Underground Warrior (11 page)

Sibyl’s insides jumped at the command, half in excitement, half in concern. He’d warned her. She hadn’t gone downstairs. So whatever happened now, she’d invited, right? No. Wrong. She could leave at any time—and he would let her. That knowledge stilled the worst of her fears.

Instead of digging a condom out of the stash she’d already found in his bed table, Trace—with a long groan—slid off the bed and onto the floor, where he knelt beside it. Beside her. “C’mere.”

“You aren’t asleep.”

“Nope.” When she didn’t obey, he simply caught one of her legs and turned her easily on the bed. He caught the waistline of her panties with his thumbs, then paused to frown at her from below. “You okay with this?”

She tried to speak, but although her lips moved, no voice came out. She meant to shake her head. She wasn’t ready, she was terrified. But somehow, it came out as an honest nod, instead.

With one smooth pull, Trace had dragged her panties down her legs and off her feet, then eased her knees apart.
Now? Already?
She felt the shock of cool November morning against her damp body…and then, even as she reeled from that, his hot breath replaced it as he bowed his head between her legs—and kissed her.
There.

“Ohh….” She wasn’t—she didn’t—all she knew was that the sensations shuddering through her felt more than okay. Sibyl let her knees drift wider apart, amazed by the delicious rasp of Trace’s whiskers against her inner thighs, against even more tender flesh. The gentle suction of his kiss, and then his tongue—“Ah!”

“I can sto—” he started to say, but she shifted her feet so that her knees straddled his shoulders, holding him against her. That’s how much she trusted him. His chuckle, into the center of her body, tickled in better ways than she could ever have imagined. And when he really began to nuzzle against her, to truly suckle her…

That’s when the real whimpers started.

She’d never…she’d tried to satisfy herself, of course, but that had only…oh! No wonder this was all some of the girls in juvie could talk about! Her full, physical awareness of him…the amazement that he would take this kind of trouble, just to make her feel…and he wasn’t hurting her, just building, just encouraging…

She began to writhe, to thrash against him, until he reached upward with his hard, long arms and caught her under the arms with his broad hands. His thumbs kneaded her breasts through the cotton of the oversize T-shirt, his fingers held her down. She still bucked, but he kept her from shaking him off. His tongue felt so thick and hot and wonderfully invasive. His teeth brushed her in a flicker of danger. He was worshipping her in the most carnal ways she could imagine, and something was about to…it scared her, and she needed to hold on, but…she needed
it,
needed
him,
needed…needed…

“Trace!” Her heels dug into the flesh of his back as Sibyl all but launched herself off him and the world exploded.
She
exploded. She shattered into fragments of memories and pain and long lost hopes and stolen glories. The heavy walls of isolation around her crumbled.
She
fell apart completely, shuddered into nothingness, gasped for breath she could never catch without lungs, clawed for purchase she would never find without flesh.

And then he was back on the bed, on her, drawing her pieces back together with ease, kissing her with a mouth that tasted damp and warm and fascinatingly like…like her. He cuddled her against him, where she felt so safe. One of his big hands cupped her between the legs, and a finger swirled in the hot, needy damp there, and she said, “Yes, yes, yes,” into his mouth, until the finger slid into her. It didn’t hurt. She writhed happily against him, kissed him with more than she thought remained of her, so he tried a second finger, and that felt tight but still better, still necessary, and she wondered if this was what it would feel like if he just mounted her and thrust into her, which was when he tried three fingers—

She exploded again, even harder than before, but Trace’s kisses muffled her ecstatic scream. And the one after that. And after that, too.

And then he’d freed his magical hand and rolled onto his back, grinning—until she began to weep into his arms. Then his face fell.

“I
hurt
you? God—”

“Shut up,” she growled, and gave him salty kisses. He tentatively kissed her cheeks in return, kissed her clean of her tears, kissed her until her breath returned in slow, steady waves full of the smell and nearness of him.

“You’re okay?” he rasped finally, gently.

She nodded, then tried to show him how okay she was by catching his mouth again. He met her, kiss for kiss, but sank back into the tangle that had been his bed as he did. His breath caught in a way she couldn’t miss and, embarrassingly, recognized from earlier in their proceedings as well. Not just passion.

Bruised ribs. Hurt knee—and he’d been kneeling? He’d said he would sleep.

