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16

Bone Deep

M arisol turned over in the bed. Although due for another round of painkillers, a rush of energy still coursed through her veins, the energy of seeing Vincent.

But he was gone. He had neatly piled his pillow and blankets on the easy chair in the corner. She hated that chair.

Annie, sprouting from Marisol’s mind, rebuked her, “Dirty slut. I thought you had a mask thing. Now you’re feeling butterflies over Vincent Varian?”

Marisol shrugged, both as a response and as the only sane way to handle her newfound ability of talking to the dead.

Annie apologized, adding, “When I called you a dirty slut, I didn’t mean it in the pejorative but in that reclaimed power sort of way.”

“I know,” Marisol said, as she rolled out of her room. Annie faded away. Unfortunately, the empty quiet of the kitchen and living room reflected the conversation in her head like a funhouse mirror. Everything inside was empty and Vincent-less.

There was only whipping and tapping in rapid succession. She followed the sound and discovered Vincent outside on the deck. His back to the windows, he jump-roped with perfect form—elbows tucked at his hips and forearms parallel to the floor. Sweat streamed down his stick-straight back, darkening the back of his sweatshirt. The rapid whips and taps of the rope played an ode to his balance, speed, and strength. Marisol laughed to herself, enjoying the sight too much.

She knocked on the window and caught Vincent’s attention. He threw down the jump rope, jogged to the sliding glass door, and opened it. “Come out. I have something to show you.”

The air, though cold, held the promise of spring. She wheeled to the end of the deck, where Vincent pointed. There sat an awkward tower of unfinished wood scaffolding. From it dangled a leather speed bag that had a patch sewn on its side. “I found this among Leonard’s things and thought you would like it.”

“How did you know that I—”

“There were some kickboxing gloves with your items from the hospital.” He presented her gloves and a roll of gauze that awaited her on the deck’s ledge.

Marisol hid her smile by looking down at her cast. “Kind of hard to box with a bad leg. ”

“You’re not ready for the ring, but you could work on your rhythm. Give me your hand.” Vincent wrapped her knuckles in gauze.

She shifted in her chair, straightening her posture. Vincent’s presence unwound her muscles held in a twenty-five-year-long clench. What did that mean? What was he to her?

A man with a tender touch who tucked in the end of her gauze as he prepared her fists for beating the shit out of something. A strange man. A good man. But good things in Marisol’s life had the shelf life of a mayfly.

While she squeezed her hands into her gloves, Vincent poised the speed bag at Marisol’s sitting height. To concentrate, she licked her lips and raised her fists above her chin. She started with gentle, repeating jabs to understand the new rules of her healing body. She hit the bag with the sides of fists, rotating her arms. Once she found the rhythm, she picked up her speed, hitting the bag with more force.

Old Marisol wouldn’t need to be gentle with the bag or herself. Dead friend? Jab. Her killer on the prowl? Jab. Jab. Leaving Shadowhaven and the Patron Saint? Jab. Jab. Cross hit. Throw the entire shoulder into it. The contraption wobbled, rocking from leg to leg. It threatened to tumble to the floor until a miraculous feat of engineering kept it upright .

Vincent flashed a smile. “All right, Lady Dynamite. I think you’re ready for your next present.” He motioned for her to follow him inside.

Another present? How long would she have to repeat that it was too expensive before admitting she liked it? Then, in the middle of the living room, he handed her a pair of crutches.

She stood and tottered around the room. Mobility. Took the Bloodsucker robbing it from her to get her to miss it. Freedom was better than any overpriced tchotchke she imagined. “Thanks.”

Vincent added, “Next will be a walking boot, but surely you’ll be back in the city by then.”

She’d be back in the city, alone. Annie-less. Friendless and doomed to be alone. She flopped onto the sofa. “Sure.”

“I thought you hated it here.”

“I hate the situation. I don’t hate it here.” She rubbed her face in her hands. An idea struck her. “Back in the city, I’d end up crashing at my parents and helping them out despite the bum leg. If you came with me, you could be my thunder vest. You know, help me ‘til my leg heals. Whatever you do, I can’t have one more friend...” Her breath hitched. Leave, she meant to say.

