Hidden Obsession

by Joanne Rock

  “You’re too damn good to be true.” He spun them around so that he backed into the falls instead of her, allowing her to decide if she wanted to duck under with him or not. “I’m going to sob like a little girl if I wake up and find out this was only a dream.”

  Smiling, she entered the downpour with him, the water only rising to their knees here where the rocks rose a bit higher beneath their feet.

  “Dreams do not feel this good.” The cold water fell with pounding force on her shoulders and back, causing her skin to tighten with the chill for a moment before the pleasure of the rivulets sliding over her bare skin warmed her again.

  “I need to cool off before I lose it.” He tipped his head back to take the deluge on his face. “I didn’t bring protection into the water with me.”

  “You don’t need a sword with me,” she whispered in his ear as she gently gripped his shaft in her hand, surprised at her own boldness.

  She had no intention of allowing him to cool off. Not when she had chosen him to initiate her into womanhood. Her need seemed far more important than arming himself or protecting her, or whatever he meant by forgetting protection.

  He hauled her close with one arm, her breasts flattening against his chest. With his free hand, he returned the same pleasure she gave him, his fingers sliding between her legs to cup her mound. The pleasure was instant; as if she hadn’t already experienced the keen delight he’d given her earlier. Then his fingers moved, performing a slow massage of painstakingly deliberate circles and it suddenly required all of her concentration and tremendous effort just to continue touching him when she wanted nothing more than to experience that wave of magic he could make.

  “You are much more skilled at this than me.” She panted the words over her building passion, scarcely able to articulate her thoughts. “You must wait so I can catch up with pleasuring you.”

  “Sexual handicapping. I love it.” His words confused her, as always, but she did not question, could not care what his foreign expressions might mean.

  “Never mind catching up. I want to feel you inside me.” She leaned out of the torrent of water to make sure he heard her.

  The time had come to breach her maidenhead, and she wanted this man to do it. Not some cold, impersonal device crafted by Kendrick for initiating a woman. She wanted to feel the heat, the velvety strength of Graham’s manhood between her legs.

  “It isn’t safe.” He stepped out of the downpour as well, his eyes dark and glittering in the shadowy cave of rock and water with naught but a wavering shaft of moonlight to illuminate them.

  “No one can see us.” She traced the strong line of his jaw, the dark bristly shadow giving him a dangerous aspect. “And I am very ready for you.”

  She could feel her heartbeat throb between her thighs, her sex wet with readiness. She had to have him.

  Now.

  “Are you sure?”

  Graham gritted his teeth against the need for her, knowing he was an idiot even to consider taking her. But it had to be a dream. A long as hell dream. Or maybe he’d cracked his head open back at the J. Paul Getty Museum and even now he was bleeding out on a sleek marble floor somewhere and what he was feeling was all part of his dying last wish.

  And hot damn, but this was the way to go.

  “I’m very sure.” Linnet stroked him in sporadic bursts of frenzied touches, her green eyes dazed and heavy-lidded with desire as she swayed on her feet in the water.

  “Then we do this my way.” He hadn’t ever tried the pull-out method, knowing it was a dumb-ass, sorry excuse for birth control, but then he’d never found himself suspended in a semi-imaginary world with a woman who could only be spun from his fantasies.

  “I trust your way will be—” her breath hitched when he dipped one finger inside her “—delicious.”

  Hefting her off the ground, he backed against the wall of rocks behind the cascade of water, hoping she could find a toehold there as he lifted her higher still. Gripping her thighs, he positioned her above his erection—halfway to his freaking neck he was so hot for her—and then lowered her by slow degrees.

  He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from moving too fast. This couldn’t be the way the old-time knights deflowered their maidens. He was moving things along with typical MTV-generation speed, taking her in a pond in the woods when he should have had her wrapped up in a soft bed, or laid out on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace.

  She wound her arms around his neck, fingers clutching at his hair, his shoulders, his back. He could only see her in shadow, but he could still discern the wonder in her expression, her lips parted and her eyes widening a little more with each inch.

  She flinched as he hit the barrier. Or maybe it was he who flinched, because the abrupt halt in his entry startled him even though, logically, he should have been expecting it.

  “Sorry.” He held her steady, waiting for her to be okay with this, waiting for the coronary that was sure to come if he held back much longer.

  “I’m not. I’d only be regretful if you stopped.” She speared her fingers through his hair and leaned in to kiss him, her wet skin sliding along his while she nipped at his lower lip.

  And then, right before his heart was about to launch clear out of his chest, he thrust forward at the same time he brought her down the rest of the way. The slight resistance he felt before the barrier tore away heaped guilt on his shoulders, but damnation, he couldn’t quit now when she pulsed all around him with sensual tremors.

  He’d staved off the need as long as he could and now the fierceness of it rolled over him with full force. He gripped her hips with both hands, guiding her where he wanted her. Needed her.

  Her body clenched his so tightly, so sweetly, that every thrust wrought a new depth of satisfaction and a powerful hunger for more. His desire for her was deep, primal, assuring him on every level that he’d been transported through time. How else could he account for this primitive need to take and possess, conquer and keep?

