No Limits (9 page)

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Authors: Jenna McCormick

Tags: #Romance, #Science Fiction, #Adult

BOOK: No Limits
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“I know you’re angry,” he said. “I can see it in your aura.”
“I don’t believe in that New Age garbage.” She took her hand back and rose to pace.
He stood, too, towering over her at his full commanding height, though he didn’t try to use his size to intimidate her. “Some things are true whether you believe them or not. Right now, your colors are crimson and black, telegraphing the rage you are dealing with.”
She stopped and pivoted toward him, jabbing a finger at his chest. “Don’t tell me how I feel! It’s
rude
.”
Rhys didn’t reply and her gaze dropped. His erection still stood at attention, and a small part of her wanted to drop to her knees and take him in her mouth. She wanted to tie his wrists with her rope and play out the fantasy that had sent her flying in the tub. Damn it, what was wrong with her? Sexy time had come to an abrupt halt. The man had been lying to her, using her, and here she just wanted more. His stiff cock seemed to mock her, and she focused her rancor on it. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Doesn’t that thing ever get tired?”
He didn’t appear remotely embarrassed. “I want you, want to pleasure you. My empathic resonance is taking on the form most likely to please you.”
She’d never heard of a race of empaths who could apparently jump bodies the way she changed clothes. “So this is what you people do? Swap skins for fun?”
He shook his head. “Not all of my people could manage this. Their emotional selves are too incoherent, a mere resonance of their physical body. I have training, though.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Like combat training?”
Rhys shook his head again. “Almost the exact opposite. Spiritual training, in discipline and divinity.”
“You’re a
priest
?” Gen scrambled away from him until her back hit the wall with a dull thump.
Oh, hell, what did I do?
The way those luminous eyes studied her, she got the impression he was cataloguing her reactions. “The equivalent is more like monk, specializing in theological study and energy manipulation.”
“You didn’t, um ... take a vow of chastity or anything, right?” Her tone sounded shrill and laced with desperation. Though most religions were considered barbaric in modern society—an opiate for the unwashed masses—Nana and Gramps had remained devoted Catholics and had raised Gen as such.
Nana will flay the skin from my hide for sullying a monk.
So, great, not only had she violated the health code, but she had also begged a holy man to fuck her. Though technically he had started them down that path. She groaned, knowing she could never even speak to her grandparents again, because Cora would pick this tasty little nugget out of her brain and then crucify her for it.
But thank the stars above, he shook his head. “No such thing exists in my culture, although we are expected to abstain from all hedonistic pleasures during the period of emotional enlightenment. I had just completed the trials when they arrived.” His gaze focused on the far wall, as though reliving the darker moments.
Hesitantly, she moved toward him again. “Who? What are you talking about?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “They landed on our moon, capturing every man, woman, and child. No one would fight back, no matter what they did, how they abused us. Pacifists to the bitter end.”
“Who did this?” Gen feared she already knew. In her mind, she traced over events and was able to pinpoint exactly when everything had changed.
Damn Gia for talking me into the need for a man whore!
Rhys held her gaze as he confirmed her fears. “The company you call Illustra.”
9
A
chill slithered down Gen’s spine. “You’re telling me I’m working for slave traders? What would they hope to get from something like this?”
He didn’t blink, didn’t back down, and the yawning chasm in her belly expanded as he said, “Power. Control over people and their feelings.”
“To what end? So people would hire more prostitutes, have more sex? That doesn’t seem to have much of a payoff.”
He glanced at the candle as though the very sight of it made him wary. “Think about the type of people who use Illustra’s services.”
She fisted her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. “You mean people like me? Lonely, borderline desperate people?”
He shook his head. “
Busy
people, people with important jobs or other obligations who don’t take the time to grow an organic relationship. Powerful individuals who make decisions for all of humankind. So what do they do to satiate their biological drives? Pay a professional to take care of those inconvenient needs. The prostitute arrives with an empath in tow, equipped with a small device embedded under the skin to shield their emotional resonance the same way your health guard shields your body. The empath has no other choice but to pull on the client because he’s starved for emotional connection.
“I was once used to help quell a reporter who had unearthed a blackmail scheme. One of the professionals was sent to him under the guise of a government lobbyist. She seduced him, and when he took her to his apartment, she lit the candle. Because they’d kept me on the shelf too long, I was damn near starved to death, so I yanked on his emotions until he couldn’t see straight.
“Meanwhile, she had plenty of time to find all of his evidence and destroy it, with him being none the wiser. By the time he came out of it, she was gone and so was his story.”
