Naughty Karma

Chapter Eleven Getting Sparky

Water rushed into her nose and mouth, burning, pressing in her lungs. The touch that held her under seared across her nerve endings in a constant loop of agony. The world around her started to dim, blurring and fading at the edges. She fought—fought to breathe, fought to live, but all she got for her struggles was more water, more pain, that white hot burn, the pressure—

Karma convulsed, her neck aching with the force of the spasm as she jerked out of the vision. She hadn’t even been asleep that time.

“Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.” She reached for the phone, dialing the numbers she knew by heart, but Ciara didn’t answer. The Fed didn’t answer. Even his goddamn superiors had stopped taking her calls.

She was freaking out. There was no other way to describe her current level of panic. And she was discovering that freaking out was not, in fact, something she was good at. She sucked at it. If she was going to totally lose her cool, she should at least do it with poise and grace. But poise and grace were beyond her.

She couldn’t get in touch with Ciara. She needed to find her finder—which would have been an amusing dilemma if she weren’t still having the dreams. They were coming faster and harder now. More often. And because she couldn’t keep her mind clear and calm, they were hitting her when she was awake too, sneaking into her conscious mind and yanking her into that dark place with the water and the pain. God, so much pain.

It was Wednesday afternoon. And if her internal alarm system was right, she had about twenty-five minutes before her finder, her friend, died. And where was she? Trapped in the Groundhog Day from hell, but instead of reliving a day over and over again, she was reliving a death. One she was apparently powerless to stop.

The intercom on her desk bleeped cheerfully, cutting into her panic. “Brittany?” Maybe it was Ciara calling. Or the Feds returning her call. Though why they wouldn’t call her direct line she didn’t know, but it had to be one of them, didn’t it?

“Prometheus is here to see you.”

“No.” He couldn’t see her like this. She couldn’t deal with him today. She needed her wits about her to handle him and she’d never felt more witless than she did in this moment. “Tell him to come back later. I can’t see him now.”

“Why not? You don’t look busy.”

Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t heard the door open, but of course, the bastard let himself in. Again. Why should he bother with courtesy? She shouldn’t have been surprised.

Karma frowned. He’d surprised her. Why hadn’t her internal warning system let her know that he was coming? Was she really so out of it that even her most basic instincts were on the fritz? She’d forget how to breathe next.

Prometheus frowned, coming deeper into the room. “Are you all right? You look…disheveled.”

That was a nice way of putting it. She felt unhinged. She couldn’t make herself care about the sloppy way her hair was sliding loose of its knot or the wrinkles in her skirt. Or him. “I don’t have time for you right now. You’ll have to come back later.”

“Some big Karmic Consultants crisis?” He strolled over and leaned his lanky frame against the edge of her desk. “Maybe I can help.”

“I sincerely doubt it. If you really want to help, go away.”

He tipped his upper body closer to her. “At least tell me what’s wrong.”

“We both know you don’t care what’s wrong.”

“Sure I do. I get into your good graces, you let me stop playing consultant, find my heart, and we both go our merry way. Right now, I care deeply about whatever you want me to care about—though I would like the record to show that I kick ass at this consultant thing. I banished a dozen sex devils yesterday and cursed the dipshit who was summoning them.”

“I don’t have time right now to explain everything that was wrong with what you just said.”

“So just tell me what’s wrong with you.”

God, the man didn’t give up, did he? “One of my finders is in trouble and I can’t get to her.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“She’s going to drown,” Karma snapped.

Prometheus arched a brow. “And you want to tell her to stay out of the water?”

“No, she’s always in the water. It amplifies her gifts. I need to warn her that her new handler is going to touch her while she’s underwater and—look, it’s complicated, all right?”

“I can handle complicated. Why can’t her handler touch her underwater?”

“She experiences excruciating psychic feedback anytime someone touches her skin and being in water amplifies it.”

“That sounds like her gift is blocked. You’re a channel. Why don’t you link to her and unblock it?”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. You’re insanely powerful. Just link up and fix her.”

He made it sound so easy. So simple. If only it could be. “I don’t do that. I don’t know how to do that.”

“Link with me and I’ll show you.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never linked with anyone before. You’re a channel.” He shook his head sharply, as if wondering how she could dress herself. “Come here.”

