God's Eye (17 page)

But she had a report to file. So she got back to it. She wanted to ask if he would have the recommendation for the gem mine ready by the end of the day. But that would involve speaking to him–something she didn’t trust herself to do. She had plenty to keep her busy without speaking to him. They were writing the first report, against investing in the paper manufacturer. The stock was climbing, but not at the rate Light & Geryon would have liked to see. And there was nothing special about this factory or this paper or this process; it was likely a random event that had led to the climb in stock price. It probably wouldn’t yield any real value to the portfolio, and Katharine couldn’t find anything to indicate that they should put their money in it. Luckily that made for short work.

It was the MaraxCo report that was using up her day. She and Allistair had gathered reams of information on the company, once they’d found out who and what MaraxCo was. It all needed to be compiled into pros and cons–although there weren’t many of the latter. MaraxCo was making money hand over fist. There was something unique here, both in the product and in the process. The fact that WeldLink was already partway through obtaining the patent for its method was even better. The stock would likely rise significantly when the patent was officially awarded. But Katharine was good at her job. She didn’t need to wait for the patent. WeldLink was going to get it; they had everything in place. All that was left was for Light & Geryon to invest a huge sum of money in the company.

Her fingers worked rapidly over the keyboard, her yogurt and granola bar disappearing in small bits. The only thing she noticed was that Allistair hadn’t moved much at all. Maybe he didn’t need food. Maybe she’d hear his stomach growl in a few minutes.

An hour later, she was nearly finished, but she’d hardly moved a muscle the whole time. A moment’s disjointedness perturbed her brain. Why didn’t she move more? Wouldn’t she rather have a job where she could be physically active? See the sunshine outside her window? Or even
be
outside?

Her brow furrowed and she forced her attention back to the finishing touches on the report. She’d never had a thought like that before in her life.

So she dismissed it now.

At last she had the final pieces in place and could avoid it no longer. “Allistair?”

“Hmmm?”

She sighed in disgust at herself. The sound, his voice between pressed lips, had vibrated her very bones. But she tried not to show it. “Have you finished the report?”

Picking a folder up from the edge of his desk, he nodded. “Right here.”

The words escaped her mouth before she could corral them. “Then what have you been doing?”

He was on his feet and coming toward her, the small sounds of the office loud around them. The hallway was empty; only the occasional distant ping of the elevator broke the silence outside the door. Dark had descended beyond the window shades, and Katharine had a vague memory that Lisa had stuck her head in the door and said goodnight, although she couldn’t have said exactly when that had occurred.

Allistair moved to close the open door, and Katharine’s heart sped up a little more as he reached to turn the lock. “I’ve been waiting for you to finish.”

Suddenly on her feet, she came around the desk to meet him. There was a tinge of anger in her brain, something she needed to tell him. But the thought dissolved, sifting through her grasp the moment his hand came up and touched her face. Something lingered in his gaze; something in the slight caress told her she was precious to him, though she couldn’t fathom why. Something deep, beyond her comprehension, pulled her toward him, though she knew for certain she should say something to keep him away. But she’d forgotten what she needed to tell him.

She forgot her own name as he pulled her closer. This time, when he kissed her deep, she sank willingly against the edge of her desk. She shifted her weight and helped when his hands cupped her and lifted her against him to settle her on the edge. Katharine clawed at her own clothing, wanting to be free of the restrictions.

They didn’t make it all the way to naked, somehow more frantic this time than they had been before. Her skirt was rucked up to her waist, her hose destroyed and dangling from one foot. Her blouse was open and pushed back, the cuffs having caught at her wrists, effectively binding her hands behind her.

Allistair’s hands were not restrained; his shirt merely dangled open, allowing her to nuzzle at his exposed flesh, to kiss along the line of his ribs and up his neck as he struggled with the bindings on his pants. Her mouth was still on his skin when he groaned and pushed into her again. His weight and advantage bore her back over the desk, pressing her down onto her papers, making it impossible to avoid full-body contact with him.

