Chapter 56

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…" No, don't panic! She thought. I can do this. I'm born for this. But projection would only make a worse mess of the chaotic mix of feelings that were already there. She placed her hands over his as gently as possible trying to ease the pressure he put on his temples. Then she opened up and tried to take the emotional weight off of him. The impact hit her like a freight train. But she held on until it slowly dissolved.

"Hey, come back to me," she coaxed, peeling his hands off and starting to stroke through his messed up hair. "You don't have to go there again. Just stay with me."

She got a tired nod.

"It's ok now. Just come here." She leaned forward to kiss him, needing to feel him close. But he pulled back again. Then he slowly lifted his eyes and looked at her. He blinked once. Twice. His gaze becoming clearer each time. He was gaining back his focus fast – too fast.

"I'm alright now. I got it under control." But his gaze swept away from her.

"No, you don't. You're still so tense you're about to snap. You're just trying to close up to me again." She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. "And I can't handle that. I need you to be with me, all of you. Don't you see that?"

"Yes, I know," he ground out between clenched teeth. It tore him to pieces that he couldn't give her what she needed, even more because of how much he needed her closeness too. "But I'm not good for you right now."

"Because you're angry?"

"I'm not angry." He really wasn't he realized. He just wanted. The glimpse of the memory had left him with an inexplicable need for something he could never have: To be close to Alja in a way that left no room for – anything else. No, that didn't feel sane at all. He'd have to fight it.

God, the man was stubborn! "Why not? I'm pushing you all the time. If you don't want that, why are you not angry?"

"Because it's my fault. I can't give you what you need." Finally some emotion entered his voice. He strangled it as soon as it broke through. He pushed her off of him and rose to walk away. "And I can't have this conversation now. I have to go meet Judd."

He'd told her all about the fellow rebel she had known as an Arrow – including the fact, that he was avoiding him right now, because he didn't know what to tell him, how much to trust him. "Bullshit!"

He turned around at the open double door that led to the almost unfurnished living area. "What?"

Oh, he tried to sound cold. But Alja knew he was anything but. "Don't act like you don't know the word. You didn't even react to Judd's calls. You're just trying to run away from this, from your emotions. Damn it! I thought you would have to be brought up to react with this … this male crap." Blunt frustration coated every word.

"I don't want to hurt you." He just stood there, in the doorway of that almost empty room, the fading light that fell through the window behind him casting deep shadows on his face.

"You'd never hurt me." She took a step closer.

"That might change, if I stay with you now."

"It will change for sure, if you leave now."

"Alja, that thing inside me you're so desperate to know about, it's bad." He didn't want to think about it. When he saw her, he just wanted to feel. Did she even know how beautiful she looked? Standing there with that expression of utter determination on her face. Ready to fight for the good in him he knew he'd lost.

"Then tell me exactly in what way that part of you wants to hurt me." No more dancing around the truth. If he was so sure he was evil inside, it was time to prove it.

She had him so churned up inside, he actually tried to listen to the monster. To his surprise it had gone silent since Alja had started to pull him into this irrational fight. It was another thing the monster didn't understand. Or did it just silently lay in wait for its prey?

Meanwhile Alja had gotten close enough to make out his face again. He looked exasperated now. She felt a little guilty about putting so much pressure on him, but she had the feeling if she let him go now, she'd lose him to the darkness inside. She had to confront that darkness if she wanted to keep him. And maybe it was good that he was so scared of it. It didn't leave her room to wonder if he might finally reveal something that would scare her too. His answer however was nothing she'd expected.

"I don't know," he admitted. And the next moment she found herself trapped against the doorframe by his body, his arms locked on the wood on either side of her head. He barely touched her but his face was so close his breath licked over her skin like a flame when he spoke. "I just want you so badly. The way I want to claim you, it's nothing good. I am so full of death and you – you're life."

"Do you want to take that life?" Her voice sounded hoarse. Her heart raced. She had to know. She couldn't go back now. Worse, she wasn't sure if she'd run even if his answer was 'yes'.

