by Julie Kenner
As if she realized how close he was to finishing, she suddenly stopped.
His eyes flew open and found hers. With her hair wet, her cheekbones appeared more angular, her eyes more needy. She held his gaze, grazing the soap over his shoulders and chest. And all he could think about was when and if she’d dip lower again. He so needed her to…“Ah.”
She slid the loofah over his balls, so lightly that he could barely stand still. He drew in a ragged breath and breathed out slowly, but nothing could calm his pounding heart or the building storm. “You’re driving me insane.”
“That’s the idea.”
She swirled the loofah in circles, careful not to miss one part of him. When she slid the loofah up the sensitive skin behind his balls and then over his flanks, he squeezed his eyes shut tight and clenched his fingers again. He would not grab her. He would not kiss her. He would not lose control and thrust into her like some madman.
But then she leaned toward him, her head tipped back, her mouth too tempting. No man could resist what she was offering.
He tried to stop himself.
But with her moving the loofah back and forth over such a sensitive area, with the water sluicing over him, with her breasts just inches from his chest and her hips tauntingly close to his jutting arousal, he could barely hang on.
“Tell me what you want,” she demanded.
“You.”
“Uh-uh,” she denied him. “If you can’t touch me, what’s the next best thing?”
“I don’t settle for second best.”
She closed the loofah around the base of him, then inch by inch, moved it slowly upward. “Then I’d say you have a big problem.”
When, by accident or design, the loofah stopped just under his sensitive ridge, his body tautened. He grabbed her shoulders and tilted his mouth over hers.
And he kissed her.
CHAPTER FIVE
OH…MY…OH…MY…heaven. Bonnie had been touched before. She’d kissed before. But…not…ever…like…this.
Unlike the pain of their first touch, his kiss sucked her into a vortex of rushing color. A powerful twister that spun her senses, that made thinking impossible, that made her clutch his shoulder just to stay on her feet. The sheer power and depth and brilliant hues of his kiss were unlike anything she’d ever experienced and she suspected the bottle was doing its magic. Cate had been right. The perfume bottle increased Bonnie’s paranormal power of touch—because she only felt pleasure, no pain as she had when they’d touched without the bottle’s magical properties. Comparing his touch to other men’s was like the difference between a breezy day and a windstorm. With the strength of a class five hurricane, he blew her away with his torrential need to have her. Right there in the shower, up against the wall, with the water cascading over them.
She’d been hoping this breakthrough would happen with the arrival of the perfume bottle, but she hadn’t known the effect would carry her away. She’d arrived prepared with a condom that she’d hidden under the soap, but there was no time to use it. He was simmering, sizzling, on the edge of shattering.
Influenced by the perfume bottle and their own pulsing needs, inundated by the electric deluge of pure pleasure, she kissed him back with an intensifying zeal. Dropping the loofah, her hungry lips, ready tongue and eager hands played out the erratic and primitive rhythm of her excitement. He responded with a tumultuous need that pierced her core and fractured her illusion that this was only passion, only lust.
She had no name for this chaotic jumble of thoughts and heightened sensations. His. Hers. A melding of sensation and emotion. His extraordinary spirit rippled through her.
And when he fired into her hand, the spasms of his orgasm sent her on a roller-coaster ride that took her right over the edge, triggering her own release. If not for his powerful arms that closed around her and carried her to the bed, she would have collapsed.
Light-headed, she closed her eyes and waited for the tremors in her belly to cease, waited for the spinning in her head to stop. She’d touched hundreds of people, and never had anyone pulled her into them until she’d lost her sense of self. Not friends. Not family. Not other lovers.
The bottle was pure magic.
When her breathing approached normal, she opened her eyes to find him covering her with a sheet, not the least bit concerned that she was soaking wet. If touching him had made her lose control—and she was more experienced than most with the tactile sensation—what had it done to him?
She studied him. He exuded masculinity, along with a rugged and vital serenity. In fact, he appeared much better adjusted than she felt at the moment. Good. The last thing she’d wanted to do was upset him.
An air of command emanated from him as he slid beside her under the covers. He didn’t touch her, as if realizing she needed time to regroup. “You okay?”
“What just happened?” she asked him.
“I had a sensational orgasm.” He peered at her, his square jaw visibly tensed. “But you look as though you just came down off LSD.”
She bit her bottom lip. “You felt nothing strange?”
“You did?” he guessed, his brows narrowing a fraction, but she read no disbelief in his eyes, just puzzlement. “Is that why you practically fainted on me?”
“I’ve never established such a strong connection. Your pleasure triggered my own.”
He raised an eyebrow in obvious confusion. “Is that good or bad?”
“It was overwhelming. Wonderful. Out of control. Wild.”
He grinned that charming grin at her, as if he accepted her explanation. “Does that mean you might want to do it again?”
“Yeah, but now that you finally touched me, we have work to do.” And if the bottle’s magic extended to her sense of touch, they might make fast progress, especially if he believed in her. Trust always tore down the blocks faster.
