“Sometimes when I sleep.” She didn’t pull away, almost convinced herself that she was merely pandering to his changeling need for touch, that it had nothing to do with her own desires.
A slow smile spread over that savagely beautiful face. “I’d like to see that.”
“I thought you said we stink?” She was still hurting from the blow.
“Most Psy do. You, however, don’t.” Leaning close, he sniffed at the curve of her neck. “In fact, I find your scent quite . . . luscious.”
It took every ounce of her concentration not to betray her reaction to his disturbing nearness. “That should make it easier for us to continue working together.”
“Darling, it’ll make all sorts of things easier.” The heat coming off his body was a physical caress, intimate and exquisite.
She was intelligent enough to know that he was sexually flirting with her. She’d watched him with Tamsyn, with Zara. He didn’t touch either of those women the way he touched her. But what was his agenda? Did he suspect she wasn’t what she seemed, or was he merely amusing himself at her expense? “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I think it should be mine, don’t you?” Dropping her braid, he braced himself against the car by placing one arm across the roof. The position put him to her left, standing as she was with the car at her back. He was far too close for comfort but she couldn’t move way. “What’re you doing in my territory, Sascha?”
The words threatened to get stuck in her throat. “I wanted to talk to you about what you told me this afternoon.”
He ran a hand through his hair and her eyes followed the graceful movement. Something told her that he’d be just as graceful while stalking and taking down prey. “You picked an odd time for it.”
She could hardly say that she’d been driven by emotions run amuck. “I wasn’t actually expecting anyone to be here, but decided to come on the off chance that someone was.”
“Someone?” He raised a brow.
“You,” she admitted, knowing it was useless to lie. “What
are
you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Bad dreams?”
“No dreams.” It was a husky whisper. “That was the problem.”
Something throbbed between them, an awareness that shouldn’t have existed. They’d never really touched, never really spoken about anything other than business. Yet it was there, a growing, beautiful thing. “Why come here?”
“Instinct,” he said. “Maybe you drew me to you.”
“I don’t have those abilities.” It was just another one of her flaws. She was a cardinal without power, a cosmic joke. “Even if I did have them, I’d never use them to summon someone against their will.”
“Who said it was against my will?” The arm on the roof of the car reached out to toy with a strand of her hair. “Why don’t we go somewhere else to talk? It’s unlikely anyone will see us here but if they do, I don’t think your mother will understand.”
She nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Where?”
He held out his hand. “Keys.”
“No.” There was only so much she’d take and Lucas Hunter was pushing it to the limit. “I’ll drive.”
“Stubborn.” He laughed and walked around to the passenger side. “You’re in charge, Sascha darling.”
After she’d got in and started up the car, he said, “Take a left on the street.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe.”
He directed her across the Bay Bridge and through Oak-land. They hit the trailing edges of the wilderness that pressed against Stockton and kept going. The trees grew ever more dense, telling her that she’d entered some part of the massive Yosemite forests. Even with the considerable speed of her car, she’d been driving almost two hours when he told her to stop.
“Are you sure you want me to stop here?” Nothing but trees met the eye.
“Yes.” He got out.
Having no other choice, she followed. “We’re going to talk here? We might as well sit in the car.”
“Scared?” It was a whisper in her ear.
His speed was frightening. He’d moved around the back of the car and to her in the space of a sentence. “Hardly. I’m Psy, remember? I’m simply confused by the logic of this.”
“Maybe I’ve brought you here to do dastardly deeds.” His hand rested on the curve of her hip.
“If you’d wanted to hurt me, you could’ve easily done so in the parking lot.” She wondered whether or not to make an issue over the hand on her hip. What would a normal Psy do? Would a normal Psy ever get herself in such a position in the first place? She didn’t know!
That hand slid up until it lay against the curve of her waist. “Stop.”
“Why?”
“Such behavior isn’t acceptable.” She coated each word with deliberate calm—it was the only way she could fight what he was doing to her. Unused to sensation, she was close to becoming a slave to it, the fantasies she’d indulged in during sleep leeching into her waking life.
