When I didn’t move, savoring the feeling of his rigid length, he thrust his hips gently. “Riley,” he grated. “You feel so damned good. Don’t make me wait.”
I didn’t need more encouragement. I lifted myself until I almost lost him, then I lowered myself just as slowly. I did it again, then again. Price’s eyes thinned to slits as he watched me ride him, his hands running over me, cupping my breasts, tugging my nipples, drawing down on my hips.
It wasn’t long before the pleasure inside me turned to a searing agony of need. I moved faster, clutching Price’s shoulders. He leaned up and took my breast into his mouth. At the same moment, he slid his thumb across my clitoris.
I exploded. I shuddered and shook as euphoria crashed through me, clenching and contracting. As my pleasure crested, Price rolled me over, hooking his elbows under my knees and thrusting into me. He caught my pleasure and stoked it higher. Another orgasm roared through my body. I was helpless before it. Price groaned my name as he came, his body shaking and shuddering over me.
I was boneless. My body quaked with the aftershocks of extraordinary bliss. I let my eyes drift closed. Even if Price’s grip on my legs hadn’t held me pinned, I couldn’t have moved. He drew his arms out from under my knees and held himself above me on one elbow as he brushed the hair from my face with his free hand.
“Riley?”
“Mmm?” I couldn’t form coherent words yet. I felt whole in a way I hadn’t since I’d kicked him out of my life.
“Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you?”
“You killed me,” I said. “In a good way.” I rubbed my cheek against his arm, breathing in his scent. “I could stay here forever.”
“But you won’t.”
Hearing a hint of bitterness in his voice, I opened my eyes. “No. Would you want me to?”
“I want you to be safe.” He traced a finger over my lips. “You could have died. Or worse.”
“I know. You could have, too. Remember the explosion? Neither of us lead safe lives. That’s why I’m not wasting any more time. I want to be with you.”
He pressed a kiss to my lips, pulling away before I could respond. “Then you have to promise me one thing.”
I eyed him warily. “What’s that?”
“Two weeks.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Two weeks. Just the two of us together. No tracing, no family, no friends, no Tyet business. Just us. So we can figure out what ‘us’ is and how to be us.”
I smiled. I could definitely do that. “When?”
“As soon as we take this asshole, Percy, down. Is it a deal?”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “I’m afraid we can’t.”
He scowled. “Why?”
“We have a date for dinner at my stepmom’s on Saturday. She’ll hunt me down with dogs if I miss it. Besides, if you’re moving in with me, you have to meet her and my other brother, Jamie, first, or they’ll come after me with pitchforks and torches. Taylor will be there, too.”
His thunderous expression smoothed. “All right. Dinner with your family Saturday night. Sunday we start our two weeks. Even if we have to go find a deserted island to hole up on. Deal?”
“Deal. But if we’re staying at my house, you should know I only have some ramen, a jar of peanut butter, some chocolate-chip cookie-dough ice cream, and a couple boxes of mac and cheese. We’ll need to stock up on some groceries. I don’t want you to starve.” I smiled slyly. “Or run out of energy.”
“I’m a good cook, but even I can’t make anything out of that revolting collection.” Price nuzzled my neck, sending delightful chills down to my toes.
“It’s why I spend so much time at the diner. Patti and Ben make sure I eat well.”
“Uh-huh. Grease and more grease, with a side of toxic fat and a pile of salt.”
“Never say that where Patti or Ben can hear you or your life won’t be worth living.”
Price bit my neck lightly. I shivered and groaned, then rolled away. “We are not going to make your brother’s deadline downstairs if you keep that up.” I sat up. “So you plan to make me healthy, is that it?”
“I plan to make sure
you
don’t run out of energy,” Price said, running his hand up my leg to just above my knee.
“Never,” I said, and then scooted off the bed. The last thing I wanted was to get hauled out of bed by Touray.
“Riley.”
Something in Price’s voice stopped me cold. I turned. His face had turned to stone. Only his eyes revealed the turbulence of his emotions. My heart clenched. “What now?”
