Tanya looked on the floor for her jeans and T-shirt. His breeches and flowing shirt were on top of them. He liked to undress her first, was why. The way everything was tangled up, it almost looked like his clothes were making passionate love to her clothes.
Tanya retrieved her stuff, letting the linen sheet drop to the floor. Without a sound, he came up behind her, warm hand on her bare butt, stroking her voluptuously. The skin-to-skin contact stopped her where she was, jeans in hand. Sex with him was just too damn good not to enjoy it every chance she got. She straightened and arched back against him, letting him reach around to caress her breasts.
He was erect—she could feel his stiff cock at the small of her back, his big balls resting just above her ass. God, tall men were fun to play with.
“Where are you taking me now?” she murmured. One minute ago, she hadn’t been interested. Now, held in his sensual embrace, she was. “I think I’ve seen everything.”
“Not my first time.”
Tanya turned inside the circle of his arms, facing him. “Now that could be interesting. Just tell me that you were of legal age.”
He laughed. “I was twenty.”
“And how old was she?”
“They were older.”
Tanya’s eyes widened. “They?”
“Two ladies-in-waiting to the queen.”
“My, my. How much older?”
“Oh, perhaps five years—six years. I do not remember. They were cultured, highly educated women, whose beauty and elegance awed me. I had been sent to court by my father, who wished me to acquire a measure of sophistication and further his own connections there. But I was unsure of myself, having been raised in the country in this distant chateau. They decided to teach me everything they knew.”
Tanya patted his ass. “Nice of them. I’m sure it wasn’t just a public service. I bet you were tall and terrific even then.”
He inclined his head and brushed a brief kiss on her lips. “I was tall, nothing more. And excruciatingly shy.”
“I bet that turned them on.”
He seemed a little surprised. “How did you know?”
“I know women,” Tanya said. “Young man? New in town? Handsome? Attentive? Adoring? Eager to be touched for the very first time? Oh boy, what a fabulous fantasy.”
Jean-Claude’s amber eyes glowed with newly awakened memories that made his cock stir. “Then come back to bed and I will tell you all about it.”
“What the hell.” Tanya dropped her jeans and let him lead her there.
He got in first, then swooshed the covers over her, indulging in a few moments of cuddling and stroking before he began his tale. The lengthening shadows of afternoon made the room gloomy and a little chilly, but his nearness warmed her.
Jean-Claude pointed a finger at a candelabra across the room and, one by one, the candles on it flickered with tiny flames. Their combined light revealed a tapestry on the wall that she hadn’t noticed when she’d come into the chamber. The weaving was as subtle as a finely colored painting, in hues of madder yellow and indigo and scarlet, and infinite gradations of those hues mixed to make many more. In its center were two noblewomen, sitting on a tasseled divan side by side, with two small dogs playing at their feet.
They were attended by a troubadour playing a lute. Singing songs of courtly love, Tanya thought. Or perhaps something more risqué. The polite smiles that curved their small mouths did not quite go with the sensual look in their heavy-lidded gaze. These medieval ladies were clearly eying the troubadour. Tanya squinted at the tapestry. The troubadour was handsome, with black, curling hair, but he bore no resemblance to Jean-Claude.
“As you can see, they were beautiful.”
“Great hair too.” She noted the style on the woman on the left: her waist-length, rippling golden locks flowed down her back, kept off her oval face by a delicate jeweled filet across the forehead. The other woman was a brunette, who restrained her equally long tresses with a transparent veil and a velvet band. Pearl drops hung from her ears and more pearls nestled in her bosom. Their dresses were simple in cut, with narrow bodices that flowed into cascades of silk.
As Tanya studied the tapestry, the figures in it came to life and she could hear the rich baritone of the troubadour. If she had to guess, she would say he was singing in Italian.
“Such men wandered from court to court,” Jean-Claude explained. “They stayed for a season or two in each place. If they pleased milady and her companions, they sometimes stayed longer.”
“I see. And when do you come into this scene?”
