(Anthology) Forever Read online

  For what? Why was he extracting payment from her tender flesh?

  He didn’t know.

  Nor could he stop.

  Adrenaline pumping, he kept up his retribution for what felt like hours. When he could no longer hold back his climax, he exploded inside her in an angry stream of curses and hot semen.

  He pulled out, and gasping for breath, watched in fascination as a trickle of blood and seed rolled down the insides of her splayed legs.

  He hadn’t used a condom and he’d brutalized a virgin.

  Hawk had not a clue why.

  Chapter Five

  Hawk ground his thumbs into his eye sockets. The pain cleared his mind. While he wrestled with self-loathing, Catherine scooted away from him, her pupils glazed in terror.

  It was a look Hawk was very familiar with; he’d seen it often enough on the faces of the enemy forces whose lives he’d ended with one slash of his knife. It killed him to see that kind of fear in her eyes too.

  Grabbing a corner of her quilt, she held it up to her front. A single tear rolled down her face.

  “Just give me a moment, Hawk, t-t-to get myself together,” she stammered. “Oh-oh-kay? And then…and then I’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me—”

  “Shit,” he snarled, watching the tears spill. “Don’t you do that! Don’t you dare cry!”

  “I-I’m sorry.”

  “And don’t you fucking apologize either.”

  Like the wrath of vengeance, he pointed his finger at her. The digit was trembling. “Damn you, Catherine! You’re a witch! You could have stopped this! Why didn’t you?”

  The solitary tear rolled freely over her lips, down her chin, to drop into space.

  The salty drop never reached the bed covering.

  Hawk reached out a finger and captured the glistening droplet. “Do not fucking cry.”

  “I can’t seem to help myself.”

  “That makes two of us,” he answered, staring at the teardrop that sparkled in the moonlight that now spilt in the window.

  Hawk placed his finger to his mouth, shut his eyes and tasted Catherine’s tear. “I didn’t know witches cried.”

  “These are the tears of a woman,” she said, and in one fluid motion of acceptance, rolled to her knees.

  Stretching her arms out voluptuously before her, she yielded her body fully to his. “You want me again, Hawk.”

  “No! I can’t do this. Not again.” He was weeping now too. “How can you want me after what I’ve just done?”

  “Doesn’t that prove I’m a woman? A woman loves, despite the pain. Touch me, Hawk. I can make you want to live again. I can make you whole again.”

  “No!” But even as he denied his terrible need, he was moving in behind her, rising up on his knees, ready to mount her a second time.

  He ran his big hand along the sleek column of her spine, feeling her tearful purr vibrate under his palm. “No Catherine, I don’t want this.”

  “You do,” she contradicted.

  Pushing her hair aside, he mouthed her nape, rasped her neck with his teeth, finally bit her neck, as he pulled her solidly against his thighs, the extent of his urgency grinding into her as he positioned her to take him.

  “Do witches feel pain?” He groaned like a feral animal. “Or is this thing between us only supposed to destroy me?”

  * * * * *

  Catherine’s heart broke into a million fragments when Hawk flipped her over onto her back and thumbed the moisture that ran like a sea channel from the corner of her eyes.

  “Hush Catherine,” he soothed, and dammed the progress of her tears. “For both our sakes make me stop. Lay a curse on my head, cast a spell, do whatever it takes to prevent me from taking you. I don’t want to hurt you again.”

  “I can’t prevent this. Don’t you see? I’m powerless when it comes to you.”

  Hawk couldn’t know, couldn’t understand, that he was asking her to help him when her paranormal abilities were at their lowest ebb.

  She hadn’t expected Hawk to be a gentle lover. But when the breath was squeezed from her lungs by the heaviness of his body, by the violent way he was holding her down, she couldn’t pretend not to be shocked. If she was taken aback, what must this be doing to him? She at least understood that he didn’t want it to be this way between them; Hawk must think he was going insane!

