Her velvety eyes widened. He counted every long, deep breath he took while she considered his question.
Finally, she nodded. Oxygen flooded his veins, making him giddy.
“But I want to control the next experiment.”
He raised an eyebrow at her challenge.
She faced him squarely. “I let you have your way with me. Now I want to strap you to the table.” He sensed where she was going with this. His electrons surged. She smiled and he saw the reflection of blue sparks in her dark eyes. “Fair is fair. I want you naked and immobile while I’m hooked up to monitors and very safely, carefully, consensually touching you.” His ears rang as if his head was a bell and she had just hit it with a hammer.
“What’s that?” she asked and he blinked, amazed that she had heard it too. Then he laughed weakly.
“The perimeter alarm.” He chuckled again. “Jake’s back.”
“Audrey—”
He was going to say no. Damn it. She should have kept her mouth shut. It would have been better to have had one hot night with him, a night she could remember forever, and skip the inevitable rejection. He was too cool for her, anyway.
“Forget it.” She jumped off her stool and took her bowl to the sink. When Jake got to the door, they were leaving. Immediately.
“Audrey, I’m not laughing at you.”
Right. She kept her back to him.
She felt him come to stand behind her. “I’m laughing because you turned it all around on me. I was going to push your limits, break down your barriers. I want you, Audrey, so bad I’m willing to consider breaking the only hard limit I have—not letting a sub touch me.”
“I’m not a sub,” she said automatically.
“You don’t want to be a sub,” he corrected her. “The fact that you submitted to me last night, so easily, so completely, says differently even if you claim you were only doing it to explore your talent.” She heated at his reminder and was glad he couldn’t see her face as she fought the arousal his words caused.
His breath feathered against her neck. “I want to take you downstairs and pick up where we left off, but you’ve just asked me to do the one thing I’m honestly not sure I can do—give up control. That is no small thing, so please have as much patience with my inexperience as I was planning on having with yours.” There was still an echo of laughter in his voice.
She opened her eyes and turned to face him. “So is that a yes or a no?” She reached up to tug the ridiculously square wire-rims off his face.
He took them from her hand and tossed them onto the island. “It’s a maybe. Eventually. BDSM is a complicated game and you don’t know the rules.”
“You said you can teach me.”
“Yes, I did. And I want to teach you. But we hardly have a typical scenario here. I’m dominant not only because I like to be but because I need to be…with most women. You’re a neutral, but you might not be completely safe from my powers. The idea of having vanilla sex excites me to the point of losing control just thinking about it, which adds a whole extra level of head fuck for me. And let’s not forget someone attacked you last night and tried to abduct you today. Can we just take it slow and do things my way for a while? Please…I beg you.” Humor glinted in his eyes again, making her aware of the irony in his word choice.
The doorbell rang.
Cal didn’t move.
“I really want to touch you,” she admitted. She looked at his chest, broad beneath the cotton of his shirt, and bit her lip. She wanted to press her open mouth against the strong column of his neck and kiss his shadowed jaw.
The doorbell rang again. Twice.
One of them had to bend if they wanted to make this work, and the patient look in his eyes told her he knew she could bend. Because she already had. Last night. And if she was honest with herself, she had to admit she wanted to try it again.
She closed her eyes so he wouldn’t see her desire and whispered, “Damn it.”
“Is that a yes or a no?” His voice sounded strained as he used her words.
She saw need in his gaze when she opened her eyes and it gave her the courage to sigh, “Yes.”
“Thank you.” He bent and quickly pressed his lips against hers, a gift and a promise that weakened her knees as he turned and moved toward the front door. She sank back down on her stool and picked up her glass of water. Her lips tingled as she drank the cold liquid, slaking her thirst but not cooling her desire.
“Geraci works at Genecorp,” Jake said, instead of hello. He eyed the soup pot on the stove and Cal reached for a clean bowl.
“What?” Audrey asked, noticing with irritation that Jake knew which drawer held spoons.
“Yup.” He sat beside her, reaching for bread and nodding his thanks to Cal, who set a bowl of soup in front of him. “Nothing from the phone yet.”
Audrey’s mind spun ahead, trying to connect the dots between her job and the odd events of the last twenty-four hours as her brother spooned soup.
“You said your laptop is missing?” Jake spoke with his mouth full.
She nodded.
“Tell me again. Everything that happened to you at work today,” he demanded.
She went over it in her head as she spoke the details aloud. Missing ID, a security guard with a needle, dead animals and Peter’s unusual attentiveness. What would have happened if she had let the guard prick her finger or gotten into Peter’s car instead of her own? And where was her laptop? What was the connection? Suddenly, she thought of her mother’s medical chart, still in her car. Aluminum.
She looked at Cal. “Can I borrow your computer?”
“Of course. I’ll get it.”
When Cal returned with a laptop, she opened the browser and typed in her storage site. She logged in and opened her file folder. Empty.
She stared at the screen. “All of my files are gone.” She would have to start all over.
“Log out,” Jake instructed.
