Blaze of Memory

CHAPTER 36

It was dark when the airjet landed, having flown at low speed to give Katya’s internal compass a chance to focus. She finally stopped them somewhere in the south of Alaska, the air frigid. Thanks to Michel, Dev was kitted out in heavy cold-weather gear, while Katya wore a thick scarf and a jacket much too large for her small frame. It would keep her warm for the time being, Dev thought critically, but no way was he taking her any farther into Alaska that way.

“We’ll sort out some clothing for you tomorrow morning,” he said, picking up the keys to the all-terrain vehicle that Maggie had organized after his call from the airjet. “The cabin Maggie booked for us is attached to a tourist lodge. They should have a shop of some kind.”

Katya’s expression was rueful. “I didn’t consider the cold up here when I decided to run.”

His most possessive instincts spiking at the reminder of just how much danger she’d put herself in, he took her hand. “You’ll be fine in the car for the drive.”

That drive took less than twenty minutes.

“Your secretary is very efficient,” Katya said as Dev opened the door to their unit to reveal a brand new duffel on the dresser to the left. It proved to have everything—clothing included—that she might need over the next few days.

“Why do you think I pay her so well?” Putting down his own duffel, he gave her a flashing smile that had been absent all day. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it until then.

“This place is lovely,” she said, her eye drifting to the huge fluffy bed in the bedroom to the left. “But I still feel like we should keep going.”

“You’re about to drop from exhaustion, and I’m not in the best shape either—in spite of the nap you gave me last night.”

She squared her shoulders. “I refuse to feel guilty.”

“It was my own bloody fault for not making sure I checked you for contraband.” A scowl. “We’ll catch a few hours’ sleep, then hit the road with clear heads. Probably get a lot farther.”

In spite of the urgency that rippled through her veins, she couldn’t argue with his logic. “Okay.” Her eyes went right, to the second bedroom. She bit her lip. “Dev?”

“Hmm?” He shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on the sofa before bending to pull off his boots.

She’d already taken off her outerwear, leaving her wearing jeans and a sweater. “Which bedroom do you want?” It wasn’t the question she wanted to ask, but her courage deserted her at the last minute.

“Left or right, it doesn’t matter to me.” He shrugged, finished with his boots, and rose to his feet, a big man with a shadowed jaw . . . and eyes full of molten heat. “As long as you understand we’ll be sharing the same bed.”

The world threatened to crumble from under her feet. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Are you planning to tease me some more?”

“Maybe.” A playful word, but his face was all hard angles. “And this time, you can broadcast as loud as you like—the other guests are all out on some overnight trip, and the lady who checked us in was human.”

He was speaking with utter calm . . . but making no effort whatsoever to hide the jut of his arousal. “I need to shower.” It was true, but came out in a blurted rush.

“Don’t take too long.” Lifting his fingers to his shirt, he began to undo the buttons. “You do need to get some sleep tonight.”

Overwhelmed, she grabbed her things and ducked into the bathroom. The shower cleaned off the grit, but did nothing to cool down her body. After she got out, she quickly dried her hair and was about to dress in loose fleece pants and a sweatshirt when she hesitated, her mind filling with memories of the way Dev had pinned her up against the wall, all heat and barely leashed male power.

Her entire body turned into one big pulse.

Swallowing, she pulled on a long-sleeved woolen shirt over nothing but bare skin. If Dev wanted her, she wasn’t going to put any roadblocks in his path. She craved his touch. At first, after she’d woken, she’d thought any human touch would do. But she’d realized different in the days since—it hurt when she wasn’t touched, but the idea of being touched by just anyone made her skin crawl.

Her body wanted Dev and only Dev.

Taking a deep breath, she left the duffel in the bathroom and opened the door . . . to find herself facing a naked sweep of muscled flesh, his chest right there for her to stroke, touch, kiss, his hands gripping the doorjamb above her head. Having decided after last night that she’d take him any way and any time she could get him, she pressed her lips to the rough heat of him, the smoothness of his skin contrasting deliciously with the curling hairs sprinkled over it.

One hand thrust into her hair, holding her to him. Against her bare thighs, the denim of his jeans was a sweet abrasion as he pushed into her space, his erection nudging at the softness of her abdomen. Soft and hard. Male and female. Her skin tightened with pure need.

“Do you know something, Katya?” A husky male voice, his hand keeping her in place. Taking the hint, she began to kiss her way across his chest. It was the most luscious of tasks—he was just so bluntly male that it was impossible to feel anything but deliciously, sensually female.

“Are you listening to me?” A whisper against her ear, a little bite that made her suck in a breath, rise up on tiptoe.

He hesitated. “You liked that?”

Unable to answer with words, she simply angled her head to give him easier access. Taking it, he nibbled his way down her throat before untangling his hand from her hair and closing it about that throat with gentle possessiveness. The touch made her shudder, grip his waist harder. And when he lifted his head to press his lips demandingly against hers, she opened for him at once.

The bite on her lower lip, the sharp dart of pain, sent a rush of liquid to the juncture of her thighs. Dev’s eyes were glittering when he raised his head. “Is it the pain or the control?”

