Sharing the Darkness

by Marilyn Tracy

  She wondered about Chris, if the noisy heavens would wake him, but remembered Teo’s saying he could hear him. She had no doubts he meant it literally. And after a moment the worry disappeared, dropped away as easily as her clothing had gone.

  She felt almost amazed at how swiftly she’d acquiesced to him, how easily she’d found herself lying nude in his bed, his large, tapering fingers slowly exploring her every curve. And how languorously she stretched beneath him, one hand on a muscled arm, the other against his face, all embarrassment absent, any nervousness gone.

  His fingers traced a line from her breasts to her mound and below. As slowly as dusk, he parted her legs, slid down her body to look, to explore. He lifted his gaze to hers, perhaps in question, or it might have been in command. And achingly slowly, he lowered that gaze again, and slid a finger inside her, almost as though in contemplative discovery.

  She could feel him, slick and slow inside, and automatically, unconsciously, opened to him, arching to take far more of him than he was allowing. She dimly realized that he seemed intent on taking things as slowly as possible, almost as if he had the same need she did to assimilate all the new sensations, the infinite variety of emotional reaction while discovering a lover. Or as if carving each nuance of this meeting in some private portion of his brain…or his heart.

  Shocking her almost as much as her response to him was his tenderness. When he raised his head, his eyes filled with need, his lips parted as though to ask her something, she found she could read a vulnerability she had not thought possible issuing from Teo Sandoval. Something twisted inside her, and she unconsciously tightened around his enticing finger.

  “Yes,” she said, though he hadn’t spoken. “Yes, Teo,” she repeated, telling him all she could without lowering that precious guard held so precariously now in her mind. God, how she longed to drop even that, to let him know her fully, completely.

  He lowered his mouth to her, and making her arch sharply in surprise, in wonder, lightly flicked her with his tongue.

  In sudden embarrassment, in some long-repressed fear of the unknown, she tried pulling away from him, but her hands were gently pushed away, then pressed gently to the mattress. And his hands were nowhere near hers, a reminder that for tonight she was his.

  And even then she understood that he hadn’t done this to overpower her, for he could have done that at any time. He was doing this because he planned on finishing what he’d begun and because she would have interfered with that pleasuring. He was simply letting her know that he was only beginning, that nothing she said or did would hurry him or make him abandon her now.

  With her arms gently and invisibly bound to his bed, he shifted still more, and intensified his wet, tongue-hot ministration of her. His finger inside was joined by another and they seemed to flick back and forth in contrapuntal time to his laving tongue. His free hand lifted her higher, pulling her to him, his fingers kneading, sliding darkly and dangerously.

  Faster and faster his fingers slid inside her as he lifted her ever higher, and his tongue lashed against her, exhorting her to a peak she’d never been to, never even dreamed of before.

  Thunder crashed above them, and she could see both of their distorted reflections in the skylight above as her body began to thrum in unaccountable trembling, growing stronger and tighter, pulling her inexorably toward that cliff’s edge of completion. Whatever magic he’d demonstrated before was as nothing compared to the power he was exhibiting now.

  She wanted to call out for him to stop, to wait, strained against falling over that edge, but was helpless to fight the incredible sensations sweeping through her, the assiduousness of his assault on her body, on her senses.

  And as her legs stiffened and her back arched, he stopped abruptly and lifted his head. “Melanie…” he said roughly, a call from some hidden place in his soul. His fingers stilled inside her and his hand beneath her held her, nothing more.

  Her entire body cried out for him, her heart ached for something she couldn’t even name, and without conscious thought, she arched anew. He pressed his face to her again, locking his lips around her sensitive apex and suddenly bringing his fingers to wicked life.

  And she didn’t fall over that cliff’s edge, she plummeted from it, propelled outward, careening into weightlessness, spinning in a gravity-free universe, her body jolted by a thousand volts of pure energy.

