Matrix man held both of her hands in an iron grip. “Give her a minute. I’m sick of sitting on the sidewalk in this shitty neighborhood. Want to go get a drink when she’s done?”
He was hitting on her? Her disbelief must have shown on her face because he smiled, eyes lighting with humor. “We could also skip the niceties and just go back to my place. Are you into kink?”
He was nuts. Tough as hell, but nuts. “Absolutely not. My brother is the only deviant in the family. I’m normal.” She glanced down at his arm and saw that it was straight and the skin was unbroken. It became impossible to breathe.
“No, you’re not. Are you a hypno-talent? Like your brother?”
Her jaw dropped. She shook her head. “No talent at all.”
“Right.” He rubbed his arm, flexed his hand, then used it to push himself to his feet. He held out his hand to help her up and she took it. All three of them stared at her as she stood up and self-consciously tugged her hand out of his grasp.
“Sorry, can’t do anything for your coat.” The doctor gestured at the singed leather.
Matrix man shrugged. “I have several more just like it.” Now that he was back on his feet, he towered over her again. Audrey’s mouth went dry as she tried to swallow. She shook her head to clear it. Peripherally, something gleamed on the sidewalk.
She stepped away from him. Oxygen rushed into her lungs. The gleam was her car keys. She must have flung them out of her purse when the creep grabbed her, thank God. At least she had a way home.
“I’m getting out of here,” she said.
The women smiled. “So are we. You interrupted our date.”
Matrix man bowed. “Sorry about that. Thank you, ladies.”
Sam helped the sparkling doctor to her feet, and then bent to offer her first one shoe, then the other, smiling up at her. The doctor straightened her dress and examined her arms—for blood, Audrey supposed. “You’re welcome, but I don’t want you driving just yet. Use the arm a little before you get on that motorcycle. I don’t want you going ninety on the highway and getting distracted by a stiff elbow.”
He sighed, then leaned down to air kiss her cheek. “Thank you for working your magic, my friend. I’m sorry I interrupted your date.” He tugged a pair of leather gloves out of his coat pocket and pulled one over his right hand before he held it out to Sam. When she shook it, he pulled her in for a not-quite kiss too.
“It was just a hospital function.” Sam opened the door of the sleek black car and helped her girlfriend inside.
“Take good care of him!” the doctor called to Audrey just before the door slammed.
“Nice to meet you, Audrey.” Sam gave her a friendly nod and walked around the car. In seconds, the car roared away and she was left standing on the curb as if nothing unusual had transpired.
Reality returned. Now it was time to go home and cancel all her credit cards since that creep had gotten her purse. Screw work. The mice could live without their nightly treat.
“Goodnight,” she muttered and began walking down the street.
She felt him following her.
“Go away,” she said over her shoulder.
“No way, I want to make sure you make it safely to your car.”
She kept walking. “Because you did such a stellar job of that earlier? No thanks. I was fine, you know. You shouldn’t have interfered.”
“Yeah, you really looked like you were about to kick his ass.”
“Actually, I was about to break his nose. The gun complicated things, but he didn’t pull that until you came along,” she grumbled.
“That wasn’t a gun.”
She stopped walking. “What do you mean? He blew your arm apart.” And that sparkly woman had fixed it. Somehow. Sweat prickled her armpits. Now that the emergency was over, the weirdness was setting in. It wasn’t impossible that she could be in a bit of shock herself. She glanced back down the street to the club. Maybe she should go back to Jake.
Matrix man glanced over her shoulder. “Isn’t that your purse?”
She whirled. Her bag was on the steps of an apartment building, contents scattered. She grabbed her billfold and opened it to see if her credit cards were there. They were. Gratitude for the near miss sent tears to her eyes. She kept everything in her purse—money, credit cards, cell phone, iPod, Kindle—and having it disappear because some asshole wanted a bottle of cheap whiskey or a crack fix had upset her more than she wanted to admit. Her cash was gone, but losing a hundred bucks was getting off easy. She felt a wide grin split her face. She looked up at him. He was staring at her closely, blue eyes roving over her face.
