“Where are you going?” Olivia asked.
“First, do a little more research. Then I need to get another car. I have to assume that the guys watching Travis’s house will be on the lookout for my current one.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Why don’t we meet back here tomorrow morning? Meanwhile, I’ll be in Beltsville.”
“Why Beltsville?”
“That’s where the Decorah Security office is located.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a business card, which he set on the end table. “If you need to reach me, the number is on here. The phones are manned 24/7.”
“Okay.” She cleared her throat. “What if we can’t do what you asked?”
“I’ll have to come up with something else,” he answered.
The words weren’t reassuring.
When he left, both Travis and Olivia stood, stumbling toward each other and meeting in the middle of the room. Perhaps they hadn’t realized the kind of tension they’d been under. It had started when Travis knocked the detective unconscious, and had continued during their desperate maneuvers to get him to believe their wild story. Now that they were alone, the strain of the past few hours came crashing down around them.
When he reached for her, she flung herself into his embrace. As he pulled her close, she molded her body to his.
They clung together, relief flooding through them. The detective had bought their story—then gone off to do some prep. Alone at last, they held onto each other, rocking slightly, each leaning onto the other for support.
Olivia marveled at how mortal the man in her arms felt. With her eyes closed, she had the perfect illusion that he was as legitimate as anyone else. More so—to her.
He walked her backwards, maneuvering her around the table, and taking her down to the sofa so that she lay on her back, still with her eyes closed so as not to break the spell. Her body had turned molten, and she knew Travis could feel it. When she raised her face, he lowered his head and his lips came down hard on hers, then softened as he began to kiss her with the same urgency she felt. And he had the advantage that he could reach the back of her body as easily as he could the front. His hands stroked up and down her back and clasped her bottom, pulling her more tightly against himself.
When his hands moved to her front, caressing her breasts, she felt her heat level shoot up. She wasn’t undressed. He had to be touching her through two layers of fabric, her bra and her T-shirt, but it was like he was caressing her naked skin. He found her hardened nipples, stroking across them in a maddening rhythm that turned her center liquid. When he took them between his thumbs and fingers, she gasped in need.
“I want …”
“I know.”
One hand slipped under her jeans, stroking through the slick folds of her sex, coming up to find her point of greatest sensation, then sliding down again to press against her entrance. Two fingers slipped inside, and she felt herself clench around him. He pushed in and out of her, while the heel of his hand pressed against her center, and she was helpless to do anything but move against him. He held her to him, keeping her grounded as she came undone in a blaze of sensation that shuddered through her whole body and made her struggle for oxygen.
She clung to him, eyes still closed, coming back to earth.
What he’d given her had been glorious. More than she had ever expected in her life. Yet she couldn’t help craving more. She didn’t say it, but she knew he picked up her thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“It is what it is,” he answered.
“But we’re going to change the parameters,” she vowed. “Deepen our bond so you can come with me when I leave.”
Inside her head, she heard him make a snorting sound. “Damned if I know how.”
Ignoring the obvious, she pressed on. “We’re going to try something that none of the other couples needed to do, even if we don’t quite know how. But think about it. Yesterday, we didn’t know how to pick up a piece of paper without touching it. Or make a thunderbolt, or whatever you want to call them.”
“But we were trying for some kind of physical effect. This is different. I’m not…physical.”
They were both silent for long moments, contemplating the detective’s request.
Travis had said he didn’t know how to accomplish it, but he was the one who suggested, “Let’s start with—I was out in the darkness, and I was drawn to you. Getting to you should have been impossible, but somehow, we accomplished it.”
“You’re the one who did it,” she pointed out. “Somehow you connected to me when I wasn’t expecting it, when I was afraid of it.” She dragged in a breath and let it out.
“And now that we’ve gotten this far, we can both try to make this new thing happen.”
She could even see that as logical.
“So, how do we make it so you can come along with me?” As she spoke, he moved aside so she could sit up.
Let’s start with something familiar—let’s find out how far I can get from you and still feel our—bond.
Good idea. She stood and walked out of the room without looking back, trying to keep the connection going.
We’ve got more space to maneuver if we’re outside, he said.
