Misadventures with a Super Hero

by Angel Payne

  “Exactly what I’m saying.” I press a hand to the side of her neck. “Angelique picked me up from the Brocade last night, presumably to go to dinner—but I got in the car and she instructed the driver to take us ‘back to the house.’ Not a restaurant. Not even another hotel. The house. Why would a woman passing through town be staying at a house?”

  Emma frowns. “Maybe it belongs to a friend?”

  “I assumed that too, but my gut told me differently. The blanks have been damn easy to fill in since then. It took my legal team about ten minutes to learn The Consortium’s already filed for business licensing in the state. Their business address is a mansion on two acres out in Rancho Palos Verdes. I haven’t dug any deeper than that, but I’m willing to bet the second owner on that place is Angelique La Salle.”

  She pulls away from my grasp. Pushing to her feet, she shakes out her head, turning her hair into white-gold streamers on the wind. “So what does all that mean?”

  I scrub my face with both hands. Her crossed arms and hunched shoulders convey volumes of meaning. I’ve dropped so many damn bombs in the last few hours, and I’m about to pound her with one more—but like the others, this can’t be helped.

  “It means The Consortium is likely expanding their search for recruits into the States, targeting Los Angeles first.”

  Her shoulders visibly tighten. She drops her head, dipping it toward me without glancing all the way back. “Because of Bolt?”

  “Probably,” I mutter. “That, and a city full of people who already envision themselves as somebody like him.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  I reach for her and gently pull her back down. I coax her into my lap, where I can fill her mouth with a long, lingering, I’m-gonna-melt-the-hairs-off-your-toes kiss, which leaves us panting against each other’s mouths.

  Finally, I rasp, “Thank you.”

  “For what?” She’s genuinely curious.

  “For asking what we’re going to do.”

  Her eyes go butter soft. She reaches her fingertips to my jaw and tenderly scrapes at my stubble. “I’m in this with you, Reece Richards.” The edges of her lips kick up, emphasizing her adorable dimples. “Until you kick me off the boat, I’m in this thing through any storm that bitch wants to bring.”

  Riding a giant wave of feeling, I kiss her again—twice as long, doubly as deep. But her hands, one pulling in my hair and the other gripping my shoulder, compel me to touch her as well. Along her face. Down the curves of her breasts, her waist, her thighs, and then inward, teasing at the warm triangle between them.

  She groans softly into my mouth. I growl determinedly back into hers. She tastes like sea salt and arousal. Smells like wind and sweat. My sweat. I want to drench her in it all over again. I need to feel her washed in me, confirming the truth Angelique stole from me.

  I’m still human. I’m still me. I’m still passion and fire and need and feeling…

  And love.

  Holy shit. Holy. Shit.

  I love her.

  I should tell her.

  But then what?

  What if all my suspicions about The Consortium are true? Was that what Angelique wanted to meet with me about last night? To join their recruitment team here? And if I’d said no—translation, hell fucking no, you deranged bitch—what then? Would I have been dragged off to another secret rave somewhere? Is that still the fate that awaits me? After all this time, fighting some of the dirtiest criminal scum LA has thrown at me, am I still doomed to die on a gurney in a lab, fried by the lightning of my own blood?

  If those bastards capture me again, it’s a certainty. No guard will let the shackles slip on me this time.

  And where will that leave the woman I’ve fallen ass over elbows for?

  Pining for me, that’s where. Wasting her life—a life meant for so much more—in madness, fruitlessly waiting for me to escape a life of being The Consortium’s number one lab rat.

  I won’t do it to her. I can’t.

  But I know what I can do to her…

  “Shit!” She exclaims it on a laugh as I reach up one leg of my shorts, which look a hell of a lot better on her than me, and swiftly find the trembling pearl of her desire. “Reece…damn.” She quivers as I push back her intimate hood and pinch the hot ridge of her clit. “Wh-What…are you…”

  “We,” I correct her with a serrated growl. “You mean what are we going to do?” As I massage her clit, I lie back and swing her over to straddle me. Yeah, right here, in the middle of the beach. In the spell of the twilight. In the grip of everything I can only communicate to her in this way. Commanding her body, to prove how thoroughly she’s conquered my heart.

