Deadlock: Southern Arcana, Book 3 Read online

  She wanted to hit them both.

  When Julio had gone, Carmen dressed and tried to settle in to read a book Lily had packed for her. It turned out to be a Regency romance with a tall, dark hero the author described as stern and commanding, and the only thing Carmen could say was that at least the effort it took not to picture Alec in the scenes kept her occupied.

  She set it aside before the hero got naked, just in case.

  Sitting in the guest room wasn’t an option, so she wandered into the living room just before lunch. She found Alec stretched out on the couch, his bare feet propped up on the coffee table. He held a banged-up legal pad in one hand and a pen in the other.

  He looked up as soon as she cleared the hallway and smiled. “Feeling okay, still?”

  Her heart skipped, and she had to admit the dashing Regency-hero fantasy might have been safer than actually being near Alec. “Yeah, sure. I feel good.”

  “Wanna sit?” He nodded to the oversized chair across the table from him. “Kinda boring out here, I guess. Don’t watch a lot of TV and I don’t have internet.”

  She sank into the chair. “So what do you do when you have downtime?”

  For a second, he almost looked uncomfortable. “Uh, doesn’t happen that much.”

  From some of the things she’d heard, he probably spent more nights in women’s beds than he did at home, alone. “It’s good to stay busy.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Uh-huh.”

  Nervousness clashed with the urge to flirt, and she laughed, unable to help herself. “I think we should change the subject.”

  He snorted and looked away. “I can only imagine the stories they tell about me.”

  “Franklin mostly talks about the old days, when you served together.”

  “Long time ago.” He tossed the legal pad aside. “Joining the army isn’t the smartest way for a shapeshifter to run away from home, but you’d be surprised how many of us seem to do it.”

  “My brother almost did. Julio?”

  “Not surprised. He had more reason than most.”

  “Maybe.” Instead, he’d dropped out of college and run off to Charleston to become a firefighter. “We all run away from home somehow.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” Alec stretched, straining the fabric of his T-shirt as the strong muscles of his arms and shoulders flexed. “So how’d you run away?”

  It took effort, but she managed to quell her shudder of arousal. “Uh, I said ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to the nice young shapeshifter they’d picked out for me, and I moved to Nashville. Medical school.”

  “Good for you.” He sounded like he meant it. “Maybe if enough of us keep doing that, the old guard will die out in a few generations.”

  “I doubt it. There are some who say yes, right? Enough to keep it going.”

  He eased his feet from the coffee table and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Probably. If there’s a way to change it, though, it’s gonna take a smarter brain than mine.”

  “Or mine.” She couldn’t help matching his pose. “So you ran away and joined the army. What did you do after that?”

  “This and that. A few of us who met in the military went freelance. Franklin. A wizard named Nelson who’d been a pilot. A couple of shifters—Ollie was in intelligence and Karl was a sniper. Did okay for ourselves.”

  “Freelance? As in mercenary?”

  He studied her, his face giving no indication of the thread of uneasiness working through him. “Does that bother you?”

  “No, not in the least.” If he’d been human, perhaps, but the supernatural world existed mostly outside the law, which meant it had to police itself.

  Alec nodded, almost as if he’d sensed the path of her thoughts. “We did that for a few years. Then we lost Ollie and Karl in the same month.”

  The timbre of his voice lacked the sadness she would have expected if something terrible had happened to his friends. “They retired?”

  “They got domesticated.” His lips curved in a wicked smile. “Ollie fell for a pretty little psychic socialite in Atlanta. Karl got dumb over a cowgirl from South Dakota.”

  Carmen laughed. “A classic tale. How did you survive without them?”

  “Got dumb myself.” Pain sliced through the room, twisted into guilt and dissipated so fast it could only have been through a conscious effort to guard his emotions. The words that followed were glib, almost practiced. “Then I got a job. Harassing deadbeat dads gives me something to do when I’m not saving pretty ladies.”

  Her own pain surprised her. There was no reason for him to be open with her, to share himself, and she had to remember that.

  She had to.

  She changed the subject to distract herself. “Do you play cards?”

  “Not so much.” He leaned down and tugged out a plain wooden box from underneath the coffee table. “Don’t even think I have a deck of cards, but I’ve got these.”

  It was an ancient set of dominoes. “I don’t know how to play.”

  Alec slid the wooden cover back and spilled out an array of tiles that looked hand-carved, with dots burned into the faces. “Got the concentration to learn some rules?”

  “I told you, I feel sharp as ever. And no smart comments about that,” she added with another laugh.

  “I don’t make smart comments,” he replied, voice and expression deadpan serious. “Ask anyone. I’m dumb as a post.”

  “People don’t really believe that, do they?”

  “You’d have to ask them.” He started flipping the dominoes over, until they were all face up. “Mostly they just think I’m a scary asshole.”

  “Yeah? I think you’re sneaky.”

  One eyebrow popped up. “That’s a new one.”

  Carmen shrugged one shoulder. “Then maybe people aren’t paying attention.”

  “Maybe they’re not all empaths.” He seemed more amused than upset, and maybe a little resigned. “I do live with one under my nose most days. Never been able to scare her, either.”

  “Is that your goal? To scare me?”

  “Not you in particular. The world in general? Maybe.”

  She watched him shuffle the tiles. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “Is it?”

  He was tense, nervous. Carmen frowned. “I don’t spend a lot of time talking about other people’s innermost feelings, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  The nervousness tightened, then faded, and he shook his head. “It’s not. It’s not you. I’m just a crotchety old bastard.”

  Maybe he was less worried about gossip than he was about the possibility she’d report back to her uncle. “Just so you know, I don’t talk to my family much, either. I’m not a spy.”

  “I don’t think you are.” His hands moved absently, flipping the tiles around and lining up all of the one ends in a row. “Not saying I never thought that. I considered it pretty hard, at first. But this would be one convoluted way to go about it.”

  She had to agree. “So what’s the problem?”

  His attention stayed fixed on the tiles. “Hard to remember I’m supposed to be a stone-cold psychotic bastard when you look at me like I’m a person.”

  She reached out to him before she remembered she wasn’t supposed to, her fingers grazing the back of his hand. When she realized what she was doing, she pulled back and cleared her throat. “You’re going to have to explain the rules to me.”

  She let the statement lie, hoping he’d take it at face value. It was just as well that he seemed to, since he sat back and began to outline the object of the game.

  Chapter Seven

  After two days of nothing but cooking and waiting, Carmen was jumping out of her skin. “I want to go for a run.”

  Alec didn’t seem to find it an odd request. “There are a couple trails through the woods. The run to the lake’s nice too.”

  She vaguely remembered it from the day she’d arrived. “Just let me change clothes.”

  Sev
eral minutes later, she stepped onto the porch and tried in vain to draw in a deep breath. The days were growing hotter quickly, with the sort of humidity she was more apt to associate with midsummer than early spring. “August is going to be miserable if this weather keeps up.”

  “This your first summer in New Orleans?” Alec was still wearing jeans, but had tugged on another tight black T-shirt.

  “Except for visits,” she confirmed. “But I’ve lived in Atlanta and Nashville for most of my life.”

  “Never spent that much time in either. They this muggy?”

  “Just about. Georgia especially.” Carmen tilted her head and sighed. “You don’t have to go with me, you know. You must have things to do.”

  His sudden smile bordered on roguish. “Plenty. You going to make me do them instead of giving me an excuse to get outdoors?”

  He’d told her to back off, and yet he kept flashing her those wicked looks, as if he couldn’t help himself. “I’m not your mother,” she told him. “I’m not going pace myself so you can keep up, either.”

