Seduced

by Angel Payne

  Again sharing his mental page, Franzen mumbled, “What the fuck is going on?”

  “What part of shut up did you not understand?” barked their guard.

  “Yo, Hulk?” SIG man called it from the living room without diverting his attention from Bella, whom he dumped on an ottoman without ceremony. “I believe the gentleman has a good grasp of the situation, as well as our control of it.”

  Ninja minion huffed. “Damn it, Mag. We have orders to restrain any trouble—”

  “That’s not trouble, buddy. That’s just a question.” The guy flicked an almost respectful glance at Franz. “A question to which he won’t get the answer, but just a question all the same.”

  “Magneto, I don’t apprec—”

  “Shut. Your. Hole. And kindly bring your friends over here.” He nodded at minion number two. “Rorschach, grab his six.”

  Tait barely held back his eye roll. The asswipes might be packing pro-level firearms and using all the right terminology, but superhero mission names? Mixed between the DC and Marvel universes? Arrogant idiots.

  They were all guided into the living room and directed to park their asses on the room’s two long couches, upholstered in a trendy shade of light blue that was likely named after a mythical bird or tropical resort. Sage and Rayna were brought over as well. Knowing Garrett and Zeke would have their attention dented by the women’s presence, Tait focused harder on picking out the weakest links in this weird gumball gang. His vantage point gave him the chance to scope out the remaining pair who kept watch on Runway, while his teammate returned the favor on the two guys assigned to him. He ran a visual on the remaining soldiers too. Their tail man had stayed on the terrace, sticking to a shadow behind some palms to watch over the beach access to the villa. But that couldn’t be all of them. He suspected Magneto had already waved in two or three more men to search the other areas of Bella’s home.

  Magneto. Seriously? And I’m Professor X, asshole.

  “Okay, l-look.” Though Bella’s words wobbled, she crossed her legs and folded her hands to look like she was simply being grilled by a nosy talk show host. His impression was intensified by the woman’s charm-drenched smile. “You boys seem nice, so I’ll be straight-up. I don’t keep a lot of valuables at the house, but there’s a safe in the library and another in the bedroom. They’re both controlled by double passwords, but I can go with you and—”

  “Dear fuck,” growled Hulk. “Can I work on shutting her up now too?”

  Bella glared like he’d farted. “I beg your pardon?”

  “My pardon isn’t what you need, diamond diva. It’s my mercy.”

  “Spare me, pompinara. At least I earned every one of my diamonds, instead of sneaking into someone’s house like a rat cocksucker and stealing them!”

  Hulk snorted. “Honestly? You sticking with that, babe?”

  Bella tossed her head, dramatically swinging her thick black hair. “What the hell is your problem?”

  “You’re fiddle-fucking around, Miss La-La Lanza. That’s my problem.” He advanced on Bella by a step. “Stop pretending you’re mortified that we’re here and tell us where he stashed the codes.”

  That seemed to seriously stun her. “He who? What codes?”

  “Enough.” The roar came from leader man. Hell. At least the guy had the Magneto boom down pretty well. “H, you’re trying my patience.”

  The guard huffed. “And she isn’t?”

  “I said enough.”

  Tait swapped a knowing glance with Ethan. In it, they acknowledged a couple of things. Number one: big bad call sign or not, Magneto had trouble controlling his team. Even without Hulk giving him this grief, the guys who’d gone out to recon the house hadn’t radioed in or returned yet. Two, was anyone in this band of bastards in agreement on what the hell they were doing here? He didn’t care about the answer to that. Runway’s piercing blue gaze, double blinking in return to the identical move from Tait, said he didn’t either. They were both ready to surge when Hulk decided to get pissy again. The wait likely wouldn’t be long.

  Unnervingly, their bulky guard fell into a brooding silence. He decided to actually watch them for once too. Tait fought his impatience by gritting his teeth and watching Magneto kneel next to Bella. As the man lowered his body, he did the same with his gun. With the hand that had been fitted to the SIG’s grip, he now held the star’s hand with the gentleness of a lover. Tait knew better and tensed because of it. Fuck. No way to flip the bitch of fate on these guys as long as Mag Man had his paws directly on Bella.

