a moment she felt James move. He lifted his hands and laid them on top of hers, which still rested on the cat.
“But I—”
“Shh. Just feel.”
She closed her eyes and opened her mind, her heart. And soon it felt as if warm honey were somehow passing from his hands straight through hers and sinking into Pandora. It was an amazing sensation. But that was just the beginning. There was more. She felt as if some kind of soul-sunroof opened in the top of her head, as if there were a light source that was unlike any light she’d ever seen or felt—an energy source, really—and heat, and sizzling crackling electricity and…love. Yes. Love. It moved from wherever such things originated, or from everywhere all at once, into her. And through her into…it. The cosmos. The universe. It was all one thing. All one thing, and she was a part of it, and so was James, and so was Pandora. And the boat, and the ocean, and the planet.
One.
One.
One.
It was the most serene sort of knowingness she had ever felt, or ever even imagined. And then it blinked out, and she was herself again, an individual, and James’s hands were on hers. She opened her eyes, found his locked with them. He leaned a little closer, and so did she and his lips brushed hers very briefly….
And then the cat squirmed out from beneath their joined hands, knocking them apart as she bounded across the deck. Three leaps, then she stopped and turned, staring accusingly at the two of them, ears laid back, tail twitching angrily. Her green eyes seemed to be asking just what the hell they had done to her, in a voice that sounded, in Lucy’s head, a lot like Rhiannon’s.
Lucy smiled, then laughed, and when James laughed with her, she knew in that moment that there was something powerful between them. Something that went beyond attraction or any of the craziness that had thrown them together. There was a connection, and she’d felt it from the moment when she’d first opened her eyes to find him leaning over her as she lay with the very lifeblood seeping out of her and soaking into a New York City sidewalk. She’d known it. She’d felt it. She’d questioned and doubted and ignored that feeling, because it didn’t make any sense to her. It wasn’t logical.
But now she had to wonder just what good logic was anyway. She was on a boat full of vampires with a man who could heal the sick and raise the dead. The Jesus of the Damned, he was. Their savior. Was it any wonder he thought anything he did was justified? With a power like his, how he could not develop a bit of a god complex?
“I’m going to need your help!” Will called from the helm.
Looking up quickly, Lucy realized he’d already piloted the yacht away from shore, while the two of them had been preoccupied, James with the cat and Lucy with James.
“On my way,” James replied. Then he met her eyes, and his had a lot going on in their blue depths. An entire universe swirling within them, and all of it focused on her in that moment. She felt…admired, approved of, complimented and appreciated by him, though he hadn’t spoken a single word. It was all there in his eyes.
“Why don’t you check on our passengers, Lucy? They ought to be coming around soon.”
She nodded and got to her feet, turning to jog across the deck and down the hatch to the cabins below. But as she paused outside the first door, she sensed a presence behind her and turned slowly. Rhiannon’s black panther was slinking down from above, her nose twitching as she searched for her mistress. Pandora’s eyes, like black marbles, met Lucy’s, and the cat went still, crouching a little lower.
Lucy swallowed hard and didn’t dare move as the cat growled low in its throat. She felt the sound rever berating in her solar plexus. Her fear made her want to run. It was what she did, after all. When danger threatened, Lucy fled.
And she could have run then. She could have opened the door to the first cabin, right there at her back, and slipped quickly inside. But something made her stiffen her spine instead. And instead of backing away, she focused on a point just to the right of the panther’s head, because wasn’t looking them in the eye supposed to be challenging behavior? And