by Jill Jones
He wanted them to become one, for all eternity. He’d known it since the first day he’d laid eyes upon her. She was the other half of him, and if all could be right in heaven, she would be with him forever. Emotions both tender and frightening washed over him, tightening his throat with the love her felt toward her as she lay before him, a feast for his eyes…and his body.
Hearing her call out his name filled him with unnamable joy. He lay the feathers aside on the table and knelt next to the bench, taking her hand in his again, feeling their fingers become entwined as their souls moved toward union. “I’m here,” he whispered.
She drew him to her, and he eased himself onto the edge of the bench. He bent and placed his lips on hers, gently, tenderly, tasting the essence of the rose commingled with the nectar of her own sweetness. Her lips parted in tender invitation, like a morning glory opening to the courtship of the bumblebee.
He parted that other honeyed doorway with loving fingers and entered her with all the strength of his man’s body, but gently, reverently, closing his eyes in ecstasy as he felt their separation come to an end. His breath moved slowly within him, flowing from his nose down into his heart, swirling there to calm its rapid beating, then moving still lower to bless their union with its subtle energy.
Time stopped.
The universe stood still.
There was only One.
Completion began with a ripple of pure bliss instead of a wave crashing around them. Their bodies moved as one, in the glow of the pure essence of the love that surrounded them, that filled them, that became them. They were one, in body, mind and spirit, moving in a symphony of ecstasy and delight, spiraling ever higher and higher, until a final crescendo brought them to a fulfillment experienced by few.
The lovers slept entwined upon the gentle winds of the cosmos. When at last he awoke, however, Nick thought perhaps he had died, for he awoke to nowhere, surrounded only by the indigo twilight of the scent-drenched dream. It had been a beautiful death, he decided. Holy somehow.
But the woman remained in his arms, her flesh warm, her breathing deep and even. She had not died, and he knew neither had he. But he thought it likely they were in heaven. She stirred and caressed his chest with a sleepy nuzzle.
“Simone?” he whispered, wanting to verify that it was indeed she who had become his sacred lover.
“My darling Nicholas,” she replied. “We must never leave this place.”
Nick saw no reason to leave it. Nor any way, at the moment. “We shall remain here for all eternity, together, as we have always been, before…”
A troubling thought knocked at his consciousness, but he refused the summons. No! They would not go back there. Here they were together as they were meant to be. There, all things stood between them.
He gathered her more closely in his arms. “We will never leave here,” he assured her, whispering into the fragrance of her dark hair. “Never.”
Simone awoke just before dawn. She lay naked, sprawled openly across Nick’s own unclothed body, with no sheet or blanket covering their dishabille. Her skin was cool, clammy almost, as if it had recently shed a fever. It took several moments for her to assimilate what she had done, and when she did, she was filled with horror and despair.
Mon Dieu! Oh, my God! I didn’t…
Her whole body began to tremble. She rolled away from Nick, pulling herself into a tight ball and covering her nakedness as best she could with her arms and hands. Her throat contracted painfully, and she began to cry.
How could I have done this?
She could not blame Nick for what had happened. It had been all of her own doing. Everything. From the phone call demanding that they talk, to the shameless red dress, from the impulsive decision to follow the Triumph in the taxi, to allowing Nick to carry her to this bed. Why? Why was she so driven to such senseless, self-destructive behavior? Had she no pride? Was the revenge she’d sworn to take for his betrayal nothing but lip service? She choked back her tears and her shame and slipped noiselessly out of bed. She must not awaken Nick. She could not bear to face him after this.
Ever.
Her cheeks flamed, recalling their earlier frenzy, how they’d stripped off their clothing as if it, and they, were on fire, and engaged in the most wanton sexual behavior.
Oh, God, she groaned again inwardly. On the floor by the bed, she found one high-heeled slipper. But that was the only sign of her clothing she could discern in the bedroom’s predawn darkness. Catching a glimpse of a small object on the floor next to the shoe, Simone reached for the shadowy form, and her heart nearly jumped into her throat when she realized she held the vial from which Nick had inexplicably pressed a drop of perfume between her breasts.
And not just any perfume.
The perfume!
A drop of which had taken them beyond the realm even of the indigo mist and into another, more altered state, almost like another dimension.
Even in her misery, Simone shivered at the memory of the exquisite lovemaking they had shared…where?…somewhere amongst the cosmic clouds. In it, they had experienced a sexual ecstasy unlike anything she’d ever known possible, a complete, soul-embracing union that transcended the earlier, earthly rites they had engaged in upon this bed.
In the low light, she surveyed Nick’s sleeping form. Stretched over the full length of the bed, he slept peacefully, beautiful in his nakedness. His dark brown hair tousled roguishly over his broad forehead, and his lips were slightly parted. Although he was completely relaxed, there was no mistaking the strength of his masculine body. He looked like a sleeping god, and Simone recalled that he had made love like a god.
Oddy, recalling that near-divine experience, her initial sense of shame and despair vanished, replaced by a surge of intense love that immersed her in a deep peace and contentment. More tears urged themselves upon her, but this time, they were tears engendered by an unspeakable joy that stirred her heart once again. That lovemaking had been not of this earth. It had belonged in the celestial realms, she decided, and she remembered that she had not wanted to leave there.
