Page 28 of Midnight’s Captive (Stroke of Midnight #2)

Ash took a deep breath and pushed open the door to Razor Jack’s. He’d thought long and hard about whether he should come back tonight, given what had happened yesterday. Seeing Taryn wasn’t going to get any easier, no matter how long he waited.

The bar was hopping when he walked in. Every table was full and people were lined up two deep at the bar. What the hell was going on?

His gaze swept over the room. Had the person she was concerned about returned?

A wall-mounted screen caught his eye. Ah. Game night.

Ash wasn’t a sports fan, but he had a soft spot for the local teams. They’d helped him build his hacking skills early on when he would slip bets into the gaming system long after the cutoff time. The winnings had kept him and Hope fed.

He wiggled his way through the crowd until he was pressed against the bar. It took several more minutes to get Dani’s attention.

“What can I get you?” Her smile faded when she realized it was him.

“The Jack in tonight?” he asked, careful to keep his voice low.

“Maybe.” With that, she slid down the bar to take drink orders.

Crap. He took a deep breath and dug deep for patience. He had to get past her to see Taryn. When she returned to his end of the bar, she didn’t stop.

“Gimme a draft.” Ash slid a credit chip on to the bar. “Please.”

Since he’d ordered, she had no choice but to stop. “Is the Jack in?” he repeated. He didn’t want to play games tonight. He just wanted to see Taryn.

Dani must have seen something in his eyes, because instead of blowing him off again, she nodded.

“Can you ask if she’ll see me?” He really hoped she would.

She set the beer down and studied him. Then she gestured him forward.

Ash leaned over the bar and still had to strain to hear her over the noise of the gathered crowd.

“Go on back,” she said.

“Really?” That Dani gave him a free pass... that had to mean Taryn was okay, right?

“Yeah.” She tilted her head toward the employees-only door that eventually led to the Jack’s office.

“Thanks, Dani.” He slid the credit chip toward her. “Keep the change.”

This time she didn’t argue. The chip quickly disappeared into her pocket.

Ash grabbed his drink. It was easier to get away from the bar than it had been to get to it. People cleared a path for him, then rushed in to fill the space that he’d vacated.

He held the glass above his head to protect it as he crossed the room. Every few steps, he paused to take a sip and to glance around. The place was packed, which made it easy to look like he was trying to find a seat.

His glass was half empty by the time he reached the door and his patience was rapidly fading. Taking another drink—this one for courage—he slipped through the door. It closed behind him with a soft thud.

Passing the spot where Taryn had pressed him against the wall, he smiled. The need to see Taryn was like an itch he couldn’t scratch and he knew it wasn’t just because of Hope. That kiss had been... damn.

Ash reached the Jack’s door and raised his hand to knock. Before he could, the door opened violently and a teenage girl barreled out, tears streaming down her face.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer, just brushed by him. He remembered when Hope was that age, half hormones, half attitude, with just enough sweetness that he always forgave her.

He watched the young woman run down the hallway. She turned left at the intersection and disappeared around the corner. She was younger than all the other employees he’d seen. What did she do here?

Ash had caught the door with his foot. He rapped on the door and poked his head in. “Can I come in?”

Taryn looked up, frowning. Then her expression cleared and she smiled.

His heart fluttered, and he was irrationally happy that he’d made her smile.

“Yeah, sure. Close the door.”

He did as he was told. And then they were alone. He prayed that it wasn’t his presence that had upset her last night.

Ash didn’t bring that up. He wouldn’t ignore it, but it wasn’t a good conversational opener.

“She looked a little young.” He wandered toward her desk.

“For what?” She gestured for him to sit, then circled around and sat on the edge of her desk.

Ash tensed. The last time she’d been on the edge of her desk, bad things had happened. He said the first thing that came to mind. “To be in a bar?”

“You’re not wrong,” she said cryptically. She reached for his drink and he was so surprised, he relinquished it automatically.

Raising it to her lips, she drained the rest of it. “Thanks.” She set the empty glass on her desk. “She’s my current problem.”

Yep, nothing mysterious about that. “Anything I can help with?”

She blinked at him, surprise written on her face.

“I have some experience with teenage girls,” he felt compelled to add. Then realizing how that sounded, he scrambled to not sound like a creeper. “My sister, Hope, she was a handful.” God, he was an idiot.

Taryn laughed. “I have experience being a teenage girl, but not dealing with them.”

“Well, let me know.” What was he doing? He wasn’t a helper. All his life, every decision he’d made had been to benefit him or Hope.

And yet, he was completely sincere. If Taryn needed help, he wanted to be there for her.

