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  And nothing else. No arousal. No desire—thank God, no lust—and relief weakened Kat’s knees until she slid to the floor with a soft thump. “You can’t feel it.”

  “Uh, feel what?”

  Adrenaline was making it worse. Her heart pounded until the world throbbed with it, and she couldn’t make herself look at Julio. Not with Andrew a few feet away, intense and barely contained. She had to wet her lips twice to speak. “Andrew?”

  His answer shouldn’t have been an answer at all. “Julio, get out.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kat caught a glimpse of Julio scrambling toward the door. A moment later it slammed shut, and she sucked in a breath. No, panted. She was panting, tiny hitching breaths as the intensity of the need between them twisted again. “He couldn’t feel it.” It was important. She knew it was important.

  Andrew closed the distance between them, towering over her in a way that sent her base instincts wild. “I feel it,” he said, and Kat forgot why anything else could possibly be important as he lifted her, pinned her to the sheetrock with his hips and groaned.

  For a terrifying second, Kat thought she might come from the sound alone.

  The sheer insanity of her response woke reason. They couldn’t do this. His skin was hot under her hands, arms bare, muscles flexing as he held her up, but they couldn’t do this, couldn’t fall into each other like helpless, rutting fools every time a stray fantasy caught either of them. It was absurd. Untenable. Like living the porno version of their lives, where every situation dissolved into impractical sex.

  It was getting worse. She hadn’t even touched him this time, not until he was already hard, caught in the grip of whatever made her dig her fingernails into his shoulders and whimper every time he ground against her. Lust. Blind lust, and not romantic at all when they didn’t have a choice.

  Desperation seized her, and she squeezed her eyes shut and ignored her body, shut it out with discipline borne of training under Callum’s strict tutelage. He’d put her through hell, but nothing so hard as this. Nothing like trying to ignore the sweet, dark thrill of her back against the wall and Andrew’s hips redefining the meaning of bliss with every perfectly timed rock.

  Finding a half-trance was damn near impossible. Stretchy yoga pants were faint protection from the jean-covered erection grinding between her thighs, and Andrew liked grinding into her too much. Throbbing heat gave way to little bursts of sensation, pleasure thick with the anticipation of release, and Kat fought for the will to continue. She wanted this, wanted every second he touched her, every scrap of emotion that bled from him, even the feral possession, especially the ravenous, animal need—

  —but she wanted more. More than lust. She wanted him to choose her.

  Whispering his name, she twisted the power flooding her and let it go, invoking the filter that bled feeling into color.

  With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see the effects, but she could feel them. The emotional silence echoed, like the quiet after a violent explosion. It took a moment for her to connect to her own body again, to find the physical sensations that had seemed pale compared to the psychic maelstrom.

  Or maybe not so pale. Warm tension pooled between her legs, and she moaned when the tiniest shift of her hips rubbed her against Andrew. “Oh…”

  Instead of backing away or putting her down, he groaned again and caught her mouth in a blistering, hungry kiss. Teeth scraped her lower lip, and the growling noise he made in his throat drove her mouth open on an answering gasp. Then it was his tongue, hot and dangerously intent, and by the time she found the willpower to tear away, she couldn’t think.

  Hell, she couldn’t breathe.

  It made her words come out husky and halting. “Did it—I tried to stop it—”

  “Open your eyes, Kat,” he rasped. “Look at me.”

  So much color.

  She had to squint until the first flare faded into a brilliant aura of greens and blues and silvers and golds. He glowed when he looked at her, and it wasn’t the usual reds of lust and love, because what he felt for her wasn’t a clean human emotion.

  Andrew was the colors of the wild edged in passion and jagged pieces of pain and need sharp enough to cut, and it stole her breath when she realized it was all real. Not a product of her empathy, not a passing affection magnified a thousandfold by an endless loop.

  He loved her, even with the rough edges scratching away at his soul.

  His brows drew together in a frown. “You look like you can’t believe I haven’t stomped off yet.”

