Still holding on to her, Gray went toward the door, but rather than walking outside, he pulled the right-hand door away from the wall.
“We could wait in here until morning if that’s what Nat wants,” she said.
“Nat’s going to want a bunch of things,” Gray said. “Look at this.”
He stooped to pick something up and when he straightened, Marley trained the flashlight on what he held.
One shiny pink bicycle helmet.
“This should help,” Gray said. “Must be the brand. We’ll need to follow up on dealers who carry them. Come and see this, Nat.”
On the back at the very bottom in black script were the words Pearl Brite in the symbol of a lightning flash.
28
Four in the morning when temperatures pretended they were cool. It was the coolest part of the day, but it wouldn’t last long before the air warmed and the myriad scents of the Quarter rose about as fast as the familiar noises of the populace getting about their business.
“How are you doing?” Gray asked.
They stood outside the gate into the Court of Angels. “If I told you the first word that comes to mind, I wouldn’t sound polite,” she said. “Every one of my muscles aches. I don’t feel I could walk another step. But my mind is doing jumping jacks. I wanted to keep going and at least do something.”
“I know,” Gray said. Most of all he didn’t want to leave Marley when he doubted he could think of anything else but her. He sure as hell wouldn’t be able to write and he needed to get back to a proposal he was working up for a piece on oil rig workers in the gulf. He didn’t want to think about it.
“Would you feel comfortable coming in and talking?” Marley asked. “I still don’t feel like I can wind down. Anyway, I don’t know how you’d get back to the Faubourg Marigny at this hour.”
He looked ruefully at his feet. “The options don’t appeal. If you can stand me a bit longer, I’d love to come in. I’ll make us some coffee.”
“I’d rather pour us a brandy, unless you don’t drink.”
“I drink.” He grinned at her. “Not Nat’s Bong vodka, but a glass of brandy would be perfect.”
She unlocked the gate and led him through a cool, dark alley with gray stone angels tucked into niches.
The alley opened out into what must be the Court of Angels and he saw how it got its name, even if a goodly number of gargoyles and questionable statues mixed, apparently harmoniously, with some really classy standing angels.
She put her finger to her lips. “Sykes won’t be here. He’s at his studio almost all the time—wherever that is. Willow and Uncle Pascal are heavy sleepers. But I don’t want to tempt fate—or a third degree.”
Gray followed her up green-painted metal steps, treading carefully to keep the noise down. He leaned forward and whispered to her, “I’m curious about where you live.”
She put a finger to her lips again and opened the door into a small hallway. She locked the door behind her, but still tiptoed along. “The living room,” she said, pointing into a dark room on the right. Next she said, “My bedroom,” and another dark cavern confronted him. “There’s a second bedroom like a boxroom where I have my computer and the kitchen’s back here.”
At last she put on a light and sent bright wash over an eclectic room where the appliances were the old, expensive kind, including an Aga cooker. A table built to fold up against a wall was lowered with three chairs pulled up to it. High above the speckled, green enamel sink two small windows reminded Gray of a pair of dark glasses. The walls were covered in unexpected red-and-white horizontal stripe paper with a shine to it.
“It looks like you,” Gray said and meant it. “A little bit wacky, but nice to be around.”
She gave him a sideways glance, then smiled. “That was meant to be a compliment. Thank you.”
“I don’t suppose too many people have sets of antique miniatures on their kitchen walls.”
Marley chuckled. “You just have to be able to spot the cheap and deceptive. All the paintings of doors were done by a guy who sets up in Jackson Square once a month.”
Gray laughed at himself. “Shows what I know.”
“That’s a little treasure,” she said, pointing to a slightly splotchy mirror with a plaster Rococo frame. “It’s English and very old.”
He tried to look sage and Marley burst out laughing. “You’d rather have the doors. Never mind. You can leave the art appreciation to me.”
She turned her back to him and found a couple of brandy bubbles into which she poured healthy measures from an unidentifiable bottle.
“I wish the guest room wasn’t full of junk,” she said. “I’d have taken everything off the bed if I’d known you might need it.”
He stepped back to let her leave the room first. “Have you forgotten we’re more or less strangers?” he said, and silently cursed himself for his drive to be disgustingly honest. “You probably wouldn’t want me sacking out in your guest room.”
“It would be fine,” she said, her voice completely steady. “You and I aren’t strangers.”
He almost missed his footing. “We aren’t?”
She went into the living room and put on lamps. Then she drew heavy green drapes over the front windows. “Do you feel as if we’re strangers?” she said. “Or do you sort of get the sensation we’ve known each other forever?”
Marley plunked down on the couch and patted the seat beside her.
“Well—” He blinked several times, then frowned. “I think we must always have known each other. How can that be? You were there, I just didn’t know it.”
“That’s because we were coming together. Slowly because that’s the way these things work. But it was part of the plan.”
He sat on the couch sideways so he could look at her. “How can you say things like that?”
“Because they’re true. Or they’re true in my reality. They don’t have to be in yours.”