“Thanks. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well, let me know when you do.”

She smiled again, and it warmed him all the way to his toes.

Pulling her feet up, she sat cross-legged on the edge of her desk.

He took a moment to study her. Her black pants hugged her legs and her tank top showed off her arms. One arm was sleekly muscled and the other was crafted from sleek metal. The prosthetic was a beautiful piece of technology, sculpted like an arm, not metal bones like a skeleton.

He’d seen her in action, so he knew that the limb offered her exquisite motor control and bruising strength.

“Yes, I have a mechanical arm.” Her easy posture had disappeared and her stiff tone brought his gaze to hers.

“What?”

“You were staring at my arm.” Her tone was cold—pure Jack—but he swore it carried a thread of vulnerability.

“It’s gorgeous.” Ash never dropped his gaze from hers. “I hadn’t seen it up close.” He’d felt it, of course, felt the care with which she’d used it last night. But hadn’t taken the time to appreciate it.

“It’s metal and wire.” The tension in her voice had lessened but hadn’t completely disappeared.

“It’s metal and wire turned into art. It’s stunning. May I?” He should have touched her arm last night. Let her know that he didn’t see it as a flaw, but as an essential, beautiful part of her.

Suspicion still filled her eyes, but she nodded.

He stood in front of her—a safe distance away—before she could change her mind. Moving slowly to not spook her, he reached out and gently slid the strap of her tank top higher up on her shoulder, revealing the seam between cyberwork and biology.

It wasn’t the neatest work he’d seen, but it hadn’t been done by a hack either. “Full replacement?”

Taryn nodded. “The shoulder socket was intact. Metal bracers along my collarbone help stabilize the merge.”

He nodded. Despite all the advancements in metals, replacement limbs were heavy. Tremaine had some experimental stuff happening in their med labs that were supposed to be even lighter than anything on the market. The records he’d turned up in his clandestine research indicated the product was market ready, but the company was sitting on it for some reason.

Maximizing profits, probably. What would Portia do with all the tech the company was hoarding?

Not the time, Ash.

Hyperaware of her reaction after their kiss, Ash kept his movements slow. His fingers trailed over her shoulder and down her arm. The metal, a subtle copper color, blended smoothly with her skin tone. Her biceps and triceps were perfectly sculpted, with small details like muscle delineation etched into the metal. “This isn’t company work.”

“No. I couldn’t afford that.” She shrugged. Ash watched the arm move with her. “I paid for the best circuitry and software I could. The skin... It wasn’t an afterthought, but it wasn’t the priority.”

“It’s fancier than most, um...” Damn, he had no idea how to describe her arm without offending.

“Streetware?” Her tone was crisp.

His face flamed. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“It is street. I just happened to know a really great artist.”

“An artist did this? Damn, I’ve never seen that.” Ash leaned closer, studying the detailed work. Discovering the hidden design on the inside of her biceps, he tilted his head and glanced up at her. “Is that a tattoo?”

Pink tinted her cheeks. “Yes, basically.”

Straightening, he held her gaze. “A hummingbird?”

“Yes.” Her blush deepened.

“What does it mean?”

“Nothing. I just liked it.” Her gaze darted away.

Damn, he’d made her uncomfortable. “I have one too,” he shared. “A bird tattoo.”

Interest brightened her dark eyes, erasing the discomfort. “What kind?”

Now he felt color burn his cheeks. “A phoenix,” he admitted.

She studied him. “Does that have something to do with your hacking?”

He nodded. “It was my handle. It used to light up when I was jacked into the network.”

“Ooh, I want to see that. Oh wait, used to?”

Ash dropped his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s powered by the network. It was just something stupid I got when I was raking in the credits.”

“It sounds very cool,” she offered with a smile.

“It was.” Ash wished he could show her the network tattoo in all its glory. Or even half its glory. He smiled slightly and wondered if they would have gotten there last night. “Yours is too. I’ve never seen anything like it.” And he’d seen some fucking crazy body mods on other hackers.

Taryn rolled her eyes. “That’s me. One of a kind.”

Ash couldn’t let that stand. He trailed his hand down her arm until he could take her hand. “You are.”

“Stop it.” She tried to tug her hand away.

Ash held on. It was important that she believed him. “No, really. You are unlike any woman—anyone—I’ve ever met. Strong, beautiful. You’re amazing.”

She tugged again, and he let her go. “I’m just a woman, with a bar.”

“You’re so much more.” Could she hear the admiration and appreciation in his voice?

Instead of smiling like he hoped, she withdrew into herself. “Whatever,” she muttered and studiously didn’t look at him.