“You’re going to regret this in the morning,” she chided, somehow unable to move out of the solid, naked support of his arms, even so.

“Not hardly,” he assured her. “Just dream good dreams this time, okay?”

She nodded. She would have nodded at almost anything. Dead father, or not. Years of vengeful planning, or not. Trace had moved past being a means to avenging her past and instead, for the first time, had her wondering about a completely different future.

She would do anything this man ever asked of her, and gladly. Because of an orgasm? Well, a handful of orgasms, but still. No, because of so much more. If that made her stupid, she’d be stupid.

Part of her feared a mistake—the kind of mistake that didn’t just hurt her, but hurt innocent others. But at the moment, she wouldn’t give that cynical, paranoid side any of her attention. Maybe never again.

For the moment, anyway, she had…

“Trace?” she whispered suddenly into the gray of early morning, as if she couldn’t feel him under her, couldn’t feel his arms surrounding her, couldn’t smell his skin or hear his breath. She savored his name in her mouth.

“Yeah?” He sounded half-dead already.

I love you.
But she didn’t want to scare him. Didn’t want to ruin this. Didn’t want to act like the virgin that she still was. She still was a virgin, right?

But not for long, if she had anything to say about it. Not with him.

“Night,” she whispered, and smiled at his answering grunt, and fell asleep.

Exhaustion warred against pain, breaking Trace’s sleep into chapters. He woke with Sibyl on his chest, in his arms, each time until the last.

Then he woke alone, unsure if he’d dreamed the knock on the house door or her sudden scramble away from him. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and cursed out the pain through gritted teeth.

Alone.

With voices downstairs. Greta’s. Sibyl’s.

And some guy he didn’t recognize.

Now he remembered Sibyl’s concerned whisper of, “Greta!” He launched himself out of bed—or would have. If he hadn’t just fought two bouts, one of them all three rounds, of no-holds-barred last night, then complicated matters with everything-but sex. Instead, he staggered. Straightening to his full height would take too long, so he stayed bent as he pulled on a pair of boxers. He almost fell, twice. But finally he managed to stagger into the hallway—taller with every step—and toward the narrow old stairs.

On the landing, however, he met Mitch, fully dressed in khakis and one of those Mexican shirts he favored, just standing there.

“Out of the way,” Trace started to snarl. But he only managed “Oum?—” before Mitch pinched his mouth shut.

“Shh! He shouldn’t know we’re here.”

Trace glared pure murder at the smaller, blonder man, and growled low in his throat. But he’d forgotten something about Mitchum Talbott.

The guy didn’t actually scare.

Sure, he put on a great “gosh, golly” front, and preferred talk to violence any old day. But when push came to shove, like Trace’s idea of shoving his friend down the stairs in order to get to Sibyl? The guy stood his ground.

“Who?” he managed to mumble, through the side of his mouth.

Mitch, seeing that Trace was trying to keep his voice down, let go.

“Dillon Charles,” he clarified. “From the Comitatus. Looking for you.”

Chapter 7

D
illon freaking
Charles?
The first person to have soured Trace on the supposed nobility of the Comitatus? The pretentious jerk who’d worked from the start to corrupt what tiny chance Trace might have had at forging a relationship with his own father?

Trace made like a charging bull again.

Again, Mitch stepped directly into his path, finger to his own lips this time.

“—talk to the local…group…” Greta was saying, “I’m certain they will clarify matters for you.”

Matters like her house being off-limits to anyone Comitatus. Matters like her having been granted sanctuary.

Charles asked, “And by
group,
you mean…?” He was trying to catch them in knowing more than they should, trying to learn who had broken Comitatus secrecy.

“You obviously know that better than we do,” stated Sibyl in that solemn way of hers. “Why don’t you tell us?”

Trace felt an unexpected surge of pride.
Way to go, Sibyl.

“Not necessary,” Charles assured her. “You say my…friend…isn’t here, and I’ve clearly overstepped some sort of local…treaty.” The word “treaty” did not come out sounding happy. “I’ll go.”

“That would be for the best,” Greta agreed.

“By the way, what happened to you?” Mitch whispered, making a face at—oh. Trace had to look down at himself to remember just how brilliantly bruised he’d gotten. “Seriously. You look like you were in a tragic tie-dye accident.”

