The Forever Dream

by Iris Johansen

  "No." Her whisper was a mere breath of sound. “I’ll never give you anything willingly, Jared."

  He was moving astride her, his own hands parting her legs. "Yes, you will," he said grimly. "Give me another hour and you'll be more than willing. Like I said, you're a very passionate woman, Tania." Then he set to work, his hands as devilishly skilled and sensual as she remembered. Probing, stroking, rotating until she was moving helplessly against them. He'd said he was a very patient man, and he demonstrated that patience now. He brought her to the very edge of release any number of times, only to jerk her back from the precipice. He would soothe her, stroking her with hands and words, and then begin the fiery arousal of her senses once more.

  He'd said to give him an hour, and at the end of that time she couldn't have said whether it had been a moment or a decade that had passed. Her breasts were heaving from the tumult of her breathing, and her dark eyes were fever-brilliant in her flushed face. Only one thing was important in the universe, to assuage the aching emptiness that seemed to encompass her entire body. She was almost mindless with the need he'd provoked so skillfully, and the muscles of her stomach clenched painfully as he reached around to knead her buttocks with gentle hands.

  He smiled down at her, his gray eyes noting the reflex with tiger-bright alertness. "I think you're ready, sweetheart," he said softly. "I think you're ready to ask me to give you what you want." His fingers gently compressed her flesh. "What you need. Just one sentence, that's all it will take. Just say the words."

  Oh, God, she couldn't, she thought dazedly. She had to hold out or something inside her would be lost forever. Yet how could she not, when nothing seemed more important than receiving the completion that Jared was withholding from her? She felt as if she were being ripped apart, and suddenly she was unutterably weary of fighting her own body as well as Jared. Her lashes slowly closed, and she wasn't even conscious of the two tears that brimmed over and slowly rolled down her cheeks. She opened her lips to speak.

  "Nol" Jared's voice was almost a shout. His hand

  swiftly covered her lips. Her lids flew up in shocked surprise to see Jared's face above her, a twisted mask of agony. Suddenly the stranger was gone, but she almost wished she had him back. He would have been easier to face than this haggard, pale-faced man, whose silver eyes looked as if they'd gazed into hell. His hand moved from her lips to tenderly stroke the silky wings of hair at her temple. "It's all right, love," he said quickly. "I know you'll never give in." He gave her a pained travesty of a smile. "You'll always be the Piper. I guess I'll just have to dance to your tune one last time."

  Then he was plunging within her, thrusting with a wild force and passion that was everything he'd teased her with, giving her the full vibrance of himself in a cascade of skilled movements that caused her to catch her breath with the sheer power of it. In a matter of minutes she'd received an explosive completion that left her shivering and weak.

  She was so dazed and shaken that she barely felt the brush of Jared's lips on her forehead or the tug of the silken bonds as he swiftly released her. Then he was slipping off her and getting up. She lifted heavy lids a moment later, to see him fastening the snap at the waistband of his jeans. He was bare to the waist, and the low-slung jeans clung closely to his slender hips and the powerful column of his thighs. His face was dark and shadowed with the same pain she'd glimpsed before. He turned away from the bed without another glance at her and strode across the room to the French doors, thrusting back the curtains to stare sightlessly out into the darkness. His spine was straight and rigid, and she could see the coiled tension in every muscle in his naked back.

  She sat up sluggishly and pushed her mass of dark silky hair away from her face. She felt so dazed and bewildered that for a moment she wasn't able even to begin to comprehend what had transpired in those last incredible moments. She shook her head as if to clear it, her gaze on the taut figure of the man across the room.

  Chapter 12

  “I’ll call Corbett in the morning. Jared's voice was harsh with strain. "I'll tell him that I won't have you here any longer. It won't be possible to send you back to New York, but he'll find a place where you'll be safe and comfortable until we can release you. I promise that you won't have to put up with my presence for more than a few days at the longest."

  It was such a complete reversal that for a moment Tania was breathless. "You're sending me away?"

