by Nora Roberts
She laid the pearls, the glow and the sparkle, on the table.
“You have no knowledge of what governs me.” The air began to tremble with his anger. “No right to question what’s inside me. Your world hides from mine, century by century, building its pale layers of reason and denial. You come here, and in days you stand in judgment of what you can’t begin to comprehend?”
“I don’t judge you, Flynn, but your actions.” The wind had come into the room. It blew over her face, through her hair. And it was cold. Though her belly quaked, she lifted her chin. “Power shouldn’t take away human responsibility. It should add to it. I’m surprised you haven’t learned that in all the time you’ve had to think.”
His eyes blazed. He threw out his arms, and the room exploded with sound and light. She stumbled back, but managed to regain her balance, managed to swallow a cry. When the air cleared again, the room was empty but for the two of them.
“This is what I might have if I lived by your rules. Nothing. No comfort, no humanity. Only empty rooms, where even the echoes are lifeless. Five hundred years of alone, and I should worry that another whose life comes and goes in a blink might do without a lamp or a painting?”
“Yes.”
Temper snapped off him, little flames of gold. Then he vanished before her eyes.
What had she done? Panicked, she nearly called out for him, then realized he would hear only what he chose to hear.
She’d driven him away, she thought, sinking down in misery to sit on the bare floor. Driven him away with her rigid stance on right and wrong, her own unbending rules of conduct, just as she had kept so many others at a distance most of her life.
She’d preached at him, she admitted with a sigh. This incredible man with such a magnificent gift. She had wagged her finger at him, just the way she wagged it at her mother. Taken on, as she habitually did, the role of adult to the child.
It seemed that not even magic could burn that irritating trait out of her. Not even love could overcome it.
Now she was alone in an empty room. Alone, as she had been for so long. Flynn thought he had a lock on loneliness, she thought with a half laugh. She’d made a career out of alone.
She drew up her knees, rested her forehead on them. The worst of it, she realized, was that even now—sad, angry, aching—she believed she was right.
It wasn’t a hell of a lot of comfort.
7
IT TOOK HIM hours to work off his temper. He walked, he paced, he raged, he brooded. When temper had burned off, he sulked, though if anyone had put this term on his condition, he’d have swung hard back into temper again.
She’d hurt him. When anger cleared away enough for that realization to surface, it came as a shock. The woman had cut him to the bone. She’d rejected his gift, questioned his morality, and criticized his powers. All in one lump.
In his day such a swipe from a mere woman would have…
He cursed and paced some more. It wasn’t his day, and if there was one thing he’d learned to adjust to, it was the changes in attitudes and sensibilities. Women stood toe-to-toe with men in this age, and in his readings and viewings over the years, he’d come to believe they had the right of it.
He was hardly steeped in the old ways. Hadn’t he embraced technology with each new development? Hadn’t he amused himself with the quirks of society and fashion and mores as they shifted and changed and became? And he’d taken from each of those shifts what appealed most, what sat best with him.
He was a well-read man, had been well read and well traveled even in his own time. And since that time, he’d studied. Science, history, electronics, engineering, art, music, literature, politics. He had hardly stopped using his mind over the last five hundred years.
The fact was, he rarely had the chance to use anything else.
So, he used it now and went over the argument in his head.
She didn’t understand, he decided. Magic wasn’t bound by the rules of her world, but by itself. It was, and that was all. No conscientious magician brought harm to another deliberately, that was certain. All he’d done was take a few examples of technology, of art and comfort, from various points in time. He could hardly be expected to live in a bloody cave, could he?
Stealing? Why, the very idea of it!
He sat on a chair in his workshop and indulged in more brooding.
It wasn’t meant to be stealing, he thought now. Magicians had moved matter from place to place since the beginning of things. And what were jewels but pretty bits of matter?
Then he sighed. He supposed they were considerably more, from her point of view. And he’d wanted her to see them as more. He’d wanted her to be dazzled and delighted, and dote on him for the gift of them.
Much as he had, he admitted, wanted to dazzle and delight the woman who’d betrayed him. Or, to be honest, the woman who’d tempted him to betray himself and his art. That woman had greedily gathered what he’d given, what he’d taken, and left him to hang.
What had Kayleen done? Had she been overpowered by the glitter and the richness? Seduced by them?
Not in the least. She’d tossed them back in his face.
Stood up for what she believed was right and just. Stood up to him. His lips began to curve with the image of that. He hadn’t expected her to, he could admit that. She’d looked him in the eye, said her piece, and stuck to it.
God, what a woman! His Kayleen was strong and true. Not a bauble to ride on a man’s arm but a partner to stand tall with him. That was a grand thing. For while a man might indulge himself in a pretty piece of fluff for a time, it was a woman he wanted for a lifetime.
He got to his feet, studied his workroom. Well, a woman was what he had. He’d best figure out how to make peace with her.
Kayleen considered having a good cry, but it just wasn’t like her. She settled instead for hunting up the kitchen which was no easy task. On the search she discovered Flynn had chosen to make his point with only that one empty room. The rest of the house was filled to brimming, and in his fascinatingly eclectic style.
