Lifebound Read online

  “I found these in the room this morning after breakfast,” he said. “The card said ‘Compliments of Wiccan Haus.’”

  He lay down on his side, facing her but not touching her, and brought out a flat white box that contained a pale green scarf folded inside. He pulled the scarf free of the tissue and tossed the box to the floor.

  “Now, why in the world would anybody offer a complimentary free silk scarf?” He winked as he allowed the length of the silk to float out across her body.

  Where the touch of the rose had been soft yet firm, the touch of the silk was a whisper against her skin. Josh weaved the luxurious fabric up and down the length of her, in and out and between her breasts, then down her belly. Her entire body melted at each feathery stroke. The soft drift across her was so relaxing, and she felt like she was floating just like the scarf.

  “Are you going to sleep on me? Turn over toward me.”

  She rolled onto her side to face him, and he began weaving the long length of the silk around her thigh and between her legs. Floating turned to flying.

  He slid it provocatively between the cheeks of her buttocks so that when it pulled through the front across the curls of her bud, it grew tighter against her with the resistance, caressing and touching her intimately. She moaned as waves of pleasure coursed through her, tantalizing her with the prospect of release, but never bringing her quite all the way.

  When the end of the scarf pulled across the bud of her clitoris with a soft zip, she gasped, then sighed.

  He ran the silk around her again, keeping it close to her skin as he pulled out yet another object. This time it was a small wooden box containing a pair of Chinese meditation balls.

  “I never played with any of these before, but I think I know what they might be good for. Give me your hand,” he said.

  She turned her nearest hand palm up against the bed, and he placed one of the balls in the center. Then with one finger, he began to caress her palm with the ball in rolls and circles.

  The ball contained some kind of bell and a shifting weight, so that as it rolled it also chimed and shimmied into her hand. He tied the scarf to the very top of her thigh and pulled it tight against her already excited clitoris, then began working the silk against her body with one hand while the other massaged her open palm. The shifting, chiming bell of the ball in her palm somehow connected with the tug and rub of the silk, and the two sensations became fused in her awareness.

  Each circle of the ball in her palm was translated into a corresponding caress of her clitoris, sending her closer and closer to the brink. She opened her legs wider to him and breathed his name.

  “Oh, Josh. Please give me more.”

  “Baby, I’ve got plenty more to give.”

  To her initial disappointment, he dropped the scarf, but quickly took the other ball and placed it just beneath the curve of her pubic bone where her body dropped off into true softness. She rolled onto her back and arched her body at the cool, firm touch.

  She closed her eyes, drunk with the motion of that chiming metal sphere. He dipped it into her core and spiraled out again. The ball shimmied against her as she gripped the other ball tightly in her fist, wishing she held him instead.

  “Please, take me. Take me all the way.” Her toes began to curl. “I’m so close.”

  His breath flowed cool over her chest as he began to blow on her still-hard nipple. “I’m going to take you there over and over, baby. Over and over.”

  He moved his hand harder, faster, and deeper, and each caress of the cool metal ball brought her closer to the edge, each chiming roll etching itself into her body and into her heart. Faster, deeper, stronger, then meditation surged into pure orgasm.

  “Josh!”

  She arched her back and thrust her hips into his touch, repeating his name in gasps of physical overload as her body shook with the thunder of release.

  Just as she thought she couldn’t take any more, he asked, “Can I touch you for just a second?”

  “Yes, oh yes.” Her voice was rough with passion.

  She ached for him to drop the ball and run his fingers deep into her warm pulsing wetness. Instead he reached to her face and drew a gentle line down her cheek with his fingertips, sending shivers through her body.

  He gazed deep into her eyes. “We can do this.”

  His lips met hers softly, parting her only a little at first, then gently but thoroughly claiming full possession of her mouth. He was so warm and so sweet. She wanted all of him, not just the pleasure he brought her. She wanted him. The kiss was perfect, a pledge and a promise to her. They could do this. She could be with him. She could kiss him.

  But only once.

  Then he let her go.

  Chapter Ten

  Josh lay beside Adriana. Her eyes drifted shut. She had a little smile on her face, and he took personal pride in knowing he’d put it there.

  “Can I touch your hair?” he asked softly. Maybe hair wasn’t a conductor—if that was the right word for it.

  “Mmm hmm,” she murmured.

  Careful not to touch her skin, he threaded his fingers into her hair, amazed as always by its silky texture. He longed to lie with her skin to skin, to feel her soft warmth against him, to hold her tight and secure in his arms, but that wasn’t an option.

  Oh well, love meant more than sex, and sex meant more than physical contact. Rob had told him once the brain was the body’s primary sex organ. Maybe he just needed a way to convince his brain he was touching her.

  “Turn over,” he whispered to her. “I’ve got an idea.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him quizzically, but rolled over with her back to him. “Like this?” she asked.