“What?”
“You have a beautiful smile.”
She glanced back down at her purse, embarrassment overwhelming her glee. “Um, thanks.” She shook her head, dismissing the compliment. Guys like him did not go all googly-eyed over girls like her. Well, not unless they were into smart chicks obsessed with mice alleles.
His large gloved hand broke her field of vision. “Allow me to introduce myself. Calvin Davis, master electrician, physics professor and sexual Dominant.”
His smile challenged her to respond in kind. She was completely out of her league with this man, but she wouldn’t lie to herself. He had fascinated her from the moment she saw him. She felt her heart beating faster than normal. Her pulse throbbed in her wrists, throat and groin. For God’s sake, her body was coming alive, blood rushing to places it hadn’t been for far too long. Out of her element? Undeniably.
Up for the challenge? Absolutely.
She took his hand. The leather was soft and supple. She didn’t know how to retreat, nor did she want to, so she laid down a challenge of her own. “Audrey Fallon, geneticist, Tae Kwon Do black belt and utterly vanilla.”
Cal didn’t believe her for a minute about the vanilla part. Even if her clear response to him hadn’t clued him in, Truman had picked her out of the line-up in the Lair. He didn’t know how his buddy did it, but he was never wrong.
It wasn’t only Tru’s assurance that made him certain she would be receptive to a little negotiation. It was the lack of fear in her eyes and the fact that she was talented too. This one wouldn’t be afraid to experiment. She was strong, maybe strong enough to bend, strong enough to break.
A sharp blue flash exploded from his left palm.
“Sorry.” He winced. “Forgot to put my other glove back on.”
Her eyes widened. It only took a couple seconds for her to put it together. “Electrician?” she asked.
“Always better to have talent for your life’s work. But it’s not the only way I like to use my skills.” She shuddered—not the response he had been hoping for, but at least it was a place to start. He had never scened with anyone who knew his secret. Electrical play was edgy enough, even without a supernatural element. Why hadn’t she been harmed when she touched his skin?
“Can I touch your arm?” he asked.
Slowly, she nodded. “You may.”
The regal way she granted him permission turned him on, almost too much. It was difficult to keep his charge beneath the surface of his skin, and he didn’t want to go off again like a short-circuited teenager.
He focused his energy inward, grounding himself to the earth. He raised one finger, allowing only the faintest current to run down his arm, his hand, through the fingertip he stroked lightly from her shoulder to the back of her hand.
She closed her eyes. He watched her breasts rise and fall. Her mouth fell softly open. Energy coursed between them, filling him with a heady sense of power. As the blue light flared, he tamped it down, kept it focused just on the tip of his finger as he leaned down to whisper into her ear, “This is the least of what I can do.”
He interrupted the current so that instead of caressing her in a steady stream, it pulsed. Her eyes flew wide. “A human vibrator?”
He nodded, accepting her teasing. Humor was an excellent way for her to process what was happening. “At the low end of the spectrum. A h
uman whip, or a stun gun at the other end.” She had to know what she might be getting into.
“So how come you ended up with a broken arm if you can zap at will?”
“You got between us. I didn’t want to fry you.”
“I appreciate that,” she said wryly.
But would she appreciate more? He needed to get rid of some electricity, and although he could dump it into Davis Electric, he’d rather experiment with her. “My arm is fine now. You got your purse back. Since the Doc took my keys, I have no way to get home. I would love to get to know you better.” Fuck it, why not? “Actually, I would love for you to drive me home so I can talk you into letting me dominate you. If you like the way my charge feels on your arm, you’ll like how it feels other places. You might even love it.”
Her mouth fell open, then shut. “Um, I don’t have the vernacular for this.”
“I’ll explain everything. You just have to trust me.” He said it like it was the easiest thing in the world, but he knew it wasn’t.
