Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set Read online

  CHAPTER 13

  “I don’t know how it could—Oh, shit. Oh. Yeah.”

  She’d slid down on the bed to take him in her mouth, and Kent closed his eyes, head tipping back at that instant ecstasy. Her mouth was magic, her tongue stroking while she sucked the head of his cock before taking him in deeper. She cupped his balls, fingers stroking that perfect spot, exactly how he liked it best. As if she knew him already.

  Stephanie hummed a bit in the back of her throat, the vibration adding a wave of pleasure on top of what was already pretty fucking fantastic. He thrust, then caught himself, not wanting to choke her, but damn, she only made another low noise and gripped him at the base as she took him all the way in. He couldn’t stop himself from putting his hands on her head, not trying to guide her or change her pace. He simply needed to touch her.

  At his touch, Stephanie paused. Then she took his hand and slid it deep into the fall of her thick dark hair, curling his fingers with hers to give him a good grip. She moaned when he tugged.

  “Damn,” Kent breathed. “You are so...”

  She sucked harder, then slid her mouth off his cock long enough to look up at him and say, “You taste so good.”

  No woman had ever said such a thing to him. He’d had women who suffered through sucking dick, a few who’d claimed to love it and some who’d refused it outright. Not one of them had ever made him feel as though his cock in her mouth was a delight, a treat. A gift.

  She looked up at him with a small smile that hit him right between the eyes with all the unerring and vicious accuracy of cupid’s pointiest arrow. This was...more, Kent thought. More than sex. This could be something real.

  He wanted to tell her, but when she went down on him again, the best he could manage was a few muttered words that sounded a bit like her name. She did that humming thing, and he lost the ability to even form words at all.

  All he could do was relax and let the pleasure wash over him. She eased him higher and higher, then teased a bit until he gasped aloud. Kent would never have believed a woman laughing around his cock could feel so good. It made him laugh, too, not with humor exactly. More like joy.

  That was how he felt when he was with her. Filled up with joy. And that was the last coherent thought he had before orgasm flooded him, making him mindless and thrusting and writhing under her skilled mouth and hands.

  It went on forever, until spent, he fell back against the pillows and wondered if he was going to catch his breath. When Stephanie crawled up to snuggle against him, her face pillowed in the curve of his shoulder and her hand flat on his chest, Kent turned to kiss her forehead.

  There should be words, he thought. He should say something. Yet in the quiet, filled only with the sound of their breathing, he discovered that at least in that moment, speech was unnecessary. All they had to do was hold on to each other. That was more than enough.

  * * *

  Kent fell asleep before she did, which wasn’t a surprise to Stephanie, who’d found that most men did. Especially after a blow job. Contented and replete, she was happy to press her face to his bare skin and feel the slowing beat of his heart under her hand.

  She did need to put herself under, though. Time was wasting, and she had all day tomorrow to think about what they’d done and what it meant, or what it didn’t. Right now she had a job to do, and that meant using a few of her favorite tricks to get herself into the dream world.

  She counted back from a hundred, slowly, breathing in and out. She had to do it three times before finally, on the final count of five, she found herself in the forest. She was alone, as she’d expected, though an easy push-pull of her surroundings sent out seeking tendrils to find Kent. It was the sex, she thought as she stepped through the trees, searching for him. It had connected them in a way nothing else ever did.

  “Hi,” Kent said from behind her. “Stephanie. Hello.”

  She turned with a smile. “Hey. You’re here.”

  “I am. So are you.” He’d represented in jeans and a denim shirt, rolled up in that way she loved. He tilted his head to give her a curious look. “I feel like...”

  “You’re dreaming,” she told him.

  “I’m dreaming,” Kent agreed. He reached for her, pulling her close. He kissed her, sweetly. No urgency.

  She could get lost in this, but not right now. “We have to find the guy who’s been stealing.”

  “I know. I just wanted to kiss you again. You taste like berries.”

