EVEN AS I lay on my cot perfectly still, my mind wouldn’t stop shifting back and forth between thoughts. Maybe I needed to try some of that meditation stuff. Although Blaze had said it didn’t actually help him to settle down but just to feel more in harmony with the rest of the world or something, so who knew if it’d work for me either?
He’d said a lot of things today. Things that had set my mind into this whirling of uncertainty. I’d felt so… so good watching that episode of Spy Time, everything else in my life falling away, laughs tumbling out of me like I couldn’t remembering happening since I was a kid.
But then, as the credits had rolled, he’d turned to me and asked if I wanted to watch another, and reality had come crashing in. There were a hell of a lot of other things in my life, things I couldn’t—shouldn’t—forget. How could I sit there laughing at some silly TV show when Anna and everyone else in the household were dead, when I’d barely made any progress into figuring out who’d killed them, let alone bringing them justice?
Blaze could treat life as a game all he wanted, but he didn’t know what mine was made up of. He didn’t understand how important it’d been for me to stay focused and train as hard as I had. Every time I’d left the household, I’d been risking my life to take down a threat, with the whole household depending on me. Happiness was a distraction, not something I should have been chasing.
And yet… some part of me wanted so badly to go out there and beg him to put on that second episode. What was wrong with me?
I couldn’t stand keeping my body motionless any longer. Pushing myself upright, I eyed the exercise equipment that filled the rest of the room the cops had given me. Working out had always been my surest method to blow off steam and regain my focus.
I needed to get my priorities straight, and all of the emotion boiling inside of me was accomplishing the opposite. It had to go.
A half-hour sprint on the treadmill would start the job well, and an extended arm workout after that—weights and maybe some bodyweight work—would finish the job. The prospect of exhausting myself thoroughly brought me a much more comfortable sense of relief.
I pulled my hair back from my face and went through several opening stretches. Getting on the treadmill, I allowed myself to ease into its grip and resistance before jogging on it. I’d used them before, but every machine was a little different. You could roll an ankle if you started at top speed on equipment you weren’t familiar with.
Once I’d set my ideal pace, I flew. Remembering Noelle’s coaching, I willed my breathing to remain steady until the entire process became a constant thrum of instinct and will. The running drove me forward, my legs and lungs started to burn, and the long days of emotion-filled events peeled away from me one layer at a time.
I turned the treadmill up another notch, adjusting my form and easily keeping pace. My heartbeat increased in tempo with it. My ribs thrummed with each hard pound of my feet, but they were nearly healed. The pain was mild enough that I could breathe right through it in a matter of minutes.
Just how I liked it.
When the burn started to prick at my muscles, switching from exhilaration to exhaustion, I slowed my sprint to a fast lope and continued, closing my eyes. I’d seen normal women jogging along the city streets before, passing by me while I was immersed in a mission. Did they get the same release out of it that I did, or did they run for some other reason?
The door to the workout room opened with a squeak of the hinges, and I spared a glance behind me. Talon stood in the doorway, a towel slung over his shoulder and a jug of water dangling from his hand. I tilted my head up in greeting but didn’t give him more of an acknowledgment than that.
“I heard you going at it and figured I’d join you,” he said. “The others have all headed out, and I could use something to keep me occupied.” He paused as if waiting for my approval.
I wondered if he’d turn around and leave if I told him to. Had it been anyone else, I might have tested that question, but I knew Talon wouldn’t attempt to make small talk while he worked out. Anyway, it was his exercise room. I was just an interloper here.
I gave him a sharp nod, and he didn’t say another word as he walked over to the rack of dumbbells. The weights clinked as he lifted a couple. I waited until his sounds of effort filled the room before I slowed to a fast walk and caught my breath.
My legs ached beautifully, and a thin layer of sweat covered my entire body. I raised the hem of my shirt and wiped the sweat from my face as my heart regained a normal, steady tempo. As I came down from the high of the exertion, my gaze traveled over to Talon, just as he lifted the weights he’d picked up.
Oh, fuck. I’d already known he was an immaculate specimen of manhood, but watching the muscles all through his shoulders, arms, and back flex to perfect effect made my sex clench. As he raised and lowered the weights with absolute control, the image rose up in my mind of what it would feel like to be held against that body, handled with the same muscular precision.
