by Nora Roberts
"Can it always be like this?"
There was a hitch in his chest. "It can be what we make it. Do you miss what was before?"
"No." But she lowered her lashes, so he was unable to read her eyes. "Do you? I mean, the people you knew? Your family?"
"They've been gone a long time."
"Was it hard?" She sat up, handed him the peach. "Knowing you'd never be able to see them again, or talk to them, or even tell them where you were?"
"I don't remember." But he did. This was the first lie he'd told her. He remembered that the pain of it had been like death.
"I'm sorry." She touched his shoulder. "It hurts you."
"It fades." He pushed away, got to his feet. "All of that is beyond, and it fades. It's the illusion, and this is all that's real. All that matters. All that matters is here."
"Flynn." She rose, hoping to comfort, but when he spun back, his eyes were hot, bright. And the desire in them robbed her of breath.
"I want you. A hundred lifetimes from now I'll want you. It's enough for me. Is it enough for you?"
"I'm here." She held out her hands. "And I love you. It's more than I ever dreamed of having."
"I can give you more. You still have a boon."
"Then I'll keep it. Until I need more." Because he'd yet to take her offered hands, she cupped his face in them.
"I've never touched a man like this. With love and desire. Do you think, Flynn, that because I've never felt them before I don't understand the wonder of knowing them now? Of feeling them now for one man? I've watched my mother search all of her life, be willing to risk heartbreak for the chance—just the chance—of feeling what I do right at this moment. She's the most important person to me outside this world you've made. And I know she'd be thrilled to know what I've found with you."
"Then when you ask me for your heart's desire, I'll move heaven and earth to give it to you. That's my vow."
"I have my heart's desire." She smiled, stepped back. "Tell me yours."
"Not tonight. Tonight I have plans for you that don't involve conversation."
"Oh? And what might they be?"
"Well, to begin…"
He lifted a hand and traced one finger down through the air between them. Her clothes vanished.
Chapter 8
"Oh!" This time she instinctively covered herself. "You might have warned me."
"I'll have you bathed in moonlight, and dressed in star-shine."
She felt a tug, gentle but insistent, on her hands. Her arms lowered, spread out as if drawn by silken rope. "Flynn."
"Let me touch you." He kept his eyes on hers as he stepped forward, as he traced his fingertips down her throat, over the swell of her breasts. "Excite you." He took her mouth in quick, little bites. "Possess you."
Something slid through her mind, her body, at the same time. A coiled snake of heat that bound both together. The rise of it, so fast, so sharp, slashed through her. She hadn't the breath to cry out, she could only moan.
He had barely touched her.
"How can you… how could I—"
"I want to show you more this time." Now his hands were on her, rough and insistent. Her skin was so soft, so fragrant. In the moonlight it gleamed so that wherever he touched, the warmth bloomed on it. Roses on silk. "I want to take more this time."
For a second time he took her flying. Though her feet never left the ground, she spun through the air. A fast, reckless journey. His mouth was on her, devouring flesh. She had no choice but to let him feed. And his greed erased her past reason so that her one desire was to be consumed.
Abandoning herself to it, she let her head fall back, murmuring his name like a chant as he ravished her.
He mated his mind with hers, thrilling to every soft cry, every throaty whimper. She stood open to him in the moonlight, soaked with pleasure and shuddering from its heat.
And such was his passion for her that his fingers left trails of gold over her damp flesh, trails that pulsed, binding her in tangled ribbons of pleasure.
When his mouth found hers again, the flavor exploded, sharp and sweet. Drunk on her, he lifted them both off the ground.
Now freed, her arms came tight around him, her nails scraping as she sought to hold, sought to find. She was hot against him, wet against him, her hips arching in rising demand.
He drove himself into her, one desperate thrust, then another. Another. With her answering beat for urgent beat, he let the animal inside him spring free.
His mind emptied but for her and that primal hunger they shared. The forest echoed with a call of triumph as that hunger swallowed them both.
She lay limp, useless. Used. A thousand wild horses could have stampeded toward her, and she wouldn't have moved a muscle.
The way Flynn had collapsed on her, and now lay like the dead, she imagined he felt the same.
