* * *
White-hot afterburn. Sheets of it shimmered across her vision, seared through her veins, and the only thing that would heal it—cauterize her wounds — was HIM.
Power poured through her, joining them, just as it was meant to be. Always meant to be. Use the earth’s power and you had to give power back. Sex was the only way. Sex she would have.
She bit his lip and tasted copper bruising. Raked her nails down his back and he groaned. Unclasped her bra and shimmied her breasts across his chest. Let go her regrets and slipped her jeans down. He hefted her onto the countertop and she spread herself wide. Shouted together when he slammed into her. Slammed into her and she bucked, ground her heels into his backside, threw her head back.
Joined and bucking, the power surged up from the soil, up through the house, filling her as he filled her. As his long, smooth strokes drove home and home and home and she couldn’t get close enough and damn and damn and damn she was sobbing as the top blew off her head, the roof blew off her house, and she screamed.
Heat flooded her as he exploded; as she collapsed limp in his arms. They came around her, his lips at her ear.
“Oh, fuck. What the hell was that?”
His scent of ocean and mornings was overcome with the scent of sweat and sex. His wide palm cupped the back of her head, stroked her hair.
“That shouldn’t have happened.”
She nodded into him, swallowed, because she didn’t know if she could look him in the eyes again. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s—it was almost like it was inevitable from the moment I met you.”
Inevitable. Shit. “More like forced on us.”
The last thing she needed.
“Forced?” His warm fingers tipped her face up to his and those dark eyes—the darkest, warmest brown she’d ever seen, seemed to peer into her. Smiled. “I’d say we were two pretty willing participants.”
His smile broadened and he leaned in to place a light kiss on her lips and his mouth slid lower to suckle her breast. But it was the wrong thing to say and do.
She pulled away, slid her leg past him and then off the counter and began tugging her clothes on. Damn things were all tangled. She stumbled as she struggled to get her legs into her jeans. Swore softly as, braless, she pulled her t-shirt over her head. Her breasts were tender from his mouth, the nipples too clearly pressing at the soft cotton. She crossed her arms and faced him.
A truly good-looking man, still shirtless as he buckled his belt. Broad shouldered, smooth, café au lait skin, a light ruff of dark fur across his chest and in an arrowed line down to the narrows of his abdomen and groin.
“It was a mistake.”
But not truly. For the first time since the events at the garage she could think clearly. The afterburn was gone. The trouble was, the first thing that came to mind when she looked at Detective Bryson, was that she should march him right up to her bed.
“Maybe,” he said. “My partner would agree with you.”
“You’re investigating me as a murder suspect.”
“And so now my investigation is compromised. You should be happy about that.” He stepped up to her, tugged her, unwilling, into his arms. “I am.”
“Cut the crap.” She jerked loose. “We had a scare. We fucked because we were alive. That’s all there was to it.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, a frown of confusion on his face. “That right?”
That was when she remembered: he wasn’t gifted. When the store changed he had been, too. He didn’t remember the scare they’d been through.
But the doubt in his voice made her almost swear he was disappointed and that just made it worse. She could not believe she’d allowed this to happen—afterburn or not. If he’d just put his damn clothes on. She looked past him to the door in hopes he’d get the hint.
His face went stiff. “We need to talk. Who the hell is Xavier de Varga?”
The thought of the dark man and his cedar scent made her cringe. “I’ve no idea.”
“Today wasn’t the first time you saw him.”
Surprised, she looked up at him, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of agreeing or disagreeing. Waited.
“You saw him the night of Lamrey’s death, too.” By the look on his face it was a stab in the dark, but surprisingly correct. Detective Jason Bryson was no one to underestimate. He had far too sharp a mind.
He stepped up to her so she backed away, but he caught her shoulders roughly, sniffed at her hair and then stepped back.
“Tell me, Agent Drake, why does your hair smell like smoke when there was no fire?”
Her gut tightened and her arms goose-fleshed. There was no way he could remember the fire, but the way he looked at her it was almost as if he did. Or knew something, which wasn’t possible given he carried no hint of Gift.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your hair smells like fire, but there was no fire. At least not that I recall. Strange. A lot of things about you are strange, Agent Drake. A phone in a wall. A dead man. A stranger pursuing you, yet you wander dark streets in the rain. Most women would be running for cover, but not you. Then you turn up, where I report a fire, with soot on your face.” He used his thumb to scrub her cheek, hauled it away and showed her. “Soot. I’d swear to it, and yet there was no fire.”
“I think you’d better leave.” He knew too much even if he didn’t know how the pieces connected. But then neither did she.
“You think that’s going to make me go away?”
“You’ll be out of my house.”
He shrugged and buttoned his shirt, then stuffed in the shirttails and shoved his tie in his pocket. He stepped up to her once more and leaned down to kiss her. Tasted her lips with his tongue and damn it, her body reacted with too-pleasant ripples of heat.
“Please go.”
But he smiled. “You’re going to miss me, Vallon Drake.”
She looked away.
“There’s something going on and I’m beginning to suspect you’re at the heart of it. If you need help, give me a call.”
“Help? Is that what you call a booty call?”
But he didn’t rise to her bait, just headed out of the kitchen. She stayed where she was, felt the rush of rain-soaked air as the front door opened. Then the damp air and he were gone.
For good, she hoped. Some sunshine would be nice for a change.
Chapter 12—The Truth Underneath