Beyond Control (10 page)

His thumb stroked faster. Harder. "You trying to tell me what to do again?"

"No, I--" Control. She needed it, but her body didn't care. It cared about
now
and
fuck
and the way his hips flexed, grinding his cock deeper inside her.

"Give me this, Lexie." His voice was a coaxing rumble, the gentleness a thin mask over hard command. Each time he rocked into her was a little rougher as his patience unraveled. "Tell me my cock's the hottest thing I've ever fucked you with."

"You know it is." She barely recognized her own voice, low and strained. Every muscle trembled, as much with tension as with bliss, a heavy anticipation that tangled her in knots.

He rewarded her confession with a long thrust that drove a cry from her throat. "Next time, I'll tie you open like this." It sounded like a promise--to himself or her, she couldn't tell. "I'll fuck you slow."

Next time, because this had to be fast. Lex drew in a shaking breath and clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms. "Dallas."

Another thrust. "I'll tie you up and suck your clit." Again, harder. "Fuck you with my fingers, or something bigger. Maybe I'll let you choose. Wood or glass or steel."

Every word was a tease, a weapon, and knowing he was desperate enough to use them shook her restraint. One more quick thrust destroyed it, curling her toes as a throb of pleasure tore through her.

The noise that escaped her was barely human, all primal need and naked desire. Too much, too
open
, but she couldn't think enough to care, not with Dallas riding her release, dragging it out with the kind of fucking she'd always imagined he'd like. Hard and demanding, their hips slamming together, the sound raw and slick.

Better. It could get even better, and all she had to do was reach for it. "Please." Lex clawed at his arms and bucked, sheer animal hunger driving away everything but
him
. "Please, baby--"

He hauled her half off the arm of the couch and cupped his hands under her knees, pushing them back toward her chest.

It should have been impossible to feel more pinned, more helpless, but the new angle was brutally sharp, and so goddamn deep. So
full
, and nothing held back. Lex opened her eyes and focused on his face, on his almost pained expression as he sped his thrusts, rough and frantic, his balls slapping against her ass.

The world was hazy around the edges, dulled by ecstasy--but not Dallas. She could see him as clearly as she could feel him--intense, fierce.

Hers.

He came with a snarl, his rhythm faltering, bleeding to quick, jerky thrusts before he slammed home with one final grunt and froze. A sound rattled free of him, barely coherent, but it echoed in her bones. "Lex."

She couldn't move, couldn't breathe. The trapped feeling that had been so delicious only seconds earlier now tripped off panic, rising in her throat to choke her. It didn't dissipate when he lowered her legs and pulled her close to his chest, lifting her with him as he straightened.

"Lex?" His fingers smoothed through her hair, slow and gentle. "You with me?"

"I'm here." Here--and with no idea what to do next.

Dallas caught her chin and tilted her head back, but as soon as his mouth opened, the door rattled under a brisk knock. His brow furrowed as he glared past her. "If someone's not bleeding or invading, go the fuck away."

Bren's low voice drifted through the door. "You're gonna want to see this."

Sighing, Dallas swung Lex up in his arms. He crossed the wide room to deposit her on the edge of his bed, then fastened his pants and swept up a discarded T-shirt for her. "Sorry, love. You know how it goes."

"It's business," she murmured, grateful for the distraction as she drew the soft cotton over her head.

Dallas didn't bother with a shirt or even buckling his belt. She could read his irritation in the muscles of his back, tense under his tattoos as he stalked to the door.

On the other side, Bren leaned against the doorframe, an ivory-colored envelope in his hand. "Messenger delivered it just now."

"Great." Dallas glared at the envelope like it contained live explosives, but after a moment he plucked it from Bren's hand. "Well, we knew it was coming. Have Rachel make us something to eat and pry Jas out of Noelle. Tell him I need him in my office in an hour."

"Anyone else?"

"I need you to stick close. And find Mad."

"Will do." He glanced past Dallas, and a hint of a smile curved the corner of his mouth. "Hi, Lex."

Dallas slammed the door in his face.