“Did you know that the first time we met in Nat’s office?”
“I started to suspect something when you were busy sorting through the edges of my mind.”
He stared.
“You didn’t know it, but that’s what you were doing. You have paranormal powers. I don’t know the extent of them, but when you met me they went into high gear. Sykes had an idea that was the case, too. But Sykes usually figures everything out first.”
He took a deep drink of the brandy and it burned all the way down. That was a sensation he didn’t think could be overestimated.
“Do you know why I knew that helmet was in the warehouse?” he asked. “I guess I don’t have a choice about what you call powers, but I don’t have to like them.”
“You might as well like them. They’re part of you. If you hadn’t known about the helmet, Nat and his officers were going to walk right out of that place and relegate me to nut status again.”
“You expected to find things there and they were gone. You say you didn’t see the helmet so why did I know it would be there?”
Marley swirled the brandy in her glass. “Either I saw it without realizing and you picked it out for me—from me—or you’ve got remote sight most paranormals would kill for.”
“Kill?”
“Forget I said that. If you have the power to visualize details without ever being in a location first. You’re off the scale, Gray.” Her voice grew breathless. “You’re off just about any scale I can think of.”
He took another drink and when he looked at Marley again, she was watching him. Her face had softened, but not in the comfortable way a friend looks at a friend. More in that vaguely predatory cast when the eyes darken, the nostrils flare and the tongue makes slow passes over the lips.
Gray couldn’t look away from her mouth.
“It’s there, isn’t it?” Marley said. “The sexual thing. It’s not anything gentle.”
“Uh, no.” But he hadn’t met a woman who was quite as blunt on the subject as Marley. “I’d have said it has
all the indications of turning into a tornado.”
“Would you like that?”
If he were someone who blushed, he’d be red in the face. His own nostrils flared. He was so hard there wasn’t a darn thing he could do about hiding it if she chose to gaze south. And his heart pounded in time to the thunder of blood in his ears.
“Are you hot?” he said. Sheesh, that sounded like a line.
“Take off your shirt, Gray.”
Another goodly sip of brandy—and Marley matched him swallow for swallow—and he hauled his T-shirt over his head. This was one of those times when a man could be grateful if he’d kept himself toned and hard around the edges. He had always been fit.
“Nice,” Marley said, her head tilted, her assessment unabashedly direct. “I like a little hair on a man—especially if it’s dark. Your stomach looks as if you eat ground rock for breakfast.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“You’re welcome. Feel cooler now?”
He laughed. “What do you think?”
Her smile was unexpectedly wicked. “I hope not.”
She sobered and lowered her eyes. “I don’t know what’s come over me. I don’t even sound like the Marley everyone knows.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure of myself around men.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She bowed her head and studied her hands. “Now I’m embarrassed.”
He inclined his head and waited until she looked up again. When she did, he smiled at her. “I’m not embarrassed,” he said.
“Oh, boy.” Marley took in a deep breath and blew it out. “Perhaps we should try to focus on something constructive. We could make a list of what we discovered tonight. I find it helps if I write things down.”
“What I want right now doesn’t need writing down,” he said. “Do you think you can say the things you’ve just said then move on to another topic? It’s not going to happen.”
“Gray.”
“What, Marley?”
“It’s not fair to let you get in any deeper with me. I bring some pretty unusual baggage with me.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Ooh.” She set down her glass and held her head in her hands. “Why does it all have to be so complicated? The Millet Bonding. There’s a phase that should scare the pants off you.”
He laughed until he fell against the back of the couch. “Nice line,” he said when he could speak.
“If this Bonding does exist between one of us and someone who comes into our lives, there’s a kind of test.” She held up a hand. “Please don’t interrupt. It’s a stupid test because it causes some sort of shocking reaction. Pain—addictive, so I’m told, an explosion, I don’t know because I’ve never experienced it and, frankly, I’d decided I never wanted to.”
“Until me?” he asked quietly.
She closed her mouth tightly.
“Marley, love, something happens every time we touch.”
She nodded.
“Has that happened with any other men you’ve met?”
“Never before. Once I thought it might, but I was wrong.”
His stomach rolled over and his body clenched. “But there’s more? If this bond is there, the results can be bizarre?”
“Not bizarre,” Marley said. “Mind-blowing. And according to our lore, once experienced, it’s hard not to want to repeat the process at every opportunity.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Are you hot?” Gray asked.
“Yes.”
“Take your shirt off.”
She turned bright red. He reached out to her with only his face and sucked on her lips. Marley shuddered and so did he, kept on shuddering and kept on kissing.
Putting inches between them, Marley grasped the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head. The long, tight sleeves took some working off.
Her body was beautiful. Small and compact, and completely desirable. Her soft pink bra didn’t quite cover her nipples and Gray was tempted to sit on his hands just to control them. He wanted to grab her.
He caught sight of the angry marks on her wrists and the palm of her hand. “I don’t want to hurt those wounds,” he said.