Cal put his hand on her back, spreading warm tingles. She leaned into the comfort of his touch.
“You two need a room?” Jake asked.
“No,” she said, shooting him a dirty look. “But I do need my lab animals.” Maybe an autopsy would give her a clue.
Jake showed his teeth in a grin and pushed his bowl away. “Then let’s go get your pets.”
“Not so fast.” He’d already hinted that he’d steered her away from kink because he didn’t want her involved in his world. How much of her mental and emotional makeup had he manipulated for her own good? “Not until you tell me everything, and I do mean everything, that impacts this situation. I don’t like being manipulated, Jake. Make me understand why you’ve kept me in the dark about so many things. I can’t fight what I don’t understand, and your big brother act has outlived its usefulness.”
The tightening of his jaw told her he was annoyed, but she couldn’t care less. A deal was a deal.
“I’ll make coffee,” Cal said. He gestured at the room behind the kitchen and she led Jake into a well-appointed living area. Floor to ceiling bookshelves lined two walls. The other wall was taken up by a huge flat-screen TV. Although the furniture was broken-in black leather, the warm hues of the rug, the throw pillows and the comfy-looking blanket on the couch lent the room a cozy air. She settled onto the couch and Jake took the arm chair. He braced his forearms on his knees, leaning toward her.
“I have to start at the beginning,” he warned. “It was before our father…left. It was night, but something woke me up, a sound. I got out of bed and crept down the hall. I heard it again. I went into Mom and Dad’s room. He wasn’t there and Mom wouldn’t wake up, so I went to your room and you were gone. I was crying. Then I heard you scream.”
Audrey was cold and she was glad when Cal dropped down beside her. She leaned into him as Jake kept talking. “I found you in the basement, sitting in a chair. You were so small, barely two, and he had you blindfolded and strapped into a car seat. I didn’t know what he was doing to you, but
it was making you scream. I screamed too. I told him to stop. He grabbed me, and I looked up at him. I yelled stop, leave her alone, go away!” Her mountainous brother shivered, dwarfed by the big black chair. “He left, Audrey. He walked right up the stairs.”
“He was the first person you hypnotized,” Audrey said, horrified by the realization.
“Yes.” The anger in Jake’s voice sent a chill down her spine. “You were hysterical. I took the blindfold off of you, got you out of the car seat and took you upstairs to my bed where you sobbed for an hour before you fell asleep. Then I went back downstairs and I took everything he had on the table and I put it in the garbage can outside—the blindfold, the rope, the lighter, needles…there was some other stuff, too, but I didn’t know what it was at the time. I got back in bed with you. When Mom woke us up in the morning, I pretended nothing had happened, and I waited for our father to come home.”
“But he never came home,” she said.
Jake shook his head. “And if you expect me to be sorry about that, I’m not. I think he was experimenting on you Audrey, trying to discover a talent, just like you used to do when you were a kid.”
“Did he do it to you too?”
“I can’t remember. If he tried anything, I probably just told him to stop. Depending on when I actually came into my talent, he might have thought I didn’t have any power. But you, you were screaming. He was hurting you.” Jake’s voice was choked. “He left because of me, Audrey. I made him go away, but I’m not sorry because he was hurting you.”
She slid off the couch and onto her knees in front of his chair, reaching up to wrap her arms around his thick shoulders. Peripherally, she was aware of Cal leaving the room.
“It’s okay. You kept me safe.” She tugged Jake’s glasses from his eyes. They were wet, regretful and furious. She clasped his cheeks. “You did what you had to do, Jake. We’re safe.”
“Not anymore,” he said. “But at least we’re not children. You are a brilliant scientist and I have connections in places most people don’t know even exist. Hiding isn’t going to work anymore, Audrey. We need more information. And then we need to find the bastards who are looking for you—before they find us.”
“We’ll get information,” she promised him. “As soon as I figure out how to get back into the lab.”
“No problem.” Cal came back into the room, balancing a tray of coffee mugs, cream and sugar. “We’ve got an unusual skill set.”
Audrey laughed in spite of the dread filling her. He was right. If she’d had Jake with her today, the security guard would have opened the door for her. As a backup plan, Cal could probably work some magic with the lab’s electronic lock. And the security cameras. Oh God, could they really break into Genecorp? She was almost certain her research subjects would give her valuable information, but was it worth breaking the law?
She added cream to her coffee and sat back on the couch next to Cal. His arm dropped down around her shoulders and she snuggled into his side. Clothing separated them, hers and his, but a buzz of energy connected them.
“One last thing, Aud,” Jake said.
She stiffened.
Her brother dropped his shades back down into place. “I pushed you toward science and medical school in our father’s footsteps, hoping you would learn something useful. I forced Charlotte to sign you up for Tae Kwon Do with me, so you could learn to protect yourself. I deliberately made you feel uncomfortable around my friends so that you wouldn’t discover things I didn’t want you to know. It seemed like the best way to keep you safe. I hoped he would never come after us if you didn’t show any signs of talent.” He shook his head and sighed. “I was so damn glad when I discovered you were a neutral. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d started setting things on fire all the time like poor Cal used to do. Or getting in fights like Truman.”
