His were a lover’s hands, holding, stroking, comforting, healing the ache in her heart. His kiss was a lover’s kiss, soft, then hungry, sucking her lip between his. Nipping, probing, demanding, he tasted her mouth.
Yes. Yes! He was the lover she’d waited for! Her body blossomed under his touch, her breasts thrusting against his gentle fingers, demanding more. He brushed lightly over the curves of her breasts, her nipples stabbing at him, hard and wanting. She didn’t object when he turned her around, his hands slipped beneath her light cotton shift to skim it over her head. She would have helped him if her own hands weren’t so busy trying to puzzle out the fastenings of the strange black pants he wore.
She stroked him through the fabric—somehow she knew it was linen—loving the way his cock responded to her, already hard and growing harder with her touch.
Her body was on fire, so sensitive to his every move that she twanged with each touch like the ping of a guitar string. Liquid fire pooled low in her belly, moving down, ready to consume him. Through the thin, fine-woven linen of his odd shirt her lips found his nipple, hard and tight, responding instantly to her gently swirling tongue. She felt more than heard his groan as he pulled her against his chest.
“By the gods I have missed you,” he murmured. “So long this time. It’s been so long.”
Marylin trailed her fingers down until she cupped his balls, feeling them tighten even as his cock reached for her. “Too long.” She nipped at his shirt. “You’re wearing entirely too many clothes.”
A chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Maybe you should do something about that.”
She would, too, if only she could figure out the damn pants. The shirt was easier. Although it didn’t have any buttons up the front, the opening at the neck was loose enough. She pulled the tails out of his waistband and skimmed her hands up his torso, enjoying the trip. He bent to her, letting her push the fabric over his shoulders. She paused there, exploring his face with kisses. Even the taste of him was familiar. Warm and salty and sweet with the taste of man. Her man.
It took him a moment to notice she hadn’t undone the cuffs, leaving his hands trapped. When he tried to rip the shirt to escape, she stilled his hands, pushing him back towards the bed. He lunged at her with his teeth, nipping at her neck in a show of possessiveness, a low growl sounded in his throat.
The old-fashioned wrought iron headboard had a high arched center just made for what she had in mind. Her teeth hovering over his nipple, she urged him backwards till he landed exactly where she wanted him. He didn’t fight her when she ran her hands up his arms, slipping the shirt body over the headboard and pushing it down until it held him pinned.
He might be able to tear the shirt if he tried, but then again he might not. Linen was exceptionally strong. Just how she knew this, she wasn’t sure, but she sensed the shirt would hold unless he fought her in earnest.
Still, it wasn’t the shirt that held him. Some how she knew she could have held him with a word.
Her weight over him didn’t seem to have much effect. His hips still bucked toward her willing cunt, but there was the matter of those pants. She leaned forward to rub her nipples over his, finding her targets easily enough in the pale moonlight, enjoying the sharp intake of his breath. He struggled briefly before he changed his mind, pushing the small puckered bud against her lips.
Taking her time, now, she ran her hands over the pants, her fingertips reading the seams like Braille, until she found the hidden rows of fastenings over either hip. Growling, she bent to assault the offending closures with her teeth. As she tugged the fly out of the way, his cock sprang loose, freed at last of the imprisoning fabric. His hips surged up off the bed, his cock thrusting toward her.
Hot. Hard. Demanding. Needing. He might be a dream, but he felt real enough. Even if it was a dream, she couldn’t force herself to wake up. No. She didn’t want to wake up. Waking up meant letting go. She didn’t want to let go. She wanted, she needed to hold him here. An extra day, an extra hour, an extra minute, it didn’t matter. She would defy the gods. She would keep him this time.
Was he any less real because he came to her only in her sleep? He was real to her. She wanted this to be real. Wanted her Warrior, strong enough to take her no matter how she might resist, yet held at her command by the simple artifice of her will. She wanted his cock filling her mouth as she raked her nails over the curve of his ass, pulling his pants down out of the way. She wanted the hot, hard length of him thrusting at her, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. Yes. YES! Just like that.
