King of Superheroes, page 16
“I thought that was the only sex,” I said and matched her smile.
“It was.” Her voice suddenly grew soft, and her smirk dissolved into a genuine smile. “I’m glad it was with you.”
“Me, too.” I smiled back. “You were great.”
“I couldn’t even focus enough to try and read your mind,” Hannah said as her fingers curled my hair. “Next time, though… That could be fun.”
“Next time, huh?” I asked as I gently pulled out of her still tight pussy.
She gasped as I left her open, and I watched with satisfaction as my juices poured out from between her pussy lips.
“Yes, next time.” She sounded insistent. “I’m not giving that up easily.”
“Well, there’s loads more to show you,” I said and leaned down to kiss her.
“Loads?” Hannah snickered with a satisfied smile, and she pulled me back down onto the rumpled bed sheets and curled up beside me with her head on my chest.
We fell asleep almost immediately, since we were exhausted from our first real-world mission as well as our intense lovemaking, and I was grateful for the rest.
Because we had a full day of training at the Academy the following morning.
Chapter Eleven
The early morning came far too quickly for my liking, and I let out a long groan as my cell phone alarm began to chirp cheerfully on my bedside table.
“Nooooo…” Hannah mumbled somewhere beside my chest. “It’s too damn early…”
“It’s actually not,” I laughed as I scooped my beeping cell phone up and scrabbled to switch the alarm off. “It’s already eight o’clock.”
“Well, shit,” Hannah sighed, but she eventually pulled her head up to squint at me with an adorably sleepy smile. “Why can’t we just stay here forever?”
“I totally would if I could.” I wrapped both of my arms around her and pulled the blonde Dreamer closer to me, and she quickly nuzzled her face into the crook of my neck and let out a happy sigh.
She was warm and soft, and smelled particularly incredible even in the morning, and the temptation to do as she said and remain tangled up in bed with her for the rest of my days was intoxicating. But my alarm almost immediately started to ring again even after I’d hit the snooze button, and with another disgruntled huff I peeled myself away from the beautiful Dreamer fledgling and padded over to my en-suite bathroom to take a quick shower.
I left Hannah exactly where she was because she seemed far more interested in burying her face back into my pillows than waking up, which I couldn’t completely blame her for. And so instead I stood alone under the warm stream of water, and I watched as the little rivers ran across my skin, around my legs and my feet, and eventually rippled down the drain. I pushed my face into the jet of water and scrubbed in a mostly failed attempt to wake myself up, but after a few minutes I started to feel just a little more human.
By the time I tiptoed back out into my bedroom with a soft gray towel wrapped around my hips, Hannah had finally pushed herself up into a sitting position. She grinned widely when I appeared at the door still dripping wet, and she cocked her head to the side as she inspected me.
“What?” I chuckled as I started to wrestle my hair dry with another gray towel from the bathroom.
“Nothing,” she said listlessly and went to scoop her own cell phone up so she could avoid my gaze.
I spotted her half-smirk, though, and I immediately crossed the room in two long strides so I could hook my forefinger beneath her chin and twist her face back to gaze up at me.
Her eyes were an icy-blue and yet full of fire, and the smirk had become full-sized by the time my hand was on her face.
“Just nothing?” I asked pointedly, and I kept my mouth purposefully close to hers.
“You’re just pretty,” Hannah said in a low voice.
“Pretty?” I let out a loud laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that in my life.”
“Well, that is a crying shame.” Hannah leaned up so she could kiss me all over my face, and eventually her lips landed on mine as her arms wrapped around my bare shoulders.
I started to forget about everything other than the way Hannah’s lips tasted, or how her tongue curved so perfectly around mine, or how she let out happy little sighs every time I kissed her a little more deeply, or how her body felt pressed up against mine…
But I had to eventually tear myself away from her, and we both laughed a little breathlessly as we reluctantly broke apart.