  “Oh. Kay.” She bites her bottom lip to finish it, enticing me to kiss that stung cushion as I pull her down, molding her against me. “So…what are we going to do?”

  I release a rickety breath and lift my gaze to meet the blue silk of hers. “Keep the sweatshirt pulled down,” I instruct quietly. “Because I’m going to open my shorts and let my cock out. Then it’s going to slide up inside you, and we’re going to fuck like we can’t get enough of each other.”

  “Huh?”

  I slide a seductive smirk and caress her with heavy-lidded seduction. “You telling me you’ve had enough of me, bunny? Because your pussy says otherwise.”

  She bites her lip harder. “Th-That’s not it, and you know it.”

  “Then pull down the sweatshirt.”

  “Here?”

  “Here.”

  “Now?”

  The only answer I give is the grate of my zipper—and the surge of my dick. I owe her more of a churn than this. Romantic words and slow, wet kisses. Erotic imagery and flowery poetry. Sonnets and songs and fucking soliloquies about how she makes more than my blood glow—only now my blood does glow, so before I become the main attraction for the whole beach, I need to get my hands hidden beneath her clothes and my cock buried inside her sweet, silken body.

  Fuck. Her body.

  Her legs, tensing against mine as we begin to rock. Her cunt, such a tight, torrid channel around my swelling length. Even her back, with lithe muscles flexing against my grip as we thrust and writhe and climb together toward the ultimate, erotic burst.

  But most of all, right now, her eyes.

  Entrancing me like summer smoke. Drowning me like ocean depths. And with her fearless, dauntless desire, keeping me locked to her face as we surge together toward completion, giving me another gift I don’t deserve but will greedily, thoroughly seize.

  And completely, shamelessly, need.

  Her glow—emanating from the best power source I’ve ever known or seen.

  Her heart—my ultimate treasure.

  The prize I can one day, somehow, be worthy of asking for in full.

  Right now, I can only tell her that with the force of my own gaze and all the passion in my body—and hope it’s enough.

  Dear God, let it be enough.

  Chapter Twelve

  EMMA

  “The dude’s getting laid.”

  “Has to be.”

  “Regularly.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Legit.”

  I stop where I’m at, in the doorway of the Brocade’s break room, interrupting myself from my badass humming of Believer—I’m positive I’m going to make a billion dollars once Imagine Dragons hears this and demands I go on tour with them—to pay more attention to Wade and Fershan’s back-and-forth.

  “I mean, come on.” Wade stabs chopsticks into his ramen and twirls the noodles in emphasis. “The Hagakure ramen bar today and Sandwich Heaven last Friday? Fresh flowers on all the tables in here?”

  Fershan cocks a brow. “Flowers are what you notice? We both got instant cash bonuses for positive guest satisfaction.”

  “Which were whose idea to begin with?” I use the line while sliding between them to grab an edamame pod from the bowl they’re sharing.

  Fershan chuckles. “I officially bow to the q
ueen of good ideas.”

  “Bows not necessary.” I swipe a few more of the pods. “Just more of these, please.” I moan while sucking out another of the tender green beans from their warm casing. “Damn. So good.”

  “Fine,” Wade says. “Props to Em for the bonuses. But the rest of these bennies?” He swirls an empty chopstick in the air before stabbing it toward the hotel’s main tower. “I’m sticking to my theory. Methinks, my friends, the weird one in yon gilded tower has been dipping his golden wick with blissful frequency.”

  “Ew.” It’s a fast way to disguise my furious blush, which I hide further by turning for the ramen bar. Though I could make a meal out of the edamame alone, I force myself to mull over the sauce choices while regaining my composure. Reece’s little “gifts” for the team, sprinkled with care throughout the last two weeks, have meant more to me than jewelry, candy, or stuffed animals. As for the flowers? He’s made sure they’re part of my world every day—even here in the basement break room.

  My hero. Sweeping me off my feet…in all the ways that matter.

