Burning Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  He tossed a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste in his bag. “I haven’t slept in clothes in years,” he said. “I can’t stand the feel of anything on my skin when I sleep. Last night all I had was jeans, and I couldn’t sleep in those. Or try to sleep. But to be a decent sort of fellow, I bought these at Wal-Mart.” He raised his arms out. “Happy now?”

  Well, no. “Ecstatic.” She forced a smile. “Thank you.”

  Even though he probably used the same soap and shampoo she did, he smelled good and fresh and yummy. His hair stuck up from being towel-dried, and there were three drops of water in the indent of his chest. She had the absurd impulse to lick them off and had to swallow it down. The bruise from his fight with Sayre, the bastard, bloomed purple on his stomach.

  He walked over to the duffel bag and dug around for a brush. The fabric of his thin pants tightened across his ass. A sigh began to come out of her mouth, and she coughed to cover it.

  “You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” she said.

  He eyed her and then the small bed. “Oh yes I do.”

  She perched on the edge of the bed. “Why do you say it like that? Do I squirm and kick in my sleep?” Did he not want to be that close to her?

  He pinned her with a heated look. “Remember what I said about the stretched rubber band?”

  “But I’m not wearing a little nightgown.”

  “You could be wearing a muumuu.”

  He took the blanket and sheets and laid them on the floor, giving her a moment to think about his comment. He didn’t trust himself around her. Or he was simply horny.

  The stupid words came out before she could even think better of it: “I could call Natalie, hook you up.” She was bluffing, of course, and her body tightened at the thought of him taking her up on it.

  He gave her a look that indicated she’d said the dumbest thing on earth. Beyond duh. “You don’t get it, do you? I’m not hot for just any woman. Ever since you astral projected to me, you are all I can think about. So being around you every minute of the last two days, in that damned nightgown, or in the dress you got at Magnus’s, that red jumpsuit, hell, talk about torture, or even in those pajamas where I can see just enough of your stomach to tease me with the glint of your belly button ring, to taunt my imagination about your tattoos in private places and imagine what the rest of you looks like, is driving me crazy. But from what I’ve seen, like in that towel, you’re delectable, just enough curve, tone, proportioned perfectly, that sharing a bed mere inches from you last night was excruciating. I will sleep on the floor.” He dropped down to where he’d placed the bedding on the floor.

  She stood there, stunned, letting his words soak in, warming her right down to her core. And other places. Nobody had ever said something like that to her. She could say the same thing about his body, without the part about taunting her imagination, since she’d seen every inch of him. She could tell him that only made it worse, but held her tongue and got into bed.

  In a few seconds he was up again. “I’m restless, edgy.” He shook out his hands. “I need to do some exercise, work it out.”

  “There are some weights in the top drawer of the dresser.” She’d worked out as best as she could while staying there before.

  Eric opened the drawer and pulled out the five-pound weights. “Not heavy enough.” He put them back and dropped down to the floor in push-up position. Except when he came up, he clapped his hands. It was impressive. His muscles bulged, his arms shook, and his face reddened, but he kept at it. He started groaning from the strain, and those groans sounded way too much like the sounds a man might make when he was on the verge of coming. Not that she’d ever heard a man make more than a grunt. Grunt and squirt, big romance.

  Then she realized her father would think they were having dirty, sweaty sex. She jumped off the bed and opened the door. “Hope Eric’s not too noisy working out,” she said, aiming her voice toward the living room where a television was on.

  Her father didn’t reply.

  “Why’d you say that?” Eric asked in a strained voice as he held his push-up inches above the floor.

  She perched on the edge of the bed. “Because you sound like you’re in the throes of ecstasy.”

  “Really?” He sank down, turned over, and started doing crunches. Now his abs were tensing, defining his six-pack. “Must be the pleasure/pain thing. ‘Cause I’m feeling pain now.”

