Whispers on the Wind (20 page)

Well! Now, for sure Lenore was going to stop at the store to learn more about this unexpected turn of affairs.

“Your car’s all charged up and ready to go,” Angus said. “See you soon, I hope.”

“I hope so too.” Lenore smiled as Angus set his machine in motion again and glided off in a whir of electric motor, followed by the inevitable cloud of crows.

After putting Mystery safely out to graze on the new grass in the paddock near the house, Lenore led Jon to her car, a snappy little blue two-seater bubble that she realized, as she opened the passenger door, had never been meant for a man well over six feet tall. Though the seat automatically adjusted to his height and weight, dropping down as low as it could and sliding back to its farthest limits, it was still a tight fit for him.

“If you were willing,” he said, shifting as if to try to find a comfortable spot for his knees and shoulders, “I could simply take us wherever it is you want to go.”

“My car too?”

He hesitated as she showed the detector panel her wrist-chip, then punched the keypad to activate the fuel cell, setting the car in motion.

“Perhaps not...yet. In another day or two, though...

“But the sooner we find your Octad, the sooner you can accomplish your tasks and leave. We will be at my home in less than two hours. But first, I must stop and say goodbye to my friends.”

Outside the store, she said, “Come in and I’ll introduce you to Jane and Nancy.” Odd, how much pleasure it would give her to do just that. Especially to see the expression on Nancy’s face when Lenore walked through the door with a large, golden god to show off. But no. Maybe not, since she had, as Angus said, ‘finally’ agreed to marry Peter Johanssen. She’d have too many stars in her eyes to focus on Lenore’s spectacular find.

“I think not,” Jon said. “I’m not certain I will be able to leave this seat while in my corporeal form.”

Lenore blew out a puff of air. The man had a point. It absolutely would not do to have him dematerializing inside her car, then materializing again right out in plain sight. If Nancy saw that, it would be the tabloids for her and Jon for sure.

I
T TOOK NEARLY AS
long to reach the east-west glideway at Kamloops and lock on as it did to complete the rest of the trip. Once on the glideway, with little to worry about beyond punching in the correct coordinates that would switch them through to the north-south system at the right moment, though, it was pleasant to relax and watch the entire metropolitan area of the Cascadia Corridor spread out on either side of them as far as the eye could see.

“This is a very large center of population,” Jon observed, surprising her. She’d been thinking he might find her world provincial, if not primitive.

“It is a series of three city sectors,” she said. “They extend from Sector Vancouver at the northern end, through Sector Seattle in the center, and terminate at Sector Portland in the south. Once, it was possible to determine where one left off and the other began, but not for many years. Now, the entire region is called the Cascadia Corridor. There are many such population corridors in North America. This is the westernmost one, and one of the smallest.”

He looked worried. “Are there no open spaces beyond what I see below?” The entire five-kilometer wide band under the glideway was a green-belt filled with rivers, lakes, parks, and wilderness areas, with frequent offshoots leading into the urban developed areas

“Oh, yes. Many. Forest preserves that are allowed to remain as close to their natural state as possible.”

“And people do not go there?”

“Of course they do. Where we came from is a mountain preserve. The valley where we left the horse is an agricultural preserve. There are cities, and there are rural areas all over this continent and the others.”

“Yes. My studies told me that, but seeing this... He waved a hand at the speed-blurred city-scape on both sides of the glideway, visible right up the slopes of the mountains in the east, crowding right out to the edge of the ocean in the west. “Seeing this, I had to wonder where Rankin might be collecting the herbals he uses to extract his drugs.”

“Could be anywhere. Salal grows in great abundance all the way from Alaska to Oregon. If he’s collecting it, he could be near, or he could be a thousand klicks away. Though I think most of the commercial—legitimate commercial picking—is done before the flowers and berries form on it in the spring and summer.”

Jon glanced, uneasily, she thought, out of the blue bubble that shielded them from the wind of their rapid passage. “I do not wish to find Rankin until I have assembled my people.”

