by Robin Owens
She didn’t think she projected much emotion, so maybe he wouldn’t feel hers through their bond. Maybe he wouldn’t guess she was his HeartMate. He’d run—no, he’d shut her out—if he learned that. Keep her away longer than she wanted to stay in Druida.
He wasn’t ready for a HeartMate. She’d gotten used to the idea. He just needed a little more time to see what they could share.
She called mentally for her Fam, Shunuk.
I am here, he said.
Where?
I am hunting in Landing Park. I have learned that the primary fox den is near here.
Why do you want to see that? Do you want to join them?
Want to see how the best den lives in the city.
We won’t be living in the city.
Maybe not, but I want to see all, anyway. Get ideas for my own den.
You want to start a den?
Maybe, maybe not. I am not getting younger. A rush of joy at the scent of rat came from him and Del narrowed their link.
She had no idea how old Shunuk was or how old foxes were when they mated and made dens or how long they stayed with mates. He’d been with her for three years.
She was fine with mating for life, having a partner. She wasn’t so fine with staying in one place. She’d think of that later. Right now she planned on seducing her HeartMate.
Del had given the setting some thought, had wanted it to be special. She was used to having sex outdoors, though sometimes it wasn’t very romantic and she figured Raz would go for the romantic stuff, at least until sexual frenzy kicked in. She grinned. Nothing wrong with a little sexual frenzy.
But she didn’t want to give him anything to deduce who she might be—no tropical forest setting with lush blossoms never seen in Druida city. No high mountain glen in the summer. She was uncommonly nervous. Relax and breathe and think of him.
That was easy. His coloring, his grace, his long, lean body.
The way humor lit his eyes, how he was courteous to everyone, how he bowed over women’s hands, pleasing them.
Pleasing her.
How his hands had felt on her during their dance, the warmth of his touch through her clothes right above her butt that had sent sizzles through her . . . and lower. How their bodies had brushed until hers had heated, readied for him. How she had actually leaned against him, wanting more touch.
She opened her mind, found their connection bright and golden, and let a bit of consciousness flow toward him.
He was sleeping.
That surprised her, he’d be used to late nights.
All the easier for her to craft a dream.
She opened herself wide, sensing what he did . . . the glide of fine linens on his naked body, soft stuffing over harder bedsponge. The quiet steadiness of his breathing, and the absence of any sound in his apartment, though city noises came from outside.
There. She was ready.
So she slipped them mentally into a dream, and to the center of the Great Labyrinth north of Druida, a sacred space more than one pair of lovers chose for sex.
He lay on the thick grass with wildflowers surrounding them, cool summer night air laden with a medley of scents—roses, trees, ripe fruit, flowers. He was nude, and she was dressed in a gossamer white robe, open in the front, kneeling beside him. The whispering leaves of the great ash tree near them cast ever-moving shadows. Dark enough that he wouldn’t see her well.
She didn’t need to see him to know him.
With a light touch, she ran the tips of her fingers along the wide sweep of his brow. His hair formed a slight widow’s peak, dramatic. His cheekbones were wonderful. Her fingers brushed them, then she touched the fullness of his lips. A face easy to fall in love with. Many must have. But she was his HeartMate and they would have more.
She shaped his face with her palms. Following desire, she bent over and kissed him, swept her tongue along his mouth, tasted him. Cherry with a hint of cinnamon and sweet. A gurgle of laughter rose from her, escaped her to join the night birdsong. Why had she thought he’d taste differently?
He opened his eyes, blinked. His hands went to her head.
With a thought, she made her hair long, and it became full and curly.
“Soft,” he mumbled.
It was probably the only soft part of her, but she didn’t care, not now, not here, not in this perfect dream.
She kissed him again and his eyes fluttered closed. His hands went unerringly to her breasts, holding them, thumbs playing with her nipples, and she moaned. She let the passion spin between them, let the dream take her as well. Shared with him.
She traced the line of his fine collarbone, trailed her hand down his chest. Strong, defined muscles. He wore clothes well, but they didn’t do his body justice. Lean, but with a subtle muscularity. He would consider it a part of his art to have a beautiful body.
She’d never seen him naked in reality and she yearned for that.
The scent of his skin rose to her nostrils and she had to taste him again. She leaned down and licked the small line of hair from his chest down his abdomen, smiling when his sex rose thick and hard. His hips were lean, his thighs toned. She dipped her tongue in his navel, had his hands clamp around her upper arms.
She knew he’d roll them so he was on top. “No,” she whispered, “let me lie on you.” She wanted him beneath her. Wanted her body caressed by moonlight and not pressed into the earth. She’d want him over her later. Right now she needed the freedom of the skies, not any ties to the ground.
He let her move as she’d wanted, to lay atop him, her heated skin to his, her head angled to nibble at the underside of his sculpted jaw.
A low moan came from him, his hips moved, and he thickened more against her stomach. Enjoying the sensual deliciousness, she rubbed herself against him. The light hair on his chest caressed her nipples and they tightened and caused her core to melt. She matched his groans. Her hands went to his, to twine in his fingers, to meet palm to palm.