  “Miss Lanza.” The man’s tone was a respectful request—on the surface. The underline of force was undeniable, even to Bella. Tension shoved its way along her shoulders. He continued, “I apologize for my associate. He can be uncouth. But he’s also right. We’re not here to take your jewelry or your art.” He lifted his hold from her hand to her chin. “You know what we’re here for, don’t you?”

  She tried to tug away. The man held her firm. Even from where he sat, Tait watched her pupils dilate in deeper fear. “No,” she finally rasped. “P-Please. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Magneto sighed. Lowered his hand. And picked up his pistol again. He stroked the barrel along the outside of her thigh. “Let’s approach this a different way.”

  Bella whimpered. “What the hell do you want from me? I really don’t know what—”

  “Ssshhh. I just want to talk. To ask you a few questions. Answer me honestly, and I won’t have to use this on your kneecap, all right?”

  Bella managed a jerky nod. A couple of years ago, Tait would’ve added a chuckle right along to it. The guy he’d been back then was even more a skeptic than he was now, hardly believing in the validity of shit like intuition, let alone someone’s ability to discern a true lie. After all, he’d lied to his own father since the age of five and gotten away with it. But twenty-one years after that first fib, he’d met Ethan Archer and the man’s mental polygraph machine. For all he knew, Mag Man was one of those hyperintuitive freaks too.

  “Wh-What do you want to know?” Bella stammered into the man’s long silence.

  Magneto leaned back a little, again conveying the appearance that he was just here for a friendly chat. “You did some entertaining here last night as well, didn’t you?”

  Tait traded another glimpse with Ethan. This time, puzzlement consumed the guy’s face. He saw the same thinking in Franz and the rest of the guys. Hadn’t Bella proclaimed to them all this morning that she didn’t invite people over to the villa enough?

  Bella squirmed, now that her exaggeration had been caught. “I wouldn’t call it entertaining,” she justified. “I…had a friend over. For a fast drink.”

  “Which turned into a little slumber party.”

  The woman flashed apprehensive eyes at Runway. Part of her invitation to all of them tonight had been rooted in her desire to rekindle old flames with him. There was no secret about that, though the same didn’t seem to apply toward her drinking buddy from last night. With an awkward smile, she explained, “Well, we had more than one drink. And we got to talking late. And I do have three extra bedrooms here.”

  “But Mr. Lemare didn’t stay in any of those rooms, did he?”

  Her anxiety hitched into blatant alarm. She compensated for it by going for a haughty sniff. “Mr. Lemare and I are required to be close. It’s essential that we’re on the same page, creatively and strategically, for Dress Blues to work as well as it does. Besides that, we share the same heritage. He is my friend as well as my producer.”

  “And your lover.”

  “That’s none of your damn business.”

  The guy shrugged. “Not usually. And quite frankly, sweetheart, I don’t care if he fucked you sideways doggie style while swinging from the chandelier. I just need to know what the guy gave you for safekeeping between tossing out the condom and sharing your morning shower.”

  Buh-bye, terrified starlet. Hello, enraged diva. It would’ve surprised no one i
f Bella grew full claws before spitting, “You’re repugnant. I refuse to dignify a word of that with—”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He jerked his head at Hulk and one of the guards who covered Sage and Rayna, the one Tait had pegged as a skittish colt. Didn’t seem so skittish now. He surged forward to help Hulk in pinning Bella’s wrists back. “What you find repugnant is of no damn interest to me,” he went on, as breezy as if discussing whether LA would ever get its own football team again. “I just want to know what Enzo Lemare gave you after he slept with you. And of course, where you’re hiding it for him.”

  A gasp from the atrium was loud enough to silence him. Since the atrium was directly behind their couch, Tait couldn’t see the source of the sound, though the pitch of pure shock made him guess that the recon team had just found Ava Chestain.

  Sure enough, the woman was dragged toward Magneto by a couple of his ninjas. She fought their clutches with rebellious little yanks, making them both grunt—and screwing a grimace onto Runway’s face that Tait had never seen before. Shit. The guy’s lips curled so tight over his locked teeth, Tait wondered if Ethan would chomp right into the jugular of these guys if either of them gave Ava so much as a broken nail.

