by Sahara Kelly
Would the world of a hundred years from now even contain birds? Gaia had accepted that some people called her radical in her passion for the earth. But how could someone like Ned, a solid scientist with all the facts at his fingertips, ignore the threats looming larger each and every day?
How could he sell out to a misplaced notion of the bottom line and jeopardize the precarious balance of the natