He only ground deeper into me though, gasping as he pulled me tighter against him, bleeding pain out of his cock. By then, I was desperate enough to consider using the telekinesis, but he pulled out of me before I could decide, rubbing the small of my back with muscular fingers as he knelt there, panting.
For a few seconds, he just seemed to be trying to control himself, to bring his breathing back to normal.
“I need a shower,” he informed me then.
Incredulous, I started to flip over, to glare at him, or maybe tell him to go fuck himself, but he hit me on the ass again, hard that time.
When I met his gaze, his face had gone taut, serious.
“No.” His voice mirrored his expression. “No. You’re staying here.”
“What the fuck––”
He talked over me like I hadn’t said anything.
“––You’re staying here,” he repeated, his voice harder. “Right here, sister. In exactly this position. You’re going to wait for me here like this. Do you understand?” His massaging fingers grew stronger on my hip and back, strangely lulling as he massaged the lines of muscle. Bending down, he pulled his shirt off the floor and began wiping me off, his hands gentle. “You move from here, or try to close your legs, Allie…and I’m not coming back. Do you understand? You’ll have to ask one of those little boys to jerk you off…like you’d planned.”
My jaw hardened at his words. I didn’t speak though.
He tossed his shirt back to the floor.
“Are you going to wait for me?” he said.
I fought back and forth in my head, feeling his light pulling on mine.
I felt the desire there, coiling through his aleimi despite the fact that he’d gotten off already…twice…and despite the fact that his voice still didn’t show so much as a flicker of emotion or pain. I felt the harder want there though, the question that lived in his light as he continued to massage my back and thigh.
“Allie?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, my voice angry. “Yes. I’ll wait.”
I heard him smile. “All right. I’m going to borrow a towel, all right?”
I let out an even more annoyed sound.
“Do you have soap in there?”
“Yes,” I growled.
“And your keycard?” he asked innocently.
“Whatever,” I said.
That time, he chuckled.
The bed sighed as he got to his feet.
I heard him open the wardrobe, heard the sounds of material shifting as he must have been going through my stack of clean towels. The wardrobe door closed again a few seconds later. I heard him rifling through my clothes by the wall next, probably looking for the keycard. Then the door to my room was opening and I had a sudden burst of fear, this time of someone looking in and seeing me there, naked and kneeling, more or less spread-eagled on my own bed, waiting for that jerk to return. But he didn’t leave the door open for long.
He also took his sweet fucking time.
My light didn’t calm down while he was gone, either.
Instead the pain worsened as I lay there, face down on the bedspread, basically in a much more porned-out version of what they called “child’s pose” at the yoga gym where I used to go with Cass in San Francisco. For some reason, I couldn’t shut my brain up either, or the fact that it had occurred to me yet again that this might be some kind of hate-fuck thing for Dalejem…or a twisted way of getting back at Revik maybe.
For marrying me, for not being willing to hear him out…for whatever irrational feelings seers acted on when it came to unrequited love.
The thought pissed me off, yeah.
It hurt me, too. I couldn’t explain that part as well, not even to myself.
But yeah, it hurt.
Flickers of Ditrini ran through my mind in all of that, which didn’t help. The memories brought more grief than anger for some reason, even though I’d thought I was well past that shit, too…at least with the big things that happened to me in Beijing. Dalejem had played with me in similar ways to how Ditrini used to play with me sometimes though, especially in the beginning when I hadn’t yet learned to hate Ditrini’s guts. Back when his sureness was still kind of a turn-on instead of just another symptom of his raging narcissism.
I lay there, fighting not to think about whether Revik might be fucking someone else right now, too. I had that shield wrapped so tightly around my light, for once I was relatively confident I wouldn’t feel it if he was.
Somewhere in that, the grief my light had been toying around with worsened.
It worsened a lot.
I found myself lying there, fighting tears. I forced out threads of Revik and Lily that wanted to coil into my light. I fought to remind myself why I was doing this, telling myself it didn’t mean anything. I told myself that what Revik had done didn’t mean anything either.
I remembered him throwing the glass, shouting at me about Chandre.
I remembered him promising me…maybe for the thousandth time…that he’d never touch anyone else again.
I remembered promising him the same. Vowing it.
Vowing it in New York, in front of all of our friends.
Laughing as he wore that ridiculous hat for the ceremony in that Central Park restaurant, even as I was turned on by the suit he wore below it. Standing up on that stage with him, where I felt nothing but happy. Where we could barely keep our hands off each other. Where I could feel Vash laughing, even though he was dead. Where I could feel my parents…my real parents, in my mind at least. Where Jon and Wreg lit the ends of that fiery cord. Where Tarsi smacked Revik for joking with her about the ceremony. Where Revik shook hands with my father’s brother.
Tears ran silently down my face when the door opened from the corridor. I couldn’t move to wipe them away with my hands, not without him seeing, so I wiped my face on the bedspread instead, clenching my jaw when I felt him approach the bed.
He had his light cloaked again.
