“Don’t be,” he whispered back.“Take your time, angel.I’m not going anywhere.”
“I want to forget.”She somehow, somewhere, found the courage to lift her head, the heavy weight of her hair sliding against her shoulders.She was finally going to cut it, dye it somehow.Too distinctive, even for a psion practiced at blending in.Thinking of expending the energy to redirect attention away from her hair made her even more tired.“I wish I could forget everything.”
“Everything.”He watched her face, mouth soft and somehow amused, cheekbones perfect in their arched severity, one eyebrow slightly lifted in unconscious imitation of Henderson.
I wonder if he knows how much he copies the old man.It felt odd to smile, but also a relief.“Everything except you.”
That made the faint shadow of amusement leave his expression.His face turned solemn.“Missed you too.”He let go of her, a sliding touch down her arms, callused palms gentle.“And here we are.”
“Alone.Nobody chasing us.”
“Yet.”Now he reached up, skated his fingertips over her cheekbone.The touch was so gentle it made the tears rise again.The fading echo of Anton’s voice—go ahead, Price, pull the trigger—finally receded into the place nightmares hid during daylight.He tensed slowly, muscle by muscle, as she memorized his face over and over again.“Don’t ever do that to me again.You hear me?”
Relief made her loose, liquid.It was the closest to a statement of need she’d ever heard from him.“I love you too.”
“Christ.”Was he actuallysweating?He was trying to stay still as she moved in his lap again, deliberately teasing.It had been a long, long time for both of them.“Rowan…”
“Turn the light out,” she said, and he reached slowly as she found the hem of her tank top with trembling fingers, pulled the fabric over her head.
His hand never found the lamp, because he traced the lowest curve of her ribs with shaking fingers.Their mouths met, and from there it was easy, natural.
He pulled her down into the tangled covers, his mouth on her throat and breasts until she made a soft pleading sound, his fingers hooking in the waistband of her panties.She had to lift her hips, for once not worrying about getting dressed if there was an emergency, only wanting to banish the confining material from between them.He tossed them over the side of the bed; she kissed along his jaw as he struggled with his boxers, muttering a curse she laughed at before he finally kicked offending material away and slid his knee between hers.
She felt the sensations spilling through his nerves acutely as her own; the rougher silk of his skin against hers was exquisite torture magnified by the link.
Rowan.Christ, Rowan…The words faded under the onslaught of pleasure echoing inside her head, cleaning away the fear and pain and hatred.The edges of his hipbones dug into the soft flesh of her inner thighs; he shoved the pillow away and wound his fingers in her hair.
He didn’t want to hurt her, struggled to retain his control, but she pulled his mouth to hers, tasted the faint fading echo of toothpaste and the spice of him.She arched her back and rocked her hips, pleading, fingers tangling in his hair, his mouth exploring hers.
Still, he sought to hold back, fear and caution warring with need.He was being so damn careful she almost exploded with frustration before he gave up, bracing himself on his elbows and easing himself slowly, so slowly, into her.She closed her eyes, linking her ankles at the small of his back, and sighed as he moved, settling in, the hard length pulsing as she shifted, a small sound of satisfaction caught deep in her throat.
Finally, the moment of absoluteconnection.Her mind sank into his like water meeting itself.He shuddered in her arms, on the fine edge of losing control, one thought beating through the red haze of pleasure his mind had become.
Home.I’m home.
So am I,she thought before all words were lost in sensation.He moved and she rose to meet him, relief and arousal and sheer heat blurring the borders.No longer two separate beings, she felt her own hand sliding down his back, tasted her own mouth through his.Two short, hard thrusts settled into a longer one.Faint stubble on his chin rasped against her cheek; she kissed under his jaw, catching the hollow of this throat where the pulse beat and fastening on, wanting to leave a mark on him.She felt the sharp point of almost-pain in her own throat, and when he moved again, thrusting deep, she felt her fingers driving into his shoulders, hard ridges of muscle tensing in his back, sweat stinging someone’s eyes, hers or his?
She no longer knew.
Rhythm caught her.Her body knew what to do, shifted instinctively to catch the feedback of pleasure from his.He whispered something broken in her ear as Rowan gasped, curiously calm amid her body’s frenzied need to prove that yes, she was still alive.
More,she thought, the word becoming his, the need becoming shared.More, for God’s sake, don’t slow down?—
Speeding up, he was no longer so careful, plunging into her like a drowning man.A cry caught in her throat; he took her mouth and swallowed it.His voice, echoing hers, was lost in the connection between their hungry tongues.Volcanic heat spilled through her, tightening every muscle and nerve.She let it happen, wanting the release.
Then came the brief moment their psyches overlapped, white-hot silence exploding.He stiffened in her arms, a low, hoarse sound of agonizing pleasure as her release tore through his nervous system, his crisis slammed through her in concentric rings of scarlet spurring flame.And if he used his talent gently, very gently, a featherlight brush of pressure against the surface of her mind to help her forget some of the horror and shock and guilt, it was no less an act of love.One she welcomed even as she forgot for a brief moment why it was necessary.
He never did get around to turning the lamp off that night, and when Rowan finally fell asleep there were no more nightmares.
CHAPTER28
SIX MONTHS LATER
Delgado setthe gun against the man’s temple.“How many with you?”He sounded bored even to himself, but his pulse slammed at wrists and throat even as he shoved a knee more firmly into the man’s back.
Outside, rain swept restlessly down.The winter storms were well underway.Soon the whole city would freeze, making Montreal a gigantic sugar cake.Light would glimmer on the snow—but if they’d been found, neither he nor Rowan would see this city again for a while.
Just when I was starting to like it here.She was beginning to relax, too.
