by Nina Bangs
Leaving Ally alone with her decision.
Chapter Twelve
To wimp out or not to wimp out? This was Ally’s chance to glimpse the future. If it hadn’t involved Brian, she wouldn’t hesitate.
Ally took a deep breath. She should see this. If it turned her off Brian, so be it. Wouldn’t that be better in the long run? She could get his help with her book and still maintain her emotional distance. She didn’t want any regrets when he returned to his time.
How real would it be? Could she handle it? Give me a break, I’ll still be wearing clothes. Anyway, how long could it last? Two minutes? Ally smiled grimly. No matter what Brian did to the women of his time in two minutes, it wouldn’t affect her. Women in 2002 expected a little more.
Opening the door, she stepped in before she could think of more reasons to run the other way. The quiet click of the door behind her seemed ominous.
Get real. She’d been to an IMAX theater. This would feel like that.
Gingerly, she lowered herself onto the bed, then frowned. She didn’t feel physical movement in the bed, but it was almost as if there were waves of energy. . . . She glanced around. Where the heck were the buttons to . . .
Ally’s eyes widened and her breath caught as everything around her changed. The bed still remained, but now it rested in the center of a playing field with many similar beds. Screaming people packed the stadium, and along the sidelines male cheerleaders wearing what looked like cellophane briefs in their team’s color urged on the fans. Sunlight poured through a clear domed roof. It bathed her body, touching her breasts, stomach, and thighs with warmth.
With a sigh of enjoyment she spread her legs to let the warmth touch her everywhere. Her nakedness didn’t surprise her, and she felt no embarrassment. Only anticipation.
Her gaze drifted over the field. She felt satisfaction that today she’d be pleasured by the best. For a few brief moments Brian Byrne would cover her. Her orgasm would be intense, more powerful than anything she’d ever experienced, even though she came from an outer planet where men were still sexually alive. She never doubted her expectations would be met.
The crowd hushed, then broke into thunderous applause as Brian strode toward her from the tunnel. The other players on the field seemed invisible when Brian was in the competition.
Out of her peripheral vision she could see the other players pouncing on their women, arms and legs tangling in a frantic groping they hoped would end with a climax.
But then she thought no more of the other players. Brian stood beside her bed, his powerful body thrown into shadow as he blocked out the sun. His muscular torso glistened with a damp sheen, drew her gaze to his legendary sexual assets, his tools of the game. His erection was as impressive as the man, and as she stared he ran his finger along its length, touched the head with its beaded moisture.
“Look what you do to me, woman.” His voice was soft, a male’s admission that she had the strength to command his sexual reaction.
She felt powerful, primitive. The heated scent of a predatory male stirred her own hunter’s instinct.
With a lithe, unhurried movement, he knelt on the bed and straddled her hips. Then he just looked at her. “Feed me with your passion. Take my body in payment.” His order was a harsh whisper.
She lifted her hips convulsively, her unexpected surge of emotion shaking her. She was dominator and dominated, every woman who would ever know these feelings.
Leaning forward, he touched her lips with his tongue, traced their outline. She opened her lips to him, and he took her mouth with a hunger born of man’s darkest need to plunder, to take all that a woman could give. She understood the need, welcomed it.
Too soon he lifted his mouth from hers, but before she could moan her disappointment, he lowered his head to her breasts and touched the tip of each nipple with his tongue.
She held her breath, waiting. But instead of drawing her nipple into his mouth, he shifted his hips, then touched each nipple with his erection. Caught in his erotic web, she couldn’t tear her gaze from her nipple bathed in the proof of how much he wanted her.
Only when he put his finger beneath her chin did she lift her gaze to his.
“Look into my eyes, woman. Know that whatever happens for the rest of our lives, this time was ours. There can never be another woman to fill this exact moment in my life. It will always be yours.”
