Nightwing (13 page)

Was this an illusion, some trick of his deprived senses, or could he really touch her? Johnny raised his hand again and inched his index finger toward the mirror. He saw it slice through the glass and immediately felt the tingle of contact with the fine, soft hair on Willie’s right forearm and a dizzying whirl of sensation.

Oh, God. He could
feel
the satin smoothness of her skin, the pebbled rise of gooseflesh tracking the graze of his fingertip down her forearm. His senses soared and filled with wonder.

Willie murmured and rolled away from him, away from the mirror. Johnny closed his hand around her wrist in the glass and held her, felt the flex of her muscles, the bone in her wrist, the slow throb of her pulse. At last, oh God, at last, flesh warmed by a beating heart.

He tried to touch her outside the mirror, but his fingers passed through her as they had twice before. He could see and feel her wrist clasped loosely in his left hand, so long as he watched in the mirror. If he looked directly at Willie his head spun and the room with it.

He didn’t try again. He had no idea how this was possible, how silvered glass could bridge the chasm of time and space between them, nor did he care. It was enough to sit beside her on the bed, stroke the oh-so-soft skin of her inner wrist and feel alive.

Until she murmured something he couldn’t hear and rolled toward him so that her left knee, bent beneath the covers, touched his right leg. In the mirror he watched her straighten and felt her leg slide against his—felt it in every atom of his being. He felt the friction of the quilt against the taut cotton of his breeches, felt every stitch in every seam.

Willie flung the quilt back and sighed. He felt the soft waft of her breath on his right hand braced between them, a shiver of awareness and sudden, unexpected arousal. How it was possible without the body Raven had taken from him, he didn’t know, but it was as real as Willie’s wrist circled in his fingers in the mirror, as lush and wondrous as the shadow of her breast through the blue cotton top of her pajamas.

Heaven and hell, only real in the mirror. But sweet, oh, so sweet! The ache made his senses throb, made him shift on the bed and lift his hand from her wrist to her breast. He closed his eyes and savored the soft, full swell of her, stroked his thumb across her nipple and felt it peak. She murmured and sighed.

Johnny raised his hand from the mattress, cupped her hip tightly against his, caressed her breast and rolled her against him in slow, sinuous circles in the mirror, reveling in the curves and hollows of her body.

She made a soft, purring noise in her throat and flung her left arm over her head. Johnny glanced in the mirror, saw that she was still asleep, saw the gaped front of her pajama top. He slid his lingers past the top button, felt the heat of her skin, the rough pebble of her nipple like sandpaper on his senses, raking sweet, raw shivers through him.

Willie moaned and curled herself around him. He opened his lingers to take more of her, felt the button pop and free his hand, filling it with the full weight of her breast.

It was glorious. Not only to feel again, but to know he could make Willie feel, too. He kneaded her breast tenderly, brushed her nipple and ached to suck it deep into his mouth. She shivered and murmured restlessly.

He slid his hand inside her pajama bottoms, cupped her and rocked her against him, felt her quiver and writhe against him. When she stiffened and her breath caught, he rolled her away from him, went up on his right knee and made sure he could still see her in the mirror. Then he raked her pajamas out of his way and caressed her, molding her against the palm of his hand.

“Ohh, Raven,” she murmured in her sleep. “Ohh, Johnny.”

She arched against him, whimpered and relaxed, her fluttering eyelashes spiking shadows across her cheeks. Johnny tugged and tucked her back into her pajamas as best he could, raised his hand and breathed deeply. He felt his nostrils flare as the scent of her filled his senses. Then he spread his arms on either side of her and saw her smile, a sliver of moonlight glimmering on the curve of her nose.

He wanted to kiss her, but wasn’t so eager to go with Raven that he’d risk sticking his head through a mirror. It was enough that he’d given her pleasure, that he’d been allowed to love Willie. His own sweet little Willow.

Oh, how he loved her. He always had. When she was a child he’d loved her frizzy braids and freckled nose, her imagination and sense of wonder at the world and everything in it.

That love had blossomed little by little, summer by summer, as he’d watched her grow from a girl to a woman. He remembered her first bikini, the fit Betsy had thrown when she’d worn it, and the thrill that had shot through him watching her shimmy into it.

