Born to Darkness (41 page)

She’d practically smelled his desire for her during that meeting.

Here in the elevator, he was both incredibly turned on and horrified by her PDA, but not horrified enough to push her out of grab range. In fact, he himself took some serious double-handed possession of her ass as he continued to encourage her to lick his tonsils while he tried to do the same to hers.

And the knowledge that if she’d unfastened his jeans and somehow magically adiosed her own pants, he would’ve screwed her right then and there, regardless of the security cameras that he
had
to know were broadcasting their images down into Security, made her want to both laugh and cry.

He was that far gone.

As the elevator doors dinged open, she roughly jerked herself out of his grasp and went out into the hall, saying, “
That?
Is all you need to know.”

It would’ve been the perfect tough-bitch line, tossed carelessly over her shoulder—if her voice hadn’t wobbled. But maybe she was lucky and he’d missed that.

“Whoa,” he was saying,
“whoa,”
as he staggered out after her into the hall, his eyes a tad out of focus. He was breathing as if he’d just sprinted a 5K, which would have made her smile—if any of this shit had been real. “I’m sorry, but … Hello? Cameras?”

Mac was already beelining it for his apartment door. “Grab a clue, Boy Scout,” she said. “There’s no one in OI who couldn’t guess what we’re doing here—not after the report that Elliot submitted on my enhanced ability to heal. They don’t need video down in Analysis. They’re probably making popcorn and getting ready to huddle around a read-out of our vital signs from our ongoing jot scans. Hope you don’t get performance anxiety.”

She unlocked his apartment with her passkey and went straight to the comm-station. “Computer, access MM-one. Type and print a legal document for Potential Laughlin to sign,” she ordered, “stating that he’s been given a full explanation of my power and correlating skills, and despite my recommendation otherwise, that he’s willing to participate in today’s experiment. Use whatever legalese is necessary to make the document binding immediately upon his signature.”

“Computer, access SL-five. Please adjust the language in the agreement to include any and all experiments,” Shane raised his voice to add, “starting today but continuing into the future, as needed.”

Mac looked at him. “As
needed
?”

He shrugged. “Hey, we might need to do more. In the name of science. And I’d prefer not to have to take the time to sign additional
documents. Assuming, of course, that today’s
tests
”—he made air quotes—“don’t kill me. Hmm, maybe I better handwrite an addendum stating that, should I not survive, that’s okay with me, too, because if what we’re going to do here is even half as good as what just happened in that elevator, I’ll die smiling.”

Mac just looked at him as the printer whirred to life and spat out the document she’d requested.

“Uh-oh,” he said. “No laughter. Not even an eye-roll.” He crossed the room to take the document from the printer tray. He glanced at it, glanced at Mac. “Is a pen okay, or you want this signed in blood?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. He took it over to the kitchen counter and picked up the pen that was atop a pad by the phone. The ballpoint scratched against the paper before he recapped the pen and set it down with a very solid-sounding thunk. And turned back to Mac. “It’s official. I’m all yours.”

The stupid thing was that he meant it. Or he thought he meant it. He was standing there with that heat simmering in his pretty eyes and on his too-handsome face, with that lean, hard-muscled body with his naval officer attitude, and Mac wanted to cry—or hit something—because she didn’t want just another impersonal sexual encounter with this man.

She wanted something that she could never have.

But Shane was just like Justin, and Robby, and all of the other guys she’d used, and who’d used her in return, all the way back …

To Tim.

Who’d been so handsome and funny and smart and sweet when she’d first moved in with her father and Janice, after her mother and little brother had died.

He’d been the only one to offer her any comfort—if you could call what he’d offered that.

And Shane …? He was doing the very same thing, responding in the very same way.

Not to her, but to her power.

God, Mac hated her power.

She wished she were telepathic instead of empathic. Being telepathic
would have been easier to manage. It was far more straightforward than her stupid abilities, and it wasn’t fair.

Of course, fair had nothing to do with it.

Powers and talents were not fair. And Greater-Thans were not equal.

