Running Hot

ELEVEN

The dream was familiar, one of a handful of repeat nightmares connected to the day she killed Martin Crocker. But there was something different about it this time. For one thing, she was aware that she was dreaming. The most striking aspect, however, was that she was not afraid.

. . . Martin was coming toward her, only a couple of yards away. The bags of groceries had fallen from his arms. A loaf of bread, a package of coffee beans and a plastic bag filled with lettuce lay scattered on the dock. She wanted to run but she could not. Soon the pain would slash across her senses. Martin would reach down to take hold of her.

But something was wrong. She was not stricken with fear. Instead she felt calm. That wasn’t right. She should be mortally afraid, not only of Martin but of what she was about to do. . . .

“No.”

She pushed through the veil of unnatural serenity, searching for the right emotion.

She came awake suddenly but her heart was not pounding the way it usually did after the dock scene dream. She wasn’t even breathless, and her nightgown was not stuck to her skin with icy sweat.

She opened her eyes and looked out through the sliding glass doors. The outline of the lanai railing and part of a lounge chair were etched against the pale gray light of dawn.

You’re not in Eclipse Bay anymore.

Right. She was in Maui; here on a mission for J&J and, oh, by the way, trying to learn to live in the moment.

“Are you okay?” Luther said from the doorway.

Startled, she sat up and turned to look at him. He had put on his pants but that left a lot of him uncovered. She was intensely aware of his bare feet and the broad expanse of his strong shoulders and well-muscled chest. Clearly, the fact that he used a cane did not keep him from working out.

Vivid memories of how those shoulders and that chest had felt beneath her fingers the night before cascaded through her.

Sex. She’d had

sex with this man. The most intimate kind of human contact. Okay, technically there had been no penetration, at least not by the portion of the male anatomy that was, by tradition and in legal terms, generally considered the penetrating object. “Heavy petting” was probably the correct term. Still, there had been a lot of skin-to-skin contact. Also an overwhelmingly powerful climax, at least for her. She felt a little guilty about that part.

The truth was, she had been too shattered by the experience to reciprocate. Just staying on her feet had required most of her strength and willpower. The whole experience had left her oddly disoriented, balanced precariously on a knife edge of exquisite relief and anxious amazement. Was she cured of her phobia or had last night been some bizarre interlude created by the close brush with the hunter?

Luther seemed to have understood. Either that, or he had lost interest when she had collapsed, crying on his chest. Men were not keen on dealing with tearful women. That probably went double when it came to women who cried after an orgasm. She couldn’t blame him.

Whatever the answer, he had seen to it that they returned immediately to the hotel. The elevator had been empty, thank goodness. She didn’t think she could have managed the stairs. When they reached the suite, he’d ushered her into the bedroom and then closed the door very deliberately.

Obviously at some point during the night he’d opened the door. Well, he was a bodyguard, after all.

“I’m fine,” she said. She drew her knees up under the bedding and wrapped her arms around them. “Just a bad dream.” Alarm sparked through her. If she had awakened him, she must have cried out. “Did I say anything?”

“No.”

“Good.” She relaxed a little.

“You said no,” he explained. “You were thrashing around a lot and you said no a couple of times. Must have been bad.”

“Well, it wasn’t terribly pleasant.” She sank back against the pillows. At least she hadn’t mumbled Martin’s name in her sleep. But there was no getting around the fact that it had been a very close call.

“Probably brought on by that brush with the hunter last night,” Luther suggested. “That kind of thing can affect the dream state in people like us.”

“People like us?”

“Sensitives.”

“Right.”

But it wasn’t the hunter who had invaded her dreams. The memory of the way her nerves had quieted when he went past returned in a rush. She had been too occupied with other things, including her first orgasm in longer than she cared to recall, to think about what had happened out there on the path. But now it occurred to her that last night she had experienced the same eerie, unnatural sense of calm that had made the dream feel so very different. In both instances the ratcheting down of the panic had been unnatural. She had fought it instinctively.

“If you’re sure you’re okay, I’m going to finish getting dressed,” Luther said. He started to retreat into the other room.

“Hold it right there.”

Obediently he paused. “Something wrong?”

“Yes, I think there is something wrong.” She pushed aside the covers, got to her feet and faced him across the tumbled bed. “I want an explanation.”

“Of what?”

“You used your aura energy to squelch some of mine out there on the path last night, didn’t you? Admit it. I’ll bet you did it again a few minutes ago while I was dreaming. How

dare you?”