No, she hadn’t done anything like that. She’d been too busy trying to be perfect so Jake’s misbehavior wouldn’t get them thrown out of their foster home, or worse, separated. “You should have told me.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I was hoping it wouldn’t matter. If you were never threatened by a talent, then you’d never need yours.”
But it was more complicated than that, and they both knew it. The subtle shift of Jake’s head told her he was looking at Cal, not her. She kept her eyes on her brother as she said, “I guess we know why I don’t like to be blindfolded. I wonder why I didn’t have a problem with the restraints?”
Cal’s arm tightened around her shoulders and Jake grimaced. “Thanks for that little visual. Speaking of kink, I need to run by the club and make sure my manager is tight for the night. Tru’s coming here when his shift is over at eleven. Probably best to save our burgling for the dark of night, anyway. And police backup might not be a bad idea.”
“For a break-in?”
Innocent was not a look Jake did well. “Technically, you’re allowed to enter. You’ve just misplaced your ID.” He pushed himself to his feet.
Audrey stayed on the couch while Cal walked her brother to the front door, wondering what to do. Jake would take her car, leaving her stranded again. She didn’t have her data, so she couldn’t work. Her life had been threatened. Her career was in jeopardy. And she was supposed to wait until it got dark to do anything about it?
She tugged the band out of her hair and slumped back on the couch, closing her eyes, feigning sleep. She heard Cal come back into the room, felt his weight settle next to her. She kept her eyes shut and listened to her heartbeat begin to speed. She was pretending, making believe she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do for the next few hours. If she opened her eyes, would he be looking at her the way she knew she was going to look at him—with desire, with need?
She opened her eyes.
Cal’s eyes glowed. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.
God, she hoped so. The ice that had taken up residence in her center began to melt. A steamy melody ran through her head and she felt a smile curve her lips.
He stood, looking down at her. “Let’s get you set up in my lab downstairs. We can order any equipment you need from my private sources and you can get to work right away,” he said briskly.
She blinked, forcing the smile to stay on her face as she switched gears. “Right.”
Cal raised an eyebrow. “That wasn’t what you were thinking?” He glanced at his watch. “It’s three o’clock. We’ve got hours to kill. I can’t think of anything to do with that much time but work…can you?” He cocked his head to the side and she realized he was teasing her. Apparently, innocent was something Cal did extremely well.
“Nope, I’ve been dying to get a look at your…lab.” She stood, but didn’t touch him. He’d asked her not to. Energy crackled, a tangible force, drawing her closer, keeping her away. She wanted him to kiss her again and held her breath as he reached out.
His fingers stroked through her hair, loosened from its pony tail. She bit her lip, trembling with the effort of holding still under his caress.
“It isn’t just for safety’s sake,” he whispered. “I like this. I like you holding still and letting me do whatever I want. It’s a huge power trip.”
“I imagine it is.” She tried to grumble but the husky note in her voice ruined the effect. “You have all the power.”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “You do.”
That was hard to believe. She would have pulled away but his hand was still tangled in her hair.
“Think about it,” he urged.
“I can’t think when I’m near you. That’s the problem. My brain slips out of gear. I feel stupid, nothing like myself.”
“God, that turns me on.” His eyes sparked and he groaned, pulling his hand out of her hair. She heard a crackle and reached up to smooth her hair, now standing on end. She couldn’t look away from his bright blue eyes. “You know you’re not stupid, Audrey, but you are submissive and that’s why your brain slips out of gear.” She would have argued, b
ut he held up his hand. “Hear me out.”
She nodded slowly, not even trying to tell herself she wanted to do anything else.
“Most BDSM practitioners have a conversation in a vanilla space so they can think straight while creating the rules of their game. There are elaborate checklists to go through that make sure each person’s needs will be met. I play on the extreme end of the scale because of my talent. My subs like pain, electrical play and being totally dominated. I work hard to get them to the place where their brains slip out of gear and they float. When they are honest about what they want and they trust me, a bond is created that we can both enjoy. Everybody wins.”
“Why do you keep calling it a game?”
A fierce grin flashed across his face. “Because it’s fun. I get to be Dominant while you indulge in a fantasy of being powerless.”
“A fantasy? It felt pretty damn real when I was strapped to the table.” A shudder shook her.
“Everything ends if you call red. And when the scene ends, you go back to being Dr. Audrey Fallon, black belt, utterly vanilla, the moment you wish. Engaging in BDSM doesn’t change who you are, but it’s a hell of a good time. That’s why it drives me wild that you begin to float so easily. It isn’t always like that. Your trust is a gift, and I appreciate it.”
Is that what it was between them? She trusted him? She did, she realized. Even before Jake had said she could. Something about him connected with something deep inside her. She couldn’t explain it; it didn’t make sense. But she trusted him.
Power Trip: Double Helix, Book 1 Page 8
