Free Roxy Harte by Sacred Revelations Page B

Another flash, crashing thunder, screaming.
    I pounded the floor of the bell tower, screaming. Rain slammed into me through the bell tower’s graceful arches, lightning so close that the hair on my arms stood up with each strike, thunder so loud, so close, it was like gunfire, ripping through my eardrums. I covered my ears with my hands, curling into a ball, crying, over and over again, “Mommy, mommy, mommy.”
    My mother wasn't coming. That was the reason I’d gone to the bell tower, my hiding place, my secret place, the one place she always knew to find me when she’d looked everywhere else. I wanted her to find me; I wanted her to take me with her.
    Lightning hit the large iron rod on top of the steeple the same moment my father pushed open the trap door, but he didn’t pull me into his arms as mother would have done, he grabbed me by the hair on top of my head, and dragged me down the spiral staircase, screaming at me to stop screaming. Screaming, “You stupid girl! You could have been killed up there! Do you want to be stuck under the dirt like your mother?”
    Hands grab me and pull me into solid warmth and still I scream. “It’s okay, sweetheart, the power went out, but you’re okay, I’m here with you.”
    The storm seems to go on for eternity, lightning, thunder, rain pounding into the glass of the French doors leading to the balcony. Lord Fyre holds me in his arms, stroking my arms and talking to me softly, calling me Sophia with each gentling sentence. “It’s going to be okay, Sophia, relax. You’re safe here, Sophia.”
    He whispers a mantra of my name, “Sophia, Sophia, Sophia,” and I don’t cringe. I don’t feel sick with the pain of losing my mother and, finally, I can relax against him, finding peace in my name, and it seems my mother has finally found a way to comfort me during the worst of the storm.

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    I awake, realizing I fell asleep during a storm, and it wasn’t a small storm. Unbelievable.
    Storms terrify me. Normally, I sit vigil, waiting for the end of the storm, fear keeping me immobile. It has been that way since I was a child, though I don’t know why. I only know that I hate storms. I wait for the end to come, not the end of my fear, but the end of time. With each roll of thunder, I wait for the trumpet blast that will signal the return of the King—the return of Jesus. Silly? Yes.
    The storm has ended. No Jesus.
    I am going to hell—for many reasons—but for today, I am going to hell because I am glad Jesus didn’t come. I would have felt sorely cheated if he had returned before my three months with this man had ended. Oh yeah, so going to hell.
    I look at the man lying next to me, looking so incredibly sinful. He sleeps and even in sleep he looks unholy. Totally and inexplicably forbidden. Sleeping, he is too much temptation and I reach my hand out to touch him, the hard plane of his chest, the skin stretched painfully taut over his pectoral muscles, his nipples hard points in the midst of all that stretched skin. Pushing down the cotton sheet that drapes over his body, I look, taking in the angular lines and solid muscle that forms the man.
    Where has my shyness gone?
    Where is the woman who hid under the covers from Garrett?
    I am not that same woman. I do not know where she went, but I am no longer she, and honestly, I am glad that she is gone.
    She would have been too afraid to join Lord Fyre for three months. She would have been too afraid of the feelings awakening in the very tissues and fibers of her being, feelings that make me want to reach out and stroke the imperfections of his body. I’ve never seen him naked. Last night that changed and I was too tired, too sore to pay much attention. I am still tired, languidly so, still not wanting to move, but it takes little effort to stroke the length of the scar on his left forearm, long and deep, slightly ragged, even