Amaryllis stopped breathing for an instant. A delicious tension seized her insides.
"Hold me." Lucas pushed himself deeper into her. "Don't let go." He withdrew slowly and then eased forward once more. "Don't. Let. Go."
"Never." She clung to him.
Wild power crashed through the prism.
It was too much. The tightness in her lower body came undone with no warning. Amaryllis fell headfirst into the whirlpool of sensation. The focus link fractured and disintegrated as she lost what was left of her concentration, but it didn't seem to make any difference. The waves of pleasure continued to wash over her.
She was vaguely aware of Lucas thrusting into her one last time. He went rigid. Then he gave a shout of exultant satisfaction and fell heavily on top of her.
"Have you ever done that before?" Amaryllis asked a long time later.
"Never." He cradled her face between his hands and looked down into her fathomless eyes. "I knew that I was hurting you. I hoped that if you concentrated on holding a focus, you might be distracted from the pain long enough to let yourself get used to the feeling of having me inside you."
"That was very clever of you."
"Thanks. Considering that I was pretty distracted myself at the time, I thought it was fast thinking on my part."
She did not respond to his small attempt at lightness, but she continued to fix him with a steady, thoughtful expression. "Lucas, exactly what did you feel when we linked?"
"I felt very, very good," he said. "I still do."
"But something happens between us when we link. Some- thing that isn't normal."
"It may not be normal, but it feels good, so why worry about it?"
"But, Lucas--"
He put his fingers over her mouth. The last thing he wanted tonight was for her to question the attraction between them. "We both know that it's uncommon for strong talents and prisms to be attracted to each other, but maybe when it does happen, some of the sexual attraction spills over into the link. Does that sound so strange?"
"Yes."
"I vote we don't sweat it."
"There hasn't been much research done on talents and prisms who are physically attracted to each other," she said.
"Probably because it happens so rarely. Look, I don't know about you, but I'm not volunteering for any lab analysis. If you want to conduct some more private experiments, on the other hand, that's okay by me." He wrapped his fingers in her hair and pulled her head down a few inches so that he could kiss her.
She came to him willingly, her mouth warm and soft. Lucas could smell the scent of himself on her. Satisfaction flared deep within him.
But when she lifted her head a moment later, her gaze was still troubled.
"What's wrong?" Lucas asked.
"Nothing."
A chill of fear uncoiled within him. He was the first to acknowledge that he knew very little about the workings of the female mind, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that whenever a woman said that nothing was wrong, there was trouble ahead.
Amaryllis had waited a long time to take a lover. Perhaps she had been disappointed with her first taste of passion. Maybe she was already having regrets.
He couldn't let her go now. Not yet. He had only just found her. He fought back the sense of impending loss and asked the question that was threatening to drive him mad. "Amaryllis, you waited a lot longer than most people do to take a lover. Why me?"
"You know what they say about prisms. Picky, picky, picky."
A long while later Amaryllis roused herself again from the languid aftermath of passion.
"Lucas?"
"Yeah?" He was sprawled beneath her on the couch this time. He looked and sounded as though he was on the edge of sleep.
"Do you really think that Merrick Beech hired those thugs to kill you?"
He yawned. "I'd say it's a safe bet."
"What are we going to do if the police can't find Beech?"
"They'll find him. He doesn't have the brains to hide for long."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure." He reached for her.
The enticing aroma of hot coff-tea woke Lucas the next morning. He stretched slowly, savoring the fact that he was in Amaryllis's bed. He could hear her moving about in the kitchen, but the fragrance of her body still clung lightly to the rumpled sheets. He inhaled deeply.
He could live on that scent, he decided. He wouldn't need air or food, just the sweet, incredibly alluring fragrance of Amaryllis and the knowledge that she responded to him.
The memories of the night poured through him like raw psychic energy through a prism. Lucas was aware of his body's instant response. He groaned when he realized that he was as hard now as he had been last night.
He shoved aside the covers and sat up resolutely on the edge of the bed. He contemplated the day that stretched before him. He had some appointments at the office, and Amaryllis undoubtedly had to go to work. But the promise of the evening that lay beyond shimmered tantalizingly in his mind.
He surveyed Amaryllis's neat bedroom with great interest as he made his way to the adjoining bath. Everything was black and white in here, just as it was throughout the rest of the little house. Very clean and orderly looking. Functional.
He opened a closet and concluded that there would be room for him to keep a change of clothes in it. He peeked into a dresser drawer and grinned when he saw two neat piles of carefully folded underwear. All in white.
Whistling softly, he went on into the black-and-white tiled bath.
The sight of his beard-shadowed face in the mirror brought him to a halt. He winced as he rubbed the dark stubble. He'd have to remember to pack a razor the next time he went out with Amaryllis. No problem. He would make it a point to put one in the glove compartment of the leer today.
He planted his hands on the edge of the wash basin and leaned closer to the mirror. He knew he'd never been handsome, but he hadn't realized until this morning just how grim his face had begun to look lately. Talk about psychic vampires. He squinted thoughtfully at the bright lights alongside the mirror. The glare made his eyes appear to be sunk in deep shadows.
And where the hell had that gray in his hair come from? He knew he was no more than six or seven years older than Amaryllis. He'd heard that some women actually preferred older men.
And some preferred their lovers to be younger.
For some inexplicable reason, he found himself wondering what age Amaryllis had selected on her agency questionnaire as the preferred age in a spouse. Not that it mattered, he told himself swiftly. Marriage had nothing to do with this relationship.
His gaze went to the sight of the thick scar tissue that stretched across his ribs. The line marked the passage of a pirate's bullet. He scratched the old wound absently and then paused when he noticed how well the bathroom lights illuminated the ugly fan-shaped mark on his shoulder. It was a souvenir of an encounter with a large bat-snake.
There was no getting around the fact that he did not present an inspiring sight in strong light. All in all, be looked like a man who had spent too much time in the jungle, Lucas thought. Not a pretty picture. He eyed his unprepossessing reflection in the mirror with misgivings. It might be a good idea to make it a point to make love to Amaryllis only in the dark.
On the other hand, if the knowledge that he was an off- the-chart talent had not frightened her, maybe she wouldn't freak out because of a few scars.
In any event, he was feeling far too ebullient to allow his own image to depress him for long. He stepped into the white tiled shower and immediately devoted himself to formulating plans for the evening ahead. Dinner at a really good fish house. Founders Grill, maybe. A good bottle of wine. A rich, robust blue vintage, not the weak green stuff. He would insist on a table in a secluded comer where he and Amaryllis could discuss their future.