How many books had it been over the past few weeks: twenty, thirty? And that wasn’t even counting the two books she’d read at the office earlier today, while she was supposed to be working on the new ad campaign.
She closed her eyes and let her head loll. Maybe Laini had more books hiding in her room? No. She’d checked yesterday.
*More.*
She pulled the hair at her temples. “There are no more!” What did this stupid alien think she was, a library or something?
Her hands fell to her lap. A library. That was the answer! There was one across the street from the Echelon shopping center. She could read for a while and then run over to the food court for dinner. Perfect!
As she grabbed her purse, the strap of her laptop bag fell, swinging over the edge of the kitchen table.
She was supposed to work tonight to make up for her lack of progress at the office today.
The right thing to do was to stop this ridiculous reading marathon and get back to the real world.
But what about all those wonderful books waiting for her at the library?
No. She needed to work on the new ad campaign. She had to dig into census data, buying trends, forecasts.
But that wasn’t good enough to keep their mind off of the dull ache eating away at her.
Tracy bolted to the mirror in her living room. She stared into her eyes, studying the reflection of her face in her own pupils. “Listen. I really appreciate what you did for me on Monday, but what good is getting promoted if I get fired?” Her hands fidgeted, as if needing to grab something. “What’s bothering you? Why are you trying so hard to lose yourself in books?”
*More.*
Her hands shot to her face. “You’re driving me crazy, you know that?” She glanced back to the phone. Maybe she could call John. Maybe Dak could figure out what was wrong with her book-ravenous alien.
*More.*
And maybe they could explain why her Ambient learned a single word and repeated it over and over again and nothing else!
Trying to deny her entity seemed useless. Like a nagging child she couldn’t send to her room, Adonna persisted until she got what she wanted. At the moment, that seemed to be books. Lots and lots of books.
She tapped her phone to check the time. Six thirty-two. She’d have plenty of time to whip through those forecasts tonight after the library closed. Yes. That was a perfect plan!
Picking up her keys, she headed out the door.
It had been years since she’d been to a library. She didn’t even have a library card, for goodness’ sake. She supposed that wasn’t really all that much of a problem. She could grab a pile of books, sit in a chair, and let Adonna go to town. It would be senseless to take them all home. She’d have at least a dozen finished in the time it took to drive there and back.
Tracy entered the building and froze. Past the librarian’s desk, rows and rows of bookcases lined the walls on either side of her and seemed to go around the corner as well. A smile burst from her lips.
“Can I help you, Miss?” a man behind the counter said.
What books should she get? “Do you have anything about aliens?”
He nodded. “Sci-fi. Row six on the left.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Her head spun and giddiness overcame her as she entered the row. But which should she choose? Did it really matter? She snatched the first five titles on the rack and dumped them on a desk in the back of the room where fewer people would view her freakish speedreading show.
Freakish. Is that what she was now, a freak? An aberration who had no choice but to succumb to the whims of an insane being who wanted to do nothing but read and speak one-word demands?
No. She couldn’t think like that. Adonna had helped her, proven that they could live together. Tracy needed to realize that her Ambient was a completely separate person inside her. Once in a while, it was only fair to give in to her entity’s whims. And reading never hurt anyone.
She sat down and grabbed the book on top of her pile and flipped through page after page. The words soaked straight into her subconscious with no more effort than her eyes scanning the paper. No human could read like that. It had to be impossible.
*Mine!*
Tracy blinked, startled by a word she didn’t find on the page. “What?”
Someone leaned against the table. “Someone seems out of place here, and this time, darlin’, it seems to be me.”
Ho-lee-crap. “Sean?”
Duh. Obviously, it was Sean, with all six feet of him looming over her. He dropped a few books on the desk.
The desire to read fizzled from Tracy’s subconscious. Her breaths came in rapid gasps as she envisioned him clearing the table with one arm and setting her atop the shiny wooden surface. Naked.
Oh, shit!
She pushed with her mind, trying to drive the entity inside her down. Her vision started to spin.
Sean’s hand tapped against the side of his stack of books, as if he was having a similar struggle. Or maybe this was just a coincidence? Maybe he was a library regular?
Clearing her throat, she found her voice. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the literary type.” True that. Someone that hot belonged on billboards, on movie screens. In her bedroom turning down the sheets. She fisted her hands as she envisioned stripping down to nothing and rubbing up against him like a cat on a scratch pole. Tracy stiffened as her body whirled, begging to touch him.
But that was just it. Touch. The more the better.
Tracy didn’t want Sean. Adonna did. And it wasn’t even sexual, at least not in the human sense. Adonna craved contact, and for some reason she wanted Sean, or whoever was inside him.
For the past several days, Adonna had warmed up to Dak, but there was something about Sean that drove her entity crazy. Now, instead of binge reading books to help her forget, Adonna was sizzling inside Tracy like a punctured soda can.
Snap out of it. You have to understand we don’t want Sean in our lives. Please.
Her heartbeat increased. She needed to get out of there. Now.
Sean’s scent reminded her of the night they’d met—a hint of beer and something metallic she couldn’t place, mingling with the essence of what may have been women’s perfume. Which wouldn’t be a surprise if what he’d claimed about himself was true.