  He pulled the pillow from behind his head and tucked it tightly against her back, then pulled another free of the linens to slide behind her legs. He snuggled next to her with the pillows separating them, using one more beneath his arm so he could pull her closer. “Just pretend that’s me touching you.”

  After a moment, she spoke. “That’s actually nice. Kind of like old fashioned New England bundling.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. We don’t have winter on the Gulf. Just a long fall that runs into an early spring,” he teased.

  The heat from their bodies warmed the soft fabric of the pillows nearly enough to convince him he was touching her, that it was her softness and warmth he felt instead. He wanted more, but as he watched the sun set through the window, contentment flowed over him, a sense of peace he rarely slowed down enough to experience.

  How long could they lie together this way? Forever? “Are you okay?” he asked. “I don’t want to push you.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, a note of happiness in her voice. “It really is. I feel like I’m touching you but without the energy draw.”

  He gave her hair a playful tug. “I told you we could do it. We’ll be fine. It’ll just take creativity and good timing.”

  She laughed and wiggled back into him a little. Then she yawned.

  “You get yourself a nap,” he said. “Then we’ll go find a bite of supper.”

  “Supper?”

  “Dinner for you then. But I’m having supper.”

  She giggled. They lay quietly until her even breathing indicated she was finally asleep.

  But Josh couldn’t sleep. He lay beside her and considered some of the other things Rob and Alicia had tried to tell him about love—how it was about more than sex, how it was about putting somebody else before himself.

  When Alicia had told him they were getting married, he’d done his best to talk her out of it. He liked Rob—Rob was his cousin after all—but he’d thought for sure Alicia was making an awful mistake. He thought she was throwing her life away.

  God, he was such an idiot.

  What hi
s cousin had with Alicia was real. It really was bigger than the two of them. Over the past eight years, he’d watched them grow closer and be there for each other through all kinds of joys and hardships. He’d promised himself that if he ever found someone who’d stand by him that way, he’d move heaven and earth to be with her. He’d move to Timbuktu. He’d eat vegetarian. He’d give up skating even if that’s what it took to have somebody truly on his side.

  He lay in the golden light of the afternoon and held Adriana in his arms—nearly. But nearly was good enough. They’d figure it out. Love meant so much more than he used to think.

  A knock at the door drew him from his reverie. He mumbled a curse beneath his breath and eased his arm away from her, leaving the pillow across her to keep her warm. He rolled out of bed and slipped into a pair of lightweight knit shorts before heading to the door.

  He opened it to see dark-haired Sarka. “What? Do we give off vibes or something?” he asked her. “How do you people always know when we’re together?”

  “Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t sound sorry. “Sage told me about your encounter with the manticore. She said I probably needed to take a look at your shoulder.”

  He stepped out into the hallway with her and pulled the door closed so they wouldn’t disturb Adriana. “Have at it.” He turned his back toward her so she could have a look. The sooner she passed judgment and left, the sooner he could be back in bed with his—“girlfriend” didn’t feel right. Fiancée. That felt better.

  “Doesn’t look too terrible,” Sarka said. “I think maybe the contact with Adriana has healing as one of its side-benefits to you—that is, unless it kills you first.” She gave him a sweetly malicious smile at that, then ran an openly appraising look over his body, reminding him that he was seriously underdressed for the hallway.

  “Possibly,” he said with a mischievous grin of his own. “Every time we touch I pass out, but when I wake up, my hip feels a lot better. You could be onto something. We’ll experiment with that when she wakes up.”

  Sarka opened her mouth as if she were going to say something, then stopped and looked at him for a second. “Are you sure about this? You know what she is. You know the danger. At some point, she will kill you. Trust me, I know vampires. The longing for your blood eventually gets the better of them.”

  Anger rose in him at her words. “Adriana is not a vampire. She’s a lamia. And she’s not going to kill me. But even if she did, I’d have to take the chance.”

  “Why? What is so special about this particular lack of sex that makes all the other celibate relationships you’ve had look so unappealing?”

  “Why do you care?” Josh forced himself to keep his voice lowered. “Where do you people get off trying to tell us what we can and can’t do with each other?”

  Sarka sighed and threw her hands up. “We are trying to keep you from making a terrible mistake. We’re trying to keep you from walking off into something that just doesn’t have a future.”

  Josh laughed out loud. The words were so disconcertingly familiar. “I said the same thing to my friend Alicia when she wanted to marry my cousin Rob. You see, Rob had come back from a tour in Iraq in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down. I tried to tell Alicia that they wouldn’t have a normal sex life. That they probably wouldn’t be able to have kids. That he would have special needs that she’d have to deal with for the rest of their lives. But she told me that it didn’t matter. She loved him. She was meant to be with him and there was more to love than sex.