But all he wanted was to feel her under his body, naked, hot and full of life. He wanted to have her, to possess her more than anything, but there was also something obscure and consuming about his need, something he didn't think belonged between them. And for the first time his feelings for Alja scared him. "No. But I want to own that life, make it mine… That doesn't even make sense…" His hands trembled on the wood beside her head.

"Yes it does." He wanted her life, just as bad as she wanted his darkness. She could sense the intense desire emanating from him. But it didn't scare her. It drew her – in a way that made it impossible to stop pressuring him now. She felt the energy of it whirl beyond the surface, dark, dangerous and so seducing. It was the thing he'd held back, the thing he tried to hide by not letting go of his maddening control, even when they shared their most intimate moments. She wanted to feel that side of him. That he kept it locked up infuriated her. "Tell me what you want!" she breathed into his ear.

He shuddered at her sensual demand. Ever since he'd had his first taste of her, fantasies of what he wanted to do with her unraveled in his mind as if to catch up with the years of abstinence. Some of them were wrong in more than one way, yet a single thought of them instantly got him hard. And then the pictures flooded into his mind: Alja on her hands and knees. Her hips raised high so her flushed, pink folds were deliciously exposed, as he held her in place his fingers digging deep into the flesh of her hips and butt. Alja tied spread legged to his bed, helplessly bucking in her restrains as he ravaged her breasts and her sex with his mouth. And then endless imaginations of how he'd drive his cock, swollen to painful hardness, into the soft heat of her to find release.

"Tell me!" she demanded again.

And he did.

Her breath hitched as he unfolded the images before her, his lips brushing her ear, his voice harsh and trembling from the control he had to exert not to follow up at once on the cravings he told her about. But when he drew back to look at her it wasn't shock on her face. It was unveiled lust and desire.

"All of this because of some kinky fantasies?" The words slipped out without thought, her mind clouded by the sexual heat his admissions had stoked.

"No Alja!" His voice was brutal. But the violence in it wasn't directed at her. It was directed at his own impulses. "I'm not some naïve human or changeling, who thinks these – practices are an exciting little variation of sex or sensual experiments. I grew up with a very different kind of experiments and I should not feel anything but horror, thinking of a woman – thinking of you tied up, helpless and at my mercy."

"What if I don't care?" He'd let her get a glimpse of the wild passion that raged inside him. And she wanted to unleash that passion, all of it. "What if I want it?" She deliberately licked her lips, caught her lower lip between her teeth and released it slowly. She was so annoyed by his control, so hot from the imaginations he'd shared, that she was hell-bent on making him lose it now and deal with the consequences later.

Kaleb stared at her, lost for words, still fighting to resist. She held his gaze. He looked away. She lifted her hands to cup his face, to force his eyes back at her. But before she could touch him he gripped her wrists and turned her around so she faced the doorframe. The next moment her blouse was yanked down her arms. But he didn't pull it off. He twisted and gripped the fabric at her elbows, effectively immobilizing her arms behind her back.

"Do you want this? Violence?" His voice was low and dangerous.

"Do you want to cause me pain?" She asked right back. Because it still didn't feel like it. He held her firmly in place but he hadn't twisted her arms any way that might have hurt. And she knew from sparring with him that he could've done it.

She tried to turn.

He tightened the grip on her blouse with one hand, pushed her against the doorframe with the other – hard, but not hard enough to bruise. Instead she could now feel the hard length of him pressing against her backside. Heat shot through her body. Breathing in her breasts pressed against the cool, smooth wood of the doorframe. This might be dangerous but it was the most exciting experience of her life.

She managed to twist around enough so he could see her eyes again. Still there was no fear in them. Instead the trembling stars in them glowed with a passion that dared him to continue.

"I want to give you so much pleasure it feels like pain." The words tore out of him in a growl. He wanted her to be as helpless as he was. He wanted her to surrender to him the way she made him surrender to her right now, a little more with each second he couldn't make himself pull away from her, with each inch those deep eyes where drawing him in. He wrapped his free hand around her throat, leaned forward and demanded an openmouthed kiss. When she struggled again he nipped hard at her lower lip. She stilled, breathless. "I want you unable to stop me from doing anything I want, unable to writhe away as I touch you." He spoke the words against her lips, licking out over the hurt his teeth had caused. "I want to suck on you between your legs, take bites out of your breasts and maybe other places. I want to touch you, kiss you, lick you, until you scream my name again." As she'd done that first time in the cabin.