Gen sat on the edge of the mattress, clutching the bedspread in a white-knuckled grip. It all sounded so seedy and underhanded. Evil. Enslaving an entire race of people to make your own stock go up? Alison wouldn’t work for people like that. Wouldn’t recruit Gen into an organization like that. Would she? “I can’t get my head around this.”
He reached out and clasped her hand in his. “How else do you explain how I came to be here? Why would I lie?”
Floored, she sucked in a deep breath. “Rhys, it’s not that I don’t believe you, but someone would have uncovered this ... conspiracy before now. Some government task force or newsfeed reporter would have exposed them. There’s no way to keep something like this a secret from the general public for long.”
She expected more arguments, not the ripple of pleasure that shook her entire body. Having just taken back control, she fought the deluge of sexual need sparking low in her abdomen and spreading like wildfire. Her breasts tingled and her nipples grew hard, pressing against the soft cups of her bra. Rhys hadn’t bothered to put underwear on her, and liquid lust pooled at the juncture of her legs. Her channel clenched and released, demanding fulfillment. Now.
Quivering in delight, she moaned and fell back on the bed, a slave to her own overpowering desire. The sheen of sweat on her skin shimmered in the candlelight, but she didn’t care, lost in the quest for pleasure. Her fingers dug into the blankets to keep from touching her sex, to assuage the ache, but she didn’t know how much longer she could withstand the sensual assault. Would she beg him to touch her, just to make it stop?
Squeezing her thighs together only made the craving stronger until she could think of nothing else. “Rhys, please.” Gen wasn’t sure what she asked him for, but she had to ask.
Between one heartbeat and the next, the desire evaporated as if it had never been, leaving her shaken and jittery like she’d OD’d on coffee. She sucked in a deep breath and stared up at Rhys, who hadn’t moved from his kneeling position by the bed. He shivered as though relishing the last wisps of her response. She felt cheap and dirty because he’d made her feel that way while he remained otherwise indifferent and just sucked up what he needed regardless of what she wanted.
His green eyes bore into her. “Do you understand now, Gen? How emotion can blot out reason and thought? Lust, rage, joy, sorrow, fear—any strong emotion can be manipulated. Usually empaths enjoy one another, finding fulfillment in daily highs and lows. We accept the emotions of those around us and nurture the most positive feelings to bring about a communal sense of balance. Harmony.
“When an empath is starved for sensation, he or she no longer possesses the control to moderate the exchange of feeling. It’s like being trapped in a small, dark room with only the occasional glow seeping under the doorway. They keep us safely contained and sensory deprived so when we do sense emotion, we cling to it for dear life. They want to control us all, my people and yours. I have to stop them and I need your help.”
And here she’d begun to hope he actually cared about her, or at least had been enjoying her company. It would have been humiliating enough if she’d become infatuated with a man whore who didn’t return her feelings, but he’d just been
feeding
off of her, because he could.
Shame burned through her. She’d believed he felt something more, something akin to the connection she had experienced when he made love to her. As if some missing piece had all of a sudden materialized only to be snatched away again. Of course, she couldn’t blame him for his use of her, not when he just wanted to be free.
But she could blame him for the lies, the deceit, and his sudden holier-than-thou attitude.
Sliding off the bed, she marched toward him, the fires of hell blazing deep inside her. “Don’t you
dare
toy with my emotions to prove a point! It’s
rude!
”
His expression turned wary. “I won’t do that again if you don’t want me to.”
“I don’t want you to do anything to me, understand? Keep your emotional resonance to yourself.”
“Then you won’t help me.” It wasn’t a question.
She still didn’t know. “Tell me about Marshal, the real Marshal. Is he an empath too?”
“Yes, he’s an empath and a traitor. He was sent to our moon to take out our defense grid from the inside. The shield around the moon was our only protection from hostile forces. The turncoat arrived under the guise of a grieving father who mourned the passing of his child. After discovering our weaknesses, he reported back to Illustra. He sold his own people into bondage, Gen. Marshal has no feelings of his own. He’s a cipher, and he’ll drain you dry, then leave me to rot, with no remorse.”
Gen pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t deal with this.”
He reached forward, as though to touch her hair, but withdrew when she shot him a killing glance. “I need you.”
Shaking her head, Gen considered everything. The smart thing to do would be to call Alison and tell her everything Rhys had just said. Maybe he wasn’t really empathic, just intuitive.
Then how did he get inside you and play your body like a fracking violin?
Betrayal and humiliation left icy pits inside her. He’d lied to her, had engaged in sexual congress with her while allowing her to believe he was someone else! Why should she accept his wild tale over the proof of what she’d known her entire life? “You’re asking me to trust you, even though you’ve deceived me since the minute we met. How many shades of stupid do you think I am?”
