I took myself in hand and pressed in. Jesus, he was tight. There was a moment when I thought we’d have to take it in the other room, after all, so we could get completely naked, but then suddenly the head of my cock slipped in. As I slowly pushed inward, he let out a long groan. I wanted to moan with him. It felt so goddamned good. With my casted arm, I reached underneath his shirt and pulled him to me, steadying him with my other hand on his hip. Seated within his heat, something about filling him filled an emptiness within me.
“Do it,” he said, arching against me.
If you say so.
I began pumping. Short thrusts at first, then longer, harder. Anger and frustration gave way to desperation, and I found that my eyes were watering. I wasn’t crying. No sirree, Bob. My eyes were just watering inexplicably. Furious, I pounded him. The sound of slick skin slapping skin was accompanied by a rhythmic grunting that gradually increased in pitch. To my surprise, the noise was coming from me, being pulled out from some deep center within me as the tension welled up along with it.
Suddenly, as though I’d stepped out onto a city street and had been slammed by a bus, my memories returned.
John, leaning in the door of my kitchen postshower, dressed in nothing but a towel and a provocative smile. John, curled up in a ball on the floor of the Weir, twitching as blue electrical energy flickered over his body. John, unshaven and bleary-eyed, hiding out in my apartment in a T-shirt and briefs, because he couldn’t handle going outside as a telepath. John, smashing the lock on my car and heaving me out of the trunk when I’d been left there to die. John, going down on his knees to give me that first blowjob, clumsy with inexperience but wonderfully enthusiastic.
It was all there, flashing in my head like lightning. The way he looked, the way he smelled, the way he smiled. John was around me, inside me, and everywhere at once. Everything was John. John.
I cried out when every nerve ending fired, sending pulses of sensation through my body and shooting out my dick. John shuddered underneath me, clenching around my cock as I emptied myself. I felt as though I could float away, and I tightened my grip around his body to anchor me and panted into the dampness of his shirt beneath my cheek. He stroked my arm where it encircled him, keeping me grounded.
Only then did it occur to me we didn’t use a condom.
We always used condoms.
I didn’t care. I’d have sold my soul to the devil for this one moment in time. Much better than being pain free, if you ask me.
“I don’t want to lose this,” John whispered into his folded arm, still hiding his face.
I rested my forehead against his back. Lassitude kept me from responding, at first. “What do you mean?” My dick continued to pulse inside of him. I didn’t want to break the connection, no matter how much my back and thighs complained about my position. I knew it had to be worse for him beneath my weight. I shivered from the cooling sweat on my skin.
“You were always guarding your thoughts. Ever since you knew I could read them. You weren’t you. When I realized you didn’t remember the telepathy, I thought I could have the best of both worlds.”
His words were like being hit with a bucket of ice water. The adrenaline rush had died and the endorphins were fading. The kitchen was a wreck that had to be cleaned before Jean returned, and it smelled of sex. And I was still pissed at John. I pulled out of him and snatched up a couple of dish towels. I handed one to John and used the other on myself. I couldn’t believe what we’d just done. I needed a shower and some time to think.
When he faced me, his eyes were wide with a kind of wary delight. “You remember. You remember everything.”
I took the towel from him and watched as he pulled up his pants and went to the sink to wash his hands.
“Your mom’s going to kill us.” I said, tossing the towel in the trash. I tucked myself back in and pulled up my jeans, eyeing the shards of glass on the floor instead of looking at John. I was still angry, and yet it was hard to be angry, knowing what I knew. Knowing what it cost him to live as a telepath. Knowing what we’d been to each other the last six months.
“I can’t believe you smashed the coffee pot. The coffee pot. From the brand new coffeemaker. You must really be mad at me.” It was a teasing acknowledgment of the situation in an attempt to diffuse it.
“Yeah. Well, you’re buying the replacement pot.” I kicked a large piece of ceramic to one side. “You seem to have a thing for breaking coffee mugs.”
“You remember,” he said softly, sounding more somber.
I nodded and came up beside him to share the soap and water, which was practically boiling, so I adjusted the taps slightly. “Yeah. I guess all it took was finding out about the telepathy. Maybe I was blocking it on some level too. Maybe—” I broke off to gape at him as a series of impressions suddenly made sense. “We switched bodies?”
He winced and went back to scrubbing his hands like he was prepping for surgery. They were bright pink when he dried them on the last dish towel. “Only temporarily.”
Dear God.
“I’m not Celtic, at least, not that I know of. How come the box worked on me? What made it possible for us to switch bodies like that?”
He shrugged, turning his hands palms up. “Your guess is as good as mine. I think maybe it was because we both touched it at the same time. Or maybe that’s why we didn’t stay permanently switched. It seemed like there was some sort of countdown right before we changed back. Maybe everyone switches back after a few days. Or when they learn whatever it is they’re supposed to get out of living like someone else for a while.”
“But the telepathy….”
“Seems permanent.”
“Maybe not. My friend Hal says that one of the boxes might neutralize the others.”
A flicker of hope flashed like gold in his eyes. Or it could have just been the overhead light. My gaze strayed back to the broken glass again. When I looked up at John, he was holding out a dustpan and a hand broom.
