by Ruth Owen
He remembered the moment they’d shared not ten minutes before, the tenderness he’d denied, labeling it as a glitch in the simulator program. Complicated feelings were often corrupted by the black and white logic of the simulator matrix. But that didn’t stop him from being drawn to the emotions he saw in her eyes. Nor did it stop him from remembering the touch of her hand against his cheek—soft as silk, and gentle in a way he’d almost forgotten how to want. Lord, who am I kidding? I wanted to dance with her at Griffith’s party. I practically sprinted across the room when that slow song began.…
Jillian licked her lips—a simple process that had a nuclear effect on Sinclair’s abdomen—and spoke again. “Doctor, I don’t even know your first name.”
“It’s Ian,” he said as he turned around to face the advancing monster. “And just for the record, Ms. Polanski, you’re not exactly what I expected either.”
THREE
Sinclair had braved danger in the name of science before. When he was eleven he’d blown up his grandfather’s prize rose garden in an experiment that successfully illustrated the combustible qualities of fertilizer. During his first year of graduate school an accident with an overzealous cyclotron had landed him in the hospital for a month. Dying was a calculated risk in his line of work, and Sinclair had prepared for the possibility with the same conscientious thoroughness he practiced in the rest of his affairs. He’d drawn up a will, and updated it on a quarterly basis. He’d made sure that his technicians and assistants were familiar with the body of his research so that his work would go on. He had no reason to regret the possibility of dying—except for the somewhat unscientific desire to want to go on living.
As the orc lumbered toward him, Ian began to think about all the things he hadn’t done, the theories he hadn’t tried, and the words he hadn’t said to Partridge, the only person he’d allowed himself to care about. Other thoughts came to mind as well, like the seductive innocence of Miss Polanski’s smile, and the tantalizing glimpse he’d gotten of her long, shapely legs. No, he definitely did not want to die at this particular moment.
As he looked up at the orc’s massive shoulders and his demon-bright eyes, however, Ian conceded he might not have much choice in the matter.
“Parker, any luck getting rid of this thing?” he called.
“I’m trying,” Felix answered, sounding harried. “It’s not that easy.”
It’s a damn sight easier than standing in front of the bloody thing. “All right, just do your best,” he said as he sent up a silent prayer that Parker’s best would be good enough. And his. Because if he couldn’t stop this creature before Jillian got free of the brambles and power grid, his neck wasn’t going to be the only one on the line.
“Bloody hell,” he growled, advancing toward the creature with the caution of a dog approaching a baited bull. He drew his sword from its scabbard, taking heart in the clean whisper of steel against steel. Holding it aloft, he tested its balance, instinctively assessing the weight and character of the blade. When Ian was a child, his grandfather had demanded that he be trained in the broadsword, a tradition in the Sinclair family that stretched back to the 1600s. Ian had fought against learning it, just as he’d fought against learning all the seemingly senseless traditions that added to the suffocating weight of his heritage. But at the moment he was grateful for this one. “All right, you walking garbage scow,” he cried in challenge. “Let’s see how you fair against good English steel.”
The orc roared, and answered Ian’s challenge with a swipe of his massive paw. Ian ducked, easily avoiding the monster’s slower movements. The creature had size on its side, but Ian had speed, and he intended to use it. He lunged forward in a move that would have made his old fencing master proud, and nicked the orc’s arm above the elbow.
The beast let out a tremendous howl, knocking Ian backward with the sheer force of the sound.
“Ian, be careful!” Jillian cried from behind him.
Unable to resist, he stole a look over his shoulder. She stood arrow-straight in the twisted brambles, her chin held high in a stance of magnificent defiance. Yet her brave posture couldn’t completely hide the quiver in her lips and the fear in her impossibly wide eyes. Once again their gazes locked, and the strange, molten magic began to flow between them. She was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen, a genuine damsel in distress. Only her distress wasn’t for herself, but for him.
Parker broke the spell. “Doctor, is anything wrong? Your body temperature just jumped ten degrees.”
Felix boy, you have a beautiful woman look at you like this and see what happens to your temperature. “I’m fine,” he said curtly, reluctantly pulling his gaze away from Jillian.
He was still partially turned toward her when the orc’s swipe caught him on the side of his head, toppling him end over end down the slight slope. When he came to rest, his helmet was gone, knocked off by the force of the blow. From the stabbing pain in his neck, Sinclair suspected that his head had tried to go with it.
He sat up, rubbing his aching temples, and tried to shake some sense back into his thundering skull. Well, he thought with a grim smile, at least his virtual reality simulator was a success. These aches and pains felt damn real. He looked up, expecting to see the orc lumbering down the hill after him.
But the orc wasn’t following him. Someone was distracting it by throwing rocks at its hairy hide. Someone with no virtual armor to protect her, who’d suffer more than aches and pains if the monster got his paws on her.
Ian leapt to his feet, ignoring his strained muscles as he pounded up the slope. “Jillie, for God’s sake, stop!”
The stone she was about to throw dropped unheeded to the ground at her feet. “You’re alive,” she cried, a radiant smile lighting her face. “Ian, you’re alive!”
He felt the warmth of that smile blaze within him, and die a moment later when the orc, after a second’s confused hesitation, continued to lumber toward Jillian. Anchored in place by the brambles, she was a sitting duck for the approaching monster. In the real world her body was safe, protected from physical danger in the cybernaut’s egg. But her mind was tied to this virtual environment by the simulator, and Ian knew that if she was wounded in this world, her consciousness would mirror the injury in the real one. Even a fatal injury.
He ran up the slope, fear adding speed to his steps. He paused only once to retrieve his fallen sword, but never took his gaze off the creature. Despite its ponderous bulk, it had managed to make its way almost within striking distance of Jillian. She’d balled her hands into fists and raised them like a boxer in a ring. She’s insane, whispered a voice in Ian’s mind. She’s extraordinary, whispered another.
Blood sang in his veins. Ancient instincts rose within him, passed down from ancestors who had fought barbarians, kings, and dictators to protect those who could not defend themselves. Agincourt. Waterloo. Dunkirk. Names of legendary battles sprang to mind, legacies of a heritage swaddled too long in musty traditions and recycled glories. It was time to reclaim his birthright.
Ian raised his sword and yelled a war cry bred into him before he took his first breath. The unexpected sound distracted the orc, who swung its hoary head away from Jillian toward the charging knight. It stared at Ian, its lips twisting into a parody of a smile. Slowly, the orc drew back its massive arm to deliver a final death blow.
But Ian struck first. Ignoring the danger, he ran full tilt into the deadly circle of the giant’s arms and, with both hands, plunged his sword into its heart. The creature’s scream shook the world. Arms flailing, it caught Ian square in the chest, and sent him flying several yards through the air. Then the beast collapsed to the ground, its noxious green blood spilling out around its body.
Ian sat up gingerly, wincing at the discomfort even this simple movement caused. Every muscle in his body burned like hellfire, but it didn’t matter. He’d won. He’d stopped the bastard before it could touch her. She was safe.
The ore remained in a crumpled pile, Ian’
s sword still planted in its heart. He wiped his hand over his face, feeling strangely light-headed. Thoughts began to fade in and out of his mind like a badly focused movie. He remembered vaguely that there was a very important reason he’d challenged the monster. He just couldn’t recall precisely what it was.
“Dr. Sinclair, please say something!”
Like a man in a dream, he turned to the woman kneeling beside him. Ms. Polanski, his mind supplied. The beautiful Ms. Polanski. And at that particular moment the rather scantily clad Ms. Polanski. Her elegant gown was shredded almost beyond recognition, the remaining velvet forming the first and probably last medieval microskirt.
“I left most of the dress behind in the thorn bush,” she said, following the direction of his gaze. Self-consciously, she raised her hand to push back a strand of her tangled, bramble-snagged hair. “I guess I look pretty awful.”