  “It’s…” Words failed her, as she watched the colors tremble in the air between them. “You’re like the aurora borealis. On acid. I could get drunk on you.”

  His frown faded into confusion. “The synesthesia again?”

  When she touched his cheek, this time, she felt it all. Warm skin. The scratch of his beard. Giddy pleasure at such a simple feeling sent laughter bubbling up. “It’s not a perfect solution, but I thought…I thought without the backlash, and the feedback loop, that you wouldn’t be so out of control. That you could choose.”

  “Choose what, you?” He rubbed his face against her hand. “I did. I would. It’s not about me being out of control, not like that.”

  “I don’t think you’d usually choose against the wall, in front of Julio.”

  “No,” he admitted, “but it’s not the end of the world, either. Julio understands.”

  She stroked his cheek again, thrilling at the quiet intimacy in the gesture that stood in such stark contrast to the sheer sexuality of their position. “I’m only good at understanding feelings in a vacuum. When they’re clear and external and not terribly personal. It’s messy, when they’re mine. Or about me. And after everything…it’s so easy to worry that maybe you didn’t want me like that. That I’d…I’d forced you to want me.”

  Andrew laughed and shook his head. “That’s what you worry about? That I wouldn’t want you if you weren’t getting your horny feelings all over me?”

  Her cheeks warmed, accompanied by the bite of embarrassment. “If you’ve been having horny feelings about me all this time, you’ve been keeping them nice and bottled up. For all I knew, I was just turning you into a deviant with me.”

  “That’s bullshit. And completely hilarious.” He glided his thumbs over her heated cheeks and smiled. “You’re not a deviant. And me wanting you isn’t dependent on the empathic feedback you’re throwing at me. It’s there all the time.”

  “Oh, I might be a little deviant.” Turning her head, she caught his thumb between her teeth for a heartbeat before releasing him. “You just don’t know because you haven’t managed to get naked with me yet.”

  His voice dropped to a murmur. “It means a lot to you, doesn’t it? Both of us being in control?”

  “Maybe not both of us. But one of us. One of us has to be in control.” She nipped at his thumb again. “Maybe not always the same person…but we’re too dangerous to both just let everything go.”

  “Are we?” His lips skimmed her collarbone, and oh God, she felt it this time, felt it like a full-body shock, like touching a doorknob after dragging her feet across her living room carpet. Her head thumped against the wall as she tried to push closer to his mouth, wanting more. Everything.

  He danced kisses up her throat and jaw, and his mouth met hers again, this time in a slow exploration that was everything she’d ever imagined in her hazy, girlish daydreams. Intense and careful, and going on and on until her lips felt too sensitive and growing urgency forced tiny whimpers from her as she squirmed closer.

  He lifted his head finally, his jaw clenched, his throat working. “Control.” He touched her mouth again and squeezed his eyes shut. “You’re right. One of us has to have it.”

  Color flared with the wild intensity of a star going nova, and Kat framed his face and kissed his chin as his love for her danced through the air. “Me. I can have it right now. Put me down, Andrew, and trust me.”

  He groaned, but did
as she asked. “I trust you.”

  Oh, the power. Her hands shook with it as she spread both hands against his chest and urged him backwards. Not so far, just until his shoulders hit the wall he’d been sanding.

  Then she smoothed her hands down and hooked them in his belt as she dropped to her knees.

  Strong hands gathered her hair, tangled in the locks. “This is what you want to do?”

  “Yes.” She eased his belt open, then tugged at the zipper, shivering as the teeth parted. “Next time, you can be in control.”

  “Never,” he rasped. “I’ll never be in control with you looking at me like that.”

  Her own control was under full-scale assault, but she clung to it by a thread as she eased down his boxers and freed his erection.

  With the synesthesia, teasing him was as easy as painting by the numbers. Touch here for need, stroke there for blind lust, mix them together and hear him groan as the air danced in brilliantly colored fractals. Surely stuffy, proper Callum had never imagined such a use for it. But it was effortless and perfect, and when she smiled up at him and applied her tongue to all of those newly discovered sensitive spots, the way he groaned and tensed made her reevaluate her list of favorite hobbies. Surely this should find a place near the top—watching the colors flare as Andrew came to pieces under her mouth and hands.

