Bound by Flame (17 page)

One thing he did know for sure, though—he wanted more. All of her. Now. If he could just figure out how to make love to her without burning down the Upper East Side…

He threw the sheet off his legs and got up, still pondering that little dilemma. A problem for later today. For now, he had to get his lazy ass downstairs and talk to Creed and Andy about getting intel on the Bronx house. After Cynda helped him…uh, spend his energy, he knew they were right about needing to take more time in the planning. But not too long. No way he could sit around with his thumb up his ass indefinitely, not knowing what was happening with Jake or the Legion.

Half an hour or so later, he found Creed and Riana already downstairs in the kitchen, dressed in their running clothes. They sat at the big round cannonball table that dominated the kitchen, cradling coffee mugs and talking to Merilee, who was bundled up in a red flannel gown and robe, wearing some kind of fuzzy pink slipper-boot things.

Merilee smiled at him, but put her hand over some diagrams on the table.

Nick could see enough of the papers to know they were probably schematics of the Bronx house. He shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’m calmer this morning.”

Creed shot him a grin. “Would that have anything to do with the soot I saw you scrubbing off the conference room walls?”

Riana flushed and stared down at her coffee mug. Merilee laughed. Nick gave his brother a grow-up look followed by a hell-yes wink, then headed for the coffeepot.

Cynda stumbled through the kitchen door dressed in lavender silk pajamas, her red hair a delicate mess around her beautiful face. She had her arms wrapped around herself, shivering. “Stupid chills,” she grumbled. “Stupid old haunted house.”

Nick stopped walking the second he saw her. Her presence jolted him wide awake. He felt her all over his body, remembered her taste, her smell, her screams. He wanted to touch her. Maybe carry her back to the conference room and see if they could finish burning the whole place to ashes. Who cared? The townhouse was half his anyway. He could afford to rebuild rooms they destroyed.

As she passed between Nick and the counter, he caught her fragrance of vanilla and cinnamon, and his already-stiff cock ached. He took in the soft, sleepy look in her green eyes, the way her pajama top gaped to show a tantalizing bit of cleavage, and the way her hips curved in the loose silk pants. Then she glanced back at him and gave him a sexy smile.

He almost groaned out loud.

Could desire kill a man?

Cynda grabbed a cup from the nearest cabinet, then reached down to turn on the water. The knob came off in her hand. Water plumed from the pipe and splattered against her face with so much force Nick actually heard her suck up a good noseful.

She coughed, dropped the cup and knob into the sink, and fell backward onto the kitchen floor before the glass finished shattering.

Nick stood frozen, too surprised to move.

Cynda swore loud enough to wake up all the dead in a two-mile radius.

Water splattered against the ceiling, then arced back down to the cabinets and floor like some possessed fountain. Wind chimes jangled all over the five-story townhouse. The kitchen tabletop caught fire.

Riana, Creed, and Merilee leaned back.

Cynda’s pajama bottoms and part of a kitchen curtain blazed, too. Her shirt probably would have burned if it hadn’t been completely soaked.

Before Nick could react, Cynda swore again, pulled her fire energy back as best she could, and directed the force of her elemental power to the spouting water. The heat began to contain the geyser. Water hissed and evaporated as she got back to her feet.

“A little help?” she said pointedly to Nick. “Hello, big man? Earth to Nick!”

The sound of her voice jarred him into action. He leaned forward, fumbled in the sink for the faucet’s knob, found it, and forced it back where it belonged. As he screwed the metal piece down into place, water jetted and pulsed, drenching him across the face and shoulders, then abruptly stopped.

“Stupid piece of crap,” Cynda grumbled as he twisted the knob as tight as it would go.

He glanced at her.

She glared first at the knob and then at Nick while water dripped from her face and hair all over her chest. One by one, droplets of water ran down the cleft between her breasts, and her tight nipples pressed against her wet shirt.

Now Nick
knew
desire could kill a man.

He needed life support.

If Cynda couldn’t read the raw desire on his face, she could sure see the bulge in his jeans. The metal under his hand heated and slowly glowed orange, stinging his palm.

He let go of the knob in a hurry.