“Yeah? Well, you look like someone I could crush with my—” Trace had to swallow back a howl of pain when Mitch grinned and poked one of his bruised ribs.

“Good day, Miss Kaiser,” Dillon was saying to Greta. “Good day, Isabel.” And Trace forgot about killing Mitch.

Who the hell was Isabel?

“There he goes,” noted Mitch after a moment, cocking his head at absolutely nothing. Apparently he read Trace’s confused expression. “The purr of a truly exquisite engine.”

“It’s safe now,” called Sibyl.

In three strides, Trace reached the bottom of the stairs and pulled her tight against him, bruises be damned. She felt familiar and necessary and unexpectedly fragile.

Dillon freakin’ Charles?

“He was here for your sword,” she said softly, tipping her face up toward his, her cheek pillowed against his bare chest. “He knows you’re here.”

He shrugged. “So I’ll leave.”

She pressed harder against him. Ow. But it wasn’t a bad hurt. What did she think he meant, leave Dallas? He only meant to leave Greta’s!

“Whoa, Nelly.” There Mitch went, talking again. “Before we make any big decisions about staying or leaving or plotting or not plotting, why don’t we contact Smith, sit down as a group and weigh our options? You know…clothed? Not looking like you just slept togeth—oh, my merciful God, you two are
sleeping together?
”

And he thought Trace was the dumb one? Trace silently dared him to comment further, but for once Mitch said nothing. Good. Trace and Sibyl weren’t open to discussion. Unless…

Trace glanced at Greta, unsure if he owed her an apology. This was her house, after all, for all that he paid rent on his room. God knew his Ma had never been one of those ‘not under
my
roof you don’t’ types. But Greta was a lot older than Ma.

Greta showed no signs of disapproval. She seemed caught up in their unexpected visitor.

Sibyl, though, had stiffened away from his embrace. “I should go, then,” she said, not looking at anyone—not even Trace. His T-shirt, hanging to her knees and flirting at the edge of one shoulder, made her look young and vulnerable. “Schmomitatus business.”

“Wait,” called Mitch, even as she put one tentative bare foot on a step to escape. “You’re our answer girl. How does Dillon Charles even know you? I mean— Isabel?”

Isa…? Sibyl. Oh.

Trace couldn’t help but stare. Dillon Charles knew her? Knew her well enough to know her real name?

Sibyl’s eyes, lifting slowly to his, looked trapped. That, more than anything, stirred awake suspicions in Trace’s gut.

Then she spun, deerlike, and fled up the stairs.

Sibyl had pulled on last night’s clothes with shaking hands before Trace came in. Had he waited to give her privacy, or out of disgust?

He knew she’d been lying to him. She’d seen it in his eyes.

Just in time for it to matter to her. Just in time for everything else to go wrong, too. Dillon Charles had recognized her. And seeing him for the first time since the fire had ended her stay at his prestigious school—had ended her world—just sharpened all the pain that spending time with Trace had soothed.

“You can use the shower if you want,” said Trace, upon arriving in his bedroom to see her already dressed. She couldn’t blame him. She felt gross. Her clothes still smelled like beer and cigarette smoke from last night. Her skin still smelled like…

Him.
That part, she didn’t mind at all. But maybe he did.

She shook her head. “Have to go.”

He scowled. “But Smith’s on his way over.”

Which just meant she had to go quickly. Smith’s father currently headed the local Comitatus. She should trust him even less than the other exiles. So she shouldered her backpack purse. “Go…”

Her ability to speak hadn’t failed her this badly since prison.

Trace reached a hand toward her, and she flinched. He could hurt her far worse than the others, even than Dillon Charles, whose lawyer father had helped send her to prison. Trace could hurt her for reasons far beyond his violent fighting abilities. And worse, she could hurt him.

He let his hand drop before touching her. Instead he asked, “Did I do something wrong?”

Hurt. Like that.

He stood there, swarthy and sturdy and bruised— God, she’d had no idea, last night, how many bruises—but unbent. Unshaven and nearly nude, he could have been a Neanderthal warrior, powerful enough to drag her to his cave, make her his—but also to kill any saber-toothed tigers that threatened her. He could be a knight of olde, momentarily stripped of his armor but no less dangerous. After all, chivalry only counted with the noblewomen. Peasant girls had been any lord’s for the taking. Dillon Charles wouldn’t have honored peasant girls.