by Lexi Ryan
I saw Collin tonight. She should have said it, but the words stuck on her tongue. Why should she implicate Collin if he was innocent?
Collin said he wasn’t a part of what happened at the Smithsonian tonight, and she believed him. “I’m just tired. I’ll be better after a shower.”
“It’s a plan, then. Tomorrow we’ll record everything we got tonight, and we’ll visit the strip club and Scott.”
Chrissie snatched her purse from the end table. “I’ll meet you ladies at the club. I have a couple of errands I need to take care of before I can party.”
The girls said their goodbyes, and Paige headed to the shower.
She turned the water as hot as she could stand, as if the heat could ward off the ache inside her—the ache that spread across her skin after Collin leached her powers. The ache in her heart from seeing him. The ache in her stomach from her broken dreams of their future.
She had been nineteen when she’d met Collin. Nineteen and living on the streets with her mom and little sister, Tara. The night had been worse than many. The hard, icy, not-quite-sleet felt like pinpricks against her face.
As the shower beat down on her now, she thought, I saw Collin tonight. She should have told them. But to confess it felt like a betrayal.
Chapter Three
St. Louis, Missouri, Ten Years Ago...
Rain. Again. Wasn’t it always raining when they didn’t have a place to crash? She needed to do something about that. Temps were scheduled to drop below freezing tonight, and she didn’t want to be stuck sleeping in the park again. She was trying the ranger’s patience as it was, and he meant it when he’d threatened to call the cops last time. Paige could handle the cops, but if they found out about Tara, they’d take her away, and Paige had promised her mother she’d keep Tara out of the system.
Tara was taking shelter at the library while Paige tracked down their mother and some food. Their mother, Sarah, who sometimes recognized her children and sometimes didn’t, had connections and always snagged the day-old baked goods from YUM! Café. If Paige was lucky and one of Sarah’s nicer personalities was out tonight, Paige and Tara might not have to spend the night cold and hungry. If Sarah was one of her not-so-nice personalities, well, that was another story.
Paige pulled up the hood of her saturated sweatshirt in an attempt to dull the stabbing rain. Staying dry was a lost cause.
She turned into the alley on Fourth and didn’t see anyone. “Sarah?” she called.
No response.
Ten yards away, Sarah’s few belongings were strewn about the alley. Paige frowned. Sarah was fiercely protective of her very small number of possessions. She never let them out of her sight.
Paige hurried forward. An old poofy coat, once white, a cell phone that didn’t work, several snapshots of Tara and Paige—the story behind each changing with Sarah’s personality—and a beat-up, three-sided suitcase. But no Sarah.
Paige was so distracted, she didn’t hear anyone coming up behind her. She didn’t know they were there until their hands were on her body, and their emotions were in her head.
There were only two men but it seemed their hands were everywhere—on her arms, twisting them behind her back, turning them in unnatural angles until she cried out with pain, on her legs as they carried her.
Paige kicked and fought, but the men held her steady. She screamed and tasted the salty sweat of thick fingers in her mouth, gagging her and muffling the sound of her protest. She chomped down and someone grunted and slammed a knee into her back.
She shoved in opposite directions with her legs and arms, flailing until they lost their hold on her. She landed on the ground with a thump and scrambled to her feet. They reached for her again, and she slammed the flat of her hand up into the nose of one and kneed the other in the balls. They both bent at the waist in pain.
“Fucking bitch!” one man screamed as she ran.
She hadn’t gotten far when her feet stopped moving. She tripped and landed on her face—her arms wouldn’t obey her mind’s command to catch her.
“Break my fucking nose!” He was getting closer.
Paige lay paralyzed. She couldn’t move her mouth to scream, couldn’t move her legs to save her.
The men’s footsteps were closer now. One hauled her up against him, the other grabbed her legs, and again they were carrying her. She slowly regained control of her limbs.
Only mustering all her strength was she able to free a hand. She clawed at the first pieces of flesh she could reach.
Her arm was snapped back, sending blazing pain tearing from wrist to shoulder.
“You’re sure she’s a special?” she thought she heard one man ask the other.
What did that mean? Special how? Were they going to take her? Rape her? Worse?
“’Cause if she’s not, it’s not worth this. She scratched my face with those cat claws of hers.”
All of the sudden she heard a loud grunt and a thump and her legs were free. She twisted her body, struggling to escape from thug number one who still held her tightly against his chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a third man—a new one—shoving thug number two back to the ground.
The new man was rescuing her. Even in her terror, she didn’t doubt it.
She twisted again, but the man holding her was too strong.
Her rescuer stepped toward her, then stopped suddenly.
Paige gasped at the cool metal against her throat.
“Stop,” the man holding her said.
She could feel him concentrating, focusing his energy.
Her rescuer smiled. “That’s not going to work with me.”
“Who are you?” The man was getting nervous now and the blade bit into her neck.
As much as Paige wanted away from this man, his ugliness, his black, hate-filled presence, she instinctively pressed back into him, a futile attempt to escape the blade.
“What?” Thug One asked her rescuer. “Do you want her?”
“I don’t want him to have her.”
