The analogy tugged a smile from Lark. “I understand you.”
“Good. You go for the point of the pyramid! Otherwise why bother? You take the special. What could it hurt?”
“I could get sick from so much richness,” Lark said dryly.
Trif flashed a grin. “But it would be worth it, right?”
Tempting. Tantalizing. Luscious. Holm Holly.
Lark blew out a breath. “Maybe.”
Raising her brows, Trif studied Lark and asked, “What else is rattling you?”
Heat rose to Lark’s cheeks, and she looked away. “I don’t have a great deal of experience . . . only Ethyn . . . and now Holm. . . .”
Trif tsked. She shut her eyes briefly and flushed, popped her eyes open, and stared at the roses filling the apartment. “Yeah. Thinking back, you don’t believe he was at all affected by you, was he? He didn’t dump you on the floor.”
“That’s enough, Trif. Absolutely no more peeking.”
“All right.” Trif’s hand flew in a fencer’s gesture of concession. “I’ll do my best not to see anything. But the flash and fire is between you and Holm Holly, and you’d be a fool to ignore it.” She stood. “It would be so good for you, Lark. To have a man show you how beautiful you are outside and in, and not only as a Healer. To have someone share your life for a while, give you loving. And the sex, hmmmm-mmmm. Do it.”
Phyll appeared at the threshold of the door between the bedroom and mainspace. He chirruped and yawned.
“Greetyou, Phyll kitten,” Trif said.
Phyll rumbled a small, polite purr.
“Thought I was seeing double earlier today. Two Phylls.” Trif cocked her head at Lark.
Lark gave up, knowing what she said would only reinforce Trif’s idea that this connection with Holm was good. “Phyll has a brother, Meserv. He’s Holm Holly’s Fam.”
Trif rubbed her hands. “Better and better.”
Lark huffed. Phyll came and jumped onto her, purr revving.
“You keep me informed, now,” Trif said. With one last wistful glance at the roses, she headed for the door.
“Wait,” Lark called. “Take the white ones. You know I don’t care for white.”
“Oh, yes.” Trif traipsed back to pick up three huge vases at the end of the rainbow of colored flowers. “Thank you.” Her happy carol was muffled by the blooms, as was most of her body.
“Want me to ’port those for you?” asked Lark.
“No!” Vases tipped as Trif parted them to stare seriously at Lark. “You’ve been doing too much, lately. Working too long. When we share rituals, you are almost too tired to do your part.”
Lark frowned. Had everyone noticed the deep rut she’d carved and followed without peering out over the edges?
“That’s another reason to allow Holm Holly into your life. He’ll certainly give you a sense of the right priorities. And reshuffle your timeschedules.” Trif grinned again. “And provide excellent entertainment and play. Blessed be.”
“Blessed be,” Lark replied, and opened her outer door with a Word before Trif reached it to sail out.
Holm leaned against the brick wall of AllClass Healing Hall, Meserv firmly anchored by a spell on his shoulder, stretched out and sleeping as usual. Holm idly scanned the street and late afternoon pedestrians as he waited for Bélla. His personal glider, a two-passenger model, stood ready, bespelled for a trip.
He knew it was too soon to see Bélla again, that he should delay a couple of days, but he couldn’t. The yearning for her had overridden all his strategizing logic.
His hunger bordered on need. He’d had nightmares of failure and fighting and had sleep-teleported again. Just being with her would soothe him. It had been hard enough enduring the septhours before her shift ended.
This time he’d be smooth and charming. This time he’d avoid the topic of feuds until she only thought of him as a person, a man she was attracted to. This time he’d impress her.
He knew that after a long shift at the AllClass HealingHall she had no energy to spend on teleportation, and she usually took a public swiftgo to the AllClass Maroon beach on the southwestern shore of Pict Peninsula.
A few minutes later he saw her.
