Believe

by Victoria Alexander

  “Tessa!” Galahad gripped her shoulders and shook her. “Listen to me! ’Tis over. The beast was not real! ’Twas nothing save magic!”

  “Not real?” She laughed, the high-pitched sound of a woman on the edge. “Of course he wasn’t real!” She wrenched free and struggled to pull in great huge gulps of air. “How could a dragon be real when nothing else is?”

  She waved in a sharp cutting gesture at the rolling countryside. “See the trees and the hills and the sky? It’s not real, none of it! This is all something I made up! Me! Tessa St. James. Every bit of it comes straight from my subconscious! From Puff the Magic Dragon right on down to the tiniest blade of grass!”

  Worry drew his brows together and he stepped toward her. “I beg you—”

  “Hold it right there, Big Guy.” She thrust her hand out to ward him off. “This will come as a shock, I know, and I hate to be rude, but you don’t exist either. You’re a myth, a legend, a story for kids! There was no Arthur, no Camelot, nothing. Hell, you people didn’t even know about the Round Table until I told you! Not only are you no more substantial than a dream, you’re an inaccurate dream!”

  “Please, allow me—” He reached for her but she eluded his grasp.

  “Stay away from me.” Tessa wrung her hands together, the simple action giving her something tangible in a world whose edges were blurring fast. She stalked back and forth across the clearing, ranting as much to herself as to him. “Assistant professors do not go on quests in the Middle Ages with arrogant knights. Nobody uses cabbages for target practice. And wizards do not tap dance!”

  “Tessa!” He grabbed her and held her firm against him.

  “You’re not real, you’re not.” She sobbed and pummeled her fists on his chest. “None of this is real! It can’t be.”

  She pounded against him over and over and he stood as steadfast and unflinching as a rock or a champion. She wept out her fears and frustration and confusion until exhaustion crept through her and she sank against him. And still she cried, tiny sobs, until all that was left were odd little hiccups that jerked through her body and the quiet, soothing sounds he made while he held her close and stroked her hair. And his body against hers was solid and warm…and real.

  “I don’t care how you feel,” she wiped at the tears on her face, “you don’t exist.”

  “A lesser man would take your words as an insult.”

  “It’s not an insult, it’s the truth. I’m in a coma or a nightmare or maybe I’m dead. One way or another, you’re not—”

  “Enough!” He voice rang sharp and firm and she jerked her head up to stare into his eyes. Dark as the night, they simmered with anger and something more.

  “I am real, Tessa.” He grabbed her hand and placed it on his cheek. “Is my flesh not warm beneath your touch?” She stared up at him.

  He moved her hand to the side of his neck. “Does my life’s blood not pulse beneath your fingers?”

  He pulled her hand to his chest. “Does my heart not beat beneath your hand?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “What is it you fear, Tessa? Is it the reality of the world around you? Or of me?” He bent to place a kiss in her palm. Panic and terror dissolved at his touch. His gaze burned into hers. “Does this scare you?”

  “Oh…” Desire rushed through her veins and she breathed the word. “Yes.”

  He brushed his lips across hers and she strained upward to meet him. “My life’s breath against yours. ’Tis real, Tessa. Are you afraid?”

  “Yes.” The word was little more than a sigh.

  He pulled her into his arms and whispered a kiss across the sensitive flesh of her neck, just below her ear. Her breath caught. “And this, Tessa, are you afraid of this?”

  “Yes.” His lips wandered in a sensual exploration to the hollow of her throat. “Oh, yes. That. Definitely that.”

  “And now?” He trailed his tongue along the neckline of her dress then lifted his head to stare into her eyes.

  “Terrified.” She reached up and caught his bottom lip with her teeth and tugged gently. “What about you? Are you scared?”

  He pulled his head back and his gaze locked with hers. “I too am afraid. Of what may not be real.” A question flashed through his eyes. “And what may.”

