Touched (Sense Thieves)

by Corrine Jackson

  Asher’s loud burst of laughter startled me back to awareness, and I looked into his smiling eyes. He knew I lusted after his car.

  He held up the keys and shook them with one eyebrow raised in invitation. I was tempted, oh, so tempted, but I shook my head. “I can’t. No license, remember?”

  He opened the passenger door for me. When he sat in the driver’s seat, he promised, “You have an open invitation to drive my car as soon as you have a license.”

  A promise I would hold him to, I decided, when he started the engine and it came to life with a quiet, powerful purr. I stroked the warm buttery leather seat and almost purred myself. The car had heated seats, and my body shivered in appreciation. I seriously loved this car.

  I glanced up when Asher sighed. “What?”

  He pulled the car onto the road. “Hearing your reaction to things, I can almost remember what it’s like.”

  When I looked perplexed, he continued. “Tasting ice cream. Smelling the sea air. Feeling the sun on my skin. Your memories are so vivid, it’s like I’m there with you.”

  “But I thought you felt more . . . human when you’re with me?” I wondered if he could feel my skin when he touched me.

  His smile appeared sad. “Yes. When I’m with you, I feel pain like any other human.”

  The idea horrified me. “Do you mean you feel only pain?”

  He shook his head. “I feel mostly pain.”

  The difference between only and mostly was lost on me, and disappointment swamped me. Maybe Gabe had been right to want to protect his brother from me.

  Asher parked, and I stared out the window at my home. He touched my cheek and urged me to face him. “What did my brother say to you, Remy?”

  I had to swallow the lump in my throat to speak as I remembered Gabe’s warning. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He dropped his hand and cursed. At least, I thought he cursed. He spoke rapidly in another language. I blinked, waiting for him to lose steam and was impressed by how long it took for him to run out of words.

  “I’m going to kill Gabe.”

  I didn’t realize he’d switched to English for a moment. A smile lifted the corners of my lips against my will. “What language was that?”

  His voice had tightened with anger. “Welsh, French, and Spanish.”

  I whistled. “Not enough curses in one language?”

  He looked sheepish. “Sorry.”

  My smile turned to a grin when his tension receded. “It’s okay. I didn’t understand any of it anyway, but I got the gist. I’d bet money Gabe’s ears are burning right now.”

  “He shouldn’t have interfered. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “Is he wrong? I mean it, Asher. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not worth it.”

  His eyes burned with a green fire. “You’re worth that and more. I’d withstand ten times the pain to touch you.”

  It became a struggle to answer when the air left my lungs. I felt the same way.

  I knew he’d heard me when he took a deep breath that mirrored mine. He brushed my hair from my face and wrapped a curl around one finger. The low cadence of his voice cajoled me to play along. “Let’s pretend you’re not a Healer, and I’m not a Protector for a day. Come to the beach with me tomorrow after school. We’ll talk about ordinary things and bore each other silly.”

  It would be impossible for him to bore me. I wanted to know everything about him. We both knew it was dangerous for us to pretend we were anything other than what we were. There were a million reasons not to go.

  He tugged on the curl and I heard myself say, “Okay.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  At school the next day, Asher kept his distance. Neither of us wanted to broadcast that something was going on between us. My feelings towards him proved difficult to pin down, though I experienced a pang of pleasure when he ignored the girls at his table. As for Asher, aside from an infuriating desire to protect me, I hadn’t a clue to what he felt.

  “You know, if you continue to stare at each other like that, you’re not going to fool anyone into thinking you’re just friends,” Lucy said.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  It was such an outright fib I bit my lip to keep a straight face. She grinned at me, but worry remained in her eyes. Asher was the penultimate person I should be dating according to her, with only Gabe somehow managing to top Lucy’s do-not-date, do-not-pass-go list.

  She rolled her eyes and wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Sure, you don’t. Be careful with that one, okay?” She inclined her head toward Asher’s table. “Remember Dad’s heart.”

