by Carly Fall
She pulled away slowly, remaining inches from his face and smiled. “I think we should do that again,” she said throatily.
Hell, yes. He was so totally on board with that idea.
This time, she came to him and slowly wrapped her hands around his neck. He pulled her close so that they were chest-to-chest and leisurely laid back on the bed. The flames of her hair surrounded them, caging them, making him feel like they were the only two people in the world.
He tentatively ran his hand up and down her back, locating the edge of her shirt. Finding her skin, he traced the bumps of her spine up to her neck. His hands moved to her sides, feeling her ribcage and the gentle swell of her breasts.
Christ, he was about to have an orgasm just touching her.
He lifted the hem of her shirt and carefully brought it over her head. Her bra was a lacey red number that matched her hair. He cupped each breast in his large hands, loving the weight of them as they almost overflowed his palms. He ran his thumbs over both nipples, which caused her to let out a groan. It might have been the prettiest sound he had ever heard. It was pleasure, desire and longing for more all wrapped into one beautiful note.
She quickly undid the front bra clasp and brought her chest back to his, putting her full weight on him.
It was a beautiful feeling. She definitely wasn't too heavy by any means, but he knew she was there. It was warmth and softness, and reminded him of fire dancing in a fireplace on a bitter cold winter night. It warmed, it caressed, it soothed.
Before he knew what happened, she was naked lying flush against his side, her head propped up on her hand. His brain was definitely not working properly. Her other hand was busy making lazy circles on his chest, down his stomach, and then found his sex. His erection was painfully hard, and she stroked it gently at first, then with a little more enthusiasm, causing his hips to bow off the bed.
She brought her mouth to his again, and he rolled so that he was on top of her without breaking their kiss.
He edged her legs apart with his knee and settled himself so that his sex was at the apex of hers.
Her legs wrapped around his hips, urging him to slide inside her. He wanted to so badly, but he wanted this perfect moment with Faith to last for forever. And a day.
“You must,” she said with quiet urgency, “we don't have much time.”
He didn't know what that meant, but he would certainly do anything she asked at that point.
Rayner wasn't exactly the nice boy on the block when it came to his sex life. While on Earth, he had bedded a lot of women. He didn't keep count. He wasn't a complete man whore like Hudson, but when the itch presented itself, he made sure it was scratched and scratched good. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy it, because he did. But it was more like fulfilling a basic need. Like eating or drinking, both of which he enjoyed just as much as sex.
Faith, however, was nothing like he had experienced before.
He slid into her slick sheath and gasped.
He thought of all the good things on Earth that he savored. Tequila. Bacon. Chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. XBox. His huge body and its powerful strength. T.V. He would trade every single one of them if he could stay exactly where he was: inside Faith.
“Rayner?” she whispered into his ear, her hand going through his hair.
“What?” he croaked.
“Love me.”
He brought his hips back and slid into her again. Both of them let out something between a sigh of contentment and a groan of pleasure.
“I do love you,” he heard himself say. “I love you, Faith.”
She sighed. “I love you, too, my wise warrior.”
They moved together as one, their bodies fitting like a perfectly matched jigsaw puzzle.
In what seemed like a matter of seconds, Rayner felt an orgasm building within him. It gathered strength quickly and with such force, he felt his whole body begin to ache. It swirled within him, making every one of his cells feel as though they were involved. His brain began humming with a sound that seemed to get louder and louder the closer he came to release. He brought his hips back and pistoned himself into Faith, the noise in his head almost deafening. The orgasm kicked him in the lower spine, making his back arch—
Rayner woke to the blaring of his alarm clock, breathing hard. He looked around the room and began to curse. He grabbed the alarm clock and ripped the cord out of the wall, throwing it across the room, and flopped back down on the pillows. He listened to the clock shatter as it made contact with the wall.
He put his arm over his eyes, trying not to think about the dream, but unable to think about anything else. As his breath sawed in and out of him, he knew he was in trouble. He couldn't hide or avoid it any longer. He had done the one thing he had always steered clear of: He had grown to care about a spirit.
No actually, he gone and done something a whole lot worse.
He had fallen in love with one.
Chapter 18
Rayner sat in the War Room sipping his fourth cup of coffee, re-reading the report on the dead woman and looking at the photos. After his special little dream, he had given up on going back to sleep and made his way to the top floors of the silo. His eyes were going over the lines, the letters registering—how exciting, he could tell a b from a d, but the words weren't forming in his brain, and they hadn't been for two hours.
He was having a bit of trouble concentrating.
Damn that dream that he refused to think about.
Back to the report.
He closed his eyes to clear his head and took some deep breaths. Okay. He needed to form all the letters together, make words, put the words together into sentences, get the facts off the paper and into his brain.
He looked at the photos again. Maybe pictures would be easier to understand than the written word. The girl had been found in an alley not too far from Faith's apartment and where she had been taken. He stood up and went to the map on the wall of downtown Phoenix.
