How Beauty Saved the Beast (Tales of the Underlight) (3 page)

Hauk dragged his eyes off of her to stare out the window at dead plants and a snowless, muck-brown winter. The cold air would do him some good. “She’s referring to the bomb, numb nut.” The words were a lie. She was referring to the first time they’d met with a thin barrier of fabric between them. He’d never told Brayden, or anyone else, that particularly fond memory.

Almost under her breath Jolie added, “You have a terrible tendency to bring out the naughty girl in me, Wesley dearest.”

He had once. If only he still could now that she’d seen his face.

Chapter Two

Sweaty bodies, heavy breathing, one man, one woman…and for two months, Hauk and Jolie had somehow kept their near-daily workouts from being awkward. Jolie had been consistently impressed with how easy Hauk was to work with. He might tease her or toss her one of his devious smiles when they ran into each other grabbing snacks in The Underlight kitchen or listening to one of the jam sessions that broke out every weekend in the common room. But in the training room, he was all business. He never got closer than he had to, never gave her a smile that was anything but friendly, never even winked at an inappropriate moment.

A moment like now, when he had an arm between her thighs and his hand gripping the base of her ass to demonstrate the proper hold for a shoulder wheel throw.

It wasn’t an impromptu lesson change after yesterday’s post-explosion moment of strangeness. No, Hauk had promised two days ago to teach her this because she’d asked him to show her something flashy amidst the oh-so-practical jabs and blocks and break-holds that made up most of their workouts. Two days ago they’d comfortably manhandled each other as they sparred, and she’d not given a second thought to where Hauk’s hands were or might be in the future. Hell, Jolie had studied ballet from the ages of four to seventeen, and
pas
de
deux
, partner dancing, had been her favorite class. She was used to having men’s hands all over her person in impersonal ways.

But today she couldn’t seem to keep her mind on technique. Hauk had been one short breath from kissing her. And in the heat of the moment she’d been…excited by it.

“Make sure your center of gravity is secure under me or you’re going to collapse. Lift from the legs. Like this.” He tugged her arm, and she emitted a startled yelp when she found herself draped across his shoulders and up in the air. He tilted to the side and she was upside down, her face two inches from his ass.

And a very nice ass it was. She’d admired it before, in a nice-sculpture-at-the-museum sort of way. Never in a hey-look-I’m-in-bitable-range sort of way.

Apparently danger-induced, weird, lusty thoughts didn’t go away so quickly. At least for her. Hauk seemed almost insultingly fine, tossing her about like a sack of something unsexy.

“Of course, at this point,” he continued with maddening calm, “you’d drop the opponent on the ground, not hang on to him.”

As a war veteran, though, he was likely used to dealing with danger-induced, weird, lusty thoughts. He’d probably had danger-induced sex. Back before the burn scars.

Hauk the Drill Sergeant, all smooth-skinned and naked and having sex. The image made her heart pick up speed. He knew how to give a girl a rocking good time; she had personal experience of that. It was one of many reasons why her quip yesterday had crossed the line.

He put her back on the ground, and she concentrated to keep her knees steady. Memories trembled through her of how they’d first met on either side of the thin curtain of her changing station at the burlesque. How his mouth was firm and fingers teasing as they brought her to the most incredible orgasm of her life. All he’d asked for in return was a kiss.

“Ready to try it?” he asked.

She fluttered her lashes in confusion before she got her head screwed on straight. “You mean the shoulder wheel throw. Right.”

He cocked his head in confusion. “Uh, yeah. The shoulder wheel throw. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Grumbling at herself, she squatted down and stuck her hand between his knees.

“You’re going to want as high a grip as you can get,” he said. “It’ll help with stability.” He huffed a rueful sound that was almost a laugh. “Especially on that side, as you’re about to grab metal.”

In addition to the horrific scarring, Hauk’s left leg had been amputated halfway between his knee and hip. The crazy-genius scientists at The Underlight had attached a high-functioning replacement that allowed him to do pretty much everything he’d done before, but it was metal instead of the usual skin-toned prosthetic. She hadn’t seen the whole leg, just the tin-colored foot at the bottom with its articulated toesiziculates, but she imagined some Terminator-looking thing sprouting from his thigh. The thigh she was about to grab. Usually she was good about reaching for his right side.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“I don’t care,” he said softly. “But the metal’s not too comfortable to hold.”