  “Hey, Luce, don’t worry. If it makes you feel any better, he has a car.”

  She frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  My shrug radiated innocence. “Nothing, I guess. It’s just that I know your objection to boys who ride motorcycles.”

  Lucy threw her balled-up napkin at me. My nose crinkled as I picked it up between two fingers. “Eww. Can you be any more childish?”

  Several minutes later, the bell rang. When I glanced at Asher’s table, he grinned my way, and I returned his look with a smile of my own. His expression stood in sharp contrast to Lottie’s, who appeared to have swallowed a lemon as she stared me down.

  When our impossibly long English class ended, Asher and I let the other students file out first. He picked up my bag, careful not to brush my skin, though my guard was up. We walked in silence to his car where he opened the door for me and stowed my bag at my feet.

  We made nervous small talk as he drove north. A short time later, he drove through the gated entrance to Fort Rowden State Park. I’d heard some kids at school talking about the old fort, but I hadn’t been there yet. It wasn’t really a military fort anymore, but a place to go camping, hit the beach, or hang out. One of the two-story rectangular white buildings had been turned into a hostel with dorms on the second floor and private rooms on the lower floor, but tourists tended to desert the Falls during the colder months.

  Asher turned onto a road that ran parallel to the shore. The water and clouds danced together in fluid shades of gray and blue. Where the sky managed to part them, it showed itself in a flamboyant aqua. We rounded a corner, and a white lighthouse dominated the view, jutting out into the water on a shelf of sand.

  Asher parked at the end of the road and shut off the engine. “No, let me,” he said, when I moved to open my door.

  He was out of the car and at my door before I could respond. He watched with impatience as I clambered out, still sore from my fight with Dean. Acting on a suspicion, I warned, “If you try to pick me up, I’ll slug you.”

  With a rueful smile, he backed away. “Now who’s the mind reader?” He gestured to the sandy lane that led to the beach. “Will you be okay navigating the path? I worried it’d be a rough go for you.”

  “My feet work just fine. Let’s go.”

  We hiked side by side along the roped walkway bordered by sea grass until several larger pieces of driftwood blocked the way. I would have climbed over them, but Asher placed both large hands under my arms and easily lifted me over the debris with a cheeky grin before turning me loose again. I rolled my eyes at him and couldn’t help it when my lips twitched. Some dormant girly part of me liked it when his strength made me feel small next to him.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking, Remy,” Asher implored in a cajoling tone.

  I glanced up at him through my eyelashes as we fell in step together on the empty stretch of beach. The salty wind blew colder and stronger in the open, and I tucked my hands into my coat pockets with a shiver. “I thought you could read my mind, Protector,” I teased.

  Frustrated, Asher ran a hand through his wind-tossed hair. “I told you I can’t hear you when your walls are up.”

  I grinned, relieved. “Just checking.”

  We came upon an overturned tree that had washed ashore during a storm. Sitting, I patted the space next
to me, and Asher sank down with all the grace I’d grown accustomed to. He glanced at my hand on the log next to his leg with a speculative gleam in his eyes, and I remembered what he’d said yesterday—he could hear my thoughts best when we touched.

  I snorted and shifted out of his reach. “Okay, let’s get something straight. You may be able to read my mind because of some crazy Protector-Healer bond we can’t control, but that doesn’t mean you have an open invitation to do so whenever you please. Consider this an invitation-only zone.” I waved a wide circle around my head with both arms.

  Asher shrugged, not ashamed in the least to have been caught out, and straddled the log to face me. “I guess that’s fair. I’ll do my best to abide by your rule, unless, of course, I feel it’s in your best interest not to.”

  He seemed adept at finding loopholes when he wanted something. Thinking on my feet had become a necessity around him. “And what would constitute ‘not in my best interest’?”

  “Your right to privacy becomes secondary to your safety. If I perceive you are in danger, I won’t hesitate to do what I think is necessary.”

