The Lost (23 page)

Somehow he got the car into the garage, but as he stepped out, his knees buckled and he fell forward. Bracing his hands on the ground, he struggled against the pressure building inside him, like a balloon being overfilled.

“Adam,” he heard, but it seemed muffled as static
jammed his brain, making conscious thought virtually impossible. Fighting for stability, he dug his fingers deep, the cement floor of the garage literally melting beneath his touch.

“Adam,” came again, even more distant than before, but suddenly, insistently, another force pressed against his, creating a connection that seemed to be grounding him.

Bobbie cradled Adam in her arms, holding him tight and calling his name over and over as she tried to bring him back. The royal blue of his aura was huge, with angry bolts of red and silver dancing wildly, vibrating against her body. His eyes had gone to that neon green, but were unfocused, and it was clear he wasn’t seeing her as she held him.

“Oh, God, Adam. Come back to me,” she pleaded, and bent and kissed his forehead, praying she could drive back whatever had overtaken him. His arm flopped up and down, uncoordinated, but then fell over hers. She laced her fingers with his and it came. A wave of energy flowed through her, nearly stealing her breath away, settling in her center and bringing with it myriad emotions and sensations, including almost painful desire.

Between her legs erupted the heavy throb of need as moisture flooded her sex. Her nipples puckered and became so sensitive that even the simple rub of fabric along them brought her closer and closer to orgasm. She moaned and gripped him tighter, so lost in her own battle that she almost didn’t realize that Adam had somehow mustered a bit of control.

He turned in her arms, his eyes blazing with a whirl of emotions.

“I need you.” His voice rasped like a needle scratching across a record, sounding almost nonhuman.

Maybe because he wasn’t, Bobbie thought, but she was in too deep now to retreat. Her body was screaming for release and so was his, judging from the immense ridge of his erection visible beneath the fabric of his pants. She reached down and covered him and his body jumped. Another wave of power crashed through her, yanking another moan as her muscles contracted around emptiness.

Touch me,
she thought, unable to voice her wish, and in the millisecond that the thought formed, lightness suffused her body before the world became a blur around her. It was if they were whirling through the air until a second later they landed with a thud on the floor of his living room.

Adam was still in her arms, but he dropped to his back and urged her to straddle his hips. She didn’t stop to question the how or why. She needed him too badly, so she covered him, his erection rubbing along her cleft between layers of fabric. The movement sent a jolt through her and she had to still for a moment to keep from climaxing, because she wanted so much more, as did he.

She broke from him only long enough to pull off her pants as he was doing the same, wanting all of him naked beneath her. She needed that connection with him almost as much as she needed to breathe, it seemed.

As she straddled him once more, she reached down, ripped off his shirt, and laid her hands on his chest. Whatever force had trapped him had imprisoned her and the energy seemed to ebb and flow between them. Her nipples ached, they were so tight, but as soon as the thought came, Adam placed his hands on her, caressing the
sensitive tips, the sure touch of his hands creating a rush of heat and moisture through her nether lips.

He groaned and murmured, “You’re so wet, I can smell you. Smell your need.”

As she could smell him, a strange combination of musky earthiness and a bright summer day. She bent her head to the crook of his neck, inhaled to memorize the scent. Put her mouth on that spot and sucked that tender flesh because she needed to taste as well.

The pull of her mouth nearly undid Adam, but it also allowed him to corral the power that had virtually overtaken him just moments before. He focused on her mouth and how she worked at him, knowing it would leave a mark, but uncaring, because he knew he would mark her as well with his life force.

Grasping her buttocks, he urged her upward and then poised himself at her center. The heat and wet of her drenched him, and as he entered her, the power surged between them once again, almost like water sloshing back and forth between two shores. Ebbing and flowing, building passion as she rode him, her soft cries telling him of her satisfaction, the rising force of their vitality becoming almost dangerous as it centered itself at his core, waiting for its release.

He met her gaze, where bright bits of green now shimmered in their hazel depths as his aura joined with hers, the end of his being and the beginning of hers indistinguishable, united as they were in both body and energy.

He knew then she was meant to be his. She was the one who could complete him and eliminate the emptiness he had sensed growing in him over the last several months. His power was meant to be shared with hers and forever bound to her being.

He rose then until they were face to face, body rubbing against body. His erection buried even deeper as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

“We are one, Bobbie,” he said and the mass of energy that had built at his center exploded across them, charging every ion in their bodies with its vitality and then liberating its gift through every particle of their being.

Bobbie came, hard and fast, moaning his name, her world alight with the feel of every bit of life around her. It was as if she had been looking at the world through a dirty windshield before and now it was clear and all was bright and amazingly sharp.

Including the feel of Adam beside her. Inside her.

Adam held her tighter as his body jerked within her and his seed warmed her from within. His skin was alive against her with heat. She sensed every nuance of it, from the smoothness of his back to the crisp curls on his chest rubbing against her palms, felt each shift of hard muscle beneath as he embraced her.

Bobbie wrapped her arms around him, buried her face against his shoulder. His scent wrapped around her as her body still vibrated from her release and the wonder of the vitality suffusing her.

He shifted his hands up and down her back, the action soothing. Kissing the side of her face, he asked, “Are you okay?”

It had been so long since she had been okay that she wouldn’t recognize normal if it hit her over the head with a two-by-four. But what she did know was that how she felt in his arms right now was far better than anything she had felt in like forever.

