Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(91)

She sighed. “Refusing to face reality wastes a lot of vital energy,” she said wearily. “Not to preach, or anything. Try to calm down.”

Calm down, his hairy ass. He backed away, breathing hard, and stared at her slender form, silhouetted against the last of the fading light sifting through the trees outside. And even now, underneath his distress was the pounding drumbeat of his awareness of her body, her scent, her sex. So slim and straight. Strong.

He wanted to shove her down onto the couch, rip off the muddy clothes. Pin her into the cushions beneath his weight and go at her like a rutting wild animal. He wanted to plunder and pillage and possess all her secret girl parts, with hands and tongue and cock, until she’d forgotten how pissed she was at him. Or was too exhausted to care.

But his anger was draining away, leaving sickening dread behind. His back hit the fireplace mantle. “I’ll just, ah . . . go do something useful with myself,” he said. “Before I f*ck up again.”

“Miles, please,” she called, but he stumbled into the kitchen.

There were no words for how horrified he was. He had to concentrate to steady himself. Light worked, check. Hot water heater turned on, check. He had to scrounge for clothing for her. Some food. See if there was propane in the tank to power the range. Procure some wood for a fire. That was the plan. Warm her. Feed her. Try not to hurt her, or scare her to death.

He was mortified. Coercion? Like Rudd, like Greaves. He felt like an evil spirit had possessed his body and slugged her in the face. It was exactly that bad. Hurting an innocent, injured girl, half his size. Holy f*cking shit.

He started rummaging in the shelves over the stove, behind some dusty blue gingham curtains. They yielded a can of turkey vegetable stew and a box half full of stale crackers. Now for a can opener. Some rattling in drawers with his grimy, shaking hands found him one, but when he pulled the drawer, he accidentally ripped it out of the credenza, scattering its contents over the floor with a rattling crash.

He crouched down and started picking up utensils and flatware, and stopped, staring at a rubber-handled vegetable peeler with a rusty blade. Wondering, with a sick sort of dread, if he really could . . .

Aw, f*ck it. He had to know. He concentrated, imagined the thing moving. Charged the image with energy. Jolted it, poked it, pushed it.

Nothing. At first he was relieved, but unease still tugged down on his guts like a load of dirty ice.

He thought about how it had felt, to pry open the shield. He perched on that weird inner balancing point . . . and tried it again.

It took a few minutes, but when he managed to keep it open longer than a split second, he looked at the peeler . . . pushed . . .

It trembled, jerked. Slid across the floor. Picking up speed. Whack, it smacked into the china closet on the far end of the kitchen.

Huh. He let the shield snap shut again. Well. That sucked.

So he was now dangerous to himself and others in lots of new and fascinating ways. Whoop-de-f*cking-do.

It was coercion that scared him the most. He was afraid even to think about it. Afraid he might accidentally activate it.

All he could do was hope that Lara was wrong. There was no way of proving if he had it or not without inflicting it on someone, and that he would not do, now or ever. Coercion struck him as innately evil.

Not that Aaro was evil. But Aaro was . . . well, he was just Aaro.

So he’d let the ability sit there, unused. With luck, it would atrophy. Shrivel up and just blow away. Please, God.

He picked up the rest of the silverware the old fashioned way. Fitted the warped drawer back into the credenza, and turned his attention to the stove. He sensed a blockage in the gas line. He let his perceptions sink into the workings of the machine. Opened the valve, following the gas through the hose with his senses . . . yeah, there was the place.

He opened the shield, applied pressure, turned on the sparking mechanism. Still nothing. He gave it a little tap—

Whoosh, flames roared up, outsized. Miles leaped back just in time. The blue gingham curtains caught fire.

He stared at them, dumbstruck. Holy f*ck.

“God, Miles!” Lara shoved him out of the way, yanked the blazing curtains down, and threw them into the sink. She turned the water on. The fabric hissed, steamed.

She turned to him, white faced. “Are you trying to blow us up?”

He shook his head, and coughed, to unblock his frozen throat. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. It was all that would come out.

“Oh, shit.” Lara grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him over next to the sink. “You are such a mess. Come here.”

She grabbed both his hands, still dark with mud and dried blood, and placed them under the flow of numbingly cold water.

It flowed over his forearms, pinkish, muddy, swirling over the charred blue-checked fabric. He stared at it, hypnotized by the caressing strokes of her hands. She grabbed dish soap and got into it, sudsing him up to the elbows. Making his blood-stiffened sleeves soggy.

It felt awesome. It felt sexual.

Blood kept rinsing down, until the basin, now blocked by the burned cloth, was more than half full with pinkish water.

“It doesn’t wash off,” he said.

She made a disapproving sound. “Yes, it does,” she said tartly. “It’s not innocent blood.”

“Blood is blood,” he said.

“You’re being self-indulgent.” She plucked the fabric out of the sink so it could drain. Water gurgled through the pipes.