  I shivered as I considered the sculpted lines of his face. A dark shadow of whiskers on the hollows of his cheeks and the wide curve of his jaw made him look dangerous.

  “I warned you before, Remy. I will protect you.”

  There was no give in his stony expression: He meant what he said and I could do nothing about it. I didn’t need him to protect me: I could protect myself. I dropped my wall to let him hear one thought. Arrogant, obstinate jerk!

  He had the nerve to laugh when he heard me. “Come on. Don’t be mad. Let’s shake hands as friends.”

  One strong hand was held out for me to shake, and he smirked when I ignored it. It shouldn’t have been charming, but I had to stifle my answering smile.

  “Asher, my mom likened my energy to a kind of poison for your kind. Why would you risk touching me? Why would any of the Protectors risk that? The pain can’t be worth it.” I shook my head, trying to understand him. My teeth chattered as I huddled in my coat.

  Asher stripped off his own coat and wrapped it around my shoulders, pulling the lapels together under my chin. Even as he backed away, the heat of his body sank into my bones and I shuddered. The cold wind didn’t bother him in the least.

  “I can’t answer for the others, but for me . . . You know I lost some of my senses after the War. My other senses, though . . . Well, they were strengthened. We think they evolved to make up for the lack of taste, smell, or touch, like a blind person who has excellent hearing.”

  My curiosity about him had been eating at me for weeks. “How superior? Are we talking twenty-ten or X-ray vision?”

  Asher flicked an uncertain look my way to see if I was joking and gave me a bemused smile. “Somewhere in between, I guess. I don’t need lights to see in the dark, and I can hear sounds from miles away you would be hard-pressed to hear from ten feet away.”

  I whistled. “Impressive. What about food? You said you were hungry that night at Rosy’s, and I’ve seen you eat plenty of times.”

  “Of course. My body isn’t so different from a human’s. We need food to fuel our bodies, too. If anything, we need more of it since our bodies run at 210 percent efficiency, like you guessed. We simply can’t taste any of it.”

  “That’s awful!”

  He grimaced. “The best I can explain it is to say it’s like we’re sleepwalking. There were so many things in my old life that I took for granted. I want to smell things, taste things, feel things. It’s one reason I don’t mind the pain when I touch you. To feel pain. It’s a gift, Remy, to someone who’s been asleep for over a century.”

  His eyes burned with naked honesty. My breath caught until a seagull screeched in the distance and he glanced away. The moment was broken, and I sucked in air, trying for the umpteenth time to imagine what it would be like to be deprived of my senses. Even now, sensory information inundated me. True, he saw and heard the beauty, but he missed more.

  The immensity of it all made my voice sound hushed. “I’m sorry, Asher. I wish I could help you.”

  He leaned forward with sudden urgency. “But you do. “

  “By hurting you? I hate this!” I would have stood, but he gave a slight jerk on his jacket.

  “No, Remy! You don’t understand. When I hear your thoughts, it’s like I’m reliving your memories. I’m not really feeling, smelling, tasting, but it’s the next best thing. I’ve never tasted ice cream, but when you thought about eating it at the beach . . .” His eyes closed in remembered pleasure . . . my remembered pleasure. Then, he sighed as the memory faded, and his gaze focused on me again. A gentle smile flitted across his mouth. “It was heaven.”

  “How is that possible?” I asked.

  “How is any of this possible? I don’t have the answers.” He frowned, and his hands fisted at his side. “You should know my desire to feel human isn’t the only reason I want to hear your thoughts.”

  “Right. You want to protect me,” I said, with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

  He slid across the log until he rested a breath away, invading my space. Startled, I tried to move back, but he held on to the lapels of his coat. Both of his thumbs pushed under the collar and used the material to tip my chin back to meet his eyes. While his skin wasn’t brushing mine, his warm gaze felt like a touch.

  Passion roughened his voice. “True, but you’re missing the point. You’re unique, Remy. I’ve known dozens of Healers in my life, and you’re different. I want to know everything about you, and I have to fight the temptation to cheat when I can’t hear you.”