  A fine line between pleasure and pain. Heat curled between her legs and into her stomach. She wanted to straddle him, grind into his groin, kiss across that vast, gorgeous chest. From the beginning, she’d been physically drawn to him, even when she hated him. It was getting worse. Thank goodness she’d opened the door, thus damping her temptation.

  Eric was pushing himself hard. His teeth were gritted, and those glorious sounds came out again. He made no attempt to muffle them. She wondered if he made those sounds when he came. She bet he let loose and wailed. She sighed.

  He stopped. “Sorry, I’m keeping you awake, aren’t I?”

  “You have no idea.” She crawled into bed, and he flopped back onto the blanket bed.

  When she turned, he was watching her. “Who’s Edie Sedgwick?”

  She rolled onto her side, facing him. “Why do you ask?” she said, curious.

  “In the store, Marion said there were customers who thought you were Edie Sedgwick.”

  “Oh . . . she was one of Andy Warhol’s Factory Girls. Way before my time. When I was in my teens, a friend’s dad told me I looked like Edie. I’d never heard of her, so I looked her up on the Internet. He was right. I devoured her story and her life, and I sort of became her for a while. Not the drugs. It was the sixties, and Edie had a huge problem with them. But I resonated with her life, the tragedy and fragility of her. I painted my eyes to look like hers. She had these big beautiful eyes, wore fake eyelashes. I wanted to be her; in a way, it was better than being myself.”

  She didn’t know why she’d told him so much. She never did that with anyone else.

  He stood and put his finger on the light switch, but his gaze was on her. “You’re fine the way you are.”

  “Thanks.” She rolled over as he killed the light. She didn’t know if she could handle looking into those eyes any longer. The night-light she’d bought was still plugged in, casting a warm glow over the room.

  She couldn’t sleep. Eric kept shifting, restless. Every now and then he released a ragged sigh. The lights from the digital clock taunted her as the minutes ticked past. Her mind kept spinning. Being there. Sayre. Eric. Westerfield. Her father. Suddenly she had several men in her life. Most were a threat in one way or another.

  After another forty minutes, she got up to use the bathroom in the hall. When she returned, closing the door behind her, she looked down at Eric. He had that same blank stare he’d had the first time she projected to him.

  “Eric,” she whispered. She knelt down in front of him, but he didn’t respond. “Holy crap, you’re burning up.” She put her hand over his forehead and the heat nearly seared her.

  His hand clamped around hers, and then she was lying flat on the blanket, Eric pressed down over her, his arm at her throat. He blinked, came awake and sat up. “Stop sneaking up on me like that. I could have killed you.”

  His voice sounded raspy. He helped her up. Her heart was pounding, the pulse beating in her throat.

  He rubbed his face. “Sorry.”

  She forced a laugh. “For all you know, I might have been holding a gun again.” She sat in front of him. “I was worried about you.” She tried again, touching his forehead. It was damp. In fact, his whole body was soaked; sweat glistened in the dim light. “You’re burning up.”

  He put his palm on his forehead, too. “I’ll be right back.” He stood and swayed, slapping his hand on the wall to balance himself.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “It’s just one of those waves of exhaustion I mentioned.” His voice was slurred.

  He walked
out, and she heard water running. When he returned a minute later, he was drying himself with a towel. He moved to the window, which faced out the front. She came up beside him. His expression was tense. More than tense; it was fearful.

  “Lachlan said you had the same edge in your eyes that he had before he exploded.”

  He nodded. He probably also remembered the part about taking her with him.

  “Your eyes are dilated.”

  He nodded again.

  “Your mother accidentally set herself on fire. So she had pyrokinesis, too.”

  He finally turned to her. It was the first time she’d ever seen vulnerability on his face. It scared her.

  “She lost her mind,” he said.

  Her hand went to her throat. “Could that happen to you?”

  “I don’t know.” He saw her gesture, and his expression darkened further. He put his hand over hers, and the heat penetrated her skin. “I almost killed you just now. I thought you were . . . I don’t even know who I thought you were.”