“I don’t know you. I can’t… I shouldn’t even get in a car with you. I definitely shouldn’t agree to…oh, dear God. This is not what I do.”
“That’s why you set up a safe call.” Her brother probably wasn’t going to like this, but Cal was willing to risk it. “Call Jake. Tell him you are with me, that I’ve asked you to scene with me. Tell him you will text him every hour on the hour and let him know you are okay. I promise you will be better than okay. As soon as we get to my house, we’ll run through a list of things you are and are not willing to experience. You’ll have a safe word, a verbal way of communicating your comfort to me. I assure you I am a master at reading nonverbal cues too. I will not hurt you unless you allow me to. We will observe the niceties to the letter.”
She raised a dark eyebrow, a stark contrast to her pale hair. “Why can’t we run through that list now?”
“Because I don’t want you to leave me stranded on the street when I ask you if you will allow me to make you orgasm.”
Chapter Four
Audrey gasped. There was no way to act cool when someone said something like that, so she wasn’t even going to try. Was he good enough at reading nonverbal cues to realize she might let him make her orgasm right here in the middle of the skankiest street in downtown Hudson?
“Please say yes.” His tense entreaty spurred her to action. Without breaking eye contact, she searched her purse for her phone. Was it her imagination or were his brilliant blue eyes sparking with orange and yellow highlights, as if he really were electric?
Jake was number one on her speed dial, an easy hit.
He answered before it rang. “Aud?”
“I’m going home with Calvin Davis. He’s asked me to text you every hour, on the hour to…”
Her brother’s low growl carried through the connection. “I know why he wants you to text me. You don’t have to explain. The bastard suggested me for your safe call? Pervert. You sure you don’t want to get your feet wet with a training wheels Dom? If you want to try subbing, I could hook you up with a nice, non-deadly normal, you know.”
“Are you telling me not to do this?” There were definite sparks in Calvin’s eyes now. She wanted to move closer to him to see if she could feel them on her skin.
Jake growled again. “No. I guess you’re actually safer with him than just about anyone. You have to learn to control power like his or it kills you. You can trust him. But Audrey—”
“Exactly how long have you known him, Jake?” she interrupted.
Jake’s sigh was more like a hiss. “About ten years.”
This time, she was the one who let the silence build between them. Jake knew other talents and hadn’t told her? “We are going to have a talk about that later,” she finally said.
“Why kink now, Aud? Why him? Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But I’m curious.” She invoked the word that had sent her to medical school and fueled her through two PhDs.
“Then God help poor Calvin Davis.”
She hadn’t known she wanted her brother’s blessing until he gave it. “Thanks, Jake.”
“Don’t forget to text me.”
“Who’s the pervert now?” She ended the call with his chuckle in her ear. Before she dropped her phone back in her purse, she glanced at the display. “It’s nine o’clock. Where do you live?”
Her nerves sizzled as he pressed a hand to her lower back, guiding her toward the parking lot down the street. “Niagara Falls.”
“So how many talented people are there in Hudson?” Her question seemed to catch him off guard. Abruptly, the current cut off between them and she took her first easy breath in an hour.
“Your brother doesn’t tell you about his friends?”
She shook her head. “Jake has always been very protective of me since I don’t have a gift.” Calvin gave her that disbelieving look again, but she ignored it to ask, “Are you all, um, kinky?”
His fingers caressed her spine. The current returned, making her feel energized. “Not the girls. Our friend Truman keeps trying to turn them on to kink, but they won’t even let us watch. We find it very irritating.”
She snorted and hit the button to unlock her car. He opened the door for her, waiting until she buckled her seat belt to shut it. She had all of ten seconds to indulge in a silent scream to settle her nerves before he opened the passenger door and slid into the car. The smell of leather filled the vehicle.
The click of his seatbelt was loud. “Communication is essential to any power exchange, and it works both ways. Let’s wait until we reach my home to negotiate, but I want to give you something to think about while you drive.” He kept his fists in his lap. “I’ve never scened with anyone who knew about my talent, so this is a first for me too.”
