Granted, it had been a long time since any man had touched her. And she did find Gideon attractive. He had that roguish charm that both intrigued and annoyed her. But to orgasm simply because he laid a hand on her and kissed her neck? It was impossible. Right?
Unlikely, unheard of, but apparently not impossible.
She leaned against the wall, hiding in the shadows, her insides still quaking a little. Her knees continued to shake, and she felt a growing dampness that told her that she wasn’t finished with the man who’d aroused her and made her come in a matter of seconds. Well, mentally she was most definitely finished with him, but her body felt differently.
Gideon could hurt her so much. He could be the wrong man all over again. She couldn’t do it; she simply could not take that chance. So why did she still remember the way his mustache had tickled her neck and wonder how it would feel against her mouth?
She began to fiddle with the silver doodad that hung around her neck. What she should do was rip the damn thing off and throw it away. What she should do was file charges against the SOB for daring to put his hands on her. Of course, that was probably just what he wanted and expected her to do.
What she was going to do was meet him tomorrow morning and pretend that nothing had happened. There was more to Gideon Raintree than met the eye, and she was going to find out what that more was.
This time of year the storms came frequently. Gideon loved storms. Most of all, he loved the lightning. Midnight had passed. He stood on the beach wearing his cutoff jeans and Dante’s protection charm, and lifted his face and his palms to the clouds. Electrons filled the air. He could taste them; he could feel them.
He could still feel and taste her, too. Normally nothing distracted him when there was electricity in the air, but he still felt Hope reeling against him, clutching at his clothes, moaning and wobbling and coming more intensely than he’d expected. He could still taste her throat on his tongue. It had been an exercise meant to distract her, and instead here he was, hopelessly distracted himself, hours after he’d walked away and left her trembling and confused.
He couldn’t afford to be distracted. Not now, not ever. It was the reason he always sent Emma away, the reason he mailed Dante fertility charms on a regular basis. Someone had to carry on the Raintree name, and it wouldn’t be him.
What normal woman would accept who and what he was? Like it or not, there were moments when that was what he wanted more than anything. Not to be normal, not to deny who and what he was and give up his gifts. Not that, never that. But some days he craved a touch of normal in his life. Just a touch. And he couldn’t have it. Nothing about his life ever had been or ever would be normal.
Hope was normal. If she knew what he was and what he could do, he would never again get close enough to touch her.
The first crack of lightning split the sky and lit the night. The bolt danced across the black sky, beautiful and bright and powerful, splintering like veins of power. He felt it under his skin, in his blood. The next bolt was closer and more powerful. It was drawn to him, as he was drawn to it. He and the lightning fed one another. He drew the energy closer; he drank it in.
The next bolt of lightning came to him. It shot through his body, danced in his blood. His eyes rolled up and back, and his feet left the sand so that he floated a few inches off the ground. He never felt more powerful than he did at moments like these, with the night cloaking him, the waves lapping close by, and the lightning running through his blood.
Gideon didn’t just love the storm, he was the storm. Caught in the lightning show, an integral part of it, he drank in the power and the beauty. He gave back, as well, feeding the storm as it fed him. With the summer solstice coming, he didn’t need the extra jolt of power the storm provided, but he wanted it. Craved it. Standing on the beach alone, fortifying his body with the power he shared with explosive nature, he could not deny who he was.
Raintree.
The next thunderbolt hit Gideon directly and blew him back several feet. He felt not as if he had been thrown but as if he were flying. Flying or not, he landed in the sand on his ass, breathless and energized and invigorated. His heartbeat raced; his breath came hard. As the storm moved on, small slivers of lightning remained with Gideon, crackling off his skin in a way that was startlingly obvious in the darkness of night. White and green and blue, the electricity danced across and inside him. He lifted a hand to the night sky and watched the fading sparks his skin generated.
Normal wasn’t his thing, and it never would be. Best not to waste his time wishing for things that would never happen, impossible things like being inside Hope the next time she lurched and trembled.
If she scoffed at auras and crystals and lucky tokens, what would she think of him?
SIX
Wednesday—8:40 a.m.
Gideon half expected Hope to be far, far away from her mother’s shop by the time he arrived at The Silver Chalice to pick her up. She’d had time to think about last night. She could be downtown, filing a report against him or requesting a transfer. Maybe she was on her way back to Raleigh, though to be honest, she didn’t look like a runner. Still, it was unlikely that she would continue on as if nothing had happened.
Again she surprised him. She was waiting out front, outwardly casual, a coffee cup in one hand. As usual, she was dressed conservatively, in a gray pantsuit and white tailored blouse that would look plain on any other woman but looked incredibly hot on Hope Malory. Did she know that those tailored trousers she thought made her look professional only advertised how long and slender her legs were? And with those heels she wore—heels that were probably intended to make her look even taller than she already was—she was a knockout. If she was wearing the charm he’d given her last night, it was well hidden, just as his was.
“You shouldn’t be standing out in the open,” he said as he reached across and threw open the passenger side door.
“
Good morning to you, too,” Hope said distantly as she took her seat. “What’s the plan?” If she’d had the guts to actually look him in the eye, he wouldn’t have believed she was human.
“I culled out four homicides, all of them in the Southeast, that share some similarities with the Bishop murder.”
“All women?”
He shook his head. “Three women, one man.”
“Commonality?”
“Similar weapon and souvenirs taken. Not always fingers and hair, but souvenirs in themselves are unusual enough to make them worth looking at. There were no witnesses, and no evidence to speak of. All the victims were single. Not just unmarried, but unattached romantically and without family living close by. That could be coincidence, but…”