She wasn’t about to embarrass him by switching legs, so she shifted her grip up. Way up. Nowhere she hadn’t been before, at least on his other leg. She dug her shoulder into his abdomen, just like he’d showed her, and hooked her arm around his thigh, trying to strike a nice balance between metal and man-parts.

“Go slow now,” he warned. “I know you’re strong, but I’m heavy compared to you. Keep your weight back, core tight and use your legs, not your arms.”

“Yes, I know.” He reminded her of his weight and her positioning every time, as if she hadn’t spent most of her life doing either ballet, which required leg strength, or aerial dancing, which required arm strength. And both of them required a solid core. She knew how to keep her back aligned and engage her abs. Besides, her brain was going to melt if she spent much more time hanging out between his thighs. She grabbed his arm, tightened her core and shifted her weight as she stood.

It was his turn to yelp—in a manly sort of way, she’d grant—when he flopped onto his back on her other side. She smiled down at him, arms crossed.

He blinked up at her from the mat. “Nice job.”

“Thanks. I think I got that one down.”

“Yeah. I would say so. And after you throw your opponent you…”

This was how every move ended. “I run like hell.”

“Good.” He hopped up.

“Can I kick him in the head first?”

“No. You probably won’t hurt him, and unless you do it right you might break a toe. Skulls are tough. Just run.”

“Yes, sir.” She faked a salute.

He snorted, like he always did when she mimicked Army procedure. Then he paused, brow furrowed.

She stared at the floor, wanting to commit the move to memory, but instead replayed how firm his thigh muscles felt when she’d dug her fingers into them.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’ve been kinda out of it today. Did yesterday, I mean, are you upset about anything? It’s okay to talk about it.”

They were having share time? They didn’t do share time. They did throw-each-other-around time, and then she went to class and he went to spark up his welding torch. Even without deep conversations, though, Hauk was dependable, funny and the best friend she’d made since moving to Austin last summer. Scratching a temporary itch would screw that up. Discussing yesterday’s weirdness was trying a new trick with no mat as far as she was concerned—an unnecessary risk.

She looked up at him warily. “What about yesterday?”

He put his hands up, non-threatening. “It was intense. Way more than it should have been. We walked into an ambush. It’s normal to—”

“To what?” Nearly make out among the remains of a bomb blast? So he’d done that before? How many times?

And why did that thought make her irritable?

“—to have lingering thoughts about what almost happenednt>ost hap.”

Oh shit, he did want to talk about nearly kissing. She waved her own hands in front of her, backing up. “No. It’s no big deal. We don’t need to go into it.”

He frowned. “It is a big deal. We almost died.”

“Yeah. And so that—that’s what happened. No big. I’m not confused.”

He studied her for a moment, still frowning, but gave a reluctant nod. “Okay. You don’t have to talk about it with me. But I am a war veteran. I’ve been there. I know we were in a fight before at Ananke’s Temple, but exploding chains didn’t land two feet from your head then. It’s normal to feel unsettled.”

She leaned back on her heels. “Wait. You think I’m in shock because I nearly died?”

His hands shot back up. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I just want you to know it’s perfectly normal to feel shaken up. I’m not trying to pry, either, but if you want somebody to talk to about it…”

Jolie reviewed the conversation in her head and breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh.”

“What did you think I meant?”

Good question to ignore. “Thank you for your concern, but I’m okay with what happened yesterday.” The bombs and guns part, anyway. What did that say about her? “To be honest, that didn’t scare me nearly as badly as what happened two months ago.”

“In the temple?” He tensed. “Did something happen after I blacked out? Something you didn’t tell me about?”

