Super Bad (a Superlovin' novella) (12 page)

He transferred both her
wrists to one hand, keeping her arched like a drawn bow beneath him, and fisted
his free hand into her hair, drawing her into an even tighter arc, angling her
for a deeper, stronger kiss.

Lust. That’s all it
was. Pure, animal, physical need. But knowing that didn’t stop her from pulsing
her hips up, rubbing against his firm thigh as something tight and hot ignited
at the luscious friction. Julian broke the kiss, unerringly zeroing in on the
sweet spot on her neck beneath her ear. He bit and she shuddered. He licked and
she moaned. He sucked and an internal cord snapped taut between that point and
her clit, until each draw of his mouth made her pant his name. Then his hand
was beneath her shirt, his touch against her bare stomach so light it forced
her to arch into him, demanding more. She shifted her legs, spreading them
wider until his weight settled hard, right where she needed it. She wanted to
wrap her arms around him, hold him so tight he would never get away, but he
still held her hands pinned above her head so she hooked her legs around his
instead, locking her ankles together behind his thighs, rocking up into him,
the pressure, the friction, all of it building, so hot and unbearably sweet—

Julian jerked back, his
head snapping around to stare toward the kitchen. Only then did Mirage hear the
ringtone.

“No,” she moaned, not
even sure what she was protesting—the interruption? Reality?

But the mingled denial
and plea had no effect. Julian was already moving, disentangling himself,
releasing her wrists, easily pulling free of her leg-lock. All that delicious
pressure was gone, but her body still yearned for it, throbbing with
unsatisfied desire.
Damn
it. At least his erection looked damned
painful. He deserved the world’s bluest balls for leaving her to get a fucking
phone call. This was a textbook example of why voicemail had been invented,
thank you very much.

Julian snatched the
phone from the floor. He blushed like a schoolboy, his face turning an impressive
shade of crimson as he punched the screen to connect the call. “Lucien. What’s
our status?”

* * * * * * * * * *

He was going to Hell. The
phone call was like a message straight from God. He’d been well on his way to
stripping Mirage naked and plunging into her until he couldn’t tell where he
ended and she began, and her brother—her violently overprotective brother—just
happened to call.

“Shitty,” Lucien
replied, his voice so dark Julian flinched, certain Lucien somehow knew what
he’d just been doing to his precious baby sister. “The cops are waving the new
regulations around and refusing to lift the charges against Mirabelle and now
Darla and I have to leave the country.”

“What? You have to flee
the country?”

“Leave, not flee. It’s
this earthquake in Guinea. Haven’t you seen the news?”

“No, we’ve
been...busy.” Guilt made the words stick in his throat. He couldn’t face
Mirage, but he could
feel
her arch look.

“Huge quake. Thousands
trapped. We’re flying down immediately to help. Unless you need me to stay
behind. Is Mirabelle…?”

“She’s fine.” He tried
to keep the strain out of his voice, but Lucien must have heard it.

“I should stay. Darla
can handle Guinea. If Mirabelle needs me—”

“No. We’re good. We’ve
actually gotten lucky—” Jesus, could he have phrased that worse? “Ah, had some
breakthroughs with her memory. Mirage thinks the compulsions are just echoes. Do
you want to talk to her?”

At Lucien’s hasty yes,
Julian extended the phone to Mirage, avoiding her gaze as he felt color
stinging his cheeks. Blushing, like some horny thirteen year old caught ogling
the neighbor girls. He ducked into the kitchen, telling himself it was to give
Mirage and her brother some privacy and not because he couldn’t look at her
without thinking of her sweet, lithe body arching beneath him, so damn eager it
made his balls draw up tight just thinking of it.

He braced his hands on
either side of the coffee pot, trying to get a grip. What had happened with
Mirage was a mistake. One second she was out of it and they were fighting, then
he’d pushed his forced-truth into her. Suddenly she was herself again, her eyes
sharp and clear, and
bam
, she was kissing him and he couldn’t keep his
hands off her. It shouldn’t have happened. So why was he standing here thinking
of nothing but how he could make it happen again?