“I’m going to kill this Percy, you know that, right?”
“I know that someone will.”
He sat up. “Not just someone. Me. Not for justice. Not to save a life or in self-defense, but for what he did to you.”
“Revenge,” I said, my mouth dry. I knew what he was saying. Asking really. I’d feared his Tyet side, the enforcer who killed on the orders of his brother. I’d come to understand that Price didn’t kill without good reason. He wanted the law and justice on his side. But this time would be different. Price was no longer a cop; even if Percy surrendered without a fight, Price would kill him. He wanted to know if I could live with that. If I could accept murder and still love him.
Could I? But it wasn’t murder. It was extermination of an evil man. Eradicating him would make the world a safer place. It was no different than exterminating Hitler or Ted Bundy. No matter why Price did it, it was the right thing to do, the necessary thing.
“I understand,” I said at last.
“Do you? I have to do this. It’s about more than revenge. It’s about keeping you safe in my world. I can’t let anyone get away with touching you. They have to know they’ll pay and pay dearly. I’ve got to make a lesson of him.”
I sighed. This was a part of his life I didn’t like thinking about, but he was right; I needed to face it. I didn’t like it, but I lived in a Tyet world, and this kind of violence was how business was done. If I couldn’t live with it, then Price and I were over before we started. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. No. I wasn’t living without Price anymore. I wasn’t sure I even could.
“I can’t promise not to have issues in the future,” I said. Price started to say something, but I held up my hand. “Even if I have issues, I won’t walk out on you. I promise.” I said it like a wedding vow. Maybe it was. All I knew was that it was the truest thing I’d ever said.
“But as far as Percy goes, he needs to be killed. What he’s doing—” I shook my head, nausea churning in my stomach as I remembered the cavern of drug-feeding pens. “Putting him in jail just makes him a recipe book for someone else to take and use. He needs to be put down and everything about his Sparkle Dust manufacturing has to be destroyed. Whatever your reasons for wanting him dead, the fact is that Percy’s too dangerous to let live.”
Price stood up. The stone mask had dropped away and his expression was a mixture of hesitation and doubt. “Be sure, Riley.”
“I am sure.” I leaned against him, feeling his skin feverish against mine, feeling his heart thundering in his chest. I licked the spot where his pulse fluttered madly in his neck. “I’m all in. Body and soul.”
He caught my head between his palms, searching my face for hints of uncertainty. I had none. At last he nodded, the tension releasing from his body. “About fucking time.”
He’d said the same thing in his text when I’d asked him to dinner. Ordered him, really. Only now, I could feel the relief pouring off him as he held me close and kissed the top of my head with something that felt like reverence.
That’s when it dawned on me that he was mine as much as I was his. Body and soul. That’s also when I realized exactly why he was going to kill Percy. Because if anybody touched Price, I’d slaughter them. Literally. He was mine to have, mine to hold, mine to protect. I was never going to let him down.
Chapter 14
It was more like forty-five minutes before we came downstairs. As we approached the dining room, I could hear impatient voices inside. Price’s hand enveloped mine. He pulled me around to face him. I lifted my brows.
“They are waiting for us,” I said, but made no attempt to pull away.
“Just remember I have your back. I won’t let my brother bully you.”
“
I
won’t let him bully me,” I said.
Price scowled. “He gets tunnel vision. He doesn’t let himself get derailed.”
“No worries,” I said airily. “My specialty is derailing. I knocked you off your feet, didn’t I?” I swung around, unable to resist the lovely scent of breakfast any longer.
“That’s for sure. I’m still floundering,” Price muttered behind me.
We stepped into the wood-paneled room with its long, polished granite table and heavy carved chairs. That was all I could take in before Leo snatched me into his arms.
“I was getting ready to come hunt you down. How do you feel?” He hugged me hard.
I hugged him back. “I’m good,” I said. “I could eat, though.”
