by Treva Harte
Very well then. She'd waited a few minutes. If Wynn could do it, so could she.
She took off in a quick walk down the alley.
Chapter Thirteen
Cassie sat up in the bed, her mouth unable to make a sound. The scream was frozen somewhere around her tonsils. The noise of someone opening the window was faint but she knew what it had to be. Someone was coming in.
She edged her hand out very slowly to find something heavy or sharp or any kind of weapon. Her hand fumbled in the dark. She wasn't familiar with the bedside stand and couldn't even figure out in her panic just what she was feeling.
"Cassie."
She almost hit him with the drinking glass anyhow, just on general principles.
She turned on the light instead. The light was a little dim but he looked fine. He didn't have any bullet holes. At the moment he was probably feeling better than she did. Her heart was still pounding.
"Damn, Wynn, you scared me. How did you find me anyhow?"
"A little telepathy—thanks for sending out the message-and a lot of common sense. You'd mentioned your stepfather."
"Oh, yeah. There must only be three or four million Tims in the city. Maybe more."
"Tim Borges, an artist, is a little easier. I had a friend of mine find his address—"
"Squint?" Cassie asked.
Wynn shrugged. "Yeah. I had Squint find his address. You thought of his last name when you talked about him to me."
"That still couldn't have been easy. He's changed addresses at least three times in the last year. And this loft is his—um—lady friend's. She's staying with him for the night. I thought I'd be safer here. But you found me anyhow."
She had hated the waiting. She had hated the uncertainty. She had especially hated seeing Tim again—or at least seeing Tim just the same as he ever was, except with a new woman to fuss over him. Maya was a nice enough person, but she wasn't Cassie's Mom. That didn't matter to her stepfather. Tim had apparently found a perfectly good replacement for her mother in someone else.
Cassie didn't like to think anyone could ever replace her mother in any way. Maybe Tim was self-centered and shallow, but he shouldn't have found anyone else that could suit him the way her mother could.
Cassie almost wished she could find people to love that easily. For Tim, anyone who would take care of him would do. That meant her mother hadn't been that special at all to him. Not special in the way Cassie thought her mother had always been. Not special in the way Cassie found the few people she did love were special. She could never replace any of them.
Take Wynn, for example. She didn't think she'd ever even try. She couldn't.
Then Cassie determinedly shoved those nasty little thoughts aside and concentrated on Wynn. With him here she wouldn't have to stay much longer.
Wynn scrunched a little further down in the loft bed that reached almost, but not quite to the ceiling. Cassie could sit up, and Maya could. Wynn, however, was definitely cramped.
"That's because you went to Tim's first. I was waiting. Not quite as tricky as you could be, Cassie."
"Fine. Next time I'm being shadowed, I'll know better. No, no I won't. I had to get Tim's help. What else could I do besides take the next train back home? I don't have enough money to do much. Shoot, I was worried about buying a change of underwear. Even with Tim's help it hasn't been exactly fun. I've been sitting here for the last day and a half wondering what to do."
"I have some more money." Wynn didn't elaborate as to how. "And taking the next train back to D.C. isn't an altogether bad idea."
"What?"
"Getting back to D.C. isn't a bad plan. I'm feeling like Art needs some reinforcements."
"Sorry to repeat myself but—what?"
"Don't you read the paper?" Wynn tossed the Times down. The headline read: Hornsby Pondering Vice Presidential Candidate Choices. "He must be making some decisions about now that could get him into trouble."
"Forget Emmanuel. I'm going to kill you instead. If we could've gone back to D.C. before, why have we been hiding and running?"
"Because they were afraid of what I would tell Art. I've told him. Now they know I have."
"I don't think Emmanuel is going to like you for doing that. Why wouldn't he kill you just because he doesn't like you?"
