Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)

by Shannon McKenna

  “Just go.”

  She didn’t move an inch. Sudden fire with a white-hot blazing center bloomed out of her sig. It hurt his eyes.

  When she spoke, her voice was cold and clipped. “I didn’t go through fucking hell on earth to be sent to my room like a bad little kid.”

  No one else dared to speak.

  Asa finally broke the silence, chuckling under his breath. “Yeah, you tell him,” he murmured. “Someone has to. Way overdue.”

  “I did not ask for your input,” Noah ground out.

  “Like I care.” Asa went back to staring into the laptop, his rugged features lit by its faint blue glow.

  Noah closed his eyes and walked a tightrope inside himself, trying to block sensory input until he could breathe again. Asa’s voice dragged him back.

  “. . . prefer to rip my arms off and beat me to death with them?” Asa’s tone was casual. “Or look at Mark’s counterproposal, instead?”

  Noah positioned himself at a safe distance with a clear line of sight to Asa’s laptop screen. Caro ignored him, perching with a dancer’s grace on the edge of the sofa.

  A little too close to Asa. Who didn’t seem to mind.

  Noah got the unspoken message. He wasn’t in charge unless he wanted to fight for it.

  Good thing fighting was what he was made for.

  Chapter 31

  Sitting crosslegged on the bed, Caro smoothed the final fold of the origami Pegasus. Various other paper creations were scattered over the bed. Making mythical animals out of squares of colored paper was her latest tactic to distract herself from the solitude and suspense of the last few days.

  It wasn’t working.

  The bedroom door opened. Noah came in, carrying two large suitcases. He didn’t meet her eyes. Just set the suitcases down with a thud. “Time to pack.”

  Tension seized her whole body. “You’re making a mistake,” she began.

  “It’s not up for discussion.” His voice was expressionless. “A team from SafeGuard will pick you up tomorrow morning.” He held out a bulky manila envelope.

  She took it, and shook the contents out. There was a flawlessly faked driver’s license for a Melissa Brodhurst. He’d taken the picture on it two nights ago, using her wig, her glasses and the face-distorting mouth insert.

  There was a cell phone, a set of keys for a car and another for a house or apartment, by the looks of them. The pen drive from Luke Ryan’s house. A sheaf of documents.

  Lots of documents. Bank accounts for Melissa, with breathtakingly high balances. A car title. The deed to a condo. A birth certificate. High school transcripts. A college diploma. A graphic design resume featuring multiple jobs.

  “Enjoy your new condo in Mendocino. Good security. And an ocean view, when the fog lets up,” he said. “Car’s in the garage.”

  “OK.” Her throat was so tight, she could hardly say the word. It was a lie, in any case.

  He continued in the same matter-of-fact tone. “I ordered you a passport. It’ll arrive in the mail, at your condo. Then you could leave the country. If you want.”

  Caro squelched the urge to crumple the papers. Furious at him, for making high-handed decisions for her. Grateful that he cared so much. The conflicting impulses made her want to scream. As if her life would be worth a damn if she ended up needing another faked identity. Like she could hide or run for it, knowing that Noah was either dead or else imprisoned and tortured by a madman.

  “Don’t look like that.” Noah sounded defensive. “We all have emergency escape plans, if things go to shit. This is yours. Best I could come up with on short notice.”

  “You controlling bastard,” she said.

  “That’s me. Pack your stuff. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Hurt stabbed deep, cold and sharp. “You’re not staying?”

  “I have more work to do. Gotta focus. Everything else can wait.”

  “Guess that applies to me, too,” she said.

  A muscle pulsed in his jaw, but his blank expression did not change. “I need to stay in control.” His voice was rigidly even, almost robotic. “I’m having a bad time with imbeds. My old analogs are compromised, so I have to construct new ones every time. Takes time and privacy. It would be stupid of you to take it personally. Good night.”

  He walked out, and shut the door. Like he’d been doing ever since their clash after they first got in touch with Mark in the Oblio chatroom.