“I love you, Mel~amin. I love you.”
She wanted his voice, whispering unintelligible prayers to long forgotten gods when she lifted to rub her tits over him, his waves of heat making her nipples sing with desire. She wanted his balls contracting with need while he thrust against her cleavage, his cock weeping as she licked the tip.
Marylin slid down over the length of him. She needed this. Needed his rigid, burning shaft buried deep within her. If it wasn’t real, it was real enough. She could feel him, could feel his body, warm and alive, under her. She could feel his heartbeat under her palm. She rode him hard and fast, her hands splayed over the ridges of his chest. She stretched out over him, loving the feel of her smooth, bare skin against the thick fur of his legs. He reached for her, his toes finding her, offering purchase to push against. Fire lit her, pulling her with a longing stronger than time. She rocked back and forth, up and down, taking them both closer and closer to the edge with the slow, easy friction of flesh on flesh, bone against bone, need against need.
He thrust up hard against her, holding her mouth with his kiss, stroking the ridges behind her teeth with the tip of his tongue even as his cock stroked the spot within her that made her wild for him. Sensations bombarded her, new and yet remembered. His cock buried deep within her, the hard, hot length of him filling her, stretching her, pushing her past her limits. He fought to recapture her when she broke the kiss, trailing kisses of her own down his chest. He fought her as she sucked at his sensitive nipples, first trying to get away, then pushing against her lips, groaning out his desire as he bucked helplessly up into her.
She rose up over him to rub their nipples together, rocking up and down the length of his throbbing cock, pressing her thighs closed to increase the sensations. She could feel every ridge raking her sensitized flesh, every vein sliding past. She squeezed him tighter, feeling his balls drawing up, beginning to tease her with their coarse, rough hair against her sensitive skin.
She knew a nagging fear, now. No matter how much she wanted this, he wasn’t real. Once they came the dream would end. She would lie here alone in her bed, so close to what she’d wanted, what she’d needed, what she’d never found in the daylight.
Somehow, this time, she had to keep him here. Whatever it took, she had to hold him this time. “Stay with me,” she pleaded.
“Come with me,” he demanded, nipping at her lip.
She didn’t want to come, not now, not knowing the consequences, but she couldn’t help herself, not with his cock burning within her, not with need as old as the ages pulling at her. “I need you to be real! I don’t want to lose you again!” she cried, tears streaming down her face.
“You cannot lose me,” he promised. “Do you not know that by now? I’m as real as you are. You’re mine. Wherever you are, I will find you.”
“Then find me!” She drove against him, pushing herself harder, reaching for the release that would either destroy her or set her free. “Find me now! I can’t wait any longer!”
She broke over him, her body shaking with the force of an electric shock running through her, her need enveloping them both till she was sure the air around them must shimmer with power.
He roared out his release, a cry of both triumph and despair as he slipped away.
“Take me with you, my love. I need you!” she cried.
“Wherever, whenever you are I will find you. Forever and always, my love. I will find you
again!”
Chapter One
Marylin was positive that if she so much as blinked her eyes her head would explode. God. What had she been thinking? She wasn’t nineteen anymore. Apparently Amaretto wasn’t what it used to be, either. Hadn’t ever given her a hangover before. That was the reason she drank Amaretto—to avoid mornings like this.
For that matter, she didn’t remember ever having a morning after quite like this.
She’d have called out, asked some kind soul to bring her a damp, cool cloth to unglue her eyes, but she was afraid the sound of her own voice might shatter her brittle eyelids. As if by magic a cool cloth appeared in her hand. Thank you, God. Whichever, whatever god. She’d pray to any deity who was handy right now if her head would quit pounding. Moving carefully, she laid the scrap of cloth over her eyes, concentrating on slow, deep, even breaths, willing the pain away. Mind over matter. That was all there was to it. Simple chemical process really. Re-oxygenate the blood.