He stood very still in the doorway. “Take it easy, you’ve had a long day and you’ve just come out of a nightmare. Your nerves are probably still a little unsettled.”

“My nerves are fine, thank you very much. What did you do to me?”

“You felt it?” he asked, frowning a little as if he was not certain that he had heard her correctly.

“Well, of course I did. I didn’t have time to think about it last night because I was focused on the hunter and the fact that he wasn’t paying any attention to us and—” She broke off, astonishment shooting through her. “Good grief, you did it to him, too, didn’t you? You defused him or—or something. He was running hot and you cooled him down. You used your own aura to suppress his.”

“You seem to have figured it out pretty damn fast.” He watched her with a shuttered, wary expression. “No one else ever has, with the possible exception of Fallon Jones.”

“He’s aware of what you can do?”

“There’s no telling what Fallon knows.”

“Well, it certainly explains your success as a bodyguard.” She thought about it. “And as a cop and a bartender, too, I suppose. No wonder you don’t like guns. You don’t need them. All you have to do is focus on a bad guy and just switch him off.”

His hand clenched around the handle of the cane. “Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The effect diminishes rapidly with distance. If the bad guy is too far away from me, I can’t do much except try to talk him into range. I couldn’t suppress the aura of a sniper on a rooftop.”

She smiled a little. “How many of your clients need protection from professional snipers?”

“Doesn’t come up a lot in my line,” he admitted. “The threat is usually much closer to home.”

“Your ability must have been useful when you were a cop.”

“My talent was why I quit the force,” he said without inflection.

“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t it have been helpful?”

“It’s a long story.”

“And you’re not in the mood to tell it?”

“No,” he said.

He had a right to his secrets, she thought. She was certainly keeping some of her own. She slipped into her other senses and studied his aura. There was a lot of tension in it, much of it sexual. She felt herself redden.

He smiled faintly. “See anything interesting?”

Shocked, she opened her mouth, closed it, then finally opened it again. “You can tell when I’m looking at your aura?”

“Sure. Don’t you know when I’m viewing yours?”

Appalled, she could only stare at him. “Uh, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” he repeated, disbelief underscoring every word.

She swallowed hard. “I mean, sometimes when I’m near you I sense an unfamiliar kind of energy, but I thought it had something to do with, uh—” She broke off, mortified.

“Something to do with the fact that we’re attracted to each other?” He shrugged. “Maybe it does. You must have felt me watching you yesterday at the airport. I didn’t know who you were but I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. I remember thinking that you looked like some kind of incredibly brilliant psychic butterfly.”

“Oh, jeez, I didn’t realize what the sensation meant.”

She thought about the excitement and anticipation she had experienced the day before when she first noticed him on the concourse. Her cheeks got warmer. How much had he seen? Not that it mattered, given what had happened last night. He’d obviously known from the start that she was attracted to him.

No one had ever been able to read her. She had always been the one who did the reading; the one who knew what others were going to do, sometimes before they did. That was how she had kept her secrets secure.

“Well, this is awkward,” she said, cheeks burning.

He looked amused. “Takes some getting used to but I’m okay with it if you are.”

This was very dangerous ground. She had to be careful. She could not afford to jeopardize the new life she had so carefully crafted.

“I need to think about it a little more,” she said weakly.

“You do that. Meanwhile, why don’t you tell me your real Jones Scale number?”

Thoroughly rattled now, she tried to compose herself.

“Didn’t Mr. Jones tell you?” she said.

“He gave me some line about you being a level seven with an unusual ability to profile the auras you read. That’s a flat-out lie, though, isn’t it? I’m betting you’re a level ten, at least. Wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got an asterisk after your number, too. You’re an exotic.”

She could not afford to panic, she reminded herself. Anger was a much safer response.

“I don’t know where you got that idea,” she said coldly. “My level seven is as official as your level eight.”

He nodded, satisfied. “Like I said, a flat-out lie.”

“You admit it?” she demanded, incredulous.

“Where’s the harm? You probably already know it, being such a hotshot talent and all. I doubt that you’re going to run around telling everyone you meet.”

“Well, no. It’s just that Mr. Jones assured me that you were an eight.”

“The sooner you learn that Fallon Jones lies through his teeth whenever it suits him the better off you’ll be.”

She sank down on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped in her lap, her back to him. She looked out at the lanai. “I don’t think he lied for the sake of it. I think he was trying to protect your secret.”

“You want to be careful about attributing good intentions to Fallon Jones. His only priority is protecting the Society’s secrets. He’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish that objective.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. She wondered uneasily how much Fallon knew or suspected about her own Jones Scale number.

