Out of Sight

by Stella Cameron

  Small clusters pressed together, often taking surreptitious glances at one person or another. They all appeared intense.

  One man drew his special attention. Brown hair, pleasant to look at. But unremarkable, he stood apart from the rest and, for their part, they showed no interest in him.

  The man’s arms hung motionless at his sides. He shifted his eyes only occasionally.

  Until a tall, light-haired man separated from the rest and made his way toward a corridor. He checked the contents of one pocket and then another, looked at his car keys and slipped them away again. And on his way he passed the motionless man who showed no sign of noticing.

  The man with the keys disappeared.

  Within seconds, the watching man turned and strolled after the other one, around a bend in the corridor.

  Only the elevation of the Ushers’s whispers penetrated Jude’s focus. They touched him with their sounds, brushed at him, exhorted him.

  He concentrated on the curved corridor and relaxed a little when the tall person came into sight again and returned to the group he had left. Silent, rapt, he listened to his companions.

  The other one, the watcher, did not come back and, Jude decided, he must have gone home.

  A woman moved apart from everyone, a glass raised in her right hand. The rest faced her. Whatever she said caused them to raise their glasses, too. Jude gauged the mood as serious. She spoke for a while and bowed her head. Someone handed her a handkerchief and she dabbed her eyes. Then she raised her chin and the silent message was one of resolve.

  “It’s time.” The two words jumped from the whispering jumble buffeting Jude. “Time. Time. Be ready.”

  Under other circumstances he would reproach the Ushers for their unruly behavior; they were disorganized and highly emotional. Best let them find a way to settle and make more sense.

  He saw two men make for the curved corridor, absorbed in their conversation. They had come from the same group and gestured in an agitated manner. But they went around the corner, and he no longer saw them.

  Two more men approached, from opposite directions. They didn’t look at each other and one walked slightly ahead of the other until they were both gone.

  Minutes went by while Jude was tempted to put his hands over his ears to shut out his almost manic companions’ prattle.

  Eventually the first two men came back and settled into their group. They listened, apparently with nothing to add to the conversation anymore.

  Time no longer had meaning to Jude, but he knew an hour or more must have passed by the time he counted at least a dozen people, men and women, who went along that corridor, presumably to the bathroom.

  Each time they were followed.

  Each time the first ones came back but the followers did not.

  Each time those who returned were attentively silent and remained so.

  Jude paced. He pointed at the veil across the attic and when it had parted, marched to the dormer window and looked far down to the street. It was late. If what he saw was happening now, surely it would soon be over.

  “Use your power.” This time it was a clear instruction.

  “Hush. Be calm. What are you afraid of?” he said.

  The gathering in an elegant room became clear once more. The woman had started talking to all the others again, pleading with them. And she pointed to a pile of small black boxes that covered a weathered Dutch table that seemed out of place. A pretty piece, probably from a farm and hand-carved, but incongruous nevertheless.

  He took another look around, checking on those who had left the room and returned. Those he identified continued to add nothing to any conversation.

  The woman filled her arms with the boxes and went into the crowd, smiling as each guest took and opened one. They all seemed pleased. They seemed like a movement bent on a single goal and whatever was in the box had something to do with that.

  Jude used his extra sight to watch a man take a gold pin from one of the boxes and attach it to his lapel. Then he moved even closer and read, “WWW.”

  He frowned. There was much to learn and his little friends behaved as if time was short.

  Another man caught his attention.

  Jude knew a Fortune when he saw one, but he didn’t recognize this one. Ben, of course, he had recently seen with Willow but they were in Kauai, not here. This man looked quite like Ben. Another one too good-looking for his own good. Jude smiled a little. For some reason they had all been endowed with startling looks. Perhaps that had been to ease their way when they needed to enter any group, but it also made them obvious.

  This young member of the Fortune family slid his box into his pocket without donning the pin. He turned in Jude’s direction and, although surely it was an illusion, this one behaved as if a shiver had climbed his spine. He turned on his heel, searching in all directions and when his back was to Jude, the man passed a hand behind his neck as if some sensation disturbed him.

  Liam Fortune. Jude remembered the name. This was the brother of Ben, Ethan and Poppy, the one who was a history teacher.

  The vision began to fade. The purples, golds and greens Jude was so accustomed to seeing as he exited such an experience washed smoothly down, dulling the figures.

  The Ushers were so loud, Jude gave up and said, “Quiet, all of you. Go, and let me think.”

  “No time. No time” came the reply.

  “He doesn’t believe us.”

  The air grew still.

  Jude also stood still, ready for whatever might come next, and something would come.

  A gush of brilliance rose from the floor and before his eyes a ball of brightness shimmered. It revolved slowly while the Ushers made a humming noise.

  “It’s time.”

  Staring, Jude tried to get closer, but the ball moved farther away.

  It had to be an image conjured by the Ushers. It could not be the actual thing, which he had never seen.

  “You must find the real Harmony,” a female voice told him. “Now you need the power it hides, and so will the others. Look carefully and remember what you seek.”

