Touch Me

Prologue

She came to him in his delirium.

Clothed in a silvery robe of moonlight and nothing more, she whispered, Touch me.

At her soft plea, John Hawk Adams lifted his feverish head from his folded arms.

Low and soothing, melodious in tone, her husky voice drew him like a siren’s song. Though his mind’s image of her was indistinct, her features undefined, he’d recognize her anywhere. Instinctively. He’d know her the same way an animal knows the scent of its mate.

Mosquito netting enclosed the beat-up cot where he slumped. The fine weave distorted his already warped view of his surroundings. Yanking the protective curtain aside, John slid his naked body to the edge of the bumpy mattress. Sweat-soaked, he contemplated his precious hoard of matches.

Only one stick remained inside the rusted tin can.

Fuck it, he grumbled thickly aloud, his tongue clumsy with disuse. From now on, I’ll rub a couple of dry branches together if I want a fire.

He grabbed the last match, struck the tip against his fingernail. When the blue end flared, he lit the kerosene lamp and anxiously surveyed his squatter’s shack.

In the wick’s faltering glow, his hope died a fast death.

As usual, he was alone. The single shadow wavering on the patched tarpaper wall belonged to him, not her. Why hadn’t the cold-hearted bitch waited for him? Why hadn’t she just once followed through on her promises?

In the beginning, he’d guarded himself against the debilitating effects of solitary confinement. Despair had crept in, anyway, siphoning off his remaining energy, feeding off his loneliness. Eventually, illness attacked his weakened immune system. He was sick and tired now...of having only the noises of the jungle for companionship, of sleeping with only the illusion of her.

An apparition wasn’t enough. Only fucking her, the flesh and blood woman, would appease the want. Only getting inside her would satisfy the craving. He would give anything, his last gasping breath, to claim her as his, to mark her as his, to penetrate her body and leave his cum behind. If not for her cock-teasing, he would’ve given up and died long ago.

He’d never forgive her low-blow tactics, how she’d whip him into a constant state of arousal and then didn’t put-out. His hard dick and aching balls prevented him from slipping away into a long and peaceful sleep.

He hurled the empty tin can across the room. The rusted metal exploded against a wooden beam upon impact, shrapnel ricocheting.

Night after night, she danced naked for him against the patched tarpaper wall. Writhing, her head thrown back in abandon, her pale throat arched, her shapely thighs open, spread open, she sobbed out his name. She cried for him to take her, but when he tried, she never once delivered.

Damn her, anyway. Her seduction kept him breathing long after he’d lost the will to live. With her big tits and soft smile and moist, beckoning pussy, she not only came to him, she came for him. Night after fucking night. Performing a sexual pantomime, she climaxed before his eyes, until he climbed the walls in his need to get at her. The creative pain his prison guards had inflicted was nothing compared to the torture of wanting her.

Crazed, hungry for her flesh, maddened for her scent, he’d vowed not to die. He swore he’d live...if only to rape her luscious ass. She deserved ass rape and more for the hell she’d put him through, tormenting him until he jacked-off to the sounds of her release.

He owed her, all right, and he intended to give the heartless whore everything she deserved.

Gasping for air, John untangled himself from the rumpled bedding. Carrying the lamp, he dragged his feet across the tiny room, collapsing a few steps later onto a surplus orange crate -- his makeshift chair. His writing materials were improvised, and his lap did double-duty as his desk. A piece of cloth, torn from his faded shirt, served as his paper. His ink, red in color, flowed freely from his slashed left forearm.

Christ, but he hurt. His bones were on fire. It was a toss-up which spiked more, his fever or his dick.

Impatiently swatting a thick hank of blue-black hair from his burning eyes, he picked up a sharp stick -- his trusty pen.

No way could he compose a letter with a hard-on, so he waited for his erection to subside before beginning. But his over-achieving dick, like his sluggish brain, proved uncooperative.

The phantom half sentences, those ghostly phrases, refused to take shape. There was some kind of a disconnect between his mind’s circuitry and his hand. His thoughts were disjointed. Chaotic. A scattered obsession, a confused compulsion, going round and round inside his head, spinning faster and faster, flying out of control, the jumbled mess circling in an unending loop that led...

Nowhere.

Except to her.

Shit! Why couldn’t he concentrate? Why couldn’t he get it to together? Why couldn’t he write the fucking message?

Too shaky to hold himself steady, John tottered on his chair. Physically and mentally, he was rapidly deteriorating. The episodes of illness were lasting longer, the attacks spaced closer together.

Since his escape from imprisonment, he’d hovered near death. But always, when he sank to his weakest, the green-eyed seductress would come to him and whisper, Touch me.

Why wouldn’t she go away and leave him the hell alone?

Sometime between the darkness of a starless night and the hopelessness of an unforgiving dawn, his mind finally cleared. His thoughts converged, grew orderly. Completely lucid, John knew what to say. Exactly. Precisely.

Clamping his left forearm over his right wrist, he forced his once dexterous gun-hand to move, to shape the slippery phrases.

The individual crimson letters were barely legible. Abrupt slashes. Twisted circles. Misshapen dots of ink-blood spilled across the scrap of cloth. Some words stuck to invisible lines, some hung suspended in between. The result looked grotesque, like the incoherent message of a raving lunatic.

That would be him. Who else but a raving lunatic would draft a letter he had no means to send?

Moonwitch,

A wild raptor trembles on the branch, his plumage broken.

Flight is impossible; the sky is too far away.

Will you catch the bird before he falls?

SOSays, Accipiter

Exhausted, John extinguished the small nub of brightness and gave himself over to the darkness…and to the ungentle courtship of his hand.

