Illicit Senses: Illicit Minds #1

by Royce, Rebecca

  He might also tell her to go to hell instead of helping her, and she really wouldn’t blame him if he did.

  As they pulled up to the building, he leaned over to growl in her ear. “Don’t go to bed. I need to speak to you.”

  She waited for the doorman to open the car door and stepped out onto the street. “Thank you, Greg.” It wouldn’t do any good to tip her hand or alert Greg that she knew he was most likely involved in the conspiracy.

  “Goodnight, Addison.”

  In the future—if she wasn’t locked up in an institution or, if Spence and Roman were to be believed, dead—she wouldn’t get so close to people who worked for her. She’d pretended they were family, and not spent enough time focusing on making herself a life filled with people who wouldn’t hurt Jeremy.

  Spencer walked close behind her, so near that she could feel his warm breath on the back of her neck. It made her shiver and long for something she knew she couldn’t have. Besides, she reminded herself, sex wasn’t usually that exciting for her. It was a lot of work up and not much reward—hardly worth the effort. They walked through the lobby, entered the elevator, and waited while the door closed.

  Maybe with Spencer it might have been different. Not that there was a chance in hell she would ever find out now. He had hardly looked at her in the car.

  “Spence…”

  He held up his hand, one finger over his mouth indicating that she should be quiet. Dear God, did he think they were being monitored in the elevator? What about in the apartment?

  They walked into her home, and he closed the door behind them. “And here I thought I’d found a non-Conditioned woman who thought we weren’t going to Hell. Surprise, surprise, it was actually a Conditioned woman, hiding it, who hopes we’re not damned because that would mean she is, too. Or wait, maybe it’s only the ones not lucky enough to be hidden by their grandfathers, who spent their lives hurting people just like their granddaughters.”

  The sad part of it was that, from his perspective, what he said made total sense.

  “Are you finished?”

  “This is what you do, isn’t it? You act all high and mighty when someone dares to call you on being wrong.”

  “I was asking if you were done with your pretty little speech because I have some things to say, but I’m not going to start if you’re still planning to rant for a while yet.”

  He looked up at the ceiling like he was looking for divine help. She wondered if he ever got an answer, because she never did. “You can be such a bitch. Why do I even like you?”

  Addison paused. “What?”

  “I shouldn’t be worrying about your feelings or considering how we’re going to protect you. I should be running you into the closest testing institute and throwing away the key. People with your talent are the reason we’re all locked up to begin with. Hell, woman, you blew up a glass window. You’re dangerous.”

  Addison could see Spencer’s pulse pounding in a vein on the side of his head. He was really, really mad.

  “You’re all locked up because some ten-year-old-boy couldn’t keep his mouth shut about oil trade negotiations. That’s how you all became national security risks, and if you think it’s anything else that did it, you’re fooling yourself.”

  Spencer exhaled and walked to the couch in the living room. Sitting down, he rubbed at his eyes before he started brushing glass off him again. They’d both been doing that on and off since the explosion. “He killed himself.”

  “What?” She moved toward him until she stood in front of where he sat on the couch.

  “The little boy’s name was Penn Rowe. He killed himself when he was nineteen. He hanged himself in the bathroom. I knew him, remotely. He was infamous among us.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

  “I didn’t expect that you would.” Spencer pulled off his glass-ridden sweater, leaving only his T-shirt behind. “Does your grandfather know what you can do? Do you guys have to change the windows in here all the time?”

  “He has no idea. He’d be the first to turn me in, I assure you.”

  “How have you managed to hide it? Do you do that stupid rhyme all the time?”

  Her whole body ached. “My father taught me to do that after I exposed myself when I was about three. I couldn’t even spell yet, but he taught me letters, and he started doing it with me. I don’t think my mother ever knew.”

  “And for what? For twenty-three years you’ve done this ridiculous rhyme and it’s kept you under control, but tonight you were so upset you blew up a window?”

  She sat down next to him on the couch, pulling her legs beneath her. “I’ve had a few mishaps. However, I’ve never blown anything up until tonight. The last four years have been so good I haven’t had to do the rhyme at all. Only when Jeremy went missing did it come back, and so strongly that I’ve had to say it at least three or four times a day just to function.” She cleared her throat. “Somehow you heard me when I was at Safe Dawn.”

  “I’m still not sure why. I don’t usually tune in to other people’s thoughts.” He started to pace. “So if you don’t blow things up, what do you usually do?”

  “I can sense things. I have an idea something is about to happen and then it does. I’m not one hundred percent accurate, but I guess it was frightening enough that when I was a child, I would start to get this sense. It’s hard to describe what it feels like.”

  He moved back to her and knelt down. “It feels like terrible, painful goosebumps. Right?”

  He ran his hand up her arm, and a totally opposite sort of excitement formed inside her. Spencer’s touch was becoming an aphrodisiac.

  “Yes, but worse. I can sense power inside me. Like my internal organs reshape and alter. Then the power surges out of me. In the past, before tonight’s explosion, it would zoom out of my body, and then I would know things.” She looked down at the floor. “It’s why I checked on Jeremy that night. I had a sense something was wrong the whole day. However, I never had an episode, just a feeling. So I dismissed it.” Tears welled in her eyes as she admitted to him what she’d never been able to say out loud before. “If I’d trusted myself, he’d still be here. This is my fault.”

