Avalon

by Shiloh Walker

  “Tomorrow is Saturday,” she murmured weakly. He was still inside her. A long, slow pulse echoed deep inside her vagina and she shuddered.

  “Good. Maybe come Monday I can tolerate going a few hours without feeling my cock inside you,” he said, rising and carrying her to bed.

  He let her rest for a while, curled up behind her, his cock cuddled against her naked ass. She was so exhausted. He had seen the dull shadows around her eyes for weeks, the faint lines of strain on her face. Others who didn’t know her lovely face so well wouldn’t have noticed, but he had. He had worried, even if he had forced himself not to acknowledge it. So he let her rest for a little while.

  But she rolled toward him after less than two hours of sleep and he awoke to feel her hand gripping his cock firmly, massaging it before she worked her way down his body and took him in her mouth. “Oh, fuck,” he muttered, winding his hands in her hair and arching up into the wet cave of her mouth as she slid her moist lips back down on him. She stroked his sac with her cool fingers, wrapped the other hand around the base of his shaft and started to stroke a tiny, maddening massage.

  She pulled away to lick from root to tip and then she caught the looser flesh of his balls in her mouth and sucked it between her teeth delicately, staring up at him over the flat plane of his belly in the silvery light that poured in through the skylight over her bed. The full moon was what had woken her, and she had lain there, staring at his handsome face, happy just to look at him again for a while, but need turned her blood to lava and she went down on him.

  He used his hold on her hair to guide her mouth back down as he rasped, “Stop teasing, Erin. Suck it.”

  She slid his length in as far as she could, using steady slow strokes, picking up as he guided her with his hand, loving the satin smoothness of his skin, how thick his cock was, how he stretched her mouth wide. The smooth, blunt head bumped the back of her throat, slid down further and she swallowed, taking more and more before she slid back up, reveling in his groan as she started the motion over again. She could taste their sex, taste herself mingled with his come, dried together on his cock. She licked it off, washed him clean, swallowed him as far as she could. His hips started rocking up and he forced her head to move faster and faster until he cried out above her and then she tasted his come in her throat as she swallowed, forcing herself to take his cock farther inside, and hold still. He shuddered and both hands went to her head, holding her still as he pumped furiously in and out, his semen still spilling out from his cock into her mouth while he cursed and rasped out her name.

  She was startled when he tossed her onto her back and covered her, mounting her roughly and driving inside her as he caught her mouth just as she swallowed his come. She loved the taste of it, but was pretty sure he wouldn’t care for it. He didn’t seem to mind as he fucked her furiously, his hands once more tangling in her hair and holding her still as he shafted her roughly. She was lifting up to meet him, hungry and desperate, needing him as much as he needed her.

  She gasped for air when he pulled away to lean down and suck on her neck, biting the soft, pale skin. The thick ridge of his cock drove deep inside her as he lifted up and stared down into her pale eyes, her lips wet and swollen and red. Her spine arched, her nipples stabbed into his chest. He planted his hands on the mattress and drove into her, using the powerful muscles in his back, his hips and thighs—she wrapped her legs around his hips and lifted herself for each thrust, screaming and pleading and praising, “Damn it, Seth, don’t stop, please, harder…oh, oh, oh…harder!”

  He pounded harder, reaching down and grabbing one knee, shoving her wide open, shuddering as he looked down at the wet, open folds of her pale, glistening sex, the darker gleam of his cock burrowing inside. He found her clit by touch more than sight in the darkness of the room and tugged it, squeezed it, plucked it, and said, “Come, Erin, let me feel it…make me come again…that’s it, baby…when you come it’s like magic…you could make a fucking statue come when you lock down with that sweet pussy…do it again…that’s it, baby…” He fell on top of her and pumped roughly as she started her climax, forcing his arms under her, burying his face in her neck while he held on for the ride.