“Fallon tweaked my file to make sure my rank stayed under the radar,” Luther said. “He wanted to keep my abilities under wraps. But how the hell did you manage to alter your own number?”

“What makes you think that I did?”

“Because I can see your power wavelengths,” he said quietly. “I can feel them. Whatever you are, you’re no seven.”

Maybe she could finesse this.

“I told you, my mother died when I was thirteen, shortly before I was due to be tested at Arcane House. I went straight into the foster care system where no one knew or cared about the Society. The result was that I wasn’t tested until I applied to join the Bureau. By then I knew how to control my talent. It was no big deal to make sure I scored a seven. You know how people react to nines and tens within the Society.”

“Sure. They think we’re freaks of nature. Freaks, especially powerful freaks, make people nervous. So, what are you? A ten?”

She cleared her throat. “A nine.”

“Bullshit. You should see your aura. It’s pulsing like crazy. You’re a ten plus, aren’t you?”

That much was true.

“Yes,” she said.

“Like me.”

She sighed. “The Jones Scale stops at ten.”

“Only because they haven’t found a way to measure psychic energy beyond that point. That’s why they came up with the damned asterisk. Think Fallon Jones knows your real number?”

“Until this morning, I would have said no.” She unclasped her hands. “Now, I’m not so sure. Given the nature of his own talent, I suppose it’s possible he’s guessed that I’m a little higher than my file indicates.”

“You’re an exotic,” he said, very sure. “Like me.”

One secret in exchange for another. As he had pointed out, where was the harm in acknowledging a piece of the truth to another aura talent? It was a relief to admit it to someone who truly understood.

“Yes,” she said. She made a face. “But I hate that word.”

“Exotic?”

“It’s just a semi-polite term for psychic freak.”

“You’re no freak.” He started toward her, cane thudding softly on the carpet. “But you are a very rare creature in my book.”

She stood, turning to face him.

“I am?” she said.

Another wave of hot, sensual energy whispered through her. He was revved up again, watching her aura. She could feel the light pulses of heat from his energy field. Now she knew just what that meant. The sensation was exquisitely intimate.

He sees the real me, she thought.

He’s the only man who ever has.

He came to a halt directly in front of her, smiling a little. “This is where I get to say here’s looking at you, kid.”

She laughed, feeling suddenly light and very highly charged; sexy. Adventurous. Living in the moment.

“Like the view?” she asked. Good grief, she was actually flirting with him.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. He touched her cheek. “No one has ever noticed me screwing around with their auras, let alone pushed back.”

She held her breath but there was no psychic jolt. Experimentally she put her fingertips on his bare chest. She felt nothing except warm skin and sleek, strong muscle. Last night hadn’t been a fluke. She really could touch him without pain. She flattened her hand against him.

She could feel the intense, very focused energy of his desire sweeping around her, enveloping her in powerful and possibly quite dangerous currents. But she no longer cared about the warning signs.

“Are you telling me that you’re attracted to me just because I can keep you from manipulating my aura?” she asked.

His smile was wickedly sexy. “And because you’re hot, of course.”

She blinked. “You really think I’m hot?”

He moved the cane behind her back and grasped the other end in his right hand, trapping her. He pulled her closer and lowered his mouth to hers.

“Very, very hot,” he said against her lips.

The words thrilled all her senses. He wanted her. So what if part of the attraction was based on the fact that he saw her as an interesting challenge? At least she didn’t scare him, the way she did other men. That was a really big plus. And she could touch him.

Live in the moment.

“Yes,” she said. “But it’s cool to hear the words.”

“How about actions? Don’t they count?”

“Oh, yes.” She was breathless now. “Actions are very important.”

“That’s good because I’m in the mood for a little action.”

His mouth closed over hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, throwing herself into the embrace with all her might. Caught off balance by the sudden impact of her weight, Luther dropped the cane and staggered back a step. They collapsed together onto the rumpled bed.

She landed on top. Dazzled and energized, she started kissing his throat. He moved his hands down the sides of her body to her hips and tugged the hem of her nightgown upward. A moment later she felt his fingers close around her bare bottom.

He squeezed gently. She shuddered in response and dug her nails into him.

“Oh, yeah, definitely hot,” he said, his voice tight and ragged.

He raised one knee, cradling her between his thighs and pressed the hard, demanding shape of his erection against her leg.

Enthralled, she slipped one hand down his chest and over his flat belly until she found his zipper. She started to tug. The zipper did not slide readily due to the presence of the large object in the way.

