by Ladew, Lisa
Hide My Light
by Lisa Ladew
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or organizations, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Copyright © 2015 Lisa Ladew All Rights Reserved
Book cover by: http://www.stunningbookcovers.com/
Dedication/Acknowledgements
Thanks to my beta readers: Lisa Howard, Johanne Poirier, Bridget Koan, Sharlena Biron, Deb Worden
and my Advance readers: you guys are the best.
and ALL my readers. Without you, there’d be no point.
Chapter 1
Katerina stood in West’s bedroom before the full-length mirror, dressed only in snow-white underwear and a lacy white bra. Nina, West’s long-haired tabby cat, wound herself between Katerina’s legs, looking for attention. Katerina picked Nina up, scratched her behind the ears, then hugged her and took her to her cat bed. Just before Katerina set the cat down, she buried her fingers in Nina’s fur, reaching for the skin underneath. As her fingers grazed the soft, yielding body, she turned her attention inside and asked her special medical sense how Nina was doing.
Good. No problems. The medication has the disease under control. She will have a long and happy life.
Katerina smiled to herself and put Nina down on the bed. And if she had sensed something wrong? Would she have been able to fix it? She didn’t know. She’d been working on controlling, stopping, and coping with this mysterious and hateful power she had, but not strengthening it.
She turned to the dress that West had bought her for Blaise’s party that evening. A cream colored, lacy, pencil dress, gorgeous on the bed, but how would it look on her? A flutter of nerves skidded through her belly. She hadn’t been out to a party in ages. People were going to want to hug her, talk to her, and shake her hand.
She picked up the dress and pulled it over her head, then turned back to the mirror to examine herself. She looked OK. She knew she was too thin from all the stress that she had been under. She grabbed her mascara off the dresser and put on a final coat. That and a little lip stain were all she would be wearing on her face. She finger combed her curls, then ran her hands down the dress, smoothing it at her stomach, then pulled on her black heels.
She wondered what West was going to think about how she looked. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was, every day, that he was still around, even after everything they had been through. Without him, she knew she would have been dead or in jail or homeless weeks and weeks ago.
Her thoughts were colored with worry for him. Worry that he was missing out on a normal life because of her. But she knew he wanted to be here, she could tell every time she touched him. His love enveloped her and soothed her whenever she was near him. Well, now it soothed her again, now that she had successfully purged herself of the horror of the two serial killer’s thoughts and memories.
Katerina took one final look in the mirror, then turned and walked to the door, pushing it open and heading down the hallway to where he was waiting for her. As she entered the room, he quickly turned off the TV and stood to face her. She could see the naked appreciation on his face from ten feet away. He crossed the room and met her halfway. She swallowed hard, not trusting what she saw on his face, wanting to hear his words.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
Katerina shook her head slightly at the huskiness in his voice. He had bought the dress yesterday and brushed off all of her protests about how it was too expensive or too fancy.
Katerina put her hand out and grabbed West’s arm, unable to resist herself. She opened her soul to him, wanting to see herself inside his mind. She did look beautiful there, but more beautiful than she had looked in the mirror. Her mind tried to puzzle over why he always did that but then his emotion hit her. His arousal. She could feel it, overlaid on top of her own, but so much more fascinating than hers. Hers was a needy, pleading wanting, and his was an overpowering, forceful desire that she just couldn’t get enough of. She felt intoxicated by the fact that just looking at her was enough to get him excited! Men! Such strange and lovely creatures, so different than women.
West pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She melted against him, feeling her body respond to him the way her mind already had.
“Do we have time?” she whispered.
“No,” he said quietly, still kissing her.
“Can we be just a little late?” she asked, knowing he knew what she wanted, what she meant. Sex with West cleared her mind and healed her soul just a little bit more every time, no matter how often they came together.
West skimmed his hands under her dress, pulling it up slightly, hooking his thumbs in her underwear and peeling them down her thighs, then dropping them to the floor. She knew immediately she would get what she wanted. But then, she always did, from him.
“Leave the shoes on,” he growled as she stepped out of her underwear. “And the dress too… I want to fuck you in this dress,” he said, the words forcing a startle out of Katerina.
The coarse words and gruff manner he occasionally used shocked Katerina each time, but she did nothing to stop it. Some part of her loved the crudeness and he knew it. He’d discovered it over the last several weeks while they explored each other as fully as possible. He fed that part of her with taboo words and concepts whenever he could, stoking her fires to blazing with just a phrase. She always knew his intent was the exact opposite and that’s what let her fully enjoy it. He would say something incredibly dirty but in his eyes all she would see was love and the desire to please her.
It sent a delicious thrill through her when he told her he was going to fuck her until she screamed, when he held her down and plied her with nasty words like kisses to the throat, when she could feel his corded muscles and practically smell the testosterone coming off of him.
He picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom, placing her gently onto the bed as if she were no heavier than a bag of sugar. He stood in front of her, shedding his pants and shoes, staring into her eyes, and asked, “How do you want it?”