  His lips met hers and for the briefest moment his kiss was tenuous, searching. Her hands rested on his chest and she could feel his hard muscles beneath his clothes. His kiss deepened. Her mouth opened and his breath mingled with her own. At once all restraint shattered.

  She gripped the fabric of his tunic and strained toward him. He pulled her tighter against him and they sank to their knees. Need swelled within her. She fumbled at his clothes and he swiftly removed hers. Within moments, their garments were scattered about them on the ground and she noted vaguely his skill in disrobing her refuted forever the title “virgin knight.”

  Even on their knees he towered above her. She ran her fingers through the coarse hair trailing over his chest and down his stomach. He looked as good naked as he did dressed. No. Better. She leaned forward and flicked his nipple with her tongue. He sucked in his breath and wrapped his arms around her, tumbling them both to the ground.

  “What manner of wench are you?” he growled in her ear.

  “Yours.” She tunneled her hands through his hair and pulled his lips to crush hers. He tasted of passion and power and she wanted nothing so much as she wanted him. He wrenched his mouth from hers and ran his lips down her chin and her throat and lower. He cupped her breasts in his hands and circled her nipples with his thumbs until she moaned and arched upward, her fingers digging into his shoulders. He took one breast in his mouth, teasing with tongue and teeth until she cried for release and only then did he shift his attention to the other.

  They rolled over on the unyielding earth until she lay sprawled on top of him. He splayed his hands across the small of her back and lower until he held her buttocks and pulled her tight against him. Her mouth ravaged his with an aching desire she’d never dared dream of. All that mattered was his body, hot and hard and demanding against hers.

  She felt him, rigid and erect and throbbing between her legs and she slid lower to rub the slick, swollen need of her arousal against his solid heat. He reached a hand between them and touched her and pure pleasure pulsed through her. She gasped. “Galahad.”

  “My lady.” Hunger deepened his voice and he crushed his lips to hers. With a proficiency she should have suspected, he smoothly shifted their positions and once again, she lay on her back and he towered over her, poised between her legs. She stared up into eyes smoldering dark with desire and knew they mirrored her own need. She pulled him lower and he slid into her with a slow ease. Possessing her body. Claiming her soul.

  Carefully, as though he thought she would break, he moved within her. Impatiently, she urged him faster. She clutched at his broad shoulders and ran her hands down his back, reveling in the feel of every muscle and sinew flexing with his thrusts. Her rhythm, her body, her spirit meshed and mated with his and they moved as one, as two halves never together before now and at long last joined and whole. The tension within her spiraled upward until she wondered if she’d die of the pure joy of giving herself with a fiery abandon she never knew possible and receiving the same in return.

  Waves of ecstasy exploded inside her and she jerked and screamed. He shuddered then stilled, holding her so tight against him she didn’t know where he began and she left off. And didn’t care. He was her knight, her legend, her myth.

  And here and now, even she could believe.

  For a long moment they lay on the ground, too exhausted to move, to think. Finally, he eased to his side, propped himself up on his elbow and stared, a bemused smile on his lips. “My Lady Tessa, I believe you have done much to alleviate my fears.”

  “My pleasure.” She giggled with tired satisfaction. “You know I’ve never done this before.”

  Shock widened his eyes. “But I thought…you said…that is…you
have never done this before?”

  She laughed. Someday she’d definitely straighten him out about her marital status. But not now. “Of course I’ve done this before.” Relief flooded his face. “I’ve just never done it outside. On the ground. Naked.” She stretched her arms over her head. “It’s a wonderful sense of freedom.”

  “Indeed, my lady.” He grinned wickedly. “I did note your lack of restraint.”

  “You weren’t terribly restrained yourself. And I thought you were going to drop that ‘my lady’ stuff?”

  “’Tis a habit born of a lifetime. A term of respect in acknowledgment of one’s rank. In truth, Tessa, I like the way it sounds when I speak of you.”

  “It’s kind of possessive, don’t you think? Like I belong to you?”