She didn’t want to avoid it. Katharine breathed him in, writhed against him, cried out with each delicious push and drag of him inside her. She strained to free her hands, wanting to touch him as he touched her, needing to hold his face and turn his eyes to hers. But she couldn’t. She was captive beneath his strength and held by the shirt she would gladly rip if she could. His body moved against hers, making sparks she hadn’t known existed, but his face stayed averted.

His mouth touched her neck, her ear, her shoulder, as her tension built. The sounds she couldn’t help but make surely told him she was almost there. She heard her name in her ear, in a version of Allistair’s voice. Deep and almost guttural, it sounded as though it had crossed some great distance to get to her, although she could feel his breath on the side of her face.

One last time he pumped into her, his voice repeating her name in waves.
Katharine Katharine Katharine Katharine Katharine

At the last moment, she fell over the edge he had pushed her to. Her head dropped back, over his arm, and her body rolled to the rhythm of his voice, until the waves subsided and she was deposited back in her body, atop her own desk.

•  •  •

Something was wrong with Katharine. Zachary frowned at her as she stood in her doorway, but he made his voice as soothing as possible. “Katie.”

She backed away, into her condo, but her face told him not to cross the threshold. “Don’t come in. I’m sick.”

It was a bald-faced lie. She wouldn’t have even been able to pull that one off with a human male. To him, the lie radiated out from her, screaming that it was untrue. The problem was that he only knew that she lied; he didn’t know what the truth actually was. And calling her on her lie was a bad idea at this stage of the game–when she stood in her doorway telling him to go away as she oozed the scent of everything she had done with Allistair so recently.

He tried again. “Tell you what. I’ll bring you chicken noodle soup, and warm blankets …” Zachary trailed off. She was already shaking her head. “Katie?”

She made her voice sound deeper and scratchier, the notes ringing false all around her. “I feel really sick. I don’t want you to catch it. I think I’m just going to sleep all day tomorrow.”

Only the last line held a grain of truth to it. Whatever else was going on, she actually intended to go right back to bed. “Will you call me when you feel better?”

She nodded, but even the simple movement was another lie.

Still, he had to push what he could. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, baby.”

With a small shrug that was a cross between a nod and a head shake, she closed the door on him.

Katharine was done with him?

No. It wasn’t possible. There was no way that Allistair had taken her and won her over by that simple act. Only the strongest could manipulate like that. Allistair didn’t have that kind of power–he barely had control over the power he did have. Certainly Allistair and his ilk were very charismatic; it was where the idea of thrall had originated. It was the spark for the idea of human hypnotism. And Zachary too had it in spades.

Or he thought he had–somehow that had changed. It seemed now he couldn’t even get Katharine to open the door to her boyfriend. Never mind that she’d been with another man since she’d seen him last. He couldn’t hold that against her. It wasn’t the way she usually operated. He knew that. They all did. Katharine had lost every single secret long before this game had even begun. She was being pulled now, tugged between him and Allistair like a toy. That was why she had been acting this way. She was behaving like what she was: a pawn.

Zachary walked back down the hall on mortal feet, letting himself in through his front door. But when it closed behind him, he began to change. His skin lost some of the pale beautiful color he had earned. His eyes grew in size and depth, his jaw expanded. Lean, solid muscle flexed beneath his slick new skin. He had to get back into Katharine’s home. Back into her head.

He couldn’t let Allistair have her.

In his own shape, he walked the confines of his condominium, thinking. Perhaps Allistair had been on his way over to play with Katharine some more.

All the better. If Allistair arrived to see her, he would have to look human. In keeping form, he would lose some of his senses, some of his strength.

So Zachary would sit and wait like this. As himself, he’d know of Allistair’s approach long before his opponent sensed him. He’d hear all the movement and what words they said on the other side of the flimsy barrier.

He settled in, snug against the wall, waiting for the vibrations that would tell him what he needed to know.

•  •  •

Katharine knew the pounding in her head was merely the exaggeration of her heartbeat. That didn’t keep her from feeling like someone was beating her skull with a mallet. And it didn’t look like it was going to get better anytime soon; the day was getting progressively worse.

