Caressed By Ice (24 page)

Her smile faded. “Judd. Your eyes—they flashed dark red for a second.”

The color of blood, a visual reminder of what would happen to his brain if he continued on this road. “It's nothing. Tell me your idea.”

Standing on tiptoe, she put the back of one hand against his forehead. “It's not my imagination. Your temperature is higher than normal.”

It was a side effect of the amount of energy he was extending to block the dissonance, as well as speed up the healing process on his wounds—fast-tracked by Tamsyn's work, they had disappeared, but his body continued to repair minor tears on the inside. “Can you blame me?” he asked, instead of telling her the truth. “You're standing in front of me saying you want to pet me.”

She laughed, a husky, sexy sound. Dropping her hand back onto his chest, she snapped her teeth at him. “I like to bite, too.”

“Aren't you worried I might bite back?”

Wide eyes. “Oh, I hope you do.”

Images cascaded through his fragmented shields. His teeth closing over the lush curve of her breast, the soft seduction of her inner thigh. The images were detailed, perfect—he'd had a long time to think about what he wanted to do. But even if he could survive it…“You're not ready.” She'd pushed herself with Greg, hurt herself. He wouldn't do the same to her.

A scowl and then she did the unexpected—she leaned up and nipped at the side of his jaw with sharp little teeth. “How do you know? Maybe it was just the wrong man.”

His hand clenched in her hair and he had no awareness of raising it. “I told you not to remind me of that incident.”

Nails dug into his chest. “Then make me forget it.”

Jealousy and possessiveness smashed through to become the dominating forces in his mind. He found his other hand was on her neck, curving to hold her. Gentle, his touch was gentle. He made sure of it, but she was most definitely in his power. Not that she seemed to mind, the smile on her lips pure invitation. Leaning in, he closed his teeth very deliberately over her lower lip.

Her heartbeat accelerated
under his touch as he released her lip. “Should I stop?”

“No.” A whisper. “Kiss my neck, too. He never touched me there.”

Stroking his hand down to rest below her shoulders, he bent to taste the skin of her neck. Soft, silky, quintessentially female. Her hand tunneled into his hair.

Pain and pleasure combined.

The dissonance was constant by this point. Broken shards of glass knifed through his cerebral cortex in an unrelenting cycle. But the pleasure…the pleasure was more. He'd never felt such incredible sensations. Then Brenna made a tiny, needy sound and the pleasure multiplied until he could hardly feel the pain.

Part of him knew this was dangerous. If he wasn't aware of the pain, if he didn't accept the warning and pull back, not only could his ability slip the leash, the dissonance might cause permanent damage to his neural tissues. But drowning in the rich taste of Brenna's sensuality, he didn't have the capacity to understand those perilous truths.

Kissing his way up her neck, he traced the line of her jaw before returning to her lips. They were parted, her eyes closed. Accepting the invitation, he pressed his lips over hers. Flash-fire heat. Pure sexual need. His hand was on her neck again and he felt the jagged beat of her heart spike.

But she didn't pull away. In fact, she wrapped her arms around his neck and tensed. His body knew what she wanted though he'd never before touched her so intimately. Releasing her from his possessive hold, he caught her as she jumped to wrap her legs around his body. Holding on tight, he backed into a wall but didn't turn to press her against it. Because she was trembling. Scared.

He broke the kiss and, blinking past the blackness crawling at the edges of his vision, raised one hand to brush the hair off her face. “Why are you scared of physical contact?” She'd been raped on the mental plane. Of course there were physical repercussions—such a deep violation of the psyche was a nightmare most people couldn't imagine, much less endure. But he sensed there was something more to her fear.

Her lower lip trembled and a single tear formed at the corner of her eye. “He didn't just mess with my mind.” It was a pained whisper.

He knew Enrique had hurt her body, cut her, beaten her but—“Sexual abuse?” Fury burned a cold fire in his veins.

“Not rape like we think of it,” she said, fingers digging into his shoulders. “I mean, he did that to my mind—tore it open and forced me to see things I didn't want to see, put things in there that weren't my own thoughts, things that are still in there. I wash and I wash, but I can't get them out!”

“I know.” He let her nuzzle her face into his neck, stroking his hand over her hair. “But he did other things.” Acts she hadn't revealed during the healing sessions.

