Touch of Danger (Three Worlds)

by Strickland, Carol A.

  It was easy for her to say it. She’d have lovers after him. A sudden bitter taste struck Lon as he thought of those others. He hated them already. She’d forget him.

  Lina shook her head. “No, I don’t see that happening.” She touched his cheek. “We’ve shared minds. I trust you, Lon. I don’t trust anyone else. I don’t think I can touch anyone else.”

  “So this is it for you, too.” He ran his hands over her shoulders, feeling the human reality of her. “We just walk away and forget it afterward?”

  “I’ll never forget it,” she said so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “Never.” She tried to summon a smile. “When I tell Katie about this, she’ll—”

  Lon’s grip on her turned tight and sharp.

  “Katie’s a cat,” Lina said quickly. “She doesn’t speak English. She won’t repeat anything.”

  “Lina.” Lon took her firmly by the shoulders and stared at her with focused intensity as if he could hypnotize her to his will.

  “I won’t tell, Londo. No one. Ever.” She opened up her mind to him so he could see the truth of it. “I will never betray you. Never embarrass you.”

  He cradled her face in his hands, feeling the sincerity, amazed at himself for being able to do so.

  **We’ll need to talk—afterward,** Lina’s mind whispered to him. **To give things closure. Tie up loose ends.**

  **I don’t want this to end!** His lips came down on her mouth roughly. Then he pressed her onto the sand. He crouched over her like a cage, possessing her. She was his forever, no matter what the universe had to say about it!

  Mine, mine, mine! “Tell me you love me,” he ordered.

  He needed this final step; he couldn’t deny it any more. Instead she took hold of his head and raised up to meet his lips. He pushed her back.

  “Tell me,” he insisted. “Tell me.” Gently he shook her. “Say it just once. It won’t kill you. Just say, ‘I love you, Londo.’”

  “It wouldn’t be right,” she insisted. “This is just for a day.”

  “I want more.”

  “You always want more. Love is forever. Please don’t make me.”

  He shook her again, this time a little rougher. “Tell me. Lie if you have to. Please!”

  “Stop it, Lon! We agreed—”

  “You agreed. Not me. Tell me now! They’re just words!”

  Her face hardened as she pushed him away. “You don’t want just the words. Look, we’re taking time away from your precious schedule. How much more time do you have, anyway? An hour? Less?”

  “Damn you anyway!” He jumped up and ran into the forest.

  It was too dark to follow him, so Lina huddled in the moonlight shadows, starting at every strange noise. Terrorists or Londo?

  God, Londo! He was going through hell, and she’d yelled at him! Of course he’d be having mood swings. Of course she shouldn’t expect him to be reasonable. How stupid could she be? How insensitive? And how much time did he have? She’d promised: do it as long as he was still a norm. She always kept her promises.

  It was probably not as long as it seemed before he trudged back into the clearing. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I was wrong.” He came over to her to sink in the sand, his mind a jumble of dejection and misery as he collapsed upon himself. “You hate me.”

  “And here I thought you were trying an excuse to get out of proving your boast,” Lina said as lightly as she could. She knelt next to him. “Whazza matter, can’t get it up?” she whispered into his ear.

  He blinked blankly at her.

  “Finally ran out of steam, didn’t you? I guess some guys have it and some guys just don’t.”

  After the moment of astonishment, his eyes crinkled. “I was giving you a rest,” he claimed.

  “Like hell,” she said. “You were flakking off. Lying down on the job. We aren’t even going to come close to 100—I am so disappointed! What kind of parahero are you, Mr. Londo Rand? Can’t keep to your own schedule. You should be disciplined.” Lina slapped an imaginary whip against the palm of her hand.

  “The kind who doesn’t know who his partner is any more. So you’ve decided to go again?” He sat up but she pushed him back down and held him there.

  “You’re just not as tough as they say you are,” she taunted him.

  “So give me some of that special touch you have, baby.”

