Born to Darkness (31 page)

She put her phone back and turned to leave. “Get back upstairs.”

“But I
am
going with you,” Shane said. “You can keep me out of your car, but that’s okay. I can ride on the top. Although
that
might raise some eyebrows as we approach the gate.”

Mac turned to look back at him, and he could see that she knew he was serious.
This
he’d do. Absolutely.

“I know you’re taking a car instead of your bike—otherwise you’d be wearing boots,” he told her, pointing to her sneakers.

Her gaze never left his face. “So this is blackmail,” she said. “You’re blackmailing me. I take you with me, or I’m busted. That’s pretty low, Laughlin.”

He laughed. “I’m sorry, but aren’t you the woman who recently confessed to tricking me into having sex with her?”

That hurt her. Shane didn’t have any special talents when it came to empathy, but even
he
could tell that one had hit below the belt. So he quickly apologized, “Wow, that was harsh. I’m sorry. I think it was supposed to be funny or clever or—”

“I don’t need any help,” Mac told him flatly, “with what I’m doing. I’m going to the hospital ER, all right? The same one that
Nika Taylor went to. When I get there, I’ll go in as a child. I’ll pay in cash, they’ll med scan me, and I’ll get on the Organization’s radar.”

“You’re setting yourself up as bait to be kidnapped the way Nika was,” Shane realized. “But, honey, I’m sorry, no one on this planet is going to mistake you even for a sixteen-year-old. It’s just not going to happen.”

Except, Jesus, she changed herself into a kid—right there, while she was looking at him. Her chest flattened and her face became that of a girl, not a woman.

Shane took a step back, involuntarily, and she laughed—and turned back into herself.

“Okay, so I’m wrong about that,” he said quickly. “But … They’re really just going to let you walk in there, to the ER, without an adult? Aren’t there rules—”

“I’m going to be my own mother,” she said. “I have another shirt to put on. I’ve done it before—people are too busy to pay attention. Mom’s parking the car, or she’s in the bathroom, or taking a phone call …”

“But won’t it be easier,” Shane asked, “if you’re there with your, I don’t know, your mother’s boyfriend, or your Uncle Shane?”

“What’s the deal?” Mac asked him abruptly. “You’re tired—I can tell you’re still tired. Why is it so important that you come with?”

“Because I know I can help. Because I
want
to help.”

She laughed, but Shane knew that it wasn’t because she found any of this funny. “You want to come,” she told him, “only because whatever I did to you still hasn’t worn off.”

Shane laughed, too, genuinely amused. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I mean, even if it hadn’t, that you-being-suddenly-thirteen thing would’ve done the trick.”

“No, it wouldn’t. You’d still want me. You’d just hate yourself for it.” Mac’s mouth tightened. “How about we both just climb back up into your apartment? I’ll give you what you want, and then you’ll let me leave.”

“Hmm,” he said, and for the first time he could actually feel it—the whatever it was that she did to make herself more attractive. It was crazy. He could feel himself responding—shifting a little closer, his pulse quickening, his body actually stirring from the increased blood flow. He forced himself to take another step back, away from her. “Tempting, but, no. I’d much rather take the field trip. Besides, if I touch you, your what-cha-ma-call-it, your integration level goes through the roof—I’m pretty sure that’s a given. You’ll have to wait for it to drop back down.”

He could see from her face that he was right about that.

“This way, as long as we don’t touch,” Shane continued, “you can pretend you don’t realize that just
standing
next to me elevates you, right?
And
I’d also like to point out that hospitals have security cameras and metal detectors at the door. If someone gets suspicious, they’ll definitely realize there’s only one of you, which could come back and bite you on the ass. So let’s just do this the easy way. I’ll walk in with you, we’ll get this done, and then walk back out.”

Mac turned abruptly, heading for the parking lot. “Slow me down, and I’ll leave you behind.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Shane said, keeping his smile inward as he jogged to catch up.

Stephen Diaz closed his eyes.

He’d just taken the biggest leap of faith ever in his life and told the man that he adored that he did, in fact, adore him.
That
is
what you think, isn’t it. That it’s all about the sex, but … it’s not. I’ve been in love with you, Elliot, for the past seven years
.

But now Elliot was uncharacteristically silent. He was no doubt remembering the nonstop action that Stephen had broadcast into his dreams, which surely made it seem as if, despite what Stephen had just said, it
was
all about sex.

Elliot finally spoke. “You ever going to look at me again?”

So Stephen opened his eyes.

Elliot was sitting there, beside him on the sofa, and behind his glasses, his blue eyes were soft. “That’s better,” he said quietly.

The heat that had been in his eyes just a few moments ago was gone. It had been replaced by … kindness?

Oh, God, Elliot was going to tell Stephen that his confession was flattering but entirely crazy, and that there was no room in his life for insanity, only he was going to do it gently, kindly, patiently and with humor—the way he always did everything, and—

“I’m not sure what to say,” Elliot admitted. “I mean, you’re this … paragon. Everyone’s just automatically in love with you. Including me—but it’s never been a real possibility, connecting with you that way, because of who you are. Never. I
never
thought … I never even
hoped
 … I’m not even sure I really know you, Stephen—the real you. I didn’t even know you were gay.”

Here it came. The
I think we should just be friends
speech. Stephen’s heart had leapt at that
including me
—but that absolutesounding
never
had put him back on guard. He braced himself for the disappointment. Forcing himself to keep his eyes open, he nevertheless couldn’t hold Elliot’s gaze for a second longer. He had to look down at the floor.

“But I’d very much like to get to know you,” Elliot said quietly. “And then, we can … I don’t know. See where it goes?”