Another wave of nerves swamped her as Thug One heard that little tidbit.
His breathing was uneven. “How do you know about him?”
Paige didn’t dare move, but her gaze darted left, then right. Who were they talking about?
Her rescuer—though she would think of him differently if he didn’t do something more helpful very soon—ignored the question. “Let the girl go.”
Thug One’s nerves clicked over to terror. He wanted to kill her, but he was too scared. He wasn’t sure what to do next. She could feel it. He needed her and he needed her alive. His life depended on it.
“You want to take the knife from her neck,” her rescuer said, and with his words, the thug began moving the knife away from her throat.
He didn’t want to. Not at all, but he was doing it anyway. It was as if he couldn’t help himself.
“You want to release her.”
Slowly, and as if he were fighting his own movements, the arms around her grew slack.
Paige shot out of them and was at the end of the block before she turned.
“Don’t do that to me,” the thug protested. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Her rescuer laughed. “You have that backwards.”
Even from the distance, the murderous rage that pumped through the thug was strong enough that she felt it like her own. He began to move his daggered hand.
“Watch out!” she screamed.
Her rescuer turned his attention to her for two seconds. But that was all it took. The thug lashed out, striking before the rescuer even saw him coming.
“No!” she screamed, and without thinking, she was running to the strange man who had saved her.
Blood was everywhere—covering his face and hands, seeping into his left eye. But he returned his focus to the thug. Slowly, the thug brought the knife to his own throat and let out a pitiful whine.
“Run,” her rescuer said.
“But I…you’re—”
He slipped her a piece of paper. “Take this. I’ll meet you. Go!”
God, there was so much blood. How could he walk away from this, let alone run to catch her?
She didn’t watch what was happening behind her. She just ran until her feet wouldn’t carry her anymore.
When she finally stopped, she opened the folded white paper. An address.
* * * *
When he met her at the address many hours later, his face was cleaned and stitched and he wore fresh clothing.
Murmurs seeped into her bedroom as he and his twin brother talked quietly.
When her door clicked, she wasn’t surprised to see the silhouette of her rescuer in the doorway.
She sat up in bed and pooled the blankets over her bare legs. “Come on in,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered.
She hadn’t been sleeping. Strange house, stranger night. She’d gotten Tara before she’d come here, and her rescuer’s twin had given them each a room, a hot meal, and clean clothes to change into. “I was awake,” she said, shifting over in her bed and patting the space beside her.
His steps were heavy as he moved across the room. He studied the vacant spot of bed next to her.
She patted again. “Sit.”
He chuckled and sat beside her, facing the headboard, one leg curled under him. The wound on his face was stitched roughly. It wasn’t the work of a professional and would leave an ugly scar.
Paige winced. He would walk around for the rest of his life with a scar that divided his face in two, and that was her fault. She was no one to him.
“You didn’t go to the hospital,” she said.
“I hate hospitals.” He followed the admission with a smile that made her heart trip.
“So does Sarah,” she said. Then frowned. “So did Sarah.” The words felt awkward on her tongue.
“Who’s Sarah?”
“My mother,” she whispered. “What do you think they did with her?”
He looked at his hands for a long moment before returning his gaze to meet hers. “Don’t think about it. It doesn’t matter now anyway.”
She frowned. That was enough of an answer. Poor Sarah. She’d had such a hard life, and her only crime was telling people she could manipulate time.
Paige studied the rescuer, so sad and so beautiful. Jet black hair and icy blue eyes that looked far older than the rest of him. What had he seen? Why was he the man he was? He was beautiful. Even with the stitched wound cutting his face in two. Perhaps, for her, because of it.
He looked around. “Good thing you’re here. Our maid scolds us for having a guest room and never putting it to use. Wasteful, she says.”
She reached her hand out and pressed it against his chest. He was the good guy. He had to be the good guy. But she needed to know. She pressed her hand into the thick fabric of his sweater and frowned. Nothing. She did best with skin to skin, but she could usually—
He held out a hand, palm up. “Here.”
She slid her fingers over his palm, tracing the lines there. Nothing. She threaded their fingers and pressed her palm against his. Nothing.
She lifted her face to his, the question she couldn’t ask trapped behind her lips. Why can’t I feel you? Instead she asked, “How did you do that? In the alley? You made him do what you wanted him to. What was that? Hypnosis?”
He gave a rueful smile. “What are you looking for when you touch my hand?”
“I—” She didn’t tell people what she could do. She knew better. And maybe it was gone now. She couldn’t feel him, after all. Maybe her mother’s wish for her had finally come true. She’d had “the Devil scared out of her.” She couldn’t explain. “You saved my life.”
“You’re not alone, Paige.”
“How do you know my name?”
He traced the line of her jaw with his fingertips, then placed his thumb on her lips.
It should have felt strange, uncomfortable, to have this stranger touch her so intimately. Maybe she’d lost her mind tonight. Maybe she’d be like Crazy Sarah now. Because all she wanted to do was lean forward and press her lips to his.
When he finally answered, she’d almost forgotten the question. “I know a lot of things. I knew they were coming for you tonight. I’m sorry I was too late.”