That wasn’t a good thing, since the trouble had started when she arrived home Friday night.

Fresh from her second tryst with Allistair, she had snuck into her own unit, not wanting to run into Zachary. She was pretty sure she’d succeeded, too. Until he showed up at her door just after she’d settled into her couch in her sweats. It wasn’t until she heard the knocking that she decided she needed the weekend to herself. And rather than saying so, she’d lied–straight to his face–which was just another sign that her life was going to hell.

Wasn’t that what she liked so much about Zachary–his trustworthiness? He did what he said he’d do. Zachary wasn’t out tomcatting when he wasn’t with her; she didn’t doubt what he told her. But she herself was another story these days. Sweet Katharine, who always did what she was supposed to and didn’t lie, had full on cheated big time on the best boyfriend she’d ever had. Then she’d lied to his face.

She might have felt better about lying to him if she’d suffered a good dose of guilt about it. About
any
of it. But she didn’t. She couldn’t dig up any shame. She felt bad about cuckolding Zachary, but mostly she was upset that he’d be upset when he found out. Not that she felt bad about it. Her brain certainly knew that what she’d done was wrong. But she couldn’t conjure a single
feeling
about it.

Her only consolation regarding the lie was that later the next day she decided she actually was sick. Maybe a brain tumor, pressing on some vital decision-making part of her cortex.

In the end, she’d accomplished nothing. Katharine hadn’t called Zachary all weekend, hadn’t left her condo, hadn’t even ordered food in. She’d heated up her Tupperware meals that had been accumulating since Zachary had taken to feeding her. She hadn’t gotten dressed at all; she’d sat on her sofa, eating and watching CNN.

All the while her brain had wondered
why?

Why hadn’t she told Allistair that she couldn’t? Sure, she had been befuddled, but couldn’t she have uttered, “I have a boyfriend”? Then again, Allistair
knew
she had a boyfriend. There had been that meeting of the lions circling her like fresh meat in the hallway. Had it been some kind of superiority fuck?

Just the thought of that made her wince.

She didn’t even try to deny to herself that there was every possibility that she didn’t stop him simply because she didn’t want to. Her brain had been fueled by images of the two of them tearing at each other’s clothing for over a week now.

Allistair hadn’t called her all weekend. Not to ask how she was, whether she wanted to see him again, or even to apologize. Zachary hadn’t come back either. And there hadn’t been any animals visiting. Maybe there was some cosmic awareness that Katharine needed her space. That, if you confronted her, she’d just as likely rip you a new one. So no one came around. And Katharine settled down.

In the end, she’d done what she always did. She ignored what she could and got on with her life.

She had curled into her bed, her back pressed into the far corner against the wall, and grabbed what little sleep she could. Monday morning, she woke up with her alarm and checked her apartment for soot. She dressed for work and ate a bowl of granola. When she went down to her car, she looked straight ahead and didn’t admit to herself that she hoped she wouldn’t run into Zachary.

She arrived earlier than Allistair and was glad that things were back on track. This was the way it was supposed to be. Or so she thought, until her trainee arrived, right on time, and casually closed the office door behind him.

As if it were perfectly natural, he came around her desk and used his foot to scoot her chair back while he perched on the edge of her desk. His arms came around her and pulled her out of her chair, positioning her body flush against his, his mouth finding hers and seeking every corner.

Some deep part of her thought she ought to be offended at the way he invaded her personal space, at the assumptions he made. But that part sat back and watched the greater part of her lean into him and forget everything else around. It was a mystery how much time passed while they necked on the corner of her desk. It was the ringing phone that brought them both out of their daze.

His mouth and his voice found her ear. “Answer it.”

Strong arms rotated her to face the phone while warm lips found the base of her neck and placed small, sweet kisses there. Her arm snaked out for the handset, the distinct sound of the ring finally penetrating her brain and telling her that someone was calling her desk directly, bypassing Lisa. She stiffened in Allistair’s grip as she answered. “Katharine Geryon.”