Chapter Six

“Don’t you sleep?” Alex asked, sitting on the side of her desk.

Eve continued getting the next day’s charts out, then stood and looked him in the eye. “Usually.”

She turned, scuffing her slippers as she walked into her studio. She had got into the habit of preparing for the first patient the night before, anything to get that extra ten minutes of sleep in the morning.

“It’s late, why aren’t you sleeping now?” Alex asked from behind her.

“Well…” She pulled a fresh pillow case out from under the treatment table and began changing the dirty pillow case. “I had charts to finish, which is hard when someone is staring over your shoulder, plus I like to prepare for the next day. As for sleeping, I’m not sure, because you’re here. And if tonight is the same as last night, I doubt I’ll be sleeping at all.”

“Are you avoiding going to bed because of me?”

“Ah yah!” She moved to the corner and pulled a resistance band from a shelving unit. “How would you feel if you knew a strange man was wandering in and out of your bedroom at night?”

“How did you know that?” The intensity of his words made her stop in her tracks.

Eve turned back to face him. “You don’t know…” She began. He didn’t know that she could feel his presence. She wasn’t sure she should share this information with him—it might give him an advantage when he already had so many. Playing on his ignorance could only help get rid of him. Right?

“Know what?”

Eve tilted her head back as he closed the gap between them. She felt the need to look away but stayed where she was. “Nothing. Are you leaving anytime soon?” She pulled a loose piece of hair behind her ear.

“No,” he answered, then asked, “Why are you lying to me?”

This time Eve did look away, it happened before she could stop it. How did he know she wasn’t telling him the truth? She shook her head. “I’m not—”

“Yes you are.” Then very quietly he warned. “You do not want to play this game with me Eve.”

She bit her lip waiting for him to continue or leave her alone. He didn’t move.

“Look at me.”

When she followed his order she expected to see anger gleaming in his eyes but there was nothing but staunch curiosity. “Know what, Eve?” he repeated.

Huffing, she told him the truth. “I can feel you. I don’t need to see you to know you’re there.”

He raised his dark brows studying her intently. “How many times did you feel me last night?”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yah right!” Why did his doubt annoy her? Who cared if he believed her or not? “I felt you seven times. But I couldn’t see you, even when I turned the light on.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What did you feel?”

She shrugged, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t relieved that he seemed to believe her. “You know that feeling you get when you know there is another person in the room with you because you can see them?”

He nodded.

“It’s like that but much, much stronger. Plus I get nauseous.”

“You get sick?” He seemed disconcerted by the idea.

Eve couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t throw up or anything, just an upset stomach.”

“Do you feel that way now?” Concern was attached to his words this time.

“A little.”

He surprised her by taking a step back. “Are you done?”

Now what was he doing? She searched his face, trying to figure out what his game was. She shouldn’t trust him, didn’t trust him. Yet, there was something about him, she couldn’t quite figure out.

They stood facing each other. During that very brief moment, Eve came to three conclusions. One, he was a median, and though most were scared and confused, medians were not trustworthy. Two, he could very well be dead. She swallowed hard. God above, she really did not want to see the dead. But if that was the case, she knew from Gran that the dead would do anything to get back into a body and that made them not trustworthy. Three, he was very nice to look at. Eve struggled to hide a smile over her last conclusion, her sudden fear so easily overshadowed. Good looking men were definitely not trustworthy. At the same time she found herself wondering if his eyes would be that vivid when he was back in his body and if his mouth would be that sexy.

Alex broke the silence first. “Eve?” She looked up from his mouth and met his amused stare. “Are you done?”

Nodding like an idiot, she left the studio for bed.

* * * *

Alex sat on the floor, resting his back against Eve’s bedside table. The room was dark and except for Eve’s slow breathing, the room was quiet. “Go to sleep.”

“I can’t, you’re here,” she sighed, turning onto her back.

“Well in that case let’s discuss why you won’t merge me.” Alex suggested.

The duvet was pulled up to her chest. She rested her arm above her head, and toyed with an auburn curl. The casual act appealed to him. The light stroke of her fingers had him wishing he was that strand of hair. It caused a thirst for something he had no business craving for in the first place.

He shoved his new thirst aside and focused on the woman. Eve was interesting. A single mother, with her own practice and the ability to merge a soul back into its body, as well as the added talent of controlling emotions by using her voice. A number of questions ran though his head, most importantly, why was Eve alone? He studied her profile. Small nose, thin eyebrows the same brownish-red hue as her hair and supple pink lips, and though she was on the shorter side, her hour-glass curves were full and lush. Why was this sexy little brat single?

