Fatal Strike (26 page)

Margot almost laughed. Yeah, right. Like, her husband under the knife, his brain opened up. That was all she needed to foil a telepath.

“I’m all set with my image,” she said grimly.

“We need our own psychic goon squad,” Sean said.

“I tell you what we need,” Connor said. “We need Miles.”

eat yr soup

The command typed itself out onto the screen in her mind.

Lara looked up from the saltine cracker she was contemplating. Miles was not looking at her. He had not spoken to her at all since their fight, other than curt directives; take a shower, put your clothes in the washer, put these on, hurry up. No smile, or touch. Or eye contact.

She pressed her hand against the knot in her belly. The shower had relaxed her a little, but she still saw those hanging bodies and distorted faces, blood dripping. Keiko and Franz, too. Her vision of Miles, a pool of blood behind his head. Greaves’ crushing stranglehold. If she’d had any digestive enzymes in her system, they were long gone by now.

cant she replied.

He looked at her. An icy look that unexpectedly stabbed into her head like a needle. The cracker shattered in her hand and the table rattled as she lurched to her feet, hands to her throbbing temples.

“Oh, ouch. Jesus, Miles,” she gasped. “That
hurts.
”

“Oh, fuck.” Miles shoved the dishes out of the way and sagged forward, knocking his forehead against the table. “Fuck, fuck,
fuck!
”

She tried to breathe. The sharp pain was slowly beginning to recede. “Miles,” she said, somewhat shakily. “You cannot do that to me.”

“I know.” His voice was muffled.

She waited for him to get a hold of himself. After a few seconds, he sat up, shoved his snarled hair back, and met her eyes.

“We’re running for our lives,” he said. “You’ve been starving for months already. What am I supposed to do if you collapse? Where do I take you, Lara? What do I tell them? Help me out, here!”

“I’m not going to collapse,” she said. “I’m strong.”

He gave her a grim look, red eyed and exhausted. “I noticed, but you’ll be stronger if you eat. Just try. Do it for me.
Please.
”

She swallowed back the protests. This was not worth a fight, with all the other things they had to fight about.

ok fine

She spooned some broth into her mouth, made her throat relax enough to swallow it. Miles watched the first few bites travel from bowl to mouth, and got up, rummaging in the small utility closet beside the stove while she slowly finished the soup.

He came out with a dustpan and broom, and a plastic bag, and headed into the front room. She heard the clink of broken glass as he cleaned up the mess he’d made earlier. He paraded through the kitchen with his bag full of shards, still sweaty from his exertions with the ax. So gorgeous, even with his face a taut mask of misery and tension.

“I’ll build a fire,” he said.

“No, don’t,” she said hastily. “I’ll do it.”

He frowned. “I’m not a pyro, if that’s what you’re thinking. The gas tube had a block. I just gave it a tap with my mind, and I overdid it. That’s all that happened.”

“Even so, I’ll handle the fire,” she assured him. “Take a shower.”

“So you think whatever I am is at least as weird as pyrokine-sis?”

“Actually, I’m not worried about it,” she said. “I’ve got so many things to worry about it, your new psychic stuff doesn’t even register. I’m more concerned about your attitude. And your manners.”

His grin flashed, which emboldened her to give him a playful push. “Go on, take a shower,” she urged. “The water should be hot again by now, and you are filthy. I can’t even bear to look at you. Are there any clothes here that fit you?”

He looked wry. “Not really. The guy who leaves clothes here is a foot shorter than me, and a lot bigger in the gut. But the sweatpants have a drawstring. They’ll cover my junk.”

When he was in the bathroom, she finally let air into her lungs. So much of her time with him was spent in that rapt, breathless state, it was amazing she could oxygenate her brain enough to stay conscious.

He’d brought in lots of wood, so she got busy with the fire. The glow of little dancing flames soothed her. A fresh, cleansing image to wipe the others away. Flames were good for that. She needed the warmth, dressed only in the oversized men’s T-shirt he’d found for her.

Too many images, floating around inside her mind. Her ability to visualize had saved her sanity in the rat hole, particularly when they turned off the lights. She could close her eyes and go to places she’d been, actually seeing images in the space in front of her closed eyes like a movie projector. Maybe that put her a few notches closer to crazy, but it was a fair trade—and a double-edged sword, too. Because she had no way of forgetting bad images. They did not fade with time.

