Out of Sight

by Stella Cameron

  Cupping her bottom, he pushed her up and over him until her breasts were above his face. Poppy braced herself on her hands, lowered herself slowly to receive his kisses.

  Sykes could not have separated his own sighs from hers.

  “I can’t wait any longer,” Poppy said. She pressed the middle of his chest and knelt up. She wriggled backward until she was poised over him.

  “Neither can I.”

  He clamped her to him, found his place inside her, and couldn’t tell the order of things, or when reason fled altogether.

  When they were finally still, Sykes supported himself on his elbows or he was sure he would have drowned her.

  She sighed and let her eyes close. “We’re animals,” she said.

  “True.”

  “I don’t know if I’m burning up or freezing.”

  “Probably both,” he said helpfully. “We’ve got about an inch of water left in this tub.”

  Her arm snaked around his neck and she kissed him, yet again. “That means the rest of it is on the floor.”

  “Uh-huh. The floor will be really clean.”

  “And slippery,” she commented.

  He sensed her growing sleepy.

  “We are going very carefully to bed,” he said. “In fact, I’m going to do a little trial.”

  That got her attention. “What?”

  The towel he grabbed and dropped on the floor squelched around his foot as he climbed from the tub. “Up, sweetheart,” he said, helping her until they clung together, eyeing the thin sheet of water that surrounded them.

  Sykes calculated the best and the worst result of what he planned. “Either way, no one dies,” he said.

  “Sykes!”

  He made sure she couldn’t see by clamping her face to his chest. For the rest, he did what came naturally, choosing the easier course, complete invisibility rather than the illusion of himself he sometimes created, and shifted to the carpet in the bedroom.

  When he knew he had taken Poppy with him, he almost yelled with triumph. Ben wouldn’t think much of a clumsy effort that only involved a few feet, but it was a first for Sykes. But then, he had never seen the need to move anyone but himself before and in that, Ben could eat his dust.

  Poppy wasn’t moving.

  “Hey, tiger,” he said, moving her face so that he could see her.

  “I didn’t notice,” she said, and he didn’t think she was talking about a fast trip to the bedroom. “It’s all wrong.”

  15

  “I don’t know how I missed it,” Poppy said. “I wasn’t looking for it, I suppose.”

  The staccato beat of rain on the window snapped her back to the present moment, to Sykes and herself, arms entwined and naked.

  “We’re in the bedroom,” she said. “You moved us, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” He looked…relieved? Pleased with himself?

  “Ben does that stuff. I didn’t think you did.”

  “I haven’t before. But there was never anyone I wanted to fly with before. Kept you from landing on your…rear, didn’t I?”

  She frowned at him. He didn’t sound at all like himself. “We’ve got work to do. Or I do. Can I borrow a shirt?”

  “Aw—do you have to?”

  “Yes, I do,” she told him firmly. “And you need pants, if I’m going to concentrate.”

  He glanced back into the bathroom, awash with soapy water.

  “We’ll clean that up later,” she told him. “This is really important.”

  The grumbling sound he made only caused Poppy to giggle. “I don’t feel sorry for you.”

  “Well, you should. You’re messing with some really good loving time, lady.”

  “I think I’ve just discovered something that’ll be invaluable to us.”

  “Like what?” He took out a white shirt and tossed it to her.

  Poppy located her thong, put it on and slipped into the huge shirt. Once it was buttoned and the sleeves rolled back five or six times, the thing was still way too big, but at least she could use her hands—and keep his eyes off her breasts for long enough to get some concentration out of him.

  The shorts Sykes donned did nothing to deaden the imagination.

  He peered through the slatted blinds over the window. “It’s raining hard now. I can see steam coming off the roofs. We’ve got some hours of darkness left before we can get going.”

  “Going where?”

  He looked at her. “I have some family stuff to deal with. As soon as I get the go-ahead, I’ll explain.”

  Which meant he was the one with a time limit and the we had been a slip of the tongue.

  “It was the brain patterns,” she said, too aware of how good it would be to curl up with him in the bed. “I just realized something was different. In the four superalphas I saw at Ward’s campaign kickoff.”

  Beard shadow already darkened Sykes’s jaw. In the glow that seeped into the bedroom from the bathroom, he was a tall, lithe series of shadows. She shuddered, but not with fear.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. He climbed on top of the mattress to sit cross-legged and patted a space in front of him for Poppy. “Come and explain.”

  She joined him, wrapping the tail of her borrowed shirt around her shins. “I told you I see brain clusters.”

  “Yeah, and auras.”

  “The clusters or patterns fall into specific categories. There are some crossovers, but I know those, too. And depending on the way the patterns behave, I get an indication of what motivates the subject.”

  Sykes’s eyes had narrowed. She had his full attention.

  “At Ward’s I saw something I never expected to see, not ever—four superalpha brain clusters in one room. That’s four subjects with the most evolved brains that have been typed so far.”

  His chest expanded with his next breath. “And you could see—or figure out—what motivates each of them?”

  Her heart beat harder. “That’s the kicker. I see everything—love, hate, avarice, fear—those are all common. But all four of these people had the exact same pattern and the same emotional trigger.”

