Julian's Jeopardy

Chapter Seven

Sheridan held up her hands. “I'm going to touch you. A light stroking outward from the direction of your heart to your extremities. It's both physical and metaphysical. Some call it a lot of bunk, but it works for me. Bear with me, okay?” Olivia nodded.

“You're much more open to this than I would have expected.”

“Let's just say I try to keep an open mind about what most of the world considers 'bunk.'” But Olivia's smile said otherwise.

It was too much to expect Olivia to believe her without proof. But she'd see soon enough.

Sheridan didn't try to convince her of anything more. Instead, she trailed her hands over Olivia's shoulders, down her arms, and to her hands. After a few passes, she worked from the tops of Olivia's thighs to her ankles. The heat of normalcy, of good health, felt right. This was where Sheridan excelled.

This was where she felt at home.

“Hey, I think you're on to something there. I feel, I don't know, warmer.” Olivia sounded surprised. She experienced Sheridan's small trespass of healing. Not that Olivia needed much, just a refresher to tired muscles.

“Relax,” Sheridan advised. “I'm going to make a few more passes. One over your head, then one more over your torso, and we'll be done.” Except when Sheridan passed a hand over Olivia's head, she felt a strong burst of heat. A mass of energy that pulsed with a strange paranormal power that nearly rocked her back on her heels.

“You okay?” Olivia asked.

Sheridan shook her head to clear it. “Fine, fine. Must have locked my knees. I just felt a moment of dizziness.” Idiot. The woman’s some kind of psychic. She'd felt that same intensity yesterday, when she was in the room with everyone. But was it a Circ trait? Were all these people gifted? Sheridan quickly bypassed Olivia's temples and breezed over her face and neck. A light touch over Olivia's chest and abdomen proved Olivia to be in remarkable health. So strong, so sure. So Circ.

Sheridan found the contrast between a normal human's energy and Circ energy fascinating. Still, Olivia didn't jolt her libido the way Jules had, nor did the woman return the energy Sheridan slowly expended while touching her.

Sheridan cleared her throat, suddenly feeling awkward. “Sorry if my touch feels intrusive. I'm not trying to be fresh.”

Olivia chuckled. “Keep going. This actually feels good.” Sheridan smiled, feeling more secure. This was child's play, stuff she'd been building on and improving on since she was a little girl. She knew how to heal, how to stimulate a body's own energy to repair itself. Using her gift both drained her and thrilled her. She moved her hands to Olivia's stomach.

And then she felt a flutter in Olivia's energy. She paused, instinctively tuned in to the odd vibration that shouldn't have been there.

“What's wrong?” Olivia asked. “You seem worried.”

“Not worried, just interested.” Sheridan cocked her head, trying to make sense of what she felt.

Jesse Fallon burst through the door not a minute later. “What's wrong?”

“Shush, I can't… Wait a minute.” Sheridan pressed her fingers down onto Olivia's belly, but she didn't push hard. She rubbed the pads of her fingers in a circle, needing to feel more. “Olivia, I need to see something. Your energy is different. Hold on.” She pushed Olivia's shirt up to bare her midriff, then let her fingers dance over the woman's lower abdomen.

“What the hell, Fallon? You left me high and dry back there,” Tersch's loud voice barked from the doorway.

Sheridan had a hard time thinking of him as Gunnar. Tersch sounded like terse. Just like the man.

“Oh, wow. What's this? Girl-on-girl action?”

“Shut up, Gunnar. Something's wrong,” Olivia snapped.

“What? What's wrong?” Jesse growled. “Sheridan, talk.”

“Nothing's wrong.” Sheridan let the power of her energy soak through Olivia, warming the new life just beginning. “Something's very, very right.” She stepped back and rubbed her hands together to ease the tingling.

Jesse nudged past her and pulled Olivia into a sitting position. “What's wrong with my wife?” he growled.

Sheridan glanced from them to Tersch, not sure whether to tell them all or to keep the news in private, for Olivia at least. It was Olivia's exam, after all, and Olivia's body that would feel those changes for the next eight months.

Jesse paled.

Is he reading my thoughts? “Um, I would tell you this in private, but you seem to be a family, so maybe I could just—”

“Spit it out, Doc.” Tersch's command brooked no refusal.

When Olivia nodded as well, Sheridan gave in and smiled. “Congratulations, Olivia. You're going to become a mother in another eight months or thereabouts.”

