Blindside (11 page)

Rough hands traced up over her back, her breasts, her shoulders, a sensual caress fueling the fire in her veins. A quick tug at her pants left her naked, bare to hot friction of skin.

A groan; she didn’t know which one of them owned the desperate sound.

He slid her up against the glass, his lips cruising between the valley of her breasts, over the clenched planes of her belly. She shivered when he circled her navel.

“Now. I need you now, Mac.”

His breath caressed her most sensitive skin. Wild, she thought she’d die of waiting.

“Now, Mac.”

A thrilling stir of air.

“Now damn it.” Hands under her buttocks held her in place. “Please.”

“As you command.” A quick erotic hiss of zipper, an endless moment while Mac reached into his pocket. His jeans hit the floor, a torn paper square floating above them. She shuddered in an endless moan when she slid down against the glass, thighs spread wide, Lana’s sex gliding over the hard planes of his stomach. Slick probing moment. Joint groan. Mac slowly filled her, seared her. She hadn’t known what fire felt like.

“God, you feel good.” His harsh words wafted above her lips, his tone a rough and longing wonder.

She couldn’t move while he held her a willing captive, couldn’t release her grip over his neck. Couldn’t do anything but let him set the pace and take her on this exquisite torture.

“More.” Trapped between glass and living heat, she tried and failed to move against him.

“Won’t. Last.” Mac tortured her with slow rubs of his cock, arms like iron bands surrounding her, holding her ready for another tender onslaught.

Breathless, she bit the taut chord of his neck pressing her palm above her head to grind herself against him. Another helpless slide up the glass was followed by a decadent descent.

A torturous flex of his hips. A breathless moment of erotic torture. And under that hot predatory gaze, the crest of pleasure took over, and Lana fought to hold it back until Mac shuddered in her arms.

His name screamed past her lips, liquid and pulsing pleasure shattering the fire. She shuddered as time passed, a warm caress of bliss and darkness. She opened her eyes long enough to see Mac bring them down to the couch and pull his coat over her spent, shivering body. Muscles warm and pliant, Lana pressed her lips against his neck and willed for this moment to last.

“Nothing has changed,” she managed, still held in the warm circle of his arms.

“I know.” Velvet voice, low and husky. “Doesn’t matter for now.”

Mac couldn’t keep his hands off those smooth curves, silken skin poured over firm muscle. Her hands lay flat over his heart, fingers relaxed, her breath soft as if she was sleeping.

“I didn’t know you could send power like that.” Throaty voice that stirred up ambers of heat.

He shifted so she wouldn’t be trapped between him and the couch, so she could get away at any moment.

Nothing was solved. Nothing was done. “Yeah,” was the only thing he said.

She pushed and Mac obliged, lying flat on the couch, Lana on top, her arms folded over his chest, her cheek above his heartbeat. “Is that what happened?”

“At the harbor? Yeah.” He fought the urge to push inside her, to feel her clench so hot and wet.

Outside, the rain tapped at the windows, the city lights gilding her skin. He brushed a long curl off her forehead, straightening the warm strand then letting it to spring back and wrap around his finger.

“I always wondered how it was possible.”

With the pad of his thumb, Mac smoothed the frown line between her eyebrows. “You were adopted.”

“And?”

“If your parents had power, it would be natural for you to be susceptible to it.”

A sneer this time. “It was Soviet Russia. Anyone with even a possibility of power would have been taken by the government or killed.” She moved off him and snatched his leather jacket as a shield. Cold air rushed in to reclaim the warmth from where she’d touched his skin. “When did you start feeling yours?”

“Ten or eleven.”

“I felt nothing. No inkling. If my parents, real parents, had it, wouldn’t I have felt something?”

He stayed where he was, sated and tense and naked, letting her look at him, his body hardening again. “I’ve never heard of someone able to keep what had been transferred. But maybe that’s your power. You’re able to absorb.”

“Like a leech.” Hard tone under the fake disguise of laughter.

He’d hoped to stay like this, warm and at peace, with the city lights reflected in each sliding raindrop. He’d have to be content with just a momentary thrill.