  Her nails sank into his shoulders, as if she felt the same savage instinct, and her cries became more frenzied. He gave her more, harder, faster and nearly lost control at the same time she cried out with her own release. He couldn’t have contained the hoarse shout that rose in his throat as he pulled out from her if he tried, their voices raised to howl at the moon in a whole new way.

  The moment blinded him with its raw intensity as he finished, holding her up above him to keep her as protected as the moment allowed. The force of his release staggered him as he held her tight, his face so close to breast level, he couldn’t resist taking a taste while his heart slowed down.

  Their breathing matched each other in raggedness and he remained there in the water for long moments before he put her on her feet.

  “You left me at the last.” Linnet’s voice loomed soft and vaguely accusing in the darkness. Moonlight lit her pale hair to a ghostly shade as she bent to douse a last splash of water on herself.

  Another surreal moment. The black-and-white tones half suggested he’d fallen into a dream.

  “I was trying to protect you.” He rinsed off as well, the water seeming colder now that the fire of red-hot lust had been sated for at least a little while.

  “I wanted you to show me everything and yet you spent your seed in the water in a way that robs me of a true mating.”

  Ah, damn. He’d hurt her and hadn’t even realized it. He should have known a medieval maiden would think differently about sex.

  “I promised to keep you safe.” He slid a comforting hand over her shoulder, not sure how to make her understand without indicting himself as a man who wouldn’t be sticking around. Modern women expected that. But more and more, he realized Linnet didn’t think like them. “I didn’t want to compromise you that way when your life holds so much uncertainty right now. You’re not even sure where you’re going to live.”

  The words sounded like what they were—lame excuses for the core issue that he wouldn’t be staying in her
world for long.

  “Do not mistake me.” She walked out of the water like a nymph, her body glistening with moisture and pale nakedness. “What we shared was the most beautiful experience of my life.”

  At least that was more like it.

  “But?”

  “When something is so profound, you rather wish to see how it turns out in the end.” She slid into her clothes and left her laces untied while he tromped up the bank feeling decidedly put-out.

  Her words shut him up in a hurry. How could he write off her response as a simple lack of sex education when he too had wanted to stay inside her with a fierceness he’d never felt in his life?

  When he said nothing, she cleared her throat softly.

  “I have offended you.”

  “Hell no.” He kissed her gently as he picked up his sword. “You gave me the most incredible gift any woman could give a man.”

  He hadn’t said it to be Joe Romance, but damned if he didn’t think it was true. Besides, hanging out with a twelfth-century female could make a man see the world a little differently.

  Maybe he’d be throwing around thee and thou before all was said and done, too. At the very least, he knew he wouldn’t be the same man on the inside once he made it back to L.A.

  “I fear I gave you a few scratches as well.” She took his hand as he led her toward her brother’s house for the night. “The passion between a man and woman is more wild than even my dreams showed me.”

  “It’s not like that with just any man and woman.” He paused now and again as they trekked through the woods, listening for any sign of company that didn’t walk on four legs.

  “Is that so?”

  “Sure it is. Being a virgin, you wouldn’t know that. But what we shared—that doesn’t happen with everyone.” Witness his whole sex life up until now. Then again, maybe people lived harder in the Middle Ages because they didn’t live as long. That could make sex all the more phenomenal when every encounter took on a live-for-the-moment quality.

  And while the notion made him want to take Linnet back to Hollywood with him to guard her and make sure she lived to be a hundred and ten, at the same time, Graham acknowledged there had to be something more substantial beneath their kind of chemistry than just an increased passion for life.

  He’d be seeing stars for another week after that encounter. Or, maybe the sex had seemed so good simply because it was fantasy sex and Linnet Welborne wasn’t any more real than his wild imagination telling him he was walking through old-time England with a sadistic knight on his trail ready to go medieval on Graham’s ass—quite literally.

  “So you think our consummation was exceptional.” She sounded pleased by this as she hastened her step now that they’d reached the edge of the forest and walked along the fringe of the path they’d taken to the creek earlier in the day.

  “I know it was exceptional. And so will you next time you meet a guy who doesn’t come close to lighting your fire like me.” He tried to keep the observation light even though the words stuck in his throat.

  Pissed him off.

  “I will do no such thing. I don’t plan to ever let any man touch me but you.”

  Shock and pleasure at his words warred with automatic denial and abject fear that she’d let the encounter mean too much when he really had to find his way home. Sooner rather than later.

  “What do you mean?” He nearly tripped over a tree root, he was so surprised by her declaration. “You know I can’t stick around since I have to return—”

  She brushed her fingers lightly over his shoulder to encourage his gaze.

  “My homeland is different from yours, Graham. I will not be able to give myself to another man so simply as I could with you. Any English knight who claimed me would try to barter me from my brothers or otherwise own me and I cannot ever risk that.” Her slippers fell silently on the wet grass as she walked slowly beside him.

  He waited for her to continue, not having a clue what to say.