If watching a TV show could bring some kind of bliss, imagine how good indulging in that kind of “enjoyment” could be.
My lips tightened as I registered the thought that had just crossed my mind. I’d come in here to burn away my unwanted emotions, not stir up more of them. Apparently, I hadn’t run myself ragged enough on the treadmill.
With a groan, Talon placed his weights back on the rack and met my eyes, the blue of his as intense as ever. Sweat glistened atop his shaved scalp, enticing me to run my hands over the smooth skin.
“Are you done?” he asked. “I thought maybe we could spar.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Eager to show off your skills at dominating an injured opponent again?”
He gave me an even look, unfazed by my jab. “I find it’s the best kind of workout. Keeps the mind sharp as well as the body in shape. And you’re a good challenge even when injured. But I wasn’t planning on dominating.”
He strode to the chest at the side of the room and opened it, pulling out a pair of boxing gloves and sparring pads, creased with use but still shinier than the ones at the safe house.
He passed the boxing gloves to me, and I tapped his arm with one after I took them. “You should wear gloves too. You’re not my teacher, and I don’t need you to go easy on me. If we’re going to spar, let’s actually spar.”
He eyed me, still holding the pads that he’d planned on using to direct and deflect my hits. “You don’t want to box with me.”
“Don’t I?”
Whatever Talon found in my glance must have convinced him, because he dropped the pads and lifted his own pair of boxing gloves. “You don’t want me to go easy on you, huh?” he asked, falling into a fighting stance.
The pose came to him so naturally that I almost questioned my decision. Not because I didn’t think I could take him, but because something low in my belly liquified at the sight of his confident power.
No. I wasn’t going to stand here and drool over him like some kind of nitwit. I tugged both boxing gloves onto my hands, one over the damned brace that I often contemplated chucking out the window. “Do your worst.”
He shook his head. “I’m not doing my worst with you. An easy warm-up first, then we can get into light boxing.” I swore I detected a hint of humor in his tone.
I didn’t want to warm up more. I wanted to get rid of all those pesky feelings that continued to multiply in his presence. Didn’t he understand that?
Of course, he didn’t. He barely ever showed so much as a flicker of emotion. In a way that was good. I wasn’t the slightest bit worried that he’d put on a cajoling front and turn on the sweet talk that would bring up horrible memories rather than desire. He wasn’t trying to seduce me. But I still had the urge to provoke him in other ways.
If I pushed hard enough, I could get something from him. He was a man, after all, and even the most stoic ones could be pushed to their breaking points.
I should know.
Rather than starting easy, I swung my left fist with all the intensity I could, and Talon quickly deflected it.
“What kind of cops are you, anyway?” I asked, throwing another punch. I’d either get some information out of him or rile him up. I’d be fine with either outcome. “Living together undercover, breaking all kinds of rules—you’ve got to be some special type. FBI? CIA? Some other string of three letters?”
Talon shook his head. “Just the usual kind.”
“Do you deal with a lot of cases like what happened at my friend’s house? How often do total massacres happen around here anyway?”
He went quiet, and I ducked one of his slower punches, elbowing him hard in the gut when he left a small opening. A burst of air shot out of him, and he clenched his jaw as he jerked back.
“Take it easy,” he said firmly, leaving no room for argument. He clearly didn’t know me as well as he hoped.
I moved in with a swift one-two, ignoring the twinge in my bad hand when he batted it aside—because that gave me a chance to shove my other fist into his stomach.
The glove’s padding muted the impact, but Talon still groaned from the force of the blow. The frustration that blazed in his eyes for just an instant left me a little giddy. One point to me.
“That’s it? You’re just going to ignore my questions?” I said.
His blows remained easy, practically mocking, as if he still didn’t believe I could keep up. “There’s nothing to say. You know that we can’t discuss our other cases.”
“Fine, what about this case?” I insisted, bouncing from foot to foot and awaiting another opening. He had his face guarded with ironclad defenses, but his abdomen—the same spot I continued assaulting—couldn’t be defended properly with our height difference. I hit him there again and deflected his returning blow.
