by Lexi Ryan
A couple of hours later, the last of the Grey Goose wore off, and she’d woken up feeling like a royal fool.
All this time she’d been so convinced he wanted her, so sure she was the one keeping things from getting physical between them. But at 2 a.m. it had occurred to her that maybe he wasn’t interested.
He was attracted to her. She knew that, but that was a simple biological reaction. It didn’t mean he consciously wanted her. Yet she’d touched herself thinking he’d watch.
Why hadn’t it occurred to her before last night that he’d never pursued her, never asked her out, never tried to kiss her?
It sure as hell occurred to her now.
“Josie?” Tanner said, making her realize she hadn’t been listening to him, just pushing her way through the crowd.
“I’m sorry. What?” Damn it, it was those visions that made her cocky. How many times and ways could she see herself getting down and dirty with a guy and not assume he wanted her?
“What have we tried?” Tanner asked. When she blinked at him, he said, “Sex wise?”
“Sex?” Her mouth went dry, imagining how different her night would have been if he’d materialized at the end of her bed, if his mouth had finished the job her hand had started.
“How often are we having intercourse? Have you been charting your cycles? Taking your temperature? What have we tried before seeking a doctor’s help?” He took her hand and pulled her into an alley. “It’s probably better we finish this discussion before we go in the office.”
She swallowed. Get with it, Josie. Tanner had done his research. “Yeah, sorry. Natural family planning is the method we’ve been using.”
“The one where you check cervical mucus?”
She frowned. “For a single guy, you know a freakish amount about fertility.”
“Google?” He raised a brow as if to suggest this was something she should look into.
“Yeah. We started about charting six months ago and still haven’t had any luck.”
Tanner nodded. “How often are we having sex?”
Josie opened her mouth, closed it, then thought Screw it. Hell hath no fury like a woman rejected. “I think that all depends on you.”
He drew his brows together. “How so?”
She smirked and lifted a shoulder carelessly. “How often are you up for it?”
His smile stretched across his face like she’d told a great joke. “I don’t think frequency would be a problem on my side.”
Josie gaped. “Are you suggesting I’m the reason we can’t get pregnant?”
Tanner shrugged. “Isn’t it usually the woman who’s not interested in sex? I mean, we should have a believable story, so maybe that’s part of the problem.”
“Ha! I don’t know what women you’ve been dating, but I’m a healthy young woman with a matching sex drive.”
He leaned against the building and turned his palms up. “For your vibrator, sure. But how often can you handle the real thing?”
He was mocking her now? First, he turned down her invitation to watch her and now he was mocking her for masturbating? “Listen,” she said, closing the space between them, “I’m sorry if you’re intimidated by a woman who can get herself off without a man’s assistance, but if you and I were trying to make a kid, I’d be up for whatever you could supply. Twice a day? I’m your girl. Four times? Even better.”
His lip twitched. “I’ll remember that.”
Heat flared in her cheeks. He’d been baiting her!
He dropped his eyes to study her curves for a few—too brief—seconds.
Her heart pounded.
He lowered his lashes and said, “Shall we?”
She shook her head. “I’ll get you for that,” she muttered. She took his arm and like the happily married couple they weren’t, they headed into the fertility clinic.
***
Tara was almost surprised to see he’d come. She half expected him to ignore her message.
Collin Raines didn’t look up from his coffee when she lowered herself into the seat across from him. “Make it quick,” he said, shifting his gaze to the window.
“They gave me a job,” she said, barely keeping the excitement from her voice. “I’m gonna be a Stiletto Girl.”
That got his attention. He turned his icy eyes on her and narrowed them. The ragged scar that ran diagonally across his face never ceased to startle her. He’d gotten that saving her sister, and by extension, saving Tara. “You want me to be happy about that?”
Tara lifted her chin. “Yes, I do.”
He set his jaw and looked out the window again. “Good for you, then.”
Things hadn’t been right between them since what happened in Eden last winter. Tara and Collin had worked together to bring down the old leader of the Ascendants. Tara and Collin’s plan to lure Winston into drinking her poisonous blood had worked.
But Tara’s sister didn’t care. All Paige could see was that Collin had been willing to let Tara die. And because she was unfailingly irrational, she didn’t take into account that every Seer saw Tara dying whether she helped Collin or not. In the end, Collin had saved her, but Paige didn’t see it that way.
“Is that all?” Collin asked, not looking at her. Paige had told him to leave Tara alone, and he’d listened. Tara hated Paige for that.
“I need your help,” she blurted.
“I doubt Paige would be inclined to let me help you with anything at all.”
“I need to lose my virginity.” The words came out too loud and several curious patrons cast glances in their direction. Heat blossomed in her cheeks.
Collin spoke under his breath. “So you’ll announce it to the whole diner and take them on a first come, first served basis?”
“I told you we should meet at your apartment. Do you believe me now?”
“We’re not going to my apartment,” he said, nearly growling the words. “And you’re not losing your virginity. You’re a child.”
