by Tefft, Cyndi
I nodded, thinking it over. “But what about the hell transporter? It can manipulate my mind when I’m connected to you, and when I got inside its head, I lost myself completely.”
“What do you mean, ‘when I’m connected to you’?”
“I realized it only appears when you and I are connected: at the cabin, in the music room, in the woods. Every time it has shown up, you and I were communicating in our minds. The gate was open, so to speak.” He was silent for a long time, studying the wall like the answers were written there, behind the floral print wallpaper, inscribed in ancient Gaelic. I took another sip of whisky and waited for him to speak.
“Then what I was going to propose carries some risk. Perhaps we shouldn’t.” The disappointment in his voice was palpable.
Maybe it was the whisky, but I was feeling brave.
“What were you going to ask?”
He fixed me with a serious gaze and I met him unflinchingly. He tapped out a rhythm on his knee, apparently deciding whether or not to tell me.
I won.
“I want to know if we can connect that way on purpose, if we can open the gate fully and leave naught to be hidden from each other. Can we be joined in our minds the way our bodies can be joined as one?” He reached out and lightly stroked the side of my breast, a spark igniting in his eyes. “But it would be dangerous. I don’t know what might happen.” Self-restraint shuttered his eyes and he dropped his hand to his lap.
“Let’s do it,” I said, ignoring the butterflies in my stomach. I had nothing to hide and if the hell transporter decided to interfere, well, we had Ian’s rifle now. I was almost itching for a fight, for some chance to use this new power I’d discovered. He hesitated, weighing the risk. I grabbed his hand and jumped up. “Come on, I want to. How do we start?” He laughed then, a rich, rumbling sound that warmed me more than the whisky.
“All right, ye sassy wench. I swear that you never cease to amaze me.”
I beamed a thousand watts at his praise and pressed a kiss to his lips. He grabbed a blanket from the hallway and spread it out on the floor in front of the fire. He sat, beckoning with an outstretched hand for me to come join him.
“Close your eyes and just relax, mo chridhe. Feel the tension seeping out of your muscles. Think about how you send me a message with your mind, and then try to open the gate further so that I can feel your heart beat.” He held my hand and I took a deep breath, willing myself to relax. I concentrated on the sound of my own heart beating and emptied my mind of other distractions. The alcohol helped, as my head was already foggy and once I was aware of it, I found that I could tell when my mind was open to him. Piece by piece, I stripped away the barriers that kept my thoughts and emotions to myself, and allowed him in. It was a slightly heady feeling, something akin to floating, both extraordinarily freeing and scary at the same time.
He made a low, humming sound of satisfaction next to me, but I didn’t open my eyes, afraid to break the connection. And then he was there with me. The excitement of new discovery surged through my veins as I felt his thoughts and emotions join with my own. I concentrated on the feel of his hand in mine and it reminded me of the air in the realm where we’d met, and how the energy flowed like water between us.
I read his thoughts and knew he was going to kiss me before I felt his lips on mine. My heart raced in anticipation. Still, the touch of his mouth overloaded my senses and I jerked instinctively, severing the connection. His consciousness was stripped away from me as my mental gate swung closed. I shuddered from the intensity of the sudden break.
The corner of his mouth turned up in a boyish smile. “That was… intense, aye?”
I laughed nervously, awed by this newfound level of connection that we shared. “Sorry I broke off. I didn’t mean to. It was just…” I turned my palms up as the words to describe the experience escaped me.
“I know just what you mean. ‘Twas for me, too.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine and I closed my eyes, sinking into him.
The second time, it was easier to open my mind and his thoughts entwined with mine a moment later. The nervousness inside him pleased and surprised me, and I kissed him back more forcefully. I felt the movement of his tongue against mine, both by my mouth and his own—a strangely disconcerting and erotic sensation. I felt his smile in response to my assessment as his hand wandered over my shoulder and down my chest. The heat of his excitement flowed through my blood and pooled between my legs as his kisses became deeper.