  He didn’t have to wait long for that answer.

  As the goons pulled at her, Ava fought them again. Her mass of dark hair fell back, making her whole face visible, including the shiner that bloomed beneath her left eye.

  Ethan shot up like fifty rounds went off in his ass. Forget that. All fifty blazed in his eyes, wild and incensed, even after one of the ninjas slammed him back.

  “What the fuck did you do to her?”

  One of Ava’s guards jerked his head over. “Crazy bitch did it to herself. Did a pinball bounce on the wall and bathroom floor after I found her hiding in the master shower.”

  Ava’s face sparked with victory. “After I took you down with me, asshole.”

  The guard growled as he searched for a good response for saving face.

  He got cut off by the wails of angry sirens. And right after that, the approaching thunder of a helicopter over the ocean.

  Bella took her own turn to gasp. Sage and Rayna locked hands. Tait looked at Ethan, who still stared at Ava like her whole nose had been sliced off. But Ava kept her gaze glued on her main guard. With a smirk growing across her lips.

  “Did I forget to tell you I did that after I called the cops?”

  “Damn it.” He grunted it in unison with his partner.

  Magneto slowly rose to his feet. Tait appraised the movement in curiosity. The guy looked like he was the damn water heater inspector and Bella simply the pilot light that gave him grief. “Well, this puts a dent in things,” he muttered.

  Bewilderment made camp in Tait’s psyche. Looked like the other guys on the team commiserated. Fifteen minutes ago, these wannabe superheroes had materialized out of the night and infiltrated the villa with, he reluctantly admitted, damn fine precision. But now their leader was twirling a hand in the air, finishing it by jabbing a finger back toward the beach, like they were all supposed to just cut and run?

  “Huh?” He muttered it as the ninjas did just that, hustling out one by one. He recognized the disappointment in his voice, thickening as he repeated it in Franz’s direction this time. “Are we really just watching this? Captain, aren’t we gonna do anything?”

  Franz tossed a dark stare. “You want to run that risk with innocents present, T-Bomb? Especially when armed support is on the way? I’m frustrated as hell too, but maybe you know something I don’t. Maybe that’s your twenty-two millimeter thug stopper in those swim trunks and not your dick. If so, then go get ’em, cowboy.”

  He huffed. “Damn it, we’re trained for this.”

  “And so is the LAPD.”

  Fuck. He hated it when Franzen was right. For the second time today, his mind flicked backward in time, to summer days of nearly twenty years ago, when he and Fire Hamilton were feeling ballsy. They’d sneak into Old Man Stromberg’s orchard and concoct epic alien battles from a hay bale fort. They’d just be set to launch their big attack when Fire’s mom would call him in for dinner. Tait would trudge home, knowing dinner wouldn’t be waiting, which was no biggie to his deflated stomach.

  He felt the same way now. It sucked ass enough that the ninja assholes had ruined a once-in-a-lifetime invitation to a celebrity’s Malibu beach house, but they didn’t have the decency to make the whole thing about something exciting like drugs, jewelry, money, or even sneaky paparazzi shots. Now that would’ve been cool. They would’ve been the shit back at base once those pictures broke, showing them kicking back in Bella Lanza’s fancy digs, eating grilled shrimp with the glamorous star…

  He was about to give these whack-offs another heavy snort when one of the minions bumped him in the haste of their retreat. And damn it if the shithead didn’t smell a lot like salon-quality hair conditioner. And fuck if the guy didn’t have the most perfect, heart-shaped ass he’d ever—

  “Gaaahh!”

  He was so far over the cliff from shock, he couldn’t even swear right. Apparently fate wasn’t sticking it and twisting it enough at that, because the ninja stopped and froze—letting him gawk longer at that beautiful backside. Letting him gaze up over hips and a waist that now, under second and third consideration, were too damn sleek for a guy on a team this well-trained.

  Tait blinked. How had he missed this bozo before now? And why couldn’t he stop staring at the bastard, unable to control the sparks of strange recognition that popped through him, a case of déja vu set to his mind’s own speed metal song?

