Watchtowers : Water Read online

  He tilted his head. “Do what?”

  “The energy spark. How did you transfer it from me to you?”

  His smooth, deep voice washed over her and echoed softly in the cavern. “It was static.”

  Again, Keely shook her head. “What I witnessed wasn’t static.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and didn’t offer another explanation, only moved closer. He invaded her space.

  Instead of being frightened or nervous, she waited in eager anticipation not moving a muscle.

  “Do you recognize me?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “We’ve conversed often,” he continued.

  “I don’t think so.” She paused trying to place him in her memory. “I’d remember...” And she would. She’d remember any man looking like Zion who’d deigned to speak with her “...a name so unusual.”

  She looked up into his face. He communicated, without words, exactly how they knew one another. Images flashed through her mind. Sexual daydreams and fantasies she’d indulged in. Nightmares and realities she’d dealt with for the past thirteen years.

  Zion engulfed her in his arms. She pushed against the wall of his chest. Beneath her fingers, his skin felt familiar, as if they’d rediscovered a long lost lover. A zing of electricity raced through her arm to him and back again.

  “No,” she whispered as fear pumped through her blood, heating her skin. She pushed away from him. “This isn’t possible. You aren’t real.”

  “I assure you, I’m very real.”

  “You can’t be.” She fought to keep her voice from trembling. Against her, she felt his erection grazing her thigh. Fear rasped against her sensitized skin as if she were being rubbed by steel wool. Zion was the spitting image of the man in the delusions she’d managed to put to rest with strong medications five years ago.

  One of his hands stroked down her back as the other lifted her chin. Keely couldn’t give in to this aberration. Her heart pounded in her chest. She needed all her wits about her if she were to garner additional research funds for her dolphin communication studies. She had too much to lose to give hallucinations a foothold in her life again.

  No! Her mother was the paranoid, delusional one, not her.

  A large wave crashed against the entrance to the cavern adding to the chilly water on the rocky floor. Keely shoved away from him again, sloshed toward the back of the cave, and rubbed her pounding temples. Glancing over her shoulder, through the cave’s entrance she watched the waves whip into foam and smash onto the rocks and beach. She wasn’t going anywhere with the storm outside.

  Frantically, she tried to remember what could have possibly set her mental health off kilter so horribly. She shrank back against the rear wall of the natural shelter. Nothing. She hadn’t done anything at all to bring back the illusion of Zion with such physical force. Perhaps there was a problem with the last medication she received.

  He advanced toward her; his hands palm side up and outstretched. Zion looked real enough. Could this possibly be true? Could her senses deceive her? Didn’t the mind play elaborate tricks in order to convince the mentally ill their perception of reality was correct?

  If he wasn’t real, Keely needed serious intervention and help. She scrutinized him. If he was, heaven help her.

  The roar of water and waves grew louder. The few sparkles of light reflecting off the wet walls all but disappeared.

  “Keely. I’ve come for you.”

  “What do you mean, you’ve come for me?” she asked terrified. How did he know her name?

  “We need your help.”

  She blinked rapidly. Her ocular implants must have malfunctioned. Or maybe it was the cochlear ones. Never before had her illusion physically manifested and spoken. Had she taken on the qualities of a megalomaniac and conjured up a sexy male to deliver the ultimate fantasy of saving the day? When had she slipped so far?

  “What do you want from me?” Her voice quivered, revealing her terror.

  Zion advanced. “You don’t have to be afraid. Think back, Keely. Think back to when...”

  “Do you think you could get dressed, or cover up or something?” She forced her eyes to look away from his impressive physical equipment.

  He laughed, a deep rumble that bounced off the cavern walls. “I’m sorry, Keely. I’m not used to wearing such confining material. It’s easy to forget when my people are less encumbered by such restraints.”

  His mirth mitigated some of her fear. “You’re a nudist then?”

  “I prefer the term naturalist.”

