“Don’t mess with Sly!” Tina laughed and leaned forward. “The reservoir’s disappearance makes the proposed Tier water policy even worse.”
“It was a crappy policy from inception.” Sly crossed her arms on the tabletop and leaned forward. “I’m worried this creates a greater incentive for the pro-Tier people to push hard. The price of our water, which is already a scarce commodity, will jump. That reservoir failure is a significant loss. Huge. The high volume water users think they need a price break; what we need is a water conservation requirement. West Central Florida needs to use less. Period. These aquifers aren’t infinite. This fight will get angry, and fast.”
The door jingled and two men entered. Sly felt more than heard TNT’s sharp intake of breath.
“That good?”
“Oh, yeah. Sneak a peek.”
Both men were basketball tall, 6’ 6” at least, long-haired, with broad shoulders tapering to narrow waists and long strong legs that filled their jeans out. Packages too. Extra spicy jambalaya, tip to toe, each of them. There was no weak wingman here.
“In a band, I suspect, with that hair,” Sly murmured.
“I am with the band, girl. Like, all the way,” Tina agreed, shaking her curls and crossing her legs.
Rafi caught Pirro’s eye. “The woman from the reservoir is here. The back table near the window.”
“Perfect,” Pirro said. “Let’s chat up the ladies and get laid. We shall discover what they know of our little side project.”
RAFI SNATCHED SYLVIA up, swung her into the shop’s doorway and pinned her, feet a foot off the ground, with his body.
He’s rock hard, and he intends to kiss me right here in the street! Holy crap!
“Little one, we are about to have a night.” His dark eyes held hers as her mind scrambled, so much fluff, whirling into acquiescence.
Rafi ran a long finger down the side of her face, tracing her ear before sliding across her throat’s heartbeat and settling along her nape, his huge hand cradling her head. Sylvia couldn’t help it, she quivered. Rafi noticed and laughed, leaning in to take her mouth, his kiss telling her what he would do, a story of tongues and triumph.
“No.”
The steel in her voice surprised her. A tiny line appeared between Rafi’s brows.
“No?” His voice was low, dangerous, sexy.
“No. Put me down.”
Rafi leaned his chest away from her, holding her body with his hips, sliding her down, his cock burning into her belly as her feet reached the ground.
“Your loss, love. You looked like you needed to unwind.” Rafi stepped back, tipping her face up, running a finger from the pit of her throat to just under her chin as he held her gaze.
“No,” Sylvia repeated, feeling like she was on auto-repeat, but caught in the wave of something beyond lust. I need to think. This guy is off. Something isn’t right about me, either. I need space.
Her eyes tipped up, catching Rafi’s face as it changed. I think he senses it too.
He stepped away. “As you wish, love. Good night.”
In his car across the street, Boggus watched and snapped a few pictures. How many guys that big with rocker hair are in Tampa? Not many, not many at all. She broke away from the embrace and stepped around him, heading to her car, unsteady, but not looking back. She’s not into him. I could stop her, maybe try a DUI and shake her up, but I’m more interested in him.
Boggus eased his car out of the space and turned the corner. The tall guy had vanished. He’s not in a car, not on the street. Gone. What the hell?
THE WARM NIGHT AIR broke over the wings of the soaring owl as it swooped down, landing in one of the tall southern oaks on Martin Street. Eyes searching the night, its gaze followed as her headlights slid across the expensive palms and electric gates before curving into the dirt drive and clicking off in front of the doublewide. The Hyundai’s door slammed and the quick steps of a runner tapped up the steps. A crack of light crossed the porch, darkened as her body passed through it, and the door closed, the lock clicking in place.
Safe at home. I want to see what she’s doing. The owl lifted off and landed, bouncing in a thin-limbed hibiscus near the back window. Her bedroom. Perfect.
In her room, Sylvia stripped, heading for the shower. It’s not that he overstepped. Right until he kissed me, I was one-hundred percent on board. And he stopped when I asked. Something was off there though. I knew it, and I think he did too.
