No Such Thing (28 page)

Declan ran a hand over his face with a weary sigh. "Do me a favor and never talk to my mother again."

"What? You don’t think she likes me?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered curses for a while.

"You look tired, Declan. Didn’t you sleep well last night?"

He dropped his hand and narrowed his eyes on her, gaze filled with dark indigo heat. "And how the hell was I supposed to sleep well," he
growled, prowling toward her, "with you teasing and suggesting and looking at me with those damned dark eyes of yours?"

Ryelle backed up hastily, trying to be good and keep her talent to herself. Not to mention her hungry hands. The dangerous way his body moved made
everything inside her catch fire and liquefy. She was desperate to feel those sleek muscles flex under her hands and around her body.

"I’m telling you right now I do not want to be seduced. So tone down the sexy, stop flirting with my staff, and leave me the hell alone."

She bumped against the wall and froze, quivering with the effort to behave. "Are you sure, Declan?" she breathed. "Our last kiss has kept
me up nights for years. It was the hottest, most erotic moment of my life, before or since. You torment me just by being in the same room. I’d give
anything to touch you, or even kiss you one more t—"

He interrupted her by sliding a hand around the back of her neck and pulling her toward him with a rough sound in his throat, eyes blazing with hot blue
fire. "Damn you, Ryelle," he muttered as his mouth came down on hers. Instantly she was molten, rising on tip-toe to wrap her arms around his
neck even as his other hand splayed in the small of her back to press her closer. Everything in her blazed to life, incandescent with joy and vibrating
with need.

Maybe her memory was faulty, but the man seemed to know a damn sight more about kissing than he had back then. Or maybe her own experience
helped—either way, the wild and carnal way their mouths melded and the smoky hot taste of him burned through all her senses and her control. She
could no more keep her talent from wrapping around him than she could keep her hands from fisting in his hair, the need to get closer, to climb inside him,
driving all caution and thought from her mind.

He made a savage, animal sound in his throat, shoving her hard against the wall. She had a moment of déjà vu at the feel of his hot, hard body
pressing against her and mouth demanding everything she had to give. But the moment couldn’t hold—she was no longer an inexperienced girl to be
shocked by hard muscle and fierce desire. She exalted in it, bracing her arms to lift herself and wrap her legs around his waist with a feminine growl. He
groaned, fingers digging into her hips before sliding under her bottom to catch her weight as he settled between her thighs.

When his heavy erection pressed against her center, she cried out from the excruciating stab of pleasure, the sound muffled by his mouth. He shuddered and
every muscle in her body quivered in reaction. She’d never felt such desperate and consuming lust, her body writhing against him without direction
from her smoking brain. The resulting friction nearly made her fly out of her skin.

Now
she was shocked. Orgasms for her had always been slow building, elusive things, which broke over her in gentle waves. In Declan’s arms, she was half
a minute away from a hard and fast explosion which promised cataclysmic results, without even taking off her clothes. She whimpered, a high, keening sound
that he absorbed, and tightened all her muscles around him.

The alarm barely impinged on her senses, but something seemed to snag on her talent, tugging at her attention. When she realized what it was, she almost
ignored it. She was so close to the edge it was practically a lost cause. But Pete’s urgent voice calling for his boss over the com gave her a shaky,
hair-thin sliver of control. With a sob of regret, she picked Declan up, spun him through the office, and deposited him behind his desk.

Without his supporting hands, she collapsed to the floor. Pressing her forehead to her knees and wrapping shaking arms over her head, she tried desperately
to contain the agonizing throb between her thighs and focus on the evolving situation in space.

"Ryelle…" Declan panted in an almost unrecognizable voice.

"Oh God, Declan," she moaned, "They still have the worst timing in the universe." She made a sound that was half laugh, half
whimper. "The GenTec are after your supply ship."

He swore savagely.

"You can say that again," she muttered. "I’ve got it. Tell them to turn the alarm off and stop panicking."

