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28
Gideon
Anthea’ssharp voice crackled out of the phone at my ear. “Are you sure you sent me all the files?”
I bit back a sigh, pausing in the hall. When was Ieverless than thorough? But Wylder’s aunt didn’t often work alongside her nephew and the rest of us, so I supposed it was understandable that she might not be fully aware of my meticulousness.
“That’s everything our contact sent to me.”
She made a frustrated sound. “He’s holding out on us. My brother wanted this situation settled before he got back. I’ll have to take a look at the set-up with my own eyes to make the right call. Where can I find that prick?”
I could pull that information out of my head without even consulting my tablet, since I’d been delving into the matter just an hour ago. “He’ll be at work now—store manager, a place with a lot of foot traffic, not good for public confrontations. But he’ll be off when it closes at eleven. You could catch him then.”
“Perfect,” she said with an edge of malicious satisfaction that I had to admit made even me a little nervous. Anthea was definitely not someone whose bad side I’d ever like to be on.
A lesson someone else had recently learned. I slid the phone into my pocket and strode the rest of the way to the groupie room, my stance tensing the closer I got even though it’d been my idea to check on the Claws heir.
The women who hung around the mansion came on to me just as much as they did with anyone else they knew had a solid position in the gang, but it was rare that they stirred anything other than uneasiness in me. They were too desperate, too clingy. My physical needs rarely became so intense that I had any need to indulge them with a sexual encounter anyway.
But the urge to confirm that Mercy was following Wylder’s orders had driven me here anyway. The girl already caused more disruption than I liked in our close-knit unit. It was my job to protect the Nobles and Wylder in particular, and my list of potential threats to our security now included her.
If there was a small, deeper impulse in me to see her just for the sake of setting my eyes on her again, I didn’t have to pay attention to that.
She wasn’t in the room with its rows of cots and its weed stink, though. The smell reminded me of the other reason I didn’t normally come around this part of the house. Even though the few girls currently lounging on their beds weren’t smoking at the moment, the traces in the air prickled into my lungs in an instant.
I drew back, frowning. Where had the girl gotten to now?
Missing information irritated me at the best of times. In this particular circumstance, it dug into me like a thorn. I marched through the house, checking every room I passed. Finally, as I approached the exercise room around back where the guys did some of their physical training, a feminine-sounding grunt reached my ears. Ah ha.
I shoved the door open, ready to tell her off for using the equipment thatdefinitelywasn’t for the groupies’ purposes, and stopped on the threshold at the sight in front of me.
It was Mercy, all right—in the middle of a round of tumbling that had her flipping and spinning across the rubbery mats so swiftly and nimbly she barely seemed to touch them. In that first instant, I could almost have believed she was flying. Her ponytail whipped around her, she jackknifed at the waist, and her feet hit the ground, planting with only the slightest wobble.
An instant later, she launched herself forward again, somersaulting in the air and bouncing off the floor on her hands, whirling across the room as if she were made of nothing but muscular power and grace. She rebounded off the far wall, grabbing the bars mounted there to heave herself even higher, and soared a good eight feet off the ground, so high she might have touched the ceiling if she’d tried.
Even from that height, she landed with a thump but not a stumble. I mentally revised the odds I’d given to her having told the truth about her encounter with Colt Bryant. She’d said she knew parkour. Watching her now, it wasn’t hard at all to believe she could have tumbled her way down three stories without breaking a bone, even with a still-healing wound. I’d seen only the slightest hint of her favoring that arm as she’d grasped the bars.
She swiveled, catching her breath, and froze when her gaze snagged on me. The mask of steady concentration that’d come over her face stuttered for a second before her expression tensed. I almost regretted seeing that focused calm leave her.
A twinge of self-consciousness traveled down my spine. If I’d tried to so much as jog across the room a few times, my lungs would have started to tighten. Even if I’d practiced my ass off, I’d never have been able to train hard enough to accomplish the moves this girl had just made appear so effortless. Anywhere near that much exertion, and my chest would seize up completely.
But even as that brief pang of mourning flitted through me, it came with a flicker of desire. I wanted to touch the strong, flexible limbs I’d just seen on exhilarating display, discover how they could move against mine—
I clenched my jaw, reining in the errant desire. I couldn’t get distracted.
“What are you doing in here?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.
She shrugged. “I got tired of hanging around the groupies and went exploring. No one was using this space. I didn’t figure it’d hurt if I did. Working out helps me focus.”
Her gaze dared me to complain. “You’re not a guest in this house anymore,” I had to remind her. “You’re lucky Wylder hasn’t kicked you out already.”
“Lucky,” she repeated with a snort, and sat down on the mat to stretch. I couldn’t help studying the curve of her back, the flex of her calves and thighs… the way her breasts rose beneath the sweat-damp fabric of her tank top when she lifted her arms over her head. My hands itched with the urge to trace over those slopes.
She was curves and softness, but her body was toned enough to give her the leanness and definition of an athlete. How could that combination be so fucking alluring?
The hunger gripping me only annoyed me further. She should have beenmorethan even this. Wylder had expected more. After Anthea’s suggestion this morning, he’d been so energized in anticipation of putting Mercy through the freezer trial. He hadn’t said it out loud, but it’d been obvious to me that he’d been sure she could conquer it like she had everything else we’d thrown at her. That he’d been looking forward to watching her crush the challenge.
I doubted he’d ever have admitted it, but he’dwantedher to conquer it. Maybe to have a clear point of evidence to say she’d passed every test she needed to, that we could lay off her and let her see what she could make of her place here.