In with the good air. Out with the bad. Gray had taught her that. A dancer’s technique. She didn’t want to know where he’d learned it, or why.
As the pain subsided, awareness of sensations outside her body returned. Where was she? She wasn’t in her own bed, that was for sure. The surface beneath her was hard, and the air was cool, but fresh. She couldn’t remember… Gray. She’d e-mailed Gray. They’d met at a place she’d found on the Internet. Desire Island, in the Gulf of Mexico.
She smiled experimentally. Her lips didn’t crack. Gray must be watching her, trying not to laugh. Gray would know to have the cloth ready. Its coolness made the thought of opening her eyes at least tolerable. Cautiously she wiped the warming water over the rest of her face, wondering just how bad she looked. Well, Gray’d seen her at her worst before. He’d cope. Slowly, carefully, giving them time to adjust to the light in the room, she pried her eyes open.
There was a man watching over her, all right, but he wasn’t Gray. Long, pale blond hair framed an oval face that was just a little too masculine to be pretty. It was a quiet face, the kind of face that soaked up all emotion, so that it was impossible to tell whether he was happy, or sad, or even interested.
Since at the moment he was studying her, in fact staring at her rather intently, and she seemed to be lying quite naked on a strange bed in a strange room, she did the sensible thing. She screamed. The watcher stood up, unfolding long, long legs that had been tucked beneath him somewhere. Paying no heed to her screams as she lunged for the closest covering—some sort of thick, heavy hide—he walked to the doorway.
“She is awake, Lord Lindall.”
“Indeed. So I gathered.” The voice was deep and rumbling and tinged with humor, betraying traces of a Scots brogue. The man who went with the voice ducked his head to enter the small chamber, pausing there in the doorway, filling it so thoroughly that he blocked the light.
Marylin ceased her screaming abruptly. Good Lord. The man must be close to seven foot tall. His shoulders filled the doorway. From there he narrowed to slimmer hips and long, muscular legs. For the first time since she’d been a child staring up at her father, she felt small and vulnerable.
She glanced to his face as he paused to stare at her. She knew this man. Had seen him before. Had dreamed of him for years now. In her dreams he was her knight, her protector, her partner, her lover. Usually she knew him as a shadowy, indistinct figure. She always recognized him, sometimes even spoke to him, but she’d never heard his voice before, never seen his face.
Until last night. He was the man from the ferry. She’d seen him. Known him. Loved him. Fucked him.
He had promised to find her. Perhaps…
No. He couldn’t be her dream lover. This man was real. Maybe he really was the man she’d seen on the ferry. Had he been stalking her? Had he kidnapped her? But that didn’t seem plausible. She wasn’t tied up. Nothing kept her here but her own frozen inability to move.
She could see him clearly now, long, dark hair pulled back from his face, a close-cropped beard dusting his jaw, wide set green eyes studying her, questioning, probing, drinking her up. Their gazes locked. He moved toward her hesitantly, almost as if drawn against his will, his heavy woolen kilt barely swaying against his leggings. He paused again at the edge of the raised platform, towering over her as she lay clutching the hide over her breasts. Like a giant tree toppling, he dropped slowly to one knee beside the bed. Marylin’s head reeled as she read the emotions swirling in those eyes.
Grief. Hunger. Pain. Need. Fear. Love.
He was the man from the ferry. He was the man from her dreams. Her knight, her lover, her protector. He was the one who held the missing pieces of her soul.
He picked up her hand, lifting it to his lips for a kiss that nearly broke her heart with its tenderness. “I have missed ye, Mel~amin. Do no’ leave me so again, for my heart nearly split asunder.”
His heart? What about hers? One moment he’d been there, and everything had been right. The next he was gone, and she was alone—more alone than she’d ever been.
It was a dream. Just a dream. He hadn’t been real last night. He wasn’t real now. She’d seen a man on the ferry and added his face to that of the man in her dreams. She’d dreamed about him last night. A rough, wanton dream of a middle-aged woman too long alone. Dreams. That was all it was. She was dreaming again now.