He moved away at once. “You sound just like a Psy.”
“What else do you expect me to sound like?”
Looking into Sascha’s night-sky eyes, eerie in the darkness, Lucas found himself saying, “More. I expect you to be more.” Before she could respond, he began walking. “Follow me.”
Already, he was debating the wisdom of his decision in bringing her to his lair. It was a stupid thing to do by any standard. Yet, he hadn’t been able to stop himself, driven by instincts far older than human thought. The panther wanted her in its territory.
When he’d found her in the lot, where he’d been drawn by impulses he barely understood, he’d thought that he was starting to see the real Sascha at last. Except that if he were to believe the way she was acting, the real Sascha existed nowhere but in his mind.
Had he been wrong about her right from the outset?
He took her through the hidden pathway that exited beneath his lair—most people never watched for danger from above. “How high can you jump?”
She glanced up. “An aerie.”
“I’m a leopard. I climb.” Even in human form, he could jump higher and farther, climb faster than any human and most other changelings. It was part of what made him alpha, what made him Hunter-born.
“Your home is very far from your business premises.”
“I have a city apartment I use when I’m pressed for time. Let’s go.”
“Is there any other way up?” She was looking at the smooth trunk of the huge tree that supported his home among its branches. Like the other mostly coniferous trees in the forest, it shot up straight as a ruler. But this particular species had an impressive canopy that stretched in every direction, blocking out the starlit night.
“Afraid not. You’ll have to hold on.” He gave her his back.
After a minute’s silence, he felt two tentative hands on his shoulders and almost laughed in relief. Her actions spoke far louder than her frosty tones—his poor kitten was scared and dealing with it the only way she knew how.
He’d been around her race a lot more than she knew, though, for the most part, they’d been low-level Psy the Council would never bother with. Still, they’d all had one thing in common—a complete and utter lack of reaction to most stimuli.
In contrast, he’d caught Sascha looking up at the night sky as if it held a thousand dreams. He’d watched her playing with cubs with what most would term affection. And he’d felt her touch him as if he disturbed her on the most intimate of levels.
“Harder, darling,” he drawled, the cat in him giving in to the impulse to tease. “Press close.”
“Perhaps it would be easier to speak in the car.”
His instincts were going crazy. His personal Psy was definitely disconcerted by his body. Good. He smiled where she couldn’t see it. “I have food up there and I, for one, am starving. I ran to you, remember?”
“Of course. I understand.” That lush body pressed close, her hands sliding under his arms to wrap up and over his shoulders.
He bit back a purr. His body was responding as if it knew hers, as if those dreams had been utterly real. He touched the backs of her thighs with his fingertips. “Jump.”
She moved like they were one, wrapping her legs around his waist as he lunged to begin the climb, his claws slicing out to grip the smooth surface.
“Hold on tight.” He could feel his body rubbing against hers with every movement. Her chest pushed into his back, a sweet, sensual pressure that he had no trouble enduring. Even through the leather-synth of her jacket, he could feel the heavy weight of those beautiful breasts he’d seen in his dreams and fantasized about for days. What would it take to tempt her enough to make dreams a reality?
Her legs tensed as he climbed higher, the heated core of her body cradled against the small of his back. It made him remember what they’d done in that last erotic dream. Smiling, he took a deep breath as he gripped the final branch.
Lord have mercy!
Desire filled his nostrils, unleashing the beast that lived within. The panther batted at the scent, rolled it in his mouth, hungered for more of it. He might not be able to read minds but he could read bodies and Sascha’s was screaming for his.
CHAPTER 10
He was fully
erect by the time he landed on the leaf-strewn porch of his home. It was just as well that he hadn’t tucked in the T-shirt. Sascha was hardly likely to be comforted by the sight of him primed and ready. He wasn’t exactly comfortable with it himself. Perhaps she was unlike any other Psy he’d ever met but she was still Psy.
