Beyond Jealousy (7 page)

Ace was prone to sadism, not masochism, so he usually didn't watch Rachel's performances.

Tonight had to be the exception. It was Six's first night working the floor as a bouncer, and Ace would bet he wasn't the only O'Kane lurking in the shadows, ready to back her up if necessary. She'd kick his ass if she found out, and maybe he'd deserve it for insinuating that she couldn't clean the floor with a few drunk motherfuckers just because she was short and sweet-faced and had a half-decent rack hiding under her no-nonsense black tank top.

If it had been anyone else on stage, Ace wouldn't have thought twice. But Rachel...

She gave away too much of herself, too recklessly. She'd fallen from her family's protective grasp straight into Dallas's outstretched hands, and he'd had too much invested in his relationship with Liam Riley to let anything happen to the man's favorite child.

Rachel might be the only damn person in Sector Four who'd never had to be afraid. She'd scoffed at the idea of her own bravery, but it lit up the air around her on nights like tonight, and drew the men in the crowd like flies to sweet, naked honey. They could tell they were getting the real deal with every vulnerable whimper, every trembling flush.

The crowd turned Rachel's crank in a way that turned Ace's, but the thought of her flinging herself out there with no one to catch her when she came crashing back to Earth cranked him up in a different way. And until he figured out what to do with her, he wouldn't be able to unwind.

"Jeni was right," Cruz murmured behind him. "Rachel doesn't know how to hide, does she?"

Ace tensed, torn between guilt and jealousy--and not over Jeni. "Is that where you disappeared to last night?"

"Yeah." No apologies, no explanations--just a tilt of his head and a soft smile. "Didn't think you'd mind where I stuck my dick, as long as I kept it out of your angel."

"Jeni would feed me
my
dick if I tried to tell her who she could fuck." Ace struggled for a casual tone as he watched Rachel slide her hand out of her panties to untie the ribbons securing her black fishnet bra. "So would Rachel."

Cruz moved fast. He grabbed Ace by the back of the head, holding his gaze fixed on the stage, and leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Rachel would give you big eyes and say
yes, sir
."

Surprise held Ace frozen, but only for a heartbeat. It wasn't like it was the first time he'd had Cruz's fingers on the back of his head, but he'd always had to lure the man over that line, daring him to do the things he'd imagined but would never admit.

The fingers pressing into Ace's skull didn't belong to a man inching toward a fantasy he didn't want to want. They belonged to a man who didn't give a shit anymore. A man who had every intention of taking what he needed.

Who he needed.

It kicked Ace's heart into his throat and made his dick ache. "I think you got your wires crossed, brother," he whispered hoarsely. "That's
your
fantasy."

"You have no idea." Cruz angled his body against Ace's side, his mouth touching his ear. "You think it'll be good. But then she watches you, stares right into your eyes while she wraps her fingers around your cock. Bites her lip when you start fucking her hand. Moans when you come."

Jesus
Christ
. Either he'd gotten farther with Rachel than Ace had given him credit for, or he had one hell of an imagination.

Cruz eased closer, and Ace wasn't the only one turned on now. It was the first time he'd gotten his dick anywhere near Ace without a woman between them--

Except she was still between them. She always was, whether she was there or not, and never so much as now, when they could both hear her moan as she pinched her fingers tight on her nipples.

Cruz's breathing hitched when she did it again. "I saw you last night."

Ace froze. He hadn't heard a sound, but he'd been so focused on Rachel, and Cruz could move like a ghost. There was no telling what he'd seen--or misunderstood. "Listen, brother--"

"Don't." Cruz leaned in until his beard scraped Ace's jaw and his breath was a hot tickle that whipped arousal higher. "Just admit it. Admit you can't stay away from her."

He couldn't, but that didn't matter. Rachel had a choice between the man who'd shattered her heart and the hero who'd do anything to put it back together. If she really wanted Ace, she'd have ended up in his bed, riding his tongue to an orgasm as hot as the one she was headed for now.

But she hadn't. She'd asked for time. She'd run away. "Who says it's up to me?"

"Isn't it?"

"Look at what she's wearing." It couldn't be a coincidence, not after last night. Thick black ribbons crisscrossed her torso, dragging the eye down to the lace-edged panties secured at her hips with more satin. "Last night, I told her you like ribbons."

