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“People do bad things for all sorts of reasons,” Josh said and shrugged with his typical nerve-grating cynicism before sitting down and propping his ankle, injured in one of the muggings, on a stool. “It happens.”
Mika sought out Hadley and Misha. The two members of her court sat next to each other on the couch holding hands, their still-bruised-up faces angled toward the floor. Hadley was blinking like mad, no doubt trying to keep from crying. They’d been the first to get mugged, and while they hadn’t been seriously injured, it hadn’t been a cakewalk. There was no way the attacks felt like people getting carried away to them.
Eager to change the subject before Hadley’s tears won out, Mika cleared her throat. “Okay, enough about that. Let’s focus on something we can control—kicking everyone’s ass at the Battle Ultimate.”
Mika spent the next hour and a half talking strategy while trying not to melt under the constant heat of Carlos’s hand on her thigh. His thumb stroked the bare skin peeking through the hole in her jeans, making it hard to concentrate on their plans for the Battle Ultimate next weekend. Luckily the baristas started flickering the lights before her panties caught fire. Time to end this farce for the night—but not before everyone filed by to tell Carlos how much they hoped he’d be by their side at the Battle Ultimate.
Watching him smile and issue noncommittal promises effectively doused the desire heating her up. Even worse, she was a part of this whole charade, lying to the people she loved even though it was the very thing she’d promised herself she’d never do. She couldn’t deny it was for the right reason, but doing the wrong thing for the right reason was still doing the wrong thing. It ate away at her, the resulting guilt and anger scratching against the wall she’d built to keep the memories away.
By the time the drawn-out good-byes were over and everyone had filed out of Grounded Coffee, her insides were a big ball of free-floating frustration looking for a Carlos-shaped target.
“Don’t get their hopes up that you’re actually going to participate at the Battle Ultimate.” She didn’t bother to keep the disgust out of her voice—he didn’t need to know that some of it was self-directed. “It may be stupid geekery to you now that you’re Mr. Super Stud, but it matters to them.”
“You knew what this cover would entail.” Carlos pivoted, not entering her personal space but crowding the fuck out of it. “Why are you on my ass about it now?”
“Knowing what needs to be done and liking it are two different things.” Her heartbeat turned erratic and fast as her body reacted to what her mind rejected. Her body was used to getting who and what it wanted. Well, this was one time it wasn’t going to happen. “The ease with which you pretend to be something you’re not disturbs me.”
He pushed past the invisible bubble society demanded, getting so close that the heat from his body pressed against her, seeping through the barrier of her clothing and right to her core. “Does this feel like I’m just pretending?”
“Depends on what kind of games you’re into.” That sounded a hell of a lot steadier than her shaky nerves felt from his full-frontal pheromone attack.
He leaned down, his lips brushing against her ear, and whispered, “Why do you even care?”
“I don’t.” She shifted her stance, giving her the fraction of an inch of space between her skin and his lips that she desperately needed before she lost herself to the hungry need he inspired.
He chuckled. “Now who’s pretending?”
Spooked and unsure of how long she could resist, or even if she wanted to, Mika ducked under Carlos’s arm and hustled out of the closest exit, Grounded Coffee’s back door. She strode halfway down the well-lit alley, oblivious to anything except the angry mix of emotions swirling inside her.
A hand clapped down on her shoulder and spun her around, the motion sending her flailing into the building’s brick wall.
“Hand it over and you won’t get hurt,” the man in the black ski mask snarled.
A scream tore from her throat and echoed in the deserted alley.
Chapter Four
“Fashion is about suspense and surprise and fantasy. It’s not about rules.”
—Wolfgang Joop
Carlos banged the back of his head hard against the coffee shop’s interior wall, hoping the dull pain would rattle his brain until he was thinking straight again. Mika was going to make him nuts. Hell, she was already making him nuts. It was the only explanation for how he fell so easily back into the old rhythms of Magic Battledome. The strategy. The excitement. The promise of victory. He hadn’t promised he’d be at Battle Ultimate, but he wanted to be. So much for burying that part of himself along with Ivy.
Meeting Mika and hearing her sweet moans when she’d come last night had brought everything back to the surface. He fisted his hands. If he didn’t watch it, he’d lose the edge he’d gained by giving up the nerdy nice guy he used to be, and he couldn’t afford that if he was going to solve this case and prove to the Maltese team that he was good for something besides hacking into impenetrable computer systems.
His gaze dropped to Grounded Coffee’s back door. He’d wanted to give Mika a couple of steps’ head start to give her some breathing space, but enough time had passed that he could shadow her home without tipping her off. He pushed off the wall and gave the hot barista with the low-cut shirt a wink, then opened the back door and stepped outside just as a woman’s scream cut through the night.
Mika.
Instinct took over and he took off without a second thought.
Fear ate away at Mika’s brain, making it impossible to do more than stare, transfixed by the matte black handgun pointed straight at her.
“Where is it?” The man’s voice was muffled by his black ski mask, but there was no mistaking his intent.
“My wallet’s in my purse,” she managed to whisper.
He ripped the small clutch from her grasp and let it drop, then he pushed her against the hard brick of the building and shoved his right forearm against her throat. The attacker pressed hard, not even bothering to fend off Mika’s ineffective blows to his hard chest. The twin demons of panic and lack of oxygen turned the edges of her vision gray.
