“Alyssa, can I ask what changed from last night?”

  Alyssa lifted my hand off her stomach, kissed it, and then put it on her breast instead. I was fine with that of course, and just left it there.

  “Not much, as far as I cared for and trusted you, in that I was falling in love with you. I still am, tonight has been, eye-opening, and amazing. I’ve heard so many nightmares about first times, and mine was absolutely magical, perfect. Today in school, I missed you a lot. I felt deeper for you tonight, but not by much, compared to how hot I felt for you last night, after dancing. Your hands on me set me on fire.”

  I gently squeezed her breast, and I kissed the back of her head. I didn’t interrupt, her pause didn’t mean she was done, she was obviously working her way up to something, and I didn’t want to derail her.

  She said, “You were too convenient, that’s why I was afraid, I doubted my feelings. No, not my feelings, the source of those feelings.”

  She wiggled back into me.

  “Can you expand on that, what do you mean convenient?”

  She said, “I’m still eighteen, I know that’s young, but I was already starting to despair of ever finding a man that would look at me. You came into my life, and turned it upside down, swept me off my feet, and I can see the caring and the lust in your eyes. You’re a gentleman, you hold doors open for me, but you don’t bat an eye when I go into battle. You’re respectful, treat me like a lady, never leer at me, but at the same time I love the way you look at me. The way you can’t help but look at me, when we work out, but never in a way that’s demeaning. You admire me, see all of me. You have no idea how wet you made me, that first morning we worked out. Your subtle looks were a thrill, made me feel so sexy, desirable, and wet, and the next few days I found myself picking sexy outfits out on purpose.”

  She blushed, “Sorry, got a little off point there. The point is I was afraid I was reading into things too much, was falling in love with the idea of actually meeting a man that was good for me, that would take care of me but not restrain me. That cared, but who wouldn’t suffocate me. That didn’t even care about my power. You were all that, and more.

  “That made me doubt my feelings were for you, and that I was just falling for the idea of what you represented, a true connection and a chance at love and happiness. The only reason I doubted at all, was because of how fast it was all happening, how quickly and completely I was falling for you. It felt like wishful thinking, like it couldn’t possibly be real, you know? Does that make any sense to you?”

  “I think so yes, and you decided that wasn’t true?”

  She craned her neck, and arched her back, and I happily gave her a soft loving kiss.

  She said softly, in a vulnerable voice, “Yes. At school, when I missed you. More than that, when the emergency call went out, and the idea of you fighting without me squeezed my heart. That wasn’t about us, or even me or what I wanted, it was pure concern about you. I thought about what would happen if I lost you, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe at the weight that settled on my chest, like a vise around my heart.

  “I do want a man like you, but you’re more than that too, much more, and a whole bunch of things I didn’t know I wanted and needed. My Daniel. So, is this oversharing, getting ready to run? I don’t love you yet, but my heart is inexorably becoming yours.”

  I gently kissed the side of her neck, and she relaxed all at once.

  “I only have one more question.”

  She smirked, no doubt expecting a joke, “What’s that?”

  I wasn’t joking though, when I asked, “Will you let me hold you all night? I want to wake up with you in the morning.”

  She bit her lip, “Yes, you know that’s insane right?”

  I nodded, “My heart wants what it wants, and I feel much the same about you. You’re perfect for me, because I want a woman that loves all those things about me that you listed, and for so many more reasons. It’s completely insane, and too fast, but the idea of saying goodnight and sleeping in this bed alone, without you in my arms, is… not what I want.”

  She giggled, “Is what?” she teased, as she wiggled back against my cock.

  “Depressing, I want you in my arms. You already said yes, and I claimed you, so no backsies.”

  She giggled, “Backsies?”

  I nodded, “It’s a legal term.”

  She snickered, “Yes, Daniel. On the playground sandbox.”

  I sniffed arrogantly, “Mere details, that doesn’t make it untrue.”

  She smirked, and looked at me with fond exasperation, “Can I negotiate more kisses.”

  I shook my head, and she pouted.

  Obviously, we were both being extremely silly in that moment, call it a response to the insane conversation we just had about falling in love in just under a week. Or close to love. Not to mention her spending the night, but it’s what I wanted. Plus, I knew she wanted it too, woman craved intimacy and being held after sex, even more than men, she’d have felt as empty as I would after she left, perhaps more. Or, so I told myself, not that I needed more than her in my arms as a reason to want it.

  I explained my refusal, “All my kisses already belong to you, no need for negotiation.”

  She giggled, “I see. Then I’m collecting some now, pay up.”

  I leaned over her, and I claimed her perfect lips with my own.

  She moaned softly, in approval, when I ground my recovered cock against her ass. Her little speech earlier had quite an effect on me, not to mention her sweet lips on mine, and her delectable body in my arms, all meant round five was in the offing after all. She gasped in pleasure, when I slid down the bed a little, and squeezed her breast firmly as I pushed back inside of her tight, silken, and hot heaven from behind.

  Right where I belonged…

  Alyssa grinned at me from above, she’d just given me a hell of a morning reprise to round three. Not that I minded, she was incredible, and so beautiful when she rode me, like a goddess from above.