  So, Zion was the leader of a nudist colony. She’d heard of such a group up Lahinch way. She relaxed more with his intelligent response and took a deep breath before she sat on an outcropping. Maybe he wasn’t a figment of a computer enhancement gone astray.

  “You’re recovered then?”

  Zion’s gaze drifted from her eyes and he frowned. “Recovered?”

  “From your near-miss on the beach.”

  Comprehension lit his eyes. “Oh. That. I’m afraid a naughty little dolphin played a practical joke on me when I hadn’t quite transmorphed into my land form.”

  Questions sprang up in her mind like early spring weeds and the fear she’d tamped down sprung back. Transmorphed? Land form? Dear Domnu, what was going on? She was having one hell of a hallucination. “You’ve seen the dolphins today?”

  “They left for the Florida Keys a little sooner than usual. The sea hasn’t been as friendly to them of late. Downright inhospitable.”

  He spoke of the sea as if it were a living creature. While its elements were essential and the ocean teemed with life, the water was not an entity, but rather a fluid, moving field of energy. She gathered her legs beneath her, and then stood, reaching toward a small rock shelf. “The dolphins communicated this to you?”

  Her fingers rubbed against cool metal. She groped for a small bulge and when she found it, waved her hand in front of the knob. Soft, yellow light illumined the cavern.

  When Keely turned to sit once more, Zion had leaned his tanned, muscular arms against the rock.

  “Yes. They talk to you as well.”

  She gulped, and then narrowed her eyes. “How do you know this?”

  With insolent charm, he smiled up at her. “They told me.”

  Okay, this had to be a dream or nightmare. Centuries ago serious scientists had given up on dolphin communication, unable to get past a rudimentary understanding of the series of whirs, whistles, and clicks the mammals made when talking to one another.

  Keely, herself, had only gotten involved with the archaic research because she believed she had the ability to understand what they said. “No one talks to dolphins,” she stated emphatically. “Each pod has its own dialect, its own interpretation of what their sounds mean to them.”

  His warm, chocolate voice washed over her again. “You don’t believe I talk to dolphins?”

  “No. What I do believe is this. You are a wonderful, handsome figment of my overactive imagination.”

  Another wave surged into the cavern. She smiled at Zion, happy to have found an explanation for his appearance. With a little wave of her hand, she said with a laugh, “Go away, Figment,” before she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, fully intending to take a nap while she waited out the storm.

  Her eyes were shut less than three seconds when she felt Zion’s lips on hers. “Don’t call me a figment of your imagination again,” he whispered savagely against her mouth. “You’ve participated in our unions wholeheartedly.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Even as she said the words, dread skittered up her spine like a spider. Zion couldn’t really be...

  He nuzzled her neck before lightly tugging on her ear, driving her thoughts deep into her mind to hibernate there. His hand reached beneath her jacket and cupped her breast. “I know how much you like this.”

  He grasped her beneath the shoulders and lifted her from the rock floor. One hand slid under her rain gear and claim
ed her butt. He licked and nibbled his way to the hollow of her throat.

  A needy moan escaped from deep within her. Only her dream lover knew about her sensitive neck. Zion seemed real; could he possibly be the man of her sensual fantasies? The man she’d made love to in her mind since she was eighteen?

  That was before he flicked his forefinger against her nipple and sent wave after wave of desire straight to her core. Only her delusion knew how the stroke revved her up.

  Keely wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, and gave herself over to the physical incarnation of her imaginary lover.

  Zion slid the yellow rain jacket first from one shoulder, then the other and sat her on the rock. “Lift your arms.”

  She lifted them over her head and felt his hands skim over her waist, her ribs, and back down to grab the hem of her sweater. He pulled it over her head and tossed it above them.

  In short order, he disposed of her bra. Her breasts filled each palm of his hands. Zion stroked the tips into hard peaks. Another deprived moan came from her lips.

