Crazy Cool (21 page)

When she finally lifted her head, he slid his mouth down over hers and proceeded to drown himself in the taste of her, sealing his lips over hers and drawing her tongue into his mouth—again, and again, and again, exerting just enough pressure to make having her as vital as his next breath.

He finished toeing out of his boots and kicking off his jeans. Then he broke the kiss and pulled his T-shirt up over the back of his head.

“Scoot back,” he said, helping her move further onto the desk and following her up, filled with a sudden sense of urgency. They ended up in the hot, dark place underneath the clothes, naked and wrapped around each other, her underwear off, and his hand going between her legs to tease her, please her—and please himself, while they kissed and sighed and kissed some more.

All women were soft, but kissing her, touching her, was unlike anything he’d ever experienced, ever felt, and he knew it was because he was in love in a way he’d never before imagined. He hadn’t known a girl would ever make him redefine himself. That a girl would push him beyond what he’d known, the way she did. She was a genius with a paintbrush and a camera, twenty-one years old with a gallery full of people at her feet—and she was making love to him in the closet.

He went as slowly as he could, which wasn’t very damn slow, because he just wanted to be inside her, as deeply inside her as he could get, for as long as he could get it. God, she was sweet, and a little small—and yeah, he needed the “magnum”-sized condoms, but that only made it all that much more incredible.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly, trying to be careful, murmuring the words against her cheek as he kissed her.

“Mmmmm” was the only sound she made as she adjusted her hips under his. He could feel her little go-go boots resting on the backs of his thighs and sliding up toward his ass as she tightened herself around him, trying, like him, to get even closer.

And then she did get closer, moved an infinitesimal degree and nearly brought the house down.

“Oh, geez, Kid,” she gasped. “Oh, God.”

Geezus
was right. A couple more moves like that and it was all going to be over—and he was ready, so primed for taking her to completion. He sealed his mouth back over hers, sucking on her tongue again and matching the rhythm of their bodies, letting himself sink into the act, letting himself be consumed by the heat and power surging through him, letting her love burn through him—until there was only her, coming with a soft cry, holding him, her body tightening beneath his and taking him with her.

The pleasure was intense, soul-shattering, almost more than he could bear. It stripped him down to his core, and in the aftermath, when it faded and left him naked and unprotected in her arms, something deep and terrible broke inside him. He felt it happen, like the San Andreas fault opening up in his chest, a giant, jagged cut straight down through the middle of him.

He sucked in a breath against her lips, tried to stop it—but it was too late . . . too late.

Nikki felt him suddenly go still in her arms, so still she worried that she’d somehow hurt him. Then she tasted it, the warm, wet saltiness of his tears.

Oh, God.
They were streaming down his face onto hers, running over her lips and breaking her heart. Not a move, not a sound escaped him.

Only the tears.

She held him, not moving herself, feeling some awful premonition in the rigidity of his body, as if he might crumble if she so much as dared to breathe.

She didn’t know what to do for him, how to help him.

When he kissed her, lightly rubbing his lips over hers, she thought for a second she was wrong. That he was okay, just suddenly sad, but it would pass. She kissed him back, and he moved his mouth to her cheek, and in the split second before he spoke, she knew her hope had been misplaced.

“They cut him up . . . into pieces.” His voice was so soft, so raspy, his arms holding her so tightly.

She knew who he meant, and the horror of what he was saying flooded through her, leaving her speechless.

“They dropped him off in a body bag, and the bag . . . it didn’t look right. It looked too small to be J.T. So I thought—I thought there had been a mistake. But when I looked, it was him.”

Oh, God. Oh, God.
They’d cut his brother to pieces.

“I didn’t tell Dylan . . . or Miguel—but I have to tell Superman. He needs to know what they did.”

Superman, yes, whoever he was. They needed to tell Superman, someone who could help him. She tightened her arms around him, loving him and knowing it wasn’t enough. Nothing could be enough.

He kissed her cheek again, just the softest brush of his lips over her skin.

