hidden talents (3 page)

“Obviously I can. And you are going to tell me where I can find your boss.”

“You"re crazy,” Donnie said. “Plus, I don"t know what you"re talking about. I don"t have a boss. I"m an independent entrepreneur.”

Like a Yugo driver who was suddenly behind the wheel of a Porsche, Ari

used the lightest touch she could to open a cut across his forehead.

Never the bravest soul, Donnie tried to crawl away. She stopped him by

floating his still lit cigarette an inch away from his eye. How easy this was shocked her.

“I might be crazy,” she said, her voice gone a bit breathless. “Why don"t we go somewhere quiet to discuss it?”

She"d spotted the empty tire shop on her way in, filing it away as somewhere she might crash without depleting her cash supply. The garage bay seemed the ideal spot for questioning Donnie - at least until the SWAT team or whatever they were showed up.

Having her face shoved into cement while being handcuffed was no party, no more than her power being shut off without warning. She didn"t like her glimpse of the latecomer"s teeth or the others" weird big-ass guns. The rifles looked like weapons from the
Alien
movies, just too many parts for comfort. That two of the cops still had them trained on her didn"t ease her nerves. What really pissed her off though, was that they"d interrupted just as she was getting somewhere. Given how little she"d enjoyed torturing Donnie, she didn"t think it should go to waste.

The hot Latino guy said something cryptic about accidental tourists, which she didn"t try to understand.

“I want a lawyer,” she said, though she really didn"t. Lawyers were as bad as cops - and how would she explain what she"d been doing? She"d learned young that she couldn"t afford to let people see her doing her thing.

Which brought up another squirmy point. None of the members of this

SWAT team seemed surprised by she"d done.

The other hot guy - Okay, be honest, the really, really hot guy with the incredibly soft green eyes and the mouth built for wickedness, put up his gun and stepped closer. Ari shouldn"t have been surprised that her body went haywire.

She"d been pulling more juice than she ever had in her life, and that was bound to create fallout. Still, it didn"t feel appropriate that her pussy melted like hot candy at his approach. His green eyes darkened, tiny sparks seeming to glow in the irises. He wet his fallen angel lips as if they"d gone dry. Ari could have sworn this made her dizzy.

“I"m sorry,” he said in a voice as rich and deep as French roast. “You"re not entitled to a lawyer. Public defenders are only for citizens.”

“I"m a citizen,” she retorted, trying to stiffen up her spine while he was staring at her that way. God, he smelled good. Like spice and man and how the hell did he find shirts to fit shoulders that fucking broad? She cleared her throat, sorry she"d thought the word for what she wanted to do to him. “I was born in Kansas.”

It had been Iowa, but to a New Yorker - as his accent proclaimed him - what was the difference?

Really Hot Cop smiled at her.

Logically, his smile couldn"t have been what pushed her over the edge, but her circuitry did choose that precise moment to blow its fuse. The warning tremor ran up her right arm, giving her a second to gasp before she dropped to the floor convulsing.

Or almost dropped. Really Hot Cop and Handsome Latino Guy caught her as she fell, saving her from splitting her skull. This was the only luck she had. The coppery taste of blood told her she"d bitten her tongue.

“Get a bite stick,” Really Hot Cop barked out.

She was making the grunting noises she did when she had a fit, though why she bothered being embarrassed she didn"t know. Really Hot Cop stroked her cheek like he didn"t mind.

“You"re okay,” he said, his voice the most soothing she"d ever heard, the kind any girl would wanted crooning her to sleep after sex. “You"re okay, sweetheart. This will pass. You just channeled too much power.”

Ari would have gaped if her facial muscles weren"t clenching. He"d called her sweetheart. Even though he"d watched her nearly kill a man, even though he seemed to know about her freaky gift. The cop who"d sported the long incisors -

thankfully normal now - helped Hot Cop wedge a bite stick gently between her teeth. Though she knew it would help, Ari hated being vulnerable. For some reason, she hated it ten times as much right now. She wasn"t weak, not anymore.

She was a survivor.

Survivor or not, tears started trickling out from her eyes. Sometimes they came when she overloaded and sometimes they didn"t, but tonight they wouldn"t stop.

