“I fell out of a tree when I was seven years old, and you can touch me anywhere at any time.”
“I don’t think I like you being in my mind,” she said, frowning at him. “It makes me feel”—
“Vulnerable,” he finished for her. “I’m in the same boat, Sarah. Everything I think, everything I feel, is open to you. My natural inclination is to pull away from you, to hide from you.”
“So why don’t you?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Yes,” she murmured as she reached up to touch his scar. “You want to defeat the talisman and . . .”
“And?” he encouraged, catching her hand as she began to pull it away. He brought her palm to his lips and pressed a kiss against it. Then he laved his tongue across it.
Shivers of excitement shot through her, and she suddenly had trouble breathing. “And you want me to . . . make love to you,” she answered hoarsely, as he kissed her palm again. “You’re confusing me, Sebastian.”
“I’m arousing you,” he corrected. “Or, rather, the thought of your making love to me is arousing you. It’s having the same effect on me. Can you feel what’s happening to my body, Sarah?”
“Oh, God, yes,” she gasped, closing her eyes as his lust suddenly inundated her. It pulsed heavily through his veins, gathering in his groin until he was hard and quivering in anticipation of burying himself inside her. Her own womb contracted in need, and heat shot down her inner thighs.
“Touch me, Sarah.”
Her eyes flew open at his gruff request. His eyes had taken on that spooky, internal light, but this time it didn’t frighten her. By melding with his mind, she realized that it was a physical quirk of his race. Extreme emotion, ranging from anger to lust and anything in between, created the glow.
And right now they glowed from the lust he felt for her.
Again, her womb contracted from the sensation of feeling what he was feeling, the intimate knowledge of understanding what she was doing to him. Could anything be more arousing? She was bound and determined to find out.
“Touch you where?” she asked, although she knew exactly where he wanted her to stroke him.
“Anywhere. Everywhere,” he replied, surprising her. “Draw out the anticipation. Tease me. Taunt me. Torment me. Make me want you in a way I’ve never wanted anyone.”
Sarah drew in a shallow breath at his suggestive words. Could she do that to him? Could she make him want her that badly?
“Believe me, Sarah, you can do it,” he rasped.
His reassurance gave her courage, but she wasn’t sure how to proceed. They still knelt in front of each other, and she raised her hands to his face. Gently, she traced his strong, rugged features, reveling in the different textures of his taut skin and his stubbled jaw.
When she reached his mouth, she outlined his lips with her fingertips, and she trembled at the passion that swept over him. She could feel his need to draw her fingers into his mouth and suck on them. She could read his thoughts of how he’d then release her fingers and transfer his lips to her breasts. She lost her ability to think, to breathe as he envisioned himself drawing her nipple into his mouth, licking it and sucking it until it was pebble hard. And then he’d move to her other breast. After he’d treated it to the same pleasure, he’d trail his lips down her body until he reached her mound. He’d taste and tease her clitoris, while plucking at her sensitive nipples, until she writhed beneath him with need.
As his imaginings of how he’d touch her and taste her sent a new wave of desire rushing toward his groin, she gasped and closed her eyes. He’d been hard before his fantasy, but now his penis was so engorged that he felt as if he’d explode. His need fueled her desire, making her entire body burn and ache with lust. She wanted to throw herself onto the ground and order him to take her, and then . . .
“Touch me, Sarah.”
Her eyes snapped open at his hoarse request, and she caught her breath sharply. The glow in his eyes had intensified, and as his thoughts wove themselves through hers, she knew that he had meant what he’d said earlier. He wanted her to tease him, taunt him, and torment him until he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone.
Flicking her tongue over her lips, she lowered her gaze to his chest and decided to take a page from his book of erotic pleasures. She ran her hands down his shoulders and over his chest. When she reached his nipples, she stroked her fingers against them. He gasped and his pectoral muscles leaped beneath her touch.
Emboldened by his reaction, she leaned forward and flicked her tongue over one small, flat nub. His entire body went rigid, and she could feel his need to bury his hands in her hair and urge her mouth downward. To her amazement, he refused to let himself touch her, balling his hands into fists at his sides instead.
Confused by his determination not to touch her, she pulled away from him and studied his face, letting her mind entwine more intimately with his. It wasn’t long before she realized what he was up to. He intended to remain totally passive and let her dictate their lovemaking. Desire coiled tautly inside her, but it wasn’t the thought of being in control that intensified her lust. It was the challenge of making him so hot for her that he’d break his vow.
“Lie down,” she ordered him.
As he did as she instructed, the light in his eyes flared brightly and pulsed. When he lay on his back, she straddled his hips so that her femininity barely brushed his erection. He trembled and again balled his hands into fists to keep from grabbing her hips and pulling her down so he could sheathe himself inside her.
“I think I like this game,” she murmured, leaning forward to place a hand on either side of his head. “How long do you think you can hold out?”
“As long as it takes,” he answered between clenched teeth.
“Mm,” she hummed, lowering herself so that her breasts touched his chest. Then, she rocked so that her taut nipples brushed against his chest, and as her body moved backward, her womanhood opened just enough so that the tip of his shaft could graze her heat and her wetness.