“I’m sorry,” he said roughly. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

It wasn’t her he was talking to, and Nikki knew it. She knew the words were for his brother.

“So sorry,” he repeated, and then a racking shudder went through him, and another. A sob broke free from deep in his chest, an agonized sound Nikki felt all the way down in her gut—and all she could do was hold him.

C
HAPTER

19

T
RAVIS WAITED
, breath held, as the girl crossed the gallery, heading straight for him. She wasn’t as tall as she’d looked standing in the doorway, but she was still all legs, slim hips, and nothing short of amazing breasts. Even more fascinating was the way she moved, like a catwalk model, all languid grace and rolling hips—but with an unerring sense of purpose.

And the closer she got, the more he realized it was her purpose he found unnerving, much more so than her looks. She had a black leather purse bandoliered across her torso. It looked heavy, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it clanked when she walked. What in the hell that meant was a mystery.

“Hey,” she said, coming to a stop in front of him, her chain mail letting off a little susurrus of sound. “You must be Travis, Nikki McKinney’s friend.”

“Hi.” He stuck out his hand, hoping she would take it. Up close, she wasn’t as old as she’d looked, either. Not even close, which was kind of a downer. She didn’t look old enough for any of those fleeting ideas he’d had watching her cross the gallery. Sixteen at the most, seventeen and he’d eat his socks. She was a baby—one very tough-looking biker-babe baby.

“I’m Skeeter,” she said, taking his hand. She had working hands, calloused, strong, her grip as firm and unflinching as any guy’s. Her biceps flexed when she shook his hand. “Skeeter Bang. I’m looking for my friend, Kid Chaos. I tracked him here, found his car outside in the alley, but”—she gave a little shrug, looking around—“I don’t see him, and I really need to find him.”

A friend of Kid Chaos’s, now why wasn’t he surprised? Like Kid, Skeeter Bang—and that was a helluva name—looked like she could kick ass and take names while she was doing it, even though the longer he looked at her, the more he wondered if fifteen might be closer to the mark than sixteen. Either way, she was way out of his territory.

She’d tracked Kid here, Travis silently repeated, wondering what that was all about, and wondering how in the world to explain to a fifteen/sixteen-year-old that Kid was in the closet, probably getting laid.

“Well, he’s here . . . with Nikki,” he said, deciding to go for a condensed version of the facts. “They kind of hooked up.”

“Okay.” She nodded thoughtfully, then took a long drag off her cigarette and blew out the smoke. Travis had to work not to cough—or lecture. “That’s good.” She leaned over and knocked the ash off her cigarette into a discarded plate perched on a granite table. “So Nikki, she’s a nice girl?”

The question was asked with a casual nonchalance, but it definitely had an underlying edge that said she expected a real answer and he’d be wise to give it—which frankly amazed him. He knew what he looked like, and women from eight to eighty usually cut him a lot of slack because of it. But not this girl. She wasn’t handing out unearned props to anybody, and unlike everyone else in the gallery tonight, she could give a damn that he was the model in all the paintings.

God, what a challenge. A grin curved his mouth. Not a sexual challenge, he reminded himself, just a kick-in-the-pants challenge.

“Define nice.”

“Sure,” she said, without missing a beat, except to take another drag off her cigarette. “Nice girls don’t run around on their guy.”

Easy enough. “Kid’s the only guy Nikki’s ever had.”

One eyebrow arched above the mirrored sunglasses. “She never had you?”

Lots of people thought that question, and every now and then, someone got up enough balls to ask—usually another of Nikki’s models who was hoping to get lucky—but coming from a fifteen-year-old, Travis found it damned disconcerting.

“We’re friends.” Not lovers, he could have added, but he didn’t.

He didn’t know how, but even from behind her sunglasses, he could tell she was weighing his answer, checking him out, like it could possibly be any of her business.

“He was worried about that, while he was gone.”

Well, that explained her interest, and Travis guessed he wasn’t surprised.

“He never said it, actually,” she continued, “but I could tell he was worried about you stealing his girl.”

