Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

  He was incorrigible. She muffled a laugh by dropping her face to his shoulder for a sharp bite. He hissed, tightening his arms, and hurried his steps.

  The bathroom was as tidy and sparse as Cruz's bedroom. Shaving supplies lined the counter in a neat row in front of a stack of precisely folded towels and a few bars of unused soap, each an equal distance from the next.

  Ace let Rachel slide to her feet in front of the mirror, which was still fogged over from Cruz's shower. "You bite me again, pretty girl, and I'll bite back. And then we'll both be in trouble tonight."

  "We wouldn't want that." Ace's erection pressed against her hip as she reached past him to cut on the water, turning it hot enough to billow more steam up around them.

  Groaning, he lifted her with an arm locked around her waist and swung her around. "In. Now. Unless you want me to bend you over the counter and see how deep I can fuck you with just my tongue."

  "Uh-uh." She stepped onto the warm tile and let the water stream down over her hair and face before wiping it away. "Come here. I want to kiss you."

  It turned out the shower wasn't so big after all. Ace seemed to take up all the space as he climbed in and pulled the door shut, trapping them in a world of hot mist and steam. Droplets splashed off her skin to land on his shoulder, and it was impossible not to follow their path as they sluiced down his inked flesh.

  He slid his fingers into her hair, gathering the damp strands up high on the back of her head. "Too bad Cruz only has the unscented shampoo in here. I like the shit you usually use. The coconut."

  He'd been as painfully aware of her as she had been of him. The knowledge made Rachel bold, and she skated one hand down over his stomach. "A lady on the other side of the sector makes it for me."

  "Yeah?" His lips hovered over hers, so close she could taste them.

  A little lower, and her fingers grazed his hipbone. "Yeah."

  "Are you going for my cock, dirty girl?"

  His approving tone sent shivers racing through her, even under the hot spray. "It's not against the rules."

  He licked her lower lip, dragging his tongue from one corner of her mouth to the other. "Let's hope it never is."

  "Mmm." She wrapped her hand around his shaft.

  He groaned, his hips jerking, and she barely had time to shift her fingers before his mouth was on hers, open and firm and starving, his tongue coaxing her lips to part in time for her to swallow another rough growl.

  Rachel pushed off the wall, sinking her teeth into his tongue as she rubbed one leg up along the outside of his, relishing the slick glide of wet skin. Ace was hard under her fingers, rocking into her touch as he embraced her.

  He spun her in a dizzy circle, her hair flying everywhere before her back hit cooler tile. He braced his hands above her head and rested his forehead against hers. "Do you know how many times I've jerked off in the shower, imagining your hands on my dick?"

  "No." She stroked her hand over his length, twisting lightly, and swallowed a moan when he thrust against her palm. "Tell me."

  "Damn near every time." He closed his eyes. "When it wasn't your hands, it was your lips. And when it wasn't that, it was about getting inside you. And those were the quick fantasies."

  Oh God. She watched him, rapt, as she slowed her movements, then stopped entirely and squeezed her fist tight around him. "Give me a not-so-quick one," she teased, "and I'll keep going."

  "You sure you can handle it?" he rumbled, tilting his head back. "Because it starts with you in my tattoo chair. Strapped in."

  The strong column of his throat beckoned, and she licked a rivulet of water from his skin. "You want to tie me up?"

  "Fuck, yes. Though maybe I wouldn't have to. I bet Cruz would hold you down for me."

  It flashed through her like fire, the thought of Cruz's steely hands locked around her wrists or ankles. She'd glimpsed that unyielding strength the night before, when he'd held her helplessly still while Ace pleasured her with his fingers and tongue.

  Yes, he'd hold her down, hold her up. Hold her spread open to Ace's eager, questing mouth.

  Ace tipped his head forward and grinned. "There's those big eyes. You like that, don't you, angel? Thinking about Cruz pinning you in place so I can play. But you've seen my shows. You know what comes next."

  Pain--and more pleasure. "You think I wouldn't want that, too?"

