Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

  She was a work of art. Jared saw the paint and the canvas and a few pleasant shapes. Ace felt the earth move.

  Jared made a soft noise of indulgent amusement. "A rhetorical question," he declared. "All I meant was that you may never know her reasons, and does it really matter? Unless you doubt what she feels, that is."

  He might have, if the hurt in her eyes hadn't been so damn real. "I guess not."

  "Don't even start. I've seen her look at you." Jared paused and tilted his head. "What about Cruz?"

  The question stopped him cold. He'd been running on adrenaline, on the horror of realizing what he'd done to Rachel, and fucking hell. Hurting the man would be like sinking a knife into the back of a brother. Worse, because somewhere in all those muddled rationalizations, Cruz had started looking like more than paint splattered across a canvas, too.

  No matter which way he turned, he was crushing something fragile. "I don't know."

  "But you need to figure it out."

  Yeah, he really did. And maybe, for once, he needed to make a decision while he wasn't strung out on booze and self-indulgent angst. Ace drained his drink and slumped back on the couch. "It'd be great if you'd go get stupid over some sweet little piece of ass. Then you could be the idiot for a while."

  Jared grinned. "I have my idiotic moments. I keep them to myself, that's all."

  "Come on, brother. Solidarity. Tell me one."

  Silence. Then a rough sigh. "I fell in love once. It didn't work. That's why I don't recommend it."

  Ace had never seen evidence of it in all the years he'd known Jared--but then, he might not have. That was the one lesson they'd all learned, even Ace--you showed the world your strengths because they earned you respect, and your flaws because they earned you trust. But your weaknesses you held tight in your heart.

  Gia struggled to remember she couldn't rescue every wounded woman she stumbled across. Ace couldn't stand seeing hookers mistreated, because paying for someone's body didn't give you the right to leave marks on their heart and soul. And Jared didn't trust himself with feelings, as if he was convinced that dropping his pragmatism for a few moments would end in an emotional bender he'd never survive.

  They were all broken, right along the lines drawn by their respective fucked-up childhoods, and for the first time in his life he didn't envy Jared. Because whatever was going on between him and Rachel and Cruz hurt like hell, but the pain was a pinprick compared to the satisfaction when Cruz growled his name or Rachel whimpered it.

  If he could just figure out a way for both of them to do it at the same time, they could tear his heart out of his chest and burn it to ash, and he'd still go to hell happy.

  Chapter Five

  Avoiding Ace was easy. Avoiding Cruz turned out to be harder.

  When Rachel edged through the warehouse door, she almost dropped the box of bottles she held. She managed to catch them--barely--between her hip and the doorjamb, then stood there stupidly as Cruz did one-armed pushups in the center of the cage. His torso gleamed with sweat under the harsh lights, and his dark hair clung to his temples. He grunted softly with every push off the rough concrete, a noise that made her stomach clench and the back of her neck prickle.

  She considered turning around and walking back out, liquor restocking be damned. But fuck that--she was an O'Kane, dammit. She wasn't a coward, not even when presented with this. So she got a better grip on the box and let the door slam shut behind her. "Good morning."

  He looked up without breaking his rhythm. "Rachel. Need some help?"

  The situation was too ridiculous for words. An ill-advised laugh bubbled up in her chest, and she bit her lip. "I wouldn't dream of interrupting your incredibly difficult workout, not when you're making it look so stupidly easy."

  His mouth quirked. Barely a smile, but the warmth in his eyes had more than her neck prickling. "Let me finish this set, and I'll haul boxes for you."

  "You don't have to."

  He polished off five more pushups in quick succession before rocking to his knees. "I want to."

  A bead of sweat rolled down the center of his chest. Rachel dropped the box on the bar with a clatter. "I'm just making sure everything's topped off before the party in a couple of days."

  Cruz hopped out of the cage, snagging a towel tossed over the door on his way by. "That's right. Six is drinking in. And Jade, too?"

  "Yeah. Should be a good time."

  "Hey."

  She paused with her hand around a bottle of tequila and looked up at him. He stood there, watching her, his hands locked around both ends of the towel around his neck. "What?"

