by Nalini Singh
Looking up, she saw that he’d closed his eyes, the cords of his neck strained white against the warm tone of his skin. And she knew he wouldn’t stop her, no matter what she desired. Trembling with need that made her skin tight, her body slick, she gave in to the luscious molten heat uncurling in her stomach and began to kiss her way down that thin path of hair. The texture of it was surprisingly silky rough against his heated flesh, and it was instinct to stroke her hand over his skin as she tasted.
“Jesus baby.” Strangled words as she lay her cheek on his abdomen and reached down to close her fingers over the stiff length of him through the black fabric of his briefs. Max’s entire form went rigid . . . and it just felt exquisitely right to lick her tongue across the very edge of his briefs, to squeeze her hand firmly along the masculine heat in her hold.
“Sophie!”
Max walked out of the bathroom to find Sophia curled up under the sheets. There was a look of distinct guilt on her face. Joy warmed him up from the inside out, but he kept his expression stern. “That’s twice you’ve rushed me.” He hadn’t lost control like that . . . well, ever. “Don’t think I’m not going to punish you for it.”
Color tinged her cheeks as he slipped in under the sheets beside her. But no matter the temptation, he didn’t pull her into his arms, having noticed that she was reacting much more quickly to even the slightest touch. “It’ll take a while for you to recover.”
A stubborn look that faded into a sigh. “You’re right. I think I’ve pushed it as far as my senses will take today.”
“I guess it’s like a person who’s been starving,” Max murmured. “When you start to eat again, you have to do it in small bites at first.”
“Can I bite you?” A teasing question that didn’t surprise him now that he’d met the wicked side of her.
“If you ask nice.”
They lay together for a time, talking about nothing, and then later as they sat side by side in the living room, about the complex jigsaw that was the Nikita investigation. But eventually, she had to go to her own apartment. “I wish I could spend all night with you,” she said to him as he walked her over. “But it’ll be too much today.”
“Next time,” he said, keeping his distance as she unlocked the door and entered. “Sophia?”
She glanced back, so beautiful with those amazing eyes and that soft dark hair.
“Tell me if anything happens.” His hand tightened on the doorjamb at the thought of losing her to the ferocity of her gift, of never again seeing her lying rumpled and smiling in his bed, never again hearing her talk in that prim tone that held an undertone of wild emotion.
“I will.” A steady answer, but when she looked up, her eyes were bruised. “I’m so angry, Max,” she said in harsh whisper. “How am I supposed to fight my own mind?”
CHAPTER 33
Sophia Russo may require further persuasion re the Valentine case.
—Jay Khanna to unnamed contact via e-mail
Frustrated, choked up with a rage that had nowhere to go, Max made a cup of coffee and tried to lose himself in work. Sophia had updated him on everything she’d discovered during the time he’d been tied up in the wrenching aftermath of the discovery of Gwyn Hayley’s body, but now he began to read her notes in depth. She had one hell of a brain, he thought. The information was not only neatly bullet-pointed and outlined, but cross-referenced in a way that told him she had an innate understanding of how his own mind worked.
Near the end of the file, he came across something that made him frown. Knowing he needed Sophia to explain the relevance of the information in a Psy context, he began to get up—when he caught the blinking time code on the comm panel.
One a.m.
His gaze went to the wall that separated his apartment from Sophia’s, and he couldn’t help but remember the softness of her skin, the way her pulse had rocketed under his touch, the delicate, enticing scent of her. His body, having finally stopped riding the steel edge of need, grew hard, heavy once more. Sucking in a breath through clenched teeth, he threw down his pen and got up, intending to take a cold shower when something stopped him.
A noise.
Angling his head, he listened again. A soft thump. Once. Just once. But he’d heard.
Sophie.
He grabbed his stunner and walked quietly to the door. Activating the outside cameras, he checked that the space immediately outside his door was clear before exiting—with a vigilance all cops learned on their first day on the job. The corridor proved empty, the lighting muted to night levels. Stepping to Sophia’s apartment, he scanned himself in using his palm print, his access courtesy of Sophia herself.
