Naughty Karma

harder stroke. Her legs twined around his hips, her hands slipping beneath his shirt to splay across the bare skin of his lower back. Prometheus hissed as her nails teased lightly up his spine.

There was something he was supposed to remember. Something he needed to do…

Karma sucked his tongue into her mouth and pulsed her hips up into his and his brain short circuited. The buttons of her blouse were slippery, as eager as he was to see them freed. The silk parted beneath his hands and he levered himself up for a better look, the angle pressing his hips deeper into hers so Karma’s head fell back on a moan. His mouth watered. God, she looked decadent. Sultry. Her hair had come loose—he vaguely remembered plunging his hands into it—and writhed like black silk over her shoulders. Her eyes were slitted, half-closed with abandon. Cheeks flushed, chest flushed, back arched to display the surprisingly lush curves she’d kept hidden beneath those beautifully tailored suits, the soft swell of her breasts rising out of the black lace bra. She was a fucking fantasy and the sight of her hit him like a punch to the gut. How did he get so lucky?

Something he ought to remember…

Training. They were supposed to be training. He was teaching her. He’d stolen her trust with bespelled vodka…taking advantage…

Aw, fuck. What a shitty time to develop a conscience.

Prometheus closed his eyes to block out the vision tempting him to forget again. He grabbed her hands, lacing their fingers together and plunging them both headlong into the wild ocean of her power.

He expected her to fight, to resist. He expected the panic and chaos of their last attempt.

He was wrong. It was easy.

A thousand possible futures wrapped around them, but they weren’t violent. Together they floated on the tide of her power, sampling a vision here, a premonition there, letting the current of possibilities take them where it would. They weren’t directing it or controlling it, he wasn’t sure they could call this swimming, but she wasn’t drowning. It was amazing how easy it was. The vodka? The charm? Him? Who knew what had changed? All he knew was that Karma was one step closer to being the channel she had been born to be. The power was no longer running roughshod over her. Now all she needed to do was learn how to direct it. Preferably sober.

She dipped her fingers into one future and they slid into it. She stared at the stick—longest three minutes of my life—then squealed and bolted out of the bathroom, waving it frantically. “Matt! Matt, it’s two lines! I’ve got a bun in the oven!” Her green-eyed lover turned, his face going white then breaking out in a wide smile as she flung herself into his arms.

Prometheus sucked in a breath as Karma pulled them both out of the vision, blinking to bring her office back into focus. He was still sprawled on top of her on the couch, but he couldn’t quite get the feel of his own body, still stuck in the weird double vision of looking through Karma’s eyes as she looked through Ronna’s eyes at Matt. Prometheus wasn’t sure he was going to be able to look the hardass cop in the eye next time he saw him. It was too strange.

“Ronna’s seen that future. She told me. I could pick to see it too. I’ve never been able to pick.” Karma was breathing quickly herself—though the shortness of breath may have had something to do with the fact that he was crushing her.

Prometheus sat up, pulling her up beside him. “That was…”

There were no words to describe it. She’d been Ronna. That was her husband. Her baby. Her joy.

Which meant every other time it had been her pain. Her fear. Talk about nightmares.

Karma released a little hiccupping laugh. “It worked. I can’t believe it worked. It felt so different.” She blinked at him. “You actually did it.”

“That wasn’t me.” He rubbed a thumb along her cheekbone. Maybe he was still off balance from their dunk into her power, but all he could think was what a marvel she was. “You…” Amaze me. Awe me. Make me want—No. Best to cut that thought off right now. He wanted her help. Nothing else mattered. Life or death. No distractions.

She levered herself straighter with a hand pressed to his chest then frowned at her hand. “You really don’t have a heartbeat.”

“I know.”

“Heartless bastard,” she muttered, but the words were bemused rather than condemnatory. She flexed her fingers and he felt her power flex, little tendrils of it snaking into his chest, seeking the origin of his power. He knew the moment she found the tether that tied him to Deuma. And if he felt it, Deuma did too. This was exactly what he wanted Karma to be able to do, but if she did it when Deuma wasn’t contained by a summoning—Fuck.

He grabbed Karma’s wrist and yanked her hand off him. “Enough.”

She could have resisted, kept probing—he hadn’t been kidding when he said she could Hulk-smash him if she let herself—but her head wobbled on her neck and her face fell into an exaggerated pout. “What?”

Karma Cox was drunk off her ass and about five minutes from passing out cold.

“Come on,” he growled. “Let’s get you home.” He was rapidly approaching sober, but she was in no shape to drive and if he put her on the back of his motorcycle, she’d probably slide right off. “I’ll call you a taxi.”

She snickered, apparently finding this hysterical. “I think I can walk it.” Using him as balance, she shoved herself to her feet and staggered a zigzagging path across the room to where a black Chinese screen painted with a red and gold dragon hung on the wall. She opened a panel on the wall, swiped her thumb across it, and the screen parted to reveal an elevator. “Ta-da!” She twirled, going for some kind of Vanna White flourish, but the movement was too much for her and she tumbled into the elevator to land flat on her ass, giggling “Whee!” the whole way.

Apparently, they had reached the happy drunk portion of the evening. He should be recording this. No one would ever believe Karma had said, “Whee!”

Prometheus crossed to the elevator. She’d managed to get herself into a semi-seated position, wedged into the corner. After her somewhat half-hearted attempt to restore her clothing to order, her blouse was held closed by only two buttons and her skirt was back down around her legs rather than hitched at her hips. All of her attention was fixed on wiggling her stockinged toes when his shadow fell across her and her head weaved and wobbled to the side so she could look up at him.

“You’re tall, you know that?”

He crouched down in front of her so she didn’t injure herself trying to look him in the eye. “You live in the basement?”

“Mm-hm. Jo calls it the Bat Cave. Thinks I don’t know. But I know. I know all.” She waggled her fingers in front of her face, frowning at them. “I can’t feel my hands. The vodka stole my hands, Prometheus.” But the vodka had also stolen her enunciation and Prometheus came out Promshuss. “Your name is hard. Ima call you Steve. Okay, Steve?”

“No.”

She pouted. It was disturbingly adorable. He found himself regretting his why-the-fuck-do-I-need-a- camera-on-my-phone stance. The blackmail would be priceless.

“C’mon, Steve. Please?”

“Fine, whatever, call me Steve.”

“Or I could call you Betty and you could call me Al.” She giggled, then closed her eyes and began to hum. Very off tune. Music was most definitely not one of her gifts.

“I think in that scenario, I’d rather be Al than Betty. Can you stand?”

“Nope.”

“Okay then.” Prometheus straightened and pushed the down button. The elevator eased into motion so smoothly he barely felt it, but Karma moaned.

“Oooh, that isn’t good.” She flopped onto the floor, pressing her cheek to the carpet and groaning. “That’s bad. I don’t like bad.”

The elevator stopped moving and the door slid open without a sound. Prometheus crouched next to Karma as she huddled in the fetal position on the floor. “Karma?”

“The room is moving, Steve. Make it stop.”

“It has stopped. Come on. Up and at ‘em.” Prometheus frowned, not sure where the hell that had come from. He’d never said up and at ‘em in his life.