The Phantom of Black's Cove (10 page)

He stripped off his clothes and pulled back the sheet. Together, they climbed into bed and he pulled the covers up over their heads, entombing them in a cocoon.

Olivia knew she’d died and gone to heaven because she’d never been touched like this before. Reaching up, she splayed her hand against the back of Jack’s head, forcing his mouth down on her left breast. A moan escaped from between her parted lips as he pulled her nipple into
his mouth, ringing it with his tongue, before pulling back to stare down at her, a seductive smile on his face.

Reaching out, he traced his finger around her other nipple, then dragged it down her belly. She pushed against him as he slid his entire hand down to cover her before massaging her with his finger.

Heat burned through her, driving her temperature up and pushing her closer to the fire.

“Please.”
She mentally begged him, glad when he pulled her underneath him, trailing kisses across her forehead as he pressed against her.

“Are you sure, Olivia?” he asked again.

She stared up at him, at the piece of wayward hair against his forehead, at the gleam in his dark blue eyes. She reached up and touched his cheek, feeling the thin layer of perspiration on his skin. “I need you.”

“We need each other,” he whispered.

She opened for him.

Exerting control he didn’t feel, he penetrated her, feeling her warmth surround him. Deeper and deeper until he filled her completely.

The sound of her heartbeat drummed in his ears, her soft sighs evoking waves of pleasure as he moved inside of her harder and faster. Each stroke driving them both closer to the ultimate satisfaction.

She climaxed beneath him. He raised up, driving into her with deep thrusts. She cried out in ecstacy.

He followed her, pumping until he came, spilling himself inside of her in waves.

Gradually he stopped and pulled out of her. Rolling
over, he took her in his arms, burying his face in her hair, breathing her in.

It was so much better than in his precognitive vision. He planned to keep that detail from her. Her sense of right would find it totally wrong that he’d known this would happen. Had welcomed it, needed it…but there was more, so much more he couldn’t analyze.

He had to figure out how to save her first.

Jack maneuvered the Jaguar out onto the main road and headed for Black’s Cove with Olivia next to him. Making love to her had only deepened the degree of his concern. From now on, they were joined at the hip. Where she went, he’d go; where he went, she’d come.

“Look, Jack, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me. I don’t normally act like that. I’m not easy…I just—”

“Leave it alone, Olivia. Don’t overanalyze it. We enjoyed being together.”

“Okay.” She stared out the window, seeing and not seeing the woods as they blitzed by. Caring about Jack Trayborne was all she seemed to have done for the last couple of hours, but it was clear he didn’t want her to.

Jack slowed the car for a series of sharp turns down off the plateau where the estate sat. The narrow, tree-lined road was the only treacherous piece of highway between the house and Black’s Cove.

The first curve was the worst. He pressed down on the brake pedal. The car slowed and rolled into the sweeping corner.

In the middle of his lane, stood a man in a black ski mask, hands outstretched.

Jack reacted, yanking hard to the left on the wheel. He pulled it right to swerve back into his lane.

The car didn’t respond.

A blade of reality sliced through his body. They were going to crash.

Instinctively, he cast energy around them, but found a barrier blocking his own body.

The car shot off the edge of the road.

Seconds ticked by like hours. Metal twisted, glass shattered, its noise filling the interior compartment.

The car rolled over and over, scooping up tree branches, rocks and debris that churned in the momentum with them, as they spiraled down the steep two-hundred-foot decline into a ravine, landing upside down in a shallow creek.

Olivia sucked in a ragged breath, her equilibrium still on spin cycle.

Her seat belt held her in place, cutting into her lower abdomen, but she wasn’t hurt. Trying to focus, she fiddled for the latch, found it and released herself head first into ten inches of icy water rushing through the upside-down car.

Raising herself onto her hands and knees, she shoved her soaking wet hair out of her eyes, seeing Jack for the first time.

“Jack!” Panic released adrenaline in her veins and she reached out to touch him.

He hung unconscious in the driver’s seat. What had happened? Why hadn’t he protected himself?

“Talk to me, Jack,” she begged, working to free him.

Blood ran from a deep gash on the side of his head and she halted her efforts. If he had a neck injury, she could make it worse. She had to get help.

She spotted the cell phone on his belt and pulled it out of its holder. Her hands shook as she opened the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

“9-1-1 dispatch, what is your emergency?”

“We’ve gone off the road on Highway 21, about five miles from—”

The phone jerked out of her hand and slammed into the door casing, shattering into pieces.

Fear climbed up her spine as she scanned the area around the car.