He poured himself
another cup of coffee, even though by now it was burned past the point of
palatability. He needed something to chase the taste of her out of his mouth. He
took a quick swallow and it scalded his tongue, bitter and dark, which suited
his mood just fucking perfectly. He was supposed to be building trust, not
taking advantage of it by trying to get into her pants. Lucien would kick his
ass if he ever found out—and he’d be right to do it.

“No, they’re definitely
echoes.” He heard Mirage come into the kitchen, still talking to her brother. 
“The box was the same one that held the Apocalyptum I took the first time.  I
think it must have triggered me so strongly because Kevin would have reinforced
that command several times… No, Luc, it’s fine. Julian was a real hero. He
punched right through it with his truth mojo. Snapped me right out of it.”

He flinched. She made
him sound so noble. Not at all like he’d taken advantage of her. Okay, yes, she
had been the aggressor, but she was in a vulnerable state. She didn’t know what
she was doing. He was the one who should have known better. Just because he ached
for her so badly he could hardly think straight—God, when had he started
wanting her like this?

“Julian.”

His diaphragm
contracted, forcing out his breath at the sound of his name on her lips. He
cocked his head to acknowledge her call, still not able to look at her.

“Luc would like to talk
to you again.”

Julian nodded, downed
the rest of his coffee and took the phone without meeting her eyes. Businesslike.
Impersonal. That was how he’d be from now on. “Lucien.”

“Belle wants me to go,
Darla wants me to go. It’s the right bloody thing to do and I’ll do it. Just
swear to me you won’t let anything happen to her while I’m gone.”

He’d been avoiding it,
but now he couldn’t help but look at her. She stood in the doorway, eyes large
and solemn as she watched him. “I’ll guard her with my life. You have my word.”

Mirage cast her eyes
down, shuttering her gaze, and slipped out of the room. Out of sight, a
graceful illusion.

“No one will touch
her.”
Not even me.

“I’ll hold you to
that,” Lucien growled.

Good
.
“If you see Eisenmann, have him call me, all right? We’ve made real progress and
I’d like his professional opinion.”

“He wasn’t at Trident
today, but if we see him before we go, I’ll let him know.”

“Thanks.” He tried not
to dwell on how strange it was to be thanking DemonSpawn Wroth for anything. The
world just looked different these days.

He disconnected the
call and set the phone on the counter, jarringly aware that he and Mirage were
now even more on their own. He was excruciatingly aware of her in the other
room. It couldn’t be helped. His body had been tuned to hers, humming in
perfect harmony. He rubbed a hand across his face and stepped out of the
kitchen to face her, and the awkwardness of knowing exactly how good it could
be. And knowing he could never let himself touch her, or let her know how much
he wanted to.

The cavern was vast and
echoing around her, but Mirage’s fight was small, a war of thoughts, a battle
of minds. She gripped Kevin’s arm, gasping with the effort to push the illusion
of pain into him through his touch, but while his skin enabled her to breach
his barriers, it also disabled her own. He was there, in her mind, prodding her
thoughts, rearranging her intentions, shaping her into his perfect obedient
slave and no matter how she fought him,
he was winning
. She couldn’t
match his strength, had never come across a Mind Bender with half his raw
power. She was going to shatter into a thousand pieces, she could feel herself
buckling. Lucien and Darla would be overrun by Kevin’s mindless army. The first
Apocalyptum bomb had failed, but Kevin would find another. The city would be
flattened. Millions dead. Her brother would die because she was too weak to
save him. Too fragile, too frail, always protected, never tested. This was her
test, and she was failing, breaking, cracks spidering through the delicate
glass of her consciousness, each fissure filled with pain, until she couldn’t
see through the agony anymore. She wasn’t just losing the battle, she was
losing herself. When Kevin was done with her, she would be nothing he hadn’t
made her be. He would be her creator, her god, and her life would exist only in
his service and worship.
No
.