He laughed, his chest jerking. “That sounds like you.” He loosened his arms enough to scrutinize my face. “You’re really well?”
“I’m fine,” I said firmly. “How are you? And Madison?”
The girl in question stood a few feet away. Her eyes were bruised looking, and she looked like she’d lost a good ten pounds or more. She clung to the back of a chair, biting her lower lip as she watched my reunion with Leo. Touray sat at the far end of the table, his lips bowing down with impatience.
“We’re well enough for a couple of prisoners,” Leo said, sending an angry glance down the table at Touray.
“Prisoners?” My voice sharpened. I looked at Touray and then Price in silent demand.
“It seemed unwise to allow it to be known that you had escaped from the mountain,” Touray said. “I thought it best to keep things quiet until you were awake and we knew what we were dealing with.”
I nodded understanding. “He’s right,” I said to Leo. “If Percy thinks we’re stuck in the tunnels somewhere, he’s less likely to be on guard. I’m sure he’s got people watching to see if we’ve made contact with anybody. Me and Madison, if nobody else, since he didn’t really know about you and Dalton. Since no one’s heard from us, he probably thinks we’re lost or dead in the mines.”
“Dalton?” Price echoed.
“Who’s Dalton?” Touray demanded at the same time.
Damn.
I’d hoped to get some breakfast in me before the interrogation started. I eyed the sideboard longingly before answering. “Dalton was—is, I guess—the leader of a protection squad that I figured had come from one of you two. They’ve been guarding me since right after—Since the stuff with Josh went down.”
“You thought he worked for one of us?” Price asked, his voice an icy knife. Hard to believe that he’d just been screwing me into oblivion. Just at the moment, he sounded like he wanted bang my head against the granite tabletop. “Surely you checked him out. Hell, why didn’t you call and ask?”
“I didn’t call because I was trying to figure out my life without your interference. I had someone check him out, a hacker friend of mine, but there wasn’t much to find. Since I figured he was one of yours, that seemed normal. If you’d sent him, you’d erase his history and anything to do with you. I traced him as far as I could, but he had good nulls and he used them. That was another thing that made him look like yours. Add to that the fact that he was constantly on my ass about safety, and never once lifted a finger against me, the logic seemed sound.”
“Christ,” Price said. His jaw knotted, and he turned like he was looking for something to hit. “Why couldn’t you just pick up the damned phone?”
I’d been asking myself that question, too, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. “Again, he didn’t hurt me.” I remembered the dreamspace vision. Somebody was working extra hard to get me to trust him.
“How the hell do you know? Maybe he hasn’t triggered whatever plan he set in motion. Maybe he’s just biding his time. Fuck, Riley! You know better!”
“He’s right,” Leo said. “Why the hell didn’t you get in touch with me? I could have looked into it. Mom could have. She’s still got contacts with the feds.”
My stepmom was a reader. A strong one. She’d been recruited into various government agencies. She’d retired early, after my dad vanished, but she still got called in on hard cases. She could have done some digging. But I hadn’t wanted to call her. Mostly because I didn’t want her to use her empath magic on me. I’d been too torn up over Price, and I hadn’t wanted to explain.
“She’s the reader, correct?” Touray asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Should I assume you know everything about me? What deodorant I wear? The results of my last Pap smear?”
He smiled slowly, his eyes hooded. “I think it’s a safe enough assumption.”
I glared at Price. “I suppose you know all that, too?” No wonder he’d got all my clothing sizes right.
“I didn’t know about Dalton,” he said, still furious. “I kept my word. I backed off. I trusted you to take care of yourself, and then you let someone you don’t even know worm his way in? Are you insane? Or just incredibly stupid?”
“I don’t know. Let me think about that one,” I snapped. “Right now, I’m feeling a lot like both, not to mention pretty damned irritated.”
