Part 1 (2/2)

”I don't want to get this wrong,” he rasped. ”It's too d.a.m.n important.” But his hand dropped to her hip and his fingers curved in a warm, possessive grip.

Her pulse hammered. A gust rattled the windows, making her feel as if the storm was inside her, inside him, racing between them. The beat of the rain was the rush of blood in her veins; the lightning was the searing electricity she saw in his eyes. ”I don't want to make a mistake either,” she said softly. ”But I'm tired of waiting to start our lives. I want to live them instead.”

Thunder rumbled as he tightened his grip on her. ”Reese, there's something else I need to-”

”Love me,” she interrupted, forcing the words past the weight of nerves because her gut said it was time to stop talking. ”Please love me, because . . . h.e.l.l, because I love you.”

She had never said the words before; neither of them had. Not, she suspected, to anyone. And the moment she did, lightning flashed hard, something went zzzt outside, and the electricity died.

Holy. c.r.a.p.

It wasn't the first time they had lost power during a storm-far from it-but it was the first time she'd been in Dez's arms when it happened, the first time the darkness had made her so vividly aware of her other senses. She smelled the newness of his leather and the stormy air that still clung to him. And when he said, ”d.a.m.n it, Reese,” she heard loud and clear the too-serious tone that meant a lecture was coming.

She tightened her grip on the collar. ”Don't even think-”

He cut her off with a kiss that made her senses spin even as the reality froze her in place.

Dez. Was kissing. Her.

Nerves and heat collided and combined as she closed her eyes, memorizing the moment in her heart . . . and then threw herself headfirst into a kiss that was everything that she had hoped for and nothing like she had planned.

His lips were softer than she had expected, their press more a question than a demand, but the contact was electrifying. Warmth furled through her as he framed her face in his hands and kissed the corner of her mouth, her cheek, the point of her jaw, and back again. The difference in their heights meant that they weren't plastered together anymore, but she leaned into him, opened to him, and felt the electric jolt of contact when their tongues met in an achingly soft caress. Her heart shuddered with the restraint he was using to show her how he felt, even if he hadn't said the words.

As he kept things soft and slow, though, her frustration built. She could sense his coiled tension, knew it was costing him to be so gentle. But, d.a.m.n it, she wanted him-the stubborn, arrogant, know-it-all who always had to be in charge-not this careful, watered-down version that was still trying to protect her, still saw her as some fragile-a.s.sed princess.

Hissing out a breath, she deepened the kiss, sliding her tongue against his and adding a sc.r.a.pe of teeth that had him groaning deep in his throat. ”I won't break,” she said against his lips. ”Kiss me for real, or I'll find someone who will.”

It was an empty threat, but he froze, not even breathing. Lightning flashed, illuminating them in a starburst of blue-white, and she saw raging heat in his eyes, a barely leashed fury that was almost enough to make her retreat. Almost. But this was Dez. This was what she wanted. So she reached for the zipper tab of her sleek black sweater and eased it down a few inches, far enough that when the lightning flickered again, he could see the edge of her bra beneath. And nothing else.

He growled her name, followed by a succinct: ”f.u.c.k it.”

She laughed, because that was the man she knew, the one she wanted. But the sound quickly turned to a gasp as he spun them in a dizzying whirl that put her up against the nearest wall. His lower body pinned hers in a full-contact press that let her feel the hard lines of his thighs and the rigid bulge behind his fly, but she had only an instant to ride the slas.h.i.+ng, adrenaline-charged sense of victory. After that, his lips slammed on hers, all hard edges, heat, and the frustration that had been building for far too long.

And then she couldn't think at all.

She sucked in a breath, floundering for a split second, and in that moment of hesitation, his tongue surged through her parted lips and his mouth clamped on hers, sealing them together. Wild heat lashed through her, and she let out a desperate moan as he boosted her up and urged her to twine her legs around his hips.