She left the building, not looking as exhausted as she’d been the day before, but still very tired. His gut tightened. Even with the autosuggestions reinforced by the HouseHeart, he experienced immediate arousal. He longed to take her into a cool, dark room and drive them both to the brink of madness with tender lovemaking. Just as well that his protective instincts around women came to the fore. That protectiveness had been bolstered by the HouseHeart to help him keep control.
He narrowed his eyes, gauged the three meters, and ’ported Lark’s bag into his hands. It mewed and wriggled. “I have you, Phyll,” Holm said. The tabstrip at the top of one end gaped open, and a dark rose-colored nose surrounded with whiskers snuffled at him. Holm smiled down at the little cat, then focused his attention back onto his HeartMate.
“Thank you for the roses,” she said softly.
He smiled in satisfaction. “You liked them.”
“Was there a note? I might have missed one.”
For once, facile, pretty words had escaped Holm. Everything sounded stilted or trite. Nothing he could say could express the delight he felt at just being in her presence, and he wasn’t about to announce his sentiments for Bunt Rose to relay. “Sometimes notes aren’t good enough. Actions are better,” he said, sliding the straps of her bag over his left arm and taking her hands. Raising one, he kissed the backs of her fingers, then turned it over to taste her palm.
She drew back. “Stop that.”
Holm merely repeated the action with her other hand and noted her pulse quicken in the blue tracery of her wrist veins. A few more licks and her heart might be racing as rapidly as his own. “Bélla,” he said, lilting it, making it exotic and rich as she was to him.
“I’m Lark.” She pulled on her hands.
“A pretty bird. Being a Holly, I favor the robin. Robins have done well on Celta.” Unobtrusively, he tried to send a bit of his strength to her.
“And stop that, too!” This time she managed to jerk her hands from him.
His palms curved her lovely face. “You noticed my sending.”
“It wasn’t at all subtle,” she huffed.
It was. He’d done the same to his mother and brother countless times, and neither had noticed. But he had a feeling that Bélla would always find him out, read him accurately, and generally know what he was thinking. Fearsome thought, being HeartBound and so vulnerable to someone else. Yet, even now, some of her own personal energy seemed to have transferred to him, and it felt as if she nestled close to his heart. He’d never be alone, or lonely, again.
Meserv yawned and turned his head to face Lark, brushing soft fur against Holm’s throat.
Lark’s gaze went to his neck and the bruise on it. Holm had worn a collarless shirt to remind her of the passion generated between them, and flaunt his lover’s mark. She pinkened.
Greetyou, Lark Healer, Meserv said, opening wide blue eyes.
She ducked her head in acknowledgment. “Greetings, kitten Meserv.” She took her bag from Holm, freed the rest of the tabstrip, and lifted Phyll out.
Greetyou, Mmmmmmesserv. Greetyou, Holly, Phyll said.
“Here, let me.” Holm took Phyll and draped him on Lark’s shoulder. He overflowed. “Let’s try something else.” Holm bowed the complacent kitten around her neck, lifting her hair and touching her sensitive nape as he did so.
She glared at him, but didn’t move. He stretched his fingers over her nape—an intimate gesture that made him control his breathing and hope that she didn’t look below his waist to his tight body. He touched her, in public, in a place where no one else touched her.
Phyll nipped his thumb.
“Ouch.” He moved his hand and Phyll took its place, purring.
“Serves you right,” Lark muttered.
Holm ste
pped back—their personal fields were mingling, and the heat and sensuality between them would soon be too much for him to handle. He feigned shock. “You would say I deserve to be hurt? You, a FirstLevel Healer?”
She raised her chin, studying the minute indentation of kitten teeth on his thumb. “Yes.”
Holm grinned. “We progress. You are becoming less gentle and more realistic about fighting and life.”
Lark narrowed her eyes. “I progress?”
“And I am becoming less bloodthirsty,” he said smoothly.
Now she looked surprised. “You?”
“Me,” he said. “Hollys find the adrenaline rush of fighting addicting, but as with all addictions, it can be fought and lessened. Or, my personal favorite, something new and even more wonderful can be substituted.”