The desire that erupted inside him hit her with such force that she closed her eyes and cried out at its intensity. She wanted to sink onto his erection and pull him deep inside her so she could experience the heat of herself surrounding him, the clench of her muscles holding him. But if she did that, she’d be surrendering to his need, and he’d win his game of self-control. Instead, she opened her eyes and gazed down at him, deciding that it was time to give him a sample of her own desire. She slithered up his body until her breasts were suspended above his face.
Then she reached down and stroked one of his clenched fists that rested at his side. When his fingers relaxed and opened, she lifted his hand and brought it to her mound, ordering, “Touch me and taste me, Sebastian. Let me show you how you make me feel.”
Her words caused another wave of desire to roll through him, and he drew in a deep breath. Then, he released it and closed his mouth over one of her nipples. As he teased it with his tongue, he slipped his fingers into her soft, womanly folds and began to stroke her clitoris.
Desire roiled through Sarah like a mounting thunderstorm. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting the passion sweep over her in undulating waves, while projecting every erotic sensation her body experienced into his mind.
Suddenly, he switched his attention to her other breast, while using his free hand to pluck at the nipple he’d just released. At the same time, he increased the pressure of his fingers against her clitoris, stroking her fast and then slow and then fast again.
But the pleasure he gave her body didn’t compare to his mental seduction. She could feel his mind stroking against hers, intermingling her lust with his until their desire was one hot, burning flame that threatened to incinerate them both.
“Sebastian! I need you inside me!” she gasped, burying
her face against his shoulder as she slid her hips back down so that his erection again brushed against her. “Please.”
He arched his hips and rubbed himself against her provocatively, but he made no attempt to enter her. Frustrated, she raised her head and frowned at him. His eyes pulsed with his lust, and his jaw was clenched so tightly a muscle twitched along its length. She knew he needed to lose himself inside her as much as she needed him there, but he was still determined to remain passive.
Inexplicably, his refusal to initiate their joining frustrated her. He was supposed to take her, and she was going to make him do so.
She shifted and settled herself against him so that his shaft was poised at the entrance to her womb. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and she could feel his body trembling against hers as he struggled to keep from surging into her. She lowered her lips to his and kissed him with all her pent-up passion as she moved her hips, drawing the tip of his penis into her. He groaned gutturally, and his tongue began to thrust in and out of her mouth in a frantic mimicry of lovemaking, but his hips remained still.
Her frustration intensified. He needed to be inside her so badly he was ready to explode. So why wouldn’t he take her as he was supposed to take her?
She was so focused on trying to figure out a way to make him enter her that when he suddenly slid his hand between their bodies and stroked her clitoris, she was unprepared for his touch. Her own desire exploded, and with a startled, passionate cry, she flexed her hips and sank onto him, completing their union.
She automatically began to move against Sebastian, reveling in the feeling of his manhood stroking the most intimate part of her. In a tiny corner of her mind, she knew he still didn’t move his hips. But she didn’t care, because her mind was still joined with his. She knew that his inactivity was only temporary, that as she hurled toward climax, he hurled with her, and within moments he wouldn’t be able to hold back.
As the pleasure-pain of release coiled inside her womb, she increased her tempo, whispering hoarsely, “Please, Sebastian. Come with me. I need you to come with me.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he rasped, grasping her buttocks and lifting her up his length, then pulling her back down as he surged up to meet her.
The sensation was so exquisite that Sarah couldn’t speak again, but she didn’t need words to express her feelings. Sebastian’s mind again entwined with hers, stroking it with his need and pleasure, while absorbing her need and pleasure, until they were again united into one hot, burning flame.
Now! he mentally cried.
Yes! Sarah mentally answered as their bodies came together and her world exploded and spun out of control. She collapsed against Sebastian, her head buried against his neck as she gasped for breath.
He wrapped one arm tightly around her and stroked her back with his other hand, mumbling, “We beat the talisman again, Sarah.”
That’s what he thinks, Sarah, John Butler suddenly whispered in her mind. You have done what you were supposed to do. You are no longer the last of the Thunderbeings.
Suddenly, the vibrations of the future settled over Sarah, spinning her mind ahead in time. She couldn’t breathe as she saw herself heavy with child. Before she could fully fathom that, the picture altered and she saw herself holding a naked child in her arms. He was a boy who looked like Sebastian, except he had her golden eyes.
As she stared into his eyes, she saw that they were lit with the same strange inner glow she’d seen so often in Sebastian’s gaze. But even the glow couldn’t disguise the evil that lurked in their depths, and she knew what horror she looked upon. She was holding the devil’s spawn.
Suddenly, Sarah understood that this must have been the same horror her mother had felt as she gazed into Sarah’s eyes. She also suspected that that was why her mother had chosen to abandon her in the woods to die. She must have known that she had to destroy her child but she hadn’t had the courage to do it herself, so she’d left it up to nature to do it for her.
