Caressed by Ice

CHAPTER 28

Her heartbeat accelerated under his touch as he released her lip. “Should I stop?”

“No.” A whisper. “Kiss my neck, too. He never touched me there.”

Stroking his hand down to rest below her shoulders, he bent to taste the skin of her neck. Soft, silky, quintessentially female. Her hand tunneled into his hair.

Pain and pleasure combined.

The dissonance was constant by this point. Broken shards of glass knifed through his cerebral cortex in an unrelenting cycle. But the pleasure…the pleasure was more. He’d never felt such incredible sensations. Then Brenna made a tiny, needy sound and the pleasure multiplied until he could hardly feel the pain.

Part of him knew this was dangerous. If he wasn’t aware of the pain, if he didn’t accept the warning and pull back, not only could his ability slip the leash, the dissonance might cause permanent damage to his neural tissues. But drowning in the rich taste of Brenna’s sensuality, he didn’t have the capacity to understand those perilous truths.

Kissing his way up her neck, he traced the line of her jaw before returning to her lips. They were parted, her eyes closed. Accepting the invitation, he pressed his lips over hers. Flash-fire heat. Pure sexual need. His hand was on her neck again and he felt the jagged beat of her heart spike.

But she didn’t pull away. In fact, she wrapped her arms around his neck and tensed. His body knew what she wanted though he’d never before touched her so intimately. Releasing her from his possessive hold, he caught her as she jumped to wrap her legs around his body. Holding on tight, he backed into a wall but didn’t turn to press her against it. Because she was trembling. Scared.

He broke the kiss and, blinking past the blackness crawling at the edges of his vision, raised one hand to brush the hair off her face. “Why are you scared of physical contact?” She’d been raped on the mental plane. Of course there were physical repercussions—such a deep violation of the psyche was a nightmare most people couldn’t imagine, much less endure. But he sensed there was something more to her fear.

Her lower lip trembled and a single tear formed at the corner of her eye. “He didn’t just mess with my mind.” It was a pained whisper.

He knew Enrique had hurt her body, cut her, beaten her but—“Sexual abuse?” Fury burned a cold fire in his veins.

“Not rape like we think of it,” she said, fingers digging into his shoulders. “I mean, he did that to my mind—tore it open and forced me to see things I didn’t want to see, put things in there that weren’t my own thoughts, things that are still in there. I wash and I wash, but I can’t get them out!”

“I know.” He let her nuzzle her face into his neck, stroking his hand over her hair. “But he did other things.” Acts she hadn’t revealed during the healing sessions.

A jerky nod. “He—he liked to demonstrate his telekinetic control by forcing objects inside my body using only his Psy skills.”

Red blazed in his mind and it wasn’t pain. Gritting his teeth, he made himself stay silent and listen.

“I was so ashamed,” she whispered, her cheek wet against his skin. “I was a wolf changeling—stronger, faster, desperate—and I couldn’t stop him. Sometimes he’d untie me but hold me down telekinetically so it’d be like I was holding myself down…like I was cooperating. Then he’d experiment with my pain thresholds. Mostly it was mental, but sometimes…sometimes he’d decide to see what my body could take.”

“You have nothing to be ashamed of.” How could she have even thought that? “Enrique was a cardinal Tk and a killer. He bears all the blame.”

Her arms tightened. “I’m starting to believe in myself again, but anytime something sexual happens, I associate it with him. I can’t seem to break the link though I know it’s not right. I know not all men are like him, but…”

“What he did was about pain. This is about pleasure.” Even a rebel Arrow knew that distinction.

Her tears stayed silent. Heartbreakingly so. “He made my body feel pleasure, messed with my mind until he controlled my responses and made me enjoy every humiliating, degrading thing he did.” Shame layered her whispered words.

Judd wished Enrique weren’t dead so he could torture the bastard. He’d keep him alive, make him suffer. You could cut off parts of a man without killing him for days, weeks if you were patient. “Enrique was a Tk,” he repeated, “with only midlevel telepathy. He wanted to tear into your mind, but he never reached the inner core, the part that governs your emotions. He didn’t have that ability. When he made your body respond, he did so by controlling your nerves.”

