Powerful Moves [L.U.S.T.] (Siren Publishing Classic) (26 page)

“Primitive can be a good thing.” Elena averted her gaze, staring across the park but not really seeing anything.

“It’s gone, you know? I’m glad because I never really liked having the ability anyway. No one should know what’s going to happen before it does. It takes all the guesswork out of living.”

“Your prophecies were never absolute.”

Cedric shook his head. “No, but they panned out true often enough.” He fell silent for several long seconds. “I didn’t see what happened in the woods. I didn’t know he would leave.”

Elena shrugged. “None of us guessed Le Mort would somehow have the portal waiting to open for him to step through at just the right time.”

“I wasn’t talking about Le Mort.”

Elena nearly flinched when Cedric put a caring hand on her shoulder. She caught herself just in time. Three weeks had passed since the face-off in the woods, since Le Mort stepped through the gate that took his back to Terra, since Tavius vanished from sight. Three long weeks since she heard him in her head saying the three words she’d longed desperately to hear.

I love you, muirnin. Know that before I go
.

She almost wished she didn’t know. It would’ve been easier to let go of a fling than a man who owned her heart.

“Don’t you feel empty, though, like a piece of you is gone?” Elena didn’t look at Cedric. She couldn’t for fear of falling apart. He knew it, too. Being so attuned with her gave him the ability to read her without invading her mind an inch.

“Is that how you’re feeling?” His tone was as compassionate as his touch.

Elena swallowed. Her throat felt tight. Her heart felt shattered into a zillion pieces, and only Tavius held the power to make it whole again. She hesitated for a long moment and then finally nodded. “He had to go. I know that.”

“Knowing doesn’t help with the pain.”

“Will you stop being so insightful! You didn’t even like him.”

Cedric chuckled, but it held little humor. “I liked him well enough. Come on, Elena, you should know that no man is ever going to be good enough for you in my eyes. You’re like a frigging sister to me.”

Damn it, that made her eyes fill with tears. She blinked them back. “It’s not over. Remy and the other agents managed to put a hurt on The Whisperer’s organization, but the main man got away. He’ll sink below our radar again, find another place to set up his HQ.”

“He will.” Cedric agreed.

“Do you think he got the plans from Le Mort before Le Mort escaped? Le Mort had the eraser magnum in the woods.” Gideon had it now safely hidden with, Elena believed, the fourth piece to the mysterious necklace. But was it the only one? What happened to the blaster saber they knew the tangos had built? What other weapon plans did Le Mort hand over?

Cedric pushed out a hard, audible breath. “I’m afraid we might find out the answer to that the hard way. Then there’s the question of Le Mort himself. As far as we know he is back on Terra, back in Atnalta, doing who knows what with who knows who unless Tavius caught the bastard.”

“That’s hard as heck to swallow, knowing we may never know how it ended.”

“Not until someone in this realm figures out the secret to building a portal gate like the one you said appeared in the woods.”

“Or someone joins the agency with the preternatural ability to realm jump without a gate,” Elena suggested. Was there anyone like that on Earth? She found it hard to believe no one in her realm existed if there were others like Tavius in other realms like Terra who could.

“Would you go?”

Elena leaned forward and plucked a blade of grass from the ground. She smoothed it between her fingers as she considered Cedric’s question. Would she go to Terra if she found a gate? Would she follow Tavius, leave her life, her world behind to find him?

She balled up the blade of grass and tossed it. “I don’t know.”

“Something to ponder, I suppose. You know, in case the opportunity ever comes knocking.”

“How long do you wait for the knock?” Elena didn’t mean to put voice to the question that popped into her mind. It rolled from her lips on its own accord.

“I guess that depends on how deep the love goes. Me? I can’t imagine more than hour, two at most.”

Elena barked a laugh and shot him a look.

He shrugged. “I’m just saying. On the other hand, look at Michael. I’m guessing that necklace falling into the wrong hands isn’t the only reason he’s held onto a piece of it for freaking centuries.”

“No. Rebecca is definitely the reason for that.”

“What do you know about her?”

“Absolutely nothing. I’d never heard the name until the night in the woods.” It chipped at her already-shattered heart to know Michael and Gideon kept such a thing from her.

“Sounds like this impromptu op ended up raising more questions than it offered answers.”

It did, Elena thought. Along with unleashing demons of destruction, death, and even love that would’ve been better off never released at all.

* * * *

It baffled Elena how irrevocably a life could change in a few short days. A month ago, in what she now thought of as her pre-Tavius time, she’d been content to be alone. She had enjoyed a quiet night in front of the boob tube with a beer and bowl of popcorn. She had relished the time she got to spend late at night in her bed curled up with a glass of wine and a steamy romance novel.

Neither option appealed to her tonight.

“That isn’t going to stop you from trying,” she told herself firmly as she poured that glass of wine and snagged a book from the shelf in the living room.

The cover depicted a man’s super-muscular, bare torso leading to a narrow waist and jean-clad hips. A setting sunset scene decorated the background, offering up the image of sweaty sex beneath a warm, sultry sky.

Her mind immediately played copy and paste with the guy on the cover, imposing Tavius’s head on the body that could so easily pass for his. She caught a vision of the two of them falling to the ground beneath that setting sun, rolling naked over crisp summer grass and laughing until the power built around them to an intensity that couldn’t be ignored.

She snapped the lid closed on her imagination and started to replace the book on the shelf. She jerked it back and spun, stalking to her bedroom with book and wine in hand.