Luther drew in a harsh breath and eased back a little.

“I’ll get it,” he said.

“Okay. Hurry.”

He sat up on the side of the bed. “Trust me, I’m moving as fast as I can.”

She rolled onto her side to admire the powerful shape of his shoulder and hip while he got rid of the trousers. When he pushed the pants down she saw the ragged, newly healed scar that marked his thigh halfway between his hip and his knee. Shock lanced through her.

“Oh, Luther,” she whispered.

He looked down, his mouth twisting. “Not very attractive, is it? One of the doctors talked about plastic surgery to make it look better, but at the time the last thing I wanted to do was go back into a hospital.”

“Who cares how it looks?” She sat up beside him and gently put her fingertips on the savage brand. “You must have lost a lot of blood. You could have been killed.”

“I told you, it was my own fault.” He paused, watching her very steadily. “Does it bother you?”

“Of course it does. It was obviously a very serious injury.”

“That’s not what I meant. Does it turn you off?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I was just concerned, that’s all. Was it a car accident?”

“No.” He opened his wallet and took out a condom packet.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Aches a little sometimes.” He sheathed himself in the condom. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss it. Sort of takes the glow out of the moment, if you know what I mean.”

She blushed. “Wouldn’t want to do that.”

He gave her another sexy smile and settled her back down onto the bed and loomed over her.

“On that we are in perfect agreement,” he said softly.

He put one hand on her breast. She was intensely aware of the heat of his palm through the fabric of the nightgown. She closed her hands around his shoulders. A shudder swept through him. His aura flared higher. It seemed to her that in some way it was starting to resonate with hers. A glorious sense of her own feminine power soared within her.

He moved his hand deliberately up the inside of her thigh to the hot, full place between her legs. He started to stroke her the way he had the night before, as though he knew exactly what she wanted and needed. She sensed the now-familiar pulse of his energy.

Damn. He

did know exactly what she wanted and needed. He was reading her aura to see what worked and what didn’t.

“Wait a second,” she gasped. “I think that’s cheating.”

“All’s fair in love and war.”

He did something with his fingers that shocked her senses in the most delicious way. Of their own accord, her legs stirred amid the rumpled sheets, opening for him.

Impulsively she reached down and wrapped her fingers around him. He sucked in a deep lungful of air and exhaled on a groan. She did not need to see his aura to know that she was pressing all the correct buttons.

“You’re right,” she said, savoring his reaction. “All’s fair.”

He was hard and solid and very erect. She watched him with her other vision as she explored him, discovering exactly where and how to touch him. The sexual excitement in his hot energy field began to resonate harder and faster, emboldening her. She had never tried anything like this with anyone else. The game was compelling, addictive; and her learning curve was very fast, thanks to the feedback she got from his aura.

She heard a low, husky laugh and knew that Luther knew that she was watching him in the same incredibly intimate way that he was watching her.

“You are definitely getting the hang of this,” he growled. He captured her wrists and pinned them over her head. “But I’m not going to let you end things too soon.”

She smiled sweetly and raised one hip a little, nudging him. Distracted, he reached down with his free hand, bringing his shoulder within range of her mouth. She nipped him lightly, letting him feel her teeth.

“I should have seen that coming,” he muttered. “Okay, you’ve made your point.”

He freed her wrists and she went back to her explorations. So did he. The sensual battle grew increasingly fierce and exciting, each of them trying to push the other to a higher level of excitement.

And then Luther was on top of her, driving himself deeply into her. She gripped his shoulders, raised her knees and tightened around him. Invisible light and fire flashed in the atmosphere of the bedroom. She held him even closer, possessive and demanding in a way she had never been with any other man. She felt his muscles harden under her clutching hands. Her insides clenched tighter and tighter.

Luther’s entire body went rigid. Beneath her palms, the muscles of his back could have been sculpted from steel. With an effort, she managed to open her eyes. The morning light revealed the savage set of his hard face. It was the expression of a man on the verge of either sexual release or lethal violence.

He opened his eyes and saw her watching him. He did not speak. She knew that, like her, he could not. They were both too far gone into the whirling fire. But in that heartbeat of time she sensed a flash of intense awareness—a kind of mutual recognition—resonating between them.

Before she had time to analyze the strange new energy, her climax rolled through her, stealing her breath. A heartbeat later Luther followed her over the edge.

For a timeless moment she could have sworn that their auras fused into a single energy field that enveloped them both.

Which was, of course, quite impossible according to the laws of paraphysics.