Then he remembered how stubborn she was. He also remembered the fear. He hadn’t liked seeing that fear on her lovely face, not when she was backing away from him in her kitchen and he didn’t want to see it now. He wasn’t a fool, he knew forcing Eve might become a possibility but he did not want fear to control her actions when the time came.

Pestering her would get him what he wanted, irritating to the point she would give him what she wanted just to be rid of him. He had to be as stubborn as she was.

“I already told you,” she murmured. “I don’t do that anymore.”

“Why is that?”

“Because.”

The simple answer irritated him. He was used to getting what he wanted, not having to wait for it. He held his temper in check, knowing it wouldn’t help his cause.

“You’re a soldier,” she stated.

“Yes.”

“But you’re different from the other soldiers I’ve met.”

“Not really.” He leant back.

“But you are, I can feel it.” She rolled on her side to face him.

He locked his eyes on her. “Can you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you feel?”

A thoughtful look creased her brow. “Anger. But I don’t think that’s because of me. Frustration—” she huffed, “—which is because of me.”

He had to fight to hide his smile. “Anything else?”

She nodded. “You’re twitchy.”

What the hell! “I’m not twitchy.”

“Yes you are.” She chuckled. “You’re used to getting what you want, in this case me merging you back and I’m not giving it to you. Which in turn, makes you twitchy.”

“I’m not twitchy.” He growled the words.

“Fine!” she sighed dramatically. “How’s restless?”

“Better.”

She laughed, quietly this time. “But you are different aren’t you?”

Even though it had been drilled into him from the first day he’d entered the Guardian Project to keep his mouth shut, Alex answered honestly. “Yes.”

“You’re trained in special operations?”

He sighed, bent his knees and rested his arms on top of them. “And then some.”

“Have you been on many tours?”

“When I was with my old infantry unit.”

“But not now?” She stared at him, her eyes questioning. Alex stared back wondering if he would be able to see the green slivers.

“I belong to a different type of unit now. We specialise in Urban Combat Terrorism.” She gave him a confused look.

“We track and eliminate persons that have become a danger to society.”

“You mean terrorists?”

“Sometimes. If the local police force or military can’t track them down or if they can’t get close enough to make the kill, we’ll lend a hand. But most of the people that make the kill list are a danger to the society in which they live.” He watched her face as he explained. “Like a drug lord who kills an entire village to send a statement of power or a politician who sells a list of tactical operations dates and locations to a terrorist group.” He stopped.

The Rhodes op was still fresh in his mind. He had been pissed when he had found out why members of his old unit had been killed and he had demanded to be put on point. He’d wanted to kill Rhodes. As it was, Miles had been granted that gift. And, though it took him three months of hunting in that stinking hot desert, he had got to clip each and every one who participated in the ambush.

“That sounds like Secret Service or CIA stuff.” She yawned covering her mouth.

Alex didn’t respond until she looked at him again. “We don’t have the government ties, the agencies in the States have, because we are not a government agency. We are a military unit.” She stared back at him and he could read on her face that she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Not that it mattered, but he was telling her the truth.

“My turn. Can I ask a few questions now?”

“No.” She rolled onto her back once again and began toying with another curl.

Alex couldn’t help but chuckle. “Too bad.”

Eve smiled into the darkness at the sound of Alex’s laugh. It was a deep laugh. A sexy laugh.

“When was the first time you saw a median?”

Eve concentrated on the ceiling. “The first median I saw was on the same floor in the hospital as my granddad. He was a young man mid-twenties, nice looking. Of course, at the time I had no idea he was actually a median. He was standing in my granddad’s room when we went for a visit. At the time I remember thinking granddad had a lot of visitors but then my mum spoke to the man and when I was older I learned she had gone back and merged him.”

“Your mom could merge as well?”

“Yup, she was an amazing person.” Her mother’s face flashed before her eyes, and like every other time, she wanted to reach out and touch it.

“How’d she die?” His voice was low.

Eve closed her eyes. She remembered coming home from work just as the ambulance had been pulling away. When Gran had told her what’d happened, Eve had refused to believe it and had rushed into the house to see for herself if her mum had gone. The house had been quiet. Her house had never been quiet, her mum had always had on music or been singing, and that day it had been dead quiet. Then the guilt and the ‘what if’s’ had crept into her mind like they always had. What if her mum hadn’t given her the medallion? Would she still have tripped and fallen down the stairs? The ‘what if’s’ gave her chills.

“Are you still here?”

She shook her head. “It’s really none of your business.”

“I know. But you’re still going to tell me.”

Why was he right? “It was crazy how she died, a total accident.” She took a deep breath. “She fell down the stairs vacuuming. She did it for me because I was pregnant at the time and she was worried about me falling down the stairs and getting hurt.”

He was silent for a few minutes and Eve had no idea what he was thinking, and she certainly didn’t have enough courage to ask.

