“Lara,” Miles broke in.
“Just a sec, Keiko,” she murmured, looking up. “What?”
“Tell him to leave town, after he makes the call,” Miles said. “Tell him to lay low. Just in case.”
Lara stared at him, eyes huge with dawning realization. “Oh. God. You mean, you think he’ll be in danger?“
“Just tell him, Lara.”
“Ah, Keiko. My friend here was just suggesting that you leave town for a while, after you call,” she faltered. “I’m really sorry, but it might be dangerous for you. I don’t mean to mess up your life, but—”
There was a burst of voluble talking on the other end of the line. Lara just listened, her hand over her mouth. “Yes, I know,” she whispered. “Sorry. Yes. Thanks. I will, I promise. As soon as I can.”
She let the phone drop. “He’ll make the call. He thinks I’m nuts, but he’ll do it, just in case I’m not. Good old Keiko.”
Yeah. Keiko, whose cell phone number she still knew by heart, even after six months in solitary confinement. “Good old Keiko,” he echoed. “So. Was he your boyfriend?”
That startled a smile onto her face. “I’m talking about terrorist bombs, and you want to know about my ex-boyfriends?”
Miles shrugged. “Call me shallow.”
She convulsed. For an awful moment, he thought she was sobbing. Then he realized it was silent laughter. “Right,” she choked out. “You, shallow. If you must know, yes. He was my boyfriend. For a little while.” She dropped her hands, eyes demurely fixed on the comforter in front of her. “It fizzled out. But we stayed friends.”
“Fizzled?” He stared at her, his mind blank. It just was not a word he could associate in any way with the naked woman curled up on that bed. Her gorgeous eyes, her perfect tits, her swirling cape of hair, her slender legs. She was perfect. Everything about her pulled him like a tractor beam. Her smell scrambled his brain at twenty paces.
“Fizzled how?” he demanded.
She waved, vaguely. “It happens,” she said. “If I knew how it happened, maybe it wouldn’t happen to me so fast.”
“I don’t get how any man wouldn’t kill to be with you.”
With that gut-clenching hindsight that so often afflicted him, the words stuck him as stalker creepy. But he couldn’t take them back.
He clamped down on the urge to backpedal, and just waited, teeth clenched, for the fallout.
Her eyes skittered shyly away. “I, um . . . don’t usually inspire such violent throes of emotion in men.”
“Get used to it,” he said.
This time she did meet his eyes. The silence between them was charged, buzzing with meaning. He was attuned to her every breath. Her scent fogged his brain. Yanked him toward her.
He walked to the bed, and stood, staring down at her. She cleared her throat, eyes darting down over his body.
“Keiko is gay,” she said. “He came out senior year. He’s with this new guy now. Franz. A dancer. A Norse god type. Full of muscles.”
Miles let out a slow breath. “Ah. I see.”
“Just, you know. To give you a little context. For the fizzling.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that. It was tying my brain in knots,” he told her. She clearly was trying not to smile, so he ventured to continue. “Great. I wish them all the best. Go, Keiko and Franz. Tear it up, boys.”
She snorted into her hands again. “I can’t believe I’m laughing right now,” she whispered.
“I love it,” he said. “I love it when you laugh.”
She gave him a look that made a lump swell into his throat. “Thank you. For loving that. I really . . . it means a lot to me.”
Then he was really in danger of starting to cry, which was so very not on his agenda for the evening, so he did the hard thing. Which was to smash a hammer down onto the tender moment before it fucked him up.
“You might have put Keiko in a tight place,” he said. “The police are going to be real focused on him. Even from across the ocean.”
The smile faded, and he mourned it, sharply. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry about that. I’ll try to—”
“No, you won’t,” he said. “You aren’t doing jack shit right now. You’re running for your life. You can’t help him.”
She flattened her lips to a bloodless line. “I know. I’m sorry to do this to Keiko. But hundreds of people will survive who might have died.”
“If there actually is a bomb,” he said, hating himself for it.
Her eyes flashed. “You think I’m lying?”
“Never,” he said hastily. “I think you’ve been locked in a hole for six months and forcibly injected with shitloads of a very powerful drug. That’s what I think.”