They were individual. Your strengths were your strengths, and you were born with them—the same way that Shane had been born with those pretty reddish hues in his hair.

And Mac could only hope that that same unique individuality held when it came to being enhanced—that even though Diaz’s boost in integration levels had come from his having formed an intimate emotional attachment to Elliot, Mac’s shift upward would be found to come purely from steaming hot sex.

Because the idea that she was skyrocketing up around sixty because of her
feelings
for Shane …

It was unbearable, even to consider.

But it was then, as Shane was standing there gazing at her, obviously watching and waiting to see what she was going to do now that he was
all hers
, that his eyes narrowed. “Shit,” he said.

And now the heat was replaced with something else. His eyes were still warm, but it was less about sex and more about … kindness?

“Jesus,” Shane said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but …” He exhaled hard, and shook his head. “Let’s not do this, Michelle. Not like this.”

She couldn’t believe he’d said it either. In fact, she was so surprised, she didn’t know what to say, so she reamed him for the fact that he’d used her given name. “It’s Mac,” she told him sharply. “Or Dr. Mackenzie. Or just Mackenzie.”

“I kinda like Michelle,” he said. “It suits you.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yes please,” Shane said. “In my wildest dreams. But right now? No. I honestly don’t think that’s smart. I don’t think … Look, I don’t know why I scare you so badly, but—”

“
Fuck
you!”

“Not like,
Grrrr
,” he said, making bear claws of his hands. “That’s not what I’m talking about, so don’t get all defensive. That’s not what I mean when I say
scare
. I think there’s a good chance that you could kick my ass if you wanted to.”

“Not a
chance
,” she said. “I
could
.”

Mac could see—clearly—that he doubted it would be that absolute, but he let her win. “I’ve been in battlefield situations,” he told her. “I’ve studied the psychology of what fear can do, and I know that it comes out as anger, and ever since we walked out of Dr. Bach’s office, you’ve been angry as hell at me and—”

She started to sputter. “If you seriously think—”

But he held up his hands. “Will you just let me finish?”

“No,” Mac said. “Because you
are
finished. You don’t know me. How do you know what’s angry and what’s just … 
bored
.”

He laughed at that, his amusement genuine. “You expect me to believe that I
bore
you?”

She shrugged expansively. “You really don’t know me. A few hours of sex and a coupla conversations …? You have no idea who I am.”

“
Fuck you
is bored? Because where I come from,
fuck you
is angry. It’s upset. It’s … fuck you! I don’t bore you,
Michelle
. I scare you shitless.”

“Sorry, but you really don’t.” She shot him a blast of sincerity and he should have believed her and backed down.

Instead, Shane raised his voice. “Computer, confirm ongoing jot scan of Dr. Michelle Mackenzie.”

“Jot scan confirmed,” the computer responded.

“Computer, provide the audio of Dr. Mackenzie’s heart rate please,” Shane ordered.

“What?” Mac said as a low-pitched throbbing came through the overhead speakers. “What gives you the right—”

“Sounds a little accelerated,” Shane said. “Of course, I’m not a doctor. Computer, comparison of Dr. Mackenzie’s current pulse to her average resting heart rate.”

The computer complied, reporting that she had the average
resting heart rate of an athlete, but it was much higher than that now—as Mac shook her head.

“Hmm,” Shane said. “Maybe all Greater-Thans’ heart rates increase when they’re
bored
.”

“Computer, terminate,” she ordered, and the sound cut out.

“I scare you because you like me,” Shane insisted. “And I know you think the only reason I’m into you is because of your voodoo, but that’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” she asked. And she let him have a blast of that very same
voodoo
, which made him take a step toward her. And then another.

“I’ve told you things that I’ve never told anyone,” Shane said, clearly determined to keep the conversation going even though the body language she was giving him now was pure
shut up and kiss me
.

“About cage fighting?” Mac said, trying to be flip and irreverent.

He took another step toward her, even though he was clearly fighting it. “About the blacklist. I know you probably think it’s bullshit, but the shame I feel when I think about that is … I’m a Navy SEAL, Mac. I’m used to winning, and I’m used to receiving respect—hard-earned respect. Being blacklisted is … It makes me sick.”

