Hidden Obsession

by Joanne Rock

  “Fear his touch?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Is this some kind of pseudo-virginal protest of a big, bad man? Because if you’re playing me to make some dumb guy jealous—”

  “I do not play.” She might not understand all his words, but she certainly knew what he implied. That she indulged girlish ploys of favor. “I am not playing.”

  “Then why are you up to your eyeballs in sex toys and lounging in bed wearing a chastity belt? You seem like you’re playing plenty of adult games to me, and the last thing I need is to get mixed up in a couple’s personal business so I can get skewered by a pissed-off boyfriend.”

  Embarrassment fled as anger roared to life.

  “You call this curse that I bear a game?” Her raised voice might echo straight back to Welborne for all she knew, but she could not temper the swell of fears and fury long suppressed. “I would like to see you don such an inhumane contraption for years on end. I would like to see you offer your untouched, youthful body to a lecherous old man to drool over while he locks you into painful captivity with no regard that your hips might grow more round or that you might never sit a horse without pain or run unfettered and free through spring grasses, or—”

  He reached for her in the darkness, his hand grazing her shoulder in simple kindness. “I’m sorry.”

  The words hardly seemed enough to stem the tide of resentment, but they were more than she’d ever been offered in the past. And combined with his touch…the gesture touched her heart as much as her person.

  “I only meant to assure you that I do not play.” She had not meant to unleash so much unhappiness upon him. Her suffering was her own. But she wanted to be very clear on this one point. “My need to leave is no jest.”

  “This guy you’re supposed to marry locked you into that metal belt?” He did not sound disbelieving so much as a man intent on setting his facts straight. “And he did this years ago?”

  Peering over her shoulder, she saw no sign of movement from the direction they’d come, but she did not wish to take any chances if perhaps her voice had carried.

  “A bit more than three years. May we discuss this while we walk?” She’d rather not discuss it at all, but Graham was a persistent sort and she found herself committed to an unusual relationship with the stranger. She owed him some explanation for her escape.

  Nodding, he turned back to the path and proceeded through the trees.

  “But if you expect me to be the mastermind behind your vanishing act, I think you ought to fill me in on this would-be husband of yours so I know what I’m up against. Where the hell is this guy and how soon will he come looking for you?”

  “He’s been away on Crusade ever since he left me locked in a vile ring of steel, but my stepbrothers have informed me that Kendrick returns with some of his best knights and he should reach Welborne in a few days’ time.”

  “Kendrick?”

  Curses bubbled to her lips at her misstep, but she did not speak them. She had never been good at keeping secrets, so it did not surprise her that she’d fumbled her future overlord’s identity already. She only hoped Graham would not use the knowledge to betray her.

  “Burke Kendrick, son of a powerful lord with lands from Wales to London. Burke seeks to distinguish himself in service to the Lion-Heart, perhaps so that the king does not frown upon the Kendrick penchant for greedily besieging peaceful keeps on neighboring lands in a ceaseless effort to build their wealth and fame.” Linnet thought Kendrick would enjoy nothing more than the power to do whatever he wished, whenever he wished, a power normally reserved for kings.

  “And you think he returns to set up house with you?”

  “I think he comes to claim me in every way possible.” She could not abide the thought after seeing hints of her betrothed’s brutal nature. “And while that means I might at last see the end of the cursed metal about my waist, I find I’d far rather live a life in delicate iron than to submit to a man who speaks with his fists rather than his tongue.”

  “Meaning what, exactly? He beat the crap out of your brothers to win your hand?” He peered over his shoulder but did not pause their race through the forest. “Or has he beaten you?”

  “The man could not have gotten me naked without the use of beastly force.” She’d been mortified. Enraged. And her worthless kin had done nothing to protect her from Kendrick’s presumption.

  Ahead of her in the darkness, Graham cursed in that strange accent she’d already come to recognize, the words all the more profane-sounding for the guttural way he articulated the language. His tone left no mistake what a “sorry piece of shit” might be, and Linnet found herself comforted at the outpouring of anger on her behalf.

  “So he beat you and locked you up in a chastity-enforcing torture device. Weren’t you a little concerned about what this prince among men would have to say about you keeping sensual aids at your bedside like that carved bit of horn I took from your bedroom earlier?”

  “Sensual aids?” She knew that he must refer to the wicked device Kendrick had left behind, but she wondered at Graham’s words.

  He took her hand to assist her over a fallen tree limb as they reached a thin stream of water cutting through the forest.

  “Your cheeks colored five shades of red when I asked about the carved piece earlier, so let’s skip the shy medieval-maiden routine where the dildo is concerned, okay? I’m guessing you can’t use it if you’ve been locked up like a sexual martyr for three years, but I’m guessing you know exactly what it’s used for.”

  “Your speech is foreign to me, sir, and yet I gather you are hoping to cause me discomfort with your forthright words.” She held his hand for no longer than necessary, leery of depending on him for anything and determined not to let him cause her unease with his strange conversational topics. “Is it common in your land to purposefully distress a woman in the course of conversation?”

