Jayne Krentz - Copper Beach

“He thinks we’re playing a game,” Abby said. She punched the elevator button.

The elevator door opened. Sam pulled her inside. Newton trotted in with them.

Sam hit the button for the tenth floor and pinned Abby to the wall.

“No games,” he vowed.

She struggled a bit. He held her still and kissed her fiercely.

When the elevator doors opened, he was forced to release her. She clamped a hand over her mouth and looked at him with laughter-filled eyes.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

In response, she pointed up at the ceiling of the elevator. He saw the security camera and realized why she had resisted a moment ago. He laughed and yanked her back into his arms, making sure that he was kissing her as the elevator doors closed, making sure that the last image recorded on the security camera was that of Abby in his arms.

Staking his claim.

SHE WAS HOT AND COLD AND SHIVERING SO HARD SHE COULD not even get the key into the lock. What was wrong with her? It was as if she was in the grip of a raging fever, but she did not feel ill. Just the opposite. She was wildly exhilarated. She was flying.

The key fell to the floor.

“This is embarrassing,” she said.

Sam scooped up the key, opened the door and propelled her inside. She was vaguely aware of Newton’s nails clicking on the floor behind them. He disappeared down the hall to the living room. Sam got the door closed, peeled off his leather jacket and immediately went to work unfastening Abby’s coat.

Part of her was shocked by the force of her response. It was as if the physical contact had awakened something deep inside her that had been dormant all these years, as if she had been waiting for this encounter.

Sam wrenched off her coat, hurled it in the general direction of the coatrack and closed his hands deliberately, powerfully, around her shoulders. Yet for all the strength that she sensed in him, both physical and paranormal, there was an exquisite tenderness in his touch that was incredibly seductive. As if he was handling fine, delicate crystal, she thought.

She slipped her hands up under his black T–shirt and flattened her palms on his chest. The feel of sleek, hard muscles beneath his warm skin excited her senses. She could see the heat in his eyes. He tangled his fingers in her hair and kissed her throat. For the first time in her life, she understood what it meant to be thrilled.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she whispered.

He pulled back just long enough to tug off his T–shirt. With her fingertips, she traced the outline of an elegant bird with wings of fire that covered his left shoulder.

“It’s a phoenix, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes.”

“You know, I would never have pegged you as the type to get a tattoo.”

“I was nineteen,” he said.

He cradled her jaw in one hand and used his thumb to tease open her mouth, tasting her, drawing her deeper into the embrace. The world spun around her. It took her a few heartbeats to realize that Sam had picked her up in his arms. He angled her carefully and carried her down the hall, through the dimly lit living room and into the darkened bedroom.

He tumbled her down onto the bed and sprawled heavily on top of her, anchoring her with his weight. His mouth moved over her as if he craved her.

She could feel the damp warmth gathering between her legs. He had done little more than kiss her, but her body was already preparing for him. The sheer urgency of her need should have made her hesitate, pull back. And somewhere a faint alarm was sounding, warning her that what she was doing held all manner of unknown risks.

But she was in no mood to pay attention to the weak protests that emanated from the part of her mind that was still trying to think rationally.

Sam dragged his mouth across hers one last time and then wrenched himself free. He rolled off her and sat up on the edge of the bed.

“Give me a second here,” he said. His voice was low and husky, and his breathing was rough. He stripped off his pants and fumbled briefly in a pocket. “Damn. My hand is shaking so hard it will be a wonder if I can get this thing on.”

She exulted in the knowledge that she was the reason he was having problems with the logistics of the situation. A sense of her own feminine power arced through her. Tonight she was a goddess.

Sam managed to sheath himself in the condom. He came back down on top of her, crushing her into the bed. In the darkness, his eyes were ablaze with a desire that crossed the spectrum from normal to paranormal. On his right hand, his ring glowed with a muted coppery radiance.

