Dark Taste of Rapture (11 page)

What was Noelle doing right now? Causing trouble, he thought, and next found himself grinning.

The moment he realized what he was doing, he scowled. He’d never obsessed about a woman before. Always he’d been able to walk away. So why did simply thinking Noelle cause such a strong reaction?

“Should I …” The female in front of him motioned to his zipper. She must be in a hurry to get this done to have broken his no-communication rule.

“No. I will.” But he didn’t. He just stood there, as motionless as a statue. He wanted Noelle, yet he was going to allow another woman to put her mouth on him. A woman who didn’t want him.

Guilt ate at him, the bites bigger than usual.

You aren’t locked in a cage. You aren’t forced to harm other kids just to stay alive
. His life was good. He hunted predatory baddies for a living, helped prevent other kids from having a childhood as traumatic as his. So the fuck what if he paid a stranger to get him off while he craved someone else?

With shaky hands he unfastened the only button on his pants. Tendrils of smoke rose from the holes in his gloves. Shit. He had to do this quickly. He needed the release the hooker could give him, and soon, before he burned down his house with the two of them in it.

“You do the rest,” he croaked, locking his arms behind his back. “And don’t … don’t talk anymore.” He’d
lose his erection, but his hormones wouldn’t cool down.

She nodded, reached for him, and down went his zipper. Cold fingers moved his underwear out of the way and wrapped around the base of his shaft. His disgust with himself climbed.

As if she were part of a movie and someone had pushed the slow-motion button, he watched as she opened her mouth and inched toward his cock … closer … He clenched his teeth.

What the fuck are you doing?
his better half screamed.
This is wrong, so wrong. There has to be another way
.

The answer was simple. He was surviving.

Closer …

Damn it, what if there
was
another way? He’d never tried to masturbate, had let fear stop him, but maybe he should have risked it. Maybe singeing off his cock would finally end his physical
and
mental torment.

Closer …

Sweat dripped from his temples, sliding down his cheeks. His legs vibrated with the strength needed to hold himself in place.

Just get it over with!
the other part of him shouted. The part he knew, understood.
Until you do, you’re dangerous. Operating on a hair trigger
.

That, too, was the truth.

What should he do? The two needs warred, both so fierce they threatened to pull him apart.

Closer …

His entire body shaking
. Closer …

Heating
.

Closer still …

Sweating, blistering
.

He jerked away, severing contact. The woman looked up at him, her eyes widening with confusion.

He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t. This wasn’t right. He wanted someone else, and if he couldn’t have Noelle’s mouth on him, he wouldn’t have anyone’s. That didn’t change the fact that he needed relief, somehow, some way, but he’d deal with that as soon as the woman left.

“You have to go,” he said. “I can’t do this. I put the money on the nightstand. Please, just take it and go.” He knew his voice lashed like a whip, but he couldn’t help it. He hurt, he yearned. He was scared out of his goddamn mind about what he planned to do.

“I—”

“Please,” he croaked. Finally he allowed himself to study her face. She was most likely in her early twenties, though life had not been kind to her. Had aged her beyond her years, with stress lines branching from her eyes and mouth. Her hair was bright red, too coarse to be real.

“I’m sorry you didn’t want me,” she said, but damn if there wasn’t relief in her voice. She grabbed the money and strolled away, out of the house, a spring in her step.

H
ECTOR WAITED UNTIL HE
heard the front door snick closed before releasing the breath he’d been holding and carefully wrapping his hand around the base of his cock. He was going to masturbate, even if it killed him. And he was going to do it now, before he lost his nerve.

He could feel the burn his arm emitted through the fabric of his glove, but he didn’t fry his shaft to a crisp and took heart.

Do it
. Slowly up, slowly down, he stroked. Still no problems. He increased his speed. Up, down. The glide wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t bad, either. Up, down, faster and faster.

The glow brightened. The heat blazed. And yet,
still
no problems.

Relaxing, getting into it, he squeezed his thick, marble-hard shaft with a strength borrowed from his desperation. Up, down, up, down. No matter how excited he became, he never hurt himself—and yet orgasm eluded him.

Come. On
. As much as he loved knowing he could do this, he wanted to reach the end. To know he’d be okay even then.

He tried softer strokes, then hard again, softer then harder. Harder still.

Nothing worked—until Noelle’s image took shape in his mind. Tall, slim, her glossy brown hair hanging past her shoulders, the sun glittering behind her and forming a halo around her. Her eyes were languid, the lids at half-mast, those lovely gray irises becoming liquid silver as she traced them over his body. Her lush mouth was parted, as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath. As if the sight of him had aroused her.

Next he saw her on his bed. She was naked, her nipples pink and beaded. Her stomach hollowed, and as he watched, enraptured, she dabbled her fingers around her navel, teasing herself—teasing him.

A moan escaped her as she arched her back and spread her legs wide. The curls between her legs were dark and glistening with her desire. So much desire. For him. Only him.

“Hector,” she said, a prayer and a curse all at once. “I need you.”

Yes, damn it, yes. He needed her, too. He imagined himself sinking inside this pliant, dream Noelle with a single thrust. Imagined the way she clutched him, hot and wet and so incredibly tight.

His cock loved the imagery as much as his mind, and his pleasure deepened. His strokes became jerky, but oh, shit, they felt good.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded, all smoke and eagerness as her knees squeezed at his waist.

“No,” he gritted. “Never.”

“Yes, Hector, yes. Touch me. Please, touch me. I love it when you touch me.”

