Born to Darkness (43 page)

He had no idea why he felt it was so important—what it was that he hadn’t seen, what he needed to learn. But he knew, unequivocally, that he had to go back.

So he did, but only after he’d taken several deep breaths and forced his pounding heart to slow. Only then, as gently as possible, did he retrace his tracks.

Anna with Nika.
We’ll be okay. We’re gonna be okay.…

The dark-haired angry man.
You owe me, bitch! You get back here!

This time as Anna ran down the hall, Bach was ready for it. He separated from her, moving slightly back so that he wasn’t reliving this as Anna.

But Anna didn’t see him. Nor did the angry, violent man take note of Bach as he pushed Anna onto the bed and threw himself atop her even as he worked to free himself from his pants.

And that meant …

This was a memory.

If it were a dream, Bach could have stopped it, changed it. But even he wasn’t powerful enough to change the past.

Feeling sick, he turned away.

And there in the misty shadows at the edge of this memory, he saw another version of Anna. She was watching him watch her assault—with such sadness in her eyes. Her hair was down around her shoulders, a mass of curls, free from the ponytail that she’d worn into the sleep lab. She was also dressed differently, in a simple white tunic that flowed around her, contrasting perfectly with her flawless brown skin. It seemed—at times—diaphanous, revealing brief glimpses of the soft curves of her breasts and the trimness of her legs beneath.

She was beautiful—breathtakingly so.

Which of them had chosen that outfit, here inside of her mind? But then Bach looked down to find that he was wearing clothing that he didn’t recognize, clothing that seemed like a costume. Camel-colored knee britches, with a wide, buttoned-shut flap in the front instead of a traditional zipper enclosure. His shirt was as white as her dress, with long, loose sleeves. It was completely open in the front, revealing his bare chest. He tried to close it, but there was nothing to fasten. No buttons, no zipper, no Velcro.

So he held it together, but Anna didn’t seem to notice or care as she said, “I haven’t thought about this in a while.”

“I’m sorry that I brought you back,” Bach said. “But I have to ask you … Who is he? I think he might be important.”

Anna shook her head. “You won’t find Nika here. She never knew what he did.”

“But she … knew him?”

“Yes.” She looked over Bach’s shoulder, at the man on the bed. “He was … once … a friend.”

“Did Nika maybe, I don’t know, did she know at least that you had nightmares about him?” Bach asked.

“Why does your back hurt so much? I thought you said you were in perfect health?” Anna asked, concern for him in her eyes. But then, abruptly, she vanished.

In her place was the angry dark-haired man, as if Bach were once again caught in her memory.

And
shit
, sure enough, he was Anna again, combined with her, entangled with her, as the man grabbed their wrist and threw them onto the bed, pushing himself between their legs.

And try as he might, this time Bach couldn’t get away—had the drug in her system somehow trapped him?—and he felt her anguish on top of her physical pain.
I loved you! How could I have loved you?

“Stop, David, please,
stop
!” She herself stopped fighting to get away. Instead, she tried clinging to the angry man, holding him close. “Please, David, if you
ever
loved me—”

But her words didn’t stop him from slamming himself into her again and again and again. And even though she’d stopped fighting him, he now pulled her hair so hard that her head jerked back and she cried out in pain, until finally he came with a shudder and a shout.

And then she was crying, soundlessly, tears just spilling down her cheeks. The man—David—lay there, on top of her, his breath hot and foul in her face, and she turned her head away, once again pushing at him and trying to get free.

This time he let her go, releasing her hair and rolling off of her to sit on the edge of the bed as she scrambled away and off the mattress, hitting the carpeted floor with a thump. She’d lost a shoe, but she didn’t care. She pushed herself to her feet and ran for the door.

As she ran down the hall, heading for the stairs that led to the foyer and the front door of his house, David called after her. “I never loved you. But we’re even now, don’t you think?”

It was only then, as Anna flung open the door that led to the street, that Bach was able to pull away from her—to pull out of both her memory and her mind.

