“That’s not true.”
“Don’t lie to me, Stonebraker. Now, when it’s obvious you’ve got a real case that may take talent-focus teamwork, the first thing you want to do is fire me.”
“I just think it would be a whole lot safer for you if you got out of this before it gets any rougher.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. I think, after what I’ve been through tonight, I’ve got a right to know. Why did you insist on hiring me so frequently this past week?”
He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. What the hell could he say to her? He had run out of glib excuses. “You’ve got a point. Maybe it’s time I put my cards on the table.”
“Past time.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Okay, the fact is, I need a wife, or at least a fiancée, in less than two months. Synergistic Connections doesn’t seem to be able to come up with a suitable candidate, so I decided to go hunt—uh, looking for one on my own.”
“A wife?” Her voice was a mere squeak of sound but her eyes were huge.
“I knew that, among other things, I wanted a full-spectrum prism who wouldn’t faint when she discovered that I’m an off-the-chart strat-talent. So I went out and hired a lot of full-spectrums until I met you.”
Orchid shook her head in disbelief. “This is a joke, right?”
“Believe me,” he put his brandy glass down very deliberately, “whatever else it is, it’s no joke.”
She stared at him. “You just decided to try out a lot of full-spectrum prisms until you found one you thought might work out as a wife?”
“I’m a little desperate at the moment.”
“How very flattering. Lovely to know that you’ve been driven to checking me out as a potential wife because you’re a little desperate.”
Rafe began to feel cornered. “Well, it’s not as if you’ve got a dozen potential husbands beating a path to your door, either. You told me yourself that Affinity Associates hasn’t turned up a single candidate the whole time you’ve been registered. Why shouldn’t we take a second look at each other? There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around for either of us.”
“You said you’ve got two months to produce a wife or a fiancée?”
He gripped the arms of his chair and shoved himself to his feet. He stalked to the fireplace. “That’s right.”
“Mind if I ask why?”
“It’s a family thing.” The ever-popular, all-purpose, unarguable, excuse on St. Helens. A family thing.
Orchid glared at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Very.”
“Good grief.” She shook her head in stunned amazement. “This is like that old ice-fairy tale, the one in which Prince Charming takes a glass slipper around the kingdom until he finds a woman whose foot fits into it.”
“I don’t exactly envision myself as Prince Charming.”
“Neither,” she said, “do I.”
He winced. “This is probably not a good time to discuss this.”
She gave him a steely smile. “I can tell you right now, there won’t be a better time. Is there anything else about this bizarre situation that I should know?”
He rubbed his jaw. “No, that’s pretty much the whole of it.”
“Tell me, please, I can’t leave without knowing. How in five hells did I make the cut? Out of all the full-spectrum prisms you must have hired from all the focus firms in New Seattle, why me?”
“I don’t know.” That sounded weak. He sought for a more logical response. “Why not you?”
“You’re right. Prince Charming, you’re not.”
Rafe spun around to face her. “Look, I’m trying to be honest here.”
“Oh, great. No wonder Synergistic Connections is having a hard time finding a match for you. That kind of honesty probably has an extremely limited appeal.”
“Yeah? Well, what about you? Your appeal must be somewhat limited, too, if Affinity Associates can’t come up with a match after all this time.”
She leaped to her feet. “I don’t care if they never find me a match.”
“Well, I’m not real keen on the idea of being saddled with a deadline for finding a wife.”
“I can certainly understand that. Talk about pressure. Well, I wouldn’t want you to waste any more of your valuable time on me.” She whirled and started toward the door.
She was leaving. Desperation rolled over him in a wave.
“Orchid. Please. Don’t go.”
Something in his voice must have pierced her outrage. She stopped but she did not turn around. She reached out to grip the door jamb with one hand. Her spine was an elegant, unyielding line.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to stay,” she said starkly.
“I’ve made a hash of this. I’m sorry.” He took a breath. “But I was under the impression that you’re at least mildly attracted to me.”
“So?”
“So I’m more than mildly attracted to you. A lot more.”
“That,” she said brusquely, “is not a good enough reason for marriage, especially marriage without a confirming match from a proper marriage agency.”
“I know.” He hesitated. “But it’s a good enough reason for an affair, isn’t it?”
Her hand tightened visibly on the door jamb. Her knuckles went white. “You don’t have time to waste on an affair. You need a wife.”
“Tonight I need you.”
She turned slowly around to face him. Her eyes were shadowy pools that veiled a thousand secrets. “Do you?”
“Yes.” This was a fine time to get the shakes. He had not felt this unsteady after the brawl in Theo Willis’s front yard, he reflected. “But it’s no good if you don’t want me, too.”
“As you said earlier, we’re a good team when it comes to some things.”
“Is this one of those things?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I think it is.”
A joyous relief that he had no business feeling at that moment swept away every other sensation except desire.
Rafe covered the short distance that separated him from Orchid in three long strides. He lifted her up into his arms and carried her through the doorway and down the hall.
