I returned from the lakeside in the early evening a pale golden hue to my skin and my nose and cheeks pink with too much sun. half an hour and a shower later I was standing in front of my closet, running a brush trough my hair and trying to decided on something to wear.

I opted for a simple, comfortable outfit. Jeans, a black form-fitting off the shoulder t-shirt with sleeves that almost reached my knuckles, and black velvet chinese slippers. As an afterthought, I tucked my Browning in my waistband at the small of my back, and clipped my hair into a low pony tail. A dab of nude lip gloss and some mascara, and I was ready to go.

As I made my way up the steps to Edward's front door, I noticed it was ajar. When he didn't answer my repeated knocks, I pushed it open slowly, sticking my head in.

"Hello?" I called out, peering into the darkness inside.

Nothing.

I stepped into the cool, silent hallway. "Hello?" I repeated, looking around. "Edward?"

Still no reply. A quick look into the large living room revealed it to be unoccupied. I paused, frowning. He told me not to be late, and now he didn't appear to be here.

Which gave me the perfect opportunity to have a look around.

I may have been under Edward's spell, but I was still an FBI agent, and he an escaped convict. As far as I was concerned, he'd lost his right to privacy when he broke the law. I turned away from the living room and wandered into the kitchen. It was a welcoming room, warm evening light setting the oiled golden wood of the long farmhouse table and polished stone floor aglow.

The table was beautifully set for two at one end. Clearly Edward was accustomed to living the good life - he knew what he was doing when it came to setting a table. I moved down to that end, touching the fine linen napkins and admiring the exquisite plates and clear almost soap bubble-like crystal glassware. The silverware looked - and felt - like real silver. It was a hazard of my job, such interest. I was constantly inspecting the luxury items we seized to further my knowledge and understanding. I returned the fork to its place and turned to the counter. On it was a bowl of salad already prepared, fresh and green and dotted with edible flowers, and when I cracked open the oven on the huge aga, spotted a lasagna just beginning to bubble around the edges. A bottle of Castello di Ama was open and breathing on the sideboard.

It was a homy comfortable scene, and something was off.

Frowning, I scanned the room. This was not the kitchen of a bachelor. It had a feminine feel to it, and there was nothing homy or feminine about Edward Masen.

Crowded on the windowsill above the counter were books, a mixture of cookbooks and paperbacks. On closer inspection, a couple of the paperbacks turned out to be romance novels. Based on the dust on the sill, they had not been touched in some time. This obviously indicated a female presence, which led me to wonder if Edward was occupying the house illegally. Another possibility was that it might belong to a friend. It certainly didn't belong to him, or to any of his known aliases. I made a mental note to do a little digging. I couldn't use the FBI for this without tipping Jasper off, so I would have to wor with whatever was publicly available. The tax records would be a start.

Beyond a narrow passageway was a door leading to a library. Books ranging from new to positively ancient lined the wall to wall bookshelves. I was almost certain a fair number of them were first editions and quite valuable.

Old and comfortable armchairs and sofas occupied most of the rest of the space. Between two of the chairs, a small table with an ongoing chess game waited for its players to return. A fire was laid in the huge stone fireplace, and on the coffee table were a small platter of artfully arranged apple and pear slices, and another of smoked salmon on small triangles of toast, decorated with a dollop of sour cream, caviar, and a sprig of chive. On a side table stood an ice bucket with a bottle of what I assumed was champagne.

I pulled the bottle out, and my eyebrows rose in surprise. Though I had never sampled the contents of the gold bottle with the pewter ace of spades on the front, I was certainly familiar with it. Several cases of it had been part of the assets seized from a rather well known and crooked music mogul. He was currently cooling his heels in jail while his champagne languished in the FBI seizure storage locker, a warehouse containing the goods seized in our raids. Its ties to hip-hop culture made it a surprising choice for one such as Edward Masen.

