“Yeah. That.” She snuggled against him.
Nothing had ever seemed so right.
*****
Michael reached down and pulled up a sheet to cover her. Thoughtful. Even though it was warm, the perspiration evaporating off her body gave her a chill. She lay in the crook of his arm, her head on his chest. She wanted to just lie here with him forever. She might have dozed, lulled by the beat of his heart in her ear and the rise and fall of his chest under her head.
That was some kind of sex. She hadn’t known sex came in the extra-large, new and improved version. There’d been the French boy. And that cute docent at the Huntington Library where she’d served her internship. And Roger of course. But never any seeing-stars, bark-like-a-dog, can’t-get-enough sex like this.
Funny, the whole thing with Roger seemed so distant. How had he been worth so much angst? But it had never been about Roger. It was about how stupid she’d been. Being a fool didn’t fit her self-image. And the fear of being so wrong when she’d been so sure.
She was probably being stupid again now. Alcoholic. Totally in love with a dead wife. No chance for happiness. The sex was just magic calling to magic. Was that even real attraction? This whole situation was going to kick her butt, figuratively speaking of course.
Either she stayed with a man who didn’t love her and watched her life be poisoned with pain and regret, or she left the man who was her destiny. Ditto poisoned with pain and regret. She’d be the spinster aunt to Tris and Maggie’s children. Probably to all the Tremaine grandchildren. Not what she had in mind. And it meant she should never have allowed herself to get involved with Michael to the point of actually having sex with him.
But she was glad she’d done it. She’d given Michael pleasure. She’d done her best to show him that alive and sober was a good thing. And from the look on his face, he might have gotten the message. Didn’t matter that forever wasn’t in the cards. Didn’t matter that she’d be devastated. That was inescapable. It was how she’d helped Michael that mattered.
She felt whole and right on a level so deep she hadn’t known it existed. Her eyes filled. A lifetime of this feeling right here was what she would be denied. So all she could do was relish it as hard as she could. The memory of this moment was all she’d have.
Michael’s hand was moving over her back in slow circles. It felt good.
“Stay with me,” he murmured, out of nowhere.
She suddenly felt like Cinderella at the ball. Tomorrow was Friday. She had two more days before she had to get back to LA. Well, then she’d stay two days. She wouldn’t tell him that. She raised her head to kiss his chest. The sweet saltiness of his skin against her lips gave her a surprising tingle. She brushed her lips across his nipple.
“Is that a yes?”
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, knowing her lips were sending a hum through his nipple. She sent out a hand in an exploratory move toward his loins. She didn’t have to go far. He was fully erect. He lifted his hips, nudging her hand with his penis. “Okay then.”
“Not enough,” he said. “Need more.”
She slid her knee over his and let him feel her wetness. She probably wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week.
She didn’t care. She’d take whatever time with Michael she could get.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was late when Michael realized he was awake. The insides of his eyelids were pink with sunlight coming in through the side window that faced east. His body was curled around Drew’s, her sweet bottom tucked into his groin. She was warm and sleepy in his arms.
Nothing had ever felt that good.
His eyelids jerked open of their own accord. Not nothing. How could he even think that? Alice had felt that good every day he woke up next to her. Oh, Alice, I’m sorry. His eyes filled.
He half-expected an answer. But though he strained to hear her voice inside his head, there was nothing but his own guilt and remorse.
No, not remorse.
He was sorry if what he’d done with Drew was a betrayal of Alice. But he wasn’t sorry he’d made love to Drew. She had needed him last night. And making love to her had felt so right and true. Something had happened in that bathroom to upset her. He couldn’t believe graceful Drew had just tripped in that tiny bathroom. How could she? She’d been standing at the sink washing her face. She’d still had soap on it when he examined her for bruises. When he had seen she was crying, something inside him knew he had to comfort her, regardless of the cost. And then there was his desire. He hadn’t been this randy since before Alice got sick.
