Hidden Heat (9 page)

Inevitably, though, he started to get hard, and with a groan of frustration I stepped back, trying to calm down. “Damn it, how long does Beth want us to
not
do this?”

A knock at the door gave us our answer. Scott sat down at the table to hide his hard-on and I opened the door to admit an amused-looking Beth. “I take it from the scowl on your face that you don’t approve of my restrictions.”

I felt bad for being angry with her—she was trying to help me, after all. “Sorry. It’s just hard.”

In more ways than one.

“Quite,” Beth said dryly, with a knowing look at Scott.

“Screw you, Beth,” he said, his tone more relaxed than his words.

Beth pulled out her tourniquet and syringe and tore into a fresh needle package. “Let’s get this blood, then.”

I held still while she tightened the tourniquet, then winced as the needle pierced my flesh. I’d grown accustomed to being stuck with needles during my suppression procedures, but it seemed to hurt a little more this time. Was it a blood pressure thing?

Once Beth had finished and I was applying pressure to the wound while the bleeding stopped, Scott asked, “What are you hoping to find?”

“I don’t know, exactly. It’s just a hunch.”

I dabbed a little nano-salve on the puncture wound and watched with interest while the tiny injury repaired itself. It had always fascinated me, how the top layers of skin could be so easily healed by nanotechnology, and yet some of the more serious, deeper wounds resisted the treatment.

A couple of taut, silent minutes passed. Then Beth nodded, gazing down at her readout.

“Beth?” I asked, and she handed me the device.

I looked down at it and winced—the display was set up to compare the two results, and I might have still been a doctor in training, but I knew what I should be seeing, as opposed to what I was actually looking at.

“Shouldn’t my baseline test have a lot less of a hormonal component than it does?”

Scott looked over my shoulder at the test results and sighed. “There’s only half the hormonal increase there should be in the second test. I guess I’m just not as hot as I thought I was.”

Nothing could have been further from the truth. I tried to avoid the temptation to give him a look that told him so, but I couldn’t help it. It smoothed his ruffled feathers, and he winked at me before wandering over to the fridge to find something to snack on.

Beth took the readout back. “I think it’s safe to say that your hormonal baseline at the moment is what most people would experience at the ‘light kissing’ stage. Therefore, it takes less time and provocation for you to become fully aroused.”

Having my sexual impulses discussed as if the topic was no more taboo than what I wanted for lunch was more than a little embarrassing. I stared at my fingers, biting my lip. “Can you fix it?”

“We’ll still need to do a few scans of your brain before we can fully assess what’s going on. I can have the room booked after your lecture tomorrow, if you’d like to come by then.”

“Sure.” Brain scans. Wow, I’d never had
those
before—I wished. It seemed like half of my time between suppression procedures had been spent having scans and other tests as I frantically tried to figure out what was wrong with my physiology. The specialists hadn’t come to any concrete conclusions.

Beth pulled some pills from one of the pockets of her bag and examined the dosages. “I recommend you take one of these now, another before you sleep, another when you wake and another before class. They’re experimental, so don’t expect miracles.”

Suspiciously, I eyed the plain white box she handed over. “Are these going to have a million scary side effects?”

“Doubtful. If they do, call in sick rather than try to get to your classes. I don’t want you wandering around while you’re out of it, understand?”

Taken aback by the sternness in her voice, I looked from her to Scott and back. “You think I might expose the committee?”

“I think you need to be more careful now than you’ve ever been, Holly. I don’t doubt your intentions, but taking unnecessary risks would be reckless and stupid.” She paused to let the words sink in, then smiled again. “Now I’ve finished with the lecture, I’d better get going. I want to investigate your aunt a little further.”

Scott and I exchanged a glance. It seemed as though our minds were moving on the same track, with one question blazing brightly in our thoughts. I didn’t think I could ask, though—I’d been humiliated enough by the medical assessment without giving Beth further ammunition.

Scott seemed to be having difficulty voicing the question as well, though I wasn’t sure about his reasons. We watched as Beth picked up her medical bag and glanced about her, apparently checking she hadn’t forgotten anything.

