by Julie Leto
Everywhere he looked, men and women milled about, tools in their hands as they strung thick cords from one end of the space to the other or tested lighting that turned day into night and then back again. Some of the workers were high in the air, adjusting strange mechanisms from a web of metal frames that crisscrossed the ceiling. All of them shouted and joked with one another as they worked, or else barked orders, reminding Aiden of his regiment shortly before battle. A sizzle of excitement rang through their voices. They enjoyed their work. They anticipated the opening of their production, of which, he realized, Lauren must be the featured performer.
The star-shaped plaque on her door with her name in the middle clearly gave her away.
Two men strode past him, both wearing pants of a rough blue fabric that looked at once sloppy and incredibly comfortable. “Did you hear about Joe?”
“Yeah, freaky, huh? Hasn’t hit the news yet. Marchand must be keeping it hushed. Anyone know what caused the explosion?”
The first man shrugged his bulky shoulders. “Gas leak, probably. What else? This isn’t exactly a war zone.”
“Maybe he pissed off some bruiser whose wife he was screwing.”
They laughed heartily and disappeared around a corner. The language of this time was different in so many ways from his own, but the actions and suppositions of the people clearly were not. Gossip and interest in lurid details still existed. Men still battled against other men for the affection of women. Centuries had passed, but the basics of love and war remained the same.
Luckily, Aiden had hung with the sword in Ross Marchand’s office long enough to understand the vernacular of the conversations going on around him—about investments and the massive scope of the entertainment undertakings of one Ross Marchand.
While he was under the control of Rogan’s magic, his awareness had been limited. But now that Lauren had explained what a film was, Aiden realized that he had observed Marchand screening scenes from his films on a box that sat on his desk. While entrapped by the magic, Aiden hadn’t cared enough to be shocked or surprised by the advancements in technology, but now he couldn’t help but wonder how he could ever find a place of significance in a society that had so expanded without him.
A few feet away a man sat on a tall stool pressing buttons on a device like one he’d seen Ross use to retrieve information. Aiden concentrated on joining the worker, and soon was there.
“Hey, Gibbs,” the man shouted to a well-dressed man holding a thick book overflowing with photographs. “What’s the name of that doohickey that Athena found in the third flick? This database is useless without the right name. You know…the thing she wore that made her irresistible to men?”
“As if she needed any help.” The man named Gibbs chuckled as he flipped through the pages of the book.
Aiden agreed. With Lauren playing the role of the goddess Athena, any man within a mile radius was likely helpless to resist her.
Gibbs slammed his hand on the appropriate page. “You mean Aphrodite’s girdle?”
The man at the keyboard punched the buttons of the corresponding letters and spelled out the word inside a thin white block. He then clicked a button and a photograph of a thick gold belt appeared.
“Yeah, that’s it,” he confirmed. “Is she using it in this film? I didn’t see it with the costume drawings.”
“Don’t think so,” Gibbs replied.
“We should add it to the background of her room, though, don’t you think? I think it’s in storage. Hey, you…”
The man snagged the collar of a young woman who’d been hurrying by with a tray of steaming coffee and shouted orders for her to retrieve the girdle from “wardrobe.” She mumbled her agreement, then darted away. The longer Aiden observed, the more this organized chaos resembled the preparations before a battle. Generals and lieutenants poring over plans, shouting orders to infantry peons, who nodded their quick assent. The energy surging through the room was soothingly familiar, even if the situation was as foreign to him as the eighteenth century would be to Lauren.
He returned his attention to the machine. He had a vague understanding that the device was a repository for varied sources of information. Could it, perhaps, lead him to his family?
Stepping directly beside the man whose fingers flew over the keys, he called upon the magic that held him and whispered the name Forsyth into the man’s ear.
“What?” he asked.
Gibbs replied. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t ask about Forsyth?”
“What’s a Forsyth?”
“No idea,” the man muttered to himself, then continued about his business.
But Aiden would not be deterred. He concentrated harder, focusing his attention onto the man’s hands. Seconds later he watched as the name appeared in the little white box.
The words “No results found in Athena database,” flashed on the screen.
Damn.
And yet he’d discovered that he was not only trapped by Rogan’s cursed magic, but that he had some measure of control over the power as well. This could prove quite interesting, and he wondered what else he could do once he returned to solid form.
With a glance back in the direction of Lauren’s trailer, which remained empty, he continued his exploration. A young woman passed so close to him he felt her penetrate his space. The jolt was immediate and unnerving—for both of them. She yelped. But when no one noticed she hurried away.
Finally he spotted a door in a far corner that flashed with daylight whenever opened. He immediately moved toward it, wondering whether the sun was as hot as it had been in his time, whether the air outside smelled putrid like London or invigorating like the valleys of Valoren. But the closer he came to the door, the heavier he felt. And then weaker. With only twenty feet between him and freedom, a painful pull yanked him back to Lauren’s trailer, inches from where she’d left the sword.
He’d been tethered again. Bound in ways that clamped the very essence of his soul. Despite the iciness coursing through his bloodstream, he shouted in rage. Several frames dropped off Lauren’s wall with a crash.
“Aiden?”
It was the last thing he heard before he fell into a dark and bottomless void.
Nine
Lauren had no idea where Aiden had gone. She’d been in the trailer for over an hour, calling his name intermittently into the air, stroking the sword, wavering between feeling his arousing presence somewhere near her and then convincing herself that she was entirely alone. At least she knew now that Aiden’s appearance had not been a dream or a side effect of some sort of head injury. Helen had seen him, too, in the video, though she’d clearly either missed the part where he’d materialized out of nowhere, or else she’d written off his unexplainable appearance as a technical glitch. How he got there wasn’t nearly as interesting as what had happened shortly thereafter. The practically pornographic digital recording she now toyed with in her hands.
She’d always said she’d never make a skin flick, but apparently all her common sense had flown out the window last night. Now she was considering actually watching the thing, curious whether the chemistry Helen had insisted translated onto film truly existed.
Did she dare?
She knew they were hot together in person. She had the sweetly sore muscles to prove it. But it took a special connection to translate that incendiary quality onto the screen.
Just thinking about the possibility raised her internal temperature. She splashed over ice cubes a bottle of room-temperature club soda she found in the bar, blanched at the bitter taste, but drank anyway.
While chewing on an ice cube, she slipped the tiny tape into an adapter, then attached it to the VCR and flipped on the television. She hit rewind and waited until the tape queued to the right spot. Adjusting the volume to a bare minimum, she then grabbed a nearby footstool and dragged it close to the TV so she could sit close. She watched her workout impassively, but gasped when she witnessed the moment when the swo
rd touched her leg. She passed out, and Aiden appeared as if stepping through an invisible barrier.
Leaning nearer to the screen, she saw him kneel over her, his hand hovering just beside her cheek, as if he wanted to touch her, but didn’t dare. An odd glow illuminating from the sword added just enough light to make the scene crisp and sharp. He smoothed a single lock behind her ear, so softly, so carefully, she couldn’t resist mimicking the gesture. The action progressed, and she watched with utter fascination as she reacted to him, fought him and then brazenly made love to him as if she’d known him forever.
When she threw her leg over his shoulder so he could lick her through and through, she muttered, “Damn. I didn’t realize I was so easy.”
“I’ve met many easy women in my days,” a cocky male voice replied, so close to her ear she could feel his breath, “and you, my lady, are anything but.”
She remained still, a smirk curving her lips. “How long have you been…back?”
“Mere moments. Your pleasured moans enticed me from my sleep.”
She glanced around and, as expected, saw no sign of him, though his presence now completely filled the trailer. “You were napping?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he replied.
She clicked off the television, grinning when he made a disappointed noise. She shoved the recording into the safe she’d had installed in an armoire, then returned to the couch and sat directly across from the sword. She should erase it. Get rid of it forever. She certainly didn’t want to end up like Pam Anderson or Paris Hilton. And yet she couldn’t quite imagine destroying such an intimate record of what had been one of the best nights of her life.
“There was so much more to see,” he said.
“Yes, well, now you’ve seen a film firsthand.”
“And I also understand why men cannot tear their eyes away from you when you are on the screen.”
“You’re picking up the lingo,” she noted.
“I’m a quick learner.”
“That’s good,” she said, knowing that now was as good a time as any to broach the topic of his joining her in the movie. Because—hell and hot damn—Helen was right: They sizzled together on the screen. Even before they’d had sex, their banter and byplay had overflowed with the kind of sexual tension that might put her in the same league as Julia Roberts when she’d starred opposite Richard Gere, or, even better, Ellen Barkin playing a coy attorney opposite the corrupt and carnal Dennis Quaid. “Because I have a proposition for you.”
His chuckle made her realize that the word had the same naughty connotations in his century as it did in hers.
“Proposition away, my lady.”
“You need me to free you again from the sword, right?”
“Again, yes. I am free, but not untethered by the curse that captured me,” he said, and she noted hints of anger and resentment in his voice.
“If you could have freed yourself on your own, or with anyone else who’d handled the sword, it would have happened long before I came around, right?”
“This seems a logical deduction, my lady. The sword had not always resided in that antiques shop. Several owners possessed it over the years, though I was not truly aware of their presence until you came into that shop.”
Her mind worked overtime. She’d had a bit of time while she was waiting for him to reappear to work out the situation and come up with a strategy for broaching the subject. He needed her and she needed him. Sure, she could look for a new costar among the many talented actors she was sure Helen had lined up for auditions, but what was the fun in that? She couldn’t resist the appeal of flaunting her new lover right under Ross’s nose while enjoying the company of a man who intrigued her in ways she’d never thought possible. While she fully intended to help Aiden no matter his decision to join the cast, he didn’t have to know that right away.
“Well, then. You need me and I need you.”
His hands, still invisible, were on her immediately, splayed on her waist, his fingers magically long enough to reach not only the bottom swell of her breasts, but the lowest curve of her backside.
She tried to slap him away, but could not.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said loudly.
The brazen contact did not stop. “How do you need me, then, if not to pleasure you?”
“I need you to become an actor.”
Instantly his touch disappeared.
***
“Woman, have you been brained?”
Aiden stalked about the room, honestly concerned for the sanity of the woman who’d freed him and become his lover in the span of one day. He’d had women make unreasonable demands after he’d sexually satisfied them before, but Lauren Cole brought the negotiation to a higher standard. “Have you no idea who I am?”
“You’re Aiden Forsyth,” she replied, her tone clipped.
Aiden wasn’t one to throw his family’s name about—he’d taken great pains to ensure that the soldiers in his regiment saw him as an able commander rather than the son of an earl who’d bought his commission—but this wild idea had stunned him beyond measure.
“Do you have any idea what that name means?”
“It’s English for ‘closed-minded’?”
He growled, fighting the fatigue that still lingered in his consciousness. He needed Lauren in order to gain his freedom from the sword; of this he was certain. But could he subject himself to the indignities of the stage simply to please her?
Unthinkable.
“You could at least hear me out,” she argued.
Aiden stifled a grin with a sniff, inhaling the unmistakable scent of weakness. She needed him. He’d survived bloody battles by exploiting such vulnerability to his advantage. He’d been victorious in violent skirmishes with the Scots because of his knowledge of weapons and strategies. His long military career had taught him that the negotiation between men and women bore a hefty resemblance to the battlefield between kings.
“I am not visible. I expect this part of the curse causes a problem even your”—he tried to recall the wording she’d used—” ‘modern filmmaking techniques’ cannot overcome.”
“We’d have to film at night,” she said calmly, as if she were a paragon of logic rather than a lovely woman who happened to need him desperately. Nearly, he guessed, as desperately as he needed her.
“I’m a soldier, my lady,” he said reasonably. “The son of an earl. For me to take to the stage would be scandalous.”
She turned her head ever so slightly, as if straining to hear whether his voice betrayed his true feelings on the matter. He was suddenly very thankful that she could not see him. Although he’d been a fine liar in his lifetime, he suspected that Lauren Cole was better than most at ferreting out untruths and manipulations. She had, after all, survived a marriage to a master manipulator like Ross Marchand.
“In your time period, maybe. But now you’ll be this mysterious, intriguing, powerful man who will sweep Athena off her feet, and then…”
“Then what?”
Lauren’s eyes narrowed, though her glare was focused about two paces to his left. He’d known her for a very short time, but he already understood that she was a woman of great resourcefulness and cunning. He had to admire her pluck, even if he also had to guard against it.
“Then you’ll have the whole new world at your disposal. Look,” she said, then sighed in frustration. “Where are you?”
“Can’t you sense me?”
“I know you’re here.”
“You can hear me, of course. But can you sense me?”
Aiden watched as she closed her eyes and concentrated.
Determining the scope of their connection could help him outwit the curse, and it also gave him a moment to think. He had to explore the full breadth of his control over the magic, and perhaps his influence over her. Could he use Rogan’s magic to bend Lauren to his will? Did he want to?
Open your eyes, he thought, swooping closer and watching her lids vibrate, the
lashes fluttering against her cheeks.
She lifted her hand, but her eyes remained shut. “You’re right here.”
He didn’t reply, but tried again to force her to open her eyes.
They squeezed tighter.
He moved away. Only then did he realize how the tightening in his chest meant he’d been holding his breath. Unexpected relief flooded through him. He was pleased that he could not will her to do his bidding. He wanted her, despite his better judgment, to help him of her own free will.
“You moved,” she said, her eyes flashing open.
“Try again,” he replied.
She smiled, closed her eyes and concentrated.
He couldn’t help admiring the sculpted beauty of her fair cheeks and proud chin as she searched for him. He’d made love to his fair share of women, but Lauren Cole had been his equal, offering intimacy as he’d never experienced. The way she spoke to him with a glint of humor in her eyes, the way she cajoled and influenced with no pretense about her true intentions, was wholly intriguing. Women of his time had no trouble asking for what they wanted, but none he’d met had ever appealed to him with such an irresistible combination of need and confidence. Lauren knew she would get precisely what she wanted—without bribery or coercion or blatant seduction.
She took a step closer. After a moment she closed her eyes again, took a deep breath; then, with a smile curving her generous lips, she walked straight through him. Into him. His essence surrounded her, penetrated her, and the vibrations of her need struck him at his core. He knew then that he could deny her nothing—even this outrageous request.
“You’re here,” she said confidently.
“My lady, you are irresistible.”
She opened her eyes, which sparkled bright blue.
“Does that mean you’ll tarnish your good name and lower yourself to my vocation?”
“I’ll lower myself,” he said, dropping onto invisible, insubstantial knees so that he could blow a heated breath across the exposed flesh of her stomach. “As to my new vocation, we shall have to wait and see.”