  “Hold my hand,” he told her. “And calm down. You aren’t on your own with this.”

  “There are always some things we’re alone with, Sykes. You know that.”

  Their hands felt welded together.

  “So what did these four want?”

  “Revenge and power.”

  His grip tightened. “Could you tell if it was all for the same reason?”

  “It was,” she said without hesitation. “Fear. The room hummed with all the stimulation in it. The brain clusters for superalphas are a chartreuse circle pulsing in the middle of tightly packed clumps of violet spheres no bigger than fine dots. But there was something else and it only just came to me. I don’t even know why it has now. Something different is happening to me.”

  He kissed her hand, but didn’t answer.

  “You said you wanted to work with me to try to stop the Embran. Do you still mean that? I don’t think I want to do this alone after all.”

  “You won’t get rid of me, Poppy. Even if you want to. I don’t trust you.” He laughed.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I don’t want to have to rescue you when you get into trouble with something out of your league.”

  “I—” He was trying to goad her and she wouldn’t let him. “Concentrate on what I’m going to tell you. Of course, it’ll be a piece of cake for you to understand, but listen anyway.”

  Goose bumps shooting up her spine surprised her. She wasn’t cold or scared. A careful look into Sykes’s shadowed blue eyes didn’t show anything particularly unusual.

  He was guarded.

  Well, hoo mama, there was something going on here.

  “Poppy?”

  “Yes. Those four superalphas I recognized…there was a solid, darker green line around the chartreuse. I don’t think I noticed it at the time, but just now, thinking about what they l
ooked like and what it meant, I did see them. That’s not normal.”

  He waited for her to go on.

  “They were mutations.”

  “You’ll have to explain where you’re going with this,” Sykes said.

  “I’ve never seen them before.”

  He leaned closer. “I think you already said that, more or less.”

  “No—” she had to think about this some more “—I’m not ready to make a determination about them.”

  “You’ve already made it,” he said, his voice dark and silky. It was more of a demand than a statement.

  She raised her eyes, effortlessly re-creating what she had seen at Ward’s. “I don’t think they were human,” she said quietly.

  Absolute silence fell between them. He massaged her fingers, but she doubted if he knew what he was doing. The pressure increased, but she didn’t complain.

  “Ward.” The name burst from her. Agitation scrambled her senses. “I was going to Ward’s. He’d been at the police station with Nat and they let him go home. I said I’d go and keep him company for a while.”

  The grip was so tight now she couldn’t have pulled away if she had wanted to.

  “Do you love Ward Bienville?” Sykes asked.

  That made her angry. “How dare you ask that. Do you think we would have had sex if I loved someone else?”

  He shook his head.

  Impressions came and went—the black railings outside the Police District house. They had come from Fortunes before that, hadn’t they? “Nat was at Fortunes,” she said. “With Wazoo. He couldn’t have been questioning Ward at the same time.”

  “It wasn’t his case…. Other officers were with Ward.”

  “Oh, my gosh. I’m losing my mind. I spoke to Ward and said I’d go to St. Louis Street.”

  “Yes, but it wouldn’t have made much difference because they took him back in for more questioning. As far as I know he’s still there. It is Nat’s case now.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Nat called when we were on our way here.”

  She couldn’t concentrate. “But…”

  “Poppy, listen to me. I caught up with you at the police station. You talked to Ward on the phone and said you were going over there. I hypnotized you to stop you from going because we don’t know whether or not the man’s a murderer and—”

  “Hypnotized me? Sykes, that’s awful. That’s like, like, kidnapping.”

  “I wasn’t prepared to risk your safety. Do what you like about it. Report me to someone.”

  “Like the police?” She didn’t like him making fun of her, not now. “You did something really wrong. Of course I can’t go to the police but it was still wrong.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t remember coming here.”

  “You were still in a trance.” He sounded miserable. “I had to get you away somewhere private until you came out of it.”

  A lot of other memories, most of them a great deal clearer, poured back for Poppy. “When exactly did I come out of the trance? Can you explain what we were doing, where we were and why you didn’t tell me right off what you’d done?”

  With his fingers, he rubbed up and down on his forehead.

  “Sykes?”

  “This is more awful than you think it is. Do you remember us making love?”

  “Of course I do. Don’t be ridiculous. There’s still water all over the bathroom.”

  He groaned.

  “What’s the matter with you? Having regrets? You ran the bath and we made love.”

  His groan was more agonized this time.

  “What? Tell me what’s wrong—other than the obvious.”

  “You think I put you in a trance and took advantage of you.”

  Poppy thought about that. “I’m not sure. I liked making love with you—a lot.”

  “You said you wanted to,” Sykes told her. “You, you—it was fabulous, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. You’re amazing.”

  She shrank inside. “You’re pretty amazing yourself.” But there was something she was missing here.

  “Thank you. You liked being in control. Boy, I liked you being in control. I thought we’d kill ourselves falling off that table.”

  Cold didn’t come close to describing the state of her skin, before it started to boil. “Which table would that be, Sykes?”