  “That so? If you’re going to invite a wolf to a chase, you’d better make sure you can outrun him. Unless getting caught is the point.”

  “I think you’re forgetting something.” She stepped off the porch and turned to face him. “I’m not entirely human.”

  Her vague memory supplied a general direction, and Carmen dug in her heels and ran.

  At first she wasn’t sure he’d followed. A quick glance over her shoulder proved he was following, all right, just keeping his distance. Not to mention checking out her ass.

  She ran faster, something instinctive pushing her to push him. A gentle rush of empathy told her he was enjoying the chase and, surprisingly, so was she.

  Because you know he’ll catch you. He could deny it, fight it, and it didn’t matter.

  Carmen slowed and spun, walking backwards. “How long have you lived here?”

  “This house?” He slowed too, to a casual amble. “Bought it…oh, nine or ten years back.”

  “And do you do this often?”

  “Run? Or chase women through the woods?”

  “That’s chivalrous of you, to keep pretending you’re the one doing the chasing here.”

  One eyebrow quirked up. “You’re right. If I were really chasing you, you’d be under me already.”

  “Now there’s a thought.” She had to get used to the blatant, idle flirtation. She couldn’t get aroused every time he said something like that, or she’d be perpetually horny—and frustrated. “I meant your obvious role as protector and mentor. Do you have a lot of new wolves beating down your door?”

  “A few,” he acknowledged with that infuriating little smile. “Someone has to take care of them, and I’m good at it.”

  And he needed it. She might never hear the admission from his lips, but she felt it plainly. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. You’re going to trip and break your neck if you keep walking backwards on this path.”

  She stopped. “I was trying not to be rude.”

  He jerked his chin toward the path. “Quarter mile, maybe a little more. There’s a nice clearing. I’ll give you a ten-second head start.”

  The predatory glint in his eyes stole her breath and kicked her heart rate into high gear. “Head start for what?”

  “Before I chase you. For real.”

  She had to be crazy to consider it, even if the thought made her body buzz. “And then what? More dirty talk because you can’t sleep with me, but you can sure the hell torture me with your eyes and muscles and ridiculously hot voice?”

  He actually laughed. “Can’t do much to fix any of that. I could back off, I guess, but you’re not going to like that much better.”

  “No, I suppose I wouldn’t.” She didn’t feel like a crazed animal, but she’d never been quite so moved by feral instinct, either. “Go easy on me, would you?”

  Pacing herself wasn’t a problem, not if it was only a quarter of a mile, so Carmen ran hard, pushing herself almost at a sprint. Soon, the near-echo of trampled brush drifted from behind her, and she smiled through her panting.

  He let her get three long strides into the clearing before he tackled her, somehow twisting their bodies as they fell so she sprawled across his chest. His low, delighted laughter curled around her, warm as the arms that circled her waist. “Easy as I get.”

  Too easy. Too intimate. She wiggled out of his arms and landed on the ground beside him. “You smile like you’re not used to it, did you know that?”

  Laughter died, and he twisted his head to stare at her. “It’s been a while. Only other person willing to poke at me until I laugh is Kat. I always figured she did it because she knows I’m not going to kill her, even if I’m glaring like I want to. An empathy thing.”

  “Maybe.” She wanted to reassure him with her touch, but she thrummed with a sexual awareness he could surely sense. “Is everyone else so careful with you because they’re scared?”

  “Some of them are.” He slid his fingers over hers, his hand a heavy weight. “What do you feel? Beneath the sex, what does my power feel like?”

  Dominant. Implacable. “You’re strong, and you’re intense.” All things so wound up in her attraction to him that there could be no separation.

  “And I’m a little crazy. Or I act that way enough that everyone thinks it’s true. Better if most of the scary people in town are wary of pissing me off.”

  “Makes sense.” His hand was huge, warm and a bit rough. She wanted to feel it on her body, sliding down her back and curling around her hip to hold her still for a hard, demanding thrust.

