Threshold

by Treva Harte

  This guy had the same beautifully defined muscles under skin so smooth she itched to run her hands across his body. She almost wished she'd taken the chance to touch him while he was unconscious, though that was definitely not her style. Still…

  She choked back a nervous giggle and carefully set the glass of water back on the table, aware of his calm perusal of every move she made. He almost acted afraid of her, like he wasn't sure what she was going to do next.

  Well, that makes two of us. It wasn't merely the fact he was gorgeous, either. He appeared as likeable as he was physically appealing. Articulate, intelligent, an obvious sense of humor sparkling in those beautiful blue eyes…

  If she had half a brain, she'd be scared to death and looking for an escape, but that little voice in the back of her mind, the one that had been suspiciously silent since she'd awakened this morning, merely urged her to stay and enjoy.

  Enjoy. It would be so easy, and she'd been alone for so long. Carly knew he shared at least some of her sensual interest—that had been more than obvious from the start. The image of his erect cock flashed through her mind and she sighed. Even now, Tim's moves were smooth and fluid, his hands floating like an artist's when he talked, the long, slim fingers emphasizing his words with supple twists and turns.

  How would those fingers feel, stroking, touching her? The brief but vivid image shot through her, followed by a bolt of need. She clenched the muscles between her legs, suddenly wet and wanting, so aware of him, aware of how he watched her with the same intensity with which she studied him.

  His hair hung loose, long and black as sin. The strip of leather he'd used to tie it back was still lying on the bed where it had fallen. Now all that beautiful hair draped over his shoulders and down his back in a thick, straight fall. If he were over her, driving into her, his hair would brush like silk across her breasts…her belly…and if he bent to taste her intimately, she would feel the sweep of it between her legs.

  The rate of Carly's breathing pumped up and a knot formed in her gut. What if he read minds as well as he moved objects? Considering the images rolling through her brain right now, she knew he would have reacted if he'd had the merest clue.

  She tilted her head to study him more intently. His eyes were an anomaly in a face hinting at Native American background—a sparkling crystalline blue framed in dark lashes. His smile, full-lipped and sensual, was almost sweet. In Carly's mind he betrayed a vulnerability she had a difficult time ascribing to a kidnapper. He seemed unsure of himself, as if he feared upsetting her.

  So, why wasn't she more upset? Why was she sitting here lusting after a man who openly admitted kidnapping her? She realized she felt more alive than she had in months. Depression had dogged her for ages, a lingering apathy so deep she'd not even cared when her job ended, hadn't been upset when the money she'd carefully invested over the years had dissipated like smoke in the constantly worsening economic climate.

  Even the threat of war hadn't altered her life. She might as well have been on autopilot. If what Tim said were true…

  It can't be. Stuff like this only happens on late night television. This is definitely not prime time material. “You're asking me to believe that, because someone you know claims he can see the future and saw me in it, you actually searched for me then found me in my time, snatched me out of it and brought me here, to what is, essentially, my future?”

  He looked enormously relieved she'd finally said something. “Exactly,” he said, his lips curving into a wide smile. “Only Doc's visions are real. They're scary, sometimes. He saw another woman, Jenna Lang, from your time. I brought her forward. I'd never done it before so I wasn't even sure it would work. That was about a year ago. She was needed here. She's the only other person I've ever found in the past. Besides you, that is.”

  An icy chill raced along Carly's spine. “Oh my God.” Jenna Lang? The same Jenna Lang who… “A woman I worked with named Jenna Lang disappeared about six months ago,” Carly said. She swallowed past a huge lump in her throat, recalling the attractive woman she'd briefly met on a contract job. They'd had lunch together one day when their paths crossed, but Jenna had disappeared before Carly really got to know her.

  The headlines had become more lurid as each day passed, then finally disappeared as a new scandal took its place.

