by Aimee Laine
Taylor shifted to him. “I could think of a few things to do.”
His muscles flexed under his shirt. “Could you now?”
“Yes.” The sound came out low and sultry.
His hands clenched together. “Anything interesting? Or just plain normal?” He added a soft kiss to the edge of her lips.
She tilted as he did, their movement a dance that shifted only as the plane increased its altitude in a smooth glide toward the heavens.
“You know … I don’t think I’ve done so much first base stuff since I was ten,” Ian said.
Taylor’s laugh hit the roof. As her mirth subsided, she faced him again. “Ten, Ian? Really?”
“I’m just that good.” A small shrug accompanied his smirk.
“I might have to test that theory. Again.” She grabbed his shirt, tugged him forward and covered his lips with hers. Rather than let him lead, she did, slipping her tongue between his lips and pushing their kiss further. Taylor nipped the side of his jaw up to his lobe. She stretched out her hands, reaching for his. “Mile high club?”
The belt of his seat unclipped faster than she could blink. A second later, Taylor found herself whisked into his arms and perched on his lap. Ian’s hands gripped her as if he needed to hold tight to keep her in place.
She kissed the underside of his chin, moving down his neck to where his shirt separated at the first button.
A low growl rumbled in his chest. “I’ve wanted my hands on you since I first heard your voice. I’ve wanted to touch you at every opportunity. Being apart again was a total waste of time and energy.”
She nipped at his skin. “Then, let’s make up for that.”
His hands gripped her hair, and he pulled her forward until her breasts pressed against him through the sheath of her T-shirt.
“I’ve wanted you since the first moment I saw you.” She nipped at his ear. “Whatever happens from this point forward, I want to know I satisfied one of my many little fantasies.” Her tongue teased back to his lips.
“Anything. At this point, if you told me you’d planned my murder, I’d still be willing.” He slid from the seat, following as he lowered her to the small space between the two rows.
“There’s not a lot of room down here.” She wriggled until her shoulders fit between the two chair legs.
“I can deal if you can.”
Looking up at him from the floor, she reached for his buttons, undoing each one with slow, measured precision. “I can.”
The sight of his chest, uncovered, with a fine layer of dark, soft hair, forced a tremble through her body.
John.
She slid the sleeves of his work shirt over his shoulders until he drew out of each, one by one. She yanked on his belt, and he undid the tie, sliding it from the loops.
Never before had a farmer’s breeches been so desirable.
John braced himself above her. “I know the space ain’t big, but—”
“With you, any place will do.” She ran a hand down his face, the day’s growth of beard roughening her palm. With a wide grin, she worked to press down the fabric at his waist, her hand slipping between wool and skin, short nails brushing against the side of his thigh.
He closed his eyes, and a long moan left his lips.
“Anticipation is much of the enjoyment, wouldn’t you say?” She slid her hand down and around until she reached her goal.
He lowered until his lips touched hers. From left to right, he nibbled while she caressed.
A bump of turbulence brought Taylor back to their moment, to Ian, and to the realization she’d just experienced another of her out of body memories, yet her hand remained firmly around his reality.
“What’s wrong?” His eyes held nothing but concern.
Taylor smiled. “Nothing.” With eyes closed again, she willed the memory to come back. “Nothing at all.”
He repositioned to the side, lying with her in the straw in the upper loft of the barn, just under the easement, in the crook where no one would ever search. His finger stroked a line along her face.
“Where are your thoughts?” she asked.
His lips curved. “Would you, if the circumstance differed, consider marrying the likes of me?”
She couldn’t contain her smile. “Without a doubt. I would marry you today if Father would but allow.”
His smile remained as hers grew.
She took the opportunity to reverse their positions until she lay above him. His hands moved with speed but matched the sensual dance and play they’d found themselves in before. Fingertips unraveled her rear corset’s ties, and she rose up so he could smooth the cotton over her shoulders, down her arms and expose her torso. His hands cupped her breasts, sending tingles through her. She lowered again, hair falling from her ribbon and onto his face.
He separated the strands, sliding his hands between them and cupping her cheeks. A tug brought her down to his lips, his hips driving up as she nibbled his ear.
With her touch to his thigh, he let go and pushed at his trousers, removing them with a few quick movements.
She repositioned herself against him, the way a tree roots with the earth, each extension fitting as if made to be together. Skin to skin, dotted with perspiration more from eagerness than exertion, and with their gazes locked on each other, she took him inside her.
His eyes shuttered as her own did the same. Lost in the beauty of her own thoughts, John became the only man Claire could picture—the only man she ever wanted. The only man with whom she would ever share of herself.
A bump jostled her, and Taylor opened her eyes again to find a grin across Ian’s face.
“Where did you go?” Ian asked.
“With you. Always you,” She lifted her hips just a bit.
Ian drove into her with a slow, painful back and forth like a violin’s bow across a low note, gauging just how long it could hold out before it had to reverse course.
The tease drove pleasure through her.
She closed her eyes again, savoring.
Each touch of his hands on her body, his lips against her skin, and their simple connection made her want to cry out for more. He’d move slow and tease, build to a crescendo, and she’d hold off on her release, desperate to remain connected with John.