He slithered into the chair beside her. “I’ve had this strange need to read and I didn’t have a whole lot of books in the house.” He stared at the novels he’d chosen. His hands clenched, straightened, and repeated the movement. He stared at his palms. “Dogonit.”
“What’s wrong?”
He turned, his eyes dark and searching. “What is it about you? Why do I want to touch you so bad?”
So he did feel it. His entity wanted hers just as badly as Adonna wanted to reach out and make whoever was inside Sean her little alien boy-toy. Was this how it was between Dak and John? Was Dak constantly screaming, yearning, begging for his prim and proper cop to throw Tracy over the side of a couch and screw her brains out?
Because right now, all she could think about was climbing atop that table and spreading her legs. Librarians be damned.
Tracy forced herself to stand. “You know what, I need another book.”
Good. Logical. Who cared if there were already a handful of books on the desk? He had no idea she hadn’t read them yet.
She sprinted past the fantasy section to the far end of the building and slipped into the poetry aisle.
Poetry. Perfect. No one had probably been in that section for years. And damn did she need a few minutes alone to get herself—her selves together.
Panting, she grabbed her chest. Her heart throttled against her hand. She pushed, as if pressure would keep the raging muscle from ripping out of her chest.
This was crazy. Insane.
“You need to get a hold of yourself,” she whispered, resting her forehead against the shelves.
“Darlin’?”
That southern drawl licked her
like a rabbit on a salt block. Grasping the bookcases in front of her, she froze. Her panting increased. Deep, needy, and expecting. She didn’t move. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to if she tried.
Sean’s hands encircled her waist. Tender, gentle movements stroked her sides.
*Mine.*
Lost in a stupor, Tracy ignored the word. Nothing mattered but the caressing fingers traveling across her waist, her stomach.
She imagined John standing behind her, the spicy sweet smell of his cologne.
Her shoulders relaxed, and a gentle tug drew her from the bookcase, easing her lax frame against his. John’s breath tickled the back of her ear. Her head lolled, exposing her neck to a long drag of his tongue. God, she wanted this. She wanted him.
Tracy’s body ignited at his touch. A sound slipped from her mouth that was barely recognizable as her own. She grabbed for his hands and pulled them around her. His body molded to her back. Firm, warm, and masculine.
His shallow breathing next to her ear strengthened the pressure growing inside her. Adonna twisted, reached, screamed. The fabric—she couldn’t get through the fabric!
But Tracy ignored her pleas. The tease, the promises under John’s touch drove her need deeper. She guided his hands to her breasts.
“There we go,” he whispered, massaging, teasing, and kneading through her blouse.
Tracy turned her face toward her shoulder, where his waiting lips covered hers. She arched her back, forced her chest against his hungry fingers as he jammed his tongue into her mouth. He was rough. His touch felt angry. A deep, sinking sensation enveloped her. Her eyes sprang open and focused on long waves of blonde hair. Not John—Sean.
No! She tried to scream, but her body wasn’t hers. Her mind whirled, lost in a tornado of twisting, focused need.
Each touch tingled, burned, pressed harder than the next. Her vision hazed again, and John came back into focus. Her body relaxed, and she opened herself to him. Drinking in all he had to offer.
She wanted to strip down to nothing, to offer more of her skin for him to explore, but that would mean stopping the gentle probing of his tongue across hers. The motion of his lips, the heat of his mouth, it was her new essence. Her new life force.
A slight grunt of dismay rumbled from her throat as his right hand left its intricate manipulation of her nipple. He fumbled with the button on her jeans.
She pushed his hands away, popped the button free and pulled down her zipper. Trembling, she guided his hand across her stomach. He circled her navel twice before easing over her curly mound, inching lower.
Adonna slammed down Tracy’s torso, sizzling below their skin as he inched closer to her sweet spot. With a quiet sigh, Tracy eased her legs apart, giving him the access her body begged for.
He accepted the unspoken invitation, dragging his fingertips over her folds. “Damn, you’re wet.”
Tracy tensed, his voice seemed off, wrong somehow.
His finger slipped in easily, then a second. “You want this as bad as I do.”
His digits hummed, tingled, heated inside her, and the sound of his accent slipped away, lost to the swirl of need swirling through her.
She panted with a ferocity beyond reason. She rocked her pelvis, jamming herself against him. Her body burned, ached, wanted. Adonna seemed to solidify inside her, tightening every muscle in Tracy’s body. She trembled, swollen, needing.
Her eyes bolted open as he withdrew his touch.
“No, no,” she pleaded, pawing at him, urging him to release the screaming tension he built in her core.
He spun her, pressing her shoulders against the bookcase before driving his tongue back into her mouth. She grunted under the harsh pressure, lips bruising under his, but all she could think of was wrapping her body further around him, giving them both what they craved.
He leaned away. His nose flared as he stared at her lips. “We shouldn’t do this. You’re not…you’re not…”
“I don’t care.” The words sounded foreign. She did care. She cared a lot.
Something popped inside her. Her thoughts cleared.
Oh God!
