Beyond Control

chapter Two



"You heard me." Lex took one last gulp of her water, capped the bottle, and tugged on the oiled leather of her waistband until her pants were riding low, almost off her hips. "Right across here."

Ace wheeled his stool closer and studied her bare abdomen for a moment before flicking his dark gaze up to meet hers. "Lex, honey. You're the light of my life, so I ask this with love. Are you f*cking high?"

O'Kane for life. Dallas's words, and they hadn't stopped reverberating in her head for three goddamn days. "Just showing my dedication to the cause."

"Uh-huh." Ace folded his tattooed arms across his chest. "And what cause is that, sister? Giving our fearless leader some sort of cardiac event?"

"Why would it do that? It's not a mark." Though it'd serve him right if she went ahead and had Ace wrap the ink around her throat for all to see. "Call it a tribute."

"A tribute." Ace huffed and smoothed his thumb over her belly button. "You're asking me to ink Dallas O'Kane's name into your flesh without his knowledge. May not be a mark, but it's still some kind of ballsy."

She'd rather chew off her tongue than discuss her reasons--her highly f*cking personal reasons--with anyone, even Ace. "You don't want to? Okay." She sat up on the table. "I can think of three guys right off the top of my head who'd probably do it for free, anyway."

He stared at her, his handsome face slightly less appealing with his mouth hanging open. "You're f*cking serious, aren't you?"

She opened her mouth to say yes, but what came out instead skirted uncomfortably close to confession. "He's been threatening me with it long enough. I can't go a damn day around here without him reminding me that he owns me, so I think it's time I reminded him."

Ace's brow furrowed in a frown. "Threatening you?"

Not quite the right word. "Warning me, maybe. Just give me the ink, Ace."

As careless and vapid as he could be at times, there was nothing shallow in his eyes now, just affection and concern and a steely sort of resolve. "I don't lay marks on women who don't want them, Alexa, not even for Dallas. Tell me this is all your own idea. Swear to me."

He couldn't help the concern, as misplaced as it was. She sighed and laid her hand on his cheek. "You're sweet, but you know I wouldn't let him strong-arm me into this. I'd strangle him with his own belt first."

"Maybe you would, at that, doll." He caught her hand and laid a smacking kiss on her knuckles. "But you owe me for threatening to let someone else defile one of my canvases with inferior work."

"Great, now I'm an inanimate object." Lex pushed her pants low again and lay back, pillowing her head on her arm. "You know I'd never actually let anyone else near me with a needle."

"I should hope not." Ace studied her for another moment before spinning his stool to rummage around on the table behind him. "Fine, girl. Did you have any ideas about the particulars, or are you going to let me do my thing?"

"I want his name. The rest is up to you."

"Which name?"

Lex stilled. Oh, it was tempting to take things all the way, to write his given name on her skin. But there was a difference, subtle but certain, between belonging to Dallas and belonging to Declan. One was simple, a role she should have already taken on officially. The other...

The other was forever.

"Dallas," she whispered.

"Dallas, it is." Ace rolled back to her side with a fistful of pens and markers. "So. Dare I ask what the lug did to piss you off this time? Seems like he's been too busy to get in trouble."

"He always finds the time." She tugged at a short, dark lock of hair that curled over Ace's ear. "What about you? You've been hiding out lately."

"Busy, love. That's all." He uncapped a pen and frowned. "Nope, the angle's wrong. Hop into the chair so I can make myself comfy between your thighs."

Ace's flirting was far more forced than his usual casual overtures. Lex arched an eyebrow at him as she slid off the table and shimmied out of her pants. "You're trying to change the subject."

"There's a subject more interesting than your thighs?"

"Hard to believe, but yes."

Ace swung around to tilt the chair back, then situated himself on the rolling stool between her knees. "You missed a show in here yesterday, sister. I laid the last of Noelle and Jasper's marks."

Lex curled her fingers around the leather armrests. "How did you pry them apart long enough to finish the tattoos?"

"It was damn near an act of God, I'll tell you that." His pen tickled her skin with the first slow stroke. "Not that I mind the show. But why am I telling you? You know how hot they are together."