“Hard and fast,” she gasped as he dropped on top of her and pinned her hands over her head.
“Yes ma’am,” he said, kissing her neck. God he was perfectly brutish when she asked him to be. She loved it.
He forced her legs apart with his knee, his eyes devouring her body, saying she looked like cake, like candy, like the most gourmet desserts in the world, and he hadn’t eaten in days.
“Are we safe?” he whispered and she turned her special sense inside. She nodded, knowing she wouldn’t ovulate for almost a week.
He thrust inside of her in one smooth, hard movement and she bit her lip against the sudden desire to cry out. She dropped her head to the bed, reveling in his strength and his power and his purely gorgeous brawn. It was delectable this way. She liked it any way with West; soft and sweet with murmurs of love and commitment, slow and sensual, lasting for hours at a time - but this, this delicious pounding was her absolute favorite, where all she could do was hold on while sensation built and built inside of her and inflated her to the four corners of space, leaving her breathless and spent for long moments of absolute stillness. Mostly she loved West, and the magic they had come to know together. Their relationship was different, special, rare, and ex
traordinary, and she would die if she lost him.
As Katerina’s thoughts spun into the void of nothing, her orgasm ripped through her. Dimly she was aware of West vocalizing hotly above her, then dropping on top of her. Even this part was exquisite to her, his sheer weight pinning her and his recovering heat, consuming her.
After a moment, he rolled away and she shakily tried to stand. She kicked off her shoes and ran to the bathroom to clean up, all anxiousness burned away like newspaper in a bonfire.
Chapter 2
Katerina sat in West’s big truck on the way to Blaise’s house, her entire being relaxed and happy. West held her hand with his free hand.
“The San Diego School of Medicine called today,” he said.
She turned to him, surprised. “Really?” They had skated around this subject a few times in the last couple of weeks but not seriously.
“I had my brother talk to the Dean of Admissions to see if there was anything he could do for you.”
Katerina waited, anxiety suddenly eating at her insides. There was something she hadn’t told West yet.
“They say they can start you next semester if you want to go. Resident tuition is only thirty-two thousand dollars. I would love to pay it for you.”
Katerina shook her head. “That’s incredibly generous of you, West. You’re amazing. But I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this. I don’t think I want to be a doctor anymore.”
She could feel the disappointment and inability to understand coming off him in waves. She pulled her hand out of his, not wanting to catch his emotions that way too.
He moved his hand to the gearshift. “But you could be the most amazing doctor that ever lived! Just think of what you could do. You could cure cancer … or eliminate certain diseases entirely, you could-”
Katerina cut him off, her voice trembling slightly. “We don’t really know if I could do any of that. You’re assuming. But let’s just say I can. Let’s just say I can put my hands on someone and they heal magically. It’s not like I’m inventing a procedure or creating a medication that other doctors can use. It all has to be me. Imagine, once word got out, people would be lined up around the block to see me and no matter what, how many people can I really touch, really help in a day?”
She had thought about this a lot over the last few weeks, ever since that day at her dining room table when Agnes claimed Katerina had healed her with a touch. It made her sad to give up her dream of being a doctor, but she envisioned the nightmare it could end up being all too well.
She pressed on, filling the silence. “And if I decided I couldn’t help them all? How would I make the decision about who to help? Only the ones with the most money? The ones with no money? Only the children? Only single parents? Do you know how many millions of sick and dying people are out there?”
“No one has to know,” West said, his voice quiet. “We don’t have to tell people what you can do by touching them.”
“Maybe,” Katerina answered. “But what if I ended up with a 100 percent cure rate? Do you think people would notice?”
West was silent, thinking hard. Katerina could feel it coming off of him. She held her hand out to him again. “Let’s not talk about this tonight. I want to pretend I’m carefree.”
“Got it,” he said, dropping it easily. That was one of the things she loved about him. “Are you going to wear your gloves?” he asked, looking at the black leather gloves on the dashboard. She had started wearing them in public because they helped stop the transmission she got from other people. She shook her head. “No, I’ll see how I do. Practice Agnes’s latest techniques.”
Katerina knew she had gotten much stronger lately at this psychometric thing because these days she picked something up off of most people without even trying. She had talked to Agnes several times in the last two weeks, working on blocking and deflecting and dropping images and thoughts and memories that weren’t her own. The gloves made it easier.
No matter how many people she had touched in the last few weeks though, she had never gotten anything as bad as the images she’d gotten off the brothers, Frank and Dylan, thank God.
West pulled onto Blaise’s street and parked in front of the house. “Wait for me to come around and help you, I don’t want you to twist an ankle in those heels.”
Katerina waited obediently. He was always thinking of her. He opened her door and put his hands around her waist, dropping her lightly to the ground from the high seat.
They strolled up the walkway together, to where Blaise was already throwing open the door. “Where have you two been?” he said, a huge smile on his face. Blaise pulled them inside, hugged them both, and introduced them to his mom, a tiny woman with long, jet-black, wavy hair. Katerina shook her hand, and immediately got a few flashes from the woman. Hard worker. Love for her son. Nothing to be afraid of.