“I wouldn’t call that crazy. Accident yes. Crazy no.”

“Why isn’t it crazy?” She asked surprised by his response.

“A man broke into my house when I was eighteen and shot both my parents. When I hunted him down I asked him why did he did it, his answer was because someone bet him twenty bucks that he couldn’t. My parents were killed over a stranger’s bet. That’s crazy.”

Sadness poked at her heart. How terrible to have both parents taken away in such a manner. Her need to heal was always present, and the only difference was that Alex was sitting on her bedroom floor instead of down in her studio.

Eve gripped the blanket and very carefully spoke. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t know if she would get a response so she kept talking using a delicate pitch. “You hunted down the man who killed your parents when you were eighteen? How did you do that?”

He sighed. “Don’t use your voice on me,” was all he said before he continued, “I have no idea. It seems to come naturally to me.”

Eve didn’t know if the goose bumps on her arms were because of his answer or because he’d caught her using her gift to help him.

“You’re a natural at hunting down and…” She stopped hoping he would fill in the blank with arresting or catching.

“Killing,” he finished.

Eve stared up at the ceiling exhaling a long breath. “And you wonder why I can’t sleep?”

His deep chuckle made her relax a little, a very little. “You have nothing to worry about unless you plan on becoming a danger to society.”

“Sorry, my schedule is full for the next ten years.” She chuckled. Geez this was nuts. Joking with a man who had just confessed he was a trained killer—like her life wasn’t full enough already.

“Too bad, I think I would enjoy hunting you down.” His voice had become deep, with a sexy twist.

Air caught in her throat. “You would?”

“Oh yes. I can think of a few sweaty ways to deliver your punishment.”

Eve felt her eyes grow wide the same moment her stomach fluttered. It had been a long time since a man had made that kind of suggestion to her.

In the dark part of her mind, she wondered how many people she would have to bump off before Alex came knocking on her door to deliver his…punishment.

“You’re wondering what you would have to do in order for me to deliver my punishment, aren’t you?” The sexy humour in his voice had her smiling into the darkness.

“No.” Her face heated up.

“I’ll tell you anyways. Jaywalking.”

“What?” Eve rolled back onto her side to face him.

“All you have to do is jaywalk.” She could see him turn his head in the dark to face her. “And I’ll come knock on your door.”

Eve froze, she didn’t even blink. He had to be joking, except…he didn’t sound like he was joking. “Would you like to hear what your punishment would be?”

Absolutely she would. But for some reason she couldn’t tell him that, couldn’t even move.

“Undecided eh?” Sitting up, he turned. “How about I tell you anyway?”

She stopped breathing then and waited.

“I would come to you in the middle of the night. Slip into your bed while you were sleeping and begin to remove that see-through T-shirt of yours.”

In the dark as she listened to his sensual summary of her punishment, she saw two small flickers of light.

“Your panties would be next. I’m going to love sliding those down your legs—feel how wet you are for me.”

She blinked, focusing on the flickering that grew brighter and brighter, until she was looking into small beams of blue light.

“Here’s where I’m having a little difficulty—you see I’m torn between bending you over the bed and getting my fill of you from behind or just pulling you down to the floor and riding you hard.” His eyes were beautiful and freaky, but the way they flickered like miniature flames was almost hypnotic.

His voice dropped low. “It’s a little rougher on the floor but it’s deep.” He ran his hand along the top of her carpet and she wished that he was running it over her instead. A hot ache pulled between her legs as he continued. “There will be a lot of panting and sweating and by the end you’ll be begging me to let you come.”

Her throat was dry and she swallowed a hard lump of desire. Was he serious? That wasn’t a punishment. It was a single mother’s dream come true. Her heart jumped.

It was strange though. Should he even be having these thoughts? Did medians feel desire and passion and need? Did the dead? Besides that, how could he feel that way about her…he didn’t even know her…

“Wait a sec,” she blurted out. “Oh my God!” She covered her warm face. “Nice try.” She bit out. “But doing this whole ‘oh babe you turn me on, now merge me and we’ll screw all night’ isn’t going to work. So just piss off, go away, leave, get out.” Did he think she was a fool? She had been burnt by enough guys to know when they were spouting bullshit, even really hot sexy bullshit.

Eve turned, facing the opposite side of the room and closed her eyes. She was still aching, turned on by his detailed description and also pissed off. Not just at him, but at herself as well. She had actually begun to feel… It was probably because she hadn’t had sex in a while, but damn it she knew better. Trusting a man was bad enough, but trusting a median was worse and the dead…she didn’t even want to go there.

“You will merge me.” She flinched when the words were spoken next to her ear. “And I meant what I said. All you have to do is jaywalk to have me knocking on your door.” He paused before whispering, “Maybe, even less.”