“I should get going. Unless you are taking me in.”

“Yeah, let me call Williams.” He hadn’t meant for the words to come out as a slap. Because he couldn’t take them back, Mac got up off the couch, uncomfortable with the still blatant need for her.

His jeans lay in a tossed heap by the steamed up window. The exposed needle glistened on the floor where he’d knocked the syringe out of her hand.

She shoved her arms into his leather jacket. “I don’t know what else I can say.”

Nothing to cover himself with, so he laughed, raw, harsh, and ugly. “I’m not strong enough to stop you. You can say I failed.”

“You didn’t fail. Williams set Nicky up—I don’t need Night Rook anymore to get the answers.” Lightning snapped in the distance and she winced against the pain, but didn’t back away.

“Just Williams? Or all of San Mike PD? You’re going to go after all of them?” Freezing cold, Mac stalked across the room to get his clothes.

She lifted up her chin in icy determination. “I’m going to destroy him.”

“Kill him?” Short word, an abyss of dark meaning. Mac watched her face, that hard, glittering gaze.

“If it comes to it? Yes.”

He forced his voice to remain calm while the wind outside rose up to screaming. “Heroes aren’t meant to become judges.”

“It’s a good line. And it’s a load of crap.” Lightning slashed over pale fingertips peeking out of leather. Her fists clenched on the opposite lapels to keep his jacket closed. “Haven’t you ever wanted it? Vengeance? Justice? When you think about it, it all sounds the same.”

He didn’t know how to reach her. Mac feared that he never would. Power. That hot, bubbling bitch could save lives or destroy them, but it did nothing to make her understand.

“My father died to save me. He let me tag along—supposed to have been an easy enough transpo gig.” This time, he didn’t fight the surge of grief. “If I knew, then, how to use the power…. I’d probably have killed every damned one of them.” The yells, the burn of gunpowder. The blackened teeth bared in horrid screams.

“Well…then you understand.”

“Vengeance wouldn’t have brought him back.”
Dead limp form lying still on the ground. Soldiers with grim faces pushing on his shields to keep him back
.

“I know what I have to do.” Soft words spoken with steel behind them. Regal in trailing black, she stepped over the exposed needle and headed for the bathroom, leaving Mac standing naked in the dark.

He dressed with the accompaniment of running water. Under the beat of rain, he shoved open the wooden panels of the armoire that always stayed locked. Automatic running lights glided over an old fedora, with a black cape neatly folded underneath. And there was Dad, Old Spice, and mild Jamaican coffee.

“What would you do?”

His blank eyes stared back at him from the small mirror. The exposed needle of the syringe screamed at him from the floor.

“What would you do?” he asked again, and reached out to run a fingertip over the hat, the felt just as soft, just as smooth as when Mac brought it back. He never thanked the staff for getting rid of the bloodstains.

And then he knew the answer. The one that made him pick up the syringe as Lana came out of the bathroom, her damp curls swept away from that heart-shattering face.

She didn’t say a single word. Instead, she tilted her head sideways.

“I’m not strong enough,” he answered to the silent challenge. And then Mac shoved the needle into his own neck.

***

His scent lingered on her skin as if he sat next to her in the silent taxi. Under the whir of motor, the city jerked by, sharp lights stabbing past tight closed lids. The Night Rook didn’t carry sunglasses while working.

Her body still hummed from his touch, her muscles warm despite the chill of San Mike at four in the morning. And bitter emptiness boiled in her gut.

Because of her, Mac had shot himself with poison.
I’m not strong enough
. Except, Lana was certain, he would stop her if she committed to actually taking a life.

As traffic picked up after last call, the cabbie took the small alleys of stop-and-go snarls of downtown. Bars on the windows gleamed under the streetlamps; squat buildings tagged with thick graffiti and thin mud. And in the muted lights, she squinted at a form sliding between the shadows to hand something to an old man lying on the street.

Drug drop
.

She sat up straight, cop instincts humming even if it had been three years. Through bleached-out lights, she struggled to see money exchange hands. Instead, she made out a thin, reflective blanket before the cab cut off her view with a sharp turn left.

