Flirting With Fate (18 page)

He licked his lips and realized he was still
pointing his gun at her. He holstered it. “What do you know about my mother?”
he asked softly as he took three long strides across the room.

Grabbing her left hand, he turned her palm up to
study her wrist. And lost his breath at the sight of the S-shaped scar.

“Quinton?” she said softly. “
Mon coeur
, you
okay?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he yanked her
against him. He needed her too desperately to think of his own pride or of the
questions he should have been asking.

“This more along the lines of what I’d hoped for,”
she whispered against his lips.

He hovered there. Waiting for something. Waiting
for the world to fall away, for time to collapse until nothing stood between
them but a single heated breath.

And it happened just that quickly. It always had
with Mal. He’d never loved a woman quite like he’d loved her.

“Why are you—?” he began.

“No,” she said, touching a finger to his lips.
“Don’t.”

She threaded her fingers through his hair and
pulled his mouth the rest of the way down to hers. He had the strength to stop
her but lacked the will. And once their lips touched he was a goner.

She tasted like innocence and red wine. Or maybe
those were only the flavors of his memories. But it all mixed together
now—Mallory, then and now, his desire, then and now.

She moaned under him and tugged at his jeans. He
took the hint. Never breaking their kiss, he worked his hands between their bodies,
removing first his duty belt, then unbuttoning his jeans.

She slid a hand down his boxers before he could
get any further.

Christ. She’d always been like that. Desperate to
get her hands on him and terrified to let him touch her. “I can’t play your way
anymore,” he warned. “Not after wanting you for four years.”

She stepped back and pulled her shirt over her
head. “You think I came all this way because I want to play that old game?” She
flashed a wicked smile, but some nobler part in the back of his mind also
registered something else in her eyes. Not insecurity but—fear?

He hesitated.

She released her bra and let her breasts fall
free.

A groan slipped from his lips. The female body as
it should be: curvaceous, flush with excitement, and waiting at his fingertips.
“So beautiful,” he whispered, reaching for her bare torso, needing to feel that
smooth soft skin beneath his fingertips.

She reached for him and as he lowered to taste her
again, her hands slipped into his jeans, pushing them from his hips. He felt
them fall, heard the clunk of his wallet as it hit the floor. With a single
step forward, his thigh was between her legs.

She whimpered against him, dug her hands into his
hair, and pressed their bodies closer.

He couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t taste
enough of her. He pressed her against the wall, pulling her legs around his
waist until her skirt was hiked around her hips and there was only boxer and
lace between his cock and the slick, wet heat of her sex.

“I never should have left you,” he murmured in her
ear. He trailed his open mouth down her next, kissing, sucking, tasting to the
sweet rhythm of her staccato moans.

He drew his hand up her side and cupped her
breast. When he found her nipple, she cried out, and he almost blew right
there.

“Are you ready for me?” he asked, rocking against
her hips.

She wrapped her legs tighter around his waist.
“Hurry,” she whimpered.

He made quick work of releasing his cock from his
boxers. Without a thought beyond how badly he needed to be inside her, he
pulled her panties to the side and plunged into her.

Wet, hot, and Jesus, was she tight.

“You feel so good,” he groaned, moving in and out
of her slowly as she adjusted to his size.

Her nails dug into his shoulder blades, and she
let out a slow moan and relaxed against him. She trailed her mouth down his
neck and bit lightly at his shoulder.

He moved faster, and her hips met his thrust for
thrust.

“Come with me,” he demanded in her ear, finding
her breast between their bodies and teasing the nipple there.

“I can’t—”

“You know you’ve wanted this as long as I have,
baby.” God, he wasn’t going to make it much longer. “Take my cock deep in your
pussy and come.”

She screamed and convulsed around his dick, pulling
him to the finish with her.

Tara’s hands were still shaking when Collin came
into Rider’s dark-paneled living room. He sat down next to her on the couch.
“You need to forget what you saw.”