  “’Tis nothing of the sort.” He leaned forward and circled her nipple with his tongue and she shivered. “’Tis you who has possessed me.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah.”

  “In that case.” She shifted to her side, propped up her head with one hand and ran the tip of her finger down his chest to his stomach. She traced a lazy ring around his navel and let her touch drift lower. He tensed beneath her fingertips. “Want to be possessed again?”

  Much, much later she lay snuggled up against him with a sense of peace and contentment that could only be found in a fairy tale. Once you got rid of the dragon, you won the hand of the princess. She smiled to herself. And all the rest of her.

  Galahad had complained, for the purposes of appearance probably, that they didn’t have the time to lie around here. But it had been a halfhearted protest and a few well-placed kisses had convinced him another day, more or less, wouldn’t matter. They’d moved back into the cave and tried to possess each other over and over again. And succeeded nicely.

  She turned on her side and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest with every breath and nothing had ever been so real.

  Tessa closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  And to dream.

  Of a cavern beneath the earth, lined with books and all the accoutrements of a practicing magician, and a woman with remarkably well-manicured nails.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I can deal with this.” Tessa stared at her very real surroundings. She was in a semi-prone position halfway between sitting up and lying down. And more comfortable than she’d been in a long time in spite of the frantic beating of her heart. “Logically, rationally, I can handle this.

  “First there was the dragon that wasn’t real. Then I lost it completely. Followed by really great sex and falling asleep in the Big Guy’s arms. So far so good. Now…” Her fingers tightened on the arms of the chair. She glanced down. She was in her dad’s recliner. At once her apprehension vanished. “Merlin! Where are you?”

  “As much as I adore modern times I must say, proper etiquette is simply not taught as it should be. It’s ever so much more polite to issue a request than bark an order.”

  Tessa pushed herself up straight and turned toward the voice. The woman she’d seen at the feast lounged in a graceful wing chair beside a small, highly polished mahogany table. A glass of wine dangled carelessly from one hand. “Viviane, right?”

  Viviane nodded. “I am impressed, my dear, since we have not been formally introduced.”

  “Merlin pointed you out to me. Besides,” she nodded at the chair, “the recliners were a dead giveaway. That’s Merlin’s touch or somebody close to him.”

  Viviane wrinkled her aristocratic nose in distaste. “I can certainly see where a man might enjoy one of those things but it is a shade too…well…comfortable for me. Especially when I have business to discuss.”

  “Business? What kind of business?” Tessa struggled to sit upright but she kept sliding back on the slick faux leather of the recliner. “I see what you mean about the chair. I appreciate the thought, memories of home and all that, but could you whip up something with a little less comfort and a little more traction?”

  “Certainly.” Amusement quirked the corners of Viviane’s lips. At once the recliner morphed into a wing chair to match her own. “Better?”

  “Much, thanks.” The weird sensation of the chair changing around her left her just a tad queasy.

  “Wine?” Viviane nodded at the bottle on the table. “It’s a rather lovely little Pouilly-Fumé. Very light. Quite refreshing.”

  “Great.” A glass appeared in Tessa’s hand and she stared at it. “I gather the bottle is only for appearances.”

  “Of course.”

  Tessa sipped at the wine carefully. “This is good.”

  “Indeed it is. It’s from a charming little vineyard in the Loire Valley owned by the same family since the first vine was planted. This was Marie Antoinette’s favorite, you know.” Viviane held her goblet up at eye level and perused the golden liquid thoughtfully. “I remember saying to Marcel just after the revolution that he shouldn’t be at all concerned about—”

  “Viviane,” Tessa said quickly. “I hate to interrupt but where am I and what am I doing here?”

  Viviane lowered her glass and rolled her gaze heavenward like a queen trying to be tolerant with the peasants. Probably something she picked up from Marie. “You are sadly lacking in patience, Tessa.”

  “I just want to cut to the chase, thank you. Now, what’s going on? Where am I?”

