Identity Crisis(9)

So much information. So much. There at his fingertips, all ready and waiting for him, just like always. And every day there was more, and every day he grew closer and closer to her. He wondered if she felt it in her gut the way he did. He hoped so. He really hoped so. How could she keep from it? Whether she understood it or not, they were connected, deeply, almost spiritually, connected. If she knew, if she really understood that connection, she would be searching for him too, she would never be satisfied until she found him. Never mind, once he had her, once they were together, he could make her understand. He knew he could. That’s all he’d ever wanted. To make her understand.

It seemed like he’d dreamed about their coming together for an eternity. Maybe he’d even dreamed about her in a previous life. He’d always known the time would come and he just had to wait for the right moment. It was so close now. It was so very close. And soon he could take exactly what he wanted, what he’d been waiting for so patiently.

He paced the hall a couple of times, then stripped. The T-shirt and the back of his sweat bottoms were white with the dried salt of his sweat from the gym, and his body felt sticky and damp as he stretched out on the bed on top of the tangle of blankets. Everything in him was restless, unspent, wound to the breaking point, ready to explode. Every thought, every dream, every breath was about her, about what he’d do to her when he had her. It amazed him how she could still be with him every single second, even when he couldn’t touch her, even when he couldn’t yet have her. There was no lying still with her on his mind, no calming down for the rest that he knew he needed, no distracting himself even for a minute with thoughts of anything else. She never, ever left him, she constantly tormented him, taunted him, tortured him. It was exquisite agony companioned by rage patiently endured, finely honed. But not for much longer, he promised himself. Not for much longer. She would be his. And soon. He felt it in the gnawing burn of his gut.

He twisted and writhed in the knotted bedding. Every cell of him ached with the want of her. He was painfully hard, feeling as though he would burst with the weight of his need. He seldom masturbated. He preferred to sublimate all that sexual energy, to save it up for her, to save it up until he could make her take it all back, until he could fill her and hammer her and break her with every single bit of lust and anger and desire that she had forced him to hold, every endless unsatisfied moment he’d had at her expense. He would make her take it all back. Again, and again, and again. Yes, he seldom masturbated, but this morning, he couldn’t help himself. This morning, he could almost feel her in his arms, almost feel the silk of her skin against him, almost feel the heat of her breath against his mouth begging for it, even as she tried to deny herself what he knew she really wanted, what only he could give her.

His breathing was thick and heavy in the tiny room, roaring in his ears, drowning out the freeway sounds as he tugged and cupped at himself, as he wondered what she’d look like after all this time, wondered what she’d feel like when he entered her the first time, when he claimed his prize after all his waiting, after all her teasing. It would be so good, so very good. He convulsed into the T-shirt he’d just removed, then relaxed back against the pillow, settling into dreams of all the things he’d do to her when he had her with him at last, dreaming that it would be very, very soon.

Kendra spent the better part of the next three weeks doing her homework, calling up all of her resources, researching every possibility online. It would be a total coup to work with the elusive Tess Delaney, to actually get to meet the woman behind the romance. If she hadn’t been hell-bent on offering her services before her nasty encounter with Garrett Thorne at Harris’s bar-B-Q, she certainly was now. Who did he think he was anyway to tell her that she wasn’t right to work for Tess Delaney? He didn’t know anything about her. He didn’t know that she was the best in her field. But then again, he wouldn’t, would he? How would he know who ran the Ryde Agency? There were less than a handful of people who’d ever seen her face to face. She had worked her miracles through the magic of IT and a kick-ass staff that was great at keeping secrets. No one knew that the head of the Ryde Agency, K. Ryde, was Kendra Ryde Davis. She had her own reasons for keeping secrets, reasons she tried not to think about these days, but nonetheless, she knew better than most how important a little anonymity could be, and she was sure someone like Tess Delaney would really appreciate her skills in discretion. Discretion was something she doubted that blabbermouth Garrett Thorne would ever understand.