The Pagan Stone (19 page)

Both of them, he knew, understood the steps of the dance, had practiced its variations, its changing rhythms. But for this dance, their first together, he intended to take the lead.

He took her mouth again, a playful meeting of lips and tongues while he unhooked her pants. Then he lifted her off her feet in a sudden and casual show of strength that had her breath snagging even as the cotton slid down her legs to the floor.
Gotcha,
he thought, and lowered her just enough to bring her mouth to his. And when her sound of pleasure warmed his lips, when the hands on his shoulders tensed, he released her with just enough force to have her falling onto the bed.

She lay on her back, hair tumbled. Dusky skin and frothy black lace.

“You didn’t get that muscle shuffling cards.”

“You’d be surprised.” He eased down, planted his hands on either side of her head. “Fast or slow?”

“Let’s try some of both.” Fisting her hands in his hair, she pulled him to her. The kiss spun out, rolls of white satin, then darkened and fired with the first hungry nips of teeth. Her hands stroked down his back, slid under his loosened jeans to ride over taught muscles. And like lightning her legs hooked around him, her body bowed up pressing them urgently center to center in a move that yanked furiously at his chain of control.

A killer, he thought again, and ravished her neck.

He had a fantastic mouth, an amazing mouth. She let her head fall back so it could sample her wherever it chose. Her skin hummed under it, and under her skin her blood began to beat. His body—long, hard, with the ripple of muscle, pressed down on hers in exactly the right way so that need gathered into tight knots that set pulses drumming.

Heat. Hunger. Hurry.

She shoved the jeans down his hips, pushing them clear as she rolled over to straddle him. He countered by levering up, fixing his mouth on hers as he flicked open the clasp of her bra.

Even as the kiss spoke of speed, of urgency, his hands skimmed, stroked, in a kind of lazy torture that kindled low fires in her belly. When his mouth lowered to taste, to possess what his hands had aroused, she bowed back to offer more.

She flowed, was all he could think, agile and eager. The beautiful lines of her, the lovely curves all in pale gold, an exotic feast for the taking. And she took, grasping her own pleasure, gliding on it. Nothing could have been more provocative to him than Cybil steeped in that inevitable rise of passion.

Had he wanted her this much? Had this clenched fist of desire been inside him all along—waiting, just waiting, to punch through caution and control? It pounded in him now, beating down all reason so he wanted to feel her tremble, to see her writhe. To hear her scream. Pinning her beneath his weight he used his hands to plunder, to loose that slow rise into a hot, fast flood.

She came, quaking under him, her skin sheened from the heat glowing in the sunlight. Those dark eyes, those gypsy eyes seemed to hold a world of secrets when they locked on his.

“All of you,” she said and closed her hand around him. “All of you now.” Wrapping her legs around him, she took him into her.

A flash, a wire sparking in the blood. She let it burn through her, crying out when it brought release, moaning as it whipped her into need again, wildly. She yielded when he shoved her legs back to go deeper, and her nails bit into his hips like spurs to urge him on. Even as the pleasure, dark and intense, battered her breathless, she rushed toward that next swamping wave.

She erupted under him, and dragged him with her into the fire.

They lay flat on their backs, side by side on the bed. He felt as if he’d been kicked off a cliff, doing the tumble down through screaming air to land in a hot river. He’d barely had the strength or the brainpower to roll off her so they could both try to get their breath back.

That hadn’t been sex, he thought. Sex was anything from an enjoyable pastime to a good, sweaty bout. That had been a revelation of near-biblical proportions.

“Well, okay,” he managed. “The surprises just keep coming.”

“I think I saw God.” Cybil’s breath streamed out in something between sigh and moan. “She was pleased.”

He laughed, closed his eyes. “You’re like a live, female version of Gumby. Without the green.”

She was silent a moment. “Since I believe that was a compliment, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And since we’re handing them out, you—” She broke off, and her hand clamped on his. “Gage.”

He opened his eyes. The walls bled. Long rivers of red gushed down the walls, swam over the floor. “If that were real, Cal would be sincerely pissed off. Blood’s a bitch to clean.”

