“There are times when I don’t pay any attention to Fallon Jones. This is one of those golden moments.”
“You need me,” she insisted. “Admit it.”
“I need you to be reasonable. Chasing down hunters is not your area of expertise.”
“This is all because I got a little anxious tonight when we passed that hunter, isn’t it? That’s hardly fair.”
He felt his temper start to slide. “Fair has nothing to do with this. You’re not a trained agent. You’re a genealogist who got drafted for an emergency field trip. When it’s over, you’re going home as fast as I can get you on a plane.”
She drew herself up in the shadows. “Mr. Jones obviously has other ideas. I work for him, not you.”
“Got news for you. When you’re with me, you take orders from me.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she snapped. “Give the bullheaded, I’m-in-charge-here thing a rest.”
“That’s not what us bullheaded, I’m-in-charge-here types do. I think we’d better talk about this in the morning when you’re in a more reasonable mood.”
“Now you’re patronizing me.”
“Is that what it’s called? I think of it as just doing my job. Let’s go back to the hotel. You’ve had a long day.”
Automatically, he started to reach for her arm, intending to steer her out of the gardens. She took a quick step back out of reach. So much for thinking he was special because she could touch him. He let his hand fall to his side and tried to suppress the wave of gloom that resonated through him.
“One thing before we leave here,” she said softly.
“What now?”
“Would you mind very much if I tried touching you again?”
The gloom dissolved in a heartbeat, replaced by a thrill that zapped across all his senses. In the next instant comprehension struck. His initial excitement faded.
“You want to run an experiment?” he asked. “See if things are different this time now that you’re not distracted by the hunter?”
“Well, yes,” she said. “Look, if you’d rather I didn’t touch you, I certainly understand. Better than most people, in fact. I mean, I really understand why someone wouldn’t want to be touched.”
“No,” he said. “No, It’s okay. I don’t have a problem with the experiment.”
He held out his hand, palm up. Great. He’d been reduced to the level of a lab rat.
She took a cautious step forward, as wary as any wild bird being offered food by a human. Slowly she put out her hand.
Her fingertips hovered just above his for a few seconds, and then she brushed them across his palm, alighting briefly before immediately taking flight. He resisted the urge to capture her wrist and draw her closer.
Slowly she lowered her hand again until they were skin to skin. This time she did not flutter away. He could feel fine tremors going through her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m fine.” She sounded entranced. “This is amazing. Last week I accidentally touched a clerk’s hand in the grocery store and got another bad jolt. I was starting to think that maybe I wasn’t going to recover this time.”
He wanted to ask her how often she’d experienced the problem in the past but he sensed that this was not the moment for that kind of question.
“Feel anything?” he said instead.
“Yes, but nothing bad.”
“You know, a compliment like that could really go to a man’s head.”
“Sorry. It’s just that for the past year I haven’t been able to touch anyone without getting a strong psychic shock. Just going to the dentist was an ordeal. I had to take a dose of anti-anxiety meds to get through a simple cleaning. You can’t imagine how it feels to know that my senses are returning to normal.”
Slowly he closed his fingers around hers. The fine bones of her hand felt delicate and incredibly sensual. Her skin was warm and soft. She did not try to pull away.
“I wonder if it’s just you,” she said, very thoughtful now. “I suppose it could have something to do with the fact that we’re both aura talents. Maybe I’m not cured, after all.”
He tightened his grip a little. She did not flinch.
“If you’re thinking of grabbing every man we pass just to see if you can replicate this little experiment, I have a few objections I’d like to raise,” he said.
She laughed, a soft, low, utterly feminine sound that galvanized his senses. He leaned closer, savoring the sweet, hot energy that shimmered around her.
“Maybe not every man,” she said. “But a representative sample might ensure a more reliable scientific test.”
“If you’re in the mood for further experimentation, I hereby offer my services.”
“How altruistic of you.”
“Yeah, that’s my middle name,” he said. “Altruistic.”
She brushed the fingers of her other hand against the side of his face.
“You’re running hot,” she said. “I can feel the heat.”
“Something tells me it’s going to be even more fun this way.”
“What will be more fun?”
“Kissing you at full throttle.”
She knew what he meant.
“Ever tried it with anyone else?” she asked.
Well, at least she hadn’t said no.
“Occasionally,” he admitted.
“And?”
“And it didn’t work very well. Mostly I scared the hell out of the other person. Invading someone else’s energy field with a strong aura makes even nonsensitives nervous.”
“So this kiss we’re discussing is something of an experiment for you, too?”
“Definitely.”
He braced himself against the trunk of the tree, legs slightly spread, and propped the cane nearby. Reaching out with both hands, he drew her into the intimate cage formed by his thighs. She did not resist.
“You don’t scare me,” she whispered.
It wasn’t a challenge, he thought. She was simply telling him the truth.
“I know,” he said. “You don’t scare me, either.”
“You’re sure?” There was a sultry smile in the words.