She sucked in her breath. Why didn’t he just slap her while he was at it? He sounded like Paige. “I’m nineteen years old,” she said between clenched teeth. “Virgins my age are a rarity. I’d hardly be pulling down the average.”
Sighing, he shook his head. “You know what I mean.” He pulled a hand through his hair. “Okay, I’ll humor you. Why do you want to…to…to do this?”
She giggled. “You can’t say it, can you?” His face hardened and she sighed. “My powers still haven’t come back.”
His eyes softened.
She tensed at the sympathy on his face. She’d gotten enough sympathy to last a lifetime. “Stop looking at me like that!”
“Tara, you’re one of maybe a few dozen Specials who had powers before losing her virginity. You’re the only one who didn’t die from the condition that accompanies premature powers. Don’t you think losing them was for the best? When your powers went away, the sickness went with it. They were linked.”
She swallowed. They had no way of knowing if what he said was true, but that was the general consensus. “But all the other Specials—the ones whose powers don’t make them ill—don’t come into their powers until they lose their virginity.”
“It’s unlikely and the worst possible reason you should consider something so important. Why don’t you try to be a normal girl?”
She gritted her teeth. “You mean a normal girl who’s willing to give herself to a guy because she loves him?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“That ship has sailed, Collin. Except instead of my body, I was willing to give my life.”
His gaze snapped to hers when he digested her words. The emotion in his eyes was unreadable—pain? indifference? disgust? Maybe that came from a childhood of being poked and prodded like a lab rat. As a Blocker, it was appropriate that he hid his feelings well. But as the girl—no, woman—who loved him, it was frustrating as hell.
“Collin, I’m never going to be a normal girl. But right now, I’m only normal in a wa
y that makes me weak. Don’t you want me to have a power? So I can protect myself?”
In one fluid movement, he pushed himself out of the booth and stood. “This conversation’s over.” He threw a ten on the table before sweeping out of the restaurant.
She ignored the stares of the diners as she chased after him.
His strides were long and fast, and he was in the parking lot before she caught up with him. “What upsets you most?”
He lifted his face to the sky. “About what?”
“What upsets you most about the conversation we just had? That I fell in love with you? Big deal. I’m over it. That I want to lose my virginity? It’s mine to lose. Or is it that I’d just as soon lose it with you as some random frat boy? It’s not like I’d be the first nineteen-year-old Sykes you screwed.”
She’d meant to hurt him by throwing his past with Paige in his face, so his laughter startled her.
“What?” she said, feeling foolish for the first time all day.
“Tara, when I slept with your sister the first time, I wasn’t the old man I am now.” He shook his head.
She swallowed. He would be forty soon, but to Tara, he wasn’t old. He was...perfect. “You know, I’ll just find someone else if you don’t do it.”
“I gather as much, and, as you say, it’s yours to lose.” Slowly, he closed the space between them and ran his finger along her jaw line. “But I won’t be the selfish bastard your sister believes me to be.”
Her heart pounded in her throat as his gaze dropped to her lips. “How would this make you selfish?”
He sighed and dropped his hand. “Good luck with your new job, Tara. I sincerely hope the man you find to do this little job for you is worthwhile.”
***
Two seconds after stepping out of the SIA field campus office, Tanner heard shots. He dropped to the ground and rolled behind a tree.
Fernandez was there, his back pressed against the trunk of the tree. He nudged Tanner with the butt of his gun. “They get you?”
Tanner shook his head and rolled behind the scrapped hood of a car to avoid another round. The ball of paint exploded on the ground two feet to his right. “I’m clean,” he said, thinking, barely.
He was not in any mood to join in on the SIA’s weekly paintball match, but his team had lost to a group of desk jockeys last week. If he made them lose by not showing tonight, Darian and Fernandez would chop off his testicles.
Ten yards away, Darian caught a blue team opponent off guard, touching him and making him drop his gun. He could have projected pain—this was a no-holds-barred match—but from the way the idiot began blubbering, it was clear Darian had chosen emotional pain over physical. Darian snatched up the extra gun and jogged over to cover with Fernandez and Tanner.
The air filled with a sharp screeching sound, forcing the men to drop their guns and cover their ears. It stopped nearly as soon as it began, and they could breathe again.
“I hate it when Simons uses his sonic scream.” Tanner muttered, rubbing his aching ears.
Darian peeked around the tree and chuckled. “Apparently, so do his teammates. Cooley is the one who shut him up.”
“Good. Jesus, when I need hearing aids at thirty-five, remind me that Simons gets to pay for them.”
“I didn’t see you at the office today,” Darian said. “Where were you?”
“Jacking off,” Fernandez mumbled, reloading his gun with green paint pellets.
“Pretty much,” Tanner said.
Darian pulled his attention from the field where someone from team purple had just made team blue’s guns disintegrate into dust. “Excuse me?”
Tanner shook his head. “I’ve been following up on a couple of leads for a potential case.” But he was doing it blind because he hadn’t found a thing in Josie’s apartment about the fertility clinics, and she hadn’t exactly opened up to him about it either. “I think they might be dead ends.”
