Surrender

by Jean Brashear

5.0 stars – 3 Reviews

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An Excerpt from

Surrender

by Jean Brashear

Copyright © 2011 by Jean Brashear and published here with her permission

The mage lay on the earthen floor inside the circle he’d warded with runes, clad in a simple woven robe embroidered with spells of focus, of strength, of protection for his physical shell as his essence cast outward.

One last time, he sought the Light. The Song that would lead him to the Soul Star which animated the amulet he’d once sworn to protect.

The Eye of the Magos, gone twenty years now.

He was the last of the Light Walkers, a people descended from the star voyagers and older than the Romany they favored.

But his skills had faded with his faith. He could still see the starbursts, but he could no longer separate them into the ribbons, the hues he had once Walked as his father had done before him. As he’d done so easily in his youth.

Before. When he’d believed in the legend.

The Eye of the Magos heals when honor defeats hate, when love vanquishes lies

Love breeds Light

Light grants Power

Only in Darkness does the Eye lose the True Path

Before he’d lost his only love, watched her die as he stood helpless.

Before his birthright had been stolen, and his heart had grown colder with each passing year, his powers diminished.

His father had told him of the existence of a Prism able to separate Light into its colors, that could, in times of great need, show the Protector the path of the Song that would lead to the Soul Star. He’d searched the world over for the object, investigated every belief system, every religion, every rite, however obscure, hoping that somehow one would lead him to the Soul Star and onward to the stolen amulet.

Here in these high desert mountains, studying the Ancient Ones, was his last stop…and he’d found nothing.

You will be a powerful mage, possibly the most powerful of all, his father had told him.

You were wrong, Papa. I have failed all the generations before me, father to son back in time to the first of our people. The grief he’d thought to be done with, once more assailed him.

One more time, he would try, but this would be his last. Slowly he slipped from this world into the Other Sky as he slowed his breathing, as he began to chant in a tongue few would recognize. He floated, searching even as faint hope waned…aimless, every direction the same to a man gone blind, rendered deaf…

The world cracked.

Abruptly he plummeted. Spiny, poisoned tentacles slithered around him. Stung him until his skin burned. Grime and filth swirled through the opening, covering him, drowning him…

Gasping, he awoke on the hard-packed earth, the hem of his robe stained, his feet smeared with unspeakable filth.

And in the dark recesses of his lost soul, the Eye of the Magos screamed.

The amulet was found, and Evil had claimed it.

The mage shuddered, but inside him, hope was born. At least he knew that the amulet still existed.

He was its only Protector. There was no time to waste.

Crisp morning rays sliced through Santa Fe’s high desert air, painting the alley just off the Plaza with clean lines of light and shadow. Above them, the crystalline blue bowl of sky was streaked by wispy cotton clouds. Against a backdrop of golden adobe walls, deep in the cool shade that would vanish by midday, newly-minted Detective Jace Carroll stood over the body of Sam Sunshine.

She jittered like a racehorse, poised just before the gate opened.

Not that she didn’t feel a little shame cast a pall over the thrill of being there. Sam was a grizzled old drug addict who’d been a fixture on the Plaza, panhandling with a funny, harmless grace for as long as she could remember. Jace had liked him—everyone did. He was a piece of an older Santa Fe being lost to the influx of money and bored socialites searching for a new playground.

The crime scene techs kept working, oblivious to anything but measurements that needed taking, photos to be shot.

Earl Ramsey, the veteran detective who’d let Jace accompany him on this first case, stood beside her, hands shoved into his pants pockets, head lowered and voice soft. “I could never reach him.”

She glanced up in surprise. “You knew him?”

Earl, a shambling big bear of a man, shrugged. “I was a young cop; he was a flower child. I’d never seen anything like them. They lived in teepees just outside of town. New Buffalo Clan, they called themselves.”