  “And Rob,” he laughed again. “Damn it, Rob left a soldier and came back in a wheelchair to work in his daddy’s car dealership. He couldn’t even drive a car unless it was specially modified for him. But he showed me the tattoo he’d gotten just after they released him from the hospital.” Josh pointed to the stylized ECG line that ran across his left pectoral and twisted around his upper arm. “It looks just like this. I stole it because I liked what it meant. He told me that his heart was still beating and that meant he was still alive. Still alive for a reason. He had a purpose in being here, whatever his condition was, and that this purpose was a good one.”

  Josh pointed back toward the closed door. “My purpose is in there. I was meant to find her. We are supposed to be together. Just like Alicia and Rob.”

  Sarka didn’t answer him right away. Maybe he was getting through to these people. “So you are willing to risk your life to be with her?” she said at last.

  “Without her, I don’t have a life. She can take anything from me she needs.” Josh opened the door. “You guys have got nothing to worry about here. Feel free to let the rest of the Addams family know that.”

  Adriana woke up to see Josh closing the door behind him as he re-entered the room. He went to the mini-fridge and pulled out two bottles of water, then lay on the bed next to her. She sighed and stretched as he held out the bottle to her, playfully dragging it across her breast before passing it into her hand.

  She squealed with laughter and shrank away from him. “That was cold!”

  He laughed as she rubbed at the chilly trail of water drops. “Since I can’t touch you, I’ve got to get a reaction from you somehow.”

  “Tormenting me with cold water is not acceptable. You behave yourself, or I’ll kiss you into unconsciousness.”

  “Promise?” He held out his bottle, threatening to tip the icy contents onto her.

  She giggled again, but made no move to slip away from him. “Do you really want the touch police back up here again?”

  “They’ve already come and gone while you were sleeping. I told Morticia that we were fine and that she had nothing to worry about. You take anything from me you need.”

  The warmth in his voice melted something in her she hadn’t realized was frozen. Every other relationship in her life had been with other lamia, but their interactions had been almost utilitarian in nature. They’d hook up and grope each other desperately to ease the tension that came from living beside yet separated from the human world, and once their needs were satisfied, they’d part again.

  Sometimes lamia found real mates among their own kind, but most often they married for convenience and for the sake of perpetuating themselves and their legacy. Her parents, her teachers, the council had all drilled into her from childhood that she had a destiny. She would be an inspiration and a driving force to great achievements in the human world. She’d been groomed for the role she was to play all her life, and her placement with Tom Bridges had been the culmination of much study and planning by the Lamia Council.

  After the Syndicate that oversaw the Paranormal world had also approved her selection of host, the Council had installed her into the position after graduation with great solemnity. It had felt almost like getting married.

  What would the Council say about Josh Trenton? How would she ever convince that stodgy, self-important panel that he was important enough to be her next host?

  They spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing. He told her about Alicia and Rob and their two kids. She told him about growing up lamia.

  “Sounds a lot like growing up Gotti.” He laughed as he toyed with the ends of her hair.

  Since discovering he could play with her hair, he hadn’t really stopped, and she was happy to relax into the sensation—almost but not quite touching. “We are not the mafia!”

  “Well, your families are all rich, you have this secret underground organization, and you infiltrate society to make hits on people—just a different kind of hit than they do. Do the lamia actually control the world?” he asked, and his voice held only a light teasing note.

  Adriana looked at him seriously. “The Council believes that we are instrumental in the growth and achievement of the human race. They think that each lamia has a duty to find a host that is both compatible and worthy of our attention. When we touch someone, we take ener
gy from them, but we also return a boost of performance or creativity or intelligence. They are very protective of that power.”

  “They are sure as hell going to hate you wasting that on me.” He sighed. “All I’ve got to contribute to the world is a new half-pipe trick or another videogame.” He stretched his injured leg out on the bed. “But I have to admit, my hip has felt so much better since I got here. Is that you?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then thank you.” He leaned in closer and picked up a length of her hair to press it against his lips. “You are incredible.”

  They spent the next few days stealing kisses or holding hands for the briefest of moments as they hiked or skated or soaked in that crazy hot springs Josh had discovered.

  On the one hand, he was the most sexually frustrated he’d ever been, but on the other he was the happiest he’d ever been as well. Each touch meant something important to them. Each kiss was eagerly anticipated, each caress timed so as to provide maximum payoff for each of them. Breathing lessons on the beach had taken on monumental importance when he learned that the more control she had over her abilities, the longer they could touch each other without starting a fire, so to speak.

  He grew very skilled in the use of props to act as extensions of his hands and his fingers, the qigong balls providing the most incredible results when applied to the right places. But he hadn’t been inside her at all. He wanted that first moment of true sex to feature him inside her, and so far they hadn’t managed to get the timing down just right to make that happen.

  Taking him all the way to climax with such a limited use of touch had also proven difficult, hence the sexual frustration. Despite her insistence that she wanted to be with him, that she wanted to enjoy his moment of pleasure at his side, he was disenchanted with the idea of mutual masturbation. So he focused on her instead, enjoying the way she moved against the sheets and the sounds she made as he brought her to orgasm over and over again.