“If you’re sure you’re okay, I’m going to finish getting dressed,” Luther said. He started to retreat into the other room.
“Hold it right there.”
Obediently he paused. “Something wrong?”
“Yes, I think there is something wrong.” She pushed aside the covers, got to her feet and faced him across the tumbled bed. “I want an explanation.”
“Of what?”
“You used your aura energy to squelch some of mine out there on the path last night, didn’t you? Admit it. I’ll bet you did it again a few minutes ago while I was dreaming. How dare you?”
He stood very still in the doorway. “Take it easy, you’ve had a long day and you’ve just come out of a nightmare. Your nerves are probably still a little unsettled.”
“My nerves are fine, thank you very much. What did you do to me?”
“You felt it?” he asked, frowning a little as if he was not certain that he had heard her correctly.
“Well, of course I did. I didn’t have time to think about it last night because I was focused on the hunter and the fact that he wasn’t paying any attention to us and—” She broke off, astonishment shooting through her. “Good grief, you did it to him, too, didn’t you? You defused him or—or something. He was running hot and you cooled him down. You used your own aura to suppress his.”
“You seem to have figured it out pretty damn fast.” He watched her with a shuttered, wary expression. “No one else ever has, with the possible exception of Fallon Jones.”
“He’s aware of what you can do?”
“There’s no telling what Fallon knows.”
“Well, it certainly explains your success as a bodyguard.” She thought about it. “And as a cop and a bartender, too, I suppose. No wonder you don’t like guns. You don’t need them. All you have to do is focus on a bad guy and just switch him off.”
His hand clenched around the handle of the cane. “Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The effect diminishes rapidly with distance. If the bad guy is too far away from me, I can’t do much except try to talk him into range. I couldn’t suppress the aura of a sniper on a rooftop.”
She smiled a little. “How many of your clients need protection from professional snipers?”
“Doesn’t come up a lot in my line,” he admitted. “The threat is usually much closer to home.”
“Your ability must have been useful when you were a cop.”
“My talent was why I quit the force,” he said without inflection.
“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t it have been helpful?”
“It’s a long story.”
“And you’re not in the mood to tell it?”
“No,” he said.
He had a right to his secrets, she thought. She was certainly keeping some of her own. She slipped into her other senses and studied his aura. There was a lot of tension in it, much of it sexual. She felt herself redden.
He smiled faintly. “See anything interesting?”
Shocked, she opened her mouth, closed it, then finally opened it again. “You can tell when I’m looking at your aura?”
“Sure. Don’t you know when I’m viewing yours?”
Appalled, she could only stare at him. “Uh, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he repeated, disbelief underscoring every word.
She swallowed hard. “I mean, sometimes when I’m near you I sense an unfamiliar kind of energy, but I thought it had something to do with, uh—” She broke off, mortified.
“Something to do with the fact that we’re attracted to each other?” He shrugged. “Maybe it does. You must have felt me watching you yesterday at the airport. I didn’t know who you were but I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. I remember thinking that you looked like some kind of incredibly brilliant psychic butterfly.”
“Oh, jeez, I didn’t realize what the sensation meant.”
She thought about the excitement and anticipation she had experienced the day before when she first noticed him on the concourse. Her cheeks got warmer. How much had he seen? Not that it mattered, given what had happened last night. He’d obviously known from the start that she was attracted to him.
No one had ever been able to read her. She had always been the one who did the reading; the one who knew what others were going to do, sometimes before they did. That was how she had kept her secrets secure.
“Well, this is awkward,” she said, cheeks burning.
He looked amused. “Takes some getting used to but I’m okay with it if you are.”
This was very dangerous ground. She had to be careful. She could not afford to jeopardize the new life she had so carefully crafted.
“I need to think about it a little more,” she said weakly.
“You do that. Meanwhile, why don’t you tell me your real Jones Scale number?”
Thoroughly rattled now, she tried to compose herself.
“Didn’t Mr. Jones tell you?” she said.
“He gave me some line about you being a level seven with an unusual ability to profile the auras you read. That’s a flat-out lie, though, isn’t it? I’m betting you’re a level ten, at least. Wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got an asterisk after your number, too. You’re an exotic.”
She could not afford to panic, she reminded herself. Anger was a much safer response.
“I don’t know where you got that idea,” she said coldly. “My level seven is as official as your level eight.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Like I said, a flat-out lie.”
“You admit it?” she demanded, incredulous.
“Where’s the harm? You probably already know it, being such a hotshot talent and all. I doubt that you’re going to run around telling everyone you meet.”
“Well, no. It’s just that Mr. Jones assured me that you were an eight.”
“The sooner you learn that Fallon Jones lies through his teeth whenever it suits him the better off you’ll be.”
She sank down on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped in her lap, her back to him. She looked out at the lanai. “I don’t think he lied for the sake of it. I think he was trying to protect your secret.”
“You want to be careful about attributing good intentions to Fallon Jones. His only priority is protecting the Society’s secrets. He’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish that objective.”