His gaze peered into the past. “Sam tried to convince me to change my way of thinking. Make a new world.” The creases around his eyes deepened. “I couldn’t see what needed changing. I married Martha, and life went on.” Voice heavy, he continued. “For Sam, life stayed suspended somewhere in that haze.”

“He never harmed anyone that I heard.”

“Sam reserved all his harm for himself. He couldn’t come to terms with the world as it existed, always wanted some new excitement, some cause to pursue.” He stared at his friend’s body. “In between times, he killed the pain of reality with whatever was handy.”

Jace winced. He could be describing her younger brother Jimmy. “Think that’s what happened here?”

“Probably. No sign of a struggle, no visible body trauma.”

“We’ll know after the autopsy.”

The older man gazed into the distance. “His body’s been abused enough just by living. Doesn’t seem fair to subject it to more.” Earl’s jaw hardened. “But the law’s the law.”

“I’m sorry, Earl.”

He shrugged. “It’s part of the job.” He looked over at her. “You really want this gig? Violent Crimes?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why?” she echoed.

“It’s a simple question, Jace. You’re going to figure out others’ motives—how about your own? Why are you so all fired-up to get a piece of the action?”

“I—” Jace had never tried to put it into words. She wanted to be there at the core of it, the dark heart of evil. To take it into her fist and feel it, taste it, smell it. Then maybe she’d comprehend a lot of things that had baffled her for years—why her mother drank, then slapped or ignored her children, why the only good part of her life had died with her father. Why at twelve, she’d had to fight so hard to keep body and soul together for the family left behind.

“To make sense of death, I guess. Balance the scales.”

“Justice is a pipe dream, kid, and most deaths are pointless.”

She didn’t know how to respond.

“Forget me.” He waved her off. “I’m old and jaded—been at this longer than you’ve been alive.” He nodded at the gathering crowd. “But we need eager beavers. You can help me canvass the area.”

Action. Her pulse sped. She turned toward the nearest knot of people.

“Jace?”

She halted. “Yes?”

“Don’t give up on making sense of it. Sometimes that’s all that holds the darkness at bay.”

Jace nodded, elated that he was giving her a chance, no matter how insignificant the case, to work with him. She’d been itching to move into the Violent Crimes section, and she’d take anything she could get, any means to show Captain Gonzales that she was up to the job.

Her dad had been a cop, a good one. She’d nurtured the dream for years of being one, too, though the need to care for Jimmy had delayed her. She’d always had to work hard for what she got, be patient and cunning, look for her chance.

She’d make the most of this one.

* * *

“Unnh…” The figure on the cot groaned and struggled to rise.

“Don’t sit up too fast.” The Keeper of the Chalice held out a cup of water to the man cradling his head in his hands.

“What—what happened? Where am I?”

“Drink this.” The man guzzled the water. “Take it easy. Your stomach might rebel.”

Too late. The man fell to his knees, retching helplessly.

The Keeper’s hands fluttered, then clenched. Casting a glance toward the rusty sink, the Keeper picked up the dingy cloth hanging on the edge and dampened it, then returned to the figure now sunk back against the cot, eyes squeezed shut in agony.

The Keeper proffered the cloth with unsteady fingers. “Take this and clean yourself.”

The man opened his lids a slit. Suddenly they widened. “You.” His eyes darted from side to side as if trying to understand where he was. “Wha—I don’t remem—” He clambered to his feet. “Sam—where is he?” Unsteady legs buckled.

The Keeper studied him, waiting to see what he remembered.

The voice hoarsened. “Where’s Sam?”

“You don’t remember?”

Long moments passed. “No,” he whispered. “We were—” He shook his head as if trying to jolt his thoughts back into place. “The Magos…” His voice trailed off as his frown intensified. “We’d ended our fast. Sam was ready for the Priestess, for the Sacred Waters—” Anxious eyes rose. “I want to see Sam. He’s my friend. He might need help.”

“Sam’s dead, and you were the only one there. Tell me what you did to him.”

With a cry of anguish, the figure collapsed to the floor.

