by Kit Rocha
The warehouse went silent, except for Dom's pained groan.
Cruz had moved too fast. Usually there were cheers when one of the fighters went down, but the onlookers hadn't caught up with what had happened yet. The people in the sectors were used to street brawlers and cage fighters, hard, hungry men who'd grown up malnourished and scraping to get by. Not men who had been taken from their cradles, handed over to soldiers and given perfectly calibrated nutrition, carefully planned training...
Eden had spent twenty years turning him into a lethal weapon and another ten honing his edges. Now he was fighting in cages. It didn't seem fair. To anyone.
The silence broke on a female cheer, swiftly joined by two more. The O'Kane women, making their appreciation known from the couches where they held court. As if they'd popped a bubble, sound rose all around him, shouts and cries and dozens of people fighting over bets placed and lost.
The cage door rattled, and Cruz turned in time to see Rachel pull it open. She carried two bottles between the fingers of one hand with an ease that spoke of practice, and a pleased smile curved her lips. "I came to rescue you."
Beyond her stood a tight knot of women, each one eyeing him with greedy assessment. Nothing personal there, merely the desire for a hard body and expensive presents. He knew the type because they'd made up the bulk of his bed partners over the years. Faced with the choice between using a woman and letting one use him, he'd always opted for the latter. In the end, they cost as much as the hookers, but at least they had a choice.
It was all still empty. Shallow sensation, and nothing compared to the way Rachel could warm his body with just her smile. She knew him, talked to him. Liked him. Accepting one of the beers, he smiled back. "Can we get out of here? I need to cool off."
She glanced down at the motionless man on the mat with an exaggerated wince. "Sure. I don't think Dom'll mind."
Dom would be lucky to get that knee under him in the next hour, and Cruz couldn't stir an ounce of guilt as he stepped from the cage and swept up a towel. "Maybe outside?"
She folded her fingers around his. "I know a place."
Rachel pulled him through the crowd and down a back hall, which was thumping with music and lit with red light. The darker corners writhed with moans and flashes of bare skin, people who preferred a little privacy over the open main floor. To Cruz, even the shadows seemed criminally indiscreet, but he was starting to suspect most of Sector Four considered sex less fun behind closed doors.
"This way," she murmured, staring straight ahead until they reached the end of the hall--and a door that led out onto a set of pitted exterior stairs.
Cruz followed her up three flights and found himself on the roof of one of the tallest buildings in the sector. In the darkness, he could see twinkling lights for what seemed like miles in either direction. "Not a lot of original buildings in this quadrant, are there?"
"No." Rachel leaned against the low wall edging the roof. "When I used to look out toward the sectors when I was a kid, all I could think was how dark they were. Now it all seems so bright."
"They're a lot brighter than they used to be." He tossed the towel over his shoulder and leaned next to her, close enough to brush her arm with his own. "I used to see them from the air. They flew us in one weekend a month for classes inside the city, but only at night."
She looked up at him, her eyes brilliant in the moonlight. "Do you miss it?"
It wasn't the first time someone had asked him the question, but it was the first time he really thought about the answer. A lock of blonde hair slipped across her forehead, and he echoed a gesture he'd seen once, reaching up to tuck it behind her ear. The cook at the training base had always done that when his wife's hair escaped its braid, but Cruz had never understood why brushing it back made the man smile.
He got it now. An excuse to touch, affection, and the warmth that came from being trusted with something precious.
He gave her the same in return--the truth. "I don't know. Some of it. I miss flying. No chance anyone in the sectors will get the resources together to get a helicopter or plane off the ground in our lifetime."
"You never know." Her breath blew over his skin as she turned her face into his hand.
He knew. He knew it the way he did most things--because it fell within the parameters of knowledge necessary to complete certain mission objectives. He could recite the dangers each sector represented and list the tools and materials each required to obtain or build various weapons, but he didn't know how to contain the feeling of this woman's face cradled against his hand.
