RIGHT THROUGH ME
a novel
by Shannon McKenna
Copyright © 2016 Shannon McKenna
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact:
http://shannonmckenna.com
Edited by Hilary Sares
Cover design by Wax Creative
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9977941-1-3
Digital ISBN: 978-0-9977941-0-6
First Edition: July 2016
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Table of Contents
Dedication
PRAISE for the novels of Shannon McKenna
Also by Shannon McKenna
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
About the Author
Dedication
… for Hilary Sares, my editor, for making me spit nails and spill ink.
… and for Lisa Marie Rice, for the hand-holding and the ass-kicking.
PRAISE for the novels of Shannon McKenna . . .
“Blends an intensely terrifying psychic thriller with a mind-blowing erotic romance.”
—Library Journal, on Fade To Midnight
“Blasts readers with a highly charged, action-adventure romance . . . extra steamy.”
—Booklist
“Pulse-pounding . . . with searing sex and raw emotions.”
—Romantic Times, 4 ½ stars
“Shannon McKenna makes the pulse pound.”
—Bookpage
“Shannon McKenna introduces us to fleshed-out characters in a tailspin plot that culminates in an explosive ending.”
—Fresh Fiction
"An erotic romance in a suspense vehicle on overdrive. . . sizzles!"
—RT Book Reviews
"McKenna expertly stokes the fires of romantic tension."
—Publishers Weekly
"McKenna strikes gold again."
—Publishers Weekly
"Her books will take readers on a nonstop thrill ride and leave them begging for more when the last pages are devoured."
—Maya Banks, New York Times bestselling author
"Full of turbocharged sex scenes, this action-packed novel is sure to be a crowd pleaser."
—Publishers Weekly on Edge Of Midnight
"Highly creative. . . erotic sex and constant danger."
—Romantic Times on Hot Night (4 ½-star review and a Top Pick)
"Aims for the heart with scorching precision."
—Publishers Weekly on Ultimate Weapon
Also by Shannon McKenna
IN FOR THE KILL
FATAL STRIKE
ONE WRONG MOVE
BLOOD AND FIRE
FADE TO MIDNIGHT
TASTING FEAR
ULTIMATE WEAPON
EXTREME DANGER
EDGE OF MIDNIGHT
ALL ABOUT MEN
HOT NIGHT
OUT OF CONTROL
RETURN TO ME
STANDING IN THE SHADOWS
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Chapter 1
Someone just cut the lights. What the hell?
Noah Gallagher put down his pen and looked around, startled, as drums began to thump from the hidden sound system of the penthouse conference room. Some exotic instrument joined in, throbbing and wailing.
The door to the conference room opened to a shimmery jingling sound, then a flash of fluttering purple. Everyone at the table was staring and murmuring.
Oh, Christ. Not possible. Noah rose to his feet, but the belly dancer was already halfway through the door, her hands weaving in a hypnotic pattern. Wide, light-catching green eyes laughed at him brazenly as she shimmied straight toward him, leading with one pulsing hip.
Her eyes caught him . . . and held him.
The world narrowed down. Whatever he was going to say or do stopped. Words were gone. Air was gone. Air didn’t matter. Nothing moved while she moved.
She had commandeered all movement. With that smile. Those eyes.
He was sitting again, with no memory of deciding to do so. His mind had gone blank. The woman was like a walking, breathing stun code, personally keyed to him. He’d always wondered how it would feel to be one of the unlucky chosen few at Midlands who’d gotten stun and kill codes embedded in their minds. His own brain implants had been bad enough. Stun and kill codes were worse.
But this dancer wasn’t a goddamn stun code. She was just a random woman, shaking her stuff. When her act was done, he’d pull it together. Exert the fucking authority he was entitled to as the CEO of Angel Enterprises.
He had exactly until the music stopped to get control of himself.
Simple enough to figure out who’d dreamed up this unwanted birthday present. His younger sister Hannah lurked by the door. The wide-angle enhancement of his sight made it possible to see the gleam in Hannah’s eyes without looking away from the belly dancer for a single second.
Not that he could have looked away.
He saw his fiancée Simone’s face with his peripheral vision. She’d chosen to sit at his side for this important meeting. It was painfully obvious from her tight, expectant smile that she was waiting for him to turn to her, to smile and laugh and make light of this stupid situation. Not just for her. For everyone in the room.
He couldn’t do it.
Try. Do an analog dive. Grab a hook. Concentrate.
