Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)(28)

She cradled his head against her chest, feeling his sweat on her fingertips. It was true. He would just keep at it, making her come until she totally melted, and just wait for his own satisfaction indefinitely. Until she demanded that he take it.

“I want to go down on you,” he coaxed. “Let me get those jeans off you.”

She stroked his hair, soothing the rigid tension in his shoulders. He’d just driven her to a blinding orgasm twice, in minutes. An orgasm that redefined for her what an orgasm was. With her luck, it might never happen again. She intended to make the most of this.

“I think I could relax a little more if we were someplace private,” she said shyly. “It’s weird, having your admin staff right outside the door.”

“Fine.” He lifted himself up, and grabbed the phone as she adjusted her clothing. “Harriet? Yes, we’re all done here. You, Karen and Aurelia can all go. I appreciate you staying so late. Don’t forget to put in for overtime. Stanley’s waiting downstairs for you, and . . . . yes, thanks very much. Say hi to Philip for me.” He set down the phone. “Our chaperones are leaving.”

Caro’s face heated as she slid off the desk. “Do you think they heard?”

“No. I had the room soundproofed a while ago. For corporate security,” he added when she looked at him sideways. “Not for this.”

She burst into laughter. “So what was the point of chaperones in the first place?”

“Hey. Give me credit for going through the motions.” He retrieved her coat from the floor, and held it up, feeling the layered hump of foam padding sewn into it. “Looks very natural,” he commented. “Professional work.”

“No questions,” she reminded him swiftly.

“Right.” He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a small bottle that contained contact lenses. In a few practiced moves, he’d applied them. He shrugged on a coat, slid his dark glasses into the pocket, and picked up her duffel bag. “Shall we?”

Sure enough, the luminous gold glints of his eyes were gone, transformed into inky darkness. She shook herself out of her fascinated trance. “One moment, please.”

She twisted up her loosened hair and tugged her wig on over it. Jammed the wide-brimmed hat over the top. Then the jaw-changing thing for her mouth. Pop, suck, and it was in. Then the glasses. Done.

They were both wearing their respective armor now.

He scrutinized her. “Are you trying to beat facial recog bots?” he asked. “I could give you pointers on how to do it better.”

“Don’t get tricky with me,” she warned. “The rules are the rules.”

“I’ll be good,” he said easily.

“You saw through my outfit this afternoon,” she said. “How did you do that?”

“Any kind of disguise jumps out at me. You know those online ads with GIFs that jiggle? Disguises look like that to me. But your camouflauge is pretty effective, all in all. Inappropriate for this context, but good in theory.”

Great. She’d managed to get herself seduced by the guy with X-ray eyes.

They walked through the deserted offices, and waited for the elevator. She kept her gaze down, partly because of the security cameras, but mostly out of embarrassment.

The silent walk out to the parking garage felt so purposeful, so deliberate. Never in her life had she gone after sex so shamelessly. Just met a guy, and decided to do the deed. That had always happened in the context of a relationship. One that she could fool herself into thinking had a chance to go somewhere.

They never did, of course. Sooner or later, she managed to scare any would-be boyfriend away. She eventually got blindsided by a stress-induced vision, and could never hide her reaction fast enough. It freaked them out. Invariably.

She hoped she could manage not to scare this guy away, at least not tonight. Not until she had gotten herself a nice stiff dose of his sexy magic. Something suggested to her that he was way different from any of the other guys she’d been with.

It was ironic, that this relationship had no place to go at all.

She’d blocked all the exits herself.



*



Mark stared down at the GodsEye safe that Lydia had failed to open for him. It was squat and ugly. He’d even say it looked smug, sitting on the floor. Taunting him.

He mentally reviewed every word of the conversation he’d had with. Masks, the general said. Caroline invited him to an art show that featured masks. It made sense. She was a rabbit, a coward. She needed a mask to cringe behind.

Masks. To find something hidden, all one needed was the right filter.

Mark adjusted the light on his monitor. It would look like a dead screen to an unmod, but anything brighter than near black and his AVP would zap him into a fugue state.

He’d woken to some gory messes after fugue freak-outs, but he’d gotten expert at cleaning up after himself. Mayhem drained excess toxic energy. It allowed him to masquerade as a normal member of society. When he bothered to.

He took off his glasses and peeled off his shirt, to mitigate the AVP temperature spike. He popped out his shield lenses. Naked eyes were better for digital info dumps. Worth the nervous jitters that followed. It wasn’t as if he slept, anyway.

He logged into Caroline’s Facebook page, though there wasn’t much point in it. She hadn’t posted since she disappeared eight months ago, but he still periodically prowled her feeds. Mostly posts from her nothing friends’ pathetic lives.