Forever Read online

  “Yes. I kind of figured that out,” she muttered.

  He unzipped the bag, and after withdrawing a uniform let it drop to the ground.

  “You carry a second uniform to work?” she asked, surprised that it wasn’t street clothing. On her way back she’d been wondering hem; line-height:1.4em; } div.toc_vg.ow he was going to explain his missing uniform.

  “We all do, if we’re smart. I can’t even tell you how often I’ve had a drunk puke on me.”

  “Oh I see.”

  Yeah she did see. She watched, unable to even give him the courtesy of turning her back to him, as he stepped into his pants and drew them up over extraordinarily defined calf and thigh muscles. Apparently undershorts weren’t a part of his backup bag because he zipped himself in with caution, going utterly commando. Marissa ignored the part of her brain that pouted heavily as he hid all that tanned, glorious strength. He quickly drew on an undershirt and then his uniform shirt, taking the unimpeded beauty of powerful biceps and shoulders away from her.

  More internal pouting. Damn him, she thought a bit grouchily. How was it that she constantly felt like she was being pushed and pulled at the same time whenever she was around him? It wasn’t as though she’d never seen a beautiful, lean, muscled, deliciously male person before.

  Marissa went hot and wet in one second flat and she forced herself to turn away, lecturing herself for being so weak and so damn pathetic. Okay, sure it had been a long, long, looong time since she’d gone to bed with a man, but she’d somehow managed to keep from panting over just any man in sight for all that time. Or any man at all for that matter, she amended.

  He’s a patient, she reminded herself fiercely. An alien patient from some sort of cosmic lab experiment. It was all she could do to keep from biting at her lip, shifting her weight, or chewing her damn nails off, she realized with no little irritability. She had worked so hard to eradicate all of those kinds of fidgets and tells. It was so important to her to demonstrate the level of competency and professionalism she needed in order to work with these alpha men and women. All it took was a single impression of weakness and any chance of them respecting and trusting her strength and guidance would crash and burn. Some of them even went for her throat, casting her as the villain who was trying to rob them of the job they depended on for self-definition and self-worth. She had to hold on to her competence even more now that she was faced with this potentially paralyzing situation. She was, she knew instinctively, going to need every moment of calm and strength she could muster up in order to cope with this unbelievable turn of events.

  “S-so … you have a, um, dead pharaoh living inside of you?” she asked, looking for a more focused explanation of what he’d been telling her. Bodywalker 101 for dummies … or at the very least a completely dumbfounded doctor who’d always thought the planet housed only one kind of humanoid species. Now she’d been exposed to at least two others and was struggling to make herself accept it. “And that other creature … the thing made of stone …”

  “A Gargoyle. Gargoyles are … well, the gist of the story is that the Templars used their spell-casting abilities to create the Gargoyle race in order to have powerful protectors and servants.”

  “You mean slaves?” she asked, turning back to him.

  “Exactly,” he said, a grim expression on his face as he finished strapping another flack jacket across his chest. She had witnessed how little of a help his other one had been against that fierce red energy his attacker had wielded against him. But a little bit of help was something else entirely. and the l better than no help at all and it made her feel better to see him somewhat protected.

  “That’s horrible,” she said, her stomach feeling sick in sympathy for the creature she’d seen.

  “Long ago, however, a large amount of Gargoyles escaped from the Templars’ control.” He looked directly into her eyes. “It was a very brave and risky thing to do. Their masters created them in such a way that each Gargoyle is prevented from attacking their individual creator, and their creators had linked them critically to an object called a touchstone. If a Gargoyle does not return to their touchstone with a certain amount of frequency, they will very quickly lose control of their bodies and their minds. It only takes a matter of days before that happens. So not only did they have to find a way to rise up against their masters, they had to retrieve their heavily guarded touchstones. The Templars knew that to control the touchstone was to control the Gargoyle.”

  “If they couldn’t fight their creators, then how were they ever able to escape these horribly powerful Templars?”