Worried that she’d had a blackout as a result of the previous day’s events, but forcing himself to move with caution in case of an intruder, he made his way through the unlighted living area and to her bedroom.
The bed held only rumpled sheets and an organizer with a bright, glowing screen. She’d been awake, too, he thought. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t taken her unawares.
Fur across his foot. Morpheus.
Following the cat’s night-glow gaze, he felt his toes nudge something on the floor.
He froze, bent down. The feel of cotton covering warm skin. No. Continuing to hold his stunner at the ready, even as he checked Sophia’s pulse, he said, “Lights, night mode.” The lights came on, on a dim setting, making the transition from dark to light much easier. No one jumped out, the shadows hiding nothing malignant. He looked over the bathroom quickly just in case. Nothing. Whatever had happened, it had happened in Sophia’s mind.
Returning, he bent down to check her for injuries, found no cuts, no abrasions. But when he lifted her eyelids, it was to see her eyes swallowed by black. “Sophie,” he said again, his tone firm though an anguished rage tore through him—driven by a part of him that didn’t understand logic, only a powerful, visceral need for her voice.
No response.
Sliding his arms beneath her body, he lifted her up and took her to the bed, pulling a comforter over her before his hand went to the pocket of his jeans, where he’d left his cell. Pressing in a familiar code, he said, “I need Psy help.”
But the Psy who turned up a bare ten minutes later with a tall amber blond male wasn’t anyone he’d expected. He recognized her of course—that distinctive red hair, those cardinal eyes. Faith NightStar was said to be the strongest F-Psy in or out of the Net, her ability to see the future a gift and a curse both. But Max knew he’d always see it as a gift after the way she’d saved their lives. “Thanks for coming.”
As Faith hurried past and unerringly to the bedroom, Max paused long enough to say, “You got here quick.”
“Faith,” the changeling male said, “woke me up an hour ago and told me we’d be needed in the city around now.”
Max, walking back to the bedroom, stopped for an instant. “I guess I never thought about the reality of being mated to an F-Psy.”
Vaughn slapped him on the back. “Ask me sometime about how fucking difficult it is to surprise her with a gift.” It was said with affection, his tone that of a man who wasn’t only delighted in his mate, but didn’t care if the whole world knew about it.
They entered the bedroom at that moment, and everything else faded. Faith was sitting beside Sophia’s stiff form, her hand on his J’s forehead. “Her telepathic shields are terrifyingly thin, but they are continuing to protect her,” Faith said, before pausing for almost ten seconds. “Her PsyNet shields appear fine. A little unusual according to my contact, but not damaged.”
Max didn’t ask about Faith’s contact, taking it as a given that that contact would soon be dead if it became known he or she was sharing information outside the Net. “Do we need to get her to a hospital?”
The foreseer’s endless eyes met his. “No. She’ll wake up soon.”
A simple, absolute answer, and yet . . . “What aren’t you telling me?”
“There’ll be time after she wakes.” Faith looked u
p at her mate as he came to stand beside her, his fingers playing through her hair. “Coffee?” she asked.
Vaughn’s smile was indulgent. “Addict.”
“Your fault.” The foreseer’s expression was somber, belying her light words. “We’ll need to talk once she wakes.”
Smile fading into an expression of intense tenderness, Vaughn untangled his fingers from his mate’s hair and went to exit the room. “Come on, Max. You can’t do anything here.”
“I’ll stay.” No way in hell was he leaving his Sophie alone.
Faith seemed to struggle with something as she rose to her feet. But in the end, she followed Vaughn out in silence.
Faith walked straight to where Vaughn was measuring out coffee grounds. “Hey.” Putting an arm around her, he hugged her to the solid strength of his side. “The answer’s no.”
She rubbed her face against his chest as he turned to embrace her fully, loving the scent of him. “How did you know what I was going to ask?”
“We have been mated over a year. Give the cat a little credit.” A teasing kiss from her jaguar, his hand curving around her throat in gentle possession.