And just as she'd done back then she answered him now: "Then don't stop!"

But he had to.

He let her go so fast she stumbled and had to brace herself on the wood in front of her with her newly freed arms.

Kaleb knew he was done for the moment she turned. She was panting hard, her whole presence so filled with lust it was visible on her skin: Her cheeks flushed, sweat gleaming on her upper lip and on the delicious curves that vanished all too soon inside her tank top. As if he hadn't simply talked to her but touched her most intimate places.

But that was exactly what he had done. He had touched the most private and also most sensitive part of her: Her mind. And there was no mischief in her eyes now, just blatant, demanding provocation. She was so aroused it was torture not to have him touching her. Not breaking eye contact for fear of letting him slip away again, she let the blouse slide off her arms, stripped off her tank top, then her bra.

Kaleb felt mesmerized by her just like he had on that first night in the mountains, when he'd tried so hard to resist the urge to touch her. We both know you're not gonna deliver, she'd said. And she'd been right at the time. But now? There was no Silence, no dissonance, no part of his conditioning left to hold him back. Only his iron control that was crumbling to dust beyond his care.

And she knew.

He could sense it, because she suddenly stopped pushing as hard as she had the whole time. Without a word she stepped closer, very slowly and lifted her hands to his collar. The movement squeezed her breasts together, shaping them in a way that made it impossible to look away. When she unbuttoned his shirt she touched him so gently, it was a soft, feminine brand every time her fingertips brushed his naked skin. And when she stroked her hands down his arms to push off the shirt it felt so careful it was almost non-sexual. She was soothing him. Maybe he'd be able to scrape his control back together after all. But she followed him, when he took another step back – and found himself stopped by the opposite side of the broad doorframe behind him. And in front of him Alja stood, half naked, beautiful, wrapping him in her wildflowers and rain scent, a goddess radiating sheer, vibrant life.

Alja could sense it better now, the dark, electric energy swirling behind the thin – oh so thin layer of steely control Kaleb still wore over the wildness that lived inside him. When she opened his belt she saw him fisting his hands beside his body, still trying to restrain himself. But there was an edge of anticipation to his gaze.

He wouldn't stop her.

Good, because she wouldn't let him either. That decision had been made the day she walked into his office, maybe even before. She knew that now. She cupped his face in her hands one last time, pressed the softest kiss on his lips.

Then she let her hands slide down the sides of his body hooking her fingers into the waistband of his pants and pulled them down while she gracefully slid down on her haunches. All the time her gaze stayed locked with his, holding him hostage to whatever she did to him.

He felt the relief when his cock was released from the confines of clothing, all doubt blocked out by those gentle, mesmerizing sky-fall eyes. They filled with a mischievous glint a second before she did something he hadn't expected. In a single fluent move she dropped from her haunches to her knees and sucked him into her mouth.

He couldn't help but gasp out at the sudden shock of sensation, the luscious, wet heat between her lips sent through him. His hands slammed back against the doorframe, his fingers curling around its edges. Her hands came around behind his thighs, her breasts pressing against the front of them.

She drew back looking up at him with huge eyes, until she barely touched the tip of him with her lips. Then she slid forward again, excruciatingly slow.

"Harder!" The harsh command escaped without volition.

And she obeyed.

She kept sliding her mouth over him in a hard, fast rhythm just to slow it down after a few moments and start exploring him with her tongue in between the soft, sucking motion. Then she sped up her movements once more. How had he ever thought he knew insanity? Because he was pretty sure he was going insane right now. She made him.

Alja loved how he tasted, how he felt: hard steel under velvet smooth skin. And it filled her with silent triumph that the muscles of his thighs tensed under her hands; that she could feel him tremble slightly, hear his breathing that had become beyond ragged.

All of a sudden his hand fisted in a steel grip around her nape, pulling her of off him. And the next thing she knew, she lay flat on her front in the middle of the room, a hot, heavily muscled body pinning her down.