She softened by the time she brewed tea in a kitchen equipped with a restaurant-style refrigerator, a microwave oven, and a stone fireplace in lieu of stove. It took her considerable time to get the fire going and to heat water in the copper pot. But it made her smile.
How could she blame him, really, for wanting things around him? Pretty things, interesting things. He was a man who needed to use his mind, amuse himself, challenge himself. Wasn’t that the man she’d fallen in love with?
She carried the tea into the library with its thousands of books, its scrolls, its manuscripts. And its deep-cushioned leather chairs and snappy personal computer.
She would light the fire, and enough candles to read by, then enjoy her tea and the quiet.
Kneeling at the hearth, she tried to light the kindling and managed to scorch the wood. She rearranged the logs, lodged a splinter painfully in her thumb, and tried again.
She created a hesitant little flame, and a great deal of smoke, which the wind cheerfully blew back in her face. She hissed at it, sucked on her throbbing thumb, then sat on her heels to think it through.
And the flames burst into light and heat.
She set her teeth, fought the urge to turn around. “I can do it myself, thank you.”
“As you wish, lady.”
The fire vanished but for the smoke. She coughed, waved it away from her face, then got to her feet. “It’s warm enough without one.”
“I’d say it’s unnaturally chilly at the moment.” He walked up behind her, took her hand in his. “You’ve hurt yourself.”
“It’s only a splinter. Don’t,” she said when he lifted it to his lips.
“Being strong-minded and being contrary are two different matters.” He touched his lips to her thumb, and the throbbing eased. “But not contrary enough, I notice, to ignore the comforts of a cup of tea, a book, and a pleasant chair.”
“I wasn’t going to stand in
an empty room wringing my hands while you worked out your tantrum.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Disconcerting, isn’t it? Emptiness.”
She tugged her hand free of his. “All right, yes. And I have no true conception of what you’ve dealt with, nor any right to criticize how you compensate. But—”
“Right is right,” he finished. “This place and what I possessed was all I had when first I came here. I could fill it with things, the things that appealed to me. That’s what I did. I won’t apologize for it.”
“I don’t want an apology.”
“No, you want something else entirely.” He opened his hands, and the rich loops of pearls gleamed in them.
“Flynn, don’t ask me to take them.”
“I am asking. I give you this gift, Kayleen. They’re replicas, and belong to no one but me. Until they belong to you.”
Her throat closed as he placed them around her neck. “You made them for me?”
“Perhaps I’d grown a bit lazy over the years. It took me a little longer to conjure them than it might have, but it made me remember the pleasure of making.”
“They’re more beautiful than the others. And much more precious.”
“And here’s a tear,” he murmured, and caught it on his fingertip as it spilled onto her cheek. “If it falls from happiness, it will shine. If it’s from sorrow, it will turn to ashes. See.”
The drop glimmered on his finger, shimmered, then solidified into a diamond in the shape of a tear. “And this is your gift to me.” He drew the pendant from beneath his shirt, passed his hand over it. The diamond drop sparkled now beneath the moonstone. “I’ll wear it near my heart. Ever.”
She leapt into his arms, clung to his neck. “I missed you!”
“I let temper steal hours from us.”
“So did I.” She leaned back. “We’ve had our first fight. I’m glad. Now we never have to have a first one again.”
“But others?”
“We’ll have to.” She kissed his cheek. “There’s so much we don’t understand about each other. And even when we do, we won’t always agree.”
“Ah, my sensible Kayleen. No, don’t frown,” he said, tipping up her chin. “I like your mind. It stimulates my own.”
“It annoyed you.”
“At the first of it.” He circled her around, lighting the fire, the candles as he did. “And I spent a bit of time pondering on how much more comfortable life would be if you’d just be biddable and agree with everything I said and did. ‘Yes, Flynn, my darling,’ you would say. ‘No indeed, my handsome Flynn.’”
“Oh, really?”
“But then I’d miss that battle light in your eyes, wouldn’t I, and the way your lovely mouth goes firm. Makes me want to….” He nipped her bottom lip. “But that’s another kind of stimulation altogether. I’m willing to fight with you, Kayleen, as long as you’re willing to make up again with me.”
“And I’m willing to have you stomp off in a temper—”
“I didn’t stomp.”
“Metaphorically speaking. As long as you come back.” She laid her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes. “The storm’s passed,” she murmured. “Moonlight’s shining through the windows.”
“So it is.” He scooped her up. “I have the perfect way to celebrate our first fight.” He closed her hand over his pendant. “Would you like to fly, Kayleen?”
“Fly? But—”
And she was soaring through the air, through the night. Air swirled around her, then seemed to go fluid so it was like cutting clean through a dark sea. The stone pulsed against her palm. She cried out in surprise, and then in delight, reaching out as if she could snatch one of the stars that shone around her.
Fearless, Flynn thought, even now, Or perhaps it was more a thirst for all the times she’d denied herself a drink. When she turned her face to his, her eyes brighter than the jewels, brighter than the stars, he spun her in dizzying circles.
They landed in a laughing tumble to roll over the soft cushion of grass by the side of his blue waterfall.