“So why didn’t he call her?” That seemed a fair enough question. Certainly Nikki had asked him it a hundred times.

Skeeter Bang shrugged and sucked another hit off her cigarette. “He was in a bad place . . . very bad.” Her voice broke a little in the cloud of smoke she exhaled, and she glanced away toward the floor. “Look, I’m just here to make sure he’s okay.”

“Sounds like you think he might not be.”

She shrugged again. “I was with him earlier tonight, at his dad’s, and I . . . I couldn’t help him. I was hoping Nikki could. If you’ll just tell me where he is.” She glanced back up, and though all Travis could see was himself reflected in her glasses, he got the impression she was on the verge of tears, which, unlike some guys, didn’t make him panic. It just made him feel badly for her.

“Well, he and Nikki kind of disappeared into that closet over there.” He gestured toward the door on the west side of the gallery. “And though I’m just as concerned about Nikki as you are about Kid, I guess I figured the two of them would work things out without me interfering.”

She followed his gesture. “Yeah,” she said, stabbing the end of her cigarette into the plate. “I’m sure you’re right.” But she went ahead and started over to the door anyway, without giving him a backward glance.

Travis followed, not sure if he meant to stop her from going in, or if he just wanted to be there if she did. Either way it was a moot point. She didn’t even touch the knob when she got there, just laid her ear up against the door and listened.

As an invasion of privacy, Travis figured there were worse, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to put his ear to the door. At least that’s what he thought, until she reached for him, her hand closing around his wrist in a gesture he didn’t misinterpret for a second. Whatever she heard, it made her need somebody to hold on to; it made her feel the need for support.

Moving closer to her, he, too, put his ear to the door, and it didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to understand her distress.

Ah, Christ. The guy was crying, breaking up.

He stepped back, looked down at her, and swore again. She was crying now, too. Big tears running down her soft little cheeks, and suddenly he was in the middle of Kid’s brother dying, too. In it up to his neck.

“Nikki is the best thing for him right now,” he said, hoping to reassure her. “She knows all about guys crying.” Right, he thought dryly. Nikki knew how to take a perfectly normal guy and deconstruct him, until he was in tears. She’d done it more than once. Never to him, though. For all he gave her, he knew better than to let her have everything her way.

“Will she take care of him tonight?” Skeeter Bang asked, and on that point, Travis could be one hundred percent positive.

“She’s crazy in love with him. If it was up to Nikki, she’d never let him out of her sight again. Come on, let’s get you something to drink.” Turning his hand around in hers, he led her away from the door. Neither Nikki nor Kid needed them hanging around.

“I don’t drink,” she said, following him nonetheless.

She shouldn’t smoke, either, but that hadn’t stopped her.

“I was thinking orange juice.”

“Oh, that would be nice.”

Yes, nice and healthy, a shot of antioxidant to counteract that damned cigarette.

“So you know about Kid’s brother?” she asked.

Travis nodded. “I know he was killed, somewhere in South America.”

“Yeah. I didn’t really know J.T. that well.” She wiped at her cheek with her free hand. “He only came home a couple of times in the last couple of years, since I’ve been at Steele Street. The rest of the time he was in Colombia or Panama. But he was cool. Cool to me. He invited me down to Panama, said to have Kid bring me down with a couple of friends, and we could use his house, even if he wasn’t there.”

Travis knew J.T. was Kid’s brother, and Steele Street was where they worked. Quinn Younger, Nikki’s new brother-in-law, the man who had stolen the fantasy love of his life, the eminently brilliant and luscious Regan McKinney—now Regan Younger—worked for Steele Street, too. Now what work they all did was apparently some big secret, but it had gotten J.T. killed, and he’d seen where Kid had been injured—a couple of stitches to his head. The guy had lost a lot of weight, too, which made Travis wonder just how much jungle-running he’d been doing in the last seven to eight weeks, before disaster had struck.

“Johnny and Gabby and I were going to take him up on it, but I guess we won’t be going now. Not that it’s important. It’s just, I guess I wish I could have known him better. Kid is such a mess over this.”