Changing course, she walked through the front door and dragged in a lungful of the cooler evening air.
When she looked back, she saw Travis standing by the door. She turned again and walked down the driveway toward the road. At first, she felt his presence as strongly as if she’d been standing beside him. But after about fifteen feet, she could sense the bond weakening. She focused, trying to make the connection come back to full strength, but she couldn’t figure out a way to do it.
They spent several frustrating minutes trying to get the effect they wanted, each of them mentally reaching for the other, but she simply didn’t know how to make it happen.
Finally, she walked back and pressed her shoulder to his. “When we did the other stuff, we were touching—one of us giving the other energy.”
But I think we have to do this without touching. What if you try to forge a deeper link, and I lend you power?
Okay.
Once again, she put distance between them, walking to the limit of where she could feel him faintly in her mind. Sweat broke out on her body as she struggled to bring him into sharper focus. No matter how much she tried to invite him to join with her, it had no effect.
Switch roles, his faint voice suggested. I was the one who reached out to you first.
Yes. She let him take control, reaching out to draw her to him. As he did, she fed him energy. Again, it had no effect.
Exhausted, she staggered back to the patio and plopped into a chair. “So much for our awesome abilities,” she muttered.
She sat with her head bowed, breathing hard, trying not to feel like she’d been doing a tremendous amount of physical labor. Whether she fed him power or they reversed their roles, it didn’t seem to make any difference.
Frustration bubbled inside her, and she made one last desperate attempt to pull him toward her in a way that would keep him there. But she simply couldn’t do it.
Tears leaked from her eyes, and she struggled to hold them back, but she knew Travis felt her sense of failure. He had found her when it should have been impossible for them to connect. And since then, they had done some amazing things together. But this even more intimate link seemed as likely as spinning wisps of cloud into silk.
She tried to think about it logically—if you could apply logic to such a seemingly outlandish situation. Travis was the one who had found her. She had to be the one to cement his attachment to her, but she simply couldn’t figure out a way to do it.
He stood behind her, rubbing her shoulder, and she knew he could feel the tension that tied her muscles into knots. She had been putting everything into this new effort, and it had gotten her nowhere. She glanced around and was shocked to see that it was pitch black now. She’d been at this for hours, and she simply didn’t have the energy to continue.
“He’ll come here tomorrow, and I’ll have to tell him we couldn’t do it.”
He wasn’t expecting any help from you when he took the assignment. He didn’t even know that you existed.
“He didn’t know what he was up against. We may be the only thing that can keep him from ending up in Smith’s torture chamber—and then the bay.”
She felt Travis shudder as though he were reliving what had happened to him—and then absorbing the enormity of the task ahead.
Still, his silent voice was calm as he said, You can’t keep pushing yourself like this. You need to eat something and then get some rest.
I’m not hungry.
You need food if you’re going to continue. You’re not going to accomplish anything in the state you’re in. You have to recharge. Eat something and then lie down for a while.
His words made sense. Almost too tired to move, she heaved herself up and shuffled into the kitchen. When she opened the refrigerator, she found several cartons of food she’d ordered. Pulling one out at random, she stuck in a fork and ate some. It was cold, and she didn’t even know what it was, but she shoveled in a little more.
When she’d eaten all she could stomach, she shoved the carton back into the fridge. As she closed the door, she struggled to stand, swaying on her feet. If Travis hadn’t been there to wrap an arm around her waist, she might have toppled over. Instead, she let him lead her out of the kitchen. She looked at the stairs, thinking she didn’t want to expend the energy to climb them.
You can lie down on the sofa again.
She didn’t argue when he steered her toward the den, where she flopped down. She felt him ease down beside her where there shouldn’t have been room for him.
Perhaps she slept. She wasn’t sure. She woke when he stirred beside her, then felt him tense. “What’s wrong?”
I was thinking about when Smith said to me, when he was trying to get information, when he was telling me stuff about the children from the clinic.
She drew in a quick breath, remembering the horror of his telling.
The bastard gave away a lot because he thought there wasn’t going to be anyone I could tell.
She nodded against his shoulder.
Something just flickered into my mind.
She felt his excitement.
He said there was a sexual component.
