Super Trouble (12 page)
Authors: Vivi Andrews
Frost
Nightwing wrapped his arms around the one that he’d let get away. Never again. Now
that he had her back in his arms, he was holding on for good. “Partners.”
T
he world had better brace itself.
An
Alaskan born and raised, award-winning paranormal romance author Vivi Andrews
still lives in the frozen north when she isn’t indulging her travel addiction
by bouncing around the globe. Whether at home or on the road, she’s always at
work on her next happily-ever-after. For more about her books or the exploits
of a nomadic author, you can visit her website at
www.viviandrews.com
, or find her on
Facebook
and
Twitter
.
The
Karmic Consultants:
The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental
Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant
The Ghost Exterminator: A Love
Story
Serengeti
Shifters:
Superhero
Romance:
Super
Trouble
Stand
Alone Novellas:
Look for her upcoming shapeshifter series launching
in June of 2014 with Jaguar’s Kiss.
Did
you miss the rest of the Superlovin’ series? Read on for excerpts from Super
Bad (#2) and Super Hot (#3).
Super
Bad
When your
mind is a prison, love can set you free.
Ever since
her supervillain father experimented on her as a child, Mirabelle “Mirage”
Wroth has been able to project unbreakable illusions into the minds of those
around her. But when a run-in with an evil Mind Bender snaps a delicate thread
in her psyche, she loses control of her gift and can no longer tell where
reality ends and illusion begins. Only sanctimonious superhero Captain Justice
is immune to her gift and can help her find the truth again—if Mirage can trust
another man to define her reality.
Justice
is sick of saving damsels in distress—he just wants someone to look beyond the
cape to see him—but he can’t turn away from the hauntingly vulnerable Mirage.
Suddenly Justice is helping her hide from the police, willing to be downright
villainous to be her hero. But as they work to save Mirage from herself, other
forces are circling to threaten them both. Tangled in illusions and mind games,
can love be real?
*
* * * *
“Easy
now,” he said, his deep voice surprisingly soothing. “My senses won’t lie to
me, so your power doesn’t work on me. Understand?”
She
shook her head, a denial of the idea that her powers didn’t work more than an
indication that she didn’t understand him. Her powers worked on
everyone
.
Always. She could do this.
But
even as she focused, concentrating harder than she’d had to since she was
thirteen, nothing happened. He just sat down next to her, not touching, but
close enough to be strangely companionable. Just two supers hanging out in a
bank vault. No biggie.
Wrong.
Everything was wrong.
She
shot him a look out of the corner of her eye—as if she could be invisible to
him if she avoided looking at him head on—only to find him watching her, eyes
intent, from a distance of inches. He
saw
her. Even when she was
invisible to the rest of the world.
Oh
God, the entire time she’d been ogling him when he first walked in the room,
he’d been able to see her. A flush burned her cheeks. Captain Justice had the
grace to pretend not to notice, though as pale as she was, everything showed in
Technicolor.
“You
wanna tell me what you’re doing in a bank vault at three in the morning?”
“I
appear to be having a nervous breakdown in the middle of a heist. What are you
doing here?”
His
lips twitched, but he didn’t smile. “Your brother sent me to get you.”
Lucien.
Something tight in Mirage’s chest unraveled. She recalled with crystalline
clarity the look of disappointment that flashed across his features whenever he
looked at her now. “How long have I been missing?”
“You
don’t know?”
“Right
now the sum total of my memory for the last few days is coming to in this vault
about fifteen minutes ago.”
Justice
frowned. “You aren’t lying.” He sounded confused.
“Not
much point in it.”
“Three
days.”
“What?”
“You
disappeared three days ago.”
Her
heart stuttered. God. She could have done anything in three days. Flown halfway
around the world or slept in a gutter. Where had she been? How many minds had
she bent? Dear God, what had she done?
“Mirabelle?
Stay with me here.”
She
turned her head, looking at Justice full on. His blue eyes grounded her. “I’m
okay.”
He
almost smiled again, this time with a rueful twist. “Liar.”
She
gave a low huff, a dry, mournful shadow of amusement. “Fine. I’m not okay. I’m
going crazy in fits and starts and it’s slightly disconcerting.”
Then
he did smile and something warm and wanting twisted in her chest. He wasn’t the
type of guy she’d ever be attracted to. Too wholesome by half. She liked her
men with an edge. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to enjoy the scenery.
It wasn’t every day a girl got up close and personal with Grade A Premium Beefcake.
Even if he was dating Kim Carruthers.
Not
that she cared who he was dating. Mirage had gotten more than her fill of
dating when her last boyfriend had mind-fucked her into stealing a catastrophic
weapon and then tried to use it to kill her brother. After that, she’d just as
soon stay single for a good long while, thank you very much. Like for the rest
of her life.
But
if anyone could tempt a sinner back to the dark side, Blondie here could.
Super
Hot
He’s
on fire for her… literally.
