Fixing Justice (11 page)

“Instead of what?” she snarled. “Instead of laying out the facts for you with a minimum of delay? For heaven’s sake Draegyn, give me a break!” The mouth spitting furious words at him also promised erotic delight. Pouting for all she was worth, Victoria shot a dour glare his way. “Why do you have to be such a bully?”

In seconds, he’d flattened her against the nearest wall using his body to keep her in place. “You have a harsh tongue!” Lowering his head in slow motion he watched her eyes grow huge as she pressed back in withdrawal. “Perhaps, I should tame some of that sharpness.”

He hovered as his words sank in. There was less than a sliver of space between them; they were close enough to feel each other’s breath. She didn’t move a muscle, just stood there with him looming over her. Silence reigned. After a moment he moved back but never released her eyes. She swallowed and drew a rasping breath.

After he stepped away she raised a shaking hand to push her glasses back and smooth her hair. “That wasn’t necessary,” she whispered.

“Oh, I think it was.” A heated response to her nearness, even though she was being a wretched shrew this morning, had settled in his groin with alarming speed and strength. How he kept from tossing her over his shoulder like a caveman and dragging her off to his lair, where he could take her hard and fast, was a mystery.

Her confused, flustered expression had him shaking his head. Damn woman. She made him act in ways that surprised him. Had he tried to intimidate her physically?
Yeah
, he had. It was that smart-ass mouth of hers that pushed him to the edge. He didn’t like being told off, even if there was a grain of truth to her words.

“I am
not
a bully.” She raised an eyebrow at his grumpy declaration. “If I were, your panties would be down around your ankles, and I’d have you bent over the end of that bench behind us.”

Victoria blanched at his words as she glanced at the bench he referred to. When she looked back his way, her cheeks were flushed pink and the chocolate eyes that had seemed so huge in her face just seconds ago, sparkled brightly. She got the message he was sending and the way she bit down on her lip told him he had rattled her cage with his frankness. Good. He was a lot of things goddammit, but a bully wasn’t among them.

“Now tell what else is going on before I have to face Alex.” She shook her head letting him know that yes, she would tell him everything, but it took her more than a minute to regain her composure. He had to hand it to her though, she knew when to back off and regroup.

Tori got it together and even managed to keep up with Draegyn when he continued in search of Alex. The man was just so damn frustrating! He was either needling her for no good reason or busy making her feel like a piece of furniture. Neither of those scenarios worked for her. With his bossy attitude, he’d get the facts and nothing else from her. “I believe Alex is having a bad day’” she informed him. “And before you snap at me, by bad day I mean, he’s showing signs of discomfort.”
Crap.
Why did she always sound so uptight when she talked to him?

His steps slowed and lines of tension formed around his mouth. There was no doubt he understood what she was trying to tell him and for just a moment she was full of concern for Alex. “He’s been overdoing it,” she added, looking up at him through her lashes.

It took him a few moments to meet her eyes, but he finally did when they arrived at the corridor to Alex’s inner sanctum. She tried not to flinch at the stony bleakness she found in his expression. Draegyn St. John might be the most infuriatingly arrogant man to ever walk the planet, but he was also a fierce friend. His obvious concern for Alex was there for her to see. Clearly from his reaction, when Alex hurt, so did he.

His expression was open and unguarded as he bent to her saying, “Thanks for the heads up.” He looked away, hesitated, and took a deep breath. “And, I apologize.”

She met his steady blue-eyed gaze, crossing her arms defensively across her chest. “For?”

“I don’t know what for!” he barked. “For whatever it is about me that pisses you off!”

Her chin went up. “Don’t yell at me!” Damn the man.

“Woman, just take the damn apology and let it go! Not everything needs to be picked apart and examined!”

His behavior was almost funny. It was patently clear to Tori that he wasn’t the sort of man who found himself on the giving end of an apology very often. She sniffed, irritated. No doubt he was used to his every word being hung upon and never questioned. Sighing, she knew that since neither of them were naturally inclined to admit being wrong-footed, she had to be the one to break first.

“Truce?”

The gleam that suddenly appeared in his eyes matched the rush of excitement slithering along her nerve endings. When his gaze devoured her face, stopping for an eternity on her parted lips, and then continued down her throat, she inhaled raggedly. His nostrils flared as he stared at her chest as it rose and fell in short, choppy breaths.

She remembered another moment when his fingers had sought her naked flesh and how she moaned into his mouth when he touched her aching breast. The slash of color making its way across his cheekbones and his labored breathing told her he was remembering too. Surely, the world stopped spinning when his eyes returned to hers. It was the only explanation for the tilt-a-whirl her senses were experiencing.

His arrogant smile returned as a damning blush started in the soles of her feet and spread like wildfire until she was certain her face was bright red. Lifting an errant curl between his fingers he teasingly pulled on it before pushing it behind her ear. “Truce for this skirmish, Victoria.” He chuckled. “The battle, however, rages on.”

Whenever he was around, she felt his eyes on her. Watching, ever critical of her every word and move. Their verbal skirmishes happened by rote. He spoke, or smirked, or did something she perceived as arrogant or tyrannical, and bam, her mouth was off and running. Truth was, all he had to do was breathe, and she was a bitchy mess.

Making matters worse was the obvious physical tension whenever they met. Just because she wasn’t pretty or vivacious didn’t mean she was dead inside. She’d have to be blind or insane not to be affected by those intense blue eyes, the superhero physique, or the way all the oxygen got sucked from a room when he entered. No, she was together enough to honestly admit he got her panties wet without even trying. She would have cringed at the thought if not for her sure knowledge that Mister Cool was just as affected as she was. Like all things having to do with Draegyn, even his bulge was impressive. That was no hypothetical she felt grinding against her spread legs the other night. Nope, that was one hundred percent pure, excited male.

