by Anna Durand
He'd hate it. Well, screw his male pride. She'd save his ass a thousand times and never apologize for it.
"Listen to me, David." She bracketed his face with her hands. "You were right all along. Tesler must be stopped, for good this time, and the whole network of facilities has to be shut down. But you can't do that. Only I can."
His hand in her hair froze.
"I have to do this," she said. "I'll tap into the Golden Power and destroy this facility, destroy the remnants of JT's empire and every scrap of Tesler's research."
"No, Grace. I won't let you."
Tears pricked her eyes. She skimmed her lips over his, aching for a deep, wanton kiss that would erase her fears and doubts. This wasn't the time for it. If she gave in to the need, she might never stop. "Only I can do this. You have to leave me here, go someplace safe. Promise me you will."
"I won't leave." His fingers tightened on her scalp. "You wouldn't leave me here. Don't expect me to do it to you."
"David, please, do this for me. I don't want you to see me like that again."
He squinted at her, the expression etching faint lines around his eyes. "Like what?"
"The — the Golden Power. What it did to me last time, when I broke you out of the facility." She bowed her head, and his hand slid down her neck. "Please, I'm begging you, go. This time will be worse. This time, the Golden Power will take me." It had tried before, when she gathered the energy necessary to build her psychic firewall. When she accessed the Golden Power again, to save David, it nearly consumed her. "I can't fight it anymore, David. I can't come back from it."
"Yes you can. You will. I won't let it have you."
The determination in his tone broke the dam. Tears flooded out of her on hiccuping sobs.
He pulled her onto his lap, rocking her in his powerful, tender arms, enveloping her in his heat and strength. She sagged into him, her face buried in his neck. A chill had seeped into her the more she considered what she must do, but his body cradling hers eradicated the cold. His warmth infused her from her skin down to the core of her being. Their link swung wide open, funneled all his love and need into her, engorged her own desires until she knew nothing but him, with her, around her, in her soul.
The tears dried up, and a spark ignited, kindling a fire deep inside.
She skated a hand up to his shoulder. "Let me go, David. I have to do this."
"No." He drew her tighter against him, his arms unrelenting. His chest rose and fell against her breasts. "You don't have to do it alone. And you don't need the Golden Power."
"But a piece of it is still inside me. I can't get rid of it."
He stroked her arm in lazy, provocative circles. "I believe you about Tesler's plans. Earlier, when you broadened our link, I felt the truth of what you said and I felt the Golden Power too — but it's weak. We can sever it from you. Permanently."
"What do you mean we?"
His hand on her arm stilled. He hooked a finger under her chin and, with delicate pressure, persuaded her to lift her head. She moved her hand off his shoulder, up to his neck, and dipped her fingertips into his silky hair. His eyes seemed to glow with an inner fire. She longed to dive into the blaze.
Lightning split the darkness. Thunder shattered the stillness, vibrating the walls and floor.
She jumped and yelped. David just sat there, unmoving, as if the bomb-like boom hadn't registered in his brain. David the warrior angel. Always calm, always in control. Once it had bothered her, a little, but tonight she gleaned strength from his calm. Besides, he'd exposed his fears to her and shared a part of himself no one else saw. Here, in this moment, she adored the warrior in him.
He rubbed his thumb over her lips. "We can do this together, Grace. Expunge the Golden Power from you and defeat Tesler."
"How?"
"Join our powers."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Grace felt her jaw drop a smidgen, as a liquid heat scorched her veins. "Join our powers?"
"Yes." David slipped his thumb through her swollen lips and between her teeth to tease her tongue. The salty flavor of his skin shot a bolt of desire into her. She marshaled all her self-control to focus on his words as he said, "I don't know exactly how it'll work, or if we can reverse it. I'm willing to take the risk."
"But I'm tainted. The Golden Power — "
"Is not controlling you." He thrust his hand into her hair, tipping her head back, and lowered his mouth enticingly close to hers. "You are the best person I've ever known. Nothing can corrupt you. Trust me on this, I know you better than anyone, better than I know myself. You are a part of me, Grace, in a way no other human being could possibly understand." His lips claimed hers, stoking her passion to such fiery heights her head spun. When he withdrew, his mouth lingered a hair's breadth from hers. "Be with me forever. Join your power with mine, bond with me on the metaphysical plane, give in to what we've both wanted since the day we met."
Breathless, she couldn't wrench her gaze from his.
His nimble fingers combed through her hair and trailed over her scalp. "Each other. Nothing else. That's what we both want. I won't hold back from you anymore, and I will make you my only priority." His lips teased hers, their breaths mingling. "Will you join with me?"
"Yes." She traced her fingers over the muscles of his powerful chest. "I want you, only you, in every way."
His lips tightened against her, parted by a smile that crinkled the skin around his eyes. Joy swelled in her heart, and passion blazed deep within. His eyes glittered with love and hunger and a joy rivaling hers. It was hers, in a way. Their bond already blended their emotions. To deepen the connection, to merge her psychic energy with his…
Oh God. It would be incredible.