She didn’t take compliments well, apparently. Fine, he could take a hint.

“What happened?” He traced his finger over the seam between flesh and metal. Born and made. The amazing work still awed him.

She stiffened.

His touch or the subject? He withdrew his hand as surely as she’d withdrawn into herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

She sighed. A whisper of sound. “You didn’t,” she said, though it sounded more like she was talking to herself than to him.

He couldn’t do anything right when it came to this woman. Two nights in a row, he’d hit raw nerves. “I should go.”

“Wait.” She laid her hand gently on his forearm.

He stilled, not wanting to scare her off and cause a repeat of last night.

She was touching him, asking him to stay. He wasn’t going anywhere.

“I grew up on the streets.” She stared straight ahead, not looking at him. Probably caught up in her memories.

He knew that stare. He’d seen it in the mirror so many times, usually when he tried to figure out how he could have made the night of his capture end differently.

“I came home from school one day and my parents were gone. All our stuff was gone. It was the end of life as I knew it, and I still don’t even know why or what happened.” Her voice was heartbreakingly matter-of-fact.

Gently, not wanting to scare her, he curled his fingers around hers.

“I stayed with friends for a few weeks, bouncing from house to house. But I wasn’t their kid, their family. I was just another mouth to feed.”

His heart broke for young Taryn. He knew that feeling, of losing your parents and having to fend for yourself. At least he’d had Hope.

Her fingers clenched around his, squeezing the bones together. Whatever was coming, he wasn’t going to like it.

“I was thirteen. A friend’s dad said I was pretty. Said he’d let me stay a month if I let him—” She swallowed hard. “If I let him fuck me.” She spit the last words out.

His stomach roiled. She didn’t give him a chance to react. Which was good—what do you say to that?

“It wasn’t quite a month until his wife found out. She kicked me out of the house. Told all my friends’ moms so I didn’t have anywhere else to stay. I ended up on the streets.”

Rage filled him. Who did that to a kid? He imagined Hope in that situation and his blood thundered in his ears. His free hand clenched and unclenched. It took everything he had to stay still, to let her squeeze his hand and not react.

“I tried not to turn tricks. But it was cold and wet. I got so, so hungry.” Her voice was a tiny mewl.

He tensed, knowing what came next. His heart broke for thirteen-year-old Taryn. He’d seen those girls on the streets and he’d fought to keep that from happening to Hope.

“One night, I wandered into someone else’s territory. She beat me up pretty good. Then her pimp showed up.” Her free hand ran over her cheekbone.

His gut clenched. He knew that move, understood the lingering memories of old injuries.

“He took me in, paid to treat my wounds. When I was back on my feet, he told me how much I owed him. Since I didn’t have any money, I’d have to earn it.”

His stomach churned. Red-hot rage flowed through his veins. It was a common story, but that didn’t make it right.

The silence that fell between them wasn’t easy. Should he say something? “How did you end up here? As the Jack?”

Taryn’s bitter laugh did nothing to dispel his anger. “God, I never thought I’d end up here. Or anywhere that was like a home again.”

She tugged him closer and rested her head on his shoulder. He froze in surprise but didn’t pull away. He carefully wrapped his arms around her.

“I was maybe, I don’t know, sixteen when the Jack came for me. He was looking for a girl of his own. He liked how I looked and the test drives he took. He and the pimp reached an agreement and I came to live here.”

Bile surged in Ash’s throat. He’d come here to ask that man a favor. He was part of the system that had wounded this beautiful, strong woman. If the old Jack weren’t already dead, Ash would do the job himself.

Taryn sagged against him. “It was awful. He was awful. The only bright spot was the bar. I loved it. Bartending, waiting tables. It gave me the world.” She started to shake. “I lived and worked here for five years. Hell and heaven under the same roof.”

It took effort to unclench his fist. Ash wrapped his arm around her waist and smoothed his hand up and down her back. She dropped her legs off the desk to bracket his, then released his other hand and wrapped her arms around him.

“One night I dropped a tray of glasses. I cleaned up the best I could, but it was busy and it caused a major slowdown. At the end of the night, he broke my arm.”

Her trembling worsened and Ash wrapped his arms tight around her. To go from a broken arm to a replacement—that was a lot of damage. The old Jack had been a bastard, but damn. Cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

“It didn’t heal right, did it?” He didn’t know if he wanted her to continue her story. He was barely hanging on to his temper as it was.

She shook her head. “He broke it in more than one place. One of the breaks got infected.” She paused again. Ash was surprised she wasn’t crying. “By the time he believed me that something was wrong, they couldn’t save my arm.”