“It doesn’t like what went on here.” She took a breath, rolled to nudge him back when he started to rise. Eyes hard, face pale, she spoke in a steady voice. “Peeping Toms are so disgusting. But, we might as well give this one something to write home about. Tell me, is it true what I hear from my housemates?”

“What would that be?”

“That your healing powers include impressively fast recovery?”

He grinned at her. “Are you up for a demonstration?”

“More to the point, are you?” She tossed a leg over him, mounted him. Her head fell back, her breath shuddered out. “It’s comforting to know my friends are honest. Oh God. Wait.” Her hands gripped his as sensation clawed through her.

“Take your time.”

“Brace yourself,” she warned. “This is going to be a wild ride.”

Later, though the walls and floor showed no signs of demon tantrums, he took her again in the shower. Hair damp, eyes sleepy, she dressed.

“Well, what an interesting day. Now I’ve got to get back to work and swing by and get Q from the bowling center.”

“Maybe I’ll ride in with you.”

“Oh?”

“You want input, and I figure I’ll cop lunch out of the deal.”

“That might be arranged.” When she started to walk by him, out of the room, he took her arm.

“Cybil. I’m not nearly done with you.”

“Cutie.” She gave his cheek a very deliberate pat. “They never are.”

When she kept on going, he shook his head. He’d walked into that one, he admitted. By the time he got downstairs she’d dug a lipstick out of her cavernous bag and was sliding it, with perfect accuracy, over her lips. “How do you do that without looking?”

“Oddly, my lips remain in exactly the same place day after day, year after year. Are you going to want your laptop?”

“Yeah.” He’d never considered a woman applying lipstick particularly sexy. Before. “If it gets too irritating working with you and the blonde, I’ll set up somewhere.”

“Gather it up then. The train’s about to pull out.” While he did she took out blusher, stroked a bit over her cheeks. In seconds, she’d done something with a minute mirror and a pencil to soot up her eyes. As they walked toward the door she spritzed something from a silver tube about the size of his thumb onto her throat. And that scent, that autumn woods scent reached out and grabbed him by his.

So he grabbed her, rubbed his lips over hers. “We could blow off the day.” And had the satisfaction of feeling her heart kick against his.

“Tempting. Seriously tempting, but no. I’d have to call Quinn and explain I’m not picking her up because I’ve decided spending the day naked in bed with you is more important than trying to find the way to destroy a demon who wants us all dead. Not that she wouldn’t understand, but still.”

She opened the door, stepped out on the deck.

The boy crouched on the roof of her car, a grinning gargoyle. As it flashed its teeth, Gage pushed Cybil behind him. “Get back in the house.”

“Absolutely not.”

With a flourish, the boy raised its hands, then chopped them down like a mad conductor. The dark fell; the wind rose.

“It’s just show,” Cybil shouted. “Like the walls upstairs.”

“More than that this time.” He could feel it in the bite of the wind. Inside in surrender, Gage thought, or out here, in challenge? If he’d been alone, it wouldn’t be a question. “My car’s faster.”

“All right.”

They started forward, pushing into the wind that shoved them back. Gage kept his eyes on the boy as it whirled in wild circles over the slope of hill, the curve of road. Debris flew, chunks of garden mulch, falling twigs, and peppering gravel. He used his body in an attempt to shield her from the worst of it. Then the boy leaped down.

“Fuck the whore while you can.” The words were only uglier when shouted in that young, childish voice. “Before long, you’ll watch as I make her scream in pleasure and pain. Want a taste, bitch?”

Crying out in shock, Cybil doubled over, clutching herself. Gage made the choice quickly, and letting her fall to her knees, he pulled out his knife. On a howling laugh, the boy flipped out of range in a gleeful handspring. Gage gripped Cybil’s arm, wrenched her to her feet. One look at her face had her horror, her helplessness stabbing through him like his own knife.

“Get in the car. Get in the damn car.” He shoved her inside, fighting off the rage as the thing in a boy’s form pumped its hips obscenely. The rage pushed at him, screamed at him to go after the thing, to hack and slice. But she was curled into a ball inside the car, shaking.

Gage pulled himself in, fought to slam the door against the wind. Ruthlessly now, he shoved Cybil back, yanked the seat belt around her. Shock and pain turned her face to white marble.