  His withdrawal had been subtle. Impossible to protest. Of course he was busy and preoccupied, largely on her behalf, so she had no right to complain. But ever since the flurry of preparations had begun, he’d been lost to her. Light years away.

  Truth was, he’d spoiled her. When he was switched on, he radiated a wild, hot, reverent passion that was healing. It made her feel beautiful and powerful. After her long stint of barely surviving, she’d glommed onto that like a starving creature. Passion, closeness. She’d lapped it all up.

  Then, all at once, he’d yanked it away again, leaving her lost and bewildered.

  Well. Almost. Not the sexual intimacy. Every night he had come to her deep in the night, after his secret planning sessions to which she was not invited. He’d stripped off his clothes, slid into bed and made fierce, focused love to her. No talk. No cuddling.

  He peeled off her panties and hungrily licked her into a whimpering frenzy, keeping at it until she was aroused beyond belief. Then he rolled on top of her, kissed her senseless, and took her for a hard, pounding ride, driving her to wave upon crashing wave of erotic surrender. And as soon as she drifted back to reality, he promptly positioned her for the next round. And on, and on.

  Sexually he was as eager and generous as he’d ever been, but emotionally, he was gone behind a thick wall of glass.

  But still. He’d taken the weight of the world on his shoulders to help her. And she was feeling miserable because he wasn’t focused on her tender feelings? Please.

  It made her hate herself. Which was really all she needed right now.

  She folded over, pressing her hand to her belly. That falling-away feeling was like those last weeks before Mom died. Something so bad was bearing down on her like a train, and she was tied to the tracks. Helpless to stop it.

  Then the train hit. The worst happened. It happened all the time, with monotonous regularity. Grief, loss, violence, disaster, brutality. Catastrophe. She knew. Falling in love was a trap. She’d tried so hard to dodge it.

  Fail. Major fail. It embarrassed her.

  Then again. Any woman’s ability to reason clearly would break down in the presence of a man like Noah Gallagher.

  One thing was for sure. She could not leave for California tomorrow. She couldn’t blame Noah for trying so hard not to involve her in this encounter with Mark, but his fear and stubbornness was going to drive them off a cliff. He was tightening his control over everything and everyone, including himself. She’d seen it in his face, heard it in his voice. He was wound to the breaking point.

  Fuck this. She was not going to let him push her away tonight.

  Opposing his strength and will would take all of her energy and nerve, but she couldn’t be intimidated by the man she loved. She desperately wanted to believe they had something good going on. That they might still actually have a future.

  She scattered origami animals in every direction when she got up, with no clear plan of action, just a restless hunger to be close to him and force her way through the wall he’d put up. They had no time for that shit.

  She wished she still had her belly dancing outfit. That would have been good for a tension-relieving laugh. Still, thinking of her costume made her want to dress up for this. Maybe make him smile. Probably too much to hope, but hell. She could try.

  She pawed through the dresser drawer where Hannah had dumped all the finery she’d gotten for Caro at the lingerie store. There was lots of silky, lacy, wispy little nothings in there to choose from. Pretty, understated, pastel. Too tasteful. Nothing that could be charact
erized as an in-your-face sexual weapon.

  She wanted something fun, playful, loud. A bustier, a garter belt. Fishnet hose.

  Then her hand brushed a little velvet bag. The mysterious object Hannah had left. She pried open the drawstring and upended a sparkling tangle of chains into her hand. At first she thought it was a necklace, but the clasps were positioned wrong.

  Body jewelry. Oh, yes.

  She peeled off her clothes, untangled the thing with some difficulty, and put it on. The top part was a collar, from which a long sparkling chain connected, plunging straight down between her breasts and hooking to a belt that draped low on her hips. Glittering chains draped from the belt over her hips, as well, and the belt let a richly embossed pendant dangle on her lower belly, just over her mound.

  She studied at the ensemble in the mirror as she unwound her hair and shook it loose over her shoulders. The look would definitely have been improved by a Brazilian wax, but her life hadn’t permitted that kind of fancy grooming in a long time. Not that Noah had ever complained about her small puff of ringlets.

  The ensemble had sort of a kinky, porno bed-slave sort of vibe. Perfect.