He remembered the Christmas he’d been here and she’d come with her parents, remembered listening to her talk on the phone to her boyfriend from college and shaking with jealous, impotent rage.

Oh, God. Why had he touched her, made love to her? He couldn’t leave her, not now, not again. But he would, he always did. He knew that, remembered the cold and the terror and the wrenching agony of leaving Willie and forgetting her, of remembering her again and how much he loved her, just in time to leave her again and forget her, and then remember her and how much he loved her.

Again and again and again....

Chapter 13

It was either the best dream or the worst nightmare of her life. Willie didn’t know which, nor did she know how she’d slept through it or how she’d lost a button on her pajamas.

She sat on the flank of a dune overlooking the beach, arms looped around her legs, chin on the knees of her blue jeans, the button between her fingers. She didn’t remember it being loose, but maybe she just hadn’t noticed. Or maybe she’d slept on her stomach and broken the threads.

But she didn’t think so. She was pretty sure Raven had been in her bedroom last night. She couldn’t think about him making love to her. Not and stay sane. She couldn’t imagine why he’d want to, either, even though he’d kissed her.

Maybe that was why she hadn’t wakened. Maybe he’d done some hoodoo vampire thing to her mind, or she’d been too scared to wake up. Or maybe too drugged. Maybe that was why she’d dreamed about the starfish again.

She’d taken enough psychology courses in college to know the human mind never forgets anything. Every experience, every incident of your life is stored someplace in your brain.

Still, she couldn’t figure out the significance of the dream, why her subconscious had led her twice in as many nights back to that morning on the beach when she’d been nine years old and she’d been stung by the starfish. What was she supposed to see that she couldn’t remember when she was awake?

Willie hadn’t a due. She rubbed her nose as she had in the dream and wondered how Raven had gotten into the house. Johnny couldn’t pass through walls, but maybe Raven could. Which didn’t bear thinking about. Not before breakfast.

The morning tide had long come and gone, reclaiming most of the debris the storm had blown ashore. Willie had cleaned up some of it before she’d sat down to puzzle over the missing button and the starfish dream, and watch the sun burn through the fog bank on the horizon.

That was a good long while ago, yet the clouds still hung low and gray, spitting a chilly wind in her face that frizzed her hair and made her shiver. She wasn’t cold, but her jeans were wet. She got to her feet, shoved the button into her pocket and picked up the red plastic bucket and shovel left over from her childhood.

She always brought them with her after a storm to rescue starfish. She’d saved half a dozen this morning and felt good about that, but she didn’t feel good about returning to Beaches. Her body had been violated, and so had her sanctuary. If she wasn’t safe at Beaches, she wasn’t safe anywhere, and that
really
pissed her off.

A good-size breaker crashed up the beach, drawing her attention from her white canvas espadrilles, which she was shaking sand out of, to the rolling green sea, still disquieted by the storm. Willie loved coming to the beach after a big storm, seeing how the wind and surf had reshaped the dunes. It was a lesson in humility, a reminder that there were forces in the universe beyond even her father’s control. Like vampires.

She reached inside the navy sweatshirt she’d pulled over a white turtleneck and closed her fingers around the little gold cross she’d dug out of her jewelry box. About five seconds after she’d wakened and realized what had happened wasn’t a dream; she’d raced to the mirror looking for punctures. She hadn’t found any and had almost fainted with relief.

She’d been trying since to build a case for Raven not being a vampire. But what she had so far wasn’t much more than pure and simple this-can’t-be-happening disbelief.

She’d considered the psychological disorder she’d read about that made people think they were vampires, and the blood disease that imitated the symptoms and gave its victims a strong aversion to sunlight, but every theory she came up with fell apart when she came to Raven putting the mirror in her hand.

If he wasn’t a vampire, if he hadn’t known what she’d see when she looked in it, why had he given it to her? Why did he want her to know he was a vampire? Was it a warning, as she’d first thought, or something else?

Willie had too many questions and not enough evidence. She needed answers and she needed proof. Not to mention the guts to go after them. She’d put on the cross because it made her feel safe, and had come to the beach to hatch a plan and give herself a pep talk. Well, she’d hatched a plan. It was time to go eat something and set it in motion. She put on her shoes, picked up her bucket and headed for home.