Cool. Calm. Collected. I needed to break him out of his careful control.
“No,” he said, and his tone left little room for argument. “It’s classified.”
“Yes, so you all keep saying,” I shot back. “I think you just don’t want to admit how stumped you are. I told you more in that one little trip by the house than the bunch of you had figured out on your own, didn’t I?”
I threw a combination of punches to Talon’s abdomen, looping one around and hitting him in the side. His mouth twitched toward a frown.
“Enough talking,” he demanded, and I knew I was getting somewhere. “This is sparring, not an interrogation.”
“Why can’t it be both?” I taunted, bobbing and weaving around him. “Prove that you’ve figured out anything at all about the people who murdered my friend. Give me some hope that you’re going to find the pricks who did that to her. Do you have any idea what it’s like, seeing someone you care about slaughtered like that? Haven’t you ever given a shit about a single person in your life?”
His eyes flashed again, searing hotter as he glared at me. I’d hit a nerve, a good one, but I wasn’t done. “What, is it because nobody ever loved you? Is that your excuse for being cold as an ice cube—why you can’t be bothered to give me even one ounce of closure? Why the fuck should you care about anyone other than yourself?”
His defenses dropped just a fraction, and I struck. I smacked him hard across the face, and his head seemed to whip to the side in slow motion.
Then everything sped up to a blur. In a single moment, he shook off his gloves and snatched both my wrists in his hands. He shoved me, and I could do nothing but backstep with him until my back was pressed flush against the cool wall. His body caged me there as he pinned my arms above my head.
The musky scent of his sweat and a feral tang that was all him washed over me. He leaned so close his breath grazed my face. “Give it up,” he snarled, his voice deeper and more threatening. “You’re not getting anything out of me.”
The pure masculinity that oozed from him—the fierceness in his stance, the power in his hold even though I knew I could break it if I tried hard enough—sparked an uncontrollable, insatiable flare of desire that couldn’t be suppressed. His mouth had come so close to mine, and all at once I could think of nothing but closing that distance.
My brain short-circuited—that’s the only way I can explain it. I lunged, not to break free but to steal a kiss.
My mouth met Talon’s roughly. He froze, his grip loosening in shock, his lips surprisingly soft but unmoving beneath mine. Panic flashed through the flood of my desire. Had I wrongly assumed there’d been interest on his side?
Just as I started to pull back, embarrassment flushing my cheeks, Talon shoved his body more solidly against mine and kissed me back hard.
His grip on my pinned wrists tightened, but somehow that only made the kiss more delicious. I groaned against his lips, and he all but devoured me. His tongue swept into my mouth, his teeth grazing my lips, all the muscular planes of his body pressing up against me. The power radiating from him brought me to my metaphorical knees.
As he kissed me again, our mouths crashing together even more violently, I brought my own tongue out to play. I’d never known how thrilling it would be to spar like this instead. His hips rocked into me, a hard bulge brushing my lower belly, and every nerve in my body clanged with need.
His lips moved to my neck, nipping and licking and claiming every inch of skin. Abruptly, he released my wrists, grasping my thighs instead. He pushed me up the wall just high enough so that the hard length of him could settle against my sex.
Oh my fucking God. The friction of it drove me wild, making me want to claw at him until I’d torn off all the layers of clothes between me and him, until he could be plunging right inside me.
What had gotten into me?
The thought had only just flitted through my head when the ravaging of my neck transformed into kisses that were almost tender. An image flashed through my mind—teasing words in a sweet voice, gentle caresses, never letting up, never stopping no matter how much I tried to wrench myself away—
I stiffened, transported out of the moment and back to that other time and place I wished I could forget.
I closed my eyes tightly, trying to ground myself back in the present. It’d felt so good a second ago. But I couldn’t get back to that place where this intimacy felt like a gift rather than an assault, not when Talon had gone soft on me.
Maybe that was crazy, but I already knew I wasn’t a normal woman. My body needed what it needed.
I flung both boxing gloves to the ground alongside his and gripped his shirt with a clenched fist, yanking on it until he raised his head to meet my eyes. The lust hazing the icy blue irises had me soaking my panties. But I had to make this clear, or we couldn’t go any farther. And holy fuck did I want to find out how far this could go.