Their lips parted, then reconnected in a deeper, darker kiss as he ran his hands up her arms and then inward, to cup her aching b.r.e.a.s.t.s and drag his thumbs across her nipples, which were so hard they hurt. When he touched them, though, the pain became pleasure, sharp and acute, and like nothing she'd ever felt before. All of a sudden, none of it was like anything she'd ever experienced-not the wildfire sizzle in her veins, the yearning ache in her core, or the sudden clawing need to be skin on skin with him, to have him surrounding her, filling her.

She had dated a rookie cop from the gang task force for a few months the year before, and had gone out a few times with a guy who worked at the electronics shop on the corner two blocks down. She'd kissed them both, had slept with the cop. And she had wondered whether she was missing something, or if s.e.x, like baseball, was one of those things the media had hyped into something far more interesting than it actually was.

Apparently not. Or rather, yes, she had been missing something, but it hadn't been the s.e.x. It had been Dez. It always had been.

But as much as she had thought she knew that, she hadn't known it would be like this. She arched against him as he kissed her lips, her throat, his mouth as rough and demanding as his touch. She slid her hands beneath his leather, into the layer of heat that was trapped between the jacket's slick satin lining and the soft fabric of his tee, which she bunched up and dragged out of his waistband to touch him. He groaned and leaned into her, deepening a kiss that had already been impossibly deep.

Cool air touched her skin as he unzipped her sweater the rest of the way, pulled it off her arms and chucked it, then shucked out of his coat and tee. He still had her braced up against the wall, their bodies fitted together through the frustrating barrier of their jeans as they kissed and twined together, bare-skinned above, save for her lacy bra.

She was wet and ready, greedy for their jeans to be gone and him to be inside her. His bedroom, hers, the couch, the floor, up against the wall-she didn't care about the where; she cared only about the what, who, and when. s.e.x. With Dez. Right now. But when he swept her up in his arms and carried her to his bedroom, kissing her as they went, her heart shuddered in her chest. His bedroom. G.o.d.

In the small, spa.r.s.ely furnished room, wan illumination came from a set of working emergency lights on the building across the way, limning his body in a sodium yellow that traced his muscle-ridged abdomen, then gleamed on the width of his shoulders as he lowered her to his bed and followed her down. She raked her fingernails down his spine, then down along his ribs until he shuddered against her.

He pressed his hot cheek to hers, so he was breathing warmly in her ear when he whispered, ”G.o.ds, Reese. Tell me I'm not dreaming this.”

Her answer died on her lips. G.o.ds? ”What do you-”

He cut her off with a kiss that quickly became a clash of lips, tongue, and teeth, held more pa.s.sion than finesse, and brought the salty tang of blood.

Without warning, he jolted against her and gave a strange, strangled cry that was more surprise than pa.s.sion. Then a slash of electric awareness raced through her, sweeping her up and carrying her with a crazy-hot wave of pa.s.sion and connectivity. For a second, she felt like she was inside him, feeling his heartbeat, his arousal, his confusion as the air around them took on a hint of red-gold sparks. She heard a strange buzzing noise and felt a hot, rus.h.i.+ng sensation that was partly s.e.xual, partly something else. Then the connection snapped as he tore himself away from her.

She blinked up at him in shock as the lights flickered and the power came back on, turning the darkness back into the reality of the two of them together in his normally off-limits bedroom. He was kneeling on the mattress beside her-s.h.i.+rtless and buff as h.e.l.l, with his jeans unsnapped to show the sharply defined interplay of muscle and bone at his hips. If she had taken a picture just then, it would've read as s.e.x personified. But this wasn't a picture, and the look in his eyes didn't read as pa.s.sion. It was more along the lines of ”oh, s.h.i.+t,” and the sight turned the heat of moments before into a sharp stab of pain.

Heart thudding, she started to reach for him, then pulled back and curled her fingers into a fist. ”Dez,” she began, but then stalled on a slas.h.i.+ng wave of disappointment, because what was left for her to say? She had made her play, and it hadn't been enough. He was already pulling away.

”I'm going out,” he grated, avoiding her eyes.