"If you like the idea, you should try it again for real." Lex licked her lower lip. "Noelle's getting so bold. She doesn't even whisper anymore when she asks Jas to hold me down and f*ck me."

"F*ck me, Lex." Ace glared at her from under the rakish fall of his hair. "You trying to get my hands shaking? I'm making art, here."

"You deserve a little teasing now and then."

"I suppose I do." He edged the lace of her panties down and continued his sketching. "Oh well, we'll all get a show in a couple nights. How's the party planning coming along?"

"Fine." Everything exactly the way Jasper and Noelle wanted it, a fitting celebration to the beginning of their life together. "You bringing a date?"

"And deny everyone their chance at me? That would be selfish."

"Uh-huh. You're not nearly as convincing as you think you are, you know. At least, not to me."

Ace tried to scowl at her, but the expression didn't fit his face. By the time he capped the marker and reached for one with a finer tip, the corners of his mouth were curving up again. "Didn't there used to be a saying about glass houses? I always wondered about that, to be honest. Was life really so easy before the storms that people lived in glass houses?"

"It's a metaphor, honey. About hypocrisy." She winked at him. "Not that I would know anything about that."

"Mmm." He bent over her abdomen, his brow furrowed with concentration as the narrow tip of the pen glided over her skin. "Don't throw stones, Lex. I'm busy building your glass house."

That was one thing she'd always liked about Ace--he didn't judge, but you sure the hell couldn't put one over on him. "You really think it's a mistake?"

He shrugged. "Depends on what you're trying to accomplish, doesn't it?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe...I want to show Dallas that he should be careful what he wishes for."

Ace pursed his lips and said nothing.

Fine. "Maybe I want to show myself, too. Fair enough?"

"I think it'll be educational all around." He flashed her a wicked grin. "And, sister? Between your body and my art? It's going to be f*cking fantastic."

Educational, he'd called it, and she suspected he was right. Dallas would lose his shit, of course--good or bad, that much was a certainty, not a possibility. Either way, things would change.

They had to change.

Lex leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "Here's hoping."



"Oh, Lex."

At least Noelle was laughing. Lex cocked her hip and studied her healing skin in the full-length mirror. "Don't sound so scandalized. It's just a tattoo."

Noelle rested her chin on Lex's shoulder, her gaze fixed on the mirror. Dallas's name stretched between Lex's hipbones in elegant, intricate calligraphy, the swirls and flourishes melting into thorny vines. Tiny rosebuds nestled amongst the sharp points, some caught on the edge of bloom but most still tightly furled.

"It's beautiful," Noelle said, her voice thick with amusement. "And clearly Ace's work. The thorns are so real, you'd think you could prick yourself on one."

"So it meets with your approval?"

"I didn't say that."

Lex turned and eyed the fresh ink winding across Noelle's throat and collarbones. "It's not something settled," she murmured. "Not like yours. But it's a push, one he can take however he wants."

"Mmm." Noelle's fingers drifted up to brush her new tattoo, almost as if she couldn't help the gesture. "Did you guys have another fight? I heard you went out the night of the blackout."

"I had something to unload." Lex eased by her and dropped to the bed. The little orange kitten curled on a pillow mewled his protest at being jarred, and she soothed him by stroking one fingertip in a tiny zigzag between his ears.

"To sell, you mean." Noelle tilted her head. "Something from your closet?"

"No, something new." She told Noelle about the deal, and about the solar converter she'd nicked from a loudmouthed drug dealer from Sector Three. "I figure Walt needs it more than that a*shole. But I had to sneak around because I don't want Dallas to know, especially that I was in Three alone."

Concern filled Noelle's eyes as she settled cross-legged on the end of the bed. "I don't like it, either. Jasper said everything's breaking down over there now that there isn't a sector leader."

"Not you, too." She nudged Noelle with her foot. "I was in and out before the lights went off. No big thing."

Noelle returned the nudge. "I'm a worrier. I know you need to do it, but promise you'll be careful, okay? I'm not ready to see you hurt again."

