had just left Solomon’s office. “I need to progress with a wider investigation. I need to involve the council.”
“But what about the rest of them? Shouldn’t I listen to everyone?”
“There is no reason. They cannot be blocking me, and I have discovered nothing from them. I cannot spend anymore time on this.”
I dropped my head and stared at my hands in my lap. I couldn’t help but agree the last month had been a waste. All she’d needed to do was bring in Galina and Minh, and I would have known immediately they didn’t have the voice I’d heard at the council meeting. I could have told her—tried to tell her—but she refused to listen. And now she was giving up, leaving me with no way to access the other council members until the coronation ceremony.
“Have you at least overcome your problem?” she asked me.
I shook my head, then sighed. Her point was clear—why bother with the rest of the council members if I couldn’t share it with her? If I couldn’t prove anything anyway?
“What’s wrong with me, Tristan? Why can’t I control this damn shield?” I fell onto the bed and blew out a big breath of frustration.
We’d just returned from an evening walk through the village, which Rina had convinced me to take to practice my power around more people. “The more you practice, the more comfortable you will become,” she’d said before I left her office this afternoon. The walk had done nothing to ease my mind, though. Several of the townspeople harbored serious anxiety—I couldn’t help but pick up their indignant thoughts that reflected some of the council members’. No, it wasn’t a relaxing stroll. And it definitely did nothing for my shield.
I’d shared everything with Tristan, including Rina’s disappointment in me and her implication of the last month being a waste of time.
“I don’t think she really sees it that way,” he said. “You at least had a lot of practice, which is probably why Rina continued with it for so long. If she’d truly thought it a waste, she would have ended it long ago.”
“But that’s it—it was a waste because it didn’t do what she’d hoped. It didn’t help me get comfortable enough with this power. I’m still strung so tight, and I can’t shake the freakin’ shield!”
Tristan took my hands and pulled me up into a sitting position. He knelt in front of me and lifted his hand to push my hair back from my face. A small smile played on his luscious lips.
He made his voice low and sexier than ever. “I have an idea about that.”
“Oh, really?”
“That first night we were here . . . the last time we really made love—”
I grimaced, humiliation and guilt both tugging at me. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Do you think that’s when you blocked—”
My eyes widened. “Oh! Maybe you’re right. I was so freaked out, I threw up my wall so hard and fast . . .”
His fingers trailed along the side of my face and across my cheek to my lips. “So maybe that’s how we take it down.”
Before I could think about it for a second, his lips pressed hard against mine, and my body immediately went into hyper-drive. I wanted him so badly, it hurt, and his lips and his touch against my skin heightened the ache until I couldn’t stand one more second of not feeling him inside me. And if this would bring down my shield, I would take the chance of humiliation. This is right. This is what I need. This is what I want!
Or so I thought.
First I felt the wall crumbling. Felt the mind signatures coming through. Then, when Tristan moved just right and nearly sent me into oblivion, I felt the shield tremble. I knew I needed to let it fall. Let it go. But if I did . . . No! My whole body went rigid. So did my mind. I refused to share this intimate moment again. I refused to let go.
Which meant no loss of control, not of the shield or of myself . . . and no orgasm for me, either.
“That . . . was inadequate,” Tristan muttered as we spooned afterward.
“I’m sorry. I just . . . couldn’t. But at least you—”
“Yes, my love, but it’s no fun without you. It’s not the same.”
My heart sank. I never thought I’d become one of those women who faked orgasms. Now I understood why they did it. I wanted him to enjoy it,