  He one-handed her wrists and held them captive above her head as he looked out the window. “Is it dark enough for you now?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Despite her fear, she melted against him, wanting to feel his hands on her body, ready for his passion no matter what form it took.

  Turning her head, she kissed the side of his face. Once. Then again. Softly. Tenderly.

  His face tilted.

  Would he capture her lips? Would he kiss her now? Would he take her in his arms and somehow make it all right?

  He went rigid. “Don’t.”

  With her lips against the roughness of his cheek she said, “I want to kiss you. I need to.”

  “And I need to see your body.”

  She was too weak to fight, to protect herself.

  She’d been doing her best to conceal what made her different, with her arms, with her hands, with her hair, with her back to front positioning…with the quilt, but in her weakness, she could no longer hide herself from him.

  She knew the exact moment Hawk saw the small pink shape on her left breast.

  “Is it a tattoo?” he asked.

  “I don’t have any tattoos.”

  The air was thick enough to spoon.

  Even in the dark he’d been able to discern the throbbing of her heart birthmark: in his presence, it was neon-sign obvious.

  “What is it, Catherine?”

  “It’s nothing,” she cried, railing against the fate that made her different from other women, and not for the first time.

  The first time she’d renounced her heritage, there had been dire consequences. A baby had almost died…

  When she was six years old, she kept having a vision of a kidnapped baby. Not wanting to be different from other children, she’d kept the information to herself. By the time she did finally confess, and her aunts reported the kidnapped baby’s whereabouts to the proper authorities, it had almost been too late: The infant had been close to death, malnourished, with sores all over his tiny body…

  “Auntie Caprice, why aren’t I the same as everyone else?” she had asked, twirling around the kitchen as her aunt placed the pan of brownies in the oven.

  Caprice glanced up. “The same, Catherine? Why would you want to be the same as everyone else?”

  “Because…because Jessica’s the same and everybody in school likes her.”

  Her aunt stopped what she was doing, wiped her hands on a messy dishtowel and turned.

  Aunty replied softly, with just a hint of misgiving, “Everyone likes you. All the children in your class do.”

  But she’d been adamant. “No, they don’t. They think I’m weird because I live in a coven. It’s not fair! Jessica lives in a condo and no one thinks she’s weird.”

  Her aunt made a sad face and put an arm around her skinny shoulders. “Well, dear,” Aunty Caprice began, seeming to weigh each word. “Your teacher believes you’re a bit too…well, quiet. Maybe if you chatted more with the other children or joined in their games…?”

  Catherine wiped her runny nose on her sleeve. It was hard not to cry sometimes. “The games are dumb! I hate those silly games!” She sniffed. “Besides, sometimes I can’t play. Sometimes I can’t concentrate because the bad thoughts keep gobbling up the good ones.”

  “The bad thoughts,” Aunt Caprice prompted, looking anxiously into her teary face. “When did they start up again?”

  She looked down at the floor; her auntie was very strict about not keeping her thoughts a secret.

  “Last week!” Catherine sobbed. “I was hoping they would stop, but they haven’t. They get stronger and stronger every day
. I didn’t tell ‘cause I got scared.”

  Auntie Caprice bit her lip. Her hands, still before, started to flutter like butterflies against her apron. “Oh my, dear. I wish you had told me sooner. Can you tell me now about the bad thoughts?”

  Catherine’s eyes closed. “There’s a little baby in a crib. He has a dinky so I know he’s a boy,” she confided.

  “Go on, dear. Tell me about the little boy.”

  “His daddy took him far, far, away. Snatched him right out of his…his…cage thing.” Catherine’s eyes popped wide. “What’s that thing called that babies stay in when they’re not sleeping?”

  “Playpen,” Auntie Caprice supplied helpfully.

  “Yes,” Catherine said, frowning. “I think so. His daddy is bad but his mommy is good and that’s why they don’t all live together in the same house anymore.”

  “Do you think the daddy simply took the baby for a visit?”

  Catherine shook her head back and forth. “No, no, no. He’s mean! He made the mother cry and then the policemen came. Right to the house.”