Her lip throbbed from her bite, their whispered words the loudest of their sounds as horses whinnied and the hiss of a feline followed the bark of her daddy’s sheepdog.
John levered up onto his elbows, wrapped one arm around her and spun them so he lay across her again. “Would you deny my wish to pleasure you?”
She reached her arms above her head, giving the entirety of herself over to him, his fingers grasping and intertwining with hers. “As you wish, my love.”
Warmth spread to the farthest reaches of her body, branding her with the scent, touch and taste of the man above her. A kiss to her cheek, and her legs tightened around him. A touch to her neck, and his speed increased. A lick at her lips, and her entire world rocketed toward the sun in a blinding fury of passion.
Their chests heaved against one another, neither prepared to move, as if she had fused with him in a mating dance made to last centuries—as right as if they’d repeated an event that tied them across time.
“Taylor.” Her name came out a loud whisper into her ear and snapped her back to the plane.
She wanted to respond, but her heart lurched as it had so often since she’d met him.
Throughout the centuries.
Ian added a soft kiss to the side of her neck.
She sucked in air to keep her voice steady and said, “You really know how to please a woman.” She stroked his back, running her fingers along the ridges of muscle. “I believe I’ve always known that.”
“Only you.” He started to shift, but Taylor held him in place. “Aren’t I heavy?”
“Nah.” She drew lazy circles along the side of his rib cage. “I’m … happy right now.”
The plane bucked.
�
�We’re descending already, you know.” He didn’t move from his spot, but instead entangled their fingers again. “We’ve been on our way down for a while, actually.”
“Doesn’t your pilot have to remind us to buckle up?”
Ian chuckled. “I think he did. I remember something coming through the speaker, but I was a bit preoccupied.”
The bump of wheels against ground had them both laughing, and the thruster of the single-engine plane reversed, sending their bodies forward by an inch.
“Guess we missed a lot of the flight.” Her fingernail ran low on his side.
Ian jumped with what she assumed to be an unexpected tickle. “S’okay by me. Though I’d swear you were in another world a couple times. You said John again.”
“My lives are mixing. When we … you know, do this?”
His chest bumped against hers. “This … meaning when you make love with me?”
Her cheeks heated. “Yeah, that.”
“You’re embarrassed, yet you’ve started each of our experiences.”
“Which is very unlike me. Anyway …” She patted his cheek. “I … experienced another time. It happens each time. Sometimes with a kiss. Sometimes all the way. It’s … amazing, Ian. I’m here, yet I’m there and in both … I—”
As their speed decreased, Taylor realized they needed to dress.
Fast.
She pushed up, but Ian held her down.
“You … what?”
“We’re about to surprise our pilot.”
“Enh.” His shoulder bumped into her armpit. “That’s not what you were going to say. What was it?”
“You want him to see your dangly bits?”
The grin coupled with a laugh brought her own chuckle. “Trust me. It’s not dangling.”
• • •
“I can’t believe you let him open that door. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” Taylor slid out of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk toward the path up to her house.
“Enh.” Ian shrugged for the umpteenth time.
“You said that on the plane, Ian. And, I have asked repeatedly. Are you a sexual show-off? Do I need to worry what might end up on the Internet?”
“Enh.” He held open the front door but grabbed her arm as she tried to pass. With one quick pull against him, he laid his lips along hers.
Taylor’s body melded against him. “What was that for?” she asked when he released her.
“Enh.”
“Great. Now he’s a caveman.” The sarcasm in her voice mixed with giddiness as she strolled into her house to the smells of the raspberry potpourri she kept stashed in each room, to familiarity, to normalcy. A flick of the interior switch illuminated the room. “Home, sweet, home.” She dropped her keys in their bowl, breathing a sigh as a smile took hold of her lips. “Would you like something to eat?”
“What, the peanuts and half a can of Coke on the plane weren’t enough?” The front door closed. Ian’s footsteps echoed through with a cadence and weight she’d come to recognize. “This is … uh … country.” He chuckled as he took a seat on a bar stool.
She assumed he referred to the denim-patterned walls with white accents, the hanging pots and her collection of ceramic teapots, rather than the stainless steel, marble countertops or the empty fridge.“We didn’t have peanuts—”
The look Ian sent her said ‘duh’ without words. “Tell me what you were going to say on the plane.”
A shiver started in her spine but she banked it, forcing herself still. “Um … so, I don’t do a lot of cooking.” Taylor spun to her cabinets, withdrew a box of cereal and set it on the counter. “Cheerios?”
“So, you’re going to just ignore me?” Ian took the box. “You do know this has a best when used by date, right?”
“Of course.” She laid her hands on the countertop, but grabbed the pile of mail she’d set on the edge and rifled through. She’d managed to ignore it all through the week, not realizing how much she’d acquired.
“And, this expired about three months ago.” He chuckled.
“Well, shoot.” Taylor shifted toward her clock. “And, it’s eleven already. I don’t think anything but one or two fast food joints might be open. Or the grocery store.”