  “What you don’t need right now is healing.” Any more revitalizing energy would send his cells back to normalcy. They were only minimally still in shock right now. He was so close... “You don’t have that strong finish you promised me. You’re just a big... a big... honeybear.” She had to grin at him. She couldn’t think of anything nasty. Not for Londo.

  Lon decided he’d liked how the situation had been going. “That’s the last straw,” he told her. “Nobody calls Valiant a honeybear.”

  “Poohbear then.”

  “Worse!”

  “Sweedy teddy bear. With a little pink bow around his neck.”

  “Wrong answer!” He wrestled her so she was the one on the ground now, pinned by his hands on her arms. “Take it back. Say uncle.”

  “James Bond,” Lina sighed with a faraway smile. “Now there was a strong finisher. James always comes through.” She gave a sudden lurch and almost turned the both of them over until Londo bore down on her arms again.

  “In your dreams, baby.”

  “Yeah, in my dreams.”

  “Uh uh. You want me. You can say that much. Say it.” He shook her.

  “Ooo, Luke Skywalker, use that Force again,” Lina cooed. “What a lightsaber.”

  “Mine’s not made out of light, baby. Say you want it. Just that much, say you want me.”

  Lina looked into his eyes and her smile faded into deadly seriousness. “I want you,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t hear anything...” He glanced around innocently before he allowed his gaze to bore into hers. He wanted to hear the veneer of civilization fall away from her as she surrendered herself to lust. Lust just for him; the only man she’d ever know, and by default, the best man she’d ever know. He’d never be compared to others in her eyes, never fall under the shadow of anyone else.

  “I want you.” She said it louder this time. “Londo Falcon Valiant Honeybear Rand, I want you.”

  “Who do you want?” he hissed at her.

  Desire and lust washed her face; her breath surged sharp and hot against him.

  “I want you!”

  “Tell me you love me. Now.” He had her trapped physically and emotionally. She couldn’t get out of this. “Tell me. Tell me!”

  When she turned her face away he realized what he’d been doing. He loosened his grasp but something inside him wouldn’t let go completely. “Please,” he begged. “I—”

  With a lunge, she rose up, shaking him off. She twisted him so he fell flat on his back, and she held his arms down. In the sudden shock of it, Lon laughed and Lina shook him. “You bullying teddy of a bear,” she accused. “Can’t keep to a schedule, can’t follow the rules.”

  He couldn’t get mad at her. She was so funny, always a surprise. And she was right. “That’s no way to talk to an important parahero,” he began as he started to rise up.

  She pushed him back down with a sudden movement. “And now apparently I have to do everything for you. Let’s see how you like it.”

  Now she was the one who got him ready, she the one who used her own mind to go too deep as she rode him until he gasped under her. She laughed.

  “You can take it,” she parroted to him as he’d done to her all day. She leaned over to stroke her mind into him like a piston to reflect her physical actions.

  “Oh, crisse, Lina! God... jeeeeSUS!!”

  “You can take it. You can take it,” she mocked. She changed her rhythm just to keep him off-balance, keep him from coming, and he groaned with the effort of not releasing. He started up the rhythm under her. Sweat dripped from her nose and chin as she tried to close herself off from what he was
feeling, but her own physical sensations were getting to be too much. She couldn’t withhold a whimper.

  And somehow he found the strength to laugh at her. He gave her fanny a light smack and his little finger strayed...

  “Off limits!” Lina swatted at him. That was it! She began a faster, up and down rhythm. Her mind rode a bucking bronco inside his soul.

  He gasped for air, clutching the sand, clutching at her butt, at her shoulders to slow her down. Unable to take his sensations, she blanked her mind to all but the double-loop. She lived only in the physicality of it all. Suddenly Lon arched up and held. He howled wordlessly, twitching, and then fell back to the sand. Lina shuddered and rolled off.

  Lon lay there panting, his eyes closed. He let out an occasional incoherent whoosh of a word. Finally he opened one eye, then the other. “Too...” he tried to speak. “Too much.”

  “You can take it.” Lina grinned, squinting at him triumphantly.