He grabbed her hands, pulling her out of her chair. She hadn’t been aware of sitting. Hadn’t been aware of her body at all. She felt like her real body, her true self, was still locked in a dream, underwater, sucking down liquid instead of air. It wasn’t until he touched her that she became really aware of her physical reality. He was her tether. His hands were warm and firm. His eyes eerie and dark. Obsidian. They shouldn’t have been comforting, but she felt her panic ease the tiniest bit when she stared into their bottomless black depths. The infinity of his gaze gave her the first hint of hope that maybe he could do the impossible and make it all better.

God, what was she thinking? She didn’t rely on anyone else to fix her problems for her and even if she had, Prometheus was about as far as she could get from a knight in shining armor. She needed to solve this like she solved everything else. With calm, clear thinking and control. Taking a slow breath, she went through her centering exercises.

Prometheus cursed, his hands flexing on her arms. “Why’d you block me out?”

“I didn’t. I was just focusing—”

“Whatever you call it. One second you’re—well, not exactly open, but at least accessible, and then bam. Fort Knox.”

“I didn’t do anything.” At least not consciously. If her subconscious had booted him out, she could only imagine it was because her subconscious had excellent judgment and recognized him as the unscrupulous bastard he was. But Ciara was in trouble; she didn’t have time for scruples. Hang in there, Ciara. “Tell me what to do.”

“Relax. And unlock that vault you call a mind.”

“I—” How did she explain that she didn’t know how to relax? She knew how to add another layer of security to the vault of her mind, as he’d put it, but she didn’t have the first idea how to go about taking down the walls. She’d never tried. Giving up control, even a single layer of control, went against every instinct and every habit she’d built for the last thirty years.

“Come on, Karma. Get out of your head and let me in there.”

She closed her eyes, turning her focus inward, but if Prometheus’s muttered curse was anything to go by that only made things worse. For a moment she thought she felt him, a soft tremor shaking the walls she’d built, but she was helpless to take them down and let him in.

Then her awareness shivered, fractured, and she was Ciara. Darting across the pier, dropping her shawl as she ran toward the water. Karma jerked in Prometheus’s grasp, sucking in a horrified gasp. It was happening. That was real time. Now. The nightmare was coming to life now. Her eyes snapped open. She fisted his shirt in her hands. “Do something.” Her voice fractured on the raw words, half command, half plea. “Anything.”

“You can’t do anything the easy way, can you?” he grumbled as he shifted his grip on her, one hand coming to rest at the small of her back, the other palming the back of her neck. Then his head swooped toward her, quick and lethal as a bird of prey striking, and he was kissing her. The first shock of the kiss shattered her concentration, loosening her control, and as quickly as his lips met hers, he was in her mind, and something latched, some internal hook catching, stretching taut and perfect, and they were linked. It felt right, far too right, he was flowing into her, through her, until she was just a conduit, a puppet, and Karma felt herself start to resist, to push him out. But he wouldn’t be evicted. He pushed in—his tongue in her mouth, his hands hard and sure, pressing her body tight to his, and her thoughts flitted away as she fell from her mind into the sensations of her body. This felt right too. He drew her like a bow, the arch tightening nerves she hadn’t known she had as his mouth worked over hers, commanding and unrelenting. She was a thousand sparks igniting for the first time and he was kerosene on the flame.

She sensed him again, flowing through her, using her as a conduit, a channel, and she couldn’t remember why she would possibly want to resist. Lights flickered and a static charge shot off them, tiny lightning strikes flying in all directions. The man kissed her and sparks literally flew. Another link latched, this one jerking her hard, yanking her back, the hook of it digging deep into the muscle of her heart, and she couldn’t breathe. Karma struggled in his arms, trying to fight him off. He was suffocating her, smothering her. No, not him, it was water. She was Ciara. With the awareness came pain, a rush of it more suffocating than the lack of oxygen. Drowning in liquid agony. She wanted to scream, to fight, but more than that she just wanted it to stop. Make it stop.

With a dim, dual awareness, she felt Prometheus again. Inside her, linked to her, holding her, kissing her, she couldn’t tell the difference anymore. He was and his existence was hope. She tried to cling to it, to cling to him, but she couldn’t find her center amid all the chaos. She was rolling on the tide of something. Something far bigger than she. Was it him? Death? Coming for Ciara? Would she die too if they were linked? Held under the weight of the pain, it was hard to care. Death would release her from that, release them both.