Brush cracked, a series of small rocks rolled down the steep hillside and slammed into the car.

It was him, the man she’d seen standing in the middle of the road. She was sure he’d caused the car to go over the edge and now he wanted to make sure they were dead?

Reaching out she patted Jack’s cheek. “Come on, Jack, you’ve got to wake up. Come on…come on.” She had to get him out of the wreckage. They had to hide.

Olivia looked around for any kind of a weapon and saw a thick limb that they’d picked up in the mayhem.

Grabbing it, she submerged it in the water and sat up, leaning her head against the back of the upside-down seat.

She went perfectly still and closed her eyes, willing her shivering body to quit. If he stopped to check her pulse, she’d let him have it.

Awareness hit Jack like a sledge hammer, starting with his head. The fact that he was hanging upside down didn’t help either. They’d been catapulted off the road intentionally. Someone wanted both of them dead.

He opened one eye and turned his head, spotting Olivia leaning against the seat next to him. He heightened his senses, hearing the frantic beat of her heart. She was uninjured, he knew, because he’d protected her. So why was she overly agitated?

“Olivia.”

Her eyes blinked open and she put her finger to her lips, asking for silence. She reached up and patted her head.

Jack immediately reached into her mind, hearing her plea for silence, hearing her warning that he was coming down the embankment to make sure he’d killed both of them.

Caution lit in his veins. He reached up, found his seat belt and surrounded himself in a bubble just before he released it. He made a soft landing, released the energy field and turned to sit upright.

“We’re sitting ducks here, Olivia. We’ve got to get out, so we can maneuver.”

“But he’s almost on top of us.”

Jack reached out and took her hand, feeling electricity zap up his arm. “Let’s go.”

They crawled out the driver’s window and onto the bank of the creek.

Combing the surrounding woods, Jack searched for their tormenter’s location, pinpointing him halfway up the hillside.

Who were they dealing with? Did he have the same level of power? Jack was almost certain it wasn’t Rick Dowdy edging his way toward them.

A thick stand of pines fifty feet away would serve as a shield for anything he directed at them.

“The trees,” he said, motioning toward the cluster and encased them in a protective bubble.

Jack’s head throbbed as he stood up and took off for the shelter. He’d made the trip down the hillside without the benefit of protection. How the man had accomplished that gave Jack pause. Were his abilities multifaceted? Or did they mirror his own?

He pulled Olivia into the shelter of pines and released the shield. “Whatever you do, stay behind these trees. He’s strong, Olivia.”

Fear bunched her features as she stared at him. Stretching up onto her tiptoes, she found his lips.

The kiss was sweet, lingering on his mouth long after she pulled back.

He had to protect her, had to keep her safe.

The grind of metal in motion drew his attention. Jack leaned out, shooting a glance toward the creek bed.

The crushed Jaguar floated two feet off the ground, slowly turning upright. He was looking for their bodies in the wreckage.

He couldn’t see him, but Jack anticipated his next action and pinned Olivia against a tree.

The car shot forward and smashed broadside into the wall of timber five feet off the ground.

Olivia’s startled shriek echoed in the woods around them and razed the last of Jack’s control.

Reaching out he forced the twisted car to the ground with their attacker’s hold still on it. Their energy fields collided, sending a shower of sparks flying.

He was strong, a fact that pushed Jack to the brink of losing control. Fear laced through him and held his emotions in check. He’d never pushed himself out of bounds, feared what would happen if he did. Could he pull back his control?

Anger churned inside of him, igniting rage in his body that emanated from his very core.

“Don’t come out, Olivia,” he warned.

Her eyes went wide as she stared up at him and he almost reached up to see if he’d turned into some sort of monster.

She brushed his arm as he stepped out from the cover of the trees and raised his hands.

Like an explosion being released, he detonated inside, sending a wall of energy up the slope, stripping the underbrush, pine needles and leaves from the trees in a rush.

There, standing exposed was the man in the black ski mask.

Rage fueled his emotions, even as his mind worked to bring them under control.

He cast a beam of energy around the stranger, roping him in its knot. He raised him ten feet off the ground and dragged him forward.

He’d remove the mask, find out who they were dealing with and crush the life out of him.

Olivia’s scream of terror blasted against his eardrums and penetrated his brain.

She hung suspended five feet to his left, held in a beam of energy coming from the masked man. But how was it possible? How was the stranger able to function from inside the bubble?

Reality jolted him, zapping through his body in waves of knowledge that terrified him.

He released the beam and watched the man fall, catching himself before he hit the ground.

In that instance of misdirection, Jack took control over Olivia, encasing her and pushing her back behind the trees. He followed her into the shelter and put her down.

