Free [Psy-Changeling 12.1] Hide and Seek by Nalini Singh Page A

him to play, then taught him to enjoy it, he said, “Do I receive an award this time?”

“Here.” Sahara gave him a cookie from the small bag she held in her hands. 

He took a small bite of the colored cookie spotted with nuts, then fed the rest to her. “I decline this award.”

“More cookies for me,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him.

It was instinctive to steady her with his arm around her waist, to throw a telekinetic shield around her body. He would allow nothing and no one to ever again harm Sahara.

“Kaleb.” A husky whisper before she kissed him again, sweet and hot and his. Always she had been his. Always she had chosen to be his. It was a gift beyond price.

“Did you have a good visit with your father?” he asked afterward, every part of him humming in quiet, intense awareness.

“Yes.” Sahara’s smile sparked in the dark blue of her eyes. “He’s terrible—works himself to the bone. But I took him for a stroll, made him sit in the sun while I read to him from an old printed book I found in our library. It was all about medical science in the time of the Territorial Wars. He was fascinated, but I told him he can’t have the book because he’ll inhale it in one go and forget about relaxing. I’ll read more to him the next time I visit.”

“Are you ready to go home?”

“No.” She put one hand on his thigh. “I just want to sit here with you. Ever since the fall of Silence, life’s been so busy. I miss you.”

“You never have to miss me,” he said, holding her eyes. “If you need me, just call.” He’d abandon the world for her.

She stroked his jaw, her skin glowing from within. “I know—and that’s why I can’t give in to the urge. I’m wildly possessive where you’re concerned, but you carry the fate of an entire race on your shoulders.”

“Sahara, that race is only alive because you told me I couldn’t destroy them.” Kaleb knew himself, knew he wasn’t good, knew he did good things only so as not to lose the way she looked at him. He would never forgive or forget that it was the leaders of the Psy race who had once taken her from him. “Were it up to me,” he said, “I’d abandon them all to swim or drown and teleport us to an isolated island where no one would bother us for eternity.”

“No you wouldn’t.” Sahara laughed, turning to brace her bent arm on his shoulder. “You like being hooked into the world too much. I bet you know exactly what the temperature is in outer Mongolia right now.”

“No, but I can find out for you in a second.” 

That only caused her laughter to deepen, her delight making the creature in the void sit up in unreserved attention. Even now, with the two of them bonded on the most intimate psychic level, that part of him found astonished joy in belonging to her, in having the right to her laughter, her touch. “I love you,” she said, running one hand through his hair. “I’ve never been to a tropical island. I don’t suppose you have one in your mental database?”

A thought and they were on the white sand beach of an isolated atoll in the Indian Ocean, the heavy moon shining down from a midnight sky. Rising to her feet a heartbeat after they arrived, Sahara kicked off her shoes, pulled off her socks, and began to shrug off her coat. “It’s hot! No snow!”  Having shucked her sweater while he watched in fascination, she said, “Will anyone see me? Can I strip?”

“No one will see you.” Not only was this island uninhibited, it was in a satellite shadow and invisible to spies in the sky. Kaleb knew that because he made it a point to know such things.

Dressed in khaki cargo pants and a black T-shirt himself, he took off his boots and socks, then just watched Sahara. When she’d said “strip” she’d meant to the skin, and since she wore the dark fall of her hair in a braid today, nothing hid his view. 

He watched her run into the water, emerge wet and sleek as a seal. “Kaleb! Come in!