He used some colored tacks and marked where the girls had lived in green and where they had been taken in blue. Where the body had been found, he debated between black or red pushpins, and deciding on the red, he pushed it in.
He took a step back. All the activity had occurred within a four-block radius.
The hairs on the back of his neck began to dance, and he rubbed them absently. He felt he was onto something.
He went to the computer and pulled up Google Maps. He punched in the coordinates of where Faith had been taken and went in for a street view. He did the same for where two other women had been taken.
What he found seemed like a surplus of buildings under construction, or buildings that were empty.
He knew in his gut he was right. Those women were being held in one of those buildings. From what he could tell online, there were six buildings that were not inhabited, and maybe a couple of more. He didn't hear Cohen come in and jumped out of the chair when Cohen said good morning, his combat training online and ready to deal out.
"Too much coffee, my friend?"
Rayner cursed and sat back down at the computer. Yeah, he had definitely had too much coffee, but that wasn't what had him jacked up.
"I think I know where the women are," he said to Cohen, going over the street views again.
He felt Cohen come up behind him. "How do you figure that?"
Rayner went over everything, hoping it was all gelling together for Cohen as it had for him.
"It's possible," Cohen said, staring at the screen, "and it does make sense. He would want a homebase that's close to where he’s doing his snatch and grab—somewhere he wouldn't be bothered.”
“We need to get into these buildings,” Rayner said.
Cohen shook his head. “Noah will never go for it. It's B&E. You know that. We try to stay on the right side of the law, Rayner.”
Rayner closed his eyes. He was tired. He knew he had drunk too much coffee. He was aware that the dream he refused to think about was doing nothing b
ut replaying itself over and over in his frontal lobe, every detail sharp and clear. All of this made him highly irritated, and irritation made him want to get brutally physical with someone or something. Combine that with being told no, and he was a powder keg begging for someone to throw a match his way. So he waited for Cohen to say just one more thing...to ignite the irritation and turmoil that were his companions this morning.
But Cohen knew his friend too well and didn't say a word.
After a long silence, Rayner exhaled a slow breath, letting a little rationality take over. Of course they couldn't just saunter into a bunch of buildings. What had he been thinking? If they were caught, they would end up in the slammer. If they were in the slammer when night fell and their eyes started turning colors, then the shit would hit the fan. They would most likely be turned over to the government, and then things would get ugly. He wasn't volunteering for any government experiments. He had heard what had happened to the alien they’d caught in Roswell. That shit was messed up. No, rationality was good, and he hoped like hell he could muster up a little more. “You're right,” he said. “We've got no business busting in those buildings.”
Cohen clapped him on he shoulder. “Too much coffee will do that to you, my man. It makes you want to fight. That's why I stick to three a day.”
Rayner nodded. He needed to keep it together. He needed to get away from that dream. He wasn't in love with a ghost. So he found her attractive. BFD. There were a lot of attractive women around. And they weren't ghosts. He could touch them, feel their skin, let his lips touch theirs. Faith had to remain a need to an end: Catching that mother fucking Colonist.
Chapter 19
After Rayner left, Faith wandered her apartment. There wasn’t much space to cover, but the movement helped her think.
The things she felt for Rayner were…strange. Yes, that would be a good word. Since moving down to Phoenix two years prior, she had met lots of men, but had never felt any type of connection to any of them.
Rayner was different. She couldn’t believe everything they had in common. Their love of the outdoors. Tequila. River Monsters. He was also a big foodie, just as she was. And he made her laugh. She was a sucker for anyone who made her laugh. In such a short time she had developed strong feelings for him. She felt as though he were the ying to her yang, or visa versa, whichever way you preferred it.
In other words, they were a good match.
And she wondered what exactly that meant.
She went over her little recurring fantasy of Rayner being able to get her back into her body and then rescuing her from that cage. How all that would happen, she had no idea. She was going to trust him at his word though. They would spend more time together, and she would be able to hold his hand, to feel his huge body wrap itself around her. Just thinking about it brought a comfort she had never felt. She wondered what it would be like to make love to him. Yes, there was a big size difference—five-foot-four to six-foot-five, maybe more? But just the thought of it made a chill work its way down her spine.
It would be wonderful.
She thought back to what her father had said about her being part of the legend, The Woman With Fire for Hair. According to the story, the red-headed woman would fall in love with a Red-Eyed Wolf Warrior. They would produce a prodigal son that would help millions of people with his powers to harness the Earth’s energy. Her eyes went to the picture of the blond wolf she had painted. As she stared up at the painting, she recalled the dream with such vivid detail. She had been standing outside, and through the forest she saw red eyes coming at her. She hadn’t been afraid. As they approached, she realized it was a blond wolf. He came to her and laid at her feet, vowing himself to her.
She sighed, shaking her head. She wasn’t part of any legend. It was ridiculous to think so. Legends were called legends because that was what they were: stories.