I marveled at being the object of his desire, having never thought of myself in that way. In the honest depths of my mind, I visualized Mona in her tiny white bikini as the epitome of a desirable woman. Normally, I would have suppressed such a thought and tried to hide it from Aiden. But the vision of Mona flashed in between us and his body instantly reacted with a spark of primitive lust that crushed me. My heart imploded as my deepest fears were realized in that split second.
He wants her.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.
With a wrenching twist, his mind and body yanked away from me as he slammed shut his mental gate. He stood up and began pacing the room, his face contorted with anger and frustration.
“Damn it, Lindsey! She means nothing to me! I’ve told you that, and still you don’t believe me. What will it take to get it through to you?”
Betrayal carved a black hole in my chest. My answer came out in a voice that was cold, dead, hollow. “It doesn’t matter whether I believe you or not, does it? I saw it myself and you know it.”
He slammed his fist down on the dining table and I flinched at the sound. “You flashed me an image of a nearly naked woman and my flesh responded. Aye, it’s true. But it wouldn’t matter if ‘twas Mona or the blessed Virgin Mary, I could no more keep my flesh from reacting to the sight of a naked woman than I could will my heart to stop beating in my chest. I am a man, Lindsey, and ‘tis just how God made us.”
“I understand. She’s—“ I couldn’t even get out the words. Beautiful? Sexy? Exotic? Everything a guy could want? An evil, wicked bitch that shouldn’t turn you on?
I wished the hell transporter would come and kill me in that moment.
I started to get up and Aiden came back, kneeling before me. He gripped my head in his hands and forced me to meet his eyes. Pain sliced through my heart again.
“You are the only woman that I love, and you are more beautiful than any other woman I’ve ever seen. I’ve told you as much over and over, and as many times as I’ve lain with you, you still do not believe me.” Hurt and exasperation etched hard lines into his face. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. His hands dropped to my arms and he shook me with the passion boiling in him.
“I will not stand it, Lindsey. Do you hear me? You will believe me this night, lass, and I will not stop until you do.”
He crushed me against him, his mouth hard and demanding on mine. His righteous anger and indignation flooded me as he flung open the gates of his mind. On the heels of his anger though, flowed a powerful sexual intensity and my mind reeled in overload as graphic images of myself exploded in rapid-fire succession. The collection of his mental snapshots of my body astounded me and I trembled beneath him as he pinned me to the floor.
He stripped away my defenses with fierce determination. The force of his love and raw lust for my body consumed me. He suckled my neck and the heat of his tongue on the sensitive hollow of my throat sent shock waves over my skin. I wanted him to stop and I struggled to keep my mind closed to him, but I was overcome with the strength of his emotions and could not pull away from him. His hand slipped under my shirt, his touch like an electric jolt to my heart. I saw an image of myself on the beach at the cabin where we’d first made love, and I felt him shake with desire at the memory.
He wound his fingers through my hair as he kissed my ear. He was thinking of the first time he’d ever seen me, along the water’s edge. My breath caught in my throat as I saw myself through his eyes. Th
e wonder and joy on my face as I ran through the field of wildflowers was a picture of unspeakable beauty. Then he flashed forward to the ball at the Palace of Versailles when I first told him I loved him. His aching passion filled my senses so fully I thought my heart would burst.
He stopped kissing me then, and pulled me to my knees, gripping me tightly as he relived the night I’d been taken from him. He was reaching for me and screaming my name, and the depth of his anguish cut me to the core. I struggled in his arms, unable to take any more. He changed the images, remembering the moment he’d pulled me out of the fire. His heart had soared when I’d called his name. The sight of my soot-streaked face was the most beautiful thing I could imagine.
The strength of his love covered me completely, like a blanket of snow blocks out all darkness. It seeped into the marrow of my bones and settled in my soul, routing out any remains of doubt. A profound peace stilled within me as I knew the truth of his heart with unshakeable certainty.
