14. CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 14
S he had no idea where they were going, except their carriage was moving along Chestnut Street past stately colonial buildings that appeared almost identical to the ones in her own world, including what had to be their own Independence Hall. Like a kid, she stared out the windows of the buggy, the warm yellow glow of gas streetlamps and torches a striking contrast to the sapphire blue evening sky. Without any light pollution, a crazy canopy of stars sparkled above.
As the horses stopped to let pedestrians cross in front of them, she spotted a man and woman leaning against a streetlamp, canoodling in the golden umbrella of light. The man leaned in for a kiss, and as their romantic moment deepened, a burst of lights in gold and red bloomed from the woman’s chest, bright little heart-shaped gems swirling around them in a cocoon of iridescence.
“Gideon! What is that?” She pointed to the couple and he looked out the window just as their carriage moved on. “Is that like what I saw last week when you played your piano?”
“Yes. It’s a form of synesthesia.”
“I’ve heard that term in my world too, but I’m not sure I understand what it means.”
“It’s like an overlapping of the senses. A synesthete might see a color when they taste a certain flavor, or experience a scent in the form of a sound as well. It’s rare in your world, from what I understand, but not uncommon in mine.”
“Maybe because your senses are heightened here to begin with,” she said.
“Indeed. And when present in someone who is also telekinetic, their emotional and sensory perceptions might be displayed externally, in the form of light, or even sound for some.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You mean experiencing joy, for example, might result in the air around them singing?”
“More like humming, yes.”
She shook her head. “Wow. Very cool.”
He studied her face and broke into a smile.
“What?” she asked, returning the smile.
“I’m enjoying seeing my world through your eyes.” He gazed back out the window. “It’s a world I’ve known for such a long time, that I suppose I take it for granted.”
“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but people have made references to your age and…”
“I’m a few years shy of one hundred, Lexi.” His demeanor relaxed as he turned to her again. He winked. “It’s gonna be one hell of a birthday party when the time comes.”
She studied his face. Definitely chiseled, but from heredity not age. The smooth high planes of his cheekbones and strong jaw hinted at Scandinavian ancestry but gave no clue to his years. The shoulder length dark blond hair showed not a speck of grey. She’d swear him to be no more than thirty.
Without thinking she reached up and ran a fingertip at the corner of his eye, where crow’s feet were conspicuously missing. “How old do your people live?”
“A good three hundred years or more if we’re healthy and have strong genes. But we’re human and mortal, just like you. We still age over time and can die early of illness or injury.” He lifted a brow. “ Honestly, in terms of our ages, you and I are at the same point in our lives, relatively speaking.”
Lexi quickly did the math on her life expectancy relative to his, and he was right. She and Gideon were at about the same distance into their lifespans—equally “young” as it were. But they aged at vastly different rates. So, even though he had a seventy-five-year head start on her, eventually she’d be an old lady and he’d just be starting to gray. She’d become a burden while he was still active and vital.
She sat up straighter and returned her gaze to the window.
Obviously sensing her thoughts, Gideon gently guided her face back toward him. “There’s a time and a place for math equations, and it isn’t here or now.” He lifted her chin with a finger, and took another slow kiss.
The carriage came to a halt and he glanced out the window. “Ah, we’re here.”
“And where, exactly, is here?”
He took her hand and helped her down from the carriage. “The Library of the College of Psychic Arts.”
Lexi dropped his hand, her mouth hanging open as she stared up at the fa?ade. “Oh. My. God.”
Behind an iron gate stood a magnificent, vine-covered, four-story building of old Pennsylvania bluestone. Huge torches lit the entrance, and candles warmed all the windows. She walked up the steps as if in a dream. “Gideon, it’s magnificent.”
