by Lynn Rush
“Yeah, well—God!” She shook her head. “I’m sick of being cooped up. Sick of Lois dodging us. How is she doing that unless she’s an Agent?”
“G, you don’t know that. She could—”
“No. Don’t say it. Lois is like freaking Jasmine, you know? All with the covert existence, dodging Agents for all those years before she came to Trifle and hooked up with our bro.” Georgia flopped onto her back in the middle of her bed. I mimicked her and looked at the bubbly ceiling.
Light flowed in from our open window, but it was from the snow buzzing around out there. Visibility wasn’t more than five feet out the window for sure. We overlooked the side parking lot and not a car could be seen.
“She has to be an Agent,” Georgia said.
“But maybe an ex-Agent like Jasmine?”
Another huff.
“So not liking your huffs and grunts, girl. Talk to me.”
“I miss Scott. I only just got to know my brother and now I can’t talk to him. I can’t see him. It’s like Mom and Dad. They were killed. I never got to know them. You did. You had all that time with Mom and Dad, and even more with Scott. It’s not fair.” Her voice cracked. “Then, the only mom and dad I’ve ever known turn out to be adoptive parents who have been lying to me. Oh, not to mention my fake mom, Lois, might have been an Agent this whole entire time.”
She pretty much summed everything up with that. Except the torrid affair with Zach, my first true love. He ripped my heart out with a spoon thinking he was protecting me. But then again, it led me to Nate.
At least that’s what I told myself on an almost daily basis. The envelope he gave me for my birthday was still sitting in my backpack—unopened. I’d put it with Mom’s disks and the book, so when Tim got my stuff after he “killed” us, it was in there.
I’d almost opened it, like a billion times, but…I really should throw it away. I was with Nate now. I didn’t want Zach.
I shook my head, bringing my attention back to my sister. She was the one having a meltdown, not me—for once. “Your mom’s letter said why she left. We have to trust it. She isn’t an Agent.” Though how she was constantly evading us was a conundrum on its own right.
“I’ve read that letter, like fifty times, Mandy.” Georgia sniffled. “I don’t know what to believe. I’m freaking out. Sick of this place. Sick of snow. Sick—”
“I know. And I miss Scott, too, girl. But it’s safer this way. You know that, right?” I scrubbed my face with my hands.
“I know it, but it still sucks. I wish I could see him. You know, like, from afar.”
“Nate said that after some more time, maybe we could. It’s not safe right now. Nothing is.” I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. Scott’s image and even Jasmine’s came into focus. I’d not liked Jasmine for the longest time. Turned out she was an Agent, but one of the good guys, and she loved my brother, protected him. She’d proven that time and time again.
“Look. Maybe we can, like, check out Facebook. He might be on there. You know?” I asked.
“You have your account?” The bed squeaked as Georgia sat up.
“I tried my old log in, but it’s deactivated. I mean, we’re dead.”
“You’ve tried to log in? What if you were caught? Or someone saw you online, Mandy?”
“Like I said. It didn’t work.” I sat up. “I wanted to—well—see what people were up to.”
“Oh, man, Mandy, does Nate know?”
“Hell no.”
“Secrets already. Tsk. Tsk.” She smiled.
“I was just—”
“Checking on Zach?”
Heat fused my cheeks. “No.”
“You lie.”
“Like I said. I couldn’t get on.”
“We could set up a fake one. Random name no one would know.” Georgia stood. “You have the laptop Nate gave you, right?”
I nodded. “Really?”
“Yeah. Then we could watch Scott, if he has an account.”
“He won’t. We’ve been off the grid for so long, he’d never do that. He didn’t like that I had Twitter and Facebook accounts, even with our fake names.”
“Let’s try. You could be Kelvin. No one will know. We could—”
“I don’t know, G.”
“Fine. I’ll do it. Go take a shower. You can plead the fifth if I’m caught.” She moved to the desk beside the window. “I have to see him or I’m going to go nuts.”
