“You’re scaring the shit out of me, Rach.”

“Did you know you have the most amazing eyes?”

They narrowed on me. “Huh?”

“Seriously,” I said, reaching up, touching his face, which was wet from the rain. “I could drown in ’em. Anyone ever told you that?”

“Uh, no. You’re the first. Hold on there, champ,” he said when I tried to get up, holding me down with a hand to the middle of my chest. “Don’t move.”

Good idea, since everything had begun to swim. I put my hands to my head. “What happened to me?”

“That’s what I was going to ask you.”

He was so cute with all his worry that it made me smile. “Kel? How come we’ve never gone out?”

“Out?”

“Hooked up.”

He went still, then lifted two fingers. “Okay, how many?” he demanded.

“I’m fine,” I insisted.

“I thought we were erasing that word from the English language.”

I tried to stand up on my own. “Whoa.” I reached for him, because maybe I wasn’t so okay after all. “Hey, stop the world, would ya? I want to get off.”

“You’re dizzy?” He gripped my shoulders. “What the hell happened? Did you fall?”

I closed my eyes. But just like on the plane, that only made it worse, so I opened them again. I focused on a tree. Again, I saw right through the tree, as if I had X-ray vision, meaning I could still see the long line of carpenter ants making their way through the trunk. I followed their line down to the ground, where they emerged from a hole only a few inches from me.

One crawled out near my foot, and I would have sworn on my own grave that it craned its neck and glared at me for being in its way. I stared at it, stunned. “Uh…Kellan?”

“Jesus,” he breathed, and for a minute my heart surged, thinking he could see through stuff, too, but he shook his head and pointed at my clothes.

They were smoking.

“You were hit by lightning,” he said, and looked into my face. “My God. Are you okay?”

His eyes still seemed luminous, and filled with far more worry than before. I dropped my gaze from his, and then gasped.

Like with the moon, like with the tree, I could see through him. As in beneath his clothes.

Um, yeah, I was definitely different.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I mean, what are the chances?” Leaning in again, he began to run his hands over my limbs. Up my legs, over my hips, over my ribs-

“What are you doing?”

“Checking for broken bones,” he said tightly, mouth grim.

“I didn’t have an accident.”

“You were hit.” Beneath his shirt, his muscles rippled with every movement, and this mesmerized me. Muscles rippling? Kel?

When had that happened?

“Kel, I’m okay.” Okay enough to enjoy his hands on me…

“If you’re okay, then why are you looking at me funny?”

Because I just realized you have this hard chest and nicely chiseled abs, and you’re totally, completely ripped.

Only two weeks ago, he’d come over to help me wash my car. This had, of course, involved a spirited water fight, and I’d been the victor, nailing him good with the hose from head to toe and back again. We’d laughed, and before going inside my apartment, he’d stripped off his shirt.

I hadn’t nearly swallowed my tongue then. Not once.

And yet now, staring at him, through his clothes, at his hard pecs, sinewy biceps and that yummy belly, I just wanted to lap him up, or swallow my own tongue.

And then this.

“I think,” I said slowly, “that I must’ve hit my head after all.”

“Jesus, really?” He pulled me into his lap right there on the wet ground, slipping his hands beneath my hair, cupping my head, gently probing. “I don’t feel a lump. I think that’s bad. Look at me.”

I didn’t want to, but I did. I looked back into those drown-in-me eyes. Then, because I couldn’t help myself, because they were such a gorgeous color, I sighed.

“Hurting?” he asked.

“Um…a little. But I’m okay. Really.” My clothes were indeed smoking, a disconcerting fact, let me tell you. “So how much electricity is in a lightning bolt anyway?”

“Enough to fry a few brain cells.”

I laughed, sounding a bit hysterical even to my own ears. So I’d fried a few brain cells. I had spares.

I think.

But how to explain that I could see right through everything? “Kel, can you-Now, I know this sounds weird, but just stick with me here…Can you see through me or anything?”

“Okay, that’s it. Stay seated.” He took a good look at my pupils, pretty darn cute in his concern. “You do know who you are, right?”

“Yep.” I noticed a scar low on his belly, and remembered his emergency appendectomy in high school. Then I struggled not to look lower…

“And you know me,” he demanded. “Right? You know who I am?”

“Double yep.”

“What year is it?”

“It’s 1605,” I quipped.

