Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair Page A

bedroom, mug of tea in one hand.
    He put it on the bedside table and, smiling, bumped his hip against mine. I inched over then levered up on my elbows. He was shirtless, wearing only his black pants. In the room’s half-light, I could almost swear his skin…glowed.
    I blinked. Was I still dreaming? Was I still spiraling through the intense pleasure of the Kyi with him?
    He lowered his face to mine and brushed my mouth with a slow, lazy kiss that curled my toes even as my mind fought for balance.
    “Mmm, Sully,” I said when he pulled back. I vaguely remembered saying, “Mmm, Sully” a lot last night but with considerably more force. “Is it just me, or was what we did last night…” My words trailed off. I didn’t quite know how to phrase it. What happened last night? sounded so crass.
    “Complaining?” His mouth quirked.
    “No, but—”
    He tilted his head slightly. One eyebrow arched challengingly. “Was my lovemaking so boring before?”
    “No!”
    The eyebrow lowered, the smile softened. “What happened was I love you, angel-mine. Never forget that. Now, tea’s ready.” He retrieved the mug and handed it to me as I sat up. “Drink up, then we’ll go see what my traps caught Gregor doing while he thought we were asleep.”
    I took a big mouthful of tea and watched him pull a shirt from his closet. The lethargy that surrounded me upon waking fell away like a cloak dropping from my shoulders. I felt strangely electric, very alive. The aftermath of good sex? Or…I sniffed the tea. Smelled normal. I took another sip.
    Sully tossed me clean underwear and my long-sleeved dark green shirt.
    Great sex, I decided, seeing his eyes darken in appreciation as I slid, naked, from under the covers. I put the tea on the nightstand, grabbed my clothes, and headed for the shower. Just a light rinse-off.
    Sully’s head appeared in the open doorway. “Aubry wants me to check something on the secondary power grid. I’ll pick up breakfast from Dorsie on the way back.”
    “I’ll be out in a minute,” I called through the spray.
    “I have Gregor’s adventures up on the deskscreen. Nothing interesting yet. But take a look.”
    I saluted. He blew me a kiss and ducked out.
    I dried off, dressed, then sank down into the hard-backed chair in front of Sully’s deskscreen and scrolled through eight hours’ worth of data on Gregor. Sully was right. Nothing out of the ordinary, but then we’d already been intercepted by the Farosian ship. That part of Gregor’s job was done, and we were headed for Narfial. Something Gregor knew before we left Dock Five, something he’d already told the Farosians.
    Unless we changed course, he’d probably stay silent for the next three and a half days.
    I sipped at my now-cold tea and pulled up the files Sully had filched yesterday. Sully had scoffed at Gregor’s attempts to subvert any Ragkiril mind-probe. Curiosity pricked at me. I wondered where Gregor had gone for answers, wondered if he’d somehow come across the Guthrie family’s files.
    Philip had known, when Sully had confronted him in Thad’s office months back, that Sully was a Kyi-Ragkiril . Had known because the Guthries had made it their business years back to learn all they could about sentients linked to an energy field that most of the Empire considered mythical. Philip had known there were human Ragkirils .
    Even Fleet had yet to admit that.
    The research Gregor obtained was bare-bones, almost Fleet-issue in its discussion of zrals and zragkors . There was also discussion of hypnosis as the real culprit, and the Ragkiril legends nothing more than a smoke screen used by crafty con artists.
    But no con artist could whisk me up the center core of Marker 2 without any visible means of propulsion, other than using the energy fields of the Kyi . I’d seen the Kyi, experienced it. Sully and I had made love there as we had last night—
    “The Bond-Slave and Addiction to the Kyi .” The title of the article caught my eye.