Flash of Death (20 page)

But then his fingers started to move, dancing upon her most sensitive flesh, caressing and flicking at the epicenter of her earlier detonations. Her body responded eagerly, the terrible, exhilarating tension already building deep within her once more. He knew her better than she knew herself. He stroked and teased, drawing reactions from her flesh she didn’t even know she was capable of.

Her eyes drifted closed, and the lure of pure, molten pleasure called to her. She felt the volcano deep in her soul and strained toward it, sinking ever deeper toward her most primal core. When she reached the heart of this indescribable feeling, she would gladly hurl herself into it, no matter that she would be incinerated by it, entirely consumed by it.

A warning hummed vaguely in her mind. She was losing herself in the pleasures of the flesh. Her mind was being subsumed by lust. But, ahh, it felt
so
good. Still, as incredible as what he’d done to her had felt, she had to let go of that headboard.

His finger slipped into her slick heat and muscles she didn’t know she had gripped the invader tightly as it slid in and out with delicious languor. The volcano surged forward, threatening to blow at any second.
Must. Fight. This. Pleasure.

A second finger joined the first, stretching her and filling her. And then Trent started doing the most clever things, rubbing and teasing internal nerves that roared to life and pushed the volcano right to the very edge.

She would let go of the headboard any second. Just a tiny bit more of this insane pleasure. Just a tiny bit more...

When the explosion came, it made everything that had come before pale by comparison. It erupted from the depths of her soul, ripping away the very walls of her existence, throwing the scattered bits of her to the heavens in a spectacular display that lit the night. It went on and on until she didn’t know if it would ever end. And somewhere along the way, she ceased to care. She gave herself over to it, emptying her entire soul into this endless moment.

It was as if her whole life had built up inside an enclosed magma chamber, deep, deep underground. The stored up pressure had been unbelievable, beyond even her wildest imagining. Only when it completely blew like this did she finally understand the enormity of what she’d been carrying around inside her.

It all came out at once. Tears of pain and joy, longing and loneliness. Ambition and fear, dreams and loss, laughter and rage. Everything she was and wanted to be poured out of her in that apocalyptic release.

And finally, when it was all too much for her, the orgasm completely overwhelmed her and everything went black.

She blinked her eyes open—it could have been a second or an hour later—and Trent was there, his body warm and solid against the length of hers. He was propped up on one elbow, staring down at her. Even now, he gave her no quarter, his gaze capturing hers in no uncertain terms, allowing her no place to hide.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She considered. “Empty.”

His brows drew together in the beginning of a frown and she elaborated hastily. “Good empty.”

“How so?”

“It’s as if I’ve been carrying around this massive burden of...stuff...inside me for so long I didn’t even know it was there. And now it’s just...gone. I feel light. Empty.”

“Got it.”

“Do you?” she murmured. “I’m not sure I do.”

He merely smiled down at her and offered no explanation. “You’re still hanging on to the headboard.”

She blinked up at him, not making the connection to his meaning for a moment. “Oh.” She started to let go and was surprised to discover that her fingers were cramped into tight fists.

He reached up with his free hand to still her hands. “I wasn’t suggesting that you had to let go. I was merely making an observation. Do you want to let go? Or will you let me fill that empty place within you?”

She gazed up at him, not quite understanding his meaning. Comprehension hovered just beyond the edges of her consciousness. That, and a compulsion to hang on to that headboard just a little bit longer and find out what he meant.

Her mouth curved into a slow smile. “I’m game if you are.”

Trent laughed quietly. “Ahh, sweet Chloe. You are a brave woman. Let’s see what we can do about that empty feeling.”

He shifted until he rested between her thighs, supporting his weight on his elbows. He didn’t move. He just lay there, staring down at her. And the strangest thing happened. Her body started, unbelievably, to respond to him once more. He didn’t touch her, or kiss her, or even move against her. He just continued to stare deep into her eyes. It was if he’d stripped her soul bare and gained some sort of magical power over it. All she had to do was remember the pleasure and lust he’d brought forth from her and it was all right there. The building heat, the jangling need, the wild rush toward completion.

