RAOUL FINISHED HIS drink and left the club. He’d gone there to reassure himself that everything was okay after the nasty episode when he’d lost control of his own vision. Now he was more worried than ever.
And he knew that his own arrogance had brought on the trouble. He’d moved too fast with Anna. He should have picked a more normal way to meet her. Let her see how important he was on Grand Fernandino. How much she’d benefit from getting hooked up with him.
Etienne had brought Anna to the island for him. He’d thought that once she was here, everything would fall into place. Now he knew he needed stronger magic than a simple chicken blood ceremony asking for Ibena’s blessing.
There was too much at stake to lose his bride to another man.
She had the magic. He had seen it for himself on the videotapes from the club. And once he joined his power with hers, his place would be secure.
When he’d come to the city from the backcountry, he’d learned that he had a knack for making money. Then he’d added a whole new dimension to his life when he’d begun studying with Old Joe.
He’d started as a lowly convert, trembling before the priest—and even the men and women of the congregation. Raoul could still remember the ceremony where Joe had shaved the new boy’s head, dripped the blood of a young chicken on him, then stripped him naked and washed his body as part of his initiation.
He’d thought at first that just being a member of the group would secure his future.
But as he’d gotten to understand the way things worked in the congregation, he’d realized that the priest held the real power. People brought him tributes, gave him a special place in their lives, because he asked the Blessed Ones to favor them.
Raoul wanted that big up. And he’d started making plans for how to get it. He’d gotten a pile of good stuff. But a whole lot more was almost within his grasp. He could feel it. Taste it. And he wasn’t going to let some viper snatch it away. Certainly not when he’d already gone to so much trouble.
He walked rapidly toward one of the houses he owned in old town, his anticipation growing.
As a kid, he’d thought that he was like everyone else. But it wasn’t true. He had powers that other people only dreamed of. And when he’d learned about Vadiana, he’d realized that, since boyhood, he’d had a special connection with the saints.
With his power, he had served many of his people. Like Etienne. He had held a ceremony, asking the saints to help his friend prosper. And they had obliged him with the untimely death of Eddie Morgan.
There were other proofs of his favor with the saints. Like when he’d snagged a rich husband for Maria Delgado. When the man’s wife had died in childbirth, he’d needed someone to take care of the child, and Maria had filled the position—then married the father.
Raoul knew he had rare abilities. And he had invented creative rituals to bring him closer to the Blessed Ones. Rituals that the other island priests, like Joe Hondino, would never have condoned. But he needed something more—a bride as powerful as himself.
At first he’d searched for the right woman close to home. It hadn’t taken long to realize that no suitable mate for a man such as himself lived on Grand Fernandino. So he’d started using modern tools—like the Internet—to search for the right partner. He had focused on many psychics. And the one who felt right to him was the woman named Magic Anna.
Earlier he had sacrificed a chicken to Ibena to bring her to him in a place outside the world. Tonight he would use a different mojo to strengthen his position with her.
Ibena was the goddess of eroticism and pleasure. He must give the saint pleasure as well as animal sacrifices. And she would bless his plans for tomorrow.
He reached the little house and climbed the backstairs, unlocking the door with his key.
Inside, he looked around the kitchen. It was large by island standards and furnished with a modern stove and refrigerator. When he saw the dishes neatly stacked in the drying rack, he smiled. Nadine had started off leaving them in the sink. He’d told her that if she wanted to live in this house, she had to keep it clean.
She was capable of learning. And, if she continued to please him, she could stay in this house, in his life, even after he married Anna and took his bride to live in the compound on the other side of the island, where his followers could keep an eye on her.
He stopped at a locked cabinet in the hallway and inserted the key. Inside was a small bottle of lotion—a sexual aid he’d first gotten from a witch woman a few years ago. Not that he had any trouble with his cock. This was his gift to Nadine.
When he had poured some into his hands and rubbed them together, he strode through the silent rooms, furnished with pieces he had taken from a house the owners had abandoned during the threat of a hurricane. After the couple left, Raoul prayed to the saints, sweetening his request with many animal offerings. And the gods changed the course of the hurricane, sparing the island.
In the bedroom, Nadine was sleeping, her golden hair brushed out and spread seductively across the pillow. The sheet was pulled down to her waist, giving him a view of her generous breasts through the silky fabric of her gown.
She had come to Grand Fernandino on a luxury yacht, crewing for a rich man who liked to watch nimble young women at work on his craft. He also liked to take two of them to bed with him at one time—and watch them make love to each other before he fucked them, a practice that Nadine hated.
She had jumped ship in Grand Fernandino and disappeared into old town.
