Fatal Strike (37 page)

“Ah . . . no,” he said, bemused. “Can’t say as I have.”

“It’s something to see,” she told her. “Tam loved it.”

“Wow.” A crazy grin was starting to pull at his mouth. “You mean, like, a hair pulling, clawing, screaming kind of catfight?”

“Yup,” she said. “A total bitch-slapping smackdown.”

“Jesus.” He blinked, bemused. “I’m surprised she didn’t say anything about it.”

There was a silence. Twitchy and embarrassed on his part. Sphinx-like, inscrutable calm upon hers.

“So,” she said finally, taking pity on him. “How are you doing with the psi?”

He shrugged. “It’s irrelevant. If I had, say, the power to heal the sick, then I might feel called upon to use it for the good of humanity, but coercion and telekinesis? Not so much. I don’t get off on bullying people, and I do okay lifting and throwing stuff with my regular muscles, so I’m mothballing it. I have better things to do with myself.”

Like spending the rest of my life worshipping you.
His eyes moved over her, hungrily.

“Did you use the coercion when you were proving your innocence?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I didn’t need it to prove my innocence,” he hedged. “The recording was enough, and Levine and Silva did the rest.”

“What about Levine and Silva? Did you coerce them?”

Miles sighed. “Nah. Not really. I did tell them to tell the truth or else I’d make their eyeballs explode before the cops came, but that was just old-fashioned threatening. I didn’t mind-flog them.”

“Ah.” She folded her arms over her chest. “And later?”

“Later,” he said, heavily. “Yeah, I used it a little, later. Sorta kinda. Not a lot. The recording freaked people out. They needed some help to conclude it was just Greaves’ megalomania and crazy talk. That I was just playing along with him. I didn’t do any hard-core coercion, though. I just nudged them a little. You know, to drive home how totally boring and harmless I was.”

“Right,” she murmured. “You. Harmless.” She took a step closer. Her skin glowed, luminously pale. Pearly. A forest dryad come to beguile and enthrall him. Making him thick and helpless and stupid.

He struggled to stay sharp. “You are messing with me.”

“Oh, Miles,” she said softly. “I have not even begun to mess with you.”

He lost his whole train of thought in her luminous gaze, and had to struggle to recover it. “Should I be afraid?”

She considered that for a long moment. “It depends on what you say to me in the next few minutes.”

“Oh, God.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, and when he lifted them she was still there. Still real. “Fine. Okay. Hit me.”

She crossed her arms across her chest, lifted her chin. “Why did you abandon me?”

It was a blow right to the chest. He caught his breath, blurted out the first brainless thing that popped into his head. “I was incarcerated?”

She batted that away, impatient. “Don’t be annoying. I mean after, and you know it. You ran away from me. You kept the Citadel closed. Why?” Her voice rang, clear and challenging. Snowflakes settled on the gleaming swirls of her hair and did not melt. One was poised on the tip of her long eyelashes. She flicked it away, waiting.

Oh, man. With all the times that he’d been forced to defend his unpopular decisions to the McCloud Crowd, he still hadn’t found adequate words to explain or justify them.

But this was it. His last chance.

“I had to be sure . . .” He petered out, groping. “That it was real for you. That you weren’t just, you know. Trapped in my head.”

“Trapped?” Her eyes went huge with outrage. The pearly pink blush of her cheek deepened. “I was never trapped. I loved it in there! It was like paradise for me! You know that, Miles!”

“Maybe, but you were still trapped,” he said, grimly. “What’s it called, when you can’t step outside of a place without getting ripped to pieces, Lara? It’s called being trapped. You were under seige. You no longer had a choice, even if you started out by going there of your own free will. Greaves told me—”

“You made decisions about our private life based on something that
Greaves
said?”

“Hear me out! Greaves said that I kept you in a cage, and it was true. Fucking you senseless, right after what you’d just gone through? Swallowing you up inside my shield? Keeping you right where I could see you, inside my mind, snuggled up in a little box, safe and sound, and all mine? And I loved it, Lara. I fucking
loved
it.”

“So did I!” she yelled.

“Of course you did!” he roared back. “You needed to feel safe! You were fucked up, traumatized!”

