Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  He hung up the phone and tried to calm down. Looking toward the skies, expecting to spot his friends, the Bird People, Lucas grew even more concerned when he realized how quiet it had suddenly become in the skies and piñon forests surrounding his grandmother’s hogan.

  Where were the Bird People? Had they abandoned him, too, now that he could no longer read others’ thoughts?

  And more to the point, was this unearthly quiet somehow related to the Skinwalkers? A shudder of foreboding ran up his spine as he dashed back to his grandmother’s hogan to check on Teal.

  Lucas wrapped Teal’s sleeping form in the blanket that had been covering her as she dozed at the kitchen table. Then he lifted her into his arms.

  “Did you give her a sleeping potion, Amá sání? That isn’t part of the cure.”

  His grandmother smiled at him. “I know this cure better than you, Grandson. Her body needs rest. She has had the elixir. But for it to work, she must sleep. The longer, the better.”

  Frowning, Lucas shook his head at the wily old lady. “Now she can’t even go to her own home tonight. It may be dangerous and I couldn’t leave her passed out and alone. So the only choice is my place.

  “That’s what you had in mind, wasn’t it?” he added, catching the twinkle in his grandmother’s eyes.

  “She will be safe with you. I have seen her future.”

  “Yeah? Well, I don’t want to hear about it.” He stormed out of the hogan with Teal in his arms.

  Not daring to listen to his grandmother’s prognostications about Teal’s future in case it was something he didn’t want to know, Lucas set his jaw and walked away from the possibilities. The beautiful special agent would damn sure be safe with him.

  Trying to be as gentle as possible, he tucked her prone body into the second seat of his SUV and steadied her with more blankets to keep her from rolling off. His house was only a half mile away. But he sure wished Teal had been awake enough to consent to spending the night there.

  Lucas didn’t like the idea of her waking up in a strange place and not knowing how she got there. And he seriously doubted that Teal was going to like the idea all that well, either—once she woke up and thought about it.

  As he drove up the hill past his grandmother’s meadow, he tried listening to his own spirit instead of the empty spaces where others’ futures and feelings used to reside. But all he could think about was the sleeping special agent.

  This uncommon woman was so much more than the slash of erotic heat that had always seared him in his dreams. Whenever he was around her, the nearness still set off electric sparks between them. But now that he’d talked to her, gotten closer to her and knew about her energy and empathy, his feelings for her seemed deeper, stronger.

  She was sensual, with those big ebony eyes and long, silky hair—yes. Sensual and immensely touchable. But he now knew some of the other reasons why her spirit had called out to him across time and space.

  There was an aura of destiny surrounding the two of them. Though he still could not hear or see the future, his instincts were screaming at him to stay close to her. They must’ve been meant to come together for some purpose.

  As he pulled into the yard in front of his studio, Lucas looked up at the indigo skies and the first sparkle of evening stars. Wherever their destinies would lead them, he would protect her with his life.

  He had no choice.

  Teal knew she was dreaming. She’d even had this dream before, though she’d tried not to. It always started out the same pleasant way.

  A brilliant summer sun glittered across the expanse of water, shooting sparkly fireworks to glare back into her eyes. It was a wonderfully warm and lazy day. Perfect for a special time with father and daughter together.

  Teal always loved coming here for vacation at her aunt’s house on the reservation. There were cousins to play with and neat things like swimming and fishing to do.

  But the best part was getting time alone with her father. He worked so hard all year and there was never enough time for them to be together.

  This year was even better than summers before. Mommy and Christie had stayed home so Christie could go to day camp with her friends. Daddy was all Teal’s for once.

  And he wasn’t still mad at her for refusing to wear that bulky old life vest. After all, Daddy didn’t wear one. Besides that, she was a big girl—almost a teenager and almost knew how to swim.