We somehow managed to get ourselves dressed for the day and made it to the fledgling common area with little to no hiccups, though we stopped to steal a kiss from one another every few minutes until we finally made it out of my dorm room door.
I was surprised to see just Frank sitting alone at our usual breakfast table, and I told Hannah to sit while I sorted coffee for the both of us.
Mostly to be a gentleman, but I could also see how Frank was close to bouncing off his seat in his excitement to get the gossip from me, and I thought I’d let him stew a little longer.
My best friend with the shock of red hair was silent for a moment when I sat down opposite him, and I slowly passed Hannah her cup of coffee with a smug grin.
But he couldn’t take it any longer and huffed loudly as he sat back in his chair.
“So?” he demanded with an excited smile as he folded his arms across his chest and looked up at the two of us. “Good night?”
“Frank, shut up.” I laughed, shook my head, and stirred some creamer into my coffee.
“I should be telling you two to do that,” Frank said, and he waggled his eyebrows.
I was half-expecting Hannah to blush or mutter something apologetic, but she just fixed him with an arched eyebrow and her standard half-smirk, and within four seconds it was my Conduit buddy who was awkwardly stumbling over his words.
I burst out laughing, which earned me several inquisitive looks from the other fledglings who were early to breakfast, but I just wrapped an arm around Hannah’s shoulders and pulled her closer so I could kiss the side of her face while she giggled with me.
Once we’d finished our first cups of coffee, Danny and Rhiannon had joined us at our table beside the floor-to-ceiling length windows.
I looked out across the bay as I sipped on my second cup of piping-hot caffeine, and I watched as white sea birds flitted just above the calm roll of waves. The water was relatively still and incredibly blue, as clear as the sky above it, and the sun had already started to beam across the city of Miami without any clouds to interrupt its shine.
“I wonder what’s in store today,” Danny said as he took a bite of an apple and leaned back in his seat. “Yesterday was a lot.”
“I suppose ‘a lot’ is something we should get used to,” I said as I wrapped my hands around my coffee cup and stifled a yawn. “But yeah, yesterday was a lot, you’re right.”
“I slept like a damn baby,” Frank said as he scratched his dark red hair so it stuck up as though he’d been electrocuted.
“Me, too,” Hannah said with an innocent grin as she poured some sugar into her coffee.
I shared her smile as Frank choked into his cup, and both Rhiannon and Danny looked around at us curiously.
Rhiannon’s green eyes were suddenly glinting with understanding, and it was only her gaze that had me clearing my throat a little awkwardly and sitting up straight in my chair.
“Dahlia had said something about getting our suits,” Danny reminded us after an almost awkward silence fell around our table. “But we got pulled away to the car accident pretty damn quickly.”
“Oh, I hope that’s what we get to do today!” Hannah gasped excitedly. “Look, everyone else has theirs already.”
The blonde Dreamer nodded to the small pockets of fledglings as they ate breakfast and greeted each other, and I realized she was right. Every fledgling in the Academy now wore a hero suit that aided them in their abilities, and instead of looking like a normal college campus, the fledgling common area now looked like it was full of a legitimate group of superheroes in training.
Aside from the five of us, and so I was just as eager to get our new threads as Hannah.
While we’d been dragged away to deal with a massive three-car pileup with multiple injured civilians the day before, the rest of the fledglings had been taken to Amanda’s.
Amanda was a world-famous fashion mogul, and she’d already been chief designer to a number of high brand houses during her extensive career, but it had been her contract with the Academy that sent her into the stratosphere.
Hell, even I knew about her, and that was saying something.
I wasn’t exactly hot on fashion, but I definitely knew who Amanda was, and I was just as excited as the rest of my team at the prospect of designing my own custom supersuit with her.
Dahlia appeared at our table just as I was debating whether to get another cup of coffee or not, and she nodded sternly when I smiled up at her as a way of greeting.
“Hi, Dahlia.” Rhiannon’s voice was shy, but the brunette Tempest fledgling seemed determined to overcome her quietness and she offered a small smile to our mentor.