Ian stood and walked around the counter where Taylor separated bills from junk and coupons from personal stuff. He ran his hands down her arms. “You said your lives are mixing.”
Taylor eyed the mail again. “Hey, check this out.” She waved an envelope at Ian.
He lifted her chin. “What were you going to say?”
With a sigh, she said, “I was going to say I was in love with you. In that life. I was. And, I feel … I feel …”
“You feel it now.” He ran his hand behind her head and drew her closer. “Just like all those little things I can’t know about you but do. Like how you love the smell of lavender, but not sage. How you cut your finger on the fence while pretending to bark orders so you could watch me at work.”
She jerked back.
He held her in place. “I don’t know how I know these things. I just do. But, if you loved me … if I loved you … why would I kill you? Why wouldn’t I want to savor every inch of you?”
“I don’t know. Oh!” Her lids went wide.
“What?”
“What if …” She slipped out of his hold and paced across the kitchen floor and back. “What if you did it because I asked you? What if it was a Romeo and Juliet thing, and seriously, we were waiting until the times were right?” She wagged a finger in the air. “What if it was our own plan to get to number four?” Taylor reached Ian and laid her palms against his cheeks. “What if we did it, on purpose, and now we’re here, and we know, and the world isn’t going to separate us?”
“Like hell it will.”
She smiled up at him. “This is awesome, Ian! This has to be it. There’s no way I would hurt you, and no way you would hurt me, so this had to be our plan.” Taylor wrapped her arms around him as his hands slid to her lower back. “This has to be it!” She giggled as if the answer had always been there. “I love you!”
Ian stiffened.
Taylor forced herself to calm and angled her head until their gazes met. “I love you, Ian. I’ve never met a man like you, and I’ve never had feelings like these. From everywhere. From all over. I’m—we’re—”
“Connected.” He dipped down and pressed his lips against hers. “I’ve never told anyone I love them, Taylor, but I don’t want to screw this up.”
“You don’t think my theory is right.”
He shook his head. “Not in my gut. Not like those feelings I get about you. Yes, I—”
She patted his cheek. “It’s okay. We southern girls like to love. I think it’ll hit ya soon enough.” With that, she grabbed the mail that had fallen to the counter. “Oh! Look. It’s from Sherrill.”
Ian leaned forward, and Taylor shook the envelope in front of him. ‘Photos—Do not bend.’ had been stamped on both sides.
“Think she sent us copies?” Ian asked.
Taylor pulled out a knife to slide through the tape. An inner envelope slid from within the cardboard packaging. A quick rip opened the first, and a sticky note and two photos slid to the marble surface.
Ian picked up one while Taylor took the other. “This is the one she showed us,” he said.
“This isn’t.” Taylor waved the second one with a sticky note attached to it, too. “Dear Taylor, I found this one as I was scouring another box. Sorry that I didn’t have it at the time you were here. Thought you might like it. All copies of course, no harm done if you destroy them. Sherrill.” Taylor pulled the note off and dropped it in the trash. “Oh. My. God.” Her hand flew to her chest as the photo fell to the counter.
Ian snatched up the image.
She shook her head. This isn’t possible.
The photo tilted left and right in Ian’s hand, like he studied it. “What do you see that I don’t see?” he asked.
“What do you see?” Her ha
nd shook.
He angled it to the left. “I see another of the supposed you and supposed me. I see a barn. I see cows. You’re talking to someone.” He pulled the photo in closer. “I’m not getting your reaction.”
She took it back and stared at it. Barn—the one we made love in our last time. Ian. Me. Cows. Check. The same old, faded, black and white reflected back at her—the same as the original Sherrill had provided. “That face. Here.” She pointed to the one her ‘supposed self’, as Ian called them, seemed to be talking to.
“What about it?”
“That looks like … Tanner.”
Ian ripped it from her hands again. “No, it doesn’t.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Of course. We had them send us his mug shot from Alabama when he was finally booked, and the photo from the identification at the morgue. They matched.”
Taylor’s shoulders relaxed. “Okay.” Not really. “I’m probably just tired. Seeing things. Or really confused.” She didn’t believe herself.
“That’s to be expected with all the travel. Don’t worry about it. I will, though, send it up to Michael and get his team to look into it.”
She leaned into him. “Thank you. What would I do without you?” Again.
Ian chuckled. “I know some things you wouldn’t have done.” He gave her a wink along with a kiss.
Taylor bumped her hip against his as her stomach grumbled. “How about food?”
“I know who we can bug.” Ian tucked the photo back into the envelope.
Taylor waved both arms in front of her. “Oh, no. I’m not about to go to Tripp and Lexi’s at this hour—”
“No, not them. Tripp would fry me over coals he lights and flames himself. So, not him. Emma owes me a few, and she’s a really good cook.”
“What is between you two?” Taylor asked as she grabbed her keys, preparing to go.
“Nothing romantic, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He raised an eyebrow.
Taylor wanted to ask more but she valued privacy. She’d just have to trust him. “What about the grocery store? It’s open twenty-four—” At Ian’s glare, Taylor stopped. “Okay. Emma’s. Least you can do is let me put on some clean clothes. I’ve been in these all day.”