Marylin broke eye contact as a gust of wind shook the pavilion, which she realized was actually a tent of great proportions, walled with huge, thick hides. She had to wake up, before this gentle giant of a man stole what was left of her heart. She could not fall in love with a dream. “No. Not again,” she whispered to herself. She would not make the same mistake again. Just a dream.
The big man raised his eyes quizzically to the watcher, who merely shook his head once so that his long pale mane lifted slightly, then settled again against his shoulders. Marylin clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle another scream. The blond man—she’d thought him tall until the Warrior entered the room—had ears that rose to sharp points at the tips. There was no mistaking those ears. She was staring at an Elf!
This man—this Elf—had certainly never been part of her dreams before. It was to the Elf-Man that Marylin turned for answers, hissing her questions out with as much righteous anger and injured dignity as her pounding head would allow. “Who and what are you and where the hell am I and how did I get here?”
One eyebrow raised in a delicate point. “I am Shammall, M’Lady, your most humble and obedient servant.”
Marylin suppressed a most unladylike snort, thinking she’d never met anyone less humble or obedient.
“As for what, I am a Mage, and it was I who summoned you.”
Summoned she understood, but Mage? As in—as in what? Magician? Maybe he could make things appear, sleight of hand, like the cloth?
“We are in the Northlands, camped just below the Pass of St. Gregory, which separates the Northlands from the ancient cities of Talandar and Élahandara, and you are here because I summoned you.”
All right. She wasn’t going to panic. No. Not now. Maybe later. Some of this at least made sense. Northlands. It was cold. Canada, maybe. But… “I thought I knew most of the Saints. I don’t remember Saint Gregory.”
The Mage raised an eyebrow. “His story is well known, M’Lady. Saint Gregory slew a Dragon, thus separating the races of Man from the elders.”
Dragon? Slew a… “George. Saint George slew the Dragon.”
The Mage exchanged a worried glance with the one who knelt beside her. “She speaks strangely, M’Lord. Perhaps the Summoning has affected her in some way we did not foresee.”
“I do not speak strangely! I know my history! It’s an ancient legend. Saint George and the Dragon. George. Not Gregory. George!”
Her knight kissed her palm again. “As ye wish, my love. We shall correct the name of the pass if it please ye.”
Was he laughing at her? Marylin turned her gaze back to the Warrior. For he was a Warrior, of that t
here was no doubt. Even without the huge axe strapped across his back, and the dense layer of heavy black chain maille that covered his tunic, she’d have recognized him for what he was.
He looked so much like the man from her dreams. Something in her wanted to reach out to him, touch him, draw him into her arms and comfort him.
Right. As if he needed comforting. He was the one who’d kidnapped her, after all. Or ordered the other one, the Elf, to fetch her here.
A hint of a smile touched his lips as their gazes locked again. “I am Roanen, M’Lady, of House Lindall, and I am thy Lord and thy husband.”
Lord? As in Lord and Master? She’d have laughed at the audacity of it, especially since she sensed that one harsh word from her at just that moment would shatter the man, but the other word distracted her.
Husband?
Marylin looked around the pavilion again, taking in as much as she could, before she let her head fall back to the pillows in utter exhaustion. Weren’t dreams supposed to come with sleep? How could she possibly feel this tired? Or hungry? “I suppose a cheeseburger’s out of the question…and a milkshake?”
The two men exchanged glances, and a worried frown creased Roanen’s handsome face. At this distance she could see the lines of strain around his eyes, and the set of his shoulders looked less regal and more just plain tired. “Cheese burger?”
You didn’t eat in dreams. Not real food. You weren’t ever hungry in dreams. At least she never had been before. “Beef?”
The men looked even more worried.
“Meat. From a cow. Cooked. Made into a sandwich, with cheese, between two pieces of bread?”
Threshold Volume 2 Page 2