  “I’m not trying to cause you distress.” He turned sharply to the west at a small clearing and then backtracked toward the east to break a few branches in the wrong direction before he rejoined her. “I’m trying to figure out if the carvings on that piece of horn are related to a case I’m working on.”

  A case? She didn’t bother to ask. By now her slippers were soaked and a sharp stick had punctured a hole through the velvet into her foot. They’d hastened their steps until they nearly ran through the darkness, but even so, they had covered little ground.

  “I know nothing of the carvings,” she told him honestly, wishing they could have risked an escape on horseback for the sake of speed as much as her feet. “In truth, I refuse to look at the device since my despised betrothed presented it to me as a parting gift.”

  “The man who snaps you in a chastity belt gives you that as a gift? What kind of sadistic bastard—”

  He stopped short, as he turned on her once again.

  “I want you to think carefully about this, Linnet.” He flipped the traveling sack with her scant possessions onto his other shoulder as he faced her. “Do you have any reason to believe this fiancé of yours is involved in some sort of sex cult?”

  GRAHAM ADMITTED his interrogation skills had never been all that keen since he was a man who favored action over words. But he’d really struck out big-time asking his unlikely traveling companion about a sex cult.

  They tromped through an endless meadow just past daybreak, their last miles of travel a silent trip after Linnet had frozen at his abrupt question. For all he knew, she could have been sexually traumatized by this freak of nature her stepbrothers had consigned her to for a husband. Scratch that. Being locked into a chastity belt for three years probably counted as sexual trauma by itself, so Graham had been an idiot to hound her on the sex angle.

  Still, a connection between the Guardians and this Burke Kendrick guy remained. Why else would Graham have fallen ass-backward into this weird time fugue? There had to be some cosmic balance at work behind his banishment to a world with no airplanes, cell-phone towers or paved roads
. Those bits of evidence convinced him something strange had happened to him more strongly than waking up in Linnet’s closet or discovering that his cell-phone screen remained utterly blank even though it was charged.

  “There is the holding.” Linnet paused beside him, pointing toward another thicket of trees ahead. “Can you see the roof?”

  The outline of the dwelling was evident now that his eye sought it, but the structure hid well in the landscape. He had to admit he looked forward to sitting still for a few hours—hell, a few days—to sort out his head and think through what to do with Linnet. He needed to scout out the terrain and get a handle on a safe place to take her if this pervert fiancé of hers was as bad as she thought.

  “I can’t believe I’m in freaking England.” Seeing the fortified structure on the horizon drove home the point he’d been denying all night. The morning light made it impossible to think he could be anywhere in the whole state of California, or anywhere in the world in the twenty-first century.

  He’d walked right into a history textbook and he didn’t have the first clue how to get back out. Not that he wanted to—yet. First he’d find the clues he’d come to the Getty Center seeking, and then he’d make sure Linnet was safe. Once that was accomplished, he’d tackle the matter of returning to life as he knew it.

  “I can’t believe I might elude Kendrick.” She turned to grin at him and her smile almost knocked him on his butt.

  Linnet of Welborne didn’t need two hours in a Hollywood makeup chair. She had the medieval “it” factor coming out her ears.

  And the sex appeal? Off the charts. Even when she’d been tromping through the woods all night. If he hadn’t been semisensitive to whatever trauma this Kendrick guy had put her through, Graham might have been tempted to wonder how sex-starved and aggressive a woman would be after three years of enforced chastity. Knowing he couldn’t have her only made him want her more and shamed him at the same time since no woman deserved that damned contraption she bore.

  “You’ve already eluded him.” He would not dwell on thoughts of fulfilling Linnet’s every suppressed fantasy since he had an investigation to close and eight hundred years to traverse in order to do the job.

  “For now.” Her smile disappeared and she trudged forward.

  Limping?

  “Did you hurt your foot?” He couldn’t see her legs with her heavy, mud-splattered skirts dragging along the grasses, but her stride was uneven, one shoulder dipping lower than the other as she walked.

  “I fear my shoes were not worthy of the trip.” She limped onward toward the towering stone house.

  Graham couldn’t help but remember his ex-girlfriend the movie extra would call in sick if her face broke out. And while he didn’t blame her, considering the fiercely competitive atmosphere of Hollywood, he also thought it ironic that the proverbial damsel in distress had scaled her own castle walls to escape and walked for miles in the dark on injured feet. The fainting and worshipful historical stereotype for women was obviously a myth.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t play white knight once in a while. Did it?

  “Let me give you a hand.” He caught up to her in quick strides and scooped her off her feet.

  She made a muffled yelp of surprise but didn’t protest.

  “You could have given me a warning.” She held herself upright and rigid against him.

  “You could have given me a damn warning you were hurt. I could have given you a lift a long time ago.” He quickened his step, thinking he shouldn’t get involved with a woman whose historical context defied all possible dating scenarios. Bad enough to live on opposite coasts from the object of your affection, but nine centuries apart?

  Not bloody likely.

  Still, as his fingers gripped soft curves, he wondered if a medieval woman could be persuaded to indulge in a one-time fling.