“What do you mean, ‘finally’?” Resentment filtered into his tone. “You told me not to touch you.”
She pulled a blanket over the sheet. “I didn’t want you to force yourself to touch me out of a sense of duty.”
“So that’s why you wore the tiny bikini and drove me wild with the suntan lotion and soap?”
“Sexuality is a strong basic need, right up there on the top of the list with water, food and sleep. I tapped into that part of you to overcome your aversion to being touched.”
“So all these games were just part of curing me?” His voice remained level but she read a mixture of anger, hurt and betrayal in his eyes.
“I haven’t ever gone this far with anyone else,” she attempted to reassure him. “Sure I flirted and did my best to turn you on, but if I wasn’t attracted to you, I would have used other methods.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”
“Because you always like to be in control,” she teased. “And you now realize that I manipulated you.”
“I do.”
“And you don’t want to believe that an object like the perfume bottle has the power to banish pain when we touch.”
“You’ve got me there.”
“And you resent my actions—even if they were for your own good and your own pleasure.”
“Damn.” His mouth turned into a sheepish grin. “Remind me not to ask a shrink an open-ended question about feelings.”
“It might make you happy to know, I’m in way over my head here.”
“You?”
She debated how much to share and how to put her confusion into words. “Something unusual happened when we touched.”
He turned onto his side, rested his head on his palm. “It must be the magic bottle.”
She ignored his jibe. “Normally, when I touch people, I sense colors and feelings. It’s like being inside a maze. When I reach a dead end, I simply try to open another doorway.”
“And with me?” He asked the question with no intonation except curiosity. He was making her abnormal
gift seem normal and she couldn’t have been more grateful. Instead of defending herself, she could focus on what had happened, confide in him and get his take on things—something all too rare for her.
“I was sucked into a violent storm. I lost my perception of self in your twisting colors and vivid senses and got caught up in your swirling emotions.” She paused in an attempt to explain the unexplainable. “I need time to assess what happened with you and the bottle and evaluate the best way to proceed.”
“I don’t know whether to be insulted that you make me sound like a puzzle—”
“You are a puzzle.”
“—or pleased that you’re curious enough about me—”
“Fascinated, intrigued and beguiled might better describe my feelings about you.”
“—to try again.”
“Oh, yeah.” She smiled at him. “I most certainly want to do that with you again.”
“I’m not an experiment.”
She chuckled. “Oh, yes, you are. You’re the best experiment in my life right now.”
“I’m not a lab rat. You can’t just ring a bell and expect me to salivate.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so clinical. But give me a little slack, please. I’m just trying to figure out how I felt your orgasm. The perfume bottle must be as magical as Cate claimed.”
“You felt my orgasm? That’s impossible.” But he scratched his head as if he wasn’t quite sure.
“So now I’m either a liar or crazy. Either way, I like you, John.”
“I like you, too.”
“And now that we’ve broken through the touch issue, we can go to work on your memories. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Yes. But that’s not all I want.” His voice deepened into dead seriousness. “I want you to be straight with me.”
“Okay.” She could give him honesty, especially when he was so open-minded about her work.
“Are you in any danger when you touch me?”
In danger of losing her heart, perhaps. She kept that idea to herself. She didn’t want to go there when there was already so much on their plates. “What do you mean?”
“Could the torture have altered my mind into something ugly and you’ll be sucked into it?”
“No. Absolutely not. My gift doesn’t work that way. The first time we touched, I felt your pain, but now I just shared your pleasure. Yet I can’t read thoughts. I’m not telepathic. What we shared were the most intimate feelings on a level I hadn’t known possible. The sharing was wonderful, clean and exciting, but I wasn’t expecting that kind of sensory overload. Next time, I’ll control our pace.”
“What if you can’t?”
“Next time I’ll know what to expect, and even if I can’t, so what? Nothing bad happened. I feel great.”
His eyes darkened with concern. “You’re sure?”
He’d asked her to be straight with him, so she was. “No, I’m not sure of anything concerning that bottle. But all I have to do to break the connection is to stop touching you.” She took a deep breath and held out her hand. “Nothing is going to convince you. So let me show you.”
He hesitated, this time, for her sake.
And the cell phone rang.
“DON’T ANSWER IT,” Bonnie requested.
John reached over to the nightstand and checked the caller ID. “It’s Kincaid.”
“He said he wouldn’t interrupt,” Bonnie muttered.
“It must be important.” John pressed down the talk button. “Hello.”
The phone would digitalize his words, and the satellite uplink would encrypt them, then decode it on Logan Kincaid’s end. They had no fear of anyone listening in to their conversation and so could speak freely.
Kincaid’s voice, always calm, held a bite. “How’s it going?”
“Dr. Anders is working miracles. My aversion to touch seems to be gone.”
“Have you remembered anything?”
“Not yet. Why?”
“Let me speak to Dr. Anders, please.”
John handed Bonnie the phone. “The boss wants to talk to you.”
