Читать книгу Underground Warrior - Evelyn Vaughn - Страница 11

Now Trace had gone and turned her back into a scaredy-cat.

He just hoped she wouldn’t faint again.

He wished he knew how much of her problem was the sword, and how much was really him. Little Sibyl had surprised the hell of him. He’d expected to find her staying at some ratty, rent-by-the-week hotel, the kind he and his friends got since quitting their legacies and the Comitatus had left them with cash-only options and little cash. Instead, he found their conspiracy theorist in a glamorous, urban loft. And as for Sibyl herself…?

Trace had thought she was cute before, with her big Bambi eyes and the lithe, ballerina body she hid under oversize clothes. He’d liked how she didn’t just talk over his head, but the heads of his overly educated friends, which was fun to watch—and which he figured proved her claim that she wasn’t a teenager. Nobody got that much education that young. He’d admired her healthy distrust of people, which seemed like its own kind of smart. But at the time, she’d put out such a thick wall of don’t-touch-me that he’d more or less kept his distance. He tried to never forget that someone as big as he was could scare people just by saying hello.

Today she’d looked…welcoming. Not just her shiny, clean hair, pulled back to let people see her solemn face, or her nice clothes, though those helped. Her.

He could have sworn she was glad to see him, and it had felt great. Trace couldn’t remember the last time someone had been honestly glad to see him, except maybe his ma. He couldn’t help but want to get closer to her, want to know more.

’Course, Sibyl aimed the exact opposite look at the sword, times ten. Even after he’d wrapped it. What, did she think it would leap out and bite her? Still, she at least sank down to sit on the arm of the loveseat, instead of just using it to brace herself farther away from him. The position made her look taller.

“So, what’s with the crazy?” he asked—and she winced. Great job. That would be why he had more weekend flings than regular girlfriends, wouldn’t it? Still…was he supposed to ignore this? “It’s just a sword.”

“It’s a Comitatus sword.” She all but spat the name of his ancestors’ secret society.

Cool! Information, just like he’d hoped. “You can tell by looking?”

“No! It’s…” She took a deep breath, as if settling herself. To his relief, she sank back onto the seat cushion, wrapping her arms protectively around her knees. The don’t-touch-me-vibes were back with a vengeance. “Repro ductions are mostly a twentieth century art form. If the wall was old, this is authentic. No later than eleventh century. Maybe as early as eighth. Dark Ages.”

“And you saw all that while you were begging me to put it away.”

She scowled at the word begging, which was cute, until she said, “Yes.”

Okay, then. Even before she rolled her eyes—which she did—Trace saw she thought he was stupid. Compared to her, he probably was, but he didn’t like the reminder. Just to be obstinate, he leaned a little closer to her, as if just to listen. He hadn’t forgotten his size. He was just…using it.

She smelled good. Like girl. Like a wealthy girl, damn it.

She didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. “Cruciform crossguard,” she catalogued, as if that meant something…so damn it, maybe he was stupid. Compared to her. That’s why he’d come to her, wasn’t it? “Double-edged, with only a slight taper, so an earlier than later period. Moderately rounded tip, so more a slashing than a stabbing weapon. Maybe a Viking sword. More likely Gallic.” She eyed his expression, then clarified, “French.”

“And you know that ’cause…?”

“The five-lobed pommel—that round cap on the end of the grip? Viking invention. Balances the weight. So does the fuller.”

He narrowed his eyes. Now she was making up words.

“The fuller is the groove down the center. Roman swords don’t have it. So post-Roman Empire. And it’s a one-handed sword, to be used with a shield, so pre-High Middle Ages. Also…Vikings. Assimilated by then.”

“Vikings aren’t French.” Trace knew damned well the LaSalle family came from French roots. Hell, most of Louisiana came from French roots. He liked the idea of some French knight wielding the sword in heroic deeds better than he liked descending from Vikings. Weren’t Vikings more about murdering and pillaging?

“They’re tied to Norman French. Also, true Vikings preferred battle-axes.”

Trace chuckled at the image of murdering, pillaging Vikings getting chewed out by big, domineering women.

Sibyl ducked her head and said, “The weapons. Axes. For battle.”

“I knew that.” And this time, he did. He just liked the other picture better…and he thought he detected a tiny, return smile. Reciting facts seemed to have relaxed Sibyl some, anyway. He felt mean for having leaned closer, but he didn’t want to lean away. She didn’t seem worried, so he hooked an elbow over the back cushion and stayed where he was. Where he could better smell her. “So it’s really old. What else makes it a—a secret society sword?”