“I’m not a porcelain doll,” I said, low and determined. “So don’t treat me like I’m one. Give me everything you’ve fucking got. Make it war, not love.”
Something flickered in his gaze. Then he reached a hand behind me and wrapped it around my ponytail, pulling my head back and exposing my throat to him. He bit hard on the side of my throat, and I gasped, a slight moan escaping my lips.
Yes, that was what worked. I felt my entire body melt at the gesture. This was nothing like the asshole who’d violated me with false sweetness before. This was something totally different—different and fucking amazing.
Talon shoved his free hand down my pants, palming my pussy, and a jolt of blissful heat rushed through me. My breaths fractured into panting.
“How rough do you want it?” he said into my ear, tugging back on my ponytail with more force.
I let out a strangled sound as his finger flicked over the sensitive spot between my thighs. One touch set off a quiver of pleasure that took my breath away completely. Was this what sex was supposed to feel like? What it normally felt like for most people? If so, how the hell did they manage to do anything else?
“I want you to make me scream,” I whispered, and slammed my mouth into his once more.
Talon’s next move nearly accomplished my request in one go. He plunged two fingers into me, still stroking the place right at the core of me that made me squirm and whimper with need. The place that had been too long deprived of a touch other than my own. The way he touched me there—the roughly oscillating motions he made combined with the crush of his lips against mine—flooded me with so much giddy heat I could barely think.
I broke away from his lips long enough to rip my shirt off over my head, leaving only my sports bra. Talon dove in to leave tingling bites up and down my neck, finally dipping his head to the exposed hollow of my cleavage as his fingers kept pumping in and out of me. I writhed against the wall, desperate to reach some point I couldn’t even explain. One of my hands dropped to that tempting bulge behind the fabric of his pants.
Talon jerked back with a muttered curse. He withdrew his hand from my own pants and lifted his fingers slick with the proof of my hunger. Holding my gaze, he licked my arousal off him, and I just about went up in flames.
The smile that pulled to his face was pure, unadulterated masculine assurance. A heady tremor rippled through me even with him barely touching me.
He took a step back. “Don’t move,” he ordered.
I had absolutely no desire to be anywhere but here. Where the hell was he going, though?
He all but hurtled out of the room and barreled back in mere seconds later with a foil wrapper in his hand. Understanding clicked in my head. Of course. I hadn’t even thought—
But why would I? I’d never gotten this close to any man except the one who’d taken what I hadn’t wanted to give. And besides, Noelle had brought me to get a birth control implant inserted into my arm years ago, after that incident—one of the most effective ones, if she was to be believed. Just in case.
It didn’t protect against everything, though. Who knew how many women Talon had been with before me? I didn’t bother to mention my own version of protection as he prowled toward me. Every thought but the act we were about to commit fled my mind.
Talon hooked his fingers around my bra and yanked it off me. Before he could close his hands over my bare breasts, I wrenched at his T-shirt. He tossed it aside, and I took in the expanse of black and gray lines. Intricately woven tattoos covered his chest and his broad shoulders. It was an utter masterpiece of guns, bones, and military tags, shaded to a terrifying perfection, mesmerizing and beautiful.
No, beautiful wasn’t the right word for the grandeur of Talon’s naked torso.
He was a mountain of sculpted scars and tattoos, muscles bulging through all of them and tanned skin weaving it all together. His body was a fine piece of art. From the ragged scar poking up from his hip to the small, thin lines that ran across his biceps, he stood as a living, mesmerizing sculpture.
That masterpiece lifted me onto a clear section of the weight rack and peeled off my pants and panties with one swift gesture that left me even wetter than before. As he dropped his own pants, I couldn’t take my eyes off the thick, corded length of his cock.
He smoothed the condom over the hard shaft and then pinned my arms over my head again. I arched my back instinctively, and he looked over my entire exposed body—every small scar and curve.
He lowered his head to suck one and then the other nipple into his mouth, tugging with his teeth on the release. A gasp tumbled out of me at the shock of combined pain and pleasure. Then he lined himself up and thrust into me, balls deep.
