Strangers of the Night by Megan Hart
And they thought he was the stupid one.
She smelled so fresh, so clean, that all he could do was close his eyes and breathe her in. He wanted to cover himself in her scent, to wash away the stink of this room. Of all the years...
“Jed,” she said. Warning. “No touching.”
He hadn’t meant to. The gentle pressure of his fingers against the inside of her elbow had been involuntary. He didn’t move them away. Staring into her eyes, Jed let his fingers trace a small circle on her bare skin.
Her lips parted on a small sigh. She blinked rapidly. At the tiniest hint of her tongue pressed to her upper lip, another rush of electricity jolted through him. He was so hard now there’d be no way she could keep up the pretense of this exam long enough for him to hide it from whoever it was that got their jollies watching.
She should move away from, he thought a little incoherently. She had to know what was happening. He should stop touching her, but he couldn’t make himself. Another infinitesimal stroke of his fingertips on her skin had her eyes going wide. Dark.
Her smell changed from fresh air to something his brain told him was flowers, though it had been twenty years since he’d even seen a flower; the taste of her like golden honey, sweet syrup, flooded him through the continuing touch. Every muscle in him tensed, straining, though neither of them so much as moved more than the constant, steady motion of her hands as she made a show of checking his vitals.
Pulse. Temperature. One-handed, not moving so he could keep his fingertips on the inside of her elbow, Samantha kept up a running commentary on what she was doing—for the benefit of the observing camera, maybe. Or for him. For herself, Jed thought irrationally as the steady drone of her voice cracked and dipped for a second before she recovered.
He had never kissed a woman. Never made love. They’d started giving him porn when he hit adolescence—an outlet, they thought, so any pent-up desires could be dissolved. Preventing him from what, from violence? From yearning? It had worked, to a point, he thought now, but you couldn’t replace human touch with paper pages or digital images. You couldn’t replace making love to a woman with your own hand.
He wanted to kiss Samantha. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to make her shiver and shake, not the way the women in those movies did, but from deep inside her core. For real. He wanted to hear her say his name while her body tightened around him...
Samantha put her hand over his, her eyes closing. Her body tensed. She shook, but so briefly there could be no way anyone but Jed would notice. A small moan slipped out of her, covered up so fast by a cough as she turned her head that again, nobody but he could’ve possibly heard it.
“You have to stop.” Her lips moved, in silence he understood, anyway.
Ashamed, he let her go. Samantha took a step back, almost stumbling before she caught herself. Her eyes opened. Gaze focused. A flush had spread up her throat to paint her cheeks. With her back still to the camera, shielding him, she pulled the small cup of meds from her uniform pocket and made a show of dispensing them.
“Take your vitamins,” Samantha said.
They weren’t vitamins, but at least they weren’t hallucinogens or sedatives. He swallowed them with the bottled water she gave him from the small fridge next to the desk. By the time he had, he’d also managed to will his erection back down.
“Careful, you’ve spilled,” she said calmly without looking away from his eyes, not so much as a glance at the small wet patch on the front of his pants.
Still watching out for him, he thought. Doing what she could. His balls ached, but he didn’t dare even to shift in the chair.
They shared a look, lingering as long as they dared. At least he imagined they did, but when she cut her gaze from his, Jed had to admit that perhaps all of this was in his head. Surely Samantha didn’t have any romantic feelings for him. How could she? He shouldn’t mistake kindness and a sense of duty for anything like affection. In fact, he should be ashamed of using his talent to inflict his lust on her.
“Do you need anything?” she asked him.
He needed lots of things, none of which she could give him. “No, thanks. Is it almost time for my session with Dr. Ransom?”
“Yes. I...think so.” Again, her cheeks colored as she checked her watch. “Wow, yes it is. I lost track of time.”
“The exam took longer today,” Jed said, watching her.
Again, Samantha snagged his gaze with hers and didn’t look away. She smiled. “Yes. A little longer.”
Behind her, the green light over the door clicked to red. She didn’t turn to look at it, but noticed him staring. She straightened, tucking the empty tin back into her pocket and patting it. She smoothed the fine tendrils of pale hair that had fallen over her forehead and cheeks. She cleared her throat and took another step back.
“Everything’s fine, though,” she said.
Jed smiled without much humor. “Isn’t it always?”
“No,” Samantha said even as her mouth formed the word yes, adding, “Don’t forget to buzz if you need me.”
I need you. I always need you. His answer, unspoken, could not possibly have reached her. His talents didn’t extend to projecting thoughts.
Still, she nodded as though she’d heard him, but that was his own foolishness. His own desire. Without another word exchanged, Samantha left the room and the door locked behind her, and Jed forced himself to get out of the chair so nobody would think something was wrong.
