He scanned up and down the beach, looking for something. “We’re on the Oregon coast right? There’s got to be a few hotels within throwing distance. I’m going to go see if we can get in somewhere.”
My brows rose and I gave him a look he’d probably never seen before from a women when he’d made a similar suggestion.
He chuckled. “So quick to jump to conclusions.” He held out his hand for me to grab. I took it and he lifted me up. “I’ll be requesting two rooms for tonight. That is . . . unless you’d like to forgo all the pretenses and just admit you’re dying to spend the night with me.” His confidence and laugh were back in normal Paul form.
“Does that really work on my female counterparts?
His face formed around a mock serious expression. “Not as often as I’d like.”
I laughed. “I didn’t think so.”
“You want to come with me?” he asked, taking a step back towards the parking lot where his SUV laid in wait behind my car. “In case you’d like to test-drive the mattress?”
I rolled my eyes and punched his arm. “Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather enjoy the view here for a while longer.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll be back soon.” I heard the beep of his security system click off before I decided to make my way down to the water. My pace quickened the closer I got until the waves were crashing right in front of me, thundering their chorus into my ears.
I took a few steps into the black water, allowing it to wrap around my feet. The waves slid up and around my ankles in gentle caresses, taking with them the sand that lay beneath my feet—over and over again.
This was the same water, the same ocean, where he’d been. Where we’d been together and he’d wanted me.
I had a sudden need to submerge more of my body, to be even closer to him, so I took a few steps forward. The waves were now splashing up against my knees and spreading a wet ring around the hem of my skirt. The sensation of the ocean water caressing more of my body was beyond description.
Several more steps, and the water encircled my waist, and a few larger waves peaked up around my neck, wetting the rest of my clothing. The chill of the water, combined with its seductive welcoming, hardened the surface of my skin; forcing me to confront the fact that despite me accepting he was gone, I wanted him back more than I wanted anything else.
I continued forward, the water calling me, beckoning me to be with it fully—promising me him. It ensnared me, and drew me tightly into its arms with a similar passion and intensity as he had. My mind settled on his face and the image I’d forever have of him surfing in this same location where I was at peace with everything.
The waves crashed over my head, and I released my footing on the sandy bottom below me. The water pled with all-consuming desire, begging me to be with it from this moment on . . . tempting me with him.
And it was William’s face, still in my mind, when my legs could no longer continue their upward fighting flutter, and I succumbed to the desires of the water enveloping me. Shining like a star through the deepening water, his face was there—witness to my departure from this world and into the unknown depths.
And then there was nothing but blackness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AWAKENINGS
I felt different. I was different.
I was still locked in the black void, which dulled my senses, but I was aware I was coming into consciousness and different.
Supremely different.
Everything felt so connected—I was aware of every nerve ending, every heartbeat that surged oxygenated blood through my veins, and everything my brain was orchestrating with the rest of my body, keeping it viable and in good working order. I’d taken enough science classes to understand how the human body worked, and these were all part of the inner workings, but I’d never been so conscientious of every one of the million transactions taking place in my body each second.
It was overwhelming. There were thousands of orders and requests screaming I felt I should respond to, but I couldn’t sort through the cornucopia of disarray enough to make sense of it. Nonetheless, my heart continued to work, as did the rest of my changed body, without my commanding the large organ to pulse .5 liters of blood every 1.2 seconds through it.
Okay . . . that was weird. I certainly don’t remember ever learning that random bit of information in science class, but nonetheless, something inside me knew I was right.
And then I felt it—but this time, it wasn’t just passing through my body as it had when he’d touched me, but was originating from it.
It was the same electric-like current I’d felt whenever I’d been close to William, though the intensity and magnitude of it coursing through my body as its vessel, vacillated from pain to pleasure.
I couldn’t understand where this super-enlightened state of consciousness had come from. I was still me . . . same thoughts, opinions, musings, values and such, but I didn’t feel like me. The power, awareness, and shocking current raging through me, made me feel as if I was a stranger in my own body.
My senses finally ignited, and I was inundated by the surrounding stimuli flooding into my body with typhoon-like force. I was hypersensitive and ultra-aware to everything pouring into my awakened senses. Again, the same eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and fingers . . . but different.
“She’s waking, John.” A female’s voice flowed into my ears with crisp precision.
“It’s about time,” a male’s voice, deep and silky—like a radio talk-show host—replied.
My eyes tore open, only to widen in horror when I viewed my surroundings, and those surrounding me, with no hint of familiarity, or with any recall as to how I’d ended up here.
