Free Runner: The Fringe, Book 3 by Anitra Lynn McLeod

more playing fort. Just sit there.”
    Crossing her arms over her pounding heart and swelling breasts, she rubbed her shoulders, hugging herself. He changed moods so fast, she felt dizzy trying to keep up.
    “Why are you upset with me now, Mr. Nash?”
    “That’s another thing”—he whirled around to face her—“stop calling me that.”
    She’d been trying to be respectful. “What do you want me to call you?”
    “Don’t call me anything. Don’t talk to me. Stop trying to seduce me, or compel me, or whatever game it is you think you’re running. Just knock it off!”
    One look into his eyes told her all she needed to know about his rapidly changing moods.
    “It’s becoming more difficult, isn’t it?” She smoothed her dress back into place. “Even more so now that you know the truth.”
    “What truth?” he asked, then quickly looked away.
    “That Roberts lied about me.”
    Foster strode up to the cage, and she fought down her instinct to back away. Standing her ground for everything she was worth, she lifted her chin and thanked God there were thick bars between them.
    His eyes blazed laser blue bright. “How the hell do you know that I found out—damn it!” He whirled away. “Doesn’t matter if you knew it or not, I just confirmed it for you!”
    “I knew by looking into your eyes.”
    “Are you—” He faced her and shook his head. “You’re a reader, aren’t you? That’s why you’re so good at jerking me around.”
    “I’m not the one who has been jerking you around. Roberts has been doing that, not me, so stop yelling at me for what another person is doing to you.”
    “I’m not—damn it!” Foster jerked back. “Yes, I am! I’m yelling at you again!” Gripping his face in both hands, he shook his head, and then abruptly ceased. He dropped his hands to his sides and peered at her with that strange, oddly detached gaze. “Does Roberts know?”
    “Know what?”
    “About your ability.”
    “I told you, I’m not a reader.”
    “You’re a lot more than simply intuitive. Tell me the truth. What’s your skill and does Roberts know that you have it?”
    It was vitally important to him. She didn’t know why, but she told him the truth anyway. “I can project.”
    “What’s that?” His mouth made a grim slash across his face.
    “I can put my consciousness into another. I can look out through their eyes.”
    “Can you read minds?” He took a wary step back but grimaced and stopped.
    “No,” she said, trying to reassure him. “When I’m in someone’s mind, they can feel me in there. It’s intensely uncomfortable; it feels like your head will burst. The only thoughts I can read are those right on the surface. Unless the mind has left the body. In that case, if someone is injured, I can enter their mind and feel their body.” She struggled to describe to him what she could do with her ability. “I can feel what’s wrong with them and then heal them. Not with my mind, but with my hands.” She lifted them. “But I would never project into a conscious patient. It would hurt them.”
    Foster considered, frowning darkly.
    “You don’t have to rack your brain trying to remember if I’ve been in there.” She smiled and pointed to his index finger. “Judging by your low tolerance for pain, you would find projecting intensely, unforgettably painful.”
    He flashed an embarrassed grimace to the textured floor and suspiciously asked, “How do you know what it feels like to have someone project?”
    “I can feel what it’s doing to the other person. At the lab, I worked with a man who could also project. Brandt did it to me once, and I instantly jumped to his mind. It didn’t hurt that way. In fact it was strangely…” Erotic . She pulled herself back from her soft reverie with a gentle shake of her head. “The point is, I know what it feels like to do it to a conscious person. I’ve done it once. To the IWOG officer who killed Brandt.”
    “And maybe you’re just