Pieces of Autumn (36 page)

God damn Joshua.

For a moment, I considered telling him to fuck off. But really, what was the point?

I pulled the door open.

He blinked once, twice. Keeping his eyes carefully on my face, he said, "is this a bad time?"

"Always." I smiled. "Won't you come in?"

Joshua sighed, following me into the main living area. "This is childish, you know."

"
You're
childish," I countered. Not my best work.

"Your girlfriend would probably want you to put on some pants." He raised an eyebrow. "For that matter,
I'd
really like for you to put on some pants. You've made your point."

"I'm not sure I have." I smirked. "You're the one who knocked on my door at this ungodly hour."

"It's eleven o'clock," he said, his forehead creasing.

Christ.

I shrugged. "I guess I didn't realize how late we were up."

Joshua sighed again, sitting down heavily on the sofa. "All right, I'll play this game as long as you will. I need to talk to you. I'd prefer it if you weren't naked. I'm sufficiently intimidated. Later on, we can engage in a ritualistic display of plumage. But first, I'm still calling on that favor you owe me."

I really
did
still owe him. My snippy, half-assed advice didn't come close to matching what he'd done for me. As much as I hated to admit it, I didn't know how I would have tracked Autumn down without him.

And he was selfless enough to help me. He cared more about her life than he cared about letting her go.
 

What a sickeningly noble individual.

I went to find some clothes.

Autumn stirred awake while I dug through my bureau drawers. Blinking sleepily, she yawned, then a slow smile spread across her face.

"Come back to bed," she murmured.

Never once in my life had a woman said that to me. I'd always wanted to hear it, and now, fucking Joshua was ruining it. As much as I enjoyed toying with him, I had to draw the line somewhere.

No sex while he was in the house.

"Can't," I told her, stepping into my underwear. "Got a visitor."

She frowned, sitting up. "Who?"

"Only visitor we ever have." I made a face. "What dress do you want? I'll fetch it for you."

"Wait - how do you know he's here?" She stared at me. "Did you..."

"I let him in," I said, simply.

"Naked?"

I shrugged.

"Oh, for..." sighing, she stood up. "Pick whichever one you want. Lunatic."

I went and looked through her dresses while she washed up. It took me a while to decide between something unbearably sexy - to rub it in his face - and something demure, so he wouldn't see any more of her than was strictly necessary. I settled on something in-between, making sure to bring a bra and panties as well, from the back of the bottom drawer. Completely untouched.

She was pulling up her hair when I came back. Unable to stifle the urge, I walked up to her, sliding my arms around her waist and kissing the back of her neck.

It felt so good to be like this. To act normal. To pretend.

"I thought we had to see our visitor," she murmured, feeling the nudge of my half-hard cock against her ass.

"We do," I sighed. "As much as I'd love to fuck you, and keep him waiting...you don't know how to be quiet. And nobody gets to hear those sounds you make." I nibbled at her ear. "Nobody except me."

"Nobody else could
make
me make those sounds." She giggled. "Come on. I promise I'll be quiet as a mouse."

I groaned, my erection pulsing fully to life. "That's very tempting, Autumn. But no."

"
You
can be quiet," she purred, spinning around to smile at me. Her eyes shone with wicked promises. "Can't you?"

"Very quiet," I mouthed, as her fingers tugged at my zipper. "But..."

"Please." She breathed against my neck, her hand sliding into my open fly. "I want to taste you, Master."

My throat was too dry to answer.

Closing her hand around me, she squeezed gently, then stroked. "Don't you want to? Knowing he's waiting for you? And he'll
know
something's happening?"

God damn it, she was going to kill me.

"Fuck yes," I hissed.
 

She dropped to her knees, mouth and tongue swirling and sucking and caressing. I stifled a groan, rocking towards her. As always, the door was open just a few inches. He wouldn't, but he could. There was a chance he could walk in on us. See how beautiful she looked with my cock in her mouth.

I'd have to kill him. But oh, what a sweet few moments that would be.

The heat of her mouth, the urgency and wrongness of it, while at the same time, it was so tame, so fucking tame, compared to what I wanted to do to her - was too much. I gripped her hair, not bothering to hold back. My hips jerked faster, and I wasn't so sure the sound of the generator would be enough to drown out the little sounds she was making.
 

"Shhhh." I tugged on the roots of her hair.
 

My orgasm rushed to life, and I rode it as silently as I could, gritting my teeth as I filled her sweet little mouth. She accepted me, as always. Everything. The bitterness and the things I tried to hide.

My eyes were closed. I opened them slowly, to see her standing on shaky legs. She swallowed delicately, grasping my carefully-knotted tie and pulling me against her. I smiled.

"Thank you," she whispered.
 

My head was swimming as I pulled myself together, waiting for my hard-on to subside as she quickly dressed and smoothed her hair.

"I'll meet you downstairs?" She cocked her head.
 

I nodded my permission, and watched her glide out into the hallway like a woman who
hadn't
just sucked my cock.

"Joshua," I heard her say. "It's so nice to see you again."

I couldn't distinguish the words in his response, but I hoped he
knew
.
 