  He nudged his erection between her legs. Having this fantasy look-alike buried within her would feel good. Months had passed since she’d given herself over to a sex-crazed dream. Impatient, she raised her hips and moved her hand to the zipper of her jeans, the rasp of the teeth an erotic sound.

  His hand pulled the material down from the back and pushed it to her ankles. “Do you want me in you, Keely?” His voice was husky with desire.

  She took one of his hands from her breast, shoved it under the waistband of her panties, and ground her clitoris against his fingers.

  “I take that as a yes.”

  “Yes,” she moaned against his lips. Her body concurred, prepared to take his penis deep within her.

  Outside the cavern, Keely was vaguely aware of the storm’s intensity. The power of nature only paralleled the passion raging through her body. She lay back against the water-smoothed stone and opened her legs in wanton invitation. With the fingers of one hand she spread her creamy nether lips, prepared to take this latest daydream to its logical conclusion; a ride of pleasure.

  “Look at me, Keely.”

  She peered into his deep sea colored eyes. Of their own accord, her hands moved to graze his chest and toy with his nipples. “Zion,” she whispered reverently. “I never knew your name.”

  He covered her body with his own taut, muscular one. Skin to skin, his body heated hers. He smelled of salt and the fresh sea. Then she felt the deep penetration of his thick, long cock.

  Reality slammed into her with the intense force of the tempest raging outside.

  Chapter Two

  Keely shrieked and shoved hard against Zion’s chest. Lust had clouded her judgment. She didn’t know him, despite his contrary conviction. “Get off me!”

  The man withdrew from her and stood, anger etched on his face. “I asked.”

  The words, terse and short, shattered her sense of reality. She’d told him she wanted this, even shoved his hand between her legs. >From wide-open eyes, she watched him back several steps away. Never taking her gaze off him, Keely scrambled to a sitting position and sought for her sweater with an open hand.

  His rigid stance, complete with crossed arms proved what she discovered to be the truth. Even his penis had shriveled. This man was real, not an aberrant dream controlled by psychotropics.

  “I didn’t believe you were real.” Her excuse sounded hollow and weak to her ears. She didn’t allow her gaze to waver. “You took advantage of me.”

  He narrowed his eyes. A muscle in his tanned jaw ticked. In the artificial light he looked feral and powerful. “I told you I was real.”

  She pulled the damp garment over her head. The covering provided a sense of modesty from this stranger. Dear God, he’d been in her. She rubbed the side of her face cognizant of the fact she was back at square one with this man.

  “This is creepy.” She labored to make sense of this experience. “You’ve been nothing more to me than the random firing of my brain synapses. Now you’re here...” she paused a moment, losing the fight against looking at his sexy body once more, “...in the flesh.” She voiced her confusion. “You can’t be both real and imaginary.”

  Hearing the words leave her mouth convinced Keely she’d slipped over the edge of sanity into another world. The Earth, filled with lots of oddities, and science, with its amazing discoveries had recorded nothing quite like an illusion drawing the breath of life.

  She slid her legs over the side of the rock ledge, stood, and edged her way toward the opening of the grotto. Outside, the sky was black without a trace of light. The storm raged and Keely saw no indication of how long it would last. The Atlantic Ocean surged in and out of the cave, slapped the rocks, and splashed her with cold spray.

  Suspended between the insanity inside the cavern and nature’s temper tantrum outside, her stomach twisted with pain. She was trapped.

  “Sit down, Keely.”

  The lyrical, hypnotic quality in his voice encouraged her to comply without argument. The mother of all headaches pounded against her forehead like a wild drumbeat. She rubbed her temples.

  “What I’m about to tell you, will be difficult for you to understand.”

  Hey, her flesh and blood delusion talked to her. How much stranger could life get? Any time now, Keely would wake up in her lab, or bedroom, or on the couch, and write down all she remembered into her dream notebook and laugh or cry about how she’d lost it on the beach. “Try me.”