But before he left her, he saw with dismay that instead of reaching the freedom outside of that house, she was thrown back into a loop of that same awful memory, where, once again, David hit her, where it was all going to happen, over and over and over again.

This time Bach couldn’t catch himself as he fell out of his chair. He hit the floor hard, but even that wasn’t enough to help him identify where he was or even
who
he was.

And when someone, a woman, came to help him—“Dr. Bach, are you all right?”—he pushed himself away from her, on his butt and his elbows, much the same way that Anna had finally gotten out from under David, on that bed.

Bach was out of there—he realized with a gasp. He was free.

But, God,
she
was reliving it again—and again.

“Assistance needed—STAT—in lab seven!”

And with that, Bach was back—enough, at least, to identify the lab technician who’d called for help—Haley. He also recognized that, for some reason, the drug that had been coursing through Anna’s system, to help her stay asleep, seemed to be impacting him still. He was disoriented and nauseous and his legs didn’t work right.

Although he was definitely doing better than Anna—she was curled tightly into a fetal position on the bed, visibly shaking beneath that blanket he’d used to cover her.

“This is
not
okay,” he tried to tell Haley, pointing toward Anna.

“Sir, I swear, she
just
did that—right when you hit the floor! I think she’s having some kind of negative reaction, either to the drug or to your intervention.”

He was closer than Haley was, so he crawled to Anna’s IV tube and swiftly disconnected it.

It would take a few minutes for the drug to leave her system and for her to awaken—and when she did, he knew that he was the last person she’d want to see.

Okay, maybe not
last
. This man, David, whoever he was, whoever he’d been to her, probably still held that dubious honor.

Despite that, Bach knew Anna wasn’t going to be thrilled to see him.

And that was too bad, since he wasn’t just leaving her here, alone. “Scanning both Dr. Bach and the subject,” Haley announced to the doctor who’d burst into the lab, as Bach dragged himself up onto the bed, beside Anna.

As another doctor came in, and then yet another, Bach pulled Anna’s still-tightly-clenched body into his arms. He was so dizzy himself that he couldn’t sit up, so he sagged back, but he still managed to wrap himself around her.

“The subject is having a negative reaction to the drug,” Haley reported.

One of the doctors—it was Elliot, thank God—spoke up. “Joseph, it’s going to be ten minutes before Anna comes out of this state. I have to recommend that you—”

“Do
not
interfere,” Bach ordered, working hard to make sure his words came out clearly. “As long as the scan shows I’m within normal range, just
stay back
.”

They all spoke at the same time—Haley and Elliot and all of the other doctors—but Bach didn’t wait to hear what they said. He just closed his eyes and plunged back into Anna’s mind.

Because even one minute was too long for her to have to relive that bullshit, all by herself.

Mac was using her voodoo on him.

It was freaking great, because it heightened and amplified everything Shane was feeling, making this moment—without a doubt—one of the best of his life.

He tried to remember if the sex they’d shared back in her Kenmore Square apartment had been this incredible, but then he stopped thinking about anything but Mac, moving against him and with him.

He’d stopped kissing her to position her at a better angle to receive him, and her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. Each breath she took, each ragged inhale and exhale was part-gasp, part-sigh, and he found himself wanting to stay here like this, forever, just watching her face. This woman in his arms was a master at hiding her feelings—except when she had sex. Her pleasure—pure and unfettered—turned her into an open book, and God, how he loved that.

“Hey,” Shane breathed, but it wasn’t until he slowed their near-frantic pace to an almost-stop that she opened eyes that were luminous with desire to look at him.

“Don’t,” she whispered back as she closed her eyes again. But then she caught her lower lip between her teeth and swallowed a moan as he pushed himself home.
Shane kissed her—how could he not?—before he breathed, “Don’t what?” into her eager mouth.“Stop,” she gasped.

“I haven’t stopped,” he pointed out even though he redefined the word
slowly
as he withdrew from her softness and heat.

