Adrenaline Rush

  "Yes. Now, I'm going to squeeze your sweet little ass."

  His large hands stroked both of her butt cheeks and she gasped. "You said squeeze."

  Ace laughed, a warm sound that swept over her body, making her even hotter. "I'm sorry.

  Did I take too many liberties on your naked ass? How's this?"

  He didn't just squeeze, he swept her robe out of the way and dug into her naked skin. Her knees trembled. Finally, he let go. She whirled around. His face looked passive, which pissed her off. Another moment of that caressing and she might have come—standing—right there.

  Her gaze traveled down his body and froze as she saw it. Ace's hard length bulged the front of his jeans. And that thing was large. She swallowed as she tried to regain her equilibrium.

  "I take it you're an ass man."

  He cleared his throat. "I'm going to get you some clothes.”

  “Lots of women leave their stuff here?" Why did she care?

  "It's my sister-in-law's. No women stay here with me, Alice. Not ever. You're the first."

  That being said, he turned on his heel and stormed from the room. She was the first? Sitting on the bed, she tried to calm her pounding heart. This was an unacceptable occurrence. She was Alice-fucking-Styles. She wasn't just a celebrity cook, she was an international corporation. She had a magazine devoted to her "good" name, numerous cookbooks, and in a few months, if she was lucky, a brand of cake mix.

  She did not get groped in the guest room of a Guardian with hair sweeping his rounded, perfect ass. She most certainly did not enjoy the experience.

  Ace returned. If she'd managed to get some level of control of herself, he clearly had as well.

  The ice veneer that appeared when she mentioned Draco Powers was back in place. His telltale erection less visible, thanks to his untucked shirt.

  He carried with him several articles of clothing that he placed on the dresser. "Get some sleep, Alice. You're safe here. Even from me."

  With that, he stalked out of the room like a man being chased, and she exhaled the breath she'd been holding. Pulling off her apron and throwing it on the floor in an act of defiance to her usual obsessive organization, she pulled one of the t-shirts he brought her over her head. It was long on her, past her knees, and she knew right away that Ace's sister-in-law was much taller than she was.

  That was the last thing she thought as she crawled under the covers with the lights still blaring and fell into a deep sleep, relieved the machines would not get her during the night.

  * * * * *

  Alice awoke to Lael standing over her. She rubbed her eyes. "Hello."

  That seemed a stupid thing to say but her head was fuzzy and she couldn't do better. Did he know what had happened the night before? Had her heartbeat woken him? What was going on?

  "Ace said I shouldn't bother you but I thought you'd want to see this." She rubbed her nose.

  "What time is it?"

  "Nine."

  "In the morning?”

  “Yes."

  Lael picked up the remote and turned on the television. She stared, bleary eyed, at the image that popped up. It was a man—well, she thought it was a man—wearing a ski mask. He spoke to the camera.

  "My name is The Mask."

  "Lael." Alice sat up. "What is this?"

  "Shh. It's been playing all morning. He's taken over all the television stations." She was so confused. "Who has?"

  "The Mask."

  "I am very impressed. In all my years, no one has ever bested me before and I find I do not like the feeling. I have been paid to kill Ms. Alice Styles."

  She got an immediate headache. Wow, her day was not going to be better than the day before.

  "I believe she is being protected by the paid services of Mr. Ace Hudson—a member of Powers, Inc. I was not prepared for his interference. I am hereby giving an ultimatum to Mr.

  Hudson. Return her to me, or I will continue destroying the workings of all major mechanical systems in the world."

  The replay shut off for a second and a moment later The Mask was back on replaying his message.

  "Oh god, Lael, has he done anything yet?"

  Her blond companion nodded. "He shut down the New York City subways. Ace got them back online. He was pretty pissed."

  Ace's voice filled the room as he rounded the corner. "I told you not to wake her." Alice jumped from the bed. "You didn't think this warranted waking me?"

  "No way."