Silence hovered between them before he asked, “We’re friends?”

“Of course.” Her gaze lifted, looking him straight in his eyes .

He shifted his sight to the windows. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Her sinuses burned again. “Not glamorous enough for you?” She blinked away the oncoming tears.

“The paparazzi have a tendency to descend on anyone I give attention to. I’d be... inconvenient.”

Inconvenient—the opposite of her Patron Saint. The simplicity of hideaway living had deceived her. Of course, Vincent’s visits to her apartment would consist of micromanaging PR teams, minute-by-minute schedules, and intruding photographers. And yet... “You’re right about the masked guy. He will end up as another story—some weird factoid about the messed-up city I live in. With Annie gone, I have no one around to keep me from going crazy. And…” She rubbed her lips to give herself a moment, needing to add more bitterness to the sickeningly sweet sincerity clinging to her, she blurted, “I’d rather have a friend around, even if that means life gets a little inconvenient.”

He cleared his throat. “Maybe.”

She nodded, having said that very same line with loads more of indifference to the occasional moon-eyed chump whom she wanted out of her bed and out of her apartment. The good part about her family was that potential partners rarely entered her life, and for those who did, her family’s dysfunction ensured their exit.

Even if Vincent became her friend under the public’s eye, she wasn’t quite sure what a friendship back in the city entailed. It’d be a strange sight, for sure, but her soul was strange, never quite at home on the Westside but certainly not belonging to the effete assholes with whom she went to school. And Vincent was the effetest of the effete. A friendship in the city probably lacked hugs against his chest or tingling touches or borrowed warm robes pinging with static electricity.

And… damn, she’d become the moon-eyed chump.

“The only future you should worry about is what we’re going to have for dinner. I’m not promising that it won’t be canned and cured, but I can do something extra special.”

“Sounds good,” she answered, knowing that the one thing she wanted to hear was where you go, I go.

Clean and dressed in only her best flannel, undershirt, boxers, and black-sock ensemble, she hobbled to the kitchen. Vincent’s back was to her. He watched over two pots of boiling water. His shoulders were massive under a fitted navy sweater that he paired with tailored gray trousers. Definitely a middleweight with a heavyweight’s punch.

“What do we have here?” Marisol nudged Vincent and propped herself up on her crutches to peer over the edges of the boiling pots .

“While you were changing, I found kielbasa in my freezer and the ingredients for dumplings in the pantry.” He pointed to the eggs, flour, and butter arranged on the counter. “Potatoes are nearly done. While we wait.” He walked over to a small drink cart in the corner. With arms opened wide, he presented a bottle of Perrier in a metal bucket on ice.

Marisol laughed. “You thought of everything.”

“I have one more trick up my sleeve.” He pulled out a kitchen knife and tapped the blade against the glass bottle. Pop! Marisol squeaked. He poured the bubbling water into two crystal glasses. “Cheers.”

As she sipped, the cold, crisp bubbles of sparkling water burst in her mouth. She put down her glass and licked her lips to stave off the sharp sensation. She shifted her gaze up. Vincent stared at her. Swiftly, he set his empty glass down and cleared his throat, his tell. She must be making him nervous. Good.

He returned to the stove and lifted the tall pot of potatoes. His biceps bulged as he carried it to the sink. After draining the potatoes in a colander, his skin glistened from the rising cloud of steam, and a short golden curl drooped over his forehead. Marisol’s arms twitched, wanting to reach up and push his hair back.

He asked, “Should I grab a bowl and the electric beater?”

The soul of Abuelita shook her out of her Vincent-induced stupor. She imagined the oft- repeated lecture of how machines took away a food’s flavor and loving intentions. “No! We take the potatoes and mash them on the counter with forks, then mix in the egg and flour with our hands as we go.”

“On the counter? With forks and hands?” He flared his nostrils, his tone incredulous.

Deep and breathy, she responded, “Afraid to get a little dirty?” She swallowed back the rising embarrassment of her unintentional double entendre.

His doubtful expression relaxed, and the slight turn of his mouth bordered on mischievous, as if he was in on the joke. “No.” Vincent conjured a pastry blender and dough scraper from a kitchen drawer and juggled them in the air. “But I balk at hitches in efficiency.” He handed them to Marisol.

