by Jayne Castle
"No, of course not," she said primly. "Instruction in the use of mag-rez weapons is not included in the curriculum of the department of archaeology at the university. Probably because it's illegal to carry one underground."
He gritted his teeth and pointed at the weapon. "This is the safety. Disengage it before you use it. When you want to fire, just point it in the general direction of that doorway and squeeze the trigger. Don't worry about aiming. This thing will stun a man regardless of where you hit him."
She looked dubious. "Do you really think I'll need it?"
"I can't think clearly at all right now," he said flatly. "So just take it and promise me you'll use it if necessary."
"Okay." Gingerly she took it from his hand.
He looked around for a place to lie down. But he was still humming with afterburn sizzle and the sexual energy continued to wash through him. It would be a few more minutes before he could take refuge in sleep. He closed his eyes, fighting back raw need. When he raised his lashes, he saw that Virginia was watching him with intense concern.
"Sam?"
"I want you."
She blinked but she did not draw back.
"Sorry," he muttered. He wiped his damp forehead with the back of his sleeve. "Can't help it."
"I know." There was no fear in her eyes, but there was something else; something that could have been sad resignation. "It's all right. I understand about the effects of the afterburn."
"The hell with the afterburn." Unable to keep his hands off her any longer, he gripped her shoulders. "I've wanted you since the day you walked through my front door."
She stared at him with what could only have been amazement. "You have?"
He groaned, pulled her hard against his chest, and tilted her chin. "More than I've ever wanted anything or anyone else in my life."
He kissed her before she could respond. He had to kiss her. Just one kiss, he promised himself. Drain off a little of the sexual charge. By the time it was over, surely the crash would have overtaken him. It had to hit soon. Any second now. Then he would escape into the merciful oblivion of sleep before he did anything else real stupid.
As a plan, it seemed simple and straightforward. Then again, he might have been hallucinating by now, he thought.
But however brilliant the scheme seemed, he knew as soon as he took her mouth that something was going horribly, wonderfully, terrifyingly wrong. Virginia put her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
"Oh, Sam."
"Oh, shit."
Her response was the last straw. He cradled her face in his hands and drank hungrily from her lips as if he could consume the essence of her vibrant spirit. She moaned softly and tightened her grip on his neck. He could feel the swell of her breasts beneath the sturdy twill of her shirt. The inside of her mouth was warm and welcoming, just as he had imagined.
For the first time he feared that the crash would overcome him before he could finish what he had started. A whole new sense of urgency slammed through him.
Not daring to raise his mouth from hers for fear that he might somehow lose her, he started to undress her. It was not an easy task. His hands were shaking so badly that he could barely manage the buttons.
He felt her fingers slide beneath the waistband of his trousers, gliding up beneath the hem of his shirt. Her palms flattened against his chest, and he thought he would go through the roof. He realized that she was shivering now, too.
"Sam, are you sure you're not ill?"
"I'm okay." He struggled with her shirt.
"I was so afraid that you—"
"Nothing to be afraid of." He managed to wrench his mouth from hers long enough to kiss her throat. "I swear it. You don't have to be afraid of me. I won't hurt you. I could never hurt you."
"I know. That wasn't what I meant."
He finished fumbling with the last of the buttons that closed her shirt. He peeled the garment off her shoulders and hurled it aside. Then he heard himself utter a thick, husky groan. He could feel her firm little nipples pressing against the sleek fabric of her bra.
She was working on his belt now. The sweet torture was almost beyond endurance. Every time her fingers brushed against his skin he thought he would explode.
He dragged the straps of her bra down her arms, freeing her breasts. He leaned his hot forehead against her cool brow and looked at the taut, peaked curves.
"You are so beautiful," he muttered, awed.
She gave him a smile laced with infinite mystery. "No, but you're making me feel beautiful."
He lacked the patience to argue. She was beautiful; the most beautiful, most desirable woman he had ever seen in his life. He knew that, even if she did not.
He scooped her up in his arms, intending to lower her to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a wide chest carved of quartz. It would not be any softer than the floor, but at least it looked vaguely like a bed.
He carried Virginia to the hard couch and put her down on it. She lay back on the emerald stone, her hair spilling around her head, her eyes glowing with desire, and watched him with great expectation as he unbuckled his belt.
Her expression nearly finished him.
He yanked impatiently at his clothing. The cocktail in his bloodstream made him clumsy and awkward. But when he finally lowered himself onto the chest and pulled Virginia into his arms, he had never felt better in his life.
Nothing had ever been this good.
He slid one leg between hers and dampened his fingers in her liquid heat.
She gasped, trembled, and closed her eyes. She slid her palm down his chest, across his belly, and lower. He felt her fingers close around him and thought his heart might stop.
"Sam.''
Another wave of need thundered through him. "No, don't touch me like that. I won't be able—"
"It's all right."
"Stop saying that." He came down on top of her. Her green-gold eyes were luminous with desire. "Virginia, this isn't the way I wanted to do this, but I can't wait. Not this time."