When Drew coaxed him into revealing his name, he didn’t think she knew how intimate that felt. Or how vulnerable he felt in telling her. She was now the only person in the world, besides Walter, the CEO of Redmond, who knew his name. It was a bond between them. He could feel it even now, that connection.
He opened his eyes and looked down at her. Tenderness filled his heart. She looked so defenseless, so beautiful, her dark hair and long dark lashes sweeping the fine porcelain of cheeks that were faintly flushed. It felt so good to have her in his arms. She had a strong spirit. She’d proven that. And yet there were mysteries about Drew Tremaine he still hadn’t plumbed, and twenty questions from another game of poker weren’t going to help him.
He felt strong too. That was funny. He, of anybody, wasn’t strong. But this morning he felt like a new man, a better man, because he was connected to Drew. It felt good.
She took a deep breath as she wakened and turned in his arms. Her bottom brushed against his genitals and her breasts rolled against his chest. Good Lord, he was getting hard again. Was that even possible? “Good morning,” he whispered, getting up on one elbow.
She smiled gently as she opened her eyes. Her whole face lit up when she looked up at him. He felt so damned grateful someone looked at him like that. “Back at you.”
Her eyes were the shade of old pewter this morning. He caught the scent of what they’d done together on her, and.... Was that fresh desire? He’d never been so sensitive to scent before. She put her arms around his neck and stretched. That pressed the whole length of her body against him. She must feel how hard he was getting.
“Well, aren’t we up bright and early?”
“Up, definitely. Not sure about bright. But I wouldn’t call it early.” He pulled the small of her back in toward him, and slid a knee over her hip.
She tangled her hands in his hair and bent his head down for a long, lazy kiss.
*****
How could she feel so much energy when she’d exhausted herself making love to Michael for the umpteenth time in the last twelve hours? But she did. She felt as though a bond, almost physical, had grown up between them. At least on her side. She sat up in the bed next to him. He let his body flop over on his back limply.
“Uhhh,” he groaned.
“Did I wear you out?” she asked. It came out rather brightly.
“How can you be so chipper?” He cast a baleful eye her way.
“Because I took all your precious bodily fluids, and left you a husk of your former self.”
He managed to get up on one elbow. “I thought that was it.” Then he gave her the most boyish grin. Those even white teeth were devastating. “Wanna go again? I just need a minute.”
She shook her head in mock astonishment. “You’ll blow away in the wind.” She looked around. “Actually, no wind this morning. No rain. I bet it’s beautiful out. Walk?”
“Breakfast,” he growled. “I’m cooking.” And he got out of bed with surprising alacrity in view of his recent complaints. Apparently the call of food was overpowering. Oh, she did like looking at his butt. The man had the best butt she’d ever seen. And the muscles in those thighs.... She’d better stop thinking like this or she’d be hauling him back to bed.
A skitter of shadow tried to make its way into her mind. He was not for her. She knew that. She could see the heartbreak coming like a freight train, straight a
*****
Michael waited until after breakfast, even after they’d done the dishes, to broach the subject. They’d made small talk and laughed some. It felt natural. “Let’s take that walk down to the beach,” he said as he squeezed out the dishrag and tossed it into the sink.
“Okay.”
He led her through the trees on the path built up with rocks across the mangrove squish down to the little beach.
“What are those trees?” she asked, pointing. “They look like they’re on stilts.”
“White mangroves. The stilts are their roots. ”
“Oh. Like the little ones at the water’s edge.”
“Those are red mangroves. The mangrove swamps are the reason there aren’t any waves. It’s low tide right now, but when the tide comes up they’re half-covered in salt water. Those roots are the way they get oxygen. Great place to find oysters. Fish breed in there too.”
“Well, what a fount of knowledge you are.”
That made him feel good. So he pointed out the waxy, shiny leaves of a wild coffee bush and a snowberry that actually had fruit. They came to the crescent of beach like a little white island in the mangrove swamp. “Those roots also keep the beach sand from being washed away. Otherwise all the work to haul it in would be wasted in the first hurricane.”
