Scented Dreams ((A Dogon-Hunters Series Novel))

by Turner Banks, Jacqueline

  He finished undressing and pulled the bedspread back on the queen-sized bed. He purposely didn’t look at her again until he was ready to take her in his arms. He closed the drapes, shutting out the light of the setting sun.

  She thought about teasing him and running or quickly locking herself in the bathroom, but she didn’t want to deny herself—she didn’t think she could hold out for the time it would take to play such a game. She stopped about five feet from him and waited.

  He was ready; he looked up at her. She was ready too. He took a step forward—towards her, and his eyes caught the flash from the ruby. He stopped. Against her naked body it was beautiful. Perfect. His heart felt full. Now I know why men buy jewelry for the women they love.

  She saw that he was looking at the ring. She had wondered when he was going to noticed that one of her afternoon activities with her mother was a manicure and pedicure. She pinched and rubbed her right nipple with her left hand, and he watched. She did the same to her left nipple and he remained frozen, his eyes still fixed on the ring, but his body responding to the lewd action. When she put her hand between her legs, the ring summoned him like a beacon. He moaned and rushed to her. He picked her up and carried her to the bed.

  The heat coming from her body warmed him. He knew his body temperature was almost a degree hotter than humans, but it seemed to him that she ran even hotter.

  “How can someone your age know how to work me so well?” he said as he lowered her to the bed.

  She smiled, believing he was just teasing her, not understanding that she had the ability to draw need in him that made him question his own sanity.

  “I’ve known many women,” he said, not immediately realizing he was speaking aloud.

  “Your point?” she asked, smiling and moving closer—molding her body to his.

  “Never like you.”

  “And never again?” she prompted.

  “Never again.”

  He kissed her, drinking in her taste. His rooting, the insistent movement of his tongue against, over, around hers, was so aggressive fear rose in her body. She pulled back, breaking his connection.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  The look in his eyes was distant, and she questioned whether he could see her.

  “Ian, are you all right?”

  He blinked and he was back. He smiled. “I’m happy; I’ve never been better.” He finally saw the fear in her eyes. “Nesta?” He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know why she was frightened. “I’ll never let anything hurt you,” he promised as he kissed her neck.

  She felt a surge of energy. She sensed there was nothing that could reach him if it had to pass her. “And I’ll never let anything hurt you.”

  He pulled back, looked at her and smiled. “I’ve got a feeling a Blood Sucker would do better by me than you.”

  She laughed.

  He recaptured her mouth, and she let him have it.

  Her hands were everywhere. She loved his body as much as he loved hers. Her hands were soft and wanting, as if she’d misplaced something under his skin and by touch only could she find it.

  He took a nipple in his mouth. They were responsive in a way he’d never before experienced. His joy was becoming painful, slowly turning into an ache in his temples. He stopped and took a deep breath, then let it go. Her lavender scent washed over him, and he imagined that it could take away the hurt in his head— and it did.

  “Thank you,” he told her.

  “Anytime,” she answered as if she knew why she was being thanked.

  He touched her between her legs and froze again. “You’ve been very busy today, haven’t you?” He pulled back and looked at the area his hand had touched. “What did you do?”

  “It’s called a landing strip. Do you like it?”

  He laughed. “A landing strip,” he repeated and laughed again.

  “You don’t like it?”

  He cupped her chin. “Let me go on record right here and now and tell you that there is no cosmetic change you can make, especially here,” he cupped her between her legs, “that I won’t love and embrace wholeheartedly.”

  “You’re such a man!”

  “Not sure what that means, but thank you. Anyway, I like it, but I’m not a person who has a problem with hair. Women have hair.” He ran his fingers through the curls on her head. “In fact, I like your hair. So don’t go through all that for me.”

  “All what?”

  “The hair bumps and scratchy growing back period.”

  “Damn, I hadn’t even thought about that.”

  “Oh yeah, sweetheart, it’s bad.”

  “And you know this because. . .?”

  “I’m going to get down there and enjoy it before the problems arise.” He laughed as he licked his way down her belly and below.

  “We’ll talk about this. . . oh my God, Ian don’t stop!”

  Never was his only thought.

  * * * *

  According to the watch on his wrist, it happened at three thirty-three a.m. Her heart was racing, just like the past three nights. Something about her body was wrong, maybe not wrong, but certainly different. At first she’d thought she might be pregnant, but she’d dismissed that.

  Who knows they’re pregnant within days of conceiving? she kept asking herself.