  She shrugged on the peach silk dressing gown that Hannah had deemed essential for her emergency wardrobe, and padded down the corridor to the room where Noah had been retreating to do his analog dives.

  She paused before entering, about to knock. But he never bothered to knock when he came to her at night. Why should she?

  The room was dark, but enough moonlight filtered in to show Noah’s long, powerful frame, stretched out on the bed. He was stripped down to a pair of loose sweat pants which rode low on his hips. The room was chilly, but even naked to the waist, he radiated heat.

  She moved closer, drinking him in, her gaze moving over the sensual contours of his massive chest and shoulders. He was lost in silent meditation, so deeply he didn’t seem to hear the sigh of the door or her barefoot tiptoeing. His body heat intensified with every step she took. She felt like banks of blazing stadium spotlights were switching on and lighting her up, one after the other, in the deepest levels of her being.

  Everything about him pulled her.

  * * *

  The new analog dive was in place, every element chosen to do exactly what Noah needed it to do to stay chilled, sharp, in perfect control. The summit was just over that outcropping. Jagged fingers of of black rock poked through the powdery snow that crunched under his boots. At the summit, the soaring peaks of the mountainscape would calm both body and mind. One last step—

  Fuck. He reeled back from an unexpected cliff. A volcanic crater lay below him, exhaling steam, gray with ash. At its heart, a gaping cave glowed a hot, wounded red.

  Another imbed. So his new analogs were compromised, too.

  Flinching away from the imbeds never worked. He had to stare that bad bastard down, and see what happened. Even if it hurt.

  He descended into the crater. His boots kicked up clouds of ash as he got closer to the cave, coughing from the acrid fumes.

  To the side was a larger opening. Light blazed out. Not the sullen red glow. This light was paler, yellowish. Like sunlight.

  He moved closer, steeling himself, and peered through the opening. Cracked asphalt, baking in desert sunshine. His mind fought it, but this place was too much a part of him not to recognize it. The grocery store parking lot. A waffle house down the block, a used car dealership, a dollar store. Cheap, prefab structures of fake adobe, aging fast in the pitiless sun.

  The wet, hollow thwack of a baseball bat, connecting with a skull.

  He turned, braced to see the grizzled man, his face splattered with Dad’s blood.

  It wasn’t him. It was Mark clutching the bloodied baseball bat, grinning wildly. And it was Caro who lay crumpled and bloody and still at his feet. Her head caved in.

  Noah? Noah, do you hear me?

  He exploded upright, startled back into the physical world, his fist stopping just before it connected. She jerked back, and thudded to the floor on her ass.

  “Never touch me when I’m having a flashback, Caro! I could have killed you!”

  She recoiled. “I . . . I’m sorry!” Her sig tightened to a clot of anxious greens and grays. “I didn’t know it was a flashback. You called out my name, so I thought—”

  “You scared the living shit out of me!” He flung his arm out, sweeping the a ceramic lamp off the night table, sending it crashing to the floor.

  “Yo!” Sisko’s voice floated up from downstairs. “What’s up?”

  Noah couldn’t get an answer out. He hunched over, fists clenched. Caro tried several times before she could speak. “We—we’re—we’re fine,” she called out.

  “Noah?” There was a harder tone in Sisko’s voice.

  “We’re good,” Noah called out. “Lamp fell. No problem.”

  He was horrified at what he’d almost done. For years he’d thought he’d licked this. He was wrong. One bad imbed, and he was nailed right back to the wall. Falling to pieces before her eyes.

  Caro was huddled on the floor. Afraid of him.

  Desperately, he slid off the bed onto his knees and seized her. He nuzzled her silky hair, inhaling its silken, perfumed warmth. The sensory data of her perfume formed incredible visuals in his mind. Even with eyes shut, she dazzled him. His whole body was a wide-open eye, worshipping her.

  He held her tighter. God.

  “Sorry I yelled,” he muttered. “It scared me, that I almost hit you.”

  Her hands slid into his hair, petting and soothing him. “I’m sorry, too. That I startled you. Was it . . . what do you call it again? An imbed?”