They rolled up their sleeves. Marisol leaned her weight onto the counter, freeing her arms to work. With the cooked potatoes dumped on the counter, she mashed them using the pastry tools. She sprinkled flour on them and topped them with two cracked eggs. With the blender and scraper, she amassed the ingredients into a ball of dough.

“Boil some more water,” Marisol ordered, as she divided the dough and formed half into the shape of a cylinder. The scraper sliced the dough into even pieces. “Do you want to try?”

“Sure.” Vincent rolled the dough under his hands, making the shape of a cylinder .

“Don’t make it too thin.” Marisol guided Vincent’s hand to roll the dough under the right amount of pressure. Her floury hands lingered against his. He rubbed his pinky over hers. Don ’ t be a chump.

Hiss! Liquid met fire. The water on the stove boiled over. Marisol gathered a pile of sliced dough in one hand and hopped toward the stove. “Cut more dough. I’ll add these to the pot.” She didn’t wait for an objection, favoring the heat of the stove over Vincent’s intensity. But new body, new rules. She dropped the dumplings in the water, lost her balance, and stumbled into the stove top. Her fingers caught against the pot’s rim.

She sprung back right into Vincent, who lifted her to the sink and ran her fingers under cold water. “Stay here. I’ll get the first aid kit.”

“No, I’m good. Just wounded my pride. I still can’t grasp how much my hands depend on two good legs.” The cold water washed the thin layer of dough off their hands.

He rubbed his thumb over her reddened fingertips. “When are you going to start to accept help?”

“At the rate I’m going? Over my dead body.”

He turned off the sink. “Better?”

The boiling pot singed her fingertips, so they felt covered in raw pinpricks. “Still hurts.”

“I have a Varian family secret for pain.”

“Yeah? What’s that? ”

Vincent cupped one hand under her elbow and pushed against it to present her forearm. From the crease in her arm, he glided his fingers down to her wrist bone. There, he pushed against the spot of her pulse. “The trick is distracting the rest of the nerves.” Against her pulse, he placed a kiss.

Just like him.

The rooftop. The kiss. Marisol gasped. She knew.

Vincent broke away from her touch, bounding to the stove. He turned off the burners with loud clicks.

“Vincent.” But how could it be?

He sighed, his shoulders tensing up to his neck.

She had to make sure. “Vincent. Come here.”

He sidled to her, close enough to graze the top of his hand at her hip. Marisol reached out and pressed her hands against his face, forming the shape of a mask with her fingers. He looked away from her. The blue shimmer of his irises poked through the space between her fingers. Stained glass in the sun. She knew.

Vincent Varian was the Patron Saint.

“It’s you.”

He drew in a quick breath, as if he was about to say something. Yet he remained silent, managing a shrug.

She moved her fingers down his neck. “I think... I needed him to be you. ”

The corners of his mouth turned up. His darkened eyes searched her face, stopping at her lips.

Marisol lifted her head to meet his mouth. His true identity was all the more clear to her as he tasted like a thunderstorm: petrichor and air thick with static charges. Goosebumps dotted her arms as her skin sang from little electrical jolts. She pushed her tongue against his, and his arms encircled her waist. The strength of his embrace released her startled gasp. Soon she hummed with delight. She aimed to entice him further, changing the pressure of her tongue to a light flicker and then a strong lunge that he returned. The thrills she chased running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop didn’t match her high now.

A twinge from her bad knee warned her. A little too high.

Marisol caught her breath. She rested her forehead against his shoulder. Vincent ran his fingers through her hair and pulled it away from her neck. He kissed behind her ear and down her neck, sucking gently against its tendon, down to her collarbone. His hands slid her flannel from her shoulders. The thin fabric of her undershirt did nothing to block the sudden chilled air pulling her nipples taut. Too high. Her body clenched like a fist, resisting the loss of control. She pursed her lips together and closed her eyes.