Superhero
research scientist Dr. Eric Eisenmann always secretly wanted to be super
himself, until he was abducted, experimented on, and woke up pyrokinetic—the
least stable of all the super abilities. Suddenly he’s lighting everything
around him on fire whenever his emotions get the better of him and desperate to
turn his super powers off. Unfortunately, Eisenmann’s only hope for a cure lies
with a woman who wants nothing to do with him—and fires up the very emotions he
needs to keep in check.
As
the only non-super daughter in a superhero dynasty, Tandy Nightwing has been
poked and prodded for years in an attempt to find the cause behind her defect. Now
that she’s finally found a way to be happy with her normalcy, the last thing
she wants is to subject herself to another super scientist’s tests—but she can
no more resist Eisenmann’s plea for help than she can resist the good doctor
himself.
Deep
in his underground lab, Eisenmann tries to maintain rigid control of his
feelings, but Tandy is his personal kryptonite, constantly testing his
restraint. Powerless or not, she just might be the one woman brave enough to
stand close to his fire—provided they both survive when their experiments
unleash a passion that burns hotter than sin.
*
* * * *
“Dr.
Eisenmann?” she called again, loud enough for her voice to echo off the lab
walls.
Nothing.
Nothing,
save a metallic clank from the room at the opposite end of the lab.
Irritation
flashed higher. Just like a scientist. So caught up in his own work that he
can’t even be bothered to greet her properly.
Tandy
strode through the disorganized chaos of the lab, mentally rehearsing the
dressing down she would give the absentminded scientist. She marched through
the open door—
And
every coherent word marched right out of her brain.
The
man in the weight room didn’t look like any kind of scientist she’d ever seen.
Her
first impression was of muscles. Glistening, shifting, flexing muscles. He was
shirtless, facing diagonally away from her so she had a perfect view of his
chiseled profile and every rhythmic bunch and stretch of the muscles across his
shoulders and back as he pressed the weight machine’s bar above his head. His
light brown hair was close-cropped, not quite military short, but close to
it—which gave her an uninterrupted view of his neck. She’d had no idea necks
were so sexy. Earbuds were tucked into his ears and he stared straight ahead,
firm bearded jaw clenched with single-minded focus as he pumped.
Tandy
stood frozen in the doorway, jaw slack. Ogling. She’d never thought of herself
as an ogler before, but Sweet Baby Jesus if ever a man deserved a good long
ogle it was this one.
She
should go. This obviously wasn’t Dr. Eisenmann. Was he a test subject, maybe? Here
to participate in a super research study? She couldn’t help wondering what his
super power was—beyond the superhuman sexiness. Oh holy hotness, what if his
superpower really was superhuman sexiness? What if he exuded some sort of
megawatt sex pheromone that reduced every female he came into contact with to
ogling goo? What if this was just the contact high version? What would happen
if he directed that super sexiness straight at her? Tandy’s knees went weak at
the thought and a little whimper escaped her lips.
He
didn’t notice, just kept pumping away, music still blasting away in his ears.
Get
a grip, Tandy. You have a boyfriend.
Though at the moment she was having a
hard time remembering her own name, let alone her boyfriend’s.
With
a muted clink, Super Hot let the weights settle gently back on top of one
another, his reps complete. He stretched for a towel, rubbing at the gleaming
sweat on his chest as he straightened to his full—impressive—height and turned—
To
stare right at Tandy.
A
pair of eerie amber eyes almost glowed, stunningly vivid in his tan face,
blazing at her with an instant and startling rage. She froze, classic
deer-in-headlights style. Super Sexy was
pissed
.
The
temperature in the room shot up and she actually hallucinated flickers of
different colored fire dancing in the air out of her peripheral vision, but she
couldn’t tear her eyes away from Super Hot’s livid face. He snatched up a T-shirt
draped over the treadmill and jerked the earbuds from his ears. She dimly heard
the music blaring from them as he stalked toward her. Barefoot. There was no
reason why that should strike her as so insanely erotic, so
intimate
,
but damn if her mouth didn’t go dry at the slap of his feet as he approached,
bearing down on her, gold eyes blazing...
Hot damn.
“How
the hell did you get in here?” he barked. “This is a restricted area.”
A
wise woman would retreat. Tandy knew better than most precisely how stupid it
was to get into a pissing match with an unknown super. But she was also a
Nightwing—even if she didn’t have a power to her name—and
never let them see
you quake
was practically a family motto. So she tipped back her chin and
stood her ground, drawing around her the Hardass CEO persona she’d perfected
for whenever she was feeling weak or insecure.
Nightwings
did
not
admit weakness and Tandy wasn’t about to betray any hint of
vulnerability here, of all places. Trident fucking Labs. Where all she’d ever
been was one giant weakness. One giant lack of superness. She’d stand her
ground if it killed her. And from the look in Super Hot’s eyes, it just might.