  He was shaking when she finished, when she let him finish. He could taste her sweet kiss on his mouth, but he tasted himself as well, and he groaned. “Damn it, you’ve turned me into a freaking lunatic, Erin,” he accused, rolling off reluctantly. His cock didn’t want to leave its sweet nest and raged at him. He forced himself to sit up and haul her limp body into his arms. “Kissing you after you give me a fucking blow job, sinking my dick into you every twenty minutes, I’m going to kill myself…what a way to go.” He caught sight of his goofy grin in the mirror when he flicked the light on and she covered her eyes and squealed, “Hey!”

  “We need a bath,” he said.

  He waited until she was good and clean before he decided to return the favor. After drying her pale, slim body, he smoothed her vanilla lotion on her body and spread her on the bed before he spread her thighs and lay between them. Opening her sex, he stared at her pink folds before glancing up the long, slim lines of her elegant body, over the curves of her breasts, the line of her throat, to meet her pale, glittering blue eyes. A hot smile curved his mouth as he looked at her with a gleam in his eyes.

  She was swollen and still sensitive. She was sobbing by the time he slid two fingers inside her channel while he ate her clit like a piece of cherry candy, sucking it greedily as he fucked her into completion. Waiting until she started to come before he hungrily drove his cock inside her writhing body.

  When she calmed, he started all over again, riding her slowly…she was begging him to let her come when he finally let them both orgasm nearly thirty minutes later. Then they slept.

  Chapter Five

  Seth couldn’t sleep any more than a few hours. He was too fucking edgy. Erin was exhausted though so he slid quietly from the bed and prowled the condo before returning to watch her in silence for a while.

  He found her journal while she was sleeping. He saw the leather book, lying there, like she had simply laid it down when she finished with it, the silver pen on top of it. He started to walk by it. But then he went back. He picked it up. Put it back. Gritted his teeth and swore in silence. Picked it up again and left the room. Then he walked back, got it and told himself he was a fucking jackass.

  Within ten minutes, he was convinced Erin needed serious psychological help, so he was feeling better about snooping. She thought she was psychic, for crying out loud. She wrote down how she would dream something and later how it came true. Or she would be walking or driving and the knowledge was just there.

  The woman he loved was certifiable.

  That was okay. He could handle that. There were a lot of good shrinks around here and what in the fuck did he care if she thought she could see the future or read people’s minds?

  It was as he kept reading that he started to care—she started mentioning him, his cases, things that only he and Eddie knew. A burning started low in his gut, and the blood started roaring in his ears. There was an entry that was six months old, about a drug dealer Eddie and Seth had been watching. They had seen him arrive and they were waiting for another to arrive before they went any closer.

  Eddie had left to go get some food and Seth was walking, stretching his legs. He never left the car during a stakeout unless it was to get food and he had left the car this time, for no good reason but he had done it. A quiet, insistent voice, like a low-volume version of the one today, he realized, had kept whispering “Get out, Seth, get out.”

  He never walked this close without being certain there was a reason. But the voice kept whispering, “Closer. Closer.”

  If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have heard the girl’s strangled scream before Pritchard cut off her air supply as he ripped off her denim capris.

  She had been all of ten.

  And Daniel Pritchard went from drug dealer to kidnapper and would-be child rap
ist in a heartbeat. And Seth had taken his first life. Guilt wasn’t something that plagued him at night, but the whispered voice in his mind had him doubting his sanity. It had taken him a few months to consign it to instinct and file it away.

  It had been Erin.

  No. Impossible. But as he kept reading, he read more and more that should have been impossible. And either Erin was suffering serious delusions, or it was all true. She knew another woman was going to die days before it happened and she agonized, but she never knew who until it was too late. Seth felt sick as he read of her guilt over Gloria and realized if she was this delusional, she may well be suicidal as well. If she really believed this, if she had really convinced herself of this, then she was holding herself responsible. He started to wonder if maybe he should talk to the department shrink.

  Of course, whether the shrink was for her or him, he didn’t know.

  Because he wasn’t quite certain she was crazy. He almost believed what he was reading. That made him certifiable.