"I'm so sorry," she said on a long, long sigh.
"Sorry?" He slid his hand through the grass until it covered hers.
"Umm. So sorry for the women who don't have you for a lover."
He made a sound that might have been a chuckle. "Generous of you, mavourneen. I prefer being smug that I'm the only man who's had the delights of you."
"I saw stars. And not the ones up there."
"So did I. You're the only one who's given me the stars." He stirred, pressing his lips to the side of her breast before lifting his head. "And you give me an appetite as well—for all manner of succulent things."
"I suppose that means you want your supper and we have to go back."
"We have to do nothing but what pleases us. What would you like?"
"At the moment? I'd settle for some water. I've never been so thirsty."
"Water, is it?" He angled his head, grinned. "That I can give you, and plenty." He gathered her up and rolled. She managed a scream, and he a wild laugh, as they tumbled off the bank and hit the water of the pool with a splash.
It seemed miraculous to Kayleen how much she and Flynn had in common. Considering the circumstance and all that differed between them, it was an amazing thing that they found any topic to discuss or explore.
But then, Flynn hadn't sat idle for five hundred years. His love of something well made, even if its purpose was only for beauty, struck home with her. All of her life she'd been exposed to craftsmanship and aesthetics—the history of a table, the societal purpose of an enameled snuffbox, or the heritage of a serving platter. The few pieces she'd allowed herself to collect were special to her, not only because of their beauty but also because of their continuity.
She and Flynn had enjoyed many of the same books and films, though he had read and viewed far more for the simple enjoyment of it than she.
He listened to her, posing questions about various phases of her life, until she was picking them apart for him and remembering events and things she'd seen or done or experienced that she'd long ago forgotten.
No one had ever been so interested in her before, in who she was and what she thought. What she felt. If he didn't agree, he would lure her into a debate or tease her into exploring a lighter side of herself rarely given expression.
It seemed she did the same for him, nudging him out of his brooding silences, or leaving him be until the mood had passed on its own.
But whenever she made a comment or asked a question about the future, those silences lasted long.
So she wouldn't ask, she told herself. She didn't need to know. What had planning and preciseness gotten her, really, but a life of sameness? Whatever happened when the week was up—God, why couldn't she remember what day it was—she would be content.
For now, every moment was precious.
He'd given her so much. Smiling, she wandered the house, running her fingers along the exquisite pearls, which she hadn't taken off since he'd put them around her neck. Not the gifts, she thought, though she treasured them, but romance, possibilities, and above all, a vision.
She had never seen so clearly before.
Love answe
red all questions.
What could she give him? Gifts? She had nothing. What little she still possessed was in the car she'd left abandoned in the wood. There was so little there, really, of the woman she'd become, and was still becoming.
She wanted to do something for him. Something that would make him smile.
Food. Delighted with the idea, she hurried back toward the kitchen. She'd never known anyone to appreciate a single bite of apple as much as Flynn.
Of course, since there wasn't any stove, she hadn't a clue what she could prepare, but… She swung into the kitchen, stopped short in astonishment.
There certainly was one beauty of a stove now. White and gleaming. All she'd done was mutter about having to boil water for tea over a fire and—poof!—he'd made a stove.
Well, she thought, and pushed up her sleeves, she would see just what she could do with it.
In his workroom, Flynn gazed through one of his windows on the world. He'd intended to focus on Kayleen's home so that he could replicate some of her things for her. He knew what it was to be without what you had, what had mattered to you.
For a time he lost himself there, moving his mind through the rooms where she had once lived, studying the way she'd placed her furniture, what books were on her shelves, what colors she'd favored.
How tidy it all was, he thought with a great surge in his heart. Everything so neatly in place, and so tastefully done. Did it upset her sense of order to be in the midst of his hodgepodge?
He would ask her. They could make some adjustments. But why the hell hadn't the woman had more color around her? And look at the clothes in the closet. All of them more suited to a spinster—no, that wasn't the word used well these days. Plain attire without the richness of fabric and the brilliance of color that so suited his Kayleen.
She would damn well leave them behind if he had any say in it.
But she would want her photographs, and that lovely pier glass