She laid her hand over his where it rested on his thigh. “We will find your people, Jon. Somehow, we will find them.”

He turned his hand over and linked their fingers.

“Yes,” he said. “We will.”

If only she hadn’t touched him, Lenore thought, feeling the heat of him circulate through her body, setting her nerve-endings afire. A need for him grew in her, grew to unimaginable proportions, and when she finally left the glideway and guided her car the last few kilometers to the narrow slot where it automatically plugged itself into its recharger, she was trembling with hunger to know what a union with Jon would be like.

When they emerged from the car—Jon managed without dematerializing—he reached for her again at the same moment she reached for him, unwilling, maybe even unable, to give up that physical contact and the promise it offered.

“This is your home?” he murmured.

“Yes.” It was difficult to speak.

“Take me into it,” he said, and in the request, she heard much, much more.

It seemed only natural, then, for them to continue holding each other as they mounted the moving spiral that carried them to her second-floor apartment. It seemed just as natural for her to lead him directly through the bright living room and into her dim bedroom. There they stood, facing each other, gazes locked, minds in tune, she thought, each knowing exactly why they were there, both wanting the same thing with the same intensity.

A cool breeze blew suddenly across her back and she realized her clothing had simply...gone away. As had Jon’s. She glanced at the floor. There were no garments pooled near their feet. Her gaze flew to the chair and found it empty of everything but a tattered toy monkey. She gasped. “What...?”

Then Jon’s warm hands were on her waist, drawing her to him. She could not prevent her own hands rising to glide up over the muscles of his forearms, his biceps, his hard shoulders. She quivered as his gaze caught hers, holding her captive. Between her hands, the gleam of his
Kahinya
tempted her. She longed to touch it, to go where it would lead her, back to that place of wonder and beauty and warmth, of birdsong and perfumed flowers and slowly flowing water under a turquoise sky, but...which bead had it been she had touched before that transported her there?

“Lenore...” It was the whisper from her dream, the urgency as intense, and need in the single word as strong, as compelling. She stepped forward and felt his hard warmth against the full length of her body. “Come with me,” he whispered. “Come with me to a place you have never been before.”

Shivering slightly with anticipation, she nodded. He took her hand, moved her right index finger and connected it to a bead of light and suddenly she was there—wherever “there” was, and so was Jon.

Water danced in silver ripples as far as she could see. Hot sun beamed down. Beneath her feet, soft growth, not grass, not moss, but green and thick with a hint of purple undertones, cushioned her soles. Small white clouds drifted overhead, casting slowly moving pools of shade while all around seabirds called and flew, blue, green, yellow, bouncing like butterflies through the sweet air, alighting atop the ripples, disappearing beneath them only to pop up again, often with tiny, silver fish in their beaks.

All around, small flowers painted the tips of shrubs with bright red, pale yellow, deep lavender, adding their scents to the overall perfume of the air. Ferns from as small as her finger to as large as a redwood waved and whispered in the breezes. Between where Lenore and Jon stood and the rippling bay, a curve of silver sand arced away into the distance on both sides. She turned. Behind her, more trees grew, covered with the palest of green fronds, wafting a sweet scent across the shore area. Beyond those, rising in higher and higher ridges, a rolling, hilly landscape faded from green to purple as it reached toward an impossibly blue sky.

Not another person could be seen. This was their private world, an Eden for a naked Adam and his Eve.

Jon’s hand moved from hers, tracked slowly, so very slowly up her arm she could scarcely see it moving, but felt it in every pore of her body. Finally, he captured her breast, held it, his thumb stroking her nipple. She wanted, how dearly she wanted, to hold him close, but she was afraid to break contact with the bead she touched lest the magical place disappear.

His other hand in the center of her back supported her as he lowered her to the resilient growth. A herbal scent, a mingling of thyme, mint, and something she didn’t recognize arose around them, and then his mouth was on hers, seeking, demanding, and his hands stroked over her. This time, she knew, he would not disappear. This time, she knew, her body would not be left humming and aching with unfulfilled needs.