Lark shook her head. “This situation is impossible. I have no intention of having an affair with you.”
Seeing her mouth set in stubborn lines, and that the discussion was garnering more attention than he wanted, Holm held out one hand and gestured with the other to his glider. “Let’s not talk about this now. Spend a little time with me. I know you like to walk on AllClass Maroon Beach after work. My glider’s already spelled for that destination.”
She looked at the glider, at him, at Meserv.
Let’s go play! both cats cried at once.
“Meserv hasn’t been to the beach yet; has Phyll?”
“No,” Lark said.
Phyll increased his purr, fluttering tendrils of her black hair. Meserv amplified his purr until it rumbled loudly.
Holm smiled smugly. “Meserv’s purr is better than Phyll’s.”
She exhaled a laugh and placed her hand in his. Meserv’s purr reverberated even louder.
At her touch, everything in him leapt. He wanted her, but wanted even more to ease her burdens. “Let’s have fun,” he said. As her fingers curled around his, he knew he’d been wise in choosing a public beach during a summer afternoon for their next tryst.
“All right,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “You don’t relax enough.”
The fresh sea wind whipped her hair and whisked her fatigue away. Or it might have been Holm Holly’s presence and the effervescence bubbling through her at his touch. Each time they met, his effect upon her intensified.
He held her hand and it felt like a physical current of energy circled between them. This was a sharing, mutual thing, not like the strength he’d tried to slip her unnoticed before. But the cycling vitality between them, the mixture of his and hers, invigorated her, just as she sensed it rid Holm of some edgy tension he carried.
With the energy ran a thread of pure physical desire. Tempting. The pleasure of anticipating when and how and the amount of passion that would be freed made her giddy.
She gloried in the summer blue of the sky, nearly white; smiled as bar birds swooped and sang, savored tangy scent of sea and grass. And Holm. His silver-gilt hair, too, shone white in Bel’s light. As strong and warm and uplifting as the sunshine.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
His mouth quirked up at one corner. “To spend some time with you, to have you become accustomed to seeing me and having me in your life. Every day,” he added, lifting her hand to his mouth and brushing her fingers with his lips. Then he stopped and faced her, taking her other hand. The circuit between them hummed with exhilaration. “To experience this—this powerful connection—between us. And let you experience it, enjoy it and my company.” He smiled lopsidedly. “And enjoy me.”
She stared up at him, his silver hair a nimbus, his head outlined against the blue sky, his features clear-cut, refined, noble. Holm Holly, of whom she’d known as long as she lived. A man who seemed to have her as his goal.
She sighed. “This is not wise. And I don’t like fighters, but perhaps until I hear about the Gael City position—”
He broke the circuit by raising a forefinger to her lips, but the energy continued to pulse between them as if they were still linked physically.
“Shh,” he said. “No serious talk today. Just simple pleasure in each other’s company, the beauty of the beach and ocean, the amusement of watching our kittens.”
She told herself that she should stop this bond before it grew further, that she should not spend time with a man who would soon be spilling the blood of her Family—
“No!” Holm said, now placing both thumbs on her temples. She felt the spiraling of the bond, becoming more than physical, reaching for her emotions. She broke it, stepped back, and let Holm’s hands fall from her face.
When she looked at him, his eyes were grave. “Do not question this short time we have together, please, Bélla. Can you not simply be within the moment?” He took her hand again and tugged gently, as he began to walk down the beach.
The summer’s day was too precious to waste. He was right to remind her not to agonize about the future. Simply living was something she must do more often. So she surrendered to the day, to the fizzing link between herself and Holm, and to the man.
Seven
Lark admitted to herself that she wanted these moments with Holm. Even more, he gave her something she’d always yearned for—basic physical affection. Her father’s Family had always been stern, polite, repressed, with a minimal of bodily contact.
Her mother’s Family, trained as hands-on Healers, had kept touch as part of deepest intimacy and their careers. And Ethyn . . . her lost husband had grown up Downwind, equally unaccustomed to physical affection. There a touch was more often a slap or a blow than a caress. He hadn’t seemed to notice that Lark and he only touched during sex or working together.