She led the way up the steps, fighting to maintain dignity and not go running like a schoolgirl into the building in her sundress and sandals. The foyer soared above her, the ceiling fading into black as, even with numerous mirrors, the candle and torch light failed to reach its heights. Until she’d actually experienced this universe with its different history, she’d never realized just how dark places were without electricity. Television shows and movies set in older times failed to capture the deep shadows of night, which made her feel both vulnerable and excited.
“Where do we begin?” she asked after he nodded at the front desk clerk, who waved them on.
He expertly guided them through the stacks as together they collected books and folios on the range of topics she was interested in. Her heart rate kicked up a notch as she eyed the wealth of information available to her in this world.
A world where, clearly, she was meant to be.
Their arms finally laden with as much as they could carry, Gideon found them a table in a study room where they could read and talk quietly. A warm fire blazed in a hearth, and a few other people sat individually or in pairs in other corners. She flipped carefully through her books, but there was no way she could concentrate the way she needed to. No way she had time to absorb it all. She flopped back in her chair with frustration.
He smiled across the table, his own pile of books spread out in front of him. “Don’t worry. I’ll check all these out for you. You can take them home.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Highly illegal though I’m sure that is.”
With the relief of knowing she’d have much more time with the tomes, Lexi perked up. She leaned forward, arms crossed on the desk between them. “So, here’s something I don’t understand.”
“Yes….” Gideon also leaned forward, pulling off his wire-frame reading glasses and setting them on a book—reading glasses, which, by the way, made him so freaking sexy she’d barely been able to look down at her own books for the past hour.
“If we can have entire conversations telepathically, then why are we speaking out loud at all?” she asked. “In fact, what’s to keep us from getting to know everything about each other by just mind-melding or something? ”
He smiled. “Sure, we can know each other’s thoughts at any given moment when we’re connecting in that way. But I would never directly enter your mind and investigate all that was there, at least not without permission or a sense you were inviting me in.”
Her shoulders relaxed a fraction. She must have been feeling more vulnerable about that than she’d realized. “I appreciate that.”
“And if you want, I can teach you to block your thoughts from me when you want a little more privacy.” He winked.
“That would probably be a good idea,” she said, remembering his amazing kiss earlier in his office, and that he’d sensed just how freaking turned on she’d been.
She wiggled again in her seat now at the memory of his full lips on hers.
If he heard her current thoughts, he ignored them, and continued. “When you want your privacy, imagine building a brick wall in your mind. Visualize it sitting right behind your forehead. If you decide you want the wall back down, picture it crumbling. Et voilà .”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s straight out of New Age Hokey Pokey 101.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what New Age Hokey Pokey 101 is, but I’m telling you, it’s as simple as that.”
She giggled at the thought.
“And yes,” he added, “I suppose we could have our whole conversation telepathically if you wanted, but you know from experience it can be more taxing than speaking out loud.”
“And I wouldn’t want you to be taxed, old man,” she said to him telepathically, raising a mischievous eyebrow.
His eyes rounded in surprise and he coughed. But then he pushed his books aside, sat up straight, and looked her dead in the eye with a smirk, as if preparing for battle.
“Hey, don’t worry about me, young lady. I can go all night if you want,” he responded, also without speaking aloud .
“And I have a pretty good idea of what you might have in mind in that regard,” she said silently. “You must not be blocking your thoughts at the moment because I sense the response to this conversation in your, um, lower body.”
“Really?” he continued in her mind. “Can you sense this?”
He lifted his right index and middle fingers ever so slightly off the table, moving them in a subtle circular motion. Lexi jumped in her seat. She felt him touching her. It was the unmistakable feeling of two fingers slowly sliding along her ankle, tracing the curve of her calf to settle in the soft spot behind her knee.
“Gideon!” This she said out loud, a little too loudly, causing a couple heads to turn. He shushed her, and winked.
The fingers kept moving up along the side of her thigh, dipping beneath the hem of her dress. She actually tried to brush his hand off, but there was nothing really there for her to push aside.
“Gideon.” She whispered this time.