  “It’s okay. I startled you.” She laughed, though it came out hollow. “You couldn’t even kill me when you had a good reason.”

  His hand went higher and he stroked her cheek with his thumb. His fingers trailed down the front of her throat to the hollow. “Be careful of me.”

  Don’t I know it. But that’s not what he meant. “What do you mean?”

  “Lucas made me promise to kill him if he went crazy. He was scared of it happening like Lachlan said. Even then, he wasn’t willing to take the antidote. And we don’t know if he’s okay yet. It hasn’t been long enough.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “If you see anything that scares you about me . . . get the hell away. Don’t be afraid to do whatever it takes to protect yourself.”

  Her chest tightened. “Are you telling me to kill you?”

  “If you need to.”

  Now she was really scared.

  He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Get some sleep.”

  Yeah, right. She was supposed to tumble into slumberland after that?

  Sayre poked into Fonda’s consciousness first. She was a sexy, sassy little thing, at least as much as he’d seen of her. The fact that Eric had tried to get her to leave during their scuffle in the woods meant he cared about her. That was always a useful thing in the art of torturing people. And oh, he liked torturing people. Love was a funny thing, at least what he had seen of it.

  So he drilled through the ether to find her. He hit a fuzzy barrier. She wasn’t asleep, not even at two in the morning. Next he tried Eric, but that barrier was even bigger. He’d yet to slip into Eric’s dreams. Odd.

  He walked to the window of the cheap motel room he was renting. Eventually they would sleep. Then he would come in. He wanted Eric out of the picture. Then he would visit Fonda. He liked her, maybe even best of all. He wanted her in person. Then they would have fun.

  Chapter 16

  The ants under his skin, the restlessness, was getting worse. Eric tossed and turned, feeling hot and then cold as sweat broke out on him. He got up and walked to the window, checking for predators. Even at five in the morning he saw people outside, probably up to no good. He glanced at Fonda, lying on the bed. To crawl in with her, wrap his arms around her . . .

  He wanted her, but in a way he’d never wanted a woman before. The wanting yawned like an enormous beast inside him, threatening to swallow them both. It was no good, not with their history, not with what they had going on. That didn’t stop the wanting one bit.

  Her body went rigid, fingers tensing into claws. He dropped down next to her. Sayre? She screamed, her eyes snapping open but not seeing him or the room.

  “Put it out! Oh, my God, oh, my God!”

  She was dreaming of the fire again. He pulled her into his arms and crushed her against his chest.

  “Nooooo!” she screamed.

  “Wake up, Fonda. It’s only a dream.”

  He should have tapped her cheeks or gently shaken her. Instead he rained kisses on her face, whispering “Wake up” with each one.

  Even in the dim light he saw the moment her eyes focused on reality. The terror remained, even as she looked at him.

  She put her hands on either side of his face. “Eric.”

  He expected shock and anger at reliving what he’d put her through, not the relief he saw in her expression. She stayed in his arms, not pushing him away.

  “It was just a dream,” she said, reveling in that reality.

  “The fire. I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, her jaw tensing again. “Fire.” Her fingers tightened against his face. “You, Eric. You were on fire. You were burning up with fever, convulsing, and then a flame erupted”—she touched his chest—“right here. Within seconds you were engulfed. I dreamed you set yourself on fire. Like your mother.” In a raw whisper, she said, “I couldn’t put it out. I threw water on you, but the flames kept growing and growing. And you were screaming out my name, over and over.”

  The fear on her face, the worry, was for him. He smoothed back her hair, and that gulf inside him opened even wider. “It’s okay. I’m not going to set myself on fire.”

  She stared into his eyes. “You don’t know.” Suddenly, she seemed to realize their position, how close they were, and scrambled off the bed, rubbing her hands over her face. “You don’t know what could happen.”

  He also got up, standing behind her. Not too close, because he could barely fight the urge to pull her back against him. “If something happens to me, I want you to keep in touch with Magnus and the Rogues.”