Still the enemy.
He’d promised his people that he’d allow no more of their women to be stolen, had taken an oath to see this through to the end, no matter what he had to do. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it, darling?” He retracted his claws as Sascha slid off.
Her body pulled away from his as if she’d been burned. In spite of what he’d just reminded himself, he had to fight the urge to preen. This woman wanted him. Whether she knew it or not. “Come inside.” Without turning to look at her, he opened the door and walked in.
Sascha was having trouble breathing. She continued to feel Lucas against the sensitive inner faces of her thighs, her muscles quickening in remembered sensation. She bit back a whimper—her mental walls were crumbling. Insanity beckoned. Image after image of incarceration at the Center shot through her mind, nightmare memories from an event that should’ve never taken place.
“No.” She shoved everything she had into rebuilding those walls. Her fear of rehabilitation was so great that it momentarily dampened the heat between her legs. Only momentarily.
The instant she walked into Lucas’s home, it shot through to inferno levels. She could see his silhouette behind a Japanese screen that looked to be separating the large room into living and sleeping areas. He was taking off his T-shirt and she couldn’t help but watch. Her fingernails bit into her palms.
“Sascha? Do you mind starting the hot water? I’m going to take a shower to wash off the sweat from the run. Promise I’ll be quick.”
She was almost certain that he was deliberately trying to torment her. “Where is the control?” Her statement was very precise, because she was having trouble thinking past single words, her eyes riveted to his shadowy form.
“Straight ahead and to the left.” His hands went to the top button of his jeans and his body began to turn to present a profile. She almost ran from the room. The section he’d directed her to was a small kitchen, the controls for the water on the wall.
His setup was understandably old-fashioned. She guessed it was powered by hidden eco-friendly generators. No changeling would choose any other method this deep in the wilderness. Pushing the appropriate button, she called out, “It’s done.”
“Thanks, darling.”
She heard him moving and a few seconds later, the sound of falling water, so the shower had to be located off the sleeping area. Relieved to have a few minutes to calm herself down, she placed her hands to her cheeks and took a deep breath. The scent of man and forest infiltrated her mind like the most forbidden of drugs. She remembered the sharp glint of his claws as he’d climbed, and felt not fear, but a kind of awestruck wonder.
“Oh, God. Stop, Sascha, stop.” She stared at the physical things around her in an effort to fight the repeating loop of pleasure and fear, sensation and cold terror. Even the threat of rehabilitation wasn’t standing up against such intense proximity to Lucas.
The kitchen was small and compact, having a simple cooking/heating unit and very few other appliances. She noted a coffeemaker on the counter and moved to switch it on. Coffee wasn’t something the Psy drank and though she’d tried it, it had never appealed to her. Since Lucas obviously liked it enough to have a high-tech machine, she started some before walking back to the living area.
It was wide and open, with several windows looking out into the forest. Given the fact that his lair had to be well protected, she guessed they were treated so as not to glimmer in the sun. Vines crawled along their surfaces, almost bringing the forest inside.
From the moistness in the air and the glimpse she’d had of a few water-loving plants she recognized, she guessed they were near a river, possibly close to one of the rare wetlands. Like most of his species, it appeared that the alpha of DarkRiver was adaptable to the extreme.
Looking away from the windows, she allowed herself to examine his living room. The light from the two motion-sensor lamps on the floor was soft, but then again, she thought, remembering those night-glow eyes, Lucas could see in the dark. The only other illumination came from a tiny red power light on the communication console set into the wall nearest the door. A closer look told her that it also functioned as a receiver for entertainment programs, though she had a feeling Lucas liked his entertainment far more physical . . . far more personal.
Flushing fever-hot, she moved away from the panel to look at the rest of the room. On the opposite side from the windows was a huge cushion, half of it propped against the wall, the other half on the floor, turning it into a defacto sofa. Lengthwise, it was more than enough for a leopard to stretch out on. Three smaller “sofas” were placed around the other walls.