“You said it yourself, Faith.” A quiet reminder, the jaguar looking out of his eyes. “The future isn’t fixed. It wasn’t for Dorian.”
“Yes.” She’d seen the sentinel’s future blacked out, had thought it meant death, but he’d survived. “It’s different this time, Vaughn.”
“How?”
“I saw bits and pieces of reality—the fact that Sophia would need us for some reason tonight, other events that may or may not happen, but I felt this gathering wave. I can’t describe it, but I know something huge is about to happen, and it’s centered around Sophia Russo.”
“You’re talking about more than the life of one person . . . two people,” he added, and she knew he’d seen the way Max looked at Sophia. So had she.
Her foreseer’s heart hurt for them, for the future they didn’t have. “I’ve never felt anything like this, but from the research I’ve been doing”—using the records her father had managed to unearth then smuggle out to her—“F-Psy in the past noted the same kinds of sensations before major catastrophic events.”
Vaughn cupped her face, an areola of pure gold around his irises, the jaguar rising to the surface. “Are you talking earthquake, plague, political turmoil?”
“Any, all,” she whispered. “But whatever it is, Sophia Russo is the domino that will begin an unstoppable cascade.” The J was the leading edge of a perfect storm, one that might annihilate them all.
“Max?”
“It’s as if he simply doesn’t exist in Sophia’s future,” Faith said, tugging at the tie that held back her mate’s hair. It fell over her hands in a stroke of rough silk, a familiar anchor. “But I don’t get that same sense of blankness as I did with Dorian. Instead, it’s this feeling that he’s never been a part of her life. Which is impossible.”
Vaughn stilled. “Not if the Sophia you see is Sophia after rehabilitation.”
Faith shook her head in stunned horror, but he was right. Full rehabilitation wiped out the psyche, creating a slate so blank that nothing of the mind, the soul, remained.
* * *
Max argued with himself about whether or not to touch Sophia, knowing it had to have been their sexual play that had caused this, but driven by gut instinct, he got on the bed and cradled her in his lap. And the instant he did, it felt right. She was a soft, warm weight on him, her breathing easy, her heartbeat steady. Something wild and panicked inside him settled.
She hadn’t left him, this J who’d become the fulcrum of his universe.
A quiet sound, so quiet he hardly heard it. Shifting his hold, he pushed midnight strands of hair off her face, keeping his hand on her cheek. “Sophie?”
A hitched breath, eyes fluttering open. They remained drowned in black, endless and mysterious. “Wh—” A gasp, her hand flying up to close over his.
His soul went cold. Driven by primal need, had he made a fatal error? If he had, the shock would plunge her back into unconsciousness . . . or worse. But before he could break contact, she gripped his hand, tight, so tight. And as he watched, the liquid black began to recede from her eyes, until finally, only the violet of her iris, the normal black of her pupil was visible. “Max?”
He tried to catch her gaze, but it kept shifting. “Focus, Sophie. Focus.” Her disorientation worried him, could well be a signal of some kind of brain damage.
All at once her eyes locked to his. “Name’s not Sophie.”
“No? What is it?”
The most minute of pauses. “Sophia Russo.” It almost sounded like relief. “Sophia Russo,” she repeated, “Gradient 8.85 J-Psy, employed by the Justice Corps, temporarily attached to the office of Councilor Nikita Duncan.”
“Good.” Relief washed through him as well. “And who am I?”
“Max Shannon, Enforcement detective, highest clearance rate in New York, natural mental shield, and . . . and hands that touch me.” Her own hand spasmed around his, as if she’d only just become aware of how hard she’d been holding on.
“Shh.” Taking that hand in his, he pressed a kiss to her palm. “You’re okay.” His heart shuddered though he fought to keep his voice calm.
“Max, you can call me Sophie,” she said in a quickness of words, as if afraid he’d take her earlier statement the wrong way.
“I plan to do it for a long time.” He’d lost everything else and survived, but he couldn’t lose her, not his J. It would break him.
Intertwining her fingers with his, she turned her head a little. “Someone else is here. I can hear sounds.”