  “I don’t want to think about that.”

  “Right now the Rogues can’t do much to help you, but when they get out, they will.”

  She turned to him. “Why would they help me? I worked for the man who was trying to kill them. I helped him.” Her recrimination was clear.

  He touched her cheek. “You didn’t know. I do know my people, though, and they help their own.”

  “I’m not one of them. They’re not my people.”

  “You are one of them. You’re an Offspring. They’ll help you.”

  He could see she wasn’t convinced. He would talk to Lucas later.

  She moved away from his touch. “I’m going for a walk. I don’t want to go back to sleep and chance having that dream again.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I’ve walked alone in this neighborhood at night before. I’ve walked alone in worse places than this. You don’t have to come.”

  “I know I don’t ‘have’ to come.” He hated the thought of her walking out there, tempting a dark fate. He sensed the kindred craving for recklessness. “But you’re not walking alone now.”

  He felt her tension vibrate the air around them. “You . . . you . . .”

  “I’m bossy, arrogant, a Neanderthal, whatever. Get over it.”

  “You so do not understand!” She turned and dug in her duffel bag for some clothes.

  “Enlighten me.” He pulled out jeans and one of the shirts he’d gotten at her shop.

  “Forget it.” She started to lift up her shirt. “Turn around.”

  He turned, dropping his pants and sliding on the jeans. As he bent to pick up his shirt, he glimpsed a flash of her ass, because she was wearing one of those thongs that barely covered anything. Above her right cheek was a tattoo, but he couldn’t make out the details.

  She glanced his way, both irritation and embarrassment coloring her expression. “Peeking!”

  “You were, too.”

  “Was not. I sensed you looking.” She pulled up her black leggings. “You have no honor.”

  He shrugged. “I’m a man. ’Nuff said.”

  She turned, pulling on a purple top that was long enough to be a miniskirt. It had long sleeves with ruffles at the end. She bent over and slid on black boots with rivets on them and thick heels.

  With an annoyed glint in her eyes, she walked past him. She was being ornery. He followed her
. He loved ornery.

  They walked into the cool predawn morning. The sky was gray, barely thinking of waking. Fonda paused by the truck. “I’ll leave the bag of discards on the girl’s porch. I met her during one of my walks. She’s married, got a baby, and she’s barely twenty. The dad’s around, at least, but they’re struggling.” She gestured to the area. “Obviously.”

  He reached out to take the bag from her, but she hefted it over her shoulder and walked on. Her hips swayed the way a cat might twitch its tail when it’s aggravated. Even in those clunky boots, she moved with fluid grace.

  They walked in silence. Usually, he would have been antagonizing her. He craved conflict, the fight. But she’d been through a lot with the nightmare, so now he decided to leave her to her thoughts, try not to get caught up in her fear of him dying, ironic that it was.

  Fonda stayed a foot ahead of him. He’d let her have that space but not an inch more. At the end of the block, she walked down a sidewalk and set the bag out of sight on a front porch. Even with all the crap going on in her life, she cared about others. He waited on the sidewalk, watching her as she came back toward him. He saw the wounded look in her big brown eyes, the tough facade, and the tenderness beneath it, all plain on her face. Her gaze was locked on his, her pace slowing, her mouth opening.

  In that moment he knew why Lucas and Nicholas and Rand were willing to die for their women. Why Lucas had wanted him to kill him to protect Amy. Not out of loyalty or duty or even because they were a sort-of family. It went much deeper, cut into places he didn’t even know were inside him, and what bled out took his breath away. He wanted Fonda in a way he had never wanted anyone, not only body, but soul and heart and everything that went with it.

  As though she sensed the miasma going on inside him, scarier than anything he’d ever faced, she stopped a couple of feet away. Her eyes were wide and he saw her chest rising and falling.

  “You have honor,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear in a quick, involuntary gesture.