Rush (Phoenix Rising) (25 page)

When Jessica cried out his name, followed by, “Yes, God, yes,” Q lost control. Her pleasure was so intoxicating, he suddenly couldn’t get enough.

Starved. Starved. Starved
. He didn’t think the word as much as feel it at his core as he took her. His mouth was too hard, hands too rough. Somewhere, distantly, he feared losing control again. Hurting her again. But he couldn’t control the frenzy. His fingers wrapped into the fabric at the hip of her silky underwear and jerked.

The fabric ripped. Jessica gasped. The combination of those sounds threw gasoline on a fire. Possessed. He was insane with the need to feel her on his tongue. To hear her call his name again. To own her. He didn’t understand and pushed the thought away. Frustration joined need and lust and urgency and so many other turbulent emotions roiling to the surface.

When he covered her with his mouth, Jessica arched beneath him. Her pleasure electrified him. Her taste fueled his passion. He explored every delicate fold, suckled the soft center flesh that made her writhe and repeat his name over and over. He slid his arms underneath her and held her to his mouth when her pleasure peaked, stroking her with his tongue until her lunging ceased and her body went limp.

He kissed her stomach, her ribs, explored her breasts with his mouth, finally reached her lips and drowned in her kiss. She was liquid and wet and smooth and loose. And the way she moved her tongue in his mouth made his need to drive inside her too great to ignore.

He pushed up on his hands and looked down at the beauty beneath him. Her flushed face, heavy-lidded eyes, the smile curving her mouth, they all made his heart constrict. His need to be inside her intensified.

He leaned back, reached down and pushed at one leg. She smiled with a little mischievous edge that fueled his excitement, and opened to him. He knelt between her legs and pushed the head of his heavy cock into her wetness, glistening in the dim light.

Blood surged through his veins, rushing into his cock, through his pelvis, his thighs. And his body took over. The muscles of his ass contracted and he thrust forward, pushed himself deep, deep, deep until his entire length was buried in the most amazing encompassing sensation.

Jessica gasped. Arched. Dug her nails into his arms. And Q froze.

His body throbbed with excitement and lust, life and vitality. His heartbeat rushed in his ears.

“Jessie . . . baby . . . ?”

Jessica let out a breath, the sound a little shaky, and slowly bent her knees and flattened her feet on the bed. The shift tilted her pelvis and rubbed his cock. His breath hissed through his teeth.

“Ah . . . Christ, Jessie . . .”

She loosened her grip on his arms and lifted her hips, pushing him deeper. His mind twisted.

“Oh, yeah . . .” she breathed.

He slid easily, felt every ridge and indention inside her body. She pulled back. Repeated the motion. His own forward thrust came as natural, as automatic as breathing. And when his hips synced with Jessica’s, a sound started in his chest, grew, coiled and rumbled toward his throat.

His hands gripped the comforter on either side of her head. His eyes rolled back before the lids closed in pleasure so extreme it wracked a shudder through him.

Sensation washed his body and emotion bloomed in its wake like a freshly watered field. He didn’t understand, couldn’t process, only knew that in this moment, he had never felt such perfection—of time, of space, of purpose, of existence. Without a doubt, he was right where he was meant to be. He was home.

For the first time in his memory, something felt completely, utterly, pristinely . . . right.

“This is . . .”
unbelievable
he was going to say, but didn’t have the lung capacity as he labored for air. He finally ended up choking out, “. . . God, Jessie.”

Then he opened his eyes and something he thought couldn’t get better, became infinitely more erotic. Those fascinating breasts bounced with each powerful thrust. The muscles of Jessica’s tight abdomen played in the shadows when her hips rose to take him deep. And that sight of him entering her again and again and again . . .

“Jessie . . .”

His pathetic rasp must have said everything because she said, “Let go, Quaid. I’m here. Let go.”

Q couldn’t believe how damn good it felt to hear those words—
I’m here
. How blessed it felt to have permission to let go and know he was safe.

And to let go, he needed more room, more leverage, more . . . just more.