  “There was only one way. They had to enlist the help of the Politic Bodywalkers. They had to pledge their loyalty to another Bodywalker and ask them to help free them.”

  “And … did you? Did your type of Bodywalker fight the Templars to free the Gargoyles?”

  “Oh yes. We did. In fact,” he said, so quietly she could feel the deep gravity emanating from him, “the exodus of the Gargoyles and the fight for their freedom was the catalyst that began the war between the Templars and the Politic.” He moved a step closer to her and, like all the other times he put himself into her personal space, her breath caught in her throat. Marissa forced herself to breathe, but all that managed to do was bring the rich scent of potent male onto her suddenly keen senses. “The Templars are ravenous for supremacy. They are also inhumanly callous. They do not respect the exquisite intelligence of the Gargoyles, or the culture of tribes they have created for themselves. Templars don’t even respect the host souls they share a body with.”

  “But … that Gargoyle was … is he still a slave?”

  “There are several generations of Gargoyles, each different in some way from the last as the Templars tried to improve on their design, along with improving their methods of enslaving a Gargoyle’s loyalty.”

  “Oh my god,” she breathed, sickened and disturbed to her very core.

  “That is the nature of each Gargoyle tribe, Marissa. Each tribe is a different generation of Gargoyle. So far there are six different tribes. Apparently the Templars have grown another generation, which leaves me to believe that the free Gargoyles will soon find themselves ferrying the seventh tribe-to-be along their underground railroad. Those who are free endanger themselves nightly in order to help liberate the enslaved.”

  “You said they pledge loyalty to Politic members. Do you mean they let you hold their touchstones? And if so, how is that different from being enslaved by the Templars?”

  Jackson was always impressed by Marissa’s quick and thoughtful intellect. The workings of the Bodywalker world could be very complex. Just as complex as the relationship the Politic had with the Gargoyles.

  “The Templars created the Gargoyle touchstones in such a are you talking about?”an better way as to force a Gargoyle to be closely connected to either their creator or another Bodywalker. The energy of our entwined souls revitalizes the power of a touchstone, which then transfers it to the Gargoyle. They are closely attached to us, it’s true, but they are not slaves to those of us who are Politic. We deny them nothing, give them total freedom to the best of our ability, and enjoy and respect them just as they enjoy and respect us. They are our bodyguards, our companions, and our closest friends in some cases.”

  “I see. That’s very good of you,” she said softly. Jackson could see the empathy for the Gargoyles’ plight in her eyes, even though she was trying to come off as nothing more than analytical and thoughtful about the situation. It made him wonder why she always felt the need to project a sense of flawless self-control to everyone. The fear she had shown in the cave was only the second time he had seen her become emotional. The first time had been during Docia’s disappearance when she had set him back on his pompous ass, as was rightly deserved.

  There was a creature of fire and feeling beneath all of her cool beauty and powerful professionalism. What she didn’t realize was that this veneer she clung to so desperately made her come off as arrogant and cold. Oh
, she sympathized with her patients—he could attest to that—but always in a controlled manner. He wondered what had happened to her that made her feel so compelled to project perfection at all times.

  It also made him crave the opportunity to tousle her up and ruffle her feathers. It made him want to strip away the layers of her psyche, her always-neat appearance, and tumble her across his bed until she absolutely shattered for him. The simple thought of it had him craving her all over again, had him leaning in closer to her so at the very least he could feel the radiance of her warmth and smell that sweet, feminine scent of her hair.

  Marissa felt the change that came over him like any prey would feel when faced with a predator. He was so close again that she had to tilt her head back in order to look up into his eyes and she watched as his teal-framed pupils widened a little. He was one of those men who had been gifted with thick, beautiful lashes. Their blackness the perfect foil for the color of his eyes. There was no innocence to his features, no boyishness. He was every inch the mature and vital male.

  A dangerous male.

  “What do we do now?” she asked in a voice so close to a whisper.

