A Deep and Dark December

  “You said you can feel your dad and aunt in your head and purposefully block them. Is it possible for someone with another kind of ability to know when you’re using your ability on them?”

  “If they can, they’ve never told me.”

  “Would they tell you though? I would think that would give them an advantage they’d want to keep to themselves.”

  “How very cynical,” she accused. “Is that what you would do with your own family?”

  “Probably not, but with anyone else—”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Most anyone else. Look, I’m just trying to work through how whoever’s manipulating your family’s abilities is able to target each of your specific talents. And how they seem to know about your secret ability.”

  He exited the freeway and turned onto the two-lane highway that led to the center of San Rey. Lightning flashed, illuminating Erin’s face for the briefest moment. Even with the frown creasing her brow, she was so lovely, his next breath stalled in his chest and he had to force his focus back to the road ahead.

  “I don’t know,” she finally answered. “I just don’t know.”

  He reached for her hand and found it clenched in her lap. She resisted at first, then relaxed, slipping her fingers into his.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, offering useless words instead of pulling the car over and clutching her against him, as he really wanted to do. “I know none of this is easy.”

  “That’s my life…not easy.”

  Her laugh, full of worry and fear, fisted his gut. He held onto her tighter and pressed a little harder on the accelerator. They came over a rise and the lights of San Rey sparkled in the distance as the first raindrops hit the windshield.

  “How long have Mabel and your father been seeing each other?” he asked to shake loose the mood that had settled over them like the storm clouds outside.

  Her laugh was real this time. “Close to ten years. They think no one suspects.”

  “Seemed obvious to me.”

  “My aunt and I have known for years, but pretend we don’t. I think they like the illicitness of their off and on affair.”

  “Wasn’t she still married to Calvin Hobbs up until a couple of years ago?”

  “She married Calvin when she and my dad were in an off phase,” Erin said. “She does that when she gets mad and frustrated because my dad won’t marry her. Breaks up with him, marries someone else, gets a divorce and then takes up with my dad again.”

  “Why won’t your dad marry her?”

  “He’s still waiting for my mom to come back,” she answered quietly.

  “Do you think she’ll come back?” he asked, just as quietly.

  “No. Never.”

  “You’ve seen it.” He didn’t have to ask, he just knew. “But you haven’t told your dad.”

  “No. We don’t talk about her.”

  “I’m surprised he’s never asked.”

  “He had his chance to make her stay and he didn’t.”

  “By using his power, you mean? How would that work? He puts the thought in her head that she should stay with him and then what?”

  “Why not? What good are our abilities if we don’t use them?”

  “What kind of victory would that have been?”

  “Victory?” She tried to tug her hand free, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “You know what I mean. He would always know that she stayed because he forced her to, not because she wanted to be with him.”

  “And what about me?”

  Her question threw him. He suddenly had an image of Erin as a child, growing up with rumors and pitiful glances instead of her mother. Maybe. Maybe if he were in Donald’s place he’d have used his ability to spare his child. Everything in him immediately argued against that thought. He’d just as soon wait out the rest of his life, as Donald had, for a wife who was never coming back than live with the artificiality of a forced relationship. He’d always know, in every look, every show of affection that none of it was real. And it would shame him.

  “Maybe if he’d made her stay she might’ve gotten past…things,” Erin said. “And I wouldn’t have had to grow up without her.”

  “It’s no different than using your visions of the future to alter it. Just because you have an ability doesn’t mean you should use it every chance you get.”

  “You sound like my aunt.”

  “Cerie’s a very smart, very scary woman.”

  “Are you saying that if you had an ability you’d never use it?”

  He hitched a shoulder. “Depends on the ability.”

  “What if you could move objects with your mind and you saw that a little girl was about to be hit by a car. Would you use your ability to save her? Or would you stand there and watch her die?”

  “I…”

  “It’s not so easy, is it?”

  “Change one thing and you could change everything.”

  “The Butterfly Effect. I know. I live with it. It’s like if I’d done something about seeing Greg dead. Stopped it somehow. I would have altered everything that came after. Like this moment, this conversation. None of it would have happened. To be honest, sometimes I don’t think changing things would be such a bad idea.”

  “Have you ever?”

  “Changed things? I tried once. With my mother. It obviously didn’t work out. Now the fear is too deeply ingrained. In that way, Aunt Cerie did a phenomenal job raising me.”

  “I’d say she did a phenomenal job all the way around.”

  He pulled up to the police station, cut the engine, and turned toward her. He could just make out her features in the dim streetlight. Lightning flared, illuminating them both for the barest of seconds. Thunder rumbled low as he reached for her. She met him halfway and he was finally, finally kissing her. Being with her, kissing her pushed everything else away. It was only them. Him and her and nothing else.

  “I lied earlier,” he said, breaking the kiss to trail his lips along her jaw line.

  “Hmm?”

  “I lied. I would’ve saved that girl from the car. Or at least tried.”

  “I know.”

  It was such a relief to hear her say that, to know she believed in him. Maybe he wasn’t so lost after all if she could find him amongst all the horror of what they were up against. He recaptured her mouth, pouring every grateful thing he felt with her into one kiss, one long, slow caress. She clutched at him, matching his urgency with hers.