And yet, doubt pecked at her. Weak at first, but stronger and stronger the more she contemplated their joining. A lump in her throat impeded the words she needed to say, but she shoved them out anyway. "Do you think I've changed? Since the amnesia, I mean."
"You are different."
She nodded and swiped at the damn tears welling in her eyes. Different. His words provoked an ache in her chest. Her stomach fluttered, clenched tight, fluttered.
Lightning flashed once, twice, three times. Rolling booms rattled the window. Hail bombarded the roof, rumbling like a stampeding herd of cattle.
David flattened her palm over his heart. "Being different isn't bad."
"Oh thanks. I feel all better." She winced. Retreating into the fortress of sarcasm again. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Being sarcastic. I know you hate that."
"I don't hate it. Never did." He cupped her cheek in his hand. "But I don't want you to hide behind sarcasm because you're afraid to tell me how you really feel."
His eyes blazed even brighter somehow, like pools of sapphire flame. His inner warmth flowed into her, igniting a new fire that dissolved the cold ball of fear and anger lodged in her heart. Everything inside her melted, from her muscles right down to her soul. Her body quivered with need. She craved him, with an intensity that should've terrified her. But it didn't. Not anymore.
"What if," she said, "I've changed too much and I can't remember what we had before. You might get sick of it and leave me."
He grasped her waist and eased her over to straddle his lap. His hands glided up her back and tugged her into him. "One, I asked you to marry me. Two, I'm asking you to join with me on a metaphysical level. What about those two proposals makes you think I have any desire to leave you?"
"Nothing, I guess." She squirmed, suddenly aware of his hard body underneath her. Two needs warred within her — the urge to rip his shirt off, and the panicked impulse to run. "I'm poisoned by the Golden Power. How can you still want me?"
"You're not poisoned." He pulled her closer, her bosom pressed against his chest. The taut peaks tingled, and she burned to tear of
f her bra, to relieve the torturous, delicious pressure. "I want you for the same reasons I always have. You're wonderful, beautiful, sexy as hell, and I love you more than life itself."
"Oh. Is that all?" A giggle bubbled out of her. "I, um, think you've gotten me drunk."
He smirked. "On what?"
"You. I mean, your psychic energy and, well, other things." His hunger for her crashed into her again and again, an exquisite torment. "I can feel your passion."
She gulped in air but couldn't get enough. His smirk broke into a lascivious grin and he chuckled. "I told you I'm not holding back anymore. And I can feel your passion too." His hands drifted up to her shoulders, and his voice roughened. "What should we do about that?"
The weight of her ardor bore down on her, shortening breaths, flaming over her skin. His eyes transfixed her until she felt herself spiraling down into their depths, but instead of recoiling, she reveled in the sensation. Join with me, he'd offered, and oh did she want to.
His lips explored hers with a beguiling tenderness. He savored her taste, just as she savored his. Her body yielded to the ravenous fire and everything else, the entirety of the universe, vanished from her perception as they plunged into a pocket world of their own.
He scooped her up and carried her into the bedroom. With one flick of his wrist, he whisked aside the plastic sheet covering the bed. It crumpled to the floor. He swept back the quilt, revealing silky, cream-colored sheets.
She ripped her gaze away from his just long enough to take in the hungry slant of his parted lips. There was no one else for her, just this gorgeous, passionate, courageous man who stood by her no matter what. She'd already gifted him with her heart. Tonight, she relinquished all of herself to him.
He peeled her clothes off layer by layer, caressing and kissing every inch of her before tearing off his own clothes. When he laid her back on the mattress, his body hovering above her, she raked her fingers up and down his muscled chest, around to his back, dancing her fingertips up the ridge of his spine. He ducked his head close to hers and murmured two words that set her body ablaze.
"Be mine."
She was his, forever, willingly, in every way imaginable. He claimed her body then, writhing with her, their moans as entangled as their bodies, every breath a promise and every movement a fulfillment. She arched into him, and he cradled her in one arm, stroking and kneading, driving her wild and yet soothing her fears, chasing out the remnants of the Golden Power, leaving nothing behind but the sweetness and power of their minds and bodies united. The pleasure broke over her in wave after exquisite wave, it drowned her yet awakened her, scoured out shame and filled her to bursting with a rapturous love. She clung to him until the last swell engulfed her and his own release pulsed within her.
Joined. At last. Hers forever.
The ecstasy of that realization unleashed another burst of pleasure, more powerful than any other, intensified by his hands roving her body and his lips exciting her skin. The doors of her mind blew open, obliterating a wall she hadn't known existed. Memories flared, brilliant and fleeting, vivid and uncatchable.
David smiling. David laughing. Their first kiss. The nights they spent entwined in each other, delighting every sensation. David sharing his secrets. She reciprocated, trusting him more than anyone in her life. Their deep connection, forged from a shared destiny. Her powers emerging. David patiently teaching her to use them. David loving her. Needing her. Drawing out of her an openness and passion too long denied her.
She floated back to the present, her memories reconstituted, whole again because this man loved her. And with all her being, she loved him in return.
