Jenna sensed concern and an amorphous feeling of growing dread in him. She realized with shiver that she shared that feeling. It was exactly the same sort of feeling she had when she was on a SIA assignment.
It was like her suspicious instincts were kicking into gear, but this time the weight of it seemed to be hovering in the very air she breathed, like the tension before a massive storm.
It’s them, isn’t it?
He didn’t put his response into words. Instead his confirmation came to her as a sense of utter certainty.
Who are they? s
he asked.
And how is it they can command the weather?
Then she caught her breath as dark spots danced before her eyes. Sudden weakness threatened to buckle her knees. The sensation of being an empty husk returned.
Rhys turned away from the window and caught her elbow. “Enough. You must eat.” He drew her back toward the stairs that led to the upstairs restaurant.
“But how are they doing this?”
“The one they follow…he could employ the weather and would if it meant delaying us, or preventing us from achieving our purpose.”
“What
is
that purpose? You keep promising me an explanation.”
“I know.” He looked down at her and smiled. “Are you ready for that explanation? You’ve had a hard enough time swallowing what I’ve told you so far.”
“In for a penny.” She shrugged. “Besides, there appears to be some interesting compensations for this strange stuff.”
His grin broadened. He picked up her hand and kissed it. “Spoken like a true cynic.”
During the meal, Rhys insisted they speak of nothing but generalities and mundane trivia and share no thoughts of any sort. It was a mental and physical break Jenna realized she needed, for by the end of the meal she felt calmer and more peaceful than she’d felt for a long time. To preserve the meditative state, she suggested they wander through the stores and concessions that resided in the rabbit warren corridors at the back of the hotel. Rhys wouldn’t broach any unsettling subjects in such public places.
The stores all offered fabulously exclusive goods and services and Jenna couldn’t have hit upon a neater distraction if she tried. The array of exorbitant gold-trimmed, leather-bound, fur-finished do-dads bewildered her.
She saw Rhys’ amused look as she put a gold-and-platinum card case back on its stand. “You’re laughing at me.”
He shook his head a little. “The Banff Springs Hotel isn’t your usual style, is it?”
“Hell no, not at these prices.”
“Then you’re here because…?”
“Because I have a postcard of the hotel—you know that one where the hotel is sitting amongst the trees, surrounded by mountains and nothing else? You see it everywhere.” She recalled the postcard that has spent eight years on the side of her fridge and sent him the image.
“Yes, I know the one.”
“I saw that postcard years ago and brought it.”
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know. It appealed to me.”
Rhys gave her a look.
“It appealed to you?
You kept the card for eight years in a place of honour on your fridge, despite Kevin teasing you about it.
I’d say the card did a bit more than simply appealing to you.”
Jenna drew in a deep, steadying breath.
“You got all that from what I just sent you?” she asked.
“I thought I was just sending the image of the postcard.”
Rhys grinned.
“I’ve been doing it a lot longer than you.
I can pick up nuances behind the thought.”
He stroked her cheek with his thumb, his smile warming.
“You share such bright, strong images, Jenna. You’re more powerful than you think. And it helps that we’re bonding, of course.
Because of that, your thoughts are far more available to me than they would be to anyone else.”
“That’s reassuring,” she murmured.
But she was distracted by his strong masculine aroma that was radiating from the pulse at his wrist as he caressed her face.
The scent brought her mind zooming back to her hotel room and their frantic coupling.
Rhys’ eyes narrowed, the lids lowering, as he watched her. “There’s no need to share thoughts now.
I can see where your mind has gone.”
“That’s your fault.
You’re touching me,” she replied.
He dropped his hand and cleared his throat.
“Tell me about the card,” he said.
“Why did it stay on your fridge for eight years?”
Jenna tugged at the hem of her shirt and straightened her shoulders.
“The image of the hotel....”
She hesitated.
“I can’t think of a better way of describing it than to say it called to me.
It was like the card was a personal message to me.
I don’t know why. The hotel seemed so remote. Isolated. I would look at it and promise myself that one day I would save up and go there. So this year, with Christmas coming and no one to have Christmas with, I figured….” She shrugged. “It was as good an excuse as any.”
“And it didn’t work, did it?” Rhys asked.
“You drew trouble right to you.”
She offered him a small smile. “Well, at least I’m not lonely.”
His expression darkened.
“No, thank god.”
He picked up her hand and drew her back into the arcade.
“Come on.
What’s next?”
The next store was a dress shop and here the prices spiralled into the stratosphere. The neat hand-written figures on the creamy velum tags hovered in such rarefied air their astronomical quality got Jenna giggling. Contrary-wise, the store seemed to stock very few items, as if they wouldn’t stoop to carrying a vast range and variety.
“Well, they only need sell one item a week to pay their rent,” Rhys whispered.
“That’s all they’d sell, I’m sure.”
Something caught his eye. Rhys made a beeline for the rack on the other side of the store and Jenna trailed behind him, curious.
He plucked the hanger from the rack and held up the dress for her to inspect. It was a dark kelly-green velvet evening gown, with a thick halter strap that would run from each side of the bodice. The shaping of the gown meant it would cling from bust to thigh. The bodice over the breasts cut low and finished off with small ruffles of a dark green paisley silk satin that had been carefully gathered in a row of tiny pleats. Rhys turned the gown around to show her the back, where the slit at the center back would run to give the wearer room to move, the paisley hung pleated and gathered, falling into a flaring train.
“Oh wow…!” she breathed.
