by Nancy Gideon
Was he wrong to want to follow dreams no matter how impossible they might seem? If he listened to Philo and struggled to hold on to the way things had always been, he’d never risk extending his hand in hopes of grasping something better.
“Do you believe him?”
He hadn’t heard her come outside. Now, Jacques was aware of nothing else as Susanna leaned on the rail beside him. The fragrance of her caressed his senses, making him slow to answer, which in turn aggravated her into a premature conclusion.
“So you think I’m some sort of witch here to trick you into revealing your secrets?”
Very quietly, he asked, “Are you?”
Her tone snapped with annoyance. “What could you possibly have in your head that’s worth stealing?”
Susanna regretted it the moment she said it. Jacques didn’t move for a long, suspenseful moment, making her wonder if she’d unforgivably wounded him. Then she heard the warm rumble of his laugh as it worked its way up and out. He grinned wide out at the night, his broad shoulders relaxing as if shrugging free of some terrible weight.
“Not much,” he admitted. “It’s more like a comic book rack than the Library of Congress. Lots of pictures, few words.”
She smiled up at him. “But some pictures tell a better story.”
“My story starts in the middle. No ‘Here’s what you missed on last week’s show’ to bring you up to speed.”
“Your friend Philo told me how they found you. You don’t remember anything?”
“Maybe it’s for the best. Kinda like getting a second chance. I’m guessing whatever I did for them up north wasn’t anything I’d want to take up again. Can’t imagine that I left anything to be proud of behind.”
Susanna said nothing. Her silence pulled his attention back to her.
His big hand stroked over her hair, then settled on her shoulder, drawing her gently against his side as he murmured, “So, what’s your story? I’ve told you mine, now you tell me yours.”
“It’s not very interesting. An academic text, actually. Once my talent for science was discovered, I was placed in that community where I lived and learned and barely had time to breathe until a use for me was found.”
“A use? What do you mean by that?”
“A way to be productive. I was enrolled in a human university where I could infiltrate their genetics program—so I guess you could call me a spy—and, due to my superior grades, I was selected for several governmental projects.”
She felt his caution in the tightening of his muscles. “Doing what?”
“Research. Theoretical studies on DNA splicing. Testing for genetic defects and repair.”
“Why did the Chosen want that kind of information on humans?”
“My studies weren’t just on humans. Under the umbrella of their funding, I used their security clearances and equipment to pursue our studies.”
“What kind of studies?”
She could tell the topic was unsettling him but she didn’t back away from the answers. “It depended on who paid the most. Purists wanted to know how to separate Shifter and Chosen DNA strands, making them resistant to one another. Naturalists wanted to find a way to successfully recombine them. They called it science. I saw it as politics.”
“And you played both sides?”
“I did the research. The research is pure. It’s in the application that things get complicated. That wasn’t part of my job.”
“Isn’t that like saying I just make the bombs, I don’t decide where to drop them?”
Her gaze grew cool as did her tone. “While I appreciate your indignation, let me remind you that in my world, we have no freedoms, no rights, no choices. We do as we’re told and we ask no questions.”
“Or else what?”
“We’re retrained or relocated.”
His fingertips stroked lightly along the line of her throat as she swallowed with difficulty. “Why don’t you call it what it is? Brainwashing or exile.”
Her chin notched up so she could meet his stare. Her voice was brittle. “We’re brainwashed or exiled, but either way, we fit into the mold or the mold breaks us. Which would you have suggested for me?”
His palm cupped her cheek, his touch as soothing as his tone. “I’m sorry. I have no right to judge you for doing what you had to do to survive with no one there to protect you.” His brows lowered slightly. “What about your mate? You said he took care of you.”
She looked out over the river, tracking the lights on the lumbering barges as they moved toward the Gulf. “Damien was my mentor. He was responsible for brokering the projects I worked on, getting them funded, negotiating the rights to the research. I was his prize student, his best investment.”
“His meal ticket,” Jacques added dryly.
“Yes. He’d decide what grants to pursue and which to pass on, who could best benefit from our work and who might abuse it. I thought him the most honorable and generous man alive.”
He had no comment about that. “And these were joint decisions regarding your work?”
“No.” Try as she might, she couldn’t keep that new tang of bitterness out of her voice.
“And how did he get such power over you? Did you love him that much, or were you required to hand that authority over to him when you mated?”
“Again, it wasn’t as much a personal choice as a professional necessity. He saved me from disgrace. At the time, I thought he did it out of the goodness of his heart.” She started to turn away, to return inside and away from his questions, but he caught her by the shoulder, making her stop.
“He forced you? How?” The low growl of his words both appeased and alarmed her.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Of course it matters. Anna, what did he do?”
Anna. Emotion rose to clog her throat, preventing any further explanation. What could she tell him without revealing all?
She took a quick step toward the door just as his fingers closed on the shoulder seam of the T-shirt, pulling it away from what she’d tried to conceal from him.
Susanna heard his harsh intake of breath and risked a glance up at his face. Even in the shadows, she could read his shock as he stared at the telling scars.