“Good morning,” Dahlia said in a blunt voice. “I’m taking you to Amanda’s today. She’s expecting you, and she’s not happy about the fact she’s being pulled into another day of work for you.”
“I mean, that wasn’t our fault, though,” I said. “There was an emergency.”
“She’s a fashion designer.” Dahlia’s voice remained flat and emotionless, and she half-shrugged a shoulder. “Why would she care?”
“She sounds… Fun…” I muttered and raised an eyebrow to Frank.
“She’s incredibly talented and regularly lends herself to the Academy,” the black-haired Dreamer mentor reminded me with a frown. “Do not embarrass me.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I said and held my hands up in a gesture of peace. “I pinky promise.”
“Good,” Dahlia said, and then she sniffed. “I’ll be waiting downstairs, just hurry up.”
Our mentor left our table and quickly headed for the elevators, and I turned to the gang.
“Well, looks like we’ve gotta be on our best behavior,” I said with a snort.
“I always am,” Frank said indignantly.
“Of course you are,” Rhiannon said with a light giggle.
“You, misbehaving?” Danny asked as he clapped the pyromancer on the shoulder. “Never.”
“Why does everyone think I’m a troublemaker?” Frank whined as the rest of us stood and started to clear the table.
We teased my Conduit buddy all the way down to the lobby, and Dahlia fixed us with a disapproving frown as we came out of the automated double doors in a bout of laughter. It died in our throats the moment we spotted her, and then it was even worse because I couldn’t hold in the stifled giggles.
It was like being in church and laughing when you know you shouldn’t.
Dahlia just rolled her eyes and motioned for us to clamber into the back of the van, which we did as she hopped into the driver’s seat.
The drive was surprisingly short, and we almost immediately headed to the coast. I’d thought a wealthy designer like Amanda would’ve lived in a huge estate somewhere, but that was probably my Californian way of thinking. As the bright blue ocean sailed past us, Dahlia turned the van toward an incredibly long bridge that headed right out into the water itself, and I realized the affluent parts of Miami were always going to be half in the actual ocean.
The bridge was a single lane with nothing but gently rippling blue water on either side for at least half a mile, but eventually we began to approach civilization again. The bridge suddenly opened up onto a large man-made island covered with lush green lawns, huge palm trees that swayed calmly in the breeze, and a number of awesome-looking sports and supercars on every single street.
I spotted a beautiful cherry-red Ferrari, several Hummers with heavily tinted windows, sleek, black, and deadly silent electric Audis, and I was pretty sure I saw a McLaren pass us at some point, too.
“So this is where the money is…” I heard Frank mutter reverently, and I turned to see my Conduit friend with his nose basically pressed up against the glass of the window as he stared at our surroundings, like an overly excited puppy dog.
Which summed Frank up surprisingly well.
Dahlia kept the van moving, and we drove almost to the other end of the huge man-made island in the middle of the bay. We were headed toward a huge multi-story structure, made of thick pillars of burnished silver metal and blacked-out glass that glinted in the Florida sun, and it was stacked up like a stairwell with varying different levels.
I just turned to the rest of my gang with a single raised eyebrow.
It was definitely wild how the other half lived, and I desperately wanted in on it.
The van started to slow, and I peered out of the windshield to see Dahlia coasting toward two massive iron gates. The twists of metal were thin and impossibly intricate, almost like lace, and the swirls and patterns conjoined at the apex to create a huge letter ‘A’ at the top.
Dahlia dropped the driver’s side window and leaned out with one arm, just as an intercom crackled by the entryway.
“Name?” The voice on the other end was gruff and disinterested.
“Dahlia,” our mentor said in an equally blunt tone. “From the Academy. She’s expecting us.”
There was a brief silence, and then the gates suddenly groaned and began to swing slowly open. The giant ‘A’ at the top split in two, and after a moment Dahlia pressed the van onward and into the designer’s sprawling estate.