Cruz laughed, low and rough, and his hand slipped down to the middle of Ace's back. "Did you whisper it in her ear nice and dirty, like this?"

Nothing he said would ever be as dirty as this. Casual filth tumbled from Ace's lips, waking or sleeping, because it was fun and easy and pretty fucking effective at scaring away nervous virgins looking for Jared's specialty--tender sexual awakenings. His dirty words came cheap.

Cruz's were precise, each one slamming home with the impact of a hundred of Ace's, and doled out in servings so small you were ready to beg for the next taste. But Ace didn't beg. He taunted, though it was mostly bluster now. "You think this is dirty?"

Any answer he might have made was swallowed by a roar from the crowd. Rachel had shed her panties, everything but the dark ribbon tied around her midsection. It made her look like a gift as she lay on the stage, back arched, so naked, so exposed--even her pussy was bare, something Ace wouldn't have realized was new if he hadn't had his hand in her pants before she'd taken up dancing.

She was on display, breathlessly, fearlessly vulnerable as she slipped one hand between her thighs. The audience quieted in time for her to part her lips on a long, trembling moan of pleasure, one Ace felt in his bones.

Cruz shuddered, his hand creeping lower to settle at the small of Ace's back. "You don't waste resources on overkill. You focus, and you do just enough to accomplish your mission. Dedicated, effective strikes." He glanced down, his voice dropping to a rasp. "Are you that hard from watching her dance? I'd believe it, but I don't think it's true."

His fingers burned, even through Ace's shirt. "Am I your mission? Or is she?"

"I think it's more complicated than that." Cruz eased his hand beneath the cotton and brushed the backs of his fingers over the bare skin above Ace's belt. "She may be in ribbons now, but she was in leather last night. And she looked like she was ready to let you eat her alive right there in the hallway."

A day ago, Ace would have sworn nothing could drag his gaze from the sight of Rachel with her fingers in her pussy, fucking them in and out with a rhythm he wanted to memorize. But he twisted to stare at Cruz from two damn inches away, and he still had no clue what to do with the dark recklessness in the other man's eyes. He had wanted to break Cruz free of the bullshit he'd learned in Eden, but he'd never considered he might not be up to handling what was lurking underneath.

Fuck that. He was Alexander fucking Santana. He was
Ace
. He wouldn't get knocked off his feet by some wobbly-legged dominant still fighting to hide his city-boy shine.

"Is that what you want?" he asked, keeping his voice low and seductive. "Rachel, all soft and sweet in between us?"

And then, a glimmer of truth behind the dark eyes and lust. Cruz glanced at the stage, and the hard set of his jaw relaxed a little. "You want to take care of her. You need it as much as I do. This way, no matter the fallout, she'll have someone, right?"

The fallout
.

Ace should have cared more about those words, the truth of the inevitable ending. Wasn't that the most terrifying part of imagining Rachel as his? He could play her body a hundred ways, bring her up so high the fall would be endless. He knew how to catch her when it was all about physical pleasure.

Maybe Cruz could catch her when it was something more. And if it all fell apart--

--
when
it all fell apart--

Ace wasn't naïve. His illicit allure would wear thin eventually, and the hero always got the girl. As long as Ace was the only one who came out of it with a bruised heart, the gang would be okay. No ugly fight, no mess to clean up. Cruz and Rachel could have their happy fucking ending, and Ace would drown his sorrow in the sympathy of willing partners. Everyone loved a broken-hearted bad boy.

Christ, he barely had a heart to break. And the rewards...

Rachel's moans grew louder, more intense, and Ace looked back to find her watching them with helpless longing. She gave everyone everything, and now she was giving him this, the unvarnished, messy truth of her deepest desires.

It wouldn't be a fucked-up triangle if they met in the middle.

It would be straight-up fucking.

Ace shifted his hand, found Cruz's belt. "How far will you go for her?"

Cruz hissed in a breath. "Find out." His teeth scraped Ace's ear, then dropped to his neck and closed in a hard bite.

Pleasure sizzled straight to his gut. No amount of Jeni's begging had convinced Cruz to get sincerely rough with her, but he didn't seem to mind manhandling Ace. Maybe he'd be like that with Rachel, too. Soft and gentle, all strokes and pets that would drive her crazy when Ace mixed in a little pain. They could drown her in alternating sensation, shove her to the edge and woo her back, over and over...