  The first two days, she was psyched with the notion of having Ian’s baby. Reality set in while she was spending the afternoon with her mother. Nesta heard herself talking about medical school, and setting up housekeeping with Ian, and traveling with him, and she realized she wasn’t ready to have a baby. No, not yet, she said to herself. She unconsciously touched her belly and felt a cramp. There was another and then another cramp. She smiled. So this is why I’m awake at three a.m.?

  Nesta used the light from the television, which was set to the smooth jazz channel, to find her purse. She retrieved the case that held her emergency tampons.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His voice scared her, and she almost screamed. “Nothing— nature is calling in more ways than one.”

  “What?”

  She held up the tampon.

  It took a moment for him to figure out what she was holding. “Oh, are you okay? Do you need some aspirin or something?” He threw the covers off.

  She grinned. “No, Ian. I’m fine. I don’t usually have any problems. I’m irregular—I don’t have periods for months, and then I’ll think about how long it’s been and there it is. Go back to sleep.”

  He noted the date for future reference. It was his intention to be sensitive to her every need.

  Still, he wondered just what that meant. He’d never before had to consider another’s needs first.

  When she returned to the bed, he wrapped his arms around her.

  “I’ve been a selfish bastard,” he told her.

  “I find that hard to believe, but why do you say that?”

  “In all my lifetimes, I have never given one thought to a woman’s cycle.”

  She laughed. “So what, Ian? There is such a thing as over thinking.”

  “Fox always says a good Hunter is self-absorbed. We were congratulated for not thinking about how things affected others. When I was in South America having a hard time, he told me I was becoming too sensitive and it would soon render me useless.”

  Nesta laughed again. “That’s because he’s so self-absorbed. My father is always saying it’s a good thing Uncle Ogo has me and few other friends’ kids he loves to take the focus off himself for a moment or two.”

  “Remember what I said about not talking about him?”

  “You really worry about him popping up, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do. Let’s change the subject. Are you feeling okay?”

  “A few cramps is all I ever get.” She’d been around women who suffered each month; she knew she was blessed. And her periods were never long. Nesta couldn’t remember a day that her cycle had ever stopped her from doing something she had planned.


  He pulled her closer. “I guess this changes how I planned to spend the morning?”

  “Maybe a little, but you’ll leave this room happy.”

  “If I wake up next to you, I’ll be happy.”

  She tucked her head under his chin and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Friday morning Ian left the room happy. They ate breakfast, and she asked him to stop at a drug store before returning to her parents’ house.

  “Are you sure you want to be a married man?” she asked him outside the store. She was smiling, but he didn’t know what she was up to.

  “I’m absolutely sure.”

  “Good, then you can go in and get me some more tampons.”

  He laughed. “Is that supposed to be something men don’t like to do?”

  “My father used to complain about it.”

  “There is nothing that I would hesitate to purchase for your comfort.”

  “Then be on your quest, my noble knight. I take junior or regular. Don’t get the ones that have plastic applicators.”

  “They come in sizes?”

  She nodded. She caught the sick look that briefly crossed his handsome face. Nesta waited until he was entering the store before she laughed.

  * * * *

  “Aunt Ife is here,” Nesta said as they pulled into the driveway.

  Ian looked back at the street to see if there was a strange car parked there. There wasn’t. “How can you tell?”

  Nesta chuckled self-consciously. “I don’t know what made me say that.”

  “Umm, latent psychic ability revealing itself?”

  “Gawd, I hope not.”

  “I hope so. We’ll make a killing in the stock market.”

  Nesta smiled, but the thought creeped her out.

  Ian wasn’t surprised to see Ife seated at the kitchen island. He’d been around psychics before, and their proclamations were often delivered as casually as Nesta’s.

  When she saw Ife, however, she wanted to scream.

  “Wow, that not the face I come so far to see,” Ife said as she sat down her coffee mug. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

  “Nothing really. I’m always happy to see you, but your being here freaks me out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when we pulled into the driveway, I told Ian you were here.”

  “Did you see me somehow?”

  “No, I don’t know where those words came from.”

  Ife smiled. “Honey, I know all this is new, but you’re a Dogon-Hunter’s daughter. That means a great deal—most of which the average person will never know or understand. You are coming into your own, and none of us know what that means yet. But trust me, there’s a lot of gifts more troubling than being a little psychic.”

  “Exactly what I wish I’d said,” Ian said from the doorway. He put down the bag he was holding.

  “Hello, Hunter.”