“Hold on. Just hold on.”

“It’s in me.” She gasped it out while her body jerked. “It’s in me.”

Gunning the engine, Gage shot into reverse, then whipped the wheel. The car bucked in the force of the wind as he sped over the bridge toward the road. Blood spat out of the sky, splatting the windshield, hissing like acid on the roof, the hood. The boy’s head appeared at the top, its eyes slanted like a snake’s. As it ran its tongue through the blood, Cybil moaned.

It laughed when Gage flipped the wipers on full speed, pumped the washer to spray. Laughed as though it was a fine, fine joke. Then it squealed, either with humor or with surprise, when Gage wrenched the car into a vicious three-sixty. The windshield erupted with fire.

He cut his speed rather than risk a wreck, blocked out everything but the need for a steady hand on the wheel. Slowly, the dark ebbed, the fire sputtered.

When the sun flashed on again with a gentle spring breeze, he pulled to the side of the road. She slumped back in the seat, staring up as her shoulders shook with each breath.

“Cybil.”

She cringed away. “Please don’t. Don’t touch me.”

“Okay.” Nothing to say, he thought. Nothing to do but get her home. She’d been raped right in front of his eyes, and there was nothing to say, nothing to do.

When they got to the house he didn’t help her inside. Don’t touch me, she’d said, so he only held the door, closed it after her. “Go upstairs, lie down or . . . I’ll call Quinn.”

“Yes, call Quinn.” But she didn’t go upstairs. Instead she walked back toward the kitchen. When he went in moments later, she had a glass of brandy in her shaking hands.

“She’s on her way. I don’t know what you need, Cybil.”

“Neither do I.” She took a long drink, then a long breath. “God, neither do I, but that’s a start.”

“I can’t leave you alone, I can’t give you that. But if you want to go up and lie down, I’ll stay outside the bedroom.” When she shook her head, everything about her seemed to tremble. “Goddamn it, god
damn
it, scream, cry, throw something, punch me.”

She shook her head again, drank the rest of the brandy. “It wasn’t real, physically. But it felt real, physically, and every other way there is to feel. I’m not going to scream; I might never stop. I want Quinn, that’s all. I want Quinn.”

When the front door slammed open, Gage thought Quinn must have run every step. She was still running when she reached the kitchen. “Cyb.”

Cybil made a sound, a mix of moan and whimper that sliced straight through Gage’s belly. Even as she turned into Quinn’s arms, Quinn led her away. “Come on, baby, let’s go upstairs. I’ll take you upstairs.”

Quinn sent Gage one long grieving look, then they were gone. Gage picked up the glass, smashed it in the sink. Changed nothing, he thought, looking down at the shards. Just a broken glass, and that changed nothing, fixed nothing, helped nothing.

Cal came in to find him standing at the sink, staring out at the sunny afternoon. “What happened? After Quinn got your call she told me to call Layla, get her here, and she ran out. Cybil, is she hurt?”

“Christ knows.” His throat burned, Gage realized. Burned as if he’d swallowed flame. “It raped her. The son of a fucking bitch, and I didn’t stop it.”

Cal stepped up to him, laid a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”

He began coldly, almost clinically, beginning with the blood on the walls. He didn’t stop or acknowledge Fox when Fox came in, but he picked up the beer Fox opened and set in front of him.

“About a mile, mile and a half from your place it stopped. It all went away. Except for Cybil. I don’t know if that kind of thing ever goes away.”

“You got her away,” Cal pointed out. “You got her back home.”

“Give me a medal and call me hero.”

“I know how you feel.” Fox met Gage’s hot and bitter look quietly. “It’s happened to Layla, so I know how you feel. Layla’s upstairs now. That’s going to help. And Cybil will get through it because that’s the way they’re made. We’ll get through it because it’s all we can do. We’ll all get through it because we’re going to make the bastard pay. That’s what the fuck we’re going to do.”

He held out a hand. After a moment, Gage gripped it, and Cal laid his over theirs. “We’ll make the bastard pay,” Gage repeated. “That’s what the fuck we’re going to do. I swear an oath.”

“We swear an oath,” Cal and Fox agreed, then Cal blew out a breath and rose.