His Mind Games - A Dark and Erotic Paranormal Romance Read online

  HIS MIND GAMES

  MIND GAMES #1

  A DARK AND EROTIC PARANORMAL ROMANCE

  Copyright © 2015 Rachel Dunning.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Cover Design, Copyright 2015 Rachel Dunning

  Smashwords Edition.

  ISBN: 9781311219824

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Rachel Dunning:

  Her Mind Games, Mind Games #2

  Johnny, #1 Johnny Series

  Losing Johnny, #2 Johnny Series

  Taking Johnny, #3 Johnny Series

  Finding North, #1 Naïve Mistakes Series

  East Rising, #2 Naïve Mistakes Series

  West-End Boys, #3 Naïve Mistakes Series

  Deep South, #4 Naïve Mistakes Series

  Red-Hot Blues, Standalone Novel

  Like You, #1 Perfectly Flawed Series

  Know Me, #1 Truthful Lies

  Find Me, #2 Truthful Lies

  Need Me, #3 Truthful Lies

  Christmas Comfort, #1 Hot Holidays Series

  Easter Sundae, #2 Hot Holidays Series

  Girl-Nerds Like it Harder, #1 Girl-Nerd Series

  Girl Nerds Like it Faster, #2 Girl-Nerd Series

  Girl-Nerds Like it Deeper, #3 Girl-Nerd Series

  Girl-Nerds Like it Longer, #4 Girl-Nerd Series

  For news of upcoming releases, visit:

  http://racheldunningauthor.blogspot.com

  Or connect with me on Facebook:

  http://bit.ly/RachelDunning

  Table of Contents

  CONTENT WARNING

  PROLOGUE

  ~ Luke ~

  PART ONE

  ~ Crystal ~

  -1-

  -2-

  -3-

  -4-

  -5-

  -6-

  -7-

  -8-

  -9-

  -10-

  -11-

  -12-

  PART TWO

  ~ Crystal ~

  -13-

  -14-

  -15-

  -16-

  -17-

  -18-

  -19-

  -20-

  -21-

  BOOK II

  CONTENT WARNING

  This book contains explicit sexual content, violence and strong language. Only appropriate for readers aged 17 and older.

  PROLOGUE

  ~ Luke ~

  The blackness of the dream was nothing compared to the reality it would bring. I didn’t know that then. All I knew was the feel of her warm skin under my hand as I brought myself behind her, the sense of her moisture as I pushed inside her—the girl I had yet to meet. The girl who would turn my mind into a roiling mass of madness as I hunted the different worlds to find her.

  I dreamed of her before I knew her. But it was no feathery dream of clouds and soft cushions in the sky. This was a dream of nightfall, of my lips between her thighs while she growled and hummed. A dream of red satin lace covered in fire. I dreamed of her hands through my hair, the arch of her back as she drove herself into me. I dreamed of her flavor, the feel of her heat as my tongue found her depths.

  And those depths were filled with sin and lust and want.

  She groaned as my hands explored the hillocks of her butt, over the three wide scars on her leg. I pushed her onto her stomach, grabbed her hips and drove myself into her deeply, feeling her squeeze down on me from inside as I fought to gain my control.

  She pushed upwards against me, her butt an hourglass of heady madness, pulling me deeper.

  My fingers drizzled over three more scars on her back, deep gashes of suffering that made her all the more beautiful. Electric fire sizzled on my fingertips as I touched them.

  They glowed, the scars, blue and white and hot as I plumbed her depth.

  She rocked into me, not letting me hold back, squeezing and swallowing me until all I could do...was burst.

  My fingers dug deep into her hips, pushing bruises down on her soft skin. Her lightly colored hair swayed as I grabbed it between my fingers. Her own fingers clutched the silk sheets as I lost control, forgetting everything.

  She shoved further upwards, pushing, fighting—and then she screamed.

  Her head shot back as she pumped herself into me, the lines on her back glowing as the bliss ripped through her. She howled, like the wolves howl in the hills, moonlight shining into the room and over her skin as the insanity took over us.

  I dreamed of her before I met her.

  But it was no dream.

  PART ONE

  ~ Crystal ~

  -1-

  I am a magnet for trouble.

  So are all the others of my kind.

  I grew up in foster homes. By the time I was seventeen I had been through eleven of them.

  It all started with Raymond Southport. He was a prick. He was also my foster dad. He also masturbated in the bathroom while thinking of putting his fingers inside me.

  I was thirteen.

  No, he never actually touched me. But that’s the problem. That’s the problem with all of it. Because he did. In my head.

  And I felt it.

  I might have noticed it because I was hitting puberty. Or maybe it was because no one before had ever had such impinging thoughts around me. (His thoughts were truly...intrusive.) Either way, I caught the first hints of my abilities at that young age.

  I had been watering the lawn, having fun spraying this hosepipe up in a wide arc while Ray drank a beer on the porch, when I noticed him getting cozy around me. I felt hands on my body, but when I turned, there were no hands there. And no Ray. It was a bright day, very sunny, the flowers all strutting. I kept turning around, trying to find who was holding me, who was pushing me, who was...undressing me. I must have looked like a dog chasing its tale.