When Sarah further realized that the talisman had effectively foiled her plans, panic surged through her. Her maternal instincts were strong—she could feel them flaring up inside her already—and now that she was pregnant, she knew she’d never be able to kill herself. She’d do everything she could to stay alive, even kill, to protect her child and give it life.
“No!” Sarah screamed, wrenching herself out of Sebastian’s arms and leaping to her feet. She clenched her hands into fists and waved them at the cocoon’s walls. “It isn’t true! It isn’t true!”
“Sarah, what is it? What’s wrong?” Sebastian asked, suddenly grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around to face him. His bewildered expression told her he could no longer read her mind, and she knew that was more of the talisman’s handiwork. It had cut him off from her so he wouldn’t know the horrible truth of what they’d done.
“You have to kill me,” she sobbed, grabbing his upper arms and shaking him, or at least attempting to. He was so big, so solid, that he didn’t even move. “You have to kill me now!”
“Sarah, you’re not making sense,” he said, reaching up to thread his fingers into her hair. “What is the talisman doing to you now?”
“It tricked me—us,” she said, tears welling into her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. “You have to kill me before . . .”
“Before what?” he prodded.
She looked down and shook her head, unable to say the words. How could she tell him that they’d just conceived a child so evil that even she, its mother, had only seen the devil when she’d looked into its eyes?
“Dammit, Sarah! What’s wrong?” he demanded, breaking into her tormented thoughts as he cupped her face in his hands and forced her to look at him.
Before she could come up with an answer, there was a deafening clap of thunder, and she gasped as the lightning in the cocoon began to spin around them at a dizzying speed. Then it lifted until it whirled above their heads in its original wreath shape. Suddenly, two bolts broke loose and shot toward them. One hit the triangle on Sarah’s chest; the other the one on Sebastian’s chest.
Sarah saw their clothes magically appear on their bodies, and she watched in horror as Sebastian’s eyes immediately started turning back to white. He’d soon be blind again, and she was . . .
Sleep now, Sarah, Butler ordered in a hypnotizing drone. Sleep.
She fought against the blackness descending over her, knowing that if she gave in to it, she’d forget about her pregnancy. And she couldn’t forget until she told Sebastian what they’d done. She had to tell him about the child. She had to warn him before it was too late!
Sleep, Butler repeated, and no matter how hard she fought, her eyes closed of their own volition.
As she sank into oblivion, she knew that the talisman had won. It would destroy Sebastian and his people, but it would keep her safe until its true instrument of destruction—hers and Sebastian’s child—was old enough to destroy the world.
Chapter 18
Evil Torments
SEBASTIAN HAD KNOWN that his eyesight’s return was only temporary, but when the lightning struck him and his vision faded, panic swept through him. He couldn’t stand the thought of again existing in that unrelenting black hole where he felt helpless and inept. However, his panic was cut short when, a moment before he plunged back into darkness, he glanced toward Sarah and saw her eyes close and her body slump. He made a blind grab for her and caught her, but her limp body dragged him down. He had to sink to his knees to keep from dropping her.
“Sarah?” he said anxiously, when he pulled her against his chest and her head lolled against his arm. He cursed the fact that he couldn’t see her and tried to connect with her mind to find out what was wrong. But her mind was again closed to him. All he could determine was that she was alive. What had happened to her?
He started when
he heard a groan off to his right, and he jerked his head in that direction. Lucien! Between his and Sarah’s lovemaking and the ensuing events, Sebastian had forgotten him. He quickly brushed against Lucien’s mind and let out a relieved sigh. Other than some aches and pains, Lucien was okay and it seemed he would regain consciousness shortly. In the meantime, Sebastian had to summon help.
Zachary, it’s Sebastian, he thought, establishing contact with the warlock’s mind. It looks like Lucien’s okay, but there’s something wrong with Sarah. Go get Ryan and—
Ryan’s already here, Zachary interrupted. We’re waiting for you to give us the okay to come to you.
Sebastian scowled. I told Ryan to stay with Ariel.
Ariel wanted Ryan to be able to get to Lucien as soon as possible if he needed medical attention, so she sent him back. Should we come?
Yes, Sebastian answered.
We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.
Sebastian cursed as he cut off the connection, irritated that Ryan hadn’t obeyed him. As a mortal, he couldn’t protect himself against magic. If Zachary had had to battle the talisman, his attention would have been torn between it and protecting Ryan. That could have cost all of them their lives. But he couldn’t summon up the anger Ryan’s disobedience warranted because he was relieved that Ryan would be able to examine Sarah right away.
It seemed to take forever before he finally heard the car. When it braked to a stop and he heard a door fly open, he called out, “Zachary, you stay with Lucien until he wakes up. Ryan, I need you over here.”
There was a flurry of footsteps, and then Ryan said, “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Sebastian answered, tilting his head up toward Ryan’s voice. “She was”—
“My God! Your eyes!” Ryan broke in disbelievingly. “You said you were blind, but you didn’t say that your eyes had turned solid white!”
“Forget my eyes,” Sebastian snapped. “Sarah’s the one you need to worry about.”
Touch of Lightning Page 26