Illicit Intuitions: Sensory Ops, Book 3 (10 page)

She dropped her shirt on the floor and turned on the shower to warm up the water. Nope. The toy was staying right where it was.
 

She pushed the shorts over her hips. Already they clung to her. Sticky.
 

You’re going to be sticky. You want help cleaning up?
His words, smooth and erotic, reverberated through her head as clearly as if he stood behind her.
 

She tripped herself stepping out of the shorts. The tangy scent of her own arousal reached up and slapped at her. Her knees quivered. Her body wept, excreting more juices to slide down her inner thigh.
 

“Oh hell.” She moaned as she turned to look at herself in the mirror.

Her eyes were heavy, and not from sleepiness. Her cheeks were flushed in red blotches as the heat of anticipation rose. As the need for sexual release rose.
 

“No freaking way.” She wasn’t using that thing with him no more than a few walls away.
 

Decided, she pulled back the shower curtain and stepped beneath the lukewarm spray. Every drop of water was a fire burst of awakening. Each drop struck her skin with the seductive caress of his lips on hers. His hands on her body. His mind and body melded with her.

Steam rose in the air and had nothing to do with the shower. Hot. She was too hot.

Moisture ran down her thigh. Her sex ached and clenched. She needed relief.
 

Her vision blurred.
 

Her knees buckled.
 

The water pounded and by the time she turned the knobs to stop its flow, her body was a mass of raw nerves. She had never been so aware of every nerve on her body. Whatever was happening to her went beyond a need for sexual release.

If she didn’t release some pressure, fast, her mind was likely to break.

Her lungs constricted and silvery blue lights sparked in her vision. She tried to stand. Her legs were too weak.
 

Desperate, Ava crawled out of the tub and into her bedroom. Barely able to hold herself upright, she jerked open the drawer and grabbed the package holding the nubby.
 

Sensing the coming relief, her hips jerked forward.
 

The hard plastic package slipped beneath her wet hand. She pulled it out and ripped it open. The watch-type battery fell onto the carpet. And damn if her hands didn’t shake as she twisted off the end of the vibrator, popped the battery into place and slipped the little bullet thingy into the rubbery sleeve. Her finger—practically having a life of its own—dove through the ring.
 

What was happening to her? She wasn’t herself. Hadn’t been since that morning in H’s lab.

With a flick of the switch, her finger jumped to life beneath a low hum.

Ava fell to her back on the floor, spread her legs and placed the nubby on her clit. She flattened her free hand over her chest and grabbed her breast, squeezing. Flicking her thumb over her nipple, her need bumped up a notch.
 

Long and low and luscious, Dr. H moaned in her head. Encouraged her to touch herself. She ran her hand down her chest and over her stomach. Her back arched, as if it was his hand on her body. Her body pulsed. Release flooded through her.
 

“Ohhh-ooooohh.” She rolled her head. Her hips jerked and sought more.
 

She’d been so ramped up that once wasn’t enough. Her skin heated and hummed with the alertness she’d felt when he woke her that morning in her car. He’d invaded her space. Now he invaded her mind. He shared the raw bliss of her agonizing pleasure as intently as if he was at her side.
 

His moans in her mind egged her on. Enticed her to take herself higher.
 

She pressed her vibrating finger a little harder against her clit. The moisture of her arousal slicked her fingers. She licked her lips, picturing his tongue. His hands. His body, wet from the ocean.
 

Quaking. Contracting. Quivering. She moved at a frenzied pace, rubbing her clit, pinching her nipple, taking herself higher. Her scalp tingled. The pulse in her temple assaulted her wound, but she couldn’t make herself care.
 

Mmmm. Let go.

Her eyes widened. If she wasn’t so certain she was behind locked doors, she’d swear that had come from him.

She came again and collapsed with her hand to her side. He wasn’t with her, but he was there. He had propelled her to the finish.
 

Orgasm without a partner, let alone multiple ones, was a new experience for her. Hell, they’d never been easy with a partner.
 

She needed to figure out what magic Dr. H possessed.

Chapter Seven

He’d fought to keep his shields in place against the sparking assaults.

He’d fought to not feel her increasing arousal heat his blood mercilessly.
 

He’d fought desperately to stay out of her head and not experience her orgasms, withholding himself from his own.
 

The power of her skyrocketing emotions slamming into H, even from several rooms away, battered his defenses until he’d lost the battle.
 

She’d unwittingly connected with him, and it wasn’t like him accidently walking into a room. He couldn’t quietly back out unnoticed. No. To avoid reopening her wound, he had no choice but to stay with her.
 

Heat coursed through his veins. Prickling pulses of pleasure skated across the skin of his chest in a searing caress. A caress that wasn’t real.
 

His dick swelled and pressed against his zipper. After a life of being told how to dress, he always wore baggy shorts and sandals for comfort, but his shorts weren’t baggy enough when Ava was around.
 

He didn’t make it to the sofa before his legs buckled. He settled for the support of the wall leading into the hallway. Her moans rumbled through the walls and tormented him.
 

Hums of excitement sighed through his head. Flashes of blinding light and glimpses of rapture exploded. Red. Green. Blue. Orange.
 

Moans and groans.
 

In an attempt to restrain himself, H gritted his teeth, biting the insides of his cheeks until he bled. He hadn’t been invited to share this with her. He nudged her mind, hurrying her along. He couldn’t intrude so completely as to go to the finish line with her. He couldn’t hold off much longer either.
 

