Exposed (22 page)

“Now you see how Clayton runs things around here,” he shouted. “You see he sides with a Commie over a real American. If any of you actually want to use your powers, not just be dictated to by Prince Briggs, you know where to find me.”

Teddy and Will dragged Butch out of the mine, Ralph scurrying after. Heavy silence fell over the group. But a few people were muttering, murmuring. And Ivan was afraid they were murmurs of support for Butch.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ivan

Clayton tried to speak over the murmurs, calm the confusion splintering through the group. 

“Everyone!” Clayton held his hands up, but still people ignored him. The talking grew louder, turned to arguing.

Ivan leaned against the wall with his arms folded. Evie Sharpe walked by him, but he ignored her. It was hard to keep track of everyone Clayton and Cora had discovered with powers. It was making his head hurt … and making him worry.

All these people knowing about him, all these people who could give him trouble. Ivan clenched his hands into fists at the thought. There were more than a few people here who suspected his family had something to do with the sickness, and if they went and blabbed to someone like Bo Erikson or the other men in town? It would be bad for Ivan’s family—very bad. 

It’d go beyond boycotting his family’s farm at the market. It’d go beyond insults. Nerves jagged through him, made Ivan push away from the wall. 

In the crowd, Clayton was still trying to calm everyone. He caught Ivan’s eyes through the scrum of people.

Ivan walked closer. Clayton could be a friend, an ally. He hadn’t seen that before, but now … Ivan needed an ally. He’d thought June had been, but ….

Ivan shoved two fingers into his mouth and whistled. That shut everyone up. Clayton threw him a grateful smile. But before he could say anything, someone yelled from right behind Ivan. 

Ivan spun, eyes growing wide. “Where’d you come from?”

He hadn’t remembered seeing her before, but suddenly Evie Sharpe had her arms crossed and her eyebrows lowered right behind him. And she didn’t seem pleased.

“You just looked at me when I walked by!” 

Ivan turned away from Evie, then promptly forgot all about her. 

June was weaving through the jumble of people, her eyes locked on Ivan. He couldn’t have looked away if he tried.

“Dammit!” Evie screeched. “Damn this curse!”

Ivan startled again and swung around toward Evie. She slapped him in the arm. 

“Evie,” June snapped, stopping next to Ivan and glaring at her friend.

“Don’t you look away, Ivan Sokolov,” Evie demanded, gripping his arm tight between her long-nailed hands. “That’s how it happens. Someone looks away for a second, and suddenly I’m forgotten.” 

Ivan kept his eyes on Evie, and something in her murderous glare made him want to laugh. Jesus, what a mess they all found themselves in.

“Can someone come help?” June called out. Ivan kept his eyes on Evie but heard Betty Carroll volunteer.

He stared at Evie, listened to Betty … but it was June who consumed him. She was standing so close, close enough to make it hard to remember why he’d been furious. He had to fight to find that anger. Maybe he’d used it all up punching Butch.

“Ivan?” June’s voice was quiet and trailed up at the end, uncertain. Her hand rested on his arm, so much softer than where Evie had clawed at him. “Ivan, please. We need to talk.”

Finally, Ivan broke eye contact with Evie and stared at a spot over June’s shoulder. “Fine.” 

He kept his eyes trained straight ahead and started walking, and he didn’t stop until the light filling the middle of the giant space gave way to heavy shadows.

Ivan crossed his arms over his chest and pumped the fingers of one fist. His knuckles protested. “Others can see. Sure this is private enough for you?”

He wanted to see her flinch, see something beneath the façade—even if it was anger. No, even better if it was anger. He wanted her to feel even a tenth of the anger he felt. He wanted her to burn up from the inside out like he did.

But then she did flinch, and another spike of guilt jabbed at his chest. He swallowed hard and glared down at June. “What do you want, June?”

Behind June, someone shouted and a giant icicle crashed from the rafters above to shatter against the floor of the mine. But it was all in the distance, all inconsequential in that moment. 

He wanted to hate her, and found he couldn’t. What he wanted … Ivan shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. What he wanted wasn’t fit for an audience.