He couldn’t know that, though, since I had not opened my mind to him. He knelt in front of me, his eyes searching mine for answers.
Pressing my hand to his heart, I whispered, “I believe you.”
Show me. He responded in his mind, and I felt his heart flutter nervously. I opened the gates to him then, completely exposed and vulnerable. I didn’t want to hide anymore. I didn’t want to be afraid of what he might see. He had utterly and completely destroyed my insecurities and I wanted to do the same for him. Nothing was hidden as his mind became one with mine. We didn’t need to speak, not out loud or even in our heads. Formless questions and answers flowed between us with the speed of thought.
With hands moving like reflections in a mirror, we undressed and feasted on each other in the flickering orange glow of the firelight. When his eyes scanned my body, an acute sense of possession and passion welled up within him.
You are mine, you belong to me—his flesh said to me, demanded of me, and I responded in kind. No one would ever come between us again. Soaring and spinning as we moved together, my consciousness was entwined with his. We were clenched tight to one another like two eagles mating in flight, interlocked in passion and falling, plunging, unable and unwilling to let go.
The fire was no more than glowing embers by the time we finally lay still in one another’s arms. Inch by inch, we closed the gates of our minds to one another and became two once more, but we would never be the same again.
Chapter 28
The next weekend, Ian, Paul and Aiden went to Portland to get kilts for the wedding and I worked on homework. They were gone all day Saturday and were coming back late on Sunday, so I vowed to get as much studying done as possible while he was gone. I was happy for him to be able to get out of town and see some more of the city. I knew how much he enjoyed spending time with Paul and he looked up to Ian like a father, so I figured he’d be safer with them than with me anyway. He tried to drag me along, but I promised to stick to Steph like glitter on a stripper, which he didn’t find funny at all, but he finally relented.
The worst part was that we’d agreed to not talk in our minds, so the hell transporter wouldn’t be able to appear while we were apart. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that would work, but it seemed like a small price to pay for his peace of mind. Still, I felt like someone had cut the string that connected us and I didn’t like it. Not one bit. By Sunday night, a piss-poor mood had settled in and taken residence with little chance of letting up.
Freaking hell transporter. I thought about its blood red eyes, its skeletal face, its razor sharp claws, and instead of fear, I felt rage, anger at what it was stealing from me, frustration at not being able to take it out, and an itching need to act. Now.
I tapped my fingers on the keyboard of my laptop, trying to concentrate on American History. It was no use.
My inbox chimed for the third time in an hour and I groaned. Another question from Mom.
She was sucking up every spare moment I had with all the wedding planning details, so that I barely had a second to breathe. She was constantly texting or emailing me questions: “Do you want the table favors to be tied with a green ribbon or with gold lace? What kind of flower do you want for Aiden’s boutonniere? Do you have any special songs you want played?” The number of decisions to be made was overwhelming, and while I was unutterably thankful she was planning the wedding, I was getting really irritated at all the interruptions.
Staring at my computer screen, I was unable to formulate a coherent thought for my report on mob families from the 1920s. With a growl of frustration, I gave up and closed my laptop. Steph looked up from her homework, her white-rimmed glasses perched on her nose.
“You want to get out of here? I need some fresh air,” I asked, grabbing my coat.
Her sandy blonde ponytail bounced on her shoulders as she shook her head. “No, you go ahead. I need to get through this calculus assignment tonight because I’ve got an orchestra concert tomorrow and I won’t be able to do it later. Can you believe he assigned three pages of homework? Come here, look at this!” She waved her mammoth textbook at me, indignant. The last thing I wanted to do was look at math equations.
“That totally sucks,” I commiserated, giving her a sympathetic look as I slipped out the door.