But she stared at the crackling flames and let herself be soothed.

Reality was better than stored images, even when it was scary. Just like Miles was better in the flesh than as the Lord of the Citadel. Prickly, sarcastic, and bossy though he was, he was the goddamned star in her darkness. She would trot around after him for as long as he would tolerate it.

His comment about her human-sacrifice schtick made her cringe. Wafting around, looking wounded and ethereal. Ouch.

Not that she’d had other choice today. But still. It made her feel ashamed. It wasn’t how she wanted him to see her. She wanted to be strong for him. To protect him as he protected her.

He emerged from the back bedroom, his arms full of blankets and pillows. He folded the blanket he’d wrapped her in earlier, and laid it on the couch. He was naked to the waist, jaw shadowed with stubble. Hanging low on his hips was a pair of hugely baggy sweatpants that did not reach his ankles, or even come close. He crouched down, laid a sleeping bag on the ground in front of the couch.

The implications of that gesture were not good.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Got to sleep somewhere,” he said.

“There’s room on the couch,” she said. “If we take off the back cushions, it’s as wide as a single bed. Wide enough for both, if we’re friendly.”

“Friendly?” He looked up. “You know exactly what will happen if I lie down next to you.”

“Duh,” she said. “It’s only the one thing on earth that could possibly make me feel better right now.”

He looked down at his hands, flexing them convulsively, and gestured at himself. “You want this? Random whacks of coercion, the uncontrolled telekinesis, the shitty manners, the bad attitude? You want all that in your bed? In your body?”

“Yes,” she said, unhesitating.

He looked away, into the fire. “I saw the look on your face, after that fight in the forest,” he said. “The necks I broke, the throats I slit. The blood on my hands. It skeeved you out.”

“It was a shock,” she admitted. “But those people were coming after us. You did what you had to do. I just didn’t expect you to do it so, um . . . expertly. But I don’t fault you for that.”

He tried not to smile. “Generous of you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, impatiently. “I didn’t expect the theatrics. Hanging them in the trees. What was that about?”

“I was sending him a message,” Miles said. “That was how I phrased it. You fuck with her, you go through me. And good luck with that.”

She nudged the fire with a stick. “Thank you for being my champion,” she said quietly. “Again.”

“You don’t have to thank me. You certainly don’t have to fuck me. Not when I scare you and hurt you and piss you off.”

“I did my share of that today, too,” she admitted. “I’m sorry.”

He contemplated her in the firelight for a long, thoughtful moment. “Me, too,” he said, cautiously.

“I want you,” she said.

“I get that,” he replied. “I want you, too. All the time. But maybe we should chill for a while. With this weird psi bullshit coming down, I don’t know what I would be like, if I—”

“You’d be good,” she said. “You always are.”

He made a frustrated sound. “I don’t even know who I am right now.”

“I do,” she said softly. “Come here and let me remind you.”

They gazed at each other. The fire crackled. Miles shook himself. “Man, you are the ultimate temptress,” he muttered.

That made her shake with helpless giggles. Her? Hah. It was fun, though, to play the seductive siren. It straightened her spine. Made her chin go up and her tits stick out. All good things. Life affirming.

He scooped up the sleeping bag and flung it over the back of the couch. Progress. At some point, her smile had turned into a big, out-of-control grin, which was not an expression she was accustomed to feeling on her own face. He was smiling back and, oh, that gorgeous flash of white teeth, those sexy grooves in his cheeks.

“You’re the tempting one, in those crazy pants,” she said.

He laughed. “These? I almost opted to come out stark naked instead of wearing these. Didn’t know quite how you’d take that.”

“I would have been fine with it,” she said demurely. “But the pants do have their own quirky charm. What do they say to me? Hmm . . . a story out of the Arabian Nights, maybe?”

He shook his head, still grinning. “You’re reaching, Lara. You creative types. Talk about accentuating the positive.”

“We might as well,” she said.

He stood up. “The Arabian nights, hmm? What was that princess’s name, the one who enslaved the sultan with her stories?”

“Sheherezade,” Lara said. “But the sultan was a deranged, pathologically insecure headcase who murdered his brides the morning after the wedding night so they wouldn’t cheat on him.”

“Ouch,” Miles murmured. “Okay, so let’s make up our own story. One where the brave, enterprising Sheherezade takes control of her destiny, and gets away from the asshole sultan once and for all.”

