Behind Blue Eyes

by TL Schaefer

  I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him for all I was worth, running my fingers through the hair at his nape.

  “Don’t send me home, Sara,” he breathed against my lips, moved down, caressed my cheek, then the underside of my jaw with tender, hot kisses.

  “I’m not.” My breath hitched. My nipples pebbled against his strong, broad chest.

  He drew back and searched my eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Damned straight.” I met his gaze as I moved a hand down, tracing the vee his shirt made.

  And still he hesitated. Could I be so lucky? “Stop thinking so hard about it.” I brushed my lips across his before pulling back. “You’ve got condoms, right?”

  He chuckled, back in his own happy space. “Let’s put it this way... I’ve had them in my pocket since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

  My breath caught. A girl didn’t need much more than that, now did she?

  I grinned and returned for a kiss...a repeat of the tease we’d shared far too often. He met me stroke for stroke, his tongue tangling with mine. The sensation lit a trail of fire that streaked across my body, bringing my nipples to an almost painful point, and low, sensual heat coiling in my core. This was going to be so very good.

  I stood on my tiptoes so I could meet him mouth-to-mouth, unrestrained, and it was everything I’d remembered and fantasized about on the plane, in the hotel room. And yes, before that. He took my mouth wholly, as if kissing me could sustain him for the rest of his life. It was heady, and the moment I thought I had him pegged, he broke away and turned me so I couldn’t see him. He pulled me tight against him, and banded his arms around me from behind, his erection a long, hard promise of strength and pleasure against my back. His hands cupped my breasts, learning their weight and fullness. I melted against him, heart thumping in my chest, my breath coming in sharp little pants, and I lifted my arms, looping them around his neck, allowing him free access.

  His thumbs brushed across my nipples, and I gasped as pleasure streaked through me, then his hands were moving, sliding beneath my blouse. He spanned my waist, fingers ducking beneath my waistband for a scant, teasing second before they drifted up to my breasts again.

  I stopped breathing as his palms covered me and his mouth dropped to my nape, delivering tiny little nips that made me quiver, head to toe.

  “The things I want to do to you aren’t legal in most states,” he breathed in my ear, his voice low, guttural. Completely, over-the-top sexy.

  My body stiffened in reaction. In anticipation. No aura to overwhelm me, no reading what my partner was feeling in his gaze. This was going to be so good.

  I spun in his arms and met his eyes, which had gone turbulent. “Yeah? I could say the same.” I grasped his hand, leading him to my bedroom.

  It was the one room in my house he hadn’t seen, and I was proud of it, even if my brain was clouded by a desire so strong I was amazed I could see at all. It reflected the hidden me, decorated in scarlet and sage, eye-popping royal blue and creamy taupe. Since I’d come to Dallas, no other man had seen it; every other sexual liaison had been in neutral territory.

  Would he even notice? Why the hell did I care?

  But notice he did, standing stock-still in the doorway, his hands settling on my waist, pulling me back against him once again. “This is the real you, isn’t it?” He leaned in to lave my ear, sending thrills through my entire body. “It’s beautiful, just like you are. I imagine what you see when you look at the world. But know how I see you. You’re vibrant, a nexus of the colors that defies anything I could describe.” His hand rested possessively on my belly and his voice had gone gravelly. “And when you come, I imagine the expression on your face because I know you’ll be coming for me.”

  He spun me around to face him, and the look on his face was anything but easy. It was predatory and utterly male. “Now strip. I want to see you naked.”

  My breath clogged in my lungs at his audacity and how much it turned me on. How could he possibly know, I marveled, even as my body overruled rational thought. I’m a take-charge kind of girl when it comes to everything else, but in the bedroom, I want a man to lead, and somehow, some way, he’d intuited that. It’d taken me years to figure it out myself, yet he knew exactly how to play me in seconds. That knowledge made me impossibly hotter, wetter.

