His chest muscles tightened. "Yes. No scars."

"Yes." But that wasn't why she'd called him beautiful. "Your body makes me want to do sweaty and hot and athletic things in bed. I want to kiss and lick and taste."

His biceps bulged as he fisted his hands. "Enough." Bending, he picked up his shirt. "I can't chance hurting you through an inadvertent activation of my abilities."

She reached out and tore it out of his hands. "I like looking at you half-naked. And if you can give me orders, you're still in control."

Heat flared in Judd's abdomen, accompanied by knife cuts of pain. She was pushing him on purpose and she knew just what to say to do it. "Brenna." A warning.

Her answer was a kiss pressed to the center of his chest. "Don't go all male on me. I might have an idea about how to get around your ability." She trailed her fingers over his bare skin, skin that was suddenly the most sensitive part of his body.

"I can't help being male." His erection was a pounding reminder of his sex. Of course the reaction was a breach of the Protocol, but he wanted more rather than less. Her body brushed his as she rubbed her lips over his skin and he had to bite off the harsh command for her to go lower.

Flicking out her tongue, she tasted him. "And what a sexy male you are. I could pet you all day." A sigh.

"Petting is a changeling desire." Except that he'd often wondered what it would be like to stroke her until she - Razors slicing across his brain. White stars in front of his eyes.

Her smile faded. "Judd. Your eyes - they flashed dark red for a second."

The color of blood, a visual reminder of what would happen to his brain if he continued on this road. "It's nothing. Tell me your idea."

Standing on tiptoe, she put the back of one hand against his forehead. "It's not my imagination. Your temperature is higher than normal."

It was a side effect of the amount of energy he was extending to block the dissonance, as well as speed up the healing process on his wounds - fast-tracked by Tamsyn's work, they had disappeared, but his body continued to repair minor tears on the inside. "Can you blame me?" he asked, instead of telling her the truth. "You're standing in front of me saying you want to pet me."

She laughed, a husky, sexy sound. Dropping her hand back onto his chest, she snapped her teeth at him. "I like to bite, too."

"Aren't you worried I might bite back?"

Wide eyes. "Oh, I hope you do."

Images cascaded through his fragmented shields. His teeth closing over the lush curve of her breast, the soft seduction of her inner thigh. The images were detailed, perfect - he'd had a long time to think about what he wanted to do. But even if he could survive it..."You're not ready." She'd pushed herself with Greg, hurt herself. He wouldn't do the same to her.

A scowl and then she did the unexpected - she leaned up and nipped at the side of his jaw with sharp little teeth. "How do you know? Maybe it was just the wrong man."

His hand clenched in her hair and he had no awareness of raising it. "I told you not to remind me of that incident."

Nails dug into his chest. "Then make me forget it."

Jealousy and possessiveness smashed through to become the dominating forces in his mind. He found his other hand was on her neck, curving to hold her. Gentle, his touch was gentle. He made sure of it, but she was most definitely in his power. Not that she seemed to mind, the smile on her lips pure invitation. Leaning in, he closed his teeth very deliberately over her lower lip.

Chapter 28

Her heartbeat accelerated under his touch as he released her lip. "Should I stop?"

"No." A whisper. "Kiss my neck, too. He never touched me there."

Stroking his hand down to rest below her shoulders, he bent to taste the skin of her neck. Soft, silky, quintessentially female. Her hand tunneled into his hair.

Pain and pleasure combined.

The dissonance was constant by this point. Broken shards of glass knifed through his cerebral cortex in an unrelenting cycle. But the pleasure...the pleasure was more. He'd never felt such incredible sensations. Then Brenna made a tiny, needy sound and the pleasure multiplied until he could hardly feel the pain.

Part of him knew this was dangerous. If he wasn't aware of the pain, if he didn't accept the warning and pull back, not only could his ability slip the leash, the dissonance might cause permanent damage to his neural tissues. But drowning in the rich taste of Brenna's sensuality, he didn't have the capacity to understand those perilous truths.

Kissing his way up her neck, he traced the line of her jaw before returning to her lips. They were parted, her eyes closed. Accepting the invitation, he pressed his lips over hers. Flash-fire heat. Pure sexual need. His hand was on her neck again and he felt the jagged beat of her heart spike.