“As you can see,” she told him in a tight little voice, “I didn’t always do as I was told.”
Thirteen
You were bonded to a Shifter male?”
Jacques sounded so surprised, as if he were asking if she’d once had a second head removed from that spot between her neck and the cap of her shoulder.
“I was young. He was my bodyguard. I thought it wildly romantic, until we were discovered.”
He blinked and shut his mouth with a sharp click. The muscles worked about his jaw as she watched understanding shutter his eyes. “You sold yourself to Frost so he’d save your reputation.”
Her mouth quirked at the ugliness of that claim. “Something like that.”
“Something like that or exactly that?”
“What does it matter? He made an offer at a time I couldn’t afford to refuse it. I thought it all out very logically. It’s what we Chosen do best.”
Heart falling, Susanna went inside. What else could he believe? That was the truth. It was what they were: cold, unfeeling creatures motivated by numbers and profit rather than the emotions they reviled. Look how those treasured feelings betrayed her now. She would have been wise to remember what she was, rather than what she wished she could be.
She stumbled when his hands curled about her upper arms, drawing her to a stop. He stood close behind her. Though their bodies weren’t touching, his heat seared her.
“Maybe that’s what they do,” he told her, “but not you. Was it the bond that changed you or have you always cared for others above yourself?”
“Why would you think that’s true?” Her words were strong even as her lips quivered. Please believe it.
“Because you’re here to help a friend. You’re risking everything for those
logic says you should cast aside.” His voice lowered to a husky vibration. “Because you’re ruled by your heart instead of your head.”
“My greatest failing, according to Damien. The reason I need him to make my choices for me.”
Jacques snorted at that. His arms formed a supportive circle about her, tightening until she was pressed against him. His head lowered to rest on her shoulder, his cheek rubbing over that telltale mark.
“What happened to your Shifter mate?”
“They would have killed him. Damien promised to help him escape as long as I never had contact with him again.”
“Another term of your bondage to him?”
She nodded.
“Did you love him, your Shifter?”
Her eyes closed as she whispered, “Yes.” Then, and now. “He showed me a world I didn’t dare believe existed, one of color and light and dreams.”
“And what did you give him?”
“The only thing I could offer. Freedom.” Or so she’d thought. Until Philo told her of Damien’s true plans. She’d sent Jack Stone to his death and he’d awakened as Jacques LaRoche.
“What was he like, your Shifter lover?”
Susanna placed her palm upon his rough cheek, her emotions twisting as she said, “He was like you. Strong, noble, gentle, a good man. You’re a good man, Jacques.”
Jacques forced a smile when she turned to look up at him, her dark eyes overflowing.
He didn’t move as she stroked his face, as she turned and lifted up on her toes to kiss him.
He was like you.
Jacques scooped behind her knees, lifting her up in his arms as she continued to kiss him. He strode into the bedroom with her, pausing briefly in the mating of their mouths to rip back the covers on the big bed, sending their clothing to the floor in a colorful scatter as he lowered her gently onto that sea of dark blue silk. She never once glanced away as he stripped out of his clothes to stand before her, naked and bold. Her sultry gaze devoured the sight without a hint of shyness.
Jacques had no sense of modesty when it came to his own nudity. He knew he looked fit and powerful and was proud of that fact. He was used to females being enraptured with his sculpted torso and bulging arms, eager to put their hands on those rock-hard swells and delineating ridges.
He’d felt no threat from the existence of a Chosen male as her mate, knowing they were delicate creatures more proud of their brain than their brawn. But when Susanna surveyed him through heavily lidded eyes, displaying admiration but no awe or alarm at his obvious masculinity, he wondered uncomfortably if she was comparing him to her Shifter lover, and how he fared in that study. That uncommon stumble of confidence made him hesitate, his focus slipping away from all that she offered.
“Jacques?” When he didn’t respond, she came up on her knees, drawing his stare to her lovely dark eyes, to the slight curve of humor on her lips as she asked, “Wondering if you left the iron on in the other room?”
“What?”
“Second thoughts?”
And third and fourth.
She could have charmed him from his distraction with a touch but she didn’t. She watched his face, waiting for him to think it through without complicating things further.
Maybe he was overthinking the issue. She’d been with another. So had he. They’d both lost the ones they’d pledged their hearts to with their bond. The past was a shadow, the future a void. All they would ever have was this brief time to ease each other’s loneliness. What was wrong with that?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“No second thoughts,” he told her. “Not about this. Not about you.”
“I’m glad.”
Susanna reached for his hands, holding them in hers for a moment while marveling at their size and strength, then placed them at the edge of the T-shirt she wore, curling his fingers beneath the hem. All the encouragement he needed to lift it up and off her. She unfastened her bra and let it drop off her shoulders, then brought his hands to cover what satin and lace had bared.
A soft, plump handful. No more, no less. Perfect for him.
She put her hands on him, too, letting her palms roam the slope of his shoulders, play upon the contours of arms and chest. It wasn’t the tentative exploration of an inexperienced lover.