Awful? She looked bloody marvelous. Her brown hair framed her head in a wild halo, making her look like a wood nymph, a creature of legend. But the rest of her was decidedly human. The ripped and ragged dress gave him a first-class view of her slim waist, her graceful arms, and a pair of legs that seemed to go on forever. Ian swallowed, feeling a burning in his gut that had nothing to do with his sore muscles.
“Dr. Sinclair? Ian?”
His name had never sounded so sweet. He lifted his gaze, noting the distress in her wide brown eyes. Wood nymph. Forest creature. He recalled his victory, the battle he’d fought to save her, but that wasn’t what he was trying so hard to remember. It wasn’t until his gaze drifted down to her petal-shaped lips that he recalled what he wanted to do, what he’d been wanting to do for what seemed an eternity. A mouth that could love a man a hundred ways, and make him beg for a hundred more …
Without a word he reached out and folded her into his arms, determined to try at least one.
This isn’t happening, Jillian thought in panic as his mouth closed over hers. The simulator had gotten some wires crossed. Dr. Sinclair wouldn’t kiss her. And if he did, his kiss wouldn’t send pure sunshine shooting through her veins.…
During the last few minutes Jill had lived a lifetime’s worth of emotions, her feelings careening wildly from horrified helplessness to transcendent joy. Trapped by the brambles, she’d watched Sinclair’s seemingly lifeless body tumble down the hillside, knowing there wasn’t a thing she could do to help him. A pain she’d never felt before pierced her heart. Nearly choking on tears of rage, she’d turned her fury on the orc, pelting him with stones that didn’t even dent his leathery hide. She didn’t give a damn about her safety—she didn’t give a damn about anything at the time.
But nothing—not her horror, despair, or joy—came close to the intensity of the emotions blazing through her now.
“Jillie,” he whispered.
He said her name again, but this time he murmured it against her mouth, stroking her with the double assault of his warm breath and his hot, questing tongue. He dipped between her parted lips like a bee tasting a flower, wooing her with the delicacy of the act. She just—just—managed to survive the gentle seduction. Until he did it again.
Lord, what am I doing? she thought wretchedly. This was Sinclair, the man who had a stopwatch for a heart. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast, his steel strength more than living up to his metallic image. She opened her mouth to protest, and found herself invaded by the hottest, wettest kiss she’d ever received. He sampled her deeply, his rough tongue making lazy, erotic swirls that turned her blood to slow, hot honey, and her heart to a pounding jack-hammer. I shouldn’t be doing this, she thought again, but this time the intentions behind the words were considerably weaker, like smoke dissipated by the wind.
Hands that should have pushed him away pulled him closer, seeking out the soft, dark curls at the nape of his neck. Soft and strong, steel and fire—his contradictory textures fascinated her. Common sense sieved from her mind like sand through an hourglass, leaving room for something bright and burning, something too wonderful to be captured by a name. His kiss poured colors into the lonely gray corners of her soul: sunburst yellows, shimmering greens, enchanted blues, and ruby desires. Every stroke of his tongue gave her another piece of the rainbow.
His hands drifted down, his long fingers spanning all but a few inches of her narrow waist. He pulled her hips against his, gently molding their still-clothed bodies into a more serious embrace. She surrendered eagerly, knowing that a part of her had been waiting all her life for his caress, his spell-binding, kaleidoscope embrace. Instinctively their bodies began to move together in the beginning of a love dance. Love.
She arched closer, filled with his magic, aching with the need to make that same magic happen in him. She mated her own tongue with his, and his moan of pleasure shivered through her like a hundred tiny explosions. This is real, she thought as the joy of pleasing him erupted through her. God, please make this be real.
Her silent plea went unheeded. One moment she was locked in his arms—a heartbeat later she wasn’t. Fingers that she’d knit into his soft, dark curls clutched emptiness. Lips that were hot and throbbing from the hunger of his kiss felt the cool brush of climate-controlled air. She felt the tiny pressure of the sensors on her body, heard the muted click of calibrated monitors as their circuits opened and shut. Pushing up her visor, she stared at the equipment-studded interior of the egg, feeling empty, and cold, and more alone than she’d ever been in her life. “No,” she whispered helplessly. “Oh, no.”