Her nails raked down his back and she realized she had lost her connection with his
Kahinya
but it seemed, now, not to matter. The substance beneath her remained the same, the small, puffy clouds still floated high in the aquamarine sky and the brilliantly colored birds continued to call out in their musical voices.

She gazed into Jon’s green eyes, seeing herself reflected there, and parted her legs to cradle his body. “I need you,” she said.

“As I need you.”

“Then come into me,” she pleaded.

“Not yet,” he whispered. “There is so much more for us to experience together.”

The places he took her were like nothing she had ever dreamed. With the touch of a single finger, he could make her gasp. With the nip of gentle teeth, he caused her to cry out and writhe in an agony of pleasure. With the soothing brush of his lips, he eased the intensity down to something she could tolerate, though moisture beaded her body and his, whisked away by soft breezes except where their skin, pressed so tightly together, made that impossible.

She arched against him, seeking. She wrapped her legs around him, urging him to take her. She laughed when one of the red birds landed on his shoulder and said to her, “Look into his mind, Lenore. He is open to you,” but dared not do so though she knew it was Jon who had caused the bird to speak. She waved it away and gazed deeply into Jon’s eyes.

“Do you want to be in my mind?” she asked.

“I do. But I will not. I want you to see into me now, Lenore. Come with me. I will not violate your privacy. But from you, I have none. I want none. I want your touch everywhere.”

“You have it,” she whispered, stroking her hands down his back, curling her fingertips into the resilience of his muscular buttocks. She rolled them both over, straddled his thighs, and cradled him in her hands, one cupping and lifting from underneath, the other sliding up his hard shaft, her thumb stroking back and forth, damp from the bead of semen on its tip. He closed his eyes and groaned.

She bent and touched him with her lips, the tip of her tongue, then gently, carefully, her teeth. He bent like a bow, lifting his hips and she took him into her mouth. He moaned and thrust hard, once, then pulled back from her.

“Do you not want to know how wonderful that feels to me?”

“I do know,” she said, lying full-length upon him, her lips against his neck. “You body, your breathing, your voice tells me you like what I do.”

“My mind says it better. You make colors in my mind, colors and scents and sensations I have never before experienced. I want to share them with you, Lenore. Please, let me.”

She lifted up and looked into his eyes, her own body vibrating with need for release as she moved against him, unable to do otherwise. His plea resounded against something deep inside her, something that longed to give him what he asked, but she shuddered and could not overcome her fears. Instead of opening her mind, or letting him open his to her, she opened her body and took him inside.

He groaned in pleasure, then slowly, lovingly, he began to move inside her. As tension grew in her, as her breathing became labored and her vision blurred, he somehow held her at that point until she was slick with sweat, crying out faintly, begging for release.

And then he gave it to her. Gave it to them both. It burst over them like the avalanche and this time she did not try to fight the swirling, tossing sensation, but tumbled willingly with it, with him. Her climax closed off every semblance of thought.

What must have been eons later, Lenore became aware of Jon leaning over her, tracing that long curl of her hair over her breasts again, teasing her with it. She opened her eyes slowly, met his smiling gaze and said, “What did you do to me?”

“I loved you, Lenore.”

Made love, he meant. She knew that. But even knowing it, her heart leapt with joy at the thought of his loving her, despite the impossibility of it.

“And I will love you again,” he said, just before a whistling sound drew his attention and he smiled as he turned them both. “But now, would you like to meet some friends of mine?”

“I certainly would not!”

She was stark naked in a strange place, had just shared unbelievable sex with an alien and now he wanted to introduce her to friends? She bit her lip, totally unwilling to share him—to share this place—with anyone else. Though she heard another whistle, she saw no one anywhere along the shore, or in any kind of boat in the water.

“What friends?”

“The
mazayin
.” Jon stood and pulled her up by the hand.

“
Mazayin
?” She repeated the word as he had said it, with the accent on the center syllable. She felt she was becoming much more adept at using the odd bits of his language, though she despaired of ever achieving the musical quality of his tongue.