by JoAnn Ross
23
Pink fingers of dawn were spreading across a pearl-gray Christmas Eve sky. Sebastian and Kirby were sitting at the kitchen table, watching a family of deer at the salt lick behind her house.
“I heard on the radio that syzygy occurs this evening,” Kirby murmured.
Sometime, during the long, love-filled night, Sebastian had told her of Nate’s belief that the upcoming arrangement of planets—lined up along the same radius and along the same orbital plane extending from the sun—could provide the optimum time for Sebastian’s departure.
Kirby realized with a certain detached wonder that the idea of Sebastian leaving her was more shattering than the fact that she’d managed to fall in love with a man not only from another planet but another time.
“Yes.” Sebastian couldn’t look at her. His heart was already aching at the idea of leaving.
“So, we only have today.”
“Not even that.” He felt her intense disappointment. “I have to spend much of it in the lab.”
“But I thought you and Nate had come up with the coordinates.”
“We have. But now I have to come up with some way to boost my projection power. It’s obvious that something about Earth’s atmosphere or gravity is blocking my abilities. Ever since my arrival, I’ve been mindblind—”
“Not with me,” Kirby pointed out.
“No.” Sebastian smiled, took her hand, and linked their fingers together atop the maple table. “Not with you. But without a ship, my entire theory depends on my being able to achieve absolute astro-projection. As you saw earlier, I can no longer achieve the proper level.”
“Does that mean you’re going to have to call off the experiment?” That you’ll be forced to stay here? With me? she wondered but didn’t dare ask.
“It does unless I can get my hands on some diamaziman crystals within the next few hours,” he agreed.
“Diamaziman?”
“A carbon-based stone whose atoms have been crystallized into a solid cubic pattern,” he explained. “Blue diamaziman is preferable, because it possesses the impurity boron, which serves as an electrical conductor. On Logosia, such diamaziman is utilized to beam down visitors who do not possess the ability of astro-projection.”
Remembering how many times he’d considered those individuals without such ability inferior, Sebastian felt humbled. And ashamed.
“There’s nothing else you could use?”
“No.” He frowned and dragged his hand through his hair. “It is, of course, possible to create diamaziman in a laboratory setting, by placing graphite, which is pure carbon, along with a metal solvent between tungsten-carbide pistons and subjecting them to a pressure of a million pounds per square inch, then heating them to thirty-five hundred of your Fahrenheit degrees.
“But your technology is behind ours. It would take at least a week to produce a usable diamaziman.”
“And you don’t have a week.”
“No.” The regret in her voice was echoed in his own heart. “I don’t.”
A silence descended. Outside the kitchen window, the birds had gathered for their morning meal. The cat sat on the windowsill, growling and batting impotently at the feathered visitors through the double-pane glass. Lost in her turmoiled thoughts, Kirby ignored both birds and cat.
“Wait here,” she said finally. She rose from the table and left the room. When she returned, she was carrying a small gray box, which she held out to Sebastian.
“Maybe this will help,” she suggested in a quiet voice.
He took the box and lifted the lid. Inside, resting on a bed of pearl-gray velvet, was a perfect marquise-cut blue diamaziman set in a platinum band.
Startled, Sebastian looked up at her.
“It was my engagement ring,” she answered his unspoken question. “After my marriage disintegrated, I didn’t want it. I walked along the beach, determined to toss the damn thing into the surf. But, being Yankee born and bred, I couldn’t bear to toss away a valuable diamond, so I kept it.”
“You could have sold it,” Sebastian suggested. He ran his finger over the dazzling blue stone. “I imagine it is quite valuable.”
“Probably.” Kirby shrugged. “I considered that idea and rejected it.” A soft, thoughtful look came into her eyes. “Perhaps, intuitively, I knew that someday I’d have a much better use for it.”
He glanced around her homey, comfortably shabby kitchen, thinking that she could undoubtedly use the funds such a stone would bring.
“I appreciate your generous gesture, Kirby,” Sebastian said, giving the stone one last look before closing the box with a snap. “But I cannot take such a valuable gift.”
“It’s only money,” she argued. What she didn’t say was that she’d given him something far more valuable. Her heart.
“Tell me about him,” Sebastian said suddenly. “Tell me about the man who gave you this ring.” Even in his own time, such a stone would be worth a virtual fortune. Sebastian tried to envision Kirby as a wife of such a wealthy man and failed.
“He was an actor. A big star, actually,” she said. “On television. Movies.” Something occurred to her. “His name is Steven Stone.”
Sebastian knew exactly why she’d given him the man’s name. “The name means nothing.”
“Good.” She nodded. “I’d hate to find out that such a lying rat had been able to maintain his popularity for centuries.”
“I can’t imagine you as the wife of a movie star,” Sebastian ventured.
“Neither could Steven. We met when I was assigned to a security detail when he did a public appearance at a mall in Venice. He told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“I thought you said he was a liar.”
She shot him a quick, appreciative smile. “Flatterer.”
“I find you the most beautiful woman in all the worlds I’ve ever traveled.”
The compliment, like so many of Sebastian’s statements, was simply, honestly spoken. It also went directly to her heart.