He gripped her waist, slid toward the edge of the bed and found his feet. He drew her to him, the sight of her shapely, smooth thighs parting to wrap his hips a delicious pleasure. This time when he entered her, he was careful and in a position to stroke her as he pushed inside. This time when she cried out, it was definitely in pleasure, not pain. And this time, when he looked down on her as he let his body drive home the way it wanted, the way it needed, the electricity arcing through him sure as hell wasn’t guilt.

His climax came swift and sharp and lightning intense, cracking through his body so hard his muscles jerked him into a rigid line. Only it didn’t recede just as fast. Jessica kept thrusting and rocking on his cock for what felt like long minutes after his initial hit and each movement only floated the ecstasy out that much longer. Instead of the climax draining his body of stress and easing him into relaxation, Jessica pushed him back toward that peak of pleasure again.

When she came, her body arched, stretching long muscles, curving already gorgeous lines, and her face, God, her face—even hidden among the shadows—was the single most beautiful thing Q had ever seen. The only thing that had ever given him hope. And as her body squeezed his, he realized she still did that for him. She gave him hope.

When her body relaxed and her moans turned to sighs, Q eased her to the bed. He lay down beside her, wrapped an arm over her waist and dragged her toward the top until he could slide a pillow under her head.

She was slow to move. Slow to open her eyes. Limp and breathing hard. It made a foreign and frightening emotion expand in Q’s chest.

Jessica rolled onto her side, away from him. His chest pinched for a millisecond. Then she reached back, curved her arm around his head and pulled him down for a kiss. A slow, hot, sensual, tongue-tangling kiss. Already on his side, now as hard as he’d been a few minutes before, he pushed against the curve of her back, riding the shallow vertical indention rising from her bottom and fading into her spine. She pulled in a little gasp, sucking air from his mouth.

“Why are you . . . still hard?” she asked, lashes lifted enough for Q to see the confusion in her warm eyes.

The seriousness of her question made him curious about all those little nuances of sex he didn’t remember, didn’t understand. The ones he didn’t want to talk about now, because his hips were nagging at him to move and his rigid cock was rubbing against her silky soft, sweat-dampened skin.

“Because . . .” he drew out the word, “you’re a sexual goddess?”

“Quaid.”

“Because . . .” He kissed her cheek, her jaw and whispered in her ear, “You’re like nothing I’ve ever imagined. I’m ready to do it again. And hopefully again. And hopefully again after that. I mean . . . you know . . . if you want to.”

She did that little breath-catching thing that threatened to pull a smile out of him. “How is that possible?”

“Whatever they did to my head at the Castle messed with me,” he said softly at her ear. “Because for about the first year I was there, I never got hard. Then, I started dreaming about you, and I was hard all the time, dreaming or not. I couldn’t live like that, so I took care of it myself. It wasn’t like I had a choice. Then, after more experiments it stopped happening again. All the normal times a guy gets hard—thinking about sex, fantasizing, in the morning—I got nothing. Except when I dreamt of you. Whenever I dreamt of you, I was always hard. Then about a year ago, I stopped dreaming of you, and . . . the erections went away again.

“So, I know that I stay like this for, I don’t know, three or four . . . you know.”

“Orgasms?” she supplied.

He flattened his hand on her belly and smoothed it in a circle over her perfect skin, then let it glide lower, between her legs. With another scrape of inward air, Jessica’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, but didn’t pull him back. Her lids went heavy, her top teeth came down on her bottom lip.

Q explored the crisp, silky strip of hair over the swollen, secret folds “I think so. Let me bring you another one and you can let me know.” He closed his teeth over the skin between her neck and shoulder. With his fingers sliding warm and slick along her opening, he rocked his hips into her.

“Oh, God . . .” she moaned.

“Jessie . . .” He sighed against her neck. “How long does this last? How does anyone get anything done?”

A soft bubble of laughter shook her chest. She reached behind her, gripped his butt and rolled to her stomach, pulling him with her. “They just fulfill the need until it’s sated. . . .” On her stomach, she wiggled until her thighs were outside Q’s. “Then they get back to work.”

