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Authors: S.A. McAuley

Tags: #Erotic Romance Fiction

Powerless (4 page)

BOOK: Powerless
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I dropped my forehead to the shower wall and pushed my ass into him, matching the movement of his hand so I was fucking back on him while he worked his hand down then over the head of my cock. His breath came in shallow gasps, a soft moan escaping his lips. I closed my eyes and gave in to the rhythm of our bodies moving together.

Armise circled his hand around my hip, his finger digging into my skin as he rutted against me, his movements becoming more frantic, hurried, and erratic with each passing second.

“Tighter,” I ground out.

He coiled his fingers around my dick with brutal pressure until I could see stars behind my eyelids from the pain.

“Fuck. Faster,” I ordered, my voice gruff and unhinged.

He sped his hand on my cock, rubbed himself forcefully between my ass cheeks, rocking us forward and back. I let the pain of his tight grip drive me deeper, careening me towards the edge until I couldn’t hold on any longer and I was collapsing on the wall, my body shaking, racked with the intensity of his hand wrenching my release out of me. He spilled hot against my back with a muffled roar and bit down on my shoulder, most likely on my tattoo—over the last four months I’d discovered he had a penchant for leaving his own mark across that ink.

I put my arms against the tile and settled my head on them. Armise reached around me and turned up the temperature. The hot spray hit my neck and shoulders, ran down my arms, over my cheekbones and off my lips as I caught my breath.

Armise slid his hands over my torso, down the curve of my ass and up around my thighs. He grasped my hips then ran his palms over my stomach and my chest—rough hands on scarred skin, over and again—soaping me, washing away the grime accumulated on the last leg of our mission. He threaded his fingers through my hair, lathering the shampoo, the tepid water rinsing away the bubbled remnants almost immediately. I didn’t speak, didn’t question how comfortable—how abnormally normal—it felt to have him doing something that was so domestic.

I could have stayed in the shower and under the press of Armise’s capable hands for hours. But I was overly cognizant of the passage of time and a pressing need to see the President’s face—whether in person or not—and make sure he was okay.

I flipped my head back, slicking the wetness out of my hair, closing my eyes as I allowed the spray to beat directly onto my face. I opened my mouth, drinking it in—I hadn’t been able to do that safely in months—then spat the water back out. Armise gripped my hip and urged me back. “My turn,” he coaxed me.

I turned my head, kissing him deeply, then reluctantly stepped out of the shower. While I towelled off he did the same cleaning job to himself as he’d just done on me. I left a towel on the counter for him—one piece of an often-practiced routine over the last five months—and dropped mine down the cleaning chute.

I dressed quickly, leaving clothes out for Armise on the bed, strapped a new pair of boots on—everything I’d worn during the mission would have to be scrapped at this point, well, everything except my weapons—then I attempted to log into the Revolution mainframe to look at status reports, but my credentials kept coming back as denied.

Armise’s chilled breath huffed against my neck as he looked over my shoulder. “Not letting you in?”

I swiped the BC5 screen off the desk and backed away. “No.”

It could have just been because I’d been gone for so long, or that I no longer had my chips for the computer to tap into—to positively identify me as the Merq Grayson—but I had the feeling my technological cold shoulder was a passive-aggressive ‘fuck you’ from General Neveed Niaz.

I stalked away and started rifling through the packs that had been deposited in our quarters. There hadn’t been much we’d carried from place to place, as we’d made sure to not only pack light, but also have the ability to abandon everything except our weapons in a heartbeat if we needed to.

Armise was silent behind me, unnervingly so, and I turned to see what he was doing only to find him staring intently at the BC5, his brow furrowed in…concern?

I didn’t give a fuck what he was worried about, though, I was too thrown by his ability to do what I hadn’t been able to. “Are you in the mainframe? What the fuck?”

I didn’t know Armise had a login for the Revolution systems, and even if he had been issued one before we’d left on our mission, it should have been shut down when mine was. There would be no reason for Neveed to eliminate mine and keep Armise’s activated.

Armise didn’t answer me, didn’t seem to even hear me, he was so drawn into what he saw in front of him on the floating screen, his eyes moving rapidly over something I couldn’t see.