“Ah,” she said. “So. I’m crazy, then.”
“No, Lara.” He sat down on the bed. “I think that you’re fucking amazing. You put me to shame. It’s incredible to me that you’re focusing on helping a bunch of strangers in a train station, after what you’ve been through. I am a pathetic, self-absorbed, jerk-off dickhead compared to you. All I ever think about is poor little me.”
“It’s not such a big deal.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “All they have to do is look for the bag. If there’s no bomb, all they’ve lost is some time. It’s an inconvenience. A stupid bummer of a bomb scare. Worth the risk. Totally worth it.”
“As you command.” He lifted his hand to her lips. “You save the world, and I’ll be your body servant and lady’s maid while you do it.”
“Oh, stop it,” she said, crabbily. “I don’t like being manipulated.”
He kissed her knuckles, one by one. “How about worshipped?”
She snatched her hand away, and swatted him on the chest with it. He caught her hand, by reflex, and held it there, over his heart.
Her pulse stuttered, raced. His chest felt so hot, with her hand flattened over it. Hot and soft, like something was turning in there, stretching. Unfurling.
The buzz of hot awareness built and built. So close to just seizing her, just letting that hot prod of lust spur him on and bear her down onto the bed. He was slavering to spread her open, tease another lake of hot, slippery lube out of her sweet flower of a pussy before mounting up for a hard, juicy ride into explosive oblivion. And she was so there with him. He saw it, felt it, smelled it. Lips rosy and parted, nipples tight and peaked, eyes dilated, glowing. Oh.
Yes.
He clenched his jaw, and broke eye contact. Three hard, athletic bouts of sex were way more than enough for the girl who just got rescued from the pits of hell.
The abandoned plate of food on the bedstand caught his eye, and he lunged for it. “It’s been a couple hours,” he said. “How about you ingest your next shot of calories?”
She looked at the plate, doubtfully. “I’ll try the rice and veggies,” she conceded. “The meat’s too rich for me right now.”
“Whatever. As long as it’s something.”
He watched every bite go down, and felt himself fed. When that was all gone, he let himself be persuaded to polish off the steak, which she insisted she could not eat. He tried to be non-cholant about the erection as he peeled off his clothes and slid in next to her, tucking the comforter up to her chin.
He switched the light off, and pitch darkness thudded down onto them, pressing in on all sides, charged with menace. All at once, he remembered that she’d been confined in the dark. Thoughtless asshole.
“Oh, shit, Lara, I’m sorry,” he said, groping for the lamp. “We can leave the light on, if you—”
“It’s fine,” she whispered, pulling him back down. “With you, it’s fine. You’re all the light I need.”
His heart thumped, and his eyes fogged. He wrapped her in his arms, amazed. She was so sweet, so soft. And paradoxically strong.
He wound around her, settling her cheek against his chest, wrapping her leg around his.
She slid her hand timidly down over his belly until she encountered his stiff cock, in its perennial slick of precome jutting toward his navel, ferociously unappeased. She petted it, with appreciative fingers. “You can rest like that?”
“Better learn how,” he said, ruefully. “Or I’m not going to get much sleep for, oh, say, the rest of time?”
“Wow.” Her fingers curled around, squeezing.
He pried her hand away. “Don’t. I’m making this huge effort not to be a pig, and you are not helping.”
“You are the farthest thing in the world from a pig.”
“Hah,” he muttered. “How innocent you are.” He dragged her hand away from the danger zone, and flattened it against his chest, pinned beneath his own. “Sleep.”
“I’m afraid to,” she admitted, after a pause. “I’ll get sucked into the vortex again. I’ll start tripping, and he’ll find me out there.”
He mulled over the implications of that for a while, and remembered Davy’s suggestion. An elegant and eminently desirable solution. “Get inside,” he told her. “Sleep inside.”
She propped herself up onto her elbow. “You think?”
“Why not? Is that any weirder than all the rest of it?”
“But what about you?”
He thought about it. “I’ll stay awake.”