Her own senses were spiking wildly now. She was unbelievably sensitive to the slightest touch. She flinched when he pushed her nightgown up to her waist and pulled it off over her head. And then his mouth was on her breast, and she would have screamed with the intense pleasure of it all if she had been able to catch her breath.

“You are on fire,” he said. The words were filled with wonder and awe.

“So are you.” She stroked the contoured muscles of his back. His skin was streaked with sweat. “You’re burning up.”

“Never felt better in my life.”

A sliver of uncertainty pricked the lush fog of sensation at last. She clutched his taut upper arms.

“I’m not sure this is normal,” she said.

“So what? Neither of us is exactly normal.”

He was right, she thought. She pushed the concern to the back of her mind and abandoned herself to the exhilarating resonance of the energy in the bedroom.

He cupped her hot core and stroked her. Fire and ice sleeted through her. She twisted beneath his touch, straining into the embrace, trying to pull him into her.

He kissed the curve of her shoulder. “I can’t wait any longer. I need you now.”

“Yes,” she said. “Now.”

He moved, making a place for himself between her thighs. She gasped when she felt him pushing slowly, heavily, into her. Once again she thought she heard a whisper of warning. This isn’t normal. Something more was happening here, something she did not fully comprehend. Whatever it was, the meaning was still encrypted.

But he was inside her now, filling her completely, and it seemed to her that their auras were resonating together in some unimaginable way. Then she could not think about anything else except the overpowering need that was building inside her.

Sam began to move. She raised her knees to let him sink deeper. Until tonight, she would not have believed that she was capable of experiencing such intense sensations.

In the next heartbeat, her release cascaded through her in waves of energy that defied easy descriptions of both pleasure and pain. Not normal, she thought again. But incredible.

She cried out and sank her nails into Sam’s back. He went rigid, and then his climax broke free, surging through him in heavy waves. His fierce growl of triumph and satisfaction echoed in the shadows.

In that senses-shattering moment, she could have sworn that the flaring ultralight currents of their overheated auras had established a harmonic link, a breathtakingly intimate resonance.

She had just time enough to think, Such a thing isn’t possible.

And then they were collapsing together into the damp sheets, and she could not think coherently at all.

SHE AWOKE TO THE INTOXICATING FRAGRANCE OF FRESHLY brewed coffee.

Sam.

She opened her eyes to the early light of a Seattle summer morning and bolted upright on a tide of adrenaline. Sam had spent the night in her bed.

She knew he had not gone back to the sofa, because she had a distinct recollection of him returning from the bathroom after the heated lovemaking. Mentally, she corrected herself: the heated sex. No love involved on either side. They barely knew each other.

It came down to a one-night stand. She never did one-night stands. Too risky.

Newton was nowhere to be seen. A shiver of alarm shot through her. He was always there to greet her first thing in the morning.

As if on cue, she heard Newton in the hall. He trotted into the bedroom, put his front paws up on the bed and licked her hand.

“Well, good morning to you, too,” she said.

She rubbed his ears. Newton gave her another perfunctory lick on the hand and bounced off, tail high. He disappeared back down the hall, as if he had more important things to do.

She forced herself to focus on the chain of events during the night. When Sam had returned to the bed, he had pulled her close and fallen into a profound sleep. She had expected to spend the short time left until dawn lying awake, worrying about the weird, unsettling sensations she had experienced and the possible ramifications of what had happened.

But the exhaustion that had come over her had been beyond any normal postcoital languor. Probably because there had been as much paranormal as normal energy involved, she thought. She had never before engaged in sex with all of her senses wide open. Until last night, she would not have believed such an encounter was even possible.

Her phone chimed, snapping her out of her reverie. She scooped it up off the nightstand and glanced at the screen. The familiar caller ID calmed her. Ralph, the day doorman.

“Good morning, Ralph,” she said. She glanced at the clock again. “­Early-morning package delivery?”

“There is a gentleman here to see you.” Ralph spoke very quietly into the phone. “A Mr. Strickland.”