"Oh, he might. That's why Art has to be made aware that his Secret Service agents should be extra alert. That ought to help take care of his security. Old Jock may be one of the bad guys but I don't think Emmanuel's got all the Secret Service under his control. Really, once Art announces his pick, I think we're all safe. What can Emmanuel do? I'll just need to make sure Art doesn't take any risks before then. There are dangers out there no one else knows about except me. He needs my abilities right now."
"You're making my head hurt." Cassie gave her best moan. "And you make it sound too easy. How can we not be in danger? We could get Emmanuel arrested. Why wouldn't he want us out of the way just for that?"
Wynn shrugged.
"There's nothing we can say without making us—and Art—sound mighty foolish. We have no reason to talk. Emmanuel will think of that soon, too, if he hasn't already."
"Some megalomaniac is trying to kill us in order to run the country and we don't need to say anything?"
The worse part was that Cassie wasn't sure who was the bigger megalomaniac any more—Lida or Emmanuel. She had a feeling Lida must have taken on more than she could handle when she hired Emmanuel on.
Briefly Cassie wondered what Lida would do with Emmanuel afterward. She could almost feel sorry for Lida. Which would be harder? Dealing with him if you were president or if you weren't?
"If Art is president, he can take on that problem with the FBI or CIA or whoever."
"Won't Emmanuel think of that too? That no one is going to just let it drop?"
"Cassie—I can't sort it all out right now. I'm just feeling like we need to get back. Soon. Will you trust me?" He looked hopeful. She could hear the unspoken: Again?
*I trust you still, Wynn.*
"I hoped you'd say that." Wynn slid himself next to her. "Now. This should prove interesting, given how close I'll be to the ceiling, but what do you say we go to bed together? I missed you."
Cassie could hardly believe he'd actually said that. The missing her part, that is.
He even sounded serious.
"Me, too, Wynn."
"I particularly missed certain parts of you—" The amused note was back in his voice now.
"My mind was the first thing on your list, I'm sure." Cassie was relieved. That sounded much more like Wynn.
"Darling, I do love your convoluted, flaky mind. Your convoluted, flaky, sometimes missing mind."
When she laughed, Wynn relaxed. He had almost gotten too serious there. What if she believed him? What if he believed him?
But he had missed her. He was afraid that he had missed everything about her. Certainly he had missed her body—the one she was moving up against him now in a very interesting way—but he'd missed her mind, too. He'd missed her, damn it. All of her.
That was a problem if you were used to living your life on your own. If you were a person who needed to live your life on your own.
Attachments got entangling. You had to explain too much or too little. When you had to move on for a different job, other people didn't understand. If you sensed there was a problem and couldn't explain why, other people couldn't figure it out.
Of course if anyone would understand it would be Cassie.
Bloody hell, he had to stop thinking like that.
Besides she didn't always clue in. She didn't understand his need to get back to Washington. He couldn't explain that rationally and clearly. There was a tug pulling him there though, and he had learned to obey what his gift told him to do.
Cassie'd seemed to understand before but if she couldn't now—too bad. He could still learn to live without someone he had also learned to miss.
But when Cassie opened her mouth and moved it down h
is chest, he very happily forgot thinking about anything.
* * * * *
Something wasn't right. Cassie couldn't quite put her finger on what was different about Wynn, although she was happily putting her fingers on other parts of Wynn that were starting to feel very familiar.
He was a little...off. A little too manic where he never had been. A little too ready to joke where he had been reserved. Maybe it was the tension. Or maybe it was because he felt a release from the tension after they got away from Emmanuel and his goons.
But he hadn't been that way before. Where before he had been almost too wary, too ready to run, now he seemed almost careless.
Suddenly she could feel a warmth both inside her body and her mind. That was Wynn's doing. The Wynn she knew.
Her intuition had been right. There were advantages to making love with someone who could enter your mind—she'd never had anything like sex while mind linking before. She probably never would with anyone else.