Chapter 10
Leaving her shift in the light of day meant Samantha would be going home to blackout shades and a white-noise machine—but there’d be no easy sleep for her this morning. Not after that interminable five minutes in Jed’s room. Not with the memory of his touch lingering.
A cold shower didn’t help. She tried it, of course, running the water as frigid as she could stand it until her teeth chattered and her nipples peaked to near-painful tightness—but getting out, drying off, every stroke of the towel’s soft fabric against her had Samantha’s nerves tingling. Now she lay naked in her bed, the covers tossed off to expose her to the chilly autumn air, her window open to let in the breeze, because after a night’s work in Wyrmwood she couldn’t bear to be closed in, not even inside her own apartment.
Stretching, letting her naked skin shift on the sheets, she tried not to touch herself but gave up after a few minutes of halfhearted resistance. She’d been on fire since giving Jed his exam—the same one she gave him every shift. A quick check of his temperature, his pulse, his glands, the clarity of his eyes and little more than that. It was required, but useless, since the likelihood of anything being wrong with him that nobody hadn’t already noticed was so slim.
It was not the first time she’d murmured to him about the world outside, completely in defiance of the rules. Nor the first time she’d lingered over the exam, if only because of the way he’d pushed himself into her touch the way a cat would, purring, butting at her hand for the barest scrap of affection. Nobody touched him unless they were examining him. She knew that much, not from anything she’d ever been told as a staff member, but from the reports she’d studied, provided by Vadim and the vast reference and research sources of the Crew.
Nobody touched Jed to comfort him, not since childhood. Certainly never to arouse him, though she’d noticed about six months into her stint there that he’d begun reacting to her in that way. She’d never made a fuss about it, at first because she didn’t want to risk them pulling her off duty taking care of him, for fear there was any kind of connection between them. Later, to keep him from being embarrassed. Now, she noticed but never acknowledged it because she couldn’t admit to anyone, not even herself, how knowing that the simplest touch of her against him got him hard. How he looked at her, hungrier for that ten minutes they shared than he ever was for the trays of bland food they brought him.
Her hand slid between her legs to cup herself. Fingers slipping inside. She was still slick. Her clit, still sensitive enough that the slight flick of it from her thumb forced a sigh out of her.
He’d almost made her come while barely touching her.
With a low groan of frustration, she stopped. This was no good. She didn’t want to admit that she thought of Jed in that way. Jed, the man she was supposed to protect. Not lust after.
Still, the job with Wyrmwood had made it impossible for her to have much of a social life, which left nothing but the touch of her own hand. It had been about a week since the last time she’d pleasured herself, and she was surprised she’d made it this long without taking the time to get herself off. No wonder he’d been able to bring her so close, Samantha thought with a sigh as she rubbed her clit in a slow, steady circle. She was definitely in need of an orgasm.
The scent of lavender. It teased and tickled her nostrils. Memory, she was sure, but caught up in the eroticism of her own touch, she didn’t think much about it beyond that. She let the smells wash over her, urging her toward release.
Sometimes she used toys, but tonight the touch of only her fingers was getting her there. That and the memory of standing next to Jed, her fingertips on his wrist and feeling the suddenly swift throb of his heartbeat. His erection, conspicuously thick in his scrubs. The small wet spot of his precome that had stained it...all that from doing nothing but sitting near her. The thought of it was intoxicating and had her slipping over the edge into a hard, brief orgasm that left her breathless and sated...for now.
She gave herself a few minutes to luxuriate in the afterglow, which was nowhere near as nice as it would’ve been if she had been with someone else, but it would have to do. She’d already filed her daily report for the Crew, but now she rolled out of bed and slung on a silk kimono to sit at her desk and flip open her laptop. She typed in the web address of the secure reporting site and scrolled back through all the information she had on Wyrmwood. On Jed. Her notes were complete and thorough and said very little because there wasn’t very much to say. She went in. She did her job. She came home. She waited for word on when it was time to get him out of there.
And sometimes, she thought with a small pang of guilt, she made herself come when thinking about him.
She wasn’t surprised when her computer rang. Surely they monitored when she logged in, and what she looked at. “Vadim.”
He smiled at her from the small video chat window on her screen. “Samantha. What’s going on?”
She did not want to tell her boss about the sexual encounter today. It was an embarrassing lack of self-control on her part. It might get her pulled from the assignment, and there were so many reasons she didn’t want that to happen—some she’d own up to and some she would not.
“Nothing,” she said after a second’s hesitation. “Can’t sleep. Just trying to refresh myself on the case, I guess.”
“There’s nothing new in there. If there were, I’d have alerted you.” Vadim tilted his head to study her. “You haven’t heard anything from the hospital, have you?”
“Of course not. Like they’d tell me anything.” She snorted soft laughter and shook her head.
Vadim was no longer smiling. “It’s going to be soon. Our source says the paperwork’s been filed for his transfer.”
