“Richard,” she gasped. “Oh Richard, yes! You’re making me come—making me come so hard!”
His only answer was to keep licking, keep pressing between her thighs as though he didn’t want to lose a single drop of her sweetness, as though he couldn’t stop himself from tasting her no matter what happened. Caroline had the hazy thought that he would probably have kept licking her even if the ceiling fell in on their heads.
And then a second orgasm crested inside her and she was coming again—coming so hard against the big Kindred’s tongue she thought her heart would pound its way right out of her chest.
And so it went. On and on and on…
Chapter Twenty-one
Caroline didn’t know how long it lasted—only that it seemed to be an eternity. Finally, though, Richard finished tasting her and came to lie beside her on the bed.
He gathered her into his arms and held her close, kissing her deeply and sharing her own secret flavor with her.
Caroline moaned and lapped eagerly at his lips. She tasted good on him—the flavor of her juices on his mouth was one of the most delicious things she’d ever had. Delicious and sensuous and exotic all at once.
Again, she had the feeling of waking after having slept all her life—and Richard had been the one to awaken her. She knew, in that moment, that she couldn’t leave him. Couldn’t leave the one man in all the Multiverse she had a connection with. Even if it meant never going home and living her whole life in this strange, backwards time where women didn’t have the same rights as men and she had to wear hoopskirts and go to tea and do embroidery, she would stay here to be with him.
With that realization came the deep need to tie herself closer to the big Kindred—to claim him for her own permanently.
Breaking the kiss, she looked up at Richard, meeting his pale blue eyes—which were much softer with pleasure and love than she had ever seen them.
“Richard,” she whispered, “Let’s do it now—let’s fulfill the final part of the Claiming Period.”
He frowned a little. “What are you saying, Caroline?”
“I’m saying I want to stay with you—always,” she told him passionately. “I don’t want anyone else—ever. And I don’t want anything to be able to separate us. So…make love to me. Please?”
He crushed her to him and gave her another long, loving kiss but then, instead of doing as she had asked, he pulled away again.
“Darling,” he murmured. “You’re speaking of the Bonding Period—where a Kindred male may make love to his bride but it is up to her whether he may bond her to him or not.”
“Bond? What does that mean?” Caroline hadn’t been on the Mother Ship very long at all when the accident with PORTAL happened. So though she had a vague idea about how the Kindred and their mates came together, she didn’t know any specifics.
“For my kind of Kindred—a Blood Kindred—it means that I must bite you at the same moment I spill my seed inside you,” he told her. “This will Bond you to me for life and we can never be parted.”
“Yes—that’s what I want!” Caroline exclaimed eagerly. “Let’s do it now—tonight. That way the other mother—I mean, Ma-ma—can’t tear us apart.”
He frowned. “Up until a very little while ago, I was under the impression that it was your wish as well as hers that we should part ways forever.”
“Maybe it seemed like that,” Caroline said desperately. “But…but things are different now. My eyes are open—I see what a good man, er, Kindred, you are—and I know you’re the only one for me.”
His eyes softened again. “I feel the same way for you, my darling—I have from the very first moment we started Dream Sharing. But I fear we cannot consummate our love tonight.”
“What? But why not?” Caroline looked up at him, heartbroken. “Don’t you want to Bond me to you?”
“Of course I do, but I need to know that you want it too,” he told her. “After two years of bitterness between us, I cannot credit this sudden change in your demeanor and desires unless you make your new determination known to more than just myself.”
Okay, sometimes the intricacies of language in this time were a bit much.
“What?” Caroline asked flatly. “What exactly do you need me to do to prove how I feel?”
Richard took a deep breath and looked into her eyes.
“Tomorrow afternoon at exactly two, your mother is holding a reception in the park to announce the annulment of our Joining. You will be required to state publicly at that time if you are renouncing me…or Joining with me permanently as my Bonded wife. If you are still of the same mind—that you wish us to be together for all eternity—you must say so then.”
“And then you’ll sweep me off my feet and carry me off into the sunset?” Caroline asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Why do we have to go through all that rigmarole? Why can’t we just do it now and tell the other—I mean Ma-ma—that we want to stay together? Then we can skip the fancy picnic thing in the park and just go on a nice honeymoon someplace quiet with no fancy balls or formal teas and nobody to bother us.”
He frowned. “You see—this is exactly the sort of thing that makes me hesitate and wonder if you are quite completely well, my darling. The Caroline I have always known loved pomp and circumstance. She would not have missed an opportunity to make her feelings—one way or the other—known publicly.”
Caroline bit her lip. Damn it—so her doppelganger had been an attention whore. Not too surprising considering what kind of person she appeared to be. For a moment she allowed herself to wonder how the other Caroline was getting along on the Mother Ship back in her own world. And how would she feel if she knew she was going to be stuck there permanently without puffy hoopskirts and fancy dress balls to look forward to?