  I didn’t see it ever getting old.

  She sighed, “We need to get to our morning workout.”

  I laughed, “Didn’t you just have one?”

  She giggled, “That doesn’t count. I wonder though, that first weapon you told me about?”

  I nodded slowly.

  She tilted her head, “Well, I don’t use my energy bolts either, except I did the other day on that monster. Maybe you should have it just in case. A weapon of last resort in a life and death situation, not win or lose, but against a villain that’s a known killer and you’re on your last leg, you know?”

  I nodded, “I’ll think about it. It isn’t a terrible idea. In truth, I never did because I was worried the weapon might fall into someone else’s hands. My suit would be mostly ineffective in other hands, but that weapon would be deadly even at its weakest. We don’t always see death coming in this line of work, you know? But, I think I know enough now to build in a self-destruct of sorts, not a damaging one, just kill the enchantment itself, if the worst happens.”

  She tilted her head, “Good. What about a shield? Have you ever tried making a shield?”

  I said, “That won’t work at all, or I should say it would work too well. Pure meta-energy would block just about any energy or physical thing in this universe, destroy it on contact. It would eat fire, ice, or raw energy, but it would also eat an arm, or a leg, if a villain punched or kicked me.”

  She bit her lip, “Fine, no shield, but you should have the weapon. Just in case.”

  I grinned, and I pulled her down into a kiss. Damn, she melted into me with the sexiest moan I’d ever heard, and then she sighed contentedly into my mouth. Then she pushed up and winked.

  “We really need to move, we don’t have time for another.”

  I enjoyed the view when she got up. I kind of wanted a shower, the mornings were usually the time I took for that, instead of using the amulet. But we were late for our schedule, it was almost seven in the morning.

  She started to cast, and I used my amulet to put on shorts and a t-shirt.

  Of course, I couldn’t help but stare at her gloriously naked body in the morning sunlight, and I didn’t stop when she was clad in a skin-tight red sports bra, and a pink pair of yoga pants.

  She grinned, “See, that’s the look I was talking about.”

  “it’s your fault, looking so ravishingly beautiful. Did I mention I love your warm brown eyes? I miss them when you’re White Witch.”

  She tilted her head, and playfully ordered, “No, tell me more.”

  I snickered.

  I walked over and stole one last deep lingering kiss before we started our day, while I caressed her sides softly.

  Her lips were so damned good, and I couldn’t get enough. Her scent was also delicious, since we were both clean courtesy of meta-energy spells.

  Then we went down to work out.

  We followed the usual routine, but it was all a bit different after last night. Our glances more intimate, her smiles more knowing, and our flirting more relaxed. Of course it’d changed our relationship, but I believed it to be for the better. We still hadn’t really discussed our relationship, but despite revealing our deep emotions to each other last night that step was still a bit premature.

  I thought I loved her already, or at least was a lot closer to it, but the cynical part of my mind said it was the mind-blowing sex and waking up in the morning to see her beautiful face close to mine, and her sweet sexy body in my arms. I imagined we’d figure it out. I also didn’t regret asking her to stay, the intimacy of sleeping together, literally sleeping I mean, had as I’d hoped, erased any of those morning doubts people had when they woke up alone.

  Perhaps I’d have some later, when she was out of my company, but I doubted it.

  After a quick breakfast to make up for starting late, I headed over to the sparring room. Despite her playful threat last night, Alyssa didn’t watch Carol train me.

  Carol had no problems keeping up with me. In fact, it’d be a while before I was back up to my previous ability of four years ago, and even then she’d have a lot to show me. Carol was an incredible fighter, and there was a lot I could learn from her.

  A big part of that was her almost constant unwavering focus, that stare of hers was intense, all the time. Underneath that though, she was obviously a shy woman. She wasn’t shy about using a stinging slap to tell me when I’d done something stupid though, which was fine, it was a good teaching technique.

  Point in case, after yesterday I made sure my snap kicks snapped back. It’s like that joke, guy goes to the doctor and says if I hold my arm this way it hurts, doc tells him to stop holding it that way. Same concept, a small sting is a great reminder, and she never truly hurt me. It was actually a fantastic display of control, to hold herself to human abilities when the super abilities were such an integral part of her.

  As I said, intense focus, she was impressive. That may have even been more impressive than the way she could twist and bend that limber and lissome body of hers, but my shallow side called bullshit on that thought, she was truly a pleasure to watch in a fight. She was a graceful and deadly predator of great self-discipline.

  She smiled, one of those light twitching ones.

  “Better today, you seem more relaxed and looser, your flow is improved.”

  I blushed, “Thanks,” I said, as I considered that sex with Alyssa had made me a better fighter, kind of a tongue in cheek thought, though. Even if true, I supposed I had been a bit tense, it’d been a while for me with dating as a super being such a pain in the ass.

  She tilted her head slightly, “I think that’s enough for today, you’ll gain bad habits if we push it too far and you get sloppy.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled lightly, the widest smile I’d seen on her, “My pleasure, it’s the skill I can share with the team, right?”

  As if to accentuate her point, she fiddled with the locket around her neck, the one I’d enchanted the quick change for.