“This beach is man-made?”
“Oh, yeah. All beaches in the Keys are. This one belongs to Heaven’s Acres.” He pointed to a speck at the point of land in the distance. “You can just make out the house over there. They were going to build a dock and a guesthouse on this site. They got as far as making the beach.”
“What happened?”
“Prison, I heard. Owner lost a lot of people a lot of money promising a sure thing.”
“If something’s a sure thing, the only sure thing is that it isn’t.”
“My, we’re getting cynical in our old age,” he said with a chuckle.
She sighed as she looked out over the ocean.
“What is it?” he asked.
“That aqua shade of water. I’m a Pacific girl. I’ll never get used to it.”
He smiled. He realized that he’d done a lot of smiling in the last twenty-four hours. “Yeah. Looks like another planet or something.” He let her look for a while and when she wandered down the little beach he followed, hands in the pockets of his shorts. How to broach this? Give her an out and see if she’d take it? Then he’d know how much she trusted him, but it was a horrible chance to take. He cleared his throat. “So, you wanna tell me what happened last night, before you fell?”
He saw her stiffen. “Not particularly.”
He took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Truth time. Epileptic seizures? LSD flashbacks?” He smiled. Would she take the out? He saw her struggling. “No shame in epilepsy.”
She took a huge breath and let it out. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
He raised his brows. “A guy who uses his psychic abilities to find things? Really?”
She chewed her plump bottom lip. That really did something to him. “Okay, but I warned you.” She looked around, and led him over to the bole of a huge tree fallen onto the sand. They sat, looking out at the water as she worked up her courage. He didn’t push her.
“Here it is,” she said, taking a big breath. “I had a vision. In the water in the sink.”
“Okay. Visions. I buy that. Maybe you’re psychic, too.”
She shook her head, looking down. “I’m not psychic, Michael, and neither are you.” She looked up at his surprise. “Here’s the thing. There’s this gene we both have and it gives you a ... a special ability. Yours is finding things. I have visions of the future.” She said it matter-of-factly.
“So,” he said slowly, “like X-Men?”
She chuffed a half laugh. “Not exactly.”
But she didn’t say she’d been joking. His brows drew together. In a flash, he knew. “Alice ... Alice could heal minds.”
Drew nodded, but she turned toward the sea so he couldn’t see her expression. “My mother can heal your body. No broken bones in our house. No chicken pox. My brother Tris can power machines—no gas, no electricity, just him. And my father does everything really well. He’s an Adapter.”
This was crazy. But she didn’t look crazy. She looked calmer than he’d seen her since she got here. “So what did you see? In this vision, I mean.”
“Just a room filled with blue light. The ceiling was glass, I think. I was wearing a long red dress, old fashioned, sort of. There were some guys with guns standing around, looking like they were about to pounce on something or somebody. The elevator door was opening, and ... and I was afraid of who or what was coming out that door.”
“So ... you don’t know where this was?”
She shook her head.
“Or who the people were who were standing around?”
Another rueful shake. “Or when. Doesn’t seem to be a very useful gift.”
“But it is a gift....” His mind began to race. “That’s why you came. You didn’t want to hire The Purgatory. You came because we have something in common. How did you know? A vision?”
Movement caught his eye in the trees behind Drew. The sounds of someone pushing brush out of the way as they came down the path echoed across the beach. Brandon St. Claire stepped out of the trees, followed by his arm candy, Rhiannon.
“Hey, Dowser,” St. Claire called. Rhiannon steadied herself against St. Claire’s shoulder while she bent to remove her platform espadrilles.
“Wonder what he wants,” Michael muttered, standing. There was more movement in the trees. These two weren’t alone. St. Claire and his girlfriend made their way down the beach. He didn’t like that they knew where he lived, or that they’d brought friends. Drew stood. He had an overpowering urge to protect her from what might be going on here. He would have put his arm around her but he might need his hands free. Something wasn’t right.