“No!” she protested. “You have to rest, too. And it should still work, even in your sleep. You kept me safe for weeks when I hid in the Citadel, and you were asleep then, right?”
“Yeah, but I don’t like letting go of conscious control,” he said. “That feels wrong to me, with that guy out there gunning for you.”
“You have to let go sometime,” she said. “You’ll crash if you don’t. You kept Anabel out of your wall when you were fast asleep. Every time. Your shield never goes down.”
“Okay,” he said, dubiously. “We can give it a go. If you want.”
She petted his chest hair, a slow, seductive caress. “The only question is, can I sleep if I’m inside the Citadel?”
“Why couldn’t you?” he demanded.
She paused delicately. “Well. My associations with the Citadel are extremely, shall we say, erotically charged. Every time I went there, the Lord of the Citadel appeared, swept me off my feet—”
“And right onto your back. Yup. I know. I was there.”
“It was amazing,” she assured him. “I hated when the drug wore off and I got dragged back. The dance, to get through the wall, it felt like foreplay. The whole thing just shone with sex. It was the one good thing I had to cling to. It’s what kept me alive.”
“Oh, come on,” he mumbled, abashed.
“Seriously. I’m not exaggerating,” she said. “That’s how it was for me. I never thought I had such a creative sexual imagination. Now I know that, in fact, I don’t. At all. That was your imagination, not mine.”
“Um . . .” His face was hot, in the darkness. “Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. What I’m saying is, if I go inside the Citadel, I can’t answer for the consequences.”
He stared up into the darkness, a big, stupid grin tugging at his cheeks. “Are you threatening me?” he asked, wondering.
She draped herself across his chest. Even in the pitch dark, he could swear he saw that subtle Mona Lisa smile on her face.
“Are you scared?” she asked.
“Shitless,” he said bluntly.
She cupped his cheek. Kissed him.
It was like his heart burst in his chest, and the light of the flash-pop startled them both, but only for a moment. Then the kiss yanked them deep into itself, wild and sweet and tempest-tossed, each launching a tender, frantic assault upon the other to taste more, feel more, know more. He wanted to crawl inside her soul, drink light, heat, life from her soft mouth, and oh God. He had . . . to . . .
stop.
He dragged himself away, gasping for breath. “No.” Lust and frustration made his voice harsh.
She went stiff, tried to pull away, but he locked his arm around her. “No,” he said. “You stay right here. In my arms, in my mind. I don’t care if it turns you on. Be turned on. Just get some sleep, someplace safe. And do not tease me. I’ve had enough.”
“Or else what?” she said, peevishly. “Mr. Masterful.”
He laughed. “Tell you what. We get you fed up, healed up, we find someplace safe, solve your problems, and then, I will offer myself up as a sex slave. Okay? Whatever, wherever, whenever you want. Until then, I’m concentrating on keeping you alive, and getting enough sleep is part of that enterprise. You get me?”
She was silent for a moment. “I want it in writing.”
“Huh?”
“The sex slave bit,” she said. “In writing.”
He was grinning so hard now, his cheeks actually ached. “I’ll get it notarized for you,” he promised. “Inside. Now.”
She shifted, snuggling closer, and draped her slender leg between his. He sensed her fierce concentration in the stillness—and ah, yes, there she was. The sweet bright glow, in the Lara place, flicking on.
The incredible intimacy of the contact sent a fresh surge of lust surging through him. He hauled himself back. By brute force.
It took a long time for her to drop off, but eventually, he felt the change as her breathing slowed, steadied. The quality of Lara light changed, from a bright focused point to a glowing, diffuse cloud.
That glow was so beautiful. It felt almost like being happy. Or at least, it felt like one tiny, perfect fragment of happiness. A sweet, perfect oasis, surrounded on all sides by a blasted wasteland of terror and danger.
He spent hours staring up into the darkness, hot-eyed. Slowly stroking the silken coils of her hair that lay on his chest. Challenging the monsters in the darkness, as he listened to her breathe. Slow, steady.
Celebrating each single individual breath as a personal victory.
