The Lost (31 page)

Gone was the hurry from seconds before as Adam slowly slipped his hand beneath her shirt, past the low waistband of her jeans to the smooth skin of her toned midsection. He splayed his hand there and experienced the awkward ridge of scar at her center followed by her abrupt inhalation.

“You asked me to believe before, and now I’m asking the same. Believe me that all that I see is a beautiful woman whose body is a testament to her strength of will.”

Her body trembled beneath his hands, but he pressed forward, running his hands up her middle, dragging the shirt upward as it caught on his wrist. With each millimeter that he moved, he exposed yet another bit of the damage to her body, drew forth his power and willed it downward.

Bobbie was thankful for his restrained and patient caring. As he moved slowly, a tingling warmth sprang to life where his skin met hers. He trailed his hand upward to just below her sternum where all evidence of her wounds
ended. Beneath his palm, a silver-blue radiance escaped, and within her, something loosened and relaxed.

She almost feared looking up at him, seeing the pity and disgust on his face, but she had never run from anything in her life. She couldn’t avoid this any longer.

Glancing up at him, she searched his features but saw nothing of what she dreaded. There was only love, shining from his gaze, and a shudder of relief ripped through her body.

He placed a knee on the edge of the bed and braced his other hand beside her as he dipped his head and kissed her. “I love you, Bobbie.”

“I love you,” she repeated.

He smiled then and shifted to his knees, grasped the hem of her shirt with both hands, and helped her remove it. He slipped his hand beneath the straps of her bra to urge it downward. He paused, gazing at her.

“You’re beautiful.”

Even though they’d made love before, she felt almost shy revealing so much to him and reached up to cover herself, but he shook his head and eased his hands beneath hers, cupped her breasts, and strummed his thumbs over the puckered peaks of her nipples. Between her legs, her muscles clenched and her sex grew damp, anticipating the glide of his body into hers.

She needed to touch him as he was touching her. Impatiently, she grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked upward. He interrupted his caresses only long enough to rip the shirt off his body and toss it aside. Then he reclined his long, lean body beside hers, slipped closer to bring his lips to her breasts.

Tunneling her hands into the short strands of his hair,
she held him to her as he tasted her, licking and sucking the sensitive tips, drawing the moisture of his mouth around the peaks with his fingers.

Pleasure slammed into her and she closed her eyes and arched her back, focusing on the sensations he was creating and the feel of his body against hers. So much skin to skin free of any emotional or physical barriers. So much vitality beneath her hands as she ran them along the taut muscles of his shoulders and experienced the pulse of power shifting back and forth between them, growing ever stronger as emotion and need rose to ever greater heights.

With a gentle bite he dragged a moan from her and a breathy, “That feels so good.”

A very masculine chuckle escaped him and he said, “It’s only the start.”

He moved downward and she protested with a little moan, digging her fingers against his shoulders and resisting his movement. But then he brought his mouth to the first hint of scar and placed his lips there.

She jumped as if electrified, shocked by the feel of the tiny kisses he dropped down the length of her. The warmth and tingling intensified and she almost didn’t dare to look, but then she glanced down. Watched as he shifted ever lower, until he was at the worst of her injuries. His kisses left behind bright bits of silver blue, twinkling like a trail of tiny lights.

Tenderly he kissed the skin along her scars and brushed his hands across her midsection. The shimmer of energy came again as he whispered, “I wish I could take away all the pain.”

The realization slammed into her. “You have, Adam. With you I’m whole again.”

With her admission came a sense of completeness in him as well, Adam thought. She was the piece that had been missing for so long, maybe even since before Salvatore had taken him. As if on some other plane their energies had been divided until the time when it was right for them to come together once more.

Her words came back to him, powerfully alive.

“To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose. Until now I was lost, Bobbie, but now it’s time I come home to you.”

He surged upward and they kissed once again, sharing each breath and heartbeat as one until they needed to take the final step to complete that union and satisfy the power building in them, which wanted to be shared.

Adam reached down and Bobbie followed the path of his hands, helping him get rid of his khakis and boxers, trailing her hand up along his thigh to encircle him.

He sucked in a breath at her caress, nearly undone. Gently he eased himself between her legs, bracing his hands on either side of her, gazing down at her and seeing the love and acceptance in her eyes. He allowed her to lead him to her center, paused with the tip of him at her entry, the heat and wet of her summoning him.

She dragged her hands away from him to grasp the sides of his hips and tightened her fingers there to urge him forward.

Slowly he joined with her, savoring every nuance of his body sliding into her center. The moist heat surrounding him. The brush of her crisp, curly hairs against his flesh. The intense slide of skin against skin and the friction of their energies, seeking a similar joining.

As she raised her knees, deepening his penetration
and cradling his hips, she shifted her hands upward to his shoulders. Wherever she touched, a bright silver gleam lit the way. She smiled at the wonder in the display and urged him down to meet her lips again.

He rested within her as they kissed. Content. Complete. Their merged auras cradled them with their joined life forces, feeding their souls and passion with the power of their union.

Every meeting of their lips was filled with life and love and laughter as they rejoiced, as passion grew ever stronger and he finally began to move within her, pulling her along with him toward ever greater pleasure, the pain of their past, of all wounds both physical and emotional, healed by the strength of their love.

He came first, unable to contain what he felt for her. How she moved him.

