Beyond Shame

Smart girl. “Get her to the car, Bren.”

“I don’t like it,” he murmured.

“I know. That’s why you’re taking her to the car instead of Jasper. Pat her down too, for Christ’s sake.”

“You got it.” He urged the girl toward the other exit, leaving Dallas and Jasper alone.

Dallas allowed himself a sigh. “Odds are good she’s a spy.”

“Or worse.” Jasper retrieved a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. “Trent seemed pretty pleased with himself.”

“Sure does.” Dallas pulled out his own cigarettes and tapped the pack on the table. “Trent and I have always had a difference of opinion when it comes to women and their uses. Maybe he wised up and that girl’s a trap. And maybe she’s just a distraction, and the trap’s going to get a whole lot of us really fucking dead tomorrow.”

“There are ways to minimize losses.”

“And we’ll take them.” Dragging smoke into his lungs, he rose. “Tomorrow. Tonight, we’ve got a party to get to. Don’t get too wasted, eh? Leave that to the lady.”

“Noelle will be all right.” Jasper’s gaze drifted to the door. “What about that one?”

“If she cooperates, she’ll be all right too.” Dallas clapped Jasper on the shoulder. “Cheer up, buddy. Even if she is a spy, Trent treats his women like something he scraped off his shoes. Any of our girls would spit on the best he has to offer. We make that clear enough, chances are she’ll turn.”

“Or else?” Jasper snorted. “Maybe we should have said no. It’s less of a risk.”

“Call it a hunch.” It was the only explanation Dallas intended to give, and for Jasper—for now—it would be enough. Most of his people knew to trust his instincts.

As they rolled out of the meeting place, Dallas’s gut told him something else. Something in Jasper had shifted already, whether the man wanted to admit it or not. He’d come face-to-face with a legitimate damsel in some serious fucking distress, and he’d fixated on the risk she represented.

Jasper was thinking like a man who held lives in his hands. Maybe one life in particular. Dallas only wished his gut hadn’t already warned him how much trouble Noelle Cunningham could be.

Chapter Nine

When queried about the dress code for a welcome party, Lex had told Noelle to wear clothes.

Seeing the O’Kane women turned out in costumes that ranged from scraps that barely qualified as underwear to elaborate dresses with several flavors of denim and leather besides, Noelle understood that the response hadn’t been as sarcastic as it had seemed. The women simply wore what they wanted to wear, and no one gave a damn if they were half-naked or covered from head to toe.

Her own outfit fell somewhere in between. A pair of her new jeans hung low on her hips, and her shirt was close to transparent in the front, with two dozen tiny black straps crisscrossing her back. Revealing, especially since she wasn’t wearing anything under it.

Lex had laughed herself silly when Noelle had asked whether or not she needed a bra. Going without had been Noelle’s bold choice, made with flaming cheeks in spite of Lex’s mirth. She’d joined a sector gang— the sector gang—and if she wanted to go to a party in clothes so skimpy everyone could see her breasts, no one could stop her.

She was a little drunk on her own belligerence, and she hadn’t even touched the liquor yet.

A small brunette with a tiny but intricate tattoo high on one cheekbone stood near the door, a plastic bottle of water in one hand. “You’re Noelle, right?”

“I am.” The woman had ink around her throat too, a collar of black, swirling vines thick with thorns. Noelle had seen other women with ink collars curling around their throats, but not this close. The delicate details were art, testimony to Ace’s skill, if he’d been the one to create them.

The woman held out her hand. “I’m Amira. You took over my job at Circle.”

“Oh, you’re Flash’s…” Noelle trailed off, awkwardly shaking Amira’s hand as she cast about for the right word. Girlfriend? Woman? She didn’t even know.

Amira just laughed. “Yeah, I’m Flash’s. Or you could say he’s mine. Both work.”

Noelle winced. “I’m sorry. I don’t think Lex told me what you call it. Or really what it means, except that the marks…” She touched her own bare throat. “They mean something.”

“Yeah—everything.” Amira mirrored the movement, tracing her fingertips over a whorl of ink without glancing down.

The dreamy expression in her eyes said more than words ever could. The ink circling Amira’s slender throat was supposed to be a mark of ownership, but Amira didn’t look owned. She looked happy, satisfied. She looked blissful.

Noelle envied that surety, a ridiculous thought with her newly healed wrists standing as proof of her new freedom. She didn’t need a man’s mark around her throat to protect her, not with O’Kane cuffs adorning her skin from the base of her hand to midway up her forearm.

She didn’t need it, but that didn’t stop her from wanting. She had to fight not to scan the crowd for Jasper’s familiar form, keeping her attention on Amira instead. “Congratulations on the baby. You must be so pleased.”

Amira’s smile widened. “I am. When I was living in the city, I never dreamed I’d be able to have a baby.”

“That’s so wonderful.” It took money, influence, or luck to obtain access to the fertility drugs that made conception possible, sometimes a combination of all three. And getting your hands on the medication didn’t make a child legal, not within the city. Without an official—or forged—birth record and bar code, building a life inside the walls of Eden was all but impossible.

Self-consciously, Noelle tilted her wrist. Her bar code was only a shiny black square in the center of her wrist now, with delicate lines swirling out of it to wrap around her arm. No bar code meant no going back.

“You’re staying with Lex, right?”

Noelle tucked her wrists where she couldn’t stare at them, hooking her thumbs into the back pockets of her jeans. “Yes, I am. She’s been really great. She and Rachel both, helping me get settled in.”

“A couple people thought she might make a play for you. Not Rachel, of course. But you’re kind of Lex’s type.” Amira hesitated, then shrugged. “Especially if you’re also Dallas’s type.”

“You mean…” Noelle struggled to realign a world that had tilted slightly. A relationship with more than one person didn’t seem so odd when the two people were Dallas and Lex. She could imagine how she’d fit into that equation all too easily…and she didn’t think she’d ever be more than a buffer. “No, I don’t think I’m Dallas’s type,” she said, then realized she’d just insulted her new leader. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t want to be. Or be flattered.”

Amira laid a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, don’t sweat it. Maybe you’re better off.”

That sounded almost foreboding. “I am?”

“Yeah. That can be messy. You might not want to crawl in the middle of it without taking a man of your own along.”

She wouldn’t check for Jasper. She wouldn’t. “I guess I have some time to find one now. It’s just nice to have a choice.”

That earned her a confused look. “I thought you and Jas were a thing. I’m so out of the loop, but I could’ve sworn Flash said something like that.”

“Oh. We’re…something. I mean, I want us to be, but I don’t know—” Every word out of her mouth only made her feel more awkward, and she desperately wished she’d had a drink or two already. Liquor loosened her tongue, and she never cared as much if the words came out sounding stupid. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I don’t want to read too much into things, you know? I don’t know how things work here, not for sure.”

“You have time.” Amira nodded to the slowly filling room. “Feel it all out.”

Noelle stared at the woman’s marks again. “How did you know that you and Flash were a thing?”

“When it became about more than sex.” She leaned closer. “Coming from the city, I didn’t get it at first. Sex there is so taboo—so controlled—but it’s so fucking easy here. The trick is understanding. Does that make sense?”