The table dropped out from under her and she howled as he broke contact.
“Condom.” A second later, he entered her in a slow, agonizing thrust, pressing her ass toward the table with both hands. The position trapped her clit between the leather table and his cock. Every slow, deliberate thrust pushed her closer to the inferno. He had covered his cock, but his hot hands gripping her ass were gloriously bare.
Energy flooded her body as she took everything he gave her. No longer floating, she was flying. Her world was blue and limitless. She went up with him, showering sparks, crackling, thundering, and finally exploding in a bright crescendo.
Cal ripped his hands away from her ass and thrust them behind his back as he felt his climax approach. He locked his fingers around his forearms to keep himself from seeking her soft skin. He checked the monitors. Steady. Safe.
The fantasy of being bare inside her was sharp, erotic and taboo. He leaned back, planted his feet firmly on the floor and made sure the only connection between them was his covered cock. Only then could he surrender to the force barreling through him.
He closed his eyes, focusing inward, imploding. He gritted his teeth and growled her name as he came. “Audrey.”
The spasms seemed to go on forever. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed through him.
When he finally peeled his eyes open, the monitors graphed on, unaffected. Audrey was motionless, slow, even breaths moving her ribcage up and down. Her hands were relaxed, fingers limp. Every so often her body tightened around him. Past the danger point, he allowed himself to enjoy the lazy caress.
His body felt light, relieved of the heavy charge he usually carried, but his chest felt tight. She was amazing. Perfect. A woman he could touch without having to lock his energy so deep inside he wasn’t himself anymore.
Hope, both exhilarating and terrifying, made him ease away from her. He dropped the condom into the trash and began removing her restraints. The ripping sound of Velcro reminded him that this was a role she was playing. She might be the only woman in the world who could handle him, but that didn’t mean he was special to her. It didn’t mean she cared about him. Did the tightness in his chest mean he cared about her? He’d never felt like this with any other sub, that was for sure.
He checked the meter he’d had the sense to wrap around his wrist before they began. Two million amps? What the fuck? He didn’t know he had that much energy in him. He pulled his leather gloves back onto his hands, afraid that the next amp going into her would be the one to set his hopes and dreams on fire.
When he stroked his hand down her back, she rolled over and smiled. He couldn’t resist caressing her shoulder, then cupping her breast. His hand drifted over her ribcage and belly.
She caught his hand. “Kiss me?”
He slowly shook his head. “I can’t.”
She sat up, still holding his hand. “You’ve got to be kidding me. How much power did you just zap me with?”
He didn’t blame her for the anger in her voice and he pretended not to hear the hurt. There was nothing he wanted to do more than kiss her, but his desire felt stronger than his self-control. What if he didn’t have the strength to hold back his charge again? “Two million amps, Audrey. Incredible.”
“And after all that, you’re afraid to give me a little kiss?” Her voice grew speculative and her gaze sharpened. Before him sat Audrey the scientist, buck naked, luminous in the afterglow of her orgasm and thinking up a storm.
He feigned indifference. “We’ve experimented enough for one day.”
Uncertainty flickered across her face, and he felt like an asshole. “Please.” He took a deep breath. “Have some patience with me.” While I figure out why I feel completely fucked.
Her gaze softened, went velvet again, and she stretched, laughing up at him. “You have control issues.”
“Damn straight,” he said, relieved she wasn’t going to push him to admit the exact nature of his current issues.
She slid off the table and walked toward the lab. “But I thought we were just getting started with our experiments. You didn’t change your mind about letting me test your new invention, did you?”
“Nope. I’ll be right there.”
Cal took his time cleaning up the dungeon, thinking.
What would he do if she continued to press for intimacy? No matter how powerful her neutral talent, it might never be safe for him to touch her skin while he lost control, even during a kiss. The fantasy was exciting for him, but the reality could be fatal for her.