  He’d even said he would let her bait her own hook this trip. A tiny tickle of anticipation ran through her fingers when she thought of hooking one of those squiggly worms on the hook the way Daddy had taught her. But she wanted him to be proud of her. So she chewed her bottom lip and waited for him to finish putting down the anchor.

  Daddy turned and smiled at her. Then he handed her the special rod he’d rigged up just for her.

  This was going to be the best day ever.

  The dream suddenly changed, twisted and became a nightmare. It always did this same thing at this same point. Just like an old familiar horror movie. It turned from feel-good to terrifying in one instant.

  But this time, instead of the choking panic of being about to drown and then the terrible guilt that always followed, Teal’s nightmare went in a different direction.

  Following close. Chasing her. She knew the demon was right behind and she pushed her muscles to swim faster. Get away.

  Then all of a sudden there were dreadful images in the water right ahead. Yellow staring eyes. Red blood dripping from sharp, disembodied fangs and spreading through the murkiness toward her.

  Teal tried to wake herself up. This was just a dream. But the more she tried, the closer the red bloom came to closing in around her. Not a dream, but definitely not any reality that she recognized.

  Holy crap! She was going to die. From a damned dream.

  Just then, a hand came down on her shoulder and scared her even more, until she turned and saw the dark form, a shadow of a man, reaching out to enclose her in his arms. There was no fear coming from the solid form who’d arrived to save her.

  Daddy? Had her father’s spirit returned to make the evil go away?

  “Teal, take it easy. Come on, Bright Eyes. It’s only a bad dream. Wake up.”

  The calm steady voice finally got through to her. Lucas. She let him pull her up and enfold her against his chest. Balanced tenuously between nightmare and reality, Teal collapsed into his arms.

  “The eyes. So creepy. They were the biggest ugliest yellow eyes imaginable.”

  “Don’t think about them,” he whispered as he began to rock her like a child. “You’re safe with me.”

  At those words, her trembling subsided. She did feel safe. Protected. She could feel the steady beating of his heart under her ear. Nothing could reach her here.

  He rubbed her back, then bent to place a kiss against her temple. “You’re okay. Safe,” he mumbled over and over.

  The horrible dream began to drift away like a whisper of smoke in a strong wind. “I’m safe here with you,” she mumbled.

  But in the next instant it hit her. Where was here?

  She lifted her chin to look around. The dawn was bringing light into wherever she was. But shadows still clung to the farthest corners, and light was puddling in tiny pools near towering windows.

  Glancing up she found soaring ceilings, with skylights and wooden beams. This certainly wasn’t Lucas’s grandmother’s house.

  Teal started to feel uncomfortable. Turning around, she gazed into Lucas’s sexy sensitive eyes as he studied her. “What place is this?”

  He tenderly rubbed his knuckles along her jawline. “You’re in my studio. My home.”

  In a deliberate and slow move, she pushed his hand from her face. “Why am I at your house? The last thing I remember was being in the kitchen and drinking some of your grandmother’s herb tea.”

  Lots of strange emotions flitted across his face at once. They told her most of what she needed to know.

  She shoved hard against his arms
and frowned. “What happened? Did that nice little old grandmother of yours dope me?”

  His brow quirked. “Drugs? Hardly. But you needed rest in order for your body to heal, so she gave you a sleeping potion. How do you feel?”

  “Cripes. Sleeping pills in herb tea.” She narrowed her eyes and sat straight up in bed. Bed?

  Meaning to push past him to climb off whatever this was, Teal tried to body-block him with her upper torso. But Lucas held her down.

  “Hold on,” he told her quietly. “Take it easy until you have a chance to get your legs under you. How are the pains this morning?” His voice was low and sweet, but she tried to brush aside the hypnotic quality of it.

  Ignoring his question, she checked the area below them and discovered they were not sitting on a bed but on a long suede sofa. That calmed her a bit, but she still had a lot of questions.

  “Why did you bring me here to your house? If we had to leave your grandmother’s, why didn’t you just drive me home?”

