by Vonna Harper
“Hope so.” He leaned into her, then straightened. “This isn’t working either.” Sighing, he stood. Yanking on his shirt buttons, he freed them. He started to pull his arms free of the sleeves, then stopped. “Arm stiffened up on me.”
Why he wanted out of his shirt didn’t matter. She’d help him. Full strength hadn’t returned to her legs, but at least they’d support her weight. They tackled the shirt one sleeve at a time, leaving his injured arm until last. He rewarded her by wrapping his good arm around her and pulling her against his naked chest.
He was such a good man.
The sexiest she’d ever known.
And she wasn’t worthy of him.
“We’re going to have sex,” he said. “It’ll take some creativity, but we’ll get this done.”
That was both the wrong and right thing to say. If only she could get a handle on her emotions.
“What are you thinking?” he asked. “You just went stiff on me. Don’t you like my suggestion?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Then what?”
Stepping back and pulling her top over her head gave her something to do. Taking off her shoes helped put a few of the pieces together.
“I can’t stop thinking about Buzz.” That was only part of it. “Carrying a grudge all these years. Hating me enough to want me dead.”
“Look at me.”
It took a moment, but finally she’d gathered enough courage to comply. He didn’t have to be here. He could have gone home or back to the dam site and she’d have understood he didn’t want anything to do with a woman who hadn’t told him her real name. Who’d hidden from it all these years.
“I don’t want to put pressure on you,” he began. “You’ve been through a lot today.”
“So have you.”
“Yeah.” He touched his bandage. Then he took her hand and placed her palm against the part of his belly his jeans and holster didn’t cover. Maybe if they were naked, he’d stop wanting to talk.
To simply fuck.
“Your mind’s messed up,” he said. “I get that. Hell, mine’s not in the best shape. You believed your father’s murderer was going to spend the rest of his life in prison and you could live your life without having to think about him.”
“I was wrong. Had my head in the sand.”
“Living in the present, don’t forget that.”
Suddenly, somehow, she was on her toes with her arms around his neck and her lips against his. She kissed him hard, her mouth closed, something like anger fueling her.
Shocked, she backed away.
“What was that about?”
He had an erection. Her panties were damp. Damn their damnable clothes!
She gently touched her bruised mouth. “I’m sorry.”
Instead of asking why, he shook his head. He continued shaking it as he one-handedly unbuckled his holster. That done, he unfastened and unzipped his jeans. It occurred to her that he might need her help with his boots. “Life comes with risks,” he said. “I tried to protect my ex; I shouldn’t have. Damn it, I’m not going to stand here listening to you apologize for what happened today.”
She avoided his gaze by crouching and grasping a boot. She held on to it and then the other while he pulled his feet free.
“I’m not just talking about today,” she said. Her chore had given her time to work on her emotions. She’d been willing to kill Buzz if she’d had no choice. Maco deserved everything she had to give.
“My mother changed our names because she was terrified the gang would hunt us down. I went along with her because—”
“Because you were a child.”
“Yes.” His jeans sagged over his hips as if begging her to get rid of them, which she did. Slow and easy with her fingers brushing his skin. “But I’ve been hiding behind the name she chose, living in the present while pretending the past hadn’t happened.”
While she stood looking up at him, he hooked a forefinger through her bra between her breasts and pulled her off balance toward him. “You think you aren’t worthy of me because you neglected to explain that Heather was your birth name? Damn it, there’s been a hell of a lot going on.”
The way he put it coupled with her breasts kissing his chest made her chuckle. The sound—to say nothing of his proximity—was putting her back together. Even before the sheriff had shown up, Buzz had told her he’d been watching her for more than a month, getting to know her schedule, seeing how much she loved Ona, how many nights she spent alone. In response to her question about how he’d initially tracked her down, he’d explained that her aunt’s and uncle’s names had appeared in the news articles following his arrest.
While in prison, he’d tried to hunt for her during the few times he’d had access to the Internet. His searches hadn’t turned up anything, but then he’d been paroled. Aunt Robynn and Uncle Dan’s address was in the phone book. He’d started watching their house. A few days later, she’d shown up for a barbecue.
Although he hadn’t been sure if the woman he’d seen that first time was the damn bitch of a child who’d sent him to prison, he’d followed her to Working Dogs. He’d watched her via binoculars, his certainty growing with every glimpse. One thing people always said about him, he had a good memory.
He didn’t forget.
Or forgive.
Warm, strong hands touched the sides of her neck. “Where’d you go?” Maco asked in a whisper. “Having a flashback?”
“Kind of.” Concerned he was asking too much of his injured arm, she gently pulled it off her neck and trailed his fingers over the top of her bra. “You did that earlier,” she told him. “Drove me crazy.”
“So.” He drew out the word. “Does this mean you’re ready to stop the psychoanalyzing? No more kicking yourself because you didn’t check to make sure Buzz was still behind bars? No more thinking I’m going to be upset about the name thing?”
