Broke and Famous

by Elizabeth Gannon

  She braced her feet and tried to hold her ground, but it would be a losing fight and she knew it. He was over a foot taller than she was, and had the rangy muscular build of someone who had fought supervillains for a living. Or superheroes, depending on the situation. The Freedom Squad had reportedly been pretty open in that distinction when sending Thraex out to fix their “problems” for them. And fix them he did. Brutally.

  “If I weren’t your friend,” he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “things would have gone very different ‘tween us, Miss Sasha.” There was a threatening menace to the words, but tinged with the odd sexual energy he liked to add every time he spoke to her. It made her hair stand on end and she could feel her skin begin to goosebump, despite the heat.

  He only did it because he knew it made her uncomfortable and gave him power over her. Which it did.

  When Thraex looked at her, there was desire there. There always had been. But it wasn’t the kind of desire which involved holding hands and whispering promises of forever. Thraex looked at her like he wanted to know what she tasted like.

  There was a predatory sexuality about the man. There always had been.

  It was… unnerving.

  Intense.

  Exciting in a humiliating way which made you hate yourself for feeling it. But you definitely felt it all the same.

  She didn’t think he really wanted her specifically, it was just an oddity of his homeland. The people of his dimension weren’t especially good at hiding their feelings, and Thraex had always been very alone. It was only natural that he’d be looking at the women around him and… thinking things.

  She tried not to take it personally. It was neither flattering nor frightening, it simply was. Sasha had been scared of a lot of things in her life, and being mentally undressed by Thraex was not high on that list.

  She’d done worse to him. And they both knew it.

  She tried to shove him away, but he was so solidly built that it was like trying to push a tow-truck uphill, and her muscles refused to put much of an effort into the attempt, no matter how strongly her brain told them to try.

  She’d always had… difficulty… around the man.

  He didn’t behave like she thought he should behave, and she didn’t behave around him the way she wanted to. She was always someone else around Thraex, someone she didn’t know, and that scared her.

  And no matter what he said or how thick he laid on his accent, he delivered every word with a smug drawing condescension, which told you he thought you were an idiot and that he was sooooo much smarter.

  It was so annoying!

  Thraex was not one of Mrs. Eugenia Crandall-Davenport’s “gentlemen,” no matter how hard the woman had tried to make him one. And he seemed to wear that as a badge of honor, drowning himself in disreputability and mocking charm the way other men would wear cologne.

  Thraex scared her now. He was too intense about everything and it made her feel things she didn’t want to feel.

  He chose to ignore her attempts to shove him away. “You enjoy your time in prison, Miss Sasha?” He slowly trailed a finger down her neck, tracing the path of a bead of her sweat as it dripped along her skin, and she immediately pulled away from him.

  The droplet continued its journey under the neckline of her dress and down between her breasts, and the sensation made her tremble for some reason, like his finger was still following it and intimately caressing her.

  It felt wrong and exciting and it made her feel tight and hot and restlessly languid. Like her whole body was now an itch that she desperately wanted him to scratch.

  The bastard had always been able to do that to her. Without even trying.

  Two minutes in his company and it was like she’d never left.

  She swallowed, licking her suddenly dry lips and wishing to god that it wasn’t so hot. If it were cooler, her mind would be able to think faster and she’d come up with a way to escape this conversation.

  Instead, she found herself staring at the hand which he had just used to tenderly caress the soft skin of her neck.

  His hands were rough.

  They always had been, even as a boy. He’d grown up in a dark room made entirely of jagged stone, and he’d undoubtedly spent countless hours of his childhood with the skin on his hands raw and bleeding. They had never softened.

  There was nothing soft about Thraex. Everything about him was coarse and rough and demanding.

  It had been almost endearing when he was younger, but once he grew to manhood, that barely disguised savagery made something warm turn inside her…

  An immoral yet irresistible attraction, which she didn’t admit and constantly fought against, but still made her entire body violently throb with desire whenever she was within sight of him.

  But that was a bug in her personality, not a feature.

  It didn’t mean anything and it never had.

  She’d been young and stupid and emotional, and none of that had anything really to do with Thraex. At all.

  Her flight away from him just made him smile wider, like it amused him to no end that she was so skittish about him touching her. “A lady has so few chances to relax and really think about things these days, ain’t that right, chère?” He continued in his relaxed and lazy tone, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “To unwind a little, on the State’s dime…”

  She started to walk away.

  Thraex had no formal schooling and had never really held any job other than being a “fixer” for the Freedom Squad. Yet, he held himself tall and ready, prowling around the edge of what might be called a certain genteel civility. Which was new. Usually, you just got the roughness. Thraex wasn’t someone to pretend to be something he wasn’t, or to make himself uncomfortable for someone else’s benefit.

  He was a being controlled by his basic primal drives.

  And if he wanted, he took.

  She heard Thraex begin to chuckle behind her, like he’d just proved something to them both. “Where you goin’ off to in such a huff, Miss Sasha? It bein’ such a fine afternoon, I was hopin’ we could find somewhere quiet and cool to talk about old times and life on the ‘inside.’ I too know the pain of unjust confinement, and if you find yourself desperate for a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, I promise that I won’t think less of you for it.”