  “Forsooth.” Fershan snickers while adding on to his friend’s theory. “Methinks I doth agree with you. Our prince must be wooing a lady fair and extending his happiness to his people.”

  Wade groans. “Wooing? What the hell is that, man? Wooing?”

  I toss a scowl over my shoulder. “A lot better than ‘dipping his golden wick,’ that’s what.”

  “Whoa.”

  “Wade, the man’s ‘wick’ is none of our—”

  “No. I mean whoa.”

  The stab of shock in Wade’s voice is a compulsion, causing me to pivot around as he snatches the remote to the break room’s TV. As he scrolls the volume up, a heart-halting image consumes the screen. A muscled figure in black leather is leaping through the air like rockets are powering him.

  Holy wow.

  “Our dude’s up and at it again,” Wade exclaims. “Literally.”

  Fershan rises, dropping his chopsticks in favor of hoisting a hearty geek fist. “Oh, snap it up!” His eyes go wide. “Wait. Is that the power plant out at El Segundo?”

  “Duh.” Wade snorts.

  “By the gods. What is he doing there?”

  “Kicking ass, power-pulsing dickheads, and saving the city.” Wade’s tone implies the second Duh.

  “Indeed.” Fershan skirts the table, intensifying the whoop-whoop fist. “Bolt, my man!”

  Actually… I slip into a chair at the table behind theirs, smirking like a loon, as they both spin into fanboy mode. He’s my man.

  But in instances like this, I don’t mind sharing. Not one damn bit. The only thing I do mind is throwing my own mask on. And, in many ways, I don a whole outfit to go with it. The guise is invisible but in place as blatantly as Reece’s leathers and eye cover—a façade that allows me to oooohh and ahhhh along with everyone else but hold back the rest of what I feel when watching him jump, spin, battle, and bash with the body I’ve come to know, desire, and cherish.

  And love.

  Oh God, how I love him.

  And oh God, are there moments when it sucks harder to mask that fact. Like right now.

  “Fucking badass,” Wade exclaims.

  “He’s rocking it!” Fershan adds.

  “You should see him with a finger vibe and some lube.” My barely audible utterance is absorbed by the guys’ excitement.

  “He’s rocking this shit.”

  “Rocking it out loud.”

  I smirk a little wider—and squirm a little more. My boyfriend’s rocking this shit. Out loud. That means he’ll have a lot of extra voltage to fry off tonight…

  Lucky, lucky, lucky me.

  But first, there’s getting to watch him—how did Wade phrase it?—kick ass, power-pulse some bad guys, and save the city.

  There’s just one thing missing about that theory. Big-time.

  I notice it at the same moment Wade and Fershan do.

  “Where are…all the dickheads?” Fershan leans forward, asking it first.

  Wade stands up. “He doesn’t have any dickheads.”

  Fershan rises too. “Just a dick…girl?”

  As I push to my feet, my heart plummets the opposite direction. It thuds in my stomach, exploding like a bad cold fusion science project, spreading shards of terror throughout my body. “N-Not a girl.”

  “Huh?”

  I hardly hear Wade’s comeback.

  “Em? Are you all right?”

  Or Fershan’s anxious probe.

  “Not. A. Girl.” I seethe the words this time through my gritted teeth. “A bitch.” I compel my feet to move, stumbling in front of them both. “A bitch he needs to kill.”

  I’ve never spoken such words before. But I’ve never been captive to such ruthless terror, which is worsening as the scene on the TV plays out even more. Only it’s not a “scene.” It’s the truth, happening beyond my control and despite my horror.

  The news station, only able to carry an aerial feed, shows Reece in full Bolt mode, dashing across ducts and roofs at the huge power plant across town, next to the ocean. Sure enough, it looks like he’s chasing absolutely nothing, until the cameras pan to show another figure sprinting—with cascading blond hair, the legs of a stripper, and the boobs of a porn star. The whole damn world now knows this, thanks to Angelique’s leather corset, matching mini skirt, and blood-red hip boots. Any shred of doubt I’ve had about her identity is erased by the sight of her upper back, where a red and black tattoo of angel’s wings spreads from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.