He kissed her eyelids, as if starting a reverent ceremony. “How may I please you? ”

She popped open one eye. Oddly formal question, but one no one had asked her, even casually: What do you like? She liked the tender sensation of silk braided with the potential energy of leather and shredding power of barbed wire. She liked complex. She liked breaking and reconstructing; a burn followed with a balm.

She opened her other eye and ran her fingers over his belt. “Give it to me bone deep.”

He bristled his knuckles against her cast. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But what about what she needed? She needed to feel everything—groped, slammed, pounded into. Everything times a thousand just to know she wasn’t dead inside. She pressed her lips to his ear. “Pain will remind us that we’re alive.”

“Hm,” he answered like she offered him the sweetest foretaste of pleasure swirling with pain. He scooped her into his arms, carrying her through the hall. As he entered her room, he kicked the ottoman by the chair, and it slid to the foot of the bed.

He lowered her onto the edge of the bed; her bad leg extended on the ottoman. He kneeled before her as if she was his altar. She rubbed his torso with her free thigh, hoping to lure him closer. His body felt so hard and warm between her legs.

He raised his arms above his head, surrendering himself to her. She peeled the sweater from his body. With alabaster skin, he appeared as a monument of strength and symmetry. Unblemished. Perfect. How? Didn’t she pull a blade out of him? But as he looked at her from his place on the ground, the time for answers would be later. Much later…

She wanted to savor him with her mouth and to worship his body. She wanted to kiss the brawn of his shoulders and to run her tongue over the ridges of his abdomen. Yet she was stuck on the altar. Damn him for kneeling. She wouldn’t be able to touch or stroke her favorite parts of his body without falling off the bed.

She could only receive his attention. He pulled the black sock from her good foot and traced his fingers up her calf and thighs. At her hips, he pushed her undershirt over her curves, his touch careful of her yellowing bruises. Hot kisses chased after the hem of her shirt. A little skin, then a kiss. He set the pattern forth up her flank and to her shoulder, continuing down her arm to the tips of her fingers. There, he untangled her from the undershirt.

With his face at her hands, she caressed his square jawline and pulled him to her naked body to offer her breasts to his mouth. He indulged her desire by coaxing a nipple between his fingers. His kisses were like a trail of gasoline, and his kneading hands at her breast lit the match. Another pluck. A fire raged inside her, so much so, she arched her pelvis toward him.

“How may I please you?” He took a nipple in his mouth, but his gaze remained on her .

Marisol flung her head back and moaned. “That’s good.”

“Does it please you when I do this?” He nibbled the inside of her thigh and kissed where his teeth indented her flesh, anointing her with his tongue.

Her muscles wound tight behind her belly, forming into a hollow ache. She sucked in a breath. “Depends.”

He nestled his head on her thigh and looked at her with wide eyes. His fingers traced the edges of her shorts. “Depends?”

She nudged his chin with her thigh. “Is that mouth of yours going to go any higher, or are you going to tease me to death?”

He curled his lips into a wicked smile. He kissed her thigh and breathed hot air against her apex. Twisting away, she was unsure if she’d survive. She’d have to demand release. She’d have to tell him to put that wicked mouth to work. She’d have to order him to make her come.

What was that? That inner voice couldn’t be her. She closed her eyes, squeezing away her desire. In her self-made darkness, she saw herself in the mask, running through the flames. She was becoming her—a power-drunk creature demanding to be worshiped on her altar. And he was an excellent supplicant on his knees, stroking her through the fabric of her shorts. Oh God.

She propped herself up on her elbows. “Feel how wet you make me. ”

He pushed part of her shorts aside, exposing her and running his fingers over her bare flesh. His breath hitched, and his ivory skin flushed pink. Was he on the edge like her?

Writhing with every stroke and pluck of her body, she didn’t await the answer. She panted and held in a squeal. He laughed, watching her body wriggle and flex under his touch. She feared flying too high and burning. Every squeeze and twist resisted the edge.

“How may I please you?” He withdrew his hands, leaving behind a violent chill that stung against her hot skin.

“You seem to know what you’re doing.” She whimpered, her body quivering without him.

His tongue teased at the crease of her thigh, a tantalizing preview of what he could do. With her eyes squeezed shut, she breathed deeper and tightened every muscle of her body. He nuzzled again at the inside of her thigh, as if he was waiting to pounce at her command. At her command.