Hurt. Shot. Bleeding out from a sniper's bullet. Lex didn't like to think about it, and luckily she didn't really have to. All she remembered was a fleeting moment of pain followed by darkness, and then waking up to solicitous concern from damn near everybody.

Noelle and Dallas had both had a hard time dealing with it. Noelle had grown clingy in her worry, something Lex only managed to indulge out of affection--and with Jasper's help in distracting his lover from the worst of her fretting.

And Dallas... Lex brushed aside the memories of him holding her, stroking her hair, breaking the silence only to assure her that she'd be all right.

Noelle nudged her again. "Lex? Did you guys have another fight? Is he being awful?"

Lex shook herself and laughed wryly. "He's being Dallas. He's being..." She let the words trail off. He thought she didn't know what he was doing. That he'd been spending time and resources looking for a way to get to Gareth Woods, the councilman who'd sent a sniper into their sector.

Part of her wanted to encourage the hunt--the man had, after all, hurt Noelle--but she knew Dallas too well. He didn't want to stop Woods because the man had proven himself a danger to the gang.

He just wanted the f*cker dead.

Lex rubbed at the goose bumps that rose on her arms. "Are you ready for tomorrow night? Ace is going to cry if you and Jasper don't get it on and let him watch."

Noelle still blushed as pink as any innocent city girl, but the low laugh belonged to the woman Lex had watched bloom in the freedom of the sectors. "Ace doesn't want to watch, he wants to help. That's where he likes to be, isn't it? Right in the middle."

"Mmm, he's very jealous of me and my standing invitation into Jas's bed."

"Only because he loves having Jas boss him around."

Lex would be willing to bet Ace found corrupting Noelle an equal or greater thrill. "You like him?"

"Sure." Noelle shrugged and toyed with the hem of her jeans, folding and unfolding the denim. "I like Ace. I like messing around with him. I like that it can be about joy and pleasure." Noelle smiled self-consciously. "But he's not Jasper."

Not just someone special--the one. Lex funneled her tiny spark of jealousy into a groan. "It's a good thing you went and got marked, baby girl, because you're hopeless."

"Uh-huh." Noelle traced one of the small rosebuds on Lex's hipbone. "Talk to me after you've rubbed Dallas's nose in this." Her smile widened. "At least that'll put his face right where you want it."

"Dirty, but effective. He likes eating p-ssy almost as much as you do."

Oddly, the tease sobered Noelle. She caught Lex's hand, her blue eyes deadly serious. "No, I like you. You know that, right? I don't care if Dallas is the boss or the king or a god. You always have a place with me and Jas, and Dallas can go--" Her lips pressed together and her brow furrowed, as if the effort to find words to encompass her anger actually hurt.

Lex had to swallow around the tight lump in her throat. "Oh, honey, I know. And you and Jas are great--I love you both--but you have your thing. I'm glad you let me in for a little while now and then, but you're not less when I'm not there. And that's okay. It's good."

"All right." Noelle released her and flopped back on the bed. "You need to teach me some new words. Not dirty ones--angry ones. I could use a few for my shifts at the Broken Circle."

Lex curled up beside her. "Believe it or not, foul language that's not about sex? Not my best area."

"So who can teach us? Amira? Nessa?" Noelle laughed. "I bet Rachel knows how to outswear all the men. Just like she can outdrink them."

"She's kind of busy these days. That new guy--Bren's friend from the city."

"Cruz?" Noelle propped her head up on her hand. "You know, I'm not surprised. Not even a little."

"She wanted a prince," Lex agreed softly. And who better than a man who'd given up his life in Eden to bring a sniper to justice, to avenge attempted murder? "All the more reason to be a bit gentle with Ace right now, yes?"

Sympathy narrowed Noelle's eyes. "I thought he was into Rachel, but I can never tell with him. Sometimes I think he's just half in love with everyone."

Lex knew better. She and Ace were more alike than either of them let on, and maybe that was ninety percent of the problem--that they never let on.

She sat up with a sigh and rubbed her hands on her jeans. "I've got to get going if I'm going to find someone to cover my shift tonight. If I go on stage and flash this goddamn tattoo, there'll be fireworks. The wrong kind."