There were framed photos on the walls and ranged around the room. Pictures of people as attractive as Edward was. A beautiful woman with toffee colored hair, an absurdly handsome blond man with clear blue eyes and patrician features, and a tiny, fey looking young woman with spiky black hair, lost in an oversized sweater, staring into the camera with haunted grey eyes. There were even - and this led to even more questions - a few pictures of a younger looking Edward. Playing the piano, head hung low, eyes closed, or staring moodily out of a window; they all looked like he had been unaware of having his picture taken.

With a look toward the doorway, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and snapped close-ups of the various faces in the pictures, then left the library and went back out into the front hall to check upstairs.

"Anybody home?" I called out tentatively. Again there was no answer. Where the hell was he? Clearly I was expected, so where was my host?

At the end of the long hallway at the top of the stairs, one door stood open, light spilling out into the darkened hallway. I made my way toward it, admiring the exquisite artwork on the walls, every painting signed with the initials EMII, and poking my head around the corner.

I drew a single slow breath and held it, transfixed. Expecting an empty room, I had come face to face with the pale, naked slopes of Edward Masen's bare back. My eyes took in the smallest details of him, from the exquisitely molded planes of ivory flesh, up the steep incline of his shoulders, to the rusty red roots of his tousled titian hair.

It was obvious that the right thing to do was to make my presence known, but I couldn't resist the temptation to observe him while he remained unaware of me, while he was being himself, and not reacting to my presence and trying to manipulate me.

He stood before an old, well-polished easel, the honey-dark wood gleaming with decades of use. To his right, a scuffed table that had clearly been used by a painter for most of its existence, held several mason jars full of varying degrees of dirty liquid sprouting paint brushes, crumpled rags and mutilated tubes of paint, all of it covered in splatters, drips and smudges of color. In the middle of the chaos, incongruous, a balloon glass as clear as a soap bubble, full of a warm amber liquid I assumed was brandy.

I noted all this quickly, Edward being the main draw, the true focus of my interest. A pair of faded and threadbare paint-spattered jeans hung low off his slim hips, and he held an old-fashioned wooden painter's palette in one hand and a brush in the other with which he feverishly applied paint to the canvas that was obscured by his body. The way his body subtly swayed or jittered with the different brushstrokes he used - long and sweeping or small, frenetic and rapid - mesmerized me. Edward painted not just with his hand, but with his whole being, the muscles of his back sliding sinuously beneath creamy-pale skin, his hips and feet shifting in a subtle dance to the music of his inspiration. He appeared sharply focused on the subject of his painting, entwined and at one with it.

Moving silently into the doorway, I tried to catch a glimpse of the painting, but the canvas was fairly small, and was mostly obscured by his body. I caught the occasional flash of dark paint at the borders, but nothing else.

Until he stepped back and bent down to sign the bottom left corner, revealing the finished work.

At first I thought it was just an excellent copy of the Mona Lisa, and wondered if he was planning something illegal, but then I noticed it didn't look quite right. There were differences -

It hit me suddenly, almost physically.

Though he had stayed true to the colors and style of the original, faithfully reproducing Leonardo's technique, it was me he had painted beneath Mona Lisa's demure clothes. Her secret smile graced my lips, and my brown eyes held her knowing look. It was simply stunning.

I inhaled sharply.

At the sound, Edward straightened and turned, his focus swinging sharply on me.

With his white skin and pale amber eyes, he reminded me of an arctic wolf who had been caught unawares on his own territory, unmoving in his frozen awareness. His eyes blazed briefly, startled, wild, ready to defend, then melted into recognition. The transformation was immediate; I watched his conman persona settle about him like a cloak and knew that the real Edward was hidden away from me again.

No longer able to watch him covertly, I decided my eyes needed a break from his. I cast them around the rest of the room, which I had so far ignored in favor of Edward and his immediate surroundings. There were other copies on the walls, some I recognized - Manet's The Luncheon on the Grass, After the Bath by Renoir, and one of Monet's women with a parasol - and some I didn't.

They all had one thing in common: they all contained me, and I was naked in most of them.

"What the hell?" I blurted out.

I looked at the Renoir and heat bloomed on my cheeks, not because of the nudity, but because of the precision with which he had painted me, and the intimacy it implied. Not only in the soft, pensive expression he had put on my face, but the lushness with which he pained my skin. It was luminous. I looked at my own breast rendered in creamy peach and pink tones and almost felt every brush stroke he had applied as if he had placed them directly on my own skin.

