True Colors Part 10

"What?" he asked as he sank his teeth into a crisp slice of bacon. "Are you blus.h.i.+ng?"

"No." Yes.

Flas.h.i.+ng a knowing grin, he helped himself to a heap of scrambled eggs. "So, what was going on yesterday?" he asked. "You weren't yourself."

She hesitated, not sure what to say. "I had a headache" seemed so cliche. And while that wouldn't be a total lie, it still struck her as dishonest. She really didn't want to lie to this man. Yet, she couldn't imagine telling him the truth. So, what, was she going to spend their entire relations.h.i.+p lying to him?

"Alex?"

She met his inquisitive gaze and forced a smile as she dug into her breakfast. "Like I said, I had a weird day. It's over now." She forked up some eggs, followed them with bacon, willing the off-kilter sensation inside her to click back into place. Everything would be fine.

"You were sweet to stay the night," she said.

"Sweet had nothing to do with it. I was worried about you."

A rush of warmth started in her stomach and spread outward. She couldn't believe her absolute blind luck that this incredible man had landed in her life. "So . . . we're a thing, right? A boyfriend-girlfriend thing."

A broad grin took over his face. "I've been thinking so, yes."

"Excellent. Because there's something I want to do."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Have s.e.x."

She grasped the hem of her s.h.i.+rt and whipped it over her head.

"Hey, I wanted to do that," Logan protested, catching her s.h.i.+rt against his chest as she tossed it at him.

And then his breath stopped at the sight of all that exposed creamy skin. My G.o.d, he thought. She was so . . . so beautiful. And her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, tantalizingly cupped by a very Alex-like, no-nonsense white cotton bra, were perfect. Not small, not big. She had the Goldilocks of b.r.e.a.s.t.s: just right. And he couldn't wait to touch and taste.

When she turned and walked out of the kitchen, he scooted his chair back and followed without thought, his eyes on the sway of her hips and then the deft work of her fingers as she reached behind her to unhook her bra and let it drop to the hallway floor. He stepped over it without hesitation. In the bedroom, she turned to face him, naked from the waist up, and he stopped in midstride, gulping as all the blood in his body surged downward so quickly he felt dizzy.

But then he spotted the scar, halfway between her collar bone and her right breast, and his l.u.s.t cooled. Dark pink and slightly raised, it stood out as a testament to both the psychosis of a madman and her indomitable will to live.

As if she knew the direction of his thoughts, she caught his chin in her strong, warm fingers and urged his gaze away from the mark.

"Don't look at that," she said. "Look at me."

He gladly gazed into her rich brown eyes and lost track of himself for a moment. So alive, he thought. So vibrant. And here with him. He didn't think he deserved her, deserved this, but that didn't stop him from cupping one of her soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s with a suddenly shaking hand.

She let her head fall back, making a low humming sound deep in her throat as he grazed his thumb over her hardening nipple. While he stroked and swallowed and stared reverently down at the smooth skin of her arched throat, his mouth dry, she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her shorts and wiggled out of them.

In a matter of seconds, she stood naked in front of him. Grinning and rosy, eyes glittering with intent. "You're still dressed."

He returned her grin and stripped faster than he'd ever stripped in his life.

She watched with one eyebrow lifted, not the least bit shy as her gaze fixed on the erection he freed from his shorts. He heard her soft intake of breath and grew harder still. This is all for you, baby.

She stepped forward and grasped his face in her palms, kissed him, openmouthed and wet and deep, and he was lost all over again. So easily. She sucked him in, and he went willingly, drowning in her sweet almond scent, lost, so lost.

When her fingers curved around his c.o.c.k, her grip firm and hot, his knees went so weak they almost buckled. Jesus, he wouldn't last, not if she kept touching him like that. His synapses started to wildly misfire, sending come impulses to every cell in his body. The incredible glide of her palm on him robbed him of the ability to speak, h.e.l.l, breathe. He needed to tell her to slow down. Oh, Jesus, slow the f.u.c.k down . . .

As if sensing he was too close, she released him and gave his shoulders a light shove, sending him bouncing onto the bed. He didn't care if she didn't want to take it slow. They'd do slow later. Much slower, much later.

She straddled him, trapping his c.o.c.k between their bodies, rubbing her heat over him so lightly he couldn't stop himself from rearing up and catching his hands in her hair. While he kissed her, tasting bacon and coffee and Alex, she s.h.i.+fted position, lifted her hips and . . . sank . . . down . . . onto . . . him.

