by Nalini Singh
“You’re right.” He watched her watch him. Her eyes held such pure heat that he felt branded. The alpha in him wanted to reach out and tangle his fingers in the shadowed triangle of curls exposed by her kneeling position, but he was wary of shattering this strange dream.
“Can I?” She ran her fingers along the markings on his face, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “Do you feel my touch?”
He wanted to bite down on that sexy mouth she was teasing him with. “Every stroke.” The markings were highly sensitive and he was very, very choosy about who he let touch them.
“I’ve been wanting to stroke them since we first met.” With a sigh, she leaned down to place a row of kisses along the jagged lines. The deep rumble of his purr seemed to startle her but it wasn’t a bad kind of startlement—he felt her nipples harden against his chest. After exploring his face to her satisfaction, she sat back up, raking her nails gently down his chest.
“Harder, kitten. I won’t break.”
She took a shaky breath and did as he’d asked. “Cats like to be petted.” It was a soft murmur.
“I told you we’re picky about who we allow to pet us.” He ran a hand up the outside of her thigh.
She shivered. “Why would I dream of you touching me? I want to touch you.”
“But if you’re dreaming of me, wouldn’t I be touching you?” He was delighted by this odd dream, which felt almost like reality, except of course the real Sascha would never display her emotions so openly.
“Yes… you’re very territorial.” A frown line appeared on her forehead. “You’d want to mark me. My subconscious must be filling in the gaps.”
He tried not to grin. “Who do you let pet you?”
“Psy don’t get petted.” A hint of sadness flickered in those eyes he was starting to be able to read.
“Maybe you’ve been hanging around with the wrong people.” He stroked his hand to the curve of her buttock and stopped. “I’d take great pleasure in petting you.”
Her breath came out in a gasp. “Me first,” she whispered, leaning down. “It’s my dream. Just a taste,” she said again. “That’s all, just a taste.”
He would never say no to being petted by this exotic female who fascinated him. Not when she looked at him with fire not ice in her gaze. His hand clenched on her bottom as she nibbled, licked, and sucked at his nipple with the utmost attention to detail. She didn’t stop him when he ran his fingers down her thigh, luxuriating in that honeyed skin he wanted to lick all over.
Her mouth moved to his neglected nipple, one hand reaching down to scrape the nails up his thigh. He growled softly in the back of his throat. She looked up. “What does that mean?” Her hand had dropped to lay against his inner thigh, excruciatingly close to his rock-hard erection.
Her head tilted slightly to one side and he remembered her questions in the car. Odd that his subconscious would remember that small giveaway gesture, but then again, this whole dream was odd. Not that he was complaining.
“It means keep doing exactly what you were doing.” He moved his hand around her bottom and slid down to lightly rub at the wet heat of her entrance, sending the scent of her desire flaring into the air.
She gasped and pulled away. “Not yet.”
He was used to taking control but there was something in her eyes that told him she’d disappear if he pushed any harder. He put his hands back under his head, telling her without words that he was hers to play with. For now. As if she’d heard the unspoken caveat, she moved down the bed and straddled his thighs midway up his legs.
He looked his fill of that lush female body and knew he was going to mark her when he took her. Nothing hurtful. Just a bite or two, a playful nip here and there in places where no one could mistake their meaning. Sascha Duncan was going to be Lucas Hunter’s woman.
Night-sky eyes wide, she wrapped one slender hand around his jutting erection. He shuddered. “Tighter.”
She squeezed and then began to move her hand up and down. “Why does this make me feel good?” Her voice was heavy with sexual heat, her breath coming out in soft pants. “There was nothing about this in the manuals.”
Moving his hands from behind his head, he reached down and pulled her forward by gripping her thighs. She came only so far and not far enough. “What?”
“I’m caressing you and yet I’m the one who feels… pleasure.” The last word was a moan as he grew even harder in her hands.
Lucas was used to sex, used to sensual women who knew what they were doing, but this Psy with her questions and her strange innocence had him so desperately hungry, he was starting to lose the ability to think. “Suck me, kitten. Taste me.” The raw demand came from the animal heart of him.
She didn’t scare. And he was pleased. “Taste you? Yes… I have to taste you… have to satisfy the craving.” Scooting down his body, she knelt on all fours, knees between his legs, hands on his hip bones. Then she dipped her head and began to taste him as he’d asked.
He clenched his hand in her hair, telling himself not to buck as his body demanded. The sweet suction of her mouth was the most intense pleasure he’d ever experienced. When he saw lights flicker behind his eyes, he knew they were shifting from human to cat, cat to human. Only the most extreme edge of arousal could make him lose that much control.
Using his other hand to push her hair back, he watched her as she moved her head up and down the hard length of his erection, the sight serving to arouse him almost to madness. The need to pound into the silky heat between her legs was a driving rhythm in his brain, but tonight, he was at her mercy… and she wanted him in her mouth. He came with a growl that reverberated around the room, the thick richness of her hair in his fists.
“Thank you, kitten,” he said.
There was no answer.
With a frown, he opened his eyes. And found himself in his lair, spent, pleasured, and alone.
