Last Guard (Psy-Changeling Trinity #5) by Nalini Singh

He ran his hands down her back, squeezed her lower cheeks. “Soft,” he murmured appreciatively, loving that softness as he loved the gentle curve of her stomach and the roundness of her thighs.

“Hard,” she whispered in return, shaping his biceps.

Payal had a thing for his arms. Canto wasn’t complaining.

Sucking at her neck, he gripped her hips to still her when she began to move faster on his cock. “Remember that research?”

Her hand in his hair, she held him to her throat. “What?”

Nipping lightly at her, he pulled back. “On the sofa.”

“Canto,” she complained.

He bit down gently on her plump lower lip. “Promise it’ll be worth it.”

Face flushed and nipples hard and inviting, she teleported herself to the sofa even though it was only a few inches. He laughed at her small display of temper and released the brakes to edge a bit closer, then engaged them again. “Impatient cat.” Putting his hands on her thighs, he tugged her forward. “Hmm, not quite right.”

He reached to her left, grabbed a couple of cushions. “Sit on these?”

A scowl. “You want me higher? I’m a Tk.” Then she levitated … at the perfect level to his face. “See? Now can we get back to intimate skin privileges?”

His brain short-circuited. Grabbing her under the thighs, he hauled her toward him. And put his research to good use between her thighs. Her scream was short, sharp before her body crashed to the sofa—or would have, if he hadn’t used his upper-body strength to ease her down.

Shoving the pillows under her hips to raise her to the perfect height, he went back to his pleasurable task. His research had taken him to a clinical sex manual, but there was nothing clinical about the taste of Payal on his tongue, nothing clinical about how her short, breathy screams made his cock pulse, nothing clinical at all in what it did to him to have to hold her hips tight because she was thrashing too hard in pleasure.

He knew it was pleasure because she was wide-open to him on the mental level. And right now, her brain was hazed by wave upon wave of orgasm. Turned out positive feedback worked on Canto—and made him want to wring even more pleasure out of her. He licked, he sucked, he learned the folds and softness of her body.

He even slipped his tongue into her.

“Canto!” It was a scream as her thighs clamped around his head.

Things crashed and broke. He thought it might have been the other sofa. He didn’t give a shit. Because Payal was orgasming so hard that the feedback through their link was threatening to make him come.

Lifting his head before it was too late, he hauled her back into his lap … and thrust into her while her body yet rippled from the final echoes of her pleasure. Wrapping her arms around his head, she pressed her face to the side of his and let him move her lax, lazy body as he wished.

To have her so limp and sated, it was all the validation he needed that he’d gotten it right. If there was a touch of desperation in the way he thrust into her, the kisses he demanded, the way his fingers dug into her curves, it had nothing to do with their upcoming separation. Because no matter what, Canto wasn’t about to let her go.





The Architect



Once the delusion takes hold, it’s proven impossible to treat, though we continue to make the attempt.

—Report to the Psy Ruling Coalition from Dr. Maia Ndiaye, PsyMed SF Echo

SOMETHING WAS HAPPENING in the Net, but the Architect’s contacts had let her down this time. The Ruling Coalition was being very closemouthed about what was to take place, so she had to wait, see.

The Architect did not like being outside the loop of knowledge.

It simmered in her, the awareness that she was the rightful queen of them all. The queen of a newer, better race of people. And a queen waited for no one, least of all these pitiful things called Psy.

“No matter,” she said aloud. “I can be patient.” None of her children had acted out since seeing that one rebellious group annihilate itself in an attempt to take power from her. They’d thought they could join forces. All they’d done was burn up in their combined fire.

Only the Architect was immune from those flames.

She could snuff them out at any time.

Let the so-called Ruling Coalition play their little games. She would watch, she would learn, and she would strike at the moment when they were the most vulnerable. Soon, she would be the one who reigned, the one who made the decisions, the one who determined who lived and who died.





Chapter 42



Two hours to occlusion.

—Substrate timer set by Canto Mercant

CANTO STROLLED WITH Payal through the fog-bound trees in the pale light of dawn. He’d switched to the outdoor chair he preferred for uneven terrain, and she’d put on sneakers. Soon she’d leave him, get ready to do her part from Delhi.

“Look, Canto.” Voice full of wonder, she pointed to the dark form of a bear passing in the distance, the fog blurring its outline into a mirage.

He scowled and yelled, “Stop being so goddamn nosy, you furry asshole!”

Payal stared at him—while the bear turned around and bared its teeth in what he knew full well was a bearish grin, before the big creature lumbered off into the trees. Another bear padded along in the other one’s wake—but first he rose up onto his hindquarters and waved.