by Trisha Telep
As was she, if the look in her eyes was anything to go by.
Was that what had drawn him here so many times, through so many years? Could there have been something to all the fanciful tales the locals had dreamt up, about a man haunting the cliffs, looking for his one and only? So ludicrous and simple-minded, he’d thought … and yet, looking into the lovely face of this total stranger, and feeling a pull so strong it was impossible to deny, a sadness so profound over the sense that he’d finally found her, only to so cruelly have her taken away from him forever … what else could explain such depth of emotion?
But what was he to do about it? What could he do?
As yet, he hadn’t impacted anything, changed anything, had he? By her own admission, she wasn’t long for this world, so whatever interaction he had with her, wouldn’t change that outcome, or her, in any way.
Would it?
“Through … time?” she said, echoing his words, searching his face.
How was it he’d thought her plain or nondescript? Her eyes were such a soft grey, like the feathers of a dove, and he already knew they could be so serious, or probing, or sweet and smiling. Her mouth was wide, with lips a little plump and soft, and made her face so expressive, whether she was smiling or biting that bottom lip in pensive thought. He’d known her for the breadth of a mere moment in time, and yet he knew each and every one of those expressions would be indelibly etched in his mind, in his memory, forever.
“Aye,” he said, trying to focus on what he wanted her to know, and how to explain himself. And not on how badly he wanted to spend whatever time they had together doing anything but talking. “We’ve learned, in future years, how to manipulate the time-space continuum.”
“How far in the future did you—?” She had to stop and clear her throat, but he appreciated how hard she was working to keep calm, respond rationally, to what had to sound like the lunatic rantings of a man who’d gone raving bonkers.
“A few centuries. Five, actually, give or take.”
Her eyes widened. “And you can just, what, pop in and out, like—”
“It’s no’ so simple as that, and no’ everyone has the knowledge. It’s a relatively new science to us and … very guarded. Very … controversial. No’ everyone feels as I do – we do – about its use or potential.”
“Why? Could anyone do it? If they knew how? I could see how that would be chaotic. Can you control, precisely, when and where you … um, land?”
“It’s relatively controlled, but no, no’ everyone could do it. The science behind it must be understood, handled properly. We’ve learned how to destruct and reconstruct particles, so that …” Calum paused, shook his head. He shouldn’t have done this. It was too much, and too risky. There were rules in place, boundaries never to be crossed, and they stood for a reason.
“Particle theory. Is that how you’ve manipulated these things into this space, into what is, otherwise, an empty tower?”
“Some of it is that, aye, some of it is time and space manipulation.”
“So,” she said, and he could see she was struggling to keep her wits about her. “The ghostly visits here. You’ve come here before, then. During different times.”
He nodded. “I’m no’ haunting the tower, no, but it was simpler to allow others to believe I was.”
“But why come here at all? Is this where you’re from in the future?” She closed her eyes briefly.
“Abby,” he said, instantly alarmed. “Are you alright? Are you in pain? What can I—”
She blinked her eyes open. “No, it’s not that, it’s just … I can’t believe I’m having this conversation, so calmly, like you just told me you were from Toledo and we’re comparing itineraries or something. I can’t believe we’ve only just met, and yet I’m here, and you’re …” She trailed off then, and dipped her chin, withdrawing her hand from his cheek.
He tipped her face back to his. “Abby. Look at me, please.”
She opened her eyes, and this time there was trepidation in those dove grey pools. From the woman who was facing death with such equanimity, it was lowering to think he’d done this to her.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interfered. I shouldn’t have come to you. Shouldn’t have told you. There are strict rules and I believe in their purpose. We can’t change the past, we can’t affect anything that could create a ripple forwards, we canno’—”
“You haven’t done anything, Calum, but told a dying woman who you really are. Nothing else has changed, nor will it.”
He’d just gotten done telling himself the same thing, and yet the guilt and concern lingered. “Things in our time, they’re no’ good, Abby,” he told her. “We’re … struggling. Mightily. No’ everyone believes in the application of such sciences, but there’s a great fear that if the people found out they could move through time, they’d all rush to leave their challenging lives to find a more prosperous one in the past. Which could do untold damage to history and how the world is shaped—”
“Or untold good. If they brought knowledge with them that was helpful, perhaps wrongs would be righted before they happened. And the world, during your time, wouldn’t be struggling.”
“We can’t know that, can’t risk that. And we can’t have a wholesale abandonment of where we are now, or we’ll have no hope of surviving beyond it.”
“All the more reason, maybe, to rethink those rules. If it’s going to end in chaos and destruction, or whatever it is that has levelled things so badly in your time … then what have you got to lose, really, my making use of the one potentially good tool you have at your disposal? Has anyone tried? Do you know, for certain, that catastrophic things will happen, and that the impact has to be negative?”
He shook his head. “It’s a risk deemed too high to take.”
“So … what would be the point of it then? This technology, or whatever you call it. What do you use it for if not to help yourselves in such dire times?”
“I—” He broke off then, and shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Can you move forward, bring back technology that might help sooner rather than later?”