Ruthlessly, she pushed the guilt away. It was her Richard had been Dream Sharing with—not the other Caroline. Her double had treated him like crap—she deserved everything she got. And if she had to stay the rest of her life in another world, well, so be it.
After all, Caroline herself would be giving up a lot to stay in this one. There was no way she’d ever be able to continue her research and for the rest of her life she’d be treated as a second-class citizen just because she was a woman. But she was willing to put up with all of it just to have the man she loved—the man who loved her, she was sure of it. If only he would consent to show her…
“Please, Richard,” she said, looking up at him. “Can’t you just accept that I’ve changed? I mean, you didn’t like the way I was before, did you?”
He frowned. “It would not be gentlemanly of me to comment on my like or dislike of your past behavior, Caroline.”
“Okay, let’s try it this way then—do you like me more now than before I changed?” she demanded. Her heart was in her throat as she asked it. What if he said no? What if he had liked the way the other Caroline acted? Although, how could he? It sounded like she had been nasty and cruel to him, so unless he was some kind of a masochist…
“No, I do not ‘like’ you now that you are changed,” he said and Caroline’s heart sank.
“You…you don’t?” she whispered.
He smiled at her. “No—for my emotions go far beyond tepid liking. I love you, my darling. Now that you are finally allowing me to love you and returning my feelings in kind, I am happier than I have ever been.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “But I am still wary, I fear. We have, after all, been Joined for two years and you have only changed your feelings towards me in the past two days.”
Caroline understood his reluctance to embrace the apparent 180-degree change in his wife. But she couldn’t help feeling a sharp stab of irritation directed at the other Caroline who had so abused Richard’s heart that he was fearful to take the love she was offering him at face value.
For a moment she thought of telling him the truth—explaining that the reason that she had changed was that she was a whole different person from a whole different world. But would he beli
eve her? Or would he think her strange explanation another symptom of the lightning strike she had supposedly suffered and assume that she had gone mad? Would he put her in a mad house? Caroline didn’t like to think that of him, but what if he felt he was acting for her own good? What if he felt he had no choice but to commit her?
No, she decided reluctantly, better not to risk it. Better to just continue pretending to be her doppelganger and completely assume the other Caroline’s identity. And if she did that, there was only one way to assure the big Kindred of her love.
“All right,” she said firmly. “At the park tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to stand up and tell everyone that I love you and only you. I’ll refuse to get our Joining annulled so we can stay together.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Then will you Bond me to you?”
His smile returned, his eyes soft as he cupped her cheek tenderly.
“Yes, my darling—then I will ‘carry you off into the sunset’ as you say and Bond you to me. And we will spend the rest of our lives together.”
“And can we move away from my mother?” Caroline had a sudden thought. “Oh—what if we moved up to the Mother Ship? Could we do that? And then maybe Emmeline would come too because she wouldn’t be all alone up there.”
He frowned. “You would truly wish to do that? Living aboard the Mother Ship is tantamount to exile, you know. Once you go there, you are never allowed to come back to Terra.”
“I don’t care,” Caroline said. She was certain the Kindred—even in this old-fashioned, misogynistic time—would treat a woman with more respect than she could expect to get here on Earth—or Terra, as they called it.
He frowned thoughtfully. “I confess, that was my plan back when I was certain you would denounce me and annul our Joining. I could not bear the thought of living here on Terra without you, so I was going to go up to the Mother Ship and live there for the rest of my days directly after you did so.”
“Oh Richard, no!” Caroline exclaimed. “You don’t have to do that. Or, I mean, you can if you want, but please take me with you when you go.”
“But your mother—”
“Can stay here and marry Lord Harkens herself if she wants him so much,” Caroline said briskly. “She’s been trying to break us up from day one—I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life. So yes, I’m perfectly fine with going up to the Mother Ship and not seeing her anymore.”
Richard looked at her gravely.
“That is a serious thing indeed for a daughter to say. Though I have often chafed at your mother’s meddling in our Joining, I always forgave both her and you on the grounds of your great affection for each other.”
Caroline thought of her real mother and how close they had been. Possibly the other Caroline and the other mother had the same kind of closeness but here it was tainted—completely co-dependant. She felt sorry that the other mother would be losing her only daughter, but since she didn’t seem willing to entertain the idea of Richard as a permanent son-in-law, parting with her was unfortunately necessary.
“I cared very much for my mother—once,” she said carefully, trying to explain her feelings while skirting around the larger truth she dared not tell. “But since I’ve changed my attitude towards you and she hasn’t, I can’t care for her the way I used to. And if I have to pick between her and you, well…I choose you.” She looked up at him. “Do you understand?”
He nodded seriously. “I do. And may I say that I’m touched by your declaration.”
“I’ll say it again, tomorrow in the park,” Caroline promised him. “In front of God and everybody I’ll let them know that you and I are staying together. And my mother and Lord Harkens both can kiss my—I mean, can go take a long walk off a short pier.”
Richard lifted both eyebrows and smiled at her.