Jesse's eyes grew as round as saucers, and his grin stretched from ear to ear.

Olivia's mouth dropped open. Tersch blinked in amazement, then frowned in what looked like disbelief.

“Olivia, to verify your pregnancy, I'd like you to take this.” Sheridan dug through a nearby drawer for the pregnancy test she'd seen earlier. Someone had been thinking of a future for the Circs, apparently. “I believe the bathroom is that way.”

Jesse didn't speak. Sheridan had a feeling she'd blindsided him.

Olivia squealed, jumped off the table, and grabbed the box from Sheridan's hands. She turned and kissed Jesse on the mouth before hightailing it into the bathroom.

“Shit. Mates, babies. Where does it all end?” Tersch slapped Jesse on the back and glanced at Sheridan. “Of course, this could be a bullshit story to distract us from what you're really doing here.”

It took Sheridan a moment to understand. Tersch was suspicious of her motives for being there. She hadn't considered any of them would actually think her possible of harming them. She glanced down at herself, then up at his six-six frame.

“I'm sorry?”

“No man,” Jesse rasped. “She's right. There's been something off with Olivia.

Nothing bad, just a different scent. She's richer, if that make sense.” His flushed cheeks made him look that much more attractive.

But still not as good-looking as Jules.

Jesse's gaze shot to her face, and he grinned.

She didn't want to think about the smile he sent her, because the smugness of it suggested his grin had less to do with his own happy news and more to do with what she'd just been thinking.

The object of her affection soon arrived with Morgan and Kisho in trail. “One minute we're sparring. The next, half the team disappears. What's up?” Jules glanced at his men before fixating on Sheridan.

His appraisal made her warm—and wet.

“Man, is it hot in here or what?” Jesse asked.

“Dude, it's freakin' weird in here,” Tersch muttered. “Jules is staring at the new doc like he's about three seconds from doing her. The annoying twins have been flirting with each other instead of fighting with each other all morning.” He frowned at Kisho and Morgan, who winked at him. “And now Olivia's pregnant.” The others froze. Jules arched a brow at Sheridan.

She nodded. “Olivia is confirming the diagnosis.”

“Pregnant? But, how?” Jules asked.

“Dude, do we really need to have this conversation?” Tersch asked his team leader.

“Ass. I meant, how did the good doctor know?” Jules growled.

“Hell if I know.” Jesse shrugged. “Olivia called me, scared.” He tapped his head, confirming what Sheridan had suspected. Jesse Fallon was a telepath, which explained his timely arrival.

“Scared, why?” Jules asked, suspicion in his tone.

Tersch answered with a shit-eating grin. “Maybe because your girlfriend was feeling her up.”

Sheridan wanted to sink into the floor when Tersch said girlfriend, mostly because she wanted it to be true. I am so pathetic.

As one, the men stared at Sheridan in speculation. The look on Jules's face was positively carnal.

“Feeling her up, hmm?” he rasped and licked his lips.

For God’s sake, I look like a frump. They can’t possibly be imagining me and Olivia together.

“Oh yeah, we are,” Jesse murmured. “Never thought Olivia would go for that, or I'd have suggested it before.”

“Holy crap. You read my mind. I mean, you really read my mind.” She blushed and refused to look at Jules. Please tell me I didn’t think about him in any way but platonically.

“Oh no. You've been having all kinds of interesting thoughts about him,” Jesse answered with a chuckle.

Her face felt hot, and she didn't know what to say. The wicked look on Jules's face spoke volumes, and she just knew Jesse had told Jules how much she wanted him.

A moment of silence passed. Sheridan desperately tried to raise her inner shields, hoping the thought of blocking everyone out would work since she'd never had to deal with such an invasion of privacy before. She was marginally satisfied when Jesse frowned at her.

“Stop it.” She said and avoided Jules's hot stare. “I work with my hands.

Massage is an accepted form of therapy, and one I use in my practice. I was touching Olivia's stomach when I felt her energy bunch.” Fortunately, Olivia interrupted the awkward moment by bounding out of the bathroom chanting, “I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant! I am so pregnant!” She flew into Jesse's arms, and the pair kissed each other with so much love and affection, it brought tears to Sheridan's eyes.

She wanted to give them a moment to themselves and backed away. Right into Jules.