  "I think it's more than time, don't you?" His voice held all the weariness in the world. He continued to stare blindly into the darkness. "Maybe Corbett and Kevin are right after all. They say were still too close to savagery to make any revolutionary transition easy. Well, I certainly proved that tonight. Perhaps I am the thief and destroyer you think me." He laughed mirthlessly. "You might add rapist to that list."

  There were waves of such intense agony emanating from him that she could feel them across the room. It started an echoing ache somewhere deep within her, and instinctively she tried to make an attempt at assuaging both. "You didn't rape me," she said huskily. "Toward the end I wanted it just as much as you'd said I would." It

  didn't bother her a bit to admit it, she found to her amazement.

  "You're very generous." She could see his hand clench the velvet drapes until the knuckles showed white. "We both know that only made the offense more despicable. I tried to steal something from you that was a hell of a lot more important than the pleasure of your body." He added quickly, "I didn't succeed, of course."

  But he had succeeded. Everything was suddenly coming into focus. She'd been stripped of her defenses and made to admit defeat for the first time in her life. She had opened her lips to say the words that would give him final victory, but he'd known even before that he'd won. Yet he'd defaulted at the last minute, denied his victory and tried to give her back the confidence in her own supremacy that he thought was necessary to her. And he was still insisting she'd bested him even while she sensed the pain and self-disgust tearing at him. He was trying to protect her shield, not realizing it was no longer there.

  The knowledge came to her with the simplicity of unquestionable truth. She would never lift the shield against Jared again. Not because she was defeated, but because it was no longer necessary. Last night she had told him she trusted him, but it hadn't really been true. There had remained an ember of suspicion, quickly fanned into flame by dissension.

  Her lips curved in a smile of almost maternal tenderness. It was strange to learn ultimate trust from a situation so fraught with violence and anguish. She'd been forced to admit to herself that Jared could dominate her, and then in the same moment she'd realized he never would. Even in his pain and anger, he had cared enough to stop before she'd been subjugated. If she could trust him at such a moment, she could trust him at any time.

  And with trust came the final golden flowering she'd been refusing to acknowledge, even to herself. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, spreading its wings until it seemed to encompass everything she was, came the realization. How odd and new it felt.

  "I'm not going to ask you to forgive me," he said quietly. "Some things are beyond forgiveness and understanding." He shook his head incredulously. "I can't understand it myself. I've always prided myself on being so civilized and logical. Yet I find I'm as much an animal as if I'd just crawled out of a cave. Not a very pleasant thing to discover after living thirty-eight years."

  "And why did that control break tonight, Jared?" She got slowly off the bed and crossed to the large armoire against the far wall, pulled a tailored white wool robe from a padded hanger, and slipped it on. "What made the difference?" She walked toward him.

  "I'm not going to make any excuses," he said harshly. "There aren't any that would be worthy of the name. I was frightened and in pain and I acted like any other savage and struck out." His voice broke. "My God, I tried to hurt you."

  His back was still toward her, and she didn't see his face until she was right next to him. Then she caught her breath. She'd
been so dazed before he'd left her that she'd been only subliminally aware of his expression of torment mingled with self-disgust. She immediately averted her eyes, not wanting to see his suffering.

  "It's starting to snow," she murmured, watching the first pristine flakes gently drift against the pane. What could she say to him that would ease that pain? There was no question that she wanted to do so. It was sheer self-defense . . . for she felt his pain as her own. Would it always be like this now? She'd been so caught up in a virtual hurricane of emotions in the past hours that she wondered for a moment if she could put aside her own selfish need for comfort to give to him. Then she discarded the thought impatiently. Of course she could do it. Jared had given her back her strength, and now she must use it to soothe his pain.

  "Don't worry, it shouldn't interfere with your leaving," he said, still not looking at her. "There's no major snowstorm forecast, and this flurry will probably have stopped by the time Corbett can make arrangements."