“I’m going to go nuts from not using my powers. You feel twitchy?”
She straightened. “Twitchy?”
“You know, like you’re going to boil over?”
“No.”
“It’s like exercise. When I don’t use my power, I feel like I’m going to explode. I just want to shoot some ice or something.” I clapped my hands together. “And you know what?”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
I laughed. “Of course you will.”
“Right. What?”
“I’m thinking, since the visibility is so bad, maybe we can go play out behind the hotel tonight.”
“There’s a blizzard, Mandy. Are you insane? Is all this traveling day in and day out starting to freeze your brain?”
“You’re so funny. No. I want to go mess around. Let loose.” I glanced at my blue fingernails. They flickered as if acknowledging my feelings. Like they were anxious to let the ice flow. I opened my palm and conjured a baseball of ice. I curled my fingers around it, relishing the feel of the smooth surface against my flesh.
“Yeah, you think Nate and Tim will allow that? About as much as a fake Facebook account.”
“I’ll convince him. It’ll be fine.”
The thought of having a little fun with some ice production and a room swap for the night sent a flurry of excitement through my stomach. Like a thousand butterfly wings fluttered against my insides. Almost made me forget about Supermodel, Agents, and Bev, the evil mastermind of my last imprisonment.
Almost.
Chapter 3
“Are you kidding?” Nate shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
“Come on. G and I are going nuts.” I tunneled my hands through my hair as I paced in front of the closed door.
Georgia had totally nailed it. Nate freaked when I asked to go out and play. Sure he was my boyfriend, who said he’d protect me and take care of me once he killed me off to protect me from The Center, but still. He’d turned into my warden, too, and that part was so not appealing.
“Look, I know it’s tough playing dead, and that we’ve been stuck in this hotel for two days, but we have to be careful.”
“How are you not going insane? I mean, I can only take so many Ricky Lake reruns and cheesy movies. Let alone hotel food.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and stared out the window. Darkness had fallen, but I saw the thick blanket of snow against the floodlights perched outside the window. A flash of red caught my eye, too. No, yellow. Yeah, yellow. “Hey, what’s out there?”
“Plows. Trying to stay ahead of things. It’s stuck, though.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s our in. Let’s go help. We can—”
“No.”
“Nate. Come on.” I wanted to flop onto the floor in an all out hissy-fit, but I restrained myself. I know, how big of me.
“Mandy,” he whispered. “Just because Tim ran every person’s name registered at this hotel through a check and all came clean, doesn’t mean that chick you saw earlier today isn’t someone dangerous to us.”
“What are the chances? Her here? No way. I was just being paranoid.”
“Paranoia has kept me and my team hidden for years. If she triggered something in you, then we need to pay attention to it.” Nate’s forehead crinkled and his dark brows pulled together. “What exactly happened when you saw her, anyway?”
I stepped away from the window and toward the couch. It was nice having the room to ourselves while Georgia and Tim went down to the lobby to get ice cream. Usually we try and
sneak a quick make out session whenever we got alone time, but not today. He was probably mad that I was bugging him to let me and Georgia go out and let loose with our powers for a bit. For some exercise.
“Mandy?”
“Well, I got a little rumble in my tummy, but that was probably because I was mad. She was staring at my boyfriend like a cougar stares at her meal after not having eaten in ten days, you know?”
He laughed, and I turned around. He sat in the armchair next to the couch and watched me with big eyes.
“What?”
“I like hearing you call me your boyfriend.” Redness painted his cheeks. “And that you got jealous.”
“You really didn’t see her?”
“No.”
“How? She’s beautiful. Long, red, flowing hair. Miles of legs. Perfect skin. Perfect boobs. Perfect—”
“Hey.”
“Well, she is. You had to have seen her. You see everything. Like a hawk.”
“I saw her, but only watched her for a second to assess the threat. Didn’t get anything from her on that level, so she was of no interest to me.”
“Wow. Because, aren’t guys all visually oriented? I heard that once. Like, that’s why they like to look at women. But us chicks aren’t wired that way.”
