Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)(110)

Fuck this. She was not going to let him push her away tonight.

Opposing his strength and will would take all of her energy and nerve, but she couldn’t be intimidated by the man she loved. She desperately wanted to believe they had something good going on. That they might still actually have a future.

She scattered origami animals in every direction when she got up, with no clear plan of action, just a restless hunger to be close to him and force her way through the wall he’d put up. They had no time for that shit.

She wished she still had her belly dancing outfit. That would have been good for a tension-relieving laugh. Still, thinking of her costume made her want to dress up for this. Maybe make him smile. Probably too much to hope, but hell. She could try.

She pawed through the dresser drawer where Hannah had dumped all the finery she’d gotten for Caro at the lingerie store. There was lots of silky, lacy, wispy little nothings in there to choose from. Pretty, understated, pastel. Too tasteful. Nothing that could be characterized as an in-your-face sexual weapon.

She wanted something fun, playful, loud. A bustier, a garter belt. Fishnet hose.

Then her hand brushed a little velvet bag. The mysterious object Hannah had left. She pried open the drawstring and upended a sparkling tangle of chains into her hand. At first she thought it was a necklace, but the clasps were positioned wrong.

Body jewelry. Oh, yes.

She peeled off her clothes, untangled the thing with some difficulty, and put it on. The top part was a collar, from which a long sparkling chain connected, plunging straight down between her breasts and hooking to a belt that draped low on her hips. Glittering chains draped from the belt over her hips, as well, and the belt let a richly embossed pendant dangle on her lower belly, just over her mound.

She studied at the ensemble in the mirror as she unwound her hair and shook it loose over her shoulders. The look would definitely have been improved by a Brazilian wax, but her life hadn’t permitted that kind of fancy grooming in a long time. Not that Noah had ever complained about her small puff of ringlets.

The ensemble had sort of a kinky, porno bed-slave sort of vibe. Perfect.

She shrugged on the peach silk dressing gown that Hannah had deemed essential for her emergency wardrobe, and padded down the corridor to the room where Noah had been retreating to do his analog dives.

She paused before entering, about to knock. But he never bothered to knock when he came to her at night. Why should she?

The room was dark, but enough moonlight filtered in to show Noah’s long, powerful frame, stretched out on the bed. He was stripped down to a pair of loose sweat pants which rode low on his hips. The room was chilly, but even naked to the waist, he radiated heat.

She moved closer, drinking him in, her gaze moving over the sensual contours of his massive chest and shoulders. He was lost in silent meditation, so deeply he didn’t seem to hear the sigh of the door or her barefoot tiptoeing. His body heat intensified with every step she took. She felt like banks of blazing stadium spotlights were switching on and lighting her up, one after the other, in the deepest levels of her being.

Everything about him pulled her.



*



The new analog dive was in place, every element chosen to do exactly what Noah needed it to do to stay chilled, sharp, in perfect control. The summit was just over that outcropping. Jagged fingers of of black rock poked through the powdery snow that crunched under his boots. At the summit, the soaring peaks of the mountainscape would calm both body and mind. One last step—

Fuck. He reeled back from an unexpected cliff. A volcanic crater lay below him, exhaling steam, gray with ash. At its heart, a gaping cave glowed a hot, wounded red.

Another imbed. So his new analogs were compromised, too.

Flinching away from the imbeds never worked. He had to stare that bad bastard down, and see what happened. Even if it hurt.

He descended into the crater. His boots kicked up clouds of ash as he got closer to the cave, coughing from the acrid fumes.

To the side was a larger opening. Light blazed out. Not the sullen red glow. This light was paler, yellowish. Like sunlight.

He moved closer, steeling himself, and peered through the opening. Cracked asphalt, baking in desert sunshine. His mind fought it, but this place was too much a part of him not to recognize it. The grocery store parking lot. A waffle house down the block, a used car dealership, a dollar store. Cheap, prefab structures of fake adobe, aging fast in the pitiless sun.

The wet, hollow thwack of a baseball bat, connecting with a skull.

He turned, braced to see the grizzled man, his face splattered with Dad’s blood.

It wasn’t him. It was Mark clutching the bloodied baseball bat, grinning wildly. And it was Caro who lay crumpled and bloody and still at his feet. Her head caved in.

Noah? Noah, do you hear me?

He exploded upright, startled back into the physical world, his fist stopping just before it connected. She jerked back, and thudded to the floor on her ass.

“Never touch me when I’m having a flashback, Caro! I could have killed you!”

She recoiled. “I . . . I’m sorry!” Her sig tightened to a clot of anxious greens and grays. “I didn’t know it was a flashback. You called out my name, so I thought—”

“You scared the living shit out of me!” He flung his arm out, sweeping the a ceramic lamp off the night table, sending it crashing to the floor.

“Yo!” Sisko’s voice floated up from downstairs. “What’s up?”