The Lost Night (16 page)

“A gratitude kiss?” he asked, sounding wary. “Because you think I saved your life?”

“No.”

“Because I woke you out of that nightmare?”

“No. I just want to kiss you.”

He stilled. “Why am I getting the feeling that you’re trying to run some kind of experiment?”

“I suppose you could call it that. Do you mind? Don’t worry. I’ll make it quick and painless. It will be like it never happened.”

He breathed in deeply. The heat in his eyes went up a notch, but she sensed that he was
pulling hard on the fierce control that he used to handle his talent. She wondered briefly why he needed that kind of mag-steel power to deal with a simple kiss.
Probably the result of the fever-burn earlier,
she decided.

Clutching his shoulder, she raised herself up a little and touched her mouth tentatively against his. It was meant to be a light, fleeting kiss; a butterfly kiss. But without any warning the intimate energy smoldering in the atmosphere flashed across the spectrum, igniting her senses. She was suddenly intoxicated with the dazzling excitement that swept through her.

“Harry?” she whispered against his mouth.

He did not answer—not with words, at any rate. She felt a shudder go through him, heard the groan deep in his throat, and then his arms clamped around her, crushing her against his chest.

He could not remember the last
time he had made out in the backseat of a car. Not since his teens, he thought. Things were definitely different this time.

The fierceness of his arousal should have been all the warning he needed to know that the situation was getting out of control. But at that moment he just did not give a damn about maintaining control. He no longer cared if she was running some weird aura experiment.

The hot currents of passion burned in the close confines of the backseat of the SUV. In its own way the energy flaring in the atmosphere was hotter than the paranormal fire that had consumed the gatekeeper’s cabin. He could not remember ever wanting or needing a woman as much as he wanted and needed Rachel tonight.

He cradled the back of her head in one hand and deepened the kiss until her mouth opened beneath his. He heard a soft little moan and then she
released her grip on the edge of the blanket and wrapped her arm around his neck. He could feel her soft breasts pressed against him. Her scent was an exotic drug, intoxicating all of his senses. Her feminine energy, teasing and tantalizing, flowed around him.

She knew him for what he was and she did not fear him.

He moved his free hand down to the sweet curve of her shoulder.

“You’re so delicate,” he said against her mouth. “And warm. And soft.”

She flattened her palm on his chest and spread her fingers. “You’re so hard. And so very, very hot.”

Dread sliced through him. “The psi-fever?”

“Not that kind of hot.” She laughed lightly. “The good kind of hot.”

The touch of her hand on his bare skin was incredibly exciting. It took everything he had to keep from coming then and there.

“Harry,” she said in an aching whisper. “I think something weird is happening here. Something about our auras.”

“Define weird.”

“Amazing.”

“Amazing works for me.”

He didn’t try to say anything else because he was pretty sure he was hovering on the brink of incoherence. Besides, he had better things to do with his tongue than talk.

He pulled free of her mouth and
kissed the warm, fragrant place just behind her ear. She twisted in his arms, curling into him. He slid his hand down to her breast and covered the tight bud of her nipple with his palm. She tensed and her nails sank into his chest but she did not pull away. Instead, she shivered and started to sip air in quick, shallow breaths.

He shifted his hand down her side, savoring the feel of her sleek, smooth, resilient skin and the delicate bones beneath the surface. The curve of her hip was lush and firm and elegantly rounded.

When he moved his hand between her thighs, she tensed, murmured something he could not quite catch, and then parted her legs. She kissed his chest. Her mouth was wet and warm.

When he explored further, he discovered that she was as hot as liquid amber. He eased aside the thin scrap of fabric that barred his path. The panties were damp and not from the rain. When he eased a finger inside her, he found her tight and full. She shivered again and clutched at him. He sucked in a ragged breath.

“If we’re going to stop, this is the time to do it,” he said.

“Okay,” she gasped. “Okay.”

She sounded distracted, as if her attention was focused on something far more important than the answer to his question. He realized that her fingers were on his belt buckle. He held his breath, everything in him taut and hard. The need for release was almost overwhelming.

“I need clarification here,” he managed. “Was that okay, as in we should stop,
or okay, as in let’s keep going?”

“Okay, as in we should find out what this is all about.” She rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I need clarification, too.”

“Clarification.” What the hell did that mean?

She tugged on his belt. “Absolutely.”

He caught her face in his hands and raised her head. His senses were sparking wildly because of his aroused state. He did not have to focus his talent to see that her eyes were glowing like molten amber.

“Rachel,” he said.

“Yes?” She was a little breathless, shivering in his arms.

“You’re sure you won’t regret this in the morning?”

“Positive.” In the shadows her smile was a tantalizing mix of feminine invitation and challenge. “Are you always this hard to talk into bed?”

A sound that was half laugh and half groan rumbled at the back of his throat. He pulled her head down on his shoulder and held her there while he ripped off the panties. Then he finished the job that she had started on his belt buckle and went to work on his zipper. At last his straining erection was free.

He settled her so that she rode him astride, clamped his hands around her thighs, and urged her downward. He stopped when he discovered that she was clenched tightly against him.

