“And everything in this life is about pleasure?”
He rolled her onto her back, pinning her down on the bed. “Try to get away.”
She struggled feebly, unable to shift him. He wasn’t hurting her, but she could see in his eyes that he wanted her to fight back, to tear herself free. This was another demonstration of some kind, not one she found as pleasurable as the last.
“I can’t.”
His grip tightened. “Try harder,” he teased. She wriggled beneath him, her anger rising now. He was too strong, a trained Security officer, perhaps more. A terrorist, or so the Guild would say. A spy and a traitor.
A shiver of fear ran through her veins and her breath caught in her throat. And with it a burst of desire flooded her. Her body ached for him, the muscles still recalling the feel of adapting to admit him, the joy of taking him inside her. She remembered the force with which he bucked beneath her, the harnessed strength that he held back just for her. Control. Aidan could have overpowered her like this at any moment, but he hadn’t.
He’d given her the control. And that was part of the pleasure, for both of them. And for Rafael as well.
Aidan’s mouth closed on hers in a hard and determined kiss. His tongue filled her, teeth grazed her. He pressed down on her so she could barely breathe, could hardly move, could do nothing to fight him.
Memory surged again, a memory she didn’t want back.
A dorm room in the early days of her training. Her body and mind sluggish. A figure in the darkness, unexpected, unwelcome. Hands on her, a body crushing hers, his legs forcing hers apart. She couldn’t fight him. Not with her body. But her mind—drugged, but still strong and unruly—could.
She lashed out with her hysterical thoughts and unleashed his nightmares on him. Aidan froze, his whole body stiffening in alarm and shock. He didn’t move, couldn’t move, his eyes wide with pain. Not just pain. Agony.
“Eva! No!” Rafael yelled. The door banged off the inner wall as he sprinted inside. “Let him go. Please, Eva! You don’t want to do this. Let him go.”
With a sob of fear, she released Aidan. Disgust sickened her stomach as he rolled off and recoiled from her. She’d seen that look before, too many times. But never so pronounced as now.
Rafael caught Aidan in his strong arms, his own mind wrapping around his lover’s, soothing the hurt, healing the wounds, making him safe and calm once more.
Eva curled in on herself, bringing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She rocked forward, trying to push the memory away and the reality of what she’d done. The sob that built up inside her wrenched its way out and she hid her face, unable to look at them anymore. She was what the Guild had made her, what everyone apart from the psychics said.
A monster.
“Eva?” Aidan’s voice shook, but it was his voice. It reached her ears, not her mind. He was—
“He’s okay, sweetheart,” Rafael assured her. “He’s strong. You didn’t hurt him.”
The sharp breath and suppressed groan as Aidan struggled to move again gave that the lie. She looked up, afraid but relieved.
Their eyes, when she met them, held none of the hate or the pain she expected. Concern. That was there. Concern for her.
“Eva? What happened?”
“I…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Aidan, I didn’t mean—”
His hand closed on her again, gently this time, Aidan as she knew him, not the shadowy figure from her youth.
“What happened?” Rafael asked, a growl of impatience entering his voice now.
It only took a moment to show him. His face fell and he glanced at Aidan, whose skin paled.
“Foolish.” Rafael sighed, though whether he meant Eva or Aidan there was no way to tell. “But you’re safe now, Eva. No one here will hurt you. Did they…did they find him?”
Her mouth twitched. It was still hard to describe her feelings about that night, and the subsequent re-conditioning to make her fit for service. Because she knew how she had left him. And she had never for a moment regretted it. “As far as I know he’s still catatonic.”
Aidan tried to stand, but slumped back onto the bed with a groan, colour draining from his face. With a curse Rafael flung open the door, shouting for help.
Eva backed away, picking up some of her clothes as she did. The bathroom door stood open and she darted inside, closing it behind her.
She’d hurt him, or worse. She’d killed him. Rafael sounded like a demon, shouting outside, all tenderness and concern gone now.