  “Yeah. My analogs are all compromised. Even new ones. Don’t know why.”

  “Tell me about it,” she suggested. “Maybe it would help.”

  “No.”

  Her fingers stopped for a moment, and then resumed their slow, soothing caresses. “OK,” she murmured. “Whatever.”

  He should have sent her away days ago. He’d kept her for his own comfort. And not just for the sex. She kept him balanced. His pre-Caro equilibrium was trashed. If he couldn’t keep the combat program under control with his analogs, then proximity to Caro was his only alternative. She reinforced the underlying structures inside him so that the ASP and AVP could rage full force without driving him nuts. He retained his capacity for rational thought, impulse control. Decision making.

  With Caro, AVP was a powerful resource, not a caged monster.

  But she had to go. He’d have to stay on top of the AVP without her. Unchilled. Unsoothed. No diving. He had no idea how he’d pull it off. He was terrified to fuck things up. Let them all down. Get them all killed.

  He was ashamed to have Caro see him in this condition. His own fault, for keeping her here.

  They ought to get up off the goddamn floor at the very least. The bed was a whole lot softer.

  He got up and onto the bed, fully intending to sit her right next to him.

  She sat down on his lap, before he could stop her. His body’s reaction was instantaneous.

  She kissed his forehead, shifting and wiggling her ass over his stiff, aching cock. Her lips were so soft. Light bloomed on his skin like bioluminescence wherever she touched him. She kissed his lips, her tender tongue flicking against his.

  He pulled away, and slid her off his lap and onto the bed beside him. “Bad idea,” he said roughly.

  “Bullshit!”

  He was startled by her sharp tone. “What? What the hell is your problem?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” she snapped. “I want you. I need to be close to you. We both need it. I’m sorry you got zapped by your imbed, but you appear to be fine, so get over it.” She reached out and gripped his stiff, aching cock. Her skillful stroke and twist made him gasp sharply, a shudder of pleasure racking him.

  He trapped her hand, held it still. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He was trying so hard not to drown in this thing, and she just would not get it.

 
; “I’m not playing hard to get,” he said. “Of course I want to fuck you. That’s a given. But I’m messed up right now. Thirteen years I’ve been busting my ass to manage my stress reaction and maintain impulse control. I thought I’d beat it. I was wrong.”

  Her fingers tightened, stroking. The sensual caress made him clench his teeth.

  “What’s wrong with this impulse?” she asked. “I love this impulse.”

  He dragged her hand away from his shaft and held it tight to make it fucking behave. “You’re not listening,” he said roughly. “I always lose control with you.”

  “Have you heard me complain?”

  “That’s not the point,” he snarled.

  She huffed out an impatient breath. “So what the fuck is the point? I’m lost.”

  He grabbed her other hand, and squeezed. “Be patient,” he begged. “Please. I have to come up with an analog that’s not mined with imbeds. Not easy, OK?”

  “I think a blow job would work better for you.”

  His heart revved, and his dick twitched and throbbed. His combat program was scrolling madly, but he barely noticed it, staring at the hot challenge in her eyes.

  “Uh . . .” He stopped and swallowed carefully. “Not a good idea.”

  “Let go of my hands,” she said. “I’ll show you exactly what I mean.”

  He maintained his tight grip, but his mouth felt dry. “Don’t push me.”

  “I’d grip you, right at the root. And lick you up and down,” she said. “Until you’re shiny and wet. Hot and thick. Filling my mouth. I love that. I’ll pull you in deep, and suck you, and lick you . . . and make you scream with pleasure.” Her voice was throaty and caressing. Her fingers curled around his, squeezing. “Until you’re helpless and gasping. Out of control. Exploding in my mouth. Mmm. Love that. Yum.”

  “Goddamnit, Caro,” he growled.

  She lifted his hands and kissed his knuckles. Hot, silky kisses that he could feel against his cock. Where he automatically felt all her seductive suggestions.

  She looked up, meeting his eyes. “Can you tell how turned on I am, just by looking at my sig?”