“Yeah, well, for the record, I’m not fucked up or traumatized any longer. I am fine! Is that clear?” Her eyes were bright, burning.

“That’s great,” he said. “But you have to see it, Lara. That thing we did? With the shield? That takes the scary, controlling boyfriend vibe to a whole new level. A Greaves-style level. He controlled his wife right into the grave. And his son . . . well, you saw what happened there. He killed his son, swallowing him up like that. Ate him alive.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, he did, but you wouldn’t. You aren’t like Greaves. You’re brave and generous. And good.”

He dragged in a deep breath. “Greaves said that you were . . . oh, shit, don’t get mad, okay?”

“Can’t promise that,” she said crisply. “Go on.”

Miles braced himself. “He said he’d been preparing you with drugs, breaking down psychological barriers. So that when he had sex with you, you’d bond with him instantly.”

“Him?” Her mouth tightened in disgust. “Oh, Miles. That’s gross.”

“He said you would have bonded with anyone right after,” he forged stubbornly on. “That I was the lucky dog. He said he’d show me how to coerce you into being my eager nympho sex slave forever after.”

“Ah.” She gave him a sidewise look. “Were you tempted?”

He just looked at her. “Don’t torture me,” he said, hoarsely.

“No?” Her eyes were bright with tears. “Why shouldn’t I, Miles? What do you think you’ve been doing to me for the last several weeks?”

He shook his head. “I’m just telling you what he said.”

“And you believed him?” Her voice quivered dangerously.

He shook his head. Out loud it sounded stupid, wrong. But he had still been compelled to wait. To be sure.

“I couldn’t know, unless I stepped back from you,” he said. “And about the Citadel, well, Jesus, Lara. After what happened to Geoff, it was clear that mind-melding is dangerous. Plus, I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Prison, death row, who knew? I didn’t want you connected mind-to-mind if I was going to get fucked up. Plus, I felt like shit, because my efforts to keep you safe were a total fail.”

“How can you say that?” she said angrily. “That is such bullshit!”

“You think?” He shrugged. “I put you on a bus, alone, no protection. I let you get shot, point blank.”

“It wasn’t your fault!” she raged. “And all this angst, all this doubt? Why couldn’t you just
tell
me about it? Why not ask me? I’m not even saying mind-to-mind. The telephone would have done just as well. A fucking postcard would have been fine. Anything!”

His jaw clenched painfully. “I didn’t trust myself not to put pressure on you. I would have been all over you, like a Labrador puppy. Blocking every exit, taking up all the air, hogging up all your RAM. I know myself, Lara. I just know it.”

She pressed her hand to her mouth, eyes brimming. “Oh, Miles,” she said, her voice strangled. “You are such a goddamn jerk.”

“I know,” he admitted. “I’m not anywhere near as nice a guy as you seem to think. I fight my demons, too. And I love control. I really do.” He paused, blew out a shaky breath. “But not as much as I love you.”

He couldn’t bear to look at her after saying it. He stared out at the mountains, which were barely visible now, the vast expanse of sky was so blurred with falling snow.

“So, you think that all my feelings for you are just some chemical brew that Greaves cooked up artificially?” Her voice was small. “You think I’m some plastic doll? You push a button and she falls in love? That’s all my love is to you?”

“Not at all,” he said wearily. “I was just trying to let you figure out how you really felt. Without all the drama, all the weird stuff.” He hesitated, then forced himself to ask. “So, uh. How do you feel?”

“Like you don’t trust me,” she said.

He let out trapped breath in a long exhalation and reached out, taking her hand. “Let me show you something,” he said.

She let herself be led across the site. Her slender hand was so cool. Their fingers clasped, tightening, and his heart practically leaped out of his chest.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“It’s a surprise,” he said. “It’s not far.”

She let her hair swing down as she walked, shielding her face from his gaze, but every now and then, he caught a glimpse of her shy gaze, her smiling lips. Her fingers wound around his, and the pressure made every cell in his body vibrate with startled joy. They paced through the towering cathedral of trees. The shadows deepened, but there was still light in the sky as they rounded the curve of the hill.

They heard it before they saw it. An incredulous smile illuminated her face. “Oh, my God, Miles,” she said. “You didn’t. No way.”

He gave her a crooked smile, opting not to speak, since he didn’t trust his voice. He led her around the bend, to show her the reason he’d bought the property.