Shivering with guilt and grief, Eva tugged on her clothes. When she could bring herself to step back into the bedroom, a woman was bending over Aidan, studying his face intently. Aidan bore the examination with bad grace, his chest still rising and falling rapidly, his hands clenched on the bedclothes.
Anger rolled off him in waves that nearly drove Eva back into the bathroom.
“Are you all right?” Rafael asked, his voice calm and measured. A rigid shield of control encircled his mind.
Eva winced, withdrew from the unwanted, unintended contact. “I…I didn’t mean… He…he frightened me.”
The images reared up again but she quashed them down, filling her mind with the images of butterflies, the one thing that might bring her peace.
Rafael reached out with an open palm. “Come with me.”
Instinct told her to shake her head. She’d just attacked Aidan—a member of Rafael’s group of Hedonists, a man he loved—and for that she would have to be punished. Tears spiked in her eyes again and she dropped her gaze to the floor.
Fingertips brushed her cheek, a touch as soft as butterfly wings. Maintaining his guard, never infringing on her mind, Rafael lifted her face so he could gaze into her eyes. Eva tried to look anywhere but at him, and failed. He was too much, too compelling, too enchanting. He was just…overwhelming.
“I know it was an accident, Eva.”
He was lying. Had to be. No one should trust a psychic after an attack like that. Not even another psychic. Some might say, especially not another psychic. She’d seen them wipe psychics who went too far like that. She’d almost faced that process herself. Only her youth, inexperience and the circumstances of the attack itself had saved her from an institution cell. Or worse, a complete wipe.
“Please, look at me,” Rafael said.
Forcing herself to look him in the eye, she found herself startled by the compassion she found there. His dark eyes brimmed with it.
“It’s difficult to control your emotions,” he said. “After all you’ve been through, that’s hardly surprising. Myra needs some time to ensure that Aidan is okay. Come with me.”
His hand closed around hers, a warm and firm grip, not too tight or domineering, but there. She couldn’t have slipped out of it had she wanted to. Not easily.
“He needs rest,” Myra growled at Rafael as he passed.
Aidan started to struggle up. “I’m fine. There’s nothing the matter—”
Myra pushed him back down with the flat of her hand on her chest. “You’re no medic, Aidan. You need rest.” She glared at Rafael again. “Both of you do.” Her eyes slid over Eva and away as quickly as possible, but not before her lips tightened. “You most of all, Rafe. They put you through hell. You can’t expect to just carry on as before. Not without some recovery time.”
Rafael shrugged, a nonchalant roll of his shoulders. “I’ve always managed before,” he told her dismissively and led Eva from the room.
Aidan’s gaze followed them. Eva could feel it on her back, caressing the skin between her shoulder blades—or holding a knife there. She wasn’t sure which. Perhaps a bit of both.
Rafael led her down the hall and into another room. A study. She turned slowly. Books lined the walls and a desk sat in the bay window overlooking the gardens outside. The chair was upholstered in ancient leather and the wood shone with polish. A computer tablet on the desk blinked for attention but Rafael didn’t move towards it. It was the only thing of a
modern era in the whole study.
His study, she realised. It had to be.
Two doors led off, one to the left and one to the right. Bedroom and bathroom, she supposed. These were his quarters then, no more than a stone’s throw from hers. To keep an eye on her. In case something happened…
Like her attacking Aidan.
She wrapped her arms around her chest and felt more exposed than she had when they had stripped her of her clothes and made love to her. A shiver ran over her skin and deep inside a tingling warmth responded. Inner muscles tightened and a delicious warmth flooded her. Her breath escaped in a soft moan.
“Better?” Rafael asked.
Eva narrowed her eyes. “Are you making me feel this?”
“Yes.” He stepped closer. “And no. Not deliberately in any case, though the results are wonderful to behold. I’m not playing with your mind, Eva. But I hope I cause desire in you. I know Aidan does.”
“And look how I rewarded him.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. She didn’t bother to try.