“What was that?” She forced herself to look outside despite tears blurring her vision. She made out a skintight outfit under a cape whipping over somebody’s skinny shoulders. A mask with pointed ears covered the upper portion of their face as he or she moved with a lithe grace of youth, reaching into a bag upon coming across what looked like a transient under a broken lamppost.

“Young people playing heroes.” The cabbie’s voice held a faint whiff of faraway islands. Outside, the homeless man sat up and took his fist up to his mouth, razor lights bouncing off a shiny wrapper. The packet looked like food.

“Playing heroes?”

“Costumed Crime Fighters. They carry food and blankets for the homeless.”

Shock and shame furrowed through her mind. “Do they have powers?”

She all but felt his little smile. “You don’t need power to help.”

Above, a bolt of lightning snaked through the sky, bleaching her vision into painful clarity of nothing. She lay her head against the seat, tired, replete, confused, exhausted. With adrenaline gone, her body was reacting to the cold, muscles tightening to knots, her joins aching. She needed a hot bath. She needed…. Mac, she thought, and couldn’t help but taste him on her lips when she wiped blurry, not-from-crying tears.

Take a damned chill pill
.

Lana eased herself onto the street when the cab stopped by her apartment two blocks from downtown. Helmet looped over her elbow, Lana paid in cash and wondered if the cabbie thought of her as one of those “costumed crime fighters” who didn’t need powers to help.

Ankle throbbing, she dragged her aching body up the stairs. Big Al brushed by in a hello aimed at her knees.

“Don’t feel like walking, bud.”

A small, excited whimper.

She was finally home, and she hadn’t walked him “in the morning.” And dogs didn’t care about rain or shine or morning light.

San Michael, three years before….

She was no longer a trainee, no longer the rookie. Though her dork of a brother still called her that, especially with other cops around.

Lana’s phone trilled the theme from Cops. She couldn’t help but grin when she picked up after the second verse of “Bad Boys.”

“You gonna come pick up that horse you call a dog?” Truth was, she loved having Big Al in her apartment, loved it enough to seriously consider having her own dog. The grin, the walks, the chewed-up shoes. He didn’t discriminate between high heels or ratty slippers, but stayed away from her workout sneakers and socks.

“Maybe this weekend. Still got some overtime to burn.” Light enough tone, barely covered exhaustion.

“I got him a new collar.” The bright blue weave lay on the passenger seat, sparkling with girly stars just to needle Nicky. “Come over tonight and I’ll order pizza.” And she could finally pry out of him what he’d been after for three weeks.

“I got a meet up at the harbor in twenty. Don’t know how long I’m going to need after that. Rain check and lunch tomorrow?”

“You’re on.” And she wouldn’t let him weasel out like the last time.

“So what happened with that tech analyst? Robson?” The part where he called the man a pussy hung unsaid in her new patrol car. Technically a hand me down, but after her full-time status was confirmed, Nick had bought her one of those sprays with new car smell.

“You heard about that?” Funny, considering there was only one person who held her interest. “What about you? Still going hot and heavy with that secretary?”

“City employees love to gossip.”

Another reason she put off being involved with anyone at work, even if it was a different department. And the tech analyst failed to get another man out of her mind.

“Come by and see your dog tonight. He’s out of food, and I don’t make a detective’s salary to keep feeding him holistic.” A blatant lie, but one she used to at least see him.

“I’ll wire money in your bank.” Tired, distracted voice.

“Fuck money. You know that’s not the issue.”

“Lana.” She all but heard him wincing. She was officially a cop, signed on to work the streets. And ever since he got in trouble teaching her how to curse, whenever the F word left her mouth, he never failed to cringe.

“Nick, even Dad is worried. You don’t call, you rarely talk.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. How about we fly out to see them? I’ll spring for tickets. Red-eye, economy class, off-season. Deal?”

Finally, something normal, and she’d have smiled if a truck hadn’t flown by, careening between two lanes of traffic. “I’ll hold you to it. Gotta check something.”