  He met her eyes squarely, and the warmth was still there, but so was something else. Something darker, that dangerous edge she'd never seen in him until she'd tried to shove him away for his own good. "You don't have to keep running from me. If you and Ace have a thing now..."

  Oh God, he must have heard something, even seen them. "It's not like that. He and I have always had a thing--just like you and me. It's always there, no matter what."

  After a moment, he nodded. "I know how much it hurts to be pulled in opposite directions. I don't want that for you."

  "But you can't stop it." No one could, not since the beginning. Maybe not even then. "It's not about what you've done or might do, Cruz. It's about who you are. What it does to me when you--"

  She bit off the words, but he wouldn't let her hold them back. "When I do what, Rachel?"

  It felt like balancing on a ledge--and one wrong move would tip her off it. "When you look at me." She had to close her eyes. "When you touch me."

  The bar stood between them, but that wasn't enough protection when he could just reach over it. His fingertips grazed her cheek, warm and electric, and she sucked in a breath. "What if I stopped pulling you away from him?"

  No matter what either of them did, it would hurt. "I don't know what to do," she confessed.

  "I do." His touch returned, lower this time. Brushing the corner of her mouth, so close to her lips. "But I need to know one thing."

  She swayed toward him. "What?"

  "Did you ever want us both? Or did I just get in the way?"

  That brought her back to reality. She jerked away from him, snapping her eyes open. "Do you really think that?"

  "No." He let his hand drop. "I'd be stupid not to make sure, though. Arrogance is a liability."

  He deserved the truth, not hints and scared, halfhearted admissions. "If I didn't love you both, this wouldn't be so fucking hard."

  She caught his smile, just a flash of it as he planted one hand on the bar. All those bare, gorgeous muscles flexed as he vaulted over it in a move so effortless, he had his hands on her before her brain caught up to what was happening. He gripped her hips and hoisted her with the same ease, depositing her on the bar with his body wedged between her knees.

  "Tell me what you want," he whispered, cupping her cheeks. "Don't think about what's easy, or even what's possible. Tell me what you'd want if you could have anything in the damn world."

  She was the embodiment of greed, grasping and hungry. Covetous and insatiable. She would have been ashamed of herself, except that there was no room for that. Not here, and not now. "I want you and Ace," she whispered. "It's not fair. Other women have had you both for sex. Why can't I have you to love?"

  Cruz smiled, his thumb smoothing back and forth across her cheek. "Ask me what I want."

  He wasn't angry or sorrowful, and Rachel caught her breath. Only one reason for him to smile at her words, and his answer had the potential to change everything. "What do you want?"

  "To have both of you to protect."

  Her stomach fluttered. "What the hell did you see last night? I mean, I know what happened, and that you must have been there, but...what did it look like to you?"

  His thumb shifted course, the rough pad dragging across her skin in slow motion before rasping over her lower lip. "Like getting left behind."

  "Hardly." Her mouth moved beneath his thumb
like a kiss. "Haven't you figured it out? Neither one of us can stop thinking about you."

  "Even with his tongue in your mouth?"

  Not an accusation--arousal. The way his voice heated as it wrapped around the words kindled an ache between her thighs, and Rachel moaned. "Even with his tongue in my mouth." She reached for his hands and guided them back to her hips. "With his lips on my skin. His fingers under my clothes."

  His hands tightened, and he swayed forward, his lips so close to hers. "If I put my tongue in your mouth, will you think of him?"

  Nothing short of a challenge, and Rachel felt herself responding to it, melting closer to him. "Every. Damn. Second."

  "Maybe only half of them." He murmured the words against her mouth, and if Ace's kiss had started slow, Cruz's was the opposite. Fast and hot, lips parting over hers, his tongue slick and commanding, thrusting in search of hers with no mercy and no restraint.

  Oh God.

  He blocked out the world, but he sent her spinning so wildly that clinging to him would provide no purchase. So she wrapped her hands around the edge of the bar and held on.