He grabbed her arm and tugged her with him and the others, minus the happy couple, out into the hallway. “You better not have hurt her.”

“Jules, ease up,” Morgan said, frowning at Jules's tight grip on her arm.

“Shut up. Sheridan, tell me you didn't hurt her.”

Offended he, of all people, would accuse her of that, she wrenched her arm away and glared at him. “I don't hurt people. I help them.”

“What are you saying?”

Should she tell him what she'd heard? What if he decided she knew too much and treated her like a liability? But as she looked at him, really looked at him, she saw the beast in his eyes staring out at her with longing. Damned if she wasn't a sucker for that possessive animal inside him. Jules's beast had protected her in the jungle. But, she admitted, it was the man who had made sweet love to her. She couldn't believe the worst of him. And why should she? Because Raul had said so?

“You know what? I don't care what you think.”

Jules grabbed her hand and laid it on his cheek. “There it is—the heat.” The dark satisfaction on his face alarmed her, because he raised an answering lust in her own body. One that felt distinctly unnatural. That link that had been between them in the jungle still remained. She tried to pull back.

“No, touch Hayashi. Right there,” he said, pointing at Hayashi's arm, “at the break.”

Morgan opened his mouth to retort when Kisho nodded. “Do it. I'm curious.

What am I supposed to feel, Jules?”

“You tell me.”

Sheridan didn't want to, but she couldn't help sensing Kisho's newly healing fracture. The need to fix the break gave her a much-needed diversion, and before she knew it, she'd moved closer. She touched Kisho's arm, then grasped it firmly in her hands, concentrating on mending the bone until it healed completely.

“Oh, wow. That is so good,” Kisho said on a groan. “Her hands are so hot.”

“But what do you feel?” Jules asked, his voice strangely tight.

“Warm, peaceful. Like I'm floating on the water, just floating.” Sheridan wanted to step away, but her work wasn't done. Screw Jules and his suspicions. “Let me see your ribs.”

Morgan lifted Kisho's shirt. “I distracted him, and the Viking asshole took advantage,” Morgan muttered, scowling at Tersch.

“Hey, not my fault you two can't keep your dicks down while we're playing.”

“Training, Tersch. Not playing,” Jules reminded him tautly. “But I find it interesting Sheridan knew about Kisho's ribs and that she heals by touch. Because it wasn't so long ago that I met a woman who could do that.” Kisho flinched. “Sorry, Sheridan, but that hurt. Ahhh. Now it's better. Damn, that's nice.” He sighed and covered her hand with his own. “Thank you.”

“You don't feel any attraction to her? Not horny as hell?” Jules persisted.

“Jules.” Sheridan frowned.

“Hell, no.” Kisho shook his head. “Sorry, Sheridan. No offense, but Morgan's enough for me.”

“Damn straight.” Morgan winked at her.

“Well, isn't that interesting.” Jules sounded way too pleased for her peace of mind.

Sheridan took her hands away and blinked up at Kisho, a little woozy from all the energy she'd pushed into him. Kisho's sincere appreciation made her smile. And then she realized what Jules had said. He recognized the connection they shared.

He remembered her and the sexual connection she was helpless to deny. Great. As if he needed one more advantage over her.

“Crap.”

Jules rumbled low in his throat. “I've missed you, baby. Now why don't we make up for lost time?” He showed her a lot of fang…and little patience.

Jules's hunger grew as a wash of new memories flashed through his mind.

Small pieces, but put together, they showed him a woman who'd healed at him at great expense to herself. Her hands over his body, healing his wounded groin. Then the bliss she'd given him before she had to leave and hide from the guards. The marks he'd seen on her body, the abuse she'd suffered at the hands of Montaña, that bastard.

Sheridan had taken his pain the same way she'd taken Hayashi's. She'd made him better, and she'd taken him to bliss, only to disappear after he'd saved her life.

Why had she left him? What had happened after they'd separated? He had to know.

He scowled. “We met a mutant in the jungle. He tried to kill us.” The others around them stilled, staring from Jules to Sheridan. To my mate, his beast purred.

He stopped her when she tried to turn away. “Don't, Sheridan. They have a right to know who you are and what you did to help me.”

“I'm going to be a father!” Fallon shouted and laughed as he exited the lab room with Olivia. The pair stopped and stared at the tense scene.