Sean’s hard, fixated eyes came into focus, as if she were seeing him for the first time. A wave of disgust and seething guilt rolled through her chest. What was happening? She placed her palms on his chest to push him away, but the pressure built inside her once again. Instead of shoving him, her fingers dug into his shoulders and pulled him closer.
Adonna, no!
A small, wicked snicker filled her world as he nipped her ear. “I am going to make you scream.”
A growl erupted from a foreign place within her. Maybe from an alien place. Her thoughts mottled and fogged over again. She reached behind him, grabbed his hips and drew him even closer, rubbing herself against his growing erection.
“So eager,” he whispered. “Maybe I pegged you wrong, darlin’.”
Something within screamed, begged to kick and punch and howl her way free. Instead, Tracy stood there, panting. Waiting. Wanting.
He grabbed her hand, dragging her out of the aisle, past the fantasy section and the pile of books they’d left on the table. The librarian glanced up from his desk as they passed by and Tracy giggled, realizing her pants were still unbuttoned. Like she cared.
But she did care.
Oh God! Where were they going?
She dug her feet into the ground, stopping their trot into the parking lot.
The cool breeze tickled her cheek and her partially bared stomach. It was like sensory overload. Adonna bounded inside her, pushing against the part of Tracy nearest to Sean. He tugged gently, and she followed past the empty handicap parking spot and a jeep. The frenzied beat of her heart bordered on the edge of terror and anticipation, or maybe a mixture of both. She needed to stop this, to let go of his hand and run home, but her legs kept walking.
Sean led her to the same sedan from the night they first met and pushed her into the passenger seat. Her heart throttled. She couldn’t be there. She needed to get out of that car!
He glanced at her as he slipped the keys into the ignition. “Last chance, darlin’. No turning back if you don’t get out now.”
Everything that was Tracy sank deep, blotted out by a force she couldn’t combat. She tried to scream, a prisoner behind her own eyes as she unwillingly dragged her fingers down her cleavage and unfastened the first button on her blouse.
“Less talking. More driving,” her voice said.
No! She screamed, but her mouth didn’t open. Her voice refused to react to her command.
He licked his lips. Adonna cupped and massaged Tracy’s breasts as Sean’s gaze stalked down her cleavage. She shifted, giving a teasing glimpse. The vivid image of his wet lips trailing over her nipples burst through her mind no matter how hard she fought it. Need took over and she sank further within her own body.
Sean’s fingers shook as he turned away and started the car. He mashed his lips together. Adonna churned inside and Tracy’s pelvis rocked in unison.
*More.*
A dark sense of energy built inside her. Tracy’s body roiled in time to the movement of the entity. Adonna was ready and waiting, leaving Tracy lost in a void of near nothingness until they parked in front of a single-story white rancher.
Sean bolted from the car and opened her door. Adonna wrapped Tracy’s arms around his neck, letting him lift her from her seat. His hands felt right, solid, knowing, like he’d touched her before. But then he had, hadn’t he?
Tracy screamed without sound as Adonna fumbled for Sean’s shirt, fluttering beneath her ribs as if desperate to feel his skin against hers. Only a small tingle of energy tickled her lips as he kissed her. She needed that jolt, the explosion he’d given her the night they met. So long. Too long.
Too long since what?
The thought faded to gray as he led her to the house. Tracy tried to dig in her heels again, but her muscles didn’t respond. If she went into that house… Adonna, stop! Please!
; The Ambient rubbed her body against Sean’s back and ran her hands under his shirt as he fumbled with the keys. His skin trembled under her touch, his ribs expanded and contracted with his panting breaths.
She’d done that to him, given him such desire. The thought maddened her. How hard could she make him pant? What would it take to make him cry out her name? Thousands of options flew through her mind, each more delectable than the next. Her own hands began to shake. Her legs trembled in anticipation of wrapping about his waist.
No, no, no, no, no! Tracy struggled to separate Adonna’s thoughts from her own, but the harder she pushed, the farther she sank. She floated, alone, yet completely aware. Lost.
When the door finally opened, Sean dragged her by the wrist and flung her into the house. Her shoes tapped over the black-tiled floor before they met an onyx-mottled, Berber carpet. Odd décor, but the darkness matched the hunger in his eyes.
Her wrists throbbed from the severity of his grasp. So strong. Would he hold her down, make her beg? It didn’t matter as long as there was contact. She needed to be part of him. He in her and her in him.
A trickle of doubt fizzled deep within her, a conscience effortlessly pushed aside, a trifle easily done away with. The world blotted out, nonexistent, leaving nothing but her and the swirling energy waiting beneath this man’s skin.
Sean’s eyes glowed. Intensity bordering on sheer fury called to her from his gaze. He yanked his shirt over his head and threw it onto a small wooden desk behind him. He stood before her, his chest smooth, already slick with sweat.
She darted toward him and traced his collarbone with her tongue. Salt and need filled her like an unquenchable thirst. But she’d take more. Yes, she’d take whatever she could get.
A growl rumbled from his chest as he grabbed her shoulders. She fumbled with the remaining buttons on her blouse before he helped her tug her shirt over her head. He dove into her cleavage, his tongue greedily lapping the soft flesh within her bra.
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