Lex didn't have time to be pissy about Bren's amusement. She couldn't stop staring at the envelope in Dallas's hand, at the thick but graceful slashes of royal purple ink across the front. "From Cerys?"

He returned to the bed and flipped the envelope, revealing an intricate orchid seal imprinted in purple wax. "Guess so."

The tattoo, the collar, the fucking... "You'll want me to go with you, I guess."

Instead of answering, Dallas pulled a switchblade from his back pocket and flicked it open. The sharp edge sliced through wax and the envelope alike, and the scent of orchids assaulted her as he withdrew the letter and unfolded it.

It was concise, to the point. His gaze traveled from the top to the bottom of the letter twice before he turned it over to her wordlessly.

A summons, as she'd suspected. "It was inevitable."

Dallas dropped his knife on the dresser and reached for the whiskey. "Doesn't mean I have to like it." Forgoing glasses, he took a swig directly from the bottle before meeting her gaze. "I can't imagine you like the idea of going back to Two, but I need you with me."

For so many reasons that were strictly political--for her knowledge, for the sake of appearances. To watch his back and fight if necessary. But she suspected those reasons had little to do with
why
. "I understand."

He offered her the whiskey. "I'm going to be dealing with this most of the day. We'll leave tomorrow afternoon, with Bren and probably Mad."

"Anyone I should bring?"

"The queen of Sector Four." Dallas grinned at her before hauling on a shirt. "Anything we do, we do together, love. I agreed to it."

She realized with a jolt that he was right. She'd been thinking of sex when she'd written the words--hadn't she?--but they applied to everything. As far as the world was concerned, their names went together, and so did their authority. They still had personal shit to muddle through, but that took a back seat. They had to present a united, harmonious front, to their own people and everyone else.

Anything else meant weakness, and weakness in front of the other sector leaders meant death.

Rachel was the only woman Dallas knew who could chastise with food. The stack of grilled cheese sandwiches at his elbow was stingy on the cheese and generous with the grilling, resulting in charred edges that tasted like crap.
I ain't your woman, and I've got actual shit to do
was the message, reinforced by the lack of fries and the absence of any of Rachel's homebrew. She wouldn't turn down a direct order, but she had no trouble letting Dallas feel the bite of her irritation.

As Jasper sat, Dallas shoved the plate across the table. "Good thing I'm leaving. Give me another day and I'll have all the girls pissed at me."

Jasper held up his hand with a shake of his head. "I'll eat later, thanks."

"Good call." Sweeping the whole mess off the side of the desk and into the garbage was worth the hell he'd get for breaking a plate. "I'll just lay this out. You're not coming to Two with us, not this time."

"Guess you're gonna have a full house with Lex along."

"That's not why." Dallas offered Jas a cigarette before pulling out one of his own. "Shit's a mess, man. We've got enemies on all sides. Gareth Woods in the city, the usual scum trying to bite bits of the sector off when we're not looking. Whoever supplied Wilson Trent with those explosives. Hell, even Dom's getting to be more trouble than he's worth. I can't leave for a couple days and trust the place to be standing when I get back. Not without help."

Jasper seemed to consider that. "I can hold it together. Depends, some, on how long you plan to be gone."

A usual meeting between sector leaders dragged through at least two days. One evening for them to indulge in whatever vices Cerys had arranged to put them all in an agreeable frame of mind, and one wasted morning with everyone poking and prodding, feeling out weaknesses and strengths. Only then could they get down to business--and that was under usual circumstances, not with a sector leader dead and his territory dissolving into anarchy.

Dallas lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply before shaking his head. "Figure three nights, at the least. Maybe a week, if nothing goes sideways. They won't want to leave until they've figured out what to do about Three."

"You mean besides burn it to the ground?" Jasper groused.

"Tempting, isn't it?" Not that their own sector had much in the way of elegance. Not like Two or Five or even the nicer parts of Eight. Four took its style from the O'Kanes as much as it took its temper--rough around the edges but solid. Three was straight up broken, just like its leader had been.

But the potential was there.

"There are things we could salvage," Jasper admitted, "but I'm not sure it'd be worth thumbing our noses at everyone else to do it--unless they want you to. It wouldn't be stupid. You clear the place, divide the spoils, and take a finder's fee."