A spotlight from somewhere gilded the dancer’s body, highlighting every perfect detail. Silver anklets that jingled over her small, bare feet. Golden toenails. Shapely legs flashed between purple veils that floated from a low-slung, glittering belt. The belt and top were swagged with shining chains and dangling beadwork. Still more chains, draped from an ornate headdress, dangled over her forehead and under her chin, creating a constant soft shimmer of sound.
High, full breasts quivered, lovingly presented in the spangle-studded velvet bra. She arched back, floating a purple veil edged with spangles high in the air above herself and swishing her thick fall of of glossy black hair around. Had to be fake hair, falling to well below her ass. It brushed the curve of her hips. Fanned out as she twirled.
Everything he’d monitored in his peripheral vision was gone now. He no longer saw Hannah, or Simone, or anything else. His inner vision was too busy with the vivid fantasy of that woman straddling him. Imagining her bold, sensual smile as she swayed over him, teased him. Running her fingers through her hair, lifting it, tossing it. Coiling it around her waist like a slave rope.
He wanted to rip away all the filmy veils and all the goddamn beads and chains. See her bare-assed. Bare-breasted. Yeah.
The deep curve of her waist was perfectly shaped for his fingers to grip. The curves and hollows of her belly and her hips looked so soft. Touchable.
His hands shook with the urge to reach, stroke. Seize.
The rush of erotic images ramped up his advanced visual processor into screaming overdrive. Even with eyes shielded from eighty percent of the ambient light, even using a double layer of custom-designed shield specs, his AVP combat program was off and running, scrolling a thick column of data analysis past his inner eye.
And even that couldn’t distract him from her show. Not for one instant.
His heightened senses reached out, so greedy for more that he found himself actually taking off the back-up shield specs. He’d have popped out the contacts, too, but his AVP was already going nuts at the lower protection level. Combine that with adrenaline, and a huge blast of sexual arousal—fuck.
The light level in this room could zap him into a stress flashback if he didn’t protect his eyes. Not only that. The dark shield strength contact lenses hid the animal flash of amber luminosity caused by his visual implants. Outsiders couldn’t be allowed to see that. The room was packed with outsiders. He wanted them gone.
Especially Simone. Which made him a total asshole. He tried hard, really hard, to feel guilty. Not so much as a twinge. His conscious mind had been almost totally hijacked by the dancer.
He wanted to throw everyone else out and lock the door. Study that woman with his naked eyes, dancing under the spotlight. But only for him. He wanted to gulp in the whole data flow. It was being filtered out in real time and lost to him forever, and it drove him . . . fucking . . . nuts.
And he couldn’t do a thing. Not with an audience. His fists clenched in fury.
Heart racing, temperature spiking. Sweating profusely. No way to hide it. It was an AVP stress dump. A massive dose of fight-and-conquer energy, channeling straight into his dick, which strained desperately against his pants.
He struggled to grab onto the analog hooks that he’d established. His hooks were emergency mental shortcuts, activating an instant, deep withdrawal into the ice caves of his subconscious mind when the AVP got out of control. Best way he could devise to calm his stress reactions and stay on top of himself.
Not a hook to be had. Couldn’t find them, couldn’t feel them. Couldn’t use his highly developed power of visualization at all, after years of grueling practice. All gone.
He was fully occupied imagining that woman naked and writhing beneath him.
His intense reaction to this spectacle made no sense. He’d seen belly dancing before and been unmoved. He did not have complicated fantasies or fetishes. He didn’t even get the fun factor. He wasn’t known for his sense of humor. In fact, he had no imagination at all, unless you counted biotech engineering designs, or plotting ways to grow his business, or scheming to keep his chosen family alive, secret, and safe.
That demanding enterprise left no bandwidth for fun and games.
He wasn’t playful about sex, either. He was tireless, focused. Relentless in making sure that his partners were satisfied. To the point of exhaustion, even. Theirs, not his. They would tell him he was the hottest lover ever and then call him cold.
So? Noah didn’t do emotions. Cold was safer for everyone concerned.
Not that he could explain that to whoever happened to be in bed with him.
He couldn’t change his nature. He saw to it that his lovers had many orgasms to his one, to compensate for those mysterious intangibles. Whatever the fuck else they wanted from him, it just wasn’t there. He didn’t even know where to look for it.
The dancer’s arms lifted, swayed. He inhaled the scent of her dewy skin as she spun closer. Fresh, sweet, hot. Sun on the flowers. Rain on the grass. His mouth watered.
Since what happened at Midlands, his senses were sharper than normal by many orders of magnitude. He had ways to blunt the overload, but not this time. He was catching a full data load now, shields and all. Tripping out on her undulating hand movements.