She shattered,
fragments flying, but instead of leaving nothing, the wreckage of her mind
revealed a bright, fierce light buried deep within her. It was hard and bright
and
strong
. Suddenly she was more, so much more. Power rushed through
her veins and she flung it into Kevin, a savage satisfaction roaring in her
heart as his mind instantly collapsed beneath the onslaught. She took his mind
mercilessly, wrapping it in layer after layer of pure, excruciating pain. She
caught her breath at the wicked delight, the heady rush of the power, as Kevin
began to scream, high and loud and constant, the keening stretching on and on
until his vocal cords gave out. She liked it. God help her, she
loved
it. It felt so good to punish him, like each convulsion of his body was another
hit of the purest drug.

“
Mirage
.”

The voice was Lucien’s.
And Not-Lucien’s. Lucien was disappointed, horrified, he needed her to stop, to
let go. Not-Lucien was frantic, urgent, he needed her…

“Mirabelle.
Mirage.
Wake up, honey, come on. It’s just a dream.”

No
.
He was wrong. It wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. A flashback seducing her
villain’s soul. She loved the pain, reveled in the agony, it was her drug.

“Mirage!” Firm hands
shook her and suddenly she was awake and trembling. Her face was hot and wet,
though she didn’t remember tears. But with consciousness came shame, horror,
and abruptly she was crying uncontrollably, sobbing so hard she couldn’t get
any air.

“It’s okay. I’m here,
baby. I’ve got you. It was just a dream,” Julian murmured in a soothing litany
against her temple, his arms strong and warm around her as she shuddered and
gasped. “You’re all right. I have you. Easy, now. Come on, baby. Just breathe.”

But she couldn’t
breathe. Her throat was closed, her lungs burning. Terror gripped her. She was
frightened of herself, of that bright, darkly burning part of herself that had
taken violent delight in Kevin’s destruction. She’d broken him and she’d
enjoyed
it. What would righteous Justice say if he knew that? Would he hold her so
tenderly? Whisper to her so sweetly?

The fear of herself
shifted, loosening its grip, and though she still cried, she could breathe
again. Somehow the idea of Julian hating her made it easier, as if he could do
it for her and she would no longer have to hate herself. She could love him for
that.

God, she was twisted.

As her sobs eased, she
realized Julian was shirtless as he lay on top of the covers, comforting her. He
wore only a loose pair of pajama pants, obviously not having bothered with
modesty when he’d charged into her room to save her from her subconscious. His
skin was warm where she clung to him, but none of that heat seemed to penetrate
the chill at her core.

“Better now?” He gently
brushed her hair back from her face.

“Yes,” she whispered,
but she remembered his gift when he gave her a shadow of a smile and murmured,
“Liar.”

Minutes stretched as he
held her, petting her, his hands never still as they gently stroked the hair at
her temple, the curve of her shoulder through her threadbare nightshirt.

It wasn’t the first
time she had dreamt of Kevin, but this dream had been by far the most vivid. And
it was the first time she’d felt that keen, nightmarish joy at his pain, the
first time the corruption of her soul had been laid bare for her to witness. She’d
never thought herself particularly good, but to see that evil inside herself… She
shuddered, a chill streaking down her spine, and Julian’s arms tightened around
her.

“Easy. You’re all
right.” He shifted, resituating her so she was stretched against his side, him
on top of the covers, her tucked beneath, her cheek pillowed on the muscular
pad of his pectoral as his arms wrapped securely around her. The position was
intimate, familiar, but in that moment she couldn’t have moved away from his
touch even if she’d wanted to. Justice could never belong to her, that much was
obvious, but tonight she just wanted to pretend. To close her eyes and try to
believe there could be something more.

The last few days had
been uneventful, holed up in the safe house, unlocking more memories. They
still hadn’t heard from Eisenmann, thought Lucien called daily from Guinea. She’d
been feeling good. Proud of her progress, smug at the resurgence of her
memories. But with that clarity came a self-awareness she hadn’t anticipated. The
terrifying revelation of her dark soul.