She wanted to ask him about it—what had gone so terribly wrong—but she didn’t dare, for fear he’d realize she gave a shit.

Because she did. Despite everything she’d learned from Tim, and from every other man who’d come after him, Mac
did
care about Shane. Too much.

“We were assigned to take out a high-ranking terrorist,” he told her quietly, even though she hadn’t asked. “I was leading an eight-man team—my very best men. The risks were incredible, but they all volunteered to go.

“We inserted just over the border of a country that our military wasn’t supposed to be in, with the understanding that if we were caught by our so-called allies, we were on our own.” He sighed, a heavy exhale of air. “But we weren’t apprehended. The entire op
went like clockwork. We easily found and ID’d our target and we were literally moments from transmitting the coordinates for a stealth missile attack, when one of my men—I won’t tell you who, and it really doesn’t matter. But he realized that our target wasn’t a terrorist, but was instead the sole surviving witness to a political assassination that certain of our corporate government’s CEOs had spent months insisting they hadn’t carried out. And here we were, about to eliminate that only witness …?”

“Shit,” Mac said.

“Shit plus,” Shane corrected her. “I didn’t want my men faced with that kind of moral dilemma,” he continued, “so I ordered them back over the border and I called in the coordinates for a deserted farmhouse. As things were blowing up down the road, I helped the witness disappear. Forever, but in a much nicer her-heart’s-still-beating way.” He paused. “Problem was, there was a second search team sent after her—a team of mercenaries that I wasn’t told about. And they’d set up a more accurate mortar attack, which made it … kinda dangerous. But I got her out. She won’t be found unless she wants to be—and she doesn’t want to be. She was pretty invested in seeing her children grow up.”

“You did it all by yourself?” Mac had to ask.

“I had help from the locals,” Shane said.

And wasn’t it interesting, the way he’d worded that. It wasn’t an absolute yes or no. So she pushed. “You sent your team of eight SEALs—”

“Seven,” he corrected her. “I was the eighth.”

“They didn’t help you. At all.”

“Nope.” He popped the P, and again all she got from him was a wave of honesty and truth.

And Mac realized … She grabbed a piece of paper and wrote it down, because the computer was listening in. Her handwriting was shitty, but as Shane came to look over her shoulder, it was clear he had no trouble reading it.
You fooled the lie detectors because of the language that you’re using. You
ordered
your men over the border. But they didn’t go. And they didn’t help you,
you
helped
them
hide the witness. Because you were injured. Your ankle, that you told me about, back in the bar???

She looked up into his somber eyes and he nodded as he gazed back at her.

He’d intentionally taken the fall, protecting his men. And pissing off a lot of people high up in the corporate government, no doubt.

She didn’t say it or even write it, but it was obvious that he knew what she was thinking. “I did what I had to do,” he told her quietly. “And as much as I’d like to tell you more …” He’d already said too much.

I won’t tell anyone
, she promised him, writing it on the note and then, after he’d read it, tearing it up into small pieces that she took over to the sink, soaked into a sodden mass, and then ground up in the disposal.

“Thanks,” he said, as she turned the grinder back off.

“You’re a freaking idiot,” she said.

He smiled at that. “I did the right thing.”

Again, Mac was struck by the intensity of his convictions. It radiated off of him in waves of honor and sincerity that she felt in the pit of her stomach. It practically made him glow.

Even at his most deceptive, he was pure and golden and true.

He was so wrong for her—for someone who lived and breathed trickery and illusion.

Still, she wanted him, more than she’d ever wanted anyone …

He looked away from her first, turning and gesturing toward the door. “Look, as much as I want you to stay, I really do think you should go. Or stay to have lunch with me, but—”

“No,” Mac said, forcing her feet to move past him. “You’re right. I’ll go. There are other ways to test this theory. I shouldn’t do this with you.”

But before she opened the door, he caught her arm and pulled her back toward him. “Other ways? What other ways?”