by Nalini Singh
“No.” He pinned her with his gaze. “So help me, Sophie, I’m so fucking mad at you right now—” He blew out a breath. “Help me set the table.”
She gave in, aware for the first time that Max’s relentless will would, of course, translate into an inexorable kind of anger. Neither of them spoke again until they were seated across from each other, their meals in front of them. Morpheus appeared out of nowhere to sit on her feet.
“Don’t feed him,” Max said. “He’s getting fat.”
She gave him an innocent look even as she discreetly dropped a piece of bread for the cat—who seemed to have a strange predilection for it. “Of course not.”
A glint of amusement lit the cold fire in his eyes. “If”—he sat back, a tiger momentarily at rest—“anchors are usually cardinals, why are you doing their job?” His biceps drew her eye as he clasped his hands at the back of his head.
It was difficult to think past the compulsion she had to get up and peel Max’s T-shirt off his body, long-dormant instincts awakening to tell her that touch would reach him far faster and deeper than words ever could.
“You don’t get to play”—a low, dark voice—“until you’re straight with me. Then we’ll talk about punishment.”
Her toes curled. “Cardinals,” she managed to say through the crashing wave of need, “are rare, and cardinals who can be anchors are even rarer.” Agony spiked out of nowhere, wiping out the other sensations. There was, it seemed, one thread of conditioning still active in her—the Council did not like Psy speaking about the critical network of anchors.
“However, non-cardinal individuals can sometimes develop the ability to merge with the Net.” She gripped her knees tight in order to ride out the increasing waves of pain. “We’re not true anchors—more like . . . small weights on the net, helping to keep it in shape, in place. There aren’t enough true anchors to do everything.”
Morpheus patted her foot with a paw. Glad for the touch of reality, she snuck him another piece of bread as Max spoke. “Now that doesn’t make sense. No self-supporting ecosystem would effectively cripple itself.”
She blinked, having never thought of it that way. While she was still trying to figure out how the shortage could have occurred, Max forked up a bite of rice, lifted it to her lips.
She opened her mouth without thought, let him feed her. The feel of the tines sliding out from between her lips was a cool, slow pleasure. “Why did you do that?” she asked after swallowing the unexpected bite. “I thought you were angry with me?”
A faint smile. “I find myself fascinated by your mouth. The things I’d like to do to it . . . Even when I’m furious, you make me crazy, J.”
A brush of heat across her body, a physiological reaction she didn’t quite understand . . . but one that wiped out the pain. Oh. She looked at him, at her cop. “How did you know?” About the pain, about the hurt.
“Because I know you.” The sensual teasing disappeared from his face. “Now tell me why anchors can’t leave the Net.”
“Most Psy have a single link to the Net deep within their mind, and the defectors must have cut that link to leave, but anchors are woven into the PsyNet’s very fabric by millions upon millions of fine connections.” The Net was both safety and a steel cage. “If I tried to leave, death would be instantaneous—but that’s not the worst part. Because of the particular way I’m integrated into its framework, part of me, my memories, my personality, is anchored in the Net.”
Max put down his fork, appetite gone. “You’re saying you’ll effectively rehabilitate yourself if you try to leave.”
“Yes.”
Max wasn’t sure he believed that. From what he could tell, Silence was a form of brainwashing. And what better way to ensure compliance than by convincing someone they couldn’t leave the Net?
“You think I’ve been blinded to the truth.”
It didn’t surprise him anymore, that she was able to read him with such ease. “You’ve been in that world your whole life. It’s hard to see what’s right in front of you sometimes.” He’d spent his childhood pretending his mother loved him. It had been necessary for his survival, but it had been a willful blindness. In Sophia’s case, it was more likely a conditioned response.
But she shook her head, her eyes bleak. “Js are, by the nature of our work, far more aware of the harsh realities of life than other Psy. I’ve looked at the issue from every angle, and the unavoidable fact is that once integrated in such a complex way, a mind cannot physically disengage—even if I somehow survived the physical brain damage, the person who remained wouldn’t be Sophia Russo.”