“You read my mind.”
He grimaced and curled his upper lip like Oliver when I offered him a flavor of cat food he didn’t like. “Funny. Don’t give up your day job. You know, it might be that you’re so predictable, I knew you couldn’t stand the thought of all that glass on the floor.”
I made Oliver’s stink face back at him, knelt to sweep up the shards, and deposited them in the trash can.
“You can vacuum later,” he said, illustrating just how completely he could read me. Just that very second, I wondered where Jean kept it, sure that sweeping alone wouldn’t pick up every sliver of glass.
“You don’t have to prove to me how well you can read my thoughts,” I said. “I do remember what it was like—you and me—before.”
His face took on that shuttered expression of old. “Yeah. Well, I was just making sure. You’re not using the soundproof booth.”
I felt one corner of my mouth pull up in a smile. “You’ve seen the worst of me. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to close the barn door now.”
Damn, but he could move fast. He crossed the space between us to take me by the shirt and pulled me a stumbling step toward him. I had the broom in one hand and the dustpan in the other, but I was uncertain what to do with them. He rested his forehead on mine, his eyes closed, fingers curling into the fabric. “I’ve seen the best of you too. Never forget that.”
“I’m not likely to do so,” I pointed out.
That made him chuckle, and his breath ghosted over my lips before he kissed me just as softly. When he let go of my shirt, he relieved me of the dustpan and replaced it and the broom in the cupboard. Opening the window over the sink to air out the room, we were greeted by the rusty chirrup of a cricket. John leaned on the counter and rested his hands behind him.
“You know, I’m still mad as hell at you,” I said.
The skin under one eye twitched. It could have been involuntary, or it could have been an aborted look of dismay. “Yeah, I know.”
“You’re just
lucky I put up with your shit. Not everyone would, you know. I could just walk out.” My personal relationships had a way of imploding in my face. I’d gotten used to it. I was always keeping one ear out for the sound of the other shoe dropping.
“Nah,” he said softly, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “See, the thing about you, Jerry Lee, is that you don’t give up on anyone. You love hard. You love strong. You’re not the one who quits. You don’t leave unless you don’t have a choice.”
The air went out of me as though I’d been socked in the gut. I felt my mouth fall open as I gaped at him. When I could finally take a breath, I just blinked at him. I thought about my mom, and Derek. I recalled the expression on John’s face when he told me about Tommy, his first crush, and Rachel, and Nancy.
You always leave, though.
The words burst in my mind before I could check them, but I didn’t scramble to try and shroud them within the soundproof booth. It was what it was. My fears weren’t baseless, and they deserved to be heard, even if I couldn’t say them aloud.
He pushed himself off the counter, took me into his arms, and wrapped me in a hug. It wasn’t the sort of thing he normally did, and coming on the heels of his statement, it brought an unaccustomed sting of tears to my eyes. Again with the watery eyes, damn it.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Lee. I’m never leaving you.” He spoke the words into my hair, and the warmth of his breath made me shiver. He held me close for a second longer and then let me go and stepped back.
I wanted to believe him. He was going to have to prove that to me, however. How does someone prove they won’t ever leave you—except by staying? I realized I was being unfair, but where does it say life is fair? Nowhere. Unless you’re willing to paint the words yourself and believe them. I wiped the corner of one eye with my middle finger and said, “We need to clean up before your mom gets home. This place smells like a whorehouse. Did you really get something to eat on the road?”
“I’m fine,” he said, by way of answering, but he was already starting to smile.
I huffed a sigh. “Go take a shower. I’ll make some sandwiches.”
Chapter Seventeen
I WAS still getting over the shock of the evening’s revelations. John had insisted I shower first, which I did as fast as I could with the damn cast. While John took his customary three-minute shower with military precision, I vacuumed up the remaining glass, mopped the floor, and took out the trash. I shut the window over the sink, because the light was attracting moths the size of Rottweilers, and I was concerned one of them would blast its way through the screen.
Suddenly ravenous, I’d decided to make BLTs. Nothing like the smell of bacon to cover up the odor of nearly anything else. Besides, I really wanted a BLT. My hands had been shaking as I grilled the meat. The letdown after the adrenaline and sex demanded I eat something before I passed out.
Not to mention, the cooking, cleaning, and eating gave me something to do. Something else to think about besides the fact my boyfriend was telepathic, and I still didn’t know if he planned to take over the world.
“What are we going to do next?” I asked as we finished eating. John must have been hungrier than he realized, because he ate like a dog recently adopted from the shelter.
John wiped a bit of mayo off the corner of his mouth. He licked his thumb and nodded as he spoke. “Okay. First of all, I am not The Brain. I have no intention of world domination. Second, that’s part of why I couldn’t come back earlier today. I do have a plan.”
Now I had the theme song from Pinky and The Brain running in my head.
“Okay. Not helping.” John shot me a reproving look as he got up from the table and went for the briefcase.
