Touch and Go

by Michelle Rowen

  Carrie reached forward. Erzulie took her trembling hand, holding it lightly in her grip.

  Erzulie could feel the energy coming off the woman in waves. “Just as I thought, there is a storm inside of you.”

  “But no control.” She looked up with a mix of trepidation and hope. “Can you give me control?”

  “Control is sometimes found through lettin’ go completely.”

  “I don’t really know if I like the sound of that.”

  “If you see it as an enemy, then it shall be your enemy. But if you see it as a friend, then it shall be your friend. Fightin’ it will only make it fight back harder.”

  Erzulie placed her hand flat against the woman’s chest.

  “Are you giving me control against my inner storm?” Carrie whispered.

  Erzulie laughed, genuinely amused. “You haven’t been listenin’ to a word I have said, have you? All I am doin’ is givin’ you what you need.”

  “But—” Carrie gasped as Erzulie pushed magic into her. A moment was all that was needed. For the human it would feel like a cool breeze had slid through her. Goose bumps broke out on the woman’s arms for a moment before they faded away to nothing.

  Weariness filled Erzulie, and her eyes felt heavy. “It is time for me to rest again.”

  There was a brightness to Carrie’s eyes. “What about Patrick?”

  The goddess glanced down at the sleeping man, and a smile spread over her face. “You may awaken him with a kiss.”

  Carrie eyed her skeptically. “A kiss?”

  “Yes. And it must be one that you truly mean. No other will do. Kiss him with enough passion to unleash your inner storm.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something I should—”

  Erzulie closed her eyes and began to disappear.

  “Wait…please…” Carrie’s voice held stress. “Please don’t go yet. You have to remove the curse you put on William Crane’s resort. He doesn’t deserve to lose his business just because he disturbed you.”

  Erzulie shook her head. “I was angry to be wakened, but unable to give William Crane any of my gifts when he summoned me. If there is a curse at work, it is not by my hand.”

  Carrie’s face clouded with confusion. “But what did—”

  Erzulie disappeared completely, feeling that she had said all she needed to say. If some considered her valuable gifts to be curses, then there was not much she could do to convince them otherwise.

  CARRIE WATCHED WITH AMAZEMENT as Erzulie vanished into thin air. If she’d had any doubts about the paranormal world up until now, they vanished right along with the goddess.

  She stood in place for a full minute, too stunned to move.

  Then she touched the gold ring she now wore, but didn’t have any time to think about what it meant. Later. She’d think about it later. Instead, she sank to her knees next to Patrick and brushed her hand over his forehead.

  “Erzulie said it was just a bump. I really hope she was right.”

  Kiss him with enough passion to unleash your inner storm.

  Carrie leaned over and brushed her lips lightly against his. “Come on, Patrick. Wake up.”

  He didn’t move. She studied his handsome face again.

  “You don’t want to be touched when you’re conscious. You probably wouldn’t like this very much, would you?”

  He currently had no opinion on the matter. She didn’t want to hurt him. Erzulie had confirmed that his decision not to touch anyone. It was because it caused him pain.

  “I’m sorry if this hurts you,” she whispered.

  She kissed him again, harder and deeper this time, putting all of the passion she felt for him into it, and yes, it did feel as if there was a storm swirling inside her, threatening to break loose from her body. She’d fantasized about kissing Patrick for two years and here they were—a little different from what she’d had in mind.

  She suddenly realized that he was kissing her back, his mouth opening so she felt the warm slide of his tongue against hers. He didn’t push her away. Desire churned in her belly, making her body ache and her nipples tighten. She placed a hand on his chest and felt the rapid pounding of his heart. After a moment, she forced herself to pull away a little to see if he was waking up.

  Patrick’s eyelids flickered and surprise registered in his green eyes when he saw how close she was to him.

  CARRIE’S DELICIOUS MOUTH was only an inch from his. And if he wasn’t mistaken, he could actually taste her like strawberries on his tongue.

  “Carrie…” he began.

  “She was right,” she said breathlessly, relief spreading over her expression. “What do you know?”

  “Right about what?”

  She looked amazed. “She said if I kissed you, you’d wake up.”

  His eyes widened. “You kissed me?”

  “Oh.” She cleared her throat and quickly got to her feet. Pressing her fingertips to her lips, she looked at him guardedly. “Well, I was just following orders.”

  She’d kissed him. It must have been brief since he hadn’t felt any pain. What he did feel was the stirrings of an erection at the thought of her sexy mouth against his.

  That was inconvenient.

  Patrick grimaced and touched his head as he sat up. “You knocked me out with a flying gravestone.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Ouch.” He eyed her guilty reaction with a sliver of amusement. “I’ll be fine.”

  She looked distressed. “Better than being sliced and diced by muggers.”

  Heavy concern went through him at the reminder. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. They didn’t come back. After all, they’re too scared of the witch, aka yours truly.”

  He grinned despite himself, but it quickly faded. Those bastards had tried mugging them, threatened to hurt Carrie, and he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to stop them. He was so relieved she was all right he could barely speak.