She’d all but raised herself. Started a business that was paying the bills and brought her deep satisfaction. Although she wasn’t perfect, neither was she fatally flawed.
“Psychoanalysis is overrated. Gives people headaches.”
“That’s not where I’m aching.”
Ona had been banned to the living room couch, and the look she’d given Shari had said she knew what was up. Of course, the fact that neither she nor Maco wore a stitch probably had a lot to do with it.
Maco sat on the bed with his back supported by the headboard and his bandaged arm on the pillows she’d placed there despite his protests that he wouldn’t break.
“Shut up and enjoy,” she warned him. “I’m running the show tonight.”
At the moment, the show played itself out with her on her side and positioned so she could lean over his legs and tongue his cock whenever the notion occurred to her, which was often. She might have apologized for teasing him so long if not for the look of impatient patience on Maco’s features. How expressive he was.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he said when she came up for air. “Hell of a way to go.”
“You? Is that all you think about?”
He nodded at his erection. “Hard not to.”
“Complain, complain.”
“I’m not complaining. I’m just wondering when we’re going to get to the main act.”
“I’m trying to decide. Hard to get everything lined up just right.”
She furrowed her brows, but although she’d love to tease and torture him until her tongue wore out, her day was catching up to her. On the other hand, she’d come to the conclusion that fucking was the absolutely best remedy for what ailed her.
Not that, thanks to him, anything did at the moment.
“I know.” She sat up, which made her breasts jiggle. Knowing he was watching, she leaned forward and rocked from side to side.
He snagged a nipple, stopping movement. “What the hell is it you know? And will you please demonstrate without any more talking?”
“Single
-minded,” she grumbled as she made a show of trying to break free. “Sex, sex, sex. Is that all you think of?”
“Might as well think ’cause I’m not getting any.”
This was good. Lighthearted. Fun. Two people determined not to bring any baggage on to the bed. Staying in the moment, she straddled him. Night was almost here, darkness taking control of the room.
Eyes closed so she’d stay within herself, she straightened, reached down, and guided him into her. Felt him. Absorbed him. She took him slow, one blessed inch at a time, her tissues wet and welcoming. This was more than sex or fucking. It had become that thing called lovemaking.
Kissing him endlessly. Taking him deep. Deeper still.
Things changed, positions shifted. Now they sat facing each other with her legs over his and his cock once more anchoring them together, holding on to him, his good arm gripping her as well, rocking in time, kissing still. Sweating and laughing, she asked herself how their lovemaking had taken this turn and if the position was going to work.
Another shift. This one was better, all except for the not-being-able-to-kiss part. Somehow she was on her back with her legs over the side as they’d done before. He stood with his cock buried in her and her wanting nothing more. He plowed into her, hard and fast, while she let loose with non-words. Turned stupid.
Everything boiled inside her, pressure building upon pressure. Good multiplying and shooting off in all directions. Her mouth wouldn’t close. She couldn’t stop howling.
There it was, the reward, the reason for it all. Within her grasp.
Release hit him first and sent his cum into her. Still howling, she fed off his body. Latched on to her own climax and rode it into the vortex, garbling nonsense.
Knew they’d just begun.
Turn the page for a sizzling preview of
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DREAM BOUND
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1
If she’d had her human body—the one she loved, with the violet eyes and long dark hair—Zianne would have wept. This one could only feel sorrow—not physically express it. She’d left Mac only moments ago—a few minutes for her, and almost twenty years for him. It had been such a simple thing to make her nightly slip through time, passing from twentieth-century Earth and returning to the Gar’s craft in its stationary orbit behind the twenty-first-century moon.
How had they discovered her absence?
She’d been so careful. Her fellow Nyrians had covered for her, yet somehow the Gar—their captors—knew. The Nyrian elders had warned her as soon as she materialized within the ship. They’d explained that her soulstone was locked away; that the Gar waited, ready to entrap her, should she come to claim it.
Once they knew which one of their captives had been stealing away and visiting Earth, they intended to make an example of her. She would die a very public and painful death, her energy slowly, painfully leached away until nothing was left.
Until even her soulstone crumbled into dust.
It was too soon. She and Mac were close, but she hadn’t had time to teach him enough. The technology he was beginning to develop in Earth’s year nineteen hundred and ninety-two was much too primitive. He’d had twenty years, but still, he couldn’t possibly have learned enough to create the sophisticated equipment with the kind of power they needed to free Zianne and the few survivors of her race.
But she had no choice. She’d been away from her soulstone for twelve full hours. If she returned to the past, she’d use up what energy she had left. Her only hope—her people’s only hope—was that somehow, some way, MacArthur Dugan had pushed Earth’s technology far enough, fast enough, to have everything ready by now—now being twenty years later for Mac.
Had he loved her enough? Had he believed in her enough to embrace her goal as if it were his own? Did he still love her? It had been mere minutes for Zianne since Mac last held her in his arms, since he’d made love to her, but it had been twenty long years for her beloved Mac. Would he even remember her?