  Zion paced away from her, his hands laced behind his back. For a moment, Keely thought he planned to exit the cave, but at the entrance he turned around and marched back to her. His angular face held no trace of humor, although she sensed no palpable anger either.

  “Where to start, where to start,” he uttered beneath his breath. “An introduction.” He relaxed. “I’m Zion as you know.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m the son of the sea god, Poseidon.”

  Her eyes widened and she blinked several times. “Poseidon, from mythology you mean?”

  It was Zion’s turn to nod. “For millennia my father, brothers and I watched the world, and especially the oceans fill with toxins. We lost many of the mer-people before humans understood the disaster they wrought with their pollution.”

  Keely, her entire adult life, studied the sea and the life that it contained. Not one scientist recorded any unusual life form, dead or alive, in the past seven centuries. “Impossible. There exists no evidence of such destruction.”

  “People,” he said condescendingly, “weren’t allowed to see such verification. The last thing Atlanteans need is another near miss. Preventing discovery was difficult enough during the first deep-water explorations.”

  Good grief! Her fantasy took an unusual turn. Zion must have referred to Atlantis, another ancient mythology.

  She shook her head and scanned the rocks for her jeans. They were nowhere to be found. “Atlantis isn’t real. Mermen and mermaids aren’t real.”

  None of this made sense, a compelling delusion, complete with stories based in myth. “You aren’t real.” This had to be the truth. People just didn’t turn up shouting “surprise, I’m a god” the way Zion had.

  He frowned. “Believe what you may for the moment. You’ll find out soon enough you haven’t inherited your mother’s insanity and the mythologies you refer to have a basis in reality.”

  He knew of her mother’s mental state? She jumped from her perch. “I don’t know who you are, or how you know about my family, but...” She picked up the yellow slicker and shoved her arms through the sleeves, “....the authorities take stalking seriously.”

  He moved in front of her. “I’m not stalking you. For eight years you allowed me full access to you and your life. We shared hours of mutually satisfying pleasure, until you started taking those mind control drugs.”

  She stepped to the side, her foot stepping onto a thick piece of material. Not taking her gaze from
him, Keely grabbed the cloth with her toes, lifted her leg and grasped the sodden fabric. Wet jeans slapped against her thighs. “I had delusions. Your likeness was a big part of them.”

  Countering her move, he blocked her exit toward the entrance. “I told you, Keely, I’m not make-believe. I’m flesh and blood, even if I’m not human.”

  Cutting off her egress unnerved her. Thought was difficult in his presence. “So, you’re a sea god. Aren’t gods supposed to be all-powerful? What do you need me for?”

  “I’m not a god, just the son of one.” He ran his fingers through his wet hair. “Humans figured out they poisoned not only the oceans, but themselves. People cleaned up the waterways and the seas and for the past several centuries lived in harmony with the environment. Their actions allowed us the same existence.”

  He paused. “Until recently.”

  Her head snapped up and she looked into his eyes. He had her attention. This man knew something about the ocean that might be able to help her explain the change in the Rossi’s habits. She was intrigued. “What happened?”

  Zion approached her, laid his hands on her shoulders, and turned her to face the entrance of the cavern. Outside the power of the storm diminished, but the waves still pounded furiously against the rocks.

  Keely furrowed her brows. “I don’t understand.”

  He leaned forward. His lips grazed her neck and sent her pulse skittering. The caress of his breath was warm against the sensitive skin he’d teased just a while ago. Recently extinguished, her desire rekindled and made her long to finish what they’d started earlier. She took a few more steps toward the opening of the grotto, gripping the jeans as if they were a lifeline.

  “Haven’t you noticed anything unusual lately, Keely?”

  “Other than the dolphins being more difficult to locate?”

  “Yes.”

  Between trying to regain her sanity, reigning in her libido, and working on this enigma, Keely’s brain hurt. She dug through as many memories as she could conjure from the past few months. “Some of the animals have been more challenging to detect. I figured it was related to the change in the Gulf Stream. The mammals have moved with the current.”