by Jayne Castle
“That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good. Because I have to tell you that you are perfect for me, too.”
“That’s good,” he said. “That’s very good.”
She could not see him clearly enough in the deep shadows to be certain of his expression, but she could hear the wickedly male smile that edged the words.
He carried her across the room and set her on her feet beside the bed. She was shivering with the thrill of what was happening. She grabbed the headboard to steady herself while Drake yanked aside the faded bedspread and quilt.
In an effort to show that she was not just a passenger on this high-risk ride, she fumbled with the fastening of her pants but for some reason her fingers were not functioning properly.
Drake caught her wrists and put her arms around his neck. He went to work getting her out of her pants.
“Just hang on to me,” he whispered into her ear. “I’ll take care of the details. I’m good with details.”
“I know,” she said.
He stripped her pants and panties down over her hips and let the clothes fall to her ankles. His hands closed around the curves of her rear. He squeezed gently, flexing his fingers. She heard him groan. The sound came from somewhere deep inside, a low, husky growl of raw male desire. The knowledge that he wanted her so fiercely sent her into the hot zone. She was already wet and he had not even touched her down there.
Energy danced in the atmosphere. There was power in the room—hers as well as his. Her senses sparked and flashed the way they had in the parking garage. She was suddenly free in a way she had never before experienced. She kissed Drake’s throat, inhaling his scent, and grabbed the bottom edge of his T-shirt. He laughed a little when she practically tore off his shirt and flung it aside.
She flattened her palms on his chest. He was hard and sleek and very warm to the touch. She knew that some of the heat was paranormal in nature. He was running hot. The wavelengths generated by sexual desire came from the paranormal as well as the normal ends of the spectrum—the more one was aroused, the more heat infused the aura.
Not that it took psychic talent to recognize serious lust in a man. But if a woman happened to have a fair amount of paranormal sensitivity, the fires of a very strong passion were all the more evident. Alice looked into Drake’s eyes and glimpsed the cauldron that burned below the surface. Heat lightning flashed through her. She had this effect on him. Her sense of her own feminine power acted like an aphrodisiac.
Dazed and nearly euphoric with excitement and an aching anticipation, she wrapped her hands around Drake’s neck and kissed him with all the sultry energy that was shuddering through her.
“That’s it,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been waiting for. That’s what I want from you. That’s what I need.”
He lifted her out of her clothing, swung her around, and set her on the bed. She pulled up the sheet to cover her lower body and braced herself on her elbows to watch him undress. He made short work of getting out of his pants and briefs.
He came to her fully, heavily aroused, his body hot with the psi-fever of desire. She was wet and achingly full and clenched. A great sense of urgency tightened everything inside her.
Drake stretched out on top of her, bracing himself on his arms, caging her on the bed. He kissed her mouth and then her throat and then her breasts. When she struggled, trying to make him move more quickly, he used his greater strength to gently overwhelm her, forcing her to let him set the pace. His hands went lower, finding the damp, hot, throbbing place between her legs.
He eased one finger inside her and then another. She moaned and clawed at his shoulders. She took a savage feminine satisfaction in discovering that his back was slick with sweat. The act of self-restraint was not easy for him. He was paying a price.
He found the tight bud at the top of her sex with his thumb and pressed upward. She gasped and clamped herself around him, straining for more, demanding more.
He stroked her, his mouth wet and hot on her breasts, until she sank her nails into his shoulders, until she drew up her knees and reached down to take him in her hand.
“Alice,” he groaned. “Alice.”
He abandoned the sensual battle and pushed himself slowly, carefully, into her, forging a path that stretched her so tightly she wondered if she would be able to hold him. For a moment the intense sensation hovered on the thrilling borderline between pain and pleasure. She was not sure which would prevail.
“So damn good,” he got out on a grating whisper.
He rose on his elbows and began to move in and out of her in a slow, relentless cadence that maddened her senses.
It was neither pain nor pleasure that prevailed. Instead it was a deep need for something more; it was a need for release.
She raised her hips to take him deeper, her whole body clenching around him.
“Yes,” she whispered. Her nails scored his back. “Yes.”
He surged into her again and again, angling his thrusts so that he was constantly pushing against that special, swollen place just inside her, until she could not stand the mounting pressure any longer.
The climax struck in a small explosion of sensation that rippled through her in waves.
She heard Drake’s half-muffled roar of satisfaction, felt him lock into her one last time, and then the heavy waves of his release spilled into her, blistering her senses.
In that moment she could have sworn that the room was illuminated with a shimmering aurora of dark light. It ignited a breathtakingly intimate resonance between their auras. It seemed to Alice that, for a moment, she and Drake were connected in a way that seemed to defy the laws of para-physics.
Just a trick of the light, she thought.
Chapter 20
THE BASTARD WAS ON THE ISLAND. WITH A WIFE, NO LESS. It was obvious that Drake had seduced Alice North into a Marriage of Convenience to gain her cooperation. It was too much.
Zara Tucker snatched up the nearest object—a small green quartz bowl—and hurled it against the nearest green quartz wall. There was a sharp crack of sound when the indestructible dish struck the impervious quartz wall.