  Ray was gone.

  I felt his hands lower, lower, lower...

  I fell to my knees on the ground.

  I wept. I had no idea what was happening to me, no idea about sex or sexuality. No one had bothered to explain the birds and the bees to me yet. That’s the problem when you have no parents and each home you go to is left wondering if you’ve had The Talk or not had The Talk. In short, no one ever gave me The Talk.

  It happened the next day as well. And the next. I could actually feel him on me. Trust me, touching was involved—whether it was “him” or some ghost, it didn’t matter.

  Of course, the third time it happened, I had cottoned on to the fact that Ray was actually doing it, he was always in my head when it occurred, and so I accused him.

  It went nowhere. Of course not. I was adamant he’d “touched me,” but when questioned more deeply, I did what any good girl does: I told the truth. The whole truth. And nothing but.

  Big mistake.

  After everyone was done staring at me in shock (except Ray, who simply fidgeted and broke into sweats) I was taken out of the Southports’ home, reprimanded for telling lies, and labeled as delusional.

  They didn’t call it delusional as such. The crazy-manuals have a lot more fancy sounding names for it, seventy different names for the same thing so they have more opportunities
to prescribe different drugs and raise the pharma stock prices. But delusional is pretty much what it came down to.

  I came out of that knowing one thing: Telling the truth gets you nowhere.

  I’m happy to say that I never lost my virginity until the ripe old age of seventeen, closer to eighteen.

  Fortunately, Raymond seemed the exception to the rule. I never had any other foster fathers (or brothers) getting it on with me in my head. I did have a foster mother once who was fascinated with my breasts. She fondled them in her mind once at the dinner table and thought about how wonderful it would be to have firm tits like mine at her age (her words). My, wouldn’t Steve like that. But I sensed her feely-feeliness was more of a curiosity than a sexual desire. Honestly, when it happened, I simply giggled.

  I couldn’t read minds. I didn’t hear thoughts or words. But I got concepts and, in rare cases, if the emotion was powerful enough, I got the whole caboodle along with it—hands on my body, pressures against my skin. I would learn to control this later on, and would learn a few other tricks as well, but growing up was pretty rough.

  -2-

  In all my foster-care years I only ever really loved one boy. His name was Tommy Halyarck. If I had known the man called Jack would kill him to get to me, would I have left Marfa so quickly? It’s one of those questions that solves nothing even if answered.

  Tommy Halyarck was a lanky guy with black hair and long arms. Not very good looking, not ugly either. He had a boyish face. He’d carry my books from school and we’d talk about Shakespeare or Jane Austen, or some Indie Rock band out of California that was rocking up the airwaves. He was an artist. A “good guy.” And I loved him. He loved the sound of my name as well, Crystal Loradeen. My last name is the only thing I have left to remember my parents by. It’s what started me and him talking initially. He was a bit of an intellectual, and helped me source the name as one of Gaelic origin.

  He and I saw each other for six months. We’d only kissed in those six months, nothing more. It was an innocent love. We were mad for each other. Finally, after much discussion and embarrassment, checking if it’s OK, and only if you’re comfortable—No, only if you’re comfortable? Are you comfortable? I am. You? Yes, if you are...—we decided to do the deed.

  I don’t know what other girls’ first times are like. Mine was special. We made mistakes. He ejaculated early (before getting inside me, even). We laughed about it. He blushed. We waited a little bit, kissed. He told me he was so sorry and that he was so embarrassed. I didn’t care, I loved him.

  After twenty minutes, we tried again. It was nothing like the first time. It was electric. It was passionate.

  There were fireworks, and the fireworks were inside of me. Five seconds lasted a lifetime. The moment of orgasm was exhilarating. I felt every quiver of his shaft as he burst inside me.

  And then something happened.

  I felt my mind flow out of me...

  ...and into him.

  I became every nerve surrounding his shaft, the tip, the bottom, every twist and wild reach for my insides. I actually was these things. I was the explosion, the high, the scream, the pain, the joy, the ecstasy.

  I was his mind, his thoughts...

  And that’s when the pain began.

  Time stopped. And we were locked in the moment of climax. Locked. It’s not a pleasant feeling. I think orgasms are designed this way to result in maximum pleasure—the sour before the sweet. But being stuck in one—it’s torture.

  He was afraid. I had entered his mind too deeply, and he’d entered mine. I had felt impressions from his mind before, but never like this.

  Tommy’s mind felt trapped. He wanted to get out, but couldn’t.

  We left the world we were in, the bed, the sheets, the mattress...

  ...and entered another one. Dark and stormy. A desert, mountains in the distance. Thunder, lightning. A cold breeze that is pleasant and soft...

  This was my prime ability, I would soon discover. The creation of worlds. Inner worlds which people can actually experience. Matter is different there. Energy is different. Sensations are different.