He’d have to hold her off, he decided. For the time being, she had agreed to submit. Her body couldn’t lie—she enjoyed their play. In fact, she’d admitted it out loud. He would hold her to her confession, tie her to it if he had to. He would do everything in his power to prove surrendering control to him was good for both of them.
He followed her into the lab, where she was still naked, examining the bio-enhancer again.
“Wire me up, Scotty,” she said with a grin.
“A Star Trek fan?” he asked.
“I’d sell my soul for a medical tricorder.”
One more thing to love about her. He lifted the skull cap and placed the straps over her head, then held up the vest. She slipped her arms into the armholes and held still while he secured the wires to her biceps, elbows and wrists with black bondage tape.
He stepped back. “Do you want to put your clothes on?”
“Nope.” She gave him an evil grin, as if she were as aware as he that the black leather straps and silver wires of the enhancer made her look like a hot comic book heroine busting out of her costume.
“Are you ready?” he asked, forcing his mind back to business, to science.
“Eveready, like the battery.”
He touched her arm. “All joking aside, you are a battery right now. As soon as I flip this switch,” he placed a hand on the back of her neck, “you could have enough power at your disposal to light up the city.”
Her expression turned serious. “What should I do with it?”
He led her across the lab to his rubber-floored firing range and placed the conductor in her hand. “Touch the conductor to the fuel cell and pull the trigger.”
“Do I get a cut of the profits if you sell this particular fuel cell?” she teased.
“I’ll take you out to dinner.” He flipped the switch and pointed her at the cell, keeping his hand on hers.
She glanced over her shoulder. “How about Hawaii instead?”
“Are you stalling?” he asked, surprised the ever-curious scientist hadn’t blasted away immediately.
In response, she pressed the conductor to the top of the cell and pulled the trigger.
He heard a pop.
A second later, smoke rose lazily from the circuit attached to her chest. Excitement and fear tangled inside him.
“I’m so sorry, Cal! Did I break it?” She turned to face him.
He shook his head. “That’s what happens every time I try to use it too.”
Her expression was sympathetic. “Back to the drawing board?”
“Not exactly.” He unwrapped the tape and pulled the smoking unit from her body. “I’ve got too much power for silver wire. I was planning to try it out on Truman next, and see how it worked for him. He should have a normal amount of electricity coursing through his body. Unlike you, apparently.” He stared at her, thinking. “If you are holding onto even half of the energy I expended, you are…hot.”
How was she storing it? And was there a metal that could handle that much power without burning to a crisp? The bio-enhancer had blown as easily as the fragile filaments of a light bulb plugged into an unprotected circuit. Was that the answer? A surge protector? No, that would flip the circuit.
She waved a hand in front of his face. “Earth to mad scientist.”
He blinked, wondering how long he had been standing there. “Sorry. I was wondering if there’s a way to measure how much energy you are storing…and if I can create a bio
-enhancer to tap into it. Maybe I could use a different wire…” A bio-enhanced Audrey would be invincible, safe from dangerous talents and normals alike.
She waved her hand before he could get lost in thought again. “Hello, I’m naked here and I’d love a shower. Won’t Jake be back soon? And your buddy Truman?”
A shiver of unease made him frown. Why had Tru been able to read her in the Lair the other night when all other talents didn’t affect her? Was that one of her limits? Did her talent have blind spots? If so, she needed to discover them quickly—a false sense of security could be dangerous, especially if the people threatening her were talented.
He dropped the enhancer on the table and led her out of the lab, locking the door behind them. When they emerged from the basement, he discovered late afternoon had turned into evening. He took her into the guest bathroom and adjusted the lights for her, turning on the taps and making sure she had enough towels. “Mind if I watch? I want to see what happens when the water hits you.”
She hesitated, one hand on the shower door, and he rushed to reassure her. “It should be fine. The water is purified, but you might sizzle a little.” If she stored that much power, she would definitely throw a few sparks.
