Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

everything, throwing away everything he’d been, who he essentially was, and she was worth it.
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    Again she sent him a look from over her shoulder before turning back to look straight ahead at the water as they rushed toward their destination.
    “That’s not exactly the truth, Lev.”
    She really was becoming adept at telepathy; he’d have to be more careful about guarding his thoughts. He knew she was there, but she was becoming familiar, a part of him already, as if they’d somehow absorbed each other.
    “Yes, it is. You’re well worth the risk.”
    She sent him a small grin, her eyes velvet soft. “Silly. Of course I am.
    Not that part. Who you are is the same. This has always been who you really are, you just never let yourself feel anything. You were a child when they took and trained you. You’re a good man, Lev, whether you believe it or not.
    I’m inside your head and I see who you are. You’ve always been good.”
    He watched the shoreline as they followed it, occasionally looking up at the sky to the birds, even as he turned her words over and over in his mind. He didn’t know the truth anymore, and really, did it matter? He’d been given a second chance and he was grabbing it with both fists.
    They stayed silent, enjoying the morning sun beaming down on the water. From the vantage point of a boat, the view was very different than from on shore. He saw holes worn through large rock masses, the sea stacks where every type of bird made their home or rested and nested. Birds plunged into the sea to fish, and seals occasionally poked their heads up or rested on their backs, watching the Sea Gypsy curiously.
    Something big moved alongside of them, cutting easily through the water, and he saw Rikki smile and glance down. A geyser of water erupted beside the boat, raining drops on them. She laughed out loud. “He just gave us an invitation to play.”
    His eyebrow shot up. “Invitation to play? With that?” He looked at the massive, streamlined body moving fluidly through the water. The gray whale had to be a good forty-five feet long and weighed approximately thirty to forty tons. The fluke rose out of the water. It was ten to twelve feet and deeply notched in the center.
    The whale disappeared beneath the water again. He spotted more shadows in the water. Rikki slowed the boat and then allowed it to idle while she bent down toward the water, dipping her cupped hand in it and shooting the liquid in a long arc over the surface. As she did, she began to sing softly, so that the water droplets hovered in the air, forming a long chain.
    Lev held his breath, aware he was about to witness something probably no one other than Rikki had ever seen. He felt energy building beneath them.
    The boat rocked. He reached out to touch her, laying his hand gently on the 215

    nape of her neck, wanting the physical connection even as he thrust his mind into hers.
    The intimate connection, so deep, so strong, shook him—the sensation every bit as pleasurable as making love to her. Her warmth surrounded him, feminine and soft, with no hard edges. Merging wasn’t quite the same thing as reading her thoughts. Being inside of her, sharing her mind, brought a hard ache and a need that just kept growing stronger. For a moment his breath burned in his lungs and his heart pounded. Erotic images played through their shared mind and he allowed the waves of pleasure to wash over him.
    All the while, he kept his gaze fixed on that chain of water held about a foot above the surface of the sea. Without warning, flukes shot up out of the water, slapping at the chain. Laughing, Rikki danced it out of reach. He could feel the way she anticipated the whale’s movements by the strength of the energy pouring up from below them. She didn’t cheat, keeping the chain the same distance from the surface. Lev spotted several whales spy-hopping their narrow, tapered heads up out of the water, looking to him as if they were smiling. Gray and white blotches covered their darker skin along with white barnacles. The whales were huge, graceful creatures, migrating down the Pacific coast from arctic waters to the Baja lagoons where their mating and breeding grounds were.
    He watched as several in the pod played the game, trying to be the first to slap the chain of water with their flukes. He could hear Rikki’s delighted laugh, but more, he felt the exact same pleasure, merged as he was with her.
    The connection to the sea was so deep in