  Patrick slowly got to his feet, tensing when he realized she was helping him. He cringed away from her when she made contact with his bare skin.

  She pulled her hand away as if she’d been burned. “Sorry, I—I know that hurts you.”

  He frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “When I touch you. When anyone touches you. You feel pain, right?”

  Shock swept through him and he tensed. “Who told you that?”

  “I figured it out myself. But Erzulie helped a bit.”

  Patrick looked at her incredulously for a moment, feeling an overwhelming need to reach out and touch her face, stroke her hair back from her forehead. But then he remembered coming to for a moment and seeing a woman who’d introduced herself as the goddess. “Erzulie was really here, wasn’t she?”

  She nodded. “We summoned her when you dropped the amulet. But she’s gone now.”

  This news made him look around the graveyard uneasily. “What exactly did she say?”

  Carrie cleared her throat. “She said that what’s happening with Will’s resort has nothing to do with her.”

  “If that’s true, then who’s responsible?”

  “You’re the expert.” She smiled shakily. “Besides, your gut told you she wasn’t the cause in the first place.”

  “That was before I knew she really existed.” Patrick gingerly rubbed his head. “I’ll need to do some more research and take a closer look at the amulet when we get back to the resort. Did she tell you anything else?”

  “She told me to wear this.” Carrie held up her hand to let him see the gold ring. “She said it would help you. I have absolutely no idea what she meant by that.”

  His brows knitted together. “A gift from a goddess is very rare.”

  “I won’t try selling it on eBay.”

  “Probably not a good idea. So she said that’s for me. A ring that you’re wearing. I don’t understand.”

  She shrugged. “That makes two of us.”

  “Does it feel strange to you?”

  “No. It
just feels like a regular ring. She said she was giving me a gift as well, something to do with my telekinesis.” Carrie frowned and slid a hand through her long and silky dark hair. He followed the motion as if mesmerized by every move she made. “She touched me and I felt a cold sensation for a moment. She said there was a storm raging inside of me. I don’t know what that meant.”

  That was worrying. Carrie’s TK was unpredictable to start with. She hardly needed an unpredictable goddess to give her any gifts to deal with it.

  Patrick looked up to see that the previously blue skies had clouded over. “Maybe she heard the weather report. Looks like it’s going to start raining soon.”

  Carrie glanced up at the dark clouds. “It was totally clear a couple of minutes ago.”

  He found he was staring at her mouth, and it brought back the fuzzy memory of her warm lips against his as he began to regain consciousness. It would have been nice to remember the experience more clearly.

  He ached to touch Carrie, to kiss her again, and see if it was half as good as in his dream. Instead, he snatched the fallen amulet off the ground and slipped it into his pocket. “We should go.”

  They began walking along the dirt road back to the dock. He stayed as close to Carrie as he could without actually touching her. After the incident with the muggers, he wanted to ensure that she was safe.

  She was silent and that troubled him. Carrie rarely seemed at a loss for words. They reached the small motorboat in silence and climbed into it, each donning a life jacket. The water was choppier than it had been earlier. He hadn’t heard anything about a storm forecasted for today. It wasn’t hurricane season, but the winds had picked up and the skies had darkened significantly since they’d left the cemetery.

  He pushed away from the dock and started the motor. When he looked at Carrie again, he was surprised by how intensely she was watching him.

  Desire slid through him, and the taste of her still on his lips didn’t help matters much. “What is it?”

  “NOTHING.” CARRIE INHALED deeply and forced herself to look away from her handsome partner. Erzulie was right. Her passion for him felt like a storm raging inside of her.

  She needed to concentrate on something else. Ever since she’d kissed Patrick her skin tingled, her body ached, and her desire for him seemed to be rising with every moment that passed. It was all she could do to keep from touching him. It was a compulsion, one she restrained with all her might.

  She had to think about something else. Anything else.

  “Tell me why it hurts you to touch people,” she said bluntly.

  His open expression became shuttered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s none of your business.” He cringed and touched his head. The gravestone hadn’t broken the skin, but there was a red mark.

  “Should you go to a hospital?” she asked with concern.

  “No. I hate hospitals. They remind me of…” He trailed off.

  “When you got hurt the last time.”

  “Forget it.” But his jaw tightened. She’d barged into uncomfortable territory without an invite. With one hand on the rudder, he fished into his pocket and pulled out his BlackBerry. “Your TK helped today. But you need a great deal more practice. You saw for yourself how dangerous it can be when unrestrained.”

  Unrestrained. That was a good word for it. That was how she felt right now, but it had very little to do with her psychic ability and much more to do with her attraction to Patrick. She squeezed her eyes shut, but it was his face she saw.

  “You’re a very beautiful woman.”

  Her eyes snapped open. Patrick looked surprised by his own words.

  “I—I don’t know why I said that. I’m sorry.” His brows drew together, but he continued to let his gaze slowly travel over her body until he reached her eyes.

  “Don’t be sorry.” The storm inside her grew and she noticed with a sinking feeling that the storm gathering in the skies overhead was growing, as well.

  Patrick studied her face closely. “What is this, Carrie?”