  She didn’t even bother to turn around. “I have no interest in discussing anything with you, Thraex.”

  “Oh, come now,” he caught up with her in two big strides and blocked her path once more, “I’m not so bad, Darlin’. There are worse folks than me in this big ol’ world, surely.”

  “But they’re not the ones following me.”

  “Well, we don’t know that, now do we? Word has it that you’ve had more than your share of woes these last few years, Miss Sasha, burdens which would crush weaker women of less adamantine temperaments.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and she tried to shy away from him, but was unable due to his grip. His thumb brushed against her collarbone and she sucked in a breath, shocked by the intense feeling of having his fingers on her hot skin. “So who’s to say what kind of scurrilous fiends have been nipping at your pretty little heels since you abandoned us.”

  She’d bought him a dictionary to help him learn English when the Westgates had first taken him in. In retrospect, that had been a mistake, because it just meant that now he randomly used words like ‘scurrilous’ in conversation.

  He just did it to annoy her. To remind her that her family had turned him into what he was now.

  Thraex was her fault. She knew that. It was one more mistake which could be left at her door.

  “I didn’t ‘abandon’ anything!” She roughly pulled away from him again, his fingers sliding from her collarbone and accidentally pushing the strap of her dress so that it fell from her shoulder. She ignored it. “My father chose you and your mother over us…”

  “An interestin’ interpretation of our history, Miss Sasha, but your natural creativity was always one of
the things I most respected about you.”

  “…so I decided that I wanted to leave, and I did!”

  “And how did that work out for you, chère?” He smiled his cruel smile again, eyes gliding over the newly exposed skin of her shoulder, like a vampire searching for a place to slowly sink his teeth.

  She quickly slipped the sweat dampened fabric of her dress strap back into place, once more cursing the heat and this man. If it were ten degrees cooler, she would have slapped him. But even then, even if she did hit him, he’d only grin at her like it proved he’d won some kind of undeclared contest between them. It would only make him more insufferable.

  “I was sure sorry I missed the wedding, by the way. My invitation must’ah got lost in the mail, after you changed your name and ran off.” He straightened the strap of her dress which she still hadn’t managed to get entirely back into place, his fingers slipping under her bra strap in the process and sliding down an inch or two of her skin. This time it wasn’t an accident. He knew damn well what he was doing. “Things like that are liable to hurt a fella’s feelings, Miss Sasha. Why, I cried something awful after you made your departure from our bleak lil’ lives. And then to not get an invite to the funeral either?” He shook his head, extending his lower lip in a mocking pout. “Sad bit of business, that. Downright scandalous, Darlin’.”

  He gave her a silent, dark stare which dripped in sexual energy. His finger was still hooked under her dress strap and rested just above the swell of her breasts, which were instantly tight and begging for him, straining against her bra.

  “I’m… I’m…” she stammered, trying to think, “I’m hot and sweaty and I just got out of jail, Thraex.” She shook her head and yanked his wrist away to remove his hand from her body. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

  His eyes cut down to the front of her dress and the sight of her beaded nipples which were clearly hard beneath the damp, tight fabric. “You do look a mite peaked right now, Miss Sasha.” He agreed with a sly grin, once again putting the dictionary she’d bought him when he was a child to the worst possible use. She had anticipated that it would help a scared boy better communicate with the strangers around him, not that that same lost child would use it to one day help him create humiliating double-entendres about her nipples. “I think we need to get you into bed, quick as a jackrabbit, and get somethin’ inside you.” He lowered his voice to a sexual whisper. “How’d that be, Darlin’?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest to hide his view of her body’s treasonous reaction to him, not rising to his bait. “I don’t think so.” She told him flatly, trying to keep her face composed. Her body might have been confused at the moment, but her mind was clear on things, and she wasn’t going to get involved with Thraex.

  She might be suicidal, but she wasn’t stupid.

  “Suit yourself, Darlin’, just trying to help out a tired and no doubt hungry friend.” He let out a low taunting whistle, his breath closing the distance between them and flowing across her, like a small but welcomed breeze on this hot day. “My, how the neighbors did talk about your exit from good society though. And why. Your ears musta been burnin’ something fierce these last years, what with all the gossip. Your trials and tribulations have made the rounds to every sittin’ room and laboratory in the tri-county area, Miss Sasha. There isn’t a person worth knowing who don’t know of the sad torments you’ve found yourself sufferin’ in these dark, sinful times.” He slowly tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, his little finger caressing her earlobe for an instant, and it was so intimate and exciting that it felt like he had his hand up her skirt. “And your troubles have been our troubles, Miss Sasha, believe that.”

  Sasha’s breath caught in her throat and she pushed him back, and started to storm away again. “Well, I’m sure you’ll find yourself a front row seat at my actual trial.”

  That seemed to amuse Thraex to no end and he started to chuckle again. “Oh, I would, I absolutely would, pas de bêtise! And I’m sure it would be a mighty fine trial too, the highlight of Central City’s social season, as befitting any upstanding lady who finds herself so unjustly accused of such a heinous crime.” He shook his head with mock regret, then raised his voice so that she could hear him. “But I’m afraid there’s not going to be a trial, Miss Sasha.” He called after her. “That party’s been cancelled, chère.”