Unacceptable. He wasn't the only one whose pulse raced when she smiled. Bren had warned him of as much the first time he'd caught Cruz's gaze following Rachel across a room. The gang's tattoo artist had been circling, sizing up Rachel like a fortification he wasn't sure he could storm, but Cruz had crashed into the middle of the game before Ace made his move.
And now this. It felt like racing toward a target, knowing that stumbling could give your enemy the lead. Ace was the one with the experience wooing women. He wouldn't be thinking about mission objectives and weapons if he had Rachel alone on a rooftop, nuzzling his hand.
Cruz moved his thumb to touch the corner of her mouth and trace the full bow of her lower lip. "I don't miss it right now."
"Good." She stretched up on her toes, but even that only brought her mouth in line with his throat, and her lips brushed his collarbone. Heat threatened to consume him. His blood boiled and his dick hardened.
A thousand things he could do to her rose up from that dark place inside him, all the things the men he'd worked for had condemned in rough, angry voices before slinking into the shadows to indulge themselves with men and women who couldn't say no.
He didn't want any of those things, not yet. Tonight, he wanted to be soft, slow. He wanted to kiss her knees weak and know what it felt like to have her tremble between him and the wall. Carefully, he cupped the back of her head. "Look at me."
She was already shaking, but she met his eyes boldly, without shying away, and it hit him almost as hard as her touch. People in Eden never really looked at each other. Not like this, open and without shame, daring the other person to see into them, through them.
Cruz didn't want anyone seeing through him, so he was the one who broke, sweeping down to catch her mouth with his own.
She made an encouraging noise in the back of her throat as her lips parted and her hands slipped around him to tease just under the waistband of his jeans. A heartbeat later, her tongue touched his.
The darkness rolled up again. He could have her. Turn her around, bend her over the low wall, and fuck her fast and hard until her screams floated all the way to Sector Three. He could urge her to her knees, twist all that shiny blonde hair around his fist and find out if she still stared at him, open and brave, while he pushed his cock between her lips and jerked off in her mouth.
No. Kisses. He concentrated on kissing her, licking her, learning the taste of her lips and what made her moan. He'd do this right. Slow and hot and respectful, with no stumbling. Not when he could feel Ace dogging every step, waiting for him to fail.
Chapter Three
No one knew how to put on a party like Lex. Hell, no one knew how to put on a show like Lex.
The party room had never been subtle, because Dallas had never been a subtle man. It was a room furnished for sin--for one kind in particular--and he spared no expense in indulging this vice. He'd built a playground for adults, with a hundred accessories to spice up sex and every surface begging to be defiled.
Lex had turned that blatant offer into a silken promise. Dallas wasn't sure how--something with the softer lighting, new decorations. Hard leather benches with heavy D-rings were now buried in soft cushions, the sumptuous fabrics alongside the harsh silver chains somehow a perfect celebration of the couple of honor.
Noelle and Jasper were enthroned next to Dallas on the plush couch that dominated the raised dais. Jasper looked smug as hell in lea
ther and denim, and Noelle was taunting every man in the room with a frilly scrap of white lace that bared endless skin, framed her gorgeous tits, and showed off the intricate black tattoo wrapped around her throat.
Ace had outdone himself with that one, working Jasper's name into a delicate web of lacy curls that looked like an expensive choker from ten feet away. Every time Dallas glanced to his left, Jasper was staring at the damn thing like a dying man catching a glimpse of salvation.
Jealousy formed an ugly knot in Dallas's gut, especially with Lex holding down the opposite end of the couch, sleekly beautiful in a little red dress and acting like Dallas didn't fucking exist.
That was fine. That was just fucking fine. Dallas could have any woman in the room on her knees for him by twitching a damn finger. For all the soft-focus lighting and pretty hors d'oeuvres, the night would devolve into fucking soon enough, and that would take the edge off his temper.
It was an O'Kane party, after all.
Noelle's soft laughter washed over him from where she leaned away from Jasper, her head tucked close to Lex's. Dallas nudged his friend. "How you holding up, old man?"
Jasper finished his drink before answering. "Parties aren't my thing. But this is Noelle's night."