Her fingers curled against his skin as shame flooded her cheeks. “I’m aberrant.”

He nipped at her lip again, sharper this time. It was all she could do to keep her feet. “No,” he said, stroking his thumb over the thudding pulse in her neck, “what you are is sexy as hell.” Another kiss, one that threatened to tumble her straight to the floor, it was so full of hunger and demand.

“Bed,” she whispered against his mouth. “Please.”

Letting go of the doorjamb, he swept her into his arms in a single smooth move. Neither of them said a word until he’d laid her down on the fluffy white comforter, his body blocking out the light as he came over her. “Now,” he said, putting one hand on her thigh, below the wool of her shirt, “answer the question.”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly, unable to stop from smoothing her hands over his shoulders, his arms. “But I like it when you crowd me.”

Dev’s hand stroked up. A harsh exhalation. “You’re not wearing any panties.” Rubbing his thumb along the sensitive crease of her thigh, he lowered his body until all she could see was Dev, his skin, his eyes, him. “Is this what you like? Being covered by me?”

“Yes.” She arched into him, wanting to feel his weight, feel crushed by the sheer life of him. “Closer.”

“It’s the sensation,” he murmured, cupping her for a single electric second before returning to his previous maddening caress. “After the dark.”

That he understood, it broke her. “There was nothing there,” she whispered, nuzzling into his throat, drawing him into her lungs. “When they cut off my senses, when they put me into that chamber where I couldn’t even feel my skin . . . it was like I was floating in nothingness. I went a little more mad with every hour that passed.”

Dev brought his body down another fraction, allowing her to feel some of his weight. When she shuddered and grazed her teeth down his throat, he hissed out a breath. “The more contact, the better you feel.”

“Yes.” She rubbed her body against him—or tried to. He was too heavy, holding her down. Her skin shimmered with waves of pleasure. “But this . . . only with you, Dev. I trust you.”

He pushed a thigh between her own, opening her up, claiming her. “That’s a dangerous confession to make to a man like me.” Shifting slightly, he braced himself on his elbows above her, a solid wall of muscle and strength. “I’ll take everything you offer.”

“Will you give anything back?” she somehow found the strength to ask.

A gleam of sensual amusement. “Wait and see.”

And she knew that tonight would be a night she’d remember for the rest of her life. Somehow, in this place, everything else had faded away. Here, there was only Dev, only Katya, and a sexual heat that threatened to consume them both.

When Dev pushed to his knees, she couldn’t help her sharp cry of disappointment. He pressed a hand to her chest. “Wait.” And then he was getting off the bed and heading to the living area.

Tempting as it was to go after him, she obeyed the order. It was another fence, another line of control. The psychologists would have a field day with her, she thought, but if this helped her cope with normality, then who were they to judge? None of them had spent endless mindless hours floating in the dark, unable even to sense their own skin, their own fingers, their own face. It had been like she was dead—alone in a cold, indifferent universe.

“So many thoughts,” Dev murmured, walking back into the room with her scarf taut in his hands, the ends wrapped around his fists. “I can hear you thinking. It’s like a little knocking at the back of my head.”

Her eyes tracked him as he moved across the room with lazy confidence, her toes curling into the comforter. “Do you mind?”

“No.” The bed dipped as he got on the bed, prowling up over her body. “What were you thinking?”

“That this need I have, this need for boundaries,” she whispered, “it doesn’t cripple me. I escaped you, after all.”

A little smile that suggested all sorts of wickedness. “Did I punish you for that yet?”

“Dev.” He was teasing her again, and this man . . . God, he was pure addiction.

Taking her wrists in his hands, he raised them above her head. “No, you aren’t crippled. You’ve just found a way to deal.”

She met his eyes. “Does it bother you?”

He wrapped the scarf around her wrists, pulling it tight enough that she could feel the delicious pressure against her skin, then tied the ends around the bars in the headboard. “In case you haven’t noticed,” he murmured, even as his fingers undid the buttons on her shirt one by one, “I like being in control.” One big hand closed possessively over the bare roundness of her breast.

“Dev!”

He stroked and squeezed her with leisurely focus, kissing her each time she tried to hurry him. Sweat began to sheen her body and he hadn’t even gone past her breasts. “You’ll drive me to insanity,” she accused.

“I promise to make it good.” A slow smile as he began to kiss his way down the centerline of her chest, pausing to torment her breasts with little bites that had her arching her body upward in silent entreaty.

When he refused to comply, she bombarded him with telepathic requests laced with the fever of her hunger. His eyes glittered. “Playing dirty, baby?”

It was, she realized, the first time he’d ever used an endearment. Something shifted inside her, but she didn’t know what it was, didn’t understand why her heart beat with a sudden painful ache. “I say anything’s fair in bed.”

“Remember, you said it.” He continued his downward journey, pressing kisses over the dip of her stomach, the curve of her navel.

Her eyes widened as she realized what he planned to do. “Why?” she asked, her voice coming out throaty.

“Why what?” A flick of his tongue along the sensitive skin just below her navel.

She had to take several deep breaths before she could answer. “Why would you do such a thing? What pleasure does it give you?”