  He smiled then, a wolfish quality to it that made her heart skip a few beats. His hand came up and once again his thumb traced over the rise of her cheek and then the shape of her lips.

  “I have such amazing answers to that question,” he said to her.

  There was absolutely no mistaking the entendre of his remark. She should have laughed and set him down, putting him back at a safe distance. She was actually quite good at that. There had been a great deal of practice over the years as she had been the object of a lot of unwelcome attention. What she had intended to be a projection of a neat polished appearance was, for some reason, seen as some kind of invitation to the opposite sex. Or perhaps challenge was the better word for it.

  But until that moment when he had bluntly told her that she was in his crosshairs, she hadn’t lumped Jackson in as a source of unwelcome advances. She had handled the whole thing badly, become stupidly flustered and at odds with herself over it.

  Now she had the most powerful something else entirely. and the l argument against him she could possibly have conjured. He was a Bodywalker. He wasn’t entirely human anymore. She simply was not adventurous enough to get tangled up in something like that. Not to mention all the other reasons that were still in play. He was a patient. They worked together. It was just a bad idea all around.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but the act of parting her lips brought the touch of his thumb a little farther inside her mouth, as though she were inviting him in. The smoldering hot look that entered his eyes made the touch erotic, for all it was a simple and unintentional thing. His thumb hooked on to the tips of her lower teeth and his remaining fingers curled to grasp her by the chin. The capture, as simple as it was, made her heart and breath seize in her chest.

  But the instant his head dropped toward hers, his attention fixated on her mouth, she shoved away from him, nearly tripping herself and falling on her backside.

  “Stop it! Stop this,” she panted, righteous anger warring with the jumble of feelings his small movement of intent had given birth to inside of her. Her face felt hot from the sudden heat erupting all along her skin. Goddamn him, why did he have to be so inaccessible! So ethically out of her reach. “You know. You know how many reasons there are why you and I cannot even entertain …” Marissa had never been so at a loss for words in her life as she was whenever she was clashing wills with him. It was completely flustering and infuriating.

  “Knowing doesn’t always dictate desires,” he retorted quietly, his hand coming out with blinding speed, snagging her by her upper arm and yanking her forward until she crashed up against him, her feet jumbling up together beneath her. But before she could fall his other hand was at her back and jerking her up completely off the ground. “You think I don’t know what I’m doing? You think I haven’t weighed all the possible rights and wrongs of it? Do you think I’m really that thoughtless? I’ve thought of nothing else for weeks. Fought myself into wild circles of confusion as the part of me that craved you warred with the part of me that knew you should be off-limits. Even now I hear the voice of my conscience telling me to stop this, but it can hardly be heard over the voice screaming at me to take you in every way I can possibly imagine.”

  His words were like hot honey being drizzled all over her skin, burning and sweet at the same time. Marissa couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak to stop him again.

  It was probably because she had the very same voices holding the very same argument inside of her. And somehow, knowing he couldn’t heed them despite his better judgment made her whole existence go up in flames. By the time he had dragged her up to meet his mouth, she had confessed to herself just how badly she had wanted it.

  His lips touched hers, the contact so light it was barely there. They were both working hard for breath, both tense and troubled just as much as they were burning with craving.

  “I just need a moment, Marissa. Just one little moment where who and what we are doesn’t matter. Because it has been just as hard for me to accept all the things you are trying to accept right now. But in all this upheaval,” he breathed, the softness of his mouth brushing over hers as he spoke, “the only thing that comes crystal clear to me is the way I burn for you.”

  Then he swept up her mouth with his, holding her so tightly to himself with the wrapping strength of his arms, his hands running fiercely hot across her back.

  She should have pushed away from him, but there was no strong, instinctive desire to do so. In fact the ultimate opposite desire was in play, until it felt as though her actual soul was craving to feel him kiss her.