"You want to make me lose control? Didn't I just tell you I like to be in control?" But his voice no longer sounded like he had his impulses in a stranglehold that barely allowed him to speak. It sounded clear, sharp, and full of sensual provocation. The dark passion was out to play.

She grinned, tried to push him off. She couldn't move.

With some kind of really mean move he had somehow managed to get her to the floor and straddle her without even removing his pants that still hung on his ankles, now stretching across her legs so she couldn't move them. He braced himself on his elbows on either side of her, caging her with his body. His erection was pressing against her still fully clothed behind, in stark, relentless demand. Fuck! She couldn't wait to have him inside her. She pushed back against him, barely able to lift her hips.

But it was enough for Kaleb to slide a hand under them and open the fly of her pants.

Cold air on her back as he sat up to pull them down enough to reveal the full mounds of her butt. She attempted to lift her upper body and brace herself on her elbows and was pushed down by a strong, hot hand between her shoulder blades. Her cry of protest turned into a needy moan. She felt his weight on her thighs and on the hand holding her down. But no other part of him touched her. It was sweet erotic torment. She stilled in anticipation and surrender.

Finally, Kaleb stopped questioning why she didn't stop him, his thoughts lost in the sensation of having her where he wanted her, soft, yielding, tamed. Only her ribs moved with the fast, uneven rhythm of her breath under his unrelenting hand. He left it there while sliding the other hand down her side, cupping one buttock before slipping his fingers between her legs – far enough to tease the bundle of nerves that threatened to explode with sensation any second.

Her spine bucked.

He withdrew his hand slowly. On the way back he circled her entrance with the tip of a finger, then dipped inside. Her heat and wetness were an invitation that got harder and harder to resist.

Barely able to move Alja raised her hips as far as possible to give him better access. She was almost ashamed how bad she wanted him and how little she could stay in control even if she tried as hard as she just had.

"Tell me you want this!" It was hardly more than a trembling groan. He was no longer in control either.

"I want it." No hesitation.

"Tell me you're mine."

She'd tell him whatever he wanted, promise him anything, if he only let her feel that searing energy he'd held back until they both couldn't think straight. "I'm yours," she gasped out. "Please."

His hands lifted off her, just to be replaced by the weight his body again. "Say that again." A hot whisper in her ear. The scent of the upcoming thunderstorm sizzling in the air around her.

She only gave him a greedy sound, trying to rub herself against his cock.

He lifted his hips, slid the length of his erection along the cleft of her buttocks. Once. Twice. Stopping just out of reach, when she angled her hips to take him in. It drove her insane. "Kaleb, please."

She begged, his tough, strong Alja, who would only ever yield for him. Her surrender was the most precious gift. Finally he thrust into her and was rewarded with her cry of relief as she shattered around him, her muscles spasming, squeezing him tight. And the last thread of control snapped. He started pounding into her fast and hard.

Alja's relief didn't last. The wave of pleasure crested and was whipped up again before it could even start to ebb away. Again she tried to change her position, just a little to lessen the sensual impact of his movements. It didn't work.

Kaleb looked down at her now sweat coated body, saw the sleek muscles of her back move under her soft skin like liquid as she helplessly writhed under him. He wanted to taste. So he let his mouth trail across her back, closed his teeth over the little knots her muscles formed, until they softened up, each one with a deep, pleading moan from her chest. He wanted to drown in that sound.

Another shock of pleasure arched through her body, shattering her thoughts. And it was just too much: The heat of Kaleb's wet, biting kisses on her back and shoulders, the sweet abrasion of the carpet rasping over her already sensitized nipples. Instinct was all she had left to react with. She managed to reach back with one arm, her hand landing on his thigh. His muscles flexed under sweat slick skin as he continued to push into her. She clawed into his flesh not knowing if she wanted him to go slower or faster. Probably both. It didn't matter anyway. Her hand was pulled off and both her wrists placed beside her head, shackled in an iron hold – all while he never stopped slamming in and out of her in that maddening rhythm, the tip of his erection sliding again and again over the most sensitive places inside her, not allowing her to come down. Her body started to convulse as wave after wave of pleasure gripped her hard and swamped her with sensation.