A jerky nod. “He—he liked to demonstrate his telekinetic control by forcing objects inside my body using only his Psy skills.”

Red blazed in his mind and it wasn't pain. Gritting his teeth, he made himself stay silent and listen.

“I was so ashamed,” she whispered, her cheek wet against his skin. “I was a wolf changeling—stronger, faster, desperate—and I couldn't stop him. Sometimes he'd untie me but hold me down telekinetically so it'd be like I was holding myself down…like I was cooperating. Then he'd experiment with my pain thresholds. Mostly it was mental, but sometimes…sometimes he'd decide to see what my body could take.”

“You have nothing to be ashamed of.” How could she have even thought that? “Enrique was a cardinal Tk and a killer. He bears all the blame.”

Her arms tightened. “I'm starting to believe in myself again, but anytime something sexual happens, I associate it with him. I can't seem to break the link though I know it's not right. I know not all men are like him, but…”

“What he did was about pain. This is about pleasure.” Even a rebel Arrow knew that distinction.

Her tears stayed silent. Heartbreakingly so. “He made my body feel pleasure, messed with my mind until he controlled my responses and made me
enjoy
every humiliating, degrading thing he did.” Shame layered her whispered words.

Judd wished Enrique weren't dead so he could torture the bastard. He'd keep him alive, make him suffer. You could cut off parts of a man without killing him for days, weeks if you were patient. “Enrique was a Tk,” he repeated, “with only midlevel telepathy. He wanted to tear into your mind, but he never reached the inner core, the part that governs your emotions. He didn't have that ability. When he made your body respond, he did so by controlling your nerves.”

Brenna had gone quiet, as if concentrating on his factual explanation.

“You were always aware of what was happening, weren't you?”

A warm breath against his neck. “It was like I could watch what he was doing to me but not stop it. I hated it, but my body did whatever he wanted.”

“So there was no pleasure, only a physical response.”

“Aren't they the same?” Raising her head, she looked him in the eye, the tears having left her gaze strangely clear.

“The order is wrong.” He knew the logic, had been taught it as part of the conditioning process. When he saw her frown, he decided to prove his point. “If I told you I think you have the most beautiful body I've ever seen, would you feel pleasure?”

A blush colored her cheeks. “Do you mean that or are you making a hypothetical point?”

“I mean every word.” She was soft and curvy and lushly female. Perfect.

“Of course that would make me happy.” She brushed a kiss over his lips and it was so unexpected, he had to scramble to regather his thoughts.

“What if a stranger on a dark street said the same?”

“I'd get out of there as fast as my legs would carry me.” She made a face. “You're saying pleasure is dictated by the heart and mind. I trust you, think you're sexy as hell, and so you pleasure me. Another man, while he might somehow be able to force my body to react, would give me no pleasure.”

Every man had a limit. Judd figured he'd gone past his weeks ago. “The link must be present between a body and a free mind. Without that link, it's not pleasure but a facsimile so wrong it's pain.”

She was silent for close to a minute. “I never thought about it like that, but you're right. It
was
pain. It tore me apart to have my body react against my will, hurt me so badly I had to curl up in my inner mind to survive. Sascha said it's the most basic of survival instincts, what sentient beings do when there's no other way out. Sometimes, they never return from the catatonic state.”

Driven to the edge, but unwilling to chance hurting Brenna, he focused his rage into manipulating an inanimate object instead. The sofa raised off the floor behind her. “Yes,” he said, hoping she wouldn't notice. “So embrace the pleasure you get from me. It's not tainted.”

She smiled, slow and bright. “You're wonderful, you know that? All logic and reason but wonderful.” A simple statement that meant everything. “And even more so because you've been holding me all this time without complaining. I'm no lightweight.”

He debated whether to say it and decided for truth. “I'm a Tk. It costs me nothing to hold you.”

Her face clouded over. “You're using telekinesis to hold me up?”

“Yes. It's who I am.” It was time they dealt with that. “Look behind you.”

Frowning, she glanced over her shoulder. Her mouth fell open. “You're making the sofa…and the table, float!” She turned back to him. “Why?”

“Too much power. I have to release it somehow.”

She wriggled and he knew she wanted to be freed. He let her jump down, wondering what she'd do now. Able to rein in his most dangerous emotions now that she was no longer touching him, he brought the furniture back down to earth.

