A Twist in Time

by Susan Squires

  But so what if she’d lied to him? There might be no magic, but she had gotten closer to Galen last night than she’d ever been to a man. That was miracle enough. Of course it wasn’t love. Not in six days. But it was . . . something.

  With a Viking, no less. Who knew?

  Galen dried himself with a towel, but his eyes never left hers. When he was done, he didn’t feel the need to wrap it around his hips. He let it fall to the floor. That didn’t annoy her now. She wasn’t afraid of the effect his nude body had on her anymore.

  “Do you like to go around naked?” she whispered as she took the few steps across the salon toward him.

  “Ja. Naked is good. You be naked, Lucy.” He reached for her.

  It was only then that she noticed his shoulder. The wound was entirely sealed. Yesterday she’d thought it would be days yet before she could remove the stitches. This morning it looked like she might be late.

  “Galen, look. . . .”

  He peered down at his shoulder, then stared back at her, questioning. She had no answers. “I . . . I heal good.”

  “That couldn’t happen overnight. . . .” Was she talking to herself or him?

  “Mayhaps last night, it could.”

  She pulled away to look at his thigh. It was the same. Really almost healed entirely. “Well, we’d better get those stitches out.” The moment she’d dreaded was on her. And now those stitches were in there tight. She retrieved her supplies and the little nail scissors. She could do this. She could.

  He sat on the sofa. She got the disinfectants from the head that opened on his cabin. Chewing her lip, she bore down on him.

  “Lucy, I will do this thing.”

  Had she looked that uncertain? Well, she wasn’t uncertain. He needed her help, and she could do this for him. “You will not. I took care of these wounds, and I will see this through.”

  He raised his brows and held up his hands, palms out, in surrender. “Ja. You will do this thing.”

  She’d start on the thigh. That one was the most healed. Pulling out the stitches would probably make him bleed. But it had to be done. She made her mind small as she knelt in front of him, steadied his thigh with her left hand, and cut each stitch with the little scissors. That was the easy part. She let out a breath and grabbed the knot end of the first stitch between the nail of her thumb and fore-finger. She pulled. God, she could feel the stitch pulling through the flesh. Blood seeped out in two bright dots. She let go as though burned and glanced up to Galen. He hadn’t flinched, but this must hurt.

  He smiled. “Is okay, Lucy. Swift. Like this.” He made a plucking motion in the air.

  Taking her lip between her teeth, she grabbed the knot again and just . . . jerked. Oh, dear. Oh, dear, dear, dear. She realized she’d been holding her breath. Okay. She’d done it. She patted away the drops of blood with a cotton ball soaked in Betadine.

  One down and about a zillion to go.

  She was so afraid to hurt him. It took all she had to keep at it. Galen wanted to protect her from that. He could have pulled the stitches out faster. But she needed to do something she was a little afraid of, to make her sure of who she was. He knew she was strong. But he wasn’t sure she knew it of herself. He sat, watching her concentrate, murmuring apologies he only half-understood. The bond he shared with this woman made him wonder at himself. Had he changed so much that she could capture and hold him so securely, without even trying?

  Perhaps. Or maybe he had always had it in him to bond with a woman. He had just never met the woman with whom he was destined to bond.

  He had finished healing, nearly. If he listened, he could feel the knitting of the muscle and sinew inside his shoulder, slow, inexorable. And if he listened to that, then other sensations crept in. Wind, whirling across land and sea. Far away the rumble of an angry earth as the hot liquid iron pushed up through a mountain. An island, its strange trees tossed in a mighty wind like green hair, as a storm battered it. All . . . all wove together into a kind of singing, bass and high, like men and women sang together. A song of the earth.

  Something had changed last night. Perhaps many things. Maybe he himself had changed.

  “That’s it,” Lucy said, jerking Galen from his reverie. The song subsided.

  He glanced down at the scars, now accompanied by a line of dots on either side. Lucy swabbed them with the yellow-orange of her acetum.

  “You do good, Lucy,” he said. She tried not to smile. She was proud of herself.

  “Now I’m going to feed us some steak for breakfast,” she pronounced, rising. “Or, uh, lunch as the case may be. Then I have something I want to do to you.”

  He raised his brows. “Ja? What is this something?”

  “You’ll see. Can’t let that shower go to waste.” And with a smug look he found most appealing, she turned into the tiny galley, Vandal sniffing at her heels and poking her, to remind her that his bowl was empty.

  Galen could hardly wait to find out what she had in mind.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lucy had Galen backed up to the bed, stark naked, or nacod, as he’d showed her he spelled it. She’d just finished kissing him thoroughly and had the satisfaction of feeling his weapon stiffen against her before she took both hands and pushed his chest until he fell backward, grinning in surprise. The grinding sound of Vandal chewing on the beef bone she’d given him echoed comfortingly from beyond the safely closed door. Scars still wound redly over Galen’s shoulder and thigh, but all trace of bleeding from removing the stitches had disappeared. The man was really a remarkable healer.

  All last night he had taken the lead in their lovemaking. Vikings probably expected that. But she was a modern woman and she expected reciprocation. Would he allow that? He was still a man of the tenth century. But she had no desire to be a tenth-century woman.