“That isn’t going to stop you from trying either.”

She changed quickly from the jeans and cotton tee she wore—and refused to think about how easily Tavius could have seen right through both—into a silk chemise sans the panties. Then, deciding she was after total comfort after all, she took the chemise back off and climbed into her bed naked.

It was easier than she expected to settle into the world of a dominant Hollywood star in love with a woman who burned to submit despite her strong will to prove herself the tough local cop. The story hooked her with the first page as the heroine ducked behind a stack of boxes to avoid a bullet speeding toward her head. By the end of the second chapter, the heroine found herself at the hero’s dominating mercy, and Elena forgot she lay alone in her bed. In her mind, she was the heroine, she was Tess, giving herself freely to the man she loved, though she knew nothing but heartbreak could come of it.

I thought romance always had a happy ending
.

Elena gasped, jostling both the book and the wine she’d absently brought to her lips at the sound of the voice.

“Tavius.” She scanned the dimly lit bedroom, tuning in her vision to take in every square inch as if it were under a spotlight. Not surprisingly, the room was empty.

She glanced at the wine glass and lifted a brow. “Guess I’ve drank more of you than I realized.”

The soft chuckle in her head told her otherwise.
I never expected you to be such a cynic, muirnin
.
Don’t you believe love can withstand anything
?

Elena gulped. Her heart accelerated so rapidly she heard her pulse racing in her ears. “Even the distance of different realms?”

Dear Gods, it couldn’t be possible.

You believe in power, in magic, you have the talent of such yourself, and yet you still find it hard to believe in something as basic as love
?

“What I’m having trouble with right now is how you got in my head.” He didn’t have the power of mind connection.

You gave it to me. In the cabin when we made love and you used your powers on me. You formed a connection that day, muirnin
.
I didn’t know it at the time, but later that night it’s how I knew where to find you. It’s how I knew Le Mort took you
.

“Is he dead?” She had to ask. “Are you safe?”

I’m fine, but do you really want to talk about Le Mort right now
?
This mind thing is too new. I’m still learning to control it
.

The LUST agent in her, the part of her that believed herself Michael and Gideon’s daughter, wanted to say yes. The woman in her answered before the agent could. “I’m open to other suggestions.”

How about orders
?

“What kind of orders?”

Put the stuff down
.
You’ll need your hands free for this
.

Amusement tangled with curiosity as Elena set the wine glass and book on the bedside table. “Ok, hands are free.” She waved them to demonstrate as if he could actually see her, which of course he couldn’t.

Good
.
Do you still have that full-length mirror on your closet door
?

“How did you know…” She started to ask but remembered he’d carried her to her bedroom the night she so deliciously fell apart out in the hall. “It’s still there.”

Get on your knees in front of it
.

Surprised, Elena lifted a brow. “You want me to…”

Did I tell you to question my order
?

The authority in his tone sent thrilling fingers dancing through her womb. “Whatever you say.” She walked to the mirror and lowered herself to her knees.

That’s right, muirnin
.
Whatever I say
.
By the Gods
—he sighed, the sound tortured and needy—
you’re already naked
.

“You can see me?” Perhaps she should’ve been embarrassed, but astonishment won. “How?”

You’ve got me. It’s something else new. I can see what you see
.

“Like the night in the woods, that’s how you knew where he’d taken me.” It all made sense now. She’d felt Tavius in her mind. He’d somehow known exactly where to teleport. She’d heard him in her head just before he left her. It all happened because she’d shared her powers with him without truly knowing the ramification of her actions.

Are you sorry you did it
?

“Hell, no!”

He chuckled.
Good. Take your breasts in your hands
.

Elena’s breath caught. She stared at her reflection, knowing now he would see the shock on her face.

Touch yourself for me, Elena. Know as you do that if I possessed the power it would be my hands on your beautiful breasts instead
.

“Tavius.” She sighed his name, wishing with everything inside her it was his hands as she closed her own around her aching breasts.

Ah, Gods, I can almost feel you. Your smooth skin, the firmness of her breasts, the hard points your nipples become when I pinch and twist them. Do that for me now, muirnin. Twist your nipples. That’s it. Damn, that’s so hot to watch
!

Elena could almost feel him, too. It took little effort to imagine his hands in place of hers, his fingers clamped around her throbbing nipples to squeeze and pull, intensifying the ache even as it stroked the desire for more.

Lick one for me like you did in the hall that night
.

She cupped a hand beneath her right breast and dipped her head to draw the beaded nipple into her mouth.

Look at the mirror, Elena. It’s the only way I can see you
.

Elena looked at her reflection beneath her lashes, watching herself as she circled the pebbled surface of her breast with her tongue. She lifted it higher until she could close her teeth around the very tip and smiled around her nipple when she heard Tavius moan in her mind.

I bet you are so wet right now
.

Elena wouldn’t be surprised if she were dripping exotic juices all over her carpet.

Touch your pussy now. Oh, yeah, like that. Put your other hand behind you and lean back so we can both see that bare pussy
.

Elena did as he told her, spreading her legs wide on the carpet and leaning back so that her sex was fully exposed to the mirror. She locked her gaze between her legs, surprisingly wanting to see as much as she wanted him to see.

You’re soaked, muirnin
.

“For you. Always for you.”

Ah, baby. Your lips are covered in cream. Taste if for me. I’ll know how good it tastes by your thoughts
.