“Shh,” Really Hot Cop said, pulling her to his chest. His hold was strong enough to keep her from flailing. “You"re all right, honey. I"ve got you safe with me.”

∞

Adam cradled the girl in his lap in the back of the response van. Her muscle spasms had lasted about five minutes, after which she"d conked out in exhaustion.

Adam had seen worse magical ODs - fatal ones even. He just hadn"t seen any that hit
him
quite so hard.

He couldn"t seem to let go of her. He was strapped in the safety harness on the long side bench but he felt off balance, his usually solid-as-a-rock inner gyroscope suddenly wobbling. He had an erection, for Pete"s sake, the thing seriously straining the elastic of his black jock strap.

He tried to distract himself by examining the collection of miscellany she"d pinned or otherwise adhered to her sleeveless Yankees jacket. The portion he could see included what was probably other peoples" lost buttons, a small white feather, two miniature silver spoons of the sort espresso drinkers stirred sugar with, six pennies, one euro, a subway token, and a laminated ticket stub from a band he"d never heard of. Thanks to his grandmother, Adam had a touch of Sight.

When he fingered the stub, his brain caught a flash of the girl he held standing in a crowd, so excited as music bombarded her that she squeezed the hands of the people to either side of her. The joy in her astounded him, the love she felt for her companions ...

He shifted his eyes, trying to See the memory clearer, but letting even a little more of his barriers down sent a fresh wave of lust up his erection. He squirmed in his seat and winced, a muffled grunt breaking in his throat. It occurred to him that this reaction wasn"t professional.

From the looks his packmates were sliding him, they thought he was off his rocker.

“So,” Nate threw over his shoulder from his spot up front at the wheel. “Tell me again why we aren"t taking this perp straight to headquarters.”

“She crossed the city border,” Rick said from the opposite bench. “Without an invitation. If we take her to HQ, we"ll have to hand her over to Magical Mentoring.”

Magical Mentoring"s reputation was about as good as the outside world"s foster care system. It meant well, but too often it simply screwed people up.

Adam"s arms tightened protectively around his burden.

“Well, I"m no fan,” Nate admitted, “but this
chica
nearly killed a man. She needs some kind of training. I mean, she was one determined girly, slicing Donnie West up like that.”

“She was trying to find the Eunuch,” Carmine explained patiently. “We need to question her. See if she knows more about that slippery bastard than we do.”

“I get that,” Nate said, “but -”

Adam"s anger rolled out of him as a growl. Without meaning to, he"d put his alpha power behind it, pushing at the others" natural inclination to submit to his will. He did this so seldom the other men"s eyes widened.

Up front, Nate swerved the van slightly in the lane before pulling himself together. “All right then. End of discussion.”

Because Rick was his second and a power in his own right, he held Adam"s eyes longer than the others. “You okay, cuz?”

“He"s getting around that age,” Carmine said helpfully. “Baby hunger hits some males hard.”

“I am not
that age
,” Adam snapped, maybe more sharply than he should have if he wanted to be believed. “I"m only thirty-nine. And anyway, that one true mate crap is bullshit.”

“How can you think it"s bullshit?” Nate asked from up front. “Weren"t your parents twin flames?”

They had been, he guessed, but that didn"t mean Adam had to believe in that hearts and flowers stuff for him. His parents had been really sweet, kind of eccentric people. Adam was down to earth. Falling in love as hard as they"d fallen just wasn"t practical.

“She is kind of hot,” Tony observed thoughtfully. He frowned as the others"

eyes cut to him. “What? Just because I"m gay, I can"t have an opinion?”

“It"s pheromones.” Carmine"s gaze remained averted, but his subtle smile said he was enjoying ragging on his boss. “There"s only so hard you can fight when they kick in.”

“He"s just being protective,” Rick said firmly. “Adam"s alpha. If anything"s kicking in, it"s those instincts.”

Rick sounded suspiciously like he was trying to convince himself.

Adam sighed, realizing he"d cupped the back of the girl"s head, coaxing her cheek to rest more securely on his shoulder. Her spiky platinum hair was surprisingly soft between his fingers. He couldn"t deny she smelled incredible to him, which was supposed to be a sign that you"d found a mate.
A
mate, though.

