One Wrong Move (46 page)

That was Thaddeus Greaves! He is the reason this party is happening! He’s the name on the Institute, the name on the Convention Center, the only name Helga mentioned! If there’s anyone I need to read here, it’s him! And you yanked me away! You were
rude
to him!”

“He’s a dick,” Aaro muttered.

“Why do you say that? Because he liked my cleavage?”

His mouth tightened. “He looks fake. He’s hiding something.”

Nina snorted. “Yeah! Maybe the key to our survival!”

She was right, of course, and he had no good immediate excuse. “We had to get out of there before Rudd turned around,”

he muttered, and pulled her toward the decorative columns that lined the room. He ducked behind one of them, into relative quiet and shadow.

Nina glanced back anxiously over her shoulder. “And Miles?”

“He left with Anabel.”

“He did
what?
” she gasped, craning her neck. “He went where? You’re sure? You saw them?”

“He’s six foot five. He’s easy to spot,” Aaro said. “He was glad-handing Rudd. Rudd got tired of it and sicced Anabel on him.”

“Maybe Rudd tried to coerce him, and it didn’t work,” Nina fretted. “Anabel’s rough. A new shield won’t hold up to her.”

Aaro shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Aren’t you the least bit worried? He’s a sweet guy. And incredibly brave. That crazy bitch will eat him alive!”

“The worst that can happen is she breaches his security,” Aaro said. “She will or she won’t. If she does, Miles will have to deal with her. But he’s tough, and armed. Who knows, maybe she’ll even fuck him.”

Nina jerked. “Eewww! That is a disgusting idea!”

“He’d survive,” Aaro said. “There are more horrible fates than getting your bone kissed by the evil temptress from the dark side. Might do him good. Take his mind off that brainless slut he’s so hung up on.”

“He deserves better,” Nina said tightly.

“Of course he does. But it’s not like it would kill him, Nina.”

“Let’s not have this argument. Your sexist attitude is bugging me.”

Aaro sighed. “Oh, for God’s sake—”

“What if it was you who had to go off into some dark room with her? Would you feel justified in having sex with her, just for the cause? Would you expect me to think it didn’t mean anything? Hey, just the evil temptress from the dark side kissing your bone, right? No biggie!”

He forced his voice to stay low and even. “We can’t do this now.”

“I forgot, in my impromptu marriage ceremony, to mention that detail about forsaking all others! I should have been more specific. Maybe we’re not exactly on the same page. You think?”

His jaw throbbed with tension. “You’re being irrational. This has nothing to do with what’s between us.”

“Suppose it was me!” she raged on. “Suppose I was the one who had to go provide a diversion, and Anabel was a man who dragged me out of the room to God knows where! Would you feel the same way?”

“No,” he growled. “And you goddamn well know it.”

She was on a roll, and couldn’t stop. “Oh, it won’t hurt her to get nailed by the evil emperor from the dark side. What’s the worst that can happen? A dick’s a dick, right? They go in, they go out, badda boom, badda bim. She’ll be fine, she’s not made out of soap!”

“Shut up, Nina,” he said.

She sucked in air, so he kissed her. The first two seconds, it was just to shut her up, but a kiss with Nina always had its own agenda, apart from what his own personal agenda might have been.

She felt so soft and fragile in his arms. Trembling with emotion. He felt powerless to protect her. The enemy was everywhere. Inside her body. All around them. Diffused into the very air they breathed.

It clutched at his heart. He just held her and kissed her until he knew she felt it, too, relaxing with a long, rippling shudder.

He lifted his head, wiping her lipstick off his face. Her eyes shone with tears. “We cannot have this fight,” he told her. “Not tonight.”

Her mouth trembled. “I know. It just . . . pushed all my buttons.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he told her.

She dabbed her mascara. “Miles is kind and brave and smart.

He deserves love. And Anabel’s a polluted thing from a festering swamp. It would hurt him, to get close to that . . . thing. He’s suffered enough.”

“Uh . . . OK,” he said. Not totally getting it, but whatever. She didn’t need to know right now just how superficial a guy could be, depending on the context. Just as well if she never knew.

“And don’t think that it’s OK just because she’s beautiful.

That’s not beauty. It’s just an empty trick. Less than nothing.

Understand?”

“Sure,” he agreed hastily. “Of course.”