He stormed over to me, standing so close that I had to lean my head back to meet his gaze. “Irritated? That’s nothing. I’m fucking pissed as hell. You have no right to take chances with yourself.” He poked a finger into my chest to emphasize his point. “What happened to all your paranoia? Shit, you wouldn’t let me be in the same room with you, but you let a total stranger under your roof twenty-four/seven.”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t. I let him and his squad follow me around during work hours. I repeat, I thought you’d sent him. Besides, I—”
I’d been overwhelmed with the flood of work, with the sudden public outing of me being a tracer, and my loneliness from missing him. I’d been a hot mess. I wasn’t going to admit it, but it was true that I hadn’t been thinking all that clearly. I
should
have called. I
should
have double-checked with my stepmom. I should have gone to ground until I knew I was safe.
“You what?” Price prompted, looking angrier than I’d ever seen him. That was saying something.
I’d been so damned tired of hiding that I’d fooled myself into thinking I was looking after myself well enough. “I could have done better,” I admitted. “Are you satisfied? I fucked up. I done wrong. Are you done stroking out for now? Can we get on with the rest of the story?”
He opened his mouth, then shut it. He shook his head and spun on his heel and strode stiff-legged across the room as far from me as he could get. He sprawled in a chair, his arms crossed over his chest, waiting.
Was he pouting? I marched over to him, my anger and embarrassment simmering hot. I put my hands on my hips. “It’s the strangest thing, but suddenly I’ve got a feeling like a sore throat coming on. So if you don’t come sit at the table with the other grown-ups, there’s a good chance you’re not going to hear much.”
He glared at me. “If I do, I might kill you.”
“I’ll kick your balls up into your throat if you try. Besides, I told you that you’d be hearing things that would make you go homicidal. Didn’t I ask you to keep remembering that you love me? Did you already forget?”
He snorted, and his lips flashed a momentary smile. It vanished as fast as it arrived. “I’m not sure I can take it. How bad is it going to get?”
“You’ve heard all the bad parts. Now it’s me just fleshing out the rest.”
I decided to leave it at that. I went over to the sideboard and served myself. There were thick-cut potatoes fried with peppers, onions, and marinated cabbage; four different kinds of eggs; steak, bacon, and sausage; steamed vegetables; biscuits; fruit; yogurt; pastries; and a half-dozen sauces and gravies. I loaded up two plates and put them on the table, then filled a tall glass with what turned out to be fresh-squeezed orange juice. Carafes of coffee were already on the table. I took a cup and filled it, adding cream and sugar. Price sat across from me. Madison slid in beside me, and Leo sat beside Price.
When I sat down, I realized we were missing someone. “Where’s Cass?”
“She’s on her way,” Touray said, serving himself. “They had a flat.”
Once everyone had loaded up their plates and settled around the table, I started to talk. I began with Dalton’s arrival, then skipped forward to Lauren hiring me to find her nephew. Touray, Leo, and Price peppered me with questions. I answered each one, finishing both my plates of food and returning to the sideboard for pastries and fruit. I hadn’t had room for them the first go-around.
I sat back down. When I got to the part about the fumigation, Leo lost it.
“What? You were exposed to Sparkle Dust?”
He sat slack in his chair. He looked like he’d been punched in the gut. Like Madison had looked when we made her leave her family behind. Like I’d felt when I thought Price might have been blown up. Helplessness and horror.
Quickly, I explained about by belly null, which ordinarily would have earned me a lot of grief from my audience. Investing a tattoo with magic risks that an enemy might cut it out of you. In this case, however, the fact that it saved me from SD had them conveniently overlooking that fact. I had a feeling I’d be hearing about it later, though.
Leo pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, his fingers digging into his scalp.
“I don’t think I’m addicted. I’m sure I would have been craving it by now,” I reassured him. “Cass is coming. She’s a dreamer. She’ll be able to tell for sure.”
Madison nodded, speaking up for the first time. “I’ve seen a lot of victims. Usually it takes less than twenty-four hours before they are shaking and begging for a fix.”
For once my brother seemed out of words. He lowered his hands and nodded, his expression turning blank. “Okay.”