  She loved it when his fingers tightened, pulling at her hair as he guided her movements, showing her what he liked. Still a dominant wolf, under the skin, and it drove her determination to higher levels. Even on her knees, she could bring him to his.

  Maybe she lacked the technical proficiency to go down on him in deep-throating style, but she followed the eddies of his emotions until she found the perfect balance of stroking hands and tongue, unable to tear her gaze from his face as he dropped his head back and whispered her name.

  Then his hips began to move, tiny thrusts that took him a bit deeper into her mouth.

  He couldn’t stop himself. He was helpless. Putty in her hands.

  She loved it.

  Andrew started to talk—soft, sweet words interspersed with expletives, dirty pleas that fell just short of being commands. He tensed, moaned, and finally pulled her hair painfully. “Kat, holy fuck.”

  For the first time she wished for telepathy. She couldn’t reply, couldn’t whisper that she was dying to see him come. To see ecstasy steal over his face as he came undone under her touch. To speak she’d have to stop, and nothing was worth that.

  Instead she applied her mouth with increased fervor, moaning her encouragement as she tried to put all the things she couldn’t say into her eyes. Come and now and maybe even I love you.

  He came with a shout and a thud as his head banged back against the wall, not once but twice. A shudder ran through him, and he clutched her hair even tighter.

  Every sense was alive. Filled with him—the taste of his release on her tongue, the smell of his aftershave, his panting moans and the grip of his fingers tugging helplessly at loose strands of her hair. And the sight of him…open and overwhelmed, sated by her touch and alive with light and colors only she could see.

  The perfect moment, crystal clear and all hers. Whatever came next, she’d have this—the moment she knew he belonged to her.

  Andrew laid a trembling hand on her cheek. “Kat.”

  Her smile was probably more than a little goofy, and she didn’t care. “Hi.”

  His answer was breathless, dazed—and equally goofy. “Yeah, that.”

  Later she’d acknowledge that this was a temporary respite at best. That she needed help to unravel whatever tangle of empathy had twisted her up with Andrew. Later she’d worry about the data Ben was decrypting, and her mother’s past, and Derek’s child and the possibility of terrifying futures.

  Now she eased his clothing back into place with gentle hands and rose. His chest was solid and warm beneath her cheek, his skin hot to the touch as she curled her fingers around his arm. “I can’t hold this forever. And not if I’m not in control.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He lifted her again, coaxed her legs around his hips. “We’ll take turns.”

  “I don’t…” She hesitated. Swallowed. “I’m not ready to let it go yet. I like feeling you. I mean…just physically. Without all the empathy.”

  “Then we’ll keep going slow.”

  Kat nodded without lifting her head, unwilling to relinquish the odd peace that came with listening to his heart beating under her ear. “Slow is good. Fast makes it too easy to not deal with problems, and that never ends well for anyone.”

  He sighed softly. “You’ve been hit with a lot over the last few days.”

  She had, more than she could begin to process. Every time she tried to start, her brain skittered into a thousand worst-case scenarios. “I can’t handle thinking about that damn letter, because this isn’t even all of it. In a few days, Ben’s going to have those files rebuilt and decrypted. I don’t want to deal with any of it until I can deal with all of it.”

  Andrew tightened his arms around her. “I get it. Triage. Look at the big picture, not bits and pieces of information.”

  If the big picture didn’t break her. “I can’t get to a place where I think I’m okay and have the floor fall out again. It’ll hurt more.”

  “I understand.”

  He did. She could tell from the warm golden glow that encompassed her. It made it easy to ask for what she really needed. “Can we just…not talk about it, then? There’s other stuff to deal with, anyway. Like finding out if we’re still being followed, and figuring out why I’m getting my empathy all over you when Julio couldn’t feel it.”

  “Plenty of things.” He kissed her again, a simple graze of his lips. “Can you get in touch with Callum and ask him about the empathy thing?”