“Armise,” I bit out, trying to get his attention.

His head snapped up, eyes wide. Like a soldier who’s just experienced his first real battle and taken his first life—guilt and anger. Or a prey that’s just realised it’s in the presence of its hunter—fear. His eyes were nearly black from the abrupt, autonomic dilation of his pupils.

I’d caught him unaware. And no one ever caught Armise Darcan unaware.

I pushed up and started for him, needing to see what he was looking at on the screen and why it had brought such a swift change to his demeanour, but then he blinked and everything I’d just seen flicker across his face was gone—if it had ever really been there at all.

He swiped the BC5 away with a gruff, “Let’s go.”

“You have a login to the Revolution?” I pushed, finding myself more annoyed with the prospect of that than him being Ahriman’s second in command at one time.

“No,” he answered simply. Much too simply.

“Then what was that?”

“I had to try.” He gave a short dark chuckle that sent chills through me as his eyes snapped to mine. “It didn’t work.”

I knew he wasn’t telling me everything, and as much as it frustrated me that he was holding something back, I was beginning to believe that he would when it made sense to.

Yes, what he told me were half-truths. Morally ambiguous lies by omission. Secrets kept to protect the innocent and the not so innocent. I had to wonder if Armise and I would ever get past these games.

I stomped to the door and swung it open, nearly pulling it off the hinges as I gave a mumbled “Right” to let him know I was pissed off but would let it go for now. Armise stood by the desk, appearing coolly back in control as he fastened the black watch he now wore all the time to his wrist.

I quirked an eyebrow in impatience and gave a gentile swish of my hand to indicate him first. Armise dropped his chin and rolled his shoulders back. When he stood again to his full height, to anyone else he would have appeared unchanged, but I knew him too well.

As he swept by me, he reached out his hand and ran his fingertips along my stomach, over my arm and down my hand, his fingers lingering for barely a blink of an eye then he was walking down the hallway.

Something was off with Armise. As similar as that touch should have been to the ones in the shower, it wasn’t. His skin was hot, the path of his fingers tearing at my skin like a bandage being ripped away from already raw skin.

His outward demeanour was one of ease as we walked. Unaffected. But I could pick apart the minuscule physical tells. Armise’s skin was naturally frigid and I’d learned over the last five months that it wasn’t just because his temperature fluctuated with his surroundings. That was another partial truth on his part.

In reality, Armise’s emotions—and how in control of them or not he was—also played into how warm or cold he was. That Armise’s skin was hot right now meant that he wasn’t expending any energy on controlling his core temperature. It meant his thoughts were scattered and there were other considerations that were dragging him under. That combined with him venturing a touch while we were in the bunker—a public place for all intents and purposes—indicated to me that he was expending all his energy on projecting an image. And that image could only be for my benefit.

His show of affection, as subtle as it was, was too affectionate. As if he was attempting to placate me. I ground my teeth together as he held the control room door open for me, his blue-silver eyes focused on me. Fond was the only word I would have been able to bring forth, but at the same time the twitch in his fingers—as if he were forcing himself not to ball them into fists—told me that he was angry or nervous about something.

Yeah, he was actively trying to hide something from me, of that I had no doubt. And that I had absolutely no idea what it was was an unpleasant thought.

The control room was void of all the usual staff—analysts, communication officers, security—and only Neveed, Simion, Jegs, Chen, Armise, and I remained.

Neveed paced. The blackness of the empty screen at the front of the room gave a hazy reflection of Neveed’s form as he strode back and forth between the wall and a long table. Chen sat at one end, her BC5 screens popped to attention in front of her. She didn’t even glance up as we approached. Jegs sat next to Chen, looking over her shoulder. There were two empty chairs next to where Simion sat and one unoccupied chair directly across from Chen.

I clapped Simion on the back as I walked by. He gave me one of his knowing smirks—the one that would forever remind me of demagged maglocks and teenage sexual rebellion turned to brotherly loyalty—as he kicked out the legs of the chair next to him. His synth gave a mechanical clank against the metal of the seat. I pulled the chair out farther and let Armise take it as I passed by Simion and went to take the spot across from Chen.

I needed to be able to see them all. To observe them all, especially Neveed and Armise. And by placing them next to each other I could compare their reactions to whatever the President decided to tell us.