Suddenly, she began to feel extremely tired. She made her way to her bedroom to lie down on the bed. The weakness rolled up on her like a speeding train, draining her and making fear coil in her gut.
Was she dying? A little voice within her gave her an affirmative.
Panic flooded her. But she wasn’t ready to go! There were too many things she wanted to see, too much she wanted to experience. As the fatigue quickly worsened, she began to give in and thought about what would be next.
She had always known that there was an other side. The teachings of her Native American past had cemented that belief. And if that weren’t enough, she had spent every Sunday inside a church where they preached the same thing but in a different way.
So yes, she did believe in the hereafter.
Despite her best efforts to fight it, she felt herself slipping to the other side. She only hoped that she ended up in a good place and not some eternal damnation.
Surprised at the intensity and speed of which the fatigue overtook her, she closed her eyes, and with all the fight in her gone she allowed the transition to take place. She thought of all the things she wanted to do, but hadn’t had the time to do them.
Then she thought of Rayner again. He hadn’t been able to help her, but that was okay. She was just happy she had gotten the chance to meet him, to know him. However, she was sad for what could have been. Where would their relationship have gone? Would he had been the one who finally tamed her? His strong body, his boyish good looks, his laugh, the way he looked at her—she would miss it. If she ever had the chance to fall in love, it would be with someone like him. Or maybe it would have been him. He had an adventurous spirit as she did, but she felt he had lost contact with it long ago. Something was keeping him on the straight and narrow of life that she tried so desperately to avoid.
And she wondered what it was.
She looked at the clock. Rayner would be here soon. She wanted to see him one last time before she crossed over.
Chapter 20
Rayner paused in front of Faith's apartment building and briefly tilted his head up to the sun, letting it warm his face. He thought of the vampires he knew existed, and how they missed out on the warmth of the sun, the beauty of the day. Of course, they would say the sun was nothing but a fucking fireball that needed to be extinguished, and the good stuff and beauty happened at night.
As they said, beauty was in the eyes of the beholder.
He often wondered what humans would think if they knew the beings of their nightmares, best selling books and blockbuster films actually lived among them and interacted with them each day. Vampires, and beings from other worlds integrated themselves into human society, and Rayner was curious what species would out itself next to the fringe element of Earth’s population. Werewolves? Fairies? Some hybrid of who knows what? He was certain it wasn’t a matter of if it would happen, but simply when.
He wished he hadn't worn his leather jacket; it would be too warm for it in no time. After a shower, a run on the treadmill and some breakfast, he felt like all his marbles were in a row again as far as Faith was concerned. It was only a dream, he kept reminding himself. It didn't mean jack. She was a means to finding a Colonist, and once that Colonist was dead, he was one step closer to getting home. He was attracted to her, but who wouldn't be? There wasn't a male alive who couldn't say she wasn't attractive. She was beautiful. He smiled as he remembered her proud features while they talked in her apartment, the way she sometimes snorted when she laughed, and how he felt like she could see directly into his soul.
He waited a few minutes for Faith to show up, and when she didn't, he let himself in assuming she was already inside.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he made his way up to the second floor landing, reached behind the fire extinguisher, and retrieved her key. He climbed the last flight of stairs to the third floor, and kept to the right side of the hallway as Faith had instructed him. He slipped the key into the door marked 310, and silently shut it behind him.
He took a couple of steps into the living room. He stopped in his tracks. Something was off. Something was wrong.
“Faith?” he quietly said.
No answer.
“Faith?” he said a little louder.
He felt the talons of panic begin to claw his heart. Oh, shit.
He went to the bedroom to the right and opened the door. The room was done in sunny yellows and dark greens. “Faith!” he almost yelled. He didn't see her, and she didn't answer.
In a few steps he crossed the living room and was at the door to the other bedroom. He threw it open, not caring about nosey neighbors.
And there she was.
She was lying on a fluffy pink comforter, a lesser vision of her former ghostly self. He could barely make out her form—it was barely an outline of what she had been before. He half noticed that the walls in the room were painted in a mural of pine trees and tall grasses. The ceiling was painted a sky blue color with clouds floating by. He had once seen the movie Cinderella on T.V. when he couldn't sleep in the 1950s and was fascinated by the forest and animals depicted in the movie. Faith, lying on her pink bed with the forest around her and sky above her, reminded him of the part of the movie where the prince found Cinderella in the forest.
He shook his head on a couple of different levels. First, he couldn't believe he was thinking about the Cinderella movie…second, he hoped Faith knew she would never get her deposit back on the apartment, and third, he couldn't believe he had actually sat through that movie.
Jesus, he was a scattered mess. How could he be thinking these things when the most terrifying sight of his life was right in front of him?
Faith's eyes were closed, and he knew from experience that a faded appearance of a spirit meant that they were close to going to the other side. That panic gripped his heart with force.