  “Nonsense. You’re entirely untrained. I think all human beings get bad feelings. It’s an evolutionary tool. If you had a bad feeling and you ran, then you were less likely to get eaten by the scary animal that was readying itself to run out of the cave and eat you.”

  She laughed. How was that possible? How could she be laughing when she should have been sobbing?

  “Did Jeremy ever show any symptoms? He’s four, right? Most of us—and I’m including you as part of ‘us’ now—show symptoms at three or four. I did, and apparently you did.”

  “Never.” No, she would have noticed that.

  “Unless he didn’t exhibit the signs to you.” Spencer stood.

  His eyes were far off.

  “You mean he had something happen and Loretta saw it.”

  “The last person on Earth, save your grandfather, whom Jeremy should have been exposed to. Maybe your grandfather would have been better. Then Jeremy would have been sent to an institute, not taken to God knows where. He’s a child; he would have survived the testing.”

  “If he’d never shown himself before, because he was too young, then that would mean Loretta’s first objective wasn’t to kidnap Jeremy. What was she sent here to do?” Her mind turning, she answered her own question. “To spy on us from inside. Grandfather is well known for how well he takes care of his internal employees. Greg, the maids, the cook and our personal assistants.”

  “They took Jeremy when they saw what he could do. It was an opportunity.”

  “No one has asked for any ransom. Nothing has come out to threaten us in any way.” God, she wished it had. It would have been so much easier if this were a case of someone wanting hush money.

  “Whatever it is that Jeremy can do is more useful to these people than ransom or extortion.”

  �
�And if it doesn’t work out, they can always expose Jeremy later and still collect.”

  Addison was glad she was sitting, otherwise her knees might buckle. “Greg, Loretta… do you think everyone who works here is involved?”

  “It’s possible. It’s also highly likely that we’re being recorded right now.” Then why had he brought her here instead of taking her to the middle of a park or something? He sat down next to her and stroked her hair. “I never thought I’d say this in my entire existence, but I think we need to call your grandfather.”

  As if on cue, the door opened and Oliver Wade strode in. She wasn’t surprised. The man had always had splendid timing and a sense of how things would work out. Raising an eyebrow, she stood. Maybe it was his own version of the Condition. Weren’t they finding out more and more that these things ran in families? A thought struck her suddenly. Had her father known how to help her because he’d also been afflicted?

  “Grandfather.”

  Oliver’s eyes didn’t meet hers as he looked Spencer over. She couldn’t stop the grin that crossed her face as Spencer met his gaze straight on without flinching. She had watched grown men shrink under the scrutiny Oliver was laying on Spencer, yet he hardly seemed to notice it at all. Maybe he was used to being stared at.

  “I assume this is Spencer Lewis.” Oliver moved forward but didn’t extend his hand. “I recognize you from the photograph in your file.”

  “And I recognize you from the news footage we see of you after every council meeting. It’s always a joy anticipating what new form of torture you, the Wade Corporation, and the council will create for us.”

  “The purpose of the council, as you know, Mr. Lewis, is to keep the general public safe from people who are simply too dangerous to have out and about. Wade Corporation is the second largest company in the world, with operations on four continents employing over three thousand people. We have several contracts with the institutes because it is profitable. I don’t need to justify the actions of the council or Wade Corporation to you. As for myself, it has always been my goal to leave the world better than I found it.”

  Spencer opened his mouth to respond, but Addison interrupted him before it got out of hand. “Grandfather, we’ve discovered some things regarding Jeremy.”

  Quickly and methodically, as she always kept things when she spoke to her grandfather, she recounted what had happened to them, leaving out the part where she’d destroyed a window and met Roman.

  “So you’re telling me you’ve just discovered that my great-grandson is Conditioned and someone has him for some nefarious purpose that may or may not relate to destroying Wade.”

  She wished he could sound slightly more emotionally invested, but there was nothing inherently wrong with his description of what had happened.

  “Have you both eaten dinner?”

  Reminded of her hunger, Addison placed a hand on her stomach. She looked at Spencer, whose face told her he would rather roll around in dirt than eat with Oliver. He was just going to have to deal, because she needed to get her grandfather on board with finding Jeremy. If eating with him was the way to do it, then they would. Plus, hadn’t Spencer said they needed him?

  “Mr. Wade, before we go into the dining room, I’m afraid I have to point out to you the likelihood that most, if not all, of your home is being bugged or recorded.”

  Oliver moved closer to Spencer. “Mr. Lewis, I don’t need you to point anything out to me, ever. I am always prepared for commercial espionage. I employ anti-spy technology in my own office and in my home, made exclusively for Wade Corporation. No one can plant a bug in here, which would be why whoever did this sent their people into our home.”

  “So then I guess you’re not as protected as you thought you were.”

  “I think food is the way to go.” Addison was going to keep this under control one way or another.

