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Chapter 9
Eliot awoke with a jolt. His eyes flying open, his body covered by a thin sheen of perspiration, his heartrate elevated, his breathing quick and shallow, his muscles tense.
He hadn't dreamt about Amil and that time in the mountain prison in years. He knew it wasn't a memory he wanted to hold on to but what struck him as strange was that the memory felt so vague. Almost as though he was watching a movie of someone else's life. It felt new and fresh. All these years later and the recollection of that place and time was still as hauntingly fresh as if it had been yesterday, lacking any of the haze that normally tinges the edges of old memories.
Then the weight on his arm- the warm, soft skin radiating heat on his entire right side pulled his focus back to the beautiful, naked woman tucked against him, fast asleep. Her hair covering her face and half of his.
He couldn't help but smile- she was out cold. She slept soundly, trustingly.
The thought occurred to him that he felt…content.
He reached over to brush her hair back from her face, a protective warmth surging through this center.
But as he cleared the last few strands of silken, strawberry hair from her face and his focus fell fully, an image flashed into his mind as clear and real as his own reflection staring back at him from a mirror.
Kennedy, in army fatigues, bloodied and broken- her lower body crushed beneath a crashed helicopter. Her wide-eyed stare aimed lifelessly in his direction.
The recollection zapped him like a jolt from a live wire and he recoiled and froze.
He stared at her warily, his hand hovering inches from her skin but the strange, sudden, mental vision dulled to the point he couldn't get a clear image.
What the hell…
No matter how hard he focused, the image wouldn't return. It faded as quickly as it appeared.
'I must be a little more wiped than I thought,' he rationalized silently, taking two deep cleansing breaths to ease his thoughts. But the nagging persisted.
His thoughts fell to Hardison and the answers he hoped the hacker had for him. He didn't want to call for fear he'd unwittingly give up his location but he needed to know something. He hated being a sitting duck, he was starting to lose his edge.
'Dammit Hardison; what's taking so long?'
He had to get up, do something, make a plan, s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g…
He eased Kennedy's head carefully off of his arm and glided away from her and off of the couch. He stared down at her face again, willing the strange image to return by the sheer force of his resolve but it stubbornly refused.
His fingers tore roughly through his hair, his frustration quickly mounting.
He stalked over to the phone and picked it up roughly. He was one number away from completely entering Hardison's emergency contact number when he paused and closed his eyes. He took another cleansing breath and cancelled the attempt. Resting the phone on the counter, he interlocked his fingers behind his head and stretched the full length of his naked body and breathed deeply in an attempt to regain his equilibrium.
'Shake it off,' he coached himself.
A quick shower was in order. He knew the water would do the trick where the deep breathing had failed.
Eliot spared Kennedy one final glance as he passed her on the way to the bathroom, his body stirring slightly at the sight of her. He reached for her dress and eased it over her as much for modesty as for warmth. His groin tightened as his hand lightly glided against the satiny smooth skin of her behind.
He stood quickly and clenched his fists and stalked off to the bathroom- a shower was definitely in order. A cold shower. He needed a clear head, and with the way his body was in conflict he needed a jolt to sharpen his focus.
He couldn't shake it though- something wasn't right. Eliot trusted his instincts explicitly. They kept him alive and protected the people who were important to him- and those instincts were telling him that there was more to that vision he'd had than met the eye. He couldn't let it go.
The hot spray of the shower against his tense shoulder muscles relaxed him immediately. He felt the anxiety and strain slowly ripple through his body and slink down the drain. He pressed his palms against the shower wall in front of him and let the hot water beat his muscles into submission. He didn't realize how much he'd needed the brief respite but as the fatigue that set in as his body tipped passed relaxed, he heard the door hinges creek slightly, he realized how truly unfocused he'd allowed himself to be.
His fists clenched and his immediate thought went to assessing his first plan of attack. But before he could lunge, Kennedy's voice stopped him cold.
"Do you want some company?" she called from the door. The question, truly rhetorical because before he could answer she'd already pulled the curtain and was stepping into the small space between Eliot and the water's fall.
She wound her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his. His tension found a new focal point as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
"Why didn't you wake me?" she asked, smiling up at him and softly rocking her hips into his.
Eliot energy shifted instantly. It was always like than with her. He felt a little reckless, a little carefree, a little undisciplined, a lot unlike himself. He wanted to make her happy and revel in the happiness he felt in her presence. It was like a drug. She numbed his senses, his better judgment.
He felt nearly none of the tension that he'd been trying to shake just a few minutes before. He just wanted to get lost in her- physically, emotionally, mentally. Nothing else held the urgency of each moment with her- the wariness he'd felt earlier, dulling at the edges.
He reached up and smoothed her soaked hair away from her face, "You looked like you really needed the rest," the hint of a mischievous, innuendo-laced smile curling his lips.
She knew exactly what he'd been hinting, and matched his mischief making, "I'm fully rested now."
Her lips touched his gently but she didn't linger. She pulled back to find him staring at her intently.
"Is everything okay, Spencer," she whispered the playful question, angling her head to match is curious gaze.
For all of the questions he had, there wasn't anything he could really ask her that would fully satisfy his unease.
So he shifted his weight and stooped to lift her against him instead, "Better than okay," he offered quietly as her legs wrapped tightly around his hips.
He stared at her again, trying to force his mind into some kind of recall but all he could see was the way the water beaded on her steam-flushed cheeks, and smooth, swollen lips.
He was powerless to his attraction to her and as his lips sought the taste of hers once more, thoughts of his strange vision blurred even further into the back of his mind.