A mountain stream meandered down the mountain side. It had channeled itself into a mossy cleft between two dark stones, creating a natural spout that gushed down in a thick horsetail of water, about seven feet high. When that stream hit the rocks below, it splashed out and subdivided into smaller ones, creating a pyramid of waterfalls. Icy clear water swirled below into a small, deep pool, which was going to be an awesome place to cool down on a summer’s day. The spray had frozen onto every twig and leaf nearby, turning the place into a crystalline facsimile of itself.

“In a while, it’ll freeze,” he said. “It’ll be an ice sculpture, until spring. Then it will come to life again. If you’re patient.” He couldn’t look at her, just stared at the falling water, his face hot with emotion. “So. As you can see, I had very high hopes about the quality of your love.”

She took his arm and gently turned him to face her. “This is for me, then?” she asked. “For Lara, who loves waterfalls? Not a machine manipulated with chemicals, who can be had by any lucky dog who comes along? You know who I am, right? You feel me?”

“I know you.” His voice was thick. “I feel you. It’s all for you. Only you.”

She pulled his hand up, stroked it against the impossibly soft, warm skin of her cheek. Then she unbuttoned the top button of her coat. “I feel you, too. And this feeling is specific to you. Only you.”

“Yes,” he said.

“You believe me?” She undid another button.

He laughed, wiping his eyes. “Yes. I believe you. I swear. What the hell are you doing with that coat? Button it up! It’s freezing out here!”

“I have something to show you, too.” She undid the buttons all the way down the heavy coat, and shrugged it off her shoulders, letting it drape from her elbows.

He rocked backwards, dazzled.

His dream Lara made flesh, right here, so soft and hot and real. She wore the very dress she’d worn in their dream trysts. He would not have been able to describe the garment until he saw it, but he knew it inside out, right down to the nose-tickling texture and smell of it. So soft and girlish and sexy, with those flirty puckers and swirls and flounces. The low neckline showed off her gorgous tits. An intoxicating waft of hot, honey-sweet Lara scent rose up, dizzying him. His erection, ever at half mast in her presence, swelled to two hundred percent.

“God,” he said, helplessly. “Where did you find that?”

“At that thrift shop,” she said. “I found it the morning that you put me on the bus. You actually bought it yourself, but you didn’t notice, you were so busy talking to Seth, setting things up for me.”

“It’s . . . it’s amazing.” He reached out, touched her.

She had goosebumps from the cold. Under the filmy wisp of chiffon over her shoulder was the scar, angry red against pale skin, the cruel marks of the surgery, the stitches. His fingers brushed over it, and he wished, not for the first time, that he had the power to take all that away. Heal all the hurts with a magic wave of his hand, his love.

“I thought I’d lost the dress at the bus station. That’s where they nabbed me, you see. Then Nina suggested that I try the lost and found, and lo and behold. The bag was there, with everything still in it.”

He shook his head, speechless. Memorizing the details with his eyes, with his fingers. So soft, so warm. The pale globes of her tits, compressed lushly against the tight bodice. Bodacious cleavage. Yum.

She gathered up the skirt, fluffing it. Gave him a sultry glance up under her lashes that made a shiver ripple up his spine. “I’m wearing gartered hose under it and nothing else. For old time’s sake.”

“You’re bare-assed, with garters, and hiking boots?” He was grinning like an idiot. “God. You’re going to give me a stroke. Show me.”

Her laughter was breathless, indistinguishable from her violent shivering “Here? In the snow?”

“Just a glimpse,” he pleaded. “Go on, torment me.”

His head swam, watching her hike up the filmy flounces. There was a lot of it, multiple layers of teasing froth, but she finally got it all up bundled in front of her so he could see the celestial vision; her pale, perfect legs, swathed in ribbed brown stockings up to mid-thigh, held up by the garters. And her sweet, dark, curly muff up there, yummy shadowy concave woman parts that just beckoned and pulled him.

He placed his shaking hand between her legs. Slid it up, to feel her softness, her warmth. The humid seam of her pussy, hidden in springy ringlets, just hinting at the juicy hot pink parts. He couldn’t believe this was for real. Her, right here, in his grasp. Wanting him.