Edge of Oblivion by J. T. Geissinger Read Free Book Online Page A

that merciless expression, that soft, satin skin made for touching with the cold, burning threat of those dead amber eyes. He was carnal and elegant and forbidding, so forbidding even the air seemed to hold its breath as he passed through it.
    A jolt of turbulence rattled the cabin, interrupting her study of him. Morgan gasped and stiffened in her seat.
    As plush and comfortable as the buttercream leather seats of Leander’s private plane were, she’d soon rip hers to shreds if the turbulence kept up. She
hated
flying. She was a creature of the earth, born to slink through tall grasses and climb the sap-perfumed trunks of trees and laze sleepily in sunlit glens until her tongue was lolling and her fur was hot. Flying was for lesser creatures, for prey —the birds.
    Another jolt—this one strong enough to dislodge her duffel bag from the overhead compartment and send it tumbling to the floor—and a sudden drop in altitude that sent her stomach into her throat. She clutched the armrests and closed her eyes, swallowing hard, willing herself not to throw up.
    And when she opened her eyes again the assassin was sitting right beside her, staring into her face.
    “What—” she blurted, startled, but before she could get it out, he reached over and grasped her wrist. He pressed his thumb and forefinger into the tendon from either side, not hard but not gently either, and the urge to vomit vanished.
    “Oh,” she said, and then, “How?” because she couldn’t think of anything else.
    “The inner gate.”
    His voice was deep and soft, the accent indefinable. Between that, his sudden, molten proximity, and the cold fire of his unblinking tiger’s eyes, Morgan was abruptly speechless, and spinning.
The turbulence
, she thought.
I’m dizzy from the turbulence.
She made a little, wordless questioning sound and tried unsuccessfully to look away.
    “It’s an acupressure point,” he added, by way of explanation. He still hadn’t blinked, and she wondered if that came from years of staring down gun sights at fleeing prey. Her wrist was still grasped in his large, warm hand.
    “You’re white,” he said when she didn’t reply, and now she wondered if he only spoke in two-
    to four-word sentences. Perhaps he wasn’t too bright.
    “I’m fine,” she snapped and pulled her wrist from his grip.
    Really, what the hell?
she wanted to shout at him.
You don’t want me to throw up but you’re perfectly okay with putting a gun to my head and blowing my brains out?
    She assumed it would be a gun. He looked like the type who would own a lot of guns.
    “We’ll be landing soon,” he said, and she found herself counting.
    Four. Four words. She was overcome by the sudden, incongruous urge to laugh.
    In two weeks, if she hadn’t completed her impossible task of finding the never-before-located headquarters of an elusive, cunning enemy in a six-hundred-square-mile city of almost three million people, she was going to be killed by a beautiful idiot. She leaned her head back against the seat and sighed. Her mother must be rolling over in her grave.
    “You probably shouldn’t touch me.” She stared up at the curved ceiling and its rows of softly glowing recessed lights. “Or didn’t they tell you that?”
    “Suggestion doesn’t work on me.”
    Morgan turned to look at him. He really was stupid. Or maybe just stupidly cocky. She resisted the urge to reach out, touch the side of his stupidly beautiful face, and whisper,
Quack like a duck
.
    “It works on everyone,” she said drily, emphasizing the last word. “No matter their intelligence level.”
    One of his eyebrows lifted, but that was all. He seemed to be waiting for her to continue.
    “I can make you do anything I want,” she said, enunciating every word, trying to be clear so this blunt instrument sitting next to her would understand. “It’s my Gift. All I have to do is touch you, Suggest something I want you to do, and you’ll do it.”
    His lips curved into a