Noelle leaned up and kissed Lex's cheek. "We'll have a girl's day soon, okay? Next week, after Jasper comes down from the high of seeing his ink on me."

"You know it." If things went south with Dallas, Lex would need them more than ever.





Cruz



It wasn't the first time he'd had to fight for his place, but it had to be the most honest.

Cruz easily avoided a telegraphed punch and used his opponent's momentum to swing him toward the edge of the cage, face first. Dominic slammed into the steel bars with a grunt of pain before staggering back.

Out of respect to the O'Kane logo wrapped around the other mans' wrists, Cruz didn't press the advantage. There was a delicate balance to this sort of battle, a line to walk between scorn-worthy weakness and too-dangerous strength. If he wanted to find a place among the O'Kanes, he had to prove he could hold his own, but he couldn't humiliate them.

Not even this one, who whirled around with eyes brimming with cruelty and rage. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, streaking blood across his cheek. "Cheap shot, city boy."

The jab didn't sting like it had at the start, if only because Cruz had heard it so many times. Sometimes fond, sometimes suspicious, and sometimes--like now--practically an expletive, but always the same. City boy.

Cruz didn't let his irritation show. Bland would piss the man off worse, but it might bring the fight to a close. "I thought there were no rules in the sectors."

"Not a rule. Just shows what a p-ssy you are."

"No rules means no such thing as a cheap shot."

Dom grinned blood. "So you're stupid and ugly."

It was so sad an attempt, Cruz almost felt bad for him. Stock insults, spit out in fear and desperation, but it was the hot anticipation in Dom's eyes that wiped away any pity. He wasn't like the other O'Kanes, fighting for fun or glory or competition or even just for the hell of it. Dom wanted to hurt someone. Physically, mentally, it didn't matter.

And with that realization, Cruz had had enough of playing and verbal banter. He struck, lashing out so quickly his opponent didn't have a hope of blocking. A fist to the solar plexus, a blow to the face, and a swift kick to the side of Dom's knee, and the bastard crumpled into a heap.

The warehouse went silent, except for Dom's pained groan.

Cruz had moved too fast. Usually there were cheers when one of the fighters went down, but the onlookers hadn't caught up with what had happened yet. The people in the sectors were used to street brawlers and cage fighters, hard, hungry men who'd grown up malnourished and scraping to get by. Not men who had been taken from their cradles, handed over to soldiers and given perfectly calibrated nutrition, carefully planned training...

Eden had spent twenty years turning him into a lethal weapon and another ten honing his edges. Now he was fighting in cages. It didn't seem fair. To anyone.

The silence broke on a female cheer, swiftly joined by two more. The O'Kane women, making their appreciation known from the couches where they held court. As if they'd popped a bubble, sound rose all around him, shouts and cries and dozens of people fighting over bets placed and lost.

The cage door rattled, and Cruz turned in time to see Rachel pull it open. She carried two bottles between the fingers of one hand with an ease that spoke of practice, and a pleased smile curved her lips. "I came to rescue you."

Beyond her stood a tight knot of women, each one eyeing him with greedy assessment. Nothing personal there, merely the desire for a hard body and expensive presents. He knew the type because they'd made up the bulk of his bed partners over the years. Faced with the choice between using a woman and letting one use him, he'd always opted for the latter. In the end, they cost as much as the hookers, but at least they had a choice.

It was all still empty. Shallow sensation, and nothing compared to the way Rachel could warm his body with just her smile. She knew him, talked to him. Liked him. Accepting one of the beers, he smiled back. "Can we get out of here? I need to cool off."

She glanced down at the motionless man on the mat with an exaggerated wince. "Sure. I don't think Dom'll mind."

Dom would be lucky to get that knee under him in the next hour, and Cruz couldn't stir an ounce of guilt as he stepped from the cage and swept up a towel. "Maybe outside?"

She folded her fingers around his. "I know a place."

Rachel pulled him through the crowd and down a back hall, which was thumping with music and lit with red light. The darker corners writhed with moans and flashes of bare skin, people who preferred a little privacy over the open main floor. To Cruz, even the shadows seemed criminally indiscreet, but he was starting to suspect most of Sector Four considered sex less fun behind closed doors.