Rafael reached for her again. She flinched but when she didn’t actually retreat, he carefully stroked her face with the back of his fingers.
“It was an accident. I warned Aidan to be careful. His play can get a little…rough? But he would never hurt you. To know that he scared you that badly, it’s eating him up inside.”
“He told you that?”
“I know,” Rafael replied solemnly. “We share everything, Aidan and I. Even when he couldn’t speak, his sense of guilt screamed his remorse to me.”
“You love him.”
“We love each other.”
There, it was said. They were a couple. Which made her a third party, an interloper, and at best a means to an end. This wasn’t about them wanting her, but about freeing her. But that was all, clearly.
Rafael bent his head and kissed her. His lips on hers made her cry out in surprise and he smothered that cry. His tongue slid into her mouth, coiling with hers and he seized her shoulders, holding her in place. Helpless before him, Eva brought her hands up to his chest, finding the rich cotton of his shirt a maddening barrier between them.
With a growl of need, Rafael propelled her back to the door, still kissing her, as if he could not bring himself to let her go. The edges of his mind trembled with need, with hunger. His shields began to buckle.
“Eva, oh God, Eva…”
Images filled her mind. Rafael with Aidan, Rafael with his golden-haired wife, Rafael here and now, with her. Naked. She tugged at his shirt, thrilling as the buttons gave way and she could brush against his skin. The wildness took on a beat now, a rhythm that could not or would not be denied. Heartbeats pounded in unison.
“They’re using you,” he murmured against her skin. “They’re still using you, controlling you, with your own thoughts, your own memories.”
Eva shuddered and tried to pull back. But she had nowhere to go. “I know what happened to me, Rafael. I remember—”
His lips trapped hers again. Catching her wrists in his hands, he pinned her against the door, trapping her with his body. With her body intimately pressed against him, her pulse went wild. Panic surged through her, panic and terror, but Rafael bore down on her, his mouth pleasuring, his body driving her beyond control.
“They can change your memories, Eva, alter what you think you know.”
No. It couldn’t be true. Couldn’t be, because if it was…well then, what in her life was her own? Nothing at all. She was nothing at all, just a shell, just a tool of the Guild.
Rafael broke the kiss, and his body pressed against hers, holding her still so he could gaze into her eyes. Her own face reflected in his black and endless eyes—pale with fear, her eyes too wide, her cheeks hollow.
“You must never think that, Eva,” he whispered, his voice harsh. “You…you are everything. So warm, so vital, so…”
Though he pinned her against the door, she forced herself forward and kissed him. For a moment he didn’t respond, but just as the fear that she’d made another terrible mistake swept through her, Rafael growled her name and returned the kiss savagely.
“You need to fight your fear,” he told her wordlessly.
“I can’t. You saw what I did to Aidan. I can’t risk hurting you.”
With his free hand, he reached beneath the gaping blouse and caressed her breast with firm, determined fingers. He wasn’t rough, not really, but nor was he gentle. He was…he was perfect. Her body began to melt inside, burning with hunger for him. And a trembling that was only half fear.
“You won’t hurt me.” He sounded so certain, so sure of himself. If only it were true. Oh God, she needed that to be true.
Rafael pinched her nipple and she cried out. Panic lanced through her and before she could stop herself, she lashed out, just as she had with Aidan.
His consciousness curled around her, a warm, safe place, a gentle caress on her panicked mind. And at the same time he tore her blouse open the rest of the way. His mouth devoured her, teeth, tongue and lips moving in a torturous harmony.
Eva almost fell when he released the grip pinning her hands above her head. But she didn’t have time. Rafael seized her thighs, lifting her, parting her, wrapping her legs around his waist.
“Show me. Show me now. What happened?”
Fear. Pain. Humiliation. She was powerless. Hurting. Doomed.
So she lashed out. Then, with Aidan, and now. Now she hit hardest of all.