  She thought about her tutor. Straight-laced, coldly handsome Callum, who was rigid, severe and utterly impersonal. She thought about his designer suits, and how she’d never seen his hair mussed or out of place, like he’d stepped out of the pages of a men’s style magazine—or an ad for overpriced cologne. She thought about how she’d never discussed anything remotely personal with him.

  She thought about having to explain her sudden inability to avoid dry-humping her way to orgasm against a shapeshifter’s thigh.

  Not in this lifetime.

  “I’ll talk to someone,” she promised, mostly because she wasn’t ready to tell him who she had in mind. Callum might be the expert when it came to twisting empathy into a weapon, but when it came to sex with dominant shapeshifters…

  Well. Any empath who climbed into bed with Alec Jacobson every night knew all there was to know about navigating the rocky path between psychic power and alpha instinct.

  Chapter Ten

  “Are you sure Alec can’t hear this?”

  “No, honey.” Carmen finished winding her hair up on the top of her head and secured it with a clip. “He’s on the phone in his study.”

  “Good.” Fidgeting with the laptop, Kat adjusted it until the camera was just right, then sighed. “I’ve got empathy sex problems. Really, really fucked-up ones.”

  The other woman’s expression didn’t change. “Okay. Is it a control issue?”

  That was Carmen—calm and practical, no matter how potentially embarrassing the subject matter. Kat didn’t know if the talent was an empath thing or a doctor thing, but it was damn soothing. “It’s not control, I don’t think. I mean, not uncontrolled projection or anything. I’ve had slip-ups in the past. My range is wide enough that people would be affected. And they’re not.”

  “So it’s more…focused on one person?”

  Too late, Kat realized Carmen might have no idea who they were talking about. “It’s not Miguel,” she said quickly. “Andrew. It’s—I promise, I would not call and ask you for advice about sex with your brother.”

  The other woman laughed. “I know. Alec told me he talked to Andrew, I just didn’t want to assume anything.”

  “It’s An
drew,” Kat repeated. “And it’s…I don’t know. I worried about imprinting, at first…but it’s not just me. And it’s not projecting, but he feels everything I do. And it gets out of control. Fast.”

  Carmen barely hesitated before asking, “Did you build your shields around him?”

  “Of course not.” The answer came automatically, with so little thought that Kat forced herself to pause. She’d tried to hold shields around other people, to block them from her gift, but to bring someone inside her personal shields would be too intimate, like letting them inside her skin.

  Déjà vu. A knot formed in her gut until she remembered why. It’s like you’re inside my skin. Wasn’t that what she’d told Andrew, that night in his bed? Nerves twisted as she tried to deny it, to find a reason she hadn’t been so stupid and reckless. “How would you even do that? Callum taught me entirely new shielding techniques, and I’ve barely seen Andrew since then.”

  “Obviously, you didn’t do it during your work with Callum. But, since then, have you been in any situations where you might have unwittingly rebuilt your shields around Andrew?”

  The past week played itself out in her memory, a jumble of emotional highs and devastating lows. She’d lowered her shields a dozen times—she did that constantly. But to rebuild them completely, so fundamentally that even the foundations could have shifted to bring Andrew inside—

  Oh, shit. “The burnout.”

  Carmen leaned forward and propped her elbows on the polished wood of the desk. “That sounds like the sort of terrifying scenario where you might have done it instinctively.”

  Terrifying instinct. Perfect. Almost as undesirable as having to tell Carmen the whole truth. “I might have gotten shot a little bit. Things were…complicated in the aftermath.”

  “You might have…” The woman trailed off, stared for a moment and then returned in full doctor mode. “Have you been checked out? Where were you hit?”

  “Hold on.” Kat eased her chair back from the desk she’d claimed in one of the unused offices. Her T-shirt sleeve pulled up easily, and she twisted to show Carmen the mostly faded scar. “A healer took care of it. Well, one who’s a doctor and a healing priestess. She said it wasn’t bad.”