The hairs on the nape of my neck and arms stood up and I shuddered, his subsequent intake of breath drawing my attention back to him. He was watching me intently, as if he had just noticed something, and I imagined for one crazy moment he had known what I was thinking.

Uncharacteristically shy and feeling gauche all of a sudden, I dropped my eyes involuntarily and then quickly went back to scanning the walls for something to focus on that didn't contain an image of me.

I found it in a framed bond certificate hanging on the wall among the masters. Frowning, I strode closer, peering at it carefully. "Is that a forgery?" I said sharply.

"No," he lied, his voice coming from right behind me. I shrieked and spun around, finding him inches away from me, standing uncomfortably close.

"Don't sneak up on me," I hissed, taking a step back, and backing into the wall.

"I'm sorry," he said, sounding anything but. Our eyes locked, and ages passed before his clear eyes, darkening to whisky with the waning light, dropped to my mouth. His eyes riveted to my lips, he closed the distance I had just put between us. He was so close I could feel the heat coming off him. Never taking his eyes off my mouth, he began to move slowly in.

I didn't even pretend I believed his lie about the certificate being real. "How did you match the colors in the seal?" I asked, a slight tremor in my voice as I tried to press myself into the wall when his body brushed against mine.

He dropped the lie. "I eyeballed it," he murmured, his breath warm on my lips.

Contact. His lips touched mine, tugging first the upper one and then the lower one into a gentle kiss. His fingers ghosted over my hips, sending an electric hum dancing over my skin.

My eyelids fluttered shut. "That's unusual," I stammered against is mouth, acutely aware of his hands moving from my hips to my waist, lightly, carefully, as if he thought I might break, or bolt. "Most forgers specialize only in one or two aspects of..."

Heated lips closed over mine, silencing me. His hands closed firmly around my waist and he pulled me against him, kissing me roughly, devouring me.

For a moment I lost myself in the kiss, melting into him bonelessly; then reason returned in a flood. I put my hands up against his chest, flushing deeply when I encountered soft bare skin over tight muscle and inhaled warm, earthy, male. I pushed fruitlessly, unable to shift him.

"Wait!" I yelped, wriggling out from his grip and slipping out from between him and the wall. "Stop! Just...Wait. I need to think." I was startled and confused, and...and...distracted, and I moved away from him, putting the table with his painting paraphernalia between us.

He started walking toward me, stalking me, and I held up a finger. "No! I said firmly, pointing it at him. "Don't. Just stay right there."

He stopped obediently, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and just watched me.

I took a deep steadying breath. "I don't...We need to talk. I want answers, remember?" I sounded like I was trying to remind myself instead of him.

He continued observing me for a moment, seemingly undecided about something. "Alright," he said finally. "Answers." He nodded. "Would you please wait in the library while I quickly wash up and change? Help yourself to anything you want."

Nodding back, I preceded him out the door and went down the stairs without looking back.


When he came into the room not more than ten minutes later, he was casually dressed in black jeans and a black turtleneck of lightweight cashmere. His hair, damp from a quick shower, had been mostly tamed. He was, somewhat incongruously, barefoot.

"I apologize for not being there to welcome you. I lose track of time when I paint. Please forgive me." He reached for my hand and smoothly brought it up to his lips, turning it to place a kiss on the back of my fingers.

I waited a beat and then slid by hand out of his cool grip, my gaze shifting away from his.

Wordlessly, he pulled the champagne out of the bucket and smoothly eased the cork out with a muffled pop, while I tucked myself in the corner of the sofa facing the fireplace. I watched covertly as he poured a little into the glasses, filling them the rest of the way up when the foam had subsided. Picking up both glasses, he turned to me.

"This isn't the champagne I would have chosen for tonight, but it was all I had. I'm sure you'll find it quite pleasant, though. It has a subtle complexity that I find interesting," he said, handing me one of the flutes in which the pale gold liquid whispered with bubbles rising in delicate swirls. "It has a crisp, delicate floral scent, yet the flavor is earthy, with a hint of a bite and a smooth, long finish."