“Oh! That was amazing. Can we do it again?”
“Soon enough. Here.” He lifted a hand, and a plump peach balanced on the tips of his fingers. “You haven’t eaten your supper.”
“I wasn’t hungry before.” Charmed, she took the peach, bit into the sweetness. “So many stars,” she murmured, lying back again to watch them. “Were we really flying up there?”
“It’s a kind of manipulation of time and space and matter. It’s magic. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
“It’s everything. The world’s magic now.”
“But you’re cold,” he said when she shivered.
“Mmm. Only a little.” Even as she spoke, the air warmed, almost seemed to bloom.
“I confess it.” He leaned over to kiss her. “I stole a bit of warmth from here and there. But I don’t think anyone will miss it. I don’t want you chilled.”
“Can it always be like this?”
There was a hitch in his chest. “It can be what we make it. Do you miss what was before?”
“No.” But she lowered her lashes, so he was unable to read her eyes. “Do you? I mean, the people you knew? Your family?”
“They’ve been gone a long time.”
“Was it hard?” She sat up, handed him the peach. “Knowing you’d never be able to see them again, or talk to them, or even tell them where you were?”
“I don’t remember.” But he did. This was the first lie he’d told her. He remembered that the pain of it had been like death.
“I’m sorry.” She touched his shoulder. “It hurts you.”
“It fades.” He pushed away, got to his feet. “All of that is beyond, and it fades. It’s the illusion, and this is all that’s real. All that matters. All that matters is here.”
“Flynn.” She rose, hoping to comfort, but when he spun back, his eyes were hot, bright. And the desire in them robbed her of breath.
“I want you. A hundred lifetimes from now I’ll want you. It’s enough for me. Is it enough for you?”
“I’m here.” She held out her hands. “And I love you. It’s more than I ever dreamed of having.”
“I can give you more. You still have a boon.”
“Then I’ll keep it. Until I need more.” Because he’d yet to take her offered hands, she cupped his face in them. “I’ve never touched a man like this. With love and desire. Do you think, Flynn, that because I’ve never felt them before I don’t understand the wonder of knowing them now? Of feeling them now for one man? I’ve watched my mother search all of her life, be willing to risk heartbreak for the chance—just the chance—of feeling what I do right at this moment. She’s the most important person to me outside this world you’ve made. And I know she’d be thrilled to know what I’ve found with you.”
“Then when you ask me for your heart’s desire, I’ll move heaven and earth to give it to you. That’s my vow.”
“I have my heart’s desire.” She smiled, stepped back. “Tell me yours.”
“Not tonight. Tonight I have plans for you that don’t involve conversation.”
“Oh? And what might they be?”
“Well, to begin…”
He lifted a hand and traced one finger down through the air between them. Her clothes vanished.
8
“OH!” THIS TIME she instinctively covered herself. “You might have warned me.”
“I’ll have you bathed in moonlight, and dressed in star-shine.”
She felt a tug, gentle but insistent, on her hands. Her arms lowered, spread out as if drawn by silken rope. “Flynn.”
“Let me touch you.” He kept his eyes on hers as he stepped forward, as he traced his fingertips down her throat, over the swell of her breasts. “Excite you.” He took her mouth in quick, little bites. “Possess you.”
Something slid through her mind, her body, at the same time. A coiled snake of heat that bound both together. The rise of it, so fast, so sha
rp, slashed through her. She hadn’t the breath to cry out, she could only moan.
He had barely touched her.
“How can you…how could I—”
“I want to show you more this time.” Now his hands were on her, rough and insistent. Her skin was so soft, so fragrant. In the moonlight it gleamed so that wherever he touched, the warmth bloomed on it. Roses on silk. “I want to take more this time.”
For a second time he took her flying. Though her feet never left the ground, she spun through the air. A fast, reckless journey. His mouth was on her, devouring flesh. She had no choice but to let him feed. And his greed erased her past reason so that her one desire was to be consumed.
Abandoning herself to it, she let her head fall back, murmuring his name like a chant as he ravished her.
He mated his mind with hers, thrilling to every soft cry, every throaty whimper. She stood open to him in the moonlight, soaked with pleasure and shuddering from its heat.
And such was his passion for her that his fingers left trails of gold over her damp flesh, trails that pulsed, binding her in tangled ribbons of pleasure.
When his mouth found hers again, the flavor exploded, sharp and sweet. Drunk on her, he lifted them both off the ground.
Now freed, her arms came tight around him, her nails scraping as she sought to hold, sought to find. She was hot against him, wet against him, her hips arching in rising demand.
He drove himself into her, one desperate thrust, then another. Another. With her answering beat for urgent beat, he let the animal inside him spring free.
His mind emptied but for her and that primal hunger they shared. The forest echoed with a call of triumph as that hunger swallowed them both.
She lay limp, useless. Used. A thousand wild horses could have stampeded toward her, and she wouldn’t have moved a muscle.
The way Flynn had collapsed on her, and now lay like the dead, she imagined he felt the same.
“I’m so sorry,” she said on a long, long sigh.
“Sorry?” He slid his hand through the grass until it covered hers.