As she began to walk towards the door, alarm spurred me into taking a breath to speak, and I could see Scott doing the same thing. Before either of us could get a word out, Beth said matter-of-factly, “And yes, you can still engage in sexual activity. I doubt denying yourself would have much of an effect, Holly. It’s your baseline levels that seem to be the problem, not the aroused ones—if sex caused this, which I doubt, the damage is already done.”

With a sweet smile at the pair of us, she gave a little wave and swept towards the door. “Bye, then!”

The door shut behind her and I stared at it for a second, open-mouthed, while Scott rolled his eyes and got to his feet. “That’s our Beth…”

I made an effort to close my mouth, and instead concentrated on the pills she’d given me. “Is she always like that?”

“She doesn’t like to waste time while people tiptoe around taboo topics. You learn to cut to the chase after a while.” When he saw me popping one of the pills out of its foil casing, he grabbed a glass and filled it with water, then slid it across the table towards me. “What’s in those?”

“I have no idea, and I don’t wanna know. If you trust Beth, that’s good enough for me.” Without giving myself any further time to ponder possible side effects, I put the pill in my mouth and chased it down with half the glass of water. “There. Done.”

Scott stepped in closer as I stood up, cupping my cheek with obvious concern. “You okay?”

Unable to stop myself from nuzzling his hand, I said, “Still scared…but I feel better knowing Beth’s on the case.”

“Me, too.” He sighed. “God, Holly… I wish we knew how this happened. I mean, is it my fault?”

“Did you do it on purpose?” I asked.

Frowning, he shook his head, and I ran my hand through his hair. “Then how can it be your fault?”

Instead of answering, he kissed me—a soft, sweet kiss that nonetheless rekindled the desperate craving inside me. I pushed him up against the kitchen worktop, moulding my body to his, kissing him hard, gasping into his mouth.

Scott eased me back enough to say, “You know, Grant could walk in here at any moment.”

I didn’t care. All I could think about was Scott’s hard, thick cock slamming up inside my pussy. “Let him.”

Scott tried to protest, but as I unzipped his pants and freed his cock, he groaned instead. “Okay, okay, but if he comes in here you don’t get to freak out about it.”

“Freak out?” I rolled my eyes. “I’d be more likely to ask him to join in.”

His cock jumped beneath my fingers, and I laughed, stroking it firmly. “Oh, you’d like that? Have you guys done each other before?”

“Maybe… But we were really bored and horny…”

“Hmm.” It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest we actually called Grant in here, but I managed to keep my mouth shut. Maybe the pills were kicking in.

“Fuck, Holly…” Scott nuzzled my neck, then pulled at my shirt. “Come here.”

He stripped away the garment, then my bra, and I moaned as he teased my sensitive nipple with his tongue. “Love it when you do that, oh, my God…”

Scott gave the other nipple the same electrifying treatment, then claimed my lips again as my pussy gushed and a shiver rippled down my spine. I tore free of the kiss, gasping. “Oh, fuck, I need you
right now
…”

Whatever he thought about my desperation, he felt enough urgency of his own to oblige. He unbuttoned my jeans, then tugged them off, lifted me and slid me backwards onto the kitchen counter. The surface was slightly chilly below my buttocks, but the warmth of his cock more than made up for it when he slammed into me.

“Oh,
yeah
!” I cried out, wrapping my legs around his waist and pulling him in deeper.

“God, you’re amazing,” he growled in my ear, drawing out almost completely before driving back in.

He took me hard and fast and I leant back on my hands, tilting my hips up so that every thrust hit my hot-spot. It took only a minute for the unbearable tension within me to break into chaotic waves of pleasure, and Scott groaned as the inner walls of my pussy tightened around him.

“Already?”

I was too breathless and full of shuddering ecstasy to do more than nod, and he stopped holding back, pounding into me until he came, his breath shaky against my neck as he held me.

Behind us, the door opened and Grant peeked around it. “Oh, Jesus, Scott. Put your ass away so I can get some cereal. Holly, you can stay naked.”

“Fuck off, Grant. I already told Holly you’ve touched it all before.”

Safe in the knowledge that all the parts Grant might be interested in seeing were either pressed against Scott or against the counter, I grinned at him over Scott’s shoulder. “Sure it’s food you want?”

