Why sex? Because it was so easily emotionless, uncomplicated, primal. A straightforward return on baser urges. Because thoughts, however malformed or misshapen they might become in the heat of the act, could not be so readily protected during something so chemical, and they certainly did not disappear. Good sex was never mindless; it merely meant concentration was elsewhere, not gone. Parisa knew her craft well enough to know that, and thus, she knew she’d succeeded the first time she kissed him, slipping something in the latch of his thoughts so she’d always be invited in.
She’d kept her distance afterwards, but the summer had been long enough for him to wonder. He was thinking increasingly about her, and she’d already visualized him enough in private to know which places she wanted to touch first; where she planned to put her lips, her hands, her teeth. She had given him the thrill of her presence; leaning over when he gestured to something, filling his atmosphere with her perfume.
He knew the contents of her file, just like he knew the others. He knew her skill set, her history. Which meant that he knew the touch of her hand, brushing his when she passed him on the stairs or in the hall, was only the surface of an unimaginable depth. Once, she poured herself a glass and sat in his presence across the room, unmoving. Saying nothing. Bringing some champagne
to her lips, letting it settle across the bed of her tongue. She had felt the vibration of his thoughts, the tension between them, which kept him from concentration. He read the same sentence eighteen times.
Tonight, he was alone in the reading room. To his credit, he didn’t look very startled to see her, though he had the presence of mind not to reveal his relief.
“You shouldn’t,” he cautioned, leaning wearily back in his chair. He didn’t specify whether he meant that she shouldn’t be there or that she shouldn’t come closer, but she was, so she did. He didn’t argue, nor did he seem to give any indication he intended to. His mind was, at present, a sealed vault.
In her experience, that was hardly something he could maintain for long.
“You seem tired,” Parisa said. She wandered closer, running her fingers over the wood of the table. She brushed the corners of his books, placing the tactility of her skin at the forefront of his mind. He closed his eyes when she slid her hand from his arm to his shoulder, letting it hover in place for a moment. They had touched countless times by then; innocently, but often enough that memory would do half the work for her. “Something wrong?”
“You shouldn’t be here.” She could see the skin of his forearms pebbling at the brevity of their contact. Not everything was a matter of telepathy.
“I thought there weren’t rules?”
“I wouldn’t call this a rule.”
It was unfortunate that restraint looked so good on him. He was tense in all the right places, poised for a fight. “What would you call it?”
“Inadvisable.” His eyes were still closed, so she slid the tips of her fingers up to his neck, floating them over the hollow of his throat. “Possibly wrong.”
“Wrong?” Her fingertips danced below his collar, tracing his clavicle. “Don’t tempt me.”
He caught her hand in a sudden motion, circling her wrist with his fingers.
“Are you being careful, Parisa?”
She had the sense he wasn’t talking about the here and now.
“Should I be?” she asked.
“You have enemies. You mustn’t.”
“Why not? I always have enemies. It’s unavoidable.”
“No. Not here. Not—” He broke off. “Find someone somewhere, Parisa. Don’t waste your time on me; find someone in your initiation class, someone reliable. That or make yourself indispensable somehow.”
“Why,” she said with a laugh, “because you don’t want me to leave?”
“Because I don’t want you to—”
He broke off, eyes snapping open.
“What do you want from me?” he asked her quietly, and before she could open her mouth, he said, “I’ll give it to you if it means you’ll work harder at playing this game.”
There it was again; the acrid sense of fear.
“Is it answers?” he pressed her. “Information? What is it? Why me?”
She slid out of his grip, stroking his hair from his temples.
“What makes you so sure I want something? Dalton.” She had wanted to say his name, to test it out experimentally, so she did. She could see on his face how viscerally he suffered for it.
“You do. I know you do.” He inhaled sharply. “Tell me what it is.”