Katerina heard Jordan’s voice and looked across the room to see Jordan rushing over. Jordan pulled her into a hug and waved hi to West, who was still talking to Blaise and his mother. Jordan looked at Katerina appraisingly, then whispered into her ear. “Girl, you smell like sex.”
Katerina pulled back, horrified. “Oh my God, come with me to the bathroom.”
Jordan laughed wildly but let herself be pulled down the hallway.
Katerina locked them both into the bathroom and then attacked her skin at the sink, washing her hands again and her arms and her face and her neck.
Jordan sat on the toilet and looked at her, a mischievous smile on her face. “I wish I had a boyfriend who couldn’t keep his hands off me, who wanted to have sex with me every day.”
Katerina smiled. They’d been averaging twice a day actually. She was voracious these days, and he was always willing. “What about Blaise? Anything happening with him?”
Jordan sighed. “No. He’s been super sweet while I’ve been helping his mom, and he keeps apologizing for what he did, oh, and he asked me out the other day but I said no.”
“You said no? But you’ve wanted him forever!”
“I know. But I just can’t stop thinking about what he said to me. He practically called me a slut. I can’t let it go for some reason.”
“What about what he did for you when your ex tried to rape you? Doesn’t that make up for it?” Katerina said.
Jordan waved a hand at her. “He’s a cop. He would’ve done that for anyone.”
“What about when he saved you - us - from Dylan in that hole?” She watched Jordan’s face closely as she talked. Jordan wouldn’t say a word about what had happened down there and Katerina sometimes worried about it. Was Jordan doing OK with it or did it bother her? Eat at her? Katerina couldn’t help but feel guilty. It had been her fault that Dylan had kidnapped Jordan and almost killed her. When her words brought no emotional pain to Jordan’s face she felt some small measure of relief.
Jordan shook her head, blonde hair flying. “I know, I’m ridiculous. I’ve tried to let it go, but I haven’t been able to so far.” She took Katerina’s hand. “You should just zap me or something. Fry it right out of my brain.”
Katerina shook her head and rolled her eyes. Everyone had such grand misconceptions about her. Even those closest to her. “Don’t be silly, I can’t do that.”
Through the closed door, Katerina could hear West calling for her. “Smell me,” she told Jordan.
Jordan stood and sniffed Katerina’s cheek and neck. “Better.”
“It’ll have to do,” Katerina said, opening the door to the bathroom and seeing West at the other end of the hallway.
“Blaise wants to give his mom her gift, he wants everyone in the backyard,” West told them.
They caught up to West and Katerina grabbed his hand, then the trio retreated out to the backyard. Blaise saw them coming and smiled, then held up his glass.
“Can we all raise a toast to my mother, the most hard-working and deserving person I know, who is now a United States citizen!” he said, ripping the covering off a large object next to him. B
laise’s mother beamed at the crowd who applauded and whistled, then she turned to the frame Blaise had uncovered. It held her new certificate of citizenship, with pictures of her studying, working with Jordan, and shaking hands with the Director of the Department of Natural Citizens as she received her certificate.
Blaise looked their way and held up his glass again. “And I just want to say that I couldn’t have done this without the help of my good friend Jordan Jones. Jordan, I thank you, my mother thanks you, our entire family thanks you. We are deeply in your debt.”
The crowd applauded again as Jordan inclined her head towards Blaise.
Katerina watched Jordan carefully. Her eyes were glittering in the soft evening light. Tears? Katerina wondered if there was a way she could help Jordan get past what was bothering her. Blaise would be good for Jordan, Katerina knew it.
***
Later that evening, long after the toasts were said, the food was eaten, and the party was over, after she stripped off her dress and whispered, “Slow and sweet,” to West and eagerly took everything he had to offer her, Katerina lay awake in bed thinking about the next day. They would be going back to work for the first time in three weeks. She was nervous and even the lovemaking couldn’t dispel it this time. What if the gloves didn’t work? She would have to touch each of their patients. They could easily have ten or twelve patients in a day. What if she received some input that she couldn’t handle? What if she had to touch someone like Frank or Dylan again? What if there were more murderers and monsters walking around than anyone wanted to think? She shuddered to think of it. If it happened again, it just might kill her.
Chapter 3
West glanced at Katerina and knew at once that she was nervous. They were in his truck again, heading to the ambulance bay at the Westwood Harbor Fire Department for their first day back to work since they’d discovered a second killer had been after her. She was wearing her black gloves already.
He hoped the day was easy on her. He still hadn’t told Lieutenant Masterson that they were dating, but at this point did it even matter? Katerina didn’t need an evaluator, but she did need to be working with him, no matter what. He grimaced at the weight of his protective feelings. She was so strong, but what she had been through was enough to mess with anyone. He wanted to be there for her. She needed him to be there for her.