* * *

Back at the station, Jace strode through the squad room, headed for her desk to type up her notes.

“Rough night, Justine?”

He knew better than to use the fancy name given her at birth. The nickname Jace symbolized her new life, her freedom from the past, but Detective Emilio Cardozo was no fan of hers ever since he and she had had a run-in when she was on patrol and had caught him making a lazy mistake. His presence was the only downside to being on Violent Crimes. “Maybe you look so tired because you need something to help you sleep, Blondie.” He leaned closer. “Or someone.”

Jace’s comeback was on her lips when Earl caught her eye and shook his head. He was right; hazing rituals had to be endured. She’d put the jerk on the spot, instead. “What’s new on that rape case?”

Cardozo snorted. “We don’t even know we’ve got a rape on our hands. Girl waits a month, then reports it? No evidence, she can’t remember nothin’, she expects it to stick when she can’t even give us a clue so simple as where she was?”

“But what about that other girl, a few months ago? She couldn’t remember, either. We could have a serial rapist.”

“What I got—” His emphasis made it clear she was excluded “—is some girls looking to get laid, playing with fire and somebody slips ’em a rophie or something. Or maybe they just had too much fun and feel bad, but they waited too long to come in. No chance to trace rohypnol in the blood now.”

God, he pissed her off. “That’s what you like, isn’t it? Easy explanations so you don’t have to work too hard.”

Cardozo took a step forward, forearms bulging, fists clenched. Barely taller than Jace, he was all muscle.

Including his head.

“Jace.” Earl called out a low warning before turning to answer the phone on his desk.

She subsided reluctantly. Damn it, you shouldn’t be a cop if you weren’t going to do it right. Remembering her father’s pride in his uniform, how tall and straight he’d stood, his stern insistence that a cop’s integrity was everything, Jace burned at the injustice. Her father was long dead at the hands of a cheap thug, and Cardozo stood here, the antithesis of everything her dad had believed in and died to protect.

“Cardozo, get back to work,” Earl ordered.

Jace was about to tell Earl she could take care of herself, but Earl had already picked up the phone. Motion in the doorway caught her eye. She looked up into the vivid blue eyes of Assistant D.A. Gabriel McMullen, the impact of his gaze palpable across the crowded, noisy room. After a quick, solemn nod, the prosecutor broke the connection and spoke to Cardozo. Studiously avoiding any evidence that she’d even noticed him, Jace ducked into the hallway, then veered into the alcove where the drink machines were located.

A young woman barreled right into her. “I’m sorry—” The woman, in her late teens, maybe early twenties, juggled the soft drink she’d just opened. The can bounced, then rolled across the floor, spewing sticky fluid over their feet.

Hunched over, shoulders shaking, the young woman gazed helplessly at the mess around them.

Jace squatted beside her and righted the can. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Her voice caught on a sob.

“Hey, everything I own is washable. No sweat.” Jeans and boots were tough to destroy. Jace hailed a passing secretary. “Colleen, would you please call the janitor up here?” Drawing the young woman to her feet, Jace put an arm around her. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Once inside the ladies’ room, Jace dampened paper towels and handed them to the young woman. “I’m Detective Carroll.”

“Detective?” The young woman looked more stricken than ever.

“That a problem?” She didn’t seem the criminal type, but appearances seldom counted for much. Jace had arrested angelic-looking grandmothers. With a smile aimed at disarming, she busied herself cleaning the sticky liquid off her boots. “I didn’t get your name.”

Fresh tears spurted from the young woman’s swollen eyes. To save her embarrassment, Jace faced her own pale green eyes in the mirror and ran her fingers through the short cap of blond hair that might as well have had a mixer run through it.

“Valerie. Valerie Turner.”

Bingo. The second rape victim. Easy to see why she was upset.

“You know, don’t you?” Valerie Turner asked. “Who I am.”

Her poker face must be slipping. Jace shrugged. “I’ve heard a little about the case.”