I stared at him open mouthed as he sat down beside me setting his flute down on the table and picking up a slice of the pear and cheese. The contrast between the barely civilized, half-naked artist upstairs who had practically forced himself on me, and the suave connoisseur of the finer things in life who sat next to me was throwing me for a loop.

"Here," he said seductively, touching the slice to my bottom lip, and running it gently along the length of it, leaving a wet trail of juice, "taste this."

Too dazed to do anything but comply, I darted my tongue out and licked the sweet juice off my lip, then parted them and closed them over the fruit, taking a bite.

"Now take a sip." His voice was almost a whisper as he closed his hand over mine around the stem of my glass, and guided it to my mouth. I swallowed my bite and took in a mouthful of the cold liquid, holding it there, and found it was perfectly complemented by the mild cheese and pear. I took another sip of my champagne while watching his lips close around the rest of the slice he had fed me.

"So," I said, tearing my eyes away from his mouth, "I believe you have some explaining to do."

He was in the process of taking a sip himself, and smiled around the rim of his glass, presumably at my unintentional reference to I Love Lucy, whom I absolutely loathed, by the way. "I suppose I do," he said, fixing me with his unsettling stare. "Where would you like to start?"

I slipped off my shoes and pulled my legs up on the sofa, tucking them under me, getting comfortable for what was sure to be a lengthy conversation. "First of all," I started, that unsettling stare reminding me to get my least important question out of the way, "what is your original eye color?"

He looked surprised that out of everything I could have asked him, I chose that. Don't you worry, I thought, we'll get to the hard stuff soon enough.

"This is the eye color I was born with," he said, gesturing to his eyes.

"Then why the green contacts?" I inquired with a frown, helping myself to another slice, apple this time.

He crossed his legs and laid his arm along the back of the sofa, bringing his fingers close to my shoulder. "They make me look less...otherworldly. Less noticeable," he said, getting comfortable.

I almost snorted at the idea that he considered himself less noticeable with those bright green eyes I thought were his own. With his impressive height and the tailored suits he was always seen in, not to mention his usually perfectly styled hair, he made a very striking figure. It was true that his uncanny eyes made him much more memorable, though. Which for someone in his line of work, was probably not a good thing.

Satisfied, I let the subject go and got back to my more important questions. It was at that point that I realized that I had no idea where to start, or even how to phrase my queries. After a moment of thought, I asked the first question that popped into my head.

"Why does it feel like I know you?" I asked, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I mean beyond the fact that it's been my life's work to study you in order to catch you. I get the feeling that I...I don't know...that I know you." I paused, deeply dissatisfied with the way I was expressing myself. I couldn't seem to formulate how familiar he seemed to me.

Fortunately for me, he helped me out. Sort of.

"We have a connection," he murmured, looking at me intently.

Was he expecting a reaction? "Tell me something I don't know," I said dryly.

He gave me a crooked grin. "You don't understand..." He leaned forward, suddenly intense, his smile fading. "We have a connection. I'm not talking about what we normally refer to as a connection between people; I'm talking about an actual physical, tangible connection."

I stared at him blankly. "I'm sorry, you'll have to be more specific. I get that we have a connection but...I'm not following you."

He ran his hand through his hair, making it stand up in the front and appeared to be deep in thought for a moment. "Let me start from the very beginning," he said when he looked at me again. He took my glass from me, his fingers lingering hot on mine for a moment, then he stood and moved to the side table to refresh my champagne. "We're probably going to need more alcohol for this." He handed me my glass and then refilled his as I waited, quaking inwardly, for him to start.

"You and I..." He stopped, then seemed to rethink himself. "We are not your average, run of the mill human beings. We are...genetically different from the rest of the population."

My lips parted, countless questions dancing on the tip of my tongue, but he held up his hand to silence me. "As far as is known, we are two of six individuals, so far, who carry the same genetic mutation, although there are probably more. Three mated pairs..."

"Whoa," I interrupted a bit shrilly, pulling one leg out from under me and putting my foot back on the ground. "What do you mean, three mated pairs?"