Dark eyes meeting her own. “Don’t you want to lick me, Katya?”

The image made her nerve endings explode. All at once, it was the only thing she could think about. “Let me try and see.”

He chuckled. “Nice try, but I get to go first.” Strong hands on the tops of her thighs, pushing her legs apart.

The unadulterated intimacy of it rocked her.

She was so primed that she could feel every square inch of her skin, every brush of his breath against her. Never had she felt more real, more alive. “Dev.” It was a whisper, a plea, a demand.

The stroke of his thumb against the ultrasensitive skin of her inner thigh. She was still trying to soak it all in when he dipped his head and gave her the most intimate caress of all. The scream tore out of her on a ragged note, and she found herself gripping the scarf to keep herself from jerking out of bed.

Not that he would have let her go.

Strong hands kept her in place as her body tried to escape the overload of sensation—and get closer at the same time. Lights flickered behind her eyes, and she thought surely, surely, something of this would leak into the Net. But she couldn’t think about that, could only drown under the waves of pleasure.

The graze of teeth.

Her entire body froze in an almost painful arch. And then she fractured . . . into a million brilliant sparks. The tremors spread outward from within her center, rippling through her like living fire. She was sobbing with the exquisite ache of it by the time she came down.

“Shh.” Dev made his way back up her body, gentling her with a kiss that was as possessive as the hand on her breast. “You’re so damn beautiful, Katya.”

Somehow, she found a speck of sense. “Not too bony?”

He squeezed her breast. “Not where it counts. And we can work on the rest.”

“I’m going to hit you for that,” she threatened. “As soon as I get my breath back.”

His smile was male and satisfied and unbelievably gorgeous. “Then I should make sure you never do.” This time, his kiss was leisurely, but so hungry she gasped into his mouth, wanting only to give him everything and anything he wanted.

His hand slipped down, over her ribs, to the curve of her waist. “How are your shields?”

“Impenetrable.” She laughed and it came from the soul. “The bastard locked me in, but I bet he never realized he was giving me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted.”

Devraj heard the laugh, but he also sensed the pain behind the laughter. It tore at the masculine heart of him to know that he’d never be able to wipe the memories of devastation from her mind. But there was also a fierce sense of pride. “You beat him once. You’ll do it again.”

Those huge hazel eyes widened. “That sounds like an order.”

“Don’t forget it.” He stroked up to graze his thumb over her nipple. When she took a whispery breath, the angry protectiveness in him calmed. He hadn’t been able to help her then, but he damn well would protect her now. No matter what. “So, where were we?”

“My hands,” she said, lifting her mouth to his. “I want to touch you.”

He nibbled on her lips. “Hmm.”

“Dev.”

Smiling at that tart feminine demand, he reached up and undid the soft bonds. Her hands immediately went to his shoulders, stroking and shaping. It was obvious she liked his body, and he was male enough to preen under the attention. Dipping his head, he kissed her with playful little nips and bites as she took her time learning him.

Of course, his cock had other ideas. He was so fucking aroused it was a wonder he could form a sentence. When Katya’s wandering hands moved over his chest, threatening to skim downward, he stopped her. “Not this time.” Pressing into her, he reached between their bodies to part her curls.

She made an intrinsically feminine sound of delight, and that, coupled with the damp heat of her, was his undoing. He knew he must have risen to get rid of his pants and underwear, but he had no memory of it. She was wet and slick and wild under his fingers when he next blinked, and his control was beyond ragged.

Sliding a hand under one of her thighs, he urged her to lock her legs behind his body. She followed his lead with an enthusiasm that made sweat bead along his spine, his cock pounding in time with every thudding beat of his heart. Bracing himself on one elbow, he guided himself inside her. . . and had to grit his teeth from swearing a blue streak as she clenched around the blunt tip of his erection, a hot, wet glove that was such an absolute fit he thought he might pass out from the pleasure of it.

“Dev!” Fingernails dug into his back as he pushed in, trying for slow but knowing he wasn’t going to last. “Oh, God, more, please.”

It was all the invitation his body needed. Control shattering, he thrust into her deep, so deep, catching her cry with his mouth. For an instant, he thought he might have gone too far, remembering too late that she’d never done this before, but then she tightened her grip on him and rolled her hips in sweet feminine welcome.

“Katya,” he said against her ear, trying to draw breath, to not lose himself completely.

Her fingers thrust into his hair. “You feel so good.”

The simple statement, made in that erotically husky voice, stole what small fragments of control he’d had left. Putting one hand on her hip, he pinned her in place as he began to stroke in and out in a hard, steady rhythm that had her clawing at him.

He didn’t last long. But it was alright, his hazed brain told him. Because she shattered under him even as pleasure swept over his skin in a scorching wave. For an instant, he felt a strange pull, as if something was stretched taut inside him, but then the sensation just ended, as if it had been summarily cut off. He didn’t have time to consider the odd feeling, because his entire body exploded at that very instant, every nerve and tendon taut with ecstasy.

18 September 2080: Your status has been noted. A supervisory team will be flying out on the 28th to make the decision as to any possible evacuation. Continue operations as per original instructions until then.