Uh
,
maybe
. Two months ago he’d helped her rescue her niece from a cult. The whole thing had been a cluster-fuck from start to finish—magic and secret societies and Pagan temples. Not that Pagan was bad; Hauk was Pagan (or
Heathen
, as he liked to remind everybody as he tugged on the silver Thor’s hammer he wore on a leather strap around his neck). But The Order of Ananke, the group behind her niece’s kidnapping as well as the brain-dead Atropos guys from the slaughterhouse, was full-on creepy-movie Pagan, not normal, happy-person Pagan. They’d used magic to try to turn Hauk into one of their brainless Hands of Atropos.

Jolie had woken him up with a kiss.

She might have neglected to mention the kissing part.

But that event wasn’t what she was referring to. “No, not in the Temple. I mean, that was whacked out for sure, but I was referring to getting attacked backstage at the show.”

“Ah,” he said, a sound so full of meaning, and she knew he, too, was thinking about exactly how well you could get to know a girl from the other side of thin fabric.

She shot him a saucy smile, the kind he never gave to her in the training room.

His façade cracked a little, just enough for a hint of proud male to show through. But it quickly broke. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay longer. See them. Stop them.”

“Not your fault, so don’t beat yourself up.” She rubbed his shoulder and headed for the bench and her water bottle. “Besides, you got to me before they did any permanent damage.”

The cold water felt good and tasted better. They’d already been at it for nearly an hour; it was their usual time for packing up. As if reading her mind, Hauk stowed the pads they’d used for sparring before coming to the bench to gulp down his own water. She watched his patterned skin slide up anat slide d down his throat with the motion of swallowing. Even the most mundane movements were interesting when Hauk did them.

“I got hurt then, you know. They gave me a concussion. That’s the only time I’ve been hurt. But I don’t think that’s what scared me.”

She didn’t know why she was telling him this. But he put his water down, wiped his mouth with the scarred back of his hand and focused on her with his steady gaze. They didn’t talk much, but when they did, Hauk was a good listener, good at making a person feel like her words were important to him.

Maybe that’s why she told him, “Yesterday at the ambush and two months ago at the Temple, that was dangerous, sure. But I felt like I had choices, like there were things I could do. The other time, when those three guys came at me, I was backed into a corner.” She shuddered. “I can’t stand feeling helpless.” Hauk’s eyes were now full of understanding and maybe sympathy. She turned away, embarrassed. “Not that you’d know what helpless felt like.”

“Hey,” he said, demanding her attention.

Lips pursed tight, she faced him again.

“You think I don’t know what helpless feels like?” He tapped the ruined skin of his cheek. “Think again.” He pointed toward a corner. “Show me what happened.”

Her eyes widened. He wanted to re-create the attack? She wasn’t sure about that. But she also didn’t want to look like a chicken in front of him, so with a thudding pulse she marched to the corner. Hauk followed. She really didn’t want to do this. What else could she think about instead of that night? She needed a different story to concentrate on to get her through whatever Psych 101 Hauk was experimenting with.

Stupid boy. That’s what she got for sharing.

“What actually happened the night you were burned?” She blurted it out, not thinking how inappropriate the question was.

He paused.

“Oh, damn, Hauk, I’m sorry. That’s not—”

“I don’t remember,” he said.

“What do you mean, you don’t remember?” She positioned herself in the corner, just like she’d been the night she’d done nothing but scream for somebody to save her like some helpless princess.

Hauk stood tall in front of her instead of crouching into ready position. Apparently he was willing to tell her more.
Think
about
Hauk’s
story
,
not
what
happened
. “I remember the fight I had with my guys that afternoon. I remember being alone in the CHU before the fire. One of them came back, and then it’s a jumble of hospitals, helicopter rides and morphine dreams until I woke up in BAMC.”

Jolie already knew there had been eight men in the fire that had consumed the CHU—containerized housing unit—they slept in. Hauk was the only survivor. He’d been blamed, court-martialed while he was still in the burn unit at Brooke Army Medical Center and sentenced to life in prison for arson and first-degree murder. He’d escaped the hospital and joined The Underlight. Most of The Underlight’s members led regular lives outside the organization, like Jolie did. But some, like Brayden, lived in The Austin Underlight’s secret headquarters, off grid and out of the system. Hauk had moved in mostly because he believed in the mission, but also because being a fugitive left him few options.