”What?”

He stood, grabbed a s.h.i.+rt from the lopsided bookcase that served as his dresser, and pulled on the tee with jerky motions. He stalled at the bedroom door, though, made like he was going to put his fist through the wall, but slapped it flat-handed instead. Pressing his forehead to his knuckles, he grated, ”This isn't about you. I'm . . . h.e.l.l, I don't know what I am these days, but it's not good. And I can't put that on you.”

She glared at him, letting him see the hurt and the gathering tears. ”Yes, you can, d.a.m.n it. We're a team.”

But he shook his head as he pushed away from the doorframe. ”Not this time.” Moments later, the door banged shut, and he was gone.

The weather was even s.h.i.+ttier than it had looked from inside the apartment, but Dez stalked out into the teeth of the storm, hoping it would kick the c.r.a.p out of him like he deserved. d.a.m.n it, he'd let things get way out of hand. And he'd made Reese cry.

s.h.i.+t. He rubbed his chest, where throbbing pain had replaced his heartbeat. But as the cold rain killed the last of the electric sizzle that had come from lightning hitting right outside the window, he was d.a.m.ned grateful for the searing jolt, because it had slammed him back to a reality that said he couldn't take what he wanted.

She had been dead-on in everything she'd said: The apartment was just a place, safety a state of mind, and they were d.a.m.n good together. And, h.e.l.l, yeah, he loved her. He had for far longer than she probably guessed, but had sworn he would wait until she was old enough to make a real choice. By then, though, he'd had another problem, one that might've lost traction when she started kissing him, but was bigger than all the others put together: He was losing his f.u.c.king mind.

It had started with a deep, searching restlessness that had driven him out onto the streets after something he couldn't name, couldn't find. Then had come the dreams-sometimes dark, b.l.o.o.d.y scenes of wars past and present; other times native-dressed men and women bowing to him before slitting their own throats and bleeding out. The nightmares had gotten worse over time, as had his usual drive to do the most, be the best, get the h.e.l.l ahead, until those urges had eclipsed everything else. He was pus.h.i.+ng too hard and knew it, but he couldn't make himself slow down, couldn't bring himself to talk to Reese about it. Instead, he stalked along the parallel rows of warehouses late at night, looking for something that wasn't there and unraveling more each day.

He headed there now, past the pitch-black tenements to the empty warehouse husks, which echoed hollowly in the rain.

He had tried to tell himself that the restlessness and nightmares came from subconscious fears about the idea of him and Reese taking the next step. It wasn't like he'd grown up with a good role model when it came to relations.h.i.+ps, and while she might be a street kid now, she had come from wealth and comfort. She should be Ivy Leagueing it right now, with a varsity boyfriend, a blinged-out cell phone, and a sports car out in the lot. He couldn't give her any of that.

And like that wasn't enough to give a guy mental heartburn, there was Hood, the cobra de rey, king of the Cobras. The sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d was coming up for parole soon, and rumor had it that he was even more fixated on Reese than before. Dez figured he was due a few nightmares on that one . . . but that didn't explain why, three times over the past month, he had awakened kneeling on the floor beside his bed holding a knife-twice a kitchen knife and once a switchblade he'd snagged from a street punk who'd been ha.s.sling the old guy who ran the convenience store on the corner. That third time, he had been bleeding from his palms: two shallow slices right along the old scar lines. Then last week he had woken up halfway to Reese's room, carrying a six-inch blade he didn't recognize. That had scared the s.h.i.+t out of him, point blank.

After that, he had added a second lock on the inside of his bedroom door, hidden the key, and b.o.o.by-trapped the hiding spot to make h.e.l.l and all of a racket if he went for it. He hadn't yet, but that didn't make him feel any better, especially as the restlessness had gotten even worse over the past few days. He could feel it now as he stalked past Warehouse Thirteen, his eyes slitted against the s.h.i.+t that was pelting out of the sky and cutting straight through his clothes, chilling him to the bone.

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