Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

together and less likely to fly apart with the rain coming down.
    “I’m going to see what else I can use.”
    “I’ll take the sandwich,” she offered slyly. She couldn’t help it if she couldn’t eat the broccoli out here on the porch. Usually she just broke off a piece and dipped it into the peanut butter jar. She scooped the sandwich from the plate and took a bite, savoring the taste of her favorite food.
    He grinned as if he were reading her mind, which maybe he was, but Blythe wasn’t there to lecture her so it was all good. She ate her sandwich happily. Lev disappeared into the kitchen with the plate and she was left alone with the night. The clouds had dropped the veil of darkness early. She swung her foot in time with the beat of the rain and closed her eyes to absorb the sound.
    Her heart found the rhythm, then her pulse followed. She tuned her hearing to focus on each drop. The rain was beginning to fall more heavily, 180

    and she found herself hearing the music it always made in her head, drowning out every other noise. She was fascinated by the various tones as the drops hit objects—the rooftop, the trees, cement, asphalt, the dirt.
    Everything made a slightly different sound.
    Share it with me.
    She became of aware of Lev, close, so close his body heat warmed her, but she didn’t open her eyes. His voice in her head was commanding, velvet over steel, a brush of heat that spread like a drug through her veins. The center of her left palm pulsed as if he’d brushed his fingers there, physically stroking her, but she knew he hadn’t. She found herself opening her mind without really knowing how she was doing it, but deliberately sharing her world was a unique experience for her—she wanted to share it with him.
    The moment she allowed him fully into her head, it was as if somehow they merged, skin into skin. She felt him inside. Everything feminine in her responded to the masculinity in him. Electrical currents ripped through the heat in her veins and pooled low and hot. She caught images in his mind, erotic and shocking, both tempting and a little frightening. Her breath caught in her throat and she took a deep breath, drawing him in further.
    I want to experience everything that you experience ,.
    She let out her breath. He would know how her body reacted to his. He already knew. Color slid up her neck and into her face. It was normal to be physically attracted to a man—especially one as hot as Lev—but like this?
    Every single cell in her body was on alert. She was hot, right there in the midst of the rainstorm.
    Are you feeling the same? She couldn’t ask aloud, but she had to know.
    His breath was ragged against the back of her neck. Even stronger.
    Her heart jumped at his honesty. He wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed to feel such an overwhelming sexual attraction.
    Is it you? Or me?
    I think we have extraordinary chemistry. I have never encountered this need before, so strong that it’s a hunger that grows rather than allows control.
    There was satisfaction in knowing that she wasn’t alone and that he was honest with her about the way his body responded to hers.
    Not just my body , lyubimaya, he corrected. Cool us down with the rain.
    The sheer poetry of his suggestion appealed to her soul. She lifted her hands and began a symphony that for the first time she performed for someone other than herself. Bright diamonds fell from the sky, sparkling and perfect. The sound seemed precise at first, but in response to the commands 181

    of her fingers, she began to hear individual notes—the drumming of the rain, harder along the forest edge.
    Lev had seen her do this before, but he’d never truly experienced what she did when she disappeared inside her head. Rikki was a water element, but he knew even had she not been, this was her world, this other place where sound wasn’t harsh and lights didn’t burn.
    He inhaled sharply as he was drawn into another dimension, an alternate reality, more vivid, more alive, than the world he lived in. The landscape was painted with sound. Soft at first, like a string quartet, the rain was nearly weeping with joy.
    She changed the rate of fall to bring in the various sounds of drums, the pounding rhythm, the midrange snare, the kick of the bass, all flowing together into a symphony of color and magic. She created a complicated, intricate pattern, or maybe it was there all along and he had never been tuned to it before.
    He could hear individual notes