Christine Feehan - Murder Game

The way her eyes ran over him, touching on the bulge growing in the front of his jeans, had him grinning like a fool-and he rarely grinned.

"Sit the hell down," Ryland growled. "The two of you are killing us."

Kadan pulled out her chair for her, waiting for her to adjust her leg for comfort before sliding into the seat next to her.

"I appreciate all of you for what you did for me last night," Tansy said. "I had no idea those men could find me, and I'm very ashamed of my father for the part he's played putting your lives in jeopardy. Believe me, if I could find a way to repay you…"

"You have," Ryland said gruffly.

"I have?"

Gator winked at her. "Yes, ma'am. That goofy look on Kadan's face is worth all the bullets in the world;' He leaned across the table toward Kadan and sniffed. "And he sure does smell pretty now."

Kadan hooked his foot around the leg of Gator's chair and jerked, dumping him unceremoniously on the floor.

"Kadan's family. That makes you family," Nico said solemnly, as if nothing had happened. He didn't even glance down at Gator, who sat on the floor, laughing.

"I see," Tansy said.

Kadan dropped his hand beneath the table to her thigh. Does it hurt ?

She shook her head. My hand hurts more .

He immediately took her hand and turned it over to examine the palm. "Take a look at this, Nico. When she took the gloves off, the ivory piece branded into her skin, although it's not a burn. I tried opening her hand to get her to drop the thing, but not even using pressure points helped. I hit her hand on the table edge. Do you think it's broken?"

Tansy attempted to pull her hand away, but Kadan tightened his grip. The men crowded around, looking at the impression of the knife embedded in her palm. Nico turned her hand around and murmured to her to open and close her fingers.

"Her hand's not broken, Kadan, and the impression is fading. How does your talent work, Tansy?"

Again she tugged at her hand, but Kadan kept possession of it, although he did lower her arm, taking her hand beneath the table, out of sight. His fingers brushed back and forth over her palm in long, slow caresses where no one could see.

"I'm not certain. I've had the ability as long as I can remember. I touch something, and I can sense the impressions left behind by anyone who has touched it before me. If it's strong energy, such as violence, the impressions are equally as strong. It's rather like always being in on private conversations."

"So you wear gloves most of the time?"

She nodded. "Always. I don't wear them when I'm camping up in the mountains, but as a rule, unless I want to stumble onto someone's secrets, I'm careful."

"I'm shielding for her," Kadan said. "Which is why she's able to be okay here with all of you and in this house." His fingers continued to stroke her injured hand beneath the table.

"We really should get started," she said.

Kadan sighed. She was right. If he was going to eliminate both teams quickly, he needed this information. "Let's do it then."

"I'll clean up," Gator said.

"I'm going to button down the house and set up a couple of escape routes just to be safe." Nico shoved back his chair.

"That leaves me to talk to the ladies about what they can give us on your suspects," Ryland added.

Kadan appreciated his friends' discretion. It was difficult enough to watch Tansy suffer while she worked, but he also knew her inevitable reaction embarrassed her. She didn't want to try tracking in front of an audience. He held her hand as they went into the bedroom where he'd set up the pieces. He'd placed the four pieces side by side on the dresser.

"Sit. I don't want you screwing up your hip."

She nodded, almost without hearing him. Her gaze was already fixed on the small, perfectly detailed bull. He kept his mind in hers, wanting to understand what she was doing so he'd have a better chance of helping her when she needed him. She was already half-gone from him, tuning everything out around her but the object that she was going to handle. She pulled on the gloves almost absently, not even glancing at him.

There was only Tansy and the ivory game piece and the information it would yield. Her breathing changed first. Kadan watched Tansy's face rather than her hands. He knew the moment she picked up the ivory bull with her gloved hands. The jolt of violent energy was strong. He felt it blast through her mind to encompass his. Along with the violence was a sexual energy that didn't surprise him. Tansy's record of tracking was 100 percent, and if she thought a piece represented the highly sexual nature of the owner, he believed her.

"He's very involved in the rodeo. He likes the power of the bull and craves it for himself. He enjoys his prowess with women. His buddies want the details, and he tries to top his record of several women in one day, all begging for his attentions. He often has a couple of women at the same time. He enjoys that he can get them to do anything he wants more than he actually enjoys the sexual act. He's a total adrenaline junkie, needing the high all the time. The murder doesn't give him his fix, but the idea of getting away with it, the planning, carrying out, and walking away clean-that's the rush for him. The more public, the greater the risk, the better the high."

Her eyes deepened in color, going from blue to violet. He could see the silvery lines begin to form in them, and his belly hardened into tight fist-size knots. She moved farther and farther away from him along the thread of the cowboy, where he couldn't really follow. He could see blurring images, coming and going fast, but his mind's eye couldn't grasp them. He could only pick up the impressions from her.

"This was a chance to pull ahead of Team One. The idiot Stallion couldn't keep it in his pants and lost points for the other team. If he could pull this off, they'd surge ahead. The target was everything they could possibly want. High-profile. In public. The method was up to him, just get the job done. His kind of scenario. The thrill of walking into the courthouse with cameras everywhere and chatting with his target had been amazing. Hell, he nearly came in his jeans. Bodyguards everywhere. Stupid rent-a-cop mentality. Maybe for fun he'd take a couple of them out as well, but he had to make certain it all went down exactly as instructed making sure the correct targets were taken."

Tansy swallowed hard and forced herself to slow down, to try to make sense of what she was seeing and feeling. "He wants to do the murder publicly; it's almost a euphoric feeling, very sexual, although sex has nothing to do with the crime, even if his target happens to be a woman. He isn't at all like Stallion, where the murder is all about raping and dominating a woman. It's the thrill all the way with this one."

She took another breath, let it out, and slipped deeper into her hypnotic state. Kadan could see the silver spreading through the violet, so that her eyes began to shimmer. "You loved being in the military and didn't want to leave. Why did you then? You hide your true nature so well. Why? You were forced to leave or you would have stayed on forever. You could do whatever you wanted and not get caught. Oh God."

Kadan saw her hesitate. Her finger began to slide back and forth in a mesmerizing stroke over the back of the bull. "You killed more than one teammate, slipping up behind them and breaking a neck or shoving your knife into their side. You slit the throat of a commanding officer just a few feet from your team just to see if you could get away with it-and you did, blaming it on an enemy you killed. How did he know? No one saw you. No one ever suspected you, yet he knew. Who knew, cowboy, who knew you were a serial killer before you ever played the game? Of course. The puppet master. He knew and he stroked your ego and manipulated you into playing his game. But why? And why did you leave the military?"