She reached into the shower to hold her hand in the spray. “Nope, not even a tingle.” She sounded disappointed.
He nodded and left her to shower.
Her performance with the bio-enhancer proved she was storing energy somewhere, even if they couldn’t see it. He wanted to dive back into the basement and build another prototype immediately, but he headed for the kitchen instead. It was past dinnertime and Jake would expect to be fed again when he arrived.
A fantasy of him and Audrey spending their days working side by side in the lab and spending their nights playing energy games filled his head as he stared into the fridge. He forced himself to think about food, instead. Vegetarian food. He wasn’t equipped for tofu, and he’d already fed her eggs. Pasta primavera, he decided, pulling vegetables out of the fridge. And he’d grill a steak for her meathead brother.
With that decided, he let his mind wander back to Audrey in the shower. Damn, she’d looked sexy with her ass still slightly pink from his hand. He remembered the way she’d begged for more, so perfectly frustrated by the flogger.
The nichrome flogger.
His hand froze on the knife, sticking halfway through an onion. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? A high resistance wire could handle more voltage, more current, and more heat. He had a huge spool of the stuff in the basement, leftover from making the flogger.
He grinned, thinking of the way Audrey had taunted him about losing control, wondering if she would understand just how much control it took not to abandon the vegetables on the counter and race into the basement to wire up another prototype.
Then he set the knife on the cutting board and headed for the basement, chuckling. Audrey was a scientist. She wouldn’t expect him to resist.
Chapter Ten
Audrey tilted her head back and sighed. The water felt amazing. She ran her hands over her slick skin, reaching behind to squeeze her butt to see if it was sore from the spanking. The dull pain made her tingle, so she slipped one hand between her thighs, wishing Cal had stayed in the bathroom. He probably wouldn’t touch her if he had. There had to be a way to safely discover the limits of her talent. How could she get close to him if she were always afraid he would pull back and leave her wanting more?
She reached for the shampoo and soaped her hair, then spent long minutes rinsing the suds from her body. Their experiments had left the sticky smell of smoke on her skin, so she stroked his strong soap over her body, shaking her head as her own slippery touch aroused her. She’d turned into a pervert in twenty-four hours, playing in a dungeon, climaxing during a spanking and masturbating in the shower. She rinsed the soap from her body and eyed the removable showerhead, tempted…but not as tempted as she was to go find Cal.
Just the thought of being near him increased her arousal tenfold. She turned off the water, reaching for the huge fluffy towel he had laid out for her. She dried her skin and squeezed the water from her hair, then put her clothes back on.
The hall was empty and the house was silent. She wandered back to the kitchen where it looked like Cal had begun making dinner, but he wasn’t in the room. The basement door was open.
“Cal?” she called down the stairs.
More silence.
She descended. The dungeon was deserted, so she tried the door of the lab. Unlocked. She opened the door and found Cal bent over a table, wielding a pair of wire clippers with singular concentration.
Snip, snip, snip. The clippers flashed with blue light.
“Cal?” she said softly.
He didn’t seem to hear her. He dropped the clippers with a bang and grabbed a calculator, then dropped that and picked up the wire again, threading it through black leather. “Yes, that makes sense…” he muttered, intent on his project.
She couldn’t blame him for being obsessed with work when she was equally driven, but it stung that she’d been upstairs, getting hot for him again, while he had clearly switched into work mode. It was just her luck that the first man she found more interesting than her mice was even more Type-A than her.
Her soft huff made him turn around. “Hey, I only came down here for a second. I’ve got dinner started upstairs.” The guilty look on his face made her laugh. He moved toward her, but cast a glance back over his shoulder. “I don’t suppose…”
His pause asked the question for him.
“You don’t suppose I want to have a quickie before my brother arrives?” she joked.
