Raintree. Linda Winstead Jones

this one sideways into his knee.

      “Oh, no, I had to stand there while you did your mumbo jumbo—” On that pass, she leveled a punch at his solar plexus.

      “Then you brain-raped me, you jerk, you gorilla, you freakin’ witch doctor—” On the return trip, she went for a kidney punch.

      “Then, to top it all off, the whole time you were grinding your hard-on against my butt!” She was so incensed that she shrieked that last bit at him, and this time put everything she had into a punch straight to his chin.

      He blocked it with a swift movement of his forearm, so she stomped on his foot instead.

      “Ouch!” he yelped, but the jerk was laughing, damn him, and in another of his lightning moves, he captured her in his arms, pulling her solidly against him. She opened her mouth to screech at him, and he bent his head and kissed her.

      In contrast to the strong-arm tactics he’d used against her all night, the kiss was soft and feather-light, almost sweet. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and kissed her again. He stank as much as she did, maybe even more, but the body beneath his ruined clothing was rock solid with muscle and very warm in the airconditioned coolness of the house. “I know it hurt…I didn’t have time to explain—” Between phrases, he kept on kissing her, each successive touch of his lips becoming a little deeper, lingering a little longer.

      Shock held her still: shock that he would be kissing her; shock that she would let him kiss her, after all the antagonism between them; after he’d done everything he’d done to her; after she’d subjected him to that battery of drive-by attacks. He wasn’t forcing her to let him kiss her; this was nothing like wanting to walk and not being able to. Her hands were on his muscled chest, but she wasn’t making any effort to push him away, not even a mental one.

      His mouth slid to the soft hollow beneath her ear, deposited a gentle bite on the site of her neck. “I’d much rather have been grinding my hard-on against your front,” he said, and went back to her mouth for a kiss that had nothing light or sweet about it. His tongue swept in, acquainting him with her taste, while his right hand went down to her bottom, slid caressingly over the curves, then pressed her hips forward to meet his.

      He was doing exactly what he’d said he would much rather have been doing.

      Lorna didn’t trust passion. From what she had seen, passion was selfish and self-centered. She wasn’t immune to it, but she didn’t trust it—didn’t trust men, who in her experience would tell lies just to get laid. She didn’t trust anyone else to care about her, to look out for her interests. She opened herself to passion slowly, warily, if at all.

      If she hadn’t been so tired, so stressed, so traumatized, she would have had complete control of herself, but she’d been off balance from the minute his chief of security had escorted her into his office. She was off balance now, as dizzy as if the kitchen were rotating around her, as if the floor had slanted beneath her feet. In contrast, he was solid and so very warm, his arms stronger than any that had ever held her before, and her body responded to him as if nothing else existed beyond the simple pleasure of the moment. Being held against him felt good. His incredible body heat felt good. The thick length of his erection, pushing against her lower belly, felt good—so good that she had gone on tiptoe to better accommodate it, and she didn’t remember doing so.

      Belatedly alarmed by the no-show of her usual caution, she pulled her mouth from his and pushed against his chest. “This is stupid,” she muttered.

      “Brainless,” he agreed, his breath coming a little fast. He was slow to release her, so she pushed again, and, reluctantly, he let his arms drop.

      He didn’t step back, so she did, staring around her at the kitchen so she wouldn’t have to look at him. As kitchens went, it was nice, she supposed. She didn’t like cooking, so in the general scheme of things, kitchens were pretty much wasted on her.

      “You kidnapped me,” she charged, scowling at him.

      He considered that, then gave a brief nod. “I did.”

      For some reason his agreement annoyed her more than if he’d argued with her assessment. “If you’re going to charge me with cheating, then do it,” she snapped. “You can’t prove a thing, and we both know it, so the sooner you make a fool of yourself, the better, as far as I’m concerned, because then I can leave and not see you—”

      “I’m not making any charges against you,” he interrupted. “You’re right. I can’t prove anything.”

      His sudden admission stumped her. “Then why drag me all the way up here?”

      “I said I can’t prove you did it. That doesn’t mean you’re innocent.” He gave her a narrow, assessing look. “In fact, you’re guilty as hell. Using your paranormal gifts in a game of chance is cheating, pure and simple.”

      “I don’t have—” Automatically, she started to deny that she was psychic, but he raised a hand to cut her off.

      “That’s why I did the ‘brain-rape,’ as you called it. I needed an extra reserve of power to hold off the fire, and I knew you were gifted—but I was surprised at how gifted. You can’t tell me you didn’t know. There was too much power there for you to pass yourself off as just being lucky.”

      Lorna hardly knew how to react. His cool acknowledgment of what he’d done to her raised her hackles all over again, but the charge that she was “gifted” made her so uneasy that she was already shaking her head before he finished speaking. “Numbers,” she blurted. “I’m good with numbers.”

      “Bull.”

      “That’s all it is! I don’t tell fortunes or read tea leaves or anything like that! I didn’t know 9/11 was going to happen—”

      But the flight numbers of the downed flights had haunted her for days before the attack. If she tried to dial a phone number, the numbers she dialed were those flight numbers—in the order in which the planes had crashed.

      That particular memory surfaced like a salmon leaping out of the water, and a chill shook her. She hadn’t thought of the flight numbers since then. She had buried the memory deep, where it couldn’t cause trouble.

      “Go away,” she whispered to the memory.

      “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “And neither are you. At least, not right away.” He sighed and gave her a regretful look. “Take off your clothes.”

      Chapter Nine

      “I will not!” Lorna yelped, backing as far away from him as she could get, which of course wasn’t far.

      “So will I, probably,” he replied ironically, moving closer, looming over her. “Can’t be helped. Look, I’m not going to assault you. Just take off your clothes and get it over with.”

      She retreated as he advanced, clutching at her blouse as if she were an outraged Victorian virgin and looking around for a weapon, any weapon. This was a kitchen, damn it; it was supposed to have knives sitting in a fancy block on the fancy countertop. Instead, there was nothing but a vast expanse of polished granite.

      He took a deep breath, then heaved it out as if he were bored. “I can make you do it without even touching you. You know that, and I know that, so why do this the hard way?”

      He was right, she thought impotently. Whatever it was that his mind did to her mind, he could make her do anything he wanted. “This isn’t fair!” she shouted at him, curling her hands into fists. “How are you doing this to me?”

      “I’m a freakin’ witch doctor, remember?”

      “Don’t forget the rest of it! Jerk! Ass—”

      “I know, I know. Now take off your clothes.”

      She shook her head, matted hair flying. Bitterly, she expected him to take control of her mind, but