Fade To Midnight. Shannon McKenna

don’t expect too much.”

      “Not at all,” he said. “Anything is fine. And if you don’t see anything, I’ll be grateful to you for trying.”

      She busied herself by pouring her half drunk tea into the sink. Then she grabbed her pen, and the largest of her sketchbooks. Something inside her was already rubbing its hands together, eager to get to it. She craved it. Finally, she could play. No boundaries, no rules, no fear. No one would yell at her to stop. No one would be scolding her, or forbidding her, or freaking out on her. She didn’t have to draw fast, to grab an image before her head started tuning into the broadcast.

      She could take her own sweet time. Just go to that place and linger there, feeling so whole and centered and alive. Play there, for as long as she wanted. Let the broadcast roar. He’d asked for it.

      As long as it wasn’t something scary and horrible. Doubt stabbed through the rising euphoria, but the hunger was stronger. She’d been chained for so long. She couldn’t even imagine how it would feel to be loose. The sense of freedom made her almost dizzy.

      He looked shy. The first time she’d seen a crack in his perfect poise. “Uh…how do you want me…what do I do?” he asked.

      “Whatever you want,” she said. “This was your idea.”

      She waited, but he looked so lost, she finally took pity on him. “Take off your coat.” She grabbed a chair, and set it in the middle of the room, if a room so small could be said to have a middle. “Sit here.”

      He got up, shrugged off the coat, held it like he had no idea what to do with it. She grabbed it, tossed it, and gave his chest a shove to encourage him to sit. The wool of his sweater didn’t shield her hand from the shock of contact.

      They both gasped, and stopped breathing for a second. Whoa.

      He sank into the chair. Such long, stong legs. His thick muscles showed through his jeans. Nothing he wore was meant to show off his body, but the graceful drape and fold of fabric as it settled over him revealed it anyway. He’d look good in anything he wore. His hands were beautiful, too. Long, graceful fingers. And his chest. So wide. She’d felt the taut, coiled strength of him in that instant that her fingers had touched him. Oh, boy. Concentrate, Edie. Concentrate.

      He looked intensely self-conscious, which gave her a flash of tenderness. She leafed through her sketchbook for a blank page and sat for a moment, letting the pencil point dance on empty air. So nice, not to have to hurry. No shortcuts. She was used to using the fewest pen strokes possible. Not today. She could indulge herself. Take her time.

      Tingling rightness filled her hand as she set pen to paper, and almost instantly, the small, nervous Edie faded away, submerged in something larger, stronger. Unafraid. And perfectly, utterly happy.

      She’d drawn Fade Shadowseeker thousands of time, because it made her happy to draw him. Kev Larsen was Fade’s image in every detail, but drawing Kev was infinitely more satisfying. He pulsed out those macho, charismatic vibes right before her very eyes. She didn’t have to dredge images up from the depths of memory, or flesh them out with hopeful imagination. He was right there, offering infinite entry points into this drawing and a thousand future drawings.

      She was so accustomed to reaching, yearning. Grasping for something as fleeting as smoke. Kev was rock solid, real. Right there.

      She was having so much fun nailing down the details, she hardly felt the inner eye open up. It was so smooth, a natural extension of her regular perceptions. She was concentrating on the flare of his back, the breadth of his shoulders, the elegant jut of his cheekbone beneath the mottled webwork of scars. She sketched his nose, the grooves bracketing his mouth. And his eyes, over and over. Trying to catch the luminous flash, the fabulous effect of captured light. She wanted more; the patterns of his body hair, the shape of of his nipples, the way his pants rode on his hips. She wanted these things…right…now.

      “Would you take off your sweater, please?”

      It popped out of her, in the offhand tone of an artist making a request of a professional model. Then it hit her, how provocative the words must sound to him. He was no artists’ model. He looked startled.

      “Never mind,” she said hastily, her face burning. “Don’t.”

      “No, no, it’s OK,” he muttered, but he looked lost and nervous as he fumbled for the bottom of his sweater. She opened her mouth to beg him to stop, but he yanked the sweater off with a jerk. Too late.

      She choked on whatever she was going to say. And then forgot it.

      He was covered with scars. He was lean, every tendon, muscle and sinew of his body on display, and the skin of his entire torso was crisscrossed with a tracery of silver scars, in eerily regular patterns. Someone had cut him, all over. Burned him, too.

      She started to shake.

      It was no surprise. She’d seen the shape he was in that day eighteen years ago. Bloodied, blistered. It had been obvious, even to the sheltered child that she had been, that he had been cut and burned.

      But it hadn’t sunk in how badly. Not completely. Not until now.

      It slipped through her guard, and stabbed deep. Her throat got hot and tight, her eyes foggy. The pen hovered over the paper, uncertain of its next stroke. He swam in and out of focus.

      “I’ll put it back on,” he said. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

      “No,” she murmured, her voice froggy. Tears had fallen on the drawing, blurring the lines of his chin. She flipped the notebook over to a fresh page, wiping her eyes with the backs of her fingers. She could see from the murk on her knuckles that she’d smeared ink on her face, but she couldn’t be bothered with it. “Let me, ah, just finish this.”

      She took a deep breath and put her emotions aside, to open herself to what the drawing wanted. And as she did, the hum of awareness suddenly reached the threshhold of her conscious mind.

      The receiving tower was open. It had been for a while. But oh, my God. This was absolutely different than her usual experience.

      She wasn’t picking up any mental static, because he wasn’t broadcasting any. He wasn’t obsessing about the past, or worrying about the future. His mind was clear, sharp. As focused as a laser beam. Focused, completely and entirely upon…her.

      Her lungs froze, her thigh muscles clenched. Her. That was what he was thinking and feeling. That was all he was thinking or feeling. It flooded through her, each wave higher, deeper. Her. Just Edie.

      His face did not change. His mouth was flat. He did not look at her. She had a feeling he did not dare. He rested his hands on his knees, clenching his hands into fists, unclenching them. Each pulse made the taut, sinewy muscles in his arms and shoulders contract.

      Desire. The burning ache of it. The awareness created a feedback loop. She was aware of herself through his eyes. Her smell, her body, her hair, her eyes, her hands, perceived through the lens of his perceptions and feelings. His hunger to touch her, seize her. Take her.

      She could hardly fathom it. He wanted her. Shy, invisible Edie. She’d never seen herself as desirable. She could pass, on a good day, if somebody else dressed her. But she seldom tried to attract attention. She’d cultivated invisibility for most of her life. She had no experience navigating wild desire. His hunger triggered an answering ache, so sharp it made her want to whimper.

      She tried to breathe. Her lungs were locked.

      The tendons in his neck stood out. The air was cooling as the sun sank. Dusk deepened, leaching the gold glow out of the room.

      His chest had goosebumps. His nipples were taut, dark. She pictured herself running her hands over his chest. Feeling those tight nubs against her palms. Bending to feel them with her lips, her tongue.

      He felt it. She saw his throat bob, his fists clench. His response sharpened hers, making the loop hum, sing, surge sharply in volume.

      Another shock. He sensed