But Lark had. She’d begun to crave simple contact even before he’d died. She’d started wondering how to free herself and teach them both to give and take natural pats or hugs.
Now here was Holm, helping her from his glider, holding her hand as they walked to the beach; touching her casually, easily, often. How could she say no to him, even though she was frightened that she’d want too much or too little, or she wouldn’t know how to return his touches, or the price of every touch would be too high, or—
“Bélla.” Holm stopped and curved a hand around her face. Her heart thumped.
“You’re thinking too hard.” He sent a sizzle of energy through the link that evaporated her fuzzy worries.
She blinked, smiled, and deliberately relaxed. Soon the sun and sea and beach worked their natural magic to remind her of the value of life and the world around her.
The beach was dotted with small clumps of people. Phyll and Meserv danced around lapping waves, pounced on seaweed, raced and tumbled and hid behind small dunes and attacked each other. And made her smile and Holm laugh aloud.
He laughed and his head thrown back drew Lark’s notice to his muscular neck, and the red-violet bruise she’d placed upon it the afternoon before. Tingles rippled into waves of sweet sensation within her, growing despite her resolution.
“Ah, here we go, seats.” Holm gestured to several pale logs set on the beach, denuded of their bark, smooth and shiny with use. He sat down. “Come, take your shoes off and let’s walk barefoot in the sand.”
She smiled and settled beside him, slipping her shoes and liners off, laughing and wiggling her toes that looked milk pallid against the maroon sand.
When she glanced at him, he’d gone completely still. Deep emotion gleamed in his eyes. She looked back down at her feet.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh,” he said, a rough note in his voice.
Startled, she looked up. “Surely not.”
Now he smiled. “Surely so. Boots off!” he ordered. His footgear and liners vanished. Then the brown furrabeast leather boots stood at attention beside him. Holm wore full-cut breeches that ended at his knee, showing athletic calves with fine hair.
The kittens tumbled to their feet and fought with tiny growls and hisses.
Holm laughed, took her hand, and tugged her up as he rose
himself. He glanced at Lark, and freed his hand from hers to form a fuzzy pink puffball in the air, larger than both kittens. The delicate Flair-construct looked like a huge, pale pink dandelion gone to seed.
Lark smiled back at Holm, but felt a little pang. He’d made the toy so surely, so easily, that she knew he’d often done it before. His Family must have often played with the creation. Or—she thought as she eyed the puffball’s airy, bouncing path—they continued to play with it. Holm had a younger brother.
Meserv leapt for the ball and missed, Phyll twisted in the air and sent it whirling with one small paw. It zoomed through the air to hit Lark in the face, and she laughed at the tickling softness of the thing. She snagged it as it rebounded from her head, then frowned, sniffed. “What’s that smell?”
Holm looked wicked. “Catnip.”
She lowered her brows even more. “Drugs for the cat? D’Ash’s instructions—”
“Don’t lecture.” Holm ran to her, swung her around, and kissed her. His eyes darkened. Seeing his passion rise, she pulled away, but his hand slid down until he held her fingers, which he lifted. He nibbled on the tips. “We can play.”
Sweet sensation tingled from her hand to spread through her. The puffball floated on the edge of her vision. She tugged her hand away and swatted it, feeling her lashes lower and a curve shape her lips. “We’ll play with the kittens.”
Holm shook his head and placed a hand over his heart. “The lady prefers play with kittens to a different type of ‘play’ with me. I am devastated. My ego is in ruins.”
Lark laughed again and realized she felt more lighthearted than she had for years. And she’d laughed more in the last few minutes than all of last month.
Play! Phyll said, jumping for the ball hanging just out of paw-reach. His leap was the epitome of feline grace and beauty.
Play!! Meserv said. With a grunt he managed to spring a centimeter higher and bat the ball down and to his twin.
They both attacked it, sending it back and forth.
Heart Duel Page 8