Fisting his cock, he viciously jerked his fingers up and down the hard length. And just like the devil’s own magic, he saw her once again. Golden fair, as beautiful as any cherished dream he’d ever had and lost, she glowed pale and unadorned. When she opened her arms to him, he knew she was his.

For once.

For always.

Catherine.

Chapter One

Catherine Covington hurried through the gates at Pilgrim Village in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Dress rehearsals began today and, as usual, she was running late.

Her plain russet yeoman’s gown whipping around her ankles, she raced along the packed dirt lanes, shivering against the cold despite the warmth of her winter’s wool cape.

The Village, a historically accurate reproduction of an early seventeenth century farming community, didn’t open for the season until the fifteenth of March, and so she received no curious stares, no requests from tourists to hold still while they snapped her photo, no one asking her a million and one questions about everything under the sun, including what she did for a real living.

The last came as a relief. She absolutely sucked at answering anything personal. Fortunately, as the first-person interpreter of healer Euphremia Prim, she absolutely kicked ass.

Er…that was to say…she was most excellent.

In the course of recreating Mistress Prim’s daily life -- from making bread to stringing apples up to dry to mucking manure from livestock areas -- she stayed in character, maintaining her period English accent. Even under the closest scrutiny, she remained dignified and poised.

Outside the Village was something else again.

When people got too close, she clammed up, especially in social situations. So many secrets, so much to hide.

Drawing her hood higher over her head, Catherine skated across a thin layer of black ice, the heels of her sturdy leather boots nearly slipping out from her. A shiver raced through her, then, but she couldn’t blame her trembling on the frigid temperatures or even first-day rehearsal jitters.

Her feet and fingers had gone to pins and needles, a precursor of a vision.

Not now! Why did her visions always happen at the worst possible time?

Up ahead, other docents -- some familiar to her, some not -- milled about, chatting with each other, catching up on all the latest gossip and news, no doubt. Wary of their closeness, Catherine surreptitiously tunneled a tingling hand under her black cape. Delving her wool bodice’s laces, linen shift and boned corset, she finally came to bare flesh, plumped above the stays.

Her birthmark was warm. Glowing. Pulsating.

Soon, her awaited-one would stroke her bared breasts. Soon, her intended would touch her all over. Hungry for sex, his appetite insatiable, his potency enormous...his capacity to cause pain unremitting...her receptor would violently take her.

An admitted coward, with an overly developed appreciation for the welfare of her own skin, Catherine went from shivering to shuddering at the thought of what he would do to her.

John was a world soldier, a trained killer…a brutal warrior. He’d linger over her punishment.

Would she overcome his anger?

Would he withstand her love?

Using every power in her possession, depleting all her reserves, as well, she’d summon John to her. No choice in the matter, he’d have to obey. Then her turn would come, and she’d have to obey him.

As the bounty of summer gave way to the harvest of fall, when days of nurture ensured days of nourishment, when toil gave way to rest…and with her powers diminished to those of a normal woman...she and John would resolve their conflict. Fate had decreed it so. Powerless to protect herself against him, she’d find out then just how much pain she could endure.

Their lovemaking had been written in the stars, their joining preordained by two past lovers.

But the result of their coming together was anybody’s guess.

* * * * *

CIA Special Agent Williams plunked a polished loafer squarely on the bottom rung of Catherine’s chair and glared down at her.

What d’ya mean, you know the location of Operative Adams? This agency has searched out his whereabouts since his prison break. After combing every inch of terrain within a 100-mile radius of the hellhole those monsters kept him in, we came up empty-handed. And now you bop in here saying you know where he is? Yeah, right, lady. You got one helluva nerve.

I know where you’ll find John because he sent me a message.

Agent Williams extended his hand, palm up. Give it here.

Catherine squared her shoulders against impending disbelief. As there are no post offices in the jungle, the letter was sent to me via psychic delivery.

The agent’s already morose expression turned grim. Is this some kind of twisted joke?

She took a calming breath. Do you, or do you not, wish to rescue John Adams?

The man’s a hero, Miss Covington. Before those bastards caught him, John infiltrated a major supplier of drugs into this country. Because of information received from him, we closed down a South American cocaine operation. This, on top of him saving the lives of two fellow agents during an ambush. Later, when those same agents found themselves imprisoned with John, he helped them escape again. During their exit debriefing, the agents told us what John went through to free them. We want him found, all right.

Then do as I say. You’re wasting valuable time needlessly interrogating me. Catherine fanned a hand in front of her nose.

Agent Williams smoked cigars. She knew this, not because of her abilities, but because his three-piece polyester suit exuded the pungent odor of stale tobacco. Combine that rancid bouquet with a few too many splashes of toxic aftershave and the resultant mishmash of fragrances left her feeling queasy.

Her senses were inordinately acute. Strong scents, over-exposure to the sun, irritatingly loud sounds, a touch too rough...dealing with closed-minded bureaucrats...all created havoc with her sensitive nervous system.

Her interrogator looked over his shoulder, and then lowered his voice. Go home, Miss Covington. Take your little pink crazy meds. In the future, stick to telling your tall tales to the kiddos, okay?

That friggin’ did it. She’d so had enough. And counting all the stars in the galaxy wouldn’t help keep her temper, not this time. The authorities had to find John soon or he’d die.

Turning in her chair, she waved at the one-way mirror against the far wall. Yoo-hoo! Agent Olivera, she called sweetly, putting on the usual bogus act for the benefit of her disbelieving public. "I know you’re in the viewing room. Would you come