*There won't be anyone else.*
Cassie almost stopped her exploration of his stomach at that thought. Had she thought it? Had he? She'd like to believe that there wouldn't ever be anyone else, now that she knew she loved him. But love had been around for her and then left before. Realistically—
*No one else. Ever.*
Her hands tightened on his thighs. She felt the muscles in his stomach quivering and smiled. She could feel her own response to his.
Tentative licks made him groan. She wanted to smile some more but became too involved in their mutual pleasure. His hands were on her and then clenched in her hair when her touch became more intimate still. Her lips fastened around his hard cock and she heard his sigh of pleasure.
She could feel the power in him bursting up higher, like sparks crackling in a fireplace. She began to get flickers of images, of her straddling over him, of her moaning with pleasure. She sank down and then stroked herself back up that eager cock. She could feel the heat shooting through his erection, almost sizzling. She had to be entering Wynn's fantasy. It was kind of sexy and kinky, almost like seeing herself in a mirror while making love. Her excitement began to mount as the flickers became more intense, more erotic, more powerful.
Then she saw something completely puzzling. A sudden image flashed in her mind of a huge room of screaming, cheering people. And a man crumpling up in front of them. The cheering stopped. There was nothing but silence from the crowd.
A sudden wave of panic and fear swept through her. What was Wynn thinking now? If he thought that picture was romantic, he was terribly mistaken.
"What—" Cassie began and then his hands pulled her over him and she forgot the last image in the reality of what they were doing.
Cassie was straddling him, just the way he wanted. His cock slid into her. His body arched up into her. He withdrew and thrust up again. So beautiful. So urgent.
She looked down at him, watching him, watching his images of her in his mind. She could feel her vaginal muscles start to clench. Not much foreplay seemed to be required when she and Wynn were involved. Maybe the mental foreplay was more than enough. She was going to burn up with the heat they were generating.
Oh yes, she was. Cassie moaned as her orgasmic spasms began. She saw Wynn's face tensing while he stared into her face. God, he was as close to the big finale as she was. Looking at him, at his excitement, she took off. She couldn't help herself. She knew he wouldn't be far behind.
But then he did something that, even in the midst of her final moments of pleasure, dismayed her. He pulled away from her just before he climaxed. His sperm, wet and plentiful, drenched her pubic hair as it spurted. Once. Twice. Three times.
"That was close."
"What?" she gasped, still shivering from aftershocks and just plain shock.
"No condoms, baby." His voice was rough. "We gotta get some. Don't want to have—to do that again."
She was a little comforted from the unevenness in his voice, especially as he pulled her closer to him. As he held her, she nestled next to him. Strange. She wasn't a nestler. Neither was he. And she didn't usually forget about things like protection. And she never liked being called baby. Not usually. But despite a niggling worry in the back of her thoughts, she liked all of those things right now.
"Cassie...always so good..." She thought she heard Wynn mutter that, with sleepy satisfaction, as he began to doze. He mustn't think anything was too wrong. Cassie wanted to smile but she was too tired to make the effort.
She'd figure out what was going on, what was going wrong, later. Not now. Not now. She felt so peaceful like this. Maybe this warm feeling was temporary, but for just this second, with Wynn's breath tickling near her ear, listening to his sigh as he gradually completely fell asleep, everything felt right.
As her body relaxed next to his, as she felt the heaviness of the arm that he threw over her body, she didn't feel trapped or isolated or worried or anything bad. She felt like—she groped for the word as she began to slide into sleep herself. There, she had it.
She felt like she was home.
Chapter Fourteen
"It's all here. They didn't destroy anything." Cassie couldn't keep the happiness out of her voice. "And Ned parked the car out front. Just like I was never gone."
She crawled out of the battered Ford compact. When Wynn had calmly walked to that car on the city street, opening the hood and using a screwdriver and wire, hot-wiring the car within minutes, she almost died. She was with a petty criminal.