Sitting back on his heels, he put his hand between her legs, touched the part of her that seemed to be the center of every sensation she’d ever feel. And in her last moment of coherent thought, she wondered how he’d known how much she needed to be the “only one,” if only for this short time.
He wasn’t a gentle lover as he moved between her thighs and spread her legs farther apart. Lifting her to meet his thrust, he plunged deeply, burying himself in her.
This was how she wanted it. Hard, with each powerful thrust filling her body as well as something far more elemental. Each new plunge renewed her womanhood.
As she clenched her muscles, tightening her flesh around his, her gaze followed the path of a single drop of moisture that slid down his neck and chest, then clung for a moment to his right nipple. She wanted to touch his nipple with her tongue as he’d touched hers, but it was against the rules.
How many other women had suffered this way, denied themselves the joy of sliding their fingers over his warm, slick flesh? She gritted her teeth. She wouldn’t think of other women. This was her time.
The drop glided lower, across his hard stomach, down to his groin. Gazing at their joining dragged a moan of pleasure from her.
“Yes, I like the way you watch me moving inside of you.” The grate of his voice was pure animal enjoyment. “It excites me.”
Her body tightened in response, the hot heaviness building, expanding. She wrapped her legs around him—the only motion she was allowed—and met each of his thrusts with her own in an attempt to drive him deeper, force him to touch more of her.
Suddenly, the spasms started, pushing her toward an explosion of pleasure she frantically tried to force back. No, it was too soon.
She stared into his eyes, pleading with him to make it last longer. But beneath lowered lashes, his green eyes glittered with heated focus. Despairing, she gave herself over to an orgasm that lifted and battered her with its intensity, wrenched wild sobs from her, then . . .
Slowly, everything faded. The bed rested once again in its glass enclosure, and Ally rested once again in her own body. She knew as certainly as tears coursed down her cheeks, she had been someone else. Felt what that other woman had felt, experienced what she’d experienced.
By Ally O’Neill’s standard of sexual behavior, she ought to have been embarrassed by her nakedness, the crowd, her uninhibited reaction, Brian. Ally closed her eyes. That wasn’t me. But no matter how she denied it, honesty forced her to admit it had been her.
She opened her eyes and stared sightlessly at the closed door. The scariest part? It had been the most spectacular sexual experience of her life. After this, what could compare?
She’d learned something important, though. Brian Byrne would not be a man to love. Shaped by his childhood, he was a hard man. During the game, she’d looked into the eyes of a sensual animal and seen no softness, no caring about her as a woman beyond his calculated words to make her more open to him. His game plan. He was totally focused on his drive to mate with her and drag an almighty orgasm from her body.
Rats. Now why was she crying again? None of it mattered. She was just thankful she didn’t live in a time when machines manipulated minds and when men manipulated women’s bodies in the name of the game.
Something else bothered her. Brian’s speech pattern had been different during the game, more formal, sexier. It was almost a distancing of himself from what he was like off the field. Ally sighed. She was grasping at straws. During the game, he was an actor, performing in a way that would draw women to him. His speech was part of his performance.
With
eyes still blurred by tears, she stared through the glass enclosure. Had anyone noticed she was missing? Would they come trooping in here . . . ? Her gaze swept past a digital readout flashing on the clear wall behind her. She blinked, stared at the readout, and blinked again.
Reality experience time lapse: 2 minutes, 30 seconds.
That couldn’t be right. Something so intense had to have taken hours, days. Standing, she glanced once more at the flashing message. Nope, it hadn’t changed. Her only consolation? It had taken His Sexiness more than two minutes with her.
Gathering her dignity, she walked from the building. The Old One waited outside the door for her.
Ally met the cat’s gaze. “Fine. Mission accomplished. What happened in there was enough of a turnoff to keep me from getting physical with your MVP.”
For a moment, Ally could have sworn that regret flickered in the Old One’s eyes. Nah. She was reading an emotion into a being who probably reserved all regret for her occasional poor business decisions.