  “You are hungry for my body, Lucy?”

  Oh, he had no idea. “Yes, my big, buff Danish warrior,” she said, crawling onto the bed between his splayed legs. “I am going vikingr.”

  He lifted his brows. “You know what means vikingr?”

  “ ‘Plunder. Pillage.’ ” She translated in Latin.

  “Or ‘trading,’ ” he corrected.

  “I will plunder, pillage, or trade. My choice.”

  His eyes darkened. “It is for man to plunder, not woman.”

  She shook her head. “Not in my time. You are here now.”

  He reached for her, grinning again, his eyes alight with his need. “Ja. I understand.”

  She pushed him back down and waved her finger at him, mocking. “Woman is a partner in this time. Equal. Same.”

  “You were . . . partner last night,” he said, reproach in his voice.

  She smiled. “Ja. And you are partner now. Yet I will say what we do.”

  He thought about that for a moment, then reached up above his head, easily, even with his bad shoulder, and grasped the brass railing that lined the box where Jake stored books and DVDs with both hands. There was a lustful glow in Galen’s eyes.

  “My body belongs to you, Lucy. Do what you will.”

  “You might be sorry you said that,” she threatened. But she’d make sure he wasn’t. This was probably a pretty big step for him. “Hold tight, no matter what I do.” This was going to be fun. She was wet between her thighs just thinking about it. From the looks of things, Galen was looking forward to it, too. His cock lay along his belly, close to bursting. She spread his ankles farther apart and scooted in between his thighs, bracing herself on elbows placed on each side of his hips. Rolling to one elbow, she cradled his balls. She felt him brace himself. She was going to go slowly and enjoy every second of this. She rubbed the place just behind his testicles with three fingers, in little, firm circles. He was having a hard time breathing. Thank you, Cosmo, for all those “Ten Tips to Drive Him Wild” lists. She’d never gotten a chance to try those things. Strangely enough, she hadn’t even cared to drive the men in her life wild.

  But Galen . . .

>   By the time she took the head of his cock in her mouth and sucked it gently, he was gasping like a beached fish and the knuckles grasping the brass rail were white. The bulge of biceps, the hair under his arms slightly darker than on his head, and the ripple of abs were making her grind her own hips against the bedspread. He sometimes closed his eyes tight and sometimes watched her handling his genitals. He couldn’t keep his hips from moving. She loved that. She alternately sucked the head and licked along the large vein that ran along his shaft.

  Occasionally she stopped for conversation, to let him calm down and prolong the pleasure. “Do you like this, Viking?”

  “Ja. I like it.” He was breathless. Good.

  “Do Saxon women do this to you?”

  He shook his head. “Would you like more?”

  “Ja, Lucy. More is good.”

  And she began again.

  Before he went beyond the point of no return she scooted up and straddled him, grasping his cock and angling it so she could settle onto it. She’d never done it this way before. It felt free and a little dirty/sexy to know he could watch her as she moved on that thick shaft.

  “Ahhh,” she sighed as she was filled. That’s what she’d been waiting for.

  He broke his hold on the brass rail to reach for her. “Uh-uh,” she warned. “You said I could do what I wanted with your body. I want you to hold that rail.”

  His lips were mobile with an incipient smile as he nodded acquiescence and gripped the brass again. She was glad for all that walking as she raised and lowered herself, reaching forward to thumb his nipples. Strong legs came in handy. His hips bucked under her in counterpoint. She was not going to come until he did. She wasn’t. But he’d better come soon, because she could feel the underwater volcano building to an explosion. She’d never been this responsive before. Orgasms had always been elusive, and she’d faked more than a few in her time. Now they seemed inevitable, and the fact that she and Galen had made love several times in the last twenty-four hours didn’t seem to dull her appetite. Or his.

  He wanted it faster. He was practically bouncing her on his hips.

  And then he stilled, groaning, and she felt his cock inside her throb and spurt.

  A sense of fulfillment washed over her as he twisted his body, arching, trying to get deeper inside her. It was long moments until he lay back, gasping.

  “There,” she panted. “I hope you feel plundered.”

  In answer he swung up to sitting and rolled her over onto her side, withdrawing. He kissed her, tenderly, first on her mouth and then on her neck. She arched to meet him. He kissed his way down to her left breast and suckled there as his hand found her mound and delved into it to spread their mingled cream across her clitoris, starved for release. He swabbed it expertly as she arched toward his hand, all the while suckling and licking at her nipple. Lucy thought she might come apart, the sensation was so great. It seemed unrelated to any sex she’d ever had. And the volcano was building, and building. . . .

  Galen rubbed and teased until Lucy was begging for release. He watched her come apart under his hands and his mouth and was very proud of himself.

  He had never let a woman have her way with him before. To submit to a man was a woman’s place, and while he had always rewarded them for their submission, he had never experienced what they felt. It was strangely . . . erotic, to give yourself over to another, to trust that you would be treated as important and valued. There was no question he had felt valued. And mad with sensation, and bound by lust and love. To think that she would do that for him. To him. This opened up whole new possibilities he wanted to explore.