She smiled tremulously and put one arm around his neck as he started up the broad staircase that led to the darkened floor above. “I could walk, you know.”
“Somehow I get the feeling that none of your heroes would allow your heroines to walk up the stairs to the bedroom before they made love for the first time.”
“You really did read one of my books, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Rafe reached the landing and paused long enough to kiss her again. Hunger surged through him. He hoped he was not actually panting with lust. So very primitive.
He carried her down the hall to the shadowed doorway at the far end.
“Oh, my,” Orchid whispered when he walked into the room with her in his arms. “You said you had a window in the ceiling. This is incredible.”
He smiled as she tilted her head back to gaze in wonder at the glass dome above the bed. The fog that blanketed the city had not climbed this hillside. Overhead their private night sky was clear. Stars glittered in the velvety darkness.
The bed had come with the house. It was a massive circular creation with an elaborately carved base of gold-enleaf wood. Rafe stepped up onto the dais with a sense of impending destiny. He set Orchid down on the spider-frog silk quilt.
For a few seconds he simply stared at her, adjusting to the reality of having her here in his bedroom.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“No.”
“Are you having second thoughts?”
“I can’t think at all at the moment,” he said.
A troubled expression passed across her face. “We’re not doing this because of that adrenaline rush we got during the fight with those two men at Theo’s house, are we?”
 
; “No.” Who cared why they were doing it? he thought. They were doing it. That was all that mattered.
“I’ve heard that the synergistic reaction that sometimes occurs in the human bloodstream after a fight is not very different, chemically speaking, from the reaction caused by sexual attraction.”
“I would take it as a great favor,” Rafe said, “if you would save the lecture on synergistic blood chemistry until later. I don’t think I can follow it at the moment.”
Her eyes gleamed with sensual amusement. “Sorry.”
With a groan he lowered himself to the bed and gathered her into his arms.
Orchid’s soft laughter floated up to the domed ceiling, as weightless and bright as the starlight overhead. Rafe leaned over her, caging her between his hands, and kissed her until she stopped laughing.
Her mouth opened beneath his. With a soft, muffled exclamation, she wrapped her arms around him. He felt her sudden fierce need all the way to the bone.
She wanted him.
His own smoldering hunger leaped into full flame. An exultant sensation stormed through him. Tonight she was his.
In an exuberant frenzy of happy lust he rolled with her across the wide bed, rumpling the quilt and the sheets until all was chaos. When they at last came to a halt, Rafe was once more stretched out on top of her. Her jean-clad legs framed his. She looked up at him, breathless. Her eyes were brilliant, starlit pools in which he would willingly drown, in which he could not wait to drown.
He could feel the heat of her body through the denim. It carried her scent, which was mingled now with the unmistakable fragrance of feminine desire. The night, the time when his senses were sharpest, when he was most keenly aware of that other part of himself, called to him. He was alive as he had never been before in his life.
He lifted himself off Orchid long enough to get a grip on the hem of her T-shirt. He managed to shove it up above her breasts and then over her head. Her soft hair got whipped into a wild tangle in the process. One silken lock fell across her face, giving her a sultry, mysterious look.
He looked down at her elegantly curved breasts. It crossed his mind that he had never seen anything more beautiful than the spill of starlight on her skin.
She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. Impatient with her slow progress, he reached down and finished the job himself. He closed his eyes and shuddered when he felt her fingers on his bare chest.
“Rafe.” Her voice throbbed with emotion.
He opened his eyes and bent his head to kiss her. While he held her mouth captive, he unfastened her jeans. Then he worked his way down her body, freeing her from the denim. When he rose over her again she was clad in nothing but a small triangle of silk.
Deliberately he put his hand between her legs. The crotch of her dainty panties was already wet. A heady sense of pleasure shot through him, leaving him slightly dazed. He pressed gently against the silk that shielded her.
Orchid sucked in her breath at his touch, gave a wordless cry and twisted restlessly beneath his hand. When he stroked her she clenched her thighs together, forcing herself more firmly against his palm. Her breathing quickened in the darkness.
After a moment she hesitantly reached out to touch him as intimately as he had touched her and sighed impatiently when she discovered his trousers in the way.
Her touch was curiously awkward, but it was eager. Her hands tortured him deliciously while she sought and found the fastening at the waistband of his pants, undid it, and finally managed to lower his zipper.
He fell heavily into her waiting hand. When she cupped him gently he thought he might go mad. He squeezed his eyes closed for a few seconds and fought a desperate battle with his self-control.
He won the battle, at least for a few minutes. When he managed to open his eyes again he saw that Orchid was gazing at his rigid erection with an expression of wonder and intense fascination.
“You are incredible,” she whispered.
He did not answer. He could not. He was too close to the edge. If he did not take her now, he would surely shatter.
He jerked her sodden panties aside, lowered himself to her once more and fitted himself to her. He caught and held her gaze. He needed to look into her eyes when he claimed her.