June swallowed hard. “I made a mistake, telling Edith … what I did. But I need this job, Ivan. You can’t understand how much.” She paused, licked her lips. 

Ivan had no idea what she was talking about. “So that’s why you threw my flowers away?”

A frown creased her eyebrows. “What flowers?” Then she gasped, her eyes going wide. “Oh, Ivan. I saw them in the trash. I had no idea ….”

“Wait, so then who threw them away?” Ivan’s stomach writhed and his throat grew hot. Realization was trickling down from his brain and making his limbs fuzzy. He’d yelled at June … practically screamed at her because of a misunderstanding. 

June rubbed at her temples. “Edith. She said she’d get me fired if I was caught with you. It must have been her, and then I panicked.”

Ivan sucked in a breath. That awful Applebaum woman threatened June because of him? 

“June, I ….”

“No, Ivan. Please, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. My family, we’re in debt.” A rueful laugh rolled up June’s throat and she looked away for a moment. “I’ve been giving all of my salary to my parents, and it’s still barely enough. When Edith threatened my job ….” 

It hit him, harder than the punch to the gut. The flowers—why had he been so quick to assume June had thrown away the bouquet? Ivan’s stomach twisted with shame. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he believe in others? He was learning quickly that without others by his side, he was putting his family in danger.

“You’re right about me,” June said quietly. Ivan had to lean closer to hear her. “I do try too hard to make others happy, care too much what they think of me, but …,” June frowned and worried her fingers together, seeming to search for the right words. “For so long, others’ opinions were the only currency I had. Until I had this job … even now I sometimes feel like I’m still waiting for my life—the life I want—to start.” 

She looked up then, and Ivan’s breath fled. Her eyes were dark and wet, naked to him. 

Beyond them, people moved and shouted, practiced their power and nursed wounds. But none of it mattered. Nothing mattered beyond June. 

Beams of light arced through the darkness and illuminated the mine all the way up to the holes in the sagging roof. Everyone else in the building had turned to the show, their heads craned up at the ceiling. Yet Ivan only looked at June—she was lovely. With her hair pulled back into a ponytail and her green checked sundress baring slim arms and a narrow waist. 

Without even really thinking about what he was doing, Ivan grabbed June and pulled her farther into the darkness.

Their feet stumbled, their limbs crashing apart and together. Ivan felt along the wall for a mineshaft and yanked June into the tunnel with him, into absolute midnight. 

Here in the dark, they ceased to be June and Ivan. In the dark, they were a collection of senses that careened together. Ivan was a deep spring of need that welled up just at the touch of June’s hand. 

He felt her breath, heard it. It rushed against the hollow of his throat where the top button of his shirt opened. Ivan grabbed her shoulders and pressed her back up against the cold, hard tunnel.

Ivan explored down her side until he caught up June’s fingers in his own. He brought her hands up to rest against his chest, held them there and let his other hand swirl down her body, his fingertips light. 

Her dress was thin, and just underneath he could feel the heat of her skin. He needed to feel her skin against his, her body against his. 

Restraint was for the light. Here in the dark, Ivan wanted all of June. And he could barely stop himself from ripping that thin material so she was naked to him—naked as her eyes had been. He groaned at just the thought of it and felt the heat of his cock pull taut against his pants.

He sucked at her neck, lingered there. Then he dipped lower, over her collarbone, her chest. He tugged at the veed collar of her dress until he could feel the swell of her breasts against his lips. She tasted like a wild meadow, like a summer sky, like a tang of pepper on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to taste her entire body.

June arched against him, a little moan tumbling past her lips.

“Ivan,” she breathed.

The sound of his name on her lips made him burn, and he groaned against her breast, louder than he meant.

“Ivan, the others.”

Ivan pulled his head up to nip at the tender skin along her collarbone and let his tongue wander up her slender neck. “I don’t care,” he growled in her ear. “Let them hear.”

June pressed up against him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulled him even closer. Her chest heaved, her breasts soft and warm against his own hard chest.

