Super Trouble (2 page)

The
one that got away.
Who deserved to be beaten to a bloody pulp.

Unfortunately,
the punch never landed.

“Hey!”
He deflected the blow with such practiced ease she might have been a child
having a temper tantrum.

“Asshole,”
she growled, lashing out again, this time with her new power. Telekinesis. The
great equalizer.

But
when she
shoved
at him, hard enough he should have gone flying back into
the brick wall behind him, there was a hollow ringing in her ears and nothing
happened. Instead, ice whispered across the back of her neck, right at the base
of her skull. “What the hell?”

She
flailed out with another TK strike. Nothing. Nearly shrieking with frustration,
she threw everything she had into throwing him.  He didn’t budge an inch.

No. This
wasn’t how this worked. She was
super
now, goddamn it. After years of
being the victim, years of being used as a pawn in superhero games, she was
finally
powerful
. So what the hell was happening with her power? Why was
she suddenly so freaking helpless again?

She
balled her fists, winding up for another non-TK attack, but Frost was done
playing.

“Knock
it off.” He caught her wrist and tugged, using her momentum from the attempted
punch to swing her around so her back was to his front. His arms wrapped around
her, pinning her elbows to her sides and yanking her back to press against a
rock hard chest. The whole move took less than a second. The man could
move
.

Oh
mercy, that should
not
be a turn-on.

But
her body remembered him. Remembered how natural it was for him to take control—and
make her so damn glad he had.

Heady
warmth rushed to pool between her thighs.

She
ignored it.

“What
the fuck are you doing to my power?” It had to be him. Did he have some kind of
power dampener? She’d heard of them—just rumors, whispers about Frost’s sister
Tandy and her scientist boyfriend doing super secret research in the basements
of the Trident Laboratories. There was a story there. She could smell it. And
she would have gone after that story with every fiber of her being—if she
hadn’t lost her job and been more or less banned from working as a journalist. All
thanks to supers.

“I
need to talk to you.”

Now?
Right when she
was finally going to be able to settle the score? “You’ve been doing a pretty
fucking excellent job of ignoring me for the last five years. Why don’t you
keep doing that?” she snapped, squirming in his hold—and trying not to notice
the way the deep rumble of his voice had reverberated through her back where
they were pressed together.

“Justice
asked me to.”

“Of
course he did.” The words dripped disdain. “Well, you can tell my other
busybody superhero ex-boyfriend that I’m not his fucking problem anymore.”

He
lowered his head so the next words were exhaled against her ear. “You’re about
to be my problem if you aren’t careful, Trouble.”

“Don’t
call me that.” That nickname used to make her weak in the knees, but she wasn’t
that girl anymore. She was strong now. Fierce. A super in her own right. “You
made it clear I wasn’t your problem when you walked away. We’re done, Frost.”

He
shifted his grip on her and suddenly she was hyperaware of the way his forearm
rested beneath her breasts, plumping them up. Her nipples tightened sharply, as
if they were naked to the cold rather than cozily swathed in layers beneath her
jacket.  Begging for attention, the little hussies.

“I
hunt supers who go rogue,” Frost whispered against the shell of her ear,
sending another traitorous shiver racing through her erogenous zones. Her body
did not seem to have gotten the
We’re Done
memo. It was busy setting up
a
Welcome back, Frost!
parade.

“So?
What does that have to do with me?” He couldn’t know what she was planning.

He
answered her question with one of his own. “Who are you stalking, Trouble?”

“Stalking?”
she repeated, falling back on strategy one—when in doubt, play dumb. No one
could play dumb quite like a pretty blonde reporter.

“Kim.”
He made her name remarkably expressive—managing to pack this-act-is-beneath-you
into the single syllable. “How do you think I got here? I saw you. I followed
you as you followed him.”

Deny,
deny, deny
. She
gasped, feigning outrage. “You followed me? So it’s forbidden for me to go for
a little rooftop wander, exploring my new gifts, but it’s totally fine for you
to stalk me all over the city?”

He
sighed and she didn’t need to see his face to know he was unfazed by her
theatrics. He always had been able to see right through her. She couldn’t
imagine why she’d once found that attractive. “Why were you stalking him, Kim? Whatever
you’re planning, I can guarantee you, it’s a bad idea.”

Technically
he was right. It was a
terrible
idea. But she wasn’t about to admit
that. She saturated her voice with my-poor-little-brain-misunderstood, adding a
slight pout for good measure. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He
nudged her toward the door, the move pressing one of his thighs against the
seam of hers. “Shall we go inside? See who we meet?”

“No!”
Shit
. “It’s Little Vic, okay? I was following Victorio Peccorino.”

“I
know.” So calm, always so goddamn cool and collected, while she was melting. “I
just don’t know why.”

“If
you know who I’m following then you know why,” she snapped.

The
little bastard had started it all. He was the one who’d first painted a target
on her ass as prime super-villain bait. Abductor Numero Uno.

“He
was acquitted,” Frost said, the words surprisingly gentle.

“I’m
aware.”

“I
can’t let you hurt a man who was found innocent in a court of law.”

Innocent
. That was rich. “He kidnapped
me.”

“He
was acquitted.”

“Only
because they couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Victorio Peccorino
was The Volt. And guess who now makes his living on fucking reality television
as The Volt, The Villain America Loves to Hate? Little Vic Peccorino.”

“I
know.”

“Then
you know he isn’t innocent.”

“I
know a jury of his peers decided he was.”

