Storm of Visions

by Christina Dodd

  “In the head.” Mrs. D’Angelo lifted the hair on the side of her head and showed Jacqueline the terrible scar.

  Jacqueline covered her lips in horror. “How did you live through that?”

  Mrs. D’Angelo shrugged. “It wasn’t my time. But I have not seen anything but darkness since.”

  Jacqueline looked back to Caleb, helpless in the face of such fatalism.

  He nodded, accepting her compassion and appreciating it.

  Mrs. D’Angelo continued. “That’s why your mother didn’t want you to visit me. She didn’t want you exposed to the ugliness of life. She feared it, so much, and she hoped she could protect you for always.”

  “And of course, she couldn’t protect you at all,” Caleb said.

  “She was your true mother, for she worried, but no mother can protect her child from every bump and bruise. It’s not good to try, although when I attempted to tell her that, she would not listen.” Mrs. D’Angelo tsked in sorrow.

  “No. She never listened,” Jacqueline said faintly.

  Caleb watched Jacqueline and his mother, and continued his story in a monotone. “The thugs set the house afire. I came out of hiding and dragged Mama outside. They would have killed us then, but Zusane had arrived with all her bodyguards around her, and those delinquenti didn’t have the guts to go up against armed men who knew how to defend themselves.”

  “She saved us, your mother, and three weeks later, when I woke in the hospital, the first thing Caleb told me was that he would be Zusane’s bodyguard someday.” Mrs. D’Angelo looked fierce. “To my eternal pride, he kept his promise.”

  “Zusane paid for Mama’s medical treatment. She brought us to New York City. She eased our introduction to American life, paid for my education, and employed me.” Caleb laughed as if amused at himself. “All she demanded in return was my total devotion.”

  “Which you gave freely.” Jacqueline had seen it with her own eyes.

  “Jacqueline, if you owed someone such a debt, would you not give her what she wished?” he asked.

  She couldn’t meet his eyes, and that sense of grief swelled once more. “I do owe her such a debt.”

  “You owe her what every child owes her parents—your life—and you are like every other child in the world—you are ungrateful.” Jacqueline jumped when Mrs. D’Angelo lightly slapped the back of Caleb’s head.

  “Ma, I’m devoted to you, too,” he protested.

  “You don’t do what I want.” She returned to her cooking, slamming a black cast-iron skillet onto the stove. “All I ask is that you marry and give me grandchildren to lighten the burden of my old age. And do you? No.”

  Jacqueline slouched down in her chair to avoid the fight. She found both dogs pressed close against her legs, trying to dodge trouble.

  “I want you to marry Mr. Davies down the block to lighten the burden of your old age, and you won’t listen to me, either,” Caleb said.

  “I don’t have to listen to you.” Mrs. D’Angelo sprayed her pan with olive oil and poured in the egg mixture. “I am your mother. You are nothing but my boy! Now set the table and pour the wine. The lunch will be ready in a few minutes.”

  Chapter 30

  After lunch, Caleb finished loading the dishwasher and wiped his hands. “Ma, you’ve got a headache. You should rest.”

  Jacqueline looked between mother and son, startled at his insight.

  “Since she was shot, she gets headaches,” he explained to her, but he never took his gaze off his mother.

  “It’s a foolish weakness.” Mrs. D’Angelo was seated at the table, her blank gaze on her hands in her lap. “I hate it. It makes me feel old.”

  “I think you should instead feel as if you survived a terrible crime and the payment is your blindness and a few inconvenient headaches,” Jacqueline said gently. “Not so great a price to pay, considering, is it?”

  “You are a very smart girl.” Mrs. D’Angelo raised her head and looked her way. “Of course, when you came to visit me with my son, I knew you were.”

  Caleb came to his mother’s side and helped her to her feet. “Besides, if you rest, then I am free to make love to Jacqueline.”

  “Caleb!” Jacqueline had been worried she would say the wrong thing. Instead, Caleb had put his foot in it.

  But obviously all the clichés she’d ever heard about Italian sons were true. He really could do no wrong, for Mrs. D’Angelo shook her finger at him—but she said indulgently, “You are incorrigible.”

  “Ma, I’m just trying to get going on those grandchildren you want.”

  Jacqueline choked.

  Mrs. D’Angelo looked concerned. “Jacqueline, are you well?”

  “Fine.” Or she would be after she throttled him. “I’m fine.”

  Mrs. D’Angelo smiled as she left the room, her son on her arm, Lizzie and Ritter on her heels.

  Jacqueline heard the murmur of their voices, the click of a door, and Caleb appeared in the kitchen again. Holding out his hand to her, he said, “Come and see my apartment.”

  So.

  She rose slowly from her chair and walked toward him.

  Did he mean it literally? That he was going to make love to her? He had told her he wouldn’t until she asked him, and so far, he’d kept his promise. Did he mean to forget it today?