The observation made something in her memory click. “Wait—didn’t we first make those sparks after…”
Right. After I brought you to climax, he finished for her. And what if I turned you on again, and kept you that way? No telling how much we could do.
You think sexual…need could…be the key?
There’s nothing to lose by trying it.
She heard a chuckle in his voice as he said the last part. Wrapping his arms around her, he shifted their positions so that she was lying sprawled on top of him.
“Let’s see how it works.” As he spoke, his hands stroked over her back and downward to her bottom. His fingers cupped and stroked, and the fatigue she had been feeling vanished—replaced by heat building inside herself. She wanted to squirm against him, but she managed to stay still while he did things no other man had ever done. He knew just what pressure would turn her nipples into aching points of sensation because he felt everything she was feeling. He worshiped her breasts with his hands, then his mouth, suction making her back arch. He kept two hands on her breasts while another hand worked its way down her body.
She stopped worrying about how that could be possible as his fingers dipped into her, then slid upward through her slick folds to her center.
When she tried to rock her hips against him, another hand held her in place.
She moaned, “I need to come,” she gasped out.
“And you will. When we’re ready.”
She wanted to plead that she had never been more ready, but he kept up the maddening conquest of her body—a conquest that would have been impossible for any other man.
His voice murmured in her ear, inside her head. That’s right…let yourself revel in it. With anyone else, she might have been embarrassed at how totally she was in his power. With Travis, she allowed herself to sink deeper into the sorcery of the moment. He kept up his total conquest, making her whole body quiver with need. Need for him. Need for completion.
Not yet. We’re not there yet, he crooned. Reach for me. Pull me in.
How do you know what to do? she gasped out.
Because when I was lost, I pulled myself toward you.
She understood then. He had tied himself to her. It wasn’t exactly the same, but he had managed to forge a link between them. Her breath came in gasps as she reached out for something she didn’t know how to capture.
It’s all right. I didn’t know what I was doing when I went looking for you. But it worked. You’ll figure this out, he encouraged her.
As he spoke inside her mind, she realized what she had to do. She had to want it enough, like he had wanted it enough when he’d found her, like he had overcome any hint of failure. Bonding to her like that had been monumental all by itself. But if he could do it, so could she.
Not you, we, he corrected. We can only do it together.
Yes! She clung to all of it—to his words, to his needs. To her own need.
A tiny sliver of fear wormed its way into her mind. She knew if she accomplished this joining, she would never be the same again.
She pushed that doubt away. Never be the same? That was a good thing. If she managed this seemingly impossible task, she would never be alone again. The man who made love so ardently to her now had been lost to himself. But somehow he had reached for her—and found himself again. If their resolve and their courage held, they could do so much more. Together.
Banishing any shred of doubt, she focused on what he was doing to her, what they were doing together. The tension inside her burst in a great spasm of pleasure, an orgasm that consumed her as no physical sensation ever had in her life. And as she came, she felt his penis, hard and thick inside her, where she had wanted it since the moment he had touched her.
The wonder of it overwhelmed her as she felt his orgasm too, pounding through him—through both of them.
She cried out aloud, shouting her pleasure and her triumph to the world. His arms tightened around her as his harsh gasp of wonder joined hers. They had joined together as no other humans ever had in the history of the world. He was with her. Inside her in a way that was like a miracle.
They came back to earth together, both of them hardly able to believe what had happened. She felt his body as well as her own. The joining created a confusion of sensations, which they struggled to sort through.
I went along with it, but I didn’t really think it was possible, she marveled.
I wasn’t going to let you give up.
But now what? What can we do together?
I guess we’ll find out. He laughed, a sound of wonder and joy. And then there are the interesting sexual possibilities.
She flushed, remembering him touching her everywhere at once, and then the feel of him inside her.
He rolled to his side, taking her with him, and they lay together as she struggled to regulate her body. After he shifted their positions, neither of them moved for long moments, and in the aftermath of the tremendous exertion, she drifted off to sleep.
She wasn’t sure how much later she woke with Travis’s voice in her head. He’s coming.
Her eyes flew open. “What?”
Gabe is coming up the walk.
“Oh Lord, how do I look? Or can you see how I look?”
Yes.