She turned and gaped. “You’re kidding, right? There
was a dead man in my trunk.” She closed her eyes. “That’s not something I can
just forget.”

The front door slammed. Rider came around the
corner, wrinkling his nose. “You found him?” He shook his head. “Sorry about
that. I needed somewhere to put him and your car was handy.”

Tara gaped. “Put him? Did you kill him?”

Rider frowned. “Of course not! What do I have
against Aaron?”

“So it was him? It was Aaron, Paige’s assistant.”

“More to the point,
Josie’s
assistant,”
Collin said.

Tara had seen him at the office talking with Josie
just hours ago. She shook her head. “That can’t be Aaron. That guy in my trunk
has been dead too long.”

Rider chuckled and shook her head. He turned to
Collin. “She’s so cute.”

Collin scowled. “
Naïve
is a better word.”

Tara stood and propped her hands on her hips. “I
am sick of being treated like a clueless child.”

Collin’s blue eyes burned into hers. “The Aaron
you saw at the office isn’t the real Aaron.” He lowered his voice. “You’re not
the only Shifter in this world.”

She frowned. “I thought you said we were rare?”

“Rare, yes, but you’re not the only one.”

She swallowed. “If the man at the office isn’t
Aaron, then who is he?” If it wasn’t Aaron, who was Josie meeting with tonight
before meeting the doctor? Tara had heard Josie making plans with “Aaron.” Who
was he?

“That,” Rider said, “is the million-dollar
question.”

Josie looked at the caller ID on her phone and put
her hands over her face to keep herself from answering it. She’d been so
tempted to call Tanner this afternoon and ask him to come with her tonight. It
would have been so nice to have him by her side when she confronted the doctor.

She kept running the night they’d broken into the
fertility clinic over and over in her head.

The man had seen Tanner, then turned her around
and, despite the fact that she’d never seen him before in her life, he’d
recognized her. Had her parents introduced her to him before they died?

She dropped her hands.

That was it. He’d seen Tanner. Tanner had been
invisible, but when the old man came in the room, he’d been visible again.
Josie had seen him too.

But Tanner had said he’d been in her apartment
when Dr. Martin came to talk to her. If Tanner’s invisibility had dropped
because the man in the fertility clinic had been that strong of a blocker but
hadn’t dropped in her apartment, maybe they weren’t the same man.

Which would she be meeting tonight? The doctor
they’d seen in the lab or the one who came to her door? And which one was the
real Dr. Martin?

The only way she knew to find out was to follow
through with her meeting. A meeting Tanner wouldn’t want her to go to at all.

She wasn’t going to give up on finding answers
when she was getting close. She needed to go, and she needed to do it without
Tanner.

For the second time that day, she ignored the
flashing light indicating she had a new voice mail message and crawled into
bed. She’d had an exhausting week and needed to get a few hours of sleep before
her meeting.

“I wonder when it will come,” Mallory whispered
into the dark. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and Quinton stirred beside
her.

After they’d had sex in the living room, he’d
wrapped his arms around her and moved to his bedroom, all without even pulling
out of her. Now they lay side by side, hands intertwined between their bodies.

“When what will come?” He put her hand to his
mouth and kissed her knuckles.

She swallowed. After what she’d just shared with
him, it seemed ridiculous that she should still be afraid to tell him about the
world she’d been a part of her whole life.

But Specials were particular about non-Specials
knowing their ways. France had an agency that worked primarily to keep the
existence of Specials a secret. They worked hand in hand with agencies all over
the world in favor of the same cause.

They erased memories, changed perceptions, even
assassinated when they believed it was necessary. Exposing this world to a
non-Special was always a risk.

She licked her lips. How could she begin? “I was
raised believing I was a Special.”

“You
are
special,” he said, trailing a finger
down her neck, then over the exposed skin between her breasts.

