Beyond Control(11)

His lips twitched. "I put them on women who get off on having me f*ck the shit out of them however, wherever and whenever I want."

Even the words tightened her nipples, raised goose bumps on her skin. "But you think that isn't me."

"You can flip the submission on like a switch, darling, but you sure as f*ck weren't getting off on it last night."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Noelle likes punishment. I don't."

Dallas finished rolling the cigarette before offering it to her. "That wasn't punishment, which proves my damn point. We both know better than to play games when no one knows the rules."

He kept talking in circles, and they were getting nowhere. "Okay, I'll play along." She leaned forward and snatched the cigarette. "If keeping me off your dick wasn't punishment, what was it?"

His lighter was shiny silver and etched with a skull, and it reflected the light as he swept it up and flicked it open. "Foreplay."

Lex glared at him over the flame. "We've had six years of that. Do we really need more?"

Dallas grinned. "And here I thought you girls trained us this way on purpose."

She rolled her eyes and lit the tip of the cigarette, puffing until it caught in a gentle smolder. "Rules. You show me yours, and I'll show you mine."

"Control, Lex. I want it." He snapped the lighter shut to emphasize his point before starting to roll a second cigarette. "Sometimes I'll want you to give it to me. Sometimes I'll want to take it. You need to be right with both."

It pulled the air out of her lungs. Part of her wanted to blame it on the smooth tobacco smoke, but she couldn't, not with her attention riveted to the lines of his face as he stared down at the paper in his hand.

Control. Oh, how she'd hungered to let go for a little while, to have Dallas hold it all, but the way he spoke proved he didn't know. Maybe not how much, or maybe not at all.

She opened her mouth to say something, anything remotely coherent. Instead, she sucked in a rough, ragged breath.

He lifted the second cigarette, and his gaze flicked to hers as he drew his tongue along the edge of the rolling paper, licking it like a lover.

"I don't know if I can give it," she said in a rush. "Not entirely. But you can take it. Me."

After a pause, he nodded. "Here's what we're going to do. You're going to take a day and think. Really think. And then you're going to tell me what you like, what you don't like, and what's straight-up off-limits."

There were no such things as boundaries, no limits when it came to Dallas. "And if I don't need a day?"

He lit his own cigarette and exhaled toward the ceiling. "Take it anyway. Seriously consider it--for me."

"You want me to...what? Make a list?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "An honest one."

"Of things I don't want you to do." Jesus, it'd take her all day to think of one. "All right. You, too."

He smiled and nodded, then changed the subject. "Tell me what you've heard about Sector Three."

"What everyone's heard--that it's falling apart. Wilson Trent may have been a piss-poor leader, but he was a leader. Now they don't have anybody calling the shots." Lex tilted her head. "You're not thinking of staging a takeover, are you? The other sector leaders might not want Three and all its problems, but if it looks like you're expanding your power base, they'll flip their shit. Guaranteed."

"It'd mean going back to late nights and double shifts," he admitted. "The money might not make up for it at first, especially if we have to bring in new bodies to hold the territory. And we'll need real friendly neighbors in Two and Five." He paused. "So, no. No takeover. Not yet, anyway."

Lex stiffened. "I wouldn't count on Two. Cerys is only real friendly when it serves her purposes. And who the hell knows what Mac Fleming's doing half the time over in Five."

"He's cooking drugs," Dallas replied, his mouth twisting around his distaste. "Getting as rich as we are too, and maybe richer, since he plays both sides. Medicinal and recreational."

Dallas hadn't minded availing himself of Fleming's regenerative technology when Lex and Noelle had both had bullet holes in them. "He keeps to himself. No reason to cause trouble--but no reason to throw in and back you on anything, either."

Clamping his cigarette between his lips, Dallas shoved everything on his desk to one side with a careless sweep of his arm and unrolled a meticulously sketched map of Eden and the surrounding sectors. The city walls formed a near-perfect circle in the middle, with the eight main roads out of the city thrusting out like spokes on a wheel.

Dallas thumped an ashtray down in the corner near Sector Seven to secure the edge and frowned at the map. "Mad brought back some updates," he muttered around the cigarette as he jabbed his finger at an area marked with fresh ink in a slightly darker color. "Seven's in trouble. Eden seized two-thirds of their fields. Mad thinks the city's building more wind farms."

Lex rose and bent over the map, bracing her elbows on two of the other curled edges. "The ones they've already got plus the solar arrays aren't enough?"

Dallas bit off a bitter laugh. "Probably. But hell, what are a few potato farms compared to the ladies in Eden getting to use their fancy hair dryers whenever they want?"

No wonder people had been flooding into Sector Six and pushing outward, toward the wide, empty spaces away from the city. "I wonder what Eight'll do when Seven empties."

"Eight's always tricky." Dallas traced his finger over the manufacturing district that made up a healthy part of that sector. "They have to walk the line. If they don't provide Eden with the supplies they want, the city'll seize those factories. And if they make it look too profitable..."

Most of the sectors had buildings that predated the Flares--tenements for workers, factories, and warehouses that had been built to support the day-to-day functioning of Eden. But Eight and Five were the only ones with facilities that still ran, industries deemed too valuable to destroy--for now.

Three had had one too, once upon a time, a sprawling plant that produced electronics. Lex still remembered watching it burn from the top floor of the Orchid House in Sector Two, the night sky alight with flames and intermittent explosions--like the fireworks she'd read about, only deadlier.

She straightened and propped her hands on her hips. "It's all conjecture. But you know what comes next."

Dallas crushed his cigarette into the ashtray hard enough to slide the heavy glass three inches across the desk. "Yeah. I get a pretty invitation from Cerys. And the meeting will go pretty much however she wants it to, once she's buried all the sector leaders in booze and beautiful women."

"Don't hate the player," Lex teased with a wry smile. "Stay on her good side and it won't matter. Remember--she's brilliant and ruthless."

"Oh, I think I know something about women like that," he drawled, rolling up the map again. "Speaking of brilliance, turn a little of yours toward Six, huh? The girl, not the sector. Bren seems to think she's trustworthy, but maybe he's not seeing clearly. Dragging Wilson Trent back here for her to kill doesn't fit my definition of a courting gift, but his idea of flirting might be as twisted as his sense of humor."

"Does everything have to be about f*cking?" Lex straightened with a shrug. "Maybe he just wanted to do something nice for her."

Both of Dallas's eyebrows swept up, but a moment later he was grinning at her. "You beautiful, bloodthirsty bitch."

"Mmm. Remember that when you think about pushing my buttons." Lex brushed against him as she leaned over to put out her cigarette in the ashtray. He was warm and solid, the kind of hard that came from working and fighting in equal measure. "Your place, this time tomorrow. I'll bring my list."

She got the satisfaction of hearing his breath catch, but he managed his warm, easy drawl. "I'll clear my schedule."

"Hell yeah, you will."





Ace



Jared's loft might have been wall-to-wall bare brick and exposed steel beams, but it was the swankest place in Sector Four that didn't belong to an O'Kane, and the only place outside of the compound that Ace had ever felt at home.

Sprawled on the expensive leather couch, he eyed the new sculpture of a frolicking couple that dominated one corner. It wasn't bad, for a post-Flare carving, but more loving detail had been given to the man's undeniably impressive cock than to the rest of him. The woman was a masterwork of tits and ass, with a rapturous look on her face that skated close to being comical.

Not refined enough for Jared's tastes, which could mean only one thing. "New patron's giving you gifts already, eh?"