  Viviane heaved a sigh of resignation. “Very well. First of all, you are in Merlin’s quarters.”

  Tessa’s gaze skimmed around the chamber. “It looks like a cave to me.”

  “It is. Tacky, isn’t it?” Viviane cast a disgusted glance around the cavern. “I absolutely hate it. I have always hated it. There’s simply no way to create even a modest amount of elegance or refinement or simple style when the primary feature one has to work with is rock. Unfortunately, Merlin adores it.”

  “Men.” Tessa saluted with her wine and took another sip. “Wizard or mortal, they’re all the same.”

  “You can’t live with them and,” Viviane’s eyes narrowed, “and you can’t turn them into—”

  “Toads?” Tessa said helpfully.

  “My dear, I haven’t turned a man into a toad in a long time. I much prefer small domesticated pets like white mice or hamsters.”

  “Hamsters?”

  “Indeed. Think about it. Confined to a tiny cage. The only sport available, as a participant or a spectator, is a wheel where they can run forever and never get anywhere. Wonderfully appropriate and extremely satisfying when you consider their masculine egos, don’t you agree?”

  “Sure. But it’s not all that different from a treadmill.”

  “It depends on one’s point of view. Consider it from the perspective of a hamster. Caged. Trapped. Quite at the mercy of the whims of a being much bigger and more powerful. A god, if you will.”

  “I see what you mean.” Tessa grinned at the thought of any number of guys she’d known working up a sweat on a hamster wheel.

  “And how do you like Galahad?”

  Tessa started at the abrupt change of subject. Just the thought of Galahad warmed her insides. Maybe Viviane couldn’t read her thoughts the way Merlin could, but given where she’d been when the lady had so rudely snatched her away, the answer seemed so obvious. “Oh, I like him.”

  Viviane raised a brow.

  “I like him a lot.”

  “My dear,” Viviane’s gaze over the rim of her glass meshed with Tessa’s. “You love him.”

  “I do not.” Tessa scoffed. “I mean, he’s a great guy all right and I will admit the sex was fantastic, but love—I don’t think so.”

  Viviane cast her a pitying glance. “Come now, Tessa. Push aside all that nonsense about how you’re from different worlds and have no future together and yada, yada, yada and answer me honestly. Do you love him?”

  Tessa stared at the older woman for a long moment. Viviane already knew the answer and Tessa was sure it had not
hing to do with reading her mind. Tessa knew the answer, too. She’d probably known it from the moment he first bellowed at her in the chapel. Did Galahad know?

  “I thought so.” Viviane smiled in a “just us girls” kind of way.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “It may make a difference.” Viviane swirled the wine in her goblet with a studied casualness. “Do you miss your home?”

  “Home?” The word cut like a sword. She’d tried to avoid thinking about home and her family and Christmas. Fortunately, events here had moved much too quickly for quiet moments of reflection and self-pity. She’d barely managed to squeeze out time for a small nervous breakdown or two. But damn, she did miss her parents. And Angie. And her friends and her life and her world. And what about those she had left? Were they worried? Frantic? Surely, by now somebody had reported her disappearance? How long had she been gone anyway? She wasn’t sure. And what if time in the future moved differently from time in the past? She could return to the day she left or a hundred years in the future. Or maybe not at all. Her throat burned and she fought unbidden tears. “Yeah, I miss it.”

  “Do you wish to return? Now?”

  “I’d kill to return now.”

  “Excellent.” Viviane beamed.

  “But Merlin said—”

  “Don’t give what Merlin said another thought. I believe working together we can accomplish this.”

  “How?”

  “It will take very little on your part. You may refer to your contribution as psychic energy if you wish. Oh, by the way.” Merlin’s book appeared on Tessa’s lap. “You may have this back.”

  “You took my book? When did you take my book?”

  “I believe you were otherwise engaged,” Viviane said wryly.

  “Oh.” A rush of heat swept up Tessa’s face.