He stroked her hair tenderly. “Never?”
She smiled and ran her fingertips down his cheek. “You make me feel like a natural woman,” she sang so softly. “Do you want the entire song?”
“We’re safe here now,” he murmured into her hair. “I’ll keep you safe.”
“Is there anything up on the north end of the island that looks better than here? Or maybe a way out?”
Lon swam back to full consciousness and peered past her into the darkness. “I see a few estates, but they’re surrounded by tall fencing. I doubt we could make it. Over there’s a little cove that looks nice, but it’s miles and miles from here.”
“Oh, how pretty,” she said, and he glanced at her in surprise. “Sorry. You were broadcasting the image. I don’t look into people’s minds unless— I guess it’s because we were... so close.”
“That’s okay. D’accord, we’ll try for the cove in the morning, but we’ll have to keep under cover. Maybe we’ll make it sometime late tomorrow. Maybe my powers will return by then and we can really get out of here.”
“In that case, we don’t have much time.” She sat up to return to the original clearing and the damp blanket way over there in the moon-dappled shadows.
Londo rose up behind her. “Come here.” His voice purred husky and low as he caught her around the waist. “Sweet Lina.”
This time, too, he took it slowly, pausing whenever it seemed as if a new panic attack hovered near, but Lina always managed to keep the white curtain at bay.
Thus things progressed faster than they had before. She still trembled at his touch but that excited Londo. These trembles were the dregs of her virginity which it was his pleasure to burn away. Now this captive girl was his; now she bent to his will, that of the pirate captain taking his prize. They were in his candlelit cabin, she in his feather bed at the bow with no hope, no wish for escape...
Her cry as he entered her brought him back to reality. “Relax, chérie,” he crooned. “Tell me if I hit a six.” Smiling at his cleverness in overcoming that damned phobia, he held her bent against the rock. This time had to last much longer, and he tried to remember conversations he’d overheard, videos he’d watched, articles... Jae’s voice now came back to him, laughingly criticizing someone’s technique, telling him what they were doing wrong.
Lina tried to catch her breath. She clawed to regain her handhold on the outcropping. This was taking too long—when was it going to be over? It wasn’t that it hurt as much as the first time. It didn’t hurt so much as make her feel like waves of trembling jelly.
Sometimes he’d pull out and she’d think he was done, but he didn’t seem done—there was no climax—and he’d do things to her, things she knew about but never imagined would be done to her. He used words that polite men didn’t say, but he didn’t say them roughly or insultingly. The world spun around even as he was in her again, whispering that he wanted to go faster, harder. She tried to speak, but could only nod and try to relax for Londo’s sake.
She called his name and his fierce lust coiled like a spring tightening. Lina’s sensations suddenly began to focus deep in her belly. She gritted her teeth against it, willing herself to relax. This wasn’t for her. Don’t mess it up for him.
But she had to raise up against the pressure, standing erect with him reaching around to wrap one arm down her stomach, his other hand above it, trapping her breasts. She arched back against him. His jaw pressed into her cheek. His hips never paused their squeezing rhythm. She rolled her head helplessly on his shoulder as he leaned to kiss her. Damn, she couldn’t stop it! She gasped and let out a moan.
“Come for me,” he urged her.
She writhed against him, struggling for release, crying out as she couldn’t. The pressure kept building. He pressed so far into her. She stretched herself upward and strained against him, almost growling, but his hands between her legs and on her breast kept her caged. The only hope for release was within.
With a shout that was half-shriek, all the tension climaxed and broke. She cried out again as a second wave hit, a third wave and a fourth, dozens of tiny wavelets rocking as it receded. Freefall buoyed her in some space beyond time.
Lon supported her as she sagged against him. He was still going, cooing to her. “That’s a good girl. God, you’re so hot.”
She caught her breath as she remembered her duty. Dizzily she leaned forward again against the rock and he followed. His breath came ragged now, his grunting lengthening to groans.