Dallas eyed the fresh ink on the inside of Jasper's arm. Noelle's name, in Ace's inimitable style. "Not just hers."
Jasper followed his gaze and nodded, though his words contradicted Dallas's. "The ink is mine. The party's hers."
That, Dallas supposed, wasn't worth arguing. People had been drifting up to the dais all evening long with congratulations and gifts, and most of it had been heaped on a glowing Noelle. "Fair enough."
Movement at the door caught Dallas's eye--Bren, with his seemingly ever-present shadow trailing him. Jasper was Dallas's right-hand man, and Brendan Donnelly was Jas's mirror. The strong, silent man who stood at Dallas's left, his cold-blooded intellect a good balance for Jasper's more tempered compassion.
The girl hovering just behind Bren's left shoulder might as well have been Noelle's mirror. They'd come under Dallas's protection within a week of one another, but Noelle had fallen from the privileged grace of the city, and Six--if the girl had another name, she refused to give it--had been dragged out of the hell of Sector Three. Noelle was sweet softness in white ruffles, and Six was nothing but wary, hard edges and baggy clothes that covered her from her chin to her borrowed boots.
Her eyes were wounded. Broken, maybe. Sometimes Dallas woke from nightmares where Lex stared at him like that, shattered and hurt because the need inside him had crushed her.
Bren grinned as he approached the dais, one arm behind his back. "Especially for you, Noelle," he said, presenting her with a small flogger festooned with a red bow.
It had a multitude of tails, all light, butter-soft suede, and Noelle flushed a pretty pink as she caught one of the tails and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger. "It's beautiful."
Lex leaned forward to peer at the whip. "Stuart make this?"
"He did." Bren dipped his head. "Thanks for recommending him."
"No problem." She brushed the back of her hand over the braided handle, her expression contemplative. "He does good work."
"That he does," Dallas agreed, watching one tail slither over Lex's skin. Wrapping leather around that woman's body could be a full-time hobby, one to which he'd gladly devote himself. It was an effort to tear his gaze away and smile at Noelle. "Bren knows his toys, kitten. I think you'll like this one." Jasper would like it too, once he had Noelle stretched in front of him, writhing through the pleasure she took from pain.
Jasper set aside the flogger and folded his hand around Noelle's. "Should we ask Bren to dance?"
"It's only polite." Noelle dropped a kiss to Lex's cheek before hauling Jasper to his feet. "Six, do you want to dance?"
Her dark eyes widened just a fraction, and then she was giving Noelle that look, the one Dallas had seen on the poor girl's face a dozen times. It screamed, You cannot be for real, and sometimes it seemed like that was the only look anyone got from Six.
Except Bren.
Dallas gestured to a chair tucked in a dark corner on the dais. It was far enough out of the way to give the wary woman a little privacy, but not situated so that she'd have to worry about being cornered. Not with him--and Lex--between her and the rest of the room. "Why don't you park yourself over there, Six? Watch until you feel like joining in, eh?"
After an awkward moment, she nodded jerkily and mumbled something that sounded like a congratulations as she slipped past Jasper. Dallas arched an eyebrow at Bren, who threw a wave over his shoulder as he followed Noelle out onto the floor.
"They left you alone with me," Lex muttered. "I guess you'll be making them pay for that later."
Dallas laughed and stretched his arm across the back of the couch. "How do you know this wasn't part of my plan?"
She moved fast, and her hair spilled over her shoulders to tickle his cheek as she straddled his thigh. "Was it?"
It didn't matter what his plan had been. When Lex's perfume hit him, his cock got hard and his plans got muddled. He slid one hand up her leg, edging his fingers under the hem of her dress. "It sure as fuck is now, love."
She slapped his hand away.
He couldn't help his grin. "What's the matter, Lex? Don't want to ride my fingers?"
"Mmm." She leaned down until her lips grazed his ear. "I'm not that easy."
Nothing about Lex ever was. "Congratulations on your protégé's big debut. You were right, back when we took her in. She's gonna settle down and make Jasper real happy."
"Told you so." Lex slipped a hand between them, pressing her fingernails to his chest through his shirt.