  She took his hand.

  Would she mind if he did?

  “Children? We are going to create children?” She lifted her eyebrows.

  “Possibly not now. There’s too much danger for us both, and a child needs both parents.” He led her into the entryway and up a narrow flight of stairs. “Don’t you agree?”

  She had to admire the way he manipulated the conversation. What was she supposed to say—no? Of course she thought a child needed both parents, and she knew that after his own personal tragedy, he thought so, too.

  But as to whether the two of them should even be considering having kids together . . . They didn’t even have an established relationship.

  But they knew more about each other than most couples who had lived together for ten years, because they’d known each other for so long, and because they’d gone through so many tough times together.

  They also had too many unresolved issues.

  But danger pressed them all around, and their time together might be short.

  Points and counterpoints tumbled in her head, and a quick glance at him didn’t help at all. He seemed to be sure of himself and in control. Regrettably, he always seemed that way.

  He frustrated her with his elusiveness and yet, at the same time, he excited her merely by holding her hand, and when he opened the door at the top of the stairs and ushered her inside, her heart started a slow, steady thumping.

  He had told his mother they would make love, and for all their differences, in that one matter, they were in total accord. Together, they went up in pure flame.

  Jacqueline took a breath and asked, “Do you have the whole building?” Innocuous conversation seemed like a good idea.

  “Yes. If it was up to Ma, she’d rent out an apartment, but I’ve got a thing about intruders not coming into the house—”

  “I get that.”

  “Not to mention I can have the whole second floor as my place.”

  Jacqueline looked at him.

  “I know. I know. I’m a grown man, and I’m living with my mother. But I’m always traveling with Zusane—or I was—so Ma is here to watch my stuff.” He waved his arm around. “Four rooms: kitchen, living, bath, bedroom. It used to be a three-bedroom walk-up, but when I moved in I tore out walls to enlarge the spaces.”

  “Nice.” The apartment was a lot more open than was usual in New York. Whoever had decorated his mothr’s floor had done the decorating here, too. The walls were pale yellow, and he had the same terra-cotta tile on the floor, with contemporary area rugs of black and gray carved wool.

  He saw her glancing around, and said, “Go ahead. Check it out.”

  She was too mesmerized a
t being in his home to pretend anything but fascination, so she meandered from room to room. His home wasn’t fussy, but then, she didn’t expect it to be. He had tables in his living room with nothing on them except a well-read paperback and a lamp. He had a kitchen full of the best appliances, still in pristine condition. He had photos framed on his fireplace. A young man who looked like him—his brother. A wedding photo of his mother and his father. A photo of Zusane, standing in front of the federal courthouse, her arm around a teenage Caleb.

  Jacqueline’s breath caught as she looked at that photo. Zusane looked so proud of him, proud as she had never been of Jacqueline, and for a moment, a gray sadness swallowed Jacqueline’s anticipation.

  “Do you want something to drink?” he called from the kitchen. “Wine? Beer? Water?”

  She fought back the sorrow. Later. She would deal with it later. She called, “I’d better stick with water. One glass of wine at lunch and I’m ready for a nap.” Then, to her chagrin, she blushed again. Apparently even mentioning sleep when he was around was too erotic for her libido.

  She ducked into his bathroom and found it stark, without a single brush or shaver on the counter. Only a bottle of shampoo marred the pristine expanse of his shower.

  The toilet seat was up.

  “This is really a guy’s lair.” She walked into the bedroom to find him stretched out in the middle of the bed, his arms wrapped under his head, two bottles of water open beside him on the nightstand. She halted in surprise. “Wow.”

  “All the women say that when they see me.” He followed her gaze, and sighed. “I suppose you’re talking about the bed.”

  The tall four-poster was the antithesis of the rest of the apartment. It filled the room. It was gorgeous, elaborate, huge and . . . “Nice. Antique?” She traced the reeding in the footposts. An elaborately carved basket of fruit accented the tall, curvaceous mahogany headboard.

  “I saw it in the window of a shop in Manhattan on West Twenty-fourth. It reminded me of my parents’ bed in Sicily. So I bought it.”

  “You didn’t think about it? You immediately bought it?”

  “When I see what I want, I know it, and I don’t waste time acquiring it.” He was looking at her—and she didn’t think he was talking about the bed.

  She wandered closer to the head of the bed.

  He looked good. Long and lean, muscled and competent. A man she had known all her life. A man she could depend on.

  A man who was dangerous to his enemies—and hers.

  Her hand hovered over his chest. Should she give in to temptation and touch him? Should she kiss him, hold him, take him into her body . . . ?

  He caught her wrist and opened her injured hand toward him. Her leather glove and the gauze bandage covered the slash on her palm, and he touched it lightly. “How does it feel?”

  Caught off guard, she stammered, “G-good. Mostly good. Martha is very competent.”