"It's all right," she said. She opened her legs for him, drew up her knees, and wrapped her arms around him. "Really."
"Hold me." It was half plea, half demand. "Promise me you won't let go."
"Never."
He squeezed his eyes shut against the riptide of need that was threatening to sweep him out into a dark sea. She shifted a little beneath him, and the glide of her silken skin against him nearly ended the matter right then and there.
He plunged deep; sinking recklessly, exultantly into the snug, tight channel of her body. He felt the initial resistance and then she closed around him. She cried out and clung to him, fighting him for the embrace.
He rocked violently against her, driving himself to the hilt with every thrust, needing to forge a bond that would hold long after this encounter.
The climax hit him. Simultaneously he thought he felt Virginia convulse beneath him, but he could not be certain. He barely had time to register a sensation so intense that it could not truly be described as pleasure. But it was not pain, either. Something else, he thought vaguely, something infinitely more important.
There was no time to analyze the incredible feeling. Hard on its heels came the crash. He could only marvel that it had not struck sooner.
He collapsed on top of her, aware that he was trapping her against the quartz chest with his weight. But there was nothing he could do about it. The deep, dreamless sleep took him.
Chapter 4
It felt as if one of the ancient stone corridors had caved in on top of her. Sam was no lightweight to begin with and, as she quickly discovered, he seemed to be built mostly of muscle and bone. There was no softness in him and there was none beneath her.
Talk about being between a rock and a hard place, Virginia thought.
She took a deep breath, braced her hands on Sam’s chest, and heaved upward with all of her strength. She managed to gain some wiggle room and, with another strong shove, she was finally abl
e to slide out from underneath his inert body.
She sat up and got cautiously to her feet. There was something wrong with her knees. They were not quite steady. A tremor went through her. For the record, Adeline, everything you’ve ever heard about sex with a ghost-hunter in the midst of an afterburn is true.
Or maybe this was just the result of sex with Sam, she thought cheerfully. She didn’t have an extensive amount of experience to call upon when it came to this kind of thing, but it didn’t take a lot of experimentation to know what she’d just shared with Sam had been very special. At least she no longer entertained any doubts as to whether or not there were fires of passion burning somewhere inside Sam.
They were there, all right. Enough to set a whole forest ablaze.
Of course, his response to her could have been ignited simply by the legendary ghost-hunter buzz, she reminded herself. Her euphoric spirits sank as suddenly as they had risen. Anything in skirts might have had the same impact on him at that particular moment.
Reality returned with a jarring thud. With a sigh, she steadied herself and glanced around the gloom-filled room. The carved stone chest on which Sam slept was one of several in the chamber. There were also a variety of vases and urns set in softly glowing alcoves. The drenching shadows created a solemn but surprisingly tranquil effect. Perhaps this had once been a meditation room in a Harmonic home. Assuming the Harmonics had meditated.
Questions, questions.
She dressed quickly and picked up the little mag-rez gun. She checked the safety as Sam had demonstrated and then shoved it into her belt.
She glanced uncertainly at Sam. He certainly looked magnificent stretched out stark naked on the stone chest, and she knew he was not cold because the temperature in the catacombs was always the same, comfortable and dry, day and night, year in, year out. But the sight of him was more than a little distracting. The muscled, well-defined contours of his chest and shoulders sent a pleasant little shiver through her.
Their lovemaking had been fast and furious. There had been no time for her to indulge herself in an exploration of his body. She had been intensely aware of the thick, heavy size and weight of his erection, but she had not really seen him. Now, she could not stop gazing at him. He fascinated her, she thought. She had wanted to stroke him and touch him for weeks, but this was the first opportunity she'd had to satisfy her longing.
She examined the fierce planes of his face, relishing the determined angle of his jaw and the pleasing, masculine shape of his ears. His dark hair was seductively ruffled where she had run her fingers through it earlier. With his eyes closed he was all hard edges and tough, sleek male. But when his eyes were open you saw the intelligence and the self-control that defined his nature.
When Sam loved, she thought, his emotions would be as steady and as enduring as the glow of Harmonic quartz.
Unable to resist the temptation, she reached out very carefully and slowly closed her hand around the top of his muscled thigh. He was hard and warm beneath her fingers. She drew her palm slowly down to his knee, savoring the feel of him.
Sam shuddered and mumbled something in his sleep. Startled, she snatched her hand away and stepped back. But when he did not awaken, she reached out once more.
This time she traced a path upward toward his chest, curling her fingers in the crisp hair there. He shifted slightly, but she knew from the steadiness of his breathing that he was still sound asleep. A part of him was stirring, she noticed. She stared at his penis, fascinated to see that it appeared to be swelling in length and width once more. Apparently, the deep sleep of afterburn did not shut down all systems.
There was probably a law against looking at him like this, she thought. If there wasn't, there should have been. It was entirely too much fun.
On the other hand, she was going to marry him soon. Surely that gave her some rights.
"Enough with the voyeuristic fun and games," she muttered. "You're supposed to be standing guard."