“Ask me again when Beth says the meds are working.” With a wink that sent a light shiver through me, he retreated again.

“Do I get a say in this little threesome you’re both planning?” a slightly disgruntled Scott asked.

“Hey, if you’d rather call Skye, she offered to join us, too.” I gave him a conciliatory kiss as he helped me down off the counter.

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re into women?”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but as soon as I pictured Skye’s full figure and perpetually smiling lips… “I never used to be,” I whispered, fear chasing down my spine in pursuit of desire.

Scott wrapped his shirt around me, then his arms, as if he’d sensed my sudden vulnerability. “We’re gonna find a way past this, okay?”

I buried my face in his shoulder and wept. It wasn’t the idea of being into women that frightened me—it was that new sexual urges seemed to be surfacing left and right. Bondage, lesbianism, threesomes…those I could handle, but what next? What if I started finding really depraved things exciting? Things no decent person should
ever
do?

Scott had meant to comfort me with his embrace, but instead, his masculine scent made my skin tingle all over again.

I cried harder.

* * * *

Beth’s medication took about an hour to kick in. I spent that hour curled against Scott, trying not to writhe against him as we watched the netcast. He held my hand, but discouraged anything more than a light kiss, as if he knew I both wanted it and feared giving in to it.

The movie we were watching was some kind of action-drama, but neither of us really focused on it. Impassioned speeches were followed by car chases and gunfights, followed—predictably—by melodramatic hospital scenes. It wasn’t until the hero and heroine started making out that I realised I didn’t feel an immediate urge to jump Scott’s bones.

“Scott?”

“Hmm?”

His glance was a little wary, as if he expected me to beg him for more sex. Wow, what kind of a fucked-up situation was it when I’d managed to make a
guy
wary of sex?

Then again, Scott wasn’t just any guy. I knew that as surely as I knew my own name.

“I think the pills are working.”

He let out a relieved breath, kissed my forehead. “That’s good.”

What I was about to say scared me like hell, but it had to be this way. “I should go home.”

Scott frowned. “You don’t wanna wait and see how long the effects last?”

I got up, began to pace in long, agitated strides. “I would if I could, but my roomies are gonna start asking questions if I don’t go home soon. And what will it look like if you and I show up together for class tomorrow?”

“You’re being paranoid, Holly. Vanishing together in the break between two lectures is dangerous. Getting the same bus towards the university—once—isn’t going to set off any alarm bells. The tutors and other students are all Focused, too. Their minds don’t come up with sexual explanations as quickly as ours do.”

“More efficient,” I muttered, paraphrasing from the official literature we’d all been given about suppression. “More focused. Less distracted by attractive colleagues and daydreams of sexual activity with partners off the job. Blah, blah, blah. I know.”

Scott caught my wrist as I passed, pulled me back down beside him. “Then why are you so jumpy?”

“Because I don’t vanish for days on end. Ever since my procedures failed, I’ve been really routine-based. Like, obsessively. It’s gonna look bad enough as it is. My roomies will ask questions, and I’m not as good a liar as I need to be.”

“Okay, okay.” He sighed, cupped my cheek in his hand. “I’m with you on this, you know that.”

“I do.” I kissed him, and it was wonderful, but I felt in control of myself in a way I hadn’t done since we’d met. “I appreciate it. But I need to do this.”

“Come on, beautiful. Let’s get you ready to go.”

We ended up making out in the hallway for a while, loath to say goodbye after the intimate weekend we’d shared. It might have taken a scary turn earlier, but being pressed up against the wall by a gorgeous, considerate man kind of compensated for it.

“Wanna go upstairs for a little while?” he murmured in my ear, the growl in his voice sending a shiver down my spine.

I wavered, torn between playing it obsessively cautious and wanting to experience sex with Scott without the constant voracity of my baseline hormones to blur the experience.

Scott took my hand, kissed all the way down from my inner elbow to the tattoo that ringed my wrist. He flicked his tongue over the electrifyingly sensitive pulse-point there, once…twice…

“No, I need to go.” I rested my head on his shoulder, breathing hard, my entire body protesting my mind’s decision. “I need to know I can control myself.”