She reached up, grabbed the top metal bar of a plain steel headboard and pulled herself toward the head of the bed. Her body was sleek and strong and just looking at her rolled his temperature up the scale. Q’s hips dropped between her legs, his cock rubbing her ass. Pleasure, sharp and sudden, stole his breath and broke his thoughts.

“And when the urge strikes again,” she said softly, “they generally . . . make time, you know, to take a break from whatever they’re doing and . . . fill the need.” She looked over her shoulder and into his eyes as she lifted her hips until the warm, wet place he wanted rubbed along his cock.

Then she gave him that smile, the naughty one that promised delicious things and said, “I’m feeling needy.”

“
Q tuned into Trent’s communication. “Here.”

Q lunged upright, eyes wide, arms out in defense. And found himself alone.

In a room. A cement room. Dawn just hinted outside the single window. This was not his cell.

He looked down. Naked. Sheets half torn from the bed. He scanned the room. Pillows scattered on the floor. Comforter bunched at the foot of the bed. Not only was this not his cell, this was not like any cell they kept him in at any outside testing facility.

He rolled off the bed and landed on his feet. Then immediately reached for a wall to steady himself. His muscles ached. Strange muscles. His ass and thighs felt as if he’d done a thousand squats. His arms, shoulders, abs . . . shit, what the hell had they done to him this time?

With his hand on the cold cement, he looked down at his body, searching for injuries. He ran his other hand over a few red marks on the side of his lower abdomen. A deep, voracious sexual hunger erupted from nowhere, its force making him suck in a sharp breath.

His mind flashed to thick copper hair threaded in his hands. Her mouth moving over him. Lips and teeth closing over bite-sized areas of his flesh. The same thrill that had speared through him then cut through him again. His cock jerked. Rose. The sight brought a rush of thoughts so vivid his breath caught. He looked back at the bed. Swallowed.

Stupid. Just another dream.

Only . . . she’d never touched
him
in those dreams.

He looked at the door—solid metal. Looked at the knob—simple. At the deadbolt—absent.

No barred window. No keypad. No locks . . . at all.

Still looking at the doorknob, he touched his erection, throbbing with an unfamiliar discomfort. He winced. He was raw. And in that instant he knew—he was raw from being rubbed and ridden and then revived to succumb to some new sweet, sensual, erotic pleasure Jessica had to show him. Which always resulted in the rubbing and riding and reviving. Again. And again. And again.

He pushed off the wall, twisting toward the bed.

Gone. She was gone.
Why
was she gone?

He tried to keep the panic down. Tried to remember something that would ease the pain-laden fear squeezing his chest, but couldn’t. Instead, his mind filled with Gorin. With all the times he’d discovered something Q loved—a favorite author, a new hobby, a developing interest—let him get hooked and then yanked it away, held it out there as incentive to do what Gorin wanted.

“Fuck, no.”
Not Jessie. Please, not Jessie.
His head spun. He wanted to puke. He reached for the door and yanked at the knob. It opened so unexpectedly, Q fell back a few steps, then bolted out of the room.

Two steps into the hall, he came up against a hard body. “Hey, hey, relax.”

Cash. He recognized the voice immediately. Knew where he was, why, remembered everything from the past five years of his life, but—again—no more.

“Jessica.” Q fisted Cash’s T-shirt with both hands. “Jessica’s—”

“Fine. Jessica is fine.” Cash’s smooth, serious tone stopped Q’s mind from tilting. He looked down at Q, pushed him backwards, and shoved a handful of fabric into Q’s arms. “Get some clothes on, man. You’re not alone in your cell anymore. Then, come out. I’ve got breakfast ready.”

Cash left and closed the door behind him. Q turned toward the bed and picked up the T-shirt from the pile. He ran his hand over the fabric and breathed in relief at the soft brushed texture.

Q finished dressing and went to the kitchen, where a barrage of delicious scents made his stomach rumble. Cash looked up from washing dishes and lifted his chin toward the covered pans on the stove.

“There’s eggs, bacon, potatoes, pancakes, hell, just about anything you could want,” Cash said. “But go heavy on the eggs. You need protein for cell repair and brain function.”