Even so, I felt tendrils of his aleimi slide over mine, as if examining some flavor he’d picked up in the room when he walked in. When he walked over to the side of the bed, he had his hands on his hips. He was naked but for a dark gray towel, his wet black hair hanging down around his shoulders.
I looked up at him, almost defiantly that time.
He studied my face, his own expressionless.
Then, clicking softly, he walked back around behind me.
The bed creaked as he crawled up on the mattress. I felt the rough fabric of the towel against the back of my legs. I felt his erection even more clearly, pressed against the V between my thighs. He held it there, his light coiling gently into mine.
“Are you going to open for me?” he said, caressing my rear gently, rubbing my back. “Your light. Are you going to open your light for me, Allie?”
Clenching my jaw, I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
He didn’t let me off the hook.
“No?” he said. “You need to say it, Alyson.”
I cleared my throat, fighting anger. I knew he could probably feel the emotion in my light. I knew he was probably getting off on me losing control over myself like this. He might even be getting off on the grief.
“No,” I said, my voice cold.
He nodded. I felt that more than saw it, too.
“Because of him?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, glaring up at him.
He nodded, his expression unmoving. “All right,” he said, his voice as empty as his face. “Although you should know, loyalty is a turn-on for seers…even loyalty to someone else.”
I bit my lip, fighting fury.
If he noticed, I didn’t feel any indication on his light.
Still rubbing my back, he shifted backwards slightly, unwrapping the towel from around his waist. I tensed as he slid his body between my legs, using his knees to spread mine even more. He gripped my hips again in his hands––tightly that time, almost painfully. Sex-pain whispered off h
is light, coiling into mine as I felt him looking at me.
“I don’t think two orgasms was enough,” he muttered.
Before I could make a sarcastic crack back, he leaned down towards me, kissing my back with his tongue and lips. He used a lot of his light that time and I gasped, losing my train of thought. When he started caressing my ribs and hips and the front of my body, I groaned, flattening against the bedspread in spite of myself, arching my back.
Which is maybe what he’d wanted. Either way, he kissed me for awhile longer before he raised his body up, still holding my hips…
…and slid into me up to the hilt.
My heart stopped. Then it jack-knifed.
I felt shock ripple his light.
“Gods…you’re wet.” He let out a heavier groan. “You’re really fucking wet, Allie…I could come right now…”
I fought to move against him, but he held me, firm in his hands.
“Open your light,” he urged. “Please, lover…”
“No,” I snapped.
He pulled out slowly then arched into me equally slow, going so deep I let out a heavier cry, pressing into the mattress. I fought to hold onto the shield when he did it again. Then he was fucking me harder, still slow but almost violently hard at the end, his light opening more with each thrust of his hips. I felt paralyzed there, lost in sensation and his light. Guilt swam over me as I thought of Revik…then frustration when Dalejem wouldn’t extend, or let me come…then more guilt for even wanting those things.
Pain writhed in my light as I thought of Revik again, of the last time I’d let anyone else touch me like this…
“Stop, goddamn it,” Dalejem growled. “Stay here with me…”
He slapped my ass, hard that time, and I groaned, fighting him with my light as he pressed into me harder. He used his light more intently as I fought him, bleeding it out of the end of his cock as he rubbed up against the part of me that wanted him to extend.
I cried out when he kept doing it, then I was sweating again…then swearing, then fighting him for real, pulling back the telekinesis even as I fought to keep my light closed.
“No. Relax…” he murmured. “Relax…love, relax…”
I fought to control myself, realizing only then that I’d been losing my grip on the shield. My light wouldn’t stop pulling on his, fighting to get him to lose control, to extend.
He blew warmth over my aleimi, reassurance, but I fought that, too.
“You want me,” he said, his voice gruff. “You want me...it’s why you get so angry at me, Alyson. You want me...it doesn’t make you disloyal...”
Pain exploded over my light.
He groaned, coming to a stop as his hands gripped me tighter, his fingers painful as he held himself back. Then he slowed his body, fucking me harder, using more of his light. I felt him pulling on me, trying to get me to say it. Pain seethed off him in another hot coil.
“You want me,” he murmured. “Admit it, Alyson...tell me you want me...”
The pain in my light worsened. I felt him deliberately slowing me down again, slowing his body, threading his light into mine and distracting me from where I wanted to come. My frustration worsened, growing desperate as I gripped the bedspread. I let out a pleading sound, but he only gripped me tighter, coming to a near stop.
“Gaos...tell me you want me,” he gasped. “Fucking tell me...”
“You’re an asshole,” I burst out finally, fighting tears. “Why are you doing this?” I thought about my words, fighting another debilitating wave of pain. My voice grew bitter. “Hoping to feel him in my cunt, brother, since you can’t have him in your bed?”
His fingers tightened painfully on my hips.
For a long moment, he didn’t move.
Then he extended…all the way inside me.
I let out a low-pitched yell, nearly pleading.
He groaned right after I did, letting his weight fall, gasping and sweating against my back and neck. He still wasn’t moving though, and I found myself fighting him again, fighting to get him to start, to do this thing for real. He wouldn’t though. He just held me, his light a blank wall for what felt like an endless stretch of time.