There was a moment of silence when she tried very hard not to listen to his rapid, harsh breathing. She wasn’t touching him with her talent any
longer, but if he’d been as close as she to the edge, than regaining his composure wasn’t going to be easy. She heard him contact Pete and let
him know in clipped tones that Telenetic Soliere was handling the situation.

While he spoke, she concentrated on the onrush of attackers, deflecting their initial weapons fire and reminding herself to go gently. She was supposed to
be impersonating a normal telenetic, level five at most. The first attacker veered off and she gave the second a light nudge, just enough to foul their aim
as they also took a shot at the supply vessel. The three attacking ships arched around their target, reforming their attack pattern and swinging back for a
concerted run. All three opened fire, their aim and intent deadly.

They were testing her skill, testing her strength. She covered the supply ship with a thin film of protection, allowing it to jounce with the blasts and
even allowing some blast energy to scatter over its hull. But she made certain that the ship remained intact. Hopefully, the crew knew enough to ride out
the storm in safety straps.

The three attackers passed over the supply ship and headed directly for the asteroid field at top speed.

Ryelle sighed and lifting her head to slump against the wall, keeping her eyes closed. "Mission accomplished. The GenTec are now under the impression
that there is a level four-ish telenetic on board your station. Supply ship is battered but still functional. Do you want me to reel it in?"

"No, we got it. You okay?"

She snorted and opened her eyes to look at him. He immediately looked down, handsome face tense with some extreme emotion. "I don’t think I
could stand if my life depended on it, but that’s got nothing to do with the attack. I’ll be fine. Eventually. Just do what you need to do and
ignore me."

She wasn’t sure she should be relieved or insulted when he did just that.

Chapter 16

Declan kept his eyes on his work out of sheer self-preservation, fighting for every scrap of control he could piece together. If he took another look at
those sultry eyes, passion-kissed skin, and lips full and moist from their kiss, he was afraid he’d launch himself over the desk and take her on the
floor of his office.

The brief, steaming image that came with that thought made a shudder of lust twist his spine.
Focus, goddamn it,
he admonished himself, biting
hard enough on the inside of his cheek to taste blood. He had work to do. He checked in with the supply ship, making certain the crew was well and the ship
functional enough to resume course to docking.

Then he contacted Pete and made sure his people, station, and wormhole mechanics were still intact. Pete’s voice was still anxious, probably a
response to Declan’s own less-than-calm tone, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He told Pete to run diagnostics on the wormhole
and reassured him that he’d be in main operations shortly. After that he worked on calming the frantic miners, who hadn’t appreciated yet
another violent interruption by the attackers.

All the while, he could feel Ryelle working, like a tingling, electric kiss spreading over his skin, the delicious pressure of her power just out of range.
He guessed she was monitoring the path of the attackers, but he didn’t ask, not wanting to shred his control with the sound of her husky, impassioned
voice. That tingle was bad enough, keeping his body pounding with urgency and reminding him of what she could do with the slide of her power, the heat of
her sleek little body, and the carnal lure of her too-talented mouth.

"Damn it, Ryelle, go do that somewhere else," he finally said in a harsh voice without looking up.

She left without a word and he was both relieved and keenly disappointed to feel her go. With her gone, he braced his shaking hands flat on the desk and
took a moment to breathe deep, to calm his aching body. He needed to be in main operations, but he didn’t want to shock his people and embarrass
himself by showing up with a diamond hard erection the size of a mega blaster.

He’d thought he had a clear memory of what the full force of her power felt like, what it did to him to have her inside everywhere, stroking him
right down to his soul. But his memory was infinitely weak in comparison to reality, or maybe her increased strength had somehow magnified her affect.
He’d forgotten what it felt like to be swept away, to lose all control and sense of himself in that violent rush of pleasure, to have no choice and
not care. There’d been nothing but her and glorious sensation.

And he would give anything to be in that moment again. Even now, when he knew what a tragic mistake it would be, when he knew how badly it would end. She
was like an addiction, everything about her a drug he couldn’t stop craving, from her quicksilver wit to the sweet rush of her talent and everything
in between.
Terrifying.