Thankfully, Cynda managed to breathe and calm down before the metal actually melted and flamed.

It could happen, if she got mad enough. Nick had no doubt. He wiped his face with his sleeve, and fought an urge to wipe Cynda’s face, too. That would probably be fatal at this point.

I think I’ll marry her.

The thought caught him off guard, almost worse than the water spout. He almost laughed out loud.

“Hope somebody made coffee,” Andy mumbled as she staggered through the kitchen door, wearing shorts, a long-sleeved shirt, and ugly purple socks, and looking an even bigger mess than Cynda. Andy’s eyes weren’t even completely open. Cynda had to get out of her way, or get trampled.

When Andy got to the coffee and found the huge puddles of water, her eyebrows came together. “Who showered in the sink?”

“Cynda,” Merilee said.

Her top diagram caught fire as Cynda sat beside her, but Merilee smacked out the little flame with her hand.

Nick waited until Andy poured herself a cup, spilled some, yanked off half the paper towel roll, mopped up the spill along with some of the water, and got out of his way. Then he got his coffee ration, took his cup to the table, and sat between Cynda and Andy.

Cynda’s leg pressed against his almost immediately, and Nick had to work not to start glowing. The throbbing in his cock came back with a vengeance, and he wondered if the cannonball table would burn through as fast as the conference table had.

“Did you speak with the Mothers this morning?” Riana asked Cynda, easing her coffee mug back to the table.

Keeping her leg firmly against Nick’s, Cynda said, “They didn’t find anything useful on Maura’s
shotel
. The blade was clean. But they’re sending out temporary replacements to all the triads who lost a fire Sibyl, until things calm down and the triad leaders have a chance to spend time with the adepts and pick a best match.” She shook her head. “Between this mess and all the warriors we lost in that battle a few months back, the numbers are low. There aren’t that many adepts ready to take on full service.”

Merilee toyed with her stack of schematics. “Motherhouse Greece is in similar shape—about half as many adepts as they usually have.”

Nick gestured to the diagrams. “Is that the Bronx house?”

When everyone looked at him, he said, “I told you, I’m calmer.” He made a V over his nose. “Demon’s honor.”

“Didn’t Samantha used to do that on
Bewitched
?” Andy asked blearily. Then she glanced at Riana, Merilee, and Cynda. “You keep telling me none of you are witches. Don’t fuck with my head this early in the morning.”

Cynda snickered. Everyone else just kept looking at Nick with his fingers over his nose.

Merilee slid the diagrams to Cynda, who passed them on to Nick.

He picked up the papers and flipped through them. About twenty in all. Air Sibyls were nothing if not thorough, he was learning. More and more, Merilee reminded Nick of a mad librarian. Using a combination of hand-drawn pictures and notes plus architectural diagrams and plain paper photos printed off her moody computer, she had pretty well lined out their target. A two-story fieldstone house, 1700s vintage, that reminded him of the historic Valentine-Varian House over on Bainbridge.

Ten windows across the front, black shutters, and two chimneys, one on either end of the place.

“Does it have a basement?” he asked.

“No, thank the Goddess.” Merilee made a motion for him to dig deeper, where he found documents describing modifications made to the house over the years, as per city permits. One of the renovations involved filling in the house’s root cellar with concrete pillars to support an aging floor joist. The attic had been torn out, too, replaced with skylights and a loft bedroom.

Good. Fewer opportunities for surprise.

He would have gone on to the next page of information, but Cynda started rubbing his leg under the table. Her touch was soft, and her movements subtle. Nobody could tell what she was doing except him, and his thoughts jumbled, turning circles, then zeroing in on the exact movements of her hand.

Damn.

Nick raised his head and looked at her.

Her green eyes glinted with amusement. “Don’t get too intense,” she said, her voice sugar-sweet and innocent. “It’s days before this is going down.”

On her last two words,
going down,
her palm slid directly over his erection, and she stroked him through his jeans.

Hot damn.

Creed gulped the last of his coffee and let his mug clatter to the table. “So, bro, what’s your plan for now? Tell us before report, and we’ll do our best to get Freeman to agree.”

Nick’s cock bucked against the ever-tighter fabric as Cynda rubbed him again, a little harder. Sweat broke out along the back of his neck.