Finally, with one last violent shove against his mind, she backed off. Her tension eased off. His body hungered for the physical satisfaction he’d denied himself. His mind whirled.

Sighs and lies.

She was empathic. Whether she knew it or not, she had abilities very similar to him, or she wouldn’t have been able to reach out to him. More interestingly, he’d bet she’d been feeding off his arousal too.
 

Short of him using his healing abilities on her, this last connection had been as strong as the one in his lab. Instead of draining him, it left him energized.
 

Maybe they connected so easily because he’d done it earlier and she was susceptible. It could also be a sort of chemical reaction, making it fairly easy for his brain to talk to her brain. His gut told him there was more to it. There was more to her.
 

If he’d wanted proof for his study that some lovers connected more intensely than others, he had it. They may not be lovers in the traditional sense and he wouldn’t be noting his observations about this experience in his study journals, but his own body, thrumming and pulsing and rushing toward completion along with hers was his proof.
 

It didn’t make sense to him how a mysterious woman he barely knew could defeat the shields he’d spent his life building. She’d done in less than a day what General Scott and his team had failed to do with years of practice. She had to have some natural abilities. Abilities she’d learned to suppress. Abilities he wanted to test more thoroughly. Now.

He pushed away from the wall and headed toward her room through the shimmering blue haze suffusing his line of vision.
 

No woman had incited him so intensely that self-combustion seemed like a very real possibility. Ava Sebastian made him curious. As a scientist. As a man. She created questions he’d never thought to ask and had him itching to run tests he’d sworn never to run.
 

Ava had just exhibited one of the abilities he’d originally been taken for. The difference was, while he wanted to know how she’d kept her ability hidden her entire life, he wouldn’t attempt to find the answers by hooking her to brain-scrambling machines.

He stopped outside her room. They’d just shared a supremely intimate act. He craved more, but if she hadn’t intended to call to him, she would be more alarmed than excited by his presence. If she had no idea of her power, telling her under these circumstances would have her reaching for the nearest weapon to skewer him with.

He sank back against the wall, carefully erected his weakened shields until his vision returned to normal and then stared at the white panel separating them. The inner sanctum. Her bedroom. Her bed.

Her door opened and she stumbled to a halt.
 

“H.” Her post-orgasm tone slipped over him.
 

His mind surged forward, propelling him to reach for her. Years of conditioning gave him the power to stay still.

Dressed in shorts and another outrageous T-shirt—this one lime green with Hermes holding his hands up in surrender, shouting “Don’t shoot the messenger!
”—
she was more fully covered than when she’d exited the dressing room in the red bikini. She was more staggering now with her flushed cheeks and dilated eyes.
 

“Ava. I heard you…” He swallowed, needing to sound less…horny. “You all right?”

The flush tinted the tops of her ears. “I’m good.”

“Good.” Neither of them moved. “What is it with you and the Hermes stuff?”

“Are you kidding? Messenger of the Greek gods? God of travelers.”

“God of commerce, thieves and sports. I know who he is.” He knew
very
well who Hermes was. “What’s with the T-shirts and the lapel pin?”

“I’m Greek. My brothers and I have this joke where every birthday and Christmas we see who can come up with the most outrageous shirt dealing with the gods.” She tugged at the hem of the one she currently wore. The move pulled it tighter around her breasts. “This isn’t even one of the bold ones.”

“I take it Hermes is your favorite.”

She shrugged and skimmed her gaze over him. “Are we gonna have sex?”

He swallowed. His dick jerked. “Excuse me?”

“You’re here. You’re hot. I’m in the mood.” As easily as that she was offering him the completion he hadn’t taken earlier.
 

“Really? What are you up to?” His skin hummed and his gut trembled at the idea of joining her in body and mind. Of driving her to orgasm with his hands on her.
 

“Men aren’t the only ones capable of no-strings-attached sex.” Ava shrugged and traced her fingers along her collarbone, sending him a come-and-get-it look. “I have a feeling you’ll be good.”

His brain stalled, as if a reset switch had been hit and he wasn’t booted back up. He wanted to figure out her secrets, and sleeping with her was a guaranteed way to slip behind her barriers, but he couldn’t justify it. He couldn’t view her as simply a means to an end. She appealed to him on the most basic level.

“I’ll show you good.” He stepped forward, tangling his gaze with hers. “I’ll take you to heights you can’t even have imagined.”

She scanned his body again, hesitating at the erection pressing against his zipper before moving her gaze up his body. “I have a pretty vivid imagination.”

“Not vivid enough.” He took a few more steps. She backed into the room. Her throat bounced. The pulse at her temple thundered.

Crossing the threshold of the room he’d seen in her mind, he barricaded himself mentally deep inside the walls surrounding his ability. He didn’t want to influence her feelings. He wanted to know the desire she felt was her own for him.
 

He would see how far she could go before her mind sought his again. He would test firsthand the connection between lovers.
 

Ava ran her hand over his arm. A fire bolt of arousal surged through him, radiating from the spots she touched. His skin shrank, thirsting. He forced a swallow past his dry throat.
 

He stepped closer, bent slightly and swept her into his arms.
 

Her breathing stalled. Her pupils flared as she gazed up at him.
 

No woman had ever aroused him with a look or a simple touch. He somehow knew the same was true for her, just as he knew no man had ever attempted to sweep her off her feet.
 

She wasn’t other women. He wasn’t other men.

He carried her across the large room, set her on her feet beside the bed and knelt before her. Intensity thickened the air as he flattened his hands against her legs before edging them up to grab the waist of her exercise shorts.