"I'm sorry," he said quietly, watching the sun glisten in her hair. He laughed self-consciously as she fought a smile. "The villa had a seri�ous charge in it, and we were all pumped after what went down back at the hacienda. Didn't mean to get fresh with you. It sorta slipped out."
She glimpsed him from the corner of her eye and kept walking. "I like you, too, Daniel," she murmured, and then looked off toward the rocks. "I know we just met under very insane circumstances ten days ago... but it's like I've known you forever."
"I know what you mean," he said quietly as she stood looking up at a long natural pier of huge, jagged rocks that jutted out into the crash�ing waves.
If she only knew how it also felt like it had been forever waiting for her. Just like Christine had promised, the moment he'd seen her, the ache for Krissy had dulled and then vanished. Heather's eyes and voice literally drank him in during their field exercises, the laughter in the hacienda, and the long, wonderful nights just sitting with her on post talking, learning her moods under the stars. The one kiss she'd al�lowed had almost brought him to his knees, but there hadn't been enough time or privacy for more.
"You think you can do it... I mean, create a human lighthouse up there?"
She chuckled softly and began climbing up to find a flat enough sur�face for the number of bodies the formation would require. "I don't know," she said merrily, pulling herself up and sensing on her hands and knees. "These are sooo old and so virginal... they've never been tapped."
Heather looked at him with an expression that devastated him, but he remained cool on the outside.
"Dan, you have to feel these," she murmured, then looked back down and caressed the stones.
His body lurched and his mouth went dry as he watched her grace�ful hands hover above the jagged rocks, her lithe body clad in jeans and a jewel-green tank top, her spine dipping into a gentle sway while she balanced on all fours.
"Okay," he breathed out, and touched the rocks, not daring to climb up there with her just yet. But the moment his palms splayed against the rocks, to his chagrin, a blue-static charge fanned out from his fingers and rushed over the rocks, leapt a quarter inch to her hands, and spread over her.
She just looked at him. "Wow," she whispered.
He immediately pulled his hands away and walked into the sea up to his boots, needing distance and to cool down. The throb in the erection she'd given him was pounding in his groin with the same in�tensity of the surf.
"Uh, listen, about that... that was an accident," he said, embar�rassed, unable to deny that he wanted to climb all over her like his charge. "But I think it was the jolt those guys were talking about," he added, beginning to breathe hard while keeping his back to her so she couldn't see just how affected he really was.
"That's it!" she said, laughing. "Dan, take off your boots, and walk into the water, and then lean over and touch the rocks while I'm on them."
He glimpsed her over his shoulder, then became mesmerized by her brilliant smile. For a moment he couldn't move. The afternoon sun was behind her, framing her in light, her auburn hair glistened with red, copper, brown, and gold... and her small heart-shaped mouth drew him, but her gray eyes practically smoldered with excite�ment as her new powers began to unfold. His gaze traveled down her body in pure reflex, following her pretty toffee-hued skin down to her tank top, over the swell of her unrestrained br**sts to linger on the tight, tiny pebbles that her ni**les had become and then raked across her flat belly down her pelvis to then take in the full length of her shapely legs.
"I can't," he admitted in a quiet, gravelly tone, knowing full well what sea-salt-infused water would do to the hard current that was pulsing through him. If he did what she'd asked, and then touched the rocks, she would definitely be offended.
Her smile widened, "But you heard what that green guy told us," she said, laughing. "I have to start my dead car battery. Oh, Dan, I've never felt anything like this in my life!" She sat down on a flat area cross-legged, closed her eyes, and turned her face up to the sun. "All my life I've known I was different, and I was so afraid that I would have to one day make a pact that could steal me away from the sun forever. Then I find you guys, and now I'm learning what I can do for the good..." She opened her eyes. "I know it has a hot charge... but, I don't mind. If I was going to feel something so magical, I'm blessed it would be with you."
He turned slowly and ran his palm over his hair. "You're not mad that I'm sorta thinking like that about you this soon?"
She smiled and began picking at the nap in her jeans. "It's sorta natural, you know... for two people who really like each other and share a lot in common to feel a wee bit of chemistry Doesn't mean it has to wind up going too far," she said, glancing up at him and then down the beach to the villa that was a half-mile away. "I wouldn't want your family to think that's the kinda girl I am, or lose their re�spect... or yours, given where I came from."
"You definitely wouldn't lose my respect," he said, coining closer to the stones and beginning to unlace his Timberlands. "We all came from some pretty wild places and nobody thinks like that," he said, talking faster as he yanked off each boot and hurled them to the dry sand. "I just wanted to be sure you liked me like that, too-before I sent that kinda charge your way. I mean, if you didn't feel like that, I don't want a weird vibe between us on the team, and uh,God you're beautiful, so I don't know how steady the charge would be, because, Heather, seriously, it's been a long time since I've felt a charge like this running through me. If you're not really into me, then I want us to still be cool, after. You know?"
Dan clamped his lips shut and could feel the muscles in his jaw working. The woman had him babbling and he knew he needed to shut up. He'd been down this road before with Krissy and didn't want to get burned again.
"I like you alot, Daniel," she said softly and then leaned forward and placed her hands on the rocks. "You are so precious... and the fact that you would even worry about such a thing like that has stolen me away." She shook her head. "Do you know what kind of dark en�ergies I've seen and that I've had to fend off while in Gabrielle's care? I never thought in a million years I'd be able to find a nice guy like you."
He waded into the water up to his calves and kept his gaze on her. "I never thought in a million years I'd find a woman as nice and as beautiful as you to care about me as a friend."
"Then the other ones that passed up on such a deal were crazy," she said, her voice dipping a bit. "You make a great friend."
"This isn't friendship energy that's arcing," he said, honestly warn�ing her. "Even though we're friends."
She didn't move. "I didn't suspect that it would be," she said after a moment. "Sexual energy is the oldest and most natural energy be�tween the opposite polarities of male and female," she said, shyly looking down at her hands. "It's as old as these stones."
Heather glanced up, and before she could draw a breath Dan had placed his hands against the rocks with a hard slap. The blue arc in�stantly sizzled up the boulders in a blue-tinged coating, crawling over it with a thick charge and then hit Heather so hard she fell backward. Dan yanked his hands away, the current rippling over him, charging his hair, and making him shudder as he began to walk around in a dis�oriented circle. When he looked up, Heather was leaning back on her elbows, breathing through her mouth.
"I... uh... didn't know it could-"
"I tried to warn you," he said, panting. "I shouldn't have stood in the water. It was stored up for a long time."
She dropped her head back and moaned as an aftershock of current rippled over her skin again. "Daniel... it won't stop... ."