Johnny stood watching her on the crest of the dune, bare feet spread and arms folded, the sleeves of his shirt snapping in the brisk, onshore wind. Willie didn’t hear it, just slogged past within three feet of him, through wet sand and soggy beach grass, a frown wrinkling her brow, her cheeks reddened by the chill.

He wanted to tell her it was him, not Raven, who’d been in her bed last night. He’d been in her room when she’d wakened, had seen the horrified look on her face as she’d rushed to the mirror. He ached to tell her and to touch her again, to prove it to her, but he couldn’t.

He could only watch her walk past and just miss stepping on his boots. If she’d been closer, would she have tripped over them? He wished he had a voice, wished he could shout at her to look at him, that he was real, that he loved her, but he couldn’t. He could only pick up his boots and follow her.

As he was every Sunday morning in the summer, Frank was on the terrace—in jeans and a windbreaker, the
Boston Globe
in his lap and his ankles crossed on the table. He put the paper and his coffee cup down beside the watering can and the pot of geraniums she’d left there last night.

“Ahoy. It’s the shore patrol. Your comics are untouched, Commodore, just the way you like ‘em.”

“Did you drink all the coffee?” Willie put her bucket in the storage bin and saw the trowel she’d left beside it.

“Yeah, but I made fresh. What’s for brunch?”

“Sea rations,” she said, dropping the trowel into the bin.

“Ho, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum.”

“Oatmeal and toast.”

“I was hoping for eggs Benedict.”

“Then hope your way to Denny’s.”

Willie had forgotten about the mirrors until she stepped into the house ahead of Frank. She held her breath waiting for him to ask, but he didn’t, just followed her into the kitchen and said, “Wild night, huh?”

“You can say that again.”

“The storm blew a couple of branches off the fruit trees. I broke them up and bundled them.”

“Thanks.” Willie took out a saucepan and lid, a measuring cup and salt, ducked into the pantry for the oatmeal and saw in the trash the mail and the compact she’d thrown to the four winds. Maybe Frank had picked it all up. She wondered, but instead asked him, “How about the oak in the side yard?”

“Dropped a few leaves and some dead twigs. I’ll rake after breakfast.”

“I’ll do it.” Willie gave him a bright smile as she came out of the pantry. “I like to rake.”

Frank cocked his head at her. “Since when?”

“Since it’s been too hot to do anything but run like hell for the car and turn on the air conditioner.”

“Okay.” Frank shrugged and went outside for his cup.

Willie sighed with relief, mixed the oatmeal and set it to cook on the front burner of the stove. She had about as much chance of sneaking off to Raven’s house with Frank raking the side yard as Raven did of buying or scaring her out of Beaches.

“So, Will,” Frank said as he came back into the kitchen, “what’s with the mirrors?”

She had to hand it to him. He managed to make the question sound as mundane as oatmeal. And almost as sticky.

“Well, Frank, it’s like this.” Willie took the pan off the burner and put the lid on. “Beaches is haunted and the mirrors are ghost traps. And I’m pretty sure I was ravished by a vampire last night.”

He stood in the doorway looking at her, his head tipped at a dubious angle and one eyebrow notched. Willie gave him a toothy smile.

“I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” He said just as Johnny stepped into the dining room mirrors behind him.

Willie’s heart shot up into her throat. She felt every touch, every caress Raven had stroked on her body last night, felt her knees go weak and her breath catch. She’d been afraid of this, of what she’d feel seeing Johnny, the phantom image of Raven.

He was a good head and a half taller than Frank. His arms were folded and his face was a thundercloud. She’d never seen a pissed-off ghost before, and hoped Frank wouldn’t turn around and see one, either.

Willie yanked her gaze away from Johnny and wagged her eyebrows at Frank.

“Gotcha,” she said, turning toward the toaster. “Would you hand me the butter?”

“Sure. So what are the mirrors for, really?”

“The cat,” Willie lied, glancing over her shoulder as she peeled four slices of wheat bread out of a loaf. “Callie loves to chase herself in them.”