  She wanted the kiss to pale … to be less than her illicit fantasies had made of it. She wanted the reality to help her find a reason to never let this happen again. It was a wish that would never be fulfilled. The painfully soft and powerful strength of his kiss, the poignancy of the struggle within them both, made it everything it could be and more. He smelled of the woods around them, so unbelievably earthy, as if this were his natural habitat and she had been caught trespassing. She had been cold before, as the waning spring night bit at her poorly clothed body. Now her chilled skin gave way to the heat that had been flirting beneath it for every last moment she had been in his presence. It was like pressing herself up against a radiator, his heat enveloping and permeating her. He took no half measures, his mouth testing hers for all of a few moments before his tongue came into play and commanded ownership of hers. She’d never liked men who assaulted her with all tongue from the start of a kiss, but what others had made offensive, he made a seduction. His hand came up to cradle the back of her head, his fingers burrowing into her hair and he used the possession of his hand to turn her into his kiss more fully. He did not invade, but conquered just the same as the taste of him was swept into her mouth and against the buds of her tongue.

  Marissa drew breath in little shots, only to let it slip away again just as quickly in stunned hitches. She couldn’t think as the heat he delivered burned away all thought, burned away all reason, leaving nothing for her but the feel of his mouth and the touch of his hands bringing her more and more tightly against him. Her hands lifted to the backs of his taut, muscled upper arms, her fingertips clinging weakly to the crisp fabric of his uniform shirt. That his kiss was a pure seduction was never in question. The way his tongue stroked hers was nothing less that an exotic spell compelling everything she had into the connection. And there was darkness there. An indefinable element to him that was so incredibly deadly if he was not respected or did not get what he demanded. The fear that came with that thought only made her body react more strongly, her nipples tightening fiercely, her breasts screaming with sensitivity inside the lace of her bra.

  His hands were in neutral territory still, but they may as well not have been because the demand of his kiss set sensitive sexual places alight with passionate fire. She
became tantalizingly wet, a startling reaction for her because things like that did not happen so easily for her. What was more, she could feel him, a wall of powerfully taut muscle and hips framing an undeniable erection pressed to her. The soft fabric of his uniform pants made it impossible to hide … but his boldness told her that hiding was the very last thing on his mind. On the contrary. She knew he wanted her to feel it. Wanted her to react to it. Wanted her to know there was no denying what she did to him.

  He broke from her mouth just far enough to allow breath between them. She was panting for it. For everything.

  “I never knew,” he said roughly. “If I had, I would never have let you hold yourself from me.”

  The sentence frightened her just as much as it melted her with excitement and arousal. He made no show of ask are you talking about?”an bettering for further permission, taking what he felt was his as he swept her up into a new kiss, this one twice as aggressive as the one before it. She felt him move, felt him turn, but she was blind as to the reason until she felt her back come up against the rough bark of a thick trunk. The woman she had been before that kiss would have complained that the roughness could catch and ruin the cashmere of her sweater, but she was no longer that woman and, she feared, she never would be again. The woman she was now no longer cared about that triviality, and instead she craved his hands on her sweater, dragging it from her, making way for his hands to touch her craving skin at last.

  Instead his hands slid down her sides and around her hips, his fingers gripping her ass through her skirt and dragging her hips tighter to his. Are you feeling what you do to me, the action demanded of her. You thought you could deny me this?

  And still it was just a kiss. A fierce, unbelievable, soul-stripping kiss. It shoved aside all the bullshit they had been trying to protect themselves with and went for the throat of their craving for each other. His mouth wrestled with hers, devouring her six ways from Sunday. She felt her hair dropping down against her neck and shoulders and realized his hand was combing through it, unraveling the strict twist it had been in. His other hand, however, was on her thigh, grabbing possession of it, dragging the inside of it along his outer hip until somehow they were both wrapping around his waist, opening her up to the aggressive press of his sex against hers. It was through layers of clothing, but it may as well have not been, that was how ferocious the flame inside of her became at the connection. She gasped into his mouth, her fingernails curling into the flesh of his arms.