“Comitatus,” she offered, as if he kept forgetting the word. No wonder she thought he was dumb. But he’d taken a damned oath. That had been the deal. Take his father’s name, get his father’s money and respectability—join his father’s world, including the Comitatus. At the time, he hadn’t realized that no amount of money and respectability was worth it. So he’d gone ahead and taken their stupid vow of secrecy.

The least he could do was try not to run around using the society’s name.

“Yeah. Them.”

“LaSalle.” She said his birth-father’s surname like something ugly. Since he’d gone by that name for almost ten years, her disgust felt insulting, no matter how he’d come to dislike the Judge. “Why were you in a LaSalle bungalow? Did any Comitatus agents see you take this?”

“I was helping a crew do a gut job on it. You know—taking down the moldy walls, pulling out the ruined insulation before a rebuild.” All the God’s honest truth. “And no, I didn’t see any Comitatus types hanging around. It’s pretty dirty work.”

She relaxed, and even smiled right at him, like he was someone special just because he did day labor.

“The LaSalle family’s big in the New Orleans Comitatus,” she explained, and he pretended he didn’t know that. “They’re a hereditary society. That’s how I knew your friends were involved. Donnell. Talbott. Leigh. All hereditary names.”

And his illegitimacy had kept him under her radar. “If they’re so secret, how would you know…?”

“I’m very smart.” Then, to his amazement, she smiled a real, happy smile at him, like she’d said it to tease him instead of to shame him. “And devious.”

The smile lit her pretty face and made her beautiful. It punched him in the gut, how beautiful this maybe wealthy and definitely too-smart-for-him girl was.

So did the sudden, echoing thought of Mine.

So did the way he had to act on it. Carefully, damn it.

Suddenly, not scaring her became important again.

Sibyl wasn’t sure what changed. One minute Trace was grinning that between-you-and-me grin at her, which she loved. The next—everything shifted, almost imperceptibly and yet seismically at the same time. What happened?

He still smiled, but instead of looking at her, he was…looking at her. Searching for something that she wished she knew how to give him. But what did that even mean? Desperate to understand, she tried to catalog the change. His breathing had subtly changed. His pupils dilated, just a little. The air between them felt…hotter. Or maybe it was just her breathing and her vision and her thermoregulation that suddenly fluctuated. Either way, she barely noticed herself dropping her hands to her side instead of clasping her knees between them like a shield.

“So, Smartypants,” he said—and the silly name sounded as endearing as Shortstuff had, coming from him. “Are you dating anyone?”

Her? The idea felt ludicrous. She didn’t have time to date—secret societies to uncover, anonymity to protect, vengeance to wreak. Having spent her formative years in a girls’ penitentiary, among hardened teens who’d practiced unhealthy relationships before their incarcerations, Sibyl wasn’t sure she’d know how to just date. Why did he want to know? So, what’s with the crazy?

Was he feeling out just how big a freak she was?

Except…his breath sounded as shallow as hers. They seemed to be sharing this new, shifted reality, just like they’d shared the smile. So, was he actually interested? Had Arden Leigh, mother hen meddler, asked him to find out? Or…?

Unable to analyze the situation further against the deafening rush of her heartbeat in her ears—which she knew was actually just her pulse in her jugular vein or maybe her carotid artery, which were both closer to her ears, and why couldn’t she shut her mind off? Unable to manage anything else, Sibyl simply shook her head. Not dating anyone. Not her.

“So…sorry, but I’m kind of distracted, here.” Him, too? She’d felt alone for so long, but she wasn’t alone in this. Trace leaned closer, his arm over the seatback making him a human wall that would pin her into the leather corner. She didn’t mind. She felt her knees falling open, of their own will, to make room for him. “Can I kiss you?”

You mean, may you kiss me—thank God she couldn’t talk, just now. She nodded a jerky, uncertain nod. Yes. Please.

He moved farther over her, all heat and solidity. She waited and held her breath. She remembered that having a man in her apartment fell under the “Things movies teach you not to do” category, because someone like him could overpower her, and even if she fought back, he’d hurt her, and nobody would hear her screams because these were really high-end apartments with great soundproofing…. But he wouldn’t overpower her. She realized why he seemed so tense, as he leaned incrementally closer. Why he’d asked first, when she generally thought of him as a man of action instead of words. He was being extra careful of her.

