Heart of Obsidian

pillow, Sahara undulated her lower body toward him.
Move!
    The feminine demand was the only thing he needed to hear. Pounding into her, he saw her fingers clench tight on the sheets, her lips part on a breathless cry, and then she was coming around him once more, the pulses harder, more viciously possessive. Caught in the vise of her pleasure, his back arched as white lightning tore through his spine.
    The bed slammed back to the ground.
    Hard.
    So did every other item in the room.
    * * *
    SAHARA was attempting to gasp in air when a fragment of memory untangled itself from the vault.
    “Did you steal this?”
    “No. I earned it.”
    Her bracelet, she’d been talking of her bracelet with the man whose muscled body covered her back, both of them breathing as if they’d run a marathon. Never, she thought, had she asked him what he’d done to earn it; that wasn’t a choice she had any intention of altering. Whatever price Kaleb had paid for the platinum that encircled her wrist, he had done so for her, and she would honor it.
    His chest sliding against her back, Kaleb pushed up a fraction.
Can you breathe?
    No, but it has nothing to do with your weight. Come back.
Fingers flexing as he obeyed, she released a shuddering exhale and tried to shape words with her mouth. It took her at least two minutes. “I want to do that again.”
    “I’m not sure our bodies can take it.”
    The icy tone made her toes curl—she knew full well he only went that cold with her when he was fighting to leash himself. Then he kissed her neck and she knew he’d lost the fight. To her shock, they did manage to have sex again, her on her front, Kaleb’s chest rubbing over her back, though he used his Tk to lessen the pressure of his weight. This time, it was slow and deep from start to finish.
    “It feels like a full-body kiss,” she whispered as her inner muscles began to clench in a quieter but no less potent pleasure.
    Lips at her throat, Kaleb rocked her through the orgasm, then filled her in a burst of liquid heat.
    They were both drenched in sweat and sticky with sex, but Sahara had no intention of moving. In fact, she wasn’t certain her bones hadn’t melted. So it was as well her lover was a cardinal Tk who could ’port them into the shower.
    * * *
    SHOWERED and dressed in fresh jeans and a soft pink cardigan from the closet she had in her original room, Sahara went hunting in the kitchen while Kaleb dressed in preparation for a comm meeting. The charcoal gray suit teamed with a steel blue shirt and charcoal tie was one of her favorites. There was something incredibly sexy about a man so lethal that civilized dress only served to highlight the danger, not lessen it.
    Discovering a stash of frozen meals he must’ve stocked for use after a high-calorie burn, she put several in the thermal device in the corner. The flavors would be bland by the standards outside the PsyNet, but right now, she could eat a small mammal. Stomach fluttering at the reminder of exactly how she’d used up the kilojoules, she was pouring piping hot pasta into a dish when Kaleb walked in, the fingers of his right hand slotting in his left cuff link.
    Hair combed and tie knotted, no trace of passion in his expression, he was Kaleb Krychek, cardinal Tk and former Councilor, once more. The transformation was so complete that it shook her, making her conscious of the level at which he could compartmentalize—and leaving her with the troubling question of exactly how much of himself he ever showed her.
    Then he touched his finger to the arch of her cheekbone, and the fear splintered, because only her Kaleb touched her in that way.
    Sitting down to eat, neither one of them spoke until they’d almost completed the meal.
    “My father just came out of isolation,” she said, having received the update while she was heating up the meals, relief a shuddering emotion inside her. “Anthony called.”
    “I can take you to him.”
    “Your meeting?”
    A slight pause. “My aide is rescheduling it now.”
    Sahara wasn’t the least surprised that Kaleb had put her first. He always did. “Thank you,” she said through the painful burn of a tenderness she wasn’t certain he’d ever accept. “But”—she met those incredible night-sky eyes—“I need to ask you a question first.”
    Kaleb dosed her water with a vitamin and mineral tablet. “Ask.”
    “How could you possibly not have been wiped out by what you did at the university?” Cardinals might be