“Not funny.”

“Sorry.” I was trying really hard to control myself, and fight the overwhelming urge to peek below his scar. You know, south of the border.

“Quick,” he said, obviously oblivious of my inner struggle. “What’s twelve times eight?”

“Um…” Ah, hell. “You know I suck at math.”

He sighed. “Two plus two, Rach. Try that one.”

I batted my eyes. “I’m too cute to have to do math.”

He just looked at me blandly.

And I sighed. “Honestly, I’m okay.” Well, maybe not quite honestly, but how could I explain what I didn’t understand myself? To prove I was good, however, I had to stand up, which took more effort that I’d imagined, and I promptly staggered around like a drunk.

“Damn it.” Kellan grabbed me, pulling me against the nice, warm, hard body I’d just discovered he had.

I mean, who knew?

“Kellan?”

“Yeah?”

My legs really were rubbery, so I wasn’t faking it when they gave way. Kellan’s arms tightened around me.

“Mmm,” I murmured.

He went still. “What was that?” he asked.

Crap. Had I just moaned out loud? What was wrong with me? “Nothing.”

“It was something.”

“No, you must be hearing things.”

“No, I-”

“I didn’t say anything!” I said a bit too defensively, but the cold had seeped into my wet clothes, and I shivered. “Nothing at all.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

I was trying to maintain here, but it wasn’t easy. In fact, wasn’t this why women were reputed to be from Pluto and men from Uranus? Or something like that? Not only did we speak different languages, we were different species all together.

Then I realized he was still holding me, and my body was acting without my brain’s permission, doing as I’d wanted earlier, pressing my face into his neck.

Oh, yeah, he smelled good and he knew how to give a good hug. I nestled in even closer.

Now a groan escaped him, and a little shiver ran through my body at the sound. He pulled me in tighter, against his warm chest, his fingers moving through my hair, massaging my scalp in a melting, mesmerizing way.

The guy had the gift of touch, there was no doubt. I just kept on burrowing, like the heat-seeking missile I’d become.

“Rach?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?” His voice was sort of husky and tight at the same time. Sexy.

“Just…” Yeah, Rach, what are you doing? “Holding on.” I discovered I liked the feel of his skin against my lips when I talked, and as I thought this, that cute, erotic little sound escaped from him again. I don’t know why, but for some reason, it made me open my mouth and…okay, I bit him.

“Ouch!” He pushed me back, gripping my arms as he stared down into my face. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know.” I bit my lip. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

He continued to hold me away from his body now, which was a shame, but it made me realize something. “Um, Kellan?” I stared at his shirt, at the smoke rising from it. “Don’t look now, but you’re smoking, too.”

He looked at himself. A line furrowed between his eyes as he took it in. “Not smoke. Steam. I’m just drying is all.”

“But-”

“I’m fine.” He shook his head. “It’s you who’s a little off.”

Yeah, go figure. I guess being struck by lightning did that to a person. I slapped at the smoke rising in little curls from his chest, his arms, his back, enjoying the contact a little too much. “Are you sure-”

“Stop,” he said, catching my hands in his. “You’re wet, and starting to shake.”

True enough. In fact, even my teeth had begun to rattle, hard enough that I worried the fillings would fall out.

“Let’s just get you back and warm you up.”

Actually, I had a much better thought about how to get warm, but if he’d gotten all prudish after just a bite to the neck, I could imagine what he’d say to my other, much more fun-sounding idea.

So I kept it to myself.

Darn it.

Besides, I did feel…off. And cold, so very damn cold, all the way to my bones.

And then there was that other little issue, of being able to see through things…

Kellan had turned away from me to look for the trail, and I couldn’t help myself.

I looked at his butt.

Bad eyes.

Great butt.

I had no idea what was up with me, but it was starting to get a little annoying.

I honestly felt as if my every nerve had been sensitized. I felt like I needed to be touched.

Right now, right here.

Kel looked over his shoulder and caught me staring.

Uh-oh. I tried to look away quickly, but there was no denying it. I’d been checking him out.

He frowned, as if trying to figure this out, as if the idea of me staring at his ass was so foreign, it couldn’t possibly be.

“Come on,” he said.

“Right.” I smiled as if everything was normal. As if I got hit by lightning every single day and then could see through people’s clothing, people whom I’d had no idea were hiding such an incredible body…“Coming.”