Page 25 of Bottoms Up (Mythic Beast #4)

“I love you,” she said into my chest, so I felt the vibrations. “I wish Marco had found another solution, but his way worked, and I got to be with you while you learned what you needed to.”

I felt the same. It’d been bad, but it was so much better than the alternatives. “I understand his other option would’ve been to send me away, to let someone with a good track record train me, but he said he worried that process would break me, and he never worried you’d do that.”

“It was hard,” she agreed, sitting up to meet my gaze, “but yeah, I’m glad we didn’t have to go nine or more months without any contact.

That probably would’ve been even harder.

We’re good, and I know this first scene is going to take a little work to get right, but we managed it once — we can do it again. ”

The door opened and Lauren stepped in with a security guard. “Gavin wants security in the box with us until he gets here. This is Atlas.”

Ah. The jaguar.

I drew a long breath in, slow and deliberate, separating his scent from Lauren and Silver’s while I took in everything I could about him.

Six feet tall, maybe a little more. Lean build, military posture, upright and balanced. Dark brown hair with olive-toned skin that might have passed for Middle Eastern in a combat zone, but I was guessing Italian roots.

At first glance, he looked like any other high-end shifter security: fit, alert, forgettable by design.

But his scent was the opposite of ordinary.

Most of Marco’s security personnel are ex-military, and they all have this scent that identifies them as security.

It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s a combination of mega-alpha-male, leashed aggression, super-watchfulness, and reflexes backed by muscle memory ready to explode into action in a microsecond, and almost always with some trauma mixed in.

Atlas’s scent was heavier on all of that, including the trauma. Especially the trauma — the kind that hasn’t scabbed over yet, though it felt as if he’d walled it off. Kept it private. Contained.

While his scent didn’t carry an iota of weakness or instability, it told me he’d survived the kind of trauma that reshapes a man.

I took another breath and noticed control was front and center — like it took more for him to contain the aggression, to leash the soldier so he could fit back into society.

That kind of control usually comes with cost. A man like that?

He’d need an outlet, which explained the need for pain — something intense enough to match what he holds back.

“Atlas, this is Julian and Silver, though we don’t call her that where people might hear. She’s pretty good at not being noticed, but if you say her name, that ends.”

This is the security guard Gavin offered , I telepathed Silver.

“Of course,” Atlas said, his voice quiet and smooth, his smile warm. He met my gaze. “While I’m working, I’m afraid there can’t be anything sexually suggestive, but I look forward to spending time with you later this evening.”

My cock twitched, but I diverted blood away from it. He’d just told me he had to focus now, so blooming the scent of arousal into the room would be bad form.

Still. He felt promising. Not submissive, but pliant enough under the right conditions. The kind who’d fight you if you tried to hold him down, but might beg you to do so given the right incentives.

“Makes total sense,” Silver said. “You can call me Jules if you need to get my attention around people, but otherwise, I prefer Silver. Julian said you’re ex-military?”

He nodded, and I said, “Delta Force, I believe Gavin said.”

“Right,” said Lauren, “but he was part of an even more impressive unit when he retired. I know what it is because Gavin paid Nathan to find out, but I guess we aren’t supposed to talk about it.”

“I have a friend who works for Drake, and she says the only guys more badass than Delta Force is the CIA Paramilitary,” Silver said.

Lauren and Atlas looked at each other, then Atlas looked back to Silver with a slight shrug. “Can’t verify anything, but your friend knows her shit.”

The shrug was understated but precise — military economy of motion. The kind of response trained into men who’ve had to downplay lethality for polite society. I also noted he hadn’t denied it.

I watched the way he scanned the box, checking every entrance, exit, line of sight. Not just security muscle, this was muscle backed by strategy. And control. Always the control. His scent hadn’t shifted since the moment he walked in, managing his instincts with surgical precision.

“Gavin says Atlas can go off duty when he gets here,” Lauren said, “so the three of you can spend some relaxed time together, if you want.”

“You’ll be blindfolded anytime I’m nude,” Silver told Atlas.

He gave a sharp nod. Immediate, crisp. The kind of obedience that didn’t reek of submission, just discipline. It made me wonder how long he’d been out of the field, and how much of his soldiering he still carried in his bones.

“Truth is, the military got me hooked on some performance drugs I’m not supposed to talk about,” he said, voice steady and detached, like he was giving a field report to someone higher up the chain.

“Doses that would’ve killed a human — administered for their own unorthodox reasons.

When I got out and lost access, I started chasing the edge.

High-risk activities. Fights I shouldn’t have picked.

Adrenaline junkie stuff mostly, but when I could score cocaine or acid… ”

He stood a little taller. Moved his chin a tiny bit higher.