Brenna had gone quiet, as if concentrating on his factual explanation.

“You were always aware of what was happening, weren’t you?”

A warm breath against his neck. “It was like I could watch what he was doing to me but not stop it. I hated it, but my body did whatever he wanted.”

“So there was no pleasure, only a physical response.”

“Aren’t they the same?” Raising her head, she looked him in the eye, the tears having left her gaze strangely clear.

“The order is wrong.” He knew the logic, had been taught it as part of the conditioning process. When he saw her frown, he decided to prove his point. “If I told you I think you have the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen, would you feel pleasure?”

A blush colored her cheeks. “Do you mean that or are you making a hypothetical point?”

“I mean every word.” She was soft and curvy and lushly female. Perfect.

“Of course that would make me happy.” She brushed a kiss over his lips and it was so unexpected, he had to scramble to regather his thoughts.

“What if a stranger on a dark street said the same?”

“I’d get out of there as fast as my legs would carry me.” She made a face. “You’re saying pleasure is dictated by the heart and mind. I trust you, think you’re sexy as hell, and so you pleasure me. Another man, while he might somehow be able to force my body to react, would give me no pleasure.”

Every man had a limit. Judd figured he’d gone past his weeks ago. “The link must be present between a body and a free mind. Without that link, it’s not pleasure but a facsimile so wrong it’s pain.”

She was silent for close to a minute. “I never thought about it like that, but you’re right. It was pain. It tore me apart to have my body react against my will, hurt me so badly I had to curl up in my inner mind to survive. Sascha said it’s the most basic of survival instincts, what sentient beings do when there’s no other way out. Sometimes, they never return from the catatonic state.”

Driven to the edge, but unwilling to chance hurting Brenna, he focused his rage into manipulating an inanimate object instead. The sofa raised off the floor behind her. “Yes,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t notice. “So embrace the pleasure you get from me. It’s not tainted.”

She smiled, slow and bright. “You’re wonderful, you know that? All logic and reason but wonderful.” A simple statement that meant everything. “And even more so because you’ve been holding me all this time without complaining. I’m no lightweight.”

He debated whether to say it and decided for truth. “I’m a Tk. It costs me nothing to hold you.”

Her face clouded over. “You’re using telekinesis to hold me up?”

“Yes. It’s who I am.” It was time they dealt with that. “Look behind you.”

Frowning, she glanced over her shoulder. Her mouth fell open. “You’re making the sofa…and the table, float!” She turned back to him. “Why?”

“Too much power. I have to release it somehow.”

She wriggled and he knew she wanted to be freed. He let her jump down, wondering what she’d do now. Able to rein in his most dangerous emotions now that she was no longer touching him, he brought the furniture back down to earth.

“Lift me,” she ordered out of nowhere.

“Brenna—”

She took a couple of steps back to give him more room. “Do it, I want to feel your…energy, differentiate it from his.” A stubborn look.

Judd had the sudden realization that if he ever saw fear of himself in Brenna’s eyes, it would break him beyond redemption. “Hold still.” He could do it while she was moving, but she might inadvertently hurt herself if she pushed forward at the wrong instant and redirected his kinetic energy.

Then he simply did it.

“Judd.” Her eyes went wide as she found herself standing in midair, two feet off the floor.

“Should I put you down?” It cost him literally nothing to do this. In fact, it lessened the dissonance because of the discipline required to govern his Tk.

“No. Take me higher.”

He obeyed. To his surprise she began to laugh. “It’s like I’m flying.” Curling up into a ball, she did a flip in the air, forcing him to concentrate even harder to compensate. At that instant, he was her personal Arrow, a slave who’d do this for as long as she wanted, just to hear her laugh.

“Do something else!” A grinning order as she returned to an upright position.

He began to press on her legs. After a second, she seemed to understand and cooperated as he took her horizontal. Now she really looked like she was flying. Her expression was both delighted and startled at the same time.

“Okay,” she said soon after. “Enough. I don’t want to wear you out.”

“I’m fine,” he said, obeying nonetheless. Because she’d asked. There could be no connection between his Tk and her lack of choice.