“You won’t. And if you do, I’m not going to notice.”
Gray leaned toward her again and this time he curled his tongue beneath one bra cup to tease the nipple from its hide-and-seek lace. Marley made a sound and leaned back on her hands, thrusting her breasts toward him.
He grasped her waist and pulled her close. All sensation melded together, a mix of pleasure and pain that made him feel drunk and very thirsty for more.
Vaguely he was aware that their timing didn’t feel so right. But the thought was gone as quickly as it came. She was fire and silk in his arms.
Pressure mounted through his body, expanded his veins and muscles and pumped power into him. He was a strong man, but with her he was iron.
“I can’t wait,” he said against her ear. And he kissed her deeply while she drove her hands into his hair. And from his hair she went to the bulge in his jeans. She unsnapped and unzipped the pants and forced her hands inside.
Gray moaned and heard the answering sound from Marley.
He picked her up by the hips and buried his face in her breasts. His fingers destroyed the clasp on her bra and he panted at the sight of her naked breasts. He worked his thumbs in circles, getting ever closer to her nipples until, with a growl, he used his teeth to bring sobs from her.
Walking with her, he pressed her back against the wall and let her slowly slide down until her toes touched the ground.
“I’m on fire,” he told her. “Burning up.”
“Yes.”
With one sweep he ripped off her shorts and panties and shucked his jeans.
“I want to know what you like,” he said, and slid the heel of one hand down her tummy.
Her eyes didn’t leave his. With parted lips, she panted. Her pelvis met his palm and he curled his fingers into her.
“Gray.” She said his name, long and low and pressed herself tightly against his hand. “That’s what I like. You know. You just know.” Her wince, the break of sweat on her brow, excited him even while fresh pain thudded from deep in his loins, down his thighs.
She stiffened with her release and wound her body more tightly about his.
Pounding in his groin and belly built and he gasped. The sounds from his own throat amazed him. Keening, animal cries. Tears slid from Marley’s eyes.
Once more he lifted her.
This time he lowered her rapidly and filled her, locked his thighs and knees against wrenching vibrations to make a kind of unworldly love he had never, could never have imagined possible.
He couldn’t see clearly. The room moved.
Pressure built. He clung to Marley and clung to the wall. Dimly he feared what he might be doing to her, but she helped him, drove herself down over him again and again.
A searing, like a white-hot spear, seemed to split him in two and then, as quickly as it had all mounted, it ebbed on the sweet, soaring tide of their climax.
Gray looked down at her, at the undulations of their slick bodies, at the mixture of pleasure and pain on her upturned face.
He didn’t know how long they kept on moving together, and against each other, or how long they stroked, skin to skin, and he would never remember all the words that tumbled out of them. But when they slumped against each other and slid to sit, leaning body to body, on the floor, he knew one absolute truth. They would be drawn together again and again and they would never as much as glance at each other without thinking about the incredible sex they could share.
29
Marley watched first gray light filter through the slatted blinds on her bedroom window. She couldn’t have slept for more than an hour yet she was wide-awake and filled with a premonition that something huge was about to happen.
Lying on his stomach, his face turne
d toward her, Gray had her pinned to the bed with a muscular arm and a powerful leg. He was heavy, but in a way she’d like to get used to.
Ideas and impressions crowded in on Marley.
Today there would be change, major change. She shut her eyes and concentrated. It would be the case. Nat would make progress and they would start to get closer to finding Liza and Amber.
Her eyes wanted to pop open, but she squeezed the lids together tightly. A pinpoint of light became a pearly, glowing little heap. She centered her attention harder, brought her focus to the center of the light.
She looked at the ceiling. The bicycle helmet had been there all along, close to the victim, but camouflaged in the shadows. When Red Eye dragged the person across the floor, the helmet must have been caught up, then shaken loose and left behind.
Gray’s ruffled hair curled at his neck and across his brow. His eyes moved beneath the lids and his lashes flickered. His cheek and jaw were dark with beard stubble. Relaxed, his face looked young and achingly appealing. Her tummy flipped. They had made love twice before exhaustion claimed both of them. The experience defied description and she wanted to feel again what they’d felt together. The Bonding had been theirs and it was a sign she must soon explain to him all its implications.
There was nothing to force him into melding his life with hers, but she would never be whole again without him—any more than he could hope to experience with anyone else what they had shared.
Across the bed, faint stripes of gold stroked them through the blinds. The sun started its ascent. Outside the bedroom, a small stone terrace with fancy iron railings overlooked gardens behind a house tucked in the middle of the block. The owners were rarely there and Marley enjoyed the privacy of her haven. She enjoyed it even more with Gray there beside her.
He mumbled in his sleep and tucked her tightly against him.
Her family would have to be dealt with and they would have questions no man should have to answer about making love to a woman.
The blinds rattled.
Marley frowned and peered at them. A breeze flowed over her and she saw Gray’s hair move so she wasn’t imagining what she felt.
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