  “It was in all the papers…on the nightly news. She was in the process of moving to a new job, her household was packed, the new apartment rented. She never showed up. Police questioned a co-worker who was with her the last evening anybody saw her. He was released for lack of evidence. But that was six months ago, not a year ago.”

  “She's here.” Tim spread his hands, as if for emphasis. “The time period I found her in was a little different from when I found you. She's been here long enough to help us end a rebellion that's been going on for seven years. She actually fell in love with a Miratan lion. They've taken off on a StarQuest. She's pregnant, by the way. Carrying Garan's cub…we're pretty excited about it. She and Garan are really special.”

  “You can't possibly be making all of this up,” she sputtered. Good lord, was she lusting after a madman? “It's too absurd.”

  So was Jenna's disappearance. Absurd. Completely absurd…and unbelievable.

  Tim's shoulders lifted with his sigh. “I know. I asked Malachi how to convince you we weren't crazy or dangerous, but he left it up to me. I figured the truth was my best option. Sheyna agreed. She's Miratan, too. You'll really like her.”

  The truth…what did he say? Jenna was married to… Carly frowned, thinking back over Tim's brief explanation. “What's a StarQuest?” she asked. “What's a Miratan lion?”

  * * * * *

  Carly's question hung in the air between them. Tim opened his mouth to explain Earth's link with Mirat, then realized his twenty-first century guest needed a future history lesson for anything to make sense.

  Briefly and without a lot of detail, he explained the past century of terrorism and war that destroyed governments around the world and ended so many lives, the alien attack that forced the formation of the World Federation but left a decimated world population suffering from severe xenophobia, or the fear of alien contact.

  He told her about the late Daniel Armand and the institute he built for the growing number of humans with paranormal talent. He described Armand's daughter, Mara, and her first contact with the starship captain, Sander, from the planet Mirat.

  “Why the increase in paranormal talent?” she asked, interrupting him.

  “We're not sure. Dr. Armand thought it was humanity's response to almost total annihilation. The doctor was killed by World Federation troops before he could prove his theory, but in his papers he described it as a forced evolution of the senses to help the human race survive. Whatever the reason, the numbers of Talented are growing.”

  Tim kinetically lifted Carly's empty water glass, floated it to the kitchen sink and refilled it with cold water. Then he placed it back in front of her without spilling a drop.

  She stared, unblinking, then shook her head in mute denial. Tim watched her face for a moment, wondering at the myriad questions that must be swirling through her mind. Finally, with a tiny shrug and a sigh, she waved her hand in a gesture that told him he should continue the story.

  He glossed over much of the Rebellion. There'd been nothing good about seven years of armed conflict, unless you counted the fact the World Federation now worked with Sensitives and Talents, rather than against them.

  Carly nodded quietly, taking in everything Tim said without comment, until he described Miratan lions. At that point, Carly finally gaped at him in disbelief.

  “You're telling me there is an alien species that looks like lions? Big African lions that walk and talk like people? Yeah, right. This I've got to see.”

  “Oh, you will. Malachi's wife, Sheyna, is Miratan, though she's from a smaller race than Garan and Sander. Those guys are huge. Have to admit, though, their human wives don't seem to mind they're married
to what are essentially big cats. Malachi doesn't mind a bit, either, that he's married to a lioness.”

  “When can I meet them?”

  “In a few days. Malachi said we should stay here awhile, give you a chance to get used to the idea of being in a new time, essentially a new world. A lot will be familiar. You won't find much has changed technologically, at least so it's obvious. A lot of the stuff we use appears much the same as it did in your era, though its function may be more advanced than you recall.”

  Carly merely looked confused.

  Tim couldn't control his foolish grin. She was absolutely gorgeous. “There's been a tremendous amount of upheaval, worldwide, over the past century. The world population is still fairly small, compared to your time. We've found a cure for AIDS and some of the other more devastating diseases, so we're finally back into an era of growth. I imagine the biggest difference for you will be transportation. Vehicles are solar powered or run on hydrogen fuel cells. Space travel is telekinetic, not fuel powered.”