“She’s rescued by the king of the forty thieves,” Lara said. “He sweeps her off on his black Arabian stallion, and they gallop through the desert on secret paths known only to the nomad tribes.”

“Wow. King of thieves, huh? So I’m an outlaw, now?”

“You’re pretty out there,” she murmured. “But I go for that.”

“Good,” Miles’ eyes were very bright. “So now that I have the sultan’s prize in my grasp, what do I do with her?”

She stood up and threw her hair back. “The question you should be asking yourself is, what will she do with you?” She laid her hand gently on his bare chest.

His eyes were hot with anticipation. “Will she tell me a story?” he asked. “It gets lonely and boring out here in the desert with just my bags of plundered gold and gems for company.”

She shook her head, tracing the curves and cuts of his muscular chest with her fingertips. “No way. She’s got something less cerebral in mind. More direct.” Her hands slid lower, under his waistband.

His breath got jerky and uneven. “I’m on it,” he said. “Princess.”

She shoved the baggy sweatpants down over his hips, caressing every perfect, taut dip and swell of the lean contours of his hips and ass. Caressing, slow, stroking, kneading.

She sank to her knees, and took him in her mouth. Quite the enterprise, all things considered. There was a lot of him to take.

No more talking of any kind was possible for some time thereafter. He’d objected to this move the night before, but he wasn’t objecting now, judging from the way his hands shook, fisted into her hair. His whole body vibrated, and so did she, as she finally got it. The whole point of oral sex, which had eluded her thus far.

It was entirely different when her body and soul were on fire, shaken by her lover’s beauty and courage and valor, his toe-curling, irresistible hotness. She couldn’t get enough of his thick, marvelous cock, which had become the most desirable object on earth. She stroked and licked, sliding her tongue, her hands over him, feeling the quick, heavy throb of his heart against her tongue, inhaling his warm man musk mixed with shower soap. She laved his cockhead, licking up tantalizing drops of salty precome. He arched and groaned.

The world narrowed to the rasp of his breath, the wet sounds of her mouth, the crackle of the fire. Her own gasps for breath, between the swirling, the lapping, the stroking. She cupped his heavy balls, curling her fingers around them tenderly.

Energy rushed through her body, bright and cleansing. The feeling rose up from inside, spontaneous as a spring. This impulse to seduce him, minister to him, please him. And master him. He was so strong, but right now, he was helpless to her. It made her giddy.

She could have gone on forever, but he finally pulled her head away, with a ragged, pleading sound. “Don’t make me come,” he said.

She wiped her mouth, stroking the silken hair on his thighs. “Why not? There’s plenty more where that comes from.”

“I want to come inside you,” he said.

“So do that later. We’re not going anywhere tonight, right?”

He gripped her under the arms, hauled her onto her feet with an effortless jerk. “Not later. Now.”

Um, wow. So much for mastering him. Just a teasing echo of his coercive power reverberated through his words. Fiercely controlled.

He cupped her face in his hands, stroking her jaw with his thumbs. The delicate rasp of his callused fingers made her shiver.

“I snatched you from the evil sultan, fair and square.” He wound his fingers into her hair, stretching out her throat for him to nuzzle and kiss. “I’ll decide where to put it, and when. I want you under me, your hair spread out, your body wide open. My cock, buried in your pussy, shiny with your lube. And I want to look into your eyes when we come.”

She covered his hands with hers. “Take whatever you want. It’s already yours.” She almost lost her nerve, then blurted, “I’m yours.”

Miles blew out an explosive breath. “Mine,” he repeated.

She hoped it wasn’t too much. Too needy, desperate. The strangling kudzu vine.
His.
Forever, always. Please, let him want it, too.

He kissed her with ferocious intensity. The coldness she’d lamented in the Citadel was gone. She was bathed in heat and light. Charged with energy. They nourished each other with tender, clinging kisses, a tender confusion of helpless giving and greedy taking. She felt like a full-blown flower, sticky and sweet for him, so lost in the kiss, she hadn’t noticed him picking her up until she was bouncing against the couch. The sheet he’d thrown over the couch was chilly. He lifted his mouth away to spread her legs, high and wide. That fierce look in his eyes made her shiver and sigh. He grabbed her hands, and pressed them against her muff. “Touch yourself,” he commanded. “Show me how wet you are.”