Her hero. Her knight in faded T-shirt. Sweet, silly knight.

So Sibyl strained upward to close the last inch between them and kissed him first.

As soon as she did, she realized her mistake. She pressed her lips to his, which felt surprisingly soft despite the whiskers surrounding them—and then she had no earthly idea what to do next. So she simply smooched him, the kind of kiss someone would press to their mother’s cheek, then ducked her forehead against his hard, convenient shoulder. She felt more embarrassed than aroused. Not that she hadn’t liked it. But, wasn’t kissing one’s hero supposed to be more…more….

At least she was breathing. Oxygen is fuel. She’d only pretended to faint, that first time they met, after he’d rescued her. She would hate to do it for real.

To her surprise, Trace’s fingers wove into her hair, solid and gentle against her scalp, feeling a hundred times better than the shampoo massage at the Galleria. She leaned into the cradle of his palm and risked peeking back up at him.

He wasn’t laughing. Or disgusted.

Yes, he was grinning wider now, almost feral—but still with the intimacy of a shared joke. “Uhm…thanks,” he said, his voice more a rasp than a whisper.

Her lips tried to form the words, You’re welcome. She couldn’t seem to put any voice to them. He smelled so good—like real soap and honest work and…and him. The smell that she’d first sampled when he saved her life.

“My turn?” He grinned.

She nodded, desperate not to speak.

So he leaned closer to her. She found herself drawing back from him without meaning to, making him chase her until her shoulders hit the arm of the settee—he wasn’t using his hand to direct her head, just supporting it. His smile faded as he did follow her down, until he was hovering over her. He held most of his weight off her with one powerful arm, but she felt his jeans slide against her leggings and realized her mistake—she really was trapped—and couldn’t seem to mind.

Please, she found herself silently begging. Please let it be wonderful.

Then he pressed his lips to hers—didn’t just touch them, but pressed, and oh, it was. Wonderful. Could he kiss her? Yes, he could.

So very, very well.

Trace’s lips didn’t feel as soft this time; they felt firm and certain as they framed her lower lip, drawing it into his mouth just the tiniest bit, just enough for him to lick it. That made her shiver. She parted her lips, to give him easier access to that lower one, which suddenly needed a lot more attention. He nipped at it, without actually using his teeth, and sucked on it, and then took advantage of her parted lips to slide that same, intriguing tongue into her mouth….

Thank goodness he was holding her head, because all of Sibyl’s skeletal and muscular strength seemed to melt right out of her fingertips and toes. She wasn’t thinking anymore, and the silence—silent but for their little gusts of breath, and the sigh of the settee cushions under their shifting weight, and a strangled little mew like a kitten’s from somewhere—the silence felt deliciously restful. All she wanted was to open to him—and his solidity and his heat—so she did. She opened her mouth wider against his, flirting her tongue against his, shivering her delight at the sensation. She slid her arms across his broad chest and around his ribs, drawing him closer against her breasts and tummy. Without any instructions, her legs slid around his waist, wide and surprisingly eager, her bare feet hooking behind his knees.

Trace chuckled into her mouth and shifted again, turning with her in his arms so that he lay on his side now and she lay cushioned between him and the seatback. No longer busy holding his weight off her, his free hand slid over her hip, his fingers flirting across her bottom before sliding up under her oversize shirt. She arched happily against the rough heat of his palm on the bare skin of her back.

Trace broke the seal of their lips to draw his damp mouth up her jaw, his hot breath against her ear as he rasped out, “You good?”

She nodded frantically, bunching handfuls of his T-shirt behind his back, trying to claw her fingers into him. She was very, very good.

“Good.” Now he nibbled down her throat, toward her shoulder. She tightened her legs around him, her feet against his hard, wide thighs now. Behind her, his calloused thumb massaged up under her arm, then down across the pillow of her breast and she pressed hard against him. He was pressing pretty hard against her, too. Luckily, she didn’t need thought to know what was going on with that. All she needed was animal instinct.

Who would have guessed she’d have so much instinct?

“Hold on,” he muttered against her collarbone. She almost whimpered as he slid his hand out of her hair—she’d felt so safe, so precious, with him cradling her like that. But he grasped her hips to hold her as he rolled again, so that he lay on his back and she was straddling him, looking down at his combined hunger and satisfaction. That was okay.