  She licked her lips. It was true. He’d done that, she thought. She liked it.

  “Do you remember us talking about what to do in here? How you can shape things if you try?” She gestured and the forest faded, putting them in a gray fog that would make it easier for him to imprint the Ephemeros with his own desire.

  “Yes.” Kent nodded, his hands still resting lightly on her hips. “Like this.”

  Slowly and imperfectly, walls formed around them. Some were made of bars, others concrete. The floor that appeared was of smooth black slate. Lighting overhead came from recessed receptacles glowing bright white.

  “It’s a vault,” he told her with a grin. “With lots of money in it. Where else do you think we’re going to find a thief?”

  She laughed and went to her tiptoes to kiss him. “Good thinking.”

  “Now what?” He looked around them as the small details filled in.

  He was getting better at this as she watched, and Stephanie added her shaping skills to his, anticipating what he meant to do. Stacks of cash. Boxes spilling with gold coin and jewels. It was the stereotype of every bank vault she’d ever seen in any movie. The question was, would it work?

  “We call him,” she said. “Concentrate. Think of what he looked like. Push it out there into the dream world. Tempt him in.”

  Others showed up first. Money was powerful motivation for many people, even those who wouldn’t have stolen anything, ever. She saw more than one cat burglar in black masks, striped shirts. Some she didn’t see at all, only their shadows as they slipped into the cells of the vault and carried away whatever they felt was important enough to steal.

  “I didn’t realize it would be so...boring,” Kent said. “Or that it would take so long.”

  Time passed differently, so it could’ve been hours or only minutes since they’d fallen asleep. Still, Stephanie had to agree. “Yeah. Well...it’s a job, you know? Like any kind of job.”

  Kent looked past her at a couple of women who were casually rifling through a box of tiaras and slipping them into their oversize handbags. “Do you ever get to just dream?”

  “Sure. Of course. It’s not like there are so many dream crimes being committed all the time, at least not ones serious enough to call attention to themselves.” She stretched, thinking that while this had been a good idea, it wasn’t going to work.

  That was when she saw him, Mr. Slick, complete with black leather trench coat and everything else. He wasn’t taking money from the vault, but he was whispering lasciviously in the ear of one of the handbag ladies. It was so blatant she could hardly believe it. She took a step forward, but Kent’s hand on her arm stopped her.

  “I shielded us,” he said.

  Surprised, she paused to look at the shadows surrounding them. “You did? Wow. How did you...?”

  “I thought it.” Kent sounded as surprised as she had been, and he shot her a grin. “I figured we wouldn’t want him seeing us, right? At least not until we got close enough to grab him.”

  “You’re so smart,” she told him with a kiss that lingered, though she knew better than to mingle work with pleasure. “Let’s get this dill hole.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Kent was dreaming, and he knew it. More than that, he could control what happened in the dream, not only to himself but to his surroundings. It was like working out, though, when you’d never lifted before, never run a mile. He was tired.

  Still, how fucking cool was this?

  Distracted, he listened
while Stephanie laid out what had to happen in order for them to catch the thief—they could bind him and try to get the information out of him for only so long before it would become dangerous.

  “Not only to him, because keeping someone held here when they’re trying to get out can lead to real-world problems, but to us, too. I’m used to dealing with people in here, but you’re not,” she explained while they both watched the guy move through the crowd of women who apparently liked to dream about shoplifting. “You’ve got some measure of innate talent—”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Focus, Kent,” Stephanie said seriously, then paused to take him by the shoulders and turn him to face her. “You know what, I think maybe you should bow out.”

  He looked at her. “What? No! That asshole stole from my mother. I owe her this.”

  “You’re so new to it.” Stephanie shook her head. “I don’t want you to end up getting hurt. And this is my job, not yours.”

  “And you haven’t exactly done a great job at it, have you?” He couldn’t believe the words had shot out of his mouth, but once out, they couldn’t be taken back.