“Goddamn
it, you sound just like Captain Justice. It’s all black and white to you
assholes, isn’t it? He
kidnapped
me. Everyone knows it’s him, but
because twelve
idiots
in a jurors’ box decided he didn’t need to be
punished, he just gets away scot free and it’s open season on Kim Carruthers
for supervillain kidnappings. Do you know how many of those assholes have tried
to make a name for themselves by abducting me? Twenty-four.
Twenty-fucking-four
.”

His
grunt was unimpressed. “You can’t blame all of that on Little Vic. You made a
pretty big target of yourself all on your own by being so public about your
relationship with Captain Justice.”

“Jealous?”
It was pathetic how badly she wanted him to be.

But
his voice was emotionless and cool as ever when he spoke. “Anyone who dates a
super is vulnerable—
especially
if they are public about the connection.”

“Oh,
that’s right. That was your excuse for dumping me with a freaking note on my
pillow. I forgot you were
protecting
me.”
Lie.
Luckily he wasn’t
a human lie detector like Justice.

She
hadn’t forgotten a damn thing about Frost, but she’d be throwing snowballs in
hell before she admitted to him that she’d memorized every word of that note,
taking it out to reread so many times the paper had started to wilt around the
edges, staining it with pointless tears.

His
arms tightened minutely about her and she fought another shiver of unwanted
lust. “This isn’t about me.”

She
wanted to scream that
everything
had been about him. Her stupid
flirtation with Justice. Her obsession with superhero stories. It seemed like
every move she’d made over the last five years had been about him—consciously
or not. To feel closer to him. To piss him off. It didn’t matter. It was all
him.

And
now, here he was, his arms wrapped around her in a dingy alleyway piled with
snow. It was oddly fitting, finally meeting Frost again on such a cold night. And
arguing with him like this, with her back to his front, so he could see only
part of her face and she could see none of his—it worked, somehow. She didn’t
know what would have happened if she’d looked him in those piercing, glacial
blue eyes. But like this, with his arms braced across her ribs, feeling the
familiar strength of him without having to see his face, this made it bearable.

His
mouth brushed her ear again. “Little Vic is a harmless little twerp with a few
million fans. If you hurt him, you’ll be the villain, Kim.”

“I
don’t want to hurt him.”
Much
. “I just want to ask him a few questions.”
And scare the ever-loving shit out of him so he tells the entire goddamn
world that I am not an easy target anymore.

“Justice
is worried about you.”

“Fuck
Justice. Or wait, that’s Mirage’s job now, isn’t it?”

She
didn’t mean to sound bitter. Things had been over between her and Captain
Perfect long before he’d taken up with the dark waif of a Mindbender—hell, Kim
had dumped him, not the other way around. And she didn’t resent the couple
their sickening happiness. She was almost grateful they’d gotten together. If
they hadn’t, Mirage’s fucked up supervillain father never would have kidnapped
Kim—
twenty-five and counting
—and injected her with the serum that had
given her telekinesis. In a twisted way, she owed her power to her ex and his
new sweetie—but part of her still writhed with jealousy when she thought of
them. Not because she wanted Justice, but because she wanted what he and Mirage
had.

Justice
had literally walked through fire to make Mirage happy. Sure, he’d saved Kim—over
and over and over again—but it had always seemed like it was just in a day’s
work. She’d never had someone who loved her so much he would bring the world
crashing down if anyone even dared
think
of touching her. Justice
certainly hadn’t felt that way about her. And the villains had known it. So
they’d come after her. Knowing that Captain Awesome would save her, but that
there would be no unforgiving wrath when he did.

She
wanted the unforgiving wrath. She wanted to be worth that to someone.

Not
the girl Frost had walked away from without a backward glance. Not the girl who
was a friendly obligation to Justice. She wanted to be the goddamn reason
someone
breathed
.

Was
that really so much to ask?

“Look,
I know neither of us is your favorite person right now, but I owe Justice, and
I’m not going to let you—” Frost’s arms tightened fractionally as his words
froze.

The
door to the bar in front of her creaked, beginning to open.

Little
Vic.
Shit
. This was it. The moment.
Her
moment.

Kim
renewed her struggles against Frost’s hold—with just as little success. The
infuriating man was even stronger than she remembered and every time she called
up a telekinetic shove, it fizzled out in the air, smothered by that same
unseen force. How the hell was he doing that?

“Let
me go,” she hissed, keeping her voice low to avoid alerting the weasel exiting
the bar to their presence. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go down. This
was supposed to be her moment of triumph. Payback time, goddamn it. She’d been
training for this. Preparing for weeks. Honing her new power into a fine blade,
perfect for terrifying weasely little villain wanna-bes like The Volt. Tonight
was supposed to be the night. She’d set out after Vic high on the power of her
power. She wasn’t supposed to be the helpless victim
again
.

She
thrashed wildly, managing to land an elbow hard enough to make Frost grunt,
though it did nothing to relax his hold.

“I’m
sorry, Kim.” His voice showed no emotion as he dashed her hopes—
no change
there
.

Then
the world flickered, her head spun, and she was standing in the middle of her
own living room, fighting back a lingering sensation of vertigo.

Chapter
Three: The Couple that Teleports Together

“Did
you just
teleport
me?”

Kim’s
outraged yelp was accompanied by another enthusiastic jab from her elbow to his
internal organs.

“Yes.”
Frost maintained his usual façade of icy, unwavering calm, even though the feel
of her in his arms again was hot enough to liquefy the polar ice cap. “Stop
fighting me.”