Sparked (23 page)

She pulled her soaked slip over her head and threw it to the shore, holding the necklace close. Then she slipped off her panties and brassiere. Her wet skin glimmered in the moonlight and Clayton’s breath grew shorter.

“God, you’re gorgeous. I love seeing you like this.”

She loved sharing herself with him, letting him see. She stepped closer to him, pressed her body against his warm chest, brushed his lips with her tongue as she slipped his undershorts down his hips.

“I want to see you too,” she said, whispering the words against his cheek and stepping back to take him in. He was amazing.

His rippled chest tapered to a defined V at his groin. She had felt it before—that muscled space near his hips, his cock strong between his thighs—but the sight of it was something altogether different. Electricity buzzed on her skin, lighting her up.

She stepped against him, let her hands trail down his chest. This man. This beautiful, beautiful man. 

He pulled her close before she’d had enough time to really take him in, and his touch set her on fire. Again, his hands cradled her bottom. Again Cora wrapped her legs around him. But this time, Cora had different intentions. She wasn’t satisfied with the feel of him against her. Need pulsed through her, a need to make him hers, to join with him fully and completely even if just for a moment.

She reached down and gripped his shaft, then guided him between her legs, his tip kissing the soft folds of her entrance. He drew back from her touch, totally breathless.

“Are you sure, Cora?” 

She could see the desire in his eyes warring with his words. He wanted this too. She knew it.

“I’m sure,” she said.

Once the words were out of her mouth it was as if she had unleashed something inside of him. Any restraint he once had was stripped away. He took her in his arms, lifted her against him, and then he was inside of her.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, God, Clayton.” 

It was a sensation unlike anything she had ever felt before. First a tight, short pain. Then the heat of him filled her, sending waves of desire rocketing through her body. She felt herself tighten around him. She had thought she couldn’t possibly want him more, but she did. She wanted him so much more, wanted everything from him.

He leaned down and kissed her—one hand bracing her bottom and the other drawing her lips to his. She returned the kiss with a fervor, wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him as he moved inside of her.

He set the pace and she responded against him. Each thrust drove him deeper, reaching a place inside her that had never been touched before. She had never even touched herself there. Not like this. It was incredible to think that he was the first. No matter what else. No matter what happened after tonight, she would always have this moment. She would always feel like a part of her belonged to him.

She felt herself tighten around him again at the thought. He groaned in response. Everything in her was building, building, a thermometer heated past the breaking point. She wanted to think about his needs—pay attention to his pleasure—but she couldn’t take it anymore. She just couldn’t.

She dug her nails into his back, flexed her thighs tighter against him. Everything inside her seemed to contract. Every molecule of her body bunched together for the briefest moment. And then, all at once, it expanded—stretched out across the sky and back again. Wave after wave of pleasure ripped through her body. 

She heard herself cry out as though it was coming from another person. She should be embarrassed to make those sounds, like some sort of animal howling at the moon, but she couldn’t help it. It was all too much. There was no controlling it, no mastering the way her body clung harder to him in that moment, the way it quivered and shook.

As her body calmed her heart sped up. All the emotions she’d been holding back for so long threatened to burst. She had never felt closer to anyone than she felt with Clayton right now. Her want—her need of him—overwhelmed her. She couldn’t help but to recognize it. She loved him. She really loved him. It undid her.

He kissed her face, kissed her cheeks, kissed her hair. Soft lips feathered over her body. It calmed her enough to realize that he was still inside of her, still hard, that he must be aching with need. She felt barely able to hold herself together, but she wanted to please him too—wanted to make him feel the way he had made her feel. 

She met his eyes and sent her hips against him, grabbing his firm shoulders as she rode him. She was still so tender, so alive that the sensation was almost unbearable.

