Tenants and Tyrants (Book 5 of The Warden series) (22 page)

“None of what you’re doing is condoned by the Hippocratic oath.”

She wasn’t sure she agreed with that, but he did have a point. This was an underground operation, did doctor, patient relationship barriers really apply. “I’m not really sure I can do this and just go back to normal. I usually don’t see my one night stands after the night, you know?”

“I’m not offering a one night stand,” he said without flinching.

“In that case, I’m not very good at relationships. I’m kind of married to my work.”

“That’s very convenient, because I am your work. At least for the next six months, I’m sure that will be long enough for you to decide if you want continue your work with me privately, or move on.”

She looked him over. He was presenting his case logically. She had expected more of a seduction like he had the first night they were alone together. Perhaps he knew her even better than she suspected. She could argue with emotional flirtation, but a logical front left her nothing to defend against. All of his observations were valid.

“Besides, as I mentioned, I don’t think you like following the rules, do you?”

She shook her head and stood up. She felt a little dizzy and her mouth was dry. She had had dozens of one night stands over the years, none of them made her feel like this. She could have passed out just from the speed of her heart, let alone the anxiety of the anticipation.

He stood and met her in the middle. He didn’t kiss her, which threw her off again. He started to undo her top. She looked down at the proven dexterity in his hands. She was fairly certain she couldn’t unbutton her own shirt that fast. “I find it’s easier to have second thoughts, when your clothes are still on.”

“I thought you were shy,” she said thinking back to what she thought of him a few days ago.

“I liked you from day one, Jill. I knew I wanted you from day one and a half. I’ve been stalking you since them.”

“Stalking?” Jill asked vaguely aware that her pants were slipping off.

“Yes, observing, listening, a man can’t expect to just walk into a room and start removing a woman’s clothes.” Her bra was off, but she kept her eyes on him. She knew second thoughts really were out now. “A man has to know his prey. Know her weaknesses.”

“What are my weaknesses?” she asked feeling the strangeness of being totally nude in front of a fully clothed man. Except her socks. Nobody ever stopped for socks.

“Right, now,” he tipped his brow. “This hand.” He raised his hand to show her, but lowered it to feel her nudity. She gasped and leaned against him for balance. There was no containing anything now. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t even kissed her yet.

Once she was back in control of herself, she clumsily pulled his clothing off. It wasn’t as graceful or sensual as how he had taken her clothes away, but he didn’t object. Before she could kiss him he moved his lips away and scooped her up and placed her on the bed.

She had the briefest guilt for being with her patient, but it subsided, and she saw his perfect bronze body crawl on top of her. She reached for his neck to draw him down for a kiss, but he resisted as he got himself in a comfortable poised position.

When he finally consented to her kiss, he gave her a gentle seductive first kiss that made the wait worth it. It only lasted a moment before he plunged his tongue in for a deeper kiss at the same moment he offered her body a deeper satisfaction as well. That was also worth the wait.

She was surprised he wasn’t gentle and slow like most first time lovers. He seemed to understand how few and far between these pleasures were for her. He didn’t waste any time with pretenses of love. He just wanted to make her moan for his body the way she had moaned from his massage, which she happily, and perhaps a little too loudly, did.

36

Jill sat at her overflowing desk trying to make sense of the staggering increase in Efrat’s and Garr’s tolerances. They had been on the steroids nearly three weeks now and they were not immune to electricity and heat respectively, but they were now able to exude it for short durations.

Garr had become obsessed with his abilities. He flaunted his talents by bringing cookie dough in for everyone, which we baked freshly in the palm of his hands. Everyone laughed and cheered and made jokes about where his hands had been, but Jill didn’t show the enthusiasm like everyone else.

Despite her resistance to conform to mainline medicine, she didn’t like fast results. Garr was young. A temper flare or fit of jealousy could lead him to use his ability to hurt someone. She reminded them all of that daily it seemed, but everyone was too enamored with the idea of becoming Captain America to pay her much heed.

Efrat was well on his way to keeping a light bulb lit for an hour, and she wasn’t unfamiliar with the pop of breaking glass when he got tired of holding it. His powers concerned her the most, because they wouldn’t be limited to his hands. Electrical current could easily jump, and if Efrat was not careful, he could easily find himself arcing with anything remotely electronic.

It was nothing to say that he may never be able to use a cell phone again, but to add to that list, a computer, radio, and a microwave. She had started grounding his bed so that she didn’t have to keep flipping the circuit breaker during his visits.

Remi and Hirem were coming along a little slower. For Remi it seemed to just be laziness that kept her powers from coming through. She didn’t want to do the exercises that she suggested to induce the water power, so she struggled to make anything happen intentionally. Unintentionally, however, she had woken up in her bed freshly turned water bed three times in one week.