“Detective Cardozo doesn’t believe me.”

“Should he?”

Fire sparked in the girl’s eyes. “I’m not lying.”

“Why did you wait so long to report it?”

“I wasn’t sure what to do. I—I wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“Where?” Cardozo had said that she couldn’t remember anything after accepting a drink in the bar.

“The Club,” she whispered.

“What club?”

“Never mind.” Fear darted through Valerie’s gaze.

She was halfway to the door before Jace stopped her. “What club?”

Valerie stepped back, drying her hands. “Listen, it’s not your problem. I—I’m sorry about the mess.”

“We can’t help you if you don’t come clean. Are you under age, is that it?”

“No,” Valerie shook her head. “I’m twenty-one.”

“Then it doesn’t hurt anything for you to tell us what bar.”

“Not a bar,” Valerie whispered. “The Club.” The door swished, and she was gone.

Jace charged out into the hall after her. They’d been hearing rumors about a roving nightclub, but no one had a good lead yet. “Valerie, wait!”

Not even a glimpse of the girl remained.

A smooth baritone voice intervened. “I wasn’t aware you’d been assigned to the rape case, Detective.”

Jace whirled. Despite her height, Gabriel always made her feel small. Looking at his rugged face, his twice-broken nose a souvenir of college football and his years as a cop, she clenched her fingers against the urge to touch. “I haven’t.”

“Then what are you doing, terrifying the victim?” One dark eyebrow lifted, his eyes cool. Sable-brown hair was neatly razor-cut well above his starched collar. Studying the expanse of white cotton over his chest, she stood very still.

“I didn’t scare her off. Cardozo’s doing fine by himself.”

Firm lips quirked at one corner. “Surely you couldn’t be accusing one of Santa Fe’s finest, Detective?”

She snorted. “Has she mentioned The Club to you?”

“Which club?” Then his eyes widened as her meaning registered. “Tell me.”

“Get me assigned to the case, and I will.”

“From what I hear, you’ve already got your first case.”

“Sam Sunshine. Big deal.”

“Know the autopsy results already? You should put your newfound psychic abilities to work, Detective. His body’s not even in Albuquerque yet.” He leaned closer. “What did she say?”

Jace felt the heat of him all across the front of her body. “Not much. Just that she wasn’t supposed to be there. Cardozo could have found out the same thing if he’d just listened.” She turned on her heel.

“Jace.” His voice vibrated in the air between them. “The moon.”

She halted. Despite her best intentions, she felt their code words low in her belly.

“Gonna shine brightly tonight, I think.”

Barely glancing over her shoulder, she challenged him. “Yeah?”

“Count on it.”

Licking her lips slowly, Jace met his gaze.

Message received.

* * *

Cassandra Sabanne was sick of seclusion. At eighteen, she’d been a prisoner for six years, orphaned to the care of her much-older brother Dante. Her last escape from the Swiss convent school three weeks ago had paid off—sort of. She’d been liberated from the nuns, but backwater Santa Fe was hardly what she’d had in mind.

Action, that’s what Cassie wanted. Sins of the flesh, glamour, adventure…all that she’d been missing while the world danced on without her. Everything her jailer brother would deny her.

She grimaced at the sunshine gilding the firs, dancing over the fluttering aspen leaves, the brilliance of the day doing nothing for her mood. “Even Switzerland wasn’t this boring.”

Melinda, the housekeeper’s granddaughter, looked at her new friend in horror. “Easy for you to say. You’ve lived in Europe most of your life. I’ve never been outside of New Mexico.”

“But I’ve been locked away in a Swiss convent school.” Cassie evaded her friend’s too-seeing eyes and sighed. “I guess you’re right. It’s just…” With a shake of her head, Cassie turned to pick out a new CD. “I’m tired of being in jail. I want some action.”

“Some jail. Four families could fit in this house and never cross paths.”