  She stopped walking, and he moved to stand in front of her again, uncomfortably close, as always. Mrs. Crandall-Davenport’s lessons on personal space had been Thraex’s toughest subject. He liked to stand close enough to Sasha that they touched. He always had.

  She absently noticed that despite the fact that he’d been waiting outside in the sweltering heat for god knew how long, while wearing a dark suit in the blazing sun, he still somehow smelled wonderful. Like fresh citrus. And lies.

  Sasha smelled like a dirty prison without air conditioning, while he smelled like that!?!

  It was so irritating!

  And patently unfair!

  He leaned down towards her, lessening the already small distance between them. “I called in a favor from the worst person I know, and had him get the judge to throw out the case against you.” He nodded. “Smile. You just got away with murder, Darlin’. One more thing we have in common, I ‘spose.” He put his hand on her shoulder again; disreputable, dangerous, and obnoxiously confident about everything. He pulled her closer in supposed comradery. “And oh be joyful, now we can be friends again.”

  The news of her newfound freedom was overshadowed by the last part of his thoughts.

  “You’re a thief, Thraex!” She gasped in astonishment, reminding him of their history. She stumbled away from him and cursed her legs for never working the way she told them to when Thraex was around. “You stole everything from me!”

  He made a show of scratching his head in confusion. “That’s not exactly the way I recollect it. Everything I took was given freely, Miss Sasha, you of all people should remember that.” He smiled his arrogant smile again, eyes twinkling in a shifting kaleidoscope of devilish lights of unknown meaning. “’Sides, seems like the last time we saw each other, the shoe was on the other, more dainty foot, and it was you that was doing the thiefin’, chère.” He held up his large hands in surrender on that issue. “Not that I made a fuss ‘bout it at the time, ‘cause a lady is sure enough entitled to her secrets.” He leaned against the wall in front of her, still blocking her path with his body and preventing her escape. “And we could go round and round about who stole what from who, but I say let’s just forget all that disagreeableness and let bygones be bygones, yes.”

  “That’s big of you.”

  “I’m a generous man, Miss Sasha.” He straightened his skinny tie, which was a deep blue with obnoxious white circles on it. It seemed a little too vibrant for the man and his otherwise entirely black ensemble. He’d never been a flashy kind of person, he’d always been more comfortable silently lurking in the shadows. “I’m in the runnin’ for the Ladies Auxiliary’s Man of the Year.” He nodded with mock pride. “I don’t wanna jinx it now, but I don’t think I need to tell you how much of an honor that would be, both professionally and personal. It’d finally give me the chance to one-up my daddy. He was an evil god-king of his own personal slave dimension… but he sure weren’t no ‘Ladies Auxiliary Man of the Year.’” He shook his head, dismissing his father’s all-powerful inter-dimensional divinity like it was nothing compared to the honor annually bestowed by a women’s social group. “That there’s a real ‘ccomplishment. Those ladies give ya a little glass trophy and everything.” He held up his hands to indicate the scale of the award in question, as if already mentally trying to find space for it on his desk. “It’s real nice.” He assured her.

  She’d heard enough, and started to storm away again, choosing to walk in the opposite direction this time, to prevent him from getting in her way. That was one of the advantages of not heading anywhere in particular: any direction was as good as an
other. Just so long as it was somewhere far away from Thraex.

  “Where you goin’ off to now!?!” Thraex called after her, somehow sounding both amused and annoyed. “Always runnin’, that’s your problem, if you’ll forgive me for pointing it out to ya. You never want to stay put and deal with life as it comes. My whole life, all I get to do is watch you walking away from me.” He raised his voice so that she could hear him. “Don’t misunderstand me now, I do enjoy the view,” he let out a low wolf whistle in mocking appreciation of her rear as she walked, “I just think perhaps a ‘thank you’ would be in order first, Darlin’.”

  “Thank you!?!” She whirled around to face him, jabbing an angry finger in his direction. “I never asked you for anything!”

  “Well, it’s all a little hazy from the long years since, but I seem to recollect you askin’ me for something, Miss Sasha.” His lips curved into a cruel smile again, somehow managing to make the simple words sound wanton and dirty. It was one of the man’s genuine talents. “And I was just a simple boy from a nightmare dimension, but I was delighted to oblige. What with your family doin’ so much for me and all, and you goin’ so far out of your way to make sure I felt welcome, it was the least I could do.” He looked up and down her body, his beautiful lips curving into a slow smile. “Yes ma’am, I sure did feel welcomed by my new ‘step-sister,’ right and proper.”

  Once again, Sasha was thinking about slapping him.

  Instead, she turned on her heel and marched off. “This conversation is over.”

  In the space of two decades, he’d managed to steal her father, her job, her home, and the respect she formally had in this industry and for herself.

  Knowing him had ruined her.

  Yet she wasn’t really angry with him about that. She was angry with herself. It had been her fault. …Well, some of it, anyway. The rest was his own damn fault, obviously, because the man had really turned into an outright asshole.