  Stephanie moved away from him a step or two. She didn’t seem mad. More wary than anything. “That’s fair, and true, but what you don’t understand is how easy it is to get caught up in here, and how hard it can be to get out. You feel a little drunk now, don’t you?”

  It was more like stoned, which he’d only ever experienced a couple times a few years ago when a back injury had kept him laid up on the couch dosing with pain meds. “I’m fine. C’mon, he’s going to get away.”

  The tattered shadows he’d pulled around them tugged at his fingers, a physical pull. It hurt a little, keeping up that shield. He hadn’t expected it to hurt. As the shield fell away, the thief turned, focusing on them both.

  “Oh, you. I should’ve known.” The thief took a second look, stepping closer, zeroing in on Kent. “Hey. I know you! You’re that guy from...”

  The thief cut off his own words, but in the next second, the overpowering stench of evil assaulted Kent so fiercely he staggered back. Okay, not evil, but the closest thing to it that he could think of. The reek of coconut. It flooded him, his eyes, nose, ears, mouth, tongue, coating it, the taste of it thick in his mouth no matter how he spat to get it out. He went to his knees.

  He was aware, as though from far away, of the sound of Stephanie’s shouts, but he couldn’t do anything but try to close himself off to the torture of coconut. It made him want to die. In the back of his mind, Kent knew there was no way real coconut, no matter how vile, could do this to him. It was the dream world. He was being manipulated. Knowing it didn’t help. If anything, it made him feel worse, because as he watched Stephanie run toward the thief, he knew he’d failed her.

  * * *

  She’d had enough. More than, as a matter of fact. This punk was going to be very, very sorry he’d messed with her man.

  That she’d started thinking of Kent as her man was a thought for a different time, because right now Stephanie was hell-bent on grabbing hold of Mr. Slick and shaking the shit out of him. Her fingers skidded on the leather, catching his sleeve. She yanked him forward, making herself taller as she did. Stronger. Faster. Tougher.

  “If you don’t stop this right now,” she hissed, growing fangs, spitting venom, “I’m going to fuck you up so hard you will never get out of here. You’ll spend the rest of your life drooling into your pillow while other people wipe your ass for you, because you will never wake up!”

  Mr. Slick had been looking beyond her at Kent, who was still on his hands and knees. Now he looked startled. Almost as though he was going to...cry?

  “Okay, okay! God, I just wanted to see if I could get away with it, and I used the money for shit I needed!”

  Mr. Slick’s features were fading and blending again. This time, though, Stephanie kept her grip tight. She dug deep. She held on, even when Mr. Slick started sending out arcing electric shocks, sizzling and burning.

  “Who are you?” Stephanie shouted louder than she’d ever yelled before.

  The Ephemeros didn’t shake—she had nowhere near that sort of power. It did rumble, though, with a hum and buzz like a hundred thousand angry wasps, stingers poised to attack. It surprised her as much as it did Mr. Slick, at least until Kent got to his feet and strode toward them without so much as a single stumble. His eyes looked red rimmed, his brow creased with pain, but he pushed forward with both his hands in a single shoving gesture that knocked Mr. Slick backward into one of the vaults, where the barred door swung closed and clicked.

  Locked.

  “You can’t do this!” Mr. Slick’s panicked voice echoed throughout the vault, which Kent was shaping to look less like a bank and more like a prison. The sound of metal on metal rang out through the vault—Mr. Slick had made his hands into iron bars.

  Stephanie had gone against talented and powerful shapers before. This kid was strong, talented but untrained. And he was a kid, she realized as a wave of high school–era anxiety washed over her. He was projecting, and hard. She stepped up to the bars, looking in.

  “We can do this,” she said. “You knew there’d be consequences, didn’t you?”

  Mr. Slick shrank before her eyes, features blurring. He was having trouble holding on to his representation. “I didn’t think I’d get caught.”