Jacques sucked in a breath as her hands trailed over granite abs on their way to his even harder sex. No hesitation as she stroked him and cupped him, finally gloving him in a supple rhythm that broke a sweat on his brow and showed no sign of slowing even as the centers of his eyes swelled and his breathing faltered.
Before she brought things to too quick a conclusion, Jacques caught her by the elbows and lifted her from her knees. As she balanced on the edge of the mattress, his mouth cruised the silky curve of her belly as he eased her bottoms over the slight fullness of her hips and down shapely legs.
He stared, lost in his heated study. She was beautifully made, petite, pale, yet firm in those graceful feminine lines.
Her palms fit to his stubbled jaw, tipped his head up so she could fall deeply into his eyes, her whisper husky with desire.
“I’ve missed this. I’ve been waiting all this time. For you.”
Need shot through him like wildfire, scorching his senses, enflaming his lust until it was all he could do not to throw her down on the bed to pound away inside her to a desperate release.
For you.
That claim swirled about his emotions, stirring his raging passion into a fierce need to please her.
With one hand on the sweet globe of her ass, he used the other to lift her knee, drawing her leg over his shoulder. She clasped his head for balance, then gasped as he pressed his mouth against the mound of her sex, thrusting between her slick folds to sample her arousal with his tongue. Her body bucked and trembled as he tasted her, devoured her, until her breath grew tattered and her soft moans broke into a keening cry.
Then carefully, gently, he eased her down onto sheets as dark and cool as the night, spreading her before him, his heavenly body.
Her fair skin was flushed from the sensual exertion. Her eyes drifted open to fix upon his with a drowsy satisfaction, flooding him with a prideful sense of accomplishment, making him achingly aware of his own unmet needs.
Slow, he reminded himself. Be gentle. She’s not used to such vigorous pursuits.
Ignoring the raging petulance of his body, Jacques stretched out beside her, head propped up on the heel of one hand, the fingertips of his other drawing light patterns on her slightly damp torso. He smiled and she responded with a lazy, cat-in-the-cream expression that twisted his balls in a knot. Her fingers threading contentedly between his.
“We can go as slow and easy as you like,” he murmured heroically.
She stared at him for a long moment, then cast an assessing glance at his pulsing hard-on. Her lips pursed. “I don’t think so. I think I’ve done all the waiting I care to do. I want you. Now. Unless you need a nap first.”
He grinned. “Just trying to be polite.”
“Less polite talk and more get-to-the-point action, please.”
His grin lingered. She was delightful, so soft and smart and unexpectedly sassy. And, best of all, insatiable. Everything he wanted in a female. In his female.
He drew a breath and let that truth shiver through him. He didn’t just want her now. He wanted her always.
He leaned down to plant a soul-sucking kiss on her lips. The sound she made was liquid pleasure as her fingers laced behind his neck, pulling him over her, into the open valley of her thighs.
“Now,” she whispered. “Please.”
The feel of her, so hot and eager, was almost his undoing as he gradually sank into her center. Her body arched and shook wildly, making him slow his advance.
She broke from his kiss, panting unevenly. Her gaze sought and found his. Then she smiled again as her legs circled his hips and pulled him in tight, seating him all the way to her womb with one fierce move. She gasped, eyes squeezing
shut, then she opened them on a sigh.
“Oh, my. That was worth the wait.”
He flexed his hips in a slow draw and thrust. Her fingers bit into his shoulder blades as he murmured, “Hang on, sweetheart. We’re just getting started.”
Once he was assured he wasn’t hurting her, Jacques proved himself to be the skilled lover his cadre of fawning females suggested he would be. The few times they’d been together in the North, he’d been young and fierce, rough in his urgency, yet so exciting he’d stolen her wits, her breath, her very heart. The edge of excitement was the same, but years and experience had improved his patience and technique as he kept Susanna panting at the cusp of completion. He refused to let her hurry him from his steady, tantalizing pace no matter how hard she clutched at him and cried out for release.
Finally, with all his glorious muscles slick and bulging with strain beneath her palms, with his heart hammering against her breast, he tensed and surrendered control, allowing pleasure to coil and consume her in glorious waves and shudders.
His weight smashed her into the mattress but it was a lovely pressure. She couldn’t make herself release him, her hands rubbing over his back, the soles of her feet caressing his calves and thighs, her lips whispering over the massive square of his jaw to the corner of his mouth.
Her thoughts were dazed and careless with sensual delight as she breathed into his ear, “Can we do this every chance we get until I have to leave?”
Until I have to leave . . .
She felt him flinch and instantly regretted speaking words that spoiled the moment. She couldn’t, no, wouldn’t take them back with false reassurances. It was better to remind him now than to let him—to let either of them—think anything else was possible.
She had to leave and he had to stay.
But until then, she could no longer deny herself the intimate aspects of his company. They would be friends, lovers, confidants, everything she’d desired and been denied in her own glacial world. And when they weren’t indulging in those carnal pleasures, she would work every second to find an answer to their child’s suffering.
And if she could find that answer, if Pearl could be cured, then perhaps they could revisit possibilities.