Her eyes crinkling at the corners, Cassie burst out laughing. “Okay, maybe I’m spoiled. But I’m still bored out of my skull.”

“So change it.”

“You don’t have a warden.”

“He’s scary, all right.” Melinda chewed on her lip again. “What do you want to do?”

“Go to The Club.”

Melinda gasped. “Where did you hear about it?”

Cassie arched an eyebrow. “Do you know how to get an invitation?”

“Are you kidding me? We’re too young for that crowd.”

“Says you. In Europe they don’t treat eighteen-year-olds like infants.”

“Cassie, that’s a dangerous place. You don’t have any business going there.”

“Afraid? I’m not. And I’m going to The Club, believe me.”

“How?”

“You’re going to help me.”

“Oh, no. No way. My grandmother would kill me. Right after my father locked me up for the rest of my life. Besides, he wouldn’t agree—” Melinda cut a glance toward the door. “if he knew.”

“Dante will never find out.”

“How are you going to make sure of that?”

“If I can break out of that convent he put me in, I can escape from this place. Mark my words, Melinda. We’re checking out The Club.”

Melinda pulled her shoulders in closer. “I don’t know if I want to.”

Cassie’s lip curled. “Then I’ll go by myself.”

“No, I can’t let—” With an elaborate sigh, Melinda gave in. “All right. If you can wangle an invitation and if we can get in, I’ll go.”

Cassie clapped her hands in delight. Curling Melinda’s equally long dark hair up into a twist, Cassie turned her toward the cheval mirror standing in the corner of her room. “We will. Just leave it to me. One look at us, and they won’t know what hit them.”

Seeing her friend chewing her lip, Cassie pulled her away from the mirror and toward her closet. “Come on, let’s figure out what to wear. My clothes should fit you.”

“But Cassie, I can’t—” Eyes round as saucers, Melinda entered the closet as though she’d been given the keys to a magical kingdom.

“I have all these clothes Dante bought me and nowhere to wear them. It’s the least I can do for my partner in crime.”

With a tremulous smile that grew wider by the second, Melinda turned toward the contents of Cassie’s kickass wardrobe.

GREECE

Thirty-two years ago

“This is cinquefoil, Papa?” Five-year-old Dante Sabanne frowned fiercely as he pointed to the dainty plant.

The man beside him smiled with pride. “Yes,” he murmured. “And what are its uses?”

“A de—”

“Decoction,” his father supplied.

“Decoction,” Dante repeated. “The root is for toothache and fever. The bark can stop nosebleeds. The tea…” He halted.

“Go on,” his father urged.

Dante’s mouth pursed. “I don’t like the part about scaring witches.” He craned his neck to look upward. “We are magos, Papa, and Light Walkers. You said we carry the blood of ancient sorcerers in us. Aren’t sorcerers and witches friends?”

A fond smile crossed his father’s face. “Often they have been.”

“Witches can be good, right?”

“Many of them are, yes. Healers and protectors.”

“Like the amulet,” Dante said. “Please, may I see it, Papa?”

His father reached inside his shirt for the unnaturally green stone set in a silver disc carved with runes so ancient that the original language had been lost to all but the fathers and sons chosen to guard it through countless generations. “Do you want to touch it?”

Dante nodded and brushed back the dark hair falling into his eyes. One finger uncurled from his palm. “The Eye of the Magos,” he whispered, closing his hand around the amulet.

The stone glowed. Power crackled.

He shuddered but held on, his eyes squeezed against the longing and grief and wild, reckless joy surging through his veins. Behind his eyes rushed a river of lights, all the colors of the rainbow and more…singing to him, a harmonic both terrifying and achingly sweet, power singing in his bones, his breath, his belly…calling to him, luring him—

“No, son.” His father reclaimed it.

The connection snapped. Dante’s eyes fluttered open. “Papa, not yet—”

His father’s eyes held both love and sorrow. He tucked the amulet back inside his shirt. “You are not yet strong enough to protect it.” He gentled his tone. “But one day you will be.” His eyes grew distant, but Dante was too caught up to notice, grieving for what had been taken from him.