  Jude made a grab, but the ball leaped higher in the air. For an instant he saw the faint tracings he knew were on the real thing. The size of a large grapefruit, there were seven marks circling what made up the Harmony. Seven keyholes. And so far they had only four keys. Inside the Harmony was the Ultimate power designed by the families hundreds of years ago, but it had disappeared a very long time ago.

  This gold orb contained what the wise ones had assembled to intensify their descendants’ gifts, but only if there was no other answer to protecting themselves from destruction.

  “You have made a start,” a husky voice said. “Now, through the others, you must finish. Help them open their eyes. You saw what is happening. Do not delay.”

  He saw what was happening?

  Jude wrapped his cloak tightly about him and walked away toward the shadows. The illusion of the richly glimmering ball hovered but he ignored it. This was a reminder without substance.

  The shadows swallowed him.

  14

  Sykes liked having Poppy in his bed. She felt right beside him.

  While she slept, he followed the paths of his intuition. Premonitions had hovered since he learned Nat was to take over the Sonia Gardner case. Holding Poppy as the early hours passed, he had opened himself to any message that might come. The only answer had been clear, and it prevented him from sleeping. It was not quite time to act but he must be ready.

  He was ready.

  For the rest, his inner sight repeatedly returned to a vision of a wall where it met the ground. An old wall, cracked in places, and at the bottom an insignificant hole. Nothing more. It meant nothing to him.

  He had overstepped his authority by checking on the safety of his family members. Blessedly, each of them was alive and in no immediate danger. Their minds were mostly quiet but in the manner of sleep, not death. Sykes contained a shudder. Pascal was as on edge as he was an
d had probably already performed the same exercise before sleeping himself.

  His father, mother and older sisters, Riley and Alex, in London had showed no particular tension.

  In Kauai, Willow felt excited, but he could think of a good reason for that. He had not compounded his sins by reading any thoughts.

  His muscles twitched from holding still when he wanted, so badly, to move. He needed to know that he had not made any of the mistakes he feared he might have with Poppy.

  He knew using the trance for his own ends in the first place had been pushing it, but he could justify that as protecting her. What he didn’t know was whether she had been as clearly focused as she had appeared when she made love to him—and he made love to her.

  Despite his concerns, he smiled a little. He had been seduced, by a bombshell of a woman who had fascinated him for years. She had seemed off-limits because she was Ben’s sister. But Ben had married Sykes’s sister and that felt absolutely right.

  Poppy rolled toward him and burrowed her face into his neck. She curled her warm, naked body across his and hooked a hand over his shoulder.

  Her breasts were an erotic pressure against his chest. The hair at the apex of her legs rubbed against his hip. Her upper leg settled on his pelvis and he gritted his teeth to keep his mind elsewhere.

  “I want to take a bath,” she said, so clearly he jumped. “With you.”

  Sykes swallowed. “Whatever the lady wants, the lady gets. There’s only one tub in the house and it isn’t that huge.”

  “We’ll make a sandwich,” she said, sounding a little more sleepy again. “We’ll take a double-decker bath.”

  His body sprang to attention. “Stay here, and I’ll run the water.” She might fall asleep again, but there would be other baths—he hoped.

  Gently, he disentangled himself from her and slipped from the bed and into the bathroom where the freestanding tub sat on claw feet. He had searched for just the right one to please him and this was it.

  He pushed the door almost shut to let Poppy rest, and he went over what they had done only an hour or so earlier. Unbelievable. He would never be the same as he had been and never wanted to be. She was entirely his, her every thought and action for him. He was no longer interested in anything else.

  Fleetingly, he thought of his studio and the beautiful piece of marble in which he had yet to find the promised hidden shape. After the upward-pointing hand and loose sleeve had appeared, he had worked with fresh zeal, following what he knew must be an arm. It appeared under his touch, rounded, young. Then a shoulder, a neck and the arch beneath the chin.

  But his concentration had become exhausted and he had to leave the piece and walk around. And before long events had unfolded that kept him from returning to the studio.

  He must get back, and soon.

  The bathroom door slowly swung open and Poppy stood there smiling at him, her black hair tumbling over her shoulders, her smooth, olive skin shining as if polished.

  Her naked body was incredible. He’d like to sculpt her one day.

  “Hi,” Poppy said. She bent over the counter searching for something.

  Beautiful ass, were the words that came to Sykes’s mind. In fact it was perfect.

  “See something you like?” she asked.

  Startled, he met her eyes in the sheet of mirror above the sinks. “Since you want to know—yes. I see something I like very much—you.”

  She picked up a bar of soap, eyed it on all sides and gave it the sniff test. Her wrinkled nose didn’t suggest approval.

  “Where do you keep your new soap?” she asked.

  “Cupboard.” He pointed at double, floor-to-ceiling doors.

  She sauntered over to open them and stood back. Piles of towels faced her. And the promised soaps, together with toothpaste and toothbrushes and cleaning agents.

  Poppy whipped out a couple of large towels and a toothbrush. Then she examined the soaps as if they were volumes in a library. “Hmm,” she said. “I suppose I shouldn’t have hoped for plumeria. Lime it’ll be. We’ll just have to be really fresh.”