Not today, it won’t. The deep voice in her mind was layered over itself, rich with power, but she heard Prometheus in it. His ferocity. His determination. A girl could do worse in a knight in shining armor. A dark laugh rumbled in her mind. Don’t go mistaking me for a white knight, sweetheart.

Then something clicked, a deep chord finding perfect harmony, a long dislocated bone popping into place. The pain vanished. Karma gasped at the release, slingshotted out of Ciara’s awareness, the link flying loose with a brutal jerk that left an ache in her chest where it had hooked in deep. She saw Ciara tumble out of the water and into her handler’s arms, saw her finder reach for him, like an echo or the afterimage that lingers after staring too long into the sun, but she was firmly herself again, collapsed against Prometheus’s chest, clinging to him to keep herself upright.

“She’s alive,” she whispered, melting even more against him with the force of her relief—and residual lust.

“I saw.” She felt as much as heard his voice, rumbling through his chest.

He’d seen. Of course he’d seen. He’d been right there with her. He’d done it all. He may not be a white knight—had she imagined his voice in her mind?—but he’d saved the day today. Saved Ciara. Saved Karma’s sanity.

“Thank you.”

Those words had never seemed more inadequate. She looked up, into those bottomless black eyes, trying to convey with her own everything she couldn’t put into words. He was strength. Stability in a chaotic world. He taken her trust and earned it back. He—

“Karma? Your three o’clock is—oh.”

Brittany broke off as Karma launched herself away from Prometheus. She patted her hair, her clothes, more than a little surprised to find herself unmussed—or at least no more mussed than she had been before Prometheus had gotten his hands on her. Her world had just been rocked. She shouldn’t look the same. But she did. Normal, straight-laced Karma. “Yes, Brittany?”

Brittany smiled, a naughty twinkle in her wide eyes. “Sorry to interrupt. I think your intercom thingy is busted. Your three o’clock is waiting.”

Apparently, the sparks hadn’t been merely metaphorical. A quick glance confirmed they’d fried all the electronics on her desk. Karma cleared her throat, hoping it would clear the cobwebs out of her brain. “Certainly. Please thank him for his patience. I’ll just be another two minutes.”

“What, no afterglow?”

Karma shot Prometheus a quelling glare, even knowing it would do nothing to shut him up. “Thank you, Brittany.”

The receptionist beamed and ducked back into the front office, leaving Karma alone with the bane of her existence—who could apparently kiss in a way that made her lose her mind. That is not a good thing.

She rounded the desk, striding purposefully toward the door. To show him out, not because I need the distance. “Thank you very much for your assistance, Prometheus.”

“My pleasure.” His voice was far too suggestive for her comfort as he prowled behind her across the room. “You know, some people might think I’ve repaid my debt to Karmic Consultants now.”

“I’ll take your actions today under consideration, but as you heard, I have a prior engagement and don’t have time to discuss any changes in our arrangement at present. I’ll speak with Rodriguez and we can talk about your progress tomorrow. Brittany will find a time for you in my schedule.”

The words were comforting, making her feel more and more in control, but one look at Prometheus proved what an illusion that was. No one could control him. He was a force of nature. A human tidal wave. If he even qualified as human.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Prometheus murmured as he brushed past her, closer than he needed to be, close enough for his power to prick her skin in a stealth caress like he was attuning her body to his touch. But he didn’t touch. “Just look on your schedule under Knight in Shining Armor.” He winked and was gone before Karma had time to blush.

Damn. She hadn’t imagined it. He really had been inside her thoughts—if they even counted as her thoughts. She hadn’t been herself. Certainly she would never have thought of him that way. His magic was dark. It had probably tainted her. Corrupted her. But it hadn’t felt corrupting. Tempting, yes. Seductive, absolutely. But she wanted to roll in his power, not rid herself of it. Dangerous.

Karma strode to her meditation corner, taking a few seconds to tidy herself up and clear her head. She went through her mental exercises quickly, easily finding that familiar center, that firm, unyielding sense of control. Once again ready to face the world as cool, competent Karma, she strode to her door and opened it with a professional smile already in place.

“Dr. Williams, thank you for your patience.” She extended a hand to the slim man with elbow patches on his tweed jacket, making a point not to look at the tall figure leaning against Brittany’s desk. Her heart rate did not speed up because he was in the room. Her reaction to him today had been an aberration. It would not be repeated.

Even if a tiny part of her she usually kept buried had liked it.