Hirem on the other hand seemed to be taking her concerns for control seriously. He spent a good deal of time meditating before and after his efforts to exude his cold. He had learned to make his hands super cold, and then warm them back up again.

In the last few weeks, they had been together after every check-up and test. At first it felt like a forbidden affair, even though neither of them was attached. Somewhere in the last week however, it had started to feel like he was just taking advantage of her. He was just getting laid with scheduled appointments. A convenience any man could appreciate.

At the last appointment she made an excuse about a headache, which was the laziest of lies to give a man, but it was kind of true, and she wasn’t really trying to hide her displeasure with being his bi-weekly hookup. As much as she wanted to be an independent woman, who freely slept with who she liked, it still felt like she was the puppet in this arrangement.

“Jill.” Jill looked up from her data and saw Hirem just inside the glass doors. She hadn’t heard him come in. She never heard anyone come in. The damn doors needed bells.

“Paul.” She smiled as warmly as her discomfort would let her. “You don’t have an appointment today.”

“No, I don’t,” he said matter-of-factly. He stayed by the door not moving further in. She wondered if that was his way of being non-threatening or if he planned to leave right away when she refused his company again.

“What brings you in?”

“You know what brings me in.” He sounded annoyed.

“I’m sorry. I’m very busy with this.”

“Headache, busy, next time I’m sure you will say its cramps. Then what, how many more excuses will you give me before you admit the truth.”

“Okay,” she threw down her pen and turned on her stool to face him. “This isn’t working for me anymore.”

“Have I not been a generous lover to you?”

She laughed, but stopped when she realized that she didn’t want to imply any amusement in his love making. “No, yes…you have been an excellent lover, Paul.”

“So why abandon such pleasure.” He moved forward. Now that the topic of sex had flustered her, he knew she would be thinking about said pleasure. He was a consummate hunter.

“I think this is dangerous territory for me,” she said being more honest than she thought she could. “I think that I’m getting a little too attached to you and I don’t want to get hurt when this is all over. I’m sorry if I’ve misled you about my tolerance for this type of relationship. I think I misled myself. I’m just not as capable of casual sex as I thought.”

Hirem watched her carefully and came closer before speaking. He positioned himself in the path of her only exit. She could go around the opposite side of the table, but there were so many carts that moving them would have looked like a ridiculous effort of avoidance. “You no longer want to be my lover, because you’re getting attached to me. Doesn’t that sound strange to you?”

“Yes, but I know you don’t want a clingy love struck girlfriend, so I’m trying to give you a way out, before I turn into a slobbering pathetic blob of feminine neediness. I’m not above it you know, it comes with the extra X chromosome,” she quipped trying to make the situation light again. It never worked with him. He was the most serious man she knew.

“Who said I don’t want that?” he asked annoyed again.

“Ah, you’ve kind of been implying it.” She smiled and looked away when his face demanded more explanation. “Come on, don’t play this off. I’m your scheduled lay. You get a quick fix after your appointments and on with your life. Look at tonight. I blew you off once, and you’re here to collect. Didn’t get your twice a week in, so re-schedule accordingly.”

“That’s what you think I’m doing?”

“Paul, we never do anything, but have sex. There is no reason to assume that it is anything more than that.”

He stepped forward and hovered his hand over her desk of ceaseless paperwork. “This is why all we do is have sex. I would love nothing more than to take you out of this dreaded work, but I see how anxious you get if I linger past my designated post-appointment slot. You are the one scheduling me into your life, not the other way around. I respect your work, and through that respect I have kept my distance. If I had it my way, I would be with you every night: eating, talking, and making love.”

Jill looked over her desk. The piles of paperwork were an endless chore. Up until recently, she was obsessed with it. Now, her mind was transfixed on him. How his body felt against her. What he was thinking? When she would see him next? She hated being this way, but if she wasn’t the only one that was feeling it, maybe that would be okay.

She looked up at him and saw the desire and the concern in his eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted something more than just sex and just work. I’m scared that you aren’t going to like the emotional basket case that I keep away from civilized society.”

“My heart has loved you from the moment I met you. My body has ached for you stronger every day. My mind anticipates meetings you with each new conversation, and every unknown detail.” Normally Jill would have gagged over this poetic nonsense, but coming from him it made so much sense. “I’m not afraid of your inner basket case. I am only afraid of losing you. My mind is strong, my body can recover, but my heart is weak.”

She didn’t know why that put her at ease. Perhaps knowing that she could hurt him as much as he could hurt her, made the odds more fair. Relationships were about balance. Too much power one way or another was not good, but as long as the hearts loved equally there was no reason to worry about how often the scales tipped in one direction or the other.

Jill wasn’t sure who moved first, but they were kissing, and clawing at each other’s clothes. They should have been whispering sweet nothings and giving each other tiny kisses, after such an expressive conversation, but that wasn’t the tone.