  And he held her out there, perhaps with his mind only, slowing his assault on her, but not letting her go, not stopping his care. And then she understood she hadn’t fallen, after all; she was drifting, floating in a cocoon of his making.

  She opened her eyes and met his. His were glassy, reflective. She reached for him, only now realizing that she had use of her arms, that they hadn’t been pinned to the bed for some time, that perhaps she’d had only imagined that they ever had been.

  He slipped into her arms as if he’d been there a million times before. She thought no man had ever felt so right before. He held himself above her, and might have entered her slowly, but she reached around him and pulled him to her with swift need.

  He filled her, paused, withdrew, and filled her again. Needing more of him, all of him, she brushed his locked elbows with her hands, craving his weight, the press of his chest against hers. She wrapped her legs around him and held him in her, rocking with him.

  Teo knew only one thing, that this was the single best moment of his entire life. Never, in his wildest and brightest dreams, had he ever dared let himself go so thoroughly, so completely. Her arms were holding him tight to her, her legs locked around him, her heels pressed into his buttocks.

  A lifetime of longing, and in this one woman, this miracle, he’d found a home. If only for this night. For these six months. Her sweet abandon intoxicated him, had made him never want to stop pleasuring her. And her lazy, understanding smile afterward, her reaching for him, had made him almost dizzy with foreign emotion.

  He had no need to send the lightning from him now, she absorbed the tremendous energy with each thrust, sheathed him in satin protection, gentled him with her tight embrace, her matching rhythm. He heard her breath coming raggedly, felt her fingers curling into his shoulders, felt her tightening around him.

  Suddenly, agonizingly, nothing could have stopped him then, no force on earth could equal his passion for this incredible woman whose body possessed him so. And as she cried out his name again upon her lips, her arms unbreakable bands around him, he, too, called out, and the universe seemed to split in two.

  He felt he stayed there, with her in that bed, pressed deep inside her, spilling free all the hitherto undiscovered elements of his soul, and he felt he soared into space, danced with the stars and met her there, a thought or two intertwining, enjoining on some plane he’d never even known had existed before. And in this plane, perhaps a place of his own creation, overwhelmed by his own longing, he stretched for her, revealed his need for a future, his burying of the dream, and felt her tentative understanding, a careful acceptance.

  He opened his eyes to meet hers, to see if he’d dreamed this union. She lay beneath him, her head turned slightly to face him. Her eyes were half open, glazed, and an uncertain smile tugged at the corner of her lips. He kissed that smile slowly, tasting her, tasting himself upon her.

  He felt her heartbeat slowing, steadying, and knew his own was doing the same thing. He hated coming back to earth, losing that thread of connection with her. As she drifted into full consciousness, he saw a guardedness steal across her face and felt the barrier once again fully raise against him, shutting him out, blocking him. A cold fist seemed to clench around his heart, and a restless fear crept into his mind.

  The dream had been just that, nothing more. And now that they were both awake, reality was only a breath away. He wanted to kiss her to passion again, to drive her from her body anew, to take her with him to that strange and beautiful plane where she understood him, where he could share with her the secrets of the universe, but he was spent and had no
power left to use. She had taken it all.

  No magic remained. Now it was simply night, and he a man of raw force who had been stripped of his power. She was the Delilah who had stolen his locks no matter how tangled her fingers might yet be in his hair.

  He had never felt so vulnerable before, so drained of comprehension, of strength. She had melted beneath his touch, and in doing so, had melted some essential part of him. But in her wary gaze, he felt all was lost because her closed mind underscored the differences between them, the missing elements.

  “Teo…?” she breathed, his name and a hundred questions rolled into a single word.

  He didn’t answer, couldn’t have begun to explain that while this may have been the single most glorious union of his life, he wanted more. And more still. He wanted inside that mind she somehow closed to him. He wanted into her heart. Even if he was incapable of allowing her into his.