And if he remembered, would he forgive her for abandoning him without warning? At least she had hinted to him this might happen, that her absence might be discovered before their work was done. She’d worried that the truth might turn him away, but instead it had pulled him closer. He hadn’t shied from the truth at all—instead, he’d embraced her.
Embraced her cause.
He’d already guessed she wasn’t human, that she was an alien being, so it wasn’t a terrible leap to explain the rest, that she was one of the last few members of a dying race, a creature of pure energy given form through the power of his mind.
Most precisely, his amazing sexual fantasies, images so strong and true that they had given her a glorious body and so many wonderful human abilities.
Even tears.
He’d loved her then. She had to believe he still loved her. She had entrusted the entire future of her people to one brilliant man. A man she had fallen in love with despite the differences between them.
She would not give up hope. Her people could not abandon hope. With that prayer in mind, Zianne slipped into the engine room where her fellow captives surged and glowed, powering the Gar’s vast starship with their sentient energy. Pausing near the heart of the ship, she sent her thoughts out to the ones who labored for their unrelenting masters.
I am returning to Earth. Mac may not have had enough time or enough knowledge to build the antennae and receivers for us. If he can’t help us within the next couple of days, my energy will cease and I will die, but before I’m gone, I’ll do my best to convince him to keep trying. I am certain he will do everything he can to save all of you. He’s a good man. A loving man, but he’s only human. He can only do so much.
She heard Nattoch’s measured tones, the Nyrian elder who had trusted her to find a way to free them from bondage.
Dear Goddess ... she hoped she had not failed.
Go with Nyria’s blessings, child, and go with what soul energy we can share. You have done all you can and yet you continue to forge ahead. If you fail, your soul will return to our goddess. If you succeed, you will have saved these poor remnants of a once proud civilization. Our love goes with you. Our hopes and our dreams and what little strength you can carry. Now quickly, before you are discovered. Find your human, and bring us to our new home. Our refuge on Earth.
She might not be able to weep in this form, but her sorrow was every bit as real, her fear as profound. She felt it then, a powerful burst of energy as her fellow Nyrians fed her with what they could from their own souls. Shivering with the sensual wave of power flowing across her body, she took them into her, took their love and their generosity, and along with that, their hopes and dreams.
With a final glance at the few remaining members of her kind, Zianne slipped through the molecular structure of the ship into the endless darkness of space.
She searched for the one mind strong enough to call her.
Searched for him now, in the present.
It took longer than she’d expected. He was changed. Older now. Weary. So weary and alone, and yet he thought of her. Still loved her, longed for her, and dreamed of her.
With hope driving her onward, Zianne linked her energy to his, and followed the patterns that would take her back to Earth. Back to an Earth twenty years older than the one she’d left this morning.
Back to MacArthur Dugan. An older, more jaded, more cynical Mac Dugan, who, with Nyria’s blessing, might hold the power and the knowledge to give her people their last shot at a future.
Rodie Bishop paused in the open doorway to the large conference room, hesitating as she might not have done just a few months ago. She forced her active mind to still, to expand and experience. The room was big and sterile and almost empty—a typical corporate meeting room designed to hold hundreds, not a mere handful. She’d been here for five prior meetings over the past two
months. Those other times the room had overflowed with people, had been filled with a different energy.
This time, the occupants were changed, the mood altered, and so she used this new sense she had that occasionally allowed her to check things out on a different level. A more intimate level. Casting her thoughts forward, she studied the room and the few souls in it as she worked up the courage to go inside.
Stupid, really, the way she’d become such a damned coward almost overnight, but a violent assault on her way home from work had really done a number on her—that along with the world’s worst breakup. Of course, that had been so bad it was almost funny.
Maybe someday she’d actually be able to laugh, though she couldn’t see it all as bad. Not when the combination of crap had somehow kick-started this weird thing in her head. A new ability that allowed her to sense danger, to pick up on the various kinds of energy swirling about.
She’d always been a perceptive sort, but now? Now she took perception to an entirely new level that was beyond exciting. She just wished there were someone she could tell about it, but who the hell would believe her? Most of her acquaintances already thought she was nuts.
Casting her thoughts wide, she felt nothing that raised any concerns. She took a deep breath, focused on one of the empty seats, and stepped into the room.
So weird that there were only three others here, especially since the room was big enough to seat so many more. Though the gatherings had grown smaller each time, she’d still expected it to be more crowded. It was, after all, the final meeting. Tonight they’d find out who had been selected.
There was a young man in the third row, but he looked half asleep, slouched down low in the uncomfortable-looking chair with his long legs stretched out in front. His shaggy dark hair had fallen over his forehead, so she couldn’t really tell what he looked like, but the way his worn, paint-stained Levis molded his long legs and well-defined package caught her interest.
At least she was thankful the bastard who roughed her up only wanted her backpack and laptop. She wasn’t sure how she’d feel if the attack had screwed up her appreciation for sex.