  She turned into him, gasping, and he cradled her against his chest.

  Yes, this new time had possibilities. He closed his eyes as Lucy’s breathing steadied. Her breathing was part of the natural order of things. And that was something he was beginning to understand, down in his very bones.

  “It will storm again tonight,” Galen said as they walked out over the marshes late Monday afternoon.

  “How do you know?” Lucy asked, looking around. Vandal was only a black speck in the distance as he splashed after some poor ducks. The day was blue as only March days could be. The salt wind off the bay was so brisk she tied her hair in an unwieldy knot.

  “I . . . I know these things. Like your wise-in-weather men.” He bent to pick up a broken Styrofoam cup. In his leather jacket over a sky blue Henley and jeans as yet un-faded over boots, he looked like any other stunning guy who might grace the cover of GQ. Except hunkier. Okay, maybe the cover of Men’s Health. Without a shirt on. Yummm. How lucky was she?

  “Ahhh. The sailor in you. Or do you have a knee that predicts the weather?” She was feeling lighthearted as well as entirely sated. Or maybe she’d never be sated again. Maybe that was what was making her feel lighthearted.

  “No. Not the same. Since last night . . . A thing happened, Lucy.”

  He sounded very serious. He’d stopped, so she turned to face him. “What thing?” She didn’t like his tone.

  “I am not certain. But I hear the land.” He seemed to be listening now, head turned into the damp salt wind. “I hear wind and water, ice and steam.” He turned to her, his brow furrowed. “I know when the air hurts from too much smoke.” He looked down at the ruined cup. “Too much of this.” He took a breath as though gathering his courage. “I . . . I think it may be the drcraeft my mother wanted for me. It came with the equal night.” He examined Lucy’s face. “It came with you.”

  Oh, dear. He wanted to be magic so badly—to fulfill his parents’ expectations of him, to be the dead brother to whom they always compared him, to be the hope of his people, their protector—that he was making the fulfillment he and Lucy had found together into something that would transform him. She understood completely. But it wasn’t true. And that way lay madness.

  She put a hand on his arm. “Sometimes we want something so much we think it true. But it’s not, and to believe it is to lose our way in life.” She paused, thinking. “Maybe Jake is like that. He has lost his way.”

  A flash of pain crossed Galen’s face, then vanished. He looked away, across the marshes to where a heron stood, one legged. “You are right, Lucy. I will not speak of it more.”

  She sat on the bench they’d sat on before. For the first time she noticed a small brass plate on the side. In loving memory of Miriam Bostick, from her beloved Ernest.

  Some other couple had sat here, connected over years, looking out on the birds and the marsh grass and the bay beyond, but not as many years as stood between Lucy and Galen. Her hair escaped its knot and blew across her face.

  “Here,” Galen said, coming to stand behind her. “I will make you like Danish woman.”

  He divided her hair in half, separated that half into three parts and deftly braided it. Then he did the same with the other half and pulled each braid across the top of her head and tucked them securely in, even braiding the ends into the base of the other braid.

  She felt her head tentatively, smiling.

  He came to sit beside her, nodding seriously. “Now you look like a Danir queen.”

  She felt like a queen. And he was a man she wanted to stay with over many years. The thought slapped her. Then an overwhelming sense of loss washed through her in its wake.

  She couldn’t stay with him. He belonged in his own time. She couldn’t go back with him without changing the world’s destiny. She had proved that already. And if he didn’t get back, who knew what would happen?

  Maybe something had already happened. It had occurred to her, belatedly, as she cleaned herself up after their lovemaking and a very satisfying nap, that she had used no protection during four sessions of wild, abandoned sex. She was probably safe. As far as she could figure, she wasn’t ovulating. But it was stupid to take such chances.

  So she would have nothing left of him when they were parted. They had to part. And she had to find a way to get them parted. They needed the time machine. She felt sick.
Her eyes were full. She turned into the wind. Let him think they were just watering. She looked down and cleared her throat. She must have courage. He wanted to go back. He might have feelings for her, but he must miss his own time terribly. So it was up to her to make him okay with leaving, if and when they could find a way to do that.

  Was she that strong?

  She had to be. For the integrity of time.

  Bullshit. Integrity of time . . . blah, blah. It was really for him. She touched the crown of hair he’d braided. He should be where he could belong, where this was only a frightening dream.

  So. About the time machine . . .

  And then it all came clear. It was if the scales fell from her eyes. She’d been living Jake’s delusion—a paranoid vision that everyone was out to get everyone. Of course, Brad was trying to find her. She’d just disappeared, for heaven’s sake. And of course he’d call in all the help he could get—FBI, police, whoever. Amy, her shop assistant, was sensitive. Of course she’d cried when they questioned her. Lucy would just explain what had happened and give them the diamond. The book, too, if they wanted it. Brad would understand why Galen had to go back. They’d send him back to a time after she came, healed, so he could continue his life. They’d just have to take a chance that no one would think he’d been resurrected.

  What if he was meant to die in that battle?

  But you couldn’t start thinking about that stuff. Nothing changed the fact that she had to get Galen back where he belonged.