I could deal with them. My fuzzy past was different. I needed it back but there were vague memories of terrible things, of blood and killing. Was I capable of murder? Maybe the Russians wanted me for killing people and not because of what I could do with women?
This ability had settled into my hands like a weapon I’d trained to use, for years. Locked, loaded, fire away.
I could tell, mostly, which women I could deal with. A few I couldn’t, not many, and sometimes it seemed that was more a result of a temporary malfunction.
I wanted my lost past. What if someone had decided to drug the hell out of me rather than let me loose on society? That made sense. Except this power was something any military would give its left nut for. They’d never leave me rotting in a drugged haze in a low-security rehab village.
“Tell me all the facts you know, Kiara.”
“About Andy Carruthers? He was lost in Afghanistan in 2012 but you said you aren’t him.”
“Yes. What about me, though?”
“Only that you were shot in Thailand less than a year ago. Doctor Hass believes you may not be that man even, because the injuries seen then, well, you don’t have them.”
“And you think that too?” When she didn’t answer, I jostled her.
“I think...maybe you’re him, but you healed.”
Which isn’t normal. No wonder she was sounding unsure.
“So you think I’m some supernatural being?” I really wanted to know this one.
She lowered her head. “Maybe. But...I think you’re probably just a man who has changed somehow. I don’t know why or how. Nothing in your records suggested anything unusual. Wait. No. Your sight came back early on. That was miracle one. You’ve always healed better than a normal person.”
And the other things made me not normal. Not just this...ability, but what I felt, things I felt in my gut, that made me crave what anyone would call sinful.
I’d fucked her at her apartment, even if my memory of it was mostly gone. Maybe I’d hurt her in ways no man should hurt a woman, and yet...I looked inward, feeling the flare of lust in my groin. The thought of making her squeal in pain while she came, it’d turned me on, instantly.
Impossible not to get an erection with her on my lap.
I needed to keep a close rein on myself until I sorted myself out. Had she betrayed me? Sure. She had reasons for it that made sense. Didn’t make me like it, though.
The firelight limned her hair in a halo of orange. I put my hand to her nape and stroked her there, feeling her shiver, knowing she was already aroused.
A dark shape on her neck had me curious so I pushed her head forward while holding her hair out of the way. Reflections bathed her neck.
“You have a mark here,” I said, tracing it.
“Ouch!”
“It’s deep enough to have bled in some places.”
“I think it’s where you licked me.”
Jesus. How rough had I been? Seriously, what the fuck, and...I wondered what her neck had tasted like.
Bouncing from caring about her to grim, dark, and macabre bemused me, amused me, made me curious about my own mind.
Why had I lost memories when I fucked her? Forgetting the best parts was cruel.
I let her go and she raised her head.
“Anything else I need to know like...how many of these bad guys were after me?”
“I don’t know. I contact my handler by a thumb drive left in prearranged places and, sometimes, if an emergency, email. Here? I can’t. I was to hand you over after an hour of surveillance at my apartment.”
“We seem to have lost them.”
“Mmm.”
That noncommittal reply bothered me. “Have you seen them since?”
“No.”
Truth.
“Okay.” I squeezed her shoulder. “We should sleep. You can share the sleeping bags with me. It’ll be warmer and we can zip them together. At the pause in her breathing, I smiled. “I’m not going to fuck you.”
Only because I didn’t trust myself.
The slender line of her neck made me dream of biting her, clawing at her, stripping her to
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