  "I know you would." He ducked his head and licked a few drops of water from the curve of her breast. "You're not like Noelle. She's flash-fire. You barely hurt her and she's coming all over you. Jas lets her flame out fast because that's the part he likes. The big finish. He doesn't need what I need."

  "What do you need?" Rachel asked, though she already knew the answer. Control, the same as Cruz, with his careful strength and meticulously ordered life, only with a different focus--the precise, measured application of pain.

  "The slow burn." He thrust against her hand again, fucking her fist. "Waiting for that moment, the one where you stop taking the pain for me and start wanting it for yourself. When you don't know if it hurts or not anymore, but you'll die if I stop."

  Blood pounded in her ears. Her nerve endings sizzled. She pumped her fist and leaned closer. "Touch me?"

  He worked a hand between them without moving, his fingers sliding across her belly before grazing her clit. Soft, easy, so gentle that she instinctively rocked against him, seeking a more forceful caress.

  But he held back, quieting her with a soothing noise. "Careful, Rae. So careful. Because Cruz will ask. He'll demand every fucking detail, and I'll tell him."

  She stayed still this time as he explored her slowly, his fingertips slicking through her folds, though she couldn't suppress a whimper. "No secrets, right?"

  "Not a damn one." He whispered the words against her forehead as the very tip of his middle finger arrowed in, stroking with enough pressure to arch her back. "You'll be ours. Just ours. And we'll give you everything."

  She tilted her head back to meet his eyes. "Do you like it? Having him decide how you get to touch me?"

  "You think that's what he's doing?" His touch shifted again, finger swooping low through her folds. "He's not deciding how, angel, only how far. He won't let me take too much, too fast."

  Too much of her. Rachel shuddered. "Do you want to?" she asked softly.

  "Yes." It tore free of him, a confession and a warning. "Christ, the things I would do to you. All my damn life I've been good at playing games, but you make me want so hard I forget the fucking rules."

  Tenderness kindled a different kind of warmth. It crashed into the rising pleasure, heightening both, and she nestled her face in the wet hollow of his throat. "Wanting that much?" She moved her hand faster, jerking over him as she teased the edge of her teeth against his skin. "I know how it feels."

  It was his turn to shudder, and his caress sped. "Show me," he groaned. "Let go, angel, and fly for me."

  Steam billowed around them, blocking out the rest of the world. They were locked together, flesh gliding against flesh as they strained toward release. Rachel came with a cry, her hips snapping against Ace's hand of their own volition, Cruz's words echoing in her ears.

  Only sweetness.

  And sweetness was what Ace gave her. Soft strokes that soothed her through her shaking without driving her higher, and his lips against her ear, whispering encouragement and affection. When she started to drift down, he dropped his free hand to cover hers, pressing her fingers tight around his cock.

  Christ, he was trembling. She licked his lips, then slanted her mouth to his, capturing his groan as he thrust into her grip and came on her belly.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kept kissing him. This was a brand-new world--having instead of wanting, feeling so much instead of merely the hollow ache of loss.

  No wonder the earth was still quivering beneath her feet.

  There were a dozen ways to bypass the secure walls that guarded Eden from the end of the world, and Cruz knew them all. He knew th
e blind spots in the security system, the easiest places to scale the walls without being noticed, and how to slip beneath them using the tunnel system few outside the Special Tasks force even realized existed.

  He also knew the guards manning the gates. Not just their ranks and names, but their lives and stories. It was the most subversive rebellion he'd allowed himself in all his years of obedience, the choice to make connections with people who should have been beneath his notice.

  Howard McGrady worked first shift on the Sector Four checkpoint. He was forty-three years old, with a wife and one daughter--Aileen would be twelve by now, undoubtedly growing as pretty as her mother. Howard had shown Cruz a vid of the three of them on her tenth birthday, seven full minutes of family bliss. Watching had left a hollow ache in his chest, though the fact that the video existed at all helped to ease it.

  Aileen would have died before her fifth birthday if Cruz hadn't procured the medication necessary to save her.