  And why, as the guy turned back to stare at him, did he imagine that the space between the ninja’s hood and jacket parted enough for him to glimpse a ponytail—a coiled braid of black, lavender, and silver hair?

  “Holy fuck.”

  He rushed to his feet. Stumbled forward. Déja vu? Screw that mystical shit. He recognized that ass from solid, real memories—because he’d seen it before. Completely naked. Getting Dommed into a thousand beautiful shades of red, in a dungeon a thousand miles away, on a cold autumn night that felt thousands of years away. The Dom had been his buddy Zeke, and he’d been the scene monitor who’d never forget that submissive as long as he lived. He’d jacked off a few hundred times to mental replays of that scene. To thoughts about that woman and her daiquiri-in-a-bottle hair shit, and the way that tricolored hair wove around her breasts like dark seaweed on a pale mermaid. He even fantasized about hurting her the way Z had, just to make her smile like she had after their session…just to give her soul everything it so clearly needed from all that. And yeah, he thought a lot about holding her again too. About curling her against him like he had when Z had to leave so suddenly after the session, feeling like fucking Zeus when she’d let him.

  But that woman had been hauled off to prison ten days later. She’d aided the criminal who’d almost murdered Zeke in a revenge-driven zeal to capture Rayna back into white slavery. She’d finally had a surge of sanity about all that and was able to use her proximity to the monster to aid the police in bringing him down, but sometimes a right couldn’t cancel a wrong. Tait had walked her to the police van. It had been a freezing, miserable day, but crazily, the sun sliced through the clouds as she’d turned to tell him goodbye. It had haloed across her head and glimmered in her eyes, stunning him into silence with their brilliant purple light. Sadness yet peace, resignation yet despair… It was all there, a goddamn universe in her gaze…and they’d locked it away.

  Two states, seven months, and thousands of miles later, a masked soldier turned and looked at him—and hit him with that universe again.

  “Holy fuck.”

  There was no hesitation to it this time. Only his laugh of raw joy.

  The soldier gave him a desperate shake of his—her—head. Right before she spun for the door to the terrace and raced through it.

  Tait didn’t think twice about giving chase.

  He caught her a couple of feet
past the terrace’s light. Now that he had her secure, he let his mind give way to the full, phenomenal reality of this. Of her.

  “Luna.” He breathed the word. “Goddamn. Luna.”

  He got to rejoice in that for about a second. After she thwacked a hand across his face at full strength, he got busy dealing with his stinging skin, his bleeding pride—and the violet glower that bore into him with the subtlety of a power drill.

  “Stay where you are, Weasley. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  As he watched her trudge down the sand and blend into the night, he failed to erase the music of her voice from his head—especially as she’d wrapped it around the nickname that she’d given him that night he’d held her in the dungeon. Weasley. He’d laughingly accepted the title, reminding her that in the world of teenage wizards from where she’d pulled the name, Weasley was the one who finished off the tale with the beautiful genius witch on his arm.

  He laughed again now but had no idea why. As he turned and got ready to face the curious gapes of the other guys, he muttered, “It’s a little too late for that, woman.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ava crossed the threshold from her garage into her kitchen and peered around in bewilderment. Turning the light on over the sink didn’t help the confusion. She ran fingers over the folded dishtowel, the coffee cup she’d scrubbed and put in the drainer this morning, the miniature herb garden that grew in a wood box on the windowsill. Though Zeke and Rayna had gotten up after her and had still been snoozing in the guest bedroom, everything was exactly as she’d left it sixteen hours ago, at six a.m.

  But nothing was the same.

  She folded her arms around herself, feeling like she hugged an alien. When she’d left this morning, she’d been sore from pushing it hard at the gym. Now she ached in newer, stranger ways. Her face throbbed from her face-plant during the struggle with Bella’s strange intruders. Her arms carried bruises from where the jerks had grabbed her. But below her waist, the pain took on a different edge. It had been months since her last date, let alone one with a man she’d allow in her bed. Technically, that wasn’t where Ethan had been either—but her body, with its most tender tissues aching in the most intimate ways, sure as hell didn’t know the difference.