David rolled onto his back, taking her with him. She sprawled over his body, exhausted in the most wonderful way, satisfied beyond measure. He caressed her hair, pecked the top of her head, snuggled her against him. With her ear on his chest, she listened to the pounding of his heart as it slowed one beat at a time. She inhaled the smell of his sweat, mingled with the unmistakable scent of him — heady, earthy, masculine.
With one finger, she etched circles on his chest. "I remember."
"What do you remember?"
"Everything." He froze, his heartbeat accelerating. She turned her face into his chest and smiled against his skin, too overwhelmed by the revelation of recovering her past to do anything, even look into the eyes of the man she cherished. "It all came flooding back to me. How we met, what we did together, the things we talked about." She tucked her arm around his waist, snuggling into him. "I remember us."
His heart thudded under her ear. His chest heaved.
She raised her head then, and beheld her warrior angel's expression — the tears threatening to overflow, the lopsided grin, the wonder glittering in his eyes. Never had she witnessed this implacable man crying, and yet he teetered on the verge of doing just that. She feathered her fingers over his cheek.
"It's okay," she said. "You don't have to worry about me anymore. I'm me again, completely. No more crazy amnesia girl."
He exhaled a long, wistful sigh and blinked away the moisture in his eyes. "I'm not worried, Grace. I'm happy."
She grinned. "Me too. And by the way, you were right. You can strip the Golden Power out of me. You just did it."
His hand skipped down her back to cup her bottom. "That's not all I stripped."
Steam flushed through her at the memory of his hands deftly removing her clothes, his fingers grazing her flesh, his eyes worshiping her curves. "I wish we could stay like this all day, but I don't think Tesler will sit still much longer. Sooner or later they'll finagle a way to get their systems back online. They've probably got backups, you know."
"I checked right before you arrived. They weren't quite there yet, but I'll check again."
She considered offering to do it herself. Then again, she supposed she ought to let him do something once in a while.
His eyes went distant, his expression blank. Though his arms held her, she sensed the vacancy inside, left behind by his mind's departure. She tapped one fingernail on her chin and counted the seconds, the pace of her taps accelerating as she passed twenty, then thirty.
Come back to me.
David blinked, drew in a deep breath, and tightened his hold on her. His eyes, bright and mesmerizing once again, locked on her. "They're still working on it. Won't be long, though."
They both understood what they must do. As much as she loathed breaking away from him, as much as she craved his touch and his kiss, she uncoupled her body from his and rose to a seated position. The absence of his heat chilled her skin. His scent faded, yet the energy pulsing between them filled the void. She would never be without him again, not really, even if continents separated them. Their connection had always granted her a taste of him in his absence, but their newfound bond, forged in their lovemaking, bequeathed her more than a sampling. He smoldered inside her, like the missing part of her soul restored.
And they hadn't joined their powers yet.
David sat up and took her hands. "It's time."
"I'm ready."
Chapter Twenty-Five
David canted his head side to side and scrutinized her face, determined to ferret out any traces of misgivings in her expression. He found only love and certainty there, but a frozen seed had taken root in his chest. Did she fully understand what merging meant? Did he understand?
To hell with the consequences. Nothing bad could come of letting Grace in — whether that meant into his heart or into his mind. She knew his darkest secrets, and he'd vowed to share everything with her from this moment forward. If she perceived his emotions more keenly after the joining, if her psychic GPS expanded into a live television feed from his brain to hers, he was fine with it. Hell, he'd relish every minute. To be with Grace, he'd surrender his privacy and his mind to her.
But should he expect her to do the same?
He coughed
, scratching his ear. "Are you sure? We've shared a telepathic bond, but this will be so much more. As far as I know, nobody's done this before. Once we merge our powers, I don't know if it can ever be undone."
"The Golden Power is gone, and I'll never tap into it again. I promise."
His heart sank. If it took the rest of his life, he'd convince her she wasn't corrupted.
Capturing her hand, he fluttered a kiss across her knuckles. "I'm not worried about that. But are you sure you want to shackle yourself to me permanently?"
"You make it sound so romantic." The worry wrinkling her forehead propelled him to trace his fingers across the skin, as if he might smooth out her fears. Her eyes shuttered, and she inclined toward him just enough to rouse his thirst for those soft, pink lips. Through their connection, he experienced the subtle shift as tenderness displaced worry. The lines on her forehead unraveled. She gazed up at him and her lips quirked in a sly half smile. "I want to do this. Besides, I'm pretty sure we already started the process."
"That was our bodies merging, not our minds."
"I meant when you helped me shed the Golden Power. We did it together." She rolled her shoulders back and gave a quick nod. "I'm ready, David. Stop stalling."
"Right. Let's do it."
He twined his fingers with hers, letting their linked hands drop. Each of their wrists rested on their respective knees, with their fingers bridging the gap.
Their gazes collided.
Power snapped taut between them. Energy surged through the bond, scorching and seeking, ricocheting from her into him and back again, over and over. Dizziness hurled his mind off balance, but he clutched her hands, her power, for support. Fevered lust swelled deep inside, a voracious need so profound he gasped. Her eyes rolled shut, her head lolling backward, mouth open, cheeks flushed with desire.
"Look at me," he rasped, panting from the intensity of his desire for her. "Look at me, Grace. Now."