She shucked her clothes, stepping out of a pair of thong panties he would have preferred to pull off in person. Rafi stared at her strong legs and fine, heart-shaped ass striding into the bathroom. She’s confident. Those are the best. When you turn a woman like her inside out, she’s either won, or she’ll burn even brighter and give you the night of your life.
Sylvia crawled into bed naked. She always slept nude and knew nobody out in the boonies gave a hoot. Her mind turned the sensation over, analyzing. It was like a piece of my brain woke up and that piece was seeing things around the corner from where the rest of my mind functions. So weird.
Rafi waited as she fell asleep, ignoring his desire for once, lifting off to fly over the now empty reservoir. I swam down to the bottom, shifted, built up my energy and released a shock wave. I blew the water into the sky as Pirro blasted the second wave, breaking the bottom of the reservoir. It was child’s play to flow out of there as vapor. It was perfect. What am I missing about this?
Rafi flew down, landing in the ruptured bottom, head turning to take in the cracks and jutting rocks, then looked up at the edge. Her. I’m missing her. She stood at the water’s edge. I looked through the water at her and the dog. That guard was farther away. She was too close. How did that woman survive me?
She shouldn’t have.
Chapter Three
The owl swooped down and became smoke, flowing through a small crack in Sylvia’s front door. Silent and methodical, Rafi examined her life. One picture, of a teen-aged Sylvia standing in the embrace of a rugged man with ice-blue eyes, held his gaze. Who’s this? Little old to be a boyfriend. Those eyes aren’t human, I’d bet on it. I’ve seen this place, this desert. How old is this picture? Fifteen human years? More?
Rafi flowed into Sylvia’s kitchen, then into her fridge without opening it. Food. Human food. She eats.
Continuing his silent invasion, looking for why this woman was still alive, Rafi turned from the fridge and came face to face, well, face to smoke, with Mr. Puddles, who cocked his head and lifted an ear. Rafi shifted to dog form, not the one from the reservoir, but a mirror of Mr. Puddles.
“You should be dead,” Rafi said.
“Get out of my house,” Puddles snapped. “Now.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I figure this out, and if you wake her, you’ll look like you’re barking at air. I will not hurt her.”
Rafi returned to smoke, flowing into the bedroom with Puddles on his trail, looking at the photographs on the wall, and at the sleeping Sylvia, arms flung wide, beautiful breasts catching the weak light of the moon. Rafi flowed his smoke over the curves of her body, sensing her skin and something else. This woman is not fully human.
Sylvia rolled over, the sheet draping across her hip as she sneezed. Guess I got smoke up her nose. Who and what is this woman? Shifting, Rafi sat naked on the chair, twirling the panties she wore earlier, lost in thought.
“ROWF, ROWF!!” Puddles sounded the alarm as Sylvia jumped, screamed, yanked the sheet off the bed, and wrapped herself within seconds.
“What are you... how did you, GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
Rafi watched, feeling the air for magic. It was present but repressed. I wonder why. He leaned back in the seat, a mountain of corded muscle, and gave her a lazy smile.
“And put my panties down! Holy crap! Where the hell are your pants? Get out, Rafi! You respected my ‘no’ and now turn up naked in my bedroom? Did you break into my house? GET OUT!”
“Who is the man in the picture in the front room?”<
br />
“What? Are you deaf? Leave my house!”
“I desire,” he paused, looking at the sheet straining over her muscles and curves and feeling his cock fill, “I desire you,” Rafi let his gaze burn into her, “but I want to know about that man and that photograph.”
Sylvia swallowed, feeling his eyes burning the sheet away. Or that’s me. Why is this man so fine? Why does he feel so weird? Damn, I’m wet. This is insane.
“If I discuss this, you’ll leave my house?”
“Yes.”
Fuming, Sylvia marched into her living room, yanking the tail of the sheet behind her, feeling Rafi’s air, scent, the whisper sound of body, rising and walking. And rising... God help me.
“This picture?” Sylvia pulled the picture off the wall with care. The edges of her lips curved as she gazed at the scene.
“Yes. Where was that picture taken?”
“New Mexico.”
