomfortable being alone in his company. At least when Britney was here she’d filled the silence with her goofy chatter, bubbly giggles and interesting perspectives on life.
Now, it was just the two of us…and my knowledge of his dusty box of condoms hiding unobtrusively in his beside table. Which, of course, had kept sex in the forefront of my mind. Not exactly what I needed to be worrying about when my very life was on the line.
I coughed and shifted in the passenger seat, brain whirring to find something—anything—to talk about. “Sooooo,” I said slowly, drawing out the word, “how did you get to become a superhero?”
He shrugged casually, reaching over to turn on the A/C. A blast of cold air hit me, and I shivered. “I grew up with powers and didn’t know what to do with them. Seemed like a natural choice.”
“Yeah, I believe it,” I said, thinking of Amy's childhood.
We sat in silence for another long moment. I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t say a word.
I scrunched up my face, suddenly aggravated. I'd been patient beyond belief all weekend with his clamshell behavior. Why wasn’t he even bothering to try? Was he anti-social, or was I just so repulsive he couldn’t even say anything to me?
Well, fine. If he wanted to play it that way, I could too. I would sit in a perfect, serene quiet, not needing his conversation.
I’m a smart, independent woman. I need no man!
Chin lifted, a small smile on my face, I watched as Vigilante navigated through traffic. How in the world did he weave my car so skillfully? I was lucky to arrive to work in one piece every day, much less act like a racecar driver. Not that I was envious or anything.
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