Simone forced her eyes away from Nick and stared at the vial of perfume she held in the palm of her hand. It was more powerful than she had ever imagined. She felt its danger as well…Even though she’d thought in the dream that she did not want to leave that enchanted scene, what if she and Nick had been unable to return to reality?
John and Mary Rose.
The names shot through her consciousness like two well-trimmed arrows.
Is that what had happened to them? Had they used the perfume to meet in dreams, and somehow been caught in that otherworld, unable to return?
The whole idea was both scary and absurd. No substance on earth had that kind of power. At least Simone didn’t think so. But she knew nothing about the plant from which the perfume oil had been extracted.
The perfume must never get into the wrong hands…
Esther’s warning rang in her ears as well, and a shiver of fear crept over her. Could the perfume really be dangerous? Could it be used manipulate a person against her will? She shuddered again in the darkness, clutched the perfume vial, and tiptoed quickly out of the room and down the stairs, gathering her scattered clothing and her other shoe as she went. She had to get out of there.
She flicked on a light in a room toward the back of the house and found the telephone. Retrieving the number for the taxi from her purse, she dialed it with urgency. Then she slipped into the red dress and fastened it securely around her neck. At least it wasn’t the type of fabric that wrinkled easily, but she could guess at the taxi driver’s thoughts when he picked up a woman dressed as she was at this hour of the morning.
Simone didn’t care what the driver thought. She just wanted to make her escape from Nick’s house before he awoke. She was about to turn the light off again when her eye lit upon a small, mold-encrusted volume that lay on a nearby sideboard. Its very state of decay caught her attention. She picked it up, and her heart almost stop
ped beating when she read the handwriting on the inside front page:
Charms and Spells of Mary Rose Hatcher
Mary Rose’s Book of Shadows!
So Nick had found it, probably in that niche in the wall. Without giving herself time to think or change her mind, Simone tucked the book into her purse next to the vial of perfume, turned off the light, and made her way on bare feet down the hallway to the front door. Her heart slammed in her chest; her pulse roared in her ears, loud enough to wake the sleeping man upstairs, she was certain. With trembling hands, she managed to maneuver the mechanism of the lock and let herself out. She heard it click behind her. Please let the car come now! she prayed silently to the gods of the early morning taxis. Apparently they were listening, because a horn sounded in the street, beyond the row of hedges that separated the busy avenue from the small parking area in front of the townhouse, and Simone streaked toward her means of escape.
She clambered into the vehicle, slammed the door, and breathless, gave the driver the address of the corporate apartment. Only then did she realize she’d dropped one of her shoes. Too bad. They’d been expensive. But nothing could make her go back after it now.
Nick sat up abruptly, startled awake by the sound of an insistent automobile horn on the street outside. Damned inconsiderate jerk, making such a racket at this hour, he thought, then realized that the other half of his bed was now empty.
Simone. Oh, damn it all. She must have called a taxi. Groggy from the deep sleep he’d been in for hours, Nick swung his feet over the side of the bed and wiped his face with his hands. If she’d even been here, he reflected, suspecting he’d dreamt her into his arms. He reached for the pillow where her head would have lain, if she’d been here. He held it to his nose, and her presence returned instantly with her scent. As did the memory of the lushness of her body, the fierce sensuality of their lovemaking. The scent of her was still on his own skin. No, it had not been a dream.
Shuffling on bare feet into the W.C., Nick marveled that she had come after him. He did not understand her. One minute she seemed to hate him. The next she seemed eager to be with him. He wasn’t surprised she had fled. Her ambivalence was understandable. What surprised him was that she had come at all.
He turned on the shower and stood beneath the jets of hot water as his consciousness gained clarity. With clarity came the awareness that he had deliberately experimented on her with the perfume. He shouldn’t have done that. She was still, technically, the enemy.
But he was curious as to what she’d experienced after he’d introduced the perfume into their lovemaking. To learn that, and for a hundred other reasons, Nick wished Simone had stayed for pillow talk this morning. Had she found herself in the magnificent white temple? Or did her version of the perfume-induced dream take her to some other place, created in her own imagination, different from his?
Nick had no clue how the perfume trance operated, whether he and Simone went together into the altered reality, or if they experienced separate realities. He knew only that in previous dreams he’d experienced erotic, incredible sex, but when he’d added the perfume to their already sexually intense state last night, the effect had been phenomenal. Pure emotional and physical ecstasy. There was no other way to describe it.
Nirvana.
Had it been good for her too? He laughed wryly at the trite question and stepped out of the shower.
But he really wanted to know. Perhaps he would give her a call later on.
Nick dressed for work and went down the stairs, grinning and gathering up the puddles of his own clothing lying about. He couldn’t seem to squelch the euphoria that encompassed him at the thought of Simone’s nocturnal visit, and he allowed a tiny candle of hope to light in his heart that perhaps she could, after all, forgive him. That there might be a second chance for them.