Ally glanced at the wagon. She didn’t want to go there yet, didn’t want to picture what might have happened on that bed during the course of their sensual massage, didn’t want to imagine Brian using his hands to manipulate her. Most of all, she didn’t want to turn over and see the hard, calculating gleam in his eyes, her own eyes heavy-lidded with desire reflected in the ceiling mirror. She didn’t ever again want to be stupid for a man.
Her decision made, Ally climbed the hill to the keep. She didn’t feel threatened by this place during the day. She stared at the top, where the stone had somehow become dislodged. Maybe she could work off some of her disquiet by walking up there. Not giving herself time to argue the pros and cons of climbing all those steps, she started up.
By the time she stepped out at the top, she was huffing and puffing. Brian wasn’t the only one who needed to work on lower-body strength.
Drawing a deep breath of sea air, she gazed past the opposite side of the keep to the Atlantic, then turned to glance across rolling hills of patchwork green fields framed by rock walls.
Lord, but it was beautiful. Worth the sore leg muscles she’d have tomorrow. Would she be sore from her other experience? No, she wouldn’t ruin this great view on thoughts she should have left at the bottom of the steps.
Sighing, she stepped back from the edge of the wall. Wonderful or not, she didn’t want to take a shortcut to the bottom.
“Wow, this is great!”
Startled, Ally turned to see who had walked up behind her, then relaxed when she recognized the girl she’d met in Liscannor. Claudia?
Ally smiled. “Incredible.” She took a last look at the view before turning her full attention on Claudia. “So how’re you enjoying your sightseeing?”
Claudia’s red hair whipped in the wind, and her eyes gleamed with excitement. “Oh, I love old buildings. They’re sort of a passion of mine.” She moved up beside Ally, blocking Ally’s view of the steps.
Ally backed a little closer to the edge of the wall to make room for Claudia. “You like visiting them?” Ally could hear footsteps echoing up the stone keep. She must have been really involved in the view not to have heard Claudia coming.
Claudia grinned at her. “No, I like destroying them. I’m a demolitions expert.”
“Oh.” What did you say to that? “I’m impressed. Not an ordinary job.”
Claudia moved a little closer to get a better view, and Ally moved back a little more.
“But I’d never destroy something like this.” Claudia turned her head, probably hearing the steps approaching too. She frowned. “I only destroy things that aren’t needed anymore, things that’re in the way.”
The conversation came to a stop as Brian appeared in the opening. Claudia smiled at him, then turned and started back down the steps. “Well, it’s been nice seeing you again. I’ll be hanging around the area for a few more weeks, so maybe we’ll meet.” With a small wave she clattered down the steps.
Claudia had certainly been much quieter coming up. Ally smiled. And she hadn’t even reacted to Brian. What normal woman wouldn’t do some heavy-duty gawking at a man like Brian?
Brian. She remembered who stood watching her, and her smile faded. “I thought you were working out.”
“I stopped.” He moved closer. “Who was that?”
“Claudia. A tourist from the States. I don’t remember her last name.” Ally backed away from him, then glanced behind her. Wouldn’t do to lose her balance and go splat. Of course if she did fall, the keep would be a much more compelling starred attraction for the Irish Tourist Board. The great hall spirits and the clumsy American author’s ghost could haunt in counterpoint. Scrape, shriek, scrape, shriek, with the O’Neill banshee joining in for an occasional chorus.
Trying to think of other things was not distracting her from the proximity of Brian’s muscular body, from memories of what it had looked like during competition.
Okay, why was he just staring at her? “What? What’s the matter?”
“You look different.” He started to move even closer, then stopped to cast a wary glance at the wall behind her.
“Heights make you nervous, Byrne?”
“A little.” He didn’t step back.
Ally had nowhere to go, physically or mentally. She resisted the urge to put her palms flat against his chest to ward him off. Closing her eyes wouldn’t do any good either because the warm clean scent of him, the male scent of him disturbed her as much as looking at him did.
