Slowly she lowered her hand again until they were skin to skin. This time she did not flutter away. He could feel fine tremors going through her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m fine.” She sounded entranced. “This is amazing. Last week I accidentally touched a clerk’s hand in the grocery store and got another bad jolt. I was starting to think that maybe I wasn’t going to recover this time.”
He wanted to ask her how often she’d experienced the problem in the past but he sensed that this was not the moment for that kind of question.
“Feel anything?” he said instead.
“Yes, but nothing bad.”
“You know, a compliment like that could really go to a man’s head.”
“Sorry. It’s just that for the past year I haven’t been able to touch anyone without getting a strong psychic shock. Just going to the dentist was an ordeal. I had to take a dose of anti-anxiety meds to get through a simple cleaning. You can’t imagine how it feels to know that my senses are returning to normal.”
Slowly he closed his fingers around hers. The fine bones of her hand felt delicate and incredibly sensual. Her skin was warm and soft. She did not try to pull away.
“I wonder if it’s just you,” she said, very thoughtful now. “I suppose it could have something to do with the fact that we’re both aura talents. Maybe I’m not cured, after all.”
He tightened his grip a little. She did not flinch.
“If you’re thinking of grabbing every man we pass just to see if you can replicate this little experiment, I have a few objections I’d like to raise,” he said.
She laughed, a soft, low, utterly feminine sound that galvanized his senses. He leaned closer, savoring the sweet, hot energy that shimmered around her.
“Maybe not every man,” she said. “But a representative sample might ensure a more reliable scientific test.”
“If you’re in the mood for further experimentation, I hereby offer my services.”
“How altruistic of you.”
“Yeah, that’s my middle name,” he said. “Altruistic.”
She brushed the fingers of her other hand against the side of his face.
“You’re running hot,” she said. “I can feel the heat.”
“Something tells me it’s going to be even more fun this way.”
“What will be more fun?”
“Kissing you at full throttle.”
She knew what he meant.
“Ever tried it with anyone else?” she asked.
Well, at least she hadn’t said no.
“Occasionally,” he admitted.
“And?”
“And it didn’t work very well. Mostly I scared the hell out of the other person. Invading someone else’s energy field with a strong aura makes even nonsensitives nervous.”
“So this kiss we’re discussing is something of an experiment for you, too?”
“Definitely.”
He braced himself against the trunk of the tree, legs slightly spread, and propped the cane nearby. Reaching out with both hands, he drew her into the intimate cage formed by his thighs. She did not resist.
“You don’t scare me,” she whispered.
It wasn’t a challenge, he thought. She was simply telling him the truth.
“I know,” he said. “You don’t scare me, either.”
“You’re sure?” There was a sultry smile in the words.
He traced the outline of her lips with one finger. “Do I look scared?”
“No.”
He took her mouth, slowly, deliberately, knowing that, whatever happened, he was going to remember this moment for the rest of his life. Her arms went around his neck; tightened. And then she was kissing him back, leaning into him, pressing him against the trunk of the tree.
The light around her flared into a glowing aurora. Waves of unnamed colors ebbed and flowed, clashing and resonating with his own energy. The incredibly intimate sensation had a lot in common with putting a match to a dry forest in August. The night was suddenly on fire.
He’d thought he was already jacked. Now he was at flashpoint. The rush dazzled his senses. It was also disorienting. The only thing that kept him on his feet was the tree at his back. Come to think of it, he did not want to be on his feet, anyway. He’d much rather be down on the ground, on top of Grace.
He had intended this first kiss to be gentle, nonthreatening. After all, the woman hadn’t touched anyone in a year, at least not without shocking her senses. A gentleman would go slowly in a situation like this. Instead, he was in hand-to-hand combat with the forces of his own self-control. A devouring urgency cascaded through him.
Grace seemed to be as caught up in the whirlwind as he was. Her arms were wound fiercely around him. Her mouth was soft and open beneath his. Maybe her desire for him was just the result of being freed from a year of misery. He’d worry about that later. Right now the only thing that mattered was that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
The scorching kiss blazed across his senses, hotter than any sex he’d ever had.
“I could come right now,” he muttered against her mouth. “Just kissing you is enough.”
“This is amazing.” She shuddered in his arms and pulled back a little to look at him. “I haven’t ever felt like this, not even before my senses got fried. It must have something to do with the fact that we’re both aura talents. Nothing else explains it.”
“Do me a favor. Stop trying to analyze it.”
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that it’s all so weird—”
He crushed her mouth with his own to silence her. She responded by wrapping her right leg around his calf as if she intended to climb up onto his erection.
He reached down, found the zipper of her pants and lowered it. She made a small, desperate little sound when he got his hand inside her panties and between her legs. She was hot and wet and full. He found the tight little bundle of nerve endings with his thumb. She gasped.
He slid a finger inside her tight core. She clenched around him immediately, as if she had been waiting for him forever.
“Yes.” Her hands tightened around his shoulders. “Yes.”
He stroked her, learning her. It was almost impossible to concentrate but he forced himself to pay attention to her aura, watching for the extra spikes of heat that told him he was touching the right places, using the right amount of pressure.
“Luther.”