He clutched her bottom tighter, spreading her cheeks ever so slightly and she could tell that he felt it too—that need to be closer, closer, closer. A light breeze tickled her breasts and she felt her desire lighting up again. Cora gripped his shoulders more firmly and leaned back to arch into him deeper. She matched his tempo, then exceeded it. The water lapped around them. The stars sparked overhead. His breaths were growing shorter, his movements more urgent.

I love you
, she said to herself with every gyration of her hips.
I love you. I love you. I love you. 

And again, without warning this time, she shattered around him.

“Hell, Cora,” he growled, then dove into her with one final thrust, groaning as his whole body hardened. She held on for it—held on and pressed herself harder into him, leaning close and kissing his chest, his neck, his lips as he shuddered. Then his body relaxed too and he was kissing her in return, holding her close.

She knew it then, knew it like an ages-old truth that she felt she should have seen all along. She would stay with him. She had to. She had let herself get in too deep but she didn’t care anymore.

He would leave eventually, she knew that. Nothing could change the circumstances standing against them. But she couldn’t let go now. She wanted every part of him that was left to her to have. She would let herself love him, and deal with the heartbreak of his inevitable leaving later.

She looked up into his eyes. He seemed to be searching her face. Were her thoughts written there? Could he see them?

“Cora,” he said, holding her face in his hands, his eyes locked on hers. “I love you.” 

Warmth filled her at the words. He didn’t see how this would all end up one day—that wrong was the only way it could possibly go—but she trusted that he was telling the truth. He did love her. In this moment, he did. And she loved him back.

“I love you too,” she said.

He swallowed her into his arms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Clayton

She loved him. This beautiful, impossible creature loved him. He could see the fear in her eyes as she’d said the words, but the honesty too. She was so brave in that moment—to finally be honest with him, to trust him with her secrets and her heart. A sense of protection washed over him. He’d be damned if he’d ever let her regret her choice to trust him. He’d be damned if he ever let anyone hurt her ever again.

“I love you, Cora,” he said again, shifting her so she floated in his lap. The words felt good on his lips. “I love every single thing about you, every part.”

He trailed a finger down her neck, past the necklace he loved seeing nestled at her collarbone, between her breasts as the waters gently lapped against their bodies. They drifted away from shore and as she sank deeper, her hair fanned around her in a soft arc like a crown. She looked like a queen. And God, she was breathtaking. If he wasn’t careful he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from having her again.

He kissed her, and as his lips met hers he realized that he hadn’t yet told her about his own powers. He was suddenly scared. What he could do was so different, so dangerous. But he had to be just as honest with her as she had been with him. She had to know how similar they truly were. He lifted her out of the water, carried her toward shore.

“Come on. There’s something I need to show you,” Clayton said. 

They put their clothes back on—what little they had come into the water with. Then Clayton led her to sit down on a fallen log.

“I need you to stay here. Perfectly still, okay?”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’ll show you. Just promise not to move. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Her voice got more serious as she studied his expression. “Okay,” she said.

Clayton took a deep breath. Nerves shot through his body. What would she think of him when she saw what he was capable of?

But it was only fair. If she was truly going to be with him, she needed to know. And she needed to know that she wasn’t alone—that she wasn’t a freak.

He plucked a leaf from the nearest tree and checked to make sure her eyes were on him. Then he pulled the energy straight out of it. It withered in his hand, replaced by a dime-sized blue orb.

Cora gasped, jumped up. “Clayton! Oh my God.” She began to walk toward him.

“Stay back,” he warned.

She stopped, staring at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He couldn’t tell if she was afraid or merely in shock. Perhaps it was both.

There was a rock at the shore’s edge, about the size of a cantaloupe. He tossed the orb against it, and the rock shattered to dust.

Cora yelped.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s safe now.”

“What was that?” she said. Her voice was soft and low and trembling. Fear struck him. Had he scared her away?

“I don’t know what to call it,” he said, trying to keep his tone even. He didn’t want to try to persuade her to approve. His power was something terrible. She needed to decide on her own if it was something she could tolerate.