  He shook his head. “Too deep. Much too deep.” He pulled her to him. “God, that was amazing. Don’t ever do that again.”

  She ran her fingers down his forehead, down his nose, until they landed on his mouth. “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. My sweet honeybear.” She laughed softly.

  “Don’t you ever tell that to anybody.” Londo smiled as he closed his eyes, his chest heaving.

  They lay together on their blanket in the moonlit clearing. Those cells were really changing now; the process was going from minute to minute, like circuit breakers switching on, alive with potential but not hooked up to anything yet. They could both sense it although in different ways. She watched the gentle smile on his half-sleeping face.

  “I want the dress,” he said softly.

  “The what?”

  “The nightie. The chemise. I’ll buy you another one just like it, if you want. I’ll buy you a hundred. Just let me have the original.”

  She snuggled against his chest. “What, are you going to fly it from your rooftop? Oh no, make it into a cape? Frame it and hang it over your mantelpiece with the rest of your trophies?”

  “I was thinking about wearing it under the costume,” he said.

  Lina laughed.

  He leaned his head back onto the sand, watching the backlit indigo clouds amble by overhead.

  “I can’t decide if you’re sentimental or perverted, Lon.”

  “Sentimental? I guess I am, about a lot of things. I want something to remind me of you, of being here.”

  “Londo, what—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m living in the here and now.”

  “You’re in denial. You’ve got to talk about it sometime. Afterward. It’s not long now.”

  “I know. I know, I know. I just don’t want to talk about it now.” He raised up, bringing her with him. “C’mon, kitten, let’s go for a swim.”

  Lina sighed in frustration. Denial was not healthy, but she couldn’t refuse him this, not this last time.

  “Thank you, Lina,” he said as they walked toward the pool.

  He was sitting on the side of the pool and she was in the water between his legs, when it happened and they both knew it. Like a switch closing, like his body suddenly able to plug into the potential energy. Suddenly his cells were back online at a significant fraction of his full power. She wasn’t near finished, but he took a breath and then said softly. “That’s it. That’s enough.”

  She paused and went back to what she was doing. Her mind dove deeper, trying to distract him.

  “Um. No, I mean it. Enough.”

  She lifted her head. “I can handle it.” she said.

  He reached down and grabbed her by the waist, easily lifting her out of the water with one hand.

  “Ouch!”

  “See?” It took effort not to hold her like he ordinarily would because they’d become so used to their special mutual touch. Everything teetered off-balance now when he touched her. He could feel himself revving up internally; the power level must be increasing at something close to a geometric rate.

  He set her down beside himself so both their legs dangled in the water. Londo stared ahead at nothing, afraid to think.

  “I can handle it,” Lina repeated urgently. She put her hand on his thigh.

  “No you can’t.” He shook her off—carefully, carefully—then rose and went to gather up his clothes, dragging his feet through the sand.

  She ported her chemise to her so she could put it on as she ran to him, regardless of how damp she was, how sandy it was. “So this is how it ends, Lon? Abrupt—wham, bam, not even a thank you, ma’am? It doesn’t have to be like this. Come on, we said we were going to talk it out. Talk to me.”

  Londo’s mouth set in a grim line. He’d been through something like this scene many times before. So many disappointments, so many embarrassments. This one was the worst of them all, the worst by lightyears, by kiloparsecs! He steeled himself to facing a lifeless life. How many empty years stretched in front of him?

  He picked up a small rock and turned to her. Making a loose fist, he opened his hand again and a pile of dust fell from his palm. “I never made you any promises. We knew it had to end.”

  “You promised never to hurt me. Well, this hurts! And you’re hurting yourself more, and I can’t stand it. You have to stick around a while, face the situation. You can’t just run. You’ve been running all your life, haven’t you?”

  He tucked his torn shirt into his pants, his back to her. It seemed strange that she wasn’t wearing his shirt. He couldn’t look at her. She was a symbol of the happiness he’d never ever have again. “Leave it, Lina. I’m sorry for all this. I’m... sorry.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” she said as he pulled on his boots. To do so he hovered in the air, inches above the ground. “You’ve changed my life around and it’s been all for the good. Stay, Londo,” she pleaded. “I need you to talk to me. Then we can say goodbye.”

