Aidan came, thrusting deep into Rafael’s willing mouth while Eva’s tongue filled his mouth. His muffled shout of joy and release almost made her come herself. Warmth flooded her cunt, slick and ready, desperate to be filled, to be taken, as if his delirious passion had been transferred to her.
She couldn’t hold him anymore. Her body betrayed her, its demands on her mind leaving her unable to resist him any more. Aidan fell back against the door, only Rafael’s hands on his hips holding him up.
Eva stumbled back, startled by her own reaction, by the very fact that she had done it.
Aidan’s eyes blazed as they released him. Rafael kissed him and for a moment all Eva could do was watch them share the taste of his juices. They broke apart, their eyes filled with each other, and she was the one who suddenly felt lost, alone, abandoned.
The two men turned as one, their eyes gleaming with desire for her as well as each other. Aidan was still hard. She’d never seen a man so hard. And Rafael’s erection tented his trousers.
“Time for some payback, Aidan?” Rafael asked. At the same time, he sent a ripple of reassurance to her. He would protect her, even as he held her still for Aidan. A smile twitched her lips as she drank in their love, the trust and adoration that filled this room. And the excitement. The sheer thrill that came with being with them. With either one, it was wonderful.
But with both…
“I think so, Rafe. I think she needs to know just what that was like, don’t you?”
Invisible hands seized her, pulling her towards them. She didn’t fight this time, knowing what this was, understanding their love now. She reached out mentally for Aidan, but Rafael blocked her.
“Just for now. Just for a little while. Trust me.”
“I do,” she sent back, relinquishing all control. “You know I do.”
Laughter flowed through him, filling her. But Aidan remained still and silent. He took hold of the hem of her shirt and pulled it up over her head. At the same time, Rafael removed her skirt. In only moments she found herself bare before them.
Between them, they lifted her. She closed her eyes, let her head tilt back against Aidan’s chest while he braced himself against the door. He held her firmly, opened her legs wide. In moments Rafael had sheathed himself deep inside her. He held himself still, straining there.
“She’s wet,” he told Aidan. “So damned wet and hot. And smooth.”
She ached for him to move, trying to will him to thrust but they held her still, overpowering her more completely than she had overpowered Aidan. Her own mind conspired with them and her body flat out betrayed her. Just as she knew it would.
Aidan’s hand brushed against the rose of her anus, slick with some kind of lubricant and she suddenly wondered how much of this had really been her idea. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you kept to hand, was it? How much had they planned? They were closer than she could guess, these two, sharing an empathy greater than any she had ever encountered, as comfortable together in mind as they were in body. And they welcomed her into that intimacy. She was pressed between them, body to body, the three of them standing just a foot from the door, the way out, and yet a world away from escaping.
Aidan worked the lube into her ass, tracing circles around the tight hole until it admitted him. His finger wriggled its way inside her and withdrew. She shifted nervously, but with an unexpected urgency as well. Wanting it, fearing it, she tightened. It would hurt. She was sure of it. And this position…they were so tall they dwarfed her. She sucked in a breath as Aidan’s lips pressed to the nape of her neck, his breath rolling over her skin.
“Kneel down,” he ordered on a whisper.
Rafael withdrew, knelt and took her down on his straining cock. With a few brief thrusts, he filled her, driving almost all thought from her mind and her hungry flesh. Aidan dropped down behind her, his hands smoothing over her skin again, returning inexorably to her ass, teasing her, parting her, filling her with a determined, artful finger.
Rafael moved in counterpoint and she couldn’t help herself. The groan wrenched its way out of her, enmeshed with a plea.
Rafael’s lips smiled as he captured her mouth.
Aidan’s finger entered her again, pushing some kind of silken gel into her, opening her effortlessly. Two fingers now, pushing into her like Rafael’s cock. Then three. Three fingers which soothed and ached and made her gasp his name. Rafael’s slow rocking took up a definite rhythm now, slow and smooth, but so deep. So very deep.
When Aidan withdrew again, she sobbed.
The head of his cock replaced his fingers, guided by a skilful hand. She shivered, cried out, tried to tell him no, but couldn’t find the words. She didn’t want him to stop, despite the instincts rising inside her. Something else drowned the panic, dissipated her fears. A fierce and desperate hunger.
Slowly, so slowly, Aidan forced his way inside her, the way eased by the lubricant and his previous ministrations. Rafael’s mind wrapped around hers, taking away the pain she expected, heightening the pleasure as they filled her more perfectly than she would have thought possible.
“Can you feel him against me?” Rafael asked her wordlessly. “Can you feel us both moving within you?”
A whirl of images and sensations flooded her. Skin to skin, body to body, hands and mouths, flesh that filled her, that wrapped itself around them and tightened, never to let them go.
“Let him see,” Rafael instructed her. “Not through me. Show him how you feel, what you want. Let him see you as I see you, Eva.”
She reached out blindly but Rafael’s firm will guided her now. Aidan’s mind was the steel of determination, strained with the need to hold himself back. He feared hurting her, feared losing her as much as he feared losing Rafael. His mind swirled with need, with the red flames of desire and lust, and…and love.
It was love.
She’d never encountered a fire so bright. It tipped her right over the edge, helpless, flailing. She came, pulling them both over with her. Two bodies, strong and as hungry as hers, loving her, thrusting into her, filling her body, mind and soul.
She cried out wordlessly and felt Aidan come, his cream pumping deep inside her and at the same moment Rafael pulsed and arched his back as he responded in kind.
Aidan drifted to sleep quickly, exhausted now, spent. Listening to the rise and fall of his breath, Eva followed. Her breathing deepened and her heavy eyelids drifted closed. She didn’t know how much time passed but she had no dreams. Her body still ached, but with pleasure, with a fulfilment she had never before known.
Movement brought her awake again. In the darkened room, Rafael was sitting on the edge of the bed rather than lying alongside them. Moonlight from the gap in the curtains illuminated his sculpted features and the hard planes and angles of his body. He gazed at Aidan for long, silent moments and then, sensing her wakefulness, turned his dark eyes on her.
“What is it?” she asked on a breath. “What’s wrong?”
He sighed and held out a hand to her, but this time she didn’t take it. Her nerves jangled. She didn’t want to share a vision of something so terrible as to put that devastation in his eyes.
“Is it something you’ve seen?” she asked instead. “About Aidan?”
The pain etched itself further into his face and she frowned, reaching out to him even as her body curled nearer to Aidan’s sleeping form. Want to or no, Rafael needed her to see, to share, to understand as intimately as he did.
Aidan shouted an order and brought up his weapon in a blur. He fired off three rounds and broke into a run, still shouting.
Rafael slumped on the ground, his body jerking helplessly, a black-uniformed body beside him. Guild Security. Aidan reached his side, shouting Rafael’s name to no response. Explosions ripped the air and the buildings all around him trembled.
This building, she realised. It was here, this attack. This settlement.
Screams flooded through her and still Aidan yelled Rafael’s name. He kicked t
he guard’s weapon aside, a short black truncheon.
Shocksticks he’d called them. She’d never seen one inside the Guild compound. Maybe there was no need for them there. Or maybe, she realised now, she’d never looked.
Aidan bent over Rafael, struggling to lift him. Stunned, his muscles rigid and unyielding, Rafael couldn’t help. Aidan staggered forward with Rafael, out into the courtyard, making for the garages.
The shot came from the gardens. Deafening, unnaturally loud, drowning out the roar of AV engines, weapons fire and explosions. Aidan jerked back as it stuck him, tearing a hole through his stomach. Rafael tumbled from his grasp, landing heavily on the ancient flagstones.
Aidan sank to his knees, his face shocked and pale. He teetered there for a moment and then tipped forward, horribly still.
Eva ripped her hand free.
“No.” It was all she could do to say it. Rage balled up inside her and if she opened herself to that, it would wrench its way out of her all in one go, devastating all of them.
“I’ve seen it more than once,” Rafael whispered. “And if I’ve seen it, it will happen. Unless we can stop it.”