She picked up Sam's discarded clothing and covered his torso with his shirt. Then she folded his trousers and placed them neatly beneath his head to serve as a pillow. She was already starting to feel quite wifely, she thought, amused.
With a last glance at him, she turned and walked out into the fountain room. The green energy continued to flow and splash in the small pool. It had no doubt been doing so for several thousand years.
She braced one hand on the thick edge of the doorway and looked around with professional interest. This room had the same somber, curiously reflective feel as the smaller antechamber in which Sam slept. She could not explain, even to herself, why these spaces felt safe while the countless little cubicles outside did not.
She took her hand off the wall and made her way across the fountain room to the outer door. She gazed into the narrow aisle that separated this block of cells from the one across the way and listened intently with both her physical and para senses.
Nothing. No indication that the unusual trap that guarded the main entrance to this weird complex had been breached. No voices or footsteps echoed on the paths that intersected the ranks of cubicle-laced buildings. She detected nothing that indicated that anyone who might be looking for them had discovered the zoo chamber.
She waited quietly in the fountain room for a while longer, uncomfortably aware of the weight of the mag-rez gun on her hip. Gradually, boredom set in. Professional curiosity followed closely on its heels. Whatever this place was, it constituted a spectacular new find. She had a degree in para-archaeology, and she was diligent about keeping up with the research on the subject. She was quite certain that nothing remotely resembling this nest of tiny, illusion-trapped cubicles had ever been written up in the academic literature.
She stepped cautiously out into the shadowy lane, visions of an article in the Journal of Para-Archaeology with her name on it as author dancing in her head. That kind of publicity would do wonders for the reputation of the new firm of Gage & Burch.
She walked slowly along the gloom-filled path and paused in front of the first of the small cells that lined the little alley. She examined the dense shadow that glinted just at the edge of her vision. The human eye could detect the stuff that the Harmonics had used to weave their dangerous snares, but it could not focus directly on the nearly invisible psi energy.
She crouched down, concentrating with her para senses, and probed the pattern. As she had concluded earlier, there was nothing particularly complex about the design. She could undo it easily enough. But the sense of wrongness was deeply disturbing. Everything within her resisted the notion of untangling the trap.
With a shock, it occurred to her that perhaps it was not the trap itself that was dangerous. Maybe the true threat existed— or had once existed—inside the little room. Perhaps the trap was just a warning.
Maybe this place had once been a Harmonic hotel and all of these little traps were nothing more than ordinary Do Not Disturb signs hung on doorknobs to keep the maid from entering unexpectedly.
She contemplated that possibility for a moment and then returned to her zoo theory. She liked it much better. The traps might have functioned as fences to keep dangerous creatures locked inside or to keep curious visitors from getting too close to the beasts inside the cages.
She straightened and walked a few more feet to examine some of the other illusion-darkened entrances. Every single one of them gave off the same clear psychic warnings.
After a while, she returned to the fountain room. A quick check on Sam showed that he was still totally out of it.
She sat down on a glowing quartz bench facing the untrapped doorway and took the mag-rez gun out of her belt.
She wondered how long Sam would sleep.
Sam came awake with a sense of urgency, as if someone had just yelled fire. He sat up quickly, memory returning in a heated rush. But there was nothing to indicate that the situation had changed while he had slept off the worst effects of the afterburn. If any of Leon Drummond's pals had burst th
rough the doorway, he would have awakened with his hands and feet bound in duct tape, if he had awakened at all.
Relief swept through him. Something soft slid off his chest and fell to the floor. He looked down and saw his shirt. Virginia must have covered him with it after he had nodded off, which had been right after he had taken her with all the finesse of a specter-cat in full rut.
Virginia. He briefly closed his eyes as the images cascaded through him, burning more intensely than ghost fire. For a few seconds he savored them. Then reality closed in. He knew that his recollection of her passionate response might be nothing more than an illusion concocted by his singed senses; some sort of weird para-psych rationalization for what he had done to her.
Yet he could still feel the softness of the skin on the insides of her thighs and the damp, clinging clasp of her body. Just remembering made his insides tighten all over again.
He had wanted her more than he had ever thought it possible to want any woman. But no more so because of the buzz from the afterburn. The truth was, he had been wanting her just as badly for weeks. The only difference was that two hours ago he had lost control.
The flash of relief he had experienced after waking evaporated. In its place was a bottomless pool of dread. He had to face the grim truth: After weeks of being so cautious, so careful, there was a damn good chance that he had destroyed the glowing future he had worked so hard to build.
He had no one to blame but himself.
Virginia had had a bad case of bridal jitters before they embarked on this venture. After what he had done to her here in this room, she no doubt despised him. It would be a miracle if he hadn't scared the living daylights out of her. She was probably making plans this very minute not only to call off their marriage but their business partnership as well.
He picked up his shirt and got to his feet. Anger washed through him. He was furious with himself. The loss of control had been inexcusable. He could only pray that he had not hurt her.