He shook his head. “No, we’ve no’ figured that out as yet. We can only get back as far as our current time. It’s a tricky thing … And, politically, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding its use.”
She nodded, a pensive look on her face. “I feel like there are a million and one questions I should be asking you,” she said. “Like this is the chance of a lifetime to find out what happens next, well beyond anything I would ever have had the chance to know.”
“You’re quite … accepting, of all this.”
She smiled then. “You know, that’s just it. I don’t have a lot of time to ponder and worry and consider. I’m just going with what feels right and true. I can’t explain this, or you, anymore than I can explain why I’m the one who won’t get a long life. In my situation, you learn to accept quickly and move on to dealing with things.” Her smile widened. “Looks like you picked the exact right person to tell your mysterious secret to.”
“Perhaps,” he said, then his gaze drifted to her mouth, then back up to her eyes. Eyes that turned darker the longer he looked. “What if I were to tell you that I wanted to just go with what felt right and true? Right in this instant?”
“I—” She paused, cleared her throat. “I’d say I think that’s a grand idea.”
“Good,” he said, and smiled as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Six
He brushed her lips with his, seeking, not tentative, but polite, gentlemanly, giving her the opportunity to pull away. Abby’s heart was racing. If she was dreaming all of this, she congratulated herself for coming up with the best possible dream ever. She let herself feel him, taste him, and just teeter on that delicious brink of want and need, before relaxing and softening her lips under his, parting them a little … and inviting him in.
He didn’t need to be asked twice.
He tipped her h
ead back and kissed her fully, with absolute intent and not a moment’s hesitation.
It was heady and intoxicating, being the recipient of such focused attention. Abby sunk her fingers into his hair and gave herself over fully to every sensation, to him.
The kiss quickly escalated and Abby encouraged every heart-pounding increase in intensity. When Calum shifted her from his lap, back on to the bed, and followed her down, the weight of his body resting alongside hers as he continued the sweet assault on her mouth, should have made her thankful and thrilled that she was experiencing all she’d wanted, and more than she’d ever thought to. So, she was unprepared for the sharp sting of tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes.
In a stunning testament to just how in tune with her he was, he almost immediately lifted his mouth from hers, and they were both breathing heavily when he said, “Are you okay? Am I hurting you? I shouldn’t have—”
“No, no, that’s not it,” Abby said, curling her fingers into his shoulders and keeping him where he was, with the delicious weight of his body half on top of hers. “I’m not feeling any pain,” she said, realizing, to her surprise, how true the statement was. “This is the very best I’ve felt in … forever. It’s just …”
He turned her chin back to his when she would have looked away. All that concern in his beautiful blue eyes, and … all that sadness. It was more than she could bear.
“What is it?” he asked, gently stroking her face, as if she were fragile. She liked him better moments ago, when he was kissing her as if his very life depended on it.
She felt like, in that moment, hers most certainly did.
“I – this is—” She broke off, feeling foolish and silly. Which was somewhat ludicrous given that the events of the past few hours were anything but rational and smart. She took a breath, and even allowed herself the comfort of his steadily stroking, soothing fingers. Oh, to have had this all along, she thought, then immediately shut that down. She would not feel sorry for herself. That would never have gotten her here, and she was certainly not going to cave to that destructive way of thinking now.
But, when she looked at him, the definite pang in her heart told her she would fail this time in her mission to remain impervious to her limitations. “You’re … what I wanted,” she said, then watched his face.
There was no withdrawal, just that flash of instant arousal and awareness in his eyes, and the feeling of his hand, pausing, tensing, on the soft skin of her cheek.
“And now … this … it’s perfect. It’s … it could be, everything. But—”
“But we can take this, have this,” Calum said. “I know there can’t be anything beyond this. I have to travel back.”
“And I have to travel on,” she said, damning the little break in her voice. “I’ve been okay with that, at peace with it. But now …”
He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, but not before she’d witnessed the pain and sadness there.
“This is surely insanity,” she all but whispered. “It can’t matter this much. We can’t matter. Don’t be sad for me. Be happy that you gave me this. I’ll cherish it until my last breath. I don’t want to go thinking that I’ve left you upset and wishing you’d never met me.”
“Not that. Never that. But this feels like there is a greater purpose behind it. Maybe that’s just rationale or wishful thinking, but I feel like I’ve waited forever for you, Abby. When I’ve been here, come back here, it was because I needed time to think, to sort things through, to figure out what to do next, how to help, to make things better. It’s what I’m trained to do, motivated to do, focused on. My methods aren’t widely accepted, and it’s been a challenge to make any headway. But I have to, because what other choice is there?
“Only now it feels like I kept coming here because I was waiting for our paths to cross. And … and I can’t believe that’s all there is going to be to it. A brief crossing. I want more. I want to know more. For myself this time. So, you can’t … this can’t be all there is. Do you feel that?”
She nodded. “It’s why I pulled back, it’s why this hurt. I’ve been so thankful for everything I was able to do, to see, to experience. I should be thankful for this too, and I am. But … like you, I find I want more and now, for the first time since I’ve come to terms with the reality of my limited time, I’m feeling cheated. And it hurts, and … I’m scared. I don’t want to die feeling like this, feeling like I’m not at peace, that I haven’t done all I can, all I should.”