“I know.” Jules grinned through his teeth. “The way you two go at it, it's no surprise. And speaking of surprises, guess where I first met Sheridan Keyes?” Olivia grinned. “I've been waiting for this. What a day!” Sheridan tried to scoot away, but Jules latched on to her wrist and held firm.

He wouldn't release her. Not now. Hell, maybe not ever.

“Oh boy,” Fallon muttered.

“In the damned jungle, that's where.” Jules turned to growl at Sheridan. “For a while after I got back, I thought I was losing my fucking mind. But then I remembered you. You were there. Montaña hurt me. And you healed me, several times, I think. It's still fuzzy. I do remember us running from rogues. But I don't know what the hell happened after I tangled with that mutant.” Tersch blurted, “Holy fuck,” and seemed to blanch before Sheridan's eyes. “You telling me you really fought with a mutant? I thought that was the drugs talking. I mean, I believed you about the rogues, but even I have trouble with mutants.” He grinned. “You really are a badass, aren't you, boss?” Then his eyes narrowed.

“Sheridan was with you in Brazil? In the same compound as Montaña?”

“Or wherever we were.” Jules pulled her closer, his beast needing to be let loose. “She disappeared. And yet, here she is. Same blue eyes, same red hair. Same sweet scent.” He wanted her, ached to have her.

“Jules,” Olivia said on a breath. “Um, you're not just emoting. You're pushing another mating heat.”

“I'm more than up for it.” Fallon grinned. “Come on, Olivia. Let's go upstairs and celebrate the baby.” He turned to Jules. “You need to talk to your girlfriend, because I'm catching snippets of a helluva lot she has to say. Guys, let Jules handle this.”

Sheridan groaned. “Stop reading my mind.”

“Then stop projecting so loudly,” Fallon answered with a gentle smile. “And thanks for whatever you did for Olivia. She feels much better. But next time, I want to watch all of it. I wouldn't mind a little more skin on skin.”

“For God's sake, Jesse.” Olivia blushed a bright pink.

“Hey, me too. Don't forget I'm family,” Tersch whined.

Morgan added under his breath, “More like the black sheep or a mongrel dog.” He shoved Hayashi between them when Tersch lunged for him. “Come on, Tersch.

You can take it out on me upstairs. I'm feeling generous.”

“Asshole.”

“If you're lucky,” Morgan murmured, and Hayashi grinned.

“You guys are a riot.” Jules tugged Sheridan with him and had a sense of déjà vu, since he'd grabbed her the same way just last night. “I need some time to talk to my girlfriend. Unless you're on fire, don't bother me.”

“Sure thing, hoss,” Morgan said with a salute just before Tersch grabbed him around the neck and put him into a headlock.

Sheridan sputtered the whole way to his room. He didn't care. Jules didn't want to hear anything but yes and more on her sultry lips. To finally have her here in his arms, to finally, fully believe he hadn't imagined it, that his beast had fixated on a real woman for a reason, made him feel worlds better. But it didn't alleviate the need in his blood or the ache in his cock for her.

Once in his room, he closed and locked the door behind them. He turned to face her and stripped out of his clothes. With each article that fell to the ground, her eyes grew wider.

“Take off your clothes.”

“Wh-what, but I—”

“Do it,” he growled, unable to tolerate a moment more of anything between him and her body.

She slowly stripped, exposing more and more of her soft flesh to his gaze.

“Look at yourself,” he told her and guided her toward the large mirror in his bathroom.

So hard he hurt, he crowded her against the bathroom counter. “Don't move.” The sight of her full breasts and tight nipples brought the beast quickly to the surface. He wanted to bite, to suck, to taste. Jules lifted a hand and watched as his claws slowly emerged. He ran a sharp nail over her shoulder, ultracareful not to break her skin or in any way harm her.

She froze under his hands, but the scent of her lust increased. Curious to see how far he could go, he turned her so that she was belly down on the counter. He didn't make any sudden moves, waiting to see if she'd protest.

She didn't, and his desire increased.

“Stay right like that,” he growled around his emerging canines. God, he was so hard. Have to have her. His beast wanted. Badly.

Wildflowers and female musk filled his head. Sheridan apparently liked him telling her what to do. And he suddenly couldn't wait any longer.

“What do you want from me?” Sheridan's whisper sounded more like an invitation. She spread her thighs and moaned, and the heat of her sex teased him to move closer.