Rafael recoiled. His head snapped back as if struck by a fist. His cock slid deep inside her, right up to the hilt, filling her and making her cry out his name.
Every nightmare poured out of her, into him. Rafael groaned and then thrust again. Eva tore at his shirt, baring his chest to her hands.
“Let go of it, Eva. Let go. They use your fears to hold you down. Let go.”
Her body closed around his, holding him close, clenching around his pulsing shaft. He drove into her again and she came, calling out his name and relinquishing all her terrors to him.
Rafael drank them down, his voice ringing off the ceiling and walls, breaking as he crested inside her.
Another image formed, not hers. Her fears were gone. Which left only one source.
Rafael cradled a woman with golden hair. He held her against him, even though her body hung limp from his shaking arms. Even though her blood drenched his clothes, stained his skin.
And slowly, slowly the woman’s face changed.
To become Aidan’s.
Dead eyes stared at the world, still so blue, but without the light in them, without the laughter that made them sparkle. His arms hung limp and lifeless. And Rafael wept and said his name, desperately trying to call him back to life.
With a gasp, Rafael released her. Eva slumped against him, too spent, too wrung out to speak. His body trembled against hers as they disentangled their limbs and slipped to the ground. The study filled with their beating hearts, their ragged breath, the air tense with all they had shared. And slowly it all subsided until there were two of them once more. Two people, marooned, alone.
Rafael moved, like a panther, crossing the narrow space between them until his face hung over hers. Tears dripped onto her cheeks and he bent his head, resting his forehead against hers.
“Don’t let them use your fears, Eva. Otherwise you’ll never be free.”
Aidan was asleep when they went back into the room. Eva pulled her tattered clothes around her body, but Rafael left his shirt hanging open, his torso tempting her. She forced thoughts of him away. Not now. She needed…
God, she didn’t know what she needed any more. How could she?
She groaned as she sat on the edge of the bed and Aidan’s hand closed around the point of her hip, a gentle caress through her skirt.
“You two quite finished?” he asked, the words stretched by a yawn.
Eva’s face flamed so hot she was sure it must be scarlet, but Rafael just laughed.
“For now.”
“Eva.” Aidan gasped, dismayed, and she felt the bed move as he sat up, leaned towards her. Not just him, Rafael too. The world pitched around her as their hands touched her again. Their touch, strong and gentle, with the capacity to drive her out of her mind.
Their hands soothed her, massaged the tight muscles of her shoulders. “I’m sorry Eva,” Aidan said at last. “I never thought I would bring back something like that to you. I can’t apologise enough.”
She nodded, her body finally relaxing, letting trust drive out terror. But why did she trust them so? What was possessing her in this place? They were her enemies, weren’t they? That was what the Guild taught, what she had believed. And yet here she was, indulging at every turn in the pleasures they offered, in the unfolding of the person within at their expert hands.
“Sometimes we indulge in control for a reason,” said Rafael. “You can unwind it slowly, carefully, but Aidan has always loved to rush through things. Much to his personal peril. He acts before he thinks. All that grunt military training, I suspect. They teach them to follow orders, to act without thinking things through. On instinct, as it were.” He stroked her hair back from her face, tucked a strand behind her ear. She looked up, twisting around to face him and he smiled. “I think I tore your clothes. But we have others. Get dressed. Aidan will show you around and you’ll see we aren’t monsters. Okay?”
“And you?” Aidan slipped out of the bed. Standing over them, he rolled back his shoulders and tried to pretend a relaxed demeanour he clearly didn’t feel. Her eyes were immediately drawn to his cock. It hung down heavily, and, as her gaze alighted on it, it twitched. She blushed again and looked up to see Aidan pursing his lips, frowning down on them. No, on Rafael. He didn’t appear to have noticed her scrutiny at all. He looked…impatient, irritated and concerned. He waited, completely unfazed by his nakedness. Comfortable in his own skin in a way she could never be.
With a Touch: The Guild Chronicles, Book 1 Page 6