His expression was stark. “I know.” He leaned down and kissed her, deeply, with more emotion and passion than before and, terrified of feeling more, of sinking further into an abyss from which she wouldn’t be able to climb back out of, she wanted to push him away, break the kiss, end the moment, and not invite in any more torturous wants or needs.
Only … she couldn’t. Because did she want this – him – with everything that she had. So, she kissed him back, urged him to move more of his weight over her. When he hesitated, paused long enough to look into her eyes, she held his gaze squarely, evenly, and said, “Calum, if this is all we have, then … I want all there is to have. Do you understand?”
Both fierce desire and a maddening ache filled his now glittering eyes, and she feared, greatly, that he’d deny her this one request. She couldn’t blame him, she supposed, but … to be this close, and not have the rest of what he promised … Was it wrong of her to reach, for this one final thing?
“Please,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
His expression faltered and his fingers trembled against her skin. “Abby, I … I want, more than I should. I dinnae want to hurt you, you’ve been through so much—”
She cupped his cheek, and found a smile, which grew as she gave life to it. “Go gently with me, and you won’t hurt me. I’m not so fragile as that. When you touch me, when you hold me, I feel only pleasure. Only you can give that rare gift to me. Will you, Calum?”
His eyes filled, but he nodded.
“So selfish of me,” she said, but didn’t keep him from lowering his mouth back to hers. “I don’t want to hurt you, either.”
“You won’t,” he said, “you canno’. This is … as you said, a gift. I am receiving one, too.”
He kissed her softly this time, almost reverently. She wanted to sink her nails into his shoulders, and urge him to give himself over to his wants and needs, and take her as a man took a woman he fiercely desired. But she knew she didn’t have the stamina for that, even to simply accept that, and so instead she accepted, gratefully, his care and concern for her, as he began making love to her with a simple, gentle sweetness that undid the rest of her defences entirely. In the end, it was a more thorough claiming than any heated union could have ever been.
He undressed her slowly, and she arched to meet him as his mouth covered one tightly budded nipple, then the other. She cried out as he carefully unbuttoned her pants and eased them down her hips, trailing kisses along the way, until he found her, warm, wet, and waiting for his touch, his tongue. He didn’t disappoint, and Abby shoved aside any remaining shred of concern she had about what she was doing, and with whom, and simply gave herself completely over to him, and the wave upon wave of pleasure he was wringing, so perfectly, from her body. The same body that had only let her down … now felt like the perfect vessel, the one pathway she had to absolute bliss.
When he slipped out of his clothes and covered her body with his, opening herself to him was the most natural thing she’d ever done. And, instantly, the most rewarding, as he slowly, surely, and deeply filled her. She rose to meet him, but he kept her hips pinned to the bed, moving slowly inside of her, steadily, pushing her, taking her, until they both climbed towards a shattering climax. She went first, but her cries, and her hips lifting to his, pulling him in deeper, yanked him over the edge, too, in a deep, groaning release that was almost as fulfilling an experience as her own.
Afterwards, he slid his weight off of her, but rolled her to him and
kept her close. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice deeper, rougher, as he brushed her hair from her cheeks.
“I can honestly say that I’ve never, not for any moment in my life, been better.”
He smiled then, and tucked her to his side, so her cheek was once again pressed against his chest. “Good,” he said, stroking her back as their breathing steadied and his heart beat slowed beneath her cheek. “Aye, that is very, very good, indeed.”
She smiled against his chest. “Indeed.”
Seven
They must have fallen asleep, because when Calum woke, the sun had almost fully set. He acknowledged the weight of her, the warmth of her, pressed to his side, as instantly and naturally as if he always woke to find her there. His smile grew to a grin, and he wanted to pump his fist and roar to the skies, so primal did she make him feel. But that feeling was swiftly replaced by the remainder of the reality that was theirs, too.
The reality that she would be taken from him. Even if he chose to stay, he would lose her. Forever. He watched her sleep, happy to see that her face was composed and relaxed. He hoped she was sleeping soundly, free of any discomfort. He didn’t know exactly what plagued her, but there were shadows under her eyes, and a wan paleness to her skin that indicated her less than optimum health. He knew she suffered from pain, and would have done anything to take it from her.
So sweet, so gentle, but fierce in her own way. The way she’d held his gaze as he’d taken her, proudly and boldly meeting him stroke for gentle stroke. Giving herself over to the pleasure he took even greater delight in bringing her, then matching him as they both went over the edge. He liked how she’d spoken her mind to him, challenging him, even though they’d just begun to know each other.
What if, he thought, what if he used the slivers and wormholes to keep coming back to her, in a time when she was still here. Still alive. In her tower room. Would he have to reintroduce himself every time? Or could he perfect it so that it was just after they’d met, so she’d welcome him each time. And they’d share a few blissful days. Over, and over. Would she remember that they had? Would he be able to withstand the knowledge of knowing they had if she didn’t? Couldn’t? What if she didn’t accept him as she had this time, every time?