  “After you leave—” she ducked beneath a low branch “—I will need to keep my identity secret and if I cannot find work in London, I may have to join an order of holy women. As you say in your land, ‘trust me,’ there will be no opportunity for sex in the convent.”

  She didn’t wish to trap him into marriage or keep him in her crazy fantasy-dream world at all. She just planned to give up sex for all eternity following her encounter with him.

  “So in other words, you want a few good memories to perk up your nights in the nunnery?” He shook his head to clear it of the cobwebs, wondering if she was for real. Who went from a chastity belt into a convent after discovering the kind of mind-blowing sex they’d just shared?

  Hell, he would gladly give his right arm for a few more nights of bliss with her and she was ready to write it all off as some kind of filler activity before she swore off sex forever?

  He didn’t know whether to be really insulted that she’d suggest such a thing, or if he should beat his chest with the knowledge no other man would ever touch her the way he had. Damn selfish of him, yes, but he couldn’t deny the sense of possessiveness she inspired.

  “I suppose you could say that.” She hooked her arm through his to walk closer to him, bringing her breasts within touching range of his arm. “But mostly I just shared that bit of knowledge with you so that you could be forewarned I will desire every bit of sexual fulfillment I can garner before I must take a job or holy orders.”

  Nonstop monkey sex with the hottest woman he’d ever met?

  He’d have to be the village idiot to say no. Linnet Welborne was the personification of sexy. And he didn’t have a shot at walking away from her without fulfilling that particular request. Just as long as he kept in mind that he couldn’t remain here for long, not when his investigation demanded his return. He’d just follow this surreal experience until he found the answers he needed for his case.

  And if that involved a lot of hot sex along the way—well hell. That was just a rare and lucky break.

  9

  SHE WOULD HAVE PREFERRED a broken leg to a broken heart, but Linnet realized she might be doomed to suffer both as she scaled the narrow log up to the second-story balcony of the dark, fortified holding.

  Graham steadied her from behind whenever she lost her footing on the precarious crossing, but each brush of his hands on her hips only made her more uneasy inside, the light caresses a bittersweet reminder of all they’d shared. As she righted her feet on the plank a third time, she told herself not to think about the way Graham had withheld himself from her at the last during their unforgettable encounter in the water.

  “Are you all right?” He spoke softly in her ear now, a dark shadow over her shoulder as she edged forward more carefully. His voice sent a pleasant shiver through her despite the warm night air.

  “Fine.” An outright lie, but there seemed no good way to list all the reasons she was not fine when their safety might depend on their ability to remain quiet.

  Because although Graham had looked around the house before he’d allowed her to approach it, there remained a small chance Kendrick and his men could be out there. Searching for her. For them. And the thought of anything happening to Graham began to seem more untenable than any injury Kendrick could possibly do to her.

  “Almost there.” His words of encouragement rang hollowly in her ears as her fingers searched for grip on the stone parapet. Loose rocks crumbled away before she found a secure section and leaped onto the same low balcony where they’d entered the house for the first time.

  Graham dropped down beside her with a soft thud, his grace and balance surprising for a man of his size since he wasn’t much shorter than her brothers, all of whom were acknowledged beasts by most people’s standards.

  They worked silently side by side to make preparations for sleeping. They had stuffed his shirt with tall grasses on their trek back from the pond so they had something soft to make a bed.

  Together.

  The idea filled
her with trepidation for her heart since she couldn’t afford to care for a secretive foreigner who would only leave her. Yet she couldn’t deny the leap of her pulse as she thought about sharing a blanket with him.

  Turning on her heel, she sought her traveling bag with clean clothes, a comb and some mint leaves when a flame sparked within the chamber behind her.

  Fire?

  Graham seemed to have found a way to light an old taper that rested cockeyed against one wall and she hadn’t even heard him strike a flint. Curious.

  Even more curious was his effect on her—the same one he’d had from the first time she’d seen him in her wardrobe. Her senses heightened the same way they did in a meadow before a thunderstorm. The air became charged and heavy, making her skin hum with anticipation.

  “Do you need any help?” The low timbre of his voice stoked the fire inside that had been banked since the encounter in the waterfall.

  “No.” She told herself to look away from him, to break the heated spell. “I’m just—”

  “Tired?” He moved toward her bag and passed it to her. “We’ve been awake for so long it’s a wonder we’re even making sense anymore.”

  “My thoughts have been so full of other things—” like him “—that I hardly had time to think about sleeping. But now that you mention it, I am tired.”

  She should sleep—prayed for sleep—so she wouldn’t have to think about a future that confused her. Scared her.

  Where would she go? She hadn’t even considered a holy place until the words had passed from her mouth today, but she had reached for any vision of the future that would be safe, one where Kendrick couldn’t reach her.

  Reason told her she could never be accepted into any prestigious nunnery without a dowry to offer the church, but perhaps if she offered to work hard she could take on a small role?

  Blast.

  She could not even convince herself. How would she convince any holy woman worthy of her wimple that she would be a dedicated nun? More than anything, she wanted to wrap herself around Graham and find the magic he’d shared with her earlier….