Anger pulsed out of him gradually as his hands tightened, holding me still.
“You think that’s what this is?” he said.
His voice was soft, holding pain on the surface.
When I didn’t answer, he pressed his face against my neck, that pain coiling into me, colliding into mine, intensely enough that I whimpered. I felt his light react violently to the sound, right before he gasped against my neck.
“You think I’m fucking Revik right now?” he murmured. “Is that it?”
I fought to answer him, to even think. “Yes,” I said then, nodding into the mattress. Tears came to my eyes. “Yes.”
He clicked at me, but I felt the pain in his light intensify. The next time he spoke his voice sounded thick, almost gruff.
“You’re wrong,” he said only.
He released my light once he’d said it, pulling his chest off my back. Gripping my hips in his hands, he slid into me with his cock and the sharper hirik with a precision that made me cry out. He did it again, harder, and I moaned, fighting him, and maybe myself by then, too. Then he was building me…slowly, inexorably, relentlessly.
I lost control completely by the end…physically at least.
I held onto my light.
Some part of me held onto it stubbornly, angrily…irrationally, maybe.
Whatever Revik did. Whatever he did and whoever he did it with…I wasn’t going to give my light away just because I knew he was. I wasn’t going to open myself to some other seer just because he did…or because he gave his body to whoever wanted him.
I knew why he was doing that, too. Or I knew what he told himself about why he was doing it, at least. I couldn’t make myself care about his reasons though. Not anymore.
I didn’t care.
Not then, maybe not ever.
I didn’t fucking care.
22
THREE MONTHS
We still can’t find him. You need to get out of there, baby––
We’ve got people on it too.
Silence falls between us, laden with more than I can express.
We? I send.
Alyson…
His pain worsens. I shake it off, my own light hardening.
You’re not listening to me, I send, insistent. You need to get out of there, I mean it. This isn’t going to work. Too much has changed…
We stick to the plan for now. I’m close.
I shake my head. You said it yourself. It’s not working. There’s only so much I can do on this end. Even if I do what you ask, it’s not going to matter if––
There’s something here. Something they’re hiding from me.
Revik…
I know it’s hard…it’s hard for me, too. His pain worsens, growing unbearable. But we can’t stop now. We can’t, or it will all be for nothing. Sighing, he makes his voice flatter, more matter of fact. They still think I put you up to it, but it’s at least caused some doubt. You need to convince them, wife. They’ll never trust me, but I don’t think they’ll kill me now. Not if––
No, I send. No, damn it…you’re not hearing me. We don’t have time for that now. I can’t stop him. I can’t even slow him down, Revik––
You don’t have to. He pauses; the silence deepens. More light coils between us, faint tendrils of fire. Gaos…Allie. Are you all right?
No. No I’m not all right…I want you home. I want you home, goddamn it. Pain slides through me and that time, I can’t control it at all. I want you home…
I blinked, hanging over the VR console.
Rubbing my eyes, I fought to breathe, feeling my mind starting to phase.
I was hungry. And overtired. The time changes definitely didn’t help; the two seers we were tracking were now in totally different continents and time zones. We didn’t have enough high-ranked
infiltrators to be able to assign people consistent slots, so we’d all had to deal with sleeping at odd hours, catching food where we could, taking turns in shifts.
I’d probably gotten less sleep than a lot of the people here.
The day before we’d been escorted politely but firmly out of the main compound at Langley, including those old training barracks. They’d given us a new building…also politely…and also very clearly outside of their constructs and even their secondary security wall.
Now we had a base of sorts set up on the outskirts, in an old admin office building that used to house more of the spillover and contract workers hired by the CIA and SCARB.
This part of the United States was pretty barren at the moment, but even so, it was a relief that they allowed us to remain inside the outer gates of the wider CIA-run compound at least, if only because I didn’t have to deal with coordinating and assigning heavy physical security in addition to all of the Barrier crap we needed already.
On the less-good side, Brooks had refused my last four requests for meetings.
We also had no access to her via the Barrier, given the wall of seers she’d put between herself and us. Apparently her anger about what I’d done in Denver hadn’t lessened with time; if anything, it seemed to have gotten worse.
I still thought I’d done the right thing.
But yeah, I understood why she was pissed.
Moreover, from what Talei had been able to find out, Brooks’ people had by now convinced her I’d more or less been responsible for everything that happened in Denver, including Dragon being operational in the first place. And yeah, okay, while they weren’t exactly wrong about that, they weren’t completely right, either.
The blackout with Brooks made me nervous, given everything else. I knew they were tracking Dragon via their own seers by then. I also knew they were likely to seriously overreact if they got an opportunity to take him down, especially if nukes were still on the table.
I was fighting to focus my eyes when warm fingers began massaging the back of my neck. Those fingers stroked hard, deliberately, in strong sensual pulls, bleeding light. Flinching, I glanced up, conscious of the heat behind the contact.
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 43