His feelings toward Kelly confused him more than anything else. He had always loved her, but she had been a child. Now, she was anything but. He was a creature of thought. He didn’t age. His appearance had altered when he’d returned to Kelly, but his heart was the same, and his heart craved her. The instant she had made contact with him in her subconscious dreams, he had known something was different. He’d felt a change, a shift within himself. He’d attributed it to being ecstatic at the fact that he was being called back to the human realm after so long. He’d been elated at the thought of seeing his beautiful Kelly once again and had figured things would return to the way they had once been.
Except everything was different, and he’d known it for certain the first time her eyes had locked with his. The feeling that had only been a stirring when she’d contacted him, in that moment, grew to an inferno. He had never felt his body burn before. His existence had been a relatively innocent one, but when she’d looked up at him, her green eyes full of awestruck wonder, he’d suddenly known what desire felt like. It washed over him in waves every time she came near him.
It wasn’t just because she was beautiful, even though she was. It was the way she had so readily accepted him back into her life, the way she shared her world with him, the way she touched him. She’d needed him, and that was why he had returned, but he had never realized how much he needed her also. He’d been dormant for so long, isolated and forgotten. She made him feel things he’d never felt before, and it confused him beyond measure. He may have been royalty among the Lucienus. He may have been looked up to and admired, but he felt like a child in Kelly’s world. There was so much he didn’t understand, including why the thought of her being around any other man made him hostile and why, when he was with her, he didn’t feel like a creature of myth. He felt real, solid, alive.
He stabbed his fingers through his hair and huffed, irritated at his own inadequate mind for not being able to come to any sort of understanding whatsoever. He continued to pace for a few moments until a shiver ran up his spine and he stood straight. As he had been created from Kelly’s imagination, he was tuned to her. He knew when she called him and knew when she needed help. He felt the pull toward her and he headed quietly down the hall and to her bedroom. He stopped in the doorway and frowned, noticing that she was murmuring something in her sleep. He leaned in slightly and listened.
“Sing the song of Guardians who live…Come to us, Great Guardians…You have our promise and our trust.”
He smiled. She was calling to him in her sleep, no doubt dreaming of some childhood memory. He turned on his heel and started back out of the room.
“Garren.”
He stopped dead in his tracks and went hot all over. Her voice was no more than a breathy whisper, and his name leaving her lips felt like the most sensual caress he could imagine. Lightning illuminated the dark room, and a tremendous crash of thunder made her otherwise peaceful bedroom seem eerie and inauspicious. He took a few steps in and let his eyes appraise her for a moment. She was still muttering incoherently, but she did not look to be having a nightmare. Instead, she looked rather peaceful, and it made him wonder what kind of subconscious vision she was having that would accompany the way she had whispered his name.
He came closer to her bed and realized that he was clenching his fists. His body felt coiled tight and feverish. It made no sense to him. All he could think of, all he wanted, was to be close to her, touch her. He wanted to kiss her so badly he could barely breathe. He’d caught himself staring at her full, pouty lips on more than one occasion, and wondered what they would feel like beneath his own. He’d never wanted to kiss a woman before, not even any of the Lucienus that had shown him attention. They’d never made him feel, with all their blatant advances, the way Kelly did by doing nothing at all.
Was it possible to love a human? To love the person who had created him, the child he had protected? Was it wrong? Was it even love? He had no idea. He didn’t know what love felt like! He didn’t know anything he was feeling! The only thing that seemed clear to him at that moment was that he wanted Kelly. He wanted to hold her and kiss her. His body and soul were on fire for her.
Propelled forward by a magnetic pull that he could no longer fight, he reached down and slowly eased back her covers. His chest felt squeezed tight, and his breathing came faster as he slipped into bed beside her while never taking his eyes off her hypnotic visage. He gazed at her for a long moment, trying to bring his erratic breathing back into some kind of normal pattern, and then he reached one trembling hand out and traced the outline of her beautiful mouth, hoping with all his strength that she would not be alarmed if she happened to wake up and discover him. He didn’t know if he’d be able to handle her throwing him out and thinking less of him. He had been alone for so long. He just wanted to be close. Close to her. He prayed she wouldn’t get offended.
* * * *
Something stirred Kelly from her sleep. She wasn’t sure what it was right away, but her eyes fluttered open, and as her vision cleared, she found herself staring straight into Garren’s amazing violet eyes. She drew in a small, soft gasp and blinked in bewilderment as she saw him pull his hand away from her mouth, a look of horror on his face, like he’d been caught and was in trouble. She brought her fingers to her lips, still feeling his lingering touch there. “Garren?” she asked with a confused frown. What in the world was he doing in her bed? “Are you all right? What’s the matter?”