  “There were reasons. We can talk about it after you tell me how you’re feeling. Focus, Bright Eyes.”

  Focus? The dreamy, out-of-this-world sensitive was telling her to focus?

  “I am absolutely fine, thank you very much,” she said with perfect enunciation. “But you’d better start giving me some answers pretty damn quick. Or my next question will be why shouldn’t I arrest you for kidnapping?”

  “Are you really okay? You’re sure there’re no aches left?”

  His incessant questioning finally made her stop and take inventory of her body. How was she feeling? The answer echoed back to her across a cavernous empty stomach. Hungry.

  But not in pain. She turned her arms over to check the bruises, but they had faded to nothing. No aching left at all. Interesting.

  Slanting a glance in his direction, she was stopped cold as she got a good look at his expression. The way he was staring at her, with a combination of concern and sensual desperation, made her belly jump. She’d lost her focus again. Her hunger for food turned into something much more dangerous to her well-being.

  Those languid, half-lidded, dreamy eyes were calling out to her in a strangely familiar manner. As if she’d seen them countless times. And not only did it feel as if she’d seen them before—even knew them intimately—it was as if she’d lost herself more than once to their draw.

  She had never in her life felt anything quite like this, but she was positive she’d made love with the near stranger sitting beside her—somewhere. Some time.

  Lucas watched while the expressions on her face went from fear to anger and now to something much more compelling and dangerous. Her lids were blinking furiously as she tilted her head. It made her look vulnerable, even a little fragile.

  His Teal—fragile? No way.

  Deciding to make her snap out of it, he lowered his mouth to her ear. “Don’t look at me that way, Special Agent love. Not unless you mean to hold me off with your gun.”

  He held her gaze and watched timidity turn to heat. Uncertainty turned to a come-hither look. An urgent bolt of raw need ripped into his gut, leaving him nearly helpless.

  It was too much for this all-too-human man. Grasping her chin, he dipped his head and canted a kiss across that quirky mouth. The kiss shocked his sensibilities, so he took a quick nip at her bottom lip and then backed off.

  It was not a particularly satisfying kiss to his mind, it had been over much too quickly. But he’d been afraid to push her. He would rather wait and do the job right another time.

  But still, the mere touching of their lips had caused his stomach to flip as though he’d taken a punch to the gut. It left him slightly light-headed and breathing heavily.

  He searched her face for answers to what had just happened between them. A simple touch of lips, nothing more, had created such havoc zinging through his veins.

  But what he saw in her face undid whatever reserve and resolve he might’ve had. At first, her expression simply mirrored his surprise. Not so much surprise at his actions, he knew, but at her own reaction to them.

  Then her pupils darkened and grew wide. He stood close and felt a tremor run through her body. She licked her lips and cleared her throat.

  The expression on her face said what no words could tell him. He’d seen it in his dreams far too often. She wanted him. Now. With a desperation that matched his own.

  But in reality, they had met just a couple of days ago. How could he satisfy their hunger now without ruining whatever chance he had of protecting her?

  There was no mistaking the look in her eyes, however.

  “Didn’t you…?” he began with a raspy, hoarse voice. “I mean, I thought you wanted an answer to why you couldn’t go home last night? I thought…”

  “That was so five minutes ago,” she mumbled, surprising even herself. But Teal wasn’t surprised enough to stop and actually think things through. She placed both her palms against the sides of his head and dragged him down for another kiss.

  This time, their lips met in a way not nearly as gentle nor as shockingly scary as the last time. This time, the kiss was all tongue and moans and desperation from both of them.

  The sensation of wanting something she’d known existed but had never experienced shot through Teal, rattling her senses and scattering what was left of her brain. What was so different about this man? Had she known him before?

  No. Every kiss she’d ever experienced before this was nothing. Nada. Zip—compared to his. What’s more, every previous lover, every “I want you” from the past didn’t mean a damned thing to her now. Not since she’d experienced this man’s kiss.