“What brings you out here?” he asked, when the two came within speaking range.
“Wanted to offer that job.”
He started to wave them away.
“And Dowser, honey, it’s a treasure,” Rhiannon said, sashaying up to him and putting a hand on his forearm. “We have pictures of the some of the pieces so I’m sure you can find it. We’ll cut you in for a quarter.”
Drew was looking at Rhiannon like she was a centipede that had crawled out from under a rock. Jealous? He kinda liked that. He shook Rhiannon’s hand off. “I told you, I don’t need the money. Get somebody else.”
“There isn’t anybody else and you know it,” St. Claire barked.
“Calm down, honey,” Rhiannon said sharply to St. Claire. But she was all smiles when she turned back to Michael. “He just needs to see what we’re really talking about. Look, I got a drawing sent to the hotel this morning....” She dropped her espadrilles and reached into her gigantic purse to pull out a large folded piece of paper. She opened it and held it out.
It was a line rendering, in great detail, of a sword with a huge crosspiece just under the hilt. The whole hand guard was encrusted with jewels.
“That’s ... that’s the Sword of Gwynedd,” Drew said in a very small voice.
Rhiannon’s thin brows shot together. “How did you know that?”
“She’s a Dark Age history major,” Michael snapped. “What’s the Sword of ... of whatever?”
Drew straightened her shoulders and said in a flat voice, “It’s supposed to be Arthur’s sword. He called it Caliburn. Later that got translated as Excalibur. It might not be from Arthur’s time though. Most everything attributed to Camelot is actually medieval.”
“It would be worth a lot either way, wouldn’t it?” Rhiannon folded the paper and put it back in her purse. She slithered nearer and put her arm in Michael’s. “And that’s only one piece of the treasure we’re talking about. It was buried in 1587. Just think—you could leave your hovel behind you. Buy a really big boat. Whatever you want.”
Michael caught movemen
t in the trees again. These guys were about as professional as pro wrestlers. Drew hadn’t realized there were others yet. “Think I’ll pass.”
Rhiannon turned and shouted. “Come on out, boys.”
Drew gasped as first two and then three more men came out of the brush. They were big, hulking guys chosen by someone who didn’t know you wanted some brains along with the muscle. Dowser recognized a couple of the guys who had cleaned his clock at O’Toole’s.
Well, he wasn’t drunk now. He stepped in front of Drew. She pushed out beside him. She was a game one.
Rhiannon was obviously in charge here. St. Claire was a front. “You think you can make me perform on command? Think again, honey. These pieces of meat might be able to take me when I’m not drunk. But they can’t make me work my magic.” He said it like magic was a joke, though with what Drew had just been saying, he was only half-sure of that.
Rhiannon tapped one long blue glitter-painted nail on her lips. “True. But I think you’ll do it willingly. After all, I have something you want more than money. Now listen up.” She paused for effect. “I work for someone who can bring Alice back to life.”
Michael felt like he’d been punched in the gut. It took three breaths before he could say, “That’s not possible.”
“Demonstration,” Rhiannon said and closed her eyes. Nothing happened for a long minute. Michael was still stunned. Bring Alice back to life? An overwhelming yearning came over him. It couldn’t be. Yet what if it was? He was still blinking in confusion when Rhiannon started to almost vibrate. Her hands splayed out at her sides. He glanced over to Drew and saw she was wide-eyed. She believed something was going to happen here.
What happened was that clouds boiled up out of nowhere a few hundred yards out. One minute it was all blue sky and calm aqua sea, and the next the sun was blotted out by black billows heading toward the tiny crescent of beach. Inside the turbulence, flashes of sheet lightning flickered. Thunder beat a tympani assault on their eardrums. Rhiannon stood like a trembling statue. St. Claire wore a smug expression and the muscled hulks they’d recruited stared nervously at the sudden and very isolated storm.
He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin) Page 16