The egg’s door whooshed open, admitting a stream of stinging light and the angular form of Sadie Hedges. “Boy, kiddo, you had us scared. We thought we’d lost you.”
Jill blinked her eyes at the sudden light, feeling disoriented and cheated. “Where’s … Ian?”
“Still trussed up like a chicken, I imagine,” Sadie said cheerfully as she hunkered down to unfasten Jill’s harness. “The doc told me before you went in that he wanted me to get you out first, since this was your first time in the simulator’s cyberspace.”
Simulator? Cyberspace? They were two words in a crossword-puzzle consciousness that still had a lot of letters missing. Jillian passed her hand over her eyes, feeling more confused than ever. “Don’t remember …”
“You will,” Sadie assured her. “It’ll take you a minute to get your bearings, especially since you were in the simulator almost seven minutes over the recommended limit.” She pulled back Jill’s harness, and started to remove the sensor nodes from her skin and bodysuit. “Just open your mind and let the memories come back to you at their own speed. It won’t take long.”
Sadie was right. As soon as Jill stopped trying, the memories flooded into her mind like a movie on rewind. She remembered the orc, the snagging brambles, the wonder of the sunny summer world and the gray emptiness preceding it. She remembered the gleam of armor and the flash of a sword, and the enchanted embrace of a knight who’d risked his life to save her. She remembered the passion, the pleasure, the multicolored magic that had bound them together like two halves of the same heart. Despair replaced wonder as she realized it had all been an illusion, a beautiful dream that had never happened. And horror replaced despair as she realized that real or not, she still had to deal with the consequences.
She’d kissed Dr. Doom!
Jill struggled against the remaining restraints like a wild bird caught in a huntsman’s net, her gloved, still-uncoordinated fingers fumbling helplessly with the harness’s clasps. “Sadie, get me out of this thing!”
“Hey, where’s the fire?” joked the older woman, extracting the clasp from Jill’s death grip. “No need to panic. You’re safe.”
Safe? She’d never felt more unsafe in her life. She needed to get away, to find a quiet corner where she could come to grips with what had happened, where she could compose herself … hell, where she could hide. She was no coward, but the thought of facing Dr. Sinclair after the ecstasy she’d just experienced—correction: which she’d thought she’d just experienced—in his ar
ms, was enough to make anyone run like a rabbit. “Just get me out,” she said, closing her eyes as a wave of embarrassment washed over her. “Please.”
Sadie frowned in concern, but she did as Jillian asked. In another minute Jill bolted out of the egg and down the steel ladder that connected the simulator’s higher levels to the ground. She reached the floor and started toward the far door at a fast clip, wanting to put as much distance as she could between herself, the infernal machine, and the equally infernal man who’d created it. She pulled off her stiff DataGloves with a vicious tug, and wiped a lone tear from her cheek. Tears of anger, she assured herself. I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry over losing a knight in shining armor who wasn’t even real to begin with.
“Ms. Polanski!” called an all-too-familiar voice behind her.
Sinclair. He must have gotten himself out of his harness without waiting for Sadie’s help. Jill hunched her shoulders and kept on walking, pretending she didn’t hear him. With any luck, she’d make the door before he caught up with her.
But luck, as usual, wasn’t with her. Before she’d taken ten steps, Dr. Sinclair was beside her, his long legs making short work of the distance between them. “Ms. Polanski, just where do you think you’re going?”
Somewhere you’re not, she thought, purposely continuing to look straight ahead. Not that it did much good. She could feel him beside her, the lengthy, lean form of the man who had—and hadn’t—saved her life. Angry anew, she shoved her hands into her pockets, her ire increasing tenfold as she realized her bodysuit didn’t have any pockets. “What’s it to you?” she bit out. “Our search for Einstein is over until tomorrow. I’m leaving.”
“I can’t allow that. We need to discuss the events that transpired during our time in the simulator, to log them in with the rest of my research and test results.”