For a moment, he couldn’t speak, and he sure as hell couldn’t think of any plan beyond jerking Cynda out of that chair, hauling her upstairs, tearing off her wet silk pajamas, and turning his bedroom into a first-class barbecue pit.

Everyone was looking at him now, especially Cynda, with that grin of hers.

What would she do if he grabbed her and kissed her right here, in front of everyone?

He was getting close.

Mustering all the will he possessed, Nick strangled his coffee cup and forced his attention to his twin. “I’m hunting Max Moses and bringing the bastard in. The surveillance unit checked Delilah Moses’s apartment last night, and she
is
gone. Place was torn to hell. We need to find out if Max was blowing smoke about her being Downy’s captive.”

“I’m starting to think Downy’s a spook.” Merilee leaned back in her chair. “The CIA kind, not the sheets and chain-rattling boo kind.”

“Why?” Riana asked, taking Creed’s hand in hers.

“I’ve been through every database I can access, and two I’m not even supposed to know exist, and none of her data traces back to anything solid.” Merilee reached across Cynda and took back her papers from Nick. “Her Social belongs to a dead woman, her passport tracks to some kid from Jamaica—the island, not New York. I’ve got fixes on her in Boston and Philly and Washington, D.C., real estate transfers and purchases. But I can’t prove she even exists.”

“She exists,” Cynda said, her palm going still on Nick’s cock. “Gut instinct on that one.”

He didn’t know what was worse, the steady rub, or the pressure from her fingers—and the anticipation they might move again. When she eased her hand away, he almost reached under the table and snatched it back.

He glanced at Cynda’s face, and his arousal faded a fraction. She looked serious and troubled. Morning sunlight illuminated green traces of the bruise under her eye, healing Sibyl-fast, but still obvious.

A new set of emotions pummeled Nick. Worry. Concern. A strong desire to cart her off, caveman style, to some safe place where no one could bother her or hurt her, or shoot at her, or send demons exploding through a wall behind her head.

Where would
that
be?

Cynda put both hands on top of the table, laced her fingers together, and stared at them.

Nick stared at them, too, and wished she were still touching him.

“What if J. C. Downy doesn’t have anything to do with the Legion?” Cynda asked.

“She has to be Legion.” Andy took a long sip of coffee. “She attacked us with fifteen Curson demons yesterday. Did you miss that?”

Cynda trained her gaze on the ceiling, like she was forcing her thoughts into words. “Downy didn’t set the demons on us. Max Moses did, and he commanded them with their talismans.” When she looked down again, it was at Riana. “Any one of us could have done the same thing. We
have
done it, at one time or another, since Creed and Nick showed up.”

Riana let go of Creed, leaned forward, and propped her elbows on the table. “What are you getting at?”

“Just because the Legion made those demons doesn’t mean they’re in control of them, any more than they’ve got control of Nick and Creed.” Cynda’s eyes shifted from Riana to Creed, and then to Nick. “If they bolted from Legion control, why wouldn’t other Cursons do the same thing?”

“Long-lasting, durable—but too costly…and too independent,” Andy said.

A small shock coursed through Nick when he looked at Andy, because the woman’s face had changed. She was totally awake now. Tense. Sitting straight in her chair, fingers tight around her mug, so tight her knuckles were turning white.

“Excuse me?”

Andy didn’t speak. Almost seemed like she couldn’t. She seemed to be growing more pale by the second.

Creed cleared his throat. “That’s something our—our parents, said in front of Andy and me, Nick. When they had us prisoner upstairs in the library, they said the Legion abandoned the creation of Curson demons because we were failures for their purposes—because we’re too independent.”

Nick turned more completely toward Andy. He had known she went through some serious trauma at the hands of the Legion, but he hadn’t realized the severity of the toll it had taken. Andy was still responding to that ordeal, all these months later, like cops who didn’t get over making a kill, or taking a hit in the line of duty.

Battle fatigue. Post-traumatic stress.

He gently pried her coffee mug out of her fingers and set it on the table. “Take a breath, champ. Those assholes are dead. If they rise from the grave, Riana and I will kill them again.”