by Kit Rocha
The edge of her tiny, safe world loomed in front of her. The boundary marking too much, more than she could take. More than she could hold in herself and still hold on to herself. And, even though she was steeped in trust, fear made her heart race.
Fear would always make her heart race until she knew what it was like to feel everything.
She closed her eyes and clutched Rachel's hand. "More," she pleaded. "Give me more than I can take."
"Haven't you figured it out, love?" Jared's words feathered over her, far away and dreamy. "There's no place I can't take you. Nowhere you won't go. Nothing you can't take. That's what this is."
He put his mouth on her again, and there was nothing slow or careful about it. He ravished her, with his lips and his tongue and even his fingers. Everything shrank to just the two of them, to frozen moments of pulsing pleasure where nothing else existed.
One thought crystallized as all others fell away. A truth. Jared had been right all along. There was no such thing as too much. Just never enough—
And she could never have enough of him.
After a lifetime of bliss, the pleasure gentled. She floated in warmth and safety, only vaguely aware when careful hands wrapped a blanket around her. A solid weight settled next to her—Jared's body, curling around hers as his fingers brushed her cheek.
Her eyelids felt too heavy, so she turned her face into his hand. "Jared."
"You with me, love?"
She smiled against his palm. "I don't know."
"Good. That's how it should feel."
She could hear the smile in his voice, and that gave her motivation to open her eyes. He hovered above her, beautiful and smiling and so very, very smug, though she could hardly blame him. "It feels like a different world." A world where she was made for pleasure after all, and her laughter was as much relief as delight. "I'm not the desert."
He leaned closer, until he filled her field of vision. Her entire world. "I think you're a little delirious, Miss Fleming."
"It makes sense," she protested, reaching up to trace his lips. "The first time you kissed me, I felt like the desert, and you were the rain. So much rain, I thought you'd wash me away. But I'm not the desert. I'm the flowers."
"So you're blooming." His mouth moved under her fingertips, like a kiss. "And you're beautiful, Lili."
She wanted more than almost a kiss, and she wasn't afraid to take it. Sliding her fingers into his hair, she tugged him down until his lips met hers, utterly unafraid of the way her body reacted to the first touch of his tongue.
She'd always known she could tolerate pain. Now she knew she could survive pleasure.
With Jared at her back, at her side, she could survive anything.
Chapter Fourteen
The bastards had smashed up his bar.
Jared stood in the open doorway, numbly surveying the damage. Every chair and stool had been either destroyed or defaced, and the smooth vinyl seats of the booths had been slashed so that the stuffing tufted out like the insides of a child's teddy bear.
The bar itself had been gouged, and messy red letters splashed across its surface in paint that was still wet. The same paint had been splattered across the wall, over spots where the wallpaper had been torn away, forming ugly letters that his brain mercifully refused to coalesce into words.
He stepped forward, over shards of wood and sparkling, shattered glass. "Mind the chandelier," he murmured.
Gia edged around it and stopped next to him, her gaze fixed on the bar. "Well, that's just amateurish. They can't even spell whore."
"Yes, they can." Jared righted a chair and sighed when it pitched over again immediately. "They just want me to think they can't."
She quirked an eyebrow. "You know who it is?"
"I know who it isn't." Random thugs, the kind that weren't supposed to exist in the city. The kind that would trash a place to send a message, or just for the sheer, exhilarating joy of it.
There was no joy in the destruction around him. Beneath the mess, there was a pattern to it all. Precise and methodical devastation, wreaked by soldiers with orders, not criminals out looking for a good time.
The acrid scent of urine drew him into the other room, and he wrinkled his nose as he surveyed the ruined carpet in the center of it. "Boot prints." He gestured to the impressions at the edge of the dark, damp spot. "Military issue."
She pressed her lips together. "So it's not amateurish. It still stinks of fear. Little men and their little insecurities."