The bowl dropped to the quartz floor, undamaged. The wall showed no evidence of the impact. Nothing humans had ever devised, not even heavy earth-moving machinery, could put so much as a dent in the psi-infused quartz. The Aliens had used the stone to construct not only many small artifacts like the bowl but also entire cities and the network of catacombs beneath the surface of Harmony.
Zara ignored the bowl on the floor and started to pace the vast underground cavern. Nothing had gone right since the two-story pyramid that occupied most of the space had begun to overheat. The energy coming off the Dream Chamber was now so intense she knew it was only a matter of time before it exploded.
At first she had been convinced that she could shut down the process. But after several attempts using her two research assistants, she was now forced to accept the reality of the situation. It was infuriating to realize that she—the brilliant Dr. Zara Tucker—had made a terrible mistake by inserting only two of the Keys. The result was a chain reaction of unstable paranormal energy that had gone undetected until a few weeks ago.
It was only after the dark fog had developed that she had been forced to acknowledge that the energy inside the pyramid was affecting the ocean currents, tides, and weather around the island. And now the wildlife as well.
The arrival of Harry Sebastian a few weeks ago had thrown her into a near panic, but she had hoped that he would leave after he discovered one of the Keys. Instead he had not only remained on the island, he had opened up an investigation into the bizarre changes that were affecting everything inside the Preserve.
Whatever was happening inside the pyramid had reached a critical point. The fog had settled in with a vengeance, cutting off the island from the outside world. Sebastian and Attridge were evidently trapped somewhere inside the Preserve along with the Glorious Dawn crowd. At least they would not be a problem
now. If the disorienting effects of the fog did not send them plunging into a crevasse or one of the flooded caves to be devoured by the bizarre sea creatures lurking inside, sooner or later they would encounter a few of the rapidly evolving spiders and insects. It was a known fact that mag-rez pistols and other high-tech weapons were worse than useless inside the psi-fence.
So, no need to worry about Harry Sebastian and Attridge, she thought, trying to steady her nerves. That leaves the day-blind bastard and his wife.
The roiling fever of her long-festering hatred of Drake Sebastian threatened to overwhelm her. She thought she had taken her revenge. Drake did his best to keep a low profile, but as the president and CEO-in-waiting of Sebastian, Inc., he could not entirely avoid the public eye. Every time she saw a picture of him in the business pages of the newspapers or caught a video showing him at a social event or a fund-raiser, she got a rush of satisfaction.
Drake was condemned to wear the special mirrored sunglasses that were the mark of her vengeance. Every day when he faced a new dawn he was forced to remember her. For Drake, it was always night.
“I told you that you would never forget me,” she said.
A lot of high-rez talents who suffered a catastrophic loss of their para-senses plunged into deep depression. Suicide was not uncommon. So were hallucinogenic drugs. She had anticipated that Drake would self-destruct after she destroyed much of his talent. She had looked forward to watching him spiral down into a bottomless pit of despair.
Instead, he had become the man the business world called the Magician—the brilliant strategist that Sebastian, Inc. relied on to close the deal. The man who was slated to take over the family empire.
Bastard, she thought.
How he had successfully piloted a boat through the bizarre currents around the island and navigated the nightmarish fog was anyone’s guess. The only explanation was sheer luck. But not even luck could explain how Drake and Alice North had survived the night out in the open on the beach, rescued Karen Rosser, and hiked around the coastline all the way to Shadow Bay.
It was as if the universe was conspiring against her.
Nothing had gone right. The only good news was that Drake was trapped in Shadow Bay and cut off from the outside world just like everyone else in the small town.
“Just like I am.” She managed a grim smile. “We’re star-crossed lovers, you and I, Drake. If Rainshadow blows, we will die together. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”
If things went that far south, she would make certain that—come hell or nightmare fog—Drake Sebastian knew that she was the one responsible for his death and the death of everyone else on the island.
But she was far from ready to give up. In some ways, just knowing that Drake was on Rainshadow was energizing. She would find a way out of this situation. Afterward she would destroy the bastard.
No half measures next time.
Chapter 21
DRAKE FELT ALICE SLIDE OUT FROM UNDER HIS ARM AND get to her feet. Energy shivered in the air. He knew that she had jacked up her senses a little.
“Hang on, I’ll light the lantern for you,” he said.
“It’s okay. I’ve got some paranormal night vision thanks to my talent.”
He put on his glasses and hit the lantern button, anyway. A soft glow illuminated the room.
“Thanks,” Alice said.
She disappeared into the bathroom. He heard water run in the sink. The toilet flushed. Alice reappeared wearing a towel wrapped around her body.
He folded one arm behind his head and admired the view of Alice lit with paranormal energy. The towel was not an oversized luxury spa bath sheet. It was a cheap little towel and it did not cover much. That was a good thing, he thought. He immediately got hard.
She scrambled back under the covers. In the process she lost her grip on the front of the towel. It slipped off altogether. When she finally got the sheet pulled up to her chin, she glared at him.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she warned.