  “Greetings, Ife slash LeeAna.” He smiled, wondering if he would ever get used to thinking of the tall black woman as the tiny white woman he’d met months earlier. Ian found that the warrior hairs on his arms were standing on end as he approached her with an outstretched palm. He wondered what it meant. “I trust all is well in the Big Tomato?”

  “Yes, Sacramento continues to stand even without its bravest Hunter.”

  Nesta beamed. It warmed her to see her two most favorite people getting along well enough to tease each other.

  “Come give me a hug,” Ife said to Nesta. Ife stood and walked toward her. Nesta closed the distance in a few steps. Ife wrapped her long arms around Nesta and immediately pulled back. “Are you okay?” she asked her.

  Nesta looked at the frown on her aunt’s forehead. “I’m fine, I have a little cramping, but it’s no big deal. Why do you ask?”

  Ife looked around Nesta and spoke to Ian. “Can you give us a few minutes, Hunter? A little girl talk.”

  “Sure.” He picked up the overnight bag again. “I’ll just take this upstairs.”

  “Come sit with me for a moment, baby.”

  Nesta grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and took the bar stool next to Ife’s.

  “Did I do something wrong, Auntie?”

  “Of course not. I want to talk to you about something I thought I sensed last time I was here.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to just say it. I thought you might have been pregnant.”

  Nesta laughed. “Really? That’s what I was thinking too.”

  Ife loved the way Nesta’s eyes lit up when she laughed. Nesta’s facial and body expressions were a combination of Kingsley’s and Dot’s, but when she smiled Ife’s own eyes shone through.

  Ife longed for the day that she could take Nesta to the underworld to meet her fathers, Yeban and Andumbulu. But she knew that a lot would have to change for that day to come. There were only five people in the world who knew the truth of Ife’s birth and her life.

  “How did you learn you weren’t?”

  “My period started. Up until yesterday I was all jazzed about being pregnant, actually excited about it. But then I started thinking about how I wanted to go to medical school and I want to travel with him, stuff like that?”

  Ife nodded.

  “The next thing I knew I touched my belly and felt a cramp. Then I realized I probably wasn’t pregnant at all, I was just starting my period.”

  “Oh, okay.” Ife took a sip. “Do you usually have cramps?”

  “No, I go months without even having periods. I went to the health service when I was in college, and the doctor said I was healthy and I shouldn’t worry about it.”

  Dot had returned to the kitchen with a garment bag. “I like the first one better,” she said to Ife.

  Ife nodded.

  “If ever a day comes that you are pregnant and you want to have a baby, you should remain positive.”

  “I will. Do you think I’m not a positive person?”

  “No, honey, not at all. But you’re a very strong person and your mind will influence your body, so it’s important to make positive proclamations—especially if you’re pregnant or want to be pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” Dot asked. “Who’s pregnant?”

  “Lots of people, but not me!” Nesta said, standing.

  Dot shot a look at Ife. Ife’s eyes told her to wait.

  “Before you leave, let me see that ring I’ve been hearing so much about.”

  Nesta held her hand out.

  “It’s beautiful. Where do you put the batteries?”

  Nesta doubled over laughing. “You always make me laugh. I’ll have to tell Ian that one.”

  “He seems very happy,” Ife said.

  “We both are.”

  “Okay, go to your Hunter.”

  “What was that all about?” Nesta heard her mother ask as she started upstairs. Nesta thought about hiding and waiting to hear what Ife would tell her mother, but she remembered that had never worked on them when she was a child, and it probably still wouldn’t work.

  Ian was closing a garment bag she didn’t recognize when she entered his room.

  “Do you have any idea why this would be on my bed?” he asked her.

  “What is it?”

  “A complete outfit, shirt, pants and vest. It looks like something out of the seventies.”

  “It must be your clothes for the party. Rico probably sent them.”

  “Is the party a costume party?” he asked, his surprise written across his face.

  “Yes, I didn’t mention that?”

  “No, darling, you didn’t.”

  “We’re all wearing clothes from around the year they married.”

  Ian sat on the bed. “I’ve really underestimated that man’s value.”

  “Whose?”

  Rico’s. I wonder how the hell he knew. Did you tell him?”

  She shook her head. “Not me.” She sat on the bed next to him. “Do you like the outfit?”

  He laughed. “A polye
ster shirt, with lapels this wide?” He showed about two inches between this index finger and thumb. “I’ll look like I should answer to the name Huggy Bear!”