Little men who wanted him to stay in his proper place—which meant Markovic was right. Jared posed a threat just by daring to think he could step outside the mold they'd created for him in their ordered world. Everything else was secondary—his plans, his abilities, even his possible association with Dallas O'Kane.
The rest of it would get his new business trashed. The last one would get him killed.
He turned and eyed Gia with a tense shrug. "At least I haven't stocked the booze yet. Can you imagine all those busted bottles? Not even the cost, but the sheer goddamn waste?"
"Some things are harder to replace." She shrugged off her expensive coat and draped it over the edge of an overturned table. "Tell me you have cleaning supplies, at least."
"I'll take care of it later, Gia."
She was already unbuttoning her silk blouse, revealing an equally expensive camisole. "I said the same thing to you more than once, and it never stopped you from sweeping up broken glass or scrubbing dog shit off my front door. And I never forgot what you said to me, either."
You can quit, but I'd much rather see you take all their fucking money. "It doesn't exactly apply anymore, does it?" But he rounded the bar anyway and reached for a broom with a broken handle. "We're already rich."
"They still have plenty." She stripped off her rings and tucked them into her pocket. "And you'll do better things with it than they will."
He passed her the broom and began to roll up his sleeves. "Like buy pianos for sweet young things?"
Gia laughed as she started sweeping up the chandelier. "That was a little extravagant, even for me, darling. But it seems to have worked, so I shouldn't doubt you."
Jared grabbed a bucket and sponge from beneath the bar. "It wasn't a play. If it was, I think I'd consider myself a much smarter man. But I just wanted to do something nice for her." He paused. "Is that pathetic?"
"Absolutely. As pathetic as me buying a closet full of that soap from you so Tatiana could have her fresh start with that mountain of muscle she's fallen in love with."
"A couple of pathetic suckers." At one time, the admission might have engendered dismay, even panic, but he'd turned a corner. It was impossible to spend the night wrapped in Lili's arms, surrounded by people he loved, and not understand, maybe for the first time, the dream Dallas O'Kane was selling.
Survival was important, necessary, but there were things beyond it. Even things more important, as perverse as that seemed. Every one of Dallas's people knew it, lived it. Breathed it. They were part of something bigger than themselves, a family that would live or die by their collective strength.
It was so much more massive than anything Eladio had taught him. They'd looked out for each other, of course—he and Gia and Ace—but there was always a line, a separation he couldn't quite put into words. They protected each other, but they never lived for one another. And when the time had come, they'd gone their separate ways.
He took a deep breath. "Eladio was so focused on teaching us how to be self-reliant that he never taught us how to trust."
"It would have been reckless," Gia said softly. "Where he was sending us, trust could have gotten us killed."
"I know," he told her quickly. "But sometimes I feel like a soldier who's won a war. It's time to go home, and I don't even know what that means."
"Mmm. I used to worry about Ace, about how much he let those women inside. We were never that reckless." She swept in silence for several long moments, nudging the sparkling shards of glass into a
neat pile. "But now he has a pretty boy who wants to be corrupted and a pretty girl who wants to kneel at his feet and smile. I'm violently jealous."
"Meanwhile, Ace feels guilty for leaving us behind."
"Idiot," she said, but she was smiling. "You're not the only one Dallas O'Kane has courted, darling. I never blamed him for giving in any more than you did. And I wouldn't blame you, either."
She thought he was being seduced by a pretty face. If she knew the truth, she wouldn't just blame him, she'd kick his ass. "Don't worry, I'm not thinking of joining up because of Lili," he hedged.
"But you want to go home to her."
"Yeah." Admitting it no longer felt optional—though, considering the hellish mess he was standing in, maybe it should have. A better man would have taken the opportunity to reflect on the danger of his life, and then taken steps to make damn sure Lili was protected from it.
But Lili was an O'Kane now, or soon would be, and O'Kanes didn't shy away from danger. They confronted it.