“You saved me.” She reached out and touched him again, his face this time, running her finger along either side of the rough stitches, and again wondering why she couldn’t sense his feelings. “Does it hurt a lot?” She hadn’t asked this question since before she lost her virginity and developed her strange power. She could touch someone and know how much they hurt. But not this man.
“I’ve had worse,” he said. He studied her carefully. “You’re going to be okay now. I’ll take care of you. If you can trust me, I can take care of you.”
His icy blue gaze was on her lips, and she desperately wanted him to kiss her. He wasn’t moving. She closed the space between them, and pressed her lips lightly to his, careful not to put too much pressure where the freshly-stitches cutting across his lips.
“I’m not a good man, Paige,” he whispered against her mouth.
“You are,” she said, and she believed it.
His eyes drifted down her body. She was wearing a faded black T-shirt she’d found in the closet. Nothing else. She reached for the hem and pulled it off over her head.
Crazy Sarah.
But if Paige had lost her mind like her mother had, she didn’t care. Sanity was overrated.
He used his hands on her, running fingers over her nipples, cupping her breasts. They didn’t kiss as they explored each other’s bodies. Paige slowly unbuttoned his shirt, one button at a time, exposing the solid breadth of his chest and many small scars. She traced each scar with her fingertips before lowering her mouth to kiss each.
She pressed him down on the bed before going to work on his jeans. She unbuttoned the fly and pulled the jeans and his black boxer briefs from his hips. She hesitated for a minute, staring at his nude form lying in the strange bed, his erect cock, the patient arousal on his face. What would it be like to have sex with a man she couldn’t feel?
He slid his hands into hers. “We don’t have to do this.”
“No,” she said. “I want to. I just...” She was crazy, just like her mother. She smiled and straddled him, ready to slide herself onto the hard length of his shaft.
He stopped her with a hand on either hip. “Protection,” he whispered.
“Oh, right.” She blinked. Of course.
“I’m sorry,” he said, leaning over the side of the bed and digging a condom from the pocket of his jeans. “We can’t risk bringing a child into a world this wicked.”
She frowned. In the crowds she’d run with in the last few years, using a condom was a matter of self-preservation. His motivation was a little more grandiose than she was used to.
He made quick work of the condom and grabbed her hips again, helping her sink lower, slowly, taking him in.
Her breath grew ragged and she rocked against him.
“It’s still good,” he whispered, as if in response to her unspoken question.
He was right. It wasn’t the same as feeling her pleasure and his, but she could concentrate on her own this way. The aching More of her clit rubbing against him as she rode him, the desperate Harder of his dick sliding in and out.
They fucked like that, just two bodies. They didn’t kiss. Didn’t talk. Just moved, each watching the other, until he swelled inside her and clenched his eyes shut with the onslaught of his orgasm.
She didn’t come. She’d never had to come from her pleasure alone when she was with another man. She wasn’t sure she could, but she didn’t care. Now she knew what it felt like to have sex like a normal girl.
Maybe she was cured.
He took care of the condom, and when he came back, she nestled beside him and rested her head on his chest.
“My name is Collin Raines,” he whisper
ed against her hair.
“It’s nice to meet you, Collin.”
Chapter Four
Washington D.C., January 20th, Inauguration Night
Nothing killed a girl’s I-just-saved-the-world buzz more than walking into her favorite club to see her ex in flagrante delicto with another woman.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked.
“Tequila.” Paige leaned back against the bar. “Three shots of your best.” She narrowed her eyes at Collin. “Looks like you’re missing me a whole lot, Collin.”
It had taken every ounce of her motivation to come here tonight. She’d stepped out of the shower and wanted nothing more than to go back to her apartment and curl up in a thick blanket. She’d fought that urge though, and look what that got her.
Paige willed her body to turn away from Collin and his...partner. It refused.
She closed her eyes. But the image that greeted her behind her lids was always the same. Collin Raines. The one man she had let get close enough to break her heart. The image was worse than the scene in the bar, and it had been seared into the back of her lids since the day they met—his mouth, slick with rain water, hovering over hers, his eyes soft.
If you can trust me, I promise to protect you always.
What kind of promise had that been? Was his little performance in the corner booth part of “protecting” her? The redhead straddled him, her skirt stretching across her gyrating ass as she sucked on Collin’s neck.
“Hey, baby.”
Paige tore her eyes away from Collin to look at the pipsqueak who slid on the stool next to her. Too young. Too drunk. Too clueless.
What was wrong with guys these days? She turned back to Collin, preferring that brand of masochism to the series of bad come-on lines sure to follow from the pipsqueak.
“Can I buy you a drink, sweet cheeks?”
“Sweet cheeks? You’ve mistaken me for someone. That’s not my name.”
Tequila. She needed a little alcohol memory blotter and a couple friends who were ready to party. Paige figured they had a couple of hours before the girls would want to hook up with their beaus. Josie would hook up with a guy friend of hers who regularly came through D.C., and Chrissie would hook up with her longtime honey, Rider. And Paige would…well, she wasn’t sure what she would do.