Not your sparkly-warkly gift from the universe. Biology he believed in. Romantic mumbo-jumbo not so much. Whatever this girl was to him, the scent of her perspiration was making him break into a sweat. His canines itched in their sockets, threatening to run out each time he caught a whiff.

An image of her naked on her hands and knees popped into his mind. Him

pumping into her from behind, sinking his canines into her nape and gripping to hold her still. The fantasy was vivid enough to make his cock start leaking. She was so damned little. He hadn"t known he liked little women. He"d never gone for them before. Now he couldn"t think of anything but finding out how much foreplay it would take to squeeze his throbbing dick inside her.

A lot would be fine with him. He"d be delighted to lick her all over. To grab that spiky hair in both hands and attach himself to her breasts. To nuzzle into her cunt and lap up her juice. She"d probably taste as good as she smelled. Her body felt tight in her thrift store clothes. Little breasts. Little waist. He bet her round little butt was as firm as a new apple ...

His eyes went hot. He closed them half a second before his men would have seen them glow. His body shuddered as he tried to get it under control. He hadn"t known an erection could hurt this bad.

If he wasn"t careful, he was going to make a genuine ass of himself.

“Almost there,” Nate said, turning onto Saltpeter Street.

Saltpeter was their neighborhood"s main drag, where the businesses

clustered. All of them lived off it on Alchemist"s Way, within a stone"s throw of each other in the four-story brick rowhouses that dated back to the 1910s. The streets were shady, the shopkeepers knew their names, and the instinctive comfort of having pack close by was something none of them had ever rebelled against.

They might not have the privacy other folks enjoyed, but they sure as hell had each other"s backs.

Rick, Tony, and Adam all lived in the same building, with Adam taking the two top floors. They shared the roof deck, from which they could wave at Rick and Tony"s parents on their slightly smaller deck next door. Mr. and Mrs. Lupone were both amazing in the kitchen, so living cheek by jowl like this was no hardship. Nate, who lived in the lofts two doors down and across the street, let them out in the dimmer stretch between two street lights and drove off to park the van.

Dimmer stretch notwithstanding, they were kind of conspicuous in their black response gear with their unconscious charge.

“Get the door,” Adam said to Rick, because his beta always remembered

which pocket held his keys.

There was no elevator, but the girl wasn"t much of a load for his wolfish strength to get up three flights of stairs.

“You smell different,” Tony said when they reached his door. “Maybe

Carmine is right about you hitting your mating age. Maybe this girl is your perfect match.”

Unlike his brother, Tony sounded hopeful this was the case. That was all their pack needed. Former butch-ass prick Tony turning into a pansy-ass romantic.

Ari was having the best dream of her life. Someone wonderful was holding her in his arms, someone big and warm who nuzzled her ear and murmured that everything was all right. The dream was also kind of sexy. She wriggled under the covers, enjoying her arousal. The only thing that bugged her was how her wrists were stuck together.

Her eyes snapped open as she shocked awake. She was lying in a strange bed under a bunch of blankets with her hands cuffed in front of her. She did a quick inventory. The coin on a chain the Latino had used to shut off her power still hung around her neck. Someone hadn"t hesitated to make her comfortable, because her shoes, jacket, and baggy outer T-shirt had been removed, leaving her in jeans and a tank top with a shelf bra. It was night, and a small table lamp was on. Three big men were in the room with her, one of them sitting in a grannyish looking armchair he"d pulled up beside her.

He was looking straight at her.

Really Hot Cop
, she remembered, staring into his soft green eyes. She couldn"t seem to look away from them, though locking gazes with someone she didn"t know was a weird thing to do. He"d changed out of his assault gear into a snug white T-shirt and black sweatpants. Man, he had some muscles, like slabs packed one on top of another. His shoulders were as broad as she"d expected.

She lifted her cuffed hands under the blankets, aware they must have been removed at some point; they"d been secured behind her before. “Do I really have to keep wearing these?”

For some reason, her question made Hot Cop blush. “You do,” he said

seriously. “You"re a dangerous felon.”

Okay, so Hot Cop had a sense of humor. That didn"t mean she had to like or -

God forbid - trust him.

“If I"m so dangerous, why haven"t you arrested me?”