  His thoughts scattered, spiraling into a single need, sharp enough to slice him in two. He struggled to remember where they were. Struggled to right his world and put her, this kiss, and everything else into some kind of perspective. But when they broke apart and he looked into her eyes, he saw everything he was reflected back at him. She’d scrubbed him clean of his past and presented him back shiny and new and worthwhile. He wanted to be all of that for her. All of that and more.

  “Erin,” he begged.

  “Ssh.”

  “I don’t think I can do this.” He wasn’t the man she thought he was. She didn’t know the shit he carried around and how much of that would get piled onto her. He couldn’t do that to her.

  She put a hand on his cheek and leaned in close. “I know.”

  They left his car in front of the police station and walked up the hill in the rain to Erin’s house. Standing at her door, dripping, Erin struggled to fit the key in the lock. She shook, not from the chill, but with a craving that ran so deep, it scared her more than anything. If Graham were going to reject her, she’d just as soon he did it right here on the porch. Once they crossed the threshold she couldn’t be responsible for what she might do. Desperate as she was, she wasn’t above begging and that, well, that would be the end of whatever they had going here and the last of her self-respect.

  He fit his hand over hers and guided the key into the lock for her. She turned it and hesitated, biting the inside of her cheek. He put a hand on her shoulder, twisting her around to face him. The last s
hreds of her control slipped away under the heaviness of his stare. She saw the same mixture of longing, nerves, need, and unworthiness she felt.

  She fisted the front of his shirt and pulled him through the door with her. She didn’t stop pulling him until they were in her bedroom. There, they squared off. And then he slowly reached back and closed the door behind him. In the darkness she could feel him, burning in the space between them. She didn’t know who moved first, but suddenly they were on each other, kissing, touching, yanking at clothing, each other’s and their own.

  His shirt hit the floor with a wet smack. He’d gotten soaked, having left his coat with her father. That thought did more to excite her than the magic he was doing with his fingers and mouth. And oh, what magic it was. Her blouse and bra vanished, replaced with his hands. He bit her earlobe and she let out a loud moan, her knees dipping. His chuckle was low and wicked as he bit her again.

  “God, Graham.”

  “Yes, Erin?”

  “You’re wearing too many clothes,” she panted, reaching for the button of his pants.

  “So are you,” he said, shoving her jeans down her hips.

  He cupped her backside, bringing her up against him. She could feel the hardness of him and renewed her efforts to free him. The wet denim wouldn’t budge. She made a frustrated noise, which seemed to amuse him as he took over the job, slipping out of the rest of his clothes faster than she could have wished them away.

  The first feel of him skin on skin nearly pushed her over the edge. He groaned and pulled her closer, pressing against her belly. She ran her hands over him, learning the lines of his body. The hardness here, the fleshy tautness there. She skated her fingers across a puckered ridge on his side. The anomaly drew her back to it, but before she could explore it further, he captured her hand and brought it to his chest. He turned them, moving them toward the bed. She tripped, her feet tangled in her wet jeans. They fell together in an ungraceful heap on the floor. She landed on top of him, hitting her forehead on his teeth.

  “Ow!”

  “Damn it!”

  “Are you okay?” they asked in unison.

  She buried her face in his chest and laughed. His chuckle reverberated against her cheek.

  “That wasn’t the seduction I had planned,” he said after a few moments, humor in his tone.

  “You planned to seduce me?”

  “Planned. Fantasized. Daydreamed. Night dreamed. Thought about it every moment of every day.”

  “Seriously?” Seriously?

  “I’m a guy.”

  She adjusted her position, purposefully rubbing against him to tease. “I noticed.”

  With a growl, he rolled them. “Hmm, what else have you noticed?” he asked, brushing the hair back from her face and smoothing a thumb over her forehead where she’d injured herself. He kissed it.

  “I’ve noticed that your beard is softer than it looks.”

  To prove it, he glided his chin back and forth across the top of her breast. “What else?”

  “You feel good. All over.”

  He ran a hand over her shoulder, down her arm, brushing across one breast, dipping in at her waist and around her hip, sliding down her thigh then up between her legs. “So do you,” he murmured. “So soft. And wet.”

  “Also,” she gasped, widening her legs for him. “I noticed… uh… oohhh… yes… there… oohhh… yeesss…the f-floor.”

  “The floor?” he mumbled around her nipple.

  She reached down and cupped him. His breath quickened, blowing hot on her skin. She stroked him once, twice…

  “It’s hard,” she rasped.

  “Mmm.” It seemed to take him a moment to get her meaning, then his head came up and he released her nipple with a pop. “The floor, you mean.”

  “That too.”

  He leveraged himself off her and pulled her upright by the hand. She tried to stand, but was hampered by her pants around her ankles. They both worked to get her free, finally realizing that she was still wearing her shoes. He tugged too hard, scooting her bare backside across the carpet. She yelped at the burn and he dropped her foot free of the shoe, which came down in his lap. He curled up, half laughing, half grunting in pain. Out of her clothes at last, she moved to try to help him.

  “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, but a kiss would make it better.”