“He’s ready,” Chen said to Neveed.

Neveed took the remaining seat—between Jegs and Armise, inching closer to Jegs—then gave Chen the signal to boot up the aircomm.

The President’s face popped up on the main screen, giving no identifying information of where he was located. Aircomms could take place from the other side of the globe and be just as clear—or end up just as glitchy. Atmospheric interference had more of an effect than distance. And of course the shot was solely of the President’s face. There was nothing for me to go on in terms of clues, unless he moved to reveal more details of the room. Even then it would be nearly impossible to identify where he was if he, or Neveed, didn’t want me to know.

“Welcome back, Merq and Armise. Both of you look like shit,” the President chided.

I stared back at him, taking in the dark circles beneath his eyes and the sunken appearance of his cheeks. He’d lost a significant amount of weight and he was tired. That much I could read immediately. I held back a sarcastic reply about his appearance.

“We just need some of Exley’s grub then some sleep,” Armise replied casually.

Neveed stiffened at that. Whether it was in response to how easy Armise’s interaction with the President was or something else, I didn’t know. I made a mental note to seek Exley out soon. Not just for food, but to pump him for details on the political manoeuvrings I’d missed while on assignment.

The President chuckled and scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. “In due time. Neveed will bring you up to speed on the details of the supposed assassination attempt. I’m still not buying it’s serious. But my General believes it is. Armise, you have insight into how Ahriman thinks. Merq, you’ve been privy to Opposition tactics from the inside. I need you both. Eliminating the remaining Committee members is still a priority but I’ve been told keeping me alive takes precedence over that. So your next mission is simple—keep me breathing.”

Armise sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “I don’t accept the assignment, sir.”

My gut churned. I had no idea where Armise was going with this.

The President lifted his eyebrow in question and leaned into the camera. “No?”

Armise didn’t look at me when he answered, “I’m going into Singapore. After Blanc.”

“That’s suicidal. You’re known there,” Simion protested.

Jegs shrugged and I couldn’t misinterpret the satisfied smile on Neveed’s face.

I glared at Armise and ground my teeth together. “Simion is right. You going in alone is suicidal.”

“I say let him do as he will,” Neveed interjected.

My unease went from lingering to volatile in seconds. “This is not what we discussed,” I accused Armise.

The heads in the room snapped in my direction. All except for Armise. His face was impassive, a mask of coldness. Of a soldier preparing for battle.

Armise laughed darkly. “You think highly of your influence over me.”

I shook my head, my mind reeling with how swift his change in tactics had come. I couldn’t understand what had set him off. “I won’t allow it.”

“And I give a fuck?” he replied, deathly calm, with an arched eyebrow.

“I outrank you,” I bit out.

“In the old world, for a flag that never meant anything.”

With that, the President clicked off his camera and the room cleared out in seconds, leaving Armise and me staring each other down.

“No,” I said, not sure why I was so adamant.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Stand together, huh? No loyalties except to each other?”

Armise didn’t answer.

I pointed a finger at him. “Fuck you.”

Armise pushed his chair back and stood. “If only it was that simple.”

Then he walked out.

Chapter Two

I sat alone in the control room and attempted to log into the mainframe over and over again, my frustration growing with every denial. Even the alternate use of scanning my fingerprints or my retinas wouldn’t allow me access. Yet it was possible Armise had a way into the system. Which made me even more frustrated.

I was curious about what was in the official files, if anything, about the five months Armise and I had been on our op. But even more so, I wanted to know what the reports were on the possible assassination attempt and why, as Simion had told us, the PsychHAgs had been the ones to bring it to Neveed’s attention. While the PsychHAgs no longer officially operated as a part of Peacemaker training, their unique brand of ‘motivation’ still had its uses. And while I dealt in darkness, I didn’t think of myself as an unnecessarily cruel person. The PsychHAgs, however, were even less human than I. Possibly less than Ahriman, since his cruelty at least served a purpose, even if it was self-serving. The PsychHAgs by comparison, at least the ones I’d been intimately involved with, seemed to revel in pain and misery. It was what made them effective at their jobs.

BOOK: Powerless
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