Q didn’t answer right away. He’d spotted Jessica through the sliding glass doors where she sat in a chair outside, feet curled up under her, pen to her lips, gaze distant toward the forest as if her mind were far away. She had her long hair in a loose braid that she’d pulled forward over her shoulder. She was bundled in a hooded sweatshirt, sweatpants and socks.

God, she looked . . . sweet and warm and so young, the way she had on the video the night before, which made his memories of last night seem that much more like nothing but another of Q’s fantasies. Only the sting of the scratches on his skin told him this particular fantasy had become a reality.

“Leave her be for a minute, Q,” Cash said. “Your body needs food.”

He started for the door. “My body needs her.”

 

A piece of plastic broke off in Jessica’s mouth. She turned away from the blurred glaze of the colorful trees and pulled the pen from between her teeth. Sputtering, she spit out the casing chip. She was going to break her teeth if she didn’t stop.

She turned her attention to the computer in her lap again. The Internet service on the property was painfully slow. Mitch had said it was a side effect of the security measures to block others from finding them by their usage. Whatever, it was damned inefficient. She waited for another video file from the stash of evidence she’d collected on Schaeffer over the years, but instead of watching the hourglass rotate on the screen, her eyes darted to the time in the bottom corner. Every minute that passed was one minute closer to facing Quaid. Her stomach did that tight fold and flop thing again.

She’d tried to do her yoga when she couldn’t sleep, but her body was so sore, it had been an exercise in torture, not relaxation. Sure, Quaid was bound to have urgent needs after going so long without. And she hadn’t experienced true pleasure since he’d died. So the two of them together . . . It stood to reason their lovemaking would be intense, when they finally reunited.

But the raw, lusty, blood-boiling sex that had resulted? No, that she hadn’t expected. Excitement and need flooded her body without warning and Jessica closed her eyes to savor it.

She had to admit, after last night, she was beginning to believe he was right about his past self. Jessica had called him Quaid. And he’d looked like Quaid. But last night she had not shared her bed with the husband she’d known as Quaid.

Sex with Quaid had always been great. Fun, satisfying, fulfilling. He’d been creative, adventurous, loving, considerate, passionate—everything every woman wanted from a lover. Jessica couldn’t have imagined wanting anything more or anything different. He’d been perfect, which was only one reason she’d had such a hard time moving on after his death. Sex with other men had been so unappealing, she’d had to do it high. And even then, she’d endured more than she’d enjoyed. But the sex had become part of her drug pattern. And the drug pattern revolved around the goal of forgetting, blocking the pain and filling the void.

That void had ended, along with all its extracurricular activities, the day she entered rehab, almost a year ago. Which also happened to be when Quaid’s dreams of her had stopped. But Jessica knew they hadn’t been dreams. Quaid hadn’t said as much, but she guessed he knew as well. Yet, he’d still wanted her.

But that brought up a lot of fears. She wondered if he also knew about her drug abuse. If he even understood what that was and whether he’d want to be with someone with that baggage. She worried that while he was willing to accept his memories of the other men now, it wouldn’t last. That there would come a time when he couldn’t bear it. Which would bring up trust issues in their relationship later on.

This new Quaid was . . . unpredictable. In good ways as well as not so good. The man in her bed last night . . . Jessica blew out a breath. She still felt a little . . . overwhelmed. Q was . . . deep. He was raw and open like a wound. His anger and fear and regret were buried deep beneath his skin as if they were part of his genetic makeup. All that emotion came out in his sexual expression and . . . holy hell . . . had he expressed himself. In amazing ways.

The sex had been passionate, bordering on obsessive. Hard, edgy, dark, serious. Hot. God, just thinking about it made her wet. She squeezed her thighs together against the need that had been growing since the moment he’d last pulled out of her.

But he’d been right about who he was. Even if he regained his memory, or part of his memory, he’d never be the Quaid Jessica had lost. One part of her was painfully hollow with the realization. But another part zinged with the wild electricity this new Quaid brought to her life.

“Jessie?”