He had barely drawn a breath after that explosive release when she was joining him, her body arching upward to his as her desire erupted. She screamed his name and gripped his shoulders, rising upward, her body milking his, drawing him ever deeper.

He imagined what might have been then if things had been different. Laying his hand over her flat midsection, he pictured it rounded with his child, and as her hand slipped over his and he met her gaze, he realized she was imagining it as well.

“I love you,” he said, wanting her to understand that nothing could change that.

With a sad smile and tears shimmering in her eyes, she said, “I know and I love you even more for that.”

He leaned down and kissed her, the caress one of
tenderness and understanding, soothing away the hurt that had intruded on their miracle.

Bobbie held him to her, and as he eased to his side, she snuggled up against him and laid a hand over his heart. The beat beneath her palm still raced from their lovemaking, but slowly eased back to normal as they rested together, as the bright display of their combined life forces retreated.

Idly she ran her thumb along the crisp hair on his chest, knowing there was one thing that still lingered over them, needing to be discussed.

Tentatively, she broached the subject. “Your parents came here to find you.”

“I know,” he said, running his hand up and down her back as he kept her tucked close to him.

“Do you want to be found?”

He stopped the motion of his hand, obviously uncertain. “I do, only I’m not their Kikin anymore. I’m Adam now,” he said with obvious reluctance before continuing. “I have a life here. A life I want to share with you.”

“And they have other plans for you.” She understood the all too common theme. So many parents had hopes for their offspring that didn’t necessarily match their children’s wishes. In Adam’s case, it was complicated by the dynamics of his people and their apparent needs.

“I’m not sure what they expect now, but I want to meet them,” he said.

She rubbed her hand back and forth along his chest, looked up and met his gaze. “My family is my bedrock. I couldn’t have survived without them. But Salvatore has been your family. What will you do about him?”

Storm clouds gathered in his eyes, shadowing them,
and his lips thinned into a tight line. “I need to deal with him, but not now.”

Wanting to dispel the hurt, she cradled his cheek and urged his face down the inch or so to hers. With a gentle pass of her lips along his, she said, “Right now you’ve got other things to do.”

And just in case there was any doubt about what, she brought her body against his.

“Did I ever tell you how much I like that you’re an empowered woman?” he teased as he kissed her.

She chuckled and said, “Why don’t you show me instead?”

C
hristopher drummed his fingers along the desktop in frustration and eyeballed his captain.

“Tell me again how it is that your men somehow lost William and his underling.”

Ryan lowered his gaze, obviously ashamed of the actions of his cadre members. “They said they got distracted by the pull of incredibly strong Hunter power.”

Christopher arched a brow. “Other Shadows?”

Wagging his head, Ryan replied, “No. Light Hunters. And from what they said, it’s possible it was the source for which we’ve been searching.”

An amazing font of power, Christopher thought, willing to contain his anger if in fact they had located the Quinchu with such incredible strength.

He heaved away from his desk and over to the map pinned to the wall. As in any military campaign, the possible targets had been indicated on the chart. Blue pins for each possible Light Hunter location, not that he intended to
track down those smaller vessels of power. He had a bigger plan in mind, one that would wrest control from his father and lead his people on another path. Motioning to the wall and the red pins denoting where they had sensed that greater Quinchu power, he said, “Where was it this time?”

Hesitantly, Ryan picked up a red pin from the ledge along the bottom of the map board and pressed it deeply into the area denoting the Auditorium grounds in Ocean Grove. The pin stuck out like a sore thumb, nowhere near any of the other red pins, including those encircling the large area that Christopher believed to be the origin of the tsunami of energy from a few nights ago.

As he considered the location of the pins, Christopher muttered in frustration, “Fools. It was the power of the humans gathering together. They may not have a great deal of strength individually, but when they unite it’s palpable.”

Stalking back to his desk, he plopped down into his leather chair and leaned an elbow on its arm. Scrubbing his jaw with one hand, he considered Ryan as he came to stand before him once again.

He wondered where his father’s cadre captain and assistant had run off to, and if Maya had any idea about what his father had planned. Had she revealed anything about the source of the power to his father?

Christopher didn’t want to consider what his father could do with such might.

“There’s a storm brewing tonight. Whoever the Quinchu is, he could be preparing to gather that strength,” Christopher mused out loud. After all, it was what he would be trying to do to boost his Añaru powers.

Ryan nodded, clearly understanding what he wanted. “I’ll send the cadre to patrol.”

“See to it, Ryan. I also want you to set a guard on Maya as long as she is here,” he said, the unspoken message clear.

Failure was not an option. In his father’s cadre, everyone understood the price for such a fiasco. For a moment Christopher considered that maybe that was a good thing. But only for a moment, since he was not his father’s son.

As Ryan jerked his arm to his chest and saluted him, his features tight with worry, Christopher repeated in a friendlier tone, “I trust you, my friend. I know you will not disappoint if at all possible.”

The tension immediately fled from Ryan’s body and an easier smile came to his face. “We will find the source and keep an eye on Maya.”

Christopher nodded and likewise grinned to further alleviate his captain’s concerns. “I have no doubt about the first. As for the latter, am I to assume you will attend to that personally?”

A bright flush erupted on Ryan’s face as he stammered, “Doesn’t it bother you that she shares her bed with so many?”

Christopher shrugged. “She draws her power from such trysts and I need a powerful mate. It would bother me more if she shared her heart with others, but that’s not possible.”

Ryan narrowed his gaze to consider him. “And why is that?”