“I am only small, not weak, Papa. I can Walk the Light. I hear the Song of the Soul Star.”

His father’s gaze warmed. “I know you can, and one day you will, my boy, but the amulet and its power would harm you now. To wield it requires a wisdom that comes only with time.

“The Eye of the Magos—” he began the chant. “—heals when honor defeats hate, when love vanquishes lies—”

Dante joined in, his childish voice twining with his father’s deeper one. “Love breeds Light. Light grants Power. Only in Darkness does the Eye lose the True Path.”

His father smiled and pressed him close. “For generations, we have guarded its might. Ours is a sacred duty. I will carry the burden for a while longer. Even a Protector is allowed to be a boy first. Play and laugh and grow, my son. Your time will come soon enough.”

Dante’s mother entered, her face gone stiff. He knew it meant his father was going away. “Your driver is outside.”

“Papa, why must you always leave?” He looked up to his tall father, but Papa was watching his mother.

He flicked a glance down at Dante, summoning a smile that did not reach his eyes. “I’ll be back, my son. Very soon.”

He knew he wasn’t supposed to ask, but it wasn’t fair. They could be so happy. His mother wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the day crying. “Why can’t you stay with us? I’ll be good, I promise.”

His mother’s eyes welled with tears. His father took his face in both hands. “You are already perfect. I wish…” His father sighed, then kissed his forehead before stepping away. “You are young yet. Someday I will be able to make you understand.”

“Liar.” Dante’s mother turned her back.

His father’s face looked scary. His mother’s shoulders were rigid. Dante longed to go back to the moment when his father was happy, telling him about the potions and magic.

He stood very straight. “When you return, Papa, I will show you that I know other plants as well.” He bit the inside of his cheek hard so he would not cry. Papa might not come back if he cried.

His father’s face was sad. He dropped his hand to the boy’s hair. “Son, I—”

Dante shook his head. “I understand,” he said, though he didn’t, not really. Mama had told him last time about the other family. Papa had another son, but Dante didn’t know why they couldn’t all live together. He would like to have a brother, but Mama told him he could never, ever ask or Papa might not return.

More than anything in the world, he wanted Papa to be with them, so he smiled and stepped away so that his father could leave.

As he thought about the spells his father had told him were in his blood, Dante wondered if there was a spell he could use to make his father stay.

But the only person he could ask was the man getting into the big black car to leave him behind.

Jace headed up the mountainside toward her cabin after a bitch of a day. Pulling to a stop in front of her door, she leaned back against the seat and rotated her head, groaning at the tight muscles in her neck.

She wanted a hot bath, soaking for a little bit of forever. She wasn’t even sure she cared if she ate. Oh, for a nap before Gabriel arrived…

Gabriel. Their paths had crossed a year or so back when she’d testified in one of the cases he’d prosecuted. Gabriel understood her ambitions and the demands of her job, as she did his. He was divorced with no interest in another marriage, and they shared an appreciation for the pressure relief valve of good—make that very good—sex. Beyond that, they lived separate lives, and it was exactly what she wanted.

She relished the solitude, the independence she’d waited so long to have. From the day her father died, the family’s survival had depended on her, and a dreamy-eyed girl had been slammed into reality. She’d learned hard lessons about the price of being soft, of feeling too much, of counting on anyone but herself.

Jace emerged from her jeep and picked up the sack of groceries that would keep her for days, as seldom as she cooked.  Then she paused for her nightly ritual.

After a year, she still hadn’t tired of the view, the crisp, clean tickle of high-country air…the stillness so complete that you could hear your own blood pulse. She spent most of her time on the job, always promising herself a day off to do nothing but drink in the beauty. Instead, she got this one brief burst of mountains every day. If she got home before dark, that is.

It’s the life you wanted, Jace.

