Beyond Pain (38 page)
- Interested in more books in the BEYOND series? Series order:
- Book #1:
Beyond Shame
(October 2012) - Book #2:
Beyond Control
(March 2013) - Book #3:
Beyond Pain
(August 2013) - Novella #3.5:
Beyond Temptation
(In the anthology
Marked
, February 2014) - Book #4:
Beyond Jealousy
(Spring 2014) - Book #5:
Beyond Addiction
(Fall 2014) - Book #6:
Beyond Innocence
(2015) - Book #7:
Beyond Ruin
(2015)
- Book #1:
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She'd turned into a creeper, and it was all Ace's fault.
Rachel drained her third shot of tequila and fought a losing battle to drag her covetous gaze away from the cage--and the man inside it.
Of course, everyone was watching. It was hard not to when Cruz was setting a Sector Four record by taking on three opponents at once. And he'd apparently decided to go big or go home, because not a single one of the poor bastards had managed to land a solid shot on him.
It wasn't fair, when even three-on-one odds couldn't bring a man down.
Rachel half wished she'd laid money on the match, just to have an excuse for her galloping pulse, not to mention the tiny drop of sweat that rolled down the small of her back. But she'd never been good at lying to herself, so there it was. The truth, in mesmerizing Technicolor.
Lorenzo Cruz, stripped to the waist and fighting like his life and dark mood depended on it, was a beautiful sight. Damn near enough to make a woman come from thirty feet away.
A tug on her shirt pulled her attention away from the cage. "Show me where you want this?"
Shit, she'd forgotten all about Gunner, their conversation--and, frankly, anything that didn't have to do with licking a path straight down the center of Cruz's chest. "Uh, yeah." She lifted her hands automatically, allowing Gunner to pull her shirt higher. "I know the ribs hurt, but I was thinking my left side?"
"Sure, sure. No problem." He grinned at her. "I can put it anywhere you want."
"A tattoo," she said firmly. "Don't go getting your hopes or anything else up."
Gunner winked, the gesture more playful than it was suggestive. He knew better than to push his luck with an O'Kane, especially in the heart of their compound. "I'll be a perfect gentleman," he assured her, crouching to get a better look at her side. "So you want a fallen angel right across here?"
"Falling," she corrected. Not just an angel, and not one lying on the ground, her wings broken. That wasn't her. What she wanted to capture was the journey, the dizzy, spinning descent. "I want--"
Someone reached around her waist and jerked her shirt back down into place. Even before she looked down at the brash, beautiful sleeves of ink covering those arms, she knew who it was from the zing of awareness that rocked her.
Ace.
She slapped his fingers and turned to face him. "Hands off, Santana. I'm having a conversation here."
Ace's gorgeous face twisted into a scowl. "Not with him, you're not.
Hell
no."
It wasn't enough for him to dominate her thoughts, her fantasies. He had to own her skin, too. "Seriously? You think I'm gonna come to you for this?"
He ignored her, shifting his gaze to Gunner as if she hadn't spoken. "I thought we had an understanding, man. You got a sudden death wish?"
Gunner raised both hands in clear surrender, and Rachel shoved him out of the way. It wasn't about him anyway, not really. "If you have a problem with my life choices, Ace, have the respect to take it up with
me
."
Now she had his attention, one hundred and ten percent of it. Ace was usually so easygoing that she forgot how intense he could be when he fixed that dark gaze on a person. "Letting that bastard ink you isn't a life choice. It's a
fuck you
."
"Even if that were true, don't you think you've earned it?"
"Maybe, but there are better ways to say it." He leaned in, the air between them heavy, electric, and even the roar of the crowd around her couldn't shatter the illusion that they were trapped in their own tiny world. "Did you think past sticking it to me? About how long it would take, how much it would sting? How high you'd be flying, with only some fucking outsider there to catch you if you fall too fast?"
"I hate you." The words slipped out, and she immediately wanted to snatch them back. Not because they weren't true--he'd hurt her, more than once, in ways that couldn't have been accidental--but because they revealed too much. How much she cared, when she shouldn't have, not at all.
Her cheeks burned. She turned on her heel and fled, heading for the back hallway and its maze of rooms and exits. Plenty of places to hide until the waves of mortification settled. She'd blame it on the tequila, laugh it off the way she did everything else--
"Rachel, wait."
"No fucking way."
Ace caught her arm and hauled her to a stop. "Fucking hell, woman,
stop
for a second!"
"What?" She jerked away and smacked her shoulder against the hallway wall--hard. At least the darkness would hide the sudden tears of pain that stung her eyes, even if it did nothing to conceal her stupidity. "What do you want from me, Ace?"
"Fuck." His hand hovered over her shoulder. "I want to stop hurting you. But it's the one thing I manage, no matter what I do."
Did he stop to wonder why? To think about all the ways he was in her face, every day, showing her there was nothing he couldn't have if he wanted it. Nothing and no one, including Cruz.
Including her.