“Faith NightStar and her mate, Vaughn D’Angelo.”
“Faith, foreseer.” She dropped her gaze to their hands. “What happened?”
Faith and Vaughn walked back in at that moment, with four mugs of coffee in hand. “We were hoping you could tell us,” Faith said, placing two of the mugs on the bedside table.
Sophia looked up but didn’t move off Max’s lap, which told him more about her condition than anything else. Because his Sophie had a quiet reserve about her in public, or when they were around others, one that he’d come to realize was part of her nature, not a product of Silence. She’d never be comfortable with open displays of emotion—but that was fine with Max, because with him, she lowered her guard, gave him her trust.
Breaking their handclasp, he picked up one of the mugs and urged it into her hands. “Drink.”
She took an obedient sip, her eyes not on Faith, but on Vaughn. Max felt a sharp tug of irritation. He recalled hearing that Vaughn wasn’t a leopard, but the male was a cat of some kind. He had the same feline grace that Max had seen in Lucas, in Dorian. And Max had been in the world long enough to know that women were drawn to the cat changelings.
Sophia’s eyes didn’t move off Vaughn even when the cat stretched out his arm on the sofa behind Faith’s head, curving his hand around his mate’s nape in a blatant display—and statement—of his loyalty. It was Faith who broke the odd silence. “If you don’t stop looking at my mate that way, I might have to unsheathe my claws.” Her smile took any sting out of what was clearly a tease.
But Sophia didn’t laugh. Keeping her eyes on Vaughn, she spoke to Faith. “He’s not safe, you know. He could snap your neck with a single move. You should shift away from him.”
Delighted at the reason she’d been staring, Max fought not to laugh. But the look of affront on Vaughn’s face was priceless. Burying his own face in Sophia’s hair to muffle his laugh, he tugged her a little closer, just in case the changeling was annoyed enough to snarl at her. But Faith put a hand on her mate’s thigh, and cardinal eyes gleaming with laughter, nodded at Sophia. “I wouldn’t throw stones. Look where you’re sitting.”
Sophia belatedly seemed to realize her position. Color tinged her cheeks, but she didn’t move. That’s my girl. Running a hand over her hair, Max asked her if she knew the reason she’d fallen un
conscious.
“Yes.” She cuddled impossibly closer to him. “An attempted hack into my brain.”
CHAPTER 34
Max sucked in a breath, but it was Faith who next spoke. “That should be impossible. I know some F-designation men and women who see only the past, and they work for Justice—their shields are impenetrable. I assume Js are the same.”
“Yes, we are,” Sophia said, giving him the coffee so he could place it on the nightstand. “But the attempt was intense enough to cause near-unbearable pressure on my brain.” Her body trembled just a little, but Max felt it.
Placing her on the bed with all the tenderness he had in him, he swung his legs over the side and said, “We can discuss this more later. Right now, Sophia needs to get some rest.”
“Yes, of course.” Faith stood up at once. Vaughn followed a little more slowly.
Walking them to the door, Max was ready for the DarkRiver sentinel’s final words. “She’s still hooked into the Net, Max. Means she can’t be trusted.”
He felt his hand clench on the door. “So was Faith when you met her if I’m right.”
“Not the same situation, and you know it.” The changeling didn’t sound angry—if anything, there was a gut-deep understanding in his tone. “Faith was watched, but in an isolated setting. Sophia is in the middle of the Justice Corps. There are all kinds of eyes on her.”
And though the sentinel didn’t say it, Max knew the implications—Sophia might already have something in her head, something that had penetrated her shields without her knowledge.
Having changed into a loose T-shirt to sleep in, Sophia returned from the bathroom to find Max waiting by the bed. He looked strong and beautiful . . . and remote, the stunner he held loosely by his side a stark reminder of who he was, what he did.
“Stay with me.” It came out without thought, the heat of his body still imprinted on her skin. “I think I can handle the sensations now.” The invitation took all the courage she had. She bit her lip to quiet the plea that wanted to escape. She didn’t want him to pity her—but oh, how she needed him.