Her breath caught at the sound of his voice. He was questioning . . . and hurting. Apprehension tightened her muscles. She turned toward him. He stood in the doorway, wearing a chocolate acid washed tee and tan cargo shorts, and she went liquid. His body looked as delicious in clothes as it looked out of them. His frame filled out the style, his muscle stretched the fabric so it flowed and pulled just right. He was unshaven, his eyes dark and worried and . . . vulnerable.

“Hey.” She smiled, genuinely glad to see him, while still not quite over her loss. “I was hoping you could get some sleep.”

He stepped outside and closed the door behind him. He was barefoot again, his feet padding softly against the sandstone patio. He stopped next to her chair and she found herself anticipating his touch. But he dropped into a crouch, arms crossed over his knees and those deep, warm eyes burrowing into her with the kind of intimate intensity that made Jessica feel completely—dangerously—exposed.

“What’s wrong? Why weren’t you in bed with me when I woke up?” he asked, his voice the rough whisper she knew well from the night before, the one that had shivered through her as he’d driven her to orgasm after orgasm, wringing more pleasure from her body than she’d known existed.

“I was restless. Couldn’t sleep.” She lifted her fingers to his lips with a deep craving to taste them again. “You’re the only person who ever calls me Jessie.”

His eyes closed, long black lashes lying decadently against unshaven cheeks. His hand covered hers, guided her fingertips between his full, soft lips where he suckled and ran his tongue over them. A noise sounded in her throat. He pulled her fingers back, took her hand in both of his, holding her fingers gently, splaying them as if to inspect each tip.

“Well, damn.” His voice, low and soft and still a little sleepy, rumbled over her, teasing her nipples tight. “I’m going to have to work on tiring you out a little better.”

With those warm eyes locked on hers, he slowly licked the pad of each finger. The sight of his tongue against her flesh made her want so much more.

“Because,” he lowered his voice and leaned close, “I slept better than I have for as long as I can remember.”

He tilted his head, took Jessica’s mouth with his and licked into it, catching her tongue in a sexy, slow sweep. She immediately curled her hand around his and leaned into his strength, kissing him back as if they hadn’t just spent the last several hours having blistering, mind-rocking sex. And, God help her, she wanted to spend the next several hours doing it again.

“Now that is what I like to see.”

Jessica startled at the male voice, breaking the kiss and pulling away from Quaid. Kai and Alyssa walked toward them from the direction of the supply room. They were both grinning—Kai’s smile a mixture of relief and excitement; Alyssa’s a gentler blend of happiness and hope.

“Did our prisoner talk?” Jessica asked Kai.

Quaid released Jessica’s hand and stood, crossing his arms. Jessica’s hands felt cold without his.

“Nope,” Kai said. “Didn’t think he would, but it was worth a try. I took a video of him so we can e-mail whoever he belongs to. Alyssa, the humanitarian that she is, checked his wounds.”

“How are they?” Jessica asked.

She shrugged. The gentle smile transitioned into a matter-of-fact doctor mask. “Quaid can evidently do quite a bit of damage to a human being, no weapon necessary. It will take our prisoner some time to heal, but he’ll live.”

The reminder of Quaid’s volatility sent a chill through Jessica’s belly. She looked at Kai. “Any word from your boss?”

“He just texted me, asked me to call. I was coming to round up the posse for a conference call. Come inside?”

She nodded and reached up to close her laptop.

“What the . . . ?” Quaid said. “Who is that?”

Jessica followed Quaid’s gaze to her laptop screen and stared at the still image of the video with the arrow in the center ready to be played. The hair on her neck prickled. “Senator Gil Schaeffer. Do you . . . recognize him?”

“Schaeffer . . .” Quaid’s gaze went distant for a moment, then he blinked. “Yeah. He came to the off-site testing facilities to talk to Gorin once in a while.”

Jessica’s heart thumped hard and picked up speed.

“Max Gorin?” Kai asked.

Quaid’s eyes jumped to Kai. “I only knew him as Gorin. Never knew if that was his first or last name, but that Schaeffer guy never acted like anyone important. I mean, he never had security with him, not like that bitch from DoD, always had to have a fucking armed detail around her.”