True. After years of being a parent to her own mother and Jimmy, after an endless line of nothing jobs to keep body and soul together, she’d almost lost everything in a car accident five years ago—and she’d resolved not to put off her dreams any longer. She’d taken that disaster and put it to use. A scar on her hip and a limp when she was too tired served to remind her that she’d wanted to be a cop forever.

Now she was. If it meant twenty-eight-hour days and little time to smell the roses, so be it. She didn’t care about flowers much, anyway; one glance at the plants on her porch was proof. She kept meaning to water the gifts from her landlady, Myra, but she did as little on the domestic front as possible. She’d been cook, laundress, mother and father, provider for her family since she was twelve. Dad’s benefits hadn’t covered much, and her mother still was no help; left to her, every cent would go to Southern Comfort.

Once Jimmy had moved away, Jace had left her mother to a boyfriend and her own devices. She’d done all the caretaking she ever wanted to do, except that Jimmy kept showing up and needing more. She and Gabriel had argued more than once over that.

Gaze traveling over the half-dead plants lined up on the steps with begging bowls out for the summer rains, Jace consigned her regret to the four winds. “You’re on your own, guys. I don’t have it in me anymore.”

The job was enough. She might feel the occasional gnawing for more, but life had taught her it wasn’t likely to happen. She could barely remember the little girl who’d been such a dreamer.

Unlocking the door, Jace shoved it open, wincing as it stuck halfway. Got to tell Myra—

The bag was torn from her hands, dropped to the floor. A muscled arm grabbed her from behind, hand clapped over her mouth.

She jerked straight, leg lifted to smash her foot down on his arch—

—until she caught the familiar scent.

And smiled.

One quick shove against the wall, face first, hands lifted above her head, wrists trapped in one big fist. With a whoosh, the air left her lungs as a big body pressed against hers.

Jace pushed back, brushing her bottom across his groin.

Gabriel growled and fastened his mouth to her nape.

Arousal stirred, deep and low. Her nipples hardened in a rush, gooseflesh peppering her skin. A guttural moan forced its way up her throat.

Heated, silken tongue slicked a path up her neck, fastened on her right ear lobe. Sucked gently. Nipped.

Jace rocked against him, all but purring.

Gabriel chuckled. Relaxed against her.

Jace seized the advantage. Yanked down her arms, punched her elbow into his stomach, whirled. Doubled over, he couldn’t straighten quite fast enough before she hooked one foot behind his right knee and wrenched his leg from beneath him.

With a thud, he landed on the floor, instantly coiled to rise again.

Jace dropped, straddled his belly. Laughed when air whooshed from his lungs. “Losing those cop reflexes, Counselor?” She gripped the opening of his expensive white shirt.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

Jace lifted her eyebrows, then jerked the panels apart. Buttons popped to the floor like hailstones.

“Don’t what?” she asked in her silkiest voice, eyes wide. “Can dish it out but you can’t take it?”

Faster than she could blink, she found herself on her back, a great deal of man blocking out the fading sunlight slanting into the room. Strong thighs bracketed her waist while big hands each circled a wrist. “I wasn’t through.”

Jace studied the firm, muscled chest, dark curls bisected by the thin white scar from long-ago shoulder surgery. Her gaze zeroed off to the side.

He glanced over to see what she was staring at.

Jace bucked to topple him.

He chuckled. “Not so fast, slick.” He pressed her down. “Uncle?”

Jace narrowed her eyes. Shook her head.

“Tut-tut. Guess you need more…persuasion.” His mouth fastened just below the right ear lobe still wet from his tongue. Then marked a tingling trail down her neck, inside her blouse and into the valley between her breasts.

She tensed to resist him. Moaned instead.

His fingertips drifted over her curves. Mirrored her earlier grip on his shirt.

Jace grabbed his wrists. “Oh no, you don’t.”

“Should have thought of that before you made free with mine. I just hope you’re good at finding buttons.”