She rolled her hips, savoring the hard press of the denim-constricted bulge that she straddled, and that seemed to make them both very happy. So did his un buttoning her shirt, surprisingly deft with such big hands, and trailing his fingertips around the outer curve of both breasts.

It felt—wonderful. Primal. Essential. But she flushed and ducked her head, feeling suddenly inadequate. When Trace raised his eyebrows in silent question, she murmured, “I’m not very…”

“C’mere.” Now sliding his hands behind her back, he drew her down closer to him and covered one of her breasts with his hot, wet mouth. She heard that strange, kitten-mew again. When he began to apply his tongue, and a little suction, the noise sounded something like a sob. Her noise. Her sob.

A glorious forever later, he switched to her other poor, neglected breast, covering the first with a callused hand—which more than covered it, him being so big and her being so small—so it wouldn’t get too cold. “A mouthful is plenty,” he noted, before filling his mouth again.

Sibyl’s hands kneaded against the soft cotton covering his chest, feeling the springy sensation of hair beneath the material. She ground herself harder against his crotch. She wanted…she wanted…. Of course she knew what she wanted. Just because she hadn’t had sex before didn’t make her ignorant. This was the twenty-first century, and she hadn’t come of age surrounded by nuns. But she didn’t want to have to think, was afraid thinking would get in the way of all this surging sensation, and without thinking she couldn’t get to how…or when….

So she just writhed on him and savored it all.

Eventually he was warming the second breast with his thumb, and brushing the curtain of hair back from her face, which freed his mouth for her to kiss him some more. He thrust upward against her, and she liked that, too. No wonder the girls in juvie made such a fuss and stayed with losers for this. But Trace was no loser. At one point, between kisses, he gasped, “Do you want…?” She nodded. Yes, yes, yes. She wanted.

But he didn’t do anything other than worship her breasts and watch her face, looking somehow pained, so she kissed him again.

He laughed in the middle of the kiss, though he clearly wasn’t laughing at her. “So…?”

So? A cold wash of panic diluted some of the passion flooding through her. He wanted her to make the next move. But she didn’t know the next move. Should she undo his jeans? That would mean scooting back off his searing heat and hardness, which she didn’t want to do. Trying to take off his shirt would mean moving, too, and letting him stop touching her. She liked it better when he was making the decisions about this.

Trace waited.

“You do it,” she pleaded, and his brows drew together in confusion.

Increasingly frustrated, she defaulted to the cruder, clearer words most of the girls in lockdown used. “Do me.”

But his mixture of confusion and—disappointment? That stopped her. So did the way his hands stilled against her temple, against her breast.

“What?” he challenged, and now he sounded…angry? And she didn’t know why. Not that men seemed to need a reason to be angry with her, but…she’d liked him being different.

Okay, he really wanted her to do it? She reluctantly scooted back on his thighs, so that she could better reach his jeans. She struggled with the metal button at the top of the closing, and Trace drew a deep, shaking breath, his eyes falling shut.

She used that moment to take a deep breath herself, and studied the zipper. Zippers were about as easy as it came, except his was really straining against the erection beneath it, and she didn’t want to hurt him, and maybe she should slide her hand into his pants, between him and the zipper, to protect him, except she wasn’t sure there was room, and…

She looked back up at him, and he was waiting with the oddest expression on his face.

“I don’t…” But she couldn’t admit she didn’t know how. She just couldn’t. Knowing things was her only real talent, the only reason he’d come here. “You do it.”

Trace groaned and rocked forward. He caught her under her arms with both hands, lifted her easily. The next thing she knew, he’d leaned her against the suede arm at the opposite end of the settee and was looming in over her, and she felt a little scared of what would happen but she felt a lot more relieved than frightened because she knew, knew he wouldn’t hurt her, and she wanted it to be him—

And then, instead of kissing her the way they’d been kissing since this started, he gave her an odd, closed-mouth smooch on her cheek. Then he drew back.

He waited, scowling. And breathing hard. His eyes were still dilated. He clearly still wanted this. So why…?

Confused, Sibyl reached for him—but he spread a hand against her naked chest, just under her throat, and held her at arm’s length. Trace Beaudry had pretty long, thick arms. When she tried to reach for him again, he didn’t give an inch.

“How many guys have you been with?” he demanded.

She shook her head.

“C’mon, Smartypants. How many have you done?”

“None!” There. She’d said it.

But Trace let loose a few crude terms of his own, in a completely different context, and slumped back against his end of the seat. When Sibyl tried to follow, he said, “No!”