  “Are the police trying to find the baby?”

  “Yes. They have a big dog, just like old Kraft’s dog. The policemen gave the dog some of the baby’s clothes to play with—I don’t know why—and now the dog is helping too. I like dogs! Why can’t we get one, Aunt Caprice?”

  “Darling, we are witches! Witches have cats, not dogs. Now please! The baby! Have they found the baby?”

  “No, and they won’t either. The baby is crying all the time. He’s hungry and his diapers smell bad. I think he’s sick. And I don’t want to be a witch. You can’t make me!”

  “Where is the baby?” her auntie asked, gripping her arm too tight.

  “In a cellar. Under a brick house with red shutters. All the houses are close together. They’re joined just like a choo-choo train. It’s not like around here. I don’t like it there at all.”

  “The name of the state or the city? Anything, honey! Can you tell me anything more?”

  “The baby is gone where the President lives.”

  Aunt Caprice blinked. “The baby is in the cellar of the White House?”

  Catherine giggled. She knew she shouldn’t, because the baby was sick, but she couldn’t help herself. Sometimes her aunt was so funny.

  “No! The house is brick, remember? The baby is near the White House, though. Do you want me to write down the name of the street? I see it in my head but it’s hard for me to say.”

  “Yes, dear. Why don’t you do that? We need to give the baby back to his mother. Write the baby’s name too and where his mommy lives, if you can manage to remember…”

  After that incident, the coven had drawn in around her. They closed ranks, severing their connections with the outside world. Her aunts devised an elaborate system of networking so that any psychic visions she had in the future could be channeled to the appropriate law enforcement agencies without Catherine’s direct involvement. It was because of their care and skill that she had been able to remain anonymous, although her life had never been the same again.

  Hawk examined her body, not as a lover looks upon his adored one, but as a scientist looks at an exotic bug under glass or a CIA agent scrutinizes incriminating evidence. His inspection was humiliating. Hawk would detest her more than he had before. He would find her hideous, an abomination…ugly.

  But she could no longer repudiate who she was.

  “A pulsating heart is the birthmark of a witch connoting the highest paranormal powers,” she confessed. “Whoever wears the mark will lead the coven. I am a witch, Hawk.”

  Chapter Six

  “It’s beautiful,” Hawk said, mesmerized by the pink strawberry mark on Catherine’s breast, the heart that seemed to glow with a life of its own.

  Pushing back on his haunches on the bed, he said, “You’re beautiful.”

  His heated glance devoured her high, full, breasts, the peaks of which were hard and pointed. They aroused him with each breath she took.

  He reached for one luscious full mound, and thumbed the elongated nipple. “I find you utterly irresistible.”

  Paradise. Abandonment. Release. Catherine represented all those things to him and more.

  “You should have told me that you were a virgin,” he said quietly, morosely, guilt-filled. “I could’ve made it better for you.”

  “Make it better now,” she said, breathlessly.

  “Not until you tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “What I am to you.”

  “You are my lifemate. I will never make love with another man, save you.”

  Hawk knew from snooping in her CIA dossier that Catherine was twenty-four years old to his thirty. Twenty-four and beautiful and still a virgin. As chaste as a nun, except she was a witch. This was a night for firsts for him: he’d never been with either a witch or a virgin.

  Hawk ran his big bronze hand up the inside of Catherine’s leg, from knee to sticky thigh, sighing at the red stain on her pale skin.

  During his imprisonment, he’d often prowled the confines of his cell. From one wall to the other took exactly eleven steps. He’d spent months in the darkness, in a space that was barely high enough for him to stand up straight, recalling childhood rhymes, snatches of poems, anything to train his brain to stay on the alert, anything to stay sane.

  Catherine had kept him sane.

  When he became ill, hallucinating one minute, okay the next, in a murderous rage an hour later, Catherine had been a soothing presence. A calming force. A woman a man could open his heart to and be accepted for what he was. When he couldn’t trust his own judgment any more, he’d trusted her.