Fucking asshole . “I’m glad the bastard’s dead.”

She buried her head in his neck. The shaking got worse. Oh god, what had he done?

He ran his hand up and down her back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

The shaking continued. Ash continued to hold her and tried to soothe her. Every second that passed, he hated himself for making her relive her trauma. He was a selfish bastard.

Then she lifted her head. Her face wasn’t tearstained as he’d expected. She was laughing. “Me, too,” she said between laughs. “Oh god, me too.”

Her laughter got louder and a little out of control. Was she hysterical? Should he do something? “Are you okay?” A tentative question to match his tentative pats on her back.

“I’m fine,” she gasped out between laughs. “Better than I have been in a while.”

Since she said she was fine, he stayed where he was, enjoying the chance to hold her. Not in a creepy way. More of an I-can’t-remember-how-long-it’s-been-since-I-cuddled-anyone way.

His touch on her back became less tentative, until he was rubbing gentle circles. Her cheek was pressed against his shoulder, her cyberarm a cool firm presence against his back. Soft and hard, tough and tender—the perfect combination.

Her laughter slowly subsided and her breathing settled. “Thank you.” The words were a whisper against his skin.

“For what?” he whispered back.

“This. Being here. Not flipping out. Take your pick.”

Neither of them moved.

“The old Jack was a really shitty guy.”

She laughed again. “You could say that.”

This quiet conversation was the closest he’d come to a real human connection since he and Hope had been captured. It terrified and amazed him all at the same time. And now he was about to ruin it.

“Did you kill him?” he dared to ask. After the story she’d just told, Ash wouldn’t have blamed her if she had.

She took a breath, then shook her head. “No. But I didn’t save him either.”

“Is he—” Ash paused, seeking the words to address the elephant in the room. “Is he the reason you, um, pulled away last night?” That should be safe enough. Right?

A flutter of laughter against his neck. “You mean when I flipped out?” Taryn pulled away and looked him in the eye.

Cool air replaced where she’d been warm against him. He immediately missed the press of her against his chest.

Ash nodded, not sure that bringing up last night had been the right thing to do.

“Yeah. You can say that.” She sighed. “I have some really terrible memories of this room. Of being on a desk.”

“If you hate it, why did you keep the office? You could work somewhere else.” He didn’t understand. He was ready to help her move. Anything to stop her pain.

“I believed I was strong enough to keep the bad memories at bay. I’ve made this bar my own. I thought I could make the office my own too.”

That made a tragic kind of sense but he hated that she tortured herself with those memories every day. “You should at least change things around,” he growled.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Tell me you’ll at least think about it?” He hated the idea of her surrounded by painful memories.

“I will.” She looked at him, her brown eyes serious. “I owe you an apology.”

He shook his head. “No, never. I owe you one. I pushed too hard.”

“No. You don’t. You didn’t.” She pushed him back a step and, in one fluid move, dropped her feet to the ground and stood.

Close, she was so close. Ash tried to step back, to give her room, to protect her from the desk and all the memories it held.

Her hands rested on his hips and she stopped him. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

She pressed her lips to his.

Ash held still, not wanting to spook her.

Her kiss wasn’t soft or tentative. Her hands were sure, the pressure steady as she pulled him closer.

“Kiss me back, damn you,” she growled against his lips.

“Yes, ma’am.” That was the invitation he’d been waiting for. Tightening his arms around her waist, he parted his lips against hers. She nibbled at his mouth, little nips that tested and teased.

Two could play at this game. Sliding his hand into her silky hair, he cupped the back of her head. Pulling her flush against him, he took control of the kiss.

He started as she had, little nibbles. Not really bites, though. More like little scrapes along her lips. Not enough to damage—he’d never hurt her. Just enough to sensitize already sensitive skin.

When she gasped in surprise, he took advantage and deepened the kiss. Her tongue darted out to tangle with his, shifting control back to her.

Her cyberhand grasped his shoulder and he marveled at her control. What would it feel like when she had that kind of control on his cock?

Their mouths played an erotic game of hide and seek. As her tongue teased his, she shifted her hips against him. Small movements at first. The warmth between her legs barely brushing over him. Little teases that sent the blood flowing from his head to his lap.

Not that his head had anything to do at the moment. He was running on pure instinct.

She tugged his shirt free from his pants with her other hand, then slid her palm against him. The press of her naked flesh on his back made him gasp. She captured the sound with another drugging kiss.

If one small skin-to-skin touch had that much power, full-body contact would probably fry all his circuits—biological and mechanical. He was okay with that.