“Don’t you dare—”

Too late. With one clean yank, he separated the halves, the second shower of buttons on wood floors as loud as the first. “I’ll buy you a new one,” he muttered, lowering his head to the lace covering one breast.

Jace drove her fingers into his hair and gasped.

All teasing fled.

She fumbled at his belt; opened his zipper. Plunged fingers inside his briefs and closed around him, her thumb teasing the tip.

God. She’d had limited sexual experience before Gabriel, but he’d helped her make up for lost time. For all his sharp mind, his hard-as-nails courtroom manner, there was within this man a willingness to throw away all pretense and play with her. However she wanted, hot and dirty, slow and dreamy, any fantasy she had and several she’d never even imagined.

The swollen head wept one perfect pearl at the tip; he pulsed in her hand. Jace shoved at his shoulder, twisted her body to get closer to his shaft while his lips slid across her belly on the way to—

“Sis?” The front door, still open, squeaked as it was shoved wider.

“Shit!” Gabriel kicked it closed. A yelp sounded from behind the door.

They scrambled to fasten their clothing.

“What the—?” Curly auburn hair came first, then a hand rubbing the man’s forehead, followed by hazel eyes sparking with anger.

“Damn it, Jimmy,” Jace shouted. “What does this look like, Grand Central Station?” Chest heaving, she glared at her brother.

Then at Gabriel for snickering.

Jimmy Carroll’s eyes widened as he studied his sister, clasping her blouse together. “Sorry, Sis.” One corner of his mouth quirked. He stuck out his hand to Gabriel. “Jimmy Carroll. I’m—”

“Jace’s brother. She’s told me about you.” Gabriel returned the gesture. Stood, pants zipped but belt unbuckled, shirt hanging open, gaze direct and challenging. “Gabriel McMullen.”

Clamping down hard on the adrenaline, Jace surveyed the red-rimmed eyes, the shadows lining his face, the dust-streaked clothes. “Give us a minute, will you?”

“Sure.” He stepped toward the door with a smartass grin. “Nice meeting you.”

Gabriel glanced at Jace and frowned. He smoothed at the line she knew must be carved between her eyes.

She blew a puff of air that fluttered her uneven bangs. “I’m sorry about that.” Dealing with Jimmy made her tired, and she’d been doing it so long. Would he ever grow up?

“Want me to stay?”

“No. I can handle it. I’ve had plenty of practice.”

Gabriel tilted her chin up and studied her eyes. “I didn’t let you get much sleep last night.”

A pang of longing shot through her, a spike of need for what had been snatched prematurely by Jimmy’s arrival. She’d been primed for Gabriel ever since he’d spoken their code words in the hall. She just hadn’t expected to find him lying in wait.

“Where’s your SUV?”

He smiled. “Out back. Like the surprise?”

“You don’t wrestle so bad, Counselor, for a soft lawyer type.”

“Nothing about me feels soft right now, Detective.”

“His timing sucks.”

“Ain’t it the truth? Want me to come back later?”

Regret pressed in on her. “I don’t know why he’s here, but I’ll come to you later if I can.”

He slid one hand into her hair. Delivered a scorching kiss, then released her. He stuffed in his shirt and buckled his belt, hooked his tie and jacket over his shoulder. “I’ll leave the light on, Detective.” With a two-fingered salute, he waved goodbye and strolled to the door.

In a minute, she heard his car start, tires crunching on the gravel.

Running the fingers of one hand through her hair, Jace sighed, squatted on the floor and picked up scattered buttons. She carried them across the room to place them on the bar that separated the small living room from her kitchen, then adjusted her bra and tied her blouse together beneath her breasts.

“Come on in, Jimmy.”

Jimmy entered, whistling. “Well, well…”

“Shut it,” Jace growled.

“Now, Sis, nothing to be ashamed of, just ’cause you’re doing the nasty barely inside the front door.” He lifted his palms. “No complaints here. Nic