Energy, Flair, sparked between them. He thrust up and she slid down and let him pierce her with his body, let their emotions, their desire, whirl into passion and rise and rise. She bent to kiss him, taking his tongue into her mouth as their sexes joined. Joined all together.
Eight
Raz woke and stumbled from the bed into the waterfall room, panting. By the Lady and Lord, what a woman that one had been in his dream. The thought made him shiver. He’d never had such a climax, never been so drained. He shook his head and felt the dampness of perspiration on his face. Incredible.
He let the water cool him. He didn’t recall being so hot from sex, either. Again he shook his head, just to make sure it hadn’t exploded. For a while all his thoughts had vanished in a puff of smoke. Even sensations had blurred until all he felt was a striving for release.
For completion.
Every thought about that bout of dream sex was a superlative: best, most, greatest . . . He groaned and leaned against the cool stone-veneered wall of the stall.
He hadn’t experienced an erotic fantasy. This had been well and truly sex with another person.
She hadn’t said anything, but it didn’t take the dregs of his mind to understand she was his HeartMate. The mental—and physical—sex was hotter, sexier than when he’d had his last Passage a year back, and Passages were supposed to be the most intense feelings of your life.
This was more.
The water was cooling . . . even in the middle of the night the building didn’t have a large supply of hot water, and he didn’t want to use energy to heat it. But he’d chosen the building for the charmingly unique rooms—an excellent frame for himself when he entertained. He closed the waterfall spell and murmured a dry spell. Enjoyed the soft whirling heat a little too much since he became aroused again. Somehow the spell seemed more like her hands than a mere whisk of air.
Must be his HeartMate.
He didn’t want her now . . . well, not the intimate connection of the HeartBond. His career was more important to
him and he wanted to concentrate on that. Though her body and the sex, the lovemaking, would be something he could become addicted to. But maybe not every night, his mind, senses, feelings had been blasted so.
His legs still weren’t altogether steady as he walked back into his bedroom. Clearing his throat, he said, “New sheets.” The bed that was a gift from his mother flipped and tossed. Linens were stripped and new ones appeared.
He still enjoyed watching the magic, still didn’t understand how it happened. He’d had to “load” four sets of linens under the soft mattress top and the cover always was crumpled at the foot of the bed.
New technological Flair. He loved it. He’d been one of the first to buy the tiny gilded stone droplets that were miniature personal scrys.
His system was leveling after the fantastic sex and he slipped between the clean sheets. They caressed his body and he shuddered then willed his arousal away. He suspected he wouldn’t fall asleep soon, though more often than not he had to fight rude sleep after sex.
A thought niggled at his brain. He had satisfied her, hadn’t he? He struggled to recall, but much of the dream was fading into a haze. Not to mention he’d stopped thinking very soon after her hands had explored his body. He recalled how he’d gotten overflowing palms full of breast, cupped her ass in his hands, plunged in.
Sucking in a deep breath, he relaxed muscle by muscle, even said a little spell to move his blood from his groin to throughout his body. A good spell for adolescent boys—and one he had rarely used since then.
He could only hope he satisfied her, because he didn’t know, and that was a new experience.
Breathing deeply, he calmed his mind again, relaxing and enjoying the sounds of the summer night in the city. There was the steady whoosh of the PublicCarrier—little more than a large glider at this time of night—and night birds warbling.
Had she deliberately drawn him into a dream or had it been unknowing on both their parts? He considered that, then decided it must have been instinctive. She’d felt, smelled, familiar in the sense that he’d known her loving from the dreams before, but also unfamiliar . . . the soft cloudy hair that he’d speared his fingers through close to her skull.
Closing his eyes, he sank into serenity, weaving in birdsong and the steps of a passerby. He felt loose but a little achy.
The memory of the fight painted the inside of his eyelids red and bold and jolted him. He’d forgotten that.
Amazing. He tested his limbs. The Spindles’ Healer was good; he’d barely had a bruise after she’d worked on him and any lingering aches had been wiped away by the fabulous sex.
But he suspected that now all his troubles would hit the newssheets. His host, T’Spindle, had been stiff with pride, insisting on taking care of the damage to Raz’s glider.
He’d spent two septhours with the guards going over every detail of the burglary here, at the theater, his sense of being watched, and the glider incident. No one had any explanations.
Restlessly, he got up and walked to the windows covered in gauzy cream curtains. He glanced out, frowned. One of the shadows was different. He’d had enough sleepless nights, come home at all hours of the night, to know the shadows. Anyone who teleported observed the fall and shift of light.
As he watched, a man-shaped dark patch vanished. Raz blinked, trying to grasp the form. It might have been the big man from tonight. It hadn’t moved like it had been hurt in a fight. But neither did he.
With a sigh Raz went to the no-time food and beverage storage and took out a potion that sent thin tendrils of gray steam into the dark. He swallowed the mild sleep-aid in a gulp that made him recall Del Elecampane—who’d also faded to the back of his mind with all the events.
An intriguing lady. She held a GrandLady’s title, though he hadn’t remembered that until someone had referred to her after she’d left. She’d left him wanting.
