"Promise me you won't ever do that again. Go into a place like that alone."
"No, I won't." Her smile was a little shaky. "I wouldn't dare, not after this. That was very scary."
John would have chosen a stronger word, but all he said was "For me too."
"I'm sorry." She lifted her hands and looked at them again as if she couldn't help herself.
"The blood's gone, Maggie."
"Yes. I know." She allowed her hands to fall, to rest on her thighs, but kept her gaze on them.
He hesitated, not at all sure if he was ready for this. For any of this. "We don't have to talk about it."
Maggie smiled again, wry this time. "Okay."
"I didn't mean-Maggie, it's not that I doubt what you can do."
"I know. You're just… very uncomfortable with it."
Trying to keep it light, he said, "Stop plucking my feelings out of the air, will you?"
She looked at him finally, that little smile lingering. "One of the major drawbacks of… getting too close to an empath, I'm afraid."
"It's not something I expected," he confessed.
"I don't mean to invade your privacy. I'm sorry."
He shook his head. "I don't have any no-trespassing signs, not where you're concerned. It just takes some getting used to, that's all."
"I know. I know it does."
He wasn't saying any of what he wanted to say, and his own inadequacy disturbed him. All too aware that the wrong words would hurt her, still unsure if he was ready for this, he watched her turn her restless gaze to the muted television.
"More rain," she murmured. "Always rain. People in Seattle don't tan-"
"They rust," he finished.
"I keep forgetting you grew up here."
"I've thought about moving back. Oddly enough, I miss the rain."
It picked up outside just then, drumming against the roof of Maggie's small house, and she nodded. "I think I'd miss it too. It's a very soothing sound."
The silence that fell between them wasn't particularly soothing, and John didn't have to be psychic to feel that. There was too much left unsaid, and yet he knew they were at a turning point, a crossroads come upon so suddenly that neither one of them had been prepared for it.
"Maggie-"
"We really don't have to talk about it," she said. "About any of it. Too much has happened for either of us to be sure of anything right now."
This time, he didn't hesitate. "I'm sure of what I feel. I'm just not sure of what you feel. I mean-" He shook his head as she looked at him, wryly aware that he was as awkward as a teenager facing, for the first time, the girl who was so desperately important to him that every word spoken took on terrifying significance. "Maggie, you feel so much of other people's emotions, other people's pain. I can't help wondering if you even have the energy left to… feel for yourself."
She was obviously surprised, a little puzzled, even uneasy. But she didn't duck the question. "Sometimes it's easier to be alone."
"Because there's been too much of other people's feelings? Because when you're alone, you can find peace?"
"Is that so wrong?"
John hesitated, then reached over and brushed back a strand of her hair, allowing his hand to linger against her face. "God knows I can't blame you for making that choice. But it's an unbalanced existence. You said it yourself, Maggie-life is about balance. How can you go on giving and giving of yourself, your energy and compassion-and empathy-without at least sometimes taking something for yourself?"
"Because it isn't that simple." Her eyes were steady, the curve of her mouth a little vulnerable.
"I'd ask you to give as well as take."
She half nodded, agreement but also an obvious pleasure in the touch of his hand against her skin as she moved. "People do. It's only fair. I just… don't know how much I can give right now."
"And if I said whatever you can give will be enough?"
"I don't think I'd believe you." She drew a breath. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. This wouldn't even be happening if you hadn't been shaken up by today."
"The hell it wouldn't." John didn't give her a chance to argue, just pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Maggie had told herself almost from the day she had met John that if this happened she'd be able to stop it. Really easy-just say no. Tell him she didn't want this, didn't want him. Tell him she wasn't the slightest bit interested in acquiring a lover, thank you very much. Even if it wasn't love, even if it was only desire. Passion was very clearly and very certainly something she didn't need in her life.
She had been very sure of that.
She had been very wrong.
To her astonishment, it was about warmth as much as it was passion, about the simple, necessary human lifeline that was the touch of flesh on flesh. Her body, racked so often and so long with the pain of others, craved the healing warmth of him, the pleasure he created just by touching her. And her weary spirit longed for the closeness, the intimacy he offered.
There was no pain in this, no fear, no darkness. There was nothing but elation and the certain knowledge that some things really were meant to happen.
Without knowing if she had moved or he had moved her, she found herself on his lap, her knees on either side of his hips. She felt his hair, silky between her fingers, felt his mouth hungry and insistent on hers. She felt his hands slip under her sweater and touch her skin, felt them slide upward slowly until they could close over her breasts, and heard a little sound escape her, so eager it almost embarrassed her. Almost.
John drew back just far enough to look at her, his eyes darkened to emerald and so intense she couldn't look away. "Just give what you can, Maggie," he said roughly. "I swear I won't hurt you."
She touched his face with both hands, almost as if she were blind and needed her sensitive fingertips in order to see. She touched his mouth, and then her lips followed, teasing his, taking his. "I never thought you would."
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8
As promised, the rain grew even heavier after midnight and the wind began to whine and moan like something lost and lonely.
Maggie didn't mind. Her lamplit bedroom was warm and tranquil-at least for the moment-and she was discovering how good it felt to lie close to someone else in an intimate and peaceful bed. It felt very good. She wanted to hold on to this, to make the moment last, and knowing it couldn't made it all the more achingly sweet.
John shifted position slightly and rose on an elbow to look down at her. "You're very quiet."
She smiled. "Listening to the rain. Wishing the night could last a little longer than it will."
"There's that fatalism again," he said, intentionally light.
"Sorry. Character fault, I'm afraid. But… the morning will come, John."
"And then the next morning, and the one after that. Mornings don't mean endings, Maggie."
"Sometimes they do."
"Not this time." He shifted again, pulling her closer so that his forearms were beneath her shoulders and his fingers could tangle in her long, thick hair. "I don't intend to lose you."
Maggie responded as she had to when he kissed her, her arms going up around his neck and her mouth every bit as urgent as his. It was rather terrifying, she thought dimly, that he could have this effect on her when she had known him barely a week. Then again, sometimes a week was a lifetime, and sometimes knowledge had nothing to do with time.
There was nothing of the normal awkwardness of new lovers between them. No fumbling or uncertainty. He knew without asking what would please her, just as she knew what would please him. Yet even as Maggie knew that to glide her fingertips up his spine would elicit a shudder of need, there were also the still unfamiliar sensations of this particular body against hers, unexpectedly hard and powerful.