He laughed again.
“Okay. The snickers are getting annoying, buddy.” I plopped onto the table in front of the couch. I sure was pouty. What the hell was wrong with me?
“All right. Let’s go see if we can help that plow.”
I jolted to my feet. “What?” Damn, could he read my mind sometimes or what?
“You don’t want to anymore?”
“No. No. I do. What—um—how?”
“So, people like us, we’re different we—”
“Duh.” I smiled as I crept toward him.
“No, seriously. I’ve seen this before at The Center. When deprived of using their natural gifts, things go a little wonky.”
“Wonky. Never heard that word from your lips.”
“Get that from hanging around you.”
“Go on.” I fell to my knees in front of him and rested my hands on his thighs.
“Um—well—Wonky.” He cleared his throat. “What I meant by that was—” He coughed. “Like you said, they get the itch to use them. Um—”
Okay, Nate never stuttered or faltered like he was at the moment. Was I doing that to him? Or was he holding something back?
“What?” I brushed my hand up and down the top of his thigh. His blue jeans were soft to my touch, but the thick denim didn’t hide his toned, defined legs from me. I’d seen him in shorts before. I knew what lay beneath. At that moment, his legs tightened, and his jaw clenched.
“I’m just saying I understand your restlessness now. I didn’t put it together until you asked about going out.” He drew in a deep breath. The black pupils of his eyes ate up the brown irises and his nostrils flared.
His cinnamon and mint scent tickled my nose. Warmth pooled low in my belly. Suddenly my heart lurched into my throat. He leaned forward, cupped my face, then pressed his lips to mine.
He moved so fast he caught me by surprise. Nice surprise, for sure, but he usually didn’t act like that. He initiated our first kiss after I’d broken up with Zach, but for the most part, he rarely instigated our little make out sessions. Never really thought of it until right now, because he really instigated this one.
I liked it.
Or was he trying to distract me? I didn’t care. I scooted forward, still on my knees, and parted his legs with my hips. That prompted a moan. I tasted the Red Vines we’d eaten for dessert after our hotel meal of cheeseburgers and fries, so there was a hint of salt on his lips.
I needed more. I jutted out my tongue and he opened. A stronger wave of sweet Red Vines taste exploded in my mouth. Fingers curled around the nape of my neck, then darted into my hair. Only difference was that he fisted his hand, tugging at some strands and tilted my head.
That was new.
But still good. Really good.
The angle he’d put me at allowed him to deepen his kiss. He took command of my mouth, and I willingly surrendered it to him. My heart slammed and my pulse drummed. I shot my hands up the back of his shirt.
My fingers feasted on his smooth skin. He didn’t have much hair, rarely had to shave his face, but he just attributed it to part of his make up while they were creating him.
I loved it. My fingers trailed up each groove of his spine until my hands cupped his shoulder blades. I pulled myself flush with him. He trembled within my grasp and pulled away, breathing heavily. I had to gasp for air myself. He’d almost taken all my breath with that long kiss.
I’d never felt such passion from him before. He’d always been tentative when it came to being close. Respectful. Then again, he’d never had a serious girlfriend before. The story he’d fed me about being in love with someone back in Phoenix when we’d first started dating was part of his cover.
Once I’d found out he was a former Agent, he’d copped to all of his lies, claiming he built a false world and memorized it so he had something to tell people to seem more human.
I was glad, though. I’d only been in love once, so we were learning together.
His hand went to his trademark spot, palm to my chest with fingers brushing against my neck. His tongue ran over his shiny lips. I was glad I’d worn a button up long-sleeved shirt so his palm could touch my flesh when it assumed its usual position. It branded me.
I was happy to have it there. Maybe even a little lower would be okay, too. The thought got my heart jumping even more. Georgia and Tim could walk in at any moment. We should probably stop.
But the next moment found me climbing onto his lap. He was all too eager to help me up there. With his strength and my mere hundred pounds for weight, it didn’t take much.