She dug in her little beaded red purse for a tissue. “You want to know something kind of horrible?”

Oh, Christ, no, he really didn’t, but that response was not on the list of permissible answers, so he braced himself, hard. “Go on.”

“Stan was really handsome. Women fell all over him.”

He took the purse, found a tissue. “Yeah?” was all he could say.

She blew her nose. “You can guess just how much of a difference his good looks made when he started feeling me up. When I was twelve.”

He pulled her close to him again. “I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. “I wish the bastard were still alive so I could kill him for you.”

She nodded, against his chest.

“It’s different for Miles, though,” he said. “He’s not a child, he’s not helpless. He’s big, and strong, and armed, and he’s, ah—”

“He’s a man,” she finished bitterly. “I know. Go ahead, say it.

He’s a man, and that makes it different. I don’t know why that bugs me so much, but it does. It makes me sick. And angry.”

“Don’t be mad,” he said helplessly.

“I’m not,” she muttered. “Not at you.”

“We can’t go looking for him now,” he said. “We have to just do our thing, as best we can, and trust him to do his.”

She nodded. Sniffling.

“I love you,” he said. “And I’m adding an addendum to our wedding vows. Do you, Nina Louisa Christie, promise to never have sex with anyone but me, ever again? Not even the evil emperor?”

That earned him a soggy giggle. She blew her nose again before answering. “I do,” she whispered. “Do you promise it, too?”

“Forever,” he said fervently. “I swear. No one but you.”

They swayed together for a silent, stolen moment, but it was time to make their last bid for survival, snooping in the heads of the crowd. Or Nina would, anyway. She had to do all the heavy lifting tonight.

“Remember to do the invisible trick, like I showed you,” she said. “It won’t work as well, because you’re so big, and you look really hot in that tux. But it might help.”

“You, too,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Um, where are we going?” Miles asked.

The weird emptiness in her eyes turned into a glittering smile. “Someplace quiet and private.”

He felt hypnotized by the
tic-tic-tic
of her heels. Her fingernails dug into his arm. Checking out his muscle tone? Jesus.

“Flex,” she ordered him.

He did so, an automatic reflex. Her fingers tightened on the bulge of his bicep. “You must work out a lot.”

“Some.” He darted a nervous glance at her starkly perfect profile. No clue if his shield would work, and he had to beta test it on a psycho sadist. He kept his visualization steady. Thoughts, feelings, hidden deep inside the encrypted structure. Wondering if he was trotting meekly to his own death by brain melt. He could ask, maybe.
Excuse me, miss, but are you planning on melting
my brain?
Sounded like a line from a goofy British comedy flick.

She leaned closer, tilting her head so that the scary hairstick jabbed at his shoulder. “What are you scared of?” she purred.

Miles gulped back a hoot of nervous laughter. “Ah . . . you.”

“Me?” She laughed. “I’m not scary.”

“Yes, you are,” he said grimly.

She stopped by a door, looking up at him through insanely long eyelashes. “But you’re brave, Miles, aren’t you?” She pulled him inside.

The light from the grounds outside barely illuminated an administrative office. Reception desk, partition, and behind it, cubicles, tables, file cabinets. “Shall we, ah, turn on the lights?” he asked.

Her pale shoulders lifted. She glowed in the darkness, like moonlight on snow. “Aren’t we supposed to get to know each other? Sometimes that happens faster in the dark. Dark is license to reveal.”

“It also can let you hide,” he said.

She pulled him deeper into the room. “You’re not going to hide anything, Miles.” She stopped at one of the desks, swept off the surface. Things thudded to the floor. Something broke. A coffee mug bounced and rolled, piles of papers from an in-box scattered and slid, fluttering to the floor. “Come here.” She yanked.

“This is really weird,” Miles said nervously, his voice strangling into a squeak as she grabbed his crotch, squeezed. “Oh.

My.
God.
”

“Weird, yes.” She stroked him, exploring his dimensions.

“Weird is my life now, Miles. But weird can be fun. Wow. So it’s true, what they say, about big noses and big cocks.”

“Ah . . . I wouldn’t know,” he gasped out. “I, uh, have never done any statistical analysis.” His voice choked off as she cupped his balls.

“Statistical analysis,” she echoed. “Is that how econ nerds talk? I’ve never done an econ nerd. Never wanted to, until now.”

