Illicit Intuitions: Sensory Ops, Book 3 (9 page)

She may have removed herself from the hustle of society, but conformity wasn’t in her nature.
 

H found himself wondering if she’d chosen the house using logic, or if she’d been called to it, to the water nearby, like he had when he’d chosen the land for his lab. He’d been able to heal her because, on a level she wasn’t aware of, she’d connected back with him. A non-empath, while able to understand the feelings of others or even able to bond with another, could never forge a two-way link with someone.
 

He rang the doorbell and waited. Nothing. Two minutes later, he rang again. He’d told her to stay awake. She could have passed out.
 

Shit.

He shouldn’t have thought so highly of his abilities. He should have insisted she go to the hospital for a head CT. If she’d started bleeding into the brain again…

Ava opened the door, diverting his thoughts to a new track. Well, not new so much as less climactic.

Standing before him in a T-shirt and tight exercise shorts, with her hair damp from a recent shower, she looked well. Her color was normal. No dilation or unevenness in her pupils. Positive signs.
 

The knot had gone down a little more, and aside from the blackish-purple bruise covering her temple, part of her forehead and the outer edges of her eye, she looked good. Too good.

Tempting.
 

His remaining survey stalled at her shirt. Her perky boobs and pointy nipples were unbound beneath the garish gold T-shirt with Hermes, messenger of the gods, soaring across her chest. His proclamation—
The Titans are Coming!
—curved along the bottom of the graphic over her tight, nicely ripped belly.
 

H narrowed his eyes. That morning she’d worn a lapel pin depicting Hermes on her business suit. What was it about this woman and her fascination with the Greek god? Maybe it was a shared kinship. Her name was Greek, but what was it with the Hermes stuff?
 

If she was trying to prove something, he didn’t appreciate her method of delivery. It was a bit humorous, but if she was taunting him he would set her straight. The implication of her knowing what no one should be able to know was bad.
 

“Hello, H. Do you come with good news or bad?”

Was his imagination infusing her voice with suggestions when she said his name? If she knew his name… If she was one of General Scott’s plants, she would regret coming into his lab.

“You look well enough and seem lucid, so clearly the news is good.”

“Excellent.” She moved to close the door. “You can be on your way.”

He blocked the door with his foot and leaned in. His gaze locked with her unwavering camel tan one. “Did you go to the hospital for tests?”

“No.” She held her ground, refusing to open the door farther. Her face remained impassive, but her eyes swirled with questions. “I’m fine.”

“Do you have a friend or a neighbor here for the night?”

“No.” Her teeth grinded. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“You’re not a baby. Anything but.” He skimmed her body and brushed his lips with his tongue remembering the taste of the sea on her. He pushed the door wider, unwilling to struggle more than necessary with her. “I’m staying the night.”

She huffed out an exasperated breath and stepped back. “The couch is lumpy.”

He stepped into the foyer of her open floor plan. “Better than a concrete floor in a windowless room with no lights.”

Her head jerked back in surprise but she didn’t ask if he’d been serious. “I don’t cook.”

“I’ve become well versed in local delivery.”

“I’m not making you coffee.”

“I don’t drink it. If I did, I know where the nearest coffee shop is.”

She frowned and closed and locked the door behind him. “Does anything bother you? Faze you?”

“Plenty.” He sat the book he’d brought on the table behind her clearly-not-lumpy sofa.

“What?”

He took himself on a brief tour through the living room with matching and supremely comfortable-looking sofas and accent chairs facing a big screen television. The dining area was small and quaint with the white tiled floor continuing from the living room. A bright blue and burgundy area rug sat beneath the table complimenting the pale blue walls and place mats on the table.
 

Two wide, arched doorways entered the kitchen from opposite ends of a rounded bar with a few stools settled before it. The kitchen itself was bright and airy, with a large window looking over the darkening backyard. In the distance, he saw the flicker of the fading sun on the water.
 

“What?”

“Have you lived here long?” The place was obsessively tidy with few personal touches beyond the seafoam green knitted blanket tossed on one of the sofas.
 

“Long enough.” She headed to the kitchen and pulled a soda from the fridge. Popping it open, she turned and leaned against the nearest cabinet. “What bothers you?”

“Different things.”
The way you’re watching me, as if you know who I am. What I did.
She couldn’t know. And she wasn’t the type to lambast him for trying to help her. Even if he had stooped to skeezy behavior. “Have you had dinner?”

“Yes.”

He nodded and rounded one end of the wraparound bar. “Super. Then I don’t have to share the loaded New York–style pizza which will be here soon.”

Her stomach grumbled loudly, but she didn’t retract her claim. She stood, unmoving and almost unblinking while he pulled a soda from her fridge.
 

“Did you screw me?”

He froze with the door open and his index finger below the aluminum tab of the can. Slowly, he raised his head and met her solemn and confused stare.
 

She couldn’t know what he’d done or so he’d hoped. He didn’t have the ability to wipe her memory, but she’d been out cold. “Pardon?”

She slammed the can down, splashing soda onto the ivory counter. She didn’t cock her hands on her hips, but she may as well have. The furious indignation she’d shown during the energy shot fiasco shrouded her once more. “Did you polish your disco stick in me?”

His finger jerked on the tab. The can popped open with a slopping whoosh. He jumped and dropped the drink. Dark, syrupy soda splattered Ava and spewed across the pale cabinets when it slammed onto the white floor.
 