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’re smiling.”
“Okay, I may be smiling,” he conceded.
“Hah. I knew it.” She was quiet for a moment. “I hope Houdini is all right.”
“He’ll be fine.” Drake shoved aside the covers, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and got to his feet. “You’re pretty shy for someone who spent the past year on the stage.”
“I don’t go on stage naked.” She fluffed up her thin pillow. “And for your information, I’ve got a right to be shy at this particular moment. I barely know you and here I am in bed with you.”
He was surprised by the flash of irritation that zapped through him.
“Here you are married to me,” he corrected.
“That, too. Boy, this has turned into one strange road trip. My life is starting to remind me of that children’s story Alice in Amberland. You know, the one where the heroine falls down a dust bunny hole and winds up in a sort of alternate universe where everything is weird.”
“You think this situation, you and me here together, is weird? Looks pretty damn straightforward and normal to me. We’re married. We had excellent sex. At least it was excellent from my standpoint.”
To his surprise and further irritation, she gave that some close thought.
“Yes, it was,” she finally agreed, sounding somewhat astonished. “That’s the first time I’ve had an orgasm without the assistance of a small personal appliance.”
“Yeah?”
“You know, you’re right,” she said.
“I am?”
“I’m overreacting. A man and a woman are thrown together in stressful circumstances. They are attracted to each other and they wind up in bed together. It happens.”
“Right,” he growled. “It happens. But you left out the part about the man and the woman getting married.”
He stalked into the bathroom.
When he came back out, he settled down on his side of the bed, very aware of the distance between himself and Alice. He turned off the lantern and took off his glasses.
“Don’t,” he said.
She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t try to blame what happened between us on stress.”
There was a small silence.
“I would think that a facts-on-the-ground guy would want explanations for everything,” she said after a moment.
“Some things don’t need explaining.”
“Okay.”
“Some facts are just facts,” he said.
“Right.”
“You said it yourself, the sex was pretty fantastic. That’s a simple, straightforward fact. It doesn’t need any further analysis.”
She put her fingertip on his chest and drew an invisible line straight down to his serious erection. She encircled him with her fingers.
“No more analysis,” she promised.
She started to kiss him, her wet, warm mouth following the path that she had traced with her fingertip.
“Alice,” he whispered. He reached down and tangled his fingers through her hair. “Alice.”
Chapter 22
THE SCRATCHING AT THE DOOR AND A SOFT, MUFFLED chortle brought Drake out of a dream that involved an endless hallway lined with doors. Each time he opened a door he was blinded by a blazing sun. Somewhere in the hall, Zara Tucker laughed.
“Houdini,” Alice mumbled into the pillow. “About time he got home.”
“I’ll let him in,” Drake said.
“Thanks.”
Dawn was approaching. Drake groped for his sunglasses and got them on before he opened his eyes.
He climbed out of bed and opened the door. A single amber lantern glowed at one end of the hall near the stairs. Houdini bustled into the room, chortling a cheerful greeting. He hopped up onto the bed.
“Hey there, pal.” Alice stirred and reached out to pat him. “I was getting worried.”
Houdini submitted brie
fly to a few pats and then stretched out on his back at the foot of the bed, all six paws in the air. He closed his baby blue eyes.
Drake took off his glasses and went back to the bed. He stood there for a moment, studying the sleeping Houdini.
“What are you thinking?” Alice asked.
Drake got back under the covers and folded his arms behind his head. “I’m thinking that you don’t know where Houdini goes when he disappears, but he always knows how to find you.”
“So?”
“The same is true of Zara Tucker. We don’t know where she’s hiding, but she knows where Shadow Bay is located. If she can move about inside the Preserve, she can probably get here, or more likely send someone here, assuming she’s still got that one security guard left.”
Alice sat up, alarmed. “Why would she do that?”
“One thing I know about Zara: she hates me. She also knows I’m the one person on the island who might be able to help her retrieve those two Keys. When she finds out I’m in Shadow Bay, she’ll make a move. She won’t be able to help herself.”
“How will she find out you’re here? From the sound of things, she’s as cut off as we are.”
“According to Karen Rosser, Zara always seems to know what is going on here in town. She’s probably using the flutes to navigate the Preserve.”
“Wouldn’t someone in Shadow Bay notice if a gorgeous mad scientist showed up on occasion?”
He thought about Zara’s uncanny ability to charm the male species. “Not if she’s using some man in town as her spy.”
Alice regarded him with a somber expression. “If you’re right, her spy could be any man in Shadow Bay. Officer Willis, the cook in the tavern tonight, one of the men we saw in the restaurant. And then there are the folks staying at the B-and-Bs.”
“True. But we aren’t without our own resources. Harry says Rachel has a talent for aura reading. And Charlotte’s a high-level talent. Her intuition is probably way above average. Both of them are well acquainted with the locals. They’d know if someone was acting out of character. We’ve also got Fletcher Kane and Jasper Gilbert. They’re former hunters, according to Harry. He trusts them. And they know the locals, too.”