“Look closely.”
The tapestry was now three-dimensional, and in the background Tanya glimpsed a heavy curtain hanging across the back of the room in which the threesome sat. The curtain stirred slightly—and she glimpsed a familiar face at its edge. Jean-Claude’s. Much younger.
“I had no idea at that time that such elegant women could be more wanton than town trollops,” he murmured. “Let me assure you that I had no intention of spying. That day I had fallen asleep on the deep stone ledge of the castle window where I had been looking out towards home, which I could not see. The alcove was warm and a kind maid drew the curtain to let me slumber. The singing woke me.”
Tanya nodded. She watched as one of the women pulled her silk skirts up above the waist, revealing her pussy to the troubadour, who winked at the other lady. Neither seemed surprised. He set the lute aside and went to her, saying something in Italian. He traced his fingertips over the tender flesh and gave her a taste of herself, anointing her small lips with her own juice before he kissed her.
Not wasting a second, the other lady got her skirts up and showed her pussy too. So much for the music, Tanya thought. The troubadour was hot-looking. She couldn’t blame them. He pleasured them in turn with his fingers and his tongue, and they ate it up. They seemed to enjoy watching each other receive his erotic attentions, directing him to do precisely what they wanted, taking advantage of his skill.
Still side by side, they sat upon the divan, composed and ladylike if you didn’t count the shameless display of pussy between spread thighs. As he kneeled and got busy, the ladies caressed each other’s breasts, pulling and tugging on nipples freed from tight bodices by expert hands.
Jean-Claude’s hand slipped between Tanya’s legs and he slowly finger-fucked her, keeping time with the talented troubadour. “As you can see, I was safe enough behind the curtain but I could not escape. Young and inexperienced as I was, the trio mesmerized me. I didn’t make a sound.”
But one of the dogs sniffed him out, yapping. A woman turned around and spotted him—the brunette, whose demure expression and veiled hair made Tanya think that she was not as wanton as the other. Hah. The brunette shooed the dogs away and called him over without bothering to drop her skirts. In fact, she invited him to look his fill by spreading her legs even more.
Jean-Claude stared at her swollen sex. His cock rose upright and he forced it down by grabbing it, but nature won out and up it came again. The noblewoman beckoned him. He didn’t refuse and he didn’t run.
She ran slender white hands over the hard rod beneath his clothes, rubbing and rubbing until the stimulation made his body shake. Then she unlaced him and freed his cock, encircling it lightly and sliding her fingers over it until her amorous companion looked over to see. The handsome Italian stopped to wipe his mouth and took his own cock out, handling it with pride and stroking it to maximum length. But Jean-Claude’s was bigger. He blushed and the women laughed at him.
“Were you a virgin?” Tanya asked.
“Yes.”
“Not for long. Not with this bunch.”
He grinned. “You are right, as usual.”
The brunette let go and took his hands in hers, pulling her down to him for his first taste of womanly heaven. Awkward but eager, the young Jean-Claude knelt between her thighs and applied a tentative tongue to her pussy, then licked avidly. The blonde woman rose to allow the brunette to recline and reach ou
t her arms to her novice lover, guiding him all the way.
With a cry of sensual surprise, Jean-Claude thrust inside her, closing his eyes, rocking back and forth, cradled in her thighs. The Italian troubadour watched intently, then put a hand on the younger man’s behind, stroking the sensitive skin of his tight buttocks and running his fingertips over the tense hollows at the sides.
Tanya heard her Jean-Paul gasp. “That was him? And I thought it was my lady.”
She laughed a little. “So some guy was patting your butt. You didn’t know. And you enjoyed it.”
Jean-Claude blushed as deeply as the young man. “I was lost in the sensation…and about to come. Ah, he was a Florentine—they are notoriously fond of young men.”