  I locked gazes with him. Everything he made me feel was ours alone. No bombarding emotions, no aura to cloud my response, to anticipate his. My fingers shook as I pulled my blouse over my head, then loosened the clip at my nape.

  He stood mere inches from me, eyes blazing as he watched each and every move I made.

  My heart banged against my ribs. I stood in my bra and slacks, hair brushing against my shoulders, while he remained fully clothed, inspecting me.

  “You’re even better than I imagined,” he breathed.

  What he’d pictured, I couldn’t possibly conceive of until he began seducing me with his words. Not that he needed to.

  “You’re lusher than I thought. You hide behind baggy T-shirts too often.” His hands settled on my hips. “You’re meant for tasting, for savoring all night long.” He dipped his head to my breasts. “But you don’t know that, do you, Sara?”

  Any reply I might have made was completely annihilated by the sensation of his tongue on my lace-covered nipples. Instead I moaned. Not in surrender, but agreement.

  His tongue flicked from one breast to another, his hands tightening against my hips until I was flush against him. He bowed me back as he loved my breasts, cradling me against his erection, rocking me gently until I thought I’d go insane. I began to fall into sensation and reached out blindly for something, anything to hold onto.

  “Shhhh,” he murmured, his breath warm and hot against my breast. “I’ve got you, Sara. Remember that.” Then he was lifting me, settling me on the bed, his mouth still teasing my nipple even as his hands deftly unfastened my slacks, sliding them to the floor along with my panties.

  His clever fingers teased my mons with feather-light touches as the pressure of his mouth increased and he applied his teeth. I jolted upward, into him, and felt him laugh against me.

  “I knew you’d be like this, you know.” His voice was rough, needy, even though he was in complete control.

  One big palm closed over my breast and squeezed as he dropped to his knees, his breath wafting in tiny little gusts along the inside of my thighs. His mouth covered me, tongue teasing me as one finger slid inside, then two, pumping in time to the delicious motion of his tongue.

  I moaned, bowing on the bed as I grasped the bedspread in both fists as he devoured me. Pure, blinding fire flashed through me, setting every nerve ending ablaze, and I toppled.

  Tender fingers unlatched my front-hook bra, and I jerked as his knuckles brushed across my nipples. Over the pounding of my heart and the rush in my head, I barely heard the rasp of his zipper, the crinkle of cellophane.

  Then he was covering me, his mouth hot on mine, his big, wicked hands tilting my hips, and in one sleek move, he was inside me, sheathed to the hilt.

  The feeling was indescribable. He filled me to overflowing, with a pleasure that bordered on pain, and when he began to move, shards of pure ecstasy began spearing throughout my body all over again. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, heels digging into his ass, fingers clawing at his back.

  His mouth dropped to mine, and as his tongue delved deep, in time to our motion, my orgasm shivered along my spine and I sensed him begin to tense above me. We came apart together, hot and sweaty, our hearts beating in tandem.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Before

  Wes and I were both shoved into isolation this time, but so far apart we couldn’t communicate, couldn’t even sense each other. It wouldn’t have been so bad, at least for me, if I wasn’t worried about Wes and how he was handling the torture Green so gleefully dished out. Punishment through drugs that kept me so doped up I couldn’t tell top from bottom most of the time. And in the mome
nts when I approached lucidity, shock therapy.

  They placed the leads on my skull while I was out of it, but I felt and saw each of their movements, sensed their satisfaction as they applied the juice, ramping it up with each successive jolt until I was bowing against my restraints in agony, screaming until I lost my voice. It continued for what seemed an eternity...first the mindless numbing of the drugs, then the excruciating pain.

  Afterward they figured out a way to ratchet up the punishment even more. They let us see each other. Oh, from yards away, to be sure, but Green made sure that each of us knew what the other was going through. He even went so far as to let us hear each other’s screams, alternating our bouts of torture against each other. Each time the sounds echoed throughout the dark, dank corridors I sobbed.

  The next time I saw him, I was so relieved I did the one thing I’d never done before. I met his gaze. For the first time. And saw eyes so like mine it was eerie.