The cops had found her sleeping in a warehouse, hiding from the man who wanted her back on his boat. The saints had sent Raoul there at the right time. He’d paid off the cops and offered her a job in his shop—and a place in his bed. Where she’d stayed for the past year.
He moved into the room, stopping at the side of the bed, admiring her sleep-smoothed features before reaching to run his dark hand over her pale shoulder with his lotion-slick hand.
She gave him a sleepy smile.
“Let’s go into the altar room,” he murmured.
“You want to worship Ibena with me?”
“Yes.”
“I’m honored,” she answered, but he knew it might have been a lie. She had come from the mainland, where his religion was an oddity. And she tolerated his practices because she liked the life he could give her.
He didn’t care what she thought about his deities. He only needed her cooperation and her pleasure. Ibena would not honor him if he failed to bring Nadine to climax.
He knew men who believed that sex was only for their own enjoyment. For Raoul, pleasuring a woman was an important skill that any self-respecting man must possess.
When he connected with Anna, he would bring her to ecstasy. He would make her understand the advantages of joining with him. And he would show her what wonders they could work together.
But tonight he and Nadine would worship the goddess to ensure his success in his quest.
He reached out, stroking her collarbones, then slid lower, under the bodice of her gown, lifting one of her generous breasts in his palm, stroking her softness until he could see her nipple harden through the thin fabric.
Pleased with her response, he squeezed the tight bud, watching her heat up from his knowing touch—and from the lotion. He had it specially made for him now, in this form and as a scented soap. A little gave you a pleasant sexual buzz. A lot sent you into a sexual frenzy.
But he didn’t need to make Nadine frantic. He had learned what she liked, learned the best ways to please her. As he fondled her now, he closed his eyes, imagining that he was already with Anna, touching her, arousing her. As he let the fantasy grow, his breath quickened.
“Raoul?”
His eyes snapped open. “Right here, sweetheart.”
Taking her hand, he helped her off the bed, then pulled her gown over her head and tossed it onto the iron footrail. He leaned to suck one nipple into his mouth while he unbuttoned his own shirt and dropped it on the floor. Nadine could pick it up later.
When he was naked, he dragged his lover’s body against his, stroking his hands down the curve of her back and over her rounded bottom, loving the feel of her feminine skin as he rubbed his tattooed chest against her breasts, knowing that Ibena would like the contact.
He wanted Anna, but he kept his focus on Nadine, kissing her neck the way he knew she’d liked, then nibbling at her earlobes and making his tongue into a point so he could probe the sensitive canal above it.
She softened in his arms, leaning against him, and he stroked between her butt cheeks, and farther down, feeling her folds. She was juicy and ready for him, and he moved his hips, sliding his erection against her middle.
Then he broke away, turning to drape an arm around her waist as he led her down the hall to his private sanctuary.
The room was decorated much like the shrine behind his shop. The main colors were gold, coral, and red, with favorite objects of the goddess on display. Fans, peacock feathers. At one side was a fountain where a stream of water shot from a turtle’s mouth into a shell-shaped basin. The animal’s head looked a lot like a penis.
The altar opposite the door was draped with gold and coral cloth.
At the doorway, he stopped and kissed her deeply before lifting her into his arms and carrying her to the worship table.
He lay her onto the padded surface so that her head rested on a red silk pillow near the altar and her legs dangled off the other end. Standing between her legs, he could look up and worship Ibena or look down and see Nadine.
He stepped to the end of the table and opened her thighs, lifting her feet onto the wooden pedestals on either side, comfortably supporting her legs.
He loved to view a woman that way. It gave him a feeling of power over her. Standing between her thighs, he looked down at her hidden female parts spread out before him so trustingly.
“Look at my tattoo,” he said, his voice thick.
She did as he asked. “The faces look like they’re alive,” she whispered.
“They are. When I worship here, they are.”
Delicately, he caressed her knees and then slid down to her thighs, stroking his hands inward toward her pussy. He loved the deep coral color of her intimate flesh, the delicate dewy sheen that told him she was aroused.
He stroked his fingers to the sensitive line where her thighs met her body, then moved inward, playing with her labia, then dipping one finger inside her, slipping it in and out, before stroking up to her clit, watching what he was doing, smiling as he saw that she was hot and ready for anything he wanted to do next.
She moved restlessly on the table, lifting her hips toward him in supplication.
“Play with your breasts,” he said in a husky voice. “Twist your nipples, pull on them.” She did as he asked, moaning as he bent to stiffen his tongue and probe the sensitive bud of her clit, before stroking down between her lips, tasting her juices as he lapped his way back to her clit. As he focused there, he slipped two fingers inside her, finger fucking her as he pushed her to climax.