Uneasily he went back to bed. Could she be his HeartMate? He worked on the calculations, when he’d first felt the touch of his HeartMate . . . Second Passage at seventeen, as was becoming usual. If his mate had been four years older than he and had her Third Passage at twenty-one, the connection would be strong. Stronger than what he’d felt?
He grunted. Del was eight years older than he, and his dream woman had had long hair and had been romantic and . . . gentle?
The next morning he called the guards again to report the shadow of the big man who could have been the one who’d assaulted him at the party. He was told that his neighborhood would be patrolled at night. The residents and shops would be cautioned to watch for any unusual incidents. Raz figured he’d have to turn up his charm to remain popular.
A guardsman also firmly but gently told Raz that he was an actor in a mystery, not a sleuth himself, and to leave any investigation to professionals. Raz had cheerfully replied that with ten performances an eightday, he didn’t have the time for sleuthing.
No other disturbing events occurred over the next two busy days and the feeling of being watched faded, as did the details of the erotic interlude. He didn’t know whether to yearn for more dream sex or be glad he wasn’t being pulled into an irresistible web of temptation that would complicate his career.
The dream woman was replaced by Del Elecampane. Not that they met, but he seemed to notice her often.
That night she’d come to the show again. He’d been pleased to see her in the house and the energy continued to be good. The cast and crew were cheerful, especially when new portraits of the Primroses by the great artist T’Apple were set into place and a priestess and priest came and blessed the theater again.
The next day he’d seen Del with T’Ash, the jeweler and blacksmith, walking in a local park and having a lively discussion. About what? What could she have in common with the tough and brooding T’Ash . . . unless it had something to do with the rehabilitation of the area that used to be the old Downwind slums. He’d overheard T’Ash say “landscape.” Then the man had become aware of him and scowled. Del had laughed and winked at Raz but had diverted T’Ash’s attention. Even more intriguing.
Midweek matinee went well, though not as well as the previous evening performances, and he looked forward to dining with his parents and working on the new model spaceships with his father.
He actually smiled at the thought of seeing his Family. Progress. On all their parts. They’d moved beyond disapproving of each other this last year and he hadn’t realized it. He wondered if anyone had except his crafty mother. She’d gently made the change happen. The rest of them—he, his father, and his younger sister, the Heir—had been too stubborn to make the first move.
His mother had asked for tickets to the play he was in at the time to entertain business associates. Apparently the associates were impressed with Raz’s acting. Their Family reconciled.
An easy action, but beyond his father or sister to take.
His Family ate early, so Raz picked up flower bouquets from a local shop for his mother and sister, then put the box with his broken models under his arm and stepped into the small square area in his mainspace marked off as a teleportation area. His glider wasn’t back from being repaired. Raz was grateful that his Cherry was getting the best treatment and being paid for by the Spindles, but if he’d had it taken to the Family shop, it would have been done by now. He had dreaded breaking the news of Cherry’s harm to his Family, but they had learned it from the newssheets the morning after the attack.
So dinner might be a little touchy, but nothing they hadn’t negotiated through before, and he had the virtuous feeling of being the one to call his father last week.
He thought of home, simply home, and was there on the private teleportation pad of the Residence playroom. The scent was the same—brandied cherries—and the atmosphere wrapped around him like an old and familiar childhood blanket he’d outgrown.
His mother was there, smiling, arms open. He bent down and kissed her cheek. She and his sister were small. He’d gotten his height from his father, who was
built on heavier lines.
“Mother, I love you. Here.” He offered her the bouquet of cottage-garden flowers. She refused to cut any of her own, preferring to see the pretty blooms outside her windows.
She squeezed him, stepped back, buried her face in the delicate blooms and lacy greens. “Gorgeous. Thank you.”
His sister strode into the room, dressed in business clothes, moving rapidly as usual. Raz wasn’t the only one who’d gotten a dash of charisma Flair. Seratina exuded Presence.
She was frowning. “Your glider still not fixed?”
She’d refused to call his glider Cherry. He smiled and offered her flowers. “What can I say? The Elders are slower than your shop. But I didn’t pull folk away from work on your transports to repair my vehicle.”
“True,” she said. Taking the mixed colored roses, she went straight to a vase and put the blooms in it, said a Word to keep them fresh until she’d get the proper nutrient-laden water for them. His sister liked things done right and in a proper order.
There came a tiny sniff, followed by a tiny mental voice. Is this the male littermate?
Raz stared down, openmouthed, as a small white kitten tumbled into the room.
“Yes!” Seratina said and swept up the young cat to cuddle next to her cheek, suddenly looking six years old.
He kissed her cheek again. “Lovely woman, my sis.”
She blinked at him. “Thank you.”
I am pretty, too, said the kitten and Raz knew it was female.
He studied her. “Very pretty.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “A superior cat for a superior woman.”
A loud purr revved. I am a Fam. My sire is Zanth. My Dam is Drina, the Blackthorn Fam. She lifted a pink nose and gave him a little pointy-toothed smile, then curled her tongue in the way cats had of using their additional sense, as if tasting his exhalations, the atmosphere around him.