He traced the outline of her lips with one finger. “Do I look scared?”
“No.”
He took her mouth, slowly, deliberately, knowing that, whatever happened, he was going to remember this moment for the rest of his life. Her arms went around his neck; tightened. And then she was kissing him back, leaning into him, pressing him against the trunk of the tree.
The light around her flared into a glowing aurora. Waves of unnamed colors ebbed and flowed, clashing and resonating with his own energy. The incredibly intimate sensation had a lot in common with putting a match to a dry forest in August. The night was suddenly on fire.
He’d thought he was already jacked. Now he was at flashpoint. The rush dazzled his senses. It was also disorienting. The only thing that kept him on his feet was the tree at his back. Come to think of it, he did not want to be on his feet, anyway. He’d much rather be down on the ground, on top of Grace.
He had intended this first kiss to be gentle, nonthreatening. After all, the woman hadn’t touched anyone in a year, at least not without shocking her senses. A gentleman would go slowly in a situation like this. Instead, he was in hand-to-hand combat with the forces of his own self-control. A devouring urgency cascaded through him.
Grace seemed to be as caught up in the whirlwind as he was. Her arms were wound fiercely around him. Her mouth was soft and open beneath his. Maybe her desire for him was just the result of being freed from a year of misery. He’d worry about that later. Right now the only thing that mattered was that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
The scorching kiss blazed across his senses, hotter than any sex he’d ever had.
“I could come right now,” he muttered against her mouth. “Just kissing you is enough.”
“This is amazing.” She shuddered in his arms and pul
led back a little to look at him. “I haven’t ever felt like this, not even before my senses got fried. It must have something to do with the fact that we’re both aura talents. Nothing else explains it.”
“Do me a favor. Stop trying to analyze it.”
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that it’s all so weird—”
He crushed her mouth with his own to silence her. She responded by wrapping her right leg around his calf as if she intended to climb up onto his erection.
He reached down, found the zipper of her pants and lowered it. She made a small, desperate little sound when he got his hand inside her panties and between her legs. She was hot and wet and full. He found the tight little bundle of nerve endings with his thumb. She gasped.
He slid a finger inside her tight core. She clenched around him immediately, as if she had been waiting for him forever.
“Yes.” Her hands tightened around his shoulders. “Yes.”
He stroked her, learning her. It was almost impossible to concentrate but he forced himself to pay attention to her aura, watching for the extra spikes of heat that told him he was touching the right places, using the right amount of pressure.
“Luther.”
She sounded shocked. There was no other word to describe her startled, breathless gasp. For one awful instant he thought that her senses had rebelled after all. The possibility that he was giving her pain, not pleasure, was too terrible to contemplate.
But she did not try to escape. Instead, she buried her face against his neck and clung to him. He felt the small contractions of her climax ripple through her body; sensed them flashing through her aura.
When it was over he was almost as relieved as she was.
“Hell,” he said into her hair. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. For a second there I thought I was hurting you.”
She made a weak, muffled sound into his shirt. It took him a while to realize that she was laughing. She was limp against him. Her breathing was that of a swimmer who had just made it back to the surface after nearly drowning.
He held her tightly, trying to get his own breathing as well as his raging need under control.
After a while he realized that she was no longer laughing. The front of his shirt was soaked with tears.
“Grace?”
“Don’t worry.” She did not raise her face from his shirtfront. “I’m all right. It’s just that I haven’t felt anything quite like that before.”
He smiled into her hair. “Neither have I.”
She stilled and then raised her head. “But you didn’t—”
“It’s okay.” He stroked the wings of her hair back behind her ears. “I think you need some time to process this.”
“I think you’re right. I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster all day.”
“You’re not the only one.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, chagrined. “I never meant that to happen. I realize it’s highly unprofessional.”
He covered her mouth with his fingertips, silencing her.
“Whatever you do,” he growled, “don’t tell me you’re sorry about what just happened. That’s the one thing I do not want to hear. Are we clear on that?”
She hesitated and then nodded once.
He took his hand off her mouth, eased her away from him and grabbed the cane. They walked back to the hotel in moonlight and silence, not touching.
TEN
Harry Sweetwater felt the faint vibration of his cell phone just as he left the beach path and started up the steps to his hotel. He checked the incoming number and then stopped in the shadows of a large palm to take the call.
“Hello, Gorgeous,” he said.
“Hello, Handsome,” Alison said.
The ritual greeting between them was as old as their relationship. It had started on their first date thirty-four years earlier.
“Are you in position?” Alison asked.
He pictured his wife at her pristine desk, heavily encrypted computer and phones neatly at hand. The desk was in a small, anonymous office housed in a large commercial tower located on a convenient, offshore island. Most of the other firms in the building offered financial assistance to those who found it necessary to give their money a thorough cleansing before investing it in legitimate enterprises. Among such a group of discreetly run businesses, a small, family-owned enterprise that offered special services to an exclusive clientele went unnoticed.
