“If there’s nothing to it, why is it dangerous?” I asked in a reasonable tone.
His expression darkened. “It’s been my experience that it can lead to obsession and a false sense of invincibility. And it’s a good way to lose touch with reality.”
He was thinking about Mariama now. I didn’t like the intrusion of his dead wife so I put my hand on his arm to draw him back to me. Where our skin touched, lightning danced.
“Did you see that?” I asked in awe.
“Static electricity,” he said. “There’s a storm brewing.”
That was certainly the logical explanation. The wind had picked up and I could hear a distant rumble that might have been thunder. But the weather didn’t account for the sudden quiver of my nerve endings or the surge of heat through my veins. It didn’t explain the intimate sounds that bombarded me—the rhythm of Devlin’s heartbeat, the saw of his breath, the throb of his pulse. The infinitesimal clink of the medallion against the silver chain around his neck.
My senses were already heightened by the night and by the evolution of my gift, but now everything inside me came alive in a way I’d never felt before. It was as if I’d been accustomed to the world as a flat image, but now I could experience everything around me in 3-D. The perception was as daunting as it was exciting.
I stood on tiptoes and touched my lips to Devlin’s. A white-hot shock bolted down my spine and tingled in my fingertips. I drew in a sharp breath and shuddered. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes, I felt it.”
I started to touch him again, but he caught both my wrists in his hands and held them for the longest time before slowly pressing me back against the porch.
“Do you feel this?” he drawled, sliding his hand along my inner thigh.
My head fell back against the wall as he shoved my nightgown aside, teasing me with his fingers until my blood thrummed and my whole body felt electrified. If my senses were heightened, so was my desire. I had never wanted anyone as I wanted Devlin at that moment. Urgent and trembling, I tugged him closer as I fumbled with his belt and zipper.
And then it was my fingers that teased, my hand that encircled and stroked and drew a low groan as I brought him to the very brink. He lifted me, pushing into me, and where our bodies touched, sparks exploded. I could see tiny flickers of light out in the garden where manifestations were trying to break through, but I wouldn’t let them. I was stronger than the ghosts now, stronger even than the Others. I held the unbound power of death in my fingertips. Drunk with passion and a dangerous sense of omnipotence, I yanked the nightgown over my head and tossed it toward those flickering lights.
Devlin said against my ear, “There’s a light on in one of the upstairs windows. This porch may not be as private as it seems.”
He backed me through the door, kissing me deeply as I helped divest him of his clothes. Then we moved as one to the bed. I lay back against the pillows and lifted my hands to the headboard, an artful surrender. Devlin stood at the foot of the bed staring down at me. Then, eyes gleaming in the moonlight, he put a knee on the bed and crawled up between my thighs, trailing the tip of his tongue over my abdomen and up to my breasts.
The medallion glistened as the chain swung with his movements. I wanted to touch it again, feel the coolness of the metal between my fingers, slide inside Devlin’s mind the moment he slid into me.
Instead, I closed my eyes and lifted my hips to him. I could feel him there, pressing against me. His breath was hot against my neck and yet the hand that trailed along the inside of my arm was icy. A guttural moan sounded in my ear as a tongue darted out to lave along my jawline. My eyes flew open on a terrified gasp.
An odor came to me then, a fetid breath that was masked only slightly by the scent of witch hazel. The thing from Rose’s sanctuary was there in the room with us. It had followed me through the maze and back to the guesthouse. I couldn’t see it. But I could feel its presence. In bed beside me. Touching me. Taunting me. Wanting inside me.
My first instinct was to bolt out of the cottage and run screaming into the night, and I might have done exactly that if Devlin’s expression hadn’t stopped me cold. He was still kneeling over me, his gaze riveted on my hair where I could feel those frigid fingers plunging through the lose strands. There was something in Devlin’s eyes beyond the glimmer of moonlight, beyond the dawning horror. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw the reflection of a shadowy form hovering at the top of the headboard before it turned to crawl up the wall.
I tried to scream, tried to reach out to Devlin, but I couldn’t move and neither could he, it seemed. He remained motionless as his gaze moved slowly up the wall as if tracking the entity all the way to the ceiling.
Forty-Three