  “I’m not hungry.” Spencer smiled at her, and she was relieved to see that surrounding the swirls in his eyes was warmth and not contempt when he looked at her. He would never have been a very good poker player. He wore his emotions all over his face.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  Addison watched him disappear down the hall. She turned and followed her grandfather down the corridor to the kitchen. The room had been a haven when her mother had been alive, the apartment always alive with smells and good food to eat. Afterward, it had become as sterile as the rest of the house.

  She took a quick look and found some takeout she could reheat.

  She leaned against the wall while her grandfather stuck the food in the microwave, fatigue starting to catch up with her.

  “Grandfather, was everything with my parents… normal?”

  “In what way?” He didn’t turn around when she spoke to him.

  “Were they like Jeremy?” Or me, she silently added.

  He swung around. “Are you asking me if my only child and his beloved wife—your parents—were Conditioned?”

  “Yes, sir, that is what I am asking you.” Although now she wished she hadn’t, since he seemed to be taking the question very badly.

  “Let me be clear about this, Granddaughter. No one in this family before Jeremy—who I will assume acquired this Condition from the faulty genetics given to him by God knows who his father was—has ever been one of them.”

  That answered her question. Should she enlighten the man as to just how Conditioned she herself was, or let him know that her father had possessed a strange understanding of how to control her uniqueness? No, she decided right then and there, she would not. Her father had never told her grandfather, and something had kept her quiet all these years.

  After a few minutes of utter silence, which wasn’t strained, since she was used to behaving that way with the patriarch of the family, he pulled lasagna and green beans out of the microwave. He motioned toward the dining room, and she followed him in and sat down at her traditional place. They ate together maybe once a month, and their roles were clearly defined.

  Before he’d taken a bite, her grandfather leveled a no-nonsense look toward her, and she braced herself for a blow. “What concerns me about this, Addison, is how many people have the potential to know our disgrace.”

  “Our disgrace?”

  “Jeremy’s Condition.” A-ha. “We must make every effort to retrieve him quickly. I had been assuming this was a power play by a member of the council. I still think it is. However, there’s so much more to risk now. Your instinct to bring Lewis in on this proved to be completely correct. Had you not, we would not know about this psychic plane business and would never have found out about Loretta.” He raised his fork and pointed it at her. “We have to contain this. Do whatever you have to do to get him back, and we’ll quietly handle things so nothing ever comes out about this.”

  “What do you mean, handle things?” Addison was afraid she knew exactly what he meant, and she didn’t like it one bit.

  “Let’s just say that no one who knows about this will be left around to tell anyone.”

  He clearly meant to include Spencer in that group. As a member of the Conditioned, his disappearance wouldn’t rock any boats. There was no way in hell she would let that happen.

  Silently, she promised herself that she would rescue Jeremy and make sure nothing bad happened to Spencer because of her. In the little time they’d spent together, he had come to matter. He listened when she spoke, his eyes swirled when she looked at him, and he seemed to genuinely care about finding Jeremy when no one else did. Aside from being the most handsome man she’d ever seen, she had finally met someone who was worth knowing. She would protect him… one way or another.

  After she finished her dinner, she cleared their plates and took them to the sink to wash and stack them. She muttered her goodnights to her grandfather and finished straightening up the kitchen. If the cook was in on this conspiracy, she should have left the kitchen a mess to make the woman suffer.

  Quietly, she crawl
ed into her own bed. It had been a month since she’d slept in it, preferring most nights to be close to Jeremy by staying in his room. The poor baby. Her eyes threatened to overflow with tears again. It was always this time of night when she was closest to losing her cool.

  She didn’t think her strangeness was about to explode again. Maybe her Condition was exhausted from having been unleashed earlier.

  The thought made her remember what she had been desperate not to focus on:

  Spencer Lewis was two doors down from her.

  The thought of him in bed did strange things to her insides. A warmth deep within her core started as she imagined him naked from the waist up, deep in sleep. Maybe he slept naked or fully dressed, but in her fantasy he was topless. Did he snore? She smiled at the thought. If she slept next to him, it would be a constant reminder that he was in the room, that she wasn’t alone, that his presence made her safe.

  She shook her head as she tried to force herself not to think about him like that. He was certainly not imagining her half naked. She sighed and forced her eyes closed. The sooner morning came, the sooner they could find Jeremy. It was best not to focus on the fact that getting Jeremy back would mean losing Spencer. Yes, best not to think about that at all.

  Eleven

  He rolled over and covered his head with the pillow. It was no use; he was exhausted but he couldn’t sleep. Not with Addison Wade and her vanilla-scented hair down the hall. How long had it been since he’d had a woman? Certainly not long enough to warrant this level of desperation. His cock was so hard it hurt to lie on his stomach.

  Besides, he had every reason to be pissed with Addison rather than turned on by her. Maybe that was the problem. The woman made his blood boil when he wasn’t mad. Anger only seemed to intensify the reaction.

  It was too late to call Rhodes. The man was getting older. Nothing less than a dire life-or-death emergency warranted calling him after eleven at night. Given that he’d just heard the clock in the living room chime midnight, he wasn’t going to call with his discoveries. Will woke up ridiculously early, so if Spencer couldn’t sleep, he’d just call the other man at daybreak.