“You were the one who brought up world domination. You might hate being a telepath, but someone else could conceivably use it to blackmail enemies, or extract state secrets. Hell, the potential applications are frightening—” I broke off as the word association suddenly hit me. “This new-found fascination with being dominated. It has to do with the telepathy, doesn’t it? It helps you block out the other voices, right? The total immersion in sensation isolates you. Puts you in a different headspace.” It made sense, once I had all the pieces. A small part of me was oddly disappointed, because the change in our relationship didn’t have as much to do with us as it did Boudica’s Boxes.
His eyes were dark and intense when his gaze fixed on me. “That was some of it. Yes.”
“Just some?” I prayed I sounded interested, rather than pathetic.
“Yeah, well.” He cleared his throat. “It doesn’t hurt that you’re fucking hot when you’re in control.”
“Hot.” His revelation came as a relief, because part of me was having some serious second thoughts about the angry sex we’d just had. I hadn’t been in control. I’d been decidedly out of control, and if I hadn’t known John had the physical advantage over me, I’d have wondered if I went too far and crossed a line. If he was all good with it though….
It was still a little hard to believe. Under normal circumstances, I knew I was a generous lover, good in bed, good with my tongue, responsive, and giving. But John was hot, and I was… not. He was a Ferrari to my Honda.
“You are more than a serviceable and reliable ride.” His words were clipped and terse.
“You’re forgetting high mileage. Hondas last forever.”
He laughed then, an unbelievable braying sound—just like Eeyore before someone put him out of his misery. It was impossible to think I could have ever forgotten that laugh. “Man, if you’d laughed like that just once, I bet I’d have remembered everything about the last six months, on the spot.”
He flipped me the bird. “Can I get on with this now?” He opened the briefcase and took out a small object covered in bubble wrap. He unwound the plastic to reveal a small, blue and pewter box.
“Jesus, aren’t you afraid to touch the thing?”
“Only because the paint might still be a bit tacky in places.” His grin was decidedly wicked. “I had this commissioned from the photographs of the piece from the Carter-O’Neill museum.”
Gingerly I took it from his hand. It was an interesting object, even if it was just a copy. Knowing its history, I wondered what the glyphs actually said. Because I knew the origins of the language, it might be possible to work it out. It was hard to believe those boxes could do the things that were described in the legend, yet John was living proof that they did have an effect on the right person. “You’re going to use it as bait.”
“Can you think of a better idea? Someone knows we still have one of the boxes—the original of this one.” He nodded toward the box as I set it down on the table. “They’re actively looking for it. We can use this to draw them out.”
“So it wasn’t stolen the night I was attacked? You still have it?”
“In a safe place.”
Uh-huh. Yeah, right. I didn’t have to say it out loud. I let my glance do the speaking for me. Well, that and the whole telepathy thing. “What about the FBI’s interest in these things?”
He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “At least as far as Drover and Harris are concerned, they were just following orders. Drover seems to have had some suspicions that there was more to the boxes than meets the eye, as someone higher up the chain was pushing them hard to track the boxes down.”
“But she didn’t know who or why?”
John shook his head. “Either someone at the Bureau knows what they are capable of, or someone knows they’re being stolen based on the legend of what they can do. Either way it’s probably best that neither the thieves nor the government get hold of these boxes.”
I had to believe John’s interest in the boxes was about keeping them out of the hands of people who’d abuse their powers. Had to. I nodded. “So, what? We find the crooks and take back the boxes for safekeeping ourselves?”
John shrugged. “Presuming they have any of the others. At the very least, we have to assume they have the
box that causes telepathy, the one stolen from the Weir.”
“Which means someone else out there could be telepathic.” The thought was sickening. The notion that someone with less scruples than John could be out there trying to tap into all the powers of the Boudica Boxes…. It also meant it wasn’t enough to simply recover the boxes. We’d have to destroy them as well. Maybe even before we could figure out a cure for the telepathy, providing such a thing even existed.
“Yeah,” John said, as though I’d spoken aloud. “It’s why reversing the telepathy simply isn’t an option right now, even if we found a way to do it. Because, if there is someone else out there…. Lee, you get why I kept this from you, right? It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. It wasn’t even entirely about us.”
“You were thinking there might be another telepath out there. Someone who, if he got close enough to me, might be able to read my mind.”
His shoulders slumped a little with relief that I understood. “Yes. Exactly. If another telepath tried to read me, I’m pretty sure I’d know. But you wouldn’t even know if you were being scanned, and you couldn’t go around in the soundproof booth forever. You, of all people, should know now how impossible that would be to keep up. And with you on leave, it wasn’t like I could run interference for you either.”
Maybe I wasn’t the only one who missed having a partner around. And though I didn’t like it, I could understand why he’d kept the telepathy a secret from me. Sort of. “You know you don’t have to reverse it for me. For us, I mean.”
His expression softened. “Yeah. I know. It’s not just about us, though. I hate it, Jer.” He narrowed his eyes. The skin over his bones tightened as though encased in steel. “I can’t tell you how much I hate it. The nastiness that runs through the average person on a daily basis…. Then too, there’s all the harm it can do. Until we destroy the boxes, and we know there’s no one else out there with these abilities, I have to keep the telepathy, whether I want it or not.”
Truth and Consequences Page 20