  The mental image formed so quickly that all she could do was bite her lip as she blinked and willed it away.

  His fingers tightened around hers. “I hate not knowing what to do. If I’ll hurt you more leaving you alone, or by giving you what you crave. I don’t want to hurt you at all. Do you have any fucking idea how long it’s been since I didn’t know what to do?”

  “You’re too hard on yourself,” she admonished. “It isn’t your job to keep me from hurting, and no one knows everything all the time.”

  “It’s my job to keep from hurting you.” He lifted his hand and hers with it, sliding it up until they pressed into the grass over her head. Then he released her and rolled to his side, propped up on his elbow so the bulk of his body loomed above her. “It’s all a damn excuse. It’s my job, and I’d be doing it anyway…but that’s not why I’m doing it now.”

  It was the most nonsensical thing she’d heard in a while. “Are you saying you want to protect me?”

  “I’m saying I want to protect you.” His free hand landed on her stomach, skimming up to skip over her breasts and land on her collarbone. “You’re not scared of me. Even when I’m acting crazy.”

  “Because you’re not crazy.” She caught his hand and held it still. “Don’t do this just because you think I need it. It’s not worth it.”

  His eyes looked so dark they might as well have been black. “Honey, I thought you were an empath.”

  “You know what I mean. If you still think I’m not in my right mind, the guilt would kill you, and I only want you to feel good about this.”

  He considered that for a moment, then guided her other hand up above her head. “I’m going to kiss you. Deep. Hard. You okay with that?”

  He’d urged her into a position of submission—both hands over her head, her body stretched out beneath his—and it made her shake with anticipation. “More than okay.”

  “You want me to stop, you say stop.” One hand curled around both of her wrists, gentle but unyielding. “You want more, ask for it. Okay?”

  Carmen pulled against his grasp, not to free herself but to test his strength. He held tight, and her eyes fluttered shut under a wave of need. “Yes.”

  His free hand settled at her hip in a possessive grip. Power built in the space between them, a slow, steady rise that mirrored the dark heat in his eyes as he lower
ed his mouth, lips barely touching hers. “Let me in.”

  The command released something inside her, a tension she hadn’t noticed before he eased it, and she closed her eyes again. Honesty was one thing, even a kiss…

  Don’t think, Carmen. Feel.

  She obeyed, loosening her tight hold on control, gasping when the first waves of empathic feedback echoed off him to heat her own body.

  His beard scraped her chin as he closed the distance between them with a shuddering groan. He kissed the way she’d seen him live, reckless arrogance and power and an intensity that bordered on intimidating. Lips and teeth and his tongue stroking her mouth until she parted her lips, then surging forward to taste and take, his hunger and satisfaction twisting between them on the threads of her empathy.

  She wasn’t prepared for the depth of her reaction to his satisfaction. Beyond the undeniable physical pleasure of the kiss was a whole world of intimacy, a power she’d flirted with but never really embraced.

  She could give him everything.

  More, he’d take it. There could be no doubt of that, not with his desires laid bare before her, the hot need for her pleasure dwarfed by the steely craving to be the only one who provided it. Nothing tentative there. Nothing tentative about the way he teased his tongue against hers, his pleasure spiking every time she moaned and arched closer.

  It had to stop, even if depriving herself of his touch drove her mad. Carmen turned her head to break the kiss. “Oh God.”

  “Shh.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “How’s the wolf instinct feeling now?”

  Curiously silent, all things considered. She’d expected that part of her to be feral, riled up and ready for a ride, but everything in her that still strained toward Alec’s touch was entirely human. “Quiet.”

  “She knows she’s safe.” The whispered words stirred her hair. “She ran. I caught. Claimed. Won’t be the last time she pushes a challenge, but it might not be so bad next time.”

  She bit her lip to hide a smile. “You’re still convinced that’s all it is? That I wouldn’t usually try to get a rise out of you?”