Lord of Lightning by Suzanne Forster

countered. “I’ll get the glue.”
    What greeted Lise inside the storage cabinet—in addition to the regular supplies—was a bowl of petrified papier-mache, several piles of wadded construction paper, and two opened tubes of glue, both of them nearly squeezed dry. Someday her students would learn the difference between a storage cabinet and a wastebasket.
    “Off to the supply room,” she called to Julie, who was still mumbling to herself over the instructions.
    Lise slipped the supply room door key off its hook and shut the cabinet. She’d barely left the classroom and entered the corridor when she saw a figure step out of the gloom at the end of the hall. Her intuition told her who it was as she strained to make out the shadowy features of the man who was walking toward her.
    “Stephen?” His name slipped out under her breath. He couldn’t possibly have heard her. There was a flashing energy about him that was almost visible as he walked up to her. It put her instantly on guard.
    “What are you doing here?” she said.
    She wasn’t sure what made her more apprehensive—his silence, or the blazing concentration of blue in his eyes as he stopped and stood before her. His gaze swept over her body with the intensity of a spotlight, leaving her feeling as though she’d been searched without ever having been touched.
    She repeated the question softly, reaching for a breath. “What are you doing here?”
    “I thought I’d been invited,” he said.
    “Oh, yes ... well, school’s out for the day. The kids are already gone.”
    “I didn’t come for the kids, Lise ... I came for you.”
    “For me?” Her throat went dry, and her heart went wild. “What does that mean?”
    His eyes touched hers, and their searchlight intensity narrowed, probing, penetrating her thoughts. “You know what it means.”
    “No ... I don’t.”
    His eyes darkened then, reproaching her. “This isn’t like you, Lise. It’s not in you to lie, even to yourself.”
    But I lied for you, she thought. I told the museum crowd you were harmless—a tourist—when a part of me sensed they were right. You are different, and frightening. Lise looked away, her heart pounding. Why hadn’t she listened to her own doubts and fears about him? Had she been too busy defending him? Or had she suppressed them? Either way she was acting like a woman who didn’t know her own mind.
    “I came for you, Lise ... to be with you.”
    His voice was taut and sure and rivetingly male. There was such certainty in it, such latent power that she felt a strange weakening of her will, almost a giddiness. He knew what he wanted and for some reason that thrilled her. He’d come for her. He’d come to make love to her. She couldn’t let that happen, of course. It was too crazy even to consider, but that didn’t stop her from going weak-kneed at the thought.
    He touched the collar of her white linen blouse, almost as though to straighten it, but his hand lingered and drifted down the lapel, grazing her breast. His thumb lifted the edge of the top button. “You know why I’m here, don’t you?”
    She held in a sigh, and its energy trembled down her body. Even though she shook her head imperceptibly, she loved the heat of his hand against her. It was dark and concentrated, like his eyes. The vibrancy of his fingers, the thought of what else they might do, sent strokes of anticipation radiating through her.
    “Lise ... answer me.”
    She looked up raggedly, her control ebbing away. “Yes, I know why you’re here.”
    He released her then, leaving her swaying in his wake as he scanned the corridor and spotted the supply room door to his right. Darkness spilled into the hallway as he opened the door and turned back to her.
    “We can’t go in there—”
    But she let herself be drawn into the room with him, her heart rocketing as he closed the door behind them. She relinquished the key without protest, watching it glow in the dim light as he locked them in. The