“Hang on.” He changed his position so he could take firm command of her hips. The groaning became cries and he trembled hard against her, then jerked suddenly as he came. Another jerk, and another. A noisy sigh.
“Ah god. Oh god.” Londo pulled out but drew Lina with him, and together they slid down the side of the rock to the soft ground. “Ah chérie,” he breathed, “that’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be.” He held her on his lap as he sat against the rock. “How was it for you? I think I scored an eleven that time, non?”
She pressed herself against his warm chest as he wrapped her in his arms. Did she kiss him, or he kiss her? Did it matter? This was afterglow and it was so very nice. She felt a part of his reality, surrounded by trust and safety.
He chuckled, a small sound of triumph, and they sat there in the shadows and the silence, the sea singing in the distance. “Oh God, don’t let this end,” he said, and it sounded like a real prayer. “It was even better this time. I felt like... I felt like... I didn’t... realize... it would be... so...” His eyelids drooped.
“Here, let me get the blanket,” Lina told him quietly, and shifted to get up. He reached out.
“Don’t leave me!”
His hand clamped hard on her arm, and a sheen of desperation glinted in his eyes. Quickly she regained her position. His arms locked around her.
“I’m here, Londo. I won’t leave.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “It’s... just... that...”
He was softly and contentedly asleep. The night and Londo were warm enough, so she snuggled against him with his arms around her. She tried to set her inner alarm clock for a few hours before dawn and asked her guides to act as backup. Without waiting for the response, she too, fell asleep in his arms.
Chapter 11
She jerked awake well before dawn.
Lina lay on the ground, surrounded by the naked arms and body of a well-muscled man, musky with dried sweat and sex.
Londo, she recalled with amazement. Londo whom she had touched and who’d touched her back. The handsomest man she’d ever seen. Here in his warm arms she felt a safety she could never remember feeling before.
And here she was something new: a woman to his man. The entrancing wonder of it all kept her from realizing for some minutes that anything was wrong. Lon still slept beside her in almost the same position that they’d fallen asleep. His breathing was very deep but not to the point of snoring.
But somehow the setting had changed completely.
The deep forest glade was now a sandy clearing. Palm forest surrounded them on three sides with a narrow wooded buffer from the night-darkened beach on the fourth. A softly-gurgling brook emerged from the trees and emptied by low waterfall into a manmade swimming pool. It was a miniature paradise, Lina thought, like something out of a travel brochure, but to wake up here out of the blue—?
She surprised herself by not panicking. Lina felt eerily calm and not quite real. Compared to yesterday’s events, this was almost mundane.
How strange that Valiant had never let it be known that teleportation was among his powers. But if he was a teleporter, why did they do all that running yesterday? Maybe that bazooka thing had done it to him as a side effect and he didn’t realize it?
Maybe she was dreaming it all. She dismissed that thought. Even though the change was fantastical, the circumstances themselves were very real, the sand a little too cool under her naked backside as she shifted around. Her legs ached; her feet were beyond sor
e.
Wait—this was the cove she had seen in Lon’s mind!
Carefully Lina sat up and slid away from him. For a moment his arm draped like Adam’s on the Sistine Chapel ceiling: relaxed, graceful and powerful at the same time.
He was that masterpiece in the sky and she was some nobody tourist craning their neck to gawk. He was a symbol for the ages and she could admire him, even study his magnificence for a little while, but before she knew it she’d have to go back home, never to return again. She lived in her reality, and he lived—where? So far above her life it was in another world entirely.
Guard her heart. Guard his as well. He didn’t seem to be as sensible when it came to that as she was. Cancer energy was illogical stuff.
Hers was the practical world, so she searched for their clothes and supplies and found nothing. Why should she? Lina could clearly picture where everything was back in last night’s glade. She’d left her nightgown fallen beside that big rock—
The dress dropped onto the sand in front of her.
Now, that wasn’t mundane.