“We will,” she assured him. “We have to.”
Rafael’s shoulders sagged and he hung his head, powerless in the face of his own gift, desperate to be wrong, convinced he could not be.
Eva pulled him, unresisting, into her arms. So strong a man, so helpless.
“We will stop it,” she insisted. “Find a way to change it. I promise.”
Rafael buried his face in her hair, in the curve of her neck. “I can’t lose him, Eva.” The thought was so powerful it sent all her defences reeling. “I can’t go through that again. When the time comes, you make him run. You leave me there and make him run, promise? I can’t lose him.”
Chapter Eight
They were gone the next morning, both of them. Eva sat in the darkness of the pre-dawn cursing whatever had sent her to sleep, immediately suspecting Rafael. Without them, she couldn’t move, craved no food or drink. Their scents clung to the bedclothes. She could pretend they were still there if she closed her eyes and breathed in, almost. There was no shame in hiding up here, away from the others, was there? No shame at all.
So why did it make her stomach clench hollowly? Was it the thought that they were gone? Or in danger?
Rafael had said he was going alone, that Aidan would be here. But he wasn’t. She ran her mind over the surface of the world around her and found no trace of either of them.
Daisy stood out like a beacon, iridescent. Hugh, like a nightlight. And the others, lights like stars, some distant and far away, some blinding.
She pulled back before they could notice and take offence, withdrew into herself. And hid once more.
A knock at the door startled her and she jumped to her feet. “Just…just a second.”
She wrapped the sheet around herself and opened the door a crack. The medic Myra stood outside, holding a lamp, with Daisy behind her. The little girl grinned at her. So very bright.
Eva blinked at them. “Daisy, please stop it.”
“She isn’t doing anything.” Irritation sharpened Myra’s tone.
The light the child gave off dimmed and the image of little white flowers filled the ether between them. They faded slowly. Daisy’s apology.
“Can I help you?” Eva forced her voice to calm.
“I thought you might help me today.” Myra didn’t meet Eva’s eyes. “I have a backlog of vaccination boosters to administer and a lot of nervous children who hate the idea of needles. Daisy brought me here. She ‘said’ you might help. Since Aidan and Rafael have taken off.”
“Off where?”
The skin around Myra’s eyes tightened. “I couldn’t say. So. Are you going to get dressed and help?”
“Isn’t it early?”
“I start early. It’ll be dawn in no time and once it’s light, everyone wants a piece of a medic.”
So many questions crowded in her mind. Where were Rafael and Aidan? They would have told her, or someone, what they were up to, wouldn’t they? Who else had gone? Rafael had said he intended to go alone. Had he changed his mind after the vision? Or had Aidan found out and followed him? She wouldn’t put either scenario past either man. Her men. Stubborn, impulsive, reckless, determined. Both of them.
Frustration made her want to shout. And Myra looked more irritated than anything else.
“I’ll just be a moment,” she replied and closed the door.
They were not the only people up early. Someone clattered around in the kitchens. Myra gave Daisy a pat on the head. “Go on back to your momma then, sweetie.” Daisy skipped off, without a care and Eva had to smile to watch her go.
As they approached the medi-centre, a figure detached itself from the shadows by the door. Hugh’s arms were folded, his brooding look making her stomach quiver.
“Any trouble?” he asked
Myra’s hand tightened on Eva’s arm. What was this? Some kind of trap? Eva shied back, but didn’t run. He was just a boy. Just a scared, damaged boy. And he blamed her for all the things people like her had done to him. She flinched inwardly, but made her exterior firm.
Hugh rolled his shoulders and finally relaxed, unfolding his arms and leaving them hanging by his side. His fists didn’t uncurl however. His oversized hands remained balled up so tightly that the knuckles showed white, even in the pre-dawn. No matter his years, he was strong, broad-shouldered, a brawler. And dangerous.