  “Oh, hellfire. The one in the living room with the marble top we made love on.”

  “And that was my idea?”

  “How do I know anymore,” he said, his voice rising. “I’m dying here. I was afraid you weren’t fully out of the trance but you kept insisting you wanted exactly what we did.”

  “What else did we do…exactly?”

  He blew up his cheeks. “Oh, this and that. It’ll come to you.”

  “Jog my memory.”

  “Poppy!”

  “Do it.”

  He brought his hands down on her shoulders and held on. “You liked it, honestly. More than liked it. It was your idea.” His mouth snapped shut.

  “Yeah. Did you like it?”

  “Oh, lordy, I never liked anything more than everything we did. When you took me out of my pants and made me come, I thought I’d passed into another world.”

  Very faintly she got a memory. She tasted him.

  “You made me stand in front of you while—”

  “Stop!” Poppy shook her head, no. “Okay, I get the picture.”

  “And then we changed places and—”

  “If you say another word, I’ll—”

  “Not another word,” Sykes said. “But you were wonderful.”

  “Sykes.”

  “Honestly, if you think about it, if the trance was hanging around you were only doing what came to you naturally. It was what you would have done if you weren’t inhibited by—”

  “Sykes, I warn you.”

  “Not another word. I’m sorry. I thought—at least, I hoped everything was your conscious idea. When you first showed me your breasts I thought—”

  Poppy scrambled past him, shot inside the bed and pulled the sheet over her head.

  16

  I’ve got to talk to you. Pascal’s voice came to Sykes as strongly as if the other man were in the same room.

  Lying on his back, Sykes had been listening to the relentless rain on the bedroom window but he leaned to see Poppy’s face. Her eyes were closed and he hoped she really was sleeping. I know I left at a difficult time. It couldn’t be helped, he told Pascal. My fault but we can’t go into that now.

  You mean you’d rather avoid the topic of illegal use of hypnosis?

  Sykes ground his teeth. Hardly illegal, Pascal.

  As you say, we’ll go into that and other bent rules later. The boy is here, sleeping in my guest bedroom. He’s exhausted. I couldn’t push him too far when he seems sick or something.

  Sykes foresaw considerable problems over his unwise practice of hypnosis. He is probably scared. Had to have taken everything he had to show up on your doorstep like that. At least Pascal had the skills to repel any straightforward human attack. Sykes pulled his lips back from his teeth. He really should not have left Pascal—and Marley—alone with a boy who walked in off the street.

  Did Gray come for Marley?

  Yes. And they both stayed until the boy was in bed and asleep. Or at least in the room with the door shut. We have nothing to fear from him.

  Unless he’s some sort of renegade extreme talent.

  You believe he is who he says he is, Sykes?

  Damn, that’s what this early morning mind chatter was about—Pascal was panicked and Sykes didn’t blame him. You’re the one to answer that question. He eased off the bed, grabbed a pair of jeans in passing and carefully left the room.

  This is damned embarrassing. Anthony thinks it’s cute. Cute, mind you. He’s talking about what good parents we’ll make for a troubled kid because we’re not judgmental. Says the Goth shows how sensitive the boy is.

>   Sykes was glad that, unlike himself, Pascal couldn’t summon up an image of a psychic he contacted long distance. If he could, he would not appreciate Sykes’s grin. In fact, without Sykes’s help, his uncle could not track other psychics who were out of his range. They had set up an emergency channel for Pascal to make contact with Sykes, and Pascal was using that now. Fair enough, Sykes decided.

  What are you thinking? Pascal said.

  Sykes crept downstairs. That Anthony’s a nice guy. He has to be to put up with you.

  He is more than nice, Pascal said. He didn’t sound amused. If the boy is what—who—he says he is, what am I supposed to do about it?

  Sykes grinned again. So you admit this David could be your son?

  Pascal’s silence lasted so long that Sykes had time to hop into his jeans and make it to the studio where he turned on the lights and shut himself in. What, he wondered, would Pascal think of the inscrutable piece of marble?

  We have all gone through our wild younger days, Pascal said at last. I just don’t remember anything that wild.

  Being with a woman, you mean?

  All these things are a matter of perspective, young man. This was Pascal at his haughty best once more.

  Not all things, Uncle, but many. Where were you when David was, er?

  Another heavy and angry gap in conversation began.

  He’s eighteen? Sykes said. If Pascal wanted help with this he would have to be open.

  I don’t want to discuss this, Pascal snapped. What I want from you is an agreement to take over as head of the family. That way I don’t have to worry about some young punk showing up and saying he has a claim to what belongs to the rest of you.

  It sounded to me as if the only claim he’s making is to you. It’s not uncommon for a young person—or anyone, in fact—to want to find a parent.

  He imagined Pascal’s shudder and was tempted to take a look at him, but decency prevailed. They did subscribe to the rules of decent privacy supposedly found in the Book of the Way.

  Please, Sykes. I haven’t asked you for many things but this is for the entire family. Please say you will shoulder the burden with me while I work out a way to pass the mantle entirely to you.

  I don’t want the entire bloody mantle. Sykes puffed hair out of his eyes.