  When he bit her lip and growled--growled--even that wasn't enough. She whimpered, and he eased back, dragging his teeth along her lip until it popped free. He soothed the spot with one last lick before straightening.

  That got her moving. She reached for him, but her fingers slipped across the sweat-slicked skin of his abdomen, and she swallowed. Hard. "You do this on purpose. Walk around half-naked."

  His lips twitched. "Maybe."

  "Definitely." She leaned in and teased her tongue over the muscled line of his chest. Salt, heat, and lust roared up, almost drowning out his groan as he sank his fingers into her hair.

  Rachel choked on a moan and wiggled, trying to ease the tense ache. The only thing better would be Ace's fingers bumping his, tangling tight as he urged her to lick lower.

  Cruz shuddered and pulled her away. "Not yet. Christ, this is hot, but I need you to trust me. I know what to do."

  She trusted him more than herself and Ace put together, more than anyone. Cruz would always do the right thing, no matter what. "Okay."

  He tilted her head back, and at least she wasn't the only one breathless and flushed. "Soon. I promise."

  Oddly, it soothed her trembling. He'd never lie, never make a promise if he didn't know he could deliver. "I trust you, Cruz. With my life."

  "Good." He brushed a final kiss against her forehead, carefully unwound his fingers from her hair, and took a step back. "Are you working tonight?"

  "Taking the stage at ten." Her cheeks heated. "You gonna come watch me dance?"

  His smile promised everything she'd asked for, and a whole world she could barely imagine. "Count on it."

  Ace was prone to sadism, not masochism, so he usually didn't watch Rachel's performances.

  Tonight had to be the exception. It was Six's first night working the floor as a bouncer, and Ace would bet he wasn't the only O'Kane lurking in the shadows, ready to back her up if necessary. She'd kick his ass if she found out, and maybe he'd deserve it for insinuating that she couldn't clean the floor with a few drunk motherfuckers just because she was short and sweet-faced and had a half-decent rack hiding under her no-nonsense black tank top.

  If it had been anyone else on stage, Ace wouldn't have thought twice. But Rachel...

  She gave away too much of herself, too recklessly. She'd fallen from her family's protective grasp straight into Dallas's outstretched hands, and he'd had too much invested in his relationship with Liam Riley to let anything happen to the man's favorite child.

  Rachel might be the only damn person in Sector Four who'd never had to be afraid. She'd scoffed at the idea of her own bravery, but it lit up the air around her on nights like tonight, and drew the men in the crowd like flies to sweet, naked honey. They could tell they were getting the real deal with every vulnerable whimper, every trembling flush.

  The crowd turned Rachel's crank in a way that turned Ace's, but the thought of her flinging herself out there with no one to catch her when she came crashing back to Earth cranked him up in a different way. And until he figured out what to do with her, he wouldn't be able to unwind.

  "Jeni was right," Cruz murmured behind him. "Rachel doesn't know how to hide, does she?"

  Ace tensed, torn between guilt and jealousy--and not over Jeni. "Is that where you disappeared to last night?"

  "Yeah." No apologies, no explanations--just a tilt of his head and a soft smile. "Didn't think you'd mind where I stuck my dick, as long as I kept it out of your angel."

  "Jeni would feed me my dick if I tried to tell her who she could fuck." Ace struggled for a casual tone as he watched Rachel slide her hand out of her panties to untie the ribbons securing her black fishnet bra. "So would Rachel."

  Cruz moved fast. He grabbed Ace by the back of the head, holding his gaze fixed on the stage, and leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Rachel would give you big eyes and say yes, sir."

  Surprise held Ace frozen, but only for a heartbeat. It wasn't like it was the first time he'd had Cruz's fingers on the back of his head, but he'd always had to lure the man over that line, daring him to do the things he'd imagined but would never admit.

  The fingers pressing into Ace's skull didn't belong to a man inching toward a fantasy he didn't want to want. They belonged to a man who didn't give a shit anymore. A man who had every intention of taking what he needed.

  Who he needed.

  It kicked Ace's heart into his throat and made his dick ache. "I think you got your wires crossed, brother," he whispered hoarsely. "That's your fantasy."