“How?”
She felt his mental shrug. Satisfied.
Embarrassment flooded her.
Maybe only I can see it.
Or maybe not.
Do I look…different?
To me.
Like what?
Too new to describe.
I wish we had more time to figure stuff out.
For all we know, Smith could be planning to move away from the area. We have to strike while we can.
She had been focused on her newfound intimacy with Travis. Now his words sent a jolt of alarm through her. The last thing she wanted on earth was for Smith to get away. She wanted him to pay for what he had done. And before he died, she wanted him to know that he hadn’t wiped Travis Carson from the face of the earth. He was here now, with her, ready to do what he had to.
The doorbell chimed, and she jumped up. She wanted to stop in the bathroom, pull herself together, and look at her face in the mirror. Did she look transformed? Did she look like she’d just had the mother of all orgasms? Teeth clenched, she rushed down the hall and pulled open the door, then stood staring at the man standing on the front porch.
“Gabe?”
“Yeah.”
The character who had rung the bell didn’t look like the one who’d left the house the day before. Was that only yesterday? It felt like a lifetime.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Five.”
Her eyes slid over him. He must be wearing a wig because he now had long, light brown hair caught in a ponytail in the back. He had on a ratty green T-shirt and jeans with holes at the knees, and his sneakers looked like they’d been dragged through mudflats. When she looked at them, he kicked them off onto the porch.
Her gaze rose again. Somehow, he’d changed the shape of his face. Maybe he’d put something in his mouth to pad it out. And his nose was larger and redder.
“I wouldn’t recognize you.”
“That was the idea. Now we’ll see what we can do about you.” As he spoke, he hefted the gym bag he was carrying.
“What’s that?”
“The outfit you’re going to wear.”
“Okay.”
He gave her a speculative look and asked, “Did it work?”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant, and she couldn’t prevent heat from creeping into her face. “Yes.”
“How did you do it?”
She felt her flush deepen.
Her reaction brought a bit of color to his complexion as well. “Okay, sorry I asked.”
Needing to change the subject, she looked out the door and saw a beat-up, ten-year-old Chevy that went with the character he’d transformed himself into.
Her gaze must have turned skeptical because he said, “It’s got a powerful engine under the rusted hood.”
“Okay.”
Still feeling awkward, she stepped aside to let him in. She might have taken him to the couch, except that a picture of herself and Travis in sexual ecstasy sprang to her mind, and she had to pivot quickly away. Glad her back was still turned, she headed for the kitchen and glanced around as though she were seeing the familiar room for the first time.
“Uh, coffee?” she asked.
“If you’re having some.”
“I am.” She didn’t really need any caffeine, but getting the fixings gave her something to do besides awkwardly confronting him.
“I’ve got lots of pods. What do you want?”
“No fancy flavors.”
“Kona okay?”
“Sure.”
As she and Gabe talked, she was vividly aware of Travis observing the interaction in amusement.
I’m not gonna brag about our exploits, if you don’t.
Gabe’s casual answer was a nice counterpoint to her awkwardness.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come so early,” he said, his gaze flicking over her.
“No, it’s okay.”
She made the first mug for him. “You want anything in it?”
“Black is fine.”
When the machine had made her serving, she added cream to her mug, pulled out a chair, and sat at the table.
“So how does it work?” he asked. “What does it mean that he’s with you?”
She shrugged, feeling awkward again. Now she had two new relationships she never could have imagined. With Travis she had an unbelievable intimacy which she wasn’t going to try to describe to Gabe or anyone else. And with Gabe she had a kind of unintended intimacy. He knew the secret of her bonding with Travis. And he believed her.
But it was more than that. She knew he was attracted to her, and she realized that somehow her bonding with Travis made her more open to him as well. If that made any sense.
Deliberately letting the observation go, she focused on his question. “I don’t know how to describe it. I feel him with me.”
Putting it politely, Travis chimed in.
Stop it. This is hard enough without your making editorial comments.
Gabe was speaking again. “Can he move away from you?”
“I don’t know. You woke me up. We haven’t tried anything fancy yet.”
As she spoke, she was aware of Travis’s silent laugh. That wasn’t fancy enough for you?