“Baby, I have plans for that hot bod of yours and for those plans to succeed, you’ll need all your energy,”

He made sure her landing was soft. “Did my power scare you?”

“No.” She sounded vaguely surprised. “I think it’s because he never did anything like that. He was only interested in causing pain and humiliation, not playing.”

Play. Another changeling concept. “Was that what we were doing?” He watched her cross the floor to him, graceful and deadly—Brenna Shane Kincaid could destroy him, and yet he offered no resistance when she put her hand on his chest.

“Your skin burns!” She scowled. “What’s wrong? Don’t give me any crap about it being nothing. Your irises are pure black again—the gold is gone and I can’t even distinguish the pupils. No—wait.” Her forehead wrinkled. “The irises aren’t black—they’re a deep shade of red!”

“It’s not something you have to be concerned about.”

She let out a low growl that sounded like it should’ve come from a much bigger creature. “I swear, you’re going to drive me to grievous bodily harm one of these days.”

He couldn’t resist. Reaching out, he ran his finger over her cheek, along her jaw, and down her neck, closing his hand about her neck once more. Petting. Gentling. “Then you’d have to find another hot bod.”

Her lips twitched and she raised her hand off his chest to close over the wrist of the arm holding her. “Very funny, but I’m not that easily distracted. Baby, please.”

He was almost used to being called “baby” by her. “It’s nothing you can change. Why should I burden you with it?”

“Because, my Psy darling”—she tugged off his hand and laced her fingers through it—“that’s what lovers do. Share.”

“We aren’t lovers.” He had to grasp every shred of reason available to him, because the touch of her hand against his was shoving emotion through him like a battering ram.

“Judd.”

She was so stubborn she could have been Psy. But he was even more so—he’d learned not to give away anything even under the most extreme pressure. Which was why his decision to tell her made no sense. “Each time I break Silence, there’s a feedback reaction; you know that.”

She nodded, expression solemn. “What Faith said about the pain.”

“It’s called dissonance and it accumulates.” Pain in his head, in his nerves, in his very bones. “I have to extend a certain amount of power to keep it contained.”

Brenna jerked her hand from his without warning. “In real-speak, you hurt every time I touch you, every time we connect!”

He grabbed her hand again. “It’s a programmed reaction, one I can handle.”

When she tugged this time, he didn’t allow her to get away.

“And that’s another thing,” she muttered, “how come you’re so strong?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “What happens if you try to dismantle the conditioning that causes the dissonance?”

“I can’t afford to disengage that conditioning.” An immutable fact. “I need the spikes of pain—they keep me from killing by telling me when I’m getting too close to an emotional reaction that might lead to the unintentional activation of my abilities.”

“Okay, but why can’t you get rid of the other parts of the Protocol—so you don’t get hurt for feeling things below that unsafe level?” She bit her lower lip and gave him a guilty look through her lashes. “I asked Faith for help in getting you to break Silence.”

A flare of red. “If you want to know something about me, come to me.”

“I needed some advice!”

This time, it was Judd who pulled away. Walking to the other side of the room, he turned his back to her, bracing his palms on the wall. “There is no way to break Silence. Not for me. I refuse to become a danger to you or anyone else. This—tonight—is as far as I can go.”

Brenna wanted to kick something. Instead, she went to stand behind him and, after a slight hesitation, put her hand on his muscled shoulder. His skin was a fever. It hurt her to know that her touch hurt him, but she also knew if she stopped touching him, she’d lose him to the talons of Silence. “Listen instead of doing the alpha male thing on me.”

“Hierarchy is a changeling concept.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself to his back. Then she bit him—a light graze over his naked back. He didn’t growl as a wolf male might have, but what he did was just as dominant, just as deliciously sexy. She didn’t want a puppy—she wanted a man with teeth. And Judd had plenty.

Looking over his shoulder, he gave her a dark glance. “Keep pushing and you might not like the result.”

Something sizzled under her fingertips, a thousand tiny teasing bites. Delighted, she pressed a kiss over the skin she’d bitten. Judd looked away, pressing his hands harder on the wall in front of him. It had the effect of further defining the muscles in his back.

“What was that you did?”