“Lift me,” she ordered out of nowhere.

“Brenna—”

She took a couple of steps back to give him more room. “Do it, I want to feel your…energy, differentiate it from his.” A stubborn look.

Judd had the sudden realization that if he ever saw fear of himself in Brenna's eyes, it would break him beyond redemption. “Hold still.” He could do it while she was moving, but she might inadvertently hurt herself if she pushed forward at the wrong instant and redirected his kinetic energy.

Then he simply did it.

“Judd.” Her eyes went wide as she found herself standing in midair, two feet off the floor.

“Should I put you down?” It cost him literally nothing to do this. In fact, it lessened the dissonance because of the discipline required to govern his Tk.

“No. Take me higher.”

He obeyed. To his surprise she began to laugh. “It's like I'm flying.” Curling up into a ball, she did a flip in the air, forcing him to concentrate even harder to compensate. At that instant, he was her personal Arrow, a slave who'd do this for as long as she wanted, just to hear her laugh.

“Do something else!” A grinning order as she returned to an upright position.

He began to press on her legs. After a second, she seemed to understand and cooperated as he took her horizontal. Now she really looked like she was flying. Her expression was both delighted and startled at the same time.

“Okay,” she said soon after. “Enough. I don't want to wear you out.”

“I'm fine,” he said, obeying nonetheless. Because she'd asked. There could be no connection between his Tk and her lack of choice.

“Baby, I have plans for that hot bod of yours and for those plans to succeed, you'll need all your energy,”

He made sure her landing was soft. “Did my power scare you?”

“No.” She sounded vaguely surprised. “I think it's because he never did anything like that. He was only interested in causing pain and humiliation, not playing.”

Play. Another changeling concept. “Was that what we were doing?” He watched her cross the floor to him, graceful and deadly—Brenna Shane Kincaid could destroy him, and yet he offered no resistance when she put her hand on his chest.

“Your skin burns!” She scowled. “What's wrong? Don't give me any crap about it being nothing. Your irises are pure black again—the gold is gone and I can't even distinguish the pupils. No—wait.” Her forehead wrinkled. “The irises aren't black—they're a deep shade of red!”

“It's not something you have to be concerned about.”

She let out a low growl that sounded like it should've come from a much bigger creature. “I swear, you're going to drive me to grievous bodily harm one of these days.”

He couldn't resist. Reaching out, he ran his finger over her cheek, along her jaw, and down her neck, closing his hand about her neck once more. Petting. Gentling. “Then you'd have to find another hot bod.”

Her lips twitched and she raised her hand off his chest to close over the wrist of the arm holding her. “Very funny, but I'm not that easily distracted. Baby, please.”

He was almost used to being called “baby” by her. “It's nothing you can change. Why should I burden you with it?”

“Because, my Psy darling”—she tugged off his hand and laced her fingers through it—“that's what lovers do. Share.”

“We aren't lovers.” He had to grasp every shred of reason available to him, because the touch of her hand against his was shoving emotion through him like a battering ram.

“Judd.”

She was so stubborn she could have been Psy. But he was even more so—he'd learned not to give away anything even under the most extreme pressure. Which was why his decision to tell her made no sense. “Each time I break Silence, there's a feedback reaction; you know that.”

She nodded, expression solemn. “What Faith said about the pain.”

“It's called dissonance and it accumulates.” Pain in his head, in his nerves, in his very bones. “I have to extend a certain amount of power to keep it contained.”

Brenna jerked her hand from his without warning. “In real-speak, you hurt every time I touch you, every time we connect!”

He grabbed her hand again. “It's a programmed reaction, one I can handle.”

When she tugged this time, he didn't allow her to get away.

“And that's another thing,” she muttered, “how come you're so strong?” She didn't wait for an answer. “What happens if you try to dismantle the conditioning that causes the dissonance?”

“I can't afford to disengage that conditioning.” An immutable fact. “I need the spikes of pain—they keep me from killing by telling me when I'm getting too close to an emotional reaction that might lead to the unintentional activation of my abilities.”

“Okay, but why can't you get rid of the other parts of the Protocol—so you don't get hurt for feeling things below that unsafe level?” She bit her lower lip and gave him a guilty look through her lashes. “I asked Faith for help in getting you to break Silence.”