Lina gaped before crawling to it. Yes, same rips and everything, except that now it was its original pristine white, or at least much lighter than it had been. It was hard to tell color in the darkness. As if it could be a copy. All she had done was—
Where had Lon left his clothes? Careful, had to get these exactly right...
And they appeared on the sand, too. Her shoes—they materialized next to the chemise. And where was— ah. Her underwear. The backpack. The blanket.
She sat back hard. First the explosion at the hotel. Now this: telekinesis or teleportation or something. Beam me up, Scotty. And over there—Valiant himself. Her lover.
Had she gone insane or had the world? Crazy, mixed-up things were happening. Wonderful things.
She needed a swim. How crazy wonderful that there just happened to be a pool around! Its cool water snapped her fully awake. It also washed away most of the sweat and salt and shock.
Yes, she was awake but unreal: Eve in Paradise, totally sated and contented, woman personified. She was a movie star on a romance set. She was the glamorous and sexy... who? Someone who had sultry dark eyes, cherry red lips, siliconed T and lipoed A, someone who looked like someone special. Anyone but Lina Muttbutt.
Or maybe someone really exotic. For a while she imagined herself a wanton mermaid with long seaweed hair, daring to swim naked with a human man nearby. She laughed at the stars and they twinkled back at her.
This mermaid hung weightless in her tranquil water womb for as long as she had breath to do it. There was time now to heal the ache in her lower legs as well as the embarrassing soreness between them. She stroked her own etheric field to smooth and cool the abrasion. And then she heard **Lina,** and knew that Lon was awake. The mermaid disappeared, leaving just her to face him.
He lay in the last of the moonlight next to the pool: one arm in the water, one hand propping up his chin as he lazily watched her. Such beautiful, mischievous dark eyes! His lips curled into a slow, tantalizing smile. “Lina,” he said, and her name brought warm and tender images broadcast to her mind. He made it a love song. “For a moment I thought that you were trying to drown on me.”
She swam to him, but kept just out of his reach. Suddenly she felt very shy and couldn’t stop her blush. They had made love. Now how was she supposed to act? It wasn’t as if they had forever. Just a day. Smoothing her hair back gave her an excuse to nonchalantly cup her hands at the base of her neck so that her arms covered her breasts from his eyes.
“Londo,” Lina said softly. She could tell he was hurt that she didn’t come up to him, but he understood and let her be unsure. His eyes could see right through her, see that she didn’t want to say anything about what they’d been doing.
What to say instead? “I, I told you I was pretty good in pools. And I never heard that you were a telepath,” she added.
He cocked his head, puzzled at her pronouncement. “I’m not. Valiant, remember?”
“But you’re sending out telepathic signals today. And you certainly were last night.”
“Hmm. Eh bien, you never told me you were a teleporter.”
“I still may not be. There are two possibilities here that I can see.”
He put his head on his crossed arms and considered. “Two. I only see one.” Still, his eyes moved as if he were gazing clearly at her body.
“There was an episode of Star Trek where an alien civilization had set up a park so that anything anyone wished for would suddenly appear.”
“Star Trek.”
“Original series. First season.”
He thought about it. “So you’re saying there’s some kind of technology or magick going on that lets people teleport.”
“Maybe. I left one thing back there: the rifle. Can you bring it here?”
“How do I—?”
“Just picture it in your mind, and then picture it being here.”
Lon was quiet for a few minutes. “Non,” he said. “Unless you see it somewhere.”
“It’s still back there,” Lina told him.
“So bring it in. Here.” He patted the ground next to himself.
“Maybe over there,” Lina said, pointing. “It is an explosive.”
“Good point. D’accord, do it.”
The gun appeared at that spot precisely.
“It’s melted,” Londo reported. Lina couldn’t see that well in the dark to confirm it. He turned back to her. “Congratulations, love. You’re a teleporter. Just don’t think about teleporting me anywhere soon.”
“The chemise is different, too,” Lina said wonderingly. “Maybe... Maybe I need to take a little more time, focus more.”