“I think the question is, what do you want from me?” he rasped and angled the head of his cock between her full folds. “You want this, baby? You're wet, and I'm hard and hot. I'm aching for that pussy. I need it,” he rumbled, feeling her moisture coating his cockhead. Heaven and hell in the same breath. A torturous tease with every second he didn't come inside her.

“Oh. Oh yes,” she moaned, squirming to get him deeper inside her.

The right answer. Fuck, yes. “Well you're going to get it. All of it. Oh, yeah.

This first time, it's going to be hard and fast. And then we're going to take it nice and slow.”

He didn't wait to hear more as he slid inch by inch deep inside her wet pussy, careful not to hurt her. She was so incredibly tight.

Sheridan cried out and ground her ass against him, wriggling to get closer as he crammed her full.

“Please,” she begged, and he lost it.

Jules pulled out and rammed back in, his balls tight, his shaft pulsing with the need to bury himself inside her.

“I'm going to fill you, Sheridan. Full of my cum.” Just the thought of it turned him inside out. He pounded into her, gripping her lush hips as he fucked her with a ferocity that amazed even him. His beast raged to cement ties, to push himself inside the female and coat her with his scent until she belonged.

Finesse, affection, tenderness—none of that mattered but proving to himself that Sheridan was real, she was here, right now, and that she was his.

Irrational and beyond caring, Jules fucked her harder until he reached climax.

He shuddered inside her, caught in a lust so extreme, he couldn't think as he emptied himself.

When the raging need tapered enough to think again, he realized he remained erect inside her, wanting more. Sheridan hadn't yet come, and she quivered beneath him.

Shocked he might have hurt her, he took a moment to regroup.

She moaned. “Don't stop, not yet.”

Her slight whimper aroused him anew, relief and desire commingling to allow him the control he needed to do this right.

Jules withdrew and pulled her upright. Wrapping his arm around her body, he forced her to watch them in the mirror. “I'm bigger than you, stronger than you, and I'm going to demand things from you that you won't want to give,” he growled, his beast riding him hard.

Her slighter, paler hand covered his. She grabbed his fingers as if to take his hand away.

He reached for her breast and squeezed, and her head fell back against his shoulder. “I love your hair.”

Her breath hitched. “I didn't think you'd recognize me. The drugs in your system were so strong. Even my healing didn't fully temper them.”

“You think I'd forget you?”

“I'm not much to look at,” she said, shocking him.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He stared at her in the mirror, taken with the sexual kitten lolling against him. Any man's wet dream come to life, and she thought she wasn't much to look at?

He tightened his grip and pinched her nipple as punishment for such foolish thoughts. Instead of crying out, she arched into his hand, aroused by the pain. He couldn't help himself, and with his other hand, he sought out the wet heat between her legs, deeply gratified by his seed that mingled with her arousal.

“You're a wet little liar, aren't you, Sheridan?”

“No,” she rasped as he shoved a finger inside her and thrust his cock against her lower back.

“Yes, you are. Because you know how hot you are, how my friends lusted after that hot little ass, those big breasts. And you love what I'm doing to you, don't you?

You like me rough. You're wet and so ripe. You want to come, don't you, baby?” He began fucking her with his finger while he pinched her nipple, alternating points of pressure until she cried out for more.

“Please. Jules, I need you.”

“How much? Enough to tell me where you've been all this time? To tell me what happened after the mutant attack? Or how about why you were at that fucking compound to begin with?” Jules inserted a second finger inside her, enthralled by the carnal scene reflected back at him in the mirror. “Look at us.

Remember how good it was when you rode me in the middle of the wild? Yeah, that I remembered. You took me, let me come deep inside you. So why did you leave me in that hotel? Why not come with me, unless you had something to hide? My beast knows who you really are, baby.”

Mine.

He didn't give her a chance to answer. Instead, he removed his hands and dragged her to the bed. There, he shoved her down and knelt on the floor between her splayed legs. A feast for the senses was all he could think as he stared down at her glistening pussy.

Jules kissed his way up her thighs and clamped his mouth over her ripe clit.

He sucked hard, gratified by her moans and pleas for more. He ate her out, licking and sucking, relishing the taste of his seed over her. The beast inside him fully emerged, and Jules gave him his head.

The female should never have left him. And this time, she'd learn better than to try to escape again.