17
T
he sun was hot against her skin. The grass she lay in was soft, fragrant, tickling her cheek, rustling in the wind. This meadow was one of her favorite places in the Citadel, which was full of shifting rooms, realms, landscapes. The weather constantly changed according to the mercurial moods of its gorgeous, brooding inhabitant.
For whom she waited, breathlessly.
He appeared out of the trees that bounded the clearing. Tall and strong, dark hair blowing back from his face in the wind. Dark eyes, ardent and glowing with purpose. Fixed on her. Focused utterly on her.
He moved toward her as she rose from her nest of crushed grass and flowers. The white dress fluttered in the wind, flattening against her legs, revealing every detail of her body.
A blatant offering, and he wasted no time taking her up on it. He seized her, urgent, wordless. Jerked the bodice of the dress down to bare her breasts. She struggled to free her elbows from the sleeves, but he kept her trapped, wiggling against his hard body as he kissed her, his hands moving eagerly over bare skin, thin fabric, making her shiver and sigh.
His tongue moved in her mouth, probing and questing. She was still struggling to free her arms when he dragged up her skirt, and made a growling sound in the back of his throat when he found her naked beneath. He slid his hand between her legs, stroking tenderly to bring forth her slick lube. She’d been soft, wet. Aching for him before he even appeared.
She fought her arms free, and abandoned herself to his kiss, to his skilful hand, the heat of his erection pressing her belly.
She sank to her knees, groping at the opening of his pants. Hungry to hold and lick and play with his hot, thick cock. It sprang out, swollen, jutting red and thick from its nest of hair. She clutched at the broad stiff shaft with both hands, stroking from root to tip, wetting her hands with saliva. Swirling her tongue around and around, tonguing that broad, velvety smooth cockhead. Lapping and lashing with joyful enthusiasm.
He guided her head to take him deeper, and she slowed down and drew him inside; long, swirling strokes that left his cock gleaming, shiny, the thick veins snaking around, blazing an angry red. He withdrew with a harsh groan, prying away her clutching hands, and turned her, pushing her around, pushing until she stumbled down into the thick grass, on her hands and knees, skirt flung up over her back. Arching back to meet him.
He waited, sliding his cock tenderly around, a teasing dip and swirling push, a slow slide down the length of her slit, petting each slick, shivering fold and crevice, bathing himself in her lube. Circling, stroking, so careful and deliberate, so sure of himself. Teasing, circling, swirling.
Driving her mad. She shoved back against him, demanding more.
Finally, he slid inside. It was slow, deliberate, delicious. His thick cock plumbing her depths, swiveling, pressing over every hot spot. Remolding her body with each delicious dip and stir, swirl and thrust—
She woke up in the dark, disoriented. Convulsing. Throbbing pleasure, as she clamped jealously around—
Him.
Oh, God, him. Miles’ naked body was plastered to her backside. His cock was thrust deep inside her from behind.
She was so startled, she cried out. Miles woke up, and let out a sharp gasp. “Oh, God. Lara, I—”
“Please,” she gasped out.
He started to withdraw. “I’m sorry. I swear, I didn’t mean to—”
“No!” She shoved herself back so that his erection slid heavily inside her once again. “Don’t you leave me! Don’t you dare!”
He was frozen, confused for a second, then he made a wordless sound in the back of his throat, rolled her onto her belly and jerked her up into the same hands and knees position she’d had in the dream.
He thrust. She was primed for it, bracing herself as his body thudded against her, stroking himself voluptuously over that bright sweet place deep inside, and it glowed, swelling to ripeness—
A profound explosion of heat, light, color, in her depths.
He let go along with her, emptying himself, and collapsed on top of her. Aftershocks jolted through them both.
After a minute, Miles rolled onto his side, taking her with him. He didn’t leave her body. In fact, he was still hard. He pressed his hand low on her belly, to keep them tightly joined. His breath still came fast.
“I don’t know how that happened,” he said. “I was fast asleep. I know it sounds like a raft of total bullshit, but I swear to God—”
“I warned you,” she said.
He laughed. The vibration shivered through her, where their bodies were joined. “I don’t know how to control it,” he said. “Not in the dream, anyway. I feel so weird about it.”
“About what? What’s to control?”