“All set,” he said. “Got a room in the hotel next to the one the target is going to check into tomorrow.”
“I’m starting to think that we may have a problem with the client, Harry.”
He didn’t question the conclusion. Alison was a high-level intuitive.
“We’ve done a lot of work for Number Two,” he said.
They only had two clients. It kept things simple in the customer relations department.
“Everything looks right,” Alison said. “Two is using the right security codes. I’m not sure what’s bothering me about this job. Maybe something to do with the way the client is trying to micromanage it.”
“You got another e-mail?”
“Yes. It came in a few minutes ago requesting another update. That’s not routine. In the past, once Two has commissioned a job, there has been no further contact unless something changes. When the contract is completed, the money shows up in our account and that’s the end of the matter.”
That was true. In his experience, neither of the two clients ever wanted to know anything more than what was absolutely necessary about the details of the work that had been commissioned. Ignorance was bliss or maybe it just let the clients sleep better at night.
“Did you initiate a reverse security check?” he asked.
“Yes. I got the right response but something just doesn’t feel right.”
“Think we’ve been hacked?”
“I’ve got Jon checking that angle now. He doesn’t think our computers have been invaded but there’s always the possibility that someone has gotten inside Two’s system.”
He felt a flash of fatherly pride. His youngest son was brilliant when it came to computers; preternaturally so. Jon was a crypto, a strat talent with a twist that made it possible for him to plot patterns and follow complex paths in the new dimension that was cyberspace. He wasn’t a true hunter like most of the other males in the Sweetwater family, but he possessed all the right instincts. If anyone could track a hacker back to his lair, he could.
“Tell Jon to keep looking,” he said to Alison. “We’ve got time. Mistakes are embarrassing.”
“I’ll get back to you as soon as I know anything more.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“How’s Maui?”
“Warm. Balmy breezes. Palm trees. Beach. Hell, it’s an island.”
Alison laughed. “I can always tell when you’re working. You never take time to stop and smell the plumeria flowers.”
“Not when I’m on a job.”
But even as he said the words, an uneasy sensation twisted through him. A few minutes before, he had been running wide open, doing some basic recon on the beachfront path. But somewhere along the line he had unintentionally relaxed and slipped back into his normal senses. That wasn’t like him. He always stayed at least partially alert while on a job. He had been taught from the cradle that it was critical to maintain constant awareness of the immediate environment. The smallest details could lead to disaster. Screwups were not good for business.
So what the hell had happened to him out there on the path? The thought that he might be losing his edge at the grand old age of fifty-nine was depressing. His father and grandfather had worked into their seventies. Sure, they had slowed down a little with the passage of the years, but experience had more than compensated for what they lost in raw speed and psychic sensitivity. In the end it wasn’t a decline in talent that had forced them into retirement. They had both been dragged into it, kicking and screaming, by their wives.
“How??
?s Theresa doing?” he asked.
“She’s fine, just a little impatient. She’s more concerned about Nick. He’s turning into a basket case. It’s been a long nine months for him.”
He smiled. His eldest son was a stone-cold hunter when he was working but when it came to his beloved wife and his soon-to-be firstborn kid, there was nothing icy about him. Nick had scheduled his jobs so that he could attend prenatal classes with Theresa. He had devoured every book on the subject of birth and parenting that he could find on the Internet. He had even insisted on hiring a decorator to design the baby’s room in order to create what one of the texts had called a “nurturing environment.” Now he was determined to assist at the birth.
“He’ll survive,” Harry said. “I did.”
“Hah. Every time you came into the delivery room with me, I was afraid you would faint.”
“Okay, maybe I got a little pale around the edges but I didn’t keel over.”
They chatted for a few more minutes and then signed off with their customary ritual.
“Good night, Gorgeous.”
“Good night, Handsome.”
The phone went silent in his hand. He dropped it into his pocket and stood looking out at the black mirror of the ocean. Something had definitely happened back there on the path. He tried to remember exactly when his other senses had shut down. He had passed an elderly couple who had been holding hands. Next he’d noticed a man using a cane and a woman. They had been walking side by side, not touching. Something about the man had drawn his attention. His jacked-up hunter instincts had recognized another potential predator. But an instant later he had lost interest.
The next thing he knew he was several yards down the path, cranked back to normal. Relaxed on a job when he had no business being relaxed.
ELEVEN
The dream was familiar, one of a handful of repeat nightmares connected to the day she killed Martin Crocker. But there was something different about it this time. For one thing, she was aware that she was dreaming. The most striking aspect, however, was that she was not afraid.
. . . Martin was coming toward her, only a couple of yards away. The bags of groceries had fallen from his arms. A loaf of bread, a package of coffee beans and a plastic bag filled with lettuce lay scattered on the dock. She wanted to run but she could not. Soon the pain would slash across her senses. Martin would reach down to take hold of her.