They both watched as his former self pounded into the first woman he’d had, rolling his hips in a way that made the brunette moan with pleasure. Between the firm hand caressing his buttocks and pushing him down with each thrust of his cock and the brunette’s undulating embrace, young Jean-Claude came explosively, crying out and almost collapsing on her. Sighing with lust, the troubadour gave him one last good squeeze and had the blonde bent over the divan seconds later, positioning his cock tip on her asshole and waiting a few more seconds for her to thrust back and take him deeply in her behind.
Probably wishing he was doing Jean-Claude, Tanya thought. She turned to gaze at the real man, feeling like she was falling in love with him all over again. His expression was bashful, almost boyish. A scene from his endless life had revealed more than he’d thought it would, and he had reason to blush. She looked from him to the youth he had been, loving his long-lashed innocence, and then back to the experienced, handsomely lined face he had now.
“What is it?” he asked softly. “Am I less of a man in your eyes now?”
She kissed his nose. “Don’t be silly.” She kissed his lips. They stopped looking at the naughty noblewomen and concentrated on each other.
Yes, the tableau was erotic, but it was the openness of his younger self that truly touched her. Once upon a time, he had been vulnerable…and virile, of course. That quality had endured.
Two days later…
But mere virility wasn’t enough to base a relationship on. Okay, tripping through time had been the adventure of a lifetime, but she would have to be crazy if she thought it was going to last. Falling in love for a week was an exhilarating experience, nothing to take seriously. Tanya tossed her things into her suitcase, much lighter now that she’d used up twenty pounds of hair product on the lion. The adventure was over, she was going straight to the airport and skipping the Paris clubs, and returning to sanity.
How depressing.
Wild men and sexy beasts were much more fun. She picked up the little sack of gold coins he’d given her, swinging it, enjoying the clink of real money—the realest money she’d ever seen. No dead presidents, no live queens with funny hairdos, no holographic-calligraphic decorative doodads to stop counterfeiting. Just solid gold.
Like his heart. Tanya looked around the room. Was he standing behind her, putting thoughts into her mind? No—she was alone. She let out a sigh of relief and kept on packing, until she realized that it had been a sad sigh and not a sigh of relief. She was going to miss him. Big time.
A knock on the door snapped her out of it. “Come in,” she called, hoping it wasn’t him.
The knob turned and Jean-Claude walked in. “Is your mind made up?”
“You can read it. You tell me.”
He looked into her eyes and the expression in them floored her. Soulful intelligence. Dignity. Longing. Love.
Stay.
“I can’t. Like I said, I have a life.”
He watched her throw things into her suitcase at random. Neither of them spoke for several minutes.
“Would you mind very much,” he said cautiously, “if I were to share it?”
She opened her mouth to reply, then shut it and tried to think of an adequate response. “Look,” she said at last, “I know a lot about you—and thanks for the guided tour through French history and your entire life, it really was a blast—but you know almost nothing about me. You can’t just follow me to New York.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a blasé look. “Why not?”
“Oh, about a million reasons. You can’t walk a lion down Fifth Avenue, for starters.”
Jean-Claude shrugged. “I shall create a safari park just for him. He will have more lionesses than he knows what to do with.”
She pointed a finger at him. “You know, that approach didn’t do you a lot of good. You’re never going to be satisfied with just one woman or just one life.”
“I disagree.” His tone was calm.
“Please don’t be so reasonable. I hate it when men get reasonable. It makes it very hard to fight with them.”
He threw up his hands. “Why would you want to fight with me?”
“Because.”
“Why, Tanya?”
She zipped up her suitcase, gritting her teeth at the faint shriek it emitted. “Because it’s the fastest way to end this affair.”
He came around it, taking her by the shoulders and giving her the golden-gaze routine. Tanya looked deep into his eyes, then turned her head away. He was good at it. It almost worked.
“But I know you are the right woman for me. I knew it the second I saw you. Animal instinct.”
“Yeah, yeah, you said that. I mean, I heard you say it inside your head that first day.”
“Then trust your instincts, Tanya. Remember, you’re one of my kind.”