He hesitated. “The vibe,” he said. “That arrogant lord of the manor thing that I’ve got going. Ripping off your clothes, throwing you on the ground, fucking you from behind. Our dream sex is always like that. I don’t even know myself like that.”
“I know you,” she said. “And that wasn’t fucking. Not in the dream, and not out of it. I know the difference.”
“Hmmph.” He sounded unconvinced.
She twisted around, as if she were looking at him, in spite of the darkness. “Did you feel me come?” she asked.
His answer was slow in coming. “Ah, yeah.”
“Yeah,” she repeated, with emphasis. “You pleased me.”
“Well,” he said. “Good. Thank God. At least, that.”
“No,” she said. “Get it straight. The way you acted? Your vibe? That’s not arrogance. That’s the vibe of a man who is absolutely sure of his welcome. Who trusts his lover. And knows that she wants him.”
Tension still sang in the darkness.
“That’s great,” he said, after a moment. “For the dreams, anyway. Where do you go in real life to buy that kind of confidence?”
She found his hand in the darkness, pulled it to her cheek. Kissed his palm. “You don’t,” she said. “Because I’m giving it to you. For free.”
She could actually feel his smile lighting up the Citadel, warming her from the inside. His penis jerked inside her, sliding deeper.
“God,” he muttered. “What a turn-on. Don’t get me started.”
“You know I can’t stop,” she said again. “Explain something to me, Miles. Is it possible that you don’t know how totally smoking hot you are?”
He snorted. “Oh, come on. You don’t have to say stuff like—”
“Shut up,” she snapped. “And that’s completely apart from the sexy superpowers, and the blazing heroics. I’m talking, you know, just basic, superficial, droolworthy hubba hubba.”
He was silent, but his hand slid up, cupping her breast, caressing and delicately squeezing her. “Thanks for saying that,” he said carefully.
It was clear that he didn’t believe a word of it.
Lara shifted, breaking the contact, but only to clamber up on top of him, straddling him. She leaned over, flicked on the light, lifted the cover, draping it over her shoulders against the chill, and gripped his cock, commanding him with her eyes. “Inside,” she said. “Now.”
He laughed, but held his cock obligingly up, nudging inside her. He arched, with a sharp hiss of pleasure as she slid down onto him.
“Oh. God,” he gasped, and then held her still, his big hands clamped hard on her hips. “You must be sore. I’m not moving. Not one muscle. Got that? Are we clear?”
She placed her hands on his chest, letting her dangling hair stroke and tickle him. “I just want you inside me.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll put it anywhere you want it, and keep it there as long as you like. But I’m not moving.”
She smiled, and he caught his breath, his eyes dazzled. “You’re so beautiful like that,” he said. “That cover over you. A goddess’s mantle. I can’t believe you’re here with me. On me.”
“Believe it,” she said. “I need for us both to believe it, because that’s exactly how I feel about you. I still don’t believe you’re real.”
He cupped her breasts, hefting them tenderly. Every point of contact was a sweet blushing glow of pleasure, a sweet kiss, a benediction. “I was with this woman, Cindy, for years, and I . . .” His eyes narrowed, doubtful. “Maybe this is inappropriate. Do you mind if I talk about her while I’m, you know, inside of you?”
“I like it when we talk,” she said. “It’s one of the many things that’s even better than the dream sex in the Citadel.”
“Oh, really?” His eyes lit with curiosity. “How’s that?”
“You never talked in the dreams,” she said. “You were always very, um . . . well, focused and purposeful, you might say. But go on. You can say anything to me. You were saying, about this Cindy?”
His grin flashed. “So, yeah. Cindy is the sister of Connor’s wife, Erin. I carried a torch for her for years. Ever since college. Then we finally got together, and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Until she started cheating on me. Repeatedly. For years.”
“Oh.” She winced. “That’s so awful. I’m sorry.”
“She’d cry, and be so sorry, and say she really loved me, and she’d never do it again, yada yada, and then, boom. Again.” He shook his head, lost in thought. “I spent all this time agonizing about why I just wasn’t enough for her. Hard as I tried. Drove me flipping nuts.”