Rhys’ long fingers stroked the soft green velvet. “I would pay the price to see you wearing this.”
She ran her eye over the gown and imagined what it would be like to wear something so utterly gorgeous. High heels, stockings and her hair coiled up to show off the plunging back.
She would feel like a million dollars.
“Jenna.”
She looked at him and closed her eyes as he gave her an image. She saw what she would look like wearing the dress from his perspective: a willowy redhead, her hair cascading down her back in long waves of curls to touch the small of her back where the velvet clung lovingly to her ass. The velvet glided down to the ground behind her in an elegant sweep. The silk over her breasts tempted him to stroke the warm fabric so he could feel the pleats ruffle under his fingertips and her breasts beneath the silk along with the thrill of brushing up against her tight nipples.
Jenna shared via Rhys’ vision the sensation of his body tightening, the excitement starting to warm his belly and curling through his cock, making it stir and shift as his imagination leapt on.
She saw and felt him standing behind her as she wore the dress, one hand leaving the heavy weight of her breast to slide down over the taut velvet, across the flat plane of her stomach to fan out over her pussy where he felt the tiny welcoming thrust against his hand. She leaned back against him, her head rolling to one side to rest against his shoulder, her surrender complete.
Jenna took a deep, shuddering breath, blinking against the image as it faded in her mind. Her body was taut, thrumming with hot sexual need.
Her cheeks warmed as she glanced at Rhys.
He returned the dress to the rack, silent.
But she could feel the same throbbing tension pushing through him. She didn’t need his thoughts to feel it. It was rolling off him in waves—sudden, sharp and thrilling.
Her thighs inside the jeans seemed to prickle against the denim…and every fold, every seam of the cotton garment against her pussy and ass rubbed with a delicious friction.
Jenna realized she was standing stock still in the middle of the floor, staring at nothing. She took a slow step over to another rack of jewellery and accessories and pretended to study them.
Her labia had swelled and sensitized. She longed for a hand to slip into the slick moisture there and caress the slippery folds. She wished wildly they were anywhere but here so Rhys could come up behind her and slide his hand inside her jeans and stroke her clit. Perhaps push even deeper and slide inside her.
Quickly, before she could reconsider, she threw the image at him, her heart thudding at her own daring.
She caught her breath as Rhys’ thoughts slid into her mind, echoing her images.
Yes
.
I could do that. But I would start with this….
The images continued. She saw/felt Rhys press up against her from behind. His arms came around her waist—and in his thoughts her waist was admirably insubstantial. He rested his hands over her hips, moving his fingers in restless little circles across the soft denim there. He could feel the prominent rise of her hip bone through her jeans and found it wildly arousing, just as he found the width of her hips appealing.
His lips pressed hard against her neck.
To Jenna, his touch – even in her imagination – was hot and electrifying, but Rhys’ thoughts as he tasted her skin were of her delicate bouquet.
Heavenly. Your scent wreathes my thoughts, subdues them
.
While her heart banged wildly against her ribs, Jenna glanced sideways. The dress shop was merely an enclosure between four of the massive pillars that marched through this section of the hotel and three sides of the store’s walls were made of glass. The fourth solid wall hid a back-of-the-store area and the change rooms.
Although the stand of accessories hid Jenna from anyone directly in front of them, including the bored saleswoman at the cash register, anyone passing by on the outside of the store might notice.
But notice what? She simply stood admiring the jewellery and Rhys was on the other side of the store, his fingers caressing the soft cool velvet of the gown as he thought his wicked thoughts.
Two could play at that game.
She sent her hot, aroused package of thoughts/emotions/feelings to him, along with a sequence of events: his hand creeping beneath the light jacket she wore and swiftly parting the top three buttons on her shirt. The anticipation that simple action would set up! Her breasts would ache for his touch, the nipples would tighten with sharp, almost painful excitement. The shirt would sag open a little and his hand would slip inside, immediately capturing her breasts. His thumb and forefinger closed around the nipple, stroking it.
Rhys returned her thoughts, echoed them and expanding on them. His images showed him doing those actions.
Close your eyes. Immerse yourself in it
. Even his mental voice crackled with harsh excitement.
She willingly closed her eyes and his images immediately bathed her in a wash of heady sensual pleasure. She felt his hands unbuttoning her shirt and her nipples crinkled hard in anticipation. But Rhys took it much further than that for he, the experienced one, understood the lack of limitations.
With her eyes closed, she saw Rhys pull her around to face him. She
f
elt
it. He unbuttoned her shirt and pulled it open, baring her breasts to his gaze. Then finally,
finally
, he cupped each breast, stroking the nipples with his strong thumbs.
Jenna choked back the cry of pleasure that pushed at her lips and reached out to grip the steel top of the jewellery stand. She was becoming drunk on thoughts.
But Rhys did not spare her. In her mind she saw him open her jeans and push them down her hips enough to expose her pussy. She felt the denim stroke along her flesh and the fanning of cool air against her exposed, heated flesh.
His hand slid between her thighs and cupped her mound. At the same time his mouth captured the tip of her breast and his tongue flicked her nipple.
When his fingers bent to invade her vagina, to push inside with hard, thick insistence, she did moan softly.
Come for me
.
Let me feel it.
She pushed aside the foggy clouds of pleasure for a moment.
You, too
, she insisted, forcing herself to coherent, articulated thought, before sinking back into the tossing sea of sensations. Deliberately she pushed at him the heady rush of excitement spilling through her.