Yeah, he thought again. He was going to touch her. Touch her everywhere. Was going to brand her, own her, become all that she knew, all that she wanted to know. Was even reaching for her …

His balls drew up tight, sensation ramping … ramping … Oh, hallelujah! He squeezed the head of his penis and jetted white-hot into his palm. Finally, finally, thank you God, finally.

When his shudders at last calmed, he simply stood there, sliding down from the high, the pleasure, and glorying in his success.

His. Success
. The two words echoed inside his mind. He’d done it. He’d actually gotten himself off without hurting himself or anyone else.

It was a miracle. It was … his salvation. Whispers of excitement rushed through him. From this moment on, he could take care of himself. More words echoed.
He could actually take care of himself!

His body must be immune to the heat and the atomizing. And damn, he should have realized that sooner. Felt stupid that he hadn’t, and yet that still didn’t dampen his joy.

Grinning, he walked into the hallway bathroom, tossed the gloves, washed up, and righted his clothing. The itching and burning in his arms had subdued completely. He was utterly calm, under control. It was
like his slate had just been wiped clean. He felt wonderfully normal.

And now, any time his arms acted up, or his need became too much, he could take care of himself and feel this way again. He wouldn’t have to call a hooker. He found himself laughing, the sound rusty.

He went to his bedroom and sat at the edge of his bed—such a terrible start to his day, with such a spectacular finish—then dialed Mia Snow, his bitch on wheels of a temporary boss. Jack Pagosa, his real boss, had taken a leave of absence for heart problems or some shit like that and had left Mia in charge of the New Chicago offices.

Truth be told, Hector had been a little surprised by Jack’s choice. Mia was a good agent, one of the best, certainly, but Hector had been on staff just as long as she had, and had just as many arrests and kills. Same with Dallas. Hell, same with Ghost and Jaxon. And Jaxon was the most diplomatic of them all. Or rather, he used to be.

Probably didn’t hurt that Snow was dating one of the most powerful men on Earth. An Arcadian who was as rich as Noelle, maybe richer, with the ability to move faster than the speed of light, control people with his mind, and predict the future.

Hector was a little envious of Kyrin’s openness. The guy didn’t care who knew about his origins or his powers. How nice would it be to have that kind of freedom? To just be who he was, unconcerned about anything else?

But Hector’s abilities destroyed, caused pain, and
with pain came fear. Fear brought a whole new pot of problems to the table. Someone—probably multiple someones—would want to put him down to “protect” the innocent.

“This is Snow,” she said five rings in.

“Hey. It’s Hector.” No preliminaries, just the facts. “Where are my girls being held?”

Breath crackled over the connection. “You beat me to the punch. I was just about to call you.”

The tension in her voice distressed him. Mia wasn’t touchy-feely by nature, and hardly anything threw her off her game. Took something major to upset her. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re missing.”

“Missing?” His happiness vanished in an instant. His fingers squeezed the cell, nearly cracking the plastic.
Relax
. “Tell me.”

“They were in the hospital, hooked to IVs, with guards at their doors. Doctor goes in to check on one, and she’s gone. He thinks she left on her own, so he goes to the next room. She’s gone. Same deal with the rest.”

“Any witnesses?”

“No one. I’m sending a team to dust for prints, check for voice recordings, but …”

“You don’t think you’ll get anything.” Recorders were set up strategically throughout the city, and because alien voices were so different from that of humans, in ways humans couldn’t detect without the proper machinery, those recorders only picked up otherworlder conversations.

When you had a location and a time, pinpointing specific conversations was easy. However, otherworlders knew about the recorders and knew to commit their crimes quietly.

“Correct,” Mia said. “I’ve already watched video feed and there was no one coming in or out of their room except the medical staff. And none of the staff wheeled anything out that was big enough to hold a body.”

“The women could have fought whoever grabbed them. Maybe they said something during the struggle.” They were alien, so their voices would have been recorded.

“I’ll let you dig through the recordings.”

“The hospital will be my first stop.” For someone to grab the girls so quickly, so effortlessly, and without drawing a single bit of notice, teleportation had to be in play. “Any Arcadians working there?”

“A few, and I’ve already got men hunting their locations to pull them in for questioning.”

They thought alike. “Good.”

A lot of Arcadians could teleport, yes, but there were ways to prevent them from doing so. Like certain metals that were mined from other planets. Expensive as hell to acquire, and hard as hell to drag through one wormhole after another—the standard way to planet hop—but AIR HQ and all AIR vehicles were comprised of the necessary materials.

If you weren’t near AIR or your vehicle, lasercuffs worked just as well. They weren’t metal, but the light they produced bonded to skin, any kind of skin.
When an Arcadian was restrained that way, and he teleported, the bands would heat, just like Hector’s arms, and his hands would literally melt off. Brutal, but necessary. AIR had to take precautions to protect the innocent.

“So here’s a question,” Hector said. “How did the abductor know the girls were in the hospital?”

“We aren’t sure,” she said. “Too many options. A chatty or even corrupt hospital employee. A chatty or corrupt friend of a hospital employee. The spread of idle gossip to the wrong people. An isotope tracker. Maybe one of the girls called someone, and that call was traced. We’re checking the lines, but the other theories require more time to investigate.”

His free hand fisted. “The MO for this abduction, as well as the other one, is similar. Therefore, it’s safe to say that whoever took our first batch of girls took our second.”

“I agree. And since the first one was yours, this one is all yours, as well,” she said. “Wrap it up quick.”

I’ll do my best
. He always did. “No anonymous tip to help us out this time?”

“Not yet.”

“And we have no idea why the girls are being taken and locked away?” Made no sense, really. Why take them if you weren’t going to use them in some way? Why starve them?