Rafi moved, pulling the frame from her hands and backing her up against the wall. She was tall, close to 5’ 10”, but he towered over her. He pressed against her as he watched her eyes, seeing the curls of desire around her anger. Desire was winning.
“Where,” he pressed his cock against her, leaning his torso back to lift her chin, watching for lies, “in New Mexico?”
“M-magic”, Sylvia replied, hating the stutter. “Magic, New Mexico.”
Rafi’s control was sliding away; she exuded his favorite combination of defiance, strength, and vulnerability. It took all his concentration to focus. “And the man?”
“My b-brother, Theo,” she whispered, lost in his eyes.
“ROWF, ROWF! Grrrrrowf, rowf, rowf, grrrrrrowf!” Liar! Get away from her!
Puddles had Rafi by the ankle, tugging hard, growls filling the room. Sylvia had never seen him like this, but the noise shook her mind free. She had her wits once more.
“Time to leave, Rafi. We made a bargain and you have your information, though I’m sure I don’t know why it matters to you.” Sylvia strode to her front door, opening it and pointing out at the night. It took doing, but she only peeked at his rock hard cock once. Well, twice. Sort of.
A slow, knowing grin slid across Rafi’s face as he walked toward her and the open door. Bending down, his lips brushed her ear as he murmured, his voice deep and too sexy by half, “Are you sure, Sly?”
Not trusting her voice, she jammed her finger towards the porch, holding, she hoped, a dangerous face. Rafi’s laugh followed him out to the decisive slam of her door.
She looked down at Mr. Puddles. “You are an excellent dog, MP. The best of the best.”
Not trusting her mind to mull this crap tonight, she climbed into the shower again and started meditative breathing, feeling her heart slow and her mind quiet down as they always did when she was near water. After about twenty minutes, she crawled into bed and fell asleep.
To Mr. Puddles’ extreme displeasure, Rafi flowed through a crack in the caulk in the bedroom window’s frame and settled onto the bed, holding her in smoke arms, and rested.
THE MOCKINGBIRD TAPPED on the window. Rafi’s smoke rippled off Sylvia’s body with reluctance and seeped out of the tiny crack, becoming a jay. The two birds flew into the woods by the reservoir.
“Mine was a good lay, but she knew nothing useful,” Pirro said, sitting down on a log.
“I will see mine again. There is something there, but it’s hidden from me.”
Pirro’s eyes flicked up and held Rafi’s. “Hidden? Is she magic?”
“I cannot tell. If so, she is oblivious about it, but the dog knows something. There is a spell of some sort on it. A strong one. It survived the shock wave while it was drinking from the pond.”
Pirro gazed across the empty basin, deciding.
“We stay. For now.”
“ARE YOU SAYING WHAT I think you’re saying?” Max Boggus looked at John Mickelson, one eyebrow rising.
“I know, Max, it sounds nuts, but the basin appears to have cracked downward after the water blew upward. Two separate incidents, blasting in opposite directions.”
“And the likelihood of that happening in nature?”
“The chance, either with or without human help, is zero. There’s no evidence of charges, dynamite, any man-made materials at all. The ruptures of the basin are consistent with a high-pressure incident, but this compression event is unlike anything that has ever happened here, or anywhere in the U.S., except for a crater found in New Mexico. They never figured out the cause of that, either. We will report this as cause unknown, but that a possible natural gas fissure near the top of the aquifer created the cascade of failure.”
“New Mexico? Where in New Mexico?” Murphy asked, jotting notes.
“Weird little town called Magic. I was part of the team sent in to investigate. Had several independent reports of multiple spacecraft, which we discounted, but that crater was no mirage.”
“New Mexico is proud of their little grey dudes,” Boggus laughed. “What was the verdict?”
“The whole thing was odd. The crater was caused by high compression, in a circle about a hundred-fifty feet in diameter, and about ten feet deep. There was an unexplainable quantity of diamond dust. A second area had an unusual amount of sand fused into glass. We’re talking tonnage. The whole trip resulted in more questions than it answered. We filed those reports and heard nothing more.”