“But you did it? It came from inside of you somewhere?”

“Yes.” 

She laughed, and sunshine flooded his heart.

“What?” he asked, laughing too.

“It’s just … I’ve never felt like your equal before.”

He took her in his arms. “That’s because you’re not,” he said. “You’re better. You’ve always been better.”

She stretched up on her tiptoes to kiss him, then hung her hands around his neck, threw back her head, and laughed again.

“I can’t believe this,” she said. “Have you always been able to do that? Or was it just recently?”

“Ever since the sickness. The fog. You too?”

“Yes. Almost as soon as I came home. All of a sudden it just happened and I—it was terrifying. But also kind of incredible, you know?”

“I do. After I saw you under the water I realized you and I were the same. But chances were equally good that I might be going nuts.”

Cora laughed. “You could still be going nuts.”

“Hey. Be nice,” he said with a laugh.

“Why? What are you going to do? Zap me with your little blue thing?”

He knew she was joking, but he didn’t like the implication behind it. “I don’t use my power, Cora. Not ever. I made an exception tonight so you could see. But it’s too dangerous. I could never forgive myself if I accidentally hurt someone.” The idea of what had almost happened to Butch flashed in his mind and made him shudder. Even Butch didn’t deserve to die like that. 

“But Clayton, what you can do—it’s incredible. Don’t you think there’s a way to do something with it? Use it to help people?”

“And do what? Become a human wrecking ball?” he asked. “I don’t want this, Cora. What you can do is beautiful, useful even. But mine? I spoke to Dr. Pinkerton about it—showed it to him—and he agrees. He’s trying to find out more about what happened, see if there’s any chance for a cure.”

“You told Dr. Pinkerton about it?”

“Yes. And he hasn’t spoken a word of it to anyone. No one else knows. We can trust him. It might help if you told him, too. That way at least he would know that I’m not the only one.”

“I wonder if there are others?” Cora said. “If it happened to us while we were sick, then maybe we’re not the only ones. How many got sick like us? Bad enough to be hospitalized?”

“I’m not sure. But I have been trying to keep an eye out, see if anyone’s acting strangely.”

“And?”

“Nothing so far.”

“Who are you watching?”

“My brother, his fiancée, Meg, June Powell, Violet Miller. A few of the guys in my circle. Do you know anyone else who got sick?”

“Just my brother. But as you saw today he’s been perfectly normal.”

If that was Butch normal, he’d hate to see him truly upset.

“This is unbelievable,” Cora said, sitting down on a log and staring out at the stars. “Of all the possibilities in all the universe I never would have imagined that this would happen to me.”

Clayton stared at her. Her eyes shone brighter than any of the stars in the night sky.

“It feels like a different world,” he said. And it did. Everything was different now. The things that had seemed important just this morning—his family, his job—paled by comparison.

“It is a different world,” she said, reaching out for his hand. Then words began to spill out of her. “What do you think this means? I've been desperate to talk to someone about it. At first I thought it would fade, but it only seems to be getting stronger. Why do you think—?”

"Shh," Clayton cut across her, holding up a hand. 

There was a noise from afar—the sound of feet trampling through the darkness, a peal of laughter and the bubbling chatter of a group of people headed their way. This place was popular in the summer, and they weren’t exactly somewhere private. The idea of anyone else in the world seeing Cora like this—her transparent slip still clinging to her wet skin and revealing every luscious curve of her body—made his stomach drop. She didn’t deserve the kind of reputation that would come if people caught them together.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get back to the car.”

They made it back to the top, easily missing the group that was headed toward the small beach below. They gathered their things, dressed, and got back in the car.

Clayton hesitated before turning the key in the ignition. “I still don’t want to take you home,” he said. In truth, what he wanted to do was leave town with her that night, stow her away somewhere where no one could touch her ever again. “Let me take you back to my house, where I can keep you safe.”