Read Online Underground Warrior by Evelyn Vaughn - Free Book Online Page A

by how she’d begun to equate his scent with safety.
    She nodded, rubbing her cheek against his shirted chest like a cat before she pulled back and ran for the train.
    She wanted to wear his smell back to the loft.
    That couldn’t be good.

    The next time she went to see him, two days later, she did as he asked. She dialed his number, let it ring once, then disconnected. Sure enough, when she stepped off the train onto the wet, windy platform, there he stood, arms folded. He wore a wrinkled canvas field coat, blue jeans, work boots and a scowl. His scowl eased when he spotted her. He raised his eyebrows at her instead of waving, clearly aware that she couldn’t help but notice him towering over the rest of the public.
    “Mitch loaned me the car,” he said as she reached him, and he hustled her to another of his friend’s primer-colored works-in-progress. He touched her jacketed back to guide her, opening the passenger door for her. She slid onto the duct-tape-patched vinyl bench seat and pulled the door shut against the November rain. In contrast to the cold, the car smelled of age, and warmth—and the faint scent of Trace, even before he swung into the driver’s seat with another blast of cold.
    “If you’re bringing Greta to the rec center today, let one of us drive you,” he growled, after swiping some of the moisture off his dark hair. Growling seemed to be his natural speaking style, when he didn’t make an effort to hide it.
    “Okay,” she said, as if he had the right to tell her what to do. She liked him, after all—was pretending to like him. Wasn’t that what you did, when you liked a man? Except…
    He nodded, satisfied, and started the car for the short drive to Greta’s. But all of this felt so strange—being met at the station, being given rides—that she had to try talking, even if it wasn’t about simple information. “Trace, what do you get?”
    “From what?” He almost grunted the words, what with paying close attention to the traffic, and to the pedestrians dodging trains, through the wet windshield.
    She concentrated, hoping her words wouldn’t mark her as a complete idiot. “You walk me to the station,” she tried finally, a block later, glad he hadn’t rushed her. “You pick me up. You drive me to the rec center, albeit with Greta, so that may be an outlier….”
    “Outlier?” he repeated, as if he didn’t quite understand, but she didn’t dare pause to define the term or she’d lose her nerve.
    “I appreciate the convenience, but what do you get? Why…?”
    In no time, they were pulling into the cracked concrete drive in front of Greta’s house. Trace braked and killed the headlights, but he didn’t turn the ignition fully off. The heater drew chill from her skin. The windshield wipers kept up their percussive vamp. Raindrops splattered across the roof and windshield. He turned to her with an are-you-serious? expression.
    “Where’d you grow up anyway—a convent?” Maybe he somehow noticed her inner flinch, despite her effort to keep her expression safely impassive. Some of the sarcasm eased off his dark features. “I get to know you’re safe. I get to spend time with you, maybe get to know you. Figure out why…you know….”
    None of which seemed a satisfying exchange for the effort he was putting out. She was just…Sibyl. And, to be technical, she wasn’t even that.
    He leaned closer—easy to do in a ’70s-model sedan with a bench seat. With a simple click of his seat belt, Trace loomed over her quite thoroughly. “Why this,” he offered, his voice rough. Then he covered her lips with a scratchy, damp kiss that set her head spinning into a confusion of theses and speculations and corollaries and oh…
    The scent of him filled her nose, the taste of him her mouth. He was so warm and wet and there, more there than she could remember anyone ever being. She fumbled handfuls of damp canvas off his shoulders to hold on, as if otherwise she’d somehow fall