“You did.” Her mouth gaped open. She looked down at herself, soaked, and then at him. “You had sex with me when I was unconscious.”

“It wasn’t…like that.”
 

“Trust me.” She shook her head and moved toward the doorway. “This is a simple question. You did, or you didn’t take advantage of me.”

“You want simple?”
There’s nothing simple about any of this.
He slammed the door to the fridge closed with a clanging rattle and invaded her space. He backed her to the counter and brushed his body along hers. Towering over her by nearly a foot, she was forced to look up.
 

“Yes.” Her throat bobbed in a swallow. Her pupils flared.
 

“Too late.”
 

She was aroused. The connection they’d had earlier had played a larger role in her orgasm than the serotonin he’d released into her body. That had only heightened the experience for them both.
 

Not that he could explain to her without revealing everything else about himself. He couldn’t admit to anything he’d done. He had to lie. It wasn’t a complete lie, but it was close enough. The reality slithered with a grimy stench coating his insides.
 

Her gaze darted back and forth across his face, jumping between his eyes and mouth. “H.”

His frustration fizzled. He stepped back and grabbed the neatly folded towel from beside the sink. “No. I didn’t have sex with you.”

“But I…”

“You what, Ava?”
 

“Nothing.” She dropped her head and mumbled. “Never mind.”
 

“Good.” He had done what he had no tolerance for. He’d violated her trust, but rather than admit the truth, he was leaving her with confused memories in her head. He was jumping from one asshole move to another, and didn’t like the feeling this wouldn’t be the last time he would sacrifice his beliefs. “You have more towels? Some cleaning stuff? This is gonna be sticky.”

“Yeah.” She went through a nearby door and came back out with a spray bottle and a handful of towels.

He took the bottle, covering her hand with his and holding firm for a moment. His gaze eased slowly up her body, over the shorts covering the head of the Phoenix and the shirt clinging wetly to her braless chest. She would fit like perfection in his palms. If he kissed her now, she would taste syrupy sweet like the soda.
 

His body tensed and hardened. Ready and willing to feel her against him again. “You’re going to be sticky. You want help cleaning up?”

“No.” She jerked her hand away and moved to the door leading to a hallway and the bedroom. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

In what way?
“If you insist.”
 

“I do.” She spun on the ball of her foot.
 

As she walked away, her workout shorts hugged her tight ass and begged him to abandon the task of cleaning up the mess to follow her instead. To help her strip off her T-shirt and wipe away the stickiness. His tongue was wet. Or he could help her shower. Maybe hold her hair.

His shields wavered. A blue mist settled over the room. He adjusted to ease the pressure on his dick.
 

“Hey,” he called after her.

Her feet slapping the tile floor halted just out of view. He imagined her glancing up to the ceiling for patience or control. The image had him smiling with the desire to needle her.

“What?”

Yeah, her voice confirmed it. So did the waves of arousal bouncing through the air. She was frustrated, and not entirely by his goading. She may not remember his healing her, but she remembered the sensations of him inside her. Her body remembered his as vibrantly as his recalled hers.
 

“You’re conscious now. Let me know if you’re in a polishing mood.”

“Only if it involves hot wax and a scraper.”

“You mean like on a board? I could get behind that.” He suppressed his chuckle so she wouldn’t hear. He didn’t move closer where he could get a better feel of her. A clearer impression of her arousal would only incite his rising temperature. “You did claim earlier you’re
good
in the water.”

“I would be concerned you would wipeout prematurely.”
 

He laughed. An all out laugh that rose from deep in the gut quaked his abs. He hadn’t laughed in too long.

So few things in his life had been laugh-worthy, but however long Ava was around he would enjoy her. He would continue looking for answers lurking in her mind, but now he had a new plan. A plan for seduction.

She’d known from the moment he’d invited himself over there would be trouble, just as she’d known Breck would forbid her to tell H her true identity. The bizarre part for her was how disturbing his presence was and how she’d anticipated it all day. She’d been told to get close.
 

She’d succeeded. Too well for peace of mind.
 

Ava stepped into her bedroom on gelatinous legs, closed and locked the door and eyed the drawer beside her bed. He’d barely touched her, but the suggestions in his smooth voice, the heat in his almost eerily blue eyes and the all-too-clear memory of his mouth on hers had her body humming. The hairs on her arms danced. Her scalp tingled—something it had been doing a lot of since meeting him. Her pussy pulsed with an awareness so acute she would swear he was in her.
 

She headed to the bathroom, stripping off her shirt on the way. The wet fabric scraped against her stiff nipples, shooting a jolt of arousal through her stomach. How had he gotten to her so easily?
 

Ava stopped at the door and looked back to the drawer once more. Her gaze flitted to the bedroom door and back to the drawer holding the gag gift a college friend had sent for her last birthday.
 

She’d admit it. She was a healthy woman. She enjoyed sex. And sure, there had been occasions when she’d tried to pleasure herself after a rough day to relieve the pressure. It was just as normal for a woman to take care of her own business as it was for a man. It just never worked.

An erotic book might get her close, but even the hottest ones failed to get her wet and ready. Nothing was capable of pushing her over the edge. Especially after the things she’d been subjected to undercover as a call girl.
 

So how was it ten minutes with H had her body snapping at the tethers, begging for release?
 

Ava shook her head and went into the bathroom. It didn’t matter what he’d done or why her body responded so readily. She was
not
going to bust out that finger nubby for the first time with him in the next room.