“Now why would all this happen tonight?” Lon murmured to himself.
“Not tonight,” she said and Lon turned to her curiously. “Yesterday. I must have teleported on my shoes at the hotel, remember? And you were reading my mind all day, saying things before I could say them and repeating what I was thinking. It has to be an offshoot of the bazooka thing. You’re radiating evolvo-rays or something.”
“Evolvo-rays.” He snorted.
“Well, hell, I don’t know. You tell me.” She shook her head, taking in the marvelous waterfall at the other end of the pool. “What is going on?”
He lifted himself up in one motion and dropped into the water with hardly a splash. He was a vision of perfect grace and power. She treaded water, unsure if she was afraid to move or afraid that he might not come to her. Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest.
Londo ducked under the water, rinsed off the same as she had, and surfaced. Running his fingers through his black hair, he ducked again; she could see dark movement rippling closer through the moonlight-silver pool. He broke surface. His eyes met hers as he took her into his arms.
“Right now I don’t give a damn about teleportation or telepathy. The only thing that’s important is you,” he said. His kiss held a command of possession.
Lina didn’t care either. He’d shifted her into selfish mode, and all she wanted was him. Here in the cool water heat flooded through her. Desire swept logic away.
Londo bore down on her lips as he clasped her to him firmly so she couldn’t pull away even if she had tried. Pulling her to the side of the pool, he trapped her between him and it and then propped her up against it.
With a satisfied grunt, he set her on the lip of the pool so her legs draped over his shoulders. She had to pant, had to whimper to keep herself from exploding, and she knew each sound she made caused his passion to rise ever higher. She tried to twist away from his tongue, but he held her hips firm against him until all she wanted was more of him inside her.
Wordlessly she cried out for him. Londo lifted himself out of the water along the edge, rising up over her as she slid back to make room. Stalking toward her, dripping, his eyes never left hers. She was an animal in some delicious trap as he bore down on her. His body covered hers completely. He pinned h
er with his weight, and his teeth on the flesh of her neck claimed his prey as she cried her surrender. She gave herself up to him. She bent herself to his will completely and he knew it.
They lay locked together at the very edge of the pool, aware of the sky lightening in the east. “Sweet Lina,” he murmured into her ear. “Beautiful Lina. Lina who likes it now, n’est-ce pas?”
She knew he could feel the beating of her heart just as she could feel his. “Oh yes, Lon.”
“And I’m the best man you’ve ever had.”
“Mm hm. Ever. Ever-ever.”
That made him smile and lay his head back in the sand. “So we’ll stay right here and I’ll build a treehouse for us. We’ll find everything we need washed up in the sand.”
“Mm. And we can invite tourists to stay the night in the guest room for outrageous rates. What shall we name the coconut pie concession?”
“Non non non. Just the two of us forever, just you and me, chérie. Have everything stay like this.” His stomach rumbled.
“Maybe you’d want some breakfast flown in every now and then?”
“Maybe. Lina—”
“Hm?”
He raised up to gaze earnestly at her. “I want to make love just as often as I can, while I can. We don’t need to run today now that we’re here.”
“We’re here and we also need to eat and find clean water. Goal A: survival.”
He shook his head. “Goal B. The pool’s clean enough. And as for food—I’ll take you somewhere when the powers return. A five-star restaurant. Room service, anything you want—when it’s over. For now— Say you will. Say yes, love.”
How long did he have? She had no will of her own when he held her. “Yes. Anything.”
“I love you,” Lon whispered in her ear.
“Don’t say that!” she blurted before she realized how he might take it. “Don’t... Londo, you don’t have to say that. Please.”
“Yes I do. Because it’s true.” He pulled her back with a smile. “I. Love. You.” He stopped when he saw her expression. “I didn’t think I was jumping the gun here,” he said slowly. “I may be new at this telepathy thing, but I have the distinct impression that—”
Touch of Danger (Three Worlds) Page 17