Her eyes opened. She held his chin and ran her thumb over his pouty lips. “Work that pretty-boy mouth on me and don’t come up until I scream.” She bit her lip and searched his face for approval. Too much, right?

He raised an eyebrow and then yanked her shorts, freeing them off her hips. His arms supported under each of her thighs, arching her toward his face. Every part of his mouth found her. His tongue flickered, prodded, and rubbed flat against her. She bucked. His lips suckled. Her fingers clawed through his hair, pulling at his angelic waves. Her body became a clenched fist, tightening and tightening. Yet she bucked and clawed. Anything to hold off the inevitable snap.

“I want to please you. Let me please you.” He panted between delicious laps of his tongue.

The toes of her good foot curled. His words and tongue barreled through her defenses. She deserved to have her pleasure matter foremost. He unearthed in her a long-lost sensation, building and building. Her body went rigid. She tossed her head back. The snap, the snap, the snap! “Vincent!”

Ow.

Ow? Spasms traveled down her leg and bored into her wound. Ow. The orange flames of her vision became white flashes in her eyes. Pain manifested into a visual synesthesia, blocking the edges of her view, not at all like the good ache of being claimed and ravaged. Her muscle tremors peaked into an “Ow!”

“I’m stopping.”

Her entire body stiffened into cramped angles. “I just need a moment.” Maybe the moment needed to be a minute or—oof!—twenty.

He tightly wrapped her naked body in the sheets. “Breathe.”

Right. How had she instructed patients through similar pain but forgot now? Must be Vincent’s talent of turning her brain into mush. She nestled in the perfect bevel between his shoulder and collarbone. The sharp pain became a dull pulse.

Their breathing synchronized as she traced her fingertips along the golden hair of his chest and smoothed over the muscular lines of his torso. “Kind of feel like a straight dumbass when I talk a big game but reach my limit right at the first O.”

His mouth formed into his feline smile. “You shouldn’t feel like a dumbass. I should very, very, very gently,” he said before kissing the soft spot behind her ear, “find what your recovering body can handle.”

Sounded like a delicious and wicked and great idea—as great an idea as glancing over the trail of golden hair below his navel and under his waistband “We don’t have to make this about me.” She palmed his erection and felt it strain against his fly.

Vincent hissed and shooed her hand away. “I have a better idea.”

“And deny yourself pleasure?”

He hovered his mouth over hers and tangled both of his hands in her hair, effectively pulling her away from his lips. “Whose pleasure is being denied?”

Marisol wiggled her hips to fight the empty need within. The warm breath from his parted lips promised the electricity of his mouth. But the gap between them, barely an inch, was the good kind of wound that left her begging for more. Maybe she could ride along the edge the rest of the night, savor the quieter pleasures, and hold off the loud peaks? She arched into his arm, hoping that hand of his would yank open the sheet and dip lower and lower.

“Turn over,” he said with a feather-light rasp.

Her grin widened as she flipped onto her stomach. She heard only the whispering of Vincent’s hands rubbing together. His oil-slicked fingers smoothed over Marisol’s lower back. He kissed the spot and glided his hands up her back, pressing his thumbs against the tight muscle between her neck and shoulder. The cassia in the oil heated her skin.

Marisol greeted her muscle’s release with a grateful hum, and she shifted to rest her cheek on her arm. A massage wasn’t exactly what she expected, but it served as an adequate substitute. His hands traced down her sides, applying pressure at the outer edges of her glute muscles. She opened her eyes a little, watching Vincent’s perfect, shirtless, shining body move over her. The perfect body that aroused as many questions as it did pleasure. “Can I ask you something?”

“Hm.” Vincent ran his hands in a curve at the back of her thighs. His fingers whispered along the crease just under her ass.

“I think most of the time the media said you’re out of the country, and you’ve been busy as him?”

“Is that a question?”

“No, but…” Marisol furrowed her brow. “How do you do it? The media have pictures of you te aring up a hotel in Barbados when I know you were punching baddies in the city.”

