Darkness Bound

8

She closed her eyes, unable to resist savoring the sweet sting of exhilaration. She knew she was an adrenaline junkie, and at moments like this, with fear and electricity and anticipation winging through her like a million tiny starbursts, she felt as if she was conducting fire through her veins.

This was her drug. This was what she lived for. Because she was dead inside in so many ways, this was the only thing that made her feel alive.

She breathed into it, a satisfied little smile curling the corners of her lips.

Hawk said, “First time I’ve seen you smile.”

Her eyes snapped open. He was staring at her with the strangest look on his face, a combination of intense concentration and slight confusion, as if he was taken aback by something that didn’t fit.

Jack was vaguely aware of her heartbeat, of the pulse of the music, the sway of people on the dance floor, but she was acutely aware of him, as if there were an invisible Tesla coil connecting their bodies.

Channeling an ache and a fever of static electricity, the space between them felt charged.

Truly curious, her intuition screaming that she was on the verge of something big, hazardous, and possibly life altering, Jack whispered, “Who are you?”

Something in her voice or her face made him falter. He swallowed, that façade of perfect, arrogant self-confidence cracked. His voice barely audible above the music, he said, “Lucas Eduardo Tavares Castelo Luna. But my friends call me Hawk.”

His eyes burned. The tension between them was palpable, thick as molasses. Jack was at a loss as to why.

“Why do I feel like I know you?” she pressed. “Or I’m supposed to know you? Or I’m missing something here?”

This trio of questions was met with a brief, telling flicker of what looked like surprise in his eyes—maybe alarm—which was quickly smothered.

In a flash of comprehension that was like a floodlight flipped on, Jack understood.

Her laugh was loud and relieved. “Oh, you’re good!” she managed between the laughter that wouldn’t seem to stop coming. “Damn! She has amazing taste, I’ll give her that, but I am going to kill her!”

Hawk stared at her in silence as she groaned and passed a hand over her eyes, embarrassed at herself that she thought there was anything else going on between her and this impossibly big, beautiful man with the ridiculous nickname.

Jack had girlfriends, most of them childless career girls like her, but only one best friend with whom she shared everything. They’d met in college, and though total opposites in almost every way, had formed an unbreakable bond of friendship when they’d discovered they had something terrible in common, a horror they’d survived in childhood that had left them scarred in exactly the same ways.

Inola Hart was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, raised on a reservation, striking and statuesque and whip smart, with a devilish sense of humor that often took the form of practical jokes. She now worked as an attorney at the UN, and the last time they’d seen each other, when Jack had gone to DC for a reception hosted by the President in celebration of getting his anti-Shifter agenda pushed through Congress several months back, Nola had threatened Jack with a surprise for her thirtieth birthday. A birthday that was, in fact, this very day.

The surprise was supposed to be a male escort, so Jack, for the first time in years, could get laid. At the time, it had just seemed like a casual conversation; but obviously Nola took it a little more seriously . . . Jack thought back on their conversation.

“If I just didn’t ever have to see him again, you know?” Jack mused as she and Nola stood together in one corner of the grand East ballroom at the White House, scanning the crowd for familiar faces, nursing cocktails and discussing, for the umpteenth time, the problem of their barren s*x lives. Neither wanted a relationship, but neither wanted to be celibate either.

“I hear you,” replied Nola, neatly downing the rest of her pomegranate martini. “My last time was supposed to be a one-nighter with this junior attorney I met at a charity function, but he turned out to be a friggin’ stalker. That guy would not leave me alone. Do you know I came home one night and he was hiding in the bushes by my front door? I literally had to beat him with my purse to get him to go away.”

At that point Jack turned a critical eye to her friend, giving her tall, elegant figure, nut-brown skin, upswept black hair, and aristocratic features a swift once-over. “Can you blame him? If I were a guy I’d go all stalker on you, too, lady. You look like one of those Indian Disney princesses.”

“Please,” Nola scoffed, “don’t insult my intelligence! Those Indian Disney princesses are just white girls painted brown. Tell me I look like Beyoncé instead. She’s beautiful and she isn’t sitting around waiting for some dim-witted prince to come along and save her incompetent ass.”

“Girlfriend, I hate to break it to you, but you look nothing like Beyoncé.”

Nola pretended outrage. “I so do! Okay, Halle Berry then.” She stood waiting for Jack’s response with her head tilted back as though for inspection.

Jack asked, “Are you operating under the mistaken impression that you’re black, crazy person?”

She answered in all seriousness, “I’m just talking general chocolate hotness here.” At which point Jack laughed so hard vodka sprayed out of her nose.

“You see—that.” Nola watched in amusement as Jack mopped her face and chin with a cocktail napkin. “That right there should be enough for any sane man to fall in love with you.”

“No love,” Jack emphatically replied. “Remember? No complications. No relationships. Just a little . . . relief every once in a while would be perfect.”

Nola brightened. “What about an escort?”

“Uh, no, thanks. I’m as liberated as the next girl, but that’s kinda weird.”