Cold spread through his veins, but he wasn’t about to give up. “Are you going to tell me how you developed the ability to merge with the Net, why you’re so inexorably tied to it?” He’d heard something in her words when she’d spoken of it, a slight hesitation that pricked at his instincts.
She put down her own fork. “Can we sit nearer to each other?”
His gut clenched at the polite way she’d asked for comfort—ready for rejection. Always so ready to be rejected. He wondered if she was even aware of it, but he was, and it savaged him to realize how badly she’d been hurt. “Yeah. Let me clear the table first.”
“I’ll help you. We may as well wash them so that we can concentrate on the case later on.” It was as she was drying a dish—having replaced her gloves—that Max couldn’t stand the painful quietness of her any longer. Moving behind her, he pressed a kiss to the curve of her neck.
She dropped the dish.
“Got it.” Placing the unbroken item on the counter in front of her, he pushed back and forced himself to head to the coffeemaker, though he wanted only to wrap his arms around her and hold her tight, so tight. “Something to drink?”
Sophia answered without thought. “Yes.” Hands still trembling, she watched as he poured a single cup of coffee, then heated up a mug of milk. She wanted to touch her fingers to her neck, to feel the echo of his kiss, the slight rasp of his unshaven jaw against her skin.
“Come here.” A quiet command, eyes that drew her forward.
Closing the small distance between them, she parted her lips to ask for another kiss—driven by her need to be with him—when he took the spoon he’d been using to stir a dark mix into the milk and put it to her lips. “Taste.”
It was impossible to do anything else. The burst of sensation was sharp, almost bitter, exquisite in its richness. She put her hand on his wrist when he would’ve withdrawn the spoon, the feel of him solid and tempting under her glove.
Shaking his head in a gentle tease, Max drew away the spoon, slow, so slow. “The whole cup’s for you.” Then he leaned forward and kissed her, licking his tongue over the seam of her lips as if to steal the flavor.
She gripped his T-shirt as the floor disappeared from beneath her. Groaning, Max pulled back—but only after grazing her lower lip with his teeth. Liquid warmth pooled between her thighs, making her body clench.
“Take your chocolate”—an order in a voice gone sandpaper rough—“and go sit before I give in to temptation and unbutton your cardigan, put my hands on your beautiful breasts.”
He turned away even as she tried to process the searing sensuality of that image. The idea of those strong, clever hands on her flesh, that sleek hair brushing over her as he bent closer . . . How did women survive such vicious cravings? Holding the chocolate he’d made for her, she watched her cop’s T-shirt stretch across his shoulders as he raised his arm to put the mix back into an upper cabinet.
He was beautiful.
And he’d given her the right to touch him. Even mad, he wouldn’t push her away, wouldn’t reject her as imperfect.
Not giving herself a chance to change her mind, she put down the mug, closed the distance between them, and wrapped her arms around him from behind, resting her cheek against his back.
“Sophie.”
The masculine fire of him soaked through her skin, a near-painful bite. “When I be
gan to show J tendencies as a child,” she said, holding on, holding tight, “I was placed in a residential facility with other telepaths who needed specialized training.”
Max’s hands closed over her gloved ones, but he didn’t turn, letting her use his body as a shield against the dark that had never set her free. “Someone hurt you there.” His voice was jagged, his muscles rigid.
“We were in a remote location,” she said, finding courage in his strength. “Because young telepaths, especially those with unusual abilities, tend to have trouble with shields, it’s easier to train us out of the cities.” Practical words, but the other half of her, the half that had been born that summer two decades ago, clung to the solid wall of Max, afraid, so very afraid. “So there was no one to notice that our instructor was beginning to act beyond Silence. Like Bonner.”
“He was a true sociopath.” Icy rage in every word.