The feel of the cool night air on my face was exactly what I needed to re-energize my brain and I smiled, breathing in the damp, earthy scent of the fallen leaves that littered the campus grounds. I’d just rounded the corner of the dormitory when I caught sight of Mona out of the corner of my eye. Facing away from me, she was having an intense conversation with someone I couldn’t see. As I kept moving toward her on the path, I realized there was no one there. She appeared to be arguing with herself.
“Mona?” My voice sounded loud in the stillness of the evening.
She whirled around in surprise and fixed me with an evil glare, all her normal affectations gone.”Where is he?” she demanded. Her voice cracked with desperation.
“Who?” I asked, taken aback by the change in her.
“Don’t play stupid. Aiden, where is he?” I told her I didn’t know and she narrowed her eyes at me in disbelief. “Yes, you do. You just don’t want to tell me.” I straightened up, uncomfortable with the look in her eyes.
“Why do you care? What do you want from him?”
She barked out a laugh at my question. “I would have thought that was pretty obvious by now. You’re not very bright, are you?”
“Leave him alone. He doesn’t want you.” Knowing it was the truth gave me a strength I’d not had before.
“You think it matters what he wants!” She shot me a pitiful look like I was unbelievably stupid. When she spoke again, her voice was cold and vicious. “Mark my words, doll. I will have your sweet Aiden. And if you’re lucky, you might just get to watch.”
That was it.
I launched myself at her with an unbridled fury, a cry of hatred erupting from my chest. Her eyes flew open in surprise. I grabbed fistfuls of her hair and yanked. As her neck snapped backward, she punched me hard in the throat. I fell to my hands and knees, unable to breathe. Her high heels clicked on the pavement as she ran off. She’d knocked the wind out of me and as I struggled to pull air into my lungs, I had a horrific flashback of the car accident when I’d punctured my lung. A cold sweat broke out all over my body at the memory.
When I pushed myself off the ground, I noticed the strands of her dark hair still clenched in my fist. Disgusted, I flung them on the ground and turned to go back to the dorm room.
“That was hot.”
The disembodied voice made me turn and peer into the darkness. Derek stepped from behind a tree, decked out in his usual black from head to toe. His eyes slithered over me like I was an all-you-can-eat buffet and he couldn’t decide where to start. Backing away from him, I tripped on the edge of the sidewalk and started to fall. His hand shot out and grabbed my arm. The spicy scent of the chewing tobacco in his lip assaulted my nose.
“Careful
. Pretty thing like you shouldn’t be out here alone. Where’s Loverboy tonight? Left you by yourself, did he? I’d be happy to take care of you.”
I yanked my arm out of his grasp. “What is it with everyone wanting to know where Aiden is?” I leveled a glare at him. “And no, not now, not ever, Derek. Leave me the hell alone. I mean it.” I turned and ran, all too aware of his piercing gaze following me in the darkness.
Chapter 29
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Aiden and I drove up to stay with my dad. When I was a kid, we always went to my grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving because my mom hated to cook. When my parents got divorced, holidays became awkward. I couldn’t be in two places at once, so no matter what I did, one of them was going to be disappointed. I knew my dad would be alone if I didn’t spend the time with him, so I told Mom to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s without me and compromised by agreeing to go shopping with her on Friday.
I spent all day cooking in my dad’s kitchen, making a twelve-pound turkey with mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, yams, and cranberry sauce. I’d never cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal by myself before, and I was completely exhausted. Aiden offered to help, but I wasn’t organized enough to really put him to work, so I shooed him off to watch the Macy’s parade with Dad. I could hear them talking while I cooked. I laughed, thinking about the humongous balloons and elaborate floats on the screen. They were such a holiday staple for me, but I couldn’t imagine how odd they must have looked to Aiden.
After the meal, Aiden helped me with the dishes and then settled into one of the easy chairs in the living room to watch the football game. Dad explained the rules and Aiden was very animated alongside him, cheering for whichever team my father favored. Curling up on the sofa with a pillow and a blanket, I listened to them for while, then drifted off to sleep.