  And time...is different.

  It was the first time I was experiencing it as such. Prior to that I had only felt impressions from others, never actually created a world within my mind that somebody could walk in. But I had grown accustomed to unusual occurrences with my mind for a long time, so the event caught me by no surprise.

  I had no control of what we felt, of what was happening, but I relished in it.

  Tommy didn’t.

  In my “inner” world, time follows different rules. Sometimes a moment can last forever when only seconds have passed in the real world. I didn’t know it then, but I would soon. (Hell of a time to realize it, I know.)

  Tommy was locked in, stuck, desperate to get out, desperate to gain control. And I was orgasming, exploding, dazed by the convulsions of my body and the shudder of my thighs. The pleasure was exquisite, but it had made me lose my senses.

  In his mind, I heard him scream. And then I felt his pain—his pain—down there, aching, as if someone had tied the electrodes of a car battery to his cock and was pumping juice through it, never ending, always tense, the agony never going away.

  I was in two worlds at the same time.

  Clouds formed in the inner world we were now sharing. His face was front and center in those clouds, lightning shafting all around him. And he screamed. Oh, gods, he screamed. He screamed for sweet mercy, begged for it to stop, to end. An ocean roiled and crashed against rocky crags which spiraled up so high they were dizzying.

  In the “real” world, he only sweated, waited, grimaced ever so slightly.

  A year went by in that inner world. It could have been a year of bliss, of orgasm after orgasm under the sun, in the water, under a waterfall.

  But it was hell instead.

  It would be the last night I ever saw Tommy.

  After it was over, Tommy fell to my side, his face pale. “I feel ill,” he said. “I feel.... That was weird. That was...”

  Weird. It was a word I had come to know deeply.

  He got up and ran to the bathroom, fell once. He had almost made it to the toilet bowl when the puke started its egress. He retched three or four times.

  I sat up on the bed, naked, curled my arms around my knees. Rocked.

  He retched again.

  I sunk my head between my knees. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what’s happening, or what we experienced.

  “I think I’m hallucinating, Crystal. I think...” RETCH! “Oh, God... Maybe it’s something I ate. Maybe...”

  I got up off the bed, put some clothes on. I went to the bathroom, put my hand on his head. He flinched, pushed it away.

  “Sor—sorry, Crystal, I don’t mean to be an asshole.”

  No one ever told the truth when they gave me back to child services, because these are things no one talks about. These things “don’t happen” in “modern society.” But the reason I had been to eleven homes by this time, was because when I was around...weird things would happen to people, to their heads. They’d get ideas, thoughts, crazy wild hallucinations. Sometimes cups would shake at the breakfast table (another out-of-control ability I had stumbled upon), a car’s engine would smoke when I was angry, a lawnmower would pack up.

  Worst of all, I’d be in their heads when these things occurred, unknowingly.

  As I sat on the bathtub watching Tommy, a thought struck me that maybe I wasn’t technically in their heads at all—maybe we were in an entirely different world. An inner world created by the powers of my mind, and which received thought impressions from others, and put thought impressions into others.

  I had denied it up to this time. Call it a “puberty of magic” if you need a term for it. To me, it was simply my life.

  But now, with Tommy gasping in the bathroom, me having felt every nerve of his being as it had been inside me, having felt every pain and quiver of his—I knew about it. I finally u
nderstood.

  Tommy kept his mouth shut, didn’t admit to having joined into another world with someone he loved. Imagine it—imagine the possibilities. Two souls creating what they wanted. Heck, think of the sex that could be had. But it was easier for him to think he was “hallucinating” because he “must have eaten something bad.”

  I waited there, in the motel bathroom, hoping, hoping, hoping he’d stop, take a step back. And ask me: Crystal, did I imagine things or...did...something happen there?

  He never asked.

  I saw the fear in his eyes. Saw the terror when he looked up at me. It’s not that he didn’t ask that bothers me. It’s that he knew and didn’t ask. He didn’t really believe he’d hallucinated. This was his mind rationalizing. But he knew. And, knowing, he now wanted nothing more to do with me. You didn’t need to be a mind reader to figure that out. It was written all over his face—Witch! Demon! Devil! There have been many labels for people like me in the past. None of them pretty. (It would only be after meeting Shira Naiman several months later that I’d start referring to myself proudly as a witch. No better term fits considering what we can do.)

  There was no need for me to ask what he wanted. I’d seen it endlessly on the faces of others, every time they had sent me back to child services. No one ever said anything. And yet their faces said it all.

  I saved Tommy the stress of opening his big mouth. I got up off the bathtub, put on my shoes, grabbed my purse. And I walked out.

  The tears hemorrhaged behind my eyes as the door clicked shut. It was such a quiet click, so uneventful. But it felt like an atom bomb in the hallway.

  I walked out of the motel, walked the dusty street away from it. We were twenty miles out of town. A small town. People would talk, so we had taken an out-of-the-way spot. After a mile or so, a mile of adrenaline, I stopped. Fell to my knees.