  “Is this part of your seduction plan?” she chuckled. “Because I have to tell you, your skills could use some work.”

  “Is that a challenge?”

  “Only if we move to the bed.”

  “Race you there.”

  They scampered up off the floor and dove for the bed, collapsing into the pile of pillows she had stacked up. Graham pulled at pillows, tossing them aside, until he found her laughing up at him. He looked down at her with a naughty grin that made every part of her keenly aware of him, especially her too long neglected parts.

  He bent his head and kissed her, gently, as though this alone was all he wanted. She shifted beneath him, accustoming herself to his weight and the way they fit together. Sliding his hands into her hair, he deepened the kiss. Her body became heavy, languid in the first flush of desire. She shifted again and he settled between her legs, right where she most wanted him. Groaning, he ground against her. She brought her knees up and slid her feet up his legs, locking him to her.

  Rocking her pelvis, she brought him right to her entrance. All he had to do was push into her. He was right there. So close. He pulled back, moving away from her. She made a noise of disappointment and followed him, using her feet to bring him back to her.

  “God, Erin… I can’t… I’m—”

  She reached for him between their bodies. He gripped both of her hands suddenly and pinned them above her head.

  “Stop doing that. I can’t take—” His words ended in an incomprehensible grumble as she once again pressed her pelvis up, bringing him against her once more.

  She thought she’d die without the feel of him inside her. She wanted him now, hard and fast. No gentleness, nothing slow or deliberate. She wanted a mindless coupling, a crude fucking. There’d be time for finesse later when the need wasn’t so sharp. As if hearing her thoughts, he held her hands in one hand and slipped one, then two fingers inside of her, testing.

  “Do it,” she commanded. “Do it now.”

  “Stop it or I won’t last two seconds.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “That’s what you say now,” he murmured in her ear, stroking her. “I want you screaming as I pound into you. Over and over.” He quickened the pace as she writhed against his hand. “Harder and harder. I want you to yell my name when you come.”

  Her breath came in short pants. She was so close. He nipped her earlobe, then sucked on it. But she held back. She wanted him with her. He held her hands tight and whispered naughty things in her ear, all the things he’d do to her. She struggled against his hold. Even though she could, she didn’t break it. Her resistance brought her body in constant contact with his. Her whole body was on fire, burning to join with his. He coaxed her on. The filthy things he promised drove her mad as erotic images played one after the other behind her closed eyelids.

  Her loud gasps filled the room, nearly drowning out his words as he drove her wild with his dirty mouth and skilled hand. On the threshold of orgasm, she sucked in a stunned breath as he suddenly replaced his hand with his cock, pushing hard into her. Gripping the sheets, she came long and loud, shouting his name. He rocked into her once, twice and then he too reached his climax, muffling his groan in her neck.

  His breath puffed against her heated skin, scattering goose bumps. She’d wanted mindless. What she’d gotten was earth altering and embarrassing. She squeezed her eyes shut, reliving the way she’d wantonly begged him to screw her, then got increasingly hotter at the dirty, almost disgusting suggestions he’d whispered in her ear. Is that what he thought of her? Did he think she wanted him to do all of those things to her? Her ch
eeks heated as she remembered the particular scenario he’d been filling her head with when she came.

  She tried to disentangle herself from him, but he was still inside her. At her movement he stirred, sliding deeper into her until he hit her most sensitive spot. He pulled out, then in again, still hard within her. She attempted once more to get out from under him, but he gathered her to him.

  “We did it your way, Babe,” he whispered. “Now we’ll do it mine.”

  He stroked into her, nearly all the way out, then deep. His movements were languid and deliberate as though he were learning her from the inside out. Her body reacted, flushing hot. Pleasure rippled through her. She ran her hands over his sweat-slickened body, down his back, clutching his bottom as he seated himself deep. The play of muscles beneath her hand thrilled her so much she moved to grip both cheeks as he plunged into her once more.

  ~*~

  Smoothing her hair back, Graham kissed her as he’d intended to from the start, taking his time. But the tension was already building, pushing at him to plunge hard and fast into her. Sweet Jesus, the sounds she made. She wasn’t quiet in her pleasure. He was quickly learning which touches brought her to the edge. How his mouth could make her squirm and the surprisingly naughty side of her that had shocked them both. He liked it all. He’d barely made it into her before it was all over for him. He’d take his time this go around and wouldn’t let her push him.

  But even as he made the vow, she gripped his ass, her nails sinking into his flesh. Her cries urged him on, yanking on the leash of his control. Everything she did, every sound, every movement was maddening. He could have her a thousand times and never experience all the ways in which she could drive him wild. He picked up the pace, sweating with the effort to last longer this time. Bending his head, he sucked her nipple. She rocked into him, meeting his thrusts. But she held back.

  He hit into her harder, faster. Her screams filled the room and yet she held out. He hooked an arm through her leg, then the other, pushing her into the bed. He’d meant to go slow, but she’d challenged him. Her pleasure was a goal he chased now with a single-minded determination that blotted everything else out, including his own impending orgasm. He fused his mouth to hers, muting her cries. Their panting and the hard slap of flesh on flesh filled the silence.