by Cherry Adair
“Teleport.”
“Teleportingme all over the place, I have a right to know your skills and limitations.”
“Christ.” He ran his fingers through his hair in an exasperated gesture. “What a mess. You shouldn’t evenbe here.” His voice was cold, devoid of emotion, his eyes a flat dark blue as he looked at her without expression.
Hurt beyond reason, Eden set the beautiful crystal flute down on a side table very gently, and got to her feet. He’d made love with her for hours—almost all day, in fact. And hestood there cool, calm, and collected, telling her this was amess ?
That she shouldn’t evenbe here?
When he was the one who’dbrought her here.
Whenhe was the one who’d put her in the middle of whatever it was he was manipulating?
Her blood pressure rose. She knew her cheeks were pink with temper. She so rarely lost it that she knew the next step was crying with sheer, unadulterated fury. She’d lost her temper once today. Once was her absolute limit.
“Thenteleport me back to Tempe and my apartment,” she spoke through gritted teeth. “I didn’task to be brought here, I didn’t ask for…”
Ah, crap, she was going to lose it. It made herinsane that when she got angry enough she cried.
“Don’t cry, for God’s sake.”
Her eyes stung and she dashed a hand across her cheeks. Dry and hot. But she was close. Damn close. And she refused to shed one tear in front of this insensitive…oaf.“Go to hell.”
“Eden…”
She speared him with a heated look as she strode across the carpet in her lucky Marc Jacobs gold leather sandals. The shoes had been lucky when she’d gotten her last, substantial raise wearing them. They’d been lucky when Jason had given her a Mercedes as a bonus.
Apparently they weren’t lucky withwizards.
Desperate to escape so she could figure out where things had zigged instead of zagged, Eden wanted to get out of his force field and go use her lucky shoes tokick something.
Gabriel stepped quickly out of her way as she strode past. He might as well have hit her, she thought, stunned at how his evasive action, layered over his tone of voice, hurt. What did he think after making love to her for hours? That she suddenly had cooties? The son of a bitch.
Suddenly she was back to being a too brainy, too overweight, toovulnerable sixteen-year-old. Out of her element. Confused by emotions that had no logical outlet. Damn him.Damn him.
“Where are you going?”
“Wherecan I go?” she asked flatly.
She wasn’t sixteen anymore, Eden reminded herself. Nor was she fifty pounds overweight. And her emotions did have an outlet. Or they had half an hour ago.
Perhaps her emotions were retarded by the way she’d grown up. She felt as though she were missing an important bit of data here. He’d gone from practically eating her alive to cold disinterest between one breath and the next.
And while it had been a hard lesson learned at the knee of a master, she knew that she wasn’talways at fault. She was an adult; she accepted that she made mistakes in the man/woman thing. But in this instance it washis attitude that sucked.
“Where can you go?” he repeated. Walking around the back of one of the large leather armchairs, he put the piece of furniture between them like a shield. He gave her a cool look from hot blue eyes. “As soon as I have a bot? Back to your life.”
“Right. Like that hasn’t changed irrevocably,” she said, jaw aching she was clenching her teeth so tightly. “Theo is dead. Someone stole Rex.” Silently she added to the list…life-altering sex with awizard. “Right. I’ll just slip right back into my old life as if none of this ever happened. I wish you’d never brought me here.”
“That, Dr. Cahill, makes two of us.”
She was vaguely stunned that she was capable of moving, after receiving what felt like a mule kick to the solar plexus. Eden felt numb right down to her core.
Her gaze drifted over him. Black T-shirt, stonewashed jeans showing not only his long, muscular legs, but the evidence that while he might not acknowledge it, he was still powerfully aroused.So what? A little voice scoffed.Healthy males get hard at Victoria’s Secret commercials. And God only knew, she was no model. The way Gabriel was watching her was in direct opposition to what he’d just said, which confused her further. Her pulse raced no matter how hurt she was.
My problem,Eden reminded herself.This is not a forever kind of guy. No matter how much I want it that way. The second this bot does what he needs it to do, I’ll be back in Tempe trying to remember if this was all a dream or the real thing.
Liar,she scoffed at her own naïveté. She’d have the heartache scars to prove just how real this had been.
Furious with herself for being gullible, Eden headed for the door. She needed some alone time to untangle the mess of her emotions.
Gabriel gritted his teeth as she stalked across the room, her pretty lips held in a straight line as though she were biting her tongue to prevent an outburst. Good. He couldn’t afford for her to charge him again. Especially now that he knew exactly what a mere brush of her hand could do to his control.
He walked over to the drinks table and poured himself some wine. That or touch her, which would be a really dumb-ass move. The look in her eyes made him wonder what sex with Eden sprawled on his desk would be like. Unforgettable.
He allowed himself a nanosecond of lunacy, imagining burying his face in the fragrance of her neck, her legs wrapped around his hips as he pushed in deep. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to tamp down the smoldering hunger before he opened them again.