“Well.” Kirby took a deep breath. “Anyway, the next thing I knew, I received an offer to act as a technical adviser on his series. I suppose I was flattered by his constant, unrelenting attention, or stardust got into my eyes, or I just liked the idea of seeing my name on the television screen every Wednesday night.
“Whatever, I finally agreed. At the end of that season, we were married.” A soft shadow moved across her eyes. “Six months later, my father had his heart attack. I came home to Maine for the funeral. I returned to Malibu to find that week’s romantic costar playing a starring role in my bed.”
She shook her head with self-disgust. “Later I discovered that Steven had a reputation for bedding them all. The rest of the crew referred to the actresses as the flavor of the week.” Her laugh was short and bitter. Like her marriage, Kirby considered.
“I was angry, hurt, and humiliated. So I returned home to lick my wounds. That’s when I discovered I belonged here. So I stayed….
“Now tell me about Zorana.”
“She is a perfect Logosian,” Sebastian said. “Calm, utterly logical, and unerringly precise. She is a time-management consultant.”
“She sounds boring,” Kirby decided.
Sebastian laughed at that. “She is. But we were matched at a very early age by our parents, so, until I disgraced her with my dismissal from the space council, neither of us ever questioned such arrangement.”
Kirby knew that his alleged disgrace would immediately turn to galaxy-wide triumph when he returned to Logosia. Undoubtedly the utterly logical Zorana would be quick to change her mind about calling off their marriage.
“And now?” She had to ask.
“And now I know that I could never bond with her. Because my heart, and all my thoughts, will belong to you.”
He looked down at the ring for a long, thoughtful time, then up at Kirby. “You realize that, without this diamaziman, I could not return to Logosia.”
“Yes.” Her lip
s were unbearably dry. She had to push the single softly spoken word past the lump in her throat.
“Then why?”
Tears stung at the backs of her lids, and Kirby resolutely blinked them away. “I understand your need to return to your own world, your own time,” she said. “And if there’s any way I can help, I will.”
What she didn’t tell him was that the thought of his molecules scattered all over space because he’d lacked the power to complete his projection was too horrifying to contemplate.
Sebastian studied her for a long, thoughtful moment. Conflicting emotions raged inside him.
Go. Stay.
Duty. Love.
Family. Kirby.
Logic warred with sentiment. His head waged battle with his newly discovered heart.
He wanted to promise that he would come back, but he didn’t. His life was on Logosia.
She smiled, but her lips trembled, and the hot tears that had been threatening made her eyes glisten in a way that Sebastian found more painful than any physical wound could ever be.
A single tear trailed down her cheek. When he tenderly brushed it away with his thumb, she choked back a sob.
“I don’t want to talk anymore,” she said in a frail, fractured voice. She looked up at him, all the love she felt for this man shining on her face, gleaming in her eyes. “Make love with me, Sebastian.” She did not care how needy such a plea might sound; at this moment, she would have begged.
Sebastian needed no second invitation.
Hand in hand, they walked into the bedroom. And although she never would have thought it possible, this time the passion burned even higher between them and the hunger flamed even more intense.
And then, as if by mutual unspoken consent, they slowed the pace. If this was their last time to make love, they wanted to create a memory that would last throughout the ages that would soon separate them.
There were no whispered words of love, no wild, rash promises. They spoke with soft sighs and inarticulate murmurs. They spoke with touches, the brush of a fingertip along the curve of a lip, the press of a palm against warming flesh.
A wintry sun crept above the horizon, creating a misty glow and dappling their skin with frail, stuttering light. Kirby felt his hands slide over her, felt his breath warming her flesh.
“Would you do something for me?” she whispered.
His lips plucked at hers. “Anything.”
It was not quite the truth and they both knew it.
“Make love to me the way you would on Logosia.”
Startled, Sebastian braced himself up on one elbow. “You wouldn’t like it.”
“How do you know? If you don’t try?”
“It’s not nearly as fulfilling as the Earthly way,” Sebastian argued. His body was aching to sheathe itself once again in her silken warmth. The purely mental sexual encounter he’d always found satisfying paled in comparison.
“Please?” She ran her fingernail down his chest and gave him a melting, sensual smile. “Just this once?”
Sebastian could deny this woman nothing. He was grateful that Kirby was too honorable to ask him to stay on Rum Runner Island, Maine, U.S.A. Because if she ever made such a request and looked up at him with those incredible blue eyes, Sebastian knew he’d never see Logosia again.
“All right. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He gave her one last, long, deep kiss to satisfy himself, then said, “We have to kneel facing one another.”
“On the bed? Or would the floor be better?”
Sebastian sighed. Sweet Valhalla, how he hated the idea of leaving the warm, love-rumpled sheets. “I suppose the floor would be a superior surface,” he agreed.
“How do you do it on Logosia?”
“On a thin pallet on the floor.”
“Well, then, the rug should work.” She left the bed and knelt on the rag rug in front of the fire.
Grumbling, Sebastian joined her. The sensual mood, unsurprisingly, was gone, chased away with the need to explain the logistics of Logosian sex.