With that motion, he fulfilled my request. He made me scream. The sound reverberated through me alongside the electric burst of bliss. No sensation I’d ever been able to produce with my hand had come close to this.
Talon hesitated, examining my features, and a prickle of panic rose up again. I hissed through my teeth. “Fuck me hard.”
Something flared in his eyes. He pulled back and thrust into me again, dipping his head to reclaim the peak of one of my breasts in tandem. Each roll of his hips brought a delicious burn between my thighs that spread all through my torso.
He was big, but I’d been so wet and ready I could take him. The stretch was nothing short of paradise.
Talon could still have hurt me if he’d been too rough about it. I could tell he restrained himself just slightly, adding a little twist here, shifting his angle there, in ways that made me moan. But through it all the force of his thrusts and the scrape of his teeth against my skin kept all sensation except enjoyment at bay.
As he found his rhythm and saw what I could handle, he picked up his pace to a brutal speed. I bucked into him, riding the surge of sensations, gasping at the pleasure that shot through me every time he buried himself inside me. It washed through every inch of my body, every part of my soul. And then, with one final plunge, he shattered me.
Ecstasy tore through my body, leaving me shaking and clenching around him. A cry burst from my throat. Talon continued his relentless rhythm, drawing every ounce of writhing lust from me.
He didn’t take long to follow, tipping his head back when the orgasm swept through his body. He let go of my wrists and gripped both of my hips, his thrusts growing sporadic as he finished his release. Then he bowed over me.
We stared at each other, damp with not just our own sweat but each other’s now. Talon’s face remained as impenetrable as ever. I couldn’t even tell whether he was happy we’d crashed into each other like this or upset. Or whether he really didn’t care at all.
“Well, that was one way to keep ourselves occupied,” I said in a rough attempt at a joke, playing off his earlier comment.
Talon didn’t even acknowledge my words. He withdrew and touched me only enough to help me down from the rack. “I’d better shower,” was all he said. Then he picked up his clothes and walked out.
Okay, then. I sat down on my cot, hugging myself. Had I made a mistake?
It hadn’t felt like a mistake at the time. Remembering the way he’d hammered into me, the feel of his hands and his teeth, I bit my bottom lip. My sex was already throbbing at the idea of having another go.
If it’d been a mistake, then it was one I wasn’t sure I could avoid repeating. I’d had no idea—I mean, obviously sex had to feel pretty good if people bothered at all, but for it to be that amazing…
I shook off those thoughts and grabbed my own clothes. As fantastic as it’d been, it obviously wasn’t happening again today. Possibly not ever again with Talon, depending on what was going on in his head right now.
As I pulled on my shirt, a faint rattling sound reached my ears. What was that?
Then it hit me. The phone. I’d left it on vibrate.
I dashed over to the trunk where I’d stashed it and tugged it out from behind. Thank God it hadn’t gone off while Talon was here. I flipped it open in my hand—and then just stared at the text message that had popped up on the screen.
This is Noelle. When you see this, respond immediately.
That was it. No expression of concern or acknowledgment of the horror I’d witnessed in the mansion, no curiosity about where I might be. Just a simple demand.
Something about it made my hackles rise. Was it even Noelle? Scarlett hadn’t known who’d left the phone for her, or at least that’s what she’d claimed. She hadn’t acted as if it was someone she trusted.
And—Noelle was dead, wasn’t she? I’d seen that woman with the right sort of hair and build in the middle of the massacre…
But of course, the corpse’s face had been too mutilated to identify. I wasn’t sure it’d been my trainer.
Where would she have been if not at the household, though?
Too many questions cluttered my head. If I even confirmed that I’d gotten the phone, would I be alerting someone I didn’t actually want to tangle with, at least not yet? Maybe this was some kind of trap arranged by the same people who’d rampaged through the mansion.
Whether it was them or it really was Noelle, I’d find out. I could use this connection. I just needed a day or two to think to be sure I made the right decision. I was running this mission on my own, making the calls. When I’d acted hastily before, I’d nearly screwed myself over.
Taking a deep breath and ignoring the tension clamped around my stomach, I turned off the phone and shoved it back into its hiding place.