  She had given her body freely, but except for that moment of union on an alternate plane, a plane most likely derived from his own need, his own imagination, her mind remained closed to him. And her heart was as much a mystery as ever.

  She had parted for him, taken him to her, but while her body had yearned for him, she had only given him a measure of her trust. He wanted it all.

  She feared him. He knew that, had even encouraged that fear, fanned it. But it wasn’t like the fear the townspeople held of him. Certainly unlike the emotion the scientists had exhibited at the PRI. But he knew she feared him nonetheless, and in a way he couldn’t fathom, couldn’t begin to comprehend.

  If only he could get inside her thoughts, he could will her to trust him. Like the forest animals did, like the wary townspeople did, like Chris did.

  But somehow that wouldn’t be enough with Melanie. The thought came to him suddenly that her name fit so easily in his mind, against the roof of his mouth, unspoken, untried. He’d called her señora as much to distance her as to frighten her. He longed to say her name aloud, and remembered that he had. During the height of his passion for her. During his loving her.

  “Melanie,” he mouthed, as if breathing her name would make it come all that much easier. It hurt to even whisper it. Give me your trust, he urged her silently.

  Years ago, he thought grimly, men—outsiders—had tried to take from him that essential component uniquely his, had tried taking it without permission, without asking. They had tried bending him to their will. Who could possibly know how differently things might have turned out had they thought to earn his trust, his respect?

  Wasn’t he even now desiring the same thing from Melanie? He wanted her trust, but without having earned it. He’d demanded she stay, give herself to him fully, but had offered her only the training of her remarkably talented son in return, not letting her have even the barest hint of what he truly thought of her, truly desired of her.

  Confused, frustrated by his own tail-chasing thoughts, he pushed off her and rolled over. He lay, staring at the dull, unlit skylight, staring out at the dimly visible stars. He could feel her warm, dewy skin next to his, felt the completion they’d reached emanating from her.

  But he couldn’t pierce her thoughts.

  Melanie felt she could still feel him against her, could still hear his heart scudding against her breasts. She felt shattered, whole, empty and filled all at the same time. And she tried understanding the whisper of her name, the sudden darkening of his eyes.

  In the time they had shared, in the shadowed half light, he had transcended mere humanity and become the embodiment of the stuff dreams are made of. And he’d made her feel as if she had done the same.

  And yet she’d read a disappointment, a deeper need in his gaze. She wanted to turn to him, to ask him why, to ask him to explain what he was thinking.

  But while she’d been delightfully abandoned in his love-making, she felt curiously reticent in his silence. Their union had been as dark as midnight and as filled with shadows as the deepest cavern, but it had also been lit with the light of a thousand stars, had seemed to spin around the universe itself.

  She longed to open her mind to him, to glimpse what he truly was, to share an element of herself with him. But he had retreated from her, both bodily and emotionally. She didn’t know this stranger, this now quiet man whose magical touch had sent her spinning through space.

  After several silent moments Teo pushed from the bed and stood at the side of it staring at the wall as if it were a crystal ball that could spill forth answers. Finally he turned his gaze down on her and smiled bitterly. She felt herself growing afraid again.

  “Gracias, señora,” he said in a tone more cold than the sudden iciness creeping through her veins. “Until tomorrow, then.” Without another word, he turned and left the bedroom.

  He slowly pulled the door closed behind him. The covers remained puddled on the floor. The candle flame sputtered in the wake of the brief draft left by his departure.

  And in the final release of the night, Melanie felt tears spilling down her cheeks. She couldn’t have been so mistaken, she thought. What had passed between them had been as magical for him as it had been for her…hadn’t it?

  A few seconds later a distant rumble of thunder reached her ears.

  And she fell asleep with the taste of Teo and tears intermingled on her bruised lips.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wake up, Man.

  Teo froze. For a moment he felt totally disoriented, as if he were still asleep, dreaming. His head seemed filled with this alien presence, a small but potent touch. And then he remembered. Chris. Chris.