A very quick, adept petty criminal who drove them all the way back to metropolitan D.C. in their stolen car. Somehow she was going to have to get the car back to its owner. Later. She'd think about that problem later.
She moved for the door. She was ecstatic about getting home for many reasons.
One of those reasons was moving the car away from the front of her house right now. All during the ride back, Cassie kept trying to not think people were after them and trying to figure out why Wynn was becoming more and more distant.
She wasn't getting any thought messages any more. She was barely getting any words out of his mouth. Wynn was leaving her behind mentally, if not physically.
Although she was starting to wonder about the physical part, too.
She knew for a fact he hadn't stopped anywhere to buy condoms. That wasn't the Wynn she had come to know. Actually, forget Wynn. She had more than indicated she was ready and willing and he had seemed interested more than once. If he wasn't planning to have sex, then that wasn't any man she knew.
As they walked in, Cassie saw the blinking lights on her voice message unit. She winced when she thought about what those messages would be about. Lord, she was going to have to fast-talk so many outraged clients...
She looked around. Nothing was damaged, nothing was even out of place. Things were just as always, normal and expected. She could believe nothing had ever happened.
Then she saw Ned, head cradled in his arms, sitting at the kitchen table. She went toward him and he lifted his head up as Wynn came through the door behind her.
"Ned, what—oh."
She assessed the black eye and the very uncharacteristic expression on Ned's face. Ned wasn't Mr. Laid Back right now. He was unhappy. Very unhappy. Cassie realized she'd finally seen Ned truly upset at last.
"What the hell have you been getting into, Cass?" Ned's tone was edgy, too. "And why didn't you warn me?"
"Oh God. Ned. I never thought about anyone hurting you!" She hadn't. People didn't get mad at Ned. Not beating up mad. What would be the point of doing that?
"You know, Cassie, you need to think about stuff more often before you get into it." He delivered that bit of wisdom as if he had lived it himself. "Like, those guys you've been hanging with are dangerous. There's been nothing but strange stuff going on here. Ever since him."
He nodded at Wynn.
Suddenly she remembered the last time she'd seen Ned. He'd been boring and her life had become a numbing routine. Well, she'd gotten the so
mething different she had wanted when Wynn first asked her to join him in this craziness. And she was certainly doing something new. Now even Ned was doing unfamiliar things.
"Oh, Ned. I understand. I'm so sorry. Really."
"Well, Cass, y'know, now that you're here I think I'm gonna take off. Y'know like really take off. Emily told me I should. But they said I had to stay until you showed up. Now you're here and I'm gone." Ned got up, looked a little blankly around, then focused on the door and moved toward it.
He paused and looked back at Cassie. "Maybe you better, too, Cass. You know?"
"Oh, Ned—" Cassie took a deep breath.
She had to tell him. Even Ned had feelings. No. She wasn't going to disparage Ned this time. Of course Ned had feelings. "Ned, I can't. I'm going to stay with Wynn. I have to. He's too important to me for me to leave."
Ned looked like he was going to say something more, but he didn't. Instead he touched her cheek the way he used to, once, long ago, when he'd mattered more to her.
And Ned was gone. He was going to like really take off and she hadn't said a real good-bye to him. Or had she? What more did she need to say? She turned to Wynn, who was standing near her. To keep her from leaving?
She'd like to think so but he'd shoved her away a lot lately. For her own good, of course. That's what he would say, anyhow. It didn't feel good, though.
"I hate to say Ned has a point. But he does. Why are we back here, Wynn? These guys are dangerous."
He didn't say anything. Cassie had a sudden urge to shake him, almost the way she used to want to shake Ned.
"Wynn!"
He was looking confused. Cassie refused to compare him to Ned again, but she was tempted.
Wynn might be confused, but he knew he was heading for trouble. He also knew he needed to make something clear.
"I'm not important to you. You don't love me." Wynn waited for the hysterics. He hadn't had to say that often to anyone but he'd never liked what happened after he did.