  Frankly, I don’t care if the woman is sporting a tramp stamp and a genie girl outfit. She’s throwing down one-on-one with the man I love on behalf of the criminals who kidnapped him, held him prisoner, and hijacked his bloodstream in the name of their higher science. They took his life—only to return now, ready to end it.

  I don’t know how else to interpret what I see Angelique doing to him.

  For every energy pulse Reece throws, she has a comeback in the form of a giant shield, somehow connected to the force of the station itself, deflecting and then reflecting the punches. In strategic places, she stops to throw her weight on massive levers, unleashing smaller versions of what seem like electromagnetic pulses. As lights flicker, steam billows, and alarms blare, Reece crumples to the ground like a dog hit with a silent whistle. As soon as the pulse finishes, he gets back up, though he is visibly weakened by the smackdown.

  My heart shoots to my throat. My mouth erupts with a terrified moan. I grab the edge of the table, the only thing preventing my knees from crumpling. But what good will that do? What good can I do at all? I can’t be there next to him, as my soul yearns. I can’t run to him, help him, be there for him. I can’t even yell at him to get up, as Wade and Fershan can. What if I lose my shit and spill his name? I can only watch, clutched by the same mortification as the rest of the city, as a female dressed like a Santa Monica hooker and moving like a million-dollar action star keeps driving their super hero to his knees.

  After the fourth electromagnetic pulse, Reece can no longer struggle to his feet. He unfurls from the fetal position and rolls to his back, dusty and defeated. I stagger closer to the TV, unable to stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks and the air from pounding in and out of my lungs, despite my attention being fixed on someone else’s chest… On any sign of life from the man I love, still sprawled on the ground in a hailstorm of power station sparks, fighting to accept he has, at last, been defeated.

  I sense it even as I watch him from this distance, through this impartial lens. Hell, maybe the news cameras make me see it better, sense it deeper. It’s as if I’m soaring in there next to him. I almost know what he’s thinking just by watching him…

  He’s giving up.

  “No,” I rasp.

  Preparing himself for the inevitable.

  “No!”

  Defeat is written in the rigid set of his head. The fists formed at the ends of both arms. The pallor of his skin, notice
able even from the altitude at which the helicopter hovers.

  “No!”

  Any moment now, Angelique will appear at his side, gloating like a triumphant Deneuve, missing only her Balenciaga tote and her fancy French cigarette. Doubtful she’ll be toting a glass of water for her new captive either.

  Unless…

  The glass of water finds a way to the party anyway.

  Unless…

  The miracle for which I’ve just given up hope is delivered by the angels themselves, in the form of mist that turns to rain. Inside a minute, the concrete slab under Reece becomes a solid wet sheen.

  And then one of the loose power lines flies over, touches down, and ignites the slab with blinding ribbons of electricity.

  Shooting the man I love straight into the dark sky.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit.

  “Fuccckkkker!” Wade shouts.

  “Booooyaaaahhh!” Fershan yelps.

  “Reece!” It detonates from me in the same instant. I’m beyond caring. I can only spin and race where I dropped my purse, diving into the thing for my cell. Once it’s in my grip, I can’t get to the speed-dial list fast enough. Tears blur my vision, and I cuss as I tap on the wrong window. Calling the dry cleaners for a rush job right now is the last thing on my mind. Summoning Zalkon for the same thing? As Reece would say—Bingo.

  Reece.

  His name is the only thing I allow into my mind. The only thrum of importance. The only thought that matters. And yeah, that includes how my two coworkers follow every inch of my movements like kittens after a laser, finally finding their opening in the forever it seems to take Z to pick up my call.

  “The hell?” Wade blurts.

  “Krishna’s balls,” Fershan gasps.

  “Not now,” I snap at them both.

  “But—”

  “But—”

  “Not. Now.” I leave the room with the phone locked to my ear. The second Z picks up, a smartass one-liner prepped to fling through the line, I interrupt him too. “Reece needs us. Don’t even bother with getting me at the front of the hotel. I’ll meet you at the employee entrance. Hurry!”

  REECE

  “Wh-What the hell?” I mutter. “Where the hell—”