  Chris was talking to him, again…in his head.

  Wake up, Man.

  My name is Teo, he corrected automatically, for what seemed the thousandth time. He sent an image of himself, a sound pattern, an identifier with his mental acknowledgment.

  He didn’t open his eyes, though he smiled. The small voice in his head was still as much a novelty as it had been the first morning the boy had stretched mental fingers across his mind.

  No matter how many times in the past two weeks the boy’s thoughts touched his, he still found himself intrigued, his heart pounding just a little faster, his mental patterns quickly shifting to accommodate this delicate, baby-soft brush of thoughts, the multilayered, half-conceived questions, curious, only dimly projected answers.

  And no matter how much he might have expected the mental bond, considering the child was like himself in so many ways, it still came as a surprise and an added boon.

  But the mental communication with the son had a negative side, as well. It served to strengthen the barriers he felt with the child’s mother. No matter how he’d hammered at her mind, tried probing at all hours of the day and night, Melanie remained as firmly closed to him as he kept his heavy doors barricaded when not using them. Was the analogy apt? Was she somehow able to throw a bar across doors in her mind?

  She was able to do something, create some kind of wall that shut him out as effectively as any guard tower had done against an advancing army. Except at night, when her mind seemed to wander while her body lay in deepest sleep. And then, upon rare occasions, he could glimpse a snippet of her dreams, her nightmares.

  Unfortunately, all those night excursions told him, aside from the fact that she was obviously frightened of—and attracted to—him, was that her conscious mind couldn’t fully control the wants, needs and fears of her unconscious thoughts. Not while she was sleeping, at any rate.

  He felt Chris’s soft, patting touch, a quest for reassurance, a request for play. He smiled, still not opening his eyes, knowing exactly where the boy stood, what cartoon-figure pajamas he was wearing, what he wanted to do next.

  Not for the first time in the past two weeks of pure heaven and hell combined, he wished he could do the same with the boy’s mother. Melanie, he sent silently. The stray thought stole to his bedroom, and he found her there, partially blocked to him as always, able to keep him from fully understanding her thoughts, even in sleep.

  He
wondered anew at the strange and uneasy rhythm they had fallen into. After that first incredible, shattering night with her, he’d had difficulty even meeting her eyes the next day, had kept Chris out on the mountain until evening shadows had stretched the trees to the hills.

  And when they’d returned home, she’d again had dinner prepared, an incredibly delicious concoction of pork, piñon nuts and some subtle herb that had apparently been soaked in his brandy. But she hadn’t met his gaze, no matter how much he’d willed her to. She’d been stiff, quiet and, like him, seemingly uncomfortable about the complete abandonment they’d shared the night before. And perhaps, also like him, too conscious of his parting words.

  If only she didn’t keep that damnable blockade in her mind. He’d know what she wanted, know how deeply he’d cut her with his demonstrations of power. But he’d also know how deeply he might have touched her…and perhaps discover if it had been anywhere near as intensely as she had affected him.

  He had no way of knowing, no way of understanding…except as normal men might know, as normal men might blunder in the dark, searching for explanation, praying for some glimmer of comprehension. They were living together, focused on a mission that should have drawn them closer, but didn’t. Couldn’t. They were together in all ways that seemed to count, and yet Teo keenly felt the gulf that separated them.

  Perhaps it was the all-too-intense perplexity that kept him from entering his own bedroom that second night. Or perhaps it was some sense of his own unfairness. Whatever the case had been, she hadn’t said a thing when he didn’t join her. And she didn’t comment on his absence the following night, though he thought he’d caught a glimpse of her studying him in puzzlement the next morning.

  He didn’t join her the night after that, either. If she’d shown him so much as a single signal that she would have welcomed him there, nothing shy of an earthquake or tornado could have kept him from it. But she gave no indication that she would have appreciated his attention, that she had even noticed his absence.