  He hadn’t realized he had come to today’s entry until he saw Eva’s name. Although her name was at the bottom of the page it leaped out at him—Eva is going to leave Seth.

  He hissed.

  And she had been pretty damn busy, her body smooth and oil slick from a bath and he remembered how long she liked to linger. The candles, the bath, simply the driving from his place to hers after she dropped him off would have taken nearly all of those forty-five minutes. Had she taken the journal with her? He had only just mentioned Eva.

  Had she heard from somebody else?

  Something has changed. Something doesn’t feel quite so dark anymore.

  I’m not sure, but I think it’s Seth. Having him and Eddie—but mostly him—around, makes me feel…safer. More secure. Something inside me feels a little different. A little less afraid.

  I think I have a chance of living through this. And it is because of Seth.

  Seth is planning on planting a bug on me without me knowing.

  Eddie is going to be the one to do it, today at lunch. He’ll try to slip it into my purse, and another one on my body somewhere, I think probably my necklace.

  The meeting with the chief is going to get ugly. Colton doesn’t like Seth, and he doesn’t want him on this case.

  Seth’s going to be lucky if he doesn’t get fired before this job is over.

  I need to talk to him, try to convince him to keep his cool.

  Like he’ll listen to me. He’s a good cop—the best cop I know. But he’s so damn hotheaded.

  If I live through this, it’s going to be because of him.

  I need him here, not in jail or in the unemployment line.

  Eva is going to leave Seth.

  That did it. She was crazy, he decided. He shoved all the logical reasons why he should believe to the back of his head. Because if he did believe, then it meant the impossible.

  The impossible couldn’t be explained. What couldn’t be explained…he ignored. Seth closed the journal, fighting the urge to hurl the leather-bound book across the room.

  She’s crazy—not her fault.

  Of course, it’s my fault I went and read the journal. But all in all, it’s a good thing—

  “I’m not crazy, Seth. Nor am I delusional, but, yes, it is your fault you read my journal.” Her cool, quiet voice came from the doorway and Seth closed his eyes and felt blood rush up his neck.

  “Erin, have you talked to anybody about these, ah…beliefs?” he asked, casually. Best to handle this calmly, quietly. He had to get her to understand the problem, so he could get help for her. The woman he loved had just gone and fallen off the deep end.

  “Oh, I fell a long time ago, Seth,” she said, laughing and moving out of the doorway. She paused and held a finger to her lips, smiling like a mischievous child as she removed her silver chain from her throat. Her mother had bought the hammered links for her, just before her parents had died in a car crash, and she never removed it…so that action, combined with the secretive ssshhh was a little bothersome.

  Then she took her purse, dropped the necklace inside the bugged purse and carried both to the closet, wrapped them in a leather coat, effectively and completely muffling them. But then, she dropped the bundle inside a garment bag, and rolled the garment bag into a ball and carried it to the closet in the spare bedroom at the far end of the condo before returning, drawling, “We’d better have the conversation about my sanity in privacy, don’t you think? I realize it was just supposed to be a transmitter on my neck, but I shouldn’t really take that chance, now should I?”

  Her eyes were bright and snapping and flags of color rode high on her cheekbones as she strode naked into the room, watching Seth closely. She spied his shirt on the floor and picked it up, shrugging it on and buttoning enough of the buttons to hold the larger garment on her slim frame. It skimmed her thighs, falling almost to her knees as she settled in a large, ivory leather chair. She stared at him in the dim light, her face still mostly in shadow, but he saw the play of emotions there and he wondered at it. Her face was always so blank—but her eyes were bright with anger, her cheeks flushed with it, a tiny vicious smile curving her mouth.

  “Was it interesting reading, Seth?” she asked coolly, sounding almost like herself.

  “Ah, Erin, maybe we should call Cat. She’s a good doctor and—”

  “Cat can go fuck herself,” Erin said smoothly. Caitlin Devore was the police psychiatrist and normally Erin would try to be a little more respectful. But she was a bit pissed.