Ivan dragged his lips down her neck back to her breasts. The straps of her dress slipped down over her shoulders, and he had to take a steadying breath to stop himself from ripping the buttons off her dress to expose her breasts completely.

Fingers shaking, June untangled her fingers from Ivan’s hair and tugged two buttons undone. 

Ivan trailed his tongue along the edge of her brassiere. He teased at her nipples with his fingers until they were hard peaks. June moaned and clenched her fingers against his back, and Ivan’s cock pulsed with desire.

Hard. His body responded to her touch, the need that was palpable between them. 

Ivan found her mouth again in the darkness and crushed his lips to hers. They were panting, lips open, tongues searching, begging for more. Her hands caught up in his shirt and balled it tight.

His cock was rigid in his pants and pressed against June, the softness of her stomach, the heat between her thighs. Ivan pulled back, self-conscious of what June would think. But they were past being self-conscious. He wanted
her to feel what she did to him, wanted her to go slick with desire.

June pushed her hips up against his cock and wrapped one leg around him, and Ivan groaned with pleasure against her mouth. Her fingers crawled up the back of his neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps, and wound up again in his mess of hair. Ivan dropped his own hand from where he stroked the side of her face and let it fall slowly, slowly until his palm cupped her small, round breast. He rubbed her breast until her nipple hardened again under his touch.

She moaned against his lips and Ivan’s heart raced. He did this to her. He could make her moan, make her want more. The feel of it sent his cock pulsing. 

“Oh God,” she moaned. “Ivan.”

He pinched at her nipple that pricked under her brassiere and her hands worked their way back down his body and fumbled in the dark at the band of his trousers. Her fingers slipped at the buttons as he teased her breasts. Her fingers went stiff and she grasped the edge of his pants, and when the button still wouldn’t yield to her, she pushed her fingers down. Down between the rough material of his trousers and against his smooth skin. 

He groaned as she reached lower, lower. His skin was on fire—burning in her wake and rippling with goosebumps at the same time. 

The tip of one finger grazed the tip of his cock and his mouth fell open in a moan. June let her head fall heavy against his chest, their breath heaving together.

“We need to be quiet,” June panted.

“I don’t know if I can,” Ivan managed. “June, I want ….”

“I do too.”

She did too.

She wanted him. June Powell wanted him.

Through the fog of desire, a single thought pulsed in Ivan’s mind. He wanted to show her how much she meant to him. This woman, who thought people’s opinion of her was conditional, who spent so much of her own happiness caring for others. What did they do for her in return? What could Ivan do for her?

Ivan wrapped his fingers around June’s wrist and stilled her hand. She made a mewling sound at the back of her throat, and Ivan nearly let her go. 

“I want to …,” he whispered, his voice low and rough. He couldn’t say it, but he could show her.

He dipped his head to her chest, caught his breath. He let his fingers tease at her nipples for a moment before he bent farther. 

“I want to kiss you,” he breathed against her stomach. He could feel her own breath fluttering there.

God, this was dangerous. There were people so close, close enough to hear them. Close enough to discover them. But Ivan couldn’t stop. In the darkness, all he cared about was June. All he could think about was what he wanted to do to her, make her feel.

Ivan dropped to his knees, his hands slipping down her hips, her thighs. In the darkness, he had to feel for the hem of her dress, and her legs shuddered when his fingers slipped against the inside of her knees. 

He moved his hands up, up, up. And his mouth followed. He kissed the inside of her knee, the inside of her thigh. 

Her skin was hot under his lips. He pressed her thighs apart with his fingers, the tips of them slipping against the wetness between her legs.

He kissed her there, where she was slick. He slid his fingers against her panties, snagging one finger under the edge of cotton. June’s hand found his head in the darkness and fisted her fingers in his hair. He groaned against her thigh, nearly overcome.

He reached up that final inch, pressed his lips against the mound of her, the hot, open center of her.

Light exploded around them.

June’s hand yanked back so hard his scalp burned, and he scraped one hand against the rough mine wall stumbling to stand. They jumped apart, but the tunnel had already descended back into darkness.