“How bad are your shields?” Tenderness in her eyes.
“Bad.” A fraction more sensation and the rawness of his emotions would not only be exposed on the PsyNet, his telekinetic and telepathic abilities would slip the leash. But when Sahara would’ve relaxed her legs from around him, he reached back to hold her in place, his hand flexing on her thigh.
She tightened her grip. “Obsidian, Kaleb. Did you go obsidian?”
“No.” The obsidian shields might be impenetrable and unbreakable, but as Sahara knew, they were also absolute. “I’ll be cut off from the flow of information in the PsyNet for the duration.” He had never disconnected from the Net to that extent, had thousands of pieces of data flowing into his mind at any second.
Sahara traced his lips with her fingertip, the lightest of caresses. “If you’re not filtering Net data, can you divert that energy into maintaining a grip on your abilities?”
Kaleb did the calculations, nodded. “It’ll bring the risk of a catastrophic breach down to twenty- five percent.” Not great odds, but not bad, either, not with Kaleb’s control.
“Is there even a hint of anything major on the horizon?”
“No.”
“Can you still be reached via a telepathic call?”
“Yes.”
Sliding her hand over his nape, the charms on her bracelet cool against his skin, she whispered, “Then let the PsyNet take care of itself for an hour or two, and take care of me instead.”
He didn’t have to choose; there was only one option.
“Not here.” He couldn’t be certain of the security.
Sahara gasped as they ’ported into his bed . . . then pushed aside his shirt and leaned up to place her lips on the skin she’d bared. Slamming down the obsidian shields fed of his telepathy and augmented with the kinetic energy of his Tk, he pushed up Sahara’s leg to make more room for himself between her thighs—and released the leash.
Chapter 26
KALEB TUGGED SAHARA up with a grip in her hair, taking her mouth with a slow, concentrated fury that made it clear she was now the sole focus of all that merciless power and attention and will.
Moaning into the kiss, she surrendered, opening herself to anything and everything he wanted.
Buttons tore as he ripped off his shirt, and then the na**d heat of his chest was crushing her br**sts.
A slight shift and he closed one of his hands over her left breast, fondling and squeezing with unhidden possession as his tongue rasped over her own, his mouth slanting to create the perfect fit.
Fingernails digging into the heavy muscle of his back, she met him kiss for kiss.
My Kaleb, mine.
His thumb rubbed over her nipple, his fingers strong and sure on her flesh, his hold that of a man dead certain of his welcome. When he broke the kiss to plump up her breast in his hand before sucking the top part of it into his mouth, she cried out and attempted to get impossibly closer, the hot suction a dazzling pulse of sensation. Releasing her throbbing flesh after she was halfway to madness, he looked down at the shining wetness of her skin, her nipple furled into a tight, begging point that he plucked with his fingertips.
Her womb clenched.
Running her mouth down his throat, her need for him a feral thing, she made a vocal complaint when he lifted his body off hers. A hot look, a strong male hand in her hair as he branded her with his kiss, then drew back again to rip open the zipper of her jeans, pull them off. His belt buckle bit into her abdomen when he returned to her mouth, his erection an aggressive demand against her that made her want to squirm.
Except he was deliciously heavy, pinning her in place. No one else would she have trusted in such a position of power, no one but the most dangerous man in the world. Unable to get enough of his kiss, of the connection that was a fist punching through her diaphragm to grip her heart, she locked her ankles tight at the base of his spine and spread her fingers on his upper back.
“I want to kiss every inch of your back,” she managed to say between kisses.
“Later.” Thrusting his hand into the rear of her panties, he cupped her lower curves, taking her startled cry into his mouth, his voice a dangerous, seductive blade in her mind. Soft and smooth and mine. Always mine.
Sucking in desperate breaths when he set her lips free to kiss his way along her throat before coming back up to claim her mouth once more, she ran her nails down his back. It was harder than she’d intended, his mouth and hands doing things to her that left her devastated, the marks ones he’d wear for a day at least.
Breaking the kiss, he threw back his head.
When those obsidian eyes met hers again, they were matched by a smile that held nothing calculated about it—it was lethal . . . in a way that made her body rise toward his. But he was already moving with the powerful grace of a cardinal Tk, kissing his way down her body to tear off her panties, push her thighs apart, and rub his jaw against the ultrasensitive inner surface of her thighs.
“Kaleb!” Her mind exploded outward to slam up against his shields, her body bowing. “Don’t stop,” she begged. “Don’t—” A soundless cry, her synapses fried, his mouth hot and demanding on her damp flesh, his hands a little rough on her thighs as he held them apart.
Sahara knew about the mechanics of sex, though the Silent didn’t indulge in the act either for procreation or for pleasure, but never in her education had she been taught that there were levels of intimacy even in sex. This, what Kaleb was doing to her, it was nothing she’d ever imagined, and oh, but she liked it.
Arching into his mouth as he licked at her, his tongue exploring her with a thorough attention to detail that made it clear he’d be as relentless in bed as he was in every other aspect of life, she held him to her with one hand in the heavy silk of his hair. That hand clenched without her conscious volition when he would’ve shifted his attention from the slippery, throbbing nub at the apex of her thighs.