He should have handled that better, kept the connection long enough to warn her of the trap. He struck the steering wheel. Just like before, the one other time he’d been in a woman’s mind, he’d screwed up royally.
They were in deep shit.
He was too clouded to get his bearings, the window had fogged from his harsh breathing. Flipping on the defrost, he willed it to work faster, to allow him to get on the road and get to Daisy.
He hadn’t intended on extending what amounted to a psychic marriage, and he never would have thought she would have accepted. The connection happened instantaneously when one person opened themselves up to it and the other responded.
She accepted. Deep down inside her. Or it wouldn’t have happened.
Most of the time, partners made a conscious decision and prepared themselves. In this case, probably because of his telepathic talent, the merging happened without thought. Back when he’d first seen her, he’d fallen for her at the first brush of their minds. But even now he was shocked Daisy desired him.
Daisy wanted him. He ran a hand over his grimace. The yearning he had for her every night swamped him with the usual burning in his belly and a hard-on that wouldn’t quit. He’d ached for her at first mental touch. The signs had always been there, but he’d never dared consider the desire mutual. He couldn’t deny what he’d read from her. She wanted him.
Why?
When she embraced her banshee, she craved any remotely masculine or attractive male. When she’d clamped down on her powers, subduing them, she kept to herself. She had to keep to herself. Any play of emotion tempted her powers out. That was it, then. She tired of the battle against her own emotions. He was the key to keep her stable. Connected to him, he could help her control her anger. That was why she’d accepted him.
They were counter powers. She, an aural mage. He, a telepathic mage, deaf because of the onset of his talents. Basically, he was an anti-aural. They balanced. Love wasn’t necessary for the coming together of a partnership. Maybe Daisy settled on him because she wasn’t exactly going to come across anyone else. Hearing-impaired talents were rare.
Over the years, he’d fallen hard for her, but she couldn’t return his love for her. Still, he had to admit it. He loved her. Desperately.
There was no way she felt the same.
Practically a recluse, he was a grumpy old man of seventy-eight, fifty years her senior. And deaf. They lived long lives, even longer when partnered, and the age difference wasn’t big within the world of talents. But he wasn’t the man he’d want her to be saddled with, a woman who ached for the freedom to roam, to fly with her emotions and to embrace her sexuality. She’d find the man for her one day and he’d be in silence again. Forever.
Anything. He’d do anything for her, even sever their connection if he could just get her home alive.
The windshield cleared. Trembling, he gripped the gearshift to steady himself and pulled the Jeep back onto the road.
He had to warn her of the trap before it was too late.
Chapter Five
Daisy resisted the urge to reach for Sean again. On a normal mission, she’d be given a dossier on a rogue that one of the Cinders had located or that one of the nearby family groups had alerted them to. She’d open to Sean and fight the pleasure of that connection. Then she’d keep him updated on her progress as they talked to each other through a telepathic link. She’d send him her thoughts. He’d send his. When she located the rogue and incapacitated him, Sean would arrange for her extraction. If needed, he’d call in backup for her.
Frequently, she left down all her shields for him to catch a scene she witnessed. Without understanding why, she gave him that gift. She’d ignored what all this meant, that she was the only person who could give him sounds. Something he must value to a fathomless depth, and yet, he’d avoided her for a decade. A fucking decade.
Her vision blurred. She wiped harshly at her face and rubbed until her cheeks burned, raw and bruised.
Damn. It.
She would not cry. He’d used her as much as she used all those one-night stands. He wanted to hear. She could give him that. He didn’t want her for her, didn’t feel for her. She’d come to kind of…well,
like
him. He was fun to talk to. Caring. Watchful of her. Respectful of her intelligence and abilities. But he’d maintained a distance between them, until now.
She couldn’t ignore their pairing. If she hadn’t understood instinctively they’d combined to be a talent couple, then she’d know it now by her actions. Or her inactions. He balanced her.
She just wasn’t angry enough to call up a banshee wail.
The closed and locked door should have been enough to send her into a fit of rage. Instead, she sat on the cot, indecisive and waiting for rescue.
Waiting?
Oh
hell
, no. A banshee did not wait on rescue.
Weariness falling away, she shot up and strode to the barred door. The tension across her shoulders was welcome. The pressure building in her lungs was a relief. She threw her arms out to her sides and let her blood pressure build and build. Angry, so angry they dared lock her in this shack.
A rush of heat ran up her torso. She hummed. The wood around her vibrated.
A soft touch brushed over her hair. She gasped and turned in a frantic circle, but no one was there.