  “Well, you did,” Kent said.

  The entire vault faded around them. So did Mr. Slick. The rush of anxiety that had reminded her of all those times in high school that she’d forgotten her gym clothes or had been ignored by the cute boy she’d had a crush on faded abruptly.

  “Shit, he got away,” Kent said.

  Stephanie shook her head, sagging in the aftermath. Putting the pieces together. She looked at him. “Yeah. But I know who it is.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Of course the kid tried to run as soon as she saw Stephanie entering the coffee shop. They were ready for that, though. Kent was waiting outside the door, and he snagged the girl by her hoodie and kept her still. She squirmed but didn’t scream.

  “I didn’t do anything. You can’t prove anything,” she said.

  Stephanie glanced behind her into the shop to see if anyone was watching, but as she’d guessed, nobody ever seemed to notice this kid at all. “How do you do it?”

  The girl stopped wriggling and gave Stephanie a narrow look. “Do what?”

  Stephanie gestured for Kent to take the girl down the street toward the riverfront. They found a park bench, and Kent sat the girl on it. Stephanie stood in front of her, hands on her hips.

  “Make yourself hard to see,” she said.

  “Nobody wants to pay attention to some raggedy kid,” the girl said. She clutched her laptop bag against her chest.

  Kent shrugged. “That must suck.”

  The girl gave him a startled look. “What?”

  “It must suck,” he repeated conversationally.

  Stephanie sat next to her. The girl shrank away. “What did you do with the money? Did you spend it all?”

  “Not all. I just used some to eat. Pay for a hotel room. I needed it,” the girl said with a lift of her chin, defensive. “Believe me, I could’ve done a lot worse, you know. I could’ve taken lots more.”

  “It was still stealing, even if you only took a little bit,” Stephanie told her. “You’re going to have to stop.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll make sure the police find you,” Stephanie said quietly. “Or worse.”

  “What’s worse than the police?” The girl sneered.

  Stephanie’s smile tightened. “People who can do the sorts of things you can do, only better.”

  “I’m not scared.” But her voice trembled a little.

  “Look, kid. What’s your name?” />
  “Destiny.”

  Stephanie nodded. “Destiny. What if I told you I could send you to a place where people would notice you. And teach you, too. How to use the talents you have. Here and in the dream world, too.”

  “What, like some sort of high school for mutants? No thanks!” The girl got up, but Kent was there to stop her. She sat again, her fierce gaze going back and forth between them before she looked defeated. “Fine. I’m listening.”

  “The money you took will go back to the account holders,” Stephanie said. “And I’m going to send you to talk to a friend of mine. His name is Vadim, and he lives in Florida. He’ll be able to help you with a lot of things. And in a few years, when you’re ready, he’ll probably give you a job.”

  “Why are you being so nice? Why not just call the cops? Or whoever else you said you’d call.”

  Kent sighed. “Because, and you know it, we can’t prove it was you. There’s no real-world tie. Nothing to trace.”

  The girl laughed. “I know, right? Fucking awesome.”

  “And because I think you have potential to be something more than a petty thief,” Stephanie said.

  The girl’s laughter faded, and she looked at Stephanie warily. “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know you have good taste in music,” Stephanie said lightly and touched the laptop bag.

  The girl’s face fell. “That was my mom’s. She left it behind when she ran off. It’s all I have of hers. I don’t even like Bangtastic Frogmen. I think they suck. Their songs make no sense and they sound like pissed-off cats in a bathtub.”

  “See? Excellent taste in music,” Stephanie said. She leaned forward a little. “Let us help you, Destiny.”

  At last, the girl nodded. She still looked wary and defensive, but at least she was listening when Stephanie told her all about the Crew and what sorts of jobs they took. About Vadim, how he could help her and how Destiny could get herself to him.

  “Think she’ll actually go?” Kent asked as they watched the girl walk away from them without looking back. “She might take that train ticket and vanish.”