The tone was shoving her paperwork all over the floor. The tone was him pushing her down on the desk she had been shackled to for so many months without a break. She didn’t think about how many hours it would take to reorganize it, all she thought about was him. She wanted him: his body, his mind, and his heart, and at that moment she knew she had all three. She also knew there was no turning back, because she had just given him the final piece in the triad as well.

37

There hadn’t been much point in hiding their relationship. Efrat probably knew the night it had started. Judging by how much he had reduced his flirtation with her, he must have understood how serious it was. Garr and Remi were mostly oblivious to anyone’s bliss beyond their own, but Garr had given her a few coy smiles, when he saw her ogling Hirem from across the lab.

The truth was, she was as love sick as Remi and Garr. It was pathetic and unprofessional, but she didn’t care. She had never been with a man like Hirem. He seemed distant and humorless, but being as close to him as she was, she understood he was reflective and unpretentious.

He did not display his love for others to see and yet with a simple look he made her smile because she saw what he felt. It wasn’t for everyone else to see. It was just for her.

She did however have to tone down her coy smiles when the General Clark started his demolition exercises. She was fairly certain that he would not be a fan of their connection. For the most part, she did her best looking like the proud teacher to all her students, rather than the proud girlfriend to one in particular.

Jill stood inside the observation room looking onto a huge room that could have housed a small jet. It was filled to the brim with random walls, tanks, trucks, and dummies. This was where the real superhero potential was coming out.

Efrat took aim with the others behind him. They knew better than to stand within ten feet of him when he was working his power. He was still unskilled at it his aim. Controlling an electrical current had more to do with controlling his mind than anything else, but that was the hardest part of all of it. It was the reason Jill hadn’t wanted to rush their development.

Efrat took aim placing an outstretched hand palm up toward his dummy target. He concentrated for a long moment, before releasing a bolt. It was short and concise, which in and of its self was an improvement. The bolt hit his target directly in the chest.

Jill yelled and clapped her hands. She looked over at General Clark who was not amused, impressed, or emotionally translucent in anyway, except to be annoyed by her gleeful outburst. Jill shrugged his glare away with a “whatever” attitude and banged on the glass. She gave Efrat a thumbs-up and wide open mouth grin.

He blew her a kiss in thanks and took his position at the back of the line. Hirem was up next and Jill was nervous. She hadn’t pushed Hirem as hard as Efrat because she was too busy giving him doe eyes and making love to him. She hoped their relationship wasn’t hindering his progress.

He stepped up to his target and did the same as Efrat. A freezing cold, nearly invisible trail emanated from his hand onto the dummy. Frost collected on the dummy and it was easy to see that an enemy might be incapacitated by the freezing cold.

Jill applauded when he lowered his hand. He glanced over at her and she gave him a thumbs-up as well. He didn’t match her enthusiasm of course. He looked to his hand. A blob of ice had coalesced there. It was an unfamiliar branch of his abilities as far as she knew.

He threw the blob of ice at his dummy. The rubber manikin shattered on its impact, as if it had been submerged in liquid nitrogen. Jill gasped. “Holy shit,” she whispered seeing the true depth of Hirem’s cold power.

“Now that is impressive,” General Clark said as he applauded for Hirem.

Hirem gave a nod as he went to the back of the line. A new dummy was set up, and Garr stepped to the front of the line. He took a different path. He held his hands together and grew a ball of fire within them.

Jill smiled seeing the pleasure the young boy got from his ability. She hoped he understood what it meant to have that power. She knew Efrat and Hirem understood war, but she wasn’t sure Remi or Garr really knew what the government expected from them.

The United States was a hot bed of corruption, but none was so widely accepted as the military. The specified duties of the Green Beret very clearly listed unconventional warfare as part of its duty. These four definitely counted as unconventional.

Garr’s fire ball reached the size of a bowling ball, but he didn’t throw it. He first looked to General Clark for his approval. “Concentrate, Garr,” Jill mumbled.

The comment was warrantied. Garr turned back to wield his fire ball, but he had lost his focus. The fire exploded in his face. “No!” Jill hit the glass as Garr’s body flopped backwards. She ran out of the observation room only slightly ahead of General Clark.

Inside the demolition room, she barked for a stretcher and first aid kit. She flung herself to Garr’s side to begin to assess the damage. Despite her training and her understanding of how to control ones reactions in order to put the patient at ease, she burst into tears when she reached him.

His face down to his neck was red and bloodied. It didn’t look burned, but rather skinned. Like a powerful corrosive had ripped off several layers of his exterior tissue. Even his eyelids were gone. “Garr,” she wanted to touch him, but there was nothing she could touch without contaminating him. “I’m going to fix this, honey, don’t you worry.”