“Don’t be a dick,” she said as she tried to follow him, tried to keep him from pulling out, tightening her legs around his waist. But he moved her away from the wall, and lifted her off of him so there was nowhere for her to go. She dug her fingers into his back. “Come on, Navy, you
know
what I like.”

If she’d used his real name, he might’ve given her exactly what she wanted.

“I am pretty certain,
Dr. Mackenzie
,” Shane murmured instead, as he lowered her onto him just as slowly, as he pressed her again back against the wall, as she again tried—but this time failed—to keep herself from moaning, “that you like
this
, too.”

“Oh, God,” she gasped, as he began another long, slow retreat, as she again tried to keep him from leaving her, “oh, please, oh, don’t, Shane,
don’t
!”

She opened her eyes again then, and this time they were luminous with tears. He was so surprised that he froze. But just like that, it was gone and maybe he’d imagined it, but he didn’t think so because now she was angry, and she said, “Don’t try to make this something that it’s not! And god
damn
you! Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?” he said. “I’m just … looking at you.”

“With those eyes!” she said.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “Because I kinda use my eyes to
see
, so—”

“Just don’t look at me!” she said. “Just … I want …” She pulled his head toward her and kissed him so hard, it was almost as if she were trying to suck his soul from his body.

Somehow she pulled him back, and Shane felt her shoulders hit the wall with way more force than he would have liked, but he couldn’t stop her. And Jesus, she’d cranked her voodoo up to ten, and when she began to move against him—hard and fast, the way
they’d started, the way she said she liked it—his body strained to respond.

What she was doing to him was crazy and literally out of control, because he had no power to stop or slow what was happening. He was done. Just like that. It was over. He just came in a hot rush as she, too, unraveled around him.

And, God, he wasn’t the only one who’d exploded—all around them lightbulbs were flaring and popping, and the electrical outlet on the wall by his legs was buzzing and sparking.

The comm-station printer must’ve had a power overload, because it whirred and rattled and celebrated by printing out a full page that was probably an alignment test sheet. It probably didn’t say
Fuck yeah!
interspersed with
Hoo-yah!
, but it should have.

Because right now, Shane’s personal alignment was fucking perfect.

“Computer, report integration level.” Mac spoke with her face still pressed against Shane’s neck, her legs still locked around him, and for a moment he thought she was maybe speaking another language because he couldn’t figure out what she was asking him over the slowly fading roar in his ears.

But when the computer answered her—“Sixty-three percent integration”—through a heavy stream of static, he finally understood.

Sex—with him—had increased Mac’s integration level enormously. Higher even than Stephen Diaz, which was unbelievable.

“Computer, report any changes,” Mac said. “Any at all. Audio response open and ongoing.”

“Sixty-two-point-nine-nine-eight,” the computer immediately responded, the static clearing a little.

“Shit.”

“Sixty-two-point-five-nine-seven.”

“Computer, only report whole number changes,” Mac ordered.

Shane lifted his head—he’d ended up with his face pressed against the wall, his hands still filled with Mac’s incredible ass, his arms guilty of some definite wobble from the workout, his legs decidedly weakened but happy nonetheless.

But when he started to shift, to try to give her as graceful and elegant a dismount as possible, considering that she was still half-dressed and his pants were flapping around his boots, hobbling him, she tightened her grip on him and again said, “Don’t!”

So he didn’t. He didn’t move. He didn’t even speak, but maybe she knew he was going to, because she added, “Shhh! Just,
shhh
!”

Okay. She was clearly doing something—he had no idea what, but it was obvious she felt it was vitally important.

“Sixty,” the computer reported then, “Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven.”

“What the
fuck
…?” Mac lifted her head and opened her eyes, and there they were nose to nose. “Why am I dropping so fast?”

Before Shane could respond, she added, “Computer, explain,” and the computer answered for him. “Answer unknown. Fifty-five.”

“How can I help?” Shane asked Mac, even though the exertion from continuing to hold her there like that was making him sweat.

“I thought I’d have more time,” she said and the despair on her face was so honest and raw, just looking into her eyes made his heart lodge in his throat.