Gia set aside the broom and crossed the room. She was tall in her designer heels, almost tall enough to look him straight in the eye. Her strong fingers framed his face as she studied his expression, and she smiled softly. "Nothing in this world would make me as happy as having a reason to be violently jealous of you, too."
Despite his relationship with Ace, he'd always been closer to Gia. They were more alike, closer in age and experience, everything. She was his sister, as good as blood, and he'd have given anything to be able to say the same to her.
But Gia's happiness was a tricky thing, less tied up in other people and more about what she was willing to let herself feel. So he smiled back, kissed the top of her head, and nodded. "I'm working on it."
"Good." She stepped back and laid her hand on the bucket. "So, are you going to quit? Or are we going to take all of their fucking money?"
We. "Quitting is for people who've never been hungry."
Her smile turned a little sad. "Poor Eladio. He tried so hard to raise us to be properly ruthless. Sometimes I wonder just how disappointed in me he'd be."
"I think he'd be proud," Jared told her gently. "Gia, he didn't teach us what he did because he wanted us to be hard. It was just...all he knew."
"I know." She rested her forehead against his cheek. "Now we have to live better lives for him."
Jared tipped her chin up. "What do you think Eladio would do? Send cheeky grand opening invitations to all the Council members?"
She grinned. "Or everyone but them. The only thing worse than being invited to a den of sin is not being invited."
"You were right. I do need you."
"I know, darling." She patted his cheek and broke away. "Let's get this cleaned up and show Eden why you don't fuck with sector brats."
"Because they'll punch you in the balls?" Even as he murmured the dry words, he knew what she really meant. You didn't fuck with sector brats because they were used to being knocked down, and they'd always get back up.
Which was exactly what Jared was going to do.
Scarlet
Jade had the softest skin, the kind you could lose yourself in. And not just in the usual places, like the small of her back or the spot where her thigh met the luscious curve of her ass, either. Everywhere.
All of those milk baths and warm oil massages, no doubt. Sometimes, when Scarlet was high on pleasure and surrounded by the scent of coconut oil, she was pretty damn sure that the only good thing to ever come out of Sector Two was Jade's skin.
Jade was braiding her hair now, the strands shining with that oil. She smiled at Scarlet as she tied off the end. "You look like you're thinking hard."
"Hardly thinking." She rolled her head back on the pillow and reached out. "Come back."
"In a moment." She wiped her hands and reached for another jar from her vanity.
"You don't need it, Jade."
"It isn't about need." Jade twisted the cap off and lifted it, inhaling and then sighing. "My mother taught me this recipe."
Scarlet dragged the sheet up to her chest as she rolled over and grabbed her cigarettes from Jade's neatly organized bedside table. "What is it?"
"Lotion. Tatiana makes fancier ones, but…" She shrugged and smoothed the white cream across her cheeks in slow circles. "I used to teach the girls this—have a ritual. Sometimes the familiar is the only soothing thing you have."
"Like my music." Scarlet snapped her lighter shut and dropped it on the bed beside her. "It was the one thing that kept me from going nuts."
Jade met her gaze in the mirror, her small, knowing smile back. "I think everyone appreciates your music."
"Yeah? Sounds like you're the one thinking hard."
"Are we going to pretend Mad hasn't been watching you since the concert?"
Her tone was teasing, light, but there was a question beneath the words. Scarlet shrugged. "Saint Adrian likes pretty things. My voice qualifies—at least when I'm singing."
"Come now, Scarlet. He's not that shallow." Jade rose, leaving her robe behind in the chair. She approached the bed naked and unselfconscious, her perfect brown skin unmarked except for the O'Kane cuffs around her delicate wrists. "And he doesn't like pretty things. He likes fragile things. Your voice certainly does not qualify."
Scarlet had noticed him, watching her. Riveted, really, staring at her like he'd never seen her before, and she was torn between being flattered and being irritated. For someone who prided himself on being sensitive and aware, he sure the hell hadn't noticed what was right in front of his face.