Stephen looked up at him, his surprise no doubt apparent on his face, because Elliot laughed and added, “Seriously, you thought I might, what? Shut you down cold? You
do
know who you are, don’t you? This higher-integration thing hasn’t created some kind of weird amnesia, has it? You want to take a minute and go look in the bathroom mirror?”

Stephen laughed, too, as he let himself gaze into Elliot’s eyes. “The way you were leading up to it, I was expecting—dreading—that you were going to
friend
me.” His heart was actually pounding, and he wondered, inanely, if Elliot could tell that from his ongoing jot scan. Of course, he could. Except the researcher hadn’t looked at the computer’s monitor once since Stephen had dropped his L-bomb.

Elliot’s gaze dropped to Stephen’s mouth—just for a brief moment. Just long enough for Stephen to know that Elliot was thinking about kissing him—which no doubt sent his pulse rate soaring even higher.

“But I do want us to be friends,” Elliot told him, back to being serious again. “I’d like for us to be friends. It’s really up to you, though, with your whole celibacy-as-part-of-your-training deal, whether or not we move beyond that friendship. I have to confess that I’m just not enough of a romantic to be
more
than friends with someone I can’t be intimate with.”

“I would never ask you to do that,” Stephen said.

“Says the man who’s apparently loved me for years without getting any,” Elliot pointed out. “At least not that I remember.”

“You were married.”

“Only at first.”

Stephen was, indeed, aware that Elliot’s divorce had gone through three long years ago. He shook his head. “I know. I just thought that …”

As he trailed off, Elliot lifted one eloquent eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. And as Stephen looked into his eyes, he knew that—with this man—the truth was always the way to go.

So instead of making it be about Elliot’s need for a little time and space after his heartbreak—which
was
true, but only to a point—Stephen admitted, “I thought I couldn’t allow myself to have a relationship like the one I wanted to have with you. I thought I had to deprive myself—to abstain from that part of life—to become more fully integrated. And yes, I
was
willing to make that sacrifice.”

“But now …?”

Stephen held Elliot’s gaze. He didn’t waver. “Just sitting next to you, I’m at fifty-six. It seems that I was wrong, and that getting closer to you will actually
help
me more fully integrate.” He swiftly added, “And when I say that, I don’t mean to sound as if I’m discounting how important the idea of having this relationship is to me, on every other level. Because it is. It’s massively
important. Nearly as important as my training—and I know you understand what that means to me. You live and breathe this job, too.”

“I do understand,” Elliot said quietly.

“I view this as potentially the biggest win/win of my life,” Stephen told him, then added another truth. “The celibacy thing was wearing me out—which is … not very romantic, I know. But it’s true.”

Elliot smiled at that. “I appreciate your honesty. About all of this. More than you could possibly know.”

“I
could
know,” Stephen told him and held out his hand in a silent invitation.

Elliot looked down at it, and then up into Stephen’s eyes, his expression unreadable. “Point of no return. You know what happens when you touch me.” He made the sound of an explosion.

Stephen didn’t take back his hand. “Point of no return,” he agreed, past his heart, which was securely lodged in his throat.

Elliot smiled again—hot and fierce. And that heat was back in his eyes as, no longer hesitant, he took what Stephen offered, clasping their hands, intertwining their fingers.

The connection was immediate—and intense. Stephen was deep inside of Elliot’s incredibly complex mind, which was disorienting and dizzying, but somehow already familiar and wonderful—a rapid-fire barrage of both conscious and half-formed thoughts, of emotions and reactions and instincts and beautiful reason.

Sex was in there.

Elliot was thinking about it—Stephen knew it would have been kind of hard not to, considering. There were shreds of memories of his fantastic dream from Grandma’s house flying around, along with plenty of other images—and not all had come from Stephen’s dreams, which was both comforting and terrifying.

But mostly Elliot’s thoughts were bouncing from that first time they’d met—he remembered it clearly, and no doubt about it, their attraction had been immediate and mutual—to the way he’d stumbled upon Stephen in the exam room last night.
Don’t make me come and find you …
Stephen could see that Elliot understood,
now, why Stephen had laughed the way he had. But back then? He’d honestly had no clue.

Elliot smiled, now, into Stephen’s eyes.
So, here you are. Hello. That was easy enough this time
.

I guess there has to be contact for the telepathy to work
, Stephen hypothesized.
What’s my integration level?

Elliot turned to look at the computer.
Sixty. Damn, Skippy. That was fast
.

Stephen moved his leg, just a little, so his thigh was pressed against Elliot’s. “You want to see what happens when I kiss you?”

His intention was to release Elliot’s hand so he could take off the man’s glasses, but Elliot beat him to it, setting them on the table as he turned to smile at Stephen.

“I very much do,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to Stephen’s mouth. But when Stephen leaned in, he backed off.
Please just … Reassure me that this is more than an experiment for you. I mean, I get that it’s an experiment. And in the name of science, I support that, you know I do. I just need you to know that, for me, it’s a hell of a lot more, too. I know I joke, and I pretend, but … I wouldn’t do this with just anyone
.

You can’t read it?
Stephen asked in response, his heart back in his throat.
What I’m feeling?
God, he was feeling so much of it, too. Elation. Euphoria. Terror—in a good way. Heat.

But Elliot shook his head.
I can sense you in my mind, which is
very
nice, and I can read the thoughts and images that you put there, but … It’s not like it was downstairs—when you seemed to be unconsciously projecting. This feels more organized and controlled. As if you’re … Are you guarding?

“Not intentionally,” Stephen spoke aloud as he closed his eyes and focused on finding and unclenching his mental shields. There was no longer a reason to hide himself, to hide anything that he was feeling—not from Elliot. And slowly, rustily, he felt himself start to unravel and then, in a rush, like dominoes in a row, his guard came undone.