“Okay?” he whispered—er—gasped. His hands settled on my hips as I straddled him.
“Better than okay.” I leaned toward him and captured his mouth.
Fingers clamped onto my hips and even through the jeans I felt the warmth flowing from them. He moved his hands up, beneath my shirt, and to my breasts.
There was something different about him. More intense. Wild almost. Sure, I was only nineteen years old, had had only one boyfriend, but I knew about desire, some about sex, but I saw all of it flashing in his dilated eyes.
Maybe it would happen soon for us. Should it happen? Should I wait for marriage? Was marriage even an option for someone like me? Someone on the run, having fake names every other month.
He pulled me closer, settling me on his core, and my world tilted. His lips brushed against my chest, nipping at the skin. Tugs on my shirt made me look down. His fingers, with a surprising expertise, unbuttoned the top one. He pulled the fabric apart slightly and planted a kiss to my skin just above the next fastened button.
One more. I gripped his shoulders, pulling my core more against his. “Nate,” I whispered. “Oh my gosh. I—we—” My brain refused to work. But my body knew what to do as it grinded against his.
“Mmm.” His lips vibrated against my chest as he kissed, while his fingers worked on the next button. One more and he’d be able to see most of me. Sure, I wore a bra, but still, Georgia and Tim could walk in. “So soft.” His tongue swirled against my skin.
He pulled the fabric away, exposing my chest and he drew in a sweet breath. “Beautiful.” His lips brushed the top of my white, lace bra, so close to my breast my heart pounded. One arm curled around my waist, pulling me closer to his body.
Was I really ready to do this? Go all the way? Georgia said I should wait, that Lois had always told her to wait. No use giving a piece of yourself away just because it felt good was what Lois had always said.
But boy, did this feel good. I didn’t want to stop. Ever.
But then I felt his fingers on my chest again—more specifically the bra clasp.
He claimed my lips as he worked the clasp open. Oh, God
. More vision tilting dizziness followed as he worked his very talented lips along my neck, and I knew where he was headed.
The thought shot a line of liquid heat right to my stomach. Tender, gentle massaging followed, stealing my breath and sending a shudder down my spine. “Nate.”
I buried my fingers in his hair as he reached my breasts, tasting me like no one had ever done before.
I could only close my eyes and hold on as the gentle strokes of his tongue sent my world tilting.
“Nate.”
“Yeah,” he whispered, pulling his lips from my skin and looking at me. “Does this feel good for you?”
“Oh my gosh, yeah,” I could barely speak.
His hand went around my waist to my butt and pulled me harder against him. White lights burst into my sight. I let out a strangled gasp and grabbed his shoulders. How’d he know exactly what to do? One slight shift, a tender touch, and he catapulted me off the ledge.
“Bed.” I leaned forward and kissed him hard. “Take me to—”
The door lock beeped.
With superhuman speed, Nate fastened my bra and the buttons on the front of my shirt, then hoisted me from his lap into a more cradling position.
Handy having a speedster boyfriend.
Too bad he couldn’t calm my heaving breath. Hell, I still had lights flashing in the corners of my vision.
Darn roommates.
Then again, I was being a little rash with the whole take me to bed statement, wasn’t I?
Maybe, maybe not.
The door pushed open and Tim and Georgia strolled through. My slamming heart had to have been heard by all. “Hey guys.” My voice cracked. Could I be more obvious?
The corner of Georgia’s mouth curved up in a wicked smile. “Hey yourself.”
“Nate said we can go play in the snow.” I hopped up and grabbed her hand. “Come on. Let’s get our coats.”
Georgia leaned in. “You missed a button.”
Chapter 4
Decked out in all the winter wear Nate and Tim bought for us, Georgia and I dove into the first snow bank we saw. And there were plenty.
We both landed on our stomachs, then rolled to our backs. Big, fat snowflakes drifted onto my skin, cooling the fire Nate had stoked minutes earlier. Wow, my mind was still reeling from it. Such intensity.