Page 55 of Lovesick Gods (Lovesick #1)
He kept his eyes and ears open for signs of trouble, any passing cops outside, but he only heard the occasional chatter from Dom and Lucy over the comms. Even in the dark room, his new goggles kept his vision clear, almost but not quite as potent as night vision.
It was just as he was about to reach the steps leading down to the diamond that he felt a gust of wind.
Mal spun around, finger twitching on the cold field switch. But not yet. Not yet…
Another gust. Yes —an invisible Zeus. Danny had warned him. But this time Mal was ready and very much into the game. He turned his comms off.
“I was hoping it was you,” Danny’s voice echoed around him from the high ceilings, making it difficult to pinpoint his position.
“And here I thought you were above cheating,” Mal said, circling carefully, making sure he didn’t misstep so close to the stairs and tumble down them.
“A heads up wasn’t enough?” Danny said—to Mal’s left, definitely to the left.
Mal backed up slowly until the wall was close behind him—
“How about this then?”
—and tensed for an attack. But Danny merely rippled into existence a few meters from him, visible in the all black suit and shimmering like he was covered in sequins when he moved.
Mal considered blasting him. Vaughn would have built the usual precautions into the suit against Elementals they knew—like thermal dampeners to lessen the effect of Mal’s ice—but Danny’s saunter had such a nice, sexy sway to it.
Mal aimed more at his lower half. “Careful. Any closer and I’ll take your feet out from under you. ”
“Oh really?” Danny purred, hands held up but steps still carrying him closer.
He paused only once he was close enough that they could have touched if Danny outstretched his arms. Then, in the split second Mal chose not to fire, Danny surged forward and had him against the wall, wrists pinned to his sides.
Sloppy…if Mal minded getting caught.
As Danny’s fingers grazed the cuff Mal wore, he glanced down at it. Mal’s arms were otherwise nothing but skin from his shoulders to his wrists. The cuff did draw some attention.
“Love to help you out of that suit again, Sparky, but I’d need my hands.” Mal wriggled his fingers and smirked playfully. Glancing at the lines of the suit and the smoothness of the cowl, he wondered where the communications lived. “Aren’t you worried your friends will listen in?”
Releasing Mal’s wrists, Danny looked him in the eyes.
Mal used the freedom to reach forward for the seam at Danny’s neck and fold the mask upward.
“Told them it was a false alarm once I was sure it was you,” Danny said when his lips were free.
“For all they know, I’m making a quick pass around town and heading home for the night. We’re all alone.”
“Dom and Lucy are in the other rooms,” Mal admitted, watching Danny’s lips attentively. “Got about three minutes before they come looking.”
“I can take care of that.”
Mal quirked an eyebrow at him.
“ Nicely ,” Danny assured him, then ducked forward, angling for a kiss Mal allowed him only too eagerly.
The firm line of Danny’s body snugly outlined in black was welcome and alluring when Mal was ready for it. His pulse was already racing from the adrenaline of the heist; Danny’s arrival and subsequent reaction to finding him had Mal trembling with excitement.
When they pulled apart, Danny flicked his tongue at Mal’s lips. “Helios and Gaia are suddenly going to find themselves outside in the alley, wondering what happened. Think they’ll come back in after you?”
“Nah. They’ll know it was you and hightail it. You gonna let them keep their loot?”
“Tell you what, if you have the diamond in your hands by the time I get back, you can keep it. And …” Danny leaned forward and added in a sultry whisper, “you can fuck me anywhere you want in the museum.” He bit his bottom lip invitingly before pulling his mask back into place.
Mal shivered. This version of Danny Grant he adored.
An added challenge, a worthwhile goal. He felt silly now for ever thinking this heist could disrupt their fun.
He’d passed an antique chaise in the section on The French Revolution.
Sullying that would be entertaining, and more comfortable than the floor, a wall, or up against a glass case.
Mmm…Danny pressed against glass…
“ Hey ,” Danny said with an audible pout, “I thought you promised me a three-piece suit for your next heist.”
Mal blinked. He’d completely forgotten about that, and he rarely neglected such important details. “Guess I’ve been a bad boy, Zeus. I owe you one. You go ahead and think long and hard about what you want from me to make up for it.”
A chuckle left the kid, only slightly muffled by his mask. “You have about thirty seconds, Ice Man—and that’s being generous,” he said before lightning jumping away.
Mal didn’t waste a moment. While he’d turned off his mic, he could still hear his companions through his earpiece, and he clearly picked up on the oomphs of them being suddenly teleported out of the building by an invisible Zeus.
Meanwhile, he set to work on the diamond. Thirty seconds was child’s play.
Raising both hands, he iced the pane of glass facing him, coating it in frost and decreasing the temperature until it started to crack.
Then all he had to do was tap the center.
It crumbled like sand without tripping the alarm.
The back pane of the case was a mirror, doubling the diamond’s image for its adoring public.
As Mal reached in to claim his prize, something in the reflection shimmered.
He snatched his hand back as the image of the diamond turned foggy, then empty , then was replaced by a grasping silver hand that reached right out of the reflection into the case.
Mal was hallucinating. He had to be hallucinating. But as he stared at the hand that took hold of the diamond, he also heard a voice, powerful and loud like it was coming from all around him.
“Just like the glassworks, right... partner ?”
The hell? Glassworks? Was that Ludgate ?
It was only when the hand pulled back into the mirror, taking the diamond with it, that Mal realized he wasn’t alone. Whipping his head to the right, he discovered that Danny had seen everything, but he clearly had the wrong idea about what it all meant if his clenched fists were any indication.
“Wait—” Mal raised his hands, but by the time he’d finished the gesture, he’d already been slammed into the wall. He couldn’t turn on the cold field with his wrists pinned.
“Partner?! Partner?!” Danny’s breath puffed hot against Mal’s face through the mask. “You were working with Ludgate the whole time?!”
“What? No , I—”
“I trusted you!” Danny cried, gripping him too tightly, painfully, as he shook him.
“I can’t believe I fell for your act again .
I knew you deserved it, I knew it…” he muttered as he seethed, shaking in his anger—and what did he even mean by that?
“Playing all the angles, making a big show of it, while those other heists kept happening all around me, making me look like a fool .”
“Sparky, listen to—”
An eruption of noise in his ear made him cringe as Dom and Lucy remembered the comms and started yelling at him, demanding to know what was happening.
Lucy asked if they should head back in, but Dom huffed and said, “Trust me, Evergreen, he don’t need shit if he’s with Spark Plug. Favorite pastime of his lately.”
“ What ?”
But even if Mal could have turned his mic back on to call for help, Danny ripped the device from his ear and the sound went dead.
“You really had me going, Cho,” he said darkly, close and menacing and not giving Mal any room to breathe. “Taking care of the people in your neighborhood. Agreeing not to hurt or kill anyone. Acting like you cared. But that’s all bullshit, isn’t it? In the end, you’re still the one conning me .”
Before Mal could answer, Danny slammed him into the wall harder, making him cough as the air pushed from his lungs.
“Was it fun laughing at me with Ludgate while I ran around in circles losing my mind trying to catch him?!”
“ Danny —”
“Well I hope it was, because I might not be able to catch him ,” Danny held Mal firmly with one gloved hand twisting into the collar of his duster, while the other pulled back into a fist that started to spark , “but you’re not going anywhere.”