  Lucas wrapped an arm around her and tugged her roughly to his chest. The new position made her nipples brush against the inside of her sweatshirt, creating incredible friction and driving her wild. She felt the tender peaks harden and tighten.

  Barely able to breathe, she didn’t care, wanting only more of those narcotic kisses. Nothing else seemed to matter.

  Lucas pulled back slightly to make sure she was still okay. Her eyes were wide open and studying him, while her tongue slipped out and licked her swollen bottom lip. But she didn’t look unhappy. She looked like a woman who was in a sensual trance. It worried him for a second, wondering if she knew what she was doing—what they were doing.

  He glanced down her body and watched the tips of her breasts react to his gaze. They peaked and lifted, as if begging for his touch.

  His throat felt dry and a drop of sweat trickled down his temple. All he could think of at the moment was putting his mouth on the luscious curve of her breasts. Things between them seemed suddenly out of his control.

  “Bright Eyes.” It was all he could manage as she reached for the hem of her sweatshirt and lifted it up and over her head in one swift maneuver.

  That moved him past all talking as he stared at her lovely nakedness. She hadn’t worn a bra and he’d never been so glad of anything in his whole life.

  Perfect. Like a classic work of art, she was perfect. Small and full. Rounded and exquisitely formed. An exact fit for the palms of his hands.

  His mouth watered and his fingers itched to touch. But he shouldn’t. After all, he knew her. But she didn’t know him in return.

  “Teal, are you still wrapped up in that bad dream? Do you know what…”

  “Be quiet,” she said as she picked up his hands and placed them against her straining nipples. “I know what I want.”

  Ah, hell. His heart was thundering so loudly in his throat that he almost missed her soft moans. His hands automatically began to caress and massage her breasts.

  He had dreamed of her a thousand times. But a thousand times had not prepared him for the reality of Teal.

  Her hands went to his head, drilled into his hair as she pulled his face down to her chest. He gave up and let his mouth replace a hand. Swirling his tongue over one tight nub, he brushed a calloused thumb over the other one. Her heart began thundering in time with his own.

  She t
asted sweet and salty and as arousing as hell. In another minute he would be unable to stop. He knew what would happen then the way he knew his own dreams.

  But he couldn’t. They shouldn’t. Did she even know how close he was?

  He wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged both of them up on their feet. Filling a hand with her firm bottom, he pressed his hard arousal against the juncture of her thighs. Trying to shock her.

  Still, his own libido refused to let him stop entirely. He was nearly bent in two so he could keep laving and tugging at her nipples, first one then the other. He’d wanted her to call a halt to things, but he was only half-convinced himself that they could stop now.

  So he was only half-crazy? Was it in a dream that he heard her ragged breathing and noticed she was reaching between them for his zipper? Or was it absolute reality?

  The shock of her warm hand against his groin as she worked to undo the button on his jeans finally brought him around. He broke off and pulled away from her fingers.

  “Teal, I still don’t think now is the right…”

  Their gazes met—locked. Her big ebony eyes filled with tears, and he couldn’t guess why. Had she wanted them to stop—or to go on?

  The answer came loud and clear when right before his eyes the reality undid her own jeans and stepped out of both them and her panties. Standing naked before him, she had tears welling in her eyes and a look of lonely desolation on that beautiful face. Teal tentatively reached a hand out to him in a pleading gesture.

  Lucas groaned and took her by the shoulders, crushing her against him once more. He placed a kiss of quiet desperation against her neck, and almost forgot for the time being that he wasn’t crazy.

  “It’s okay, Bright Eyes,” he whispered. “Whatever you want.”

  Holding her, he let his hands roam over her naked body.

  Remembering the dream. Relearning her present. Discovering new realities.

  7

  I n Lucas’s mind’s eye, he could visualize what he wanted to do. What he had already done with her—to her—for her in his dreams.