Her attack was so sudden. He yelled as the pain gripped his head, weirdly muscular, like a strangling snake squeezing, with a questing tendril of awareness like a flicking tongue, searching for entry points. Prodding, poking, licking. It felt sexual, in a nasty, dirty, prurient way.

He couldn’t breathe. Didn’t dare move, it hurt so bad. All he could do was hang on to the image. Data locked. Password box blinking.

The data was safe. It was his head that was about to implode.

The pressure released. He gulped in air.

“You lying son of a bitch,” she said. “You’re one of us, aren’t you?”

He took a moment to remember how to speak. “One of who?”

“Don’t play dumb.” She slapped him. “You blocked me.

You’re not surprised. You’re not confused. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

Oh, shit. The jig was so very up, and he hadn’t even come up with a coherent plan B. He had to just wing it.

“You’re enhanced, right?” she yelled. “No one has ever blocked me but another user! Where did you get your stash? What’s your talent?”

He shook his head. “I’m not enhanced.”

“You’re lying!” Her voice was shrill. “Who gave you the drug?

Where did they get it? Who’s producing? Where’d they get the formula?”

“Nobody,” he insisted. “I’m not taking any drug.”

“Then let . . . me . . .
see!
” The squeezing pain was back, harder than before. He struggled not to cry out. “Let me in!

Now!
”

Fucked if he would. He shook his splitting head. “No.”

The pressure eased off, to his intense relief. “Want to know something about me, Miles?” Her voice was a caress. “A fun fact?”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

“I don’t wear underwear. Not on my pussy. Other lingerie is fun, but not there. I like it to be bare. Accessible.”

“Oh,” he said stupidly, still struggling to breathe.

“Want to see?” She perched on the edge of the desk, and hauled up her rustling taffeta skirts. There was enough light from outside to see that she was telling the truth. She had a wax job, too, just a delicate swatch of curly fuzz at the end of her slit, like a decorative flourish. Her eyes glowed at him, hot and feral.

She put her hand on her pussy, slid her fingers inside, diddled herself, as she stared into his eyes. The little wet sounds seemed extremely loud in the silence, the darkness.

She lifted up her glistening fingers, and wiped them on his cheek. “Don’t you want to fuck me?” she purred. “Everyone else does.”

“You mean, everyone wants to, or everyone fucks you?” he asked.

Her laughter sounded bitter. “Does it matter? Do you only fuck good girls, Miles? You kind of have that stink to you. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to do it with a bad, dirty girl? A girl who was up for anything you wanted?”

There she went again, with the python mind squeeze, oh,
shit
. . .

Miles dragged in as much air as he could before it got unbearable, but his hard-on had not abated. On the contrary, it intensifed, as if the stranglehold on his mind was on his cock as well.

He clenched his teeth and endured it. It was easier this time, without the element of surprise. She meant to lure him into sex, and then pounce. There was very little chance he could keep up the shield if he was fucking her, and if he came, no chance in hell. He simply was not that cool of a customer. He tried, but he wasn’t.

“Of course I want to fuck you,” he said.

She grabbed his hand, pressed it against her pussy. “Do it, then,” she whispered. “Come on, whip that big, fat fellow out for me to play with. I’m so turned on, Miles. You have to. Now. Or I’ll kill you.”

Her pussy was silky, the folds of her labia so delicate, tightly furled. Her pussy hair was springy ringlets, totally different from—

“Cindy,” Anabel sang out. “Is she your wife?”

He practically yelped, he was so startled, and whipped his shield back up. “None of your business.”

She seized his hand, thrust it inside her, so hard his fingernails must have hurt her. He felt that squeeze around his mind and cock again, the questing snake tongue. “Cindy,” she taunted, as she slid his fingers in and out like a dildo. “Tell me what you like that Cindy won’t do for you. Does Cindy give good head? Does she take it up the ass?”

He hung on to his analog with every fiber of his being. “She hates doing it from behind,” he said. “Says it makes her feel like an animal.”

“Oh, does it? Well, guess what? I
am
an animal. We all are.

Poor uptight Cindy doesn’t know that. That’s why her man has his hand up my snatch, and not hers.” She turned, hoisting her skirts up. Braced herself against the desk, arching her back. He’d never seen an ass that perfect, not even in glossy, retouched magazine photographs.