She held it close, used it as a weapon against the past. “The summer I turned eight, he took four of us—four trainee Js—to another, even more remote location for intensive drills. Before we left, he requested and received permission to enclose us in his shields so that we could drop ours without consequences should we have trouble during the drills.” Her fingers dug into Max’s chest, and she wanted to tear through the fabric, press her skin to his, bury the past under an agony of sensation.
“Sophie.” A voice scraped raw. “I can wait, baby. I’m sorry for—”
She shook her head. “No.” She wanted him to know, needed him to know. “Once our instructor”—she couldn’t say his name, her terror too deep—“had us alone and in the cage of his shield . . . he hurt us.” Sophia could still remember their shock, their inability to understand. “Carrie died the first day. She was the smallest, the weakest.” And the monster had broken her in his eagerness.
“He was more careful after that. Bilar died on the third day.” He’d convulsed in front of her and Lin, and they could do nothing to help, their hands and feet tied behind their backs, their mouths taped shut. Sophia had dared the monster’s anger and reached out with her telepathy, refusing to let Bilar die alone. His screams had echoed inside her mind for hours.
Max’s hands tightened on hers. “Why didn’t your parents, the watchers in your PsyNet, sense his deviancy?”
“Don’t you see, Max?” Her voice shook. “He was the perfect Psy.” Silence didn’t differentiate between those who had been conditioned and those who simply did not feel.
“Is he dead?”A quiet question asked in a voice that made the other half of her, the scared broken child, go motionless, wondering . . .
“Yes.” When he didn’t say anything else, she continued. “Lin and I, we were the last two left. He was nine, I was eight.” She felt her heart begin to speed up, her spine to knot. “The monster didn’t want to break us too fast, so he was careful. But one day he did something to me, and I didn’t respond like he wanted. I didn’t scream. So he threw me headfirst through the large glass window at the front of the cabin.” Pain, blood, the glitter of glass in the sun, she’d never forget any part of it.
“Enough, Sophie.” Max’s entire body was so hard, so unmoving, she’d have thought him stone but for the furious beat of his heart.
“I want you to know. Please.”
“You never have to beg me for anything.” A harsh order.
“Lin saved me,” she said, clasping his words to her soul. “While the monster was outside, checking to see if I’d survived, he somehow managed to get to the comm panel, input the emergency code.” And then Lin, the sweet, talented telepath who might’ve been her friend in another life, had died, his internal injuries too massive. “Everyone’s forgotten them. Carrie, Bilar, and Lin, but I remember. Someone should remember.”
This time, Max did move. Pulling away, he turned. She went into his arms, ready for the heat, the almost violent pleasure-pain. “People talk about how the Psy are starting to break,” he said in a fierce whisper, “but nobody ever speaks about the victims.”
He understood, she thought, he understood. “We’re as dirty a secret as the monsters. Those of us who survive are damaged goods, never quite the same. My parents wrote me off, turned me over to the state. I heard them in the hospital. . . . talking about whether it would be better to just put me down.”
CHAPTER 24
Your request to have Sophia Russo, minor, age 8, removed from your official family history has been granted. The state will pay the costs of her care and education until she reaches her majority. You are no longer considered bound to her or responsible for her in any way.
—Final decision of the Council Subcommittee on Genetic Inheritance, November 2060
Max’s embrace tightened until it almost hurt. But she needed it, craved it. The lost, indelibly fractured half of her clung to him, realizing it was being accepted, no matter the extent of its flaws. “The anchor thing,” he said. “That’s what saved you. Because it’s a rare ability.”
She nodded. “When the monster threw me through the window, he didn’t just scar my face. He also broke my mind.” She’d been a terrified child who’d finally realized that no help would come, that she’d soon be buried in an unmarked grave beside Carrie and Bilar. “But my brain didn’t give up. It ‘rerouted’ itself directly into the fabric of the Net, the only thing big enough to hold together what remained of my psyche.”
“I am so damn proud of you,” he said, his voice low and husky.
She wanted to grab onto the commitment, the promise, implicit in his words. “I’m really broken, Max.” It was the final secret, the final truth. “I can pretend to be normal, but I’m not. I never will be.”