The road suddenly dipped forward, and we drove into a sprawling underground garage, where Dahlia quickly found a spot and killed the engine before she motioned wordlessly for us to get out.
The parking garage was full of the same kind of supercars we’d seen on the island, and I let out a low whistle as I passed a beautiful gray Aston Martin that looked like something right out of a James Bond movie.
The five of us dutifully followed Dahlia toward an elevator, and we rode in silence as the anticipation started to build. It was like stepping into another world, and it was intimidating but something I found myself desperately wanting to be a part of.
And maybe as the world’s first Omega in over a century, I could perhaps one day make it somewhere close to Amanda’s level of crazy fame and even crazier fortune.
As we stepped out of the elevator, we found ourselves in a huge room, at least three stories tall, but the space was completely open plan. There was a huge sculpture of a woman’s body in the center of the room, made of a gleaming black stone that contrasted aggressively with the sheer whiteness of the marble floor. The bust stretched upward with carved hair blowing in a non-existent wind and a cape that rippled away from her as though it were alive.
It was an impressive art piece, and I felt the excitement build inside of me as we finally heard a voice.
“Welcome, fledglings!” The voice was nasally and aggressively loud, and the excited words echoed loudly around the massive hall.
We turned to see an incredibly short woman walking toward us with her arms outstretched. She was petite and looked like a strong gust of wind could knock her over, but she walked with an air of confidence that grounded her. She had short ashy-blonde hair cut into an aggressive bob, and it swung around her square jawline with every step she took. Her nose was large and slightly hooked, and she’d painted her thin lips an intense shade of coral pink, but I couldn’t see what color eyes she had because she wore huge dark sunglasses, even though she was inside.
Her outfit was just as crazy. She was dressed in huge black pinstripe trousers that ballooned out at the sides, and she’d cinched them to her tiny waist with a thin belt made of golden rope. Her shirt gleamed like silk, which it probably was, and it had an intricate filigree of gold threading on the collars and cuffs that shimmered with every movement. An aggressively huge chain of gold links hung around her neck, and her slightly wrinkled hands were completely covered in thick gold rings.
Her black stilettos clacked and echoed on the marble floor as she approached us, and she kept her arms up right until she came to a stop in front of our group.
“Hello,” Hannah said when the rest of us remained silent.
“My name is Amanda,” the eccentric woman replied and clapped her hands together. “Are you my latecomers, I take it?”
“Yes,” I said. “Apologies for our tardiness, there was, ahh… An emergency, yesterday.”
“Yes, yes, so I heard.” Amanda nodded severely, and her blonde bob jiggled comically on her head as though she were a dashboard figurine. “Congratulations on your first endeavor into this world. I heard you did fantastically.”
“They performed as expected.” Dahlia’s voice was as blunt as usual.
Amanda peered up at our dark-haired mentor, and I couldn’t quite tell what her expression was thanks to the massive designer sunglasses covering her face, but her bright pink lips pursed as she hummed thoughtfully.
“Well, no time like the present!” Amanda clapped her hands together again, and the sudden sound made us all jump as it echoed loudly around the huge marble room. “Come!”
We followed the tiny woman as she quickly skittered off, and she led us through a long stretch of corridor that went from white marble to a stark metal and concrete almost immediately. There were several alcoves cut into the smooth gray concrete with mannequins standing sentry inside, and each was covered by a thick sheet of glass and illuminated by a floor spotlight.
“These are your creations?” Rhiannon asked as she looked around in awe.
“Yes, yes.” Amanda waved a careless hand and kept her pace. “Old designs, ones that got me where I am today.”
The mannequins in the alcoves were dressed in slick supersuits, and each one was different from the last. There was one in particular that seemed to be covered in mirrors and could only be seen from the right angle, and I figured it was for a Dreamer with invisibility. We passed another suit that looked like it had been woven from literal fish scales, and it glittered impressively in the stark white lighting. There was another outfit that somehow looked as though the material itself were made from water, and the cape rippled behind the mannequin entirely of its own accord.