As a doctor, she was used to knowing things and feeling like she was in charge. With him, she definitely felt disadvantaged, and she respected that he wasn’t power-tripping on that. Instead, he was sharing information to put her at ease. “How did you keep your power a secret from your partners? You glow. An occasional little shock can be explained, but that zap before was intense.”
He shrugged. “Blindfolds. Hoods. Like I said, my electricity can be sharply focused like a whip. I can also divide the current so that it feels like a flogger…or a feather. No one ever actually saw what I was doing to them. And since I’m a Dominant, I insisted they never touch me.”
“Oh.” That was disappointing. Her eyes lingered on the swell of his massive shoulders beneath the leather, the taut plane of his stomach beneath his white shirt, the columns of his thighs under his smooth leather pants. She felt like she was saying goodbye.
Two could play this honesty game. “I’d like to touch you.”
His breath hissed through his teeth. “We’ll see.” He straightened his body in the seat and stared out over the hood. “Take the one-ninety.”
Across the parking lot, she saw the silhouette of an enormous black and chrome motorcycle. “Is that yours?”
He nodded.
“Will it be all right down here?”
“It has a security system that’s the equivalent of a high voltage fence and no one can drive it but me.” He grinned. “It’s electric.”
“That’s incredible.”
“You should see my hovercraft.”
“Seriously?” She pulled out of the parking lot. There was no other traffic, and it was a straight shot onto the highway.
“I’m bragging, but yes. I do bioelectric research. I’ve come up with all sorts of gadgets trying to reverse engineer my abilities, but so far no one can run them but me. That’s what I’m working on now—a bioelectric enhancer. The human body runs on electrical impulses. Every thought, every movement, every bodily function depends on electricity created by energy in cells, but it’s not powerful enough to do any work. I’m researching ways to boost the electrical output of the human body from millivolts to thousands of volts
of pure green energy.” He paused. “Shit, I’m boring you, aren’t I?”
She gave him a sideways smile. “Not at all. I’m a science geek, too, although I have to say, you hide it better than I do.”
“Don’t let the leather fool you. It’s just my way of making the world a safer place. People get a little pissed when you accidentally stun them.”
“Is that what happens when people touch you?”
“Usually. It takes a lot of effort to keep my electrons under control. Mostly, I keep my skin covered and my hands to myself.”
“But I touched you and only felt a little hum. Why is that?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded thoughtful. “Here, take this exit.”
She turned off the highway and followed his directions until they pulled into a dark driveway. She slowed to go over a small bridge. They went up and around three winding curves before pulling through an elaborate set of wrought iron gates. She stopped the car in front of a sprawling two-story brick and siding house with a four bay garage. It was completely dark.
Her stomach tightened. She knew nothing about this man other than he was capable of killing with his power and her brother trusted him, which actually was saying something because Jake didn’t trust anybody, especially with her.
Cal got out of the car and walked around to open her door. She also knew he had good manners. She slid out of the car and stood next to him. And that he made her skin hum in a pleasant and distracting way. He made her feel…lively, that was the perfect word for the way her heart was thumping blood through her veins. But that didn’t mean she should go into the house with him. It had been a weird night, and it promised to get weirder unless she got back in the car and drove home, which was getting less likely every minute.
He reached around her to shut the car door. Then his hand touched her lower back again and she could feel it through her clothes, a little hum between them. He did feel like a vibrator, and she wanted to wiggle around and put him in just the right spot. Lord knows she had done enough of that over the years as boyfriend after boyfriend came up with a reason why it wasn’t her, it was them. It was impossible to believe them, of course. It had to be her. But if she had something else in her life, like talent, she wouldn’t care. He seemed so certain she wasn’t normal. Could Cal help her discover a hidden gift?
Power Trip: Double Helix, Book 1 Page 3