What the hell?
Shhh, baby. I’m here.
The breath exploded from her lungs and her shoulders sagged as the tightness fled.
Sean?
Why did you shut me out? It took me hours to find you.
Hours. Damn that woman. She lied to me. Told me she’d be back with water and food in a few minutes.
One of them must have had some leeching ability to make her so tired and docile until they’d gotten her locked up. She hadn’t sensed a leech, but now that her senses were returning she recognized she must’ve been drained. The bastards had tricked her. She threw back her shoulders and started to murmur her seething pitch again. A lingering stroke stilled her, and a caress tickled across her cheek.
Wait, Daisy. Nobody’s here. Where’d they all go?
I don’t know. I’ve been in here and haven’t heard a thing
. She didn’t dare think about how she’d sat wallowing in self-pity, wanting him, instead of listening and planning.
Let’s get this open.
The door jiggled. She angled against the wood and pushed, but the door didn’t budge. On the other side, Sean stood. In the flesh. A shiver rolled through her and a pulse in her belly tugged at her. She had to get this door open. She started to hum, and the door shuddered.
From the other side of the wood barrier, a loud scraping sound gave her pause.
You’re making a lot of noise.
I have to get you out of there.
The images he could see flashed through her. He had a large stick he’d wedged against the lock to try to break it as he became more and more frantic to free her.
We’d have a better shot at breaking the wood holding the lock in place.
She stood back.
Right
. With that, he shifted the stick to the door molding and put all of his weight behind it. The splintering of wood cracked through the silent cabin.
The door wrenched open and Sean strode into the small space.
Oh hell. That man made her mouth water. His straight black hair was mussed, his face harsh and feral. She licked her lips and hummed.
Sean shuddered. His heavy-lidded gaze raked over her.
You need to stop that. It’s distracting.
Good.
We don’t have time for this. We have to get out of here.
She sighed. He was right, but a nearly uncontrollable urge to slam the door shut and pull him down onto the cot planted her feet to the dirt floor. So used to rolling with her emotions, she wanted to let the desire free. It pained her not to run her hands through his hair, wrench his shirt over his head and tear those jeans off to free his cock.
Before she could stop herself, she reached for the button of his jeans.
With a sidestep, he shut the door and leaned on it. With a quick gesture, he put a finger to his lips for silence before he pointed at his ear.
It took a few seconds for her to realize he wanted her to open her senses to share her aural abilities. With effort, she slowed her breathing so she could hear as she put her ear to the crack at the door. It took even more effort to ignore the heat coming from Sean standing so close to her she only had to move an inch to the right to brush his side.
“Where is everyone?” It was completely silent.
Where did they all go?
She stepped back away from him before she gave in to the urge to rub against him like an alley cat.
I don’t know, but it looks like they left in a hurry. They left a few sleeping bags and the coal is still hot in the fire pit.
Hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, Sean paced the small building. Only a few steps from one wall to the other, it seemed like he went in circles, so like her thoughts where he was concerned.
She forced her gaze away from his tight ass in those faded jeans and got her mind back on their situation.
Maybe we should head back to the trailhead and see if we can find anything.
No. Too dangerous. This is a trap. They knew you were coming, locked you in here and then split. We should see if I can pick up anything from the sleeping bags and get out of here.
She slanted a look toward the bed.
You want to start with this one?
Gaze on the dirt floor, she didn’t watch him move to the bed. If she looked at him, she might jump him. Or give in to the urge to ask him why he’d partnered with her.
I didn’t make a conscious decision to partner you.
Her stomach wrenched before it seemed to fall to her feet. She swallowed hard and mercilessly kept her emotions in check before she turned completely banshee.
Of course not. And stay out of my head.
You don’t understand.
Oh I do. You just wanted to get some of what I give out to anyone with a stick between their legs
. The thing of it was, she enjoyed her sexuality, until she thought of Sean, which was dozens of times a day. The thought of him always sent her spiraling into guilt, which was ridiculous.
That’s not what I meant. I stayed away from
y
ou for good reason, but when we finally met face-to-face, my talent wanted to meld with yours—badly—and didn’t give either of us a choice.
We can break it.
When tears burned to break free, she let her hair fall forward to cover her face. She had no idea if that was true. She’d never heard of anyone doing that. But he hadn’t meant to join powers with her. There had to be a way to take it back.
No longer near the tempting bed, he was in front of her, in her space and brushing back her mass of hair, his fingers catching in the tight curls.