  “Right.”

  I was about to ask her if she’d join me for a drink in the kitchen, when Rose said, “You’re wanted in the command center.”

  “I’m needed in the command center.”

  She pulled her phone out, “So am I.”

  It was then that I’d realized that Rose had been even more quiet than usual, giving me privacy last night. The idea that we’d had a silent voyeur suddenly occurred to me, but I dismissed it. A.I.s had emotions and loyalty, to both people and causes, but they had no sex drive at all. I knew to Rose, there’d be no difference in watching what Alyssa and I had done between the sheets, to us sharing a cup of coffee at a café. It was all the same to them.

  Rose said teasingly, “I don’t know, you two were pretty hot together.”

  I blushed. Seriously?

  Rose replied, “Nope. Got ya, and your thoughts are pretty much on the money. Just wanted to make you blush. You did say you wanted me to be like myself, I am loyal, to both you first and protecting the world from supervillains second, but I do have quirks.”

  Which is probably all my fault.

  Rose replied, “I imagine so, since you made me, and with this sexy voice of the hot cheerleader next door. All subconsciously of course.”

  Right, let’s not ever mention that again.

  Rose laughed. It was actually good to hear, I didn’t want her to be nervous about me, or what I’d do.

  Carol and I walked over together, via the kitchen, where I grabbed a bottle of water, between the workout and sparring I’d needed it.

  Chapter Twenty

  The usual group was present, Millicent, Carina, Nate, and Jenna, and then the four of us, me, Alyssa, Tina, and Carol. Millicent had a satisfied look on her face, a professional one as usual, and I guessed at the topic before she even started talking. I couldn’t imagine another reason that would put that look on her usually professionally stoic face.

  I nodded to Tina as I sat, gave a small smile to Alyssa, and then faced toward Millicent.

  Millicent said, “Rose and Jenna think they’ve found where Andrea and the other ex-heroes are hiding, Jenna?”

  Jenna smiled, “We believe their lair is in the southwestern part of the city, below a machine shop in one of the industrial parks. Heroes may make better supervillains as far as getting along, but they aren’t nearly as paranoid. We’re not sure about the exact numbers, but we believe you’ll be facing anywhere from sixteen to twenty of them, given we’ve taken down fifteen of those thirty original ones, and based on the fact only thirty-one of the registered heroes emptied their bank accounts.

  “We speculate that there may be others, from outside Silver City, but we may be wrong about that. Still, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think Andrea would’ve been able to recruit from those that left this building angry just seven days ago, and a lot of those were from out of town.”

  That made sense, there were at least fifteen locals plus Andrea, then whoever she managed to mind screw while they were open to it, leaving her angry and with little hope in remaining in the hero business.

  Rose said, “We’re also not the only city having this problem. About three percent of the ex-heroes across the country have turned supervillain. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they’re also the ones that have the most dubious records, about using more force than necessary when taking in supervillains, and the highest accidental death instances by percentage.”

  Nate asked, “By percentage?”

  Rose explained, “The ones joining Andrea typically didn’t arrest large numbers, so while a dedicated superhero who patrolled nightly might have an equal amount of accidental deaths, their number of arrests were far higher, making the ex-hero’s statistics far more significant.”

  Yeah, the whole putting all heroes outside of the one sponsored team out of work was bullshit in my opinion, but it was clear something should have been done about those guys a long time ago.

  Millicent knocked on the table, “Plan. Alyssa and Daniel will move in with Nate and his team from the back, while Tina and Carol move in from the front with Carina and her team. No flying, they’ll have lookouts, maybe cameras, the closer we are before they set off the alarm the better. Each team will be in two vans, including the supers, and those vans will be disguised as electric company or cable company vans, by team.

  “Once you get there, you’ll be breaching the building, find the underground entrance, and clean house. The primary target is Andrea but do me a favor and let’s get them all. Work together, Daniel and Alyssa can set them up with the freeze spell, and Tina can distract them with her song. The two teams will take them down from that point, and Carol can watch for those that try to rabbit. Hit them hard and fast, any questions?”

  There were none, and there was a palpable excitement in the room. It was hard enough dealing with supervillains, I’d be happy to put the whole ex-hero thing behind us. Although, if other cities were having the problem too, I imagined others could show up in our city at some point in the future.

  Maybe not though, supers tended to be territorial about their cities.

  Millicent said, “You have a go, bring me back good news.”

  We all got up, and we filed out. I went ahead and changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, the van would be uncomfortable in bulky armor, and I could put on the suit fast when we got there. Worst case scenario, my shields still worked with it inside the amulet.

  Alyssa gave me a sweet smile, and bit her lip, “Ready?”

  “I am, we’re a hell of a team.”

  She searched my face, and then smiled in smug relief.

  “What’s that about?”

  She shook her head, “Ask me later, in private I mean. Just… being a worrier.”

  I nodded easily, not sure what she was talking about but also not worried about it, “Sure.”

  We headed down the stairs, and sure enough there were four vans, Nate headed for the electric company ones.

  “But… I like cable.”

  Nate glared, but Alyssa’s sweet giggle made the stupid joke worth it.