She petted his chest, quietly waiting.
“I finally realized, it was like a joke, or a puzzle with no solution. She would only want me for real if I stopped wanting her. And it did no good to pretend. It didn’t count if I faked it. She could tell, somehow.”
She nodded. “I’m familiar with the dynamic.”
“Anyhow, I don’t think it had much to do with me,” he said. “It was all about her. How she felt about herself. She hated herself. She had no respect for herself. No amount of love could make up for that.”
Lara shivered. “Bad,” she whispered. Anabel flashed through her mind, the woman’s self-loathing. Along with Lara’s own, after all her endless hours locked in the dark with herself, her fears and monsters. “I’m sorry for her. And for you.”
“I wasn’t asking for pity,” he said. “I’m just thinking out loud. I can finally see it for what it is, with you to compare it to. It’s so different with you. Even after what you went through, you’re so, I don’t know. Dignified. Regal. A goddess.”
She stirred, uncomfortable. “Please. Now you’re overdoing it.”
“Really,” he said. “It’s not just the sex, even though that totally blows my mind. It’s so different to be with someone who knows her worth. That’s the only kind of woman who can make a man sure of his welcome. It’s in you, Lara. And it’s so sexy it fucking kills me.”
She dropped kisses upon the taut muscles of his pecs. “Don’t build me up into something I’m not,” she pleaded. “I’m feeling small right now. Not very worthy. Don’t ask me to be a goddess.”
“Too late,” he said, his hands spanning her waist. He stared at her body, his eyes bright with fascination. “You’re regal, and selfless, and brave. And that’s apart from being smart, and artistically talented. And did I say anything about gorgeous? Did I mention that?”
“Please.” It was her turn, to be uncomfortable. It scared her. A nervous, superstitious fear that if he created this lofty story about her in his mind, he would be disappointed in the stark truth of Lara Kirk. She’d pondered that stark truth for many dark, lonely hours, and it wasn’t pretty. She didn’t want to even accept it. Let alone share it.
“Like your sculpture.
Persephone’s Pride
,” he said. “You peer inside the hole in the vase to see her, but even trapped in the dark, she’s dignified. She stands so straight. Like a knife blade, with the one ray of light falling on her face. I love that one. She’s a princess, and nothing can change that. No wonder Hades totally lost his shit for her.”
She pulled the comforter tighter around herself. “Don’t invoke her,” she said. “Remember. She had to go back to him.”
He sat up suddenly, catching her in his arms. “You’re not going back to him. I’ll see to it.”
She let herself be hugged tight against his warmth, trying to be comforted. “Thanks for the sentiment,” she said.
“No, really,” he said, more forcefully. “I’ll die first.”
The words made her heart freeze. “Don’t,” she said, thinly. “I really, really don’t want you to die. So please, don’t even say it. Don’t put that thought out there. Please. Don’t.”
“I’ll do my best,” he assured her. “I promise.”
As promises went, it was a damn good one. It rang with heartfelt sincerity. And she had seen his best, with her own eyes. His best kicked ass. It was superb. Superhuman, even. But that did not calm her fears.
Not after having seen Thaddeus Greaves’ worst.
She wasn’t ready to be this brave, to care this much, but she didn’t have a choice. She hid her face against his chest, squeezed her legs aound his waist. Sought out the bright safety of the Citadel, in a deft flicker of mental maneuvering. In a moment, she was in.
The safest place in the universe, for everything but her heart.
Oh, God. This was bad. She didn’t fear death anymore, after the rat hole. She didn’t fear solitude, or hunger, or pain, or even madness. She’d come so close to being free of caring about anything. She’d had nothing on earth left to lose, except for her own body. Everyone she cared about, gone. Nothing left to fear.
And hey, presto, out of nowhere, she had just acquired a whole new set of things to be terrified of losing.
And wasn’t that just fucking perfect.
Greaves paused by the window, struggling for patience. Crushing the man’s mind in a temper would yield him nothing, but he was so angry. He reminded himself of the results of his anger at Geoff. He’d lost control, and look how that had turned out. Disaster.
Easy does it. Don’t kill the goose.