At the bar, he got her an orange juice on ice and sat her down in a quiet corner, where he could keep an eye on the closet door. He had no idea what in the hell might happen next, but the night had definitely taken a turn—for better or worse, he didn’t have a clue.

The party was starting to break up, though, people leaving in pairs and small groups, most of them heading out to one or another of LoDo’s rightly famous clubs or bars.

“So what happened to Kid’s brother?” he asked. Nikki hadn’t known, only that he’d been killed.

“I don’t know exactly. I haven’t gotten a clear picture of it yet—maybe I won’t, but I’ve been getting the feeling it was awful. I’ve been getting that feeling for a couple of days now . . . and all Kid brought home was a bag of bones.”

The last bit of information shocked him, as did her delivery. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a hint of vengeance in that tightly controlled tone of voice. “And he hasn’t said what happened?”

She shook her head. “Only that there was a fire. He’s been pretty messed up since he got off the plane this afternoon. He hasn’t talked to anybody, not even his dad. I was hoping he would talk to Nikki.”

“He will.” Everybody talked to Nikki, sometimes as a form of self-defense, if nothing else. He’d seen her go into a chatterbox mode under stress that almost defied the laws of nature.

“Hey,” she said suddenly, swiveling around in her chair, her gaze going to the alley door as if she’d heard something. “Just a sec.”

She got up to leave, and he was right behind her, not about to “just a sec” while she walked out the back door.

There were a dozen cars parked in the alley, but she went straight to an older-style Porsche painted an odd, flat black.

“Hey, Nadine,” she said, and he could only assume she was talking to the car, because there was no one else in the alley with them. She was digging in her purse, and after a minute, her hand emerged with a small electronic device that easily fit in the palm of her hand. She licked the bottom of it, rubbed it on her shirt, then grabbed on to the Porsche’s door handle and swung herself a little ways under the car. When she came back up, her hand was empty.

Next, she pulled what looked like a PDA out of her purse and coded in a series of numbers and letters. A small flash of red light burst from underneath the car, just one flash, and she put the handheld computer back in her purse.

“Did you just put a tracking device on that car?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to lose him, and if he needs help, I want to be able to find him.”

So the car was Kid’s.

“I thought you already tracked him here.”

“Sure,” she said, pulling another cigarette and a match out of her skirt pocket. “But that was . . . well, that was just following my nose. If he leaves downtown, I want to have a better lock on him.”

She struck the match, lit the cigarette, then stuck out her hand. “Thanks a lot.”

And what? She was leaving? Just like that? He didn’t think so.

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I don’t have a car, not tonight anyway. I’m walking. It’s just a few blocks.”

Walking? Alone? On a Saturday night at eleven o’clock through the alleys of lower downtown? He wanted to ask her if she was nuts, or if she really wasn’t old enough to drive.

On the other hand, a walk sounded good. He’d been cooped up in the gallery for over four hours, and he’d be damned if he’d let a little kid wander around out here alone.

And she was a little kid, despite the cigarettes and the French exhales, despite the chain mail and her way too savvy comprehension of what was going down with Kid Chaos.

“I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to, really. I’ll be fine,” she protested.

“Probably,” he said, though he didn’t believe it for a minute. “But I wouldn’t be. Come on.”

T
AKING
a drag off her cigarette, Skeeter gave him a quick once-over. She knew she was safe on the streets, but she wasn’t so sure about him, and if he walked her home, she’d probably have to trail him back to the gallery or give him a ride to make sure he was okay.

Stifling a sigh, she flicked her cigarette into the alley and squished it with her boot.

“Okay. Sure,” she said. “It’s not far.”

She hadn’t had any trouble picking Travis James out of the crowd. Besides the dozens of paintings of him hanging all over the gallery, he practically glowed—just like Kid had said. He was all golden skin and golden hair and Caribbean blue eyes, and way too pretty for anybody’s good, even in a starkly black suit and a blue silk shirt, which was all beside the point.