  “Then why do you keep cradling it in your arm? What are you afraid of? What do you think happened when your tattoo was slashed?”

  She stumbled into an explanation. “It’s been a part of me, part of my whole self. The eye, and the expectation that I could, would, see the future. If that’s gone . . .” And how did he know she was afraid of this when so many other terrifying issues loomed before them?

  “My mother lost her sight at the apex of her life. It broke my heart, and at the same time, I was so grateful to have her alive. That’s why when you didn’t want to see”—Caleb gently stroked his hand across her gloved palm—“you made me insane. To refuse the gift of foresight seemed foolish and perhaps . . . a sin. Then yesterday you took the plunge into a vision, and you were hurt.” Impulsively, he yanked her onto the bed and into his arms.

  She caught her breath as he rolled her onto her back, trapped her between his arms, and looked into her eyes.

  He spoke earnestly. “The mark on your palm doesn’t matter. What it says doesn’t matter. What Zusane wanted from you doesn’t matter. What matters to me is that you do what you want.” At her surprise, he smiled that half smile that enchanted her so much. “I will admit—I want you to want to do it, whatever it is, with me at your side.”

  Being here with Caleb, feeling his heat, smelling his scent, hearing those words from him, made her realize how long she had known him and how much he had meant to her.

  “Will you live with me here?” he asked. “Will you make my mother happy and marry me?”

  He had rescued Jacqueline, taught her to fight, taught her to love, taught her to hate. . . . Even when they were apart, he had been the center of her life. Now, two years later, they were together, in danger . . . and he was the only man she had ever wanted. “Yes.”

  “Yes?” He gave a bark of laughter. “Yes—what do you mean, yes?”

  “Yes, I would like to live with you here. Yes, I would like to marry you.” Jacqueline had never meant anything so much in her life.

  He sagged with relief.

  She added sternly, “Although not for your mother, but for us.”

  Resting his forehead against hers, he said, “No, you’re right. Don’t stay with me for my mother. Stay for us. Because I’ve loved you for so long, and now, at last, you’ll be mine and I can be truly happy.”

  “So.” Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Please.”

  His smile blossomed, became whole. “Please what?”

  Oh, two could play that game. “Please undress me. Please let me undress you. Please kiss my lips, my breasts, my belly. Please let me turn you over and kiss your spine, your shoulders, your extremely fine butt. Please go down on me. Please let me go down on you.”

  He jerked as if he’d been hit with an electrical current, then froze, immobile in the struggle to remain in control.

  “Please make love to me. Please do it now.” She slid her hands up from his shoulders to the back of his neck, and slipped her fingers into his hair. “Caleb, please, do it without restraint.”

  His lips barely moved as he spoke. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Yes, I do. I want you as wild as you were the first time we made love. I want you out of control and savage. I want you—”

  He vaulted off the bed, and for a moment, she thought he was going to leave.

  Instead he ripped off his clothes, donned a condom, and was back beside her in thirty seconds. Another thirty seconds, and her clothes had been tossed aside, and she was naked and captive in the arms of a man as savage as she had demanded. He pressed her back on the pillows. Holding her head in his hands, he kissed her, probing her mouth insistently, dragging the air from her lungs and replacing it with his own. He bit her earlobe, swirled his tongue around the whorls, and bit her earlobe again.

  He had taken the electrical current and directed it at her, for each lap of his tongue, each nip of his teeth, shot a bolt of pure passion through her nerves to her brain, her nipples, her clit.

  And all the while, he held her down with his naked body, pressing her into the bed, letting her feel his weight and the heat of his erection. He pressed his penis between her legs, sliding it up and down in the dampness between her nether lips, teasing her, dampening himself as her body responded. He dominated her, and everything about him made her realize that this loving would be like nothing they’d ever experienced.

  He nuzzled her breasts, exploring them with his mouth, finding each nerve and heightening each sensation with a gentle suction that became an insistent suckling.

  Sounds began to break from her, moans of delight and insidious fear. Insidious, because she wondered if she would survive this, or if she would break apart from the constant and ever-heightening pleasure. She twisted, pushed at him, trying to escape, and he responded by clasping her wrists and clamping her hands close to her sides.

  And he kissed her breasts again. And her belly. And then, using his knees to keep her legs wide apart, he sank his tongue into her.

  Too much. It was too much. She went mad fr
om anticipation, with need.

  He tasted her, over and over, keeping her on the edge of orgasm, but not allowing her more pleasure than he could take himself. It was torture of the cruelest kind, and all she could think was, Higher. Please. A little higher. If you would touch me there, just once—

  But he didn’t. Instead he rose above her so that only their groins touched and, still holding her hands, he pressed his erection into her . . . slowly. So freaking slowly.

  If he would just do it.

  But he didn’t. He eased inside her, filled her, taking care not to press against her clit. Clearly, he knew what she wanted. Clearly, he intended to drive her mad before she got it.