CHAPTER 6
Sascha was having trouble meeting Lucas’s gaze, scared he’d be able to see the erotic images flashing through her mind like a full-motion picture. What was happening to her? She’d spent last night lost in the most seductive dreams of her life, had woken gasping for release, her skin wet with perspiration.
And Lucas had been the star figure in her fantasies.
The plan had been to get him out of her system by programming her brain to dream about him. She’d intended to let her senses run wild in the safety of her mind and indulge until she was sated. It had backfired horribly. She’d had her taste and now found she wanted even more. Like an addict, she craved the sensations he’d shown her.
“I’ll be taking you to meet Clay Bennett, our construction supervisor, in about twenty minutes. After that I want to show you the materials we’ll be using for construction, since you want to double-check every nut and bolt.” Those piercing green eyes were tinted with hints of mocking amusement.
She couldn’t help but remember how those same eyes had looked as she’d used her mouth to suck him to orgasm. That word brought her to her senses. Her shields were cracking again and he was the catalyst.
“Thank you for telling me.” She tried to note down the details on her organizer but could barely see through the buzzing in her head. This was bad, very bad. Instead of containing them, the dreams appeared to have strengthened the creeping fingers of insanity.
“You don’t look like you slept well.”
Was there a subtle innuendo in that sentence? No, she told herself. How could there be? She was the one who’d had the dreams. Lucas surely had no need for release found in fantasy—shee’d seen the way women looked at him. And why not? He was a man who made no bones about his sexuality and even she understood the kind of primal heat a male like that could produce.
Once again, her mind threatened to run away with her sanity. Shoving up shield after mental shield, she said, “My rest was disturbed but I’m perfectly capable of functioning.” As soon as she got control of her runaway thoughts.
“Bad dreams
?” He watched her with the concentration of a hunter stalking prey.
“The Psy don’t dream.” It was the accepted wisdom. If that was a lie, she thought, what other lies had she been fed? Or was it true for all other Psy? Did they not live even in their dreams?
“A pity,” Lucas said, that rough-edged voice smoothing into a drawl. “Dreams can be very… pleasurable.”
Wet heat flared. She pressed her thighs tight, terrifyingly aware that her body had reacted in a way a changeling might detect. Panic had her shoving everything deep into the secret compartments of her mind.
The panther inside Lucas crouched low, tracking Sascha’s every movement. Man and beast were both puzzled—what was it about her that had triggered the sensual eroticism of that dream? In life she was as cold as ice, as touchable as a hunk of metal. Aside from the hint of fire in those cardinal eyes that he refused to believe was a figment of his imagination.
He froze as he picked up the faintest traces of female arousal. The panther lunged at the walls of his mind, telling him to take her, that she was ready. The man wasn’t so certain. What if it was a Psy trick—the ultimate back door into his mind? Until he knew for sure, he wouldn’t be stroking Sascha except in his dreams.
“The Psy know nothing about pleasure,” she commented, looking down at her little computerized tablet. “And we intend to keep it that way. Shall we be on our way to see your construction supervisor?”
“After you.” He stood and waved toward the doorway. “How’s your mother?” It was time to start digging. The reason for this charade could never be forgotten.
“Fine.” Sascha reached the glass-enclosed elevator and waited for it to rise up to their level.
“She’s an extraordinary woman,” he commented. “I heard that she became a Councilor at forty. Isn’t that very young to reach such a high post?”
She nodded. “But Tatiana Rika-Smythe was younger at the time of her ascension. She’s only thirty-five now.”
“The Rika-Smythes are your primary business rivals?”
“You know that already.”
He shrugged and gestured for her to enter the elevator ahead of him. “Never hurts to make sure.”
In the closed atmosphere, the scent of her was intoxicating to his animal senses. She was pure woman, lush and barely awakened, and he was very interested, the panther in him arrogantly convinced that her reaction was without trickery. He had to force down the low growl that gathered at the back of his throat. Now was not the time to stalk this particular prey.
“It’s well known that the Rika-Smythes and the Duncans have some of the same business interests.”
“How can your mother work with Tatiana when they’re rivals?” The doors opened on the first floor.
Sascha walked out beside him, graceful and eerily beautiful with those eyes that kept startling people who came up on them. Cardinals were not often seen outside the rarefied walls of the Psy headquarters. It was critical he find out why he’d been honored with Sascha Duncan.
“Their responsibilities in the Council are separate from their business loyalties.”
“Some of it must bleed over. Every administration has its cliques.” Which might mean that the Councilors could be keeping secrets from each other.
Sascha gave him a sharp glance. “You’re very interested in the Council.”
“Do you blame me?” He pushed open a manual glass door. “I’m hardly likely to get another chance to talk to a Psy so high up in the hierarchy.”
She walked through the doorway before speaking. “I may be a cardinal but I’m not as high up as you seem to believe. Simply because my mother is Council doesn’t mean I’m in the inner circle. I’m just another Psy.”
“No cardinal is ever ordinary.” Why was she protesting so much? What was it that she was hiding? Blood and death or something else?