  Now—Wednesday, the wee hours

  “Why me, Brian?” I traced a figure eight around his nipples.

  “Because you’re you,” he lazily sifted my hair between his fingers. “Sometimes you just know. I knew the second I saw you. Doesn’t set too easily with a guy like me, I have to tell you.”

  “If that’s true...” I searched for the words that wouldn’t make him sound like a wimp. And me like a tease.

  “Why didn’t I press you?” He guessed correctly. At my nod, he continued, “Because we could be something special, Sara. If we choose it.”

  With that, he reaffirmed everything I’d thought, everything I’d been scared to death of. Was still frightened of. Because if I invested any more of myself in him, what would be left when he walked away?

  “Let’s see how it goes from here, okay?” I hoped my voice didn’t waver. Because I could see, now, in retrospect, that Brian had handled me exactly as I’d needed, like spun glass...or maybe a cat ready to claw. He might be a Null, but he had an intuition that was almost talented. How the two could be connected was something I’d have to think about later. When I wasn’t draped over him like a blanket.

  Dawn had begun to break, enveloping the room in the half-murk separating night and day.

  “What did you look like, before?” Brian asked, nuzzling my neck.

  “I was blonde.”

  “I meant as a kid.”

  “I was blonde,” I replied, smiling. “Not so different than I am now, with the exception of colored contacts. Oh, and I was shorter, of course, and flat as a board.”

  “You wear contacts?”

  “Yeah. You mean the warrant guys didn’t find my cleaner and such?”

  “If they did, they didn’t think it was of importance. So what color are your eyes, really?”

  “I’ll show you,” I said, and walked into the bathroom, still naked, and for once, completely unselfconscious.

  Brian was right behind me. I caught him ogling my ass before curiosity took over his expression. When I turned, my eyes undisguised for the first time in over a decade, he stepped back, shocked.

  “Your eyes are the same color as Burke’s.”

  “Yeah. It’s probably one of the things that drew us together, even if we didn’t know it until the very end.”

  He assessed me for a long moment, his surprise giving way to consideration. He was in cop mode again. Why? Granted, my eyes were an unusual teal color, but it was only pigmentation.

  Brian grabbed my hand and drew me back into the bedroom, settling me onto the bed.

  “Tell me about your family, Sara.”

  His tone was even, cold almost, and I began to get a very bad feeling. I’d known the other shoe would eventually drop. I never expected it would be over something so trivial. Something I had absolutely no control over.

  My heart began to break, even as I prepared myself to speak. “He’s not my sibling, if that’s what you’re asking. We weren’t raised together, and we were too close in age for me not to have known about him.”

  “You’re what, two years apart?” Brian asked, searching my eyes.

  “Uh-uh.”

  “What do you know about your father?”

  I could see where he was going with this, and it was something I’d asked myself more than once as I made my escape. But even though I’d felt a kinship with Wes, it hadn’t been one of blood, but rather of circumstance. It had only taken me one night on the street to figure out that little nugget. I’d been bombarded by the untrained, untalented masses, many of them families living on the street. And in being overwhelmed, it became clear to me, through aura alone, when people were kin. No, if Wes and I were related, it was so distant I couldn’t identify it.

  I shook my head and considered getting up to put on my robe. Our nudity had been natural before, unfettered. Now I felt exposed, vulnerable. “I would have seen it in his aura, in his eyes. He’s not my brother, or even half-brother. It may be something genetic, I’ll grant you.”

  Brian took my chin in his fingers and I forced myself to be strong.

  “And you didn’t think it was of importance? To me, who’s believed in you all along?” His voice was deceptively gentle, but his eyes had turned to pure granite.

  “In catching Wes, no. Not once I realized who he was.”

  “You were wrong,” he said flatly, and now I could see the anger and wounded pride in his gaze. “Everything matters when it comes to this guy. Even something you deem to be unimportant. You two bonded in that hellhole, Sara, bonded in a way I obviously can’t touch.” He stood, his back to me, and began yanking his clothes on with barely leashed fury.