But she didn't pull away. In fact, she wrapped her arms around his neck and tensed. His body knew what she wanted though he'd never before touched her so intimately. Releasing her from his possessive hold, he caught her as she jumped to wrap her legs around his body. Holding on tight, he backed into a wall but didn't turn to press her against it. Because she was trembling. Scared.

He broke the kiss and, blinking past the blackness crawling at the edges of his vision, raised one hand to brush the hair off her face. "Why are you scared of physical contact?" She'd been raped on the mental plane. Of course there were physical repercussions - such a deep violation of the psyche was a nightmare most people couldn't imagine, much less endure. But he sensed there was something more to her fear.

Her lower lip trembled and a single tear formed at the corner of her eye. "He didn't just mess with my mind." It was a pained whisper.

He knew Enrique had hurt her body, cut her, beaten her but - "Sexual abuse?" Fury burned a cold fire in his veins.

"Not rape like we think of it," she said, fingers digging into his shoulders. "I mean, he did that to my mind - tore it open and forced me to see things I didn't want to see, put things in there that weren't my own thoughts, things that are still in there. I wash and I wash, but I can't get them out!"

"I know." He let her nuzzle her face into his neck, stroking his hand over her hair. "But he did other things." Acts she hadn't revealed during the healing sessions.

A jerky nod. "He - he liked to demonstrate his telekinetic control by forcing objects inside my body using only his Psy skills."

Red blazed in his mind and it wasn't pain. Gritting his teeth, he made himself stay silent and listen.

"I was so ashamed," she whispered, her cheek wet against his skin. "I was a wolf changeling - stronger, faster, desperate - and I couldn't stop him. Sometimes he'd untie me but hold me down telekinetically so it'd be like I was holding myself down...like I was cooperating. Then he'd experiment with my pain thresholds. Mostly it was mental, but sometimes...sometimes he'd decide to see what my body could take."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of." How could she have even thought that? "Enrique was a cardinal Tk and a killer. He bears all the blame."

Her arms tightened. "I'm starting to believe in myself again, but anytime something sexual happens, I associate it with him. I can't seem to break the link though I know it's not right. I know not all men are like him, but..."

"What he did was about pain. This is about pleasure." Even a rebel Arrow knew that distinction.

Her tears stayed silent. Heartbreakingly so. "He made my body feel pleasure, messed with my mind until he controlled my responses and made me enjoy every humiliating, degrading thing he did." Shame layered her whispered words.

Judd wished Enrique weren't dead so he could torture the bastard. He'd keep him alive, make him suffer. You could cut off parts of a man without killing him for days, weeks if you were patient. "Enrique was a Tk," he repeated, "with only midlevel telepathy. He wanted to tear into your mind, but he never reached the inner core, the part that governs your emotions. He didn't have that ability. When he made your body respond, he did so by controlling your nerves."

Brenna had gone quiet, as if concentrating on his factual explanation.

"You were always aware of what was happening, weren't you?"

A warm breath against his neck. "It was like I could watch what he was doing to me but not stop it. I hated it, but my body did whatever he wanted."

"So there was no pleasure, only a physical response."

"Aren't they the same?" Raising her head, she looked him in the eye, the tears having left her gaze strangely clear.

"The order is wrong." He knew the logic, had been taught it as part of the conditioning process. When he saw her frown, he decided to prove his point. "If I told you I think you have the most beautiful body I've ever seen, would you feel pleasure?"

A blush colored her cheeks. "Do you mean that or are you making a hypothetical point?"

"I mean every word." She was soft and curvy and lushly female. Perfect.

"Of course that would make me happy." She brushed a kiss over his lips and it was so unexpected, he had to scramble to regather his thoughts.

"What if a stranger on a dark street said the same?"

"I'd get out of there as fast as my legs would carry me." She made a face. "You're saying pleasure is dictated by the heart and mind. I trust you, think you're sexy as hell, and so you pleasure me. Another man, while he might somehow be able to force my body to react, would give me no pleasure."

Every man had a limit. Judd figured he'd gone past his weeks ago. "The link must be present between a body and a free mind. Without that link, it's not pleasure but a facsimile so wrong it's pain."

She was silent for close to a minute. "I never thought about it like that, but you're right. It was pain. It tore me apart to have my body react against my will, hurt me so badly I had to curl up in my inner mind to survive. Sascha said it's the most basic of survival instincts, what sentient beings do when there's no other way out. Sometimes, they never return from the catatonic state."