A muscle jumped in his perfectly chiseled jaw. “I don’t think you’re stupid. And I wouldn’t ask, but believe me when I tell you, Gen, that you
are
my one in a million. No one else has ever been emotionally strong enough to pull me away from the candle before.”
“So you need me to what, feed you my feelings? I have a life, Rhys. Responsibilities. I can’t simply drop everything and go jaunting off carrying a lit candle around the universe to hunt for your body.”
His eyes never wavered as he stared at her face. “And what of my responsibilities? My plans? It was your people who did this to me, to others like me. The least you can do is help me get my life back on track.”
Offering him a false smile, she shook her head slowly and leaned toward the nightstand. “No, you’re wrong. The least I can do is
this.
” With a puff of air, she blew the candle out.
Rhys disappeared.
“Are you sure you guys have to go so soon?” Gen hugged first Steven and then Javier. Sorry to see the two of them leave. Afterward, she’d be alone at the cabin with only her guilty conscience and troubled thoughts for company. Shoving the worry aside, she murmured, “I have a knack for running off the man whores, don’t I? Could give a girl a complex.” She winked to lighten her statement.
Javier laughed and squeezed Steven’s hand. “Don’t take it personally, Gen. We’re both tired of the business and all the bullshit that goes with it. If you could see that we’d rather do each other than anyone else, we’ve definitely stayed at the table too long. Thanks for being cool with us. Besides, Marshal should be here soon, so you’ll have someone new to play with.”
She just managed to stifle a grimace. “Lucky me.”
Steven winked at her. “Give us a call sometime. We’d be happy to put on a show for you whenever you like.”
After a final round of good-byes, they climbed into the waiting cab and left. Gen watched as the taillights faded down the steep incline of the drive and cast her gaze out at the lead-colored sky. A storm was brewing. She could feel it in the wrist she’d broken during one particularly difficult antigrav dance recital when her units had failed in mid-pirouette. She’d crashed onto the stage in an ungraceful heap, landing on her wrist. The pain was nothing compared to the scalding humiliation. She shivered in the chill wind and straightened her spine. The past was what it was, and she had bigger problems. Namely, what to do about Rhys.
Returning to the cabin, she cooked herself a decadent breakfast. Belgian waffles topped with real whipped cream and crushed pineapple chunks, bacon, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Plus coffee.
Should she relight the candle, offer Rhys some food? Could emotional echoes even eat? His body had felt real to her, the perfection of his golden skin and soft hair. His tongue had been wet when he kissed her, his cock hard as he drove it into her. Her sex clenched at the remembered pleasure, but she stuffed the hormones away. Now was the time for rational thought, not angsty feelings. While she ate, she mulled over everything he’d told her, putting off the conversation she knew approached in tandem with the gathering storm.
Alison would expect an update, her official secret shopper report on Franco, Steven, and Javier. And as an employee of Illustra, wasn’t it her job to report Rhys? After all, he had masqueraded as one of their pleasure companions and then spread wild accusations. A good employee would keep her boss up-to-date on such things.
Licking the last of the cream off her fork, Gen pushed back from the table to refill her coffee mug. Problem was she felt like a narc, or the prostitute hall monitor.
Franco really had done his best with her; she just didn’t like his master-and-commander attitude. He didn’t turn her on, end of story. And Steven and Javier were on their way to start their own little happily-ever-after, well away from Illustra’s strict rules.
So that left Rhys. Trudging to her bedroom, she retrieved his candle and her comm unit. Setting the candle on the hearth, she paced the room, staring out the window, seeing nothing of the natural beauty outside. “Dial, Nana.”
Cora picked up on the first ring, vid screen blocked, of course. “Genevieve Luzon, don’t think I’m so damned old that I can’t turn you over my knee and—”
“Sorry, Nana. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Cora’s tone turned sly. “Who said anything about worry? I want to know how tricks are going. Have you gotten your groove on yet?”
“Um, yeah, about that. The situation is sort of
complicated
.” Gen put extra emphasis on the word, hoping Cora would probe her mind and find out all the gritty details. She really didn’t want to say it all out loud over a traceable line. Maybe Rhys did have her believing in some of his conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately, Cora wasn’t tuned in to her frequency. “How on earth can sexual relations with professionals be complicated? I thought you were working for Alison, the whole secret-shopper gig. You aren’t running around telling all the man whores about that, are you? Because you know when I was an undercover agent ...” Nana rambled on, but Gen stopped listening. Usually she loved Cora’s wild tales of the bad old days, how she and Gramps had teamed up to fight a secret government task force, but right now she was too preoccupied to hear about how Nana had saved the world. Again.

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