The Visitor(74)

“I’m well aware,” Devlin muttered.

“There has been a Devlin serving in the ranks of that organization for over three hundred years. With your father gone, you’re the next in line, and you know what that will entail. Everyone around you will be scrutinized, including that woman. She may fly under their radar now, but once the vetting process starts, they’ll find out about her and it won’t be pretty. She is anathema to everything they stand for.”

Devlin just shook his head. “This is pure fantasy, Grandfather. These people aren’t real. You dreamed the whole thing up or maybe you read it in a book and now you’re confused. Or maybe this is your way of trying to get me to do what you want. Whatever the case, let me make something perfectly clear. I’m not going to stop seeing Amelia Gray because her profession and background don’t meet with your exalted standards.”

His grandfather’s fist came down hard on the desktop. “This isn’t about standards! It isn’t about her profession or her people. Don’t you understand that? It’s about her.”

“Grandfather—”

“Open your eyes, Jack. Use your instincts. You know what she is.”

*

What am I? I wondered as I spun up out of the memory.

I had asked Papa that very question and he’d had no answer. How was it that Jonathan Devlin, a man I’d never met, seemed to know something about me that my own grandfather couldn’t explain?

This is pure fantasy, Grandfather. These people aren’t real.

I was still swirling in a haze, lost in all those questions when I realized Devlin was peering down at me through narrowed eyes.

“What did you call me?” he asked in a strained voice.

I shook my head slightly trying to clear the fog. “What?”

“Just now. You called me Jack.” His grip tightened. “No one but my grandfather has ever used that name. You’ve talked to him, haven’t you? Did he call you? Come to see you? What did he say to you?”

His sudden agitation startled me. “Nothing. That is...I haven’t spoken to him. I’ve never even met him.”

Devlin’s expression hardened. “There’s a reason for that. He isn’t to be trusted. But if you haven’t talked to him, why did you call me Jack just now?”

I shook my head helplessly. “I’ve no idea. I don’t know anyone by that name. But your grandfather has been so much on your mind lately. Maybe it was some sort of telepathy.”

Something flashed in his eyes. The memory of his grandfather’s warning perhaps. You know what she is.

“I don’t see how that could be possible,” he said.

“There are a lot of things in this world that can’t be explained.”

“Now you sound like Rupert Shaw.”

“I can think of worse things.”

He ran a hand through his hair as he glanced out over the garden. “You know I don’t put stock in that sort of thing. It’s a dangerous road to go down.”

“If there’s nothing to it, why is it dangerous?” I asked in a reasonable tone.

His expression darkened. “It’s been my experience that it can lead to obsession and a false sense of invincibility. And it’s a good way to lose touch with reality.”

He was thinking about Mariama now. I didn’t like the intrusion of his dead wife so I put my hand on his arm to draw him back to me. Where our skin touched, lightning danced.

“Did you see that?” I asked in awe.

“Static electricity,” he said. “There’s a storm brewing.”

That was certainly the logical explanation. The wind had picked up and I could hear a distant rumble that might have been thunder. But the weather didn’t account for the sudden quiver of my nerve endings or the surge of heat through my veins. It didn’t explain the intimate sounds that bombarded me—the rhythm of Devlin’s heartbeat, the saw of his breath, the throb of his pulse. The infinitesimal clink of the medallion against the silver chain around his neck.

My senses were already heightened by the night and by the evolution of my gift, but now everything inside me came alive in a way I’d never felt before. It was as if I’d been accustomed to the world as a flat image, but now I could experience everything around me in 3-D. The perception was as daunting as it was exciting.

I stood on tiptoes and touched my lips to Devlin’s. A white-hot shock bolted down my spine and tingled in my fingertips. I drew in a sharp breath and shuddered. “Did you feel that?”

“Yes, I felt it.”

I started to touch him again, but he caught both my wrists in his hands and held them for the longest time before slowly pressing me back against the porch.

“Do you feel this?” he drawled, sliding his hand along my inner thigh.

My head fell back against the wall as he shoved my nightgown aside, teasing me with his fingers until my blood thrummed and my whole body felt electrified. If my senses were heightened, so was my desire. I had never wanted anyone as I wanted Devlin at that moment. Urgent and trembling, I tugged him closer as I fumbled with his belt and zipper.

And then it was my fingers that teased, my hand that encircled and stroked and drew a low groan as I brought him to the very brink. He lifted me, pushing into me, and where our bodies touched, sparks exploded. I could see tiny flickers of light out in the garden where manifestations were trying to break through, but I wouldn’t let them. I was stronger than the ghosts now, stronger even than the Others. I held the unbound power of death in my fingertips. Drunk with passion and a dangerous sense of omnipotence, I yanked the nightgown over my head and tossed it toward those flickering lights.