A piece of cake-tart under normal circumstances. A real challenge with Orchid breathing down his neck. It worried him that he had over projected a few minutes ago. Orchid now knew that he was no class six. He had not meant for her to discover that so soon in their still-prickly relationship. She did not seem unduly concerned about the fact that he was an off-the-chart talent, but that was almost beside the point.
The problem was that he had not been in full control of his power at that moment. The effects of the alarm system on his keen senses had been painful. He had been tense and edgy and increasingly desperate for escape. Orchid's incredible prism had come as a glorious, intoxicating relief.
But that was not the whole of it and he knew it.
He could blame the oscillating security siren and the urgency of the situation for his failure to moderate his power but he was well aware that was not the only reason he had shoved too much energy, too quickly out onto the psychic plane.
The truth was, the more he worked with Orchid the greedier he became for the experience. In his whole life, he'd never had an opportunity to project the full range of his talent through a prism. Few talents as powerful as himself got the chance because, even if they were willing to admit the level of their power, it was virtually impossible to find prisms who could handle it.
He had overshot the mark a few minutes ago, jacked up the power by accident, discovered that Orchid could deal with it and now all he could think about was going to the limit again the next time.
Preferably while he was making love to her. The image of her, naked and open and welcoming beneath him when they linked nearly shattered his hard-won concentration.
Control, he thought. Control was the key.
He breathed deeply, using the techniques of meta-zen-syn meditation to regain his self-mastery.
Finding a delicate seam in a steel wall behind a painting in the dark was a breeze compared to solving his more pressing problem, Rafe decided. It looked as though he had finally found a possible candidate for a wife and she was all wrong.
Other than the fact that she was an extremely powerful, indeed, breathtakingly strong, full-spectrum-plus ice-prism, Orchid Adams met virtually none of the criteria he had given to Hobart Batt.
In the beginning, she had been distinctly wary of him. He'd had the impression that if he made one wrong move, she would walk out in the middle of the focus assignment. But she had appeared to relax after their first link. It was as if he had passed a test of some kind. He had been cautiously optimistic.
However, it had quickly become obvious that they had almost nothing in common.
From her coff-tea house wardrobe, which, from what he had observed, consisted of nothing but faded jeans, slouchy blazers, and black T-shirts, to her love of the romantic, they clashed.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the situation was that he seemed to irritate her as much as she irritated him. But, as if he had, without warning, developed new, masochistic tendencies, he kept coming back for more.
Physically, she was striking, not pretty. She was slender and small-boned but she was definitely not pale, delicate, or sweet. She moved with energy and grace. Her witchy green eyes held a dangerous mix of cool self- confidence and mischief. Her black, shoulder-length hair framed a face that was animated with intelligence. She handled herself with the assurance that often characterized a full-spectrum prism. Everyone knew they tended to be arrogant.
The irony of it all was that, given her career as a novelist, she would probably prove to be the one woman in a million who actually liked his house. He had a nasty suspicion that it looked like the sort of place she imagined a psychic vampire would inhabit.
This was definitely not the mate he had set out to find.
So why in five hells did she feel so right?
For the past month he had haunted every focus agency in town in search of a full-spectrum who would make a promising candidate for a bride. He had spent a small fortune hiring one prism after another, only to discover that he felt nothing at all, either in or outside of the focus link.
Eventually he had worked his way through a variety of agencies until he reached tiny Psynergy, Inc. When Clementine Malone had introduced him to Orchid at the beginning of the week, he had felt every instinct he possessed, strat-talent and otherwise, go to full alert. Something in him had throbbed with anticipation before the ink was dry on the agency contract.
That something was still throbbing. Which could prove embarrassing if he was not careful, he thought, thoroughly disgusted with his lack of self-control.
Choosing the right wife was too important a decision to be left to his hormones, he reminded himself.
He wished he knew if Orchid felt anything at all during the focus sessions. If she did, she managed to conceal it extremely well.
'What's going on?' Orchid asked sharply. 'Are you making any progress?'
On top of everything else, she had a tendency to nag.
He used the ultrasensitive pads of his fingertips to search out the hidden lever in the floor. 'Got it.'
'Thank heavens. I don't think I could take another five minutes in this place.'
'I'm not exactly having a great time, either.'
Rafe decided it would not be smart to tell her that if he had to spend another five minutes in the dark alone with her he would probably start howling at the twin moons, Yakima and Chelan, even though he could not see them.
Definitely an uncool move. So very primitive. Bound to scare off a potential wife.
Damn. He was already starting to think of her as a mate. Things were moving too fast here. They were out of control. He had to step back from the brink and think about this before he took it any farther.
'You don't seem to be having any difficulty finding your way around in this tomb,' Orchid observed thoughtfully.
'No.'
'You know, there's enough contact through the link for me to realize that you have a clear sense of where we are in this gallery, but it doesn't feel visual. At least, not to me. Can you actually see in the dark?'
'I have excellent night vision.' He found the tiny switch that freed the mechanism. 'One of my biggest assets.' Although Hobart Batt did not seem to think it was a big selling point to a potential spouse, he thought.
'But can you really distinguish objects in this kind of total darkness?' Orchid sounded surprisingly curious all of a sudden.
'No, of course not. At least, not the way you mean. No one can see where there's a total absence of light.' He hesitated. 'I use . . . other senses.'
'You mean like hearing? Touch? Smell?'
'Sort of—' He wondered where all this was going. 'It's hard to explain. There's something else involved.'
'Hmm. I'm not sure I'd like to have a better sense of smell.' There was a delicate pause. 'Doesn't it get to be a little overpowering when you're in a crowded room or when you take out the garbage?'
Rafe felt an uncomfortable warmth suffuse his face. It had been a lot of years since he had been acutely embarrassed by a woman. Luckily Orchid could not see his face at that moment.
'The sense of smell is different when it's augmented by paranormal energy,' he said stiffly. 'It doesn't translate quite the same way on the metaphysical plane.'
'Oh. Well, what about that other sense you mentioned? The one you called something else?'
He hesitated, his fingers on the trap door release. He wondered why she had chosen that moment to start asking personal questions. 'It doesn't have a name. I can't describe it except to say that it's a sort of awareness.' Hunter's intuition.
'Interesting.'
'Will there be any other questions before I try to open this damned trapdoor?'
'Sorry. Didn't mean to get personal.'
He wrapped his hands around the lever and raised it cautiously. There was a squeak of steel hinges. A rush of air followed. An instant later, emergency lighting from a cramped stairwell flooded into the gallery.
'You did it.' Orchid hurried to the opening. 'My God, you really did it. You found the exit.'