“In your world, maybe. Not mine.” She had forgotten to pack her sneakers and squatted to cram them roughly into a side pocket. “Look, Jean-Claude, love isn’t about magic shows and unbelievable hot sex and sleeping late and having tiptoeing servants attend to your every need—I mean, the instant gratification aspect of it was great, and the sex was amazing, and I still haven’t figured out the CGI thing or the time travel, but…” She trailed off, catching her breath.
“Then what is love about? Is it real?”
“Love is…love is about volunteering to go out in a New York snowstorm for the Sunday paper and coming back with the last bagel in the bakery too. Which you split with your honey so no one goes hungry. Love is sitting socks to socks on the couch and reading that paper aloud to each other. Love is ordinary. But it endures. And yeah, it’s real.”
He pondered that for a moment. “Very well. If that is what you want, then that is what I will do.”
“You don’t know me!” she burst out. “Yes, you turned me inside out, sexually speaking, but that doesn’t mean as much as men think it does.”
Jean-Claude gave her a worried look. “It doesn’t?”
“No!”
He squatted next to her, carefully tucking the laces of the sneakers into the side pocket. “So our story is not to have a happy ending?”
Unbalanced and upset, Tanya fell back onto her butt. “How the hell should I know?”
He straightened, looking down at her. “Allow me to accompany you to New York. Although I cannot conjure up a real snowstorm, we will buy this last bagel if it means so much to you and we will split it. And we will share the newspaper. We will sit socks to socks.”
It sounded so ridiculous to hear him say it in his grave voice that she had to laugh. “All right. I really can’t say no. It has been one hell of a week. I just needed to make sure that—I don’t know. I’m not sure about anything anymore. You kind of blew my mind. In a good way.”
He pulled her to her feet and enfolded her in a huge hug. “Perhaps we should start over.”
“Okay. You’re on.” She rested her head against his chest, listening to his heart beat. As happy endings go, that sounded like a pretty good beginning.
Call of the Wild
Kathleen Dante
1
Shifting to a lower gear, Deanna Lycan took yet another S curve in the endless mountains with more caution than was her wont. Laden with a
ll her worldly belongings, her sporty CR-V was less nimble than usual and she didn’t want to push it.
Anyway, there was no rush. No one was expecting her. No one would mind if she got to Hillsboro tomorrow or next week instead of today. She stifled the familiar pang of loneliness the thought evoked. That might change, if her inquiries proved fruitful. She could only hope she wasn’t off on a fool’s quest.
Few vehicles shared the winding two-lane highway, allowing her to snatch an occasional glance at the scenery.
On one side was steep mountain covered by hardwood and pines, but the other side was a drop-off that plunged to a rushing stream hundreds of feet below. Every few turns revealed another breathtaking vista of blue mountains stretching rank upon rank into the distance, seemingly untouched by the summer heat.
The sight of all that open space soothed something inside her, calmed the restlessness that for the past year had made her miserable in Boston. A strange development for the city girl she knew herself to be. But she couldn’t deny the sense of homecoming she felt at seeing the panorama, after nearly a decade since she’d last beheld its like.
The endless double yellow lines unrolled along the middle of the road before her, faithfully snaking along the curves, dividing the narrow highway into equal lanes. Rather like the way her future had looked before she’d decided to pull up stakes. Steady, static, sterile…and ultimately stifling.
Who would have thought that Boston with its picturesque neighborhoods echoing with history, and its concerts and plays and museums—cultural activities she enjoyed—would now encroach on her?
Too little room, too many people, too many strangers—and no family.
Suddenly, it had been like she couldn’t breathe.
It had gotten so bad that she hadn’t allowed a man in her bed in months. Couldn’t stand the thought of sharing her space.
Well, hopefully, all that would change in Hillsboro. And she was taking the first step toward making it happen.
Deanna made a face. Jumpstart her dismal love life? Who was she kidding? Just because she was relocating didn’t mean she’d find someone who’d awaken her dormant libido. Which was a pity, since the horizontal tango used to be a lot of fun.
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