I hesitated, but he didn’t look at me. He’d gone liquid-nitrogen cold, and whatever he felt was locked inside that fortress of frost.
Nobody asked what would happen if I was wrong and Cass found evidence of SD addiction in me. Since I hadn’t shown symptoms, I was pretty sure I was fine, but there was a lot of room for fear between
pretty sure
and
definitely sure
. I could tell they all thought it. No point in bringing it up now.
I then told about Percy and the way he’d burned me.
“I will kill him,” Leo whispered. “Painfully and slowly.”
“Get in line,” Price said. “He’s mine.”
“She’s
my
sister.”
“She’s my
life
,” Price snapped back. “Get used to having me around, Junior, because I’m not letting her out of my sight.”
I rubbed my hands over my face. I’m sure this was flattering, somehow. If you got past the fact that neither of the two men had a very high opinion of my ability to take care of myself. I couldn’t blame them. Not after I’d confessed about Dalton, and then getting lured down to the tunnels by Lauren. It was clear they both thought I was touched in the head. Half-witted. Simpleminded. Idiotic. All of which I could agree with. I was determined to do better. Arguing about it at this point wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I’d fight that battle later, when I actually had something to win.
Unfortunately, my two-second mental time-out had given Leo enough time to teach Price a lesson. Touray growled, and his heavy chair went flying against the wall. Madison squealed.
“What the fuck?” Price roared.
“Do not call me ‘Junior,’ and I am more than a match for the likes of you, Tyet man,” Leo crooned in a voice I was all too familiar with. He didn’t lose his temper often, but when he did—
I dropped my hands resignedly, already knowing what I’d find. I was right. Price was contained in a filigree suit of metal from neck to ankles. Leo had pulled it from everywhere in the room—metal buttons, screws, nails, hinges, silverware, electric cords, and anything else metal. It was beautiful to look at—my brother was an artist, and even something like this had to have flair.
Price struggled against his prison to no avail. I knew exactly how he felt. Leo had captured me like this a dozen times over the years. Even though his head and feet were free, Price would be feeling claustrophobic and helpless. After a moment of struggle, he held himself still, glaring furiously at Leo, who stared smugly back.
Touray reached fruitlessly into his rear waistband for a gun that no doubt had vanished into Price’s bonds. His expression had gone deadly. “Free my brother or I will cut your throat.”
Leo sneered. “Can you?” Ribbons of metal flowed up Touray’s legs and around his hips, fixing him in place. More snapped around his wrists. A spike formed and lifted, nudging against the hollow of Touray’s throat. “Don’t ever threaten me.”
Before Touray could do just that, I slapped my hands down on the table and hoped it didn’t collapse without its metal parts. “Enough! You all called me ‘stupid’ and ‘ridiculous’ and ‘idiotic,’ so apparently you recognize it. Have a look at yourselves. Leo—I love you, but you can’t go around attacking your new family whenever they piss you off, which I suspect will be often. Yes. I really did just say new family. I love Price, he loves me, we’re moving in together. That means Touray comes with the territory, like it or not.”
“As for the two of you,” I said, whirling on Price and Touray. “Same thing applies. He’s my brother, and if I’m your family now, so’s he, and so’s the rest of the bunch. Get used to it. Embrace the crazy. Now, this pissing match is canceled. If you all can’t behave, I’d just as soon go back to bed until you come to your senses, though I’m sure Madison would like to see her family rescued sooner rather than later.”
Seconds later, the metal pulled away and reshaped itself into a freeform wall decoration. It was ridiculously lovely. If Touray had had to pay for it, it would have cost him several hundred thousand dollars. That Leo could make it in a fraction of a minute was a testament to how overpaid he was, and how skilled. He gave me a little shrug of apology. All I would get. Touray eyed the wall and then Leo. I could almost hear his thoughts. Another tool for his toolbox. Over my dead body. He gave Leo a little nod of appreciation. Price lifted his chin in a little salute.
Men
.