Or maybe he had, and he was shocked that a woman like Scarlet wasn't always about hard lines and razor-sharp edges. That she could be just as soft as Jade, only in different ways. Different places.
"Perhaps he considers himself a connoisseur of vocal talent." Scarlet wrapped one hand around the back of Jade's knee and stroked her thumb over her skin. "Why don't you say what you're really thinking?"
Jade tilted her head. "I'm thinking...that I know what a man looks like when he sees something he wants. And I know what he looks like when he sees something he needs."
Don't ask. Don't fucking ask— "Which one am I?"
"Which one do you want to be?"
Scarlet tugged sharply, dragging Jade down to the bed. Down to her. "I want to be right where I am."
Jade laughed, warm and soft. "I put that towel on my pillow for a reason," she protested, tugging away—but not very hard. "I'll get coconut oil all over you."
"You have no idea." Scarlet crushed out her cigarette and walked her fingers up the center of Jade's body, lingering between her breasts. "Out of curiosity, which one do you want to be?"
"I want…" She trailed off with a soft sigh, her eyes fluttering shut. She arched into Scarlet's touch, slow and languid. "I want everyone to be happy."
"Spoken like a true O'Kane."
"They have their appeal, don't they?"
"Certain members more than others."
Jade caught Scarlet's hand and opened her eyes. "He needs you, or someone like you. Someone strong. And he'll never see that in me."
Scarlet didn't give two happy shits what he needed. She knew what he wanted, though, and it wasn't her. Not by a long shot. "Do you love him?"
"Mad?" Her voice didn't waver. "No."
"Then what does it matter?"
"Because I'm not the only one in this bed."
Scarlet froze. "You think I have a thing for the crown prince of Sector One?"
Jade tightened her grip on Scarlet's hand. "It would be all right, you know. He is from Sector One. They don't look at love the same way other sectors do."
"Yeah? Well, I'm not from One." She pulled her hand free and dragged it through her hair. "Besides, last time I checked, Mad wasn't exactly sleeping alone."
"I'm sorry."
It was the perfect chance to step back, let it slide, but Scarlet had always been shit at that. So she pressed on. "Everyone wants a hero, right? But the thing about heroes is that they're just people.
And the second you start thinking they can solve all your problems, you've already lost yourself."
Jade touched Scarlet's cheek, turning her face back. "Even heroes need saving sometimes."
She sounded so solemn that it was impossible to tell if she was still talking about Mad—or Scarlet herself. "I'm no hero, Jade."
"That's what a hero would say."
Scarlet reversed their positions, flipping Jade beneath her, heedless of her freshly oiled hair spreading out over the pillows. "I'm no hero," she said again, dropping her hands to Jade's waist. The delicate lines of her hipbones beckoned, and Scarlet traced them with her thumbs. "But I am here. Isn't that enough?"
Jade smiled. "It's everything."
Everything. It skated dangerously, viciously close to the line Scarlet knew she couldn't cross, the one where Jade called her a hero...and she started to believe her.
Chapter Fifteen
The scrape of the key in the lock jerked Lili out of restless nightmares.
Fighting disorientation, she pushed herself upright as the door opened. Jared's couch was comfortable, but the living room seemed ominous like this, cast in eerie shadows thanks to the light from Eden's walls spilling through the wide windows. The dreams had already slipped through her fingers, leaving behind vague feelings of anxiety and dread that had everything to do with the source of that light.
Jared had been due back from the city hours ago. Dinner lay cold and untouched on the table, the candles she'd lit in a fit of whimsy burned to lumpy stubs. Wax spilled over the holders, pooling on the tablecloth in splotches of bright red that reminded her of blood.
She shook away the thought and rose, because Jared was stepping through the door now, alive and whole, and her nightmares were just that. Not premonitions, not a warning, but the product of too much wine and too much worry.
"Lili." He dropped his keys on the table beside the door, frowning. "What are you doing here?"
That provoked a pang in her chest. "It's Wednesday. We were supposed to have dinner?"