  She moved closer. "I'm not worried," she said softly, "because I'm not leaving, Jared."

  He stiffened as if an arrow had pierced him, and he slanted a glance at her. "What did you say?"

  "You heard me." Suddenly a gamin grin lit her face. "You needn't think I'll let you whisk me away out of sight so you won't have to remember how you've abused me. I'm going to stick so close to you, you'll have to wear me like a hair shirt."

  "You're laughing," he exclaimed.

  "What did you expect, weeping and wailing? I'm not saying that what you did was right. It was very wrong. If anyone else had done the same thing, I'd probably be planning his murder." She scowled. "You mustn't ever do anything like that again, Jared. It causes far too many problems."

  "Problems?" His laugh was sharp with bitterness. "You call what I just did to you a 'problem'?"

  She nodded. "That's why you mustn't do that again. We're going to have enough problems adjusting, without your causing more." She stepped even closer. Her arms went around his waist, and her head nestled on his chest as if she were a trusting little girl. "There are several other things you have to understand, Jared."

  She could feel his body freeze, until even his breath seemed to stop in his chest. "Understand?"

  "That I must be allowed my own career, that's most essential. That you be honest with me at all times." She

  rubbed her cheek against his chest like an affectionate kitten as she continued. "That you give me the baby you spoke of so eloquently. Last, but not least, if you're going to be any kind of monarch, it had better be as a monogamous king, not a sultan. I think I could become quite fierce if you suddenly decided you wanted to have a harem."

  He had released the curtain and his hands were hovering above her shoulders as if afraid to touch her. "You're going to stay with me?"

  "For a genius you really can be very thick, Jared." She sighed. "What have I been telling you? Of course I'm staying until it's safe for you to leave the chateau. It would be unreasonable for me to do anything else. But then I think you should insist they arrange quarters for you in New York instead of Washington. That's where my work is." She glanced up at him mischievously. "After all, you can be a king anywhere. Okay?"

  "Okay." His voice was still dazed. "Oh, God, yes, it's more than okay." His hands touched her shoulders hesitantly, as if they were very fragile. Suddenly he was laughing freely, joyously. "New York instead of Washington, a baby, a career, anything you want. I'll even give up the harem." His arms went around her, and he crushed her to him. "I'll give up the whole damn world."

  "That won't be necessary. Depriving yourself of the harem will do."

  He buried his face in the loose hair at her temple. "I thought I'd lost you," he said huskily. "I should have lost you. Why didn't I, sweetheart?"

  "Because I'm a very clever and self-serving woman who refuses to give up what she wants just because you did something stupid," she said lightly. "To even things out, though, I should really insist you permit me to tie you down and let me drive you crazy." She tilted her

  head consideringly. "I think pink satin bonds would be quite attractive on you."

  He sifted through the nonsense to what was important to him. "And what do you want, Tania?"

  She looked up at him, her dark eyes glowing. "You, Jared Ryker," she said simply. "I think there's every possibility that I feel something very special for you. I've never cared for anyone this way before, so I can't be certain. But whatever it is, I think it may last as long as the time that your work is going to give us."

  He went still. "You mean that?" There was an uncertainty in his expression that she found very endearing in a man as usually composed as Jared. He shook his head incredulously. "There can't be another woman like you in the entire universe. Do you know that you've totally committed yourself to me without even demanding any vows of undying devotion in return?"

  "It would be nice if you'd say something lovely and meaningful, but it's not really necessary," she said gravely. "I'm a very determined woman. If you don't feel that way about me now, then I'll just have to work much harder until you do." She paused. "But I think you do feel something pretty close to what I want, Jared. Am I wrong?"

  His hands reached up to frame her face. "No, you're not wrong. I think if you ever left me, I'd go a little crazy." His eyes were shining with a warmth and joy she'd never seen there before. "It would leave an aching gap the size of the Grand Canyon." His head bent and his lips touched hers with a warmth and solemn sweetness that caused a lump to form in her throat. "I want you by my side and in my bed for the rest of our lives. Is that close enough to what you want?"