She knew of only one thing that might stop him from invading her space until she came to grips with what she’d experienced: the truth.
“You want to know why I look different? I’ll tell you.” She was enough of a wuss not to want his hard gaze on her while she told her story. Turning away, she gazed toward the ocean, where gray mist was moving in, signaling the end of her sunny day. She knew when the mist reached them it would touch everything with cold damp fingers. She shivered.
She knew him well enough already to know he’d be narrowing those green eyes on her.
“So what happened?”
“There’s something new in your bathroom. I guess Jupe built it. A reality experience of your Sex Super Bowl win.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t resist.”
The silence behind her grew ominous. The mist reached them, blotting out the scenery, enclosing them in a gray cocoon. Ally could very well believe they were the only people on earth.
“Salont!” His one word was a harsh expletive.
“What does that mean?” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms to dispel the goose bumps.
He ignored her question. “Did I disgust you?” Brian didn’t know why he’d asked that or why her answer mattered. In his time, the question never would have occurred to him. But in this time . . .
“No.” She still kept her face turned from him.
Was she lying? “Tell me what you felt.”
She shrugged. “While I was involved in the game I felt like any woman would in that situation.”
What had she felt? “And afterward?”
Finally, she turned back to him. “Afterward? I felt embarrassed.” She offered him a brief smile. “Embarrassed because I’d enjoyed it so much. It doesn’t help to remind myself that I was someone else during the game.”
He nodded. “There’s more.”
She met his gaze. “I realized I’d never want you to look at me like that again. I didn’t see any softness in you, no caring, no concern for anything but sexual release.”
He felt suddenly weary. “That’s all the games are supposed to be about. I can’t care for any woman during competition.”
“I understand that. But I guess I’m greedy. I want more than just mutual enjoyment.”
He knew his smile was bitter. “Right. You gave everything to your husband, so now you want a man who’ll do all the giving.” I need you to give to me. “Just think about this. You took your pleasure out on that field. I’m not the only taker.”
“You’re twisting my words.” She seemed determined that he believe her. “Besides, that wasn’t me.”
“No, it wasn’t. I bet the woman on that field was passionate, wanted to give enjoyment even if the rules said she couldn’t. You don’t want to give anything.” He didn’t try to hide his anger. What right did she have to judge what he did in his time?
“You’re right.” Her voice was soft, and her eyes had taken on a suspicious sheen.
He exhaled deeply. If she started crying, he’d lose control and take her in his arms. That wouldn’t be good. It wouldn’t solve anything. He raked his fingers through his hair. “Let’s give it a rest. Maybe you need to rethink whether you want my input for your book.”
She edged past him to the steps, making sure she didn’t touch him in the process. He wanted to trap her against the wall, press his body to hers, make her face her feelings for the real man, not the one in the reality experience cubicle. The problem? The man in the cubicle was him.
Ally stopped before descending the stairs. “What will you do now?”
His thoughts were grim. “I’m going to get rid of Jupe’s reality experience toy. Then I’ll add to the castle’s violent history as soon as my agent gets back.”
She gave him the first real smile since he’d climbed the steps. “Go easy on him. The Old One and Jupe are trying to protect you in their own way.”
“Sure. And the fact that I’m making them rich doesn’t have a thing to do with it.”
“Not everything.” Her words were tentative. He had the feeling she wanted to add something but changed her mind.
“Oh, you’ll have to tell me what ‘salont’ means sometime.” She didn’t wait for a reply as she hurried down the stairs.
He listened as the sound of her footsteps faded. Then he slammed his open palm against the stone wall. What the hell was wrong with him? Before coming to this cursed time he’d been perfectly secure in what he did. Maybe everything had gotten a little old, but he was proud of what he’d accomplished.
Now he was busy wondering about foreplay and meaningful relationships and how the hell he looked at women during sex. Things were getting too damned complicated. This vacation was great, just great. He tried to relax and unclench his jaw, then slowly descended the stairs.
