Chapter 14 #2
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?