  He grabbed his warm energy drink and took a swallow, then set it down. “Still,” he said, weighing his words, “it's got to be hard, knowing you can never go back.” Tim watched her face carefully when he voiced the one thing he hadn't said before. Of course, if she still didn't believe him…

  Her eyes were a clear, bittersweet chocolate brown and they studied him with anything but sadness. He felt her sparkling gaze on him all the way to his balls. “If what you say is true—and that's a big 'if,'“ she said, “I can only wonder what I would be going back to. I went to sleep last night in a world on the edge of yet another war, with our economy in the toilet, not to mention my own miserable personal life. There's no one to miss me—no family, no job. Like I said—nothing. You're telling me I'm about to start the most exciting adventure I can imagine, and expect me to feel badly about not going back to nothing?”

  Tim shook his head. “Malachi said you wouldn't believe me, that you'd think I was making this up.”

  Carly smiled at him and Tim's breath caught in his throat. Her wistful expression lit up her entire face. “I may sound like a gullible idiot, but I am so hoping you're telling me the truth! I grew up on movies about aliens and space exploration. My childhood was filled with characters in books by Bradbury, McCaffrey, Heinlein and Asimov. Losing myself in a good science fiction or paranormal story was pure bliss for me. Those stories were my life. It may sound dumb, but they gave me hope. I want to believe you! If I hadn't seen you move things without touching them…well, I might be a bit more skeptical. It's hard to deny what I see, especially when I want so badly to believe.”

  I wouldn't deny you anything… The movement of her lips hypnotized him. He realized he was concentrating on a tiny spot on her lower lip, the point where her teeth occasionally caught and held, as if she were deep in thought. Tim blinked himself back to what she was saying.

  “That certainly makes things easier,” he said, feeling oddly out of step with the conversation. He hadn't expected anything like her response. He knew exactly what his own would be—nothing like Carly's! He shrugged his shoulders and prayed she wouldn't realize the effect she had on him.

  It wasn't easy, willing his surprisingly lively cock under control, knowing she sat mere inches away, her nude body barely hidden beneath his old flannel shirt. Once again his jeans felt two sizes too small. Strange, though. Exhilarating but strange. So unusual to feel sexual need after using maximum kinetic power.

  Action…he needed to do something, anything, to take his mind off her body…off his own body. “Are you hungry?” he asked, grasping at straws. “We might as well fix some breakfast. Sheyna packed a bunch of stuff.”

  Tim pushed away from the table, quickly turned his back and grabbed the box off the pantry shelf. He set it on the table and leaned over to dig through the contents. “There're eggs and some cured ham in the refrigerator,” he said, gesturing toward the small unit tucked under the counter. “I've got bread in here, some cereal and…” He reached for a small package and felt himself blush.

  “What's that?” Suddenly Carly was standing close beside him, her scent clean and sweet. She looked over his shoulder. Her breast pressed softly against his arm and he felt hot all over.

  “Uhm, for some reason, Sheyna packed, uh, condoms.”

  Carly's laughter surprised him. “Sheyna packed them, eh? The lioness? You're sure you didn't stick them in the box, just in case you got lucky?”

  “No! I'd never…I never…I…no.” He shook his head, tucking the package back inside the box. “I would never even think…”

  “Why?”

  He spun around so that he looked directly into Carly's eyes. “Why? Why what?”

  “Why wouldn't you think to bring condoms?” Her eyes twinkled impishly. Tim had to remember to breathe.

  He swallowed, opened his mouth, shut it and swallowed again. He felt like a damned fish…out of water, flopping on the…

  “I thought, earlier, you seemed, uhmmm…” She drew the word out, then added, “interested.” She tilted a glance at him from beneath lowered lashes, and he knew she was thinking of the hard-on he'd had when he was still tied to the bed. She couldn't possibly tell now…no. She couldn't know.