"So glad you could join us," said Joshua, dryly, as I appeared on the stairs.
 

I went straight for the liquor cabinet. "The pleasure's all mine."

Autumn rolled her eyes.

"Well, the good news is, we've got everything we need for a successful siege." Joshua's fingers were tented together as he waxed rhapsodical. "It took long enough, but I've got three hundred strong. That's more than enough to take on Stoker. They'll all be well-armed, too. It's just a matter of timing."

"I don't really know what you expect me to say," I told him. "Congratulations?"

Joshua sighed. "Say you'll help. You're still a legend to them, Tate. You can get them to act rashly - nobody else can strike at the emotional underbelly of an organization like that."

"I'm a
traitor
to them," I insisted. "I don't know why you seem to think otherwise."

He leaned forward, earnestly. "You should've heard the way they talked about, Tate. Of course they don't trust you - that's not the point. But they think Holland pushed you too far. They think you took your revenge on
him
, not them. They're still in awe of what you accomplished there. You have influence, whether you like it or not."

"I don't know what you mean by that." I took a sip of my whiskey. "There's nothing I can do to help you."

"There is, Tate." Joshua's eyes glinted. "All this time, they've been waiting for their prodigal son to come home. You just have to convince them you have, and they'll be putty in your hands."

I shook my head. "I won't go back there," I said. "Never again. That was a promise I made to myself."

"It's a promise you'll have to break," said Joshua. "Don't you want to see them crumble?"

Beside me, Autumn was perfectly silent. What did she think of all this? I didn't really have to ask. I already knew. She wanted me to be a force for good in this world, as if that could help. As if it undid any of my past sins.

Joshua wasn't giving up. "Why do you think they sent you Autumn as a gift?"

I grunted noncommittally. "Holland told them to."

"Mr. Charles doesn't give a shit about respecting the dead," Joshua countered. "And he's not superstitious. He had his own reasons for doing it. He thought he could break you. Send you spiraling back to your old ways."

It was too close to the truth. I winced, sitting back in my chair.

"Let him believe it worked," Joshua said. "Let them see you the way they remember you. Be the Viper. It won't be difficult to convince them - it's what they
want
to see."

Autumn cleared her throat. I stared at her.

She took a deep breath before speaking. "I think I have an idea."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Sacred Law of Hospitality

Tate

"Are you ready?"

My eyes locked with hers. I was searching for any sign of doubt, hesitation - fear. All of them were present, but they were overwhelmed with something else.

Lust. But not the kind I was used to seeing on her face.

"I'm ready," she rasped, her pulse fluttering with excitement. The Viper glowed with appreciation, seeing a kindred spirit in the flash of her eyes.

I flexed my fingers, experimentally. It had been a long time since I'd felt him inhabiting my flesh, without taking over and crushing nearly every human instinct I had left. Now we moved as one, unified at last in the desire to destroy something ugly.

Her thumb brushed hesitantly at the band of leather buckled tightly around her throat.
 

"Is it uncomfortable?" I asked, while the Viper rolled his eyes. "I can loosen it."

"A little. But it should be. This has to be convincing." The tips of her fingers ghosted across the collar again, getting to know the feel of it.

"It shouldn't hurt," I said, firmly, going to adjust the buckle. In that brief moment where the leather tightened to accommodate the unfastening, her eyes widened slightly, her body tensing at the sensation of her airway being constricted. The Viper growled his approval, and I allowed myself a smile. I would never hurt her like that. Too risky. But I could admit that the idea excited me.

She was eyeing me skeptically.

"You'd be used to it, by now," I explained. "The leather would have loosened. Especially if you never took it off, even in the bath."

A smile played on her lips. She wanted this.
For real
.

Once again, the Viper and I could agree on something.
 

It was a good plan, the one she came up with. As good as any. She finally admitted that she read something like it in a book - of course she fucking did. But it didn't make me any less impressed.

Joshua liked it too, but that hardly mattered.

The only question was, would the Seven Devils fall for it? They would come with armed bodyguards, of course. That, we knew. The trick would be to make sure that the bodyguards stayed close by. That shouldn't be too difficult. The Devils would still be cautious, suspicious, no matter how overjoyed they would be to hear from me. No matter how much they'd want to believe what I was saying.

Her hand rested on the little sketch laid on my end-table, slightly smudged from use, painstakingly labeled in her delicate writing. "We should run through everything one more time," she said. "Just to check."

I picked up the map and she followed me around the house as I checked and double-checked everything she'd marked. Blood pounded in my head as I remembered why she'd been able to draw this so quickly, how frightened and despairing she'd once been because of me.

That's over.

No,
the Viper smirked.
It's not.

I hated how close his voice was now, not in my ear, in my head. More so than usual. He shifted under my skin. But if I was going to survive this, I needed him.

The design of the house made it easy. Like many old buildings, it had minimal windows, to cut down on drafts. I'd had them replaced with double-pane glass long ago, but never bothered to have any more installed. Never saw the point. Now, I was glad. Bars on the windows probably would have made them unduly suspicious, even if I had a thousand good excuses to be paranoid.