He blinked at her. “Do you?” He truly looked torn and she grinned, flattered, before she let him off the hook. “I’ll cook dinner. You work.” It was better for both of them to stay focused on work. They were conducting experiments, not dating. He’d made it clear that their play existed within the confines of a scene, and she needed to keep that firmly in mind. You’re a workaholic, not a deviant nympho, remember?
“Maybe I don’t want to work now,” Cal said.
She put a smile on her face. “Right. And I don’t want you to buy me a centrifuge and a microscope.”
“I’ll buy you whatever you want,” he said instantly. “Just make me a list.”
So he’d give her an unlimited budget for lab equipment but deny her a kiss. Nice. A relationship with Cal would certainly redefine her ideas of romance. Lust must be making her crazy if she was thinking of him as a potential boyfriend anyway. Clearly, he was looking for a lab partner with benefits. Temporary benefits, if he kept to his pattern of short-term subs. She hoped he would let her stay until they figured out who was after her—and why. “I’ll let you get back to work. Just remember when I get my mice—I don’t like to be interrupted, either.” Although with the slick ache she felt between her thighs right now, it was hard to imagine turning him down for rodents.
He gazed at her breasts, making her aware that her nipples were pushing against her bra. “I never said you couldn’t interrupt me. If you don’t want me to touch you, say red, but don’t put words in my mouth. I might forget to eat and sleep when I’m in the middle of a project, but sex is an entirely different matter. I’ll take a ten minute break for you.”
He could spare ten minutes for her? She recognized the flash of anger for what it was—a defense mechanism. For a guy who couldn’t touch her, he certainly knew how to push her buttons. He moved forward until he was standing directly in front of her. She felt energy build in the inches that separated them.
His eyes blazed. “Red or green?”
She swallowed, trying to quiet her shuddering breaths. She wanted to lie, to say red, but she refused to drive a wedge between them with her insecurity. She craved him. Her desperate need was embarrassing, but she wouldn’t deny it. Cal didn’t seem to want her quite as much as she wanted him, but that unfortunate fact didn’t make her want him any less. God, she hoped it didn’t make her
want him more.
“Green,” she said. For now. Until she understood why she enjoyed playing these games with him.
His grin was fierce as he pulled on gloves. “Bare your breasts and push your pants down around your ankles.”
Calmness descended as she unhooked her bra and pulled her T-shirt above her breasts. Of course she was turned on. Her body remembered the phenomenal orgasms he’d given her and wanted more. Was how she got them really so important? She unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them to the floor. The air was cool in the lab, but exposing her body made her skin feel hot. The clear approval in his eyes warmed her too. She squeezed her hands into fists and waited.
“Beautiful,” he said as he touched her nipples.
The rubber of his gloves was smooth and cool. He pinched and a whimper broke from her throat—not because of the pain, but because her need was so sharp and sudden.
“Now you pinch your nipples, hard. Just like I did.”
She obeyed and whimpered again, feeling her pussy clench and grow wet. She shivered as he knelt between her thighs. He gazed between her legs, making a hot blush spread over her body.
He glanced up, watching her squeeze her nipples. “Keep pinching. Don’t take your fingers away from your breasts.”
With one hand, he held her open while the other explored her folds. His fingers slid through her wetness, pressed into her body. He leaned close, teasing her with his breath while he traced circles around her throbbing clit. The warm brush of air was almost enough to push her over the edge. She pressed forward.
“Not yet,” he said. “Wait.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Wait? How in hell? She forced her mind away from what he was doing to her and thought about the first thing that came to mind—work. She tried to picture the anomalous sequence of base pairs she and Jake carried, but couldn’t concentrate, distracted by his relentless stroking. Adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine, she chanted in her head, but it was no use. She didn’t want to be thinking about DNA while his fingers spiraled through her center.
How dare he make her feel so out of control and then demand she control herself? Irritated, she opened her eyes, intending to push his hand away, maybe even storm out of the lab, but she hesitated, confused by the look on his face.
Power Trip: Double Helix, Book 1 Page 10