“You survived—how you’ve done it doesn’t matter. The fact that you have? It’s better revenge on that bastard and the ones that allowed him to do what he did than anything else.”
Shuddering at the unflinching acceptance in his tone, she moved one hand lightly over his back. His muscles shifted beneath her touch, as if in response. Growing bolder, she pressed harder, felt his abdomen grow taut against her. It was instinct to spread out her hand, run her fingernails over the fabric in sensual exploration.
Swearing low under his breath, Max moved back a step, gripping her arms at the elbows. “Aren’t you going too fast?”
“No.” She could feel her nerves, ragged and frayed, close to overload, but still she wanted more, wanted to fill herself to the brim with him, until she had enough for a lifetime. “Don’t stop, Max. The touch keeps me here.” Not in the past.
Max groaned. “Drink. And behave.” He put the hot chocolate in her hands and picking up his coffee, headed to the couch.
Left with no choice, she followed a second later. Putting her drink beside his on the coffee table, she turned her body sideways on the couch, terrified she’d scared him with the voracious depth of her need . . . but not ready to accept his decree. He’d told her she’d never have to beg. He’d accepted her. He was hers. “I’m not misbehav—”
Max had his mouth on Sophia’s before he could think about the consequences, his hand tangled in her hair. God, he was so angry over what had been done to her, so fucking pissed at the parents who’d rejected her when they should’ve stood by her. And because he’d die before he hurt her, his anger had nowhere to go—except into a raging protectiveness. Running his tongue along the seam of her lips, he urged her to part for him. And when she did, he swept in without hesitation, taking, tasting, claiming.
Her hands fell to rest on his thigh, excruciatingly close to his cock. Releasing his grip on her, he picked up those delicate gloved hands and put them on his shoulders. She clenched her fingers on him, her nails biting just enough through the thin gloves and the material of his T-shirt to make him want to strip it all off and tell her to use those nails on his flesh. Hell. Breaking the kiss, he put his hands on her waist. “Straddle me.”
She was all huge eyes and kiss-bruised mouth, but she did as he asked, her curvy body coming down on his thighs even as she leaned in a
nd took his mouth. He hadn’t expected that, hadn’t expected her to seize the reins. But he was more than willing to let her have her way.
Her kiss was inexperienced, hesitant, and so arousing, he had to lock his muscles to keep from pushing up that primly buttoned cardigan and cupping a sweet, plump breast in his palm even as he took her mouth in a much more sexual fashion. Instead, he let her sip at him, let her stroke and taste and lick. The last made his fingers clench on her hips. She did it again.
Sophia Russo was a quick study.
Feeling his lips curve in a smile that was more than a little feral, he sucked at her upper lip, bit down on the lower. She jerked, then pressed into him, her arms weaving around his neck. Taking that as a yes, he repeated the caress, moving his hands down her hips and over the taut length of her thighs at the same time. A shuddering moan before she finally tore away her mouth.
Her eyes were awash in black, a sea of purest midnight. He’d been ready for that. But he wasn’t ready for the fever in her cheeks, the thumping beat of the pulse in her neck, the way her body turned all loose and limber, as if she was drunk. Alarm spiked. “Sophie, talk to me.”
“Mmm?” Dropping her head to his shoulder, she rubbed her cheek against his T-shirt, a lazy kitten. “I think you blew my circuits.”
The dazed comment made him want to laugh in spite of the savagery of his emotions—but worry cut the impulse midthought. Maybe this was as close as they’d ever come, him and his Sophie. “Are you in pain?”
Another lazy rub against him, her hand clenching and unclenching on his other shoulder. “I never realized men and women were so different . . . not really.” Her breath blew hot on the skin of his neck as she spoke, her body a warm, luscious weight against his aroused form. “It’s quite extraordinary.”
“Baby, you can’t avoid the question.” Brushing her hair very carefully off her face, he looked down to find her eyes closed. “Are you in pain?”