She wrenched her head up and snarled at him. “Don’t.”
The face she’d wanted to see for so long, of the man she’d known for a decade, was only inches from her own. His frown caused little lines to form between his deep brown eyes. No matter what happened in the next few hours or days, she wanted to take away his worry. She needed to be his for a little while before they went their own ways. She had to leave CTF because otherwise, she’d keep after him until she embarrassed herself. She would always want him. She had to put distance between them. Maybe Timbuktu would be far enough away.
His gaze dropped to her lips. She burned with the need to press them to his. With the buzz in her head, she didn’t think he’d read the thoughts, so she said them.
“You can read lips, right?”
His tongue swiped over his own as he nodded.
“Then read these.” She leaned forward and took his mouth.
Daisy’s tongue slid into his mouth, and he ached to free all the pent-up passion. He needed her so much, but he couldn’t have her. Despite knowing he should pull away, he tangled his tongue with hers, deepening the kiss as he maneuvered them toward the bed. He guided her down and knelt in front of her, keeping his hands clutched in the cot blanket on either side of her hips.
He wanted to lay her back and sink inside her. Being her handler through the years gave him more insight into her than anyone else. She loved sex. Enjoyed it with a sense of freedom and release that was balm to her, helped her relieve the stress of emotions that bombarded her as a banshee.
As her handler and as her friend, he understood and accepted her sexuality. He didn’t want to take that away from her, but if he claimed her, made love to her now, he would. He would because once he let himself think of her as his, he couldn’t bear to let anyone else touch her. Jealousy gripped him in a cold, harsh fist around his heart. Like a pail of cold water dumped on his head, the desire ebbed and reason sank in.
He pulled back, broke the kiss with a wet sound he could hear plainly through Daisy’s open connection to him. The sounds when they were open to each other were richer than ever before, as if he had his hearing back, tenfold. He shuddered. His whole body and soul reached for her. His resolve melted as if his momentary resistance had never been.
Her lips were dark red from the urgency of their kiss. Her black hair, long enough to hang in ringlets past her shoulders, was tousled. He ached to shove his hands back into the silky mass.
Her cheeks reddened as she sank back on the cot and reached for him.
The reasons for stopping slipped from his mind like sound waves in a vacuum. All he could think of was having her, sinking inside her so deep she’d never get him out.
Nobody but him. No man would have what was his.
But a thought did slip into his jumbled reasoning, warring resolves clashing in his brain. She’d been with many men, but her visions never showed a man caring, giving her the pleasure rather than taking what she freely offered.
Because her aural senses gave him so much he treasured, he owed her the bodily bliss he wanted to give. He formed the words to speak, something he did rarely because it was uncomfortable not being able to hear it, but he did it for her. He focused on the mechanics and spoke. “I want you.”
All hell broke loose.
Her hum started, but it was different than before. A primal gruff beat vibrated around them, swirling, encompassing. He tingled all over, shivers racked his body and the rhythm flushed from his extremities to his cock. Like a touch, the music she made for him wrapped around his flesh and stroked.
He groaned and grew more entranced with the music they made together.
She bucked up. Her thin dress rode up to her hips. She didn’t wear anything beneath. His eyes burned, and he heard primal grunts from his own lips. Though it was garbled and awkward, he’d spoken. She’d done this for him, and he’d not stop until he gave back all his thanks and more.
Her eyes rolled back in her head as she thrust her hips up. “Your voice is so hot. The sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Then she lunged at him. Frantic hands pulled up his shirt. Her nails grazed his stomach.
“No.” He growled.
She shuddered and stopped, panting, her wild gaze raking his face and heading south to his crotch.
“Your dick says yes.” She sounded winded.
“Patience.”
No longer able to be speak, he sent the image of what he wanted—her, spread wide on the bed, his head buried between her thighs. Rather than ratcheting up her desire, as he’d expected and needed, she paled and closed her legs, even going so far as to cross them.
“I don’t do that.”
She didn’t. All of the images of her with others had always been impersonal, as if she scratched an itch and moved on.
“You will. For me.” With his words, forced from his throat, wrenched from his soul, she shivered.
With a firm clasp, he gripped her ankles, and giving no quarter, pried her legs apart. Instead of staring at his goal, wet and swollen, he wrenched his gaze to her face. Tightening her legs, she resisted, a little. Then she caught his stare and stilled. The passion that had taken over her features relaxed into something indefinable, something he dare not interpret. Her lashes fluttered and her cheeks flushed. He dropped his gaze.