He went still, his mouth still on hers, his breath locked in his lungs, every muscle in his body tensed to the point of pain. Holy Christ. Tight. Wet. Heat. If she moved, he'd explode.

She rested her cheek against his and let out a shaky breath.

Neither moved for a long moment, savoring this first joining, breathing steadily and evenly, focusing. Once he thought he had himself under control, he cradled her against him and changed position, levering her back so that her head was at the foot of the bed and he was braced over her, his weight on his rigid arms.

She arched on his first thrust, her breath hitching. "Oh . . . G.o.d." It came out choked and hoa.r.s.e.

He grinned and did it again, closing his eyes at the exquisite slide of hot, grasping satin.

Her breath caught again, her body going so taut he thought she might already be climaxing. But then she said something under her breath that he didn't catch.

"What was that?" he asked with a chuckle, following the question with another long thrust that had her grabbing at his hips as if to hang on. He'd never been with a woman so responsive to every move.

She swallowed hard, her head bowed back against the mattress. "I can . . . I can feel you."

He couldn't stop the low laugh. "I would hope so."

"It's . . . it's . . . I . . ." She trailed off on a long moan as he filled her to the hilt and paused to grind against the spot he knew needed the most attention. He felt her internal muscles jerk as she sucked in a harsh breath, and then he was fighting for control all over again. He laid his cheek against hers and breathed slow and easy.

Baseball. Gun cleaning. Shaving. Changing the oil in the pickup. Untangling the garden hose. Changing that annoying plastic cord in the weed whacker.

The chanted list of uns.e.xy guy stuff didn't work. He . . . was . . . too . . . close . . .

From the catches in her breath and the way her fingers dug into his hips, he surmised he wasn't alone. Impossible, considering how little he'd done to get her there. Regret washed through him. He'd meant to make this first time last, draw it out until sweat drenched them both and she was gasping and begging.

But he had to thrust. He'd make it up to her later. Later, he vowed, would rock just as much as this did. More.

Opening his eyes, he gazed down at her, surprised to find her dark eyes open and fixed on his, bright with awareness. She was in the game, no doubt about it, so maybe cutting it short wouldn't be so bad.

He began to thrust, keeping his strokes long and slow when his body would have preferred short and fast. If anything, she was going to go up and over before he did, he decided. It was the least he could do.

As he moved, he trapped her hands on either side of her head and held them there, slid his knee up to nudge her thigh higher on his to grant him deeper access. He focused on her breathing, tried to gauge where she was based on its choppiness.

With him, he realized. Right with him, her wrists straining against his grip, her hips rising in perfect cadence to meet his thrusts. She murmured something, and he leaned his head down so he could hear her.

"I . . . can . . . feel you. I can . . . oh, G.o.d . . . I can . . . I feel . . . everything . . . it's . . . it's . . ."

He didn't think she realized what she was saying, and then it didn't matter, because he felt the familiar tightening in the boys, knew the point of no return had arrived. He tried to slow down, to stop, but she whispered a fierce "No!" and pistoned her hips faster, blinding him to his intentions. He had no choice but to let his focus narrow down to the wet heat clamping around his world, and on the next thrust, everything inside him imploded, pleasure rippling out from the center of his body to every nerve ending, every cell.

Amazingly, she was coming, too, her body as rigid as his as he held her tight against him, mindlessly grinding into her heat, not breathing, every muscle taut and straining, his head back and his mouth open, a long, low groan rasping out of his throat.

When his senses finally returned, it took him a few seconds to comprehend that while all the tension had drained out of his body, Alex's legs still clutched tight around his hips. She clung to him almost desperately, her breath uneven, her mouth open against his shoulder.

Holy c.r.a.p, he thought. Multiples the first time?

He lifted his hips, thanking all the G.o.ds in the universe that he was still semierect, and drove slowly into her. His breath hissed through his teeth at the intensity of the dragging sensation against his supersensitized flesh, but when Alex's head arched sharply back against the bed, he didn't care. Jesus, she was so responsive. So incredibly there with him. Never had it been like this, never so intense and easy and . . . shared.

And then her hips bucked once, twice, and for a long moment, while her internal muscles clamped down hard on his c.o.c.k, her body convulsed in his arms, her arms tight around him, her mouth pressed to his shoulder as involuntary whimpering sounds escaped her throat.

He held her for at least a minute, waiting for the shuddering aftershocks to fade and her muscles to relax. When her arms finally loosened, he eased back and looked down at her with what he was sure was the stupidest, loopiest smile he'd ever given a woman in bed. But he couldn't help it.

"Hey," he said, his brain too fried to come up with anything clever. He was pretty sure they'd just destroyed some brain cells.