So she stayed where she was. She buttoned her shirt and felt humiliated.

“What, you thought I didn’t need to know? Or maybe I’d get stupid?” He was still scowling when she peeked back up from her buttons. “It’s not like I have money anymore.”

She still couldn’t think, so she didn’t say anything. She felt like crying from the rejection and the confusion and the dissatisfied ache. He was looking at her like the freak she was now. She wanted to explain that she hadn’t known it would upset him. She wanted to tell him that to get sex before she turned eighteen, she would have had to go with girls or guards—like clarifying that would recommend her. She wanted to cite studies about approximate age at first intercourse, and how being among about 10 percent of Americans who’d waited, while a minority, didn’t exactly make her as unusual as Bigfoot sightings or unicorns, either.

And damn it, once she started thinking in statistics, the moment—and that blessed, blissful silence—was pretty much gone.

Most of all, she wanted to be back in his arms, no matter what he was doing to her while there. She’d felt…she’d felt….

But feelings weren’t Sibyl’s forte.

Trace scrubbed a splayed hand down his face, then looked at her over it. “Don’t give me those big Bambi eyes. I’m the one you just…who’s still….”

But whatever he’d meant to say, he deleted. He didn’t look quite as angry.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. “Faline,” whispered Sibyl finally.

“What?” She didn’t think he meant to snap the way he did.

She took a deep, shaking breath. “Bambi was a boy-deer. Faline was the girl-deer.”

She hadn’t meant it as a joke, but his bark of laughter still eased her distress. He wasn’t too angry to laugh, anyway. “Fine. Don’t give me those big, Faline eyes.” He searched her face. “So this really wasn’t some kind of plot to get my father’s money?”

She shook her head against visions of rags-to-riches lottery winners. “Your father has money?”

“Ex-father. It’s a long…crap. Look, I’m sorry if I overreacted.” Now he reached across the space between them to catch some of her hair between his fingers, to tuck it behind her ear. She let him, savored his touch.

“You mean you really wanted me for your first time? Just…me?”

As opposed to…? Warily, Sibyl nodded. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“’Cause I’m just some illegitimate good ol’ boy who grew up in a trailer park on the wrong side of the tracks.” He said it like that was supposed to scare her off. “I don’t even have a job right now.”

And I’m an ex-con. And I’m so broken, I never even looked at a man until you. And the guy who owns this apartment doesn’t know I’m house-sitting, which kind of makes us trespassers. Did Trace really think he wasn’t good enough for her? Sibyl shrugged, even attempted a smile and a joke. “At least you aren’t Comitatus.”

His expression…stilled. A momentary pause in his breathing. A flicker of guilt in his eyes. Nothing more. “Yeah,” he said, but he sounded uncomfortable saying it—and then she knew. Because, whether she wanted to be or not, she was very, very smart.

Smart enough to rearrange seemingly unconnected tidbits of data into a new, unmistakable pattern.

When she’d met Trace, he was with three Comitatus descendents.

His father—ex-father?—was apparently wealthy.

If illegitimate, he might not bear his birth father’s name.

“You are Comitatus,” she accused in a whisper. This time she wanted him to laugh at her. She wanted him to deny it, maybe more than she’d ever wanted anything except for the nightmare of her father’s death, of her wrongful imprisonment, to never have happened. But he didn’t deny it. He opened, then closed his mouth. He swallowed, tried again, but only managed, “How…?”

By then, new and worse patterns had revealed themselves.

He’d brought her a sword from the LaSalle house. How had he happened to end up gutting the LaSalle house?

He had a cleft chin. By genomic imprinting, that could only be inherited from one’s father. She’d seen a chin like that before. And the pale eyes in his dark face, the same color as….

The court finds Isabel Daine guilty…

Sibyl stood. “Excuse me.”

“Wait.”

But she kept walking toward the bathroom, unwilling to show weakness, unable to show anything. She concentrated on taking one step after another, the ache in her throat tightening, tightening. “Are you okay?”

Sibyl made herself look over her shoulder toward where Trace now stood, looking concerned. She made herself smile to show teeth. “I’m fine,” she lied. As a child, she’d never lied. Jail—and the Comitatus—had turned her into this.

Then she locked the bathroom door behind her. She turned on the overhead fan. She turned on the water.

Then she fell to her knees and vomited, violently but almost silently, into the toilet.

She’d almost slept with the bastard son of Judge René LaSalle.