She was on the edge now. Her gaze had fixed on Ace's hand with fevered need, so trembling and hungry she'd probably come the second Ace wrapped his fingers around the other man's dick.

Teasing all three of them, Ace stroked his thumb over the well-worn leather before easing it open. Cruz's breathing turned ragged, and he tugged Ace into a hard, desperate kiss.

Teeth and tongue, that was his style. Rough, and usually that could hold Ace's attention, but he'd never had Rachel ten feet away, moaning her approval.

Cruz bit him again, a quick nip at his lower lip, and growled. "Watch her," he commanded, "but keep your hands on me."

"Bossy motherfucker." Jesus, he sounded
proud
, and maybe he was. Proud enough to obey, dragging Cruz's pants open as he looked back to Rachel. Simply slipping his hand inside wouldn't be enough, not for her, so he eased the other man's cock free and wrapped one hand around it. "I'm not gonna be as gentle as she was."

"Gentle?" he echoed breathlessly, the word overlaid by Rachel's soft groan.

Humor and disbelief, which had Ace imagining Rachel with her fist around Cruz, jerking him off with the same impatient tempo he was ready to employ. "No, she wants you too bad to be gentle, doesn't she? Look at her now. She can't take her eyes off your dick."

"And your hand." Cruz moved, just a little, thrusting against his grip.

Out on the stage, Rachel came with a shuddering cry. So open, so fucking
beautiful
, and the audience's shouts didn't bother Ace this time because nothing she was doing was for them.

Her legs trembled as she rode the orgasm--but she didn't stop. If anything, her hand moved faster, fingers plunging deeper. Ace groaned and squeezed Cruz's shaft hard. "Too bad she's not over here to lick you until you're nice and wet."

Cruz braced one hand against the wall with a hoarse laugh. "A little rusty on your jerk-off etiquette? Spit in your fucking hand."

They were standing backstage at the Broken Circle, which meant they could find better lube without taking a step. "Don't be so goddamn barbaric. There's a drawer right there."

He reached past Ace and dragged open the drawer on the metal cabinet. On stage, Rachel grinned and rolled to her knees, her ass to the crowd. She braced herself on one hand while the other stayed put--fingers curled inside her pussy, the heel of her hand rocking against her clit. Under the lights, her skin glistened with sweat and maybe a little of the oil Cruz pressed into Ace's hand.

"That's right, angel," he whispered as she watched him spill the oil across his palm. She was too far away to hear him, but next time she wouldn't be.

God, let there be a next time.

He gripped Cruz's cock and slicked his hand up and down. He responded by wrapping his fingers around Ace's to guide the pressure and movement--a quick pump, all the way down to the base, followed by a slow, leisurely glide back up to the tip. Cruz shuddered, his shaft growing harder with every stroke.

"Not too fast," Ace warned, swiping his thumb across the crown when their fingers reached the tip again. "You time it just right, maybe you can come all over those gorgeous tits."

Cruz groaned, his hand squeezing tight for the span of a heartbeat. "Fuck."

"You like that, do you, brother?" Maybe his dirty words worked on Cruz after all. "She'd still be an angel, you know. Even with come all over her face and her lips swollen from sucking you off, she'd be my sweet angel. Everything they told you in Eden was bullshit. Sex is messy, not dirty."

"Can't be both?" Cruz gritted his teeth, but his hips jerked whenever Ace moved his hand.

"Not until you're sure dirty's not bad."

He opened his eyes to watch Rachel as she rocked and swayed on stage. "Nothing about her is bad," Cruz murmured. "Maybe nothing about you, either."

"Maybe," he agreed, a friendly lie because he couldn't give less of a shit about the truth right now. Cruz's cock was hard under his hand and Rachel was headed for a big finish, her lips parted, her breaths panting.

Teetering on the edge, because they were already playing the game, even without discussing the rules. "Tell her to come," he told Cruz, stilling his hand. "Watch what happens."

Tense. Hungry. But before he could open his mouth to form the command, Rachel tipped over the edge with a stifled shriek. She bucked and shivered, fucking her hand until the shudders faded and she collapsed to the polished wood.

Spent. Helpless. The roar of the audience smashed into Ace, shifting pleasure to spiky hot rage. He leaned forward to wrap his hand around the rope that controlled the curtain and jerked hard, swinging it into place and cutting Rachel off from the world.