And somewhere beyond that all-consuming passion it dawned on her that maybe, just maybe she'd unleashed a little more than she could handle. But it was too late to think now and after all it was all she ever wanted: Scorching heat engulfing both of them, no barriers left between them, she felt finally whole. So she surrendered, let the greedy whimpers flow from her throat, and let go of the psychic hold she had over the overwhelming sensations.

The full force of Alja's desire crashed into Kaleb without warning when she lost grip on her projective abilities.

Suddenly a wave of purest pleasure washed over him, laced with the desire to fully surrender, to give up all control. It submerged him in this need, leaving no room for thought or doubt. There could be nothing left between them, but this passion. He drove into her even harder, losing himself in the welcoming, wet heat of her. His Tk wrapped around her shields as if it were begging her to let him dive into them again. It didn't break through but somehow her shields let him feel her body under his psychic touch, so soft, so hot, so – his. Mine. All mine. The single primitive thought was the last thing on his mind when he succumbed to vehemence of passion. His breath turned into a single strangled groan as the orgasm tore through him. His head dropped to her nape and he bit down hard on the slope between her neck and shoulder in a primal urge to mark her.

The short spike of pain mingled with endless pleasure, sent a bolt of pure heat right down to her core, where she felt him fill her up thick and hard. And just when she'd thought Kaleb had wrung every drop of pleasure from her over-sensitized body she exploded with it. A blazing sensation ripped from the overheated space between her thighs to grip her whole body. And finally she let herself sink into the sweet bliss of Kaleb's darkness pulling her under.

Alja came to with a sensation of something trembling on her skin. She lay on her side on the lush, soft carpet and felt absolutely sated, her body heavy and limp. Kaleb's body heat wrapped around her as he held her close, his arms wrapped around her so gently it was almost too tender after the onslaught of sensation she'd just experienced. The trembling was his hand softly caressing her shoulder, her upper arm, her waist.

And then there was the softest telepathic whisper brushing against her mind.

Alja?

"Mhh." Mhh. She answered on both planes simultaneously.

Alja. Relief in his tone.

"Oh…oops…" she mumbled, followed by a startled and a little dirty laugh. "I passed out!"

Then she wriggled in his arms to turn towards him. He let her at once but looked at her with an expression of utter wonder, while she just pillowed her head on his arm and cuddled close as if everything was perfectly normal.

"I hurt you." His voice was a rasp. "You wanted it." The two statements dropped from his lips as if they were completely unconnected. As if he didn't even understand them.

She was still dizzy and a little shaky from the pleasure that had coursed through her body and overloaded as well as oversensitized pretty much every nerve ending from her hair roots to her toes. "No, you didn't. And yes I did," she said, lazily snuggling her head to his chest.

He pushed at her shoulders – oh so gently – but he had to make her see. "Alja, look at your wrists." He took the arm she'd wrapped around him and held it in front of her face. Dark red bands wrapped around the wrist, where he'd pinned it to the floor.

She was surprised at how hard he must have held her but not shocked.

But Kaleb was. "I bruised you."

"Those will probably fade within a few hours. I get worse in training every day." She rested her head on his bicep again but nudged his nose with hers affectionately.

"This was not fighting. This was supposed to be about pleasure." Still there was confusion in his eyes.

"It was." Alja still struggled to get her thoughts back together. Hadn't he felt what had passed between them? How could he still worry?

"And this?" He lightly circled a finger around the bite-mark he'd left on her shoulder, not daring to touch the marred skin itself. "This will turn into a hematoma."

He was right. The skin felt tender. But hematoma? Seriously? She giggled.

Kaleb understood that Alja didn't seem to mind at all. However he didn't understand why. And was she rolling her eyes at him? He wasn't as easily reconciled to what he'd done. In his head the image of red marks on Alja's skin connected to those of the countless women who'd been bound by his psychopathic teacher. And worse, a part of him relished the savage mark his teeth had caused. "It must've hurt you..." Desperation had made its way into his words.