“Tell me to stop and I will,” he said telepathically, “but if you just keep saying my name like that, I’m only going to take it as encouragement.”
He moved the sensation across the front of her leg and along her inner thigh, caressing the sensitive skin. Using the two “fingers,” he pushed at her thigh, encouraging her to open her legs a bit, and without thinking, she did. He ran the sensation slowly up and down, from the inner side of her knee to the very top of her thigh, just a fingertip’s space away from her panties, teasing her. Reflexively, she tilted her hips forward on the seat a bit, giving him more access, but he refused to play along, dipping back down to the knee instead.
Her breath came faster, but she remained silent, biting her lower lip. This had turned into a battle of wills—and someone was going to chicken out first. She decided it was not going to be her. She was determined to come out on top.
“Come out on top, huh? Interesting choice of words,” he said silently .
“Get out of my head, Hero.”
“Why? I don’t see any wall, Heroine,” he said in her mind, all the while casually twirling his glasses between the fingers of his other hand.
The sensation of his touch finally, blessedly, reached her panties, exploring the thin silk barrier between her legs. She squeaked, her mouth parted, having forgotten about everyone in the room now except him. She licked her lips.
“I can see why you haven’t told me to stop. You’re deliciously wet,” he said in her mind, his grey-green eyes drilling into hers.
Her eyes widened. “You can feel that?”
“Yes.”
“But how is that even poss—” Her words failed. His “fingers” had slipped underneath her panties, sliding between her lips in one quick stroke.
“Cat got your tongue?” he asked out loud, the sensation of his fingers grazing over her clit.
She nodded, unable to move any more than that. Afraid that he was going to make her come right there in the library. Afraid that he wasn’t.
He smiled at her thoughts.
“Dammit, get out of my head,” she protested.
He flicked the sensation back and forth over her sensitive spot, pressing a little more firmly with each pass. She wiggled to try and catch the fingers, push them to where she wanted them, but there was nothing solid there. They could move against her, but she couldn’t move against them. It was maddening. She was completely at his mercy.
The faintest of sounds escaped her throat and she bit down harder on her bottom lip, trying to silence a full-blown moan.
“Got anything to say to me yet?” he asked out loud.
She shook her head, unable to speak, her whole core throbbing .
“Hmm. Now I know what to do the next time you get sassy with me.”
Her entire body was clenched and taut, her breasts screaming to be touched, every inch of her pulsating and teetering on the edge. She just knew everyone in the study had to know what was going on. But she refused to give in first.
“They have no idea,” he silently reassured her. “No idea that I’m sitting here at this table playing your sex like the keys on a magnificent harpsichord, my fingers dancing over you, sliding over you, stroking you, and that you are rapidly building to a crescendo.”
Lexi closed her eyes. Watching him as he sat across the table calmly and silently plucking her strings was just too intense.
She had the sensation then of him sliding a finger back toward her pussy. Sliding it slowly, teasing her, testing her, about to dip inside, her walls already clenching for him, ready for him…
She couldn’t help it. She let out a fairly audible moan, slapping a hand over her mouth. His fingers stopped moving.
“Would you like me to continue?” He raised a brow. “I’ll be honest. I’d love to wait so I could see and hear you release with abandon the first time I make you come. But a gentleman never lets a woman suffer. So, you decide.” He dipped his chin, studying her. “Yes… or no?”
God, his words alone could put her over the edge. The first time I make you come. She took a deep breath, hands gripping the edge of her chair, but she shook her head. She didn’t think she could remain quiet enough even if she wanted to. “No.”
“Very well then.” With a satisfied grin, he crossed his arms on the table. “Shall we collect our books soon and head out?”
Beet red and silent, Lexi sat and caught her breath for a very long moment, wiggling uncomfortably on her seat, hands gripping the book in front of her, all the while unsure if this was a battle won or lost .
But she’d decided one thing for sure—the Library of the College of Psychic Arts had just become her very favorite place in the worlds.