He was reading her energy signature, right through the shield lenses. A cloud of hot, brilliant colors surrounded her. Her floating purple veils blended with trailing clouds of her body’s energy, to which his AVP overstimulated brain assigned all the colors of the spectrum and more besides. Colors not visible to anyone but him.
Along with it a strange sensation was growing. Tension, anticipation. Dread.
He was used to being alone in an insulated bubble. Other people’s drama raged outside that protective barrier and left him completely untouched. He needed it that way to stay in control. Maintaining isolation required constant effort and vigilance.
Now, suddenly, he wasn’t alone. The girl had danced through his force field. Invaded his inner space. It was messy and crowded in there now.
She took up room. Confused him with her colors, her scents. Her smile was so unforced and sensual. She was bonelessly flexible, yet still regal in her diaphanous veils.
It made him jittery to have someone so close. The intimacy felt awkward. Ticklish.
He felt hot, red. No control over his face. Stuck here, sitting among colleagues and family, right next to his fiancée. Any one of them could watch him watch her. At least the massive conference table concealed his colossal hard-on.
He had not felt this helpless since Midlands.
Her luminous green eyes met his and then flicked away, but the electric buzz of that split instant of intimacy jolted him to depths he’d never felt before.
He knew he’d never seen this woman before, and yet he recognized her.
* * *
Caro narrowly missed slamming her hip into the table. For the third time.
Look away from the guy, for God’s sake. Get a grip. It’s just a dance.
But her gaze kept getting sucked back to Noah Gallagher, the birthday boy. Ultra-powerful CEO of the oh-so-myserious Angel Enterprises, cutting-edge biotech firm.
The man was gorgeous. Barrel chested. A dense slab of muscle. Short hair showed off the sharp planes and angles of his face, a wide, strong jaw. He wore shaded glasses, but he’d taken them off a few seconds into her dance. It was incredibly hard to stay focused on the music and remember her moves while being examined with such blazing intensity. It wiped her mind blank. Made her lose the thread.
To say nothing of her physical balance.
Holy flipping wow. They said he was turning thirty-two today, but he seemed older, or maybe it was just his expression. Each time she twirled, she snagged a new yummy detail. The shape of his ears. Thick, straight dark brows. Sexy grooves framing a stern but still sensual mouth. Sharp cheekbones. His face was a taut mask of tension, as if he were suppressing strong emotion. But it was his eyes that really got to her.
His scorching laser focus made her temperature rise. She’d always been sensitive to the quality of a person’s energy. Noah Gallagher’s energy dominated the room. He looked like he’d tear you to pieces if you gave him any trouble, despite the elegant suit that sat just right on his huge shoulders. He didn’t laugh or look embarrassed like most men did when surprised by a belly dancer. He just sat there, with the charged stillness of a predator poised to spring. Radiating dange
r.
Her smile faltered as she shimmied and spun. Suddenly, she was hyper-conscious of the erotic allure of the dance. His silent, very male sexual energy made it feel deadly serious. As if they were alone, and she’d been summoned for a private, uninhibited performance designed to drive him crazy.
Oh my. What a stimulating scenario.
She was actually getting aroused. For the love of God. Rising panic began to shred the sensation. Enough of this ridiculous crap. She had to get out of here, and fast.
Finish the dance. You need the cash. He’s only a hot guy, not a celestial being. You’re freaking yourself out. Chill. Usually she spread the wealth, bestowing flirtatious smiles on everyone. Not tonight. They weren’t feeling it. Young men were usually always enthusiastic, and there were several of them here, but no one made a sound. Tension was thick in the air. No laughter, no snickering, no whistles.
Who cared. Her mind was fully occupied with the task of not gaping at Noah Gallagher’s godlike hotness. Being aware of every inch of skin she displayed to him.
Her gaze bounced across the blond woman who sat next to him. A little younger, but not a colleague or an assistant. They sat too close together for that. The woman’s mouth looked tight and miserable. Next to her sat a flushed, heavy older man who stared fixedly at Caro’s beaded bra, nostrils flared.
Rise up, cupcake. Take back the power. This was a tough crowd, maybe, but everything was relative. The people in this room weren’t trying to frame her for murder, kidnap her or kill her. And she certainly had the birthday boy’s full attention.
So she’d play with it. What the fucking hell. That man needed to be humbled. To worship at the feet of her divine awesomeness. She’d dance like she’d never danced before, blow his mind, and melt away, forever nameless. Leaving him to ache and writhe.
Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1) Page 1