“A controlled use of Tk.” His voice was arctic in its extreme focus.

Dangerous, he was dangerous. Again her brain tried to tell her something important, but she was concentrating too hard on getting through to Judd. “Just listen, okay?” She kept going before he could interrupt. “I’ve been talking to Faith more than you know. She thinks that maybe Silence isn’t all bad.”

“The Protocol gives sociopaths free rein.” Words that sliced with their brutal cold.

She shivered. “That almost felt like you cut me.” The sensation had been of a knife passing close to her skin. It scared her—Santano Enrique had taunted her with his scalpels hour after hour. Sometimes he’d done more than simply taunt.

Judd turned to stone. “Stop touching me. I’m losing control.”

There was something in his voice that made her obey. She unclasped herself from him and took a couple of steps back. He didn’t turn as he spoke. “I can cause telekinetic damage that looks like a cut, literally turn my will into a blade.”

She swallowed at the image. “Okay.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said, every muscle on his back tight.

Her fear transformed into pure tenderness. God, the man was so hardheaded, so unwilling to see the truth. He’d likely kill himself before harming her and he thought he had to convince her of that? “I said it almost felt like you’d cut me. You didn’t actually.”

“So close, Brenna. Too close. You should be running, not trying to convince me to test my chains even more.”

“That’s exactly it,” she said, fisting her hands in order to keep her distance. Touch was natural to her, the lack of it unbearable. Especially where Judd was concerned. “Maybe you can choose which parts of Silence you want. Where is it written that you have to accept or reject the entire Protocol? Faith says the skills she learned under Silence help her fight the cascades triggered by bad visions.”

“What about Sascha?”

She breathed a sigh of relief—he was listening. “You know the answer. Silence was plain bad for her; it ran totally counter to her abilities. But not for Faith—”

He turned to face her at last. His expression stopped her in midsentence. “If Sascha exists, then it’s logical I do.”

“I don’t understand.” Her changeling instincts urged her to hold him to her with tactile contact. The need was so strong she had to physically force herself to pay attention.

“I’m her exact opposite.” Judd crossed his arms over that beautiful chest that made her want to stroke. “She heals. I kill. Those are our gifts.”

Anger burned through her sensuality but paradoxically stoked up the more profound hunger inside of her. Oh, how she wanted Judd Lauren. “Why do you insist on seeing yourself that way? You helped heal me, remember?” He’d “fed” Sascha his psychic strength, had often ended up totally drained, only to show up again the next day.

He waved off the reminder. “A lesser ability. My main one can be used for little else but death. For me, Silence—all of it—is necessary. As long as I can discipline my emotions, I won’t kill. Simple.”

“I don’t buy that.”

“You’ve forgotten what happened to those like me pre-Silence.”

“No, I haven’t.” The idea of her beautiful, loyal, and strong Judd spending his life alone or in a jail cell was her personal nightmare. “But they were the other extreme—no emotional control at all. I’m asking you to consider that there might be a middle way.”

Something beeped, startling her into a slight jump. Judd took a sleek silver phone from his pocket and spoke a few terse words into it. All she really cared about were the last—“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She waited until he’d hung up to ask. “Where?”

“That was Indigo. They think they’ve tracked down one of the hyenas responsible for the cabin explosion.” Picking it up off the floor, he pulled on his shirt. “They’re holding him at the cabin.”

“Why do they need you?” Her craving for touch, his touch, was a biting ache by now. Unable to resist, she closed the distance between them and began doing up the shirt buttons. “The soldiers question people all the time.” If they got the wrong answers, they did more than just question. Brenna accepted the necessity of that—in their world, mercy was often taken as weakness. Which was why the SnowDancers made certain their public face was one of vicious strength.

Judd didn’t push her away. “To scare him, what else?”

Finished with the shirt, she dropped her hands and looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His eyes hadn’t returned to normal. “Everyone in the pack has a position. You’re a tech, Riley’s a soldier, and Lara, a healer. Haven’t you ever considered what I am?”

“A soldier like my brothers,” she said, a painful knot forming in the pit of her stomach.

“The kind of soldier they call on when a mess needs to be cleaned up.”