He swallowed, averted his eyes, and looked sheepish before he glanced back up at her with the kind of befuddled look that made her think he had absolutely no idea what to say. Slowly, he reached out and took her hand. He placed her palm to his chest, and she felt his heart pounding at an accelerated rate. Her eyes widened in alarm. “Garren, your heart is racing!” She sat up, faced him, turned him on his back, and placed both hands on his chest. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Could imaginary creatures have heart attacks? “I-Is your left arm tingling?” She felt stupid. Even if he was having a heart attack, what could she do? Take him to the imaginary hospital? Or, better yet, take him to a real hospital and try to explain why no one could actually see him? Tears welled up in her eyes. What if something was really wrong with him? She didn’t even know how to help him. “Garren,” she whimpered. “Are- Are you in pain?”
He sat up abruptly and shook his head. “Kelly, no. Shhh.” His lips turned up into a small smile, and he put his fingers to her mouth. “I’m not in pain, Kelly. I’m fine.”
She blinked. “But your heart—your heart is pounding.”
His brows drew together in another confused expression, and he looked as if he were searching for words that he couldn’t find. He met her eyes. “You,” he murmured.
She frowned. “Me? Me what?” Had he suddenly lost his ability to communicate? What was the deal?
He took her hand and placed it back over his heart.
Her frown deepened before understanding washed over her. “I make your heart race?”
He smiled and nodded, taking her hand in both of his and sighing. “Kelly, I am not good with words. I have been trapped within the Creative Realm for twenty years. I was alone. I had no use for words. I know nothing of Manhattan, or Napoleons and hoagies, or why people do and say the things they do in your world. I know nothing of my own emotions. All I know, despite my limited vocabulary, is that I am a man with a soul that has always belonged to you in some fashion, and a heart that feels on fire whenever I am around you.”
His voice was husky with emotion, and she stared at him in bafflement. Her throat closed so that it was extremely difficult to swallow and her fingers began to tremble. “Garren,” she rasped, “what are you trying to say?”
He let out a frustrated huff and glanced around, as if hoping to find the right words somewhere on her bedroom walls. When they wouldn’t come, he let out another breath and looked at her, trying to convey everything he couldn’t seem to verbalize with his eyes alone. It worked pretty well. Thunder rolled
ominously outside, and a delicious shiver worked its way up Kelly’s spine. For the rest of her life, she would never forget the look in those violet eyes. Intensity, burning desire, determination, and focus. It was the most erotic thing she had ever seen.
Garren reached up and cupped her cheek in his palm, then trailed his fingers to the back of her neck and pulled her toward him. She didn’t fight it. Not for a second. He was magical, and he had woven a spell around her that she didn’t even want to try to break. His lips brushed over hers in a teasing wisp of a caress, and her stomach clenched in a way she hadn’t experienced since she’d first been kissed as a teenager in high school. It was anticipation, anticipation of knowing that something absolutely fantastic was about to happen. She drew in a shaky breath right before his lips touched hers full on. Her body all but caught fire. His mouth was sinfully perfect, and his full lips moved over hers with gentle pressure.
Garren cradled her head in his hand, bringing his other arm around her to pull her close to his body. He was unhurried in his exploration, as if he wanted to savor every second and make it last. Kelly’s head swam, and as the tip of his tongue gently skimmed along her bottom lip, she swore her blood turned molten. Her heart was no longer pumping human blood. It was lava. She grasped the front of his shirt in her hands and pulled him close as she opened her mouth and let him deepen the kiss. An almost animalistic growl of pleasure left his throat, and he shifted her so that she was lying back down on the bed, cradled in his arms. She tangled her fingers in his soft hair as he made love to her mouth with his tongue, and her whole world spun out of control.
When he pulled back, her breath left her in a rush, and she brought her hands to her head in an attempt to quell the dizziness. “Oh my gosh,” she breathed. She blinked up at him. “No one has ever kissed me like that.” She’d had her share of kisses in her time. None of them had affected her that way. She’d been weak in the knees, and she’d felt fervent passion, but Garren’s kiss was all-consuming, a virtual firestorm that threatened to devour her. She really didn’t know how she would ever be able to kiss a normal human man after something like that. It hadn’t just been her body that had reacted to Garren. It had been her heart and soul as well. She had felt it deep within her. And it had seemed like the most natural thing she had ever experienced, like she was supposed to be in his arms with him dominating her mouth.
He grinned down at her, and a lock of ebony hair fell across his forehead. She reached up and tucked it back, then met his eyes with a small frown. Wait, what was she doing? Was she out of her mind? She was kissing an imaginary creature! And feeling relatively unabashed by it! Her frown deepened. “Garren, I—” As if sensing her thoughts, he leaned toward her again and nuzzled his nose against hers. Her breath caught, and she closed her eyes. No one said a word for several seconds, and she could swear that she felt their hearts beating in tandem. “Garren, this is a bad idea,” she whispered.
He nodded, bringing his lips closer to hers. “Probably.” He nipped at her bottom lip.
She reached up and threaded her fingers through his silky hair. “A really bad idea.” She closed her eyes as his mouth came down on hers again with more force and more hunger than the first time. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down so that he pressed to her. She threw any concerns she had to the wind, deciding that she didn’t care whether Garren was imaginary or not. She could feel him. She could see him. That was good enough for her, and while she knew that there had to be some sort of complication that would come of this new development, he felt good, and he tasted good, and her heart—her broken, wounded heart—soared in a way she had never experienced. That alone was reason enough to let him continue.
