Beverly Barton - Raintree - Santuary

Judah whipped back the sheet that covered his naked body and rose from the bed. Mercy gasped. He grinned.

“If you see anything you like, you can have it. Right now.”

Mercy stared at him, drinking him in, her gaze lingering over his erection. Then she looked him square in the eyes. “Sometimes what we want is very bad for us, and we learn from experience to avoid danger.”

Judah moved toward her, one slow, provocative step at a time. She stood her ground, not backing away, keeping her eyes glued to his face.

When he reached out and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, she closed her eyes. “You still want me.”

She said nothing.

From that one brief touch, he sensed her desire. “I want you, too.” He slipped his hand around her neck and lowered his head. She sighed. His breath mingled with hers. She opened her eyes, and for just an instant, unaware of her vulnerability, she let the barrier protecting her thoughts weaken.

My God!

He yanked her to him, pressing his sex intimately against her. If she were as naked as he was…“There hasn’t been anyone else, has there? You’re as much mine now as you were that night.”

When he kissed her hungrily, she stood there rigid and unresponsive. But when he gentled the kiss, she whimpered. As he ravaged her mouth with tender passion, she pressed both hands against his chest and tried to shove him away.

Judah grabbed her and pulled her with him as he backed up against the bed. Taking her now would be almost like taking her for the first time. She was untouched by any other man, untutored, practically a virgin.

He toppled her into the bed and came down over her, holding her lifted arms out to either side as she struggled against his superior strength. Straddling her, his knees holding her hips in place, he stared down at her flushed face, and saw both desire and anger in her expression.

“Do you think I’ll let you rape me?” she spat the words at him.

“It wouldn’t be rape, and we both know it. You want me.”

Breathing hard, Mercy narrowed her gaze and focused on him.

He bellowed in pain, and rolled off her and onto his side. Damn her! She’d sent a psychic punch straight to the most vulnerable area of his anatomy, the equivalent of kneeing him in the groin. While he caught his breath and mumbled curses, she got out of bed and walked to the door. Pausing, she glanced over her shoulder.

“I allow you to live only because of Eve,” she said.

He shot a spray of fire arrows at her, their glowing tips outlining the space around her body. She extinguished them before they singed the door behind her.

“You may wish me dead, but you won’t kill me.” His cold stare pinned her to the spot. “And I won’t kill you. Not until I’ve fucked you again.”

Judah had spent the entire morning with Eve. Under Mercy’s supervision, of course. She had tried to stay in the background, at least part of the time, but she didn’t trust Judah enough to leave her daughter alone with him. Watching father and daughter together exposed her to a side of Judah that she hated to admit existed. In his fascination with and adoration of his child, Judah seemed no different than any Raintree father. He played games with Eve, read to her, ate a mid-morning snack of fruit, cheese and crackers with her, and watched as she tested several of her powers. He instructed her on how to channel her abilities and use them properly. He praised her when she succeeded, and when she failed, he told her that she simply needed more practice.

Kindness, patience and the ability to love were not traits she would ever have associated with Judah Ansara. Since she had fled from his bed that morning seven years ago, she had thought of him as a charmer, a seducer, an uncaring, unfeeling son of a bitch. She had hated him for being an Ansara, a clan she had been taught from childhood were the spawn of the devil.

“Let’s go on a picnic,” Eve insisted when Sidonia had inquired if “that man” would be staying for lunch.

“Eve, honey, I don’t think-” Mercy tried to object.

“A picnic is a great idea.” Judah winked at Eve. “Why don’t you and I raid the kitchen and put our picnic lunch together while your mother changes clothes.”

Mercy glanced down at her attire: neat navy gabardine trousers, a tan cotton sweater, and sensible navy loafers. What was wrong with what she was wearing?

As if reading her mind-God, had he?-Judah said, “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in jeans or shorts?”

“Yeah, Mommy. Put on shorts like I’ve got on.”

“I’ll change before we leave.” Mercy recognized defeat and accepted it, at least on this one issue. “For now, I’ll go with y’all to kitchen and help fix our picnic lunch.” In her peripheral vision, she caught a glimpse of Sidonia shaking her head disapprovingly.

Half an hour later, Mercy, in cut-off jeans and a red T-shirt, found herself sitting on an old quilt spread out under a huge oak tree in the middle of a nearby meadow. Not a single cloud marred the crisp blue sky. The afternoon June sun filtered through the tree branches, dappling golden shards of light around and over them.

Eve chattered away as she munched on her chicken salad sandwich and potato chips. Judah got a word in edgewise occasionally and seemed amused by his magpie daughter’s endless babble. Several times during the meal, Mercy noticed Judah checking his wristwatch. And when he thought she wasn’t looking, he stared at her. She pretended not to notice the way he was studying her.

After gobbling up two chocolate chip cookies and washing them down with milk from her thermos, Eve bounded up off the quilt and looked from Judah to Mercy. “I want to practice some more.” She ran several yards away and said, “Watch, Mother. Look at me, Daddy.”

Without waiting for permission, Eve concentrated very hard, and gradually her feet lifted off the ground a few inches. Then a foot. Two feet. Three feet.

“Be careful,” Mercy cautioned.

“Daddy, what’s this called?” Eve asked, spreading her arms and waving them up and down, as if they were wings.

“Levitation,” Judah replied as Eve rose a good ten feet off the ground.

“Oh, that’s right. Mother told me. Lev-i-ta-tion.”

Leaning forward, intending to intervene and catch Eve if she fell, Mercy held her breath. If only Eve weren’t so headstrong and adventurous.

“You’re overprotective.” Judah manacled Mercy’s wrist. “Let her have some fun. She just wants our attention and our approval.”

Mercy glowered at him. “Eve has been the center of my existence since the day she was born. But it’s my job as her mother to approve of appropriate behavior and disapprove of what’s inappropriate. And more than anything else, it is my duty to protect her, even if that means protecting her from herself.”

Judah grunted. “You’ve lived in fear that the Ansara in her would come out, haven’t you? Every time she’s acted up, been unruly, thrown a temper tantrum, you’ve wondered if it was a sign of the innate evil side of her nature-the Ansara in her.”

“I’m going higher,” Eve called. “Watch me. Watch me!”

When Eve levitated a good twenty feet in the air, Mercy jumped up and motioned to her daughter. “That’s high enough, sweetheart. That was great.” She clapped several times. “Now come back down.”

“Do I have to?” Eve asked. “This is fun.”

“Come down, and you and I will play a game,” Judah said.

Eve came sailing down, slowly and carefully, as if showing Mercy that she shouldn’t be concerned. The minute her feet hit the ground, Eve ran to Judah.

“What sort of game are we going to play?”

He eyed Mercy, his look daring her to interfere. “Have you ever played with fire?”