When he felt mostly under control, he stalked to main operations, meeting Pete on the entrance deck. "Status?"

The man stared at him with wide hazel eyes and Declan wondered if he should have spent a little longer calming down. "Got diagnostics running, but I
don’t think we took a hit. You okay, MC?"

"Fine. We lose control of any of the units?"

"No, none of the cargo got lost or busted. When we did emergency shutdown of the hole, the units drifted some, but Mem Soliere started stacking
‘em back up in the facility a few minutes ago. No losses. Is she okay?"

"She’s fine," Declan said in a steely voice, keeping himself from baring his teeth in a snarl at Pete with serious effort.

"Just wondering, boss," Pete muttered, hunching his shoulders with downcast eyes. "The cargo stopped moving after she went to your office
and we hadn’t heard from her."

"She’s fine, Pete," he snarled. "Keep your mind on your work."

"This from the guy who can’t keep his eyeballs in his head with her around," Pete muttered with a pointed look out of the corner of his
eye while he headed for his work station.

Declan ground his teeth, trying to remember that Pete was his employee as well as his friend and he really shouldn’t deck him. He hadn’t
thought he’d been that obvious when Ryelle had visited main operations that morning. Thinking back, though, he realized he hadn’t taken his
eyes off her. Or done much work, for that matter. With an inner wince, he stepped to the rail and began directing his staff, focusing on the issues at hand
instead of his increasingly desperate crisis with Ryelle.

He had moderate success keeping his mind on his work as they alerted Mobulus HQ of the attack, concluded a satisfying diagnostic, and reopened the
wormhole. The supplies were undamaged and unloaded without incident, and Declan made sure all the crew of the supply ship visited the infirmary to get a
clean bill of health before he released them from duty.

When the wormhole was cleared for resumption of transfer, the cargo units left the facility in a stately procession to the hole without anyone contacting
Ryelle. Everything seemed to be getting back to normal operations.

Declan was feeling a species of cautious satisfaction when Ryelle murmured in his ear, "I’m in my quarters when you’re ready,"
shaking him down to his toes.

He hastily shut off the damned communicator and gripped the rail in desperation. The invitation in her voice was obvious and his body reacted accordingly
while his mind fizzed and smoked with panic and lust.
Damn
her. She knew exactly what she was doing and worked her devious plans in total
disregard of his wishes. He’d been pretty sarkin’ clear when he’d said he didn’t want to be seduced. Obviously, she knew it was
possible to seduce him anyway—she’d done it with just a few simple words in his office.

And now she was just expecting him to fall in line, to follow her wherever she led like a well-behaved hound. The scary part was just how much he wanted to
do exactly that. He was falling again, hard and fast, and he was afraid it was as inevitable as it had been the last time. But the painful ending seemed
just as inevitable, despite her declarations of love—because of them. He couldn’t believe she felt that way, which meant she was using it to
play him, to get what she really wanted, which was…

Well, hell if he knew.

Maybe she was just fulfilling an old fantasy. Her desire had been real enough. His blood surged with lust and he gripped the rail tighter when he
remembered her sleek body writhing against him. The luscious, frantic sounds she made and the urgent quiver in her muscles had suggested that she’d
been nearly as wild as he. And her responses hadn’t been those of a woman inexperienced with sex—she’d been with him every step of the
way, driving him insane with her passion.

So maybe that was her goal. A quick affair, to finish what they’d started so many years ago. Tying up a loose end, answering a question he’d
asked himself so many times in the night—what would it have been like between them? If he could keep his other needs in check, he’d love to
find out himself. But if he had her, he’d want to keep her. He was afraid this time he wouldn’t be able to let her go and her inevitable
departure would destroy him.

As he stared across main operations, vaguely aware that his people were sending him furtive glances of question and concern, he resolved to stay the hell
away from her from now on. It was the only way to rein in his lust, keep his sanity, and protect his moronic heart. To that end, he yanked the communicator
from his ear and tossed it over the rail. Then he started mapping his day, merging his duties with his new avoidance policy.