  No way? She blinked. A potential world catastrophe loomed on the horizon, based on some psycho's wish to kill her—no, wait because he'd been hired to kill her— and all she could think

  about was how hot Ace looked in khaki pants and white t-shirt…

  Damn. Maybe she should let The Mask have at her.

  "Ace?" She tried to steel her shaky voice. "I don't want anyone to die because of me."

  "Hey now." His tone held a hard edge as he crossed the room in two strides and pulled her into his arms. "You don't know me, so you also don't know that I'm really good at what I do. This man—he's a blow hole."

  She laughed, and despite the circumstances, she felt good doing so. If she lived through this, and no one died, she was going to make some major changes. Starting with laughing more. That seemed key to a happier life.

  Chapter Five

  Ace hadn't lied to Alice when he'd told her the guy was a blow hole. No, the man had delusions of greatness to the nth degree. There was no way he would possibly be able to control the workings of machines outside of a one-mile radius. He'd been far too easy to take down.

  Unfortunately, that meant the New York City area would continue to get pummeled until Ace could catch the son of a bitch.

  Sweeping his hair over his shoulders, he stared at Alice. She'd been cooking for an hour, moving more and more food from her stovetop to the table. He was pretty sure the Eggs Benedict had been the last thing he would be able to eat for hours but Lael continued to consume her offerings in the way only a teenager could.

  Apparently, she was coping. But Ace would rock the temporary calm of her world with the questions he was about to have to ask. He tapped the table gently with his fork as he tried to figure out the best way to approach this awkward topic. Alice was a bit of enigma to him. She could be soft and gentle, like she'd been when she'd woken up and been scared by The Mask, or she could snap at Ace so fiercely he wasn't sure she hadn't left a dent on him somewhere.

  Right now, she appeared calm. Dropping his fork, he looked at Lael. "Take one more bite and then go to school."

  "Really? I thought you were going to let me stay home."

  "I let you sleep in. Now, you need to go to school. Ms. Styles and I have some important things we've got to get done." He sat back in his seat and smiled at Lael. "I need to know you're safe at school."

  Lael nodded. "Okay."

  His brother took one more bite and looked at Alice. "Thank you for breakfast. It's much better than what we usually get. Wendy and Draco are always in such a hurry, it's cereal and dry toast."

  Alice turned, her eyebrows raised. Ace closed his eyes for a moment and steeled himself to explain. The woman didn't miss a trick.

  She glanced at Lael. "Draco lives here too?" Her gaze moved to Ace. "I thought your other

  brother was the third resident."

  "Shit." Lael looked down at his hands and Ace punched him in the shoulder. "Don't curse in front of women." Ace shook his head. "Go to school."

  Lael jumped up and ran down the hall. Yeah, now the kid moved fast. Tell a near stranger their family secret and then run away to leave him to deal with it. Wonderful.

  He stood and crossed the kitchen until he stood next to Alice. Leaning against the counter, he towered over her. She was so tiny. It made him want to pick her up, wrap her in his arms, and carry her into the bedroom. He swallowed and crossed his arms over his chest instead.

  "Yes, Draco is my older brother. No one knows that. We keep it that way, like we keep our home a secret. Can
you be trusted?"

  Alice laughed, turning off the stove. "Now I get why you have such a Draco issue."

  "What are you talking about?"

  She turned on the faucet and carried her frying pan over to the sink. "Every time I said something about Draco, you went cold on me. Now it makes sense. It's a brother thing."

  "I don't have a brother issue." What the hell was she talking about?

  "Okay, big guy, I believe you." Patting him on the chest, she laughed. "And I will never, ever tell anyone about your relationships. I don't need to get into the mess of other people's family."

  "Seriously, I don't have a problem with Draco."

  "If you say so." She shrugged like she didn't care, which only pissed him off further.

  He put his cup on the counter before he ended up breaking it in frustration. "Why do you live with him?"

