God, what was she thinking? She didn’t rely on anyone else to fix her problems for her and even if she had, Prometheus was about as far as she could get from a knight in shining armor. She needed to solve this like she solved everything else. With calm, clear thinking and control. Taking a slow breath, she went through her centering exercises.
Prometheus cursed, his hands flexing on her arms. “Why’d you block me out?”
“I didn’t. I was just focusing—”
“Whatever you call it. One second you’re—well, not exactly open, but at least accessible, and then bam. Fort Knox.”
“I didn’t do anything.” At least not consciously. If her subconscious had booted him out, she could only imagine it was because her subconscious had excellent judgment and recognized him as the unscrupulous bastard he was. But Ciara was in trouble; she didn’t have time for scruples. Hang in there, Ciara. “Tell me what to do.”
“Relax. And unlock that vault you call a mind.”
“I—” How did she explain that she didn’t know how to relax? She knew how to add another layer of security to the vault of her mind, as he’d put it, but she didn’t have the first idea how to go about taking down the walls. She’d never tried. Giving up control, even a single layer of control, went against every instinct and every habit she’d built for the last thirty years.
“Come on, Karma. Get out of your head and let me in there.”
She closed her eyes, turning her focus inward, but if Prometheus’s muttered curse was anything to go by that only made things worse. For a moment she thought she felt him, a soft tremor shaking the walls she’d built, but she was helpless to take them down and let him in.
Then her awareness shivered, fractured, and she was Ciara. Darting across the pier, dropping her shawl as she ran toward the water. Karma jerked in Prometheus’s grasp, sucking in a horrified gasp. It was happening. That was real time. Now. The nightmare was coming to life now. Her eyes snapped open. She fisted his shirt in her hands. “Do something.” Her voice fractured on the raw words, half command, half plea. “Anything.”
“You can’t do anything the easy way, can you?” he grumbled as he shifted his grip on her, one hand coming to rest at the small of her back, the other palming the back of her neck. Then his head swooped toward her, quick and lethal as a bird of prey striking, and he was kissing her. The first shock of the kiss shattered her concentration, loosening her control, and as quickly as his lips met hers, he was in her mind, and something latched, some internal hook catching, stretching taut and perfect, and they were linked. It felt right, far too right, he was flowing into her, through her, until she was just a conduit, a puppet, and Karma felt herself start to resist, to push him out. But he wouldn’t be evicted. He pushed in—his tongue in her mouth, his hands hard and sure, pressing her body tight to his, and her thoughts flitted away as she fell from her mind into the sensations of her body. This felt right too. He drew her like a bow, the arch tightening nerves she hadn’t known she had as his mouth worked over hers, commanding and unrelenting. She was a thousand sparks igniting for the first time and he was kerosene on the flame.
She sensed him again, flowing through her, using her as a conduit, a channel, and she couldn’t remember why she would possibly want to resist. Lights flickered and a static charge shot off them, tiny lightning strikes flying in all directions. The man kissed her and sparks literally flew. Another link latched, this one jerking her hard, yanking her back, the hook of it digging deep into the muscle of her heart, and she couldn’t breathe. Karma struggled in his arms, trying to fight him off. He was suffocating her, smothering her. No, not him, it was water. She was Ciara. With the awareness came pain, a rush of it more suffocating than the lack of oxygen. Drowning in liquid agony. She wanted to scream, to fight, but more than that she just wanted it to stop. Make it stop.
With a dim, dual awareness, she felt Prometheus again. Inside her, linked to her, holding her, kissing her, she couldn’t tell the difference anymore. He was and his existence was hope. She tried to cling to it, to cling to him, but she couldn’t find her center amid all the chaos. She was rolling on the tide of something. Something far bigger than she. Was it him? Death? Coming for Ciara? Would she die too if they were linked? Held under the weight of the pain, it was hard to care. Death would release her from that, release them both.
Not today, it won’t. The deep voice in her mind was layered over itself, rich with power, but she heard Prometheus in it. His ferocity. His determination. A girl could do worse in a knight in shining armor. A dark laugh rumbled in her mind. Don’t go mistaking me for a white knight, sweetheart.
Then something clicked, a deep chord finding perfect harmony, a long dislocated bone popping into place. The pain vanished. Karma gasped at the release, slingshotted out of Ciara’s awareness, the link flying loose with a brutal jerk that left an ache in her chest where it had hooked in deep. She saw Ciara tumble out of the water and into her handler’s arms, saw her finder reach for him, like an echo or the afterimage that lingers after staring too long into the sun, but she was firmly herself again, collapsed against Prometheus’s chest, clinging to him to keep herself upright.
“She’s alive,” she whispered, melting even more against him with the force of her relief—and residual lust.
“I saw.” She felt as much as heard his voice, rumbling through his chest.
He’d seen. Of course he’d seen. He’d been right there with her. He’d done it all. He may not be a white knight—had she imagined his voice in her mind?—but he’d saved the day today. Saved Ciara. Saved Karma’s sanity.
“Thank you.”
Those words had never seemed more inadequate. She looked up, into those bottomless black eyes, trying to convey with her own everything she couldn’t put into words. He was strength. Stability in a chaotic world. He taken her trust and earned it back. He—
“Karma? Your three o’clock is—oh.”
Brittany broke off as Karma launched herself away from Prometheus. She patted her hair, her clothes, more than a little surprised to find herself unmussed—or at least no more mussed than she had been before Prometheus had gotten his hands on her. Her world had just been rocked. She shouldn’t look the same. But she did. Normal, straight-laced Karma. “Yes, Brittany?”
Brittany smiled, a naughty twinkle in her wide eyes. “Sorry to interrupt. I think your intercom thingy is busted. Your three o’clock is waiting.”
Apparently, the sparks hadn’t been merely metaphorical. A quick glance confirmed they’d fried all the electronics on her desk. Karma cleared her throat, hoping it would clear the cobwebs out of her brain. “Certainly. Please thank him for his patience. I’ll just be another two minutes.”
“What, no afterglow?”
Karma shot Prometheus a quelling glare, even knowing it would do nothing to shut him up. “Thank you, Brittany.”
The receptionist beamed and ducked back into the front office, leaving Karma alone with the bane of her existence—who could apparently kiss in a way that made her lose her mind. That is not a good thing.
She rounded the desk, striding purposefully toward the door. To show him out, not because I need the distance. “Thank you very much for your assistance, Prometheus.”
“My pleasure.” His voice was far too suggestive for her comfort as he prowled behind her across the room. “You know, some people might think I’ve repaid my debt to Karmic Consultants now.”