“Soon,” he returned. “Very, very soon.”
“You did them,” I murmured, catching for just an instant a flicker of the past. Sawyer on this mountain, the wind swirling, the rain falling, the storm raging.
“Mmm.” His voice was absent, his attention on my breasts, my neck, the curve where my waist became my hip, where my thigh became my ass.
I tried to focus, managed but barely. “You did those tattoos. You said they were made by a sorcerer wielding the lightning. It was you.”
He shrugged. The movement shifting his bones in ways bones should not shift.
“You’re a sorcerer,” I clarified.
“Medicine man, skinwalker. I’m many things, Phoenix.”
“Your powers . . .” I paused, uncertain what I meant to say, what I wanted to ask.
“Did you think murder would give me nothing?”
I jerked, the movement knocking me against him hard, though our wet bodies glided together so soft.
“What did it give you?” I asked.
His gaze met mine, and the centuries swirled. “Everything,” he whispered, “and nothing at all.”
Then he kissed me again, making me dizzy with his past, with his power. I was lost, couldn’t fight it or him any longer. Maybe later.
More kissing, more touching. The slide of my hands across his skin, my breasts skidded over his chest, my nipples pearling from the friction and the chill. His penis pressed against my belly. I couldn’t help it; I rubbed against the hard length.
His tongue mimicked the act I was considering committing on the wet ground. In and out of my mouth, in and out. I sucked on it, played tag too. He bit me, just a nip, so I bit him back. The sharp pain, the tang of blood, seemed to increase the wind; the rain became a torrent.
Everywhere we touched flared both hot and cold, sizzling and slick; the air buzzed. Something was coming.
I held on to Sawyer. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, let him go, so I kissed him harder, deeper, and suddenly everything stilled.
The ground jerked, as if the very dirt were a carpet about to be pulled from beneath our feet. My body and Sawyer’s too convulsed, shuddering and shaking as ozone, acrid and dark, burned all around us. The whole world seemed to go bright with silver light. I was afraid to open my eyes for fear my corneas would be fried to a crisp.
But the earth didn’t open and swallow us. The lightning didn’t strike us. The rain no longer rained down on us. Even the breeze had died.
As I came back to myself, I realized three things. Sawyer and I were still pressed together, the remnants of what felt very much like an orgasm tingling along my skin.
The air still smelled like something sizzled; I could almost hear it crackling.
And we were no longer alone; I sensed something, someone, very near.
Cautiously, I opened my eyes. The lake remained smooth as glass. The nearly full moon shone serenely on its surface. Mount Taylor loomed. Sawyer’s hogan remained exactly where it had always been.
However, the hat in the charmed circle was gone, and Xander Whitelaw now stood in its place.
CHAPTER 14
He looked exactly the same as the last time I’d seen him.
No, not the last time. I wanted to forget the last time.
Xander Whitelaw looked the same as the last time I’d seen him alive.
Khaki trousers, blue button-down complete with a tie, loafers and rimless glasses. Total geekazoid, but handsome if you liked blond-haired, dark-eyed long-distance runners with a brain. I was sure someone did. Or had. Hell.
“Miss Phoenix?” he asked in his soft, slightly southern voice.
I nodded, unwrapping myself from Sawyer. Our skin peeled apart with an audible fwonk. Sweat and rain, as well as a little mud, covered us; we were a mess. I badly wanted to jump in the lake, but first things first.
“Clothes,” I muttered, and ran for the hogan.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sawyer called after me. “He won’t care. He’s beyond that.”
“I’m not.” I ducked inside the structure.
There wasn’t much there. Sawyer didn’t care who saw him in the altogether, and this was his place, even more so than the one down the mountain. Sawyer came to the lake when he wanted to perform rituals no one else should see. Or perhaps he came to perform rituals that could only be performed here.
The Navajo refer to Mount Taylor as their sacred mountain of the south or the turquoise mountain. Once, long ago, it had been an active volcano. Maybe that was why Sawyer lived at its base, why magic happened at its peak. Volcanoes never really went away; they only fell asleep. I wouldn’t put it past Sawyer to wake this one up. Considering the way the ground had rumbled, maybe he had.