Page 58 of Echo Unbound

"No, that's not all I was doing. Besides, I wasn't asleep. Mindfulness meditation can release tension and allow you to discover things you might have overlooked."

"Like what?"

I spread my hands over the journal pages. "Not sure yet. But I sensed that the journal is more than a written record of Sefton's plan to create an apocalypse."

He huffs. "That means you found nothing. You wasted time on navel gazing instead of studying the journal."

"Don't turn back into a jerk. I know you're anxious. I am too. But this journal is important, and we need to use more than our physical senses to understand it. Magic was at the heart of everything Sefton did, so we can't treat the journal like it's nothing more than a record of his plans."

Gabriel rubs his forehead. "Yeah, you're right. You'd think I'd be used to all this magic shit by now, but I'm not."

"It's okay. You just relax while I study the journal some more."

He lies down on the floor, hands clasped over his belly, and shuts his eyes. Does he want to take a nap? Well, I wouldn't blame him. We've had a rough couple of days.

I close my eyes and return to the mindfulness routine, starting with the journal on my lap. I feel the texture of the ink on the pages, as well as the leather cover and the stitching that holds the spine together. The scent of the leather wafts into my nostrils, and I suck in a deep breath to experience the scent.

A wriggling sensation begins in my fingers and spreads up through my palms, moving toward my wrists. It stops there, but the wriggling doesn't die away. It teases my skin as if it wants me to do something. What? I have no idea. But the book needsme to explore it, to feel every page and understand its meaning viscerally rather than physically. I flip to the next page.

The wriggling mutates into tingling.

My breaths have become heavier, almost as if a weight has settled onto my chest. I inhale slowly and exhale the same way until the weight lessens enough that I can continue my sightless exploration of the journal. Though I've never had vision issues, I can tell this isn't the kind of blind exploration that someone with reduced sight would experience. What I feel is magics. They want me to dig deeper into the journal and discover something vital.

Why can't the Echo just say what it wants? Trying to interpret magical signals gets pretty damn annoying.

As I turn the next page, I feel another presence intruding into my mental space. No, not intruding. I recognize and welcome the invasion, because it's coming from Gabriel. Does he realize what he's doing? Probably not. He hasn't been entirely comfortable with our shared power. But the silky warmth and sensuality of his presence spreads through me, awakening my body and instigating a slick heat between my thighs.

My eyes fly open.

So do Gabriel's. He springs into a sitting position, his chest heaving and the bulge in his pants much larger than it had been a few minutes ago. We gaze into each other's eyes as the weight of lust bears down on us both, and I know what the Echo wants from us right now.

"We need to fuck, Gabriel. Right now."

Chapter Seventeen

Gabriel

Little Miss Amnesia just declared that we need to fuck again, right now, here in the creepy castle. Yeah, I've got a raging hard-on. But we're supposed to be studying the journal, not getting hot and bothered. Maybe I had felt something strange a moment ago, while I lay on the floor trying to relax. Maybe it had felt like Sarah crawled inside my pants and started sucking my cock. But that was a daydream or…something. It hadn't been real.

But it felt real. Not literally, but yeah.

I hate magics. The boring, supernatural-free world was so much easier to navigate.

Sarah sets the journal on the floor and starts unbuttoning her shirt.

"Whoa there, cowgirl," I say, as I rise to my knees. "Slow down. What happened to studying the journal?"

"I did that. And it told me that we need to have sex before we can understand."

"Yeah, that sounds completely rational."

"Don't get sarcastic." She glances down at my dick. "The magics affected you too. Since when does a man turn down an offer of sex?"

"Since you declared that the journal wants us to screw each other's brains out."

"Trust me, Gabriel. We need to do this." She unhooks the last button on her shirt and shrugs out of it. "And we both want it too."

I groan and rub my hand over my mouth, because she just released the first clasp on her front-hook bra. "Of course I want you, but this is too bizarre. A book tells us what to do now? And there isn't even a bed in here. Just hard stone floors."

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