“Had some words with Mr. Burgess at the last rendezvous.” His jaw tensed. She tried to press closer mentally, to discern what was different. His shields went right up and she backed off warily. Hugh wasn’t Daisy or Rafael. He was scarred on so many levels. “He had some…opinions about you, Ms. Lee.”
The straightforward approach seemed to be the best one. That and hope that Myra would help her. A very fragile hope. “Burgess has never made any bones about the fact he doesn’t like me.”
“He helped Rafael get to you, to get you out of the Guild. He got so many of us out. Me as well, Daisy, all the precious psychics that hide here.”
She raised an eyebrow, with full knowledge of how that might look to him. “He helped Rafael kidnap me. I didn’t ask to be taken out.”
“Mr. Burgess says you’ve got a tracer in you. Care to let me take a look?”
A what? She let him see her confusion, her utter lack of understanding. Guild life was sheltered, especially for a psychic, a treasured asset. Up until now she had no idea how much they had kept her in the dark.
But she was starting to realise it now.
A dart of outrage ignited the fire inside her. Everything she knew was a lie. Everything she thought she knew. But they’d used her. Hidden the truth, bought her from her family and now—now, when she finally saw the world beyond…well here was another figure of authority from the Guild tainting it for her.
“What the hell is a tracer?”
“They inject you with a trace substance,” said Myra rapidly. “One their computers can track. That way they know where you are all the time. Look, if it’s true, if there’s even a chance, we need to know. But it can wait, Hugh. Let Rafael deal with it when he comes back.”
Eva’s world lurched around her. “Oh God,” she groaned. “This can’t be happening. You’re saying they can use me to find you? Can you test for it?”
Myra just nodded and to Eva’s surprise compassion bled into the medic’s eyes. “It’s not your fault, Eva.”
“Maybe not, but…I never knew how much they used us. I should have. So many things in my life should have told me. Maybe I…I just didn’t want to see.”
“We’d better go inside and see what a blood test will tell us. It’s only short term, it breaks down in the blood fairly quickly. It certainly doesn’t last forever and then you’ll be in the clear. We’ll talk to Rafael. He’ll be able to shield you until it wears off. We just have to find somewhere else that you can be safe until it’s gone and then—
”
“Wait. Exactly how long does it last?” This felt so wrong, so terribly wrong, like something worrying at the pit of her stomach. Her instincts were crying out to be heard, but she couldn’t quite grasp the whole picture.
“A few days. It’s just an injection. You wouldn’t even notice—”
“But I haven’t had an injection in…in years…”
No need in the Guild compound. Filtered air, filtered water, manufactured and sterile food. They’d eradicated disease. Wasn’t that what the billboards proclaimed every morning?
Myra frowned and her eyes met Hugh’s, mirroring the confusion there. “Is there another way?” he asked. “Through food or—”
“Not that I know. This doesn’t sound—”
“Burgess,” Eva thought, sending it to both of them. Speech was too slow a means to convey it all. Myra started back, but didn’t fight her off. Even Hugh accepted the gravity of the situation and listened, grimacing. “Aidan said a few days ago that Burgess brought a vaccine to inoculate the kids against disease. That’s what you were doing, Myra. That’s an injection, right?”
Eva’s suggestion stunned them both. Their faces froze, suddenly white.
Hugh’s voice came out in a thin hiss. “No way.”
“This is the third or fourth booster I’ve given them.” Myra raked her fingers through her short hair, her eye glistening. “This can’t be true. A tracer would build up in their system and would mark the kids out like—Burgess? But why?”
Blast Burgess. What did she care about him right now. “Myra…which kids? All of them or just…”
The medic shivered, taking a step or two back. “All of them. But he said…” She glanced at Hugh. “He said you’d be resistant, you, Daisy and the others. So there was another serum too which would counteract it. That’s it, isn’t it? The tracer. He used me.”
“He used all of you.” Eva paused. Her as well. He’d used her. Or attempted to. “All of us. Where are the kids now? Where did Daisy go? We have to find them, get them somewhere safe. You said the tracer can be hidden by a shield, Hugh. How?”
With a Touch: The Guild Chronicles, Book 1 Page 9