I was lying on my back in a four-poster bed in the middle of a room that was easily as many square feet as the home I lived in until kindergarten. I scanned my mind for the last memory I had before waking up in this foreign place. I couldn’t recall anything except for a face . . . a face that was burned into my brain.
“Hello, Miss Dawson. Welcome back to the living.” My eyes scurried to the man with the silky-smooth voice.
The female standing beside him snickered.
He glanced at the female before turning back to me with a smug smile. “Although I suppose living takes on a slightly different meaning now . . .”
As desperate as I was to speak (or to scream), I couldn’t. I was rendered speechless when I took in the full view of these two impossibly beautiful figures before me. The man was tall, broad-shouldered and had light brown hair—the kind that would glimmer in sunlight. His stance was imposing, and from the confidant gleam in his deep-blue eyes, I imagined he was not the kind of man you wanted to cross.
The female beside him was a goddess. Statuesque, thin (although her thinness was unfairly coupled with voluptuousness settled in all the right places), and had hair so fair in color it was nearly white. She exuded an air of superiority, and was looking at me as if I was about as inconsequential as where the rubber on the bottom of her knee-high, suede boots was made.
“Where am I?” I shifted up in bed, eyeing cautiously over this modern day Cleopatra and Mark Antony.
The male took a step towards me. It echoed through the mass of the room. “Settle down, there’s no need to—”
“Don’t come any closer,” I pleaded, my voice edging on hysteria as the man continued to advance in my direction.
His brow furrowed, and he gave me a look that reminded me of how my mom used to look at me when I’d said or done something she thought juvenile. “That’s quite enough. We mean you no harm,” he said, with warning in his voice.
“Get away!” This time I yelled, the hysteria coming to fruition, and my body reacted before I made a conscious request.
With foreign strength and speed, I sprung from the bed in one lithe movement, and was across the room in less time than it took the female to roll her eyes. I didn’t have time to ponder where this inhuman speed and agility had come from, because the male continued his advance to where I cowered in the corner across the room. My eyes—automatically, and without cognition—darted around the room, seeking an escape.
“Miss Dawson, everything will be fully explained once you settle down. You’ll see you’re overreacting quite extraordinarily,” the male said, sounding more irritated with each word.
My eyes found what they needed, and I ran—which felt more like flying—to the door on the adjacent wall.
“Stella, stop her,” the man yelled, but my hand was already on the doorknob and I flung it open, taking one look back to see both figures gliding towards me. I lunged through the door with my head still turned towards the approaching strangers, and rammed into something hard. I bounced against it, and would have fallen backwards, had not a warm set of arms reached around me to keep me upright. The arms pressed me tight against the hard surface I’d just barraged into . . . the arms that felt like they’d been created to hold me.
“Ohhh!” My hand would have flown to my mouth if my arms weren’t so tightly held against his body.
His head tilted down and his mouth fell just outside my ear. “Follow my lead,” his hurried whisper entered my body, surmounting an attack on the fear that had ensnared me. “Everything will be alright.” His head snapped away from my ear so fast, I doubt the two individuals who were nearly upon us would have noticed any transaction taking place.
“Mr. Winters, what nice timing. Good to see you awake and recovered at last. It appears you’ve brought us an overreacting, would-be escapee.” The male came to a stop behind me, and the prior fear I’d had for this unknown person, was no more. I was pressed securely against the man I’d come to accept I’d never see again, and I didn’t care about anything else. I looked up at his face, and despite the chaos that had permeated my life since I’d opened my eyes, my heart still trilled out-of-control. His eyes were anxious though, and his expression was as rigid as his body felt.
“Her screams could have roused the dead. Perhaps you could have been a little less imposing,” he responded, a half smile pulling at his lips; one that was not familiar. “I’m sure you can remember John, how disturbing it was when you awoke for the first time in such curious circumstances.” William raised a brow, at the same time releasing his clutch on me.
So this was the infamous John, much more Francis Ford Coppola Godfather-like than William had let on. Sure would have been helpful to have had the answers to my questions before I’d ended up smack in the middle of whatever William had been trying to keep me out of.
“Why don’t we all have a seat? Since it appears we’ve calmed down enough to be reasoned with.” John’s tone sounded final, as if there was no other option but what he’d requested.
“That sounds like a good idea,” William said, motioning his hand forward to the figures behind us. “After you.”
I heard two sets of footfalls commence to a far corner of the room. The eyes I’d stayed focused on since they’d reentered my life looked down to me, and the emotion that had been absent, flooded them.