He felt her orgasm gathering, heard her cry out as her pleasure exploded from her clit to the rest of her body. He kept lapping at her, stroking her until she climbed over the peak and screamed in ecstasy. When she started down, he stood and thrust his cock inside her, pumping in and out as he pushed to reach his own climax, feeling the skin under his tattoo tingling.
His pleasure burst from him as he directed his gaze toward the altar, asking Ibena to bless him as he shot his juice into the vessel spread before him.
When he lowered his gaze, Nadine was smiling up at him.
“That was good.”
“Wonderful,” he answered, meaning it. “Your turn to do the work,” he said, reaching for her hand.
She nodded, letting him help her up, then standing beside the table while he reversed the pedestals and the pillow.
Then he lay down, smiling at Nadine as she looked down at him.
She leaned over, stroking her breasts against his face, allowing him to capture first one nipple and then the other in his mouth.
When she stepped away, he was hard again. And this time he let her suck him off.
Afterward, he slid his lips to her cheek, then stroked back her damp hair so he could nibble at her ear. He had gotten what he wanted, and in their bed, he let her choose the way they pleasured each other one more time before finally falling asleep.
ANNA tossed in her bed for a long time. Finally she fell into a relaxing sleep, until a dream captured her.
She was standing onstage, about to start her act. Nothing strange about that, until Zachary Robinson walked up beside her. Zachary Robinson, the man who had told her his name in the alley.
He looked at her expectantly, then started pulling things out of his pockets and plopping them onto the tray, so fast she couldn’t see each one until he was finished.
Her stomach muscles knotted as she stared down at the collection he’d given her. Her eyes were drawn to a gold coin that looked very old, an Indian arrowhead, a child’s alphabet block, a metal button, an old spoon, a worn piece of tooled leather that she was sure had come from a saddle, a red toothbrush, a crumpled cigarette pack, and a set of car keys.
And she knew that they all belonged to him. For long moments, she stared at the tray. She wanted to know about him, yet she had to steel herself to take the plunge.
Finally, she picked up the arrowhead and stroked her thumb over the chipped edge, then looked at him.
“You’re from the West—the mountains.”
She saw him swallow. “You can tell that from holding an arrowhead in your hand?”
“Yes.” Still clutching the chipped stone, she murmured, “You grew up on a ranch.”
“Uh-huh.”
Feeling a sense of power gathering inside her, she reached for the red toothbrush, seeing a little boy leaning over a sink, brushing his teeth. This was like her act. Sort of. On stage she touched one thing from each patron. Now she had a whole tray of objects—from one man. And she could learn so much more.
“Your mother was your father’s second wife. She was so happy to have a baby. But your older brother—”
“Didn’t agree,” he finished for her.
“That’s putting it mildly.” She scrambled for a name and came up with, “Craig. He hated you, right?”
He raised one shoulder, and she figured he didn’t want to talk about his brother. So she picked up the piece of leather and squeezed it in her fist, getting another image. “As soon as you were old enough, you’d saddle a horse and go off into the mountains.”
“Yeah.”
On a roll, she kept speaking. “You had a cave that you fixed up with a blanket and a metal box for food—to keep the bears away. You called it your fort.”
His expectant gaze stayed fixed on her, and she knew he was waiting for more, so she reached for the cigarette pack.
The image from it was strong. “You took the cigarettes to your fort and tried to smoke them. But they made you sick.”
He grimaced, remembering. “As a dog.”
“So you crumpled them up and threw them away.”
“That was an expensive mistake for a kid who had to earn his allowance by doing chores.”
She picked up a metal button faced with mother-of-pearl and held it between her thumb and finger, seeing him clinging to a mean-looking horse that was trying to buck him off. “You were in a rodeo.”
“A few of them.”
She had left the keys for last. But finally she picked them up and weighed them in her hand, instantly overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness.
“You went away to college. And you never came back.”
He nodded.
“You hated to leave the mountains.”
His face turned defiant. “I did okay for myself.”
“Yes. But that’s not the point.”
“What is?”
They stared at each other across three feet of charged space.
“You’re the mind reader,” he challenged.
She lifted the tray. “I need more than this.”
“What?”
She felt herself start to tremble. Deep inside, she knew the answer. But she didn’t want to tell him. Or admit it to herself.
Shaking her head, she took a step back and then another, until her shoulders were against a wall. When he took a step toward her, she knew there was only one way to escape.
Clawing herself from sleep, she woke with her heart pounding, remembering the collection of things on the tray and the conversation. And the feeling of panic at the end.
That was real. But what about the rest of it? Had she tapped into Zachary Robinson’s life story? It felt like it. But she could have made it all up because she wanted to be close to him.
She lay in bed, holding on to a handful of the sheet as one more question circled round and round in her head.
Why did some of it—the early years of his life—seem strangely familiar?