“There is an exception to every rule.” It struck Sascha that the intensity with which Lucas was pursuing this line of inquiry probably wasn’t due to simple curiosity. Wariness kicked in but it was too late—she’d already betrayed her abnormal status within the Psy.
She had to start remembering that Lucas’s last name wasn’t merely a name—it was a designation. “May I ask you a question?” she said before she could talk herself out of it. Notwithstanding her awareness of his nature, her interest in him continued to heighten. And each time she gave in to the need, it created another chip in the already fragile wall of her sanity. Yet, she couldn’t stop herself.
He paused in front of the door that likely led to the construction supervisor’s workspace. “Ask.”
“What does a Hunter do?” She’d heard rumors on the PsyNet but changelings were very closemouthed about some things.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to barter something special to get that information.”
The slow curve of his smile shot her composure to pieces. “What would you like to know?”
He answered almost on top of her words. “What’s the incidence of violence in the Psy population?”
She hadn’t expected the question but the answer was easy and well known. “Close to zero.”
“Are you sure?” The question echoed in the air. “As for what Hunters do, we hunt down rogues.”
“Rogues?”
“Sorry, darling. You only paid for one answer.” He pushed open the door.
Frustrated, she walked in and found herself standing a heartbeat away from a dark-skinned man with eyes a deeper shade of green than Lucas’s. Something about him made her want to take a step back… and run.
“Meet Clay Bennett, our construction supervisor.”
Sascha knew the changeling in front of her was much more than that. “Mr. Bennett.” The man’s eyes were so calm that she should’ve felt at home with him. Instead he reminded her of a cobra lulling his prey into a false sense of security—the second she lowered her guard, he’d instigate a deadly strike.
“Ms. Duncan. I’m the man you come to if you have any problems with the materials used during construction, the workers, anything like that.”
“I’ve noted that.” She looked around the huge office space, which housed a number of desks. Glass doors made up the facing wall but she could see Zara to the left and an unknown blond male at a desk to the right. He wasn’t looking at her, but somehow she knew that he was completely attuned to their conversation. “Do those doors open?”
“Of course,” Lucas drawled. “We’re animals under the skin—we can’t stand being caged.” She knew he was mocking the simplistic Psy view of changelings, mocking her. The urge to give back as good as she got was a devil on her shoulder—a mad part of her thought it might almost be worth it simply to see the look on his face.
“What about the higher floors?” She answered her own question the second she looked outside. “The trees. Leopards are excellent climbers.”
Lucas went unnaturally still beside her. “You’ve done your research.”
“Of course. I’m Psy.”
A few minutes later, Sascha closed the door of the lavatory, put down the lid, and sat. Her whole body shuddered. What a joke. She was no Psy. She was a woman close to the edge of insanity, reduced to hiding in toilets in order to repair the fractured walls of her mind.
Her organizer chimed before she’d done more than gather together the ragged edges of her psyche. It was Santano Enrique, requesting a conference on the PsyNet. The inside of her mouth suddenly felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton wool.
Enrique was too powerful a Psy, had had too many years of experience at spotting mistakes. She didn’t want him connected to her in any way. None of the other Councilors had ever approached her telepathically or on the PsyNet—they preferred to talk face-to-face if necessary. She knew why, of course. They weren’t sure that she hadn’t inherited her mother’s deadly little ability.
Refusing Enrique’s call wasn’t an option. Hurriedly completing the repairs on her shields, she closed her eyes and took a step into darkness. Th
e glittering plane of the PsyNet opened before her, filled with the endless stars, bright and faded, large and small, that represented the minds of the Psy. Enrique blazed and so did she. They were both cardinals. The crucial difference was, she had no real power, while he could pulverize her with a thought.
His consciousness was waiting for her. “Thank you for coming, Sascha.”
“I can’t stay long, sir. I’m in the midst of a delicate situation for which I need my full attention.” While in the Net, she couldn’t even allow herself to think that what she was saying was a lie. She had to believe absolutely.
“The deal with the changelings.”
It wasn’t a question so she didn’t answer.
“An interesting choice. Unusual. Why did you decide to do what the rest of the families haven’t?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m not permitted to discuss our business practices. Please speak to my mother—she’s the head of our household.” Nikita had officially achieved that pinnacle in 2075 when Sascha’s grandmother, Reina, had died. In truth, Nikita had been the power behind the throne for almost ten years prior to that.
“I had the impression you’d been granted more independence.”
If they’d come from anyone but a Psy, she would’ve said that the words were meant to prick her pride and make her speak without thinking. Unless, of course, that was his plan. Was that why he was paying her so much attention suddenly—because he suspected she was flawed?
All these frantic thoughts buzzed in a small, secret part of her. It was the same place where she hid the core of her self—the shining rainbow of her mind. Layered in multiple shields she continually reinforced, it couldn’t be breached by anyone without using such brutal force that it would kill her.
“Would you like me to link you to my mother?”
“No, Sascha. I wanted to ask you a favor.”
Fear spiked in that small, secret heart. “What, sir?” This had to be a trap. Why would a Councilor, a cardinal with off-the-scale Tk powers, be asking her for a favor?