She smiled, her eyes so unfocused he had to laugh. "Hey."

He trailed a light finger over the scar above her breast. "You okay? Did I hurt you?"

Her smile grew, but her eyes remained dreamy. "Nope."

"Nope what? Nope, you're not okay? Or nope, I didn't hurt you?"

She sighed. "Yeah, that one."

He chuckled, figuring she must be fine or she wouldn't look so sated and relaxed. He watched her a few moments, expecting any second to hear her breathing drop into the even in-out that meant she'd fallen asleep.

Instead, she opened her eyes and gazed up at him, looking for all the world as if she'd smoked an entire joint by herself and flown dangerously close to the sun. "Logan?"

"Yeah?"

"I've never had good s.e.x."

He c.o.c.ked his head. "Never?" Not even now? he wanted to ask as his ego deflated. He'd thought he'd done pretty d.a.m.n well considering the minimal foreplay.

"Not until just now."

He relaxed and laughed-whew-and slid to the side, drawing her against him so he could hold her as close as possible. He was never letting her go.

"If I were a generous woman, I'd make you go out and do that to as many women as possible, so they'd all know what it's supposed to be like."

"But you're not generous?"

"Nope. You're mine." She snuggled her head under his chin and kissed his chest just over his heart. "All mine."

Within a minute, her breathing was slow and even.

Logan held her, unable to stop grinning.

All mine.

He loved the sound of that.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

The young boy stares at the gun in my hand with round blue eyes, bottom lip trembling. A tear tracks through the dark shadows of dirt on his cheek. My finger flexes on the trigger, and a voice screams in my head: Don't do it! For the love of G.o.d, don't!

He can't be older than six, though he looks small for his age. Malnourished probably. And dirty, as though he hasn't seen the inside of a bathtub in weeks. He needs to be saved, and yet the gun I point at him can't possibly accomplish that.

Sweat drips into my eyes, and I blink it away, my heart thudding against my ribs. Focus, G.o.d, focus.

Shouts ring out all around me. Angry, frantic shouts. Someone screams in a high, thin voice. Another kid? My G.o.d, how many are there? How many have these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds . . .

Rage rips control from my mind just as the boy begins to cry out for his daddy. "Where's Daddy? I want Daddy!"

My finger squeezes even as my brain shrieks, "NOOOOO!"

Alex shot awake with a strangled scream. A male voice issuing the same shout echoed in her ears just as Logan jolted up beside her. He grasped her arm with one hand, as though to steady himself, and shock and fear that she didn't recognize as her own surged through her. She twisted violently away from the intensity of the emotions, further surprised when the mattress beneath her disappeared. She hit the floor on all fours, the pain of impact singing through her knees and aching head. On the other side of the bedroom door, the dogs raised holy h.e.l.l.

"Jesus, Alex, are you okay?"

She sat back on her heels and met Logan's startled gaze. He looked as disheveled as she felt, his hair flat on one side and standing up on the other. His bare, muscled chest rose and fell as though he'd just finished a labor-intensive workout.

She had a vague recollection of him snuggling up to her back after they'd made love and looping his arm around her waist to draw her back against him. She'd fallen to sleep in his arms, his breathing slow and steady against the side of her neck. Everything would be okay, she'd thought. Turbo postcognitive empathy could kiss her a.s.s.

"Alex?"

She blinked him into focus and felt sick. Everything was not going to be okay. Oh, G.o.d, maybe it never would be again. "I had a dream," she said, voice husky.

He lay back and ran his hand over his face and back through his hair. "Was it the same one as last night?"

She nodded. The memory of his outburst of denial mirroring hers reverberated in her ears, and realization hit her like a vicious blow to the chest. The nightmare wasn't her nightmare at all. "I shot a little boy."

He went so still she couldn't tell if he was breathing. Then he sat up, his complexion suddenly a sickly pale that made dark shadows appear under his eyes.

"That's what you were dreaming just now, isn't it?" she said. "A little blond boy, dirty and thin. He was screaming for his daddy."

Logan swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up. "What the h.e.l.l is going on here?"

She gazed up at him, feeling small and vulnerable. She was between him and the bedroom door, blocking his escape. She couldn't pretend that she wasn't psychic. Empathy was a part of her, and she knew now that hiding it from the people closest to her, from Logan, was not going to work.

"I'm empathic, Logan. I tapped into your nightmare while you were having it."

He stared down at her in disbelief. "Are you . . . are you kidding me? You're what?"

"Empathic. It happened when my heart stopped. The . . . the defibrillator-"