“How do you do that?” she whispered, amazed.

He merely smiled, his gaze enigmatic. And when she thought she was going to explode yet again, he thankfully shifted. Male flesh pressed impatiently against her and she shifted to bring their bodies into perfect alignment. And then he filled her, indeed. The stretching sensation was extraordinary, her ultrasensitized flesh weeping its pleasure.

She unraveled in a matter of seconds, crying out against his shoulder as he began to move within her. The exquisite pleasure went on forever, growing in force and power as he surged toward some unseen destination, drawing her with him. She hung on to him with legs and internal muscles wrapping herself around him body and soul and clinging tightly as he took her to the stars one last time.

As her now hoarse cries built in the back of her throat and the volcano gathered itself to explode one last time and incinerate them both, he froze, tensing against her.

“Do you surrender?” he demanded, his voice rasping with desperate control tenuously maintained.

“What?” she gasped.

“Do you surrender? Unconditionally and completely?”

“Yes,” she groaned as he slammed into her, shoving her over the edge and into the heart of the beast. They burned up together, hanging on to one another for dear life as the volcano took them both. Her flesh and his fused into one. They had no beginning and end, just this moment of scorching perfection they’d made together.

Consumed and reborn in the same instant, she lost herself in Trent’s eyes and found herself staring back.

They must have stayed that way for a long time, but she’d lost all sense of time passing in the wonder and discovery of it all. She’d had no idea...never guessed...but then, what they’d just done went a lot deeper than mere sex....

And then it dawned on her.
This
was what love felt like.

She let go of the headboard then and wrapped her arms around the man who’d finally had the courage to break down her stupid walls and silly misconceptions to truly and unconditionally love her. And then she cried.

* * *

Trent was deeply alarmed when Chloe burst into tears without warning. He’d meant to knock her off her rocker with great sex, not make her sob uncontrollably in his arms. He rolled onto his side and gathered her against him, completely flummoxed.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he murmured into her tangled hair.

“Nothing,” she mumbled wetly against his chest.

Huh? Women were the damnedest creatures, sometimes. He tried again. “What’s upsetting you? Tell me.”

“I’m happy.” She hiccupped in punctuation to her declaration.

“You want me to fix that? Am I supposed to return you to your previously unhappy state?” God, he was confused.

“No, silly.” A sobbing breath. “I’m crying because I’m happy and there’s nothing to fix.”

“Oh.” Well okay, then. He’d never made a woman cry because the sex had been so great. He relaxed and drew her across his chest as he rolled over onto his back. She was warm and silken and boneless against him, just the way a satisfied woman should be. He was feeling pretty damned boneless himself, at the moment.

They relaxed like that for a long time. Long enough that he was just on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness before it dawned on him that he was actually falling asleep without drug assistance. Go figure. Epic sex apparently cured his insomnia. He drifted once more, reveling in the feeling of going to sleep with this gradual, natural ease.

Chloe murmured against his chest, “I know you’ll leave me someday, and I’ll probably be too mad to tell you then, but thank you for this night.”

His eyes popped open and his body abruptly tensed. So much for sleep. “What do you mean I’ll leave you?” he demanded.

She rolled off his chest and laid on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She answered matter-of-factly, “It’s not like you’ve ever made any secret of your lifestyle. You’re a playboy. You travel the world, and lord knows, the beaches you hang out on are full of girls all too eager to jump in the sack with you. Why would a hot guy like you settle down with a girl like me?”

He pushed up onto an elbow to glare down at her.

She continued, not looking over at him, “Denver was a casual hookup for you, and had someone not tried to kill me, we would never have seen each other again.”