Met my gaze without flinching. “It wasn’t healthy.

A friend took me to Gavin, who showed me what controlled pain while under the spell of a vampire bite feels like.

I know I’ve traded one addiction for another, but this works for me, and it came with a job I can feel good about. ”

Every word had the weight of someone who’d already rehearsed his confession. He wasn’t looking for sympathy; he was laying ground rules.

“What I think he’s saying,” Lauren said, “is that a blindfold is a small price to pay for pain and vampire venom.”

“Yes,” Atlas said. “We need to exit the box. Humans first. I’m the last one out.”

We followed other men who were clearly security up the steps and to the nearest balcony aisle, then all the way to the back and into a sound room.

“They scented propellant,” Atlas told us once we were behind closed doors, and he rolled his eyes. “It’s an old geezer, so he called it cordite, but correcting him is pointless and we know what he means. It came from the seats right under the box. As soon as they clear the area, we can return.”

* * * *

Silver

I like Julian. I love him, too, but I really, really like him. I’ve loved someone once that I didn’t especially like.

It’s damned inconvenient.

The point is, Julian and I are a matched set. I don’t want a relationship with someone else, and yet I enjoy having sex with other people when Julian is part of it.

I went to the pro in Nashville twice while I wasn’t having sex with Julian.

I mean, I got Julian off when he deserved a big reward, and usually gave him permission to masturbate toward the end of those long months.

Also, throughout, I ordered him to go down on me often enough I didn’t lack for orgasms, but that’s different from having orgasm after orgasm forced from you.

Bottom line, I’d craved pain, so I arranged for it to happen. Totally transactional, no deep emotions. I pay this guy and he gives me what I need.

But there was something about Atlas that made me want to know more about him.

Not to replace Julian, but so Julian and I could enjoy him together.

Atlas felt… grounded . The way he held himself, the way he responded to Julian without hesitation, the way his eyes scanned the exits.

Whatever he’d experienced in the military, it’d changed him.

I’d need to see him when he wasn’t working, but what I saw now was all hard edges without emotion, and yet something about him was unspeakably compelling.

“Do you engage in emotional relationships?” Julian asked Atlas, and I found it interesting we were both having similar thoughts.

“I look forward to answering your questions,” Atlas said in the same cool, calm voice, “but I need to focus on our surroundings right now.”

Lauren looked from Atlas to me, and said, “When Marco made arrangements for our security to guard Julian, we assumed guards for both of you, but Marco said you often travel without security?”

“If I have extensions in my hair to make it long, or even just the short indigo extensions, and I do my makeup the way I’ve created for my stage look, people recognize me.

But with just dark-blonde hair in a ponytail, or with a ball cap on, either no makeup or applied different, hardly anyone ever does.

They’re used to seeing me with long hair and a guitar, and I guess indigo has become my signature color onstage. ”

Which is a pain in the ass, because I love the color, and it means I can’t wear it as much in my personal life, but it’s worked out, I guess, since I still have a personal life.

“Situation’s resolved,” Atlas said. “Someone who went target practicing earlier in the day and didn’t change clothes after.” He motioned for us to leave the sound room, and we followed security back to the box with Atlas tailing us.

“I’m a little jealous,” Lauren told me while we walked back down the aisle. “Gavin insists on me having security anytime I’m away from home.” She sighed. “We have security at home, too, but they’re at more of a distance.”

The performance started soon after we were seated, and Atlas stood just inside the door to our box until Gavin arrived, at which point he sat next to Julian, and about fifteen seconds later, Julian lifted me and sat me in his lap.

“I look forward to seeing you perform live,” Julian told me, his lips near my ear. “The videos I’ve seen, it looks like you have similar effects with explosions and lights?”

I spoke super-soft. “Some songs call for explosions, or cannons blowing confetti, or fire billowing at the sides of the stage, while others need a softer touch. These guys don’t believe in soft touches.”

Atlas chuckled, sitting to our left. “Indeed, they do not. They’re pretty high energy for old human dudes, though.”

“I’d wondered about that,” I said. “I can’t tell, and Hailey won’t share what she can smell.”

He shrugged. “Technically, if you ask if they’re human, I can’t answer because a non-answer is an answer, but there’s no rule against me commenting on their humanity when you haven’t asked.

” He glanced at me and back to the stage.

“I was looking forward to meeting you, so I’d know if you’re male or female, but I find I still don’t know. ”

“I keep telling people I’m both, and also kind of not really either one, depending on how you want to define the parameters.”

“She’s more female than male tonight,” Julian said. “I love her no matter her mood.” He kissed my forehead. “Even when she’s pissed at me, which thankfully doesn’t happen often.”