Caressed by Ice

Judd’s teeth clamped down on her shoulder, as if he knew he no longer had her undivided attention. She jerked up. “Judd. Judd!” She tugged at his hair.

His answer was an explosion of tiny telekinetic bites in very sensitive places. Her entire body arched as pleasure short-circuited her nerve endings. In the corner of her eye, she saw the kitchen bench collapse, giving one final groan of creaking distress. And then all she could hear were her own gasping breaths.

By the time she came back down this time, she was lying crosswise in his lap, her slip puddled around her waist, the straps snapped. Judd wasn’t touching her exposed flesh, just looking at her breasts with hunger that was close to madness.

Giving a sob, she placed her arms tight around him once more, eyes wide as she watched the violence over his shoulder. “Stop. Please, baby, stop.” Small pieces of broken furniture circled the room in a savage storm. “Judd, darling.”

CHAPTER 31

His entire body shuddered. “Brenna.” It was a raw sound stripped of his usual control.

“Yes.” She hugged him harder, her breasts crushed against the cool softness of his leather-synth jacket. “I’m here.”

“Did I hurt you?”

Hurt her? “You pleasured me.” The exquisite heat of it continued to spiral through her.

He withdrew his hand from between her legs and she had to fight her moan. “Baby, the furniture…” The pieces hadn’t stopped flying.

One of his arms remained clamped around her back as he raised his head. “Critical breach.” He was beginning to sound close to normal. “Power sent outward instead of focusing on you.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” she repeated. “Even out of control, you didn’t hurt me.”

“Not this time.” The broken pieces of furniture began to settle on the floor.

She pulled back, wanting to meet his eyes. They were dark, devoid of those sparks of gold. “What happened?” He was never going to believe he wouldn’t hurt her—she’d have to rely on time to fix that. “Talk to me.” Brushing the hair off his forehead with one hand, she pulled up her slip with the other.

His eyes fell to where she clutched the slippery material above the curve of her breasts. “You need to get dressed first.”

She might have argued with him if the ruins of the bench hadn’t chosen that instant to compact with a groan, sending up dust she could taste. “I’ll be quick.” Wriggling off his lap, she blushed. “You’re still—”

“Go.”

She went. Sometimes, discretion really was the better part of valor. Dropping the slip and pulling on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt took maybe two minutes. She ran back out. “Oh!”

Judd had turned on the light and already cleaned up most of the mess using his telekinetic abilities. As she watched, the last broken pieces settled down into a neat pile by the door. “I’ll replace everything.”

“I’m not worried about that.” Walking over, she fought the urge to touch him. He was all coiled muscle and intensity. Dark. Dangerous.

Take him as he is.

Her spine straightened. “Now tell me what happened.”

His tone was flat as he told her about the PineWood pack. “We went in, cleaned out their den. A number of them were compromised—I had to undo the programming.”

Relieved he hadn’t been forced into using his more covert skills, she blew out a breath. “There’s no need for you to beat yourself up about that. You did something good.”

“It’s not that.” A bead of sweat rolled down his temple and she remembered the pain. The dissonance. But before she could speak, he told her the rest. “What our contact didn’t know was that the Psy had attempted to place commands on immature minds, too.”

“Children?” Her voice shook. “They tried to do that to babies?” She wanted to bury her head in the sand and not hear the rest of what he had to say—she’d almost died after having her mind raped. And children were so much weaker. “How many?”

“One died before we reached their den.” His cheekbones stood out like blades against his skin. “I was able to remove the programming on the others but two are damaged. Their brains couldn’t handle the pressure and battered themselves bloody trying to get out.”

“Oh, Judd.” She could feel his hurt inside herself. “There was nothing you could have done.”

Another bead of sweat, the only indicator of the amount of pain he had to be in. “There was no reason for them to mess with the children’s minds. No reason. They were too young and weak to provide assistance in the plot. It was done as a message.”

The most visceral kind of fury exploded in her. “They’ve crossed the line. But”—she stared him in the eye —“you haven’t.”

“I know.”

Startled, she snapped her mouth shut. “Then why…?” She waved her arms at the ruin of her living room and kitchen.

“Don’t you recognize rage when you see it?”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what to say to that blunt admission. “You’ve broken Silence?” Something in her said it couldn’t be that easy.

His next words proved it. “If I had, you wouldn’t have been able to bring me back.” His eyes traced over her body and though she was demurely covered, she felt her nipples peak, her thighs press together. “I can still taste you on my lips.”

She put a hand on the wall to steady herself, certain her knees were about to buckle. “You pushed your anger into sex.” Burning it up without causing harm to living creatures.

“It wasn’t planned.” He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her lips. “I was about to leave your home when you walked out. I should have never come here in the first place.”

“I didn’t mind.” Heat in the air, so thick she could almost touch it. Her eyes dropped to his erection, hard and heavy against his jeans. She wanted to feel him in her hands, to experience more of the animal passion he’d shown her tonight.

Something smashed to the floor, jolting her out of the erotic fantasy. Her eyes widened as she realized he’d thumped the armchair—one of the few undamaged pieces of furniture in the room—hard onto the floor.

“I need to leave.” He pulled out a phone, skin stretched tight over his features.

It made her wonder if he was as tightly stretched in other places.

“Brenna.”

“Why not?” She met his gaze. Stubborn. Needy. Changeling to his Psy. “I don’t care if you destroy the whole apartment.”

His hand clenched on the slim width of the phone. “As the state of this room shows, I’m no longer listening to the dissonance. It’s not keeping me in check. All it would take to kill you would be one mistake in the heat of passion. One.”

The taut restraint in his voice cut her. “Judd, I need you.” They had to find a way past this. She was so hungry she was almost to the point where she wanted to cry. “I need your touch and I need to touch you in return.”

A crack appeared in the casing of the phone in his hand. “Where’s your comm console? I’ll call someone to stand watch—you’re not safe from Timothy’s assailant.”

“No.” She thrust a hand through her hair, fingers shaking with need such as she’d never before felt. Yes, changelings craved touch. But this was something so primal it was a claw inside of her. “I’m awake. I’ll stay that way. I’ll call you if anything happens.”

“Somebody is trying to hurt you.” Something not wholly on the side of the angels moved at the back of his eyes.