encouragement as she helped him remove his jeans and boxers. He eased her panties down her legs, kissing her from hips to ankles and back up again. He pressed soft kisses against her lower belly, stroking her lightly between her legs with two fingers.
He moved up her body, dropping kisses along her rib cage and over her breasts. He rolled away from her long enough to retrieve a condom from his wallet. She lay back against the pillows and watched him sheath himself, her heart pounding.
What was she doing? Why was she here, naked with this man she'd met only days before, on the eve of the most dangerous thing she'd ever done in her entire life?
Maybe that was why, she realized as he settled his body over hers, his dark blue gaze as fierce as the pounding of her heart. Maddox made her feel safe. He cared whether or not she made it out of the Telarana lab alive. He might be the only person on the whole island who did.
Night fell like a whisper, surrounding them with shadows as they made love. Time melted into a riot of sensations, both hers and his, each one building on the other, twisting and twining until Iris couldn't tell where her body ended and Maddox's began. He was both gentle and demanding, pushing her deeper into the sweet heart of madness with each kiss, each touch, each roll of his hips.
She rose to meet the challenge of his passion, giving as much as she got, until she plunged over the edge once more, taking him with her this time. She hadn't thought she could sleep that night, with thoughts of the coming trip to Telarana Labs heavy on her mind, but nestled in the curve of Maddox's strong arms, she found the first real rest she'd known in days.
Maddox woke to an empty bed. He blinked away sleep and pushed up on his elbows, looking around the dark, unfamiliar room until he spotted Iris's silhouette by the window, softly outlined by the golden lamplight from the street below. He rolled off the bed and crossed to her side, closing his hand over her shoulder.
She jumped, whirling around to look at him. He could barely make out her wide eyes in the low light. 'Sorry, didn't mean to scare you.'
She remained tense. 'I guess your knee is feeling better.'
The cryptic remark threw him. 'Actually, it's killing me.'
She stared at him a moment, her expression unfathomable. Then she turned and looked out the window. When she spoke, her voice was distant. 'It's starting to rain.'
The cool tone of her voice made his stomach clench. He took a deep breath and brushed a tousled lock of dark hair away from her neck. 'Sure you don't want to stay here instead? Lovely weather for lying in bed all day.'
'I can't. I should go shower. I'm supposed to meet the Telarana Labs shuttle in front of the hotel at eight.'
She slid away from his grasp and crossed to the bathroom. She flicked on the light, and he caught a glimpse of her pale face and dark, haunted eyes before she shut the door behind her. He walked slowly back to the bed, his gut twisting with unexpected dismay.
Her change of mood had caught him flat-footed. She'd seemed happy and relaxed after they'd made love, curling like a kitten in his arms, her sleepy smile making his heart turn flips. But maybe with dawn had come regrets. She barely knew him, and by her own admission, she wasn't a woman with any real sexual experience. Maybe she'd let nerves and hormones overcome good sense and was now kicking herself for it.
Maybe he'd been nothing but a distraction after all. He dropped heavily onto the bed, gazing at the closed bathroom door. The sound of the shower mingled with the soft drumming of rain against the window, a melancholy symphony washing over him like a cold draft.
He found his T-shirt and pulled it over his head, trying to ignore the slow ache spreading like poison through his chest. It was only much later that he thought to wonder why Iris hadn't felt the throbbing ache in his knee.
Chapter Sixteen
Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic!
Iris stared through the windshield of the shuttle van at the soggy gloom of the rain forest surrounding the base of Mount Stanley. On the tiny island of Mariposa, the drive to anywhere was a short trip. Iris needed more time to process the truth she was only now beginning to admit to herself. Her gift was gone.
She had felt nothing when Maddox approached her that morning at the window of her hotel room. Not a knee twinge, not a sting from his cuts and scrapes, not even a scintilla of whatever emotions he'd been feeling as he touched her shoulder. It was like being deaf and blind at the same time.
She couldn't remember a time when she wasn't aware of what other people were feeling. Around age seven, she'd come to understand that all those extra sensations swirling in and out of her weren't shared by other people. It had been a scary moment for her, realizing she wasn't like everyone else.
Sitting there in the shuttle van, completely insensate to all but her own mild aches and pains from her night with Maddox, she relived that same sense of fear. Only this time it was because she was just like everyone else. Don't think about it.
But how could she not? She was about to walk into a dangerous situation without the one weapon she'd thought she'd have at her disposal. The one thing that would keep her from being thrown into the ocean just like Celia Shore.
What had happened? Why had the gift left her now. When she needed it more than she ever had before? Could the answer be as simple as making love with Maddox? But she'd had sex before, and while no, it hadn't rocked her world, surely that couldn't be enough to strip her of a gift that had been a part of her life for as long as she remembered.
A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat. She swallowed it quickly, glancing at the van driver to see if he'd noticed. He was a burly, taciturn Creole with a perpetual grimace, the antithesis of the smiling, garrulous Mariposans she'd met during her brief stay.
If he'd heard her aborted laughter, he gave no sign of it. Iris settled back, closed her eyes and tried to feel something-anything-from the driver. But he was still a blank.
'We're here.' The man's voice made her jump. She opened her eyes and took in the squat cinder block monstrosity ahead, sprawling over a large clearing hacked into the rain forest. It was only one story tall and painted the same deep emerald as the trees surrounding it, tan block letters spelling out TELARANA LABS the only break in the unrelenting expanse of green.
Nothing says incognito quite like an ugly green paint job, Iris thought as the van driver pulled to a stop in the narrow parking strip outside the front entrance. He motioned for her to get out and went around to the back to retrieve her bags. She was beginning to regret turning down Maddox's suggestion of a lazy day of lovemaking.
At least the rain had slowed for now, though misty clouds hung low overhead, promising more precipitation. It was ten degrees cooler here in the mountains than it had been back near the beach, and Iris was glad she'd thought to carry a light cardigan. She shrugged it on and followed the Mariposan driver as he carried her bags to the front door.
A small surveillance camera-also painted green- eyed them from the small awning over the front door. The driver set down her bags, pushed a small intercom button by the door and looked straight into the camera. Seconds later, a buzzer sounded, and the driver pushed open the door. He retrieved the bags and gave Iris a curt head gesture to go in first.
The driver set her bags down next to her and walked back outside without a word, leaving her standing alone in the barren lobby, which was little more than a narrow hallway with a table and chair set against one wall. It was unoccupied.
She waited a moment, her heart pounding, before she worked up the courage to speak. 'Hello?'
Silence answered her. She stepped forward, looking down the hallway in both directions. Several doors, all closed, lined the corridor. She stood very still and again tried to feel something besides the tremble of her ragged nerves and the pounding of her heart in her chest.
A soft tapping sound to her left drew her attention. A man rounded the corner and stepped into the dim hallway. Backlit by the single dome light at the end of the hall, he was little more than a silhouette moving toward her at a steady, unhurried pace.