  He gave her a sideways look, turned off the water and climbed into the bath. He crossed his hands on his chest, slipped deeper into the water and closed his eyes.

  Her bare feet smacked the white tile floor. Sykes made his eyes remain shut, even though he felt her somewhere close beside him.

  Soft lips settled on the corner of his mouth. She kissed him several times and whispered, “You look cute. I’d say vulnerable if I didn’t know better.”

  His eyes shot open.

  To reach his face while she knelt on the floor, she leaned over, her breasts on top of the bath rim in a fascinating, even paralyzing, manner.

  “I’m glad you wear your hair long,” she said. “It’s sexy.”

  “You should know what’s sexy,” he said, giving up on the pretense that he wasn’t fixated on her rose-colored nipples. “What’s happening to us, Poppy? Forgive the cliché, but this is so sudden.”

  She looked away. “Did we get here completely because of me? You didn’t want us to be together like this?”

  “What do you think?”

  Poppy treated him to a dark look from her velvet eyes. “I think I’m as surprised as you are. I’m not going to lie. I’ve wanted you for a long time, but I didn’t think you were interested. I really did think I’d ruined any chance I might have had with you.”

  “And I never thought you were interested in me at all. Shows how we can sink ourselves by not coming right out and saying what we’re thinking. I guess fear of rejection runs deep, hmm?”

  “To the bone.” She laughed, squeezing her eyes shut, and he could have watched her forever—or at least until he got her into this bathtub.

  “You can’t go around telling people you’ve fallen for them when they don’t seem to know you’re alive,” she said.

  He caught her hand and rubbed it up and down his chest. “I’ve always known you were alive. And for a number of years just looking at you has driven me to various stages of crazy.”

  With her other hand she got the big bar of pale green soap wet and slid it from his neck all the way to the fold between his torso and his thigh.

  Sykes’s knees jackknifed. He howled and grabbed for her hand, but missed.

  Poppy used a single finger to push him back to his former position—not that he didn’t help. The scent of lime blossomed. She lathered his chest and belly, then massaged every inch, working lower until he gritted his teeth.

  He assumed the teeth did it, because she covered his face with soap instead and laughed at the noises he made when he got the stuff in his mouth.

  Once his face was sluiced, he wiped water from his eyes and blinked at her. “I thought we were taking this bath.”

  She put a finger on his lips to silence him and proceeded to wash all the way to his feet. Unfortunately she knew better than to lather up anything too sensitive because the outcome would have been beyond her control.

  Without warning, Poppy hopped into the tub and layered herself on top of him, her back to his front.

  “It’s a good thing I’m a big man,” he said. “Otherwise you’d either drown me or crush my ribs.”

  “You want me to get out again?”

  He snaked his arms around her, held a breast in each hand and murmured in her ear, “Try it. Go on, just try.”

  “What would you do if I did?”

  He tweaked her nipples until she squealed and slid a hand down between her legs. “Incapacitate and take advantage of you.”

  She squirmed. “Like you already are?” Her voice rose and she swung her hips from side to side, grappling with his hand. “You rat. You’re taking advantage. Oh!”

  “Taking advantage? Let me point out whose on the bottom of the tub with a gorgeous woman on top of him, trapping him.”

  He bit her neck.

  He did not stop sliding his fingers firmly over the stiff nub of flesh he’d found so easily. Very quickly, Poppy turn
ed her face into his neck and panted. He felt the tension gradually leave her, and felt the pulsing beneath his hand.

  For a while they lay there in the deep water, almost floating. Sykes let peace take him. He shut out any doubts and absorbed her.

  Until she reached, without warning, to pull his penis up between her legs.

  He didn’t trust himself to say anything. Her well-soaped hands slid up and down his shaft. She popped up to sit on his ribs and leaned to bury him in her cleavage, sweeping her fingers upward along his length. She kissed the very tip, and he couldn’t even hold on to her. He slapped the water, sending it over the bathroom like a tidal wave.

  Clamping her waist was the best way to stop himself from slipping beneath the water altogether.

  “Poppy Fortune, listen to me,” he said, pushing himself closer to a sitting position. “You’re really into this control thing. I think it’s my turn.” Somewhat clumsily, he raised her a few inches in the air and spun her to face him.

  Again she laughed, but not for long. Her expression grew serious and she stared into his face. “Sykes, this doesn’t feel real. Wonderful, but not real. I’m going to hang on to all this until you suddenly regain your senses and send me packing.”

  He swallowed, settling her on his chest. “Not going to happen,” he told her. “Ever.”

  With a hand on the back of her head, he kissed her deeply. There wasn’t a millimeter of his skin that didn’t hum with edgy sensation. Poppy framed his face and concentrated on exploring every possibility a kiss might have.

  She was as soapy as he was now and their bodies slipped together.

  He turned his head to nip her ear, and she used his instant of preoccupation to plant a knee on either side of him. Once more she sat on his stomach, but this time he could see her face, the way her shiny lips parted to show her teeth, her lowered eyelids and the feverish light in her eyes.

  Sykes stroked as much of her as he could reach and she gasped with each fresh touch.