“You can’t win, Jack!”

Jack stilled, employing his ability to mind sweep, reaching inside the attacker’s head for information, but he found a wall he couldn’t penetrate.

“Nice try, but it won’t work. I’m more powerful than you’ll ever be!”

For an instant, he hesitated, searching for reason in a scenario that seemed to lack one. This was an exercise in abilities. A fact-finding fight. It paid to know your enemy.

“What do you want?”

The sound of a siren in the distance and closing fast echoed from the roadway above.

He stared out at the masked attacker, watched him glance toward the road, step back and retreat toward the woods.

Again, he reached for the man’s thoughts, catching a trail this time.

They would never be safe. No one in Black’s Cove was safe…

A wave of excruciating pain hit Jack like a hammer between the eyes.

He rocked back, his stomach churning, sure his head was about to implode. He leaned against a broad tree trunk to keep from falling over.

He planned to cause Jack so much trouble he’d beg him to make the trade…. Her life for the….
The thread was lost, and Jack went to his knees.

“Y
OU’VE GOT A
concussion and some swelling in your brain, Jack. You’re fortunate it isn’t worse.” Doctor Perkins shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat. “I’m going to keep you overnight for observation, if it’s better by morning, you can go home.”

Olivia felt her agitation ramp up along with Jack’s. What had happened to them this morning was disturbing, especially the fact that Jack had been unable to best the maniac flinging the car around like it was a toothpick.

Fear welled in her veins and spread its toxic mixture through her body. Jack was her only hope, her only defense against a power she was just beginning to understand.

“I’d like to sedate you, to keep outside impulses at a low level. Give your brain time to recover.”

“No. I don’t want to be sedated.”

“If we don’t, you’ll need to remain immobile.”

“I understand.” His mouth pulled into a grim hard line, injecting an ounce of fear into her.

“What will happen if he doesn’t obey orders?” she asked.

“He could have a stroke…. He could die. Any number of very serious results could occur.”

Olivia swallowed the lump in her throat and stared at Jack, wondering if it was possible for a protector like him to care about himself for once?

“He’ll do it and I’ll help make sure he does.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “I know what’s at stake. I’ll give you one night, Doctor Perkins.”

“Good.” He slipped Jack’s medical chart into the holder at the foot of the bed and left the room.

“Why so stubborn?” Olivia pulled the drape around Jack’s bed and sat down on the edge, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Does this have anything to do with him?”

Jack nodded. “No one in Black’s Cove is safe. He threatened them. This is my community. These are my people. I can’t let him hurt them.”

Olivia reached out and stroked her hand down the side of Jack’s face breaking his intense mood.

He closed his eyes and turned into her palm, finding it with his lips before he gazed up at her.

“How are you going to help them if you’re dead, Jack?”

Her question turned his full attention on her. Warmth moved through her like liquid fire. His hot blue gaze left little doubt he was thinking about the way they’d spent their morning, not the last three hours.

“Do what the doc says. Kick back and relax. Let your brain heal. I’ll stay right here.” What he really needed was to relinquish control. Hand it over for just one night.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” she promised.

He reached up and cupped her hand where it rested on his cheek. His features softened, letting go of the tension that had been obvious moments ago.

“I’ll hold you to it.” He closed his eyes.

Olivia pulled her hand back, stood up and slid a chair close to Jack’s bed.

She watched him slip into la-la land, tracing imaginary fingertips along the edge of his strong jaw. Brushing the piece of wayward hair off his forehead and joining it with the rest at his temple.

When had she given her heart away to him? When had her drive to get the story waned and turned to the desire to care for Jack Trayborne?

She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, uncertain of what came next and terrified how much she cared.

O
LIVIA FLOATED
somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.

The squeak of shoe soles on the slick white tiles of the floor dragged her awake. She raised her head, getting her bearings in the dimly lit room.

A nurse stood next to Jack’s IV pump, raised a bottle, shoved a needle into it and pulled down the plunger. The syringe filled with clear liquid and the nurse put the bottle down on the edge of the bed next to Jack.

“What is that?” She cleared her throat.

The nurse stared unseeing in her direction and inserted the syringe’s needle into the IV line.

“Wait. What are you giving him?” Caution rattled through her.

She stood up, stepped around the end of the bed and came face to face with the unresponsive nurse.

“What did you give him?”

The discarded bottle lay on the bed. She reached for it at the same time as the nurse. Getting to it just before she did.

Potassium chloride.

Terror gelled in her veins.

She’d done a story on the drug used in lethal injections to stop the heart.