  “I have not been outside the walls of Welborne since my betrothal.” She gestured toward the entrance of the dwelling as they approached. “The pain in my feet is soothed by the knowledge I am free for a little while.”

  “Why not forever? I can help you find a place to stay if you think your family will look for you here.” Or so he hoped, since he still hadn’t figured out what had happened to him and where he was. Most of the time, he was totally buying into the wormhole-in-time theory. But he refused to waste time scratching his head about the matter when he was definitely discovering some clues to the Guardians.

  Besides, he was in no hurry to leave this woman, be she real or fantasy.

  “They will search here in a few days at the most. I have dreamed for six nights straight that my betrothed rides for England, and my brothers are convinced he’s already reached our shores.” She wriggled in an obvious desire to stand on her own feet as they reached the threshold to the house. “That is why I’d prefer we leave no signs of our presence, if that is possible.”

  He halted her hand when she would have reached for the doorknob.

  “It’s very possible. But the last thing we’d want to do is enter through the front door. Is there another way in?”

  “There is an entrance on the other side, but it is surrounded by thorny hedges to prevent intruders. This entrance used to be protected in that way, too, but my youngest brother grew impatient in trimming the bushes and he ripped them all out at the roots.”

  He backed away from the house to size it up and then searched the outbuildings for some sort of tool to break in discreetly so they could rest and regroup. His job as a cop had prepared him well for a life of crime, although breaking and entering in this case were totally justified.

  Lodging a plank of wood at an angle to a low wall above the first level, Graham climbed onto the house and scouted means of entry from above. He found one easily, a low door from the makeshift battlement that was more like a second-story porch along the outer wall.

  “Follow me,” he called down to Linnet even as he walked back to give her a hand. “We leave no dust disturbed on the lower level this way. Your stepbrothers might not think to check the second story if the first looks untouched.”

  He teetered his way down the plank to help her walk the narrow path, not trusting her to make the trek with an injured foot.

  “Very clever,” she admitted, admiration shining in her eyes for a moment before she looked down at the potentially treacherous walkway.

  And damn but the admiration felt nice.

  “I’ve got you.” He looped his arm around her waist to walk her sideways along the plank, his role as white knight growing on him. No wonder Brendan Jameson dug the hero roles.

  Playing savior kicked ass.

  Graham might be tempted to hang out in the twelfth century and explore his inner knight with Linnet as incentive. Except that he’d ended up here to play hero to those abducted women in L.A. who needed his investigative skills more than Linnet needed a conspirator in her escape. And as his hands molded around her generous curves that had never been restrained by un-derwires or spandex, he had to admit that for the first time in ten years, he seriously regretted his line of work.

  5

  LINNET DREW SHALLOW BREATHS in those heated moments in Graham’s arms. His hands burned through her clothes to singe her skin, but somehow the shallow inhalation prevented his fingers from sinking deeper into her softness.

  She couldn’t shake the sense that if she allowed his hands to venture farther, she would never be free of a desire for more. When she’d been certain her brothers would kill him, she’d craved his touch one last time. But now that his hands held her to him with such dizzying effect, she began to fear the tide of emotions sure to follow if she indulged this desire.

  Bad enough she was prepared to risk her own neck to Kendrick’s wrath. She could not jeopardize Graham’s after all he’d done to help her.

  “Careful,” he warned, slowing his pace as they reached the juncture of the plank board and the protruding battlement on the second level.

  She didn’t dare to look down, keeping h
er eyes focused on Graham as he reached for her, pulled her in from the ledge and onto stable ground.

  Too bad her heart did not steady as well.

  The smart thing to do would have been to retreat from his grip. To step out of his arms and away from the temptation he presented. But his hands encircled her waist the same way they had when he’d helped her leap from the low wall onto the second-floor parapet covered in limestone gravel.

  “Let me break you out of this.” Graham’s voice was low and urgent and not at all romantic.

  Too late, she realized his hands spanned her hips to rest lightly on the chastity belt. Her embarrassment was lessened by an answering surge of eagerness. And more than a little desire.

  “You really think you could set me free?” Even as she asked, she knew he could, but she hadn’t dared to hope for so long. This man from a strange land possessed strengths she had only just begun to discover. “The lock is more sophisticated than the one on the irons my brothers possess.”

  Graham released her to peer briefly over the parapet and then drag the plank they’d climbed onto the second story where he hid it behind the low wall.

  “How do you know it’s more sophisticated?”

  “Just a guess. Kendrick possesses the best of everything and the belt came from him.” She shrugged, savoring the freedom of the fresh morning breeze and the new surroundings that seemed full of possibilities. “Besides, I tried the keys to my brothers’ shackles, and it did not work on this torturous device that I wear.”

  “I have something to show you that might convince you I can bust you loose. Should we go inside to make sure no one will see us?”

  In spite of all the hours outdoors and the ache in her feet, she did not wish to leave the fresh scents and sunshine dawning on the first day of her future.

  “I would prefer to remain here. There is no road nearby for travelers to see us and I find myself loath to leave the sense of freedom of the day.” If her family found them tomorrow, or if Kendrick arrived to retrieve her, she wanted to hoard as many happy memories as she could from her brief taste of liberty.