Her dress rode up her thighs, and Dallas braced both hands on her hips and raised his leg, grinding up against her. "And you don't get tired of being right, do you?"
"With you? I've learned to take what I can get."
It was a challenge, one he couldn't keep himself from answering with one hand cuffing her throat. Gently, so gently, but he liked the way his fingers looked wrapped around her neck, with his thumb along the opposite side. A collar of his own making and a gesture of dominance, even with his grip soft enough to caress. "You should be careful what you wish for."
For some reason, it made her laugh, though the sound melted into a moan.
That was better. "Keep rocking. I like having you squirming on my thigh."
Her eyes drifted open, oddly intent as they focused on his, and the rest of the room vanished. Lex's clever, intimate lighting, her carefully set stage, the heat in his blood--all of it conspired to melt everyone else into the background. "Gonna slap my fingers again?"
"I think..." Her throat worked under his hand. "I think I'm going to go dance."
He could tighten his fingers. Keep her with him. That was the eternal battle, the constant temptation. "You could do that."
"What do you want?" Lex reached down and rubbed her palm over the hard bulge of his cock through his pants.
People were watching them. Friends, members of his gang that might as well be family but would always be his. He was Dallas O'Kane, leader of Sector Four, and he was expected to get everything he wanted.
Which meant he was only allowed to want what he could get. Easy things. Casual things. Her fingers around his dick, her mouth, sucking him deep.
Not enough. Not tonight. "I want you to take off your panties."
She rose with a shiver, hesitating only a heartbeat before easing her thumbs under her skirt. The fabric rucked up a little, and she dragged her panties down. The skimpy black lace fell to her knees and then her ankles, tangling around the high spike heels on her shoes.
For one breathless moment, Dallas could only stare at her, high on the thrill of this woman's obedience.
"Hell, yeah! Throw me your underwear, Lex!"
Lex started, as if Ace's drunken words had drawn her out of a fantasy, and she threw him a glare that was more flustered than ang
ry as she kicked free of the lace. "You don't deserve my panties, jackass."
When Ace jerked to a halt two steps from the dais, Dallas realized he was glaring at him, too. Belatedly, he smoothed his features, but it didn't diminish his urge to smack the irreverent artist. "You're pushing your luck, Ace."
"I'm too pretty to kill," Ace drawled, full of fake bluster and confidence as he sprawled on the edge of the platform. "But if you two were having a private party..."
"If it were private, we'd go someplace else," Lex said quickly.
She was right, much as Dallas hated it in this moment. Just beyond Ace, Noelle was pinned between Jasper and Bren, their dance a slow grind. She looked blissful under their attentions, her skin already flushed with the slow heat of arousal.
The highlight of any party celebrating a couple taking marks tended to be the couple taking each other, a public consummation played out in loving, explicit detail. This wasn't a time for private moments. It was a time to celebrate Jas and Noelle and their crazy, dirty love.
Telling himself it was about them and not the buffer they provided, Dallas grinned up at Lex. "Think we can lure the happy couple back? Or should we start without them?"
But the moment was gone, and Lex's answer was light, breezy, with no hint of her previous intensity. "Why don't we just play it by ear?" she asked as she stepped off the dais and headed into the crowd.
Ace flashed him an apologetic look. "Sorry, boss."
Dallas sighed. "Get lost. Go find some woman dumb enough to let your face between her legs."
"Oh, you mean damn near all of them?" Ace sprawled back on his elbows. "The trick is having a dexterous tongue, you know. If you brooded less and talked more, yours might--"
Dallas raised an eyebrow and dared Ace to finish the thought.
"...I think Amira's flagging me down," Ace said instead, coming to his feet in a rush. Before Dallas could say another word, the smartass disappeared into the mass of dancing bodies, vanishing as surely as Lex had.
Dallas tensed to follow, but forced his muscles to relax. He stretched both arms across the back of the couch and sprawled out his legs, every inch the lazy king surveying his court. Dallas O'Kane didn't chase after women who ran. Dallas O'Kane lifted a finger and women came running.