  He’d never been the hearts and flowers type. And no one had ever accused him of being a believer in mysticism either, but he’d believed in the vision of Catherine, shimmering in the dimness of his cell.

  He’d poured out his heart to her, telling her things he never would have been able to tell anyone else, not even his family. He told her the things he had done, the horrible things he had done in order to stay alive, in order to get the men whose lives were his responsibility out in one piece. Emotions he didn’t know he had rose to the surface and he trusted them to her. In the semi-darkness of his cell and with her quiet listening, he told it all. When he was done, it was as though a terrible burden had been lifted from his chest.

  In response, she had said nothing. All through the bloody descriptions, she said not a thing. No judgments. No trite phrases to bolster his spirits. Nothing.

  She only whispered, “Touch me.”

  “You told me what I am to you, now tell me what you are to me,” Hawk growled.

  Her smile was tight. “I’m your—I’m your sexual bliss,” she replied weakly.

  He started to laugh. “My bliss, eh?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  At her dismal apology, he sobered and looked directly at her. “Tell me the rest.”

  They were so close, he felt her convulsive swallow. “When you were twelve years old you became lost in a swamp in your home state of Florida. You didn’t mean to, it just happened. You hurt your leg and couldn’t walk. You were stuck there. I called to you. Remember?”

  “I remember. Problem is, I’m having a hard time accepting it. My parents...the police…no one knew who made that call to the police. You saved my life. I was one day away from dying—”

  It was not the only time he’d come close to death, not the only time she’d brought him back to life.

  To reaffirm that he was very much alive, his cock rose rock-hard from his groin, lancing and dripping with seed.

  He went back on his haunches. “Open your legs for me, Catherine.”

  She immediately spread her thighs.

  What had he done? The sight of her bloodied slit appalled him.

  Something else appalled him too. “I didn’t use a condom before—can I impregnate you?”

  “Only if you wish me to conceive. I summoned you here, but you contro
l everything else. You can control me if you wish.”

  He had to touch her with his big bronze hands; he had to see his copper-dark fingers on her pretty cunt.

  He fingered the top of her sex, massaging her clitoris until she was arching her pelvis.

  She convulsed. Teeth bared. Head thrown back. Her nails clawing at the ruin of sheets under her hips.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she cried and the heart on her breast glowed and vibrated.

  The girl who had saved his life was all grown up, and writhing underneath him on the bed, moaning and begging him to enter her.

  Catherine was entering a psychic void, a supernatural world of visions and images. Hers was a world he couldn’t enter. A place, he couldn’t go. He couldn’t understand her telepathic universe of light and shadow. He couldn’t go there with her. He was only a man. Mortal. Fearful.

  As a boy of twelve he’d been bold and fearless. Shaking off his parental restrictions with a fury, he had set out to conquer the wilderness of the Florida Everglades all by himself. To slay the dragons, to kill the monsters, single-handedly.

  Every day he’d hop on his bike and explore a new section of the Glades. He’d stuck to the periphery at first and then he’d grown more daring, sinking further and further into the interior, the swampier the better.

  One day he went too far. Going off by himself to hunt alligators he had gotten himself good and lost. Pretending he was a scout on an African safari with alligators as his big game, he had tracked the great reptiles for hours until he had fallen over a swamp vine and gone down in the muck. He’d learned too late that his child’s game might have deadly consequences.

  He knew right away he’d never make it back out. The throbbing in his leg told him so. And no one knew where to find him. Hurting, alone, and scared, he gave himself up for dead.

  For two long nights and three hot days he’d listened to the gators approach, knowing that the tables had turned and now he was the one being hunted. In his heart he knew he didn’t stand a chance against one alligator, never mind a full roving pack. He waited to die.

  Until he’d heard a girl’s voice inside his head telling him to hang on. That help was on the way. That she was not going to…allow…was the word she had used, any yucky alligators to get him like what had happened in Peter Pan. Suddenly he hadn’t felt so very alone.