  A strand of hair escaped my braid as I stared at him, half-afraid and half-thrilled to know my fascination wasn’t one-sided. He wrapped my hair around his finger and continued, “One brush of my fingers against your skin, and your secrets are mine. The thing is, I don’t want to take them. You’ve been through hell, and now you find yourself trapped into a bond with your enemy. You deserve a better man than me. It’s wrong. It goes against everything we know, but I want you to choose to trust me.”

  My heart pounded in my chest as our breath heated the small space between us. My voice came out in a husky whisper. “And what if I want the same thing? What if I want you to trust me with all your secrets?”

  His eyes lit with hope. “All you have to do is ask.”

  A long, tense moment stretched out between us as we thought about what that kind of intimacy could mean—he wanted open access to my soul, but it wasn’t always a pleasant place to be. My thoughts could be ugly and mean, especially when it came to Dean. My memories weren’t sunshine and roses, either, but dark and depressing. He didn’t know what he asked of me because, if I invited him in, he’d find the nearest exit. I was the type of person who’d abandon her mother to a beast, and I didn’t want him to know this person I was inside and hate me.

  Asher must have seen some of what I felt on my face. His smile looked sad as he unwound my hair from his finger. “It’s okay, Remy. Forgive me for pushing.”

  I couldn’t trust him with my deepest thoughts, but I could give him something. When he backed away, I grabbed hold of his hand in a tight grip. Closing my eyes, I emptied my mind and let my senses overpower me.

  My nose burned as I inhaled the briny air and a light mist dampened my face. I could taste salt on the tip of my tongue as a strong breeze whipped loose strands of my hair into a frenzy and chilled my exposed flesh. The sole exceptions were where his coat engulfed me and where the low fire that always burned under Asher’s skin warmed my hand. I concentrated on the rough skin of his palm and how it felt against the smoother flesh of mine as I slid my hand from his, breaking the connection and raising my walls again.

  The air stilled between us, except for our loud breathing. Green sparks were fading when I opened my eyes, and I discovered his had closed as if he savored the memory of what I’d shared. He looked . . . overwhelmed and touched. I wondered what those sparks meant. They were not th
e blue of healing normal people, or the red that happened when I attacked. The green had to mean something.

  Asher cleared his throat and glanced at the setting sun with amazement. “I’ve tried to hold on to the memory of what certain things felt like. I thought I remembered what the sea air felt and tasted like. I was wrong. My memories are mere shadows. I’d given up hope of feeling anything again. Until you.”

  My voice sounded choked with emotion, and I couldn’t look at him. “Is this why the Protectors hunt Healers? To remember?”

  “No!” He looked horrified at the suggestion. “We’re nothing like them. They use Healers like a drug, but that kind of pain—most Healers don’t last more than a few days.”

  I let that implication sink in. The brutality of those Protectors killing my kind for a quick injection of sensation terrified me.

  “I shouldn’t be able to sit near you, Remy. Not this long and not with my defenses down. But it gets easier every day. I told you, you’re unique.” His voice held a fierce promise. “I’ll take whatever danger comes with this. You’re worth the risk.”

  His words cut me with a new pain. What if he didn’t feel the way I did? Maybe this was really about my power. I rose to my feet. “So, what now?”

  He stood, too, and we faced each other. “We spend time together. Get to know each other.”

  I nodded, knowing there wasn’t another option, as we walked toward the car. Too much was left for us to discover about each other, too many questions we had yet to answer. By a strange accident of fate, we’d bonded as Protector and Healer. Asher vowed to protect me with his life. Part of me felt glad to have someone watching over me, but I refused to play the weak damsel in distress.

  He cared about me to some extent: His actions made that clear. Still, I wondered if his craving to be human lay at the heart of his desire to be near me. The possibility terrified me because the real reason I didn’t want him in my head and in my heart had come to me when I considered losing him: I was falling in love with my enemy.