  "It's a complicated issue. I have some stuff that makes it a little difficult for me to always function by myself. When I was a little older than Lael, the issues became a problem and Draco decided he needed to keep me close by to monitor me. Since then, I've gotten it under control. I could leave, would have left when Draco met Wendy, but now there's Lael, and neither Draco nor I want to leave him." He walked to the table and carried the dishes to the sink before picking up his cup. "I'm here another two years."

  "You sound like you had a drug problem."

  He'd been taking a sip of his coffee and he spit it out. Laughing, he wiped at his mouth with his sleeve. She rolled her eyes and handed him a napkin. "Thank you. No, um, my body makes a lot of adrenaline. It's part of how I do what I do. It needs an outlet or it gets a little bad for me."

  "Bad how?"

  "I regress a little bit." He really didn't want to talk about this. "Look, I have a really good life and most of the time I can handle myself just fine. We need to talk about you."

  Her face fell from playful banter to a serious stare. She sighed. "I know.”

  “You know?"

  "The Mask said he was hired to kill me. We need to figure out who did the hiring."

  Well, that had been less painful than he'd imagined. "Right, so then—"

  Alice pounded her hand on the counter. "We need to figure out what good for nothing, son of a bitch, asshole thought they could fuck with my life."

  Ace felt his cheeks heat up at her words. He turned, hoping she wouldn't notice.

  It wasn't that he didn't live in the real world. He did. He worked with women every day. He knew they could curse like sailors and give him a run for his money in the profanity department.

  There was just something about seeing Alice do it while she stood over the sink looking so domestic that just seemed, well —off. He needed to get his head out of the pretend Alice he'd created and into the real one who stood before him.

  He walked to the window to look outside. "Any thoughts on who that person might be?"

  "I run a multi-million dollar corporation. Anyone could hold a grudge against me."

  He laughed as he turned around. The things she said when she used her haughty, "I'm in charge" voice tickled his sense of humor. "Not real pleasant to work for, are you?"

  She lifted her chin. "I'm polite to every person I encounter."

  "I bet." He tapped the window with his hand. "This seems so personal to me.

  They went out and found a person who uses machines to not only end your life but to terrify you. Sounds like this person is pretty angry."

  "You often get feelings of this type?"

  She doubted him, which infuriated him. Although her behavior didn't come as a surprise.

  There wasn't a moment in Alice's presence that she didn't question him in some way or another.

  "I do this type of thing often."

  At that statement, she raised an eyebrow. "Find murder-minded madmen?”

  “Oh, I like your alliteration."

  Now it was her turn to laugh. Her face alit with delight, and she looked easier now, softer. "I speak on live television. I have to come up with cheerful, funny things on the spot all the time."

  "All right, but back to the point, this is not the first crazy person I've had to sort out. It happens more than you might imagine. Draco had to rescue his wife from a lunatic who had her in a cage."

  "So what you're saying is that you've done this so frequently you can now get a sense of how these things work."

  "Don't you ever just know that a recipe you're working on needs more salt? You can't explain why, you just know it."

  She walked to a stool by the counter and sat down. "Okay. Let's say I actually understood what you just said, then I'm going to admit that what you said about it being personal makes some sense to me."

  Now they were getting somewhere. "How so?”

  “I haven't spoken about this in years."

  Even if they had made headway, it appeared Alice wasn't going to make this easy on him.

  "Consider me your personal shrink. I won't utter a word. Guardian-client privilege. It won't leave this room."

  "Who's going to drive me to school?"

  Ace jumped an inch in the air at Lael's sudden entrance. Damn. His brother was perfecting his stealth. Exhaling on a laugh, he turned. "I guess I'm going to take you."

  Alice shot to her feet. "You can't leave."

  The woman's skittish? "You're safe here. I told you.”

  “How can you be sure?"

  Ace shook his head. "I'm sure."

  "One hundred percent sure?" She advanced on him. "Won't you feel badly if you come home and you find the fax machine detached from the wall and strangled me?"

  "Now there's something I never thought I'd hear in my entire life."

  "Just because it's ridiculous doesn't make it any less possible. Not in light of recent events, anyway."