  It had been nothing to him. A minor inconvenience. But it had meant everything to Howard, and sometimes the strength of his gratitude had unnerved Cruz. Before he'd defected from the city, there'd been no one in his life who could evoke that level of intensity. He understood fondness, and companionship, even brotherhood--

  Love was something else. Dangerous. Terrifying.

  Powerful.

  Love was what allowed Cruz to join the line at the checkpoint. Howard had a scanner in hand, one linked to the computer just inside the gatehouse. It tracked not only who entered the gates, but who left Eden and how long they were gone. When Cruz's turn came, Howard pretended to wave the scanner over the leather cuffs covering his O'Kane ink before waving him on with no other sign of recognition.

  Love, or loyalty. Maybe there wasn't a difference.

  Being inside the walls should have felt like coming home, but Cruz had been a shadow here. Home--if he'd ever had one--was the Base, the military outpost where Eden trained its elite soldiers. It was a rough place, a bluntly honest one. Everyone openly acknowledged your rank and status as everything, not like here where they tried so hard to pretend the shiny buildings and fancy lives were within your grasp, if you only worked hard enough.

  Cruz cut through a middle-class residential district, skirting the high-rise skyscrapers that lined the river. Eden's elite lived in those buildings, with councilmen's families enjoying the lavish penthouses while their maids and cooks huddled in crowded barracks in the basements and counted themselves lucky.

  Maybe they were. Not everyone could stumble into Sector Four and survive the experience.

  A dozen footbridges spanned the narrow river, most crowded with people rushing to work. Cruz joined the crowd headed toward the market district, drifting along until he was sure no one had followed him from the gates. Only then did he peel off, ducking into an alley between two warehouses.

  The street on the other side was decidedly dingier. He wasn't far from the neighborhood where Rachel had grown up now--a few streets over and he'd stumble into her family's territory.

  Not that he particularly wanted to look Liam Riley in the eyes right now. Not after last night--and all the things he'd considered doing to the man's daughter this morning. God, all the things he still wanted to do to her.

  Some fucking hero he was.

  Coop fell in beside him, straight-faced and casual. "In town for a little shopping, my boy?"

  "Maybe." Some of the tension knotting Cruz's shoulders eased at the older man's appearance. Coop might have aching joints and bones that had been broken far too often, but there was nothing wrong with the man's brain. His presence meant a degree of safety. "Maybe I just wanted to visit an old friend."

  It elicited a deep laugh, one that came from the man's gut and trailed off into a delighted wheeze. "Haven't lost your sense of humor, have you?"

  It was impossible not to smile, even if it meant poking fun at himself. "Fine. I needed to visit an old friend."

  "Now, that's more like it." Coop turned his twinkling blue gaze up to study Cruz's face. "How are you making out, running with O'Kane? He's treating you right, I hope."

  "No complaints. O'Kane's not stupid. He likes having guys like me and Bren around." Dallas was too smart not to respect their training--and their contacts.

  "Good to hear it."

  Silence fell, carrying them to the end of the street. The bartering district was to their right, forming a quasi-respectable front for Eden's thriving black market. Coop wouldn't blink if Cruz swung in that direction and wasted the next half-hour on small talk and fake shopping.

  He wouldn't blink, but he'd know. Cruz had come into the city early because Coop was the only person he fully trusted who wasn't wearing Dallas's ink, and he refused to be too damn cowardly to ask the man his hard questions. "Do you mind going straight to your place? We could catch up before our mutual friend drops in."

  "Sure." The old man pulled his tiny handheld tablet from his back pocket and activated the screen. His finger slid quickly over the reactive surface as he wrote out a message. "You promise to stay for lunch?"

  "Only if Tammy's cooking. I need all my teeth."

  "You getting so fancy you can't choke down burned biscuits?" Coop teased.

  Cruz snorted. "I still think you mix them with cement. I burn twice as many calories as they have just trying to chew them."

  "Uh-huh." Coop stowed the tablet and squinted up at Cruz. "Liam stopped by the other night."

  Masking his renewed tension, Cruz took the left turn that led to Cooper's building. "Liam Riley?"

  "The same. He heard you got booted out of the city and wound up over in Four."