  Suddenly it dawned on him. She was flirting. Carly was flirting with him! It was all he could do not to kiss her.

  He took a deep, controlling breath. It had absolutely no effect whatsoever. His heart pounded in his chest and he had to open his mouth a couple of times before he could get the words past the tightness in his throat. “I was interested the first time Malachi showed you to me in his vision.” How could he possibly explain how she'd affected him? “You…you were—are—the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I…”

  She tilted her head and stared at him, a tiny frown drawing her dark brows together. Her lips parted and Tim's hands seemed to rise without conscious will. He cupped her head in his palms, turned her face gently up to his.

  Her hair spilled over the backs of his hands like liquid silk and a hot current of pure desire swept through him.

  She was tall and strong and still she seemed to melt against his body, coming to him as if they were meant to touch like this. Shivering with years of pent up desire, aching with the most immediate need he had ever experienced, Tim brushed her lips gently with his, explored the soft fullness before risking all and testing the seam between them with his tongue.

  She parted for him, welcoming him into her mouth and it was the most natural thing in the world to explore her there as well. Tim sensed a beginning, not an ending, a journey of the senses far beyond his limited experience. Would she know he was a complete novice? Would she care?

  Her tongue tangled with his, a sweet battle that banished everything from his mind but the taste and feel of the woman in his arms. She tasted sweet and lush and full of promise. Her hips pressed against his and he knew she wore only his shirt, knew that he could reach down between her legs and touch her there and she would either tell him to cut it out or…

  He followed thought with action, holding her with his mouth and one arm wrapped around her shoulders, brushing his other hand down her throat, slipping inside the soft flannel to fan his fingers out over the slope of her full breast.

  Oh, gods…skin like silk. She couldn't be real, not real and so soft, so smooth…

  She moaned against his mouth and he deepened the kiss. His fingers flipped the top button free on her shirt, then the second and third until the fabric parted down the front. He slipped his hand lower and traced his fingertips along her side, finally touched her rounded buttock and stroked her soft flesh.

  He circled her thigh with his fingers and she eased her hips away from his to give him access, an open invitation to his touch. When he found the springy curls between her legs, he groaned. She sighed against his mouth and parted her legs for him.

  Hot. She was so damned hot and already wet. It was the most natural thing in the world to slip his middle finger between the damp folds of flesh, to s
earch out the tiny nub of flesh that must be her clit. He stroked it, gently easing his finger deeper with each gentle touch. It was firmer than he'd expected, erect and waiting for his touch. She thrust her hips forward, silently begging him for more. He matched the rhythm of his finger with thrusts of his tongue into her hot mouth.

  She whimpered, sucking hard on his tongue, her hips swaying to the music he created with his touch, a rhythm he controlled. Though he'd brought his one teenaged experience to climax, read about sex, watched films, seen pictures in books and magazines, nothing prepared him for this.

  Not for the heat, the vibrant life he felt when his finger moved within her body. He slipped another finger inside, then a third, filling her. She pulsed around him, her vaginal muscles clenching tighter than he'd imagined. He found her clit once more, this time with his thumb, and she moaned against his mouth and shuddered.

  His cock felt like it was going to explode but he wasn't ready, not yet, and so long as he concentrated on her needs, on touching her body, he seemed to have more control over his own. This was all so new, this chance to explore, something he'd thought about, wondered about for so many years. He still couldn't believe he was holding this woman in his arms, stroking her intimately, drawing deep moans and gasps with each move he made.

  She bucked against him and he increased the rhythm, his long fingers filling her, his thumb circling her firm little clit, sliding over tissues all slick and hot from her juices. Suddenly she clamped her legs hard against his wrist, threw her head back and cried out. He kissed the column of her throat, instinctively gentled his strokes between her legs, then quickly withdrew his hand and caught her in his arms when her knees buckled.