  I sat on the bed, incapable of speech. I’d hurt him, badly. I hadn’t comprehended how much power I’d had to wound. Yes, his reaction was over-the-top for something so small, and I had to wonder how and why it had sent him over the edge, even as I remembered his words, that first night, what seemed like forever ago. I don’t do lies well. Know that right now. But it hadn’t been a lie, not really. Just an omission I’d never even consciously considered. My contacts had been a part of me for so long they weren’t something I even thought about. I simply went through the motions of taking care of them.

  His next words bit into me because they were right, and had echoed my thoughts on more than one occasion. “Even if I believe that you want him to be caught, and I do, I have to wonder exactly what you’ll do when I slap the cuffs on him. Or if you’ll even let me.”

  There had to be some way to fix this, but first, for my own salvation, I had to tell him the one thing guaranteed to drive him even further away. The very last secret I held. “Brian, they put Wes and me together because our talents meshed so well. But in doing so, they positioned themselves for failure. We set them up, had them investigated, and because of it, I thought my actions had been the death of Wes for over ten years. That’s why they tried to kill me.”

  “Even better,” he said, shoulders tense as he shrugged into his shirt. “It was you two against the man, against the world.” He turned, his arresting face set in stone once again. “You know what’s even worse, Sara? That you couldn’t trust me with the last of it before today, before we slept together. I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt when every other cop—or man—would’ve either locked you up or bolted in the other direction. Think about that.”

  I fell back on the one thing I’d always had, my last bastion of defense. Aggression. “Wrong. This isn’t about the color of my eyes, or the fact they’re so similar to Wes’s. So how about you come clean with me?”

  He met my gaze calmly, though a muscle was ticking in his jaw. “You’ve been doling out pieces of information as you see fit, rather than giving me everything.” He swung on his heel. “You lied. About your eye color, about how he died, everything. You glossed it over. I don’t know why, and right this second I don’t particularly care. Maybe I will tomorrow...if it affects the case.”

  As I watched Brian stride out of the loft, his shoulders stiff, I knew that all of my talk about being afraid of being
imprisoned again was a load of crap. My heart was breaking, and it was my own fault. What I’d been afraid of all along was loving someone like I’d loved Wes, and having them leave me...again. And I’d been right.

  My soul cried for me to call out to him, to bring him back any way I could, but my mouth stayed stubbornly shut. More terrifying than him walking away was his walking back and changing my life. Even if it was for the better. Still, an idiot like me has her pride. Because in all likelihood, he would turn his back on me again.

  They say the wee hours are a great time for introspection. They’re right, but it still sucks.

  I’d let Brian into my head, into my heart, afraid he would leave me after I’d invested both. Only it was too late for that. I’d known the man for a week, one lousy week, and it’d happened anyway. Fate, that fickle bitch, had gifted me with a man who knew my body, my soul, and had allowed me to lose both in the process of getting to know him. Because no man would ever touch the very essence of me the way Brian Roney did.

  As I sat in the chilly pre-dawn of my living room, smoke curling up from a Marlboro, I stared at the crude chessboard we’d drawn on a paper bag. I’d known my past would come back to bite me in the ass somehow. But I’d never thought something so inconsequential, my last personal link to Christie, to Wes, would be the kicker.

  He claimed I hadn’t given him everything, and he’d been right about that. My life hadn’t exactly been Mayberry-esqe, and it was hard to lay it all out there. What Brian didn’t seem to understand was that I’d opened more of myself up to him than anyone...ever. Even more than Wes, the brother of circumstance I’d loved for all the wrong reasons...namely that we’d become each other’s support, each other’s touchstone. As much as Brian had what seemed like a talent for intuition, he’d never realized what made me tick, what drove me to make the decisions I had.

  I was just as guilty. I’d anticipated him all wrong and lost not only my heart, but my only real ally in capturing a madman.