She watched him with an odd intensity, as though waiting for something important to happen. He prayed he would not disappoint her.
He thrust heavily into her. Felt small, delicate muscles resist, give way, and then close snugly around him. Something else gave way, too. He heard her quick, sharp breath. For a moment she went rigid. She was hot and wet and very, very tight. Too tight.
He raised his head swiftly.
“Orchid?”
“It’s all right.” She framed his face with her hands. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”
“But, why?”
“It never felt right before.”
A profound sense of wonder and an exultant satisfaction mingled with the potent chemical mix in his veins. He knew exactly what she meant. Nothing had ever felt this right. He lowered his head to kiss her throat.
“Link.”
She did not hesitate. Out on the metaphysical plane a brilliant crystal took shape. Rafe slammed talent through the prism as he eased himself deeper into Orchid’s body.
He reached down to find her small, firm clitoris. At the first touch she cried out and pressed her face against his chest. He thought he felt her teeth. The sensation was almost unbearably exciting.
He stroked gently as he rocked against her. The elemental rhythms of desire established themselves in the oldest of synergistic harmonies.
Eons later, when the effort to hold himself back had become exquisitely painful, Orchid’s fingers suddenly dug into his shoulders.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered as if she had just made an incredible discovery. “Yes.”
He raised his head so that he could see her face when she climaxed beneath him. The tiny convulsions shimmered through her. He felt them deep inside where he was securely lodged.
Orchid’s release triggered his own. A dazzling mix of physical and paranormal energy poured through him. All of his senses were riveted by the sensation. He was swept away by the glorious wildness that seized him.
Nothing had ever felt so whole, so right, so perfect.
* * *
Rafe opened his eyes a long time later. He gazed up through the glass dome and contemplated the stars. Orchid stirred and stretched beside him. Then she propped herself on her elbow and leaned over him.
“Mind if I ask you a personal question?”
He studied her gleaming eyes and tangled his fingers in her hair. “At this particular moment, I wouldn’t mind if you asked me to fly or go over a waterfall in a barrel.”
“In a good mood, are you?”
“Very.”
She folded her arms on his chest and rested her chin on her hand. “This is sort of a professional question.”
“Go for it.”
“Is it true that strat-talents can tell if a person is lying to them?”
He stilled. And then he started to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to sit up and wrap his arms around his midsection. He doubled over with laughter. He howled with laughter. The room rang with the sound of it.
“I didn’t think the question was that funny,” Orchid said.
Rafe’s laughter finally faded into a grin. He sprawled on his back and pulled Orchid down on top of him.
“Let me put it this way.” He thrust his fingers through her hair. “I’ll know if you ever try to fake an orgasm.”
Chapter
9
She did not dream.
Or, to be more specific, Orchid thought, when she awoke alone in the massive round bed, she did not dream of being stalked by a psychic vampire, even though some would say she had gone to bed with one.
She felt remarkably refreshed, given her energetic activities during the night. High overhead morning light blazed through the glass domed ceiling. It poured
over the bed like warm honey-syrup and puddled around her in a delicious pool.
No nightmares last night. Not one.
The extent of her euphoria told her more clearly than anything else could just how much she had come to dread the stalking dream. For the first time she realized how it had nibbled away at the edges of her nerves during the past few days.
She wondered if great sex always had such a revitalizing affect. The only way to test the hypothesis would be to do it again, she thought. Soon.
She did not know why she had waited until last night to lose her virginity. Heaven knew that in her wild and reckless teenage years she’d done her share of climbing into backseats with the handful of young men who had the courage to date the daughter of one of Northville’s most important academics. Her curiosity had been as strong as that of any other healthy adolescent.
But, perhaps owing to the fact that Northville suffered a serious shortage of interesting “bad boys” or because she was, at heart, a romantic bent on waiting for Mr. Right, she had never gone all the way.
By the time she had left Northville for the city, she was twenty years old and no longer quite so wild or reckless. She’d had goals and plans and none of the men she had met fit into them. She had male friends, but she did not have many boyfriends. None of the few men who had come into her life in the past few years had been Mr. Right.
Rafe might not be Mr. Right, she told herself, but he certainly was Mr. Exciting.
She wiggled her toes beneath the turquoise blue sheet and listened to the sounds of Rafe in the shower. The sounds of her lover, she corrected herself.
Who was registered at a marriage agency because he was desperately seeking a bride for family reasons.
That thought brought her exuberance down several notches. She sat up, pushed aside the blue-green sheets, and rose from the giant circular bed.
Halfway to the door of the bathroom she paused, turned, and glanced back over her shoulder at the rumpled bed. The old Later Expansion period piece had not been fashioned for frivolous sexual encounters, she thought. It had the weighty, portentous look of a bed that had been designed for founding dynasties. If she tried, she could almost make herself feel a little guilty for having such a good time in it last night.