Dark Taste of Rapture (Alien Huntress 6)

Now he had less than twelve hours until he adiosed, which meant he had twelve hours to get rid of Noelle. He should have fought Mia when she’d said, “Tremain snuck out? So what. I like a girl with initiative. She stays.” Instead, he’d jumped in his car and burned rubber into the city to go and get her.

All the way there, he’d told himself she was too young for him. He’d told himself that screwing a trainee was unethical, but his mind had snagged on the word “screwing” and the rest had ceased to matter. He’d told himself that, if he ever talked her into bed, she would consider him such a bad lay, she’d laugh about their encounter for years to come, but his mind snagged on the words “lay” and “come,” and he’d started plotting ways to taste her.

Shit.

Bottom line: she shouldn’t have lasted this long.

Yeah, she was more intelligent than he’d first given her credit for, but you needed more than smarts to succeed at this job. How would she react at the scene of a gruesome murder? Vomit? Pass out? Probably both.

He’d cleared most of his cases before coming out here, and all of them had been bitches. Especially that last one. A human teenager had fought a Teran teenager, and neither had walked away, leaving a bloody mess. The Teran’s claws had slashed the human into a thousand different Christmas ribbons. Then, knowing otherworlders were judged harshly and sometimes things like self-defense were forgotten, the Teran had killed himself rather than spend the rest of his life in AIR lockup.

Kids, man. Their murders and suicides affected Hector in a way nothing else ever had. They hadn’t yet truly lived, and they didn’t know there was something better out there.

Noelle had only ever been pampered. What did she know of pain and suffering?

And her arrests? He still wasn’t buying. Not to that degree. If she lived through camp and somehow became an AIR agent, she’d be ripped to pieces on the streets. More than that, she would hinder whoever was unlucky enough to be paired with her. Guaranteed, she’d contaminate evidence and shit like that. Rules meant nothing to her.

Last night, she’d managed to smuggle in food—and not through the tunnel. Actually, he didn’t know how she’d done it. She wasn’t talking, and neither was anyone else. And because he couldn’t prove any rules had been broken, Mia had once again put her foot down with a smug, “She stays!”

Hector never would have known about the contraband if not for Dallas, who was always hungry and had followed his nose like a hound. And Hector, thinking the shithead just wanted a peek at Noelle in the shower, had followed the agent. What he’d found: the trainees huddled together, ripping meat off chicken bones as if they were at the Last Supper.

That’s what this fifteen-mile run was about. And why the trainees would be living outside for the next month.

Punishment was a bitch.

Still. Hector didn’t think the location change would break Noelle. She’d say something excruciatingly optimistic like, Camping is fun, and twirl. So it was time to step up the torment. Time to … hurt her.

“I think I forgot to tell you good morning,” she said as she passed him, that smoky voice tugging him back to the course. “So, allow me to remedy that. Good morning, Hector.”

He almost tripped over his own goddamn feet. Honest to God, she’d said his name as if he were already inside her and thrusting. “That’s Agent Dean to you,” he snapped. Not with anger, as he should have, but with more of that crackling arousal.

Arm check. Slight burn, slight itch. No glow. He was okay. For now.

She sniffled as if her heart were currently in the process of breaking. “You’re not going to wish me a good morning, too?”

“No, I’m not.” I hope your morning blows. Mmm, blows. Shit. Damn. And a thousand other curse words. He needed to rewind, and try another thought. I hope the rest of your day sucks. Mmm, sucks. Damn it! “Now concentrate like a good little girl.” A command to both of them. Because yes, he was more like a chick every second he spent with her.

“Sir, yes, sir.” No more hurt in her tone.

Was she mocking him? Surely not.

The first lap had left a fine sheen of perspiration on her exposed skin, making her glisten erotically. Same with her friend, Ava, who kept pace at her side. But he didn’t want to throw Ava on his bed and screw into her spinal cord.

You don’t want to do that to Noelle, either. This kind of wanting was new to him, that was all. He’d deal. He’d overcome. He always did.

“Agent Mean, watch out for that—”

His boot slammed into something hard and immobile, and he barely managed to keep himself vertical.

“Rock,” she finished. Her husky laugh echoed across the distance, sank past skin and into cells, fizzing like champagne. She’d moved several more feet ahead of him and didn’t look back, that ponytail continuing to swing.

Mortifying.

“Have you forgotten the meaning of the word dibs again?” he heard Ava ask her.

Noelle cartwheeled as she replied. “Nope. I was just showing you how it’s done.”

Ava snorted. “How what’s done? Annoying everyone to death?”

They had a strange relationship. More than boss/ employee, as he’d first supposed. Exactly what they were to each other, however, he hadn’t yet worked out. But he wasn’t going to ponder it now. There were more important things to do. Like run everyone into the ground, himself included.

“Faster,” he commanded.

They groaned, but obeyed.

Time ticked by.

More time ticked by.

Noelle never again bypassed him, but that was not the blessing it should have been. She remained just ahead of him, and he never lost sight of her. She moved like a panther. Sleek, fluid, effortless. And she never slowed. But then, he never did.

She always pushed herself harder than anyone else—except for him. He pushed her even harder, hoping to break her. So far, no luck.

Damn it. She had to be gone by the time he returned next month. His arms, his hands … yep, they really began to burn and itch. The ink had already faded a bit.

When he got home, he’d take a few days of personal leave and redo his tattoos. Somehow those Celtic symbols were the only thing that actually helped him. How they kept his ability under control for as long as they did, he didn’t know. Just like he didn’t know why he was like he was. No one else in his family had ever exhibited this kind of curse.

Plus, the ink was his gauge. The lighter it was, the more of a danger he was. When there was nothing left, even God couldn’t help him. Hector wouldn’t just kill everyone around him; he’d inadvertently destroy entire buildings.