by Julie Leto
“She’d tried to clean herself up after I was born, or so she told me. Got a job. A place to stay. But once I was old enough to fend for myself, she dropped back into her old life. Just before my eleventh birthday we were living out of our car. By the time I was thirteen we didn’t have even that. I was on my own while she turned tricks for drugs. I don’t know much about the time you lived, but I’m pretty sure that the child of a two-bit whore would have become a two-bit whore herself.”
Aiden inhaled deeply, his mood darkening as he imagined the dark turn Lauren’s life could have taken. “Look around you. You would not have—”
“I couldn’t have had any of this if not for Ross.”
“And this disturbs you?”
She laughed, but the sound lacked humor. “Women today try not to marry solely for financial security,” she explained. “They still do it—don’t get me wrong—but I never wanted that life. I wanted to make my own way in the world. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Aiden shifted on the couch, noting how she’d pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. Crouching in this tiny coiner of her lavish home seemed to provide her with a sense of security. He toyed with her fingers gently, inviting her to take his hand. She did. He slid her closer to him, and for a long few minutes they sat in silence, curled together, expensive furniture and knickknacks all around them, though he knew the trappings of wealth meant both nothing and everything to Lauren all at the same time.
Since her release from the hospital, they’d been free to talk during the day and make love for most of the night. She’d told him, and shown him everything she could about the current events, history and technology that made her world so incredibly foreign. But they’d also, he realized, avoided any topics that might reveal too much about themselves. He’d told her about the curse and his family and his career as a soldier, but he’d revealed nothing about his early days as a dueling rogue, or the horrors he’d witnessed at Culloden. Those events had shaped who he might have become, had he escaped from Valoren to live and die in his own century.
Fortunately, it didn’t take much time for him to realize that in Lauren he’d found a woman who was more reluctant to talk about her past than he was. Yes, he knew about her career as an actress and her role of Athena and the importance of her completing this film so she could move on without any obligation to Ross, but beyond that they’d been mysteries to each other.
Until tonight.
“I’m not proud of marrying him,” she said.
“A woman marrying above her station to improve her lot is not a new invention, my lady. You said as much yourself.”
She grinned, but the dullness in her usually bright eyes hadn’t diminished. “I’ve never thought of myself as an old-fashioned girl before.”
“Perspective is difficult to hold on to when emotions are involved.”
“Maybe that’s why I reacted so badly tonight to David.”
Quiet echoed in the room until she took a deep breath, then described to Aiden how she and David had been strangers, kids, both of them, on the night their paths had first crossed. She’d been barely eighteen, running away from Ross’s unexpected marriage proposal, and David might have been sixteen. Skinny. Dirty. Hungry. She’d bought him dinner with the last twenty in her wallet, wanting to purge herself of everything Ross had given her. Everything Ross had wanted her to become.
“An hour later, this gang jumped me. They weren’t happy that I was broke,” she explained.
“I gather this attack is why you learned to fight,” he guessed.
She snorted. “Getting your ass kicked is strong motivation to learn martial arts, yes. I wasn’t bad in a fight before, but five to one wasn’t exactly even odds. I was down. They were kicking me in the stomach, in the head, and then they were gone and David was there holding my hand, telling me to hang on, that I’d be okay. He must have scared them away. I don’t know. I can’t remember much, but I know he called the cops. All I could think about was wanting to get away. I wanted him to drag me out of sight so I could just die or live, I didn’t care. i just didn’t want Ross to find me. I remember thinking, ‘How can I become anything now that I’m a lump of raw meat?’ “
Aiden slipped his arm tighter around her shoulders. Images started to swirl in his head, but he knew better than to intrude unbidden.
“May I?”
She blinked, but no tears flowed. Their eyes met, and after a moment, she understood his request to enter her mind. She gave a little nod. He slid his hand into her hair, and after a split second of resistance, she relaxed and allowed the memories to flow. Impressions of the pain and the therapy and the scars flooded into his mind, along with mirror images that belied her present beauty. He fought not to yank his hand away in shock at her injuries.
“The hospital found Ross through the address on my driver’s license,” she went on. “He came right away. David disappeared. Ross paid for my surgeries, therapy and meds. When I’d started to recover, Ross promised to make the whole incident go away. And he did. He made up a new life for me. Everything before just disappeared. He erased my ugly past and created a new backstory that we sold to the press. He helped me forget. And I let him, but I might not have had to if David had only helped me escape. I realize now he was just a scared kid himself, but why is he back? And pretending to be an actor? I don’t get what he wants from me.”
“Perhaps he just wanted to know that you have recovered.”
“He can read the trades and the gossip rags like everyone else.”
“Maybe he wanted the truth.”
That quieted her. Aiden had not been a part of her world for long, but her accident in the trailer had taught him how the people around Lauren would lie, manipulate and bully whomever necessary to protect her image and her privacy.
He, however, wanted the truth.
“Tell me about Ross,” he coaxed. “About your marriage to him.”
“You were there,” she said.