  Seth’s eyes widened just slightly before he blanked his features. Her normally perfect composure had broken. That ice-queen façade had cracked and Seth could feel the fiery anger that rolled off her in waves. “Psychics don’t really exist, Erin.”

  “I’m not crazy, Seth,” she repeated. “And I suspect you know that. Of course, I can prove it. And I don’t mind invading your privacy, just this once, since you have no qualms invading mine.”

  She moved off the chair and crossed over to him and Seth had to bite his lip to keep from yelping when her cool hands cupped his face. Her voice slithered through his head and to his shock, he felt his cock harden as she spoke inside his mind. The touch was incredibly intimate, incredibly arousing, and his long body shuddered, his hands falling to the arms of the chair, curling involuntarily into the leather and gripping it tightly as his blood started to pound more heavily in his veins and his sex.

  Why did he suddenly feel afraid of her?

  Like she had before, that afternoon, that morning, that night six months ago…she spoke. But her mouth didn’t move. “Because you know I’m not lying, Seth. And people always fear what’s not normal.”

  Out loud, she said quietly, “The last time you slept with Eva was a week ago. She’s been on her period and you’ve been rather glad of it. Huh—me being on my period never stopped us. You don’t like that you’ve been seeing me around the office the past few days, with the case going on…you’re always worried you’ll end up calling her by my name while you’re fucking her. You’ve done it while you sleep though.” Her voice, always so soft, so cool and calm, was hot again, almost pulsing with her anger and when he stared into her eyes, they were flashing with it.

  He recoiled, flinching with the knowledge she had just shared, unable to argue, knowing it was all too likely to be true. Erin’s hands fell away and she retreated to her chair, curling her legs to her chest and staring at him. “I’m not a sideshow freak, but if you want more proof, I’d be happy to oblige. But if you’re satisfied…?”

  His gut churned, his eyes stung, bile burned the back of his throat. And he still wanted, more than anything, to tumble her down and fuck her until they both died from the pleasure. “This afternoon, you knew something was up with Colton?” he asked roughly.

  Her lids lowered and she nodded. “I don’t know why, but yes, I know he was gunning for you. He doesn’t care for you. He doesn’t want you on this case,” she replied.

  “What about
after?”

  She blushed. “No. I didn’t know about that. It’s not predictable, the way it works, Seth. Sometimes it’s like a digital movie, with sound effects, a picture that will blow your mind, full-color, the works. Other times, I only get words, or thoughts, or just the knowledge. And I don’t have any control over how it comes to me.”

  “Can you read anybody’s mind as easily as you just read mine?”

  “From time to time. Touch makes it easier. If it’s something I need to know, then the knowledge comes. Other people have minds that are very…open. Cops don’t. That’s part of the reason I became one. And normally, I can’t get a glimmer from you. You’re one of the tougher ones. Your control is weaker now, from sex, from shock, from being tired. But normally reading you is like reading a rock.” She smiled briefly. “That’s part of the reason I agreed to go out with you, at first. I didn’t keep getting all these random thoughts from your mind.”

  He just stared at her, trying to reconcile what he had just learned to what he had known, not even reacting when she walked by him. Seth just sat there, staring into nothing. The little girl, fuck, she had saved that little girl. She had known. How many people had she been able to help that way? How many of the cops he worked with? He knew all too many of the cases they had that seemed impossible and suddenly, an odd, almost miraculous break came. And he wondered how many of them were miraculous, and how many were Erin.

  She returned a few minutes later, wearing sand-washed silk pajamas and a robe, offering him his shirt. “You’re welcome to take my car,” she said, gesturing to the keys.

  His eyes traveled from the hand that held his shirt, up to her elbow, her shoulder, her neck, until he reached her face. “Are you telling me to go?” he asked gruffly, a hot slippery ball of fear in his gut.

  Fuck, had he pissed her off that much?

  “Don’t you want to?” Erin asked with a sigh. She had shored up her own defenses and felt her face falling into its familiar blank lines. Already, she had felt his fear, felt his confusion. Soon his rejection would come, and she didn’t want to feel it.