  She swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”

  “I feel something—” He looked up. “What exactly did Erzulie say to you?”

  “Other than confirming to me that you can’t touch anyone without it hurting you?”

  His eyes narrowed, but not with anger. With concern. “You said something about a storm.”

  She bit her bottom lip. She didn’t want to admit out loud what Erzulie had said. That the goddess had sensed the passion Carrie felt for Patrick—that this passion was like a storm that swirled inside of her.

  “Carrie?” Patrick prompted. “What are you thinking right now?”

  She locked gazes with him. “She said she felt the storm inside me. She said that when I kissed you it would help to unleash it.”

  The previously blue sky was now blocked by clouds. Tropical storms were known to gather quickly over the Caribbean, but not like this.

  Patrick looked up. “We need to get back to the resort. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “It isn’t my fault.”

  Worry was etched into his handsome features. “We don’t want to get caught in a storm. This boat isn’t big enough to handle something like that.”

  The sky continued to darken even as he spoke.

  Her uneasiness increased. The water was getting choppier as the winds rose and the boat rocked violently back and forth. A wave washed over the side and soaked Patrick’s pant legs up to the knee.

  Recognition dawned. “This is my fault, isn’t it?”

  “You tell me.”

  “She said my—my passion was a storm inside me. I thought she meant it as a metaphor.”

  “And now?”

  “And now I’m thinking she might have been speaking literally.”

  Patrick swore and looked up at the dark sky. “Then you need to control this right now.”

  “I’m trying. I can’t.”

  The moment Carrie kissed him, the desire she’d felt inside her had started manifesting itself outward. In the papers Patrick had given her to read, she’d learned there were a few telekinetics in history that could psychically control localized weather patterns.

  Uh-oh.

  In mere moments the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees and it was as dark as night, the bright Caribbean sunshine blocked by thick, black clouds. They’d traveled far enough away from the dock that she couldn’t see it anymore.

  “You need to make this go away, Carrie.” Patrick’s voice was tense. “Before it’s too late.”

  She shook her head, worry filling her. Her desire, her passion for Patrick had done this. It had taken hold of the emotional storm inside of her, and with a kiss strong enough to wake him up, an active storm had been unleashed, just as Erzulie said.

  It had been one of the gifts the goddess had given her.

  She shook her head. “It’s already too late.”

  A moment later, the clouds opened up and the full force of the tempest hit them.

  9

  THE RAIN CAME DOWN in buckets, drenching both Carrie and Patrick in seconds. Carrie screamed as the boat pitched to the side.

  “Damn it,” Patrick growled under his breath. Forget about muggers. The goddess was trying to kill them herself. He had some knowledge of boating, but not enough to handle navigating through a storm—either naturally or psychically generated.

  Fear ripped through him as a wave crashed over the side and knocked Carrie off balance. Without thinking he reached out and grabbed her arm so she wouldn’t fall overboard.

  He tried to steel himself against the pain the physical contact would cause, but she pulled away from him before he had a chance to feel anything except her damp skin.

  “What are we going to do?” she yelled.

  If he was a praying man, he’d suggest that. Since he wasn’t…

  “Hold on to something!” he shouted back.

  “What?�
�

  “Anything!”

  She looked deeply distressed.

  “I’m so sorry!” she managed.

  “Sorry? For what?”

  “This is all my fault!”

  If he wasn’t afraid they were both going to die in the next five minutes, he’d probably laugh out loud at that.

  “This isn’t your fault. It’s Erzulie. Whatever she did to you…” The wind took his breath away. “Do you think you can stop this?”

  She looked up at the sky, shielding her face with her hand. “No. I don’t even know how I created it!”

  “Didn’t think so. Look, what we have to do is just hang on and wait it out. If I can get to shore—”

  “Where’s shore?”

  He scanned the darkness around them and damned if he could see anything even remotely helpful. “I wish I knew.”

  “What’s that over there?”

  Patrick looked where she pointed and could make out the fuzzy outline of something. Could be a dock. Could be the shore. Hell, it could be a fire-breathing dragon waiting to swallow them whole.

  He was about to answer her when another wave hit the small boat, knocking both of them to one side. His BlackBerry fell out of his pocket and landed five feet away.

  Another wave almost made him lose his balance completely and he attempted to crawl forward to grab his phone before it got damaged. But then he heard a scream and turned to catch a stomach-twisting glimpse of Carrie plunging into the ocean.

  “Carrie!” He knew she couldn’t swim. Abandoning any attempts to grab his BlackBerry, his information resource and the one thing that had never let him down since he’d got it—he dove off the side of the boat into the dark, violent water.

  “Carrie! Where the hell are you?” he shouted, swallowing a mouthful of salt water for his efforts. Panic sliced through him as he frantically searched for her.

  She thought this was her fault? She was wrong. This was his fault. If he’d been more patient. If he hadn’t been so damn selfish. If he’d taken the time to help her practice her telekinesis—something he’d agreed to originally—instead of trying to push her away, maybe she would have been able to control it better. Aside from whatever magic Erzulie had cursed her with, he knew without a doubt that Carrie had every inclination to use her powers properly if she could learn how.