“I was hanging on a wall in his study, only vaguely aware of what went on around me. I was not privy to your most private moments. I was not there when he wooed you to his bed.”
On the edges of his mind, pictures started to form. Lauren, young and naked, staring at herself in a mirror, exploring her body with tentative hands. Ross, standing behind her, speaking words of encouragement even as his own nude body reacted to her discoveries.
Aiden released her.
“Could you see that?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not by choice.”
“No,” she said, grabbing his hands tightly. “I want you to understand.”
Twenty Three
Her voice was flat with determination. Aiden closed his eyes, and the images rushed at him fast. Ross standing behind her. Directing her. Telling her where to touch herself. Cupping his hand around hers and sliding her fingers between her legs. Aiden could hear his deep voice, instructing her to part her feminine lips and find the tiny nub inside, to manipulate it with her fingers until she gasped in pleasure. He led her other hand to her mouth, had her suck her fingers wet, then grasp her young nipples until they were taut. He could hear him telling her to explain in excruciating detail the sensations running through her. Then he grabbed his own penis and stroked himself hard and long.
Aiden broke away. “No more!”
“Don’t you see—”
“I don’t want to witness that man touching you or pleasing himself at your expense. You were barely a woman. Did you not torture me enough tonight, forcing me to watch that David Drake paw his hands all over you, running his mouth up your body—”
She launched herself on him, connecting her mouth with his in a way that washed all thoughts of any other man out of both her brain and his. Desire overrode all other considerations until they were nearly undressed—not by magical means, but by the tugging and rending of clothes.
“I was his puppet, damn it,” she said, her eyes glassy and her breathing ragged. “E
verything I know came from him. Everything I am. Do you have any idea how hard that is to live with?”
Her hands clutched at him with a desperation that bespoke more than lust. Lauren wanted Aiden from deep in her soul. Because she desired him, not because she needed him. Not because he was directing her. Their mating came from a desire that was wholly and entirely hers, and Aiden would deny her nothing.
“Then live with it no more.”
He scooped her up into his arms and carried her through the glass doors that led to a glistening pool of blue water behind her home. Surrounded by lush greenery and bright pink and red flowers of varieties he’d never seen, the patio provided a private oasis not unlike a dream. He set her down on her feet near the edge of the water, his tongue still dueling with hers, his hands filling themselves with the fullness of her buttocks and breasts.
Suddenly she pushed him away. Her laughter accompanied his backward fall, and he had only a split second to prepare himself for the splash. But though the water slapped hard on his back, the liquid was welcoming. His lungs tightened, but he remained beneath the surface, enjoying the clear, wet weightlessness.
Seconds later he heard another splash. He turned in time to see Lauren’s body slice into the water like a knife into butter. She swam with confident athleticism, and her beauty exceeded his imagination. Lights implanted in the walls of the pool illuminated her in shades of blue and green. He might have thought her a mermaid or sea siren had he not known she was real. And for tonight she was his.
When she reached him underneath the water, she slid her hands up his chest, and together they broke the surface, gasped for as much air as their lungs could handle, then crashed in a kiss that drew them back into the depths of the pool. Aiden had never experienced such delicious sensations against his flesh—her hot skin, the cool water, the fluid motions stirring the pool into a tempest of wild fulfillment. She crested the water again, and, grabbing her around the waist, he lifted her high. She arched her back, and he suckled the water sluicing across her nipples until she cried out in pleasured release.
He was hard. Rock hard. He wanted inside her, but the minx broke free of him, swam to the opposite end of the pool and slithered up the stairs. He dove forward, grabbed her by the ankle and waylaid her escape. With a roll he had her atop him, his backside on the steps.
She straddled him. The water around them made her body resist until his touch spawned moisture from deep inside her that smoothed his path to ecstasy. Sheathed within her, he knew a bliss that was more than magic.
Her breasts glistened and his eyes feasted for a moment before his mouth took over the banquet of sensations. Her areola, so dark and round and centered with nipples that responded to his tongue and teeth, tempted him to madness. With one hand on the bar that led out of the pool and the other braced on his shoulder, she increased the tempo of their lovemaking until he could resist no more. He spilled into her hot and hard. When he was spent, he knew she had not crested.
A disappointed frown curved her luscious lips. He slid his hands into her hair at her temples and concentrated on glimpsing the images in her mind. He saw jets of water swirling in steam and foam.
Grinning, he lifted her, kissed her and swam them to the opposite side of the pool. The overflow from the artificial hot spring tucked into the corner spilled into the cool water. Her eyes widened expectantly.
“I could become accustomed to living with such delights,” he said, climbing onto the edge and then extending his hand to her.
She accepted, and in one yank they were stepping into the sultry waves of the spring.
“I’ve hardly used this since I moved in,” she said.
He stepped into the water and handed her down. “Them use it now, my lady.”
He’d never dreamed of such decadence before, but the window into her mind had implanted a fantasy in him that he could not deny. He slid her in front of him and positioned her across from the hot, hard jets of water. He took hold of her breasts, placing lavish, hungry kisses along her neck while the water coaxed her to orgasm.