“Relax,” he whispered.

“I can’t relax,” she said.
Her nails dug into his shoulders. “I feel like I’m about to come apart.”

“So do I. We’ll do it together.”

He stroked her until she was hot and melting and shivering with need. Then he pushed slowly into her, gently forging a passage through the tense little muscles.

“Harry.”

At last he was inside where he needed to be, and she closed snugly around him. She rose once, twice, three times, and then her release struck. He could not have resisted the compelling heat and energy even if he had wanted to do so—and that was the very last thing he wanted.

He thrust into her one last time and then his climax powered through him, taking him out of himself. Energy flashed in the heated atmosphere. And suddenly the wavelengths of his aura were no longer clashing and challenging Rachel’s—just the opposite. He could have sworn that their currents were resonating in a harmonious pattern that increased the power of both energy fields.

The breathtaking intimacy of the experience was beyond anything he had ever known. He longed to hold on to the sensation forever. Somewhere in the darkness he heard the sweet, seductive music created by the gently clashing charms on Rachel’s bracelet.

A loud thump on the hood of
the SUV and a muffled chortle woke Rachel. She opened her eyes to the gray light of dawn. The rain had stopped and she could no longer hear any wind.

She lay quietly for a few seconds, orienting herself. She was a little stiff and cramped and she was wrapped in the blanket. She realized she was looking at the roof of the cargo bay.

Another muffled chortle sounded from the front of the vehicle. She sat up cautiously, wincing a little when she felt the slightly bruised sensation between her legs.

She looked out the window and saw Darwina, Amberella in one paw, bouncing up and down on the hood. There was no sign of Harry. Beyond the charred remains of the cabin she could see the woodshed. The door was open.

The hot memories flooded back. After the heated lovemaking—no, after the hot sex, she
mentally corrected herself—Harry had lowered the rear seats to make room for both of them to stretch out for the rest of the night. She had a vague recollection of him pulling her into the curve of his body and locking her there with one strong arm. After that, she had slid into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She found her clothes draped over the front passenger seat where Harry had moved them. Getting dressed proved to be a serious struggle. Her panties and bra were dry but the pullover top and jeans were still damp. So were her socks and the new boots. Her lovely leather jacket would never be the same, but she told herself that the coolest leather jackets always looked somewhat battle-scarred. Her hair was a disaster.

All in all, she could not wait to get home and into a hot shower.

She took two energy bars from the emergency kit, opened a door, and got out. Although the storm had cleared, the atmosphere still shivered with the currents of psi leaking out of the Preserve. The smell of charred wood drifted on the air. The temperature was warming up rapidly, but in her damp clothes she felt chilled.

She unwrapped one of the bars as she walked toward the front of the SUV. Darwina cackled cheerfully, waved Amberella, and vaulted onto her shoulder. Rachel gave her the other energy bar.

“And where did you spend the night, missy?” Rachel asked.

Darwina, munching enthusiastically on the energy bar, ignored the question.

Rachel took a bite out of
her own bar and started around the blackened ruins, heading toward the woodshed.

The two firebombers stumbled out into the clearing, their hands secured behind them. In the dreary light of the cloudy dawn they looked as young as they had sounded last night. She doubted that they were even out of their teens. When she raised her talent a little, she could see that they were dazed and scared.
A couple of kids who were in way over their heads,
she thought. She could have dredged up some sympathy for them if they hadn’t torched the cabin and tried to kill Harry and her.

Harry emerged from the darkness of the shed. He did not look like a man who had survived a raging inferno, taken down a couple of young thugs, engaged in torrid sex, and then spent the rest of the night sleeping in the cramped confines of an SUV. On second thought, maybe he looked
exactly
like that kind of man—one who did that sort of stuff on a routine basis and took it all in stride. Whatever the case, he definitely looked good in the early light.

He was back in black. Her jeans might be damp and uncomfortable but evidently
his
clothes had dried just fine. She might be moving somewhat stiffly this morning, but he glided across the clearing with a virile, masculine grace. Her hair was straggling around her face, but it was obvious that he had raked his fingers through his own dark hair, pushing it back behind his ears where it had obediently stayed.

Awareness fluttered through her, and more memories of the night heated her senses.
My lover,
she thought.
At least for one night
.

Harry glanced at her. There was
no psi-heat in his eyes this morning, just the familiar everything’s-under-control-here look.

“Good timing,” he said. “I was about to wake you. We’re going to put this pair in the back of the SUV and drive them into town, assuming the road is passable after that storm. Officer Willis can lock them up. I want to talk to each of them separately.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Rachel said. “Want me to call Kirk Willis and give him a heads-up?”

“I just tried to do that,” Harry said. “No luck. The phones are out.”

“Not surprising after that storm.”

Darwina stopped munching the energy bar long enough to growl at the two young toughs.

“It’s okay,” Rachel said. She gave Darwina a small, reassuring pat. “Thanks to you, they won’t be torching any more houses for a while.” She looked at Harry. “What will you do if these two start yelling for a lawyer?”