Vincent inched off the bed. He picked up a computer pad and called up a gossip magazine. He presented Marisol with a blurry picture of himself under a headline:

SOCIALITE SNOGS DIVA

American heir Vincent Varian seen in Notting Hill club locking lips with Della D days after attending gala with model. True love or new notch?

“I play a part to hide the other side of me. If that’s not enough, I’ll stage a photo. It seems that I’m in London now.” Vincent raised his eyebrows and sighed. He had sacrificed his reputation to hide his alter ego. “It is amazing what people will believe with Photoshop and some hired actors. Money has afforded the Varians’ privacy.”

Marisol shifted onto her back and swiped through various articles on the screen. A lightbulb went off about her earlier conversation with Whit DeWinter in the powder room at the Varian Estate. “Your date at the ball said you seemed like two different people. She was right.” She sat up. “Everything that made little sense about you wasn’t you at all.”

“Right.” He lowered his lips to hers .

She could give and deny just as easily. Before their lips brushed, she said, “When they kidnapped you, that wasn’t staged with actors. The men even said a Patron Saint attacked them. You said—”

“A half-truth. I saved myself.” Vincent tucked her hair behind her ear.

“They didn’t say Vincent Varian beat them up.”

“That’s because I keep an aerosol hallucinogen on me. It looks like pepper spray and disorients a person enough to create images in his head. To them, a Patron Saint did ‘beat them up.’” His baritone voice at her ear vibrated down to her core. “Not that they picked the wrong venture capitalist to mess with.”

Marisol nudged him away with her shoulder. “Is that what you did to Izzy? He said the darkness came alive and attacked him.”

“Not exactly. I called him through a voice box and mimicked someone I had heard once when I surveilled their calls. It scared him enough to come out himself.” He mauled her with pecking kisses on her neck.

Marisol pushed his face away, her hand splayed over his face like a starfish. “Who could scare Izzy enough for him to go do a pawn’s job?”

Her fingers muffled his answer, “I don’t know. Something in the voice, I suppose.” As she removed her hand, he kissed the tips of her fingers. Between kisses he added, “But I did light his drug supply on fire and smoke-bombed the getaway car. Siccing the police on him was the bow on the package. ”

Marisol yanked her arm away. “You also broke his nose.” That the angelic beauty she faced could inflict such violence tempted her like honeyed words, searing into her a desire only he could fulfill. The sheets rustled as she rubbed her thighs together.

His gaze fixated on her lips. “Sometimes you have to apply pressure.”

She remembered Tobias chucking a shard of burned Varian packaging on his desk. She turned away from Vincent. “They’re using your company name to get drugs in this city.”

“Yes. I’ve been working with Quinlan to figure out how.”

“How long have you worked with the police?”

“I work with Quinlan, not the police. For a few years now.”

“You called the police dispatch through that device in your suit.”

“I know how to manipulate the police to achieve certain outcomes.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and nibbled at her shoulder.

She faced him. “Like tying up bad guys outside a precinct?”

“One way.” He growled, revealing his alter ego hidden underneath.

His explanation reminded her of the night she first met him. “Not too long ago, I pulled a knife blade out of you. Your body should look like a human pincushion. Instead, you look airbrushed. How?”

“Are you sure you can handle my secrets?”

“You haven’t chased me away yet. And if that secret is an increased healing factor? Spill it and get me out of this cast.”

He slid both hands down the calf of her good leg. “I like you helplessly unable to move from my clutches.” He grazed the sole of her foot, tickling her.

After a few tortured wriggles, she ghosted her fingertips down his chest to his abs and teased the waistband of his pants. “Aren’t you curious about what I can do to you when I have two good legs?”

Vincent held her hand against the flat plane of his stomach and leaned toward her mouth. “Hm.”

“Hm indeed.” Her lips parted to close the gap between denial and indulgence with a kiss.

“Get dressed and pack your things.”

She jolted as if she overestimated the rise of a stair. “That’s not where I thought this was going.”

He sprung off the bed and pulled on his sweater. “Follow me when you’re ready. I need to show you something.”

If a secret vigilante identity wasn’t enough to interrupt sexy time, what the ever-loving hell did he have to show her?