"This way," she murmured, staring straight ahead until they reached the end of the hall--and a door that led out onto a set of pitted exterior stairs.

Cruz followed her up three flights and found himself on the roof of one of the tallest buildings in the sector. In the darkness, he could see twinkling lights for what seemed like miles in either direction. "Not a lot of original buildings in this quadrant, are there?"

"No." Rachel leaned against the low wall edging the roof. "When I used to look out toward the sectors when I was a kid, all I could think was how dark they were. Now it all seems so bright."

"They're a lot brighter than they used to be." He tossed the towel over his shoulder and leaned next to her, close enough to brush her arm with his own. "I used to see them from the air. They flew us in one weekend a month for classes inside the city, but only at night."

She looked up at him, her eyes brilliant in the moonlight. "Do you miss it?"

It wasn't the first time someone had asked him the question, but it was the first time he really thought about the answer. A lock of blonde hair slipped across her forehead, and he echoed a gesture he'd seen once, reaching up to tuck it behind her ear. The cook at the training base had always done that when his wife's hair escaped its braid, but Cruz had never understood why brushing it back made the man smile.

He got it now. An excuse to touch, affection, and the warmth that came from being trusted with something precious.

He gave her the same in return--the truth. "I don't know. Some of it. I miss flying. No chance anyone in the sectors will get the resources together to get a helicopter or plane off the ground in our lifetime."

"You never know." Her breath blew over his skin as she turned her face into his hand.

He knew. He knew it the way he did most things--because it fell within the parameters of knowledge necessary to complete certain mission objectives. He could recite the dangers each sector represented and list the tools and materials each required to obtain or build various weapons, but he didn't know how to contain the feeling of this woman's face cradled against his hand.

Unacceptable. He wasn't the only one whose pulse raced when she smiled. Bren had warned him of as much the first time he'd caught Cruz's gaze following Rachel across a room. The gang's tattoo artist had been circling, sizing up Rachel like a fortification he wasn't sure he could storm, but Cruz had crashed into the middle of the game before Ace made his move.

And now this. It felt like racing toward a target, knowing that stumbling could give your enemy the lead. Ace was the one with the experience wooing women. He wouldn't be thinking about mission objectives and weapons if he had Rachel alone on a rooftop, nuzzling his hand.

Cruz moved his thumb to touch the corner of her mouth and trace the full bow of her lower lip. "I don't miss it right now."

"Good." She stretched up on her toes, but even that only brought her mouth in line with his throat, and her lips brushed his collarbone. Heat threatened to consume him. His blood boiled and his dick hardened.

A thousand things he could do to her rose up from that dark place inside him, all the things the men he'd worked for had condemned in rough, angry voices before slinking into the shadows to indulge themselves with men and women who couldn't say no.

He didn't want any of those things, not yet. Tonight, he wanted to be soft, slow. He wanted to kiss her knees weak and know what it felt like to have her tremble between him and the wall. Carefully, he cupped the back of her head. "Look at me."

She was already shaking, but she met his eyes boldly, without shying away, and it hit him almost as hard as her touch. People in Eden never really looked at each other. Not like this, open and without shame, daring the other person to see into them, through them.

Cruz didn't want anyone seeing through him, so he was the one who broke, sweeping down to catch her mouth with his own.

She made an encouraging noise in the back of her throat as her lips parted and her hands slipped around him to tease just under the waistband of his jeans. A heartbeat later, her tongue touched his.

The darkness rolled up again. He could have her. Turn her around, bend her over the low wall, and f*ck her fast and hard until her screams floated all the way to Sector Three. He could urge her to her knees, twist all that shiny blonde hair around his fist and find out if she still stared at him, open and brave, while he pushed his cock between her lips and jerked off in her mouth.

No. Kisses. He concentrated on kissing her, licking her, learning the taste of her lips and what made her moan. He'd do this right. Slow and hot and respectful, with no stumbling. Not when he could feel Ace dogging every step, waiting for him to fail.