“I’m more than okay. I’m wonderful,” she said, turning
her face and kissing his cheek. She met his gaze, which no longer had the wild glow of power, although remnants of his aura still bathed them in its royal blue.

He smiled, raised his hand to trace the line of her lips before kissing her, rousing desire yet again with that simple touch, although she also felt drained by what had just happened, as did he, apparently.

“It’s too soon. I feel like I need to recharge.”

She felt it, too, almost as if what had just happened had cemented a link between them, making her cognizant of everything about him and around him.

“How about a nap?” she asked, thinking that lying beside him body to body was about as close to heaven as it might get and might provide the rest they needed to regain their strength.

“How about a swim?” he suggested, surprising her.

“A swim? In April? Cold much?” she teased.

He smiled, that boyish grin that caused her heart to lurch in her chest. “Trust me,” he said.

In that moment, she realized she did trust him. He might be something other than human and could rock her world in ways that were downright inexplicable, but she trusted him. With her heart. With her life.

As his smile broadened, she knew that he knew, and for the moment, all was right in the world.

S
he stood at the water’s edge, shuddering as the frosty wash from a small wave covered her big toe.

Although the early evening air was a balmy sixty-eight degrees, the water was cold enough to turn her skin blue and send a chill through her body as she finally braved a bigger step into the surf.

She didn’t understand how Adam withstood the cold, swimming just behind the first break of waves, his long, powerful body cutting through the surface of the water with minimal effort.

She hadn’t been to the beach in nearly a year. Her injuries had made walking on the sand a risky proposition. Forget about a swim, unable as she was to either tread water or doggy paddle. It saddened her and made her wonder why she had agreed to it earlier.

Maybe because she had been lost in the wonder of sharing herself with Adam.

She had used to ride these waters, her body knifing
through the surf, tangled up in the sweep of the waves, rolling and tumbling through sand and water before shooting up onto her feet on the wet sand. Longing tore through her to join him, but the water was just too damned cold and her footing still precarious.

Although not as unstable as before.

She hadn’t wanted to tell him, although he must have noticed by now. Since making love the other night and since his tender and sincere kiss along her leg, it had gotten better. She still cramped up after long periods of inactivity, as she had earlier that day. And there was still pain, but duller. Not as acutely sharp as before. Plus the weakness, that sense of not really being able to put any weight on it for fear it would crumple like a brittle stick, was gone. Especially after this afternoon.

Whatever had happened between them earlier had left something within her. A feeling of power she had not had before. A link with him that allowed her to sense so many things, both within him and around her. Much as he suddenly seemed to be able to sense her wants and needs.

She hadn’t had to ask for help earlier as they had hit the sands of the beach. Without a second’s hesitation, Adam had wrapped his muscled arm around her waist to help her navigate the once-treacherous sands. So now there she stood, wearing a pair of his shorts that hung to below her knees and another T-shirt, this one with a Golden Gopher. She had picked it from one of the drawers packed with T-shirts from the various places he had visited.

Another sign that in some ways Adam Bruno was just a plain ol’ Joe like the rest of them: a T-shirt collection.

She smiled and watched as Adam caught a wave, as agile as a dolphin, and rode it to the knee-high waters.
When he stood, she sucked in a breath, stung yet again by his masculine beauty, thinking that on Adam a Speedo was downright illegal.

He shoved his hand through his hair, raking back the dripping wet strands, and came to stand before her. In the growing dusk, the fading sun turned the drops of water clinging to his body silver.

She felt as if she would die if she didn’t touch him and ran her hand along his chest, his skin slick beneath her palm and warm. Oh, so warm, despite the icy temperature of the water. She shot a look up at him, wondering, and he said, “I told you it wouldn’t be cold if you went in with me.”

“Do you have your own little blast furnace going?” she teased, and his grin widened.

“Why don’t you find out?”

She looked beyond him to the waves and the darkening ocean. It called to her, and as he raised his hand and held it out, she slipped her hand into his and followed him into the water.

The jolt of the cold with those first few steps rattled her, but then he wrapped his arms around her. With a strong shove of his legs, he drove them into the waters, the sea swallowing them up for a moment before they resurfaced.

Artists called a mix of dark and light
chiaroscuro
, and that was how it felt to be in his arms, floating in the water. Hot and cold swirled around her, from his body and the ocean. More hot than cold, for which she was thankful.

His strength kept her afloat in the relatively calm waters, and it was a marvelous sensation: the weightlessness of the waves and their primal push and pull; the heat
of their bodies pressed together, rubbing with the ebb and flow of the water until the inevitable happened.

Her nipples were tight, chilled by that chiaroscuro hot-cold and the fabric rubbing against them. Against him. Beside her belly came the insistent push of his erection, and as before, she had to touch.

She reached down and covered him with her hand, the nylon slick. Looking up, she watched his eyes darken as she stroked him, and along her body, his skin grew ever hotter. Was it her imagination or were there wisps of steam coming off his shoulders?

“Bobbie,” he said with a pained sigh.

“Sshh,” she whispered against his lips as she continued her caresses, tracing the length of him with her hand before cupping him. Inching beneath the nylon, she encircled him.

He groaned and tightened his hold along her waist, freeing his other arm so he could run his hand across the tight nubs of her breasts, tweaking and caressing them until she was shaking and the emptiness between her legs needed to be filled.

She yanked down her shorts and then did the same with his Speedo, freeing him from the confines of the nylon. With one swift move, her legs were wrapped around his hips and he plunged into her.