She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes, and she smiled. “Garren.”
His lips curled into a soft smile, and he pressed tender kisses along her collarbone before looking at her.
She sighed and trailed her fingers along the lines and angles of his face, studying him. Her mind buzzed with questions. She wanted to know why he had done everything he just had. Why had he crawled into her bed? Why had he kissed her? Why did she make his heart pound? She wanted to know, but she decided not to ask. His kiss had been breathtaking, and he still cradled her in his arms as if he cherished holding her. If she asked and he ended up saying something like, “Well, I was alone for twenty years and I’m horny,” she just didn’t think she’d be able to handle it. It would make her feel foolish and worthless, and she’d spent enough time in her life having men make her feel that way. She wanted to believe, for once, that she was worthy of something truly enchanting and completely magical. Garren was a gorgeous man, and she couldn’t deny that her heart was attached to him in a way that defied any kind of logic.
Kelly had spent a lot of her life feeling awkward and like an outsider. Her creativity and eccentricity had put her in the same category as computer nerds and drama geeks. She’d spent most of her life feeling isolated. Garren validated her in a way that even Chad couldn’t touch. He made her feel like she wasn’t a freak. Rachel thought that the cure for Kelly’s depression was to get back out in the dating circle and to get her head out of the clouds. Her solution was to set her up with an atrocious bottom-feeder of a man. Garren’s solution had been to try to put out the man’s eye and then choke him to death. He hated that Roger had demeaned her intelligence. He hated that he’d left her on the street in the rain. He had flown her back to her apartment and had taken care of her like he had a right. Like it was his duty.
But it wasn’t just duty. Garren acted like he enjoyed taking care of her, like it was a pleasure to do so. In the forty-eight hours she had been with him, he had made her feel more cherished and loved than she had felt in…well, in the last twenty years.
The thunder outside gave a low, rumbling roll and brought Kelly out of her scattered thoughts. She looked back up at Garren, who was waiting patiently for her to finish her sentence. She trailed her fingers down to his lips and traced their perfection. She fought a shiver just remembering how they felt on hers, and she ached to taste his kiss once again. “Show me your world,” she whispered.
His brow furrowed in an inquisitive expression.
“You told me you could show me the Creative Realm through your memories if you kissed me. I’d like to see it.”
His smile was mischievous. “You told me before that you weren’t ready to have another man kiss you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You blew that out of the water, didn’t you? Come on, you seduced me already. I don’t think it’s going to matter much.”
He feigned offense. “I did not seduce you.” He arched one ebony eyebrow in an incredibly flirty, and sexy, manner. “I just went after what I wanted.”
Her face burned and she closed her eyes, shaking her head in embarrassment. “Are you gonna show me or not?” She didn’t know how to handle the things he said to her. She didn’t know what to do with the things he made her feel. She really did have an awful track record with men. She went for selfish guys who used her and tossed her aside when they got what they wanted out of her. Garren had nothing to gain. He wasn’t even trying to rip her clothes off so she couldn’t assume that he had kissed her because he wanted sex. Was it possible that, just maybe, someone enjoyed her just because she was…her?
Garren shook his head and sighed, brushing back some of her hair. “Always so impatient.”
Before she could protest, he lowered his lips to hers again in a tender, soft kiss that made her stomach feel like a hundred butterflies had suddenly come to life in it. She closed her eyes and instantly felt the darkness slip away as a great expanse of milky whiteness took its place. It resembled fog, formless and shifting constantly. Within it she saw flashes of color along the horizon. Green and pink hues highlighted the distant clouds like the Northern Lights, but there was nothing solid, no shapes or life. Just endless white. She pulled her lips from his. “This is your world?”
His lips quirked. “No, that is the Creative R
ealm. That has been my prison. This was my world.” He touched his lips to hers again, and instead of the all-encompassing white of before, she saw a lush, green expanse of forest with a brilliant, cloudless sky above it. Nestled against the trees were small, cabinlike structures. Outside several of them were women cooking things over fires. Kelly recognized it. She recognized the world she had often visited in her imagination. Garren’s race had been forest-dwelling people. They had been civilized enough to be like the girls who’d created them, but primitive enough to be interesting. It was like taking a trip back in time for her, only it was so much more.
When she’d visited Garren’s world as a child, it had strictly been in her mind. This had been a life, a real place where his people had lived. She watched as the Lucienus went about their daily routines, talking and laughing with one another. Children ran and played. Most of the women tended their gardens or cooked for their families, but a select few were in a large meadow practicing archery. Kelly remembered them. They had been Lanelle’s creation. Lanelle had always been very athletic and competitive. Her guardian had been a warrior. She had also created a league of warrior women for their world because the thought of a housewife sort of woman had thoroughly disgusted her. They’d had many adventures with that band of warriors.
Beyond Wild Imaginings Page 9