He knelt in front of her. “Now we touch palms.”
“Like this?” She pressed her hands against his.
“Exactly. You must remember, although we’re naked, to symbolize nothing between us, this will be purely mental, a melding of thoughts.”
“I can’t wait.”
It was true, Sebastian realized with surprise. She was so excited she was trembling.
Sebastian had thought the experience would be typically passionless. He was wrong.
With only their fingertips touching, they tenderly explored each other’s consciousness, their entwined thoughts exploring realms of sensuality beyond anything either of them had known.
The room became bathed in a warm, flickering glow. Swirling lights—royal blue, blazing scarlet, gleaming gold, and shimmering silver—surrounded them.
Incredibly, there was music, the sweetly poignant sound of the alto sax albums Nate liked to play in the lab, bringing to mind steamy nights and sensual summer days.
Three-dimensional images of them making love in myriad ways and places appeared. Together they watched themselves sitting in a meadow, surrounded by wildflowers.
Kirby was wearing a gossamer white dress made of some type of gauze, while he was clad in a flowing white poet’s shirt and black pants reminiscent of a pirate’s. Sebastian was weaving a coronet of sunshine-yellow flowers, which he placed atop her coppery head.
Then, slowly, they undressed each other, and as he laid her back among the flowers and slipped into her, the vision shifted, like the facets of a kaleidoscope, and they were lying on the deck of a tall-masted ship that was plowing through the waves.
They were in the midst of a squall but caught up in their own passion. Neither noticed the bucking of the schooner, the pelting rain, the moaning wind. Sebastian was draping a king’s ransom in ice-blue diamonds over her nude body while telling her how beautiful, how desirable she was and all the wild, erotic things he was going to do to her, and Kirby was saying yes, yes, yes! to everything.
And then they were lying on some golden beach, beside a blue lagoon, while gentle trade winds made the palm trees sway overhead. And they were making love—wonderful, glorious love—as the warm water lapped against the golden sand and the sun shone be-nevolently overhead, and when they climaxed together, their spirits soared away from their bodies on gossamer wings, flying directly into the bright and glowing sun.
And then they were back in her bedroom, and Sebastian realized that salty tears were flowing down his face.
He’d never felt anything like it, had never realized that it could be possible to experience such pure, sweet pleasure.
Together they lowered their hands, but not yet ready to draw apart, they linked their fingers and remained, bonded, mind and body and soul.
“I thought you’d taught me true passion earlier.” Her voice was only a whisper but easily heard in the stillness of the room. “But I’d never, in a million years, imagined…”
“I know.” He drew her close and pressed his wet cheek against hers. “I, too, had not known such complete ecstasy was possible.”
The strength of the emotions they’d shared left them both exhausted. Arms wrapped around each other, they lay down on the rug and surrendered to a deep, blissful sleep.
24
All too soon, reality returned.
Sebastian stood in the kitchen doorway, frustration etched onto his handsome face.
He’d invited Kirby—coming perilously close to begging—to return to the lab with him, to see him off. But she’d refused, saying that she wanted to remember him here, in her home, where they’d shared so much love.
“I hate leaving you.”
“I know.” Kirby was out of tears. All she had left was a terrible empty hole where her heart used to be. “But it’s important that you return to Logosia and prove you were right.”
He ran the back of his hand down her face. “If I could, I’d take you with me.”
>
“I know. But you told me the diamond will only provide enough strength for one.” She gave him a brave smile that wobbled. Then collapsed. “Damn. I’m sorry. I swore I’d wait until you left to cry.” Turning away, Kirby buried her face in her hands and took several deep, calming breaths.
When she turned back to him, her expression was composed, although renewed tears shone wetly in her eyes. “Have a safe journey, Sebastian.”
For some reason he could not discern, her stalwart bravery, at a time when he knew her heart was breaking, made him want to weep like an infant.
“I will never forget you.”
She took his hand in hers and pressed it against her heart. “Nor I you. Across time, I will love you.”
“And across space, I will love you.”
They could have been speaking their marriage vows, Sebastian considered. Their minds tangled, and he knew that Kirby was thinking the same thing.
Because the one thing that neither time nor distance could ever alter was that they belonged together. And they both knew that they would never forsake each other.
“I remember reading something once,” Kirby said. “If two hearts are truly bonded, if two people are meant to be together, they will find each other. No matter what obstacles come between them.”
Her hand tightened and her eyes grew moist again. “We are bonded, Sebastian. Hearts and minds and souls. And the only reason I can send you away, back to your home, is that I know, with every fiber of my being, that we will find each other again.”
Logic told him that she was being an overly romantic female.
Sebastian’s heart told him that she spoke the truth. That their love was timeless.
“We will be together,” he agreed. “Someday. For always.”
She bit her lip and refused to cry. Outside the open door, the waiting birds became more vocal, demanding their breakfast.
“For always,” she whispered.
He drew her to him and they came together, body to body, mouth to mouth. His heartbeat was quick and hard against her as he succumbed to her softness, her strength. Her hands tangled in his hair as she submerged herself to his will, his tenderness.