She might not be talking, but she had an entire vocabulary of expressions. Those large brown orbs shot a dangerous message as she kept him in her crosshairs. He figured he was better off thinking about the mundane than trying to analyze the look she was giving him as those sexy high heels ate up the carpet by the yard.
As much as he’d enjoy seeing her walking around in nothing but her sexy shoes, it wasn’t practical. But he’d like to see her dressed in something other than baggy jeans and the T-shirts she wore like a uniform. The jeans only hinted at the curve of her bottom. Despite the looseness of the fabric he’d memorized the shape and texture of her ass.
He noticed a fine tremor in his hands, and rested them on the back of the chair in front of him, digging his fingers into the butter-soft leather to keep from grabbing her as she passed. Jesus. He’d lost his frigging mind.
He’d hurt her. Hell. He felt like a fucking bull in a china shop with all these unfamiliar emotions fighting for supremacy inside him.
How the hell could he want her again? Just the fact that he’d been capable of getting it up as many times as he had in the last several hours should be grounds for celebration. Or a fucking casket. It was bad enough that he was addicted to her sexually. But now that he had slept with her, the fires of sexual hunger were being fed by something more insidious.
He firmly pushedthose thoughts aside before they could take root. Sex was merely physical. No matter how powerful, he could deal with those urges.
Eventually he’d get his fill.
Eventually she’d be gone.
Eventually.
But for now he had to admit, if only to himself, he was obsessed by Eden Cahill.
For the duration hehad to keep his hands off her.
No more slipups.
But, God help him, he couldn’t tear his eyes off her. He should probably say something. But he knew whatever he said now would make the situation worse. So he looked his fill as she walked away, and kept his mouth shut.
Every time he thought of her as no more than an object of his desire, she surprised him. He knew she was brilliant, tops in her field by miles, but together with that first-class brain was a measure of street smarts that an academic such as herself usually lacked. Behind those Bambi brown eyes was a woman who knew her own self-worth. A woman who enjoyed her own sensuality. A woman who didn’t take herself, or her accomplishments, too
seriously.
A woman with a sense of humor, and a quick temper.
Keep it simple, he reminded himself. The good old KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid.
Don’t think of her as likable, Gabriel warned himself. Don’t think of her as a woman.
Think of her as a walking brain.
Unfortunately the thought was so ludicrous, especially under the circumstances, that he wanted to hit his head against a nice solid wall to knock some sense into himself.
She opened the door, and turned. “I’m going to my room,” she said quietly. “You know where to find me if you need me.”
Needing her was the whole fucking point, Gabriel thought savagely, not bothering with a verbal response. His blood continued racing, zinging through his veins even after the door closed quietly behind her. The slam was implied.
Hell, he’d had to put the length of the room between them to prevent himself from grabbing her and yanking down those jeans to cup her bottom in both hands. Again. It was an effort to wrench his mind away from the image of Eden naked.
If it had been difficult to keep his hands off her before sleeping with her, now the situation was intensified a hundredfold.
Putting aside the wine he hadn’t even tasted, he moved to the table where MacBain always left a tray of drinks and poured himself several fingers of whiskey from the heavy Stuart crystal decanter. Feeling like a caged panther, he paced the room, glass in hand.
Frustrated, antsy. Christ. Scared shitless.
The only two people in the world who could possibly understand what he was going through were his brothers. But Duncan was on an op in the Middle East and unreachable, and Gabriel had no clue where his middle brother was. Caleb had been MIA for several weeks.
Not unusual in their line of work, but Gabriel felt a powerful need to contact both men. He had to forewarn his brothers how strong the attraction to their Lifemate was. Forewarned was forearmed.
Every evasive technique the three of them had come up with over the years was laughable in the face of the strength of the attraction he felt for Eden. Even the word attraction was too mild for the deep-seated hunger clawing at his gut. And for the first time, he understood the ramifications of the Curse.
He got it.
Intellectually, he’d always thought avoiding any woman he could possibly feel anything for, other than sexual, would be a simple issue of mind over matter. Choose not to give in to the attraction. Seemed simple, in theory. That was until now. Until Eden.
He hadn’t been capable of evading her; he hadn’t been strong enough, wily enough, or resolute enough to keep his hands off her.
That old crone Fate was laughing her ass off at this,Gabriel thought, swigging down the last of his drink, then going back for another.Laughing her ass off and rubbing her hands with glee. Because, God help him, not only did he sexually crave Eden Cahill. He was starting tolike her.
He was screwed. It was bad enough to be attracted to a woman you couldn’t have. But that wasn’t her only temptation. In a short time, he’d developed a long list of attributes to admire. He found her commitment to her work admirable. Her humor charming. She was thoughtful as well as insightful. Intelligent and smart.
Dangerous and deadly. At least to him.
Worse, he realized they’d made love a dozen times, shared the fire of dozens of climaxes together.And he still hadn’t retrieved the data he needed.
So now he knew.
When Eden lost control, so did he.