"I didn't even feel it," she interrupted, not wanting his guilt to ruin her perfect moment of satisfaction. But he'd been honest with her, so she would too. She lifted her eyes so she could look directly into his. "No, you know what? I won't lie to you. I did feel it. I felt the pain. And I liked it. Maybe after being numb for so many years, pain is just another sensation I am glad to be able to feel." Eyes skating away, she added. "Or maybe it's just how I am."

Kaleb wanted to say something but was lost for words. He didn't know what to feel. He'd never experienced such pleasure before, had never felt as contented and close to Alja and the beautiful life she represented. The raging need in him was finally assuaged. And yes, he had never felt as stable as right in that moment. But the marks on her skin…

Her words broke his thoughts. "You didn't hurt me. Not in any way that mattered." A gentle hand stroking the side of his face. She looked at him solemnly until the mischief in her eyes broke through again. "What kind of double standard is that anyway? I mean, have you looked at your back lately?" She'd scratched him hard, whenever she'd gotten a hold of him during the last couple of times they'd been intimate. "And I'm pretty sure I got you bad on your thigh this ti… Oh shit, your thigh!"

When she looked down, she saw that the leg he'd turned up, bore jagged marks of her nails, filled with red. She had drawn blood. Enough to have it well up in little drops from his skin. Her expression turned horrified for a moment, before she shrugged and grinned again. "Guess that makes us even at last."

"So you weren't trying to make me stop?" He'd been almost sure that must've been the reason. She'd never scratched this hard before. He hadn't even had the time to consider what it meant that he had liked it, too.

"Not exactly no. And believe me, you would have known..." she insisted dryly.

Why was she blushing? He raised his eyebrows in question.

"If you'd done anything I didn't like, I would've let you know." A little frustrated and flushing even deeper she added. "As it is, I couldn't even not show you, how much I liked it."

Finally he understood. "You lost control on the projection?" Interesting.

"Yeah, turns out you're not the only one, whose powers go haywire with intense pleasure," she admitted. "Nice decoration by the way." She nodded at the perfect blackened circle, the size of her shield radius that had been singed into the carpet around them. She'd missed the sparks this time, but obviously they had been there again, when his powers crashed into her shields.

"I thought it was the desire of the – the thing inside me, that wanted to tear down all your shields just to…"

"…just to be closer, even if it caused a little pain? No, that was me," she finished his sentence.

That was why it had felt so right, so good he hadn't even considered stopping. "I understand."

But she wanted to be sure, he really did. "This has nothing to do with the kind of madness that has cost our race so much. If anything it's a way to cope with it." And it was true. For the first time in days, maybe ever the tension on both of them had loosened. "Maybe this is what we have to admit ourselves to feel, if we want to be free from Silence. If it wasn't a little scary, it wouldn't have made us run for Silence in the first place. Even the pain: we both know, it will always be a part of us. Maybe that is because of what we've suffered in the past, maybe not. But it is who we are now. It doesn't make us broken. It makes us whole, together. This is only between us and the past has no place here."

"I really like your logic." Finally a slight smile touched his lips as he started to brush loose strands of her hair out of her face. "Especially if it allows me to do all those things with you."

"And it gets me a smile that even I would kill for," she whispered amazed at the lightness on his features she'd never seen on them before.

"But you'll never have to. With you I can be like that." With her it was easy to let that smile fill his face. "I don't know how you do it. But the truth is: You make me good, Alja."

"You are good. You just refuse to see. But I see it. And I will fight for it no matter the cost."

He should've seen it then, in the way her eyes calmed, when she spoke the words, in the way the stars in them stilled perfectly for the first time since he knew her, how determined she had become on this. As if it was more important than anything else. But he was just – happy. For the first time in his life there was neither ice nor darker emotions clouding that feeling. It could make a man lose himself.

And that was when he knew he'd been wrong, when he'd thought Alja was designed to oppose him. With her shields and the ability to make him feel what she felt, she was his perfect match. He'd never have to fear that he'd hurt her accidentally or even willingly. Alja was neither predator nor prey. She was something else entirely. She was made to find the goodness that was left in her people. She was the only one left who could to revive emotion in the coldest and darkest places of the Net – who else would be able to find good in him? What better place was there to start, than with him? It was where she belonged – with him. And he knew he could trust her, even with the thing he called the monster.