  "You have no idea." Cruz angled his body against Ace's side, his mouth touching his ear. "You think it'll be good. But then she watches you, stares right into your eyes while she wraps her fingers around your cock. Bites her lip when you start fucking her hand. Moans when you come."

  Jesus Christ. Either he'd gotten farther with Rachel than Ace had given him credit for, or he had one hell of an imagination.

  Cruz eased closer, and Ace wasn't the only one turned on now. It was the first time he'd gotten his dick anywhere near Ace without a woman between them--

  Except she was still between them. She always was, whether she was there or not, and never so much as now, when they could both hear her moan as she pinched her fingers tight on her nipples.

  Cruz's breathing hitched when she did it again. "I saw you last night."

  Ace froze. He hadn't heard a sound, but he'd been so focused on Rachel, and Cruz could move like a ghost. There was no telling what he'd seen--or misunderstood. "Listen, brother--"

  "Don't." Cruz leaned in until his beard scraped Ace's jaw and his breath was a hot tickle that whipped arousal higher. "Just admit it. Admit you can't stay away from her."

  He couldn't, but that didn't matter. Rachel had a choice between the man who'd shattered her heart and the hero who'd do anything to put it back together. If she really wanted Ace, she'd have ended up in his bed, riding his tongue to an orgasm as hot as the one she was headed for now.

  But she hadn't. She'd asked for time. She'd run away. "Who says it's up to me?"

  "Isn't it?"

  "Look at what she's wearing." It couldn't be a coincidence, not after last night. Thick black ribbons crisscrossed her torso, dragging the eye down to the lace-edged panties secured at her hips with more satin. "Last night, I told her you like ribbons."

  Cruz laughed, low and rough, and his hand slipped down to the middle of Ace's back. "Did you whisper it in her ear nice and dirty, like this?"

  Nothing he said would ever be as dirty as this. Casual filth tumbled from Ace's lips, waking or sleeping, because it was fun and easy and pretty fucking effective at scaring away nervous virgins looking for Jared's specialty--tender sexual awakenings. His dirty words came cheap.

  Cruz's were precise, each one slamming home with the impact of a hundred of Ace's, and doled out in servings so small you were ready to beg for the next taste. But Ace did
n't beg. He taunted, though it was mostly bluster now. "You think this is dirty?"

  Any answer he might have made was swallowed by a roar from the crowd. Rachel had shed her panties, everything but the dark ribbon tied around her midsection. It made her look like a gift as she lay on the stage, back arched, so naked, so exposed--even her pussy was bare, something Ace wouldn't have realized was new if he hadn't had his hand in her pants before she'd taken up dancing.

  She was on display, breathlessly, fearlessly vulnerable as she slipped one hand between her thighs. The audience quieted in time for her to part her lips on a long, trembling moan of pleasure, one Ace felt in his bones.

  Cruz shuddered, his hand creeping lower to settle at the small of Ace's back. "You don't waste resources on overkill. You focus, and you do just enough to accomplish your mission. Dedicated, effective strikes." He glanced down, his voice dropping to a rasp. "Are you that hard from watching her dance? I'd believe it, but I don't think it's true."

  His fingers burned, even through Ace's shirt. "Am I your mission? Or is she?"

  "I think it's more complicated than that." Cruz eased his hand beneath the cotton and brushed the backs of his fingers over the bare skin above Ace's belt. "She may be in ribbons now, but she was in leather last night. And she looked like she was ready to let you eat her alive right there in the hallway."

  A day ago, Ace would have sworn nothing could drag his gaze from the sight of Rachel with her fingers in her pussy, fucking them in and out with a rhythm he wanted to memorize. But he twisted to stare at Cruz from two damn inches away, and he still had no clue what to do with the dark recklessness in the other man's eyes. He had wanted to break Cruz free of the bullshit he'd learned in Eden, but he'd never considered he might not be up to handling what was lurking underneath.

  Fuck that. He was Alexander fucking Santana. He was Ace. He wouldn't get knocked off his feet by some wobbly-legged dominant still fighting to hide his city-boy shine.