"I don't--" Her voice failed her, and she fought to speak past the thick, painful lump in her throat. "I don't want to do this anymore. We should just stay out of each other's way, okay?"
"Easier said than done," he whispered, dropping his hand to her wrist. He slid a fingertip over her wrist and the cuff obscuring her city bar code, the first tattoo he'd ever given her.
The moment was burned into her memory. Ace had set her at ease with his friendly jokes and warm smiles, turning a terrifying moment into something simple, almost sweet. She'd clung to it, the only solid thing in a whirling storm of uncertainty.
He pulled away. As light as the caress had been, its absence was a punch to the gut. "If you don't trust me with your ink anymore, all right. But Emma's got more talent in one toe than that bastard will ever have in his life. And she's one of us."
"Okay, you win." The words caught on a hitch, and Rachel shook her head. "You always win."
"Sure as hell doesn't feel like it, angel."
"That's your own damn fault." She looked away, toward the low red light glowing at the end of the hallway. "You didn't even ask me why."
"Would you have answered?"
He was leaning closer. She could feel it, and she steeled herself against the seductive tug before she looked up and met his gaze. "Anything."
The space between them was too precise not to be deliberate. He should be touching her somehow--an accidental bump of his hand, his chest grazing hers when she dragged in a breath--but the prickle along her skin was pure anticipation.
He let her hang there forever before closing his eyes. "Maybe I don't want to hear you say how much you hate me again. Once a night is all my wounded, delicate heart can handle."
His words should have sparked her temper again, not a tiny frisson of guilt. "I meant it. But not the way you think."
The corner of his mouth kicked up. "My mistake. It's the good kind of hate."
"The frustrated kind." He always found a way to hide behind his joking words. Exasperated, Rachel reached down and grabbed his belt buckle, curling her fingers beneath the warm metal. "I know what sorts of games you and Cruz are playing these days. How come you two haven't knocked on
my
door yet? Think I can't handle it?"
"And what do you think you know?" Ace demanded, his eyes snapping open. His hands hit the wall on either side of her head, caging her. Trapping her. "Don't skimp on the filthy details. You know how I love dirty talk, angel."
She'd lost her mind--it was the only explanation for why she didn't retreat. "You've been sharing your women." She leaned closer, her mouth next to his ear. "Is it about pleasure or conquest, Ace? And do you take turns, or fuck them at the same time?"
"Conquest?" His eyes narrowed, and a new expression darkened his features, one she'd never seen directed at her before.
Anger.
Good. She could work with him hating her, too. At least that made sense.
Rachel snatched her hand back. "Sorry, I forgot the rules. Everything's a joke until it's not, and words don't mean anything until you want them to."
The arms on either side of her tensed, muscles flexing under ink. "We fuck them at the same time, because that's what they want. What
he
wants. Is that what you really need to know? What your city boy's doing now? How filthy he's gotten? Because you sure as fuck don't seem to give a shit about me."
If only.
Her eyes burned, and she bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. It didn't stop the first hot tear from spilling down her cheek, or the ragged sob that tore through the knot in her throat.
"Fuck. Fuck, fuck
fuck
." Ace cupped her cheeks, a warmth on her skin that lingered for only a heartbeat before vanishing. "Ignore me, angel. You're sweet and you're perfect and Cruz is in love with you. You're both too good for the likes of me, so don't cry."
The only thing that hurt worse than his censure was his pity. Desperate for escape from both, Rachel stumbled blindly toward the door. Any place was better than standing in front of Ace, hearing awful, hurtful words spill from her lips, when all she'd ever wanted was--
It doesn't matter.
She repeated it like a mantra, a tiny whisper under her breath until she was outside, her breath puffing out into the frigid night air. She was heading in the wrong direction, toward the warehouses instead of the living quarters, but she didn't give a damn.
She had to get away.
It wasn't difficult to track down Rachel. Cruz had successfully stalked more elusive prey across far more expansive terrain, and had done so with less intimate knowledge of his quarry. When Rachel was rattled, she fled to higher ground, to fresh air and open skies.
So he wasn't surprised to find her on the roof. She sat with her back to the low wall edging the rooftop, a nearly empty bottle nestled between her knees. "Emergency tequila," she explained, holding the bottle aloft. Her teeth chattered, and her lips were several shades darker than their usual pink. "To keep me warm."
Liquor didn't work that way. It opened the capillaries, flushed the skin with what seemed like a rush of warmth, but in the end it only hastened the loss of body heat. Especially now, when they were well on their way to winter. It got cold in the desert at night, and for all that Eden had fought to hide the fact with irrigation and reservoirs and carefully cultivated greenery, that was exactly where they were.
"Here," he said, slipping out of his jacket. His blood was still pumping from the fight, but the icy wind cut easily through his thin T-shirt. He could only imagine how chilled she was, huddling against the stone.
She relaxed into the fabric with a soft moan. "You're so warm. And I'm so stupid. I shouldn't have come up here, but now I can't leave."