SYLVIA WOKE WITH A start, eyes locking on the chair. No Rafi. She crept to the bathroom. No Rafi. A quick look at the front room yielded the same result, but the picture off the wall assured her it was no dream.
Pouring a cup of coffee, she looked at her kitchen clock. 7:30. That meant it was 5:30 in Magic. She blew out a sigh, picked up her new phone, and called Theo.
“You dying? It’s early,” Theo answered.
“No, but you told me if I ever saw anything weird, to call you. Today’s the day.”
Theo swung his long legs off the coffee table and hunched towards his coffee. “I’m listening.”
“Last night, TNT and I went to O’Leary’s. We met two guys, had a few drinks, the usual. Tina left with one, and I was pretty into the other one.”
Theo rubbed his forehead. Please don’t make this lead to information I’d prefer not to know. “Yeah?”
“It, oh, I don’t know, I kissed him and it felt weird. Like there was chemistry but something was off, Theo. So, I said I wanted to leave, and he was fine with that. I came home, locked up and went to bed. Puddles woke me up, barking, and he was sitting in my chair, naked.”
“Did he hurt you?” Theo’s voice dropped, dangerous.
“No.” A skeptical noise filled her ear. “No, for real, Theo. He said he’d leave, but he wanted me to tell him about a picture I had. He wanted to know who you were, Theo, and where we took that picture.”
“Did you tell him?”
“Yes. I didn’t see why it was important.”
“May not mean a thing.” Or everything. Crap. “How’s the rest of your world going?”
“Work is good, but, you might see it on the news, the huge Chiles Reservoir drained out. Over fifteen billion gallons of water... poof!”
“Real-ly,” Theo drew the word out. “Sinkhole?”
“Officially, I bet they put it down to a natural gas pocket. Unofficially, your little sister is calling BS.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because MP and I were there when it happened! All the water blew straight up in the air, Theo. The trajectory made no sense. Then it fell, and all drained away. The amount of water, the weight, well, it was an improbable event.”
And lethal. Dammit. Well, I knew this time would come.
“I’ve got a few vacation days coming, and I was planning to surprise you, but how would you like to put your big brother up for a week?”
“Yes!” Sylvia’s shout caused MP to bark. “Shh, shush, Puddles. I’m sorry, sweetums. Theo, that’s fantastic. I’ve missed you so!”
“I’ll get a car at the airport.
No need to pick me up. I’ll see you in two days. Love you, Sis.”
Sylvia ended the call and danced in her kitchen, never seeing the slow, smokey smile in the dark back corner.
Chapter Four
The sun was half an hour from rising when Theo flew in, wide yellow eyes mapping the ground near the rental car lot before dropping, with a bouncing thud, into a stand of trees. After a quick check to confirm he was unobserved, Theo shifted, his orange dragon body morphing back into his rugged 6’ 4” frame. Opening the suitcase he’d strapped to his chest for the flight, Theo grabbed jeans, boots, and a white shirt, buttoning up while stuffing his feet into his worn leather boots. Raking his fingers through his dark hair, he breathed in the humidity, heavy before the sun rose. It shook his New Mexico sensibilities. Her kind of air.
Hoisting the suitcase, he jogged to the road and walked into the rental car place, driving out in fifteen minutes in a convertible. I feel like my tail is on the road in this thing, but it’s fun. I’ve got an hour to figure out what to say when I get to Lotha and sit down with my sister. Thanks, Mom.
Rafi watched the rental car pull in and something in Sylvia’s pure happiness tugged at him. She loves this brother. I value Pirro, but not in this way. Djinn aren’t families like humans have, we are all connected, but separate. The force connecting us is our determination to overturn God’s wrongful rejection.
Theo swung Sylvia around and hugged her. “Have you got food? I’m starved!”
“I do! Come on in.”
Theo eyed the cinnamon rolls, fresh fruit, and sliced tomatoes.
“Eat,” Sylvia said, setting down the bacon she’d kept warm in the oven. “I’ll have eggs and toast in a minute.”
Swimming for Air Page 2