“I have a feeling you were about to say something decidedly unladylike, my darling. But I’ll ignore it in favor of saying that I eagerly await your announcement. Now, come…” He yawned. “It is late. I’m going to check on Emmeline and her new baby once more and then we should go to bed.”
“Is it all right to sleep here?” Caroline asked. “I mean, is it safe—shouldn’t we be getting back to the house?”
He frowned. “It’s perfectly safe here as long as I am with you. And as for getting back to the house—tomorrow morning we can hire an early hansom and be back in time for breakfast if you like. Your mother will doubtless be horrified that you have spent the night away from home—especially with me—but if, as you claim, you care nothing for her opinion—that should not bother you in the least.”
Caroline smiled at him.
“That works for me,” she said, nuzzling her cheek against the broad, bare planes of his muscular chest. “I love you, Richard.”
He stroked her hair. “I love you too, my darling. Come, let me tuck you in. And after I check on my patient, I will hold you in my arms all night.”
This sounded perfect to Caroline. She sighed contentedly and started to relax. Tomorrow she would let the other mother know she couldn’t push her around anymore and then she would tell the world—or at least everyone in the park—that she loved Richard and she wanted to spend her life with him.
But what about the PORTAL? What if a window opens while you’re at the park, declaring your love for Richard? whispered a worried little voice in her head.
The thought brought Caroline, who had been feeling drowsy with contentment, wide awake.
Crap—what would she do if that happened? Would anyone else be able to see the window PORTAL created? If so, would they think it was some kind of witchcraft? Would it suck her in or would she be able to avoid it if she stayed far enough away? What if it did suck her in and she changed places with the other Caroline and she could never get back to Richard?
It was such a horrifying thought that for a moment she was tempted to call off going to the park at all. But then she remembered that she had to go to the park in order to make the speech about how she wanted to stay with the big Kindred instead of annulling their Joining.
No, it was scary, but she would just have to go through it, she decided reluctantly. And if a window did open, she would just have to stay far away from it. Because nothing—absolutely nothing—was going to stop her from being with the man she loved.
On that point, she was determined.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Heavens, Caroline, what were you thinking? Staying out all night with that odious man, and just when I had gotten Lord Harkens to understand the cocaine had addled your wits and agree to give you another chance!”
The other mother looked so upset Caroline halfway expected her to start pulling her fashionably coifed hair out by the roots. The moment she and Richard had arrived, the other mother had dragged her up to her room and begun haranguing her about her shameful behavior. It had been going on for what felt like hours and Caroline had had just about enough of it.
“That ‘odious man’ happens to be my husband, Mother,” she said firmly. “And what’s more, I love him and I want to stay with him. And nothing you can say about it will change my mind.”
“I was afraid of this! You’ve changed, Caroline! You’ve been so odd lately—so unlike your normal self,” the other mother exclaimed.
“Well, maybe my ‘normal self’ wasn’t very nice,” Caroline snapped. “And maybe it was time for a change.”
“Yes of course, I agree—but a change for the better, my pet.” The other mother’s voice became suddenly sly and coaxing. “A move upward on the social ladder. Don’t you want to be Lady Harkens? I assure you that Lord Harkens is willing to accept you this moment, for all that you have been doing the best you can to ruin your prospects with him.”
“I don’t want Lord Harkens and I don’t want to be Lady anything. I just want Richard,” Caroline told her. “And nothing you can do or say will change my mind so you might as well give up.”
The other mother’s mouth compressed to a thin pale line and her eyes narrowe
d in fury.
“So you’re determined to ruin your future prospects and drag our family name through the mud?”
“I don’t see how staying with my husband—the one I’m already legally married to—can ruin my life and hurt the family name,” Caroline said, frowning. “I’m a grown woman and you can’t guilt me into leaving the man I love to marry a man I can’t stand. And I’ll tell you something else,” she added, before the other mother could say anything else. “Once we finish this silly ceremony thing at the park, Richard and I are leaving on our honeymoon—the one we should have had when we were first Joined. And after we come back, we are seriously considering moving up to the Mother Ship permanently.”
“What?” The other mother couldn’t have looked more shocked if Caroline had announced she was going to live on the moon. “But Caroline, if you do that, you’ll be cut off from all good society the rest of your days!”
Caroline frowned. She’d been wondering how the other mother would take this news. Would she sob and beg the girl she thought was her only daughter not to leave? But instead of saying that she would miss Caroline, she was more concerned about her social prospects.
She only wants to use me as a stepping-stone—a rung on the social ladder, Caroline thought to herself. It’s all she’s ever wanted. The knowledge solidified her determination to go with Richard to the Mother Ship and to never look back. Maybe she could even continue her research from there—after all, the Kindred were sure to have much superior technology to what was available here, even in this time period.
“I don’t care about ‘good society’,” she told the other mother. “I only care about staying with Richard without anyone interfering.”
The other mother looked, if possible, even more angry. Small white dents appeared on either side of her flaring nostrils.
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