The transfer from Wyrmwood to an unknown location. They didn’t need to know where they were taking him to understand that he’d be killed wherever he ended up. “Why do they bother, Vadim? Why not just overdose him at the hospital? It’s not like anyone would know.”
The words were truth but tasted bitter, making her sneer.
Vadim shrugged. “Who knows, other than even their most vetted employees could end up with too much information, and they don’t want to risk it? Better to ‘transfer’ the ones they’re no longer interested in using to someplace else and simply dispose of them along the way.”
Samantha shuddered at the thought of it, of Jed being put into a white van. A gun to his head, maybe, or a simple injection. His body put into an unmarked grave. Vadim gave her a curious look, even as she quickly smoothed her expression.
“You’ll be ready?” he asked. “The only time you’ll be able to extricate him is in that small window between him leaving Wyrmwood and before he arrives at where it is they plan to take him.”
She’d known that when she took the assignment. Breaking him out of the hospital was an impossibility, no matter her level of skill or how much the Crew could help with computer hacking or other measures to get past security. She’d always known she would have to wait until they were transferring him and move at that time. So why, then, did she feel so suddenly desperate not to wait any longer?
“It’s been years.” She leaned closer to the computer, staring into the camera. “Is it possible they’re simply going to leave him alone? There are plenty of residents at Wyrmwood living out their lives without interference.”
“Not a single one of the children captured from Collins Creek have been left to live without interference,” Vadim said. “The ones that showed no abilities were, of course, put into the foster care system. The others have either been kept, as Jed’s been kept, or exterminated.”
“There are some others,” Samantha said quietly. “The ones who got out.”
She’d read about them in the files. A few obscure references, no more than that, these special children almost as much of a myth as Bigfoot. Sometimes spotted in the wild, but never captured, their existence never proven.
“You know as well as I do that nobody’s ever been able to connect anyone out there with Collins Creek. It was swept, the residents removed and most of them died during the raid.” Vadim paused. “Certainly we’ve had many cases of men and women with extraordinary psychic talents, but none of them have been connected with the farm or the cult. And even if they were, does it matter? Your assignment is to protect this one man.”
“Of course.” She nodded, pulling the robe closer around her throat from the sudden chill sweeping over her.
“Samantha, you should know I have no doubts about your ability to handle this assignment. You’re very, very good at what you do.” Vadim did smile again, though the effect of it was probably less reassuring than he meant it to be.
Samantha saw no point in false modesty. She’d spent her childhood being trained to survive any situation, including the impossible, like an alien invasion or the rise of the undead. She’d joined the Crew after several stints in government organizations so secret even she wasn’t sure who ran them—only that the training she’d had as a kid had been nothing compared to what she’d learned there. Those skills and credentials had been what got her approved to work at Wyrmwood. “Yes. It’s not that I’m worried about it... I’ll be ready. But...”
“Yes?”
Samantha shook her head, knowing she had to own up to it. “It’s the subject. He seems to have formed an...attachment.”
“Ah. Can you use it?”
Startled, she recoiled with a grimace. “What? No! Why would I?”
“If it was necessary to gain his cooperation, I would expect you to, especially if it was to help protect him.” Vadim shrugged, eyeing her.
“I fail to see how encouraging him to have a crush on me could help protect him.” The words came out too sharply. She sounded guilty.
Vadim gave her a narrow-eyed look. “The subject has been kept in near isolation since childhood. Before that, he’d been raised in horrific social conditions. Understandably, he could be expected to form an emotional or sexual attachment to an attractive caregiver. The records show you are likely not even the first...”
That made her feel all kinds of irritable. She’d read the reports, of course, about the nurse who’d been removed from duty
“Ah, yes. The waiting. Well, we’re all waiting.”
“And why?” she demanded suddenly. “Why not just take him out of there now? There has to be a way!”
“If there was, don’t you think we’d have gotten him out of there long ago?” Vadim fixed her with a stern look. “Even with inside help, Wyrmwood is impossible to break into or out of.”
“Nothing is impossible. I thought that was the Crew’s motto or something like that.”
Vadim laughed without much humor, although his dark eyes did twinkle. “If we had a motto, I suspect it would be more like ‘nothing is improbable.’ As it is, you won’t have to wait much longer. All the signs are pointing to his imminent transfer. Be prepared to hear more as early as next week.”
“If you can tell they’re getting ready to transfer him,” she began, but stopped at the look on the older man’s face. She’d never made Vadim angry with her, and she wasn’t about to find out now what might happen to her if she did. As charming and paternal as Vadim could be, there was a darkness in him that Samantha recognized...and didn’t want to mess with.
“This connection you believe he’s begun. Is it something you reciprocate?”
“Of course not,” she said steadily, getting his gaze head-on as best she could through the computer screen. “He doesn’t deserve to be put down like a dog that’s lived past its use, that’s all.”