They’d gone to five clinics today, and he’d had to leave a sample at every one. He wasn’t sure what the point was, but Josie insisted they might want to return to any number of the clinics, and this would give them a handy excuse.
His dick was practically chafed from stroking one out for every doctor, and yet all he had to do was remember how Josie had looked last night and he was hard again. All that pale, creamy skin exposed, save for what was behind the pink thong and the lacy cups of her bra. He couldn’t get her out of his mind—the image of her slipping her hand between her legs, the sound of her moans as she made herself come.
And then she’d bitched at him for not watching? Yeah, bitched at him, then turned around and chewed his ass for being in her house to begin with. He had a feeling that had been a lose-lose situation all around. She called him dickless for not watching, but she’d have thought him an ass if he had.
Hell, didn’t she understand he’d wanted to? She had to have known, or she wouldn’t have done it. What a fucking turn-on it was to see a woman pleasure herself. It was the sign of a woman who liked sex, knew her body, and appreciated the way it could make her feel.
“Get your head in the game, Wiley, or you’re gonna get your ass shot.”
Tanner looked down and blinked. Hell, he hadn’t even made himself invisible, which was pretty much his only defense against these bastards and their bad ass powers.
He concentrated and put up his shield of invisibility, and Darian said, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Fernandez shot a glare over his shoulder. “We’re about to have our asses handed to us. Please, save this sissy shit for later.”
Tanner ignored him. “Can you explain women to me?”
Fernandez snorted. “He is a Nobel Laureate in physics and has supernatural powers. He’s not omniscient.” He set his jaw and added, “Hell, I don’t think God himself even understands women.”
Darian chuckled. “The man has a point.”
Darkness descended around them and Fernandez released a stream of curses that made even Tanner wince. “How the hell is it fair to put the light manipulator on the same team as the guy with night vision?” Fernandez grumbled before crawling out into the open. “Got you, bastard,” he said and seconds later, they had light again.
Fernandez ran back to cover with his team. “What?” he said when Tanner and Darian looked at him. “I made the night vision guy shoot the light manipulator.” He wiped off his hands. “Problem solved.”
“Risky but profitable,” Tanner said, approving.
Darian turned to Tanner. “So, is Josie giving you trouble?”
Tanner groaned. The sound of her goddamn name and he was hard again. “She has no idea what she does to me.”
“It’s for the best, man,” Fernandez said, apparently deciding the conversation needed his input after all. “If women knew how much power they really have over us, we’d be doing laundry, rubbing feet, and handing over the credit card the rest of our lives.”
Tanner shook his head. “I think I’ve just waited too long with her. It’s too late now.” Six months he’d wanted her and hadn’t had the balls to make a move. And now he’d made a mess of it.
“It’s only too late if you let it be,” Darian said. “Cover me?” Tanner did, rolling invisibly to an opening and firing while Darian ran behind the next tree. “If you want her, you need to stop hesitating. Just kiss her already.”
Decades-old insecurity gnawed at Tanner. But he wasn’t the filthy foster kid with all the funky bruises anymore. Just kiss her already.
He smiled, thinking about taking her by surprise, finally getting to taste her, pulling her body against his.
“Tanner!” Darian warned.
Tanner realized he’d dropped his invisibility in his distraction. He focused to put it back up, but it was too late. The purple ball of paint slammed into his right shoulder and exploded.
Chapter Four
Josie stared down at her notes, then ran her hand over her face. She’d been spending hours each night decoding the hidden
messages in her mother’s journal and still had pages of code to break.
Something told her she needed to act quickly, decode the whole message, but her eyes were crossing. She slammed her hand against the table. She should have seen the pattern years ago.
When Marilyn Bovard and her husband had been murdered ten years ago, she’d left behind a daughter with an IQ of 160. She’d known her daughter was capable of seeing the complex pattern of words and letters that encrypted her message, but even a genius would need time to decode some five hundred pages of cryptic writing. To make the complicated pattern more difficult to decipher, the pattern of the coding changed at random intervals. In other words, the journal didn’t hold one extremely difficult puzzle; it held five hundred.
After she’d lost her family, Josie had been too loaded down by grief to see the journal for anything more than what it appeared to be. Which she figured gave her a decent excuse for missing what was in front of her eyes for the first two years—but it didn’t excuse the last eight. She should have seen it before now.
What she had managed to decode since last weekend wasn’t enough, and she needed more information if they were going to find the doctor they were looking for.
Josie had known her family had planned on changing their identities and running, but her mother’s messages explained that they’d found a geneticist at a D.C. fertility clinic who could change their appearances with their identities. Her mother’s coded message referred to the process as DNA conversion and compared it to the way a Shifter’s DNA worked.
While Josie worked on decoding the rest of the journal—a process that would take her weeks, not days—she wanted to find this doctor. Even though there was no guarantee the doctor still worked at the same place, fertility clinics had seemed like the most logical place to start. She couldn’t drag Tanner around forever, though. She needed to focus her search.