  God only knew what else he'd heard. Hunger for rumors about the sectors--and the O'Kanes--was at an all-time high, thanks to Noelle exchanging her cushy life as a councilman's daughter for life as an enforcer's woman. Most people couldn't get more than a shred of the truth--

  But most people weren't Liam Riley. Coop was still studying him with those careful, knowing eyes, so Cruz exhaled roughly. "Did Bren tell you? Last time he was here, I mean?"

  Coop snorted. "Bren? Volunteer information?"

  "It could happen. Have you met that girl of his yet?"

  "I try to hand you a job, and you change the subject?" Silver hair flew as Coop shook his head. "You want to hear Liam's offer or not?"

  Offer, not threat. "What does he want?"

  "He doesn't much like what's been going down in the sectors. I mean, he trusts O'Kane, obviously, but that only goes so far where the man's daughter is concerned. He's looking to put a little extra security in place. For his own peace of mind, understand?"

  Jesus Christ. So much for absolution for his guilt. He'd given in to the need to take, and this was the universe kicking him in the balls over it. "He wants a bodyguard for her? She's not likely to put up with that."

  Coop shrugged. "Who says she has to know? He doesn't want a shadow, just an insurance policy. If the shit hits the fan, Rachel's protected."

  She already would be--but men like Rachel's father had zero faith in anyone they weren't paying to do a job. Too bad. "I can't take his money, Coop. Rachel and I... It's complicated. And not in any way Riley's going to like."

  Coop didn't even have the decency to look surprised by Cruz's confession as he passed the tunnel access and took a left down the alley that led to his building. "Don't be so sure he wouldn't like it. The man lives in abject fear his baby girl's gonna get marked by one of O'Kane's true-blue soldiers. Or is that what you are now?"

  Cruz traced his thumb over the leather cuff covering his ink, and for the life of him didn't know how to answer the question. He'd killed for Dallas already. Too blindly, too easily, because that was the only comfort he'd ever known. Obedience was supposed to mean it wasn't your fault.

  It had always been bullshit, but now he couldn't pretend anymore. Not when he'd already shifted his allegiance once. "I respect what O'Kane's trying to do. I'm his man, as long as he keeps trying to do it."

  "But y
ou still have Eden written all over you, and that matters to Liam," Coop said matter-of-factly as he opened the hidden panel beside the door and keyed in the code to open it. "He busted his ass, you know. Scrounged out a tiny little empire from nothing, and he always thought Rachel was his ticket to taking it legit. Plans change, but expectations die hard."

  Cruz frowned as he followed Coop into the narrow hallway. The only way Rachel could have changed her father's fortunes was by marrying someone with power and influence. Someone who had to follow all of Eden's rules on the surface, which meant chilly, sterile perfection. No love, no pleasure, no affection.

  He could barely imagine her surviving it, much less enjoying it, but maybe that was love again. Howard could lose his job or his freedom for letting Cruz into the city. Rachel might well have married some cold-blooded bastard and died a little inside every day if it meant protecting the people she loved.

  But the people who loved her shouldn't have been willing to let her.

  Coop clapped him on the back. "Don't look so down. Rachel's got a good head on her shoulders. She's not gonna fall for the line of shit. She'll go her own way, always has."

  Cruz managed a smile. "Sounds like her, yeah."

  Grinning, Coop led him into the living room. "No reason we can't win you some points. I'll tell Liam you'd be happy to watch Rachel's back, free of charge."

  It had been too long since he'd stood in this room. There was a comfort to it, something almost like home. Sinking down into one of the worn chairs felt like putting down a burden...or at least being able to share it. "You could do that. It'd be true enough."

  "Done. And the rest is between you and me."

  "The rest." Cruz closed his eyes and leaned his head back. There was no good place to start, because everything felt so raw and fragile. If Coop recoiled from the revelation that his involvement wasn't only with Rachel...

  Cruz sighed. "Can I ask you a question? A personal one?"

  Coop bent with a grunt to fetch two cold beers from the tiny refrigerator behind his chair. "Shoot."

  "Why are you still in Eden? With all the help you've given people, you could live well in the sectors."