He had to get his libido in check before she returned in a few minutes. He’d heard MacBain opening the front door, followed by the soft susurrus of voices. Dixon had arrived.
The door to the library opened and Sebastian walked in. Alone. He closed the heavy door behind him. “Not that you aren’t welcome,” Gabriel said flatly, ridiculously disappointed that Eden wasn’t with him. “But what are you doing here? I was expecting Special Agent Dixon from Homeland Security.”
“He’s waiting outside.” Sebastian Tremayne walked to the drinks table and grabbed a soda. He pulled the tab, but didn’t drink. “We have a situation.”
Gabriel motioned to a chair and the men sat opposite each other. “What kind of situation?” Gabriel demanded. “Eden is safe here, I told you—”
“Not the hot doctor.” Drink forgotten, Tremayne leaned forward. “Gabriel, Thom Lindley was killed in the early hours this morning. There was barely enough of the body to ID. What the hell does that mean?”
Lindley was another wizard who worked for T-FLAC/ psi. Gabriel felt the words land like a sucker punch. “It means I lost a friend.”
The small hairs on the back of his neck rose in warning. This was one of the contributing factors to his feeling of unease for the last several weeks. “It also means that there’s a rogue wizard out there.”
His friend straightened. “Why would you presume that? Lindley was in Barcelona undercover—”
“He’s the third of my kind killed in the past month.” Gabriel rose and strode over to the phone. Picking up the receiver, he punched in a three-digit number, holding up a hand to halt Sebastian’s questions.
“Edge, Gabriel,” he said when the phone was answered on the first ring. “Where’s Caleb?” He listened with a frown. “Bullshit. Henever takes vacations. Find him. And have Duncan contact me ASAP. When you’ve contacted both my brothers, get Stone in Prague.” Gabriel glanced at his watch: 1900 hours. “Tell him to be ready for teleportation at 2030. Then convene an emergency, psi/spec ops meeting. Levels one and two only. Here within the hour. No one is excused. I repeat.No one. ”
“Christ, Edge,” Tremayne said when Gabriel replaced the receiver. “You’re scaring the shit out of me. What the hell’s going on?”
Gabriel crossed the room, looking, he was sure, as grim as he felt. “If the killer is another wizard, he’s capable of assimilating the powers of those he’s eliminating.”
Instead of resuming his seat, Gabriel picked up his glass and started to pace. “We have the potential for some seriously bad shit going down. You’ve never encountered anything as fucking terrifying as a wizard gone bad.” Neither had he. Gabriel had only heard stories. If a tenth of what he’d heard was possible—Jesus.
Out of his element with this kind of danger, Sebastian rose. “What do we do?” He was filling in as control on the robot op while Alexander Stone was in Prague at the antiterrorist summit. Gabriel could sympathize with his friend feeling discombobulated. Thanks to Eden, he knew the feeling well.
He paused, aware by the rapidity of his heartbeat that Eden was approaching. Fear tasted metallic on his tongue. “You want to know what we should do?” he repeated hoarsely as the handle turned on the door across the room. “Anything,everything we can, to stop him.”
Fucking hell. This new development was going to have to take precedence over the situation with the new group of terrorists having the bot. A rogue wizard on the loose would have far-reaching effects.
But Jesus, so would the bot in the wrong hands.
Both situations were critical.
At least Eden is safe under my roof.
Or, God help them, was the castle the most dangerous place of all? Gabriel wondered with a sense of dread.
The door opened to admit a tall, angular man with military short, graying hair and wearing a badly cut black suit that screamed Fed. He closed the door firmly behind him and walked into the center of the room.
The older man glanced between Gabriel and Tremayne. “Mr. Edge?” At Gabriel’s nod, the man stepped forward. He did not extend a hand, and neither did Gabriel; instead, he slid his hand into his inside pocket and withdrew a leather folder. “Walter Dixon, Department of Homeland Security. My credentials.” He flipped open the brown leather wallet to display his official shield.
“Your—butler?—has gone to find Dr. Cahill.” He glanced briefly at Sebastian. “May I talk freely?”
“Go ahead,” Gabriel leaned against the drinks table, not offering the older man either a drin
k or a chair. This wasn’t a social gathering. A T-FLAC jet had brought him directly from Tempe, where he was still investigating the theft of the robot, to a nearby landing strip in short order. Eden needed to talk to someone she trusted. Because he’d interviewed her half a dozen times, Walter Dixon was that man.
There was something about Dixon Gabriel didn’t quite like, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Dixon was a typical agent type, bland and unremarkable. Nothing suspect about his behavior in any way. The knife-ironed crease in his pants broke over highly polished black wingtips. His nails were clean and neatly trimmed, his hair short. He smelled slightly of sweat and licorice. So the man was human and had a sweet tooth. Neither was a punishable offense.
He searched Dixon’s pale blue eyes, but all he saw was average intelligence, and a dronelike disinterest in the opulent surroundings. But Gabriel trusted his own instincts, and if he didn’t like Dixon, eventually he’d know why.