"It'd take a lot of work to enforce some fucking order over there. And probably a fair bit of blood." Perfectly reasonable words, but work and blood had never stopped him before. And staring at all that unclaimed territory on the map stirred the sort of excitement he hadn't felt in too long. "But if we had the manpower...the money could be nice."

"We'd need more people." Jasper leaned forward and braced his elbows on the desk. "I'm talking serious membership drive."

Just the thought splintered pain behind his eyeballs, a headache begging to split open. "Only if you're willing to break them in and weed them out. I don't have the patience for that shit."

"Just let me know. I can start with the fights, the guys who've been around on the fringes for a while."

"Might as well start while I'm gone." Dallas blew smoke at the ceiling as a scowl twisted his lips. "Doesn't really matter who ends up in charge of Three, does it? We need to be stronger."

Jasper grunted.

Dallas glanced at him and got a speculative, curious look back. Jasper didn't sit around and gossip like the women--or Ace--but that didn't make him any less nosy. "You looking for the stab wounds?"

"Dunno." He shrugged. "Figured Lex might take a chunk out of you after the other night."

"We worked it out." Dallas quirked an eyebrow. "Did you and Noelle?"

"We're all right."

Not exactly the words of a man with a newly marked woman bouncing excitedly on his dick. "Sorry for pissing off your girl on your night."

He just shrugged again and, for a moment, Dallas missed the Jasper who'd been utterly his man. As loyal as Jas still was, Noelle had his heart in her perfectly manicured little hands now. She was the one he protected, even if it was just with silence.

Dallas sighed and stared at the ceiling. "I'll make it up to both of you when I get back. Lex is wearing my collar. We've still got shit to figure out, but I'm not enough of an asshole to try to keep her away from Noelle."

Jasper finally chuckled. "I don't think you could, man, even if you wanted to. With a thousand collars. Not even with ink."

That was the truth, and it pinched. "Then I guess it's a good thing I don't mind your ugly face."

"Would you rather have a woman who didn't give a shit about anyone?"

He'd had plenty of those. Cold women, hard women, even broken ones. At times, Lex could seem to be all three, but she wasn't really, and he was glad. He'd never want to strip away that caring core.

Not even if he couldn't own all of it.

Straightening, Dallas snuffed out his cigarette. "Since we're stuck together for the time being, I'll make an effort to play nice with your kitten. Unless you like getting scratched up when I piss her off."

Something clouded Jasper's eyes, but he blinked it away. "I'd threaten to kick your ass if you upset her, but I don't think it'd do any good. You always do whatever the hell you want anyway."

"That's pretty much how this works." But it wouldn't hurt to ask Lex to talk Noelle down. The girl would have to learn sooner or later that courtship in the sectors sometimes came with bumps and bruises. For now, the best thing Dallas could do was change the subject. "Go stick your head out--"

A knock interrupted his words, and Mad slipped through the door. Bren followed, rubbing his hands together. "All the deliveries and collection runs are set up. Should flow smoothly in our absence."

"Good." He waited for them to drag up chairs before looking to Mad. "Have you talked to your cousin yet?"

"I sent a message," he answered, dropping into the chair. "Gideon will probably reply by carrier pigeon or some bullshit. Depends on how much he's buying into the grandson-of-the-Prophet mystique this month."

Mad's grandfather had been the first leader of Sector One, a spiritual man elevated to legend by followers who wanted a religion to replace the stifling edicts of Eden. "Either way, you'll see him tomorrow. You'll be Lex's bodyguard while we're in Two. I don't want you leaving her side unless I'm stuck to it."

"Got it," was all Mad said, though the man was smart enough to know Lex wouldn't appreciate having no say in the matter. Too fucking bad for both of them. Lex wouldn't be allowed to participate in the daily negotiations, and Dallas wouldn't be able to concentrate on them with her flitting around her old sector unprotected.

Jasper grinned at Bren. "Bring Dallas back in one piece, huh? I'm not ready to be king."

Bren rescued the cigarette languishing in Jasper's hand and finished it off in one long draw. "He's too stubborn to die."