A shiver of pleasure rushed through her, and the
already-sore muscles between her legs pulsed. She ignored the sensations. So
many times she’d considered the implications of telling him about her world—how
he would react, whether or not it would endanger him. She couldn’t both be with
him and keep this secret from him, but she hadn’t a clue how to begin.

“There are people in this world who have special
powers.”

His chest shook with a silent chuckle. “Yeah, and
I’m Batman.”

She pushed herself up on one elbow and placed a
hand on his chest. “Are you so cocky that you believe you know everything about
the complex world we live in?”

“Fuck no, but...” She felt his chest collapse as
his breath left him. “You really believe those old legends?”

She cocked her head. “What legends?”

“You know, ghost story legends kids tell at
campouts. I assume you have the same kind of thing in France. Legends of people
who can see the future or make you do something while you’re thinking it’s your
choice. People with creepy skills: erasing memories, controlling elements.
Stuff out of comic books.”

She blinked. Apparently she didn’t have as much to
explain to him as she thought.

He ran a hand down her arm. “Why are you so upset
about this?”

“What if I told you all those legends exist
because they’re based in truth?”

“That people have special powers? I don’t believe
that.” His voice was softer now, as if he feared his words might hurt her
feelings.

“Your belief or disbelief doesn’t change the facts.”

“So you buy into all that?”

She adjusted herself so she was sitting. She
couldn’t have this conversation lying down. Settling her back against her
pillows, she leaned against the headboard. “I was raised by a man who dreamed
the future. His best friend could fly—and no, I don’t mean airplanes.”

“You believed that?”

“Belief is for Santa Claus. You don’t believe a
child can walk. You know he does when he toddles across the floor on nothing
but his two feet.”

“What were you wondering about, then?” At her
questioning look, he explained, “You said you wondered when it would come.”

“My father warned me since adolescence that
terrible things would happen if I gave in to my ‘baser urges’ and had sex. He
was never very specific. He just said I would hurt a lot of people, even if I
didn’t want to.” She paused, trying to tell it honestly, fighting the urge to
paint her father in a kinder light than he deserved. “I was terrified for a
long time, but when I started learning more and more about Specials...” She
trailed off, trying to define when things came together for her. “One day I
found out Specials aren’t born with their powers. They’re born with the genetic
predisposition for a power, but the power itself doesn’t manifest until they’re
sexually active.”

“So teenage boys lose their virginity and get a
superpower? Sounds like a dangerous combination.” His deep laughter filled the
room and then stopped suddenly. “Wait, so you’re trying to say...”

“If I have an ability, it should manifest anytime
now.” She sighed, then muttered, “only I won’t know what ability to look for.”

Quinton grabbed her arms and pulled her on top of
him so she straddled his hips. “So you’re telling me you were a—” He cut
himself off, as if the word might taste foul on his tongue.

“Of course I was a virgin, Quinton.” She stroked
his cheek. “Why else would I have denied you all those years ago? I’m not
joking when I say my father had me terrified of sex.”

He loosened his grip on her but still held on as
if she might run away. “What changed your mind?”

“The more Specials I met, the clearer it became
that not everyone uses their powers for good. And not all powers are innately
good. Some are just...” How much could she tell him without making him fear her
own kind?

He seemed to understand her hesitation. He dropped
his hands to lace his fingers with hers.

“I knew a guy who could make people lose their
minds. Literally. He somehow manipulated their frontal lobes and they became
wild and uninhibited. Just crazy—and not in the American girls on spring break
way either.

“I put two and two together and realized my father
was just afraid of my power. He never talked about my birth parents, but maybe
their powers were destructive.” She shrugged. “No father wants his daughter to
have sex. Mine happened to have an excuse.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were...” He averted
his eyes, favoring the ceiling. “I didn’t know that was your first time.”

“Would you have acted differently if you had
known?”

“Yeah, I would have. I—”

She put a finger to his lips. “Then I’m glad you
didn’t know.”