Slave to Sensation

She couldn’t help but remember how those same eyes had looked as she’d used her mouth to suck him to orgasm. That word brought her to her senses. Her shields were cracking again and he was the catalyst.

“Thank you for telling me.” She tried to note down the details on her organizer but could barely see through the buzzing in her head. This was bad, very bad. Instead of containing them, the dreams appeared to have strengthened the creeping fingers of insanity.

“You don’t look like you slept well.”

Was there a subtle innuendo in that sentence? No, she told herself. How could there be? She was the one who’d had the dreams. Lucas surely had no need for release found in fantasy-she’d seen the way women looked at him. And why not? He was a man who made no bones about his sexuality and even she understood the kind of primal heat a male like that could produce.

Once again, her mind threatened to run away with her sanity. Shoving up shield after mental shield, she said, “My rest was disturbed but I’m perfectly capable of functioning.” As soon as she got control of her runaway thoughts.

“Bad dreams?” He watched her with the concentration of a hunter stalking prey.

“The Psy don’t dream.” It was the accepted wisdom. If that was a lie, she thought, what other lies had she been fed? Or was it true for all other Psy? Did they not live even in their dreams?

“A pity,” Lucas said, that rough-edged voice smoothing into a drawl. “Dreams can be very… pleasurable.”

Wet heat flared. She pressed her thighs tight, terrifyingly aware that her body had reacted in a way a changeling might detect. Panic had her shoving everything deep into the secret compartments of her mind.

The panther inside Lucas crouched low, tracking Sascha’s every movement. Man and beast were both puzzled-what was it about her that had triggered the sensual eroticism of that dream? In life she was as cold as ice, as touchable as a hunk of metal. Aside from the hint of fire in those cardinal eyes that he refused to believe was a figment of his imagination.

He froze as he picked up the faintest traces of female arousal. The panther lunged at the walls of his mind, telling him to take her, that she was ready. The man wasn’t so certain. What if it was a Psy trick-the ultimate back door into his mind? Until he knew for sure, he wouldn’t be stroking Sascha except in his dreams.

“The Psy know nothing about pleasure,” she commented, looking down at her little computerized tablet. “And we intend to keep it that way. Shall we be on our way to see your construction supervisor?”

“After you.” He stood and waved toward the doorway. “How’s your mother?” It was time to start digging. The reason for this charade could never be forgotten.

“Fine.” Sascha reached the glass-enclosed elevator and waited for it to rise up to their level.

“She’s an extraordinary woman,” he commented. “I heard that she became a Councilor at forty. Isn’t that very young to reach such a high post?”

She nodded. “But Tatiana Rika-Smythe was younger at the time of her ascension. She’s only thirty-five now.”

“The Rika-Smythes are your primary business rivals?”

“You know that already.”

He shrugged and gestured for her to enter the elevator ahead of him. “Never hurts to make sure.”

In the closed atmosphere, the scent of her was intoxicating to his animal senses. She was pure woman, lush and barely awakened, and he was very interested, the panther in him arrogantly convinced that her reaction was without trickery. He had to force down the low growl that gathered at the back of his throat. Now was not the time to stalk this particular prey.

“It’s well known that the Rika-Smythes and the Duncans have some of the same business interests.”

“How can your mother work with Tatiana when they’re rivals?” The doors opened on the first floor.

Sascha walked out beside him, graceful and eerily beautiful with those eyes that kept startling people who came up on them. Cardinals were not often seen outside the rarefied walls of the Psy headquarters. It was critical he find out why he’d been honored with Sascha Duncan.

“Their responsibilities in the Council are separate from their business loyalties.”

“Some of it must bleed over. Every administration has its cliques.” Which might mean that the Councilors could be keeping secrets from each other.

Sascha gave him a sharp glance. “You’re very interested in the Council.”

“Do you blame me?” He pushed open a manual glass door. “I’m hardly likely to get another chance to talk to a Psy so high up in the hierarchy.”

She walked through the doorway before speaking. “I may be a cardinal but I’m not as high up as you seem to believe. Simply because my mother is Council doesn’t mean I’m in the inner circle. I’m just another Psy.”

“No cardinal is ever ordinary.” Why was she protesting so much? What was it that she was hiding? Blood and death or something else?