Oh goody! She felt
soooooo
much better knowing that their tendency at every opportunity to verbally slash and burn each other was fueled by sexual awareness. That it erupted without warning was a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Just fantastic.

He stepped around her while she stood planted, immobile in the doorway to the tech room with her jaw hanging slack. Laughing was about the last thing she expected after that bold taunt, but dammit if he didn’t do just that as he passed.

Hunched over a computer set-up, Alex had his back to the corner of the room where Tori lingered. Draegyn was leaning behind his friend, staring intently at whatever Alex had pulled up on the screen. She noticed his tool belt had been discarded and tossed on a countertop. Seeing him without it, from a rear vantage point, hit her like a knock-out punch. From behind, he was so mouth-wateringly sexy that it was all she could do not to walk right up and stroke her hand appreciatively along his perfect backside.

Recovering, she lifted a hand to her hair and smoothed it along the nape of her neck. Yanking down the front of her plain button-down shirt, Tori pushed the unkempt top into place and strode forward with an air of confidence that was more bravado than substance. She heard Alex muttering terse words that she hadn’t been meant to hear.

“Fuck that guy, Drae. You get in there and straighten that dickhead out. Tony Barnes is seriously deluded if he thinks he can scare Justice with some lame lawyer talk. The system is fine. We have to do a reboot and a software update, maybe reconfigure the server, that kind of stuff. Your job is to get Barnes in line.”

Alex noticed her presence and swiveled around in his seat fixing her with a serious stare. Tori squirmed awkwardly knowing that seconds ago she’d been smacking her lips over the ass of one Draegyn St. John, who now stood with his arms across his chest and hips resting against the console behind him. The lazy way he eyed her from the flat brown shoes peeking out from the legs of her wide trousers to the plain functional blouse up to the messy half-bun on top of her head made her skin prickle.

When he finally found her eyes, she fixed him with a look that suggested he bite her. His mouth, which had been set in a rather taut line, curled up at the corners in a mocking smirk. When she refused to back down from his ice blue glare, he flashed her a pointed look that made her think of naked bodies entwined on a large bed, sweating and slippery, sliding against each other.

Maybe wetting her lips at that moment hadn’t been such a swell idea because the way his eyes narrowed as he zeroed in on the movement took away her breath. Smirk now gone, she found herself staring into the face of a hot, sexy male who was looking at her lips in a way that made her think of sliding them, slowly, along his shaft. When their eyes met she was certain he had been thinking the same thing.

“Is that okay with you, Tori? It really is the only way. I can’t go and this isn’t Drae’s area of expertise. Besides, we need him to keep the owner calm and working with, instead of against us. We can manage any problems by video messenger.”

Dammit, Alex had been talking but she wasn’t listening. Wait! What did he just say? Was what okay with her? Something wasn’t right. “I’m sorry. What did you say, Alex?” Tori asked. Tension filled the air as she gulped in a shaky breath while Draegyn’s steely-eyed calm held her in place like a tractor beam.

She jumped when Alex slapped his hand on the console. “Are you two even listening? This is important people!” he griped.

Breathless, she tried to form a coherent reply, but Draegyn was making it difficult to concentrate. Removing her glasses with a sigh, Tori tried to play it cool. “I’ll do whatever you ask, Alex. Just tell me what’s needed,” she declared, fixing her boss with a clear gaze and a tilted chin while ignoring the other man.

Rising from his seat Alex moved to the desk area to grab a folder. “Here. You’ll need this. It’s an overview of the whole system. I’ll walk you through each phase.”

She took the folder while confusion etched her brow. “What?”

An exasperated Alex looked like he was going to lose it. “You’re going to Las Vegas, Tori. With Drae.
Tomorrow
.”

As Alex’s words registered, it was impossible for her to determine which of them was the most surprised or who bellowed the loudest as they shouted, “No!” in perfect unison. Drae jumped from where he’d been lounging seconds before as Tori waved her hands furiously in denial. As if on cue, they wheezed an emphatic, “No!” for a second time within a second of one another. Alex’s eyebrow rose clear to his hairline at their odd behavior.

It was Draegyn who stepped into the breach, turning a stern and unwavering look at his friend. “Absolutely not, Alex.”

“Stand down, man. This isn’t a request, it’s an order.”

“You aren’t the commanding officer now!” Draegyn growled, earning a surprised flinch from Victoria.

Alex nodded slightly, acknowledging the truth in his words. “You are correct. We are equals in all things Justice. But this is not negotiable. I can’t go and you know why. You don’t have the expertise for the hands-on part but Tori does. I don’t see what the problem is.” Narrowing his eyes, he looked sharply at each of them.

Drae shrugged. “I’m busy,” was all he could think of to say. Victoria didn’t help things when she blurted out almost the exact same words.

“Okay,” Alex barked. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you two, but whatever it is, get the fuck over it!” From the corner of his eye, Drae saw Victoria swallow hard at the unexpected outburst.

This is ridiculous
, he thought. Why would a Justice assignment with the little brown mouse make him react so harshly? Was it because he was careful to never mix business with pleasure and the distinction was gradually being obscured with Victoria?

At first, he hadn’t thought of her as particularly sexy or even remotely attractive, certainly not in the mold of his usual type, but he had to admit that his growing reaction to her was throwing a monkey wrench into things. He shouldn’t want her but he did.

Drae thought of himself as an intelligent, levelheaded guy. Drama was not in his wheelhouse. Pulling it together, he squared his shoulders. “Map this out for me, Alex. And speak English if you don’t mind. None of that tech-talk shit.” Moving closer to Victoria who stood frozen in place, he spared her tense face a fleeting glance. “No surprises, I’m not in the mood. Just give it to me straight.”