  "Close enough." She was blinking rapidly. "Isn't it foolish—I suddenly feel ridiculously weepy. I never cry."

  For the first time he realized she'd not even been

  aware of those tears that had run silently down her cheeks and broken him into a million pieces. His lips lightly, tenderly brushed each lid. "No, you never cry," he agreed gently.

  She pushed away from him and stepped back. "Now that we've indulged in all the proper sentimental avowals, I think it would be very helpful if we talked." Her voice was shaky, but she didn't really care.

  She took Jared's hand and led him to the bed. There was a bemused smile on his face as she pushed him briskly down on its cushioned softness. "This isn't an invitation to lechery, you understand," she said with mock sternness as she flicked out the crystal lamp on the bedside table. "But there's no reason we can't be comfortable." She lay down beside him. "Hold me."

  "Delighted."

  His arms enfolded her, holding her close for a moment before turning her so that her back was to him, spoon fashion. She wriggled against him contentedly, and his arms tightened. Lord, she felt sweet and warm, filling his arms, filling up all the empty places he'd ever known. "You're not talking," he observed.

  "I know," she said dreamily. It was blissfully tranquil just lying here wrapped in the security of Jared's arms. The dimness of the room, the falling snow that was forming Currier and Ives etchings on the panes of the French doors, the soft velvet canopy above them all wove a silver mesh of intimacy that was poignantly beautiful. "Words don't seem very important right now."

  He kissed her ear. "There's no hurry. Later."

  She shook her head. "No, I want it to be tonight." There had been too many misunderstandings already between them. "You said earlier that I hadn't come to you to ask the questions I should have. Well, I'm coming to you now, Jared."

  "I know what's bothering you the most, of course," he said quietly. "The children."

  She nodded. "I love them. I don't think it's the selfish ego trip you accused me of. I think some women need motherhood to complete them and that I'm one of them." Her voice became strained. "But I'm not the only one who will suffer. There's an entire world of women out there who are like me, Jared."

  "It's not an ego trip at all," he said gruffly. "It's as beautifully natural as you are, sweetheart. I must have gone a bit insane to rip at you like tha
t." His cheek rubbed caressingly against the curve of her lower jaw. "Like I said, I can't give guarantees, but I don't go along with Corbett and Kevin in believing compulsory birth control, sterilization really, is inevitable. There are other roads we can travel. Hydroponic agriculture, farming the sea—improvements are increasing our food supply all the time. With a multi-national effort that will certainly take place, we should be able to produce enough to last for the time we'll need it."

  "For the time we'll need it?" Tania asked, puzzled. "Until we branch out to other planets," he said calmly. "It's the only real solution to overpopulation. We'll have to explore and colonize new worlds."

  "You say that so lightly." She chuckled. "Kevin said he should be right at home with science fiction ideas, considering the company he was keeping. I'm beginning to see what he meant. Is it really possible?"

  "Not at the moment. There are a few ideas on the drawing boards that look promising, but it would take a breakthrough to be able to colonize planets or create space stations of any size." His gaze was fixed thoughtfully on the falling snow. "That breakthrough will come, though. It took us only ten years to reach the moon once we made it a national priority. Think how much more could be accomplished with every major country in the world cooperating. Longevity will help there, I think. Who knows how many advancements have been lost to civilization because a life was cut short? I think that you'll find most of the killer diseases will soon be conquered. The work in genetics, the understanding of immunologic systems in humans, the ability to intervene with DNA—all that was basic to my own discovery—is rapidly eradicating cancers and heart diseases." "Utopia?"

  "I can't promise Utopia," he said gravely. "The problems Corbett and Kevin mentioned are just as real and difficult as they told you. I recognize that. The only difference is that I don't think any challenge is insurmountable for the human race. I don't believe we're going to blow each other up or cut each other's throats for the last grain of wheat. I think that when it comes down to choices, we'll make the right ones and work together. *