Sunlight crept over the windowsill, and soon the smell of freshly brewed coffee permeated the small kitchen. Nick retrieved the morning Times from the front step and for the first time in years, smiled into the upcoming day. Something red caught his eye from the pebbles of the driveway. A misguided cardinal thinking to find a worm beneath the substrate? He laughed, but then he saw that it wasn’t a bird. It was a shoe.
Simone’s shoe. One of the dainty slippers she’d worn the night before, proof positive that she had indeed been there. Nick crossed the pebbles and picked it up, feeling very much like Prince Charming.
Now, if Cinderella would only agree to the rest of the fairy tale.
Paper tucked under his arm, shoe dangling from one finger, Nick reentered his house, whistling to himself. He put the shoe on the kitchen counter, poured himself a mug of coffee, and went into the study to skim the newspaper before leaving for work.
It was then he noticed the book was missing.
It was then it all began to make sense.
It was then his world fell apart…one more time.
Of course. How stupid of him to believe she might be willing to forgive him and want to mend the decade-old rift between them. Her call to him had had nothing to do with wanting to talk about that. If she indeed had wanted to talk, he suspected she wanted him to talk, about his new business, and what perfume he might be working on as his launch. He could still see those huge dark eyes, listening to him in pretended feminine awe last night, and recalled how she’d tried more than once to direct their conversation to his family, his past. What was she trying to get at? He had no answer for that, but Nick was without a doubt that she’d come as a spy, likely at the urging of Antoine Dupuis.
And he’d played right into her hands. He’d fallen for her charms, welcomed her seduction. Good God, he’d even used the perfume on her!
The perfume.
Nick raced upstairs, but discovered exactly what he’d feared. The vial was gone, too. He searched the floor and the bedclothes, but he knew that the sample he’d decanted from the original into another vial for “home use” was now speeding away from him in a London taxicab, along with the witch’s diary.
Her ploy was so obvious he wanted to groan out loud at his gullibility. Lady in Red. Indeed. Her retribution was so perfect, he gave a short, bitter laugh into the silence of his existence. She’d used him. Just as he had used her ten years before.
Very well, he thought, returning to the study, shaking from rage and humiliation, they were even now. From now on, it was a race to the finish.
And he held one ace in the hole. He not only knew about the mahja, he had the pressed flower safely tucked away in his bank vault, along with the botanist’s report and the remainder of the perfume. Unless she was more successful than he at discovering its modern-day identity from the name alone inscribed in Mary Rose’s book, and found the plant, she could never make the perfume.
But, he reminded himself, unless the exotic trumpet-shaped blossom gave up its secret to him, neither could he.
Chapter Twenty-One
Shame and elation vied for Simone’s conscience as she dashed into her apartment and slammed the door behind her, breathless. She’d skimmed through the ancient little book on the taxi ride home, and she now knew the name of the plant Mary Rose had used to create the perfume oil. She was not familiar with it, not under the name that was inscribed in the diary, mahja. But at last she had something to go on.
She was sorry she’d had to steal the book to learn about the mahja plant. In spite of Dupuis’s nasty little suggestion, theft had not been her motivation for impulsively following Nick home. At the moment, she did not want to consider why she had gone to Nick’s house, but she knew it had not been to purloin Mary Rose’s Book of Shadows. She hadn’t even been sure Nick had it.
But once she’d discovered it, she was unable to forgo the opportunity. She assuaged her guilt somewhat by reminding herself that she’d only reciprocated what he had done to her long ago. It didn’t make it right, but it might mean they were even.
Simone felt in her purse for the vial of perfume, glad to have a sample of it back in her personal possessi
on. Antoine Dupuis had jealously guarded her own small amount of the solution at work, allowing her access to it only in the perfume lab. At least he’d had the good grace to return the folder to her containing Mr. Shamir’s incomplete formula.
Taking the vial closer to the window, she cradled it in her hand, staring at it for a long while, remembering vividly exactly what had happened to her after Nick had dabbed a single drop between…
Her skin tingled at the memory, and she raised her hand to release the fastener at the back of the red dress. The fabric fell away, exposing the pout of her breasts. How could a drop of perfume, placed there, have led her to that unbelievably sensual experience?
Magic. It had to be magic. There was nothing else in this world to explain it.
Gathering her wits with some effort, Simone glanced at the clock on the wall. She was supposed to be at work in little more than an hour, but she was not at all inclined to report in and sit in frustration all day at her console. She would accomplish much more here. She called in sick, then headed for the shower.
The essence of the perfume, mingled with the scent of lovemaking, assailed her sensitive nose as the steaming water washed from her body the residue of last night’s madness. She felt a surprising sense of loss. It was as if she was washing away all hope of ever making love to Nicholas again.
Idiot! She stepped from the shower and jerked a towel from the bar. Of course she would never make love to Nick again. She shouldn’t have last night. Whatever possessed her…? She shook her hair and wrapped another towel around it in a tight turban. Possessed. That could be it. She could be possessed by the perfume.
No. If she was possessed by anything, it was Nicholas Rutledge. He’d possessed her from the moment he’d knocked at her door that long ago summer morning in Grasse. Damn it all. She had to quit wanting him. To quit wanting to go back to that time, to those hopes and dreams in the heart of a very young, and very stupid, girl.
