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Melissa drove to the beach house, an hour away She had rented it for the sus worked out for her here And it looked as if they were about to work out Big-Tis - it wasn&039;t like her to experience such intense feelings for a man she&039;d just met It was more than unlike her; it was unprecedented And she had the niggling feeling there was so hidden beneath the surface So unnatural

Her body&039;s reactions to him puzzled her - simultaneous chills and heat, fire and ice, assaulted her at once She was curious, wary, and attracted

And she knew better than to feel any of those things The ht She had to get to the beach

She loved the sea, the shore The East Coast had always beckoned her, touched so deep inside her, and been her hoy to it A darker, older feel As well it should The sun set here It rose in the east The two seas were opposites and yet they were reflections of the sa sea of death and rebirth

She left her VW Bug in the driveway and hurried into the house she was quickly coh Then she stepped into the shower to rinse away the day&039;s stress and the distinct weight of negative energy she felt clinging to her She scrubbed it away, along with herface-to-face with the stereotypes that drove her nuts; let all of that baggage swirl down the drain

When she stepped out again she feltcotton kaftan of soothing turquoise, and nothing else Then she padded barefoot through the s doors in back There was a natural stone shelf there, ale, steps led down to a tiny section of private beach The beach house was modest It was the beach that made the place valuable - far er, had it not been for this new job

The strip of beach was secluded, with the house at its back, groups of towering boulders flanking it, and the sea creating its fourth border That sandy enclave had becoe, and her temple

Here she could work ic And she had no need for special effects

Alex looked at the address he&039;d copied down, then up at the beach house The nuht place

He was fascinated by the woet her off hisurge for a while - a token fight, really - he&039;d ended up giving in and driving out here He didn&039;t feel as if he had much choice in the matter And it wasn&039;t just due to the insane events of the past feeeks of his life, either There was soravity

She lived on the beach It see sailors to their doom and wondered if this was the same sort of pull those sailors felt

He climbed the shallow landscaped steps to the front door and knocked Then he waited, but there was no answer A car was in the driveway, but no one seemed to be in the house

And then the wind picked up and he heard it: a wo, haunting song and co fro up the words as he went around the beach house

"Coht; coht"

He found the steps in the back and stared down at the wo, that powerful attraction he&039;d felt before, washed over hi over the shore For a moment, he couldn&039;t breathe He could only stand there, looking on, wondering what it was about her that sent his head spinning and tied his stoh above her head, a flowing blue dress dancing around her legs in the ocean breeze There was a s with the orange glow of the sun, as it set over the ocean, to paint her body and hair in brushstrokes of bronze and yellow and red

"Coht Maiden; come, Graveyard Crone; come, Dark Enchantress, Goddess of the Foarow hypnotic,As the sun sank over the sea and darkness gathered like a blanket, surrounding the firelight and the woman in its center, he noticed for the first tihts - candles, planted in the sand Four of them, one just ahead of her, toward the sea, one to either side of her, and one behind her And there was so candle to the next in a gentle arc so that a circle was formed As he was drawn ever closer, he squinted Seashells The circle was made of seashells

"Co; come, live within me; come, we are one!"

The words wound the in an ever-fading whisper, and he found hiht His knees bent, without his per her in silence The sun breathed its last and vanished beneath the waves at the same moment he sank down

Slowly, she lowered her arms Her hair danced in the wind that was suddenlythe sea, ht he saw her lipsto someone Time ticked by, but he didn&039;thimself to interrupt, wasn&039;t even certain he would be able to if he tried What she was doing see one of theto solve So he watched as shesoht - into the sea Finally, she straightened and rifted her arain

"Thank you, my lady Merry meet and merry part With me always, inleave her body, perhaps just tension or tautness Or ht seeination She walked forward then, to one of the four candles, held her ar a pair of curtains She said so too softly for him to hear as she snuffed the flame, stood still for a moment, then repeated the action at the next candle, and then the next, and the last Then she walked around the circle of seashells with her palm flat toward the sand, and finally she ently up onto the shore, knelt there, and pressed her pal up to her elbows, soaking the dress where she knelt Yet she remained until it see, she brushed the sand away froht in the eye

"Thank you for not interrupting"

He blinked, surprised "You kneas here the whole time," he said, and it wasn&039;t really a question He had a feeling this woman was as aware of hiht on her face did so to her eyes She&039;d been beautiful to him when he&039;d seen her at the studio today Beautiful, though it made no sense It wasn&039;t on the surface, certainly not when she&039;d stood flanked by two of thea rather conservative skirt and blazer, her hair in a bun, her face lightlyinside her, so not seen

Now, it wasInside and out

"You can come out by the fire, if you like I&039;ve already taken up the circle" As she spoke, she walked back toward the fire "Grab those two folding chairs and bring thelanced to his left, sao beach chairs sitting there He picked them up and carried the them near the fire

She sat down, and he did the sa to nail what it was that drew hi wildly attractive about her Forbidden and natural Her eyebroere fuller than most women wore them these days, and her hair - God, her hair was everywhere Unta and wavy, its color a lustrous honey-tinted brown that glowed bronze in the firelight Her feet were bare, coated in damp sand Her breasts were heavy and unbound underneath the loose, flowing dress she wore He liked that best of all The weight of them He wanted to touch, to feel

"I&039;m surprised to see you here," she said Was she nervous? She should be He didn&039;t knohat the hell this was, but it made him nervous, too

"I told you I&039;d see you later I always say what I mean" He reached up, impulsively, to brush a bit of sand froers touched her skin, she stiffened and pulled back, her brows drawing together in a frown

"I&039;m sorry" He drew his hand away, held it inhim over "It&039;s not you - it&039;s Stand up a second, Alex"

He was puzzled, but he rose She did, too, going closer to the fire and bending to pick up a large shell with so stick from the fire and touched it to the leaves They blazed a little She blew gently until the flames died, and smoke billowed Then she moved toward his and feet

Alex closed his eyes in ahiher, her breaths pushing shs and buttocks She caroin

"Jesus," heto bury thee and hoped she didn&039;t notice how hard he was getting, but hell, he was only hu in front of hi around hi smoke over his belly and chest, his back and sides, his arms and shoulders, his neck, face, and head

When she finished, she blew a little s "Better?" she asked

He looked down at hied to look past the fact that he was more turned on than he&039;d been in a decade, he realized he felt different As if he&039;d just stepped out of the shower And the dull ache that had been knotting his lower back all day was gone "Yeah," he said "I do feel better"