Edward had become very still and watchful, as if he thought I might bolt at any moment. As if I would, as if I could, now. "That's what I meant by 'connection'. You and I are mated."

I blinked, waiting for his words to start making sense. "What do you mean, exactly, by 'mated'?" My voice was dangerously quiet, and the inward quaking was developing into a full blown panic kept ruthlessly under control. For now. I thought my life had already been thrown into turmoil...I had the feeling that it was about to get infinitely worse. The glass in my hand trembled, and I drained it before putting it down on the coffee table, clasping my hands in my lap to hide the shaking.

His gentleness when he continued was meant to reassure, but for some reason it made me dread his words all the more. I did not like where this seemed to be going. "You know how some animals mate for life? Like wolves?" I had a flash of him when he first noticed my intrusion into his studio, and nodded. "Well, it seems like the human race is poised to make the same evolutionary leap. You and I are among the first. That's one of the prevailing theories, anyway. Some think it's just a genetic glitch."

I opened my mouth, and then closed it. I blinked again. "Are you telling me we are..." I stopped.

"Mated?" he supplied helpfully.

"For life?" My voice was shaking. "As in, we have no choice about it?"

"That's about the size of it."

"But...I don't understand," I stammered. "I don't feel mated. How the hell did this happen? And when?"

Edward rose, took a box of matches from the mantle and struck one, dropping to a crouch to in front of the fireplace and setting the crumpled paper beneath the logs ablaze. "We first connected in New York many years ago," he said to the flames. "You were a child, and I wasn't much older."

Huh. Maybe I did see him when I visited with my parents, and that was why I dreamed about him that night. "I don't remember meeting you," I said with a frown.

He moved around the room, lighting candles. "You didn't. At least not in the sense you think." He blew out the match and tossed it into the fire, looking at me. "Our minds did."

This story was getting more outlandish by the second, but I knew absolutely that he was telling me the truth. "Edward..." I was getting angry now. "Please stop being so cryptic and..." I waved my hand helplessly. "Start making sense."

He sat down again, this time turned toward me. "Our minds have compatible signatures," he said seriously. "Think of them as unique puzzle pieces; only pieces that fit will connect. At least that's how they think it happens. When our minds get in range of each other, they click. We 'recognize' each other - he sketched air quotes around the word - and our minds lock on to each other. Permanently. The initial contact can be quite painful."

"I know," I said absently, thinking about my dream, and the headache that followed.

His eyes sharpened. "It sounds like you have something to share too," he said. "Tell me."

"Oh, no. You're the one who is doing the talking right now," I said stiffly. "Continue, please."

"No." His denial was firm and unflinching. "It's your turn to share. Tell me what you remember."

Our eyes locked, and a silent battle of wills ensued, but in the end I couldn't deny him. I told him about the dream, and the headache; I did not tell him about my childhood obsession with him. He nodded throughout the telling, interjecting the occasional sound of agreement as I spoke.

"That makes sense," he said when I had finished."It was painful for me too, though not quite as badly as it was for you, as I had the advantage of being awake when it happened. As a result I think I had more control over it. The fact that you were asleep is also probably why you saw through my eyes during the time our minds were linked. I'm afraid I pushed you out of my head rather roughly, which might have made the pain worse for you. My only excuse is that I was completely unprepared. I had no idea this would happen.

"But now, it's time for dinner." He spoke before I could ask another question, standing andholding his hand out for mine. "We can talk more over coffee."

I gave it to him and stood, allowing him to tuck my hand in the crook of his arm. "Or we could continue our discussion over dinner," I strongly suggested as he escorted me to the kitchen.

"I don't think so," he said amiably, pulled out my chair for me. "A good meal is best enjoyed with light conversation. I would like to enjoy it and you without the shadow of a heavy discussion looming over us. We'll continue after dinner." Not used to having my chairs held for me, I dropped into it with an ungainly plop.

"But..." I started to protest, looking up at him.

"Chianti?" he interrupted smoothly. Not waiting for an answer, he reached for my glass and filled it.