He’d been plotting ways to see her again before he’d ever climbed out of her bed that night in Denver. “Yes, we damned well would have seen each other again,” he burst out.

That made her look his way. She recoiled, and he realized he was probably glaring daggers at her. Tough. She was really pissing him off. “News flash, Chloe. What we shared tonight was damned special. Once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”

“Well sure, it was the best sex I’ve ever had, but I’m not like you. I don’t have a ton of experience.”

“That was not sex! That was making love, dammit!” He probably shouldn’t be yelling at her like this, but he couldn’t seem to help it. She seriously thought tonight had been some casual thing for him?

“I bared my soul to you, Chloe, and I thought you’d done the same to me.” He exploded out of bed, too agitated to lie still another instant. He moved around the room fast, grabbing up bits and pieces of his clothes. He yanked a fresh shirt out of his bag and pulled it over his head.

Chloe was sitting up in bed, the sheets pooled around her waist, a red rose petal clinging to her left breast just over her heart. “How in the
hell
do you do that, Trent?”

He whirled to glare at her. “Do what?” he snapped.

“You move so fast my eye can barely follow the movement. No human being moves like that. What have they
done
to you?”

“They,” he spit out the word angrily, “saved my life. They gave me stem cell transplants that restored my muscle tone and then some. Jeff Winston saved my life, but to do so he had to turn me into a superhero. Have you got a problem with that?”

She just stared, apparently struck speechless.

On that note, he stormed out the door and slammed it shut with an entirely satisfying reverberation of angry sound behind him.

The streets were dark and deserted. He stretched his legs into a ground-devouring run and flew into the darkness, losing himself in the night.

* * *

Chloe stood in the shadows of the room, peering around the edge of the curtains, using the rough cloth to hide her nakedness. And as Trent raced away from her at the speed of sound, a tear slid down her cheek.

What
had
they done to him? Jeff Winston and his doctors had turned Trent into some kind of freak. The inability to sleep, the incredible metabolism, and the speed. God, his speed. She’d never seen a human being even begin to move that fast as he’d raced away from her. Was it a fair trade-off? Life in return for being a circus sideshow? He’d been gone so quickly she’d barely had time to register what she’d seen.

And now she was alone. Again. Just like always, anyone she’d dared to love had run screaming from her at the first available opportunity. This time, it hadn’t been enough for the guy to run away at normal speed. No, this one had run from her at superhuman speed.

She slid down the wall beside the window and curled into a little ball, hugging her knees and burying her forehead on them. This time, she wasn’t going to recover. Trent had shown her just how magnificent love could truly be, and she had no illusions that she would ever find another man who could take her to the places he had. How could she ever settle for anything less?

No doubt about it. He’d ruined her heart. For good.

Chapter 11

S
ometime during the night, Chloe dragged herself back to bed and pulled the covers up over her head. When she awoke, the morning outside was foggy and gray, totally appropriate to her mood. There was no sign of Trent having returned to the room during the night.

Heart heavy, she sat down at her computer and listlessly opened up Barry’s files to poke at them. The entire list of files took a while to load, and she stared at the blinking cursor, blank-eyed. Idly, she wondered how he’d managed to get access to all of these files. She didn’t come close to having the security codes to get half of these files....

And then it hit her. How
did
Barry get access to all of these files? God, it had been right in front of her all along! Paradeo was a highly compartmentalized company.
No one
had access to all the financial information sitting before her. Barry had to have broken into multiple servers to retrieve all this information. But how?

He had managed to get passwords and access codes for at least three different systems within the company. And if he could break into the servers, he could also break into every single account on those servers. Was
he
the thief?

Immediate guilt for suspecting a dead man swamped her and she pushed away the notion. But her brain kept circling back to it. There truly was no one else at Paradeo who could be the thief. Even the Chief Financial Officer had to have other members of his staff open locked servers for him when he wanted access to them. It was the one cardinal rule of the firm. Nobody could touch everything.