  He sighed. What was he going to do with her? She looked truly despondent standing in front of him with her long, brown hair disheveled, her skin make-up free, and yet she looked hotter than she'd ever looked on television. Swallowing, he tried to push that last thought away. It did him no good thinking about her that way.

  Except to give him a major boner like he'd had the night before after he'd stupidly squeezed her round, supple ass.

  She cleared her throat, seemingly unaware of the nature of his thoughts. "Can't you keep me safe in the car? And come to think of it, why can't he fly himself there? Are his superpowers different than yours?"

  "Oh, I can fly." Lael lifted his chin. "But my brothers don't want me telling people what I can do just yet. They say it's safer if everyone thinks I'm just a normal dude."

  Alice smiled at Ace, showing off the one dimple in her left cheek. "I bet the dude was your addition to that statement."

  Ace scratched his head. "Do I say dude a lot?" He didn't think he did...

  Lael laughed. "Sometimes."

  "That's not fair. You say it." He pointed at Lael. "I picked it up from you."

  "Whatever. We'll all go together in the car. You'll"—he moved from pointing at Lael to pointing at Alice—"stay with me, and I'll fight back any machines that attack you."

  "Believe it or not, I have no intention of running out onto the street freaking out while random machines attempt to end my life."

  He hoped not because much as he had grown overly fond of staring at her ass, he had no interest in chasing her if she did that.

  "Go get dressed and meet me in the garage. It's there." He pointed toward a side door off the kitchen.

  She snickered. "Are we going in some secret Guardian car? Something you don’t share with the rest of us mere mortals?"

  "Hardy-har-har."

  Lael cracked up. "Only after we go through his secret lair to get there."

  "The next one of you who makes a lame Guardian joke is going to be doing the dishes for a week."

  "Oh yeah?" Alice's eyes glowed with amusement. "I'm paying you. You don't get to tell me to do the dishes."

  Lael wasn't finished yet either. "I have homework."

  S
eriously, when had it become funny to call compare him to a cartoon?

  * * * *

  Ace waved to Lael as he dropped him off on the corner by the school. Sitting in the car, he watched his younger brother round the corner like a teenager with no cares in the world.

  Alice, who had been quiet for the ten-minute drive to Lael's school—probably because she'd been blindfolded for most of it—finally spoke when he took the bandana off her eyes. "How did his mother get blown up?"

  Ace released a loud breath and glared at Alice. How much did he want to trust her with their personal stories? He drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel for a few seconds, then finally put the car in park. Maybe if he shared with her what she wanted to know, she would finally tell him what he needed to hear to keep her safe.

  "We have the same father. He abandoned all of us. Draco and I didn't know Lael existed."

  "Mine died when I was three."

  He nodded. The sharing was already taking place. That was a good thing.

  He continued. "Draco got hired on a case. Since then, the system has changed, but back then the financial department only had to prove the person could pay the bill and then it was no questions asked."

  She smiled at him and leaned back in her seat. "I can pay your bill.”

  “Wasn't worried about it."

  Alice chuckled. "Go on."

  He would, just as soon as he finished grinning back at her. Alice had an infectious way with her happiness. She could light up the universe if she smiled all the time.

  "Anyway, Draco and Wendy—that's my sister-in-law, she was Draco's Handler at the time—

  flew out to see a woman who had a runaway teenager. She thought he'd been kidnapped by aliens."

  Ace hadn't been there but he could imagine the scene as well as if he had been. "Wendy's senses told her this woman was off. The house was modest. Draco is the most expensive Guardian on the payroll."

  "More expensive than you?"

  "By a long shot. I'm the second most expensive, but Draco is top dog." Her eyes twinkled.

  "Then maybe I should be with Draco."

  "Sorry, he's on his honeymoon. And besides, only I can talk to machines." The idea of her leaving him for Draco's professional protection didn't sit well. A knot formed in his stomach and his hands tingled. Damn, he was going to have to work out some of his pent up aggression again.