“Aiden,” she whispered. “Oh, God.”
She tried to move away, but he held her steady. “This is your fantasy, Lauren. Do not deny yourself this small pleasure.”
She panted and cooed. With his body fully pressed against hers, he saw the actions she wanted from him only split seconds before he could comply. He tweaked her nipples tightly and held on until her body vibrated from deep within her and she shouted his name on a wave of utter ecstasy.
When she slumped against him, he twirled her around and settled them on the ledge, the hot, bubbling water bathing them from the neck down. When her breathing steadied, he realized he was hard again. She snuggled her buttocks against his cock.
“It’s not fair,” she said.
He breathed in the heady scent of her hair and skin, the fragrance heightened by the steam. “How so?”
“You know what I want,” she whispered. “But what do you want?”
“ ‘Tis no mystery.”
She turned and climbed onto his lap so that his sex nestled against hers. “Beyond the sex. I’ve told you things and shown you things I have never shared with another human being. What can I give you in return?”
“Only my freedom from the curse.”
Her eyes darkened with disappointment, but only for an instant. She stood abruptly, splashed beneath the water, then popped up and found her footing. He moved to snag her back to him, but she slapped his hand away.
“No,” she said decisively. “It’s time to get down to business.”
Twenty Four
They had come to a crossroads. Up until now Aiden, despite the solid form he took in the night, had truly existed only in Lauren’s fantasies. Yes, he was real…but only in the darkness and usually only in her bed. But after he’d seen the truth about her past and still cared about her, she knew she had to act.
Her contribution in freeing him from the sword only so he could live in the aftermath of the curse, fully aware of and tormented by its cruel limitations, was nothing to brag about. He could not move of his free will. He could not pursue his family or find retribution against the sorcerer who’d trapped his soul. He was her prisoner now—and as someone who craved freedom more than anything else, she could not stand by as his jailer for much longer.
She had to find a way to break the curse entirely. He’d helped her live again—love again. Now it was her turn to pony up. Her injury had pushed primary shooting on the film back, though she was scheduled to return to the set in the morning for rehearsals and meetings. If she were going to act, she had to do it now.
She swam to the edge of the pool and climbed up the stairs to the cabana, where she took out a terrycloth robe for her and a large bath towel for him. When she turned to hand it to him, she realized he had not followed.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.
With a grunt, he got out of the Jacuzzi. “Apparently, not again. At least not tonight.”
She laughed, and the muscles between her thighs gave an involuntary squeeze. “I’m not ruling out anything, but it’s time we tackled this curse problem of yours with real determination.”
With a reluctant nod, he pushed out of the water and stalked down the steps toward her, naked and glistening with steam from the spa. Her breath caught, and her nipples, chafing beneath her robe, constricted needfully. From his penetrating silver stare to his broad, perfect chest, thick-muscled legs and impressive package, the man was stunning. Involuntarily she licked her lips and fought the instinct to drop to her knees right here and suck him dry. She didn’t know what was fueling that magic of his, but damn, she was having a hard time resisting.
Once they were dressed, she went inside the house and retrieved the sword. She heard Aiden’s breath catch as she lifted the handle and pressed the blade flush against her leg, the sharp edge centimeters away from slicing her skin. For the third time she closed her eyes and concentrated, truly and honestly wishing for Aiden�
��s freedom. She imagined them lounging by the pool in the daylight, sipping cool drinks and laughing over some silly article about her in the trades or running lines for the next day’s shoot. She conjured the feel of his hand in hers as they zipped around Los Angeles with the top down, heading toward lunch at her favorite Italian trattoria, sipping wine at a sidewalk table, talking in whispers about what they would do next to find his family.
The atmosphere around her shifted. The air, cool and crisp moments before, warmed with the scent of musk and man. She spun around, fully expecting Aiden to somehow look or feel different, but his quirk of a grin didn’t reach his eyes.
“Nothing?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Well,” she said determinedly, “we’re down, but we’re not out. Time to stop trying to futz with this old-fashioned magic. I think we’ll be better served by using the modern kind.”
Lauren led Aiden into her home office and turned on the computer. She also activated her speakerphone and dialed her assistant, Cinda. She knew it was after midnight, but her assistant was paid big bucks to be available twenty-four/seven. And when Cinda answered with a jaunty “Hello!” she didn’t even sound sleepy.
“How’s my puppy?” Lauren asked. She’d missed her dog for days, but wasn’t entirely sure how her massive rottweiler would react to Aiden’s sudden appearances and disappearances. She didn’t want to give either Aiden or the dog a heart attack, so had opted to leave him with Cinda for one more night.
“Missing you,” Cinda replied. “He was fine for the first few days, but he’s starting to pine.”
Lauren glanced over at Aiden, who was watching the screen of her computer light up. “I’m feeling much better now. Why don’t you bring him home first thing in the morning?”
“Is that why you called?” Cinda asked.
Lauren slid into her leather chair. “Actually, no. I’m wondering, if I want to research a family from the seventeen hundreds in England, how would I do it?”