“Interruptions and stress delay the process,” she chastised Kincaid without giving the leader of the Shey Group a chance to speak.
John restrained a grin. Bonnie sounded as protective of him as a mother defending her children. Perhaps she didn’t realize that Logan Kincaid had a direct line to the White House. He was tight with the CIA and had the ultimate respect from the men who worked for him. He’d repeatedly risked his life for his country, and when it came to the lives of his men, money had no meaning. So he wouldn’t have called unless the situation was critical.
She paused to listen while Kincaid said something that John couldn’t hear. Bonnie’s face paled. “I understand.” And she hung up while he waited for her to explain.
He didn’t like his boss tiptoeing around him as if Kincaid feared John couldn’t handle the situation. He didn’t like that it was up to Bonnie to fill him in, and felt only slightly better when she did so with no hesitation.
“Kincaid has a date for the attack. Confirmed by two independent sources. He didn’t want to tell you in case it would make things worse, but I believe you can handle—”
John’s stomach tugged into a knot. “How long?”
“July fourth. They want to time the attack with the holiday.”
“Today’s the second. That gives us two days. Is that enough time to free my memory?”
“I don’t know.” She threaded a hand through her damp hair. “The perfume bottle may help us and we’ll do our best. That’s all we can do. But whatever happens, I want you to know one thing.”
“What?”
She stared at him, her eyes green chips of flint. “If we fail, you can’t blame yourself for what will happen.”
He shook his head. “If I have the power to stop the loss of life and fail, then those lives will be on my conscience.”
“No, John. If you don’t remember the necessary information, then you have to blame the men who set the bombs and the ones who tortured you. Not yourself.”
“We’re wasting time, Doc.”
“You let me worry about the time. And this is important. The less stress you feel, the easier it will be to recall the pertinent facts.”
“Okay. Got it.” This discussion would be moot if he could recall the intel in time. “Can we please get started?”
She made him eat a light dinner of a grilled chicken salad with fruit for dessert before she’d entertain the idea of work. But finally the meal was finished and she led him to the roof, carrying her tote bag. He hadn’t been up here before and realized the architect had taken advantage of the flat roof by creating a deck with a tropical garden and a soothing rock waterfall that tumbled into a whirlpool.
Bonnie opened her tote bag and removed the perfume bottle, which she carefully set on a nearby table. Then she tested the temperature of the whirlpool with her fingers and smiled. “It’s perfect.”
“I thought we were here to work.”
She patted the back of the lounger. “Pretend this is the couch in my office.”
He removed his shirt. “You have an office?”
“And a secretary.” She gestured to his shorts. “Those, too.”
“What about your clothes?”
“This time, I’ll be the one doing all the touching.”
He frowned at her, but removed his clothes. She made no effort to hide her appreciation of his body. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“What’s not to enjoy? A rooftop garden…a full moon…and a handsome man stripping at my command.”
John shook his head at the enthusiasm in her voice. She had to know how serious this was. She knew lives were at stake. Yet, she took the time to appreciate life in this moment, and he couldn’t help admiring her for doing so. He also liked how, earlier, she’d so easily admitted that he was not her typical patient, that their situation was different, that she had feelings for him. Nor had
she denied manipulating him, and her honesty made it easier for him to relax and made him realize that she was one special lady. A lady he was coming to care about for her intelligence and her candor as much as her sensuality.
She sat on the edge of the whirlpool, dipping only her feet into the water. “Remember how I told you that when I touch, I see a maze?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what I also do is listen to you speak. And when you reach a part that you can’t remember, I try to open a new path. So, tell me about the mission and expect roadblocks, then give me time to open them—that’s my job. All you have to do is stop and point them out, then wait for me to clear the way.”
“So you’re doing all the work?”
She nodded. “Your job is just to lead me in the right direction.”
She took hold of his hand. After their earlier conversation, he shouldn’t have expected her touch to feel like anything different, but he did. He figured there would be sparks, or a kind of special connection. Something. But her hand felt like a normal hand, with firm tapered fingers interlocking his—nothing otherworldly. He was looking for proof of what she’d told him because he wanted to believe her.
“Where should I start?” he asked.
“Tell me about the mission.”
“I was undercover for two years. Through an introduction from a college professor, I inserted myself into a terrorist cell. I proved myself to the group by feeding them information and supplying them with sources for equipment.”
“You worked alone?” Her fingers laced with his, maintaining a constant connection.
“I had backup. We tapped their phones, bugged their cars and watched their homes. I worked my way up the ladder inside the cell until I was a trusted member. Then I brought in a partner. His name was Ali Kareem, an Egyptian immigrant, totally dedicated to stopping terrorism after his brother died during the collapse of the World Trade Center.”
“Tell me about Ali.”
“I can’t…remember.” She’d told him this would happen, and he tried to wait patiently for the memory to come. Meanwhile, she loosened the clasp of her fingers on his and began to trail them up and down his arm.