  “I can’t take this now. Look, I’ll... I’ll call you. Tomorrow or the day after.”

  “No you won’t. You take off now and I’ll never hear from you again—not even a Christmas card. Stay, Londo. Please.”

  His face was twisted, tortured. “I can’t,” he finally blurted. “Goodbye, Lina. I’ll send someone to get you. It was—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Instead he shrugged on his vest and turned and leaped for takeoff.

  But she jumped on his back.

  In less than a half-second they must have risen five hundred feet in the moonlight, ocean and island stretching out below them. “It’s not that easy, is it?” she hissed to him, ignoring the pressure in her ears. “Not that easy to get rid of me?”

  Pausing in midair, he twisted around. Lina didn’t even think about looking down; she was too intent on him. “You set me down and I’ll just teleport right back. I mean it; I’ll learn how. All the way to Montreal. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll, I’ll stalk you. I can do that now, you know.” Say anything to keep him shocked, keep him from going into that deep depression that was looming in front of him!

  “Lina, be reasonable.”

  “Goddammit to hell, Lon, you have to talk this out! It’ll eat you away—kill you the way nothing else can. Talk to me. I’m a good listener. I’ll never say anything, never do anything to embarrass you.”

  He shook his head, suspended there in mid-air with her on his back. He couldn’t speak.

  “Trust me, Londo,” she whispered. “I’m a priest.”

  He broke out in a laugh that was half-sob. “Lina, what am I going to do with you?” He settled her back on the ground. She released her hold on him just as he collapsed in a heap, covering his head with this hands. “God. God! Lina, what am I going to do?”

  He wept. She knelt and put her arms around him, letting him cry himself out. She ported in a box of tissues from home, and he laughed miserably when he saw it, but used it.

  “It’s all right. I won’t tell,” she assured him whenever she sensed that he was getting embarrassed about crying
in front of her. She made occasional passes with her hands around him that he didn’t notice, funneling the grief away from him down into the earth, which accepted it peacefully. She tapped the etheric level of his heart chakra to shake out some heartache that had lodged there. She clawed a dark patch of congealed loss out of his liver, though she didn’t physically touch him. All part of being a psychic healer, a counselor. She could help people even when they couldn’t help themselves.

  Thank you, Lord, for the ability, she said silently. Of all her clients, this man here, Londo Rand, was the most important. She just had to find a way to help him. Angels, help her! Where to begin?

  Thank God too that Lon was the one crying. Lina felt as if life itself had been wrung out of her. She teetered on the brink of a crying jag herself. As soon as Londo truly did leave... She shook her head, trying to rid herself of that thought. As soon as she was home safe, she’d... No, she’d have to go out for groceries, cat food at the very least. Check to see if there were any bills in her mailbox and pay them. Call in to work to explain that she needed to take some sick time.

  And then she’d allow herself to cry for days. Weeks. As long as it took. She’d violated her own rules this time. She’d allowed her heart to be touched, and she had a glimpse now of how badly she’d pay for making such a monumental mistake. It was going to be the worst nightmare of her life—but it wasn’t here yet.

  For now while he was still with her she had to stay calm for Londo’s sake. There was nothing so important as helping him.

  He started coming out of it after maybe ten minutes—very embarrassed. He started to say something and sniffed loudly.

  “You got rid of a lot of stuff you were carrying around with you.” Lina said with authority. She had to guide him through this.

  Londo wiped his eyes. “I haven’t done that since... Well, since ever.”

  “Maybe you should have. Ah well, there’s no shoulda, coulda, woulda. Just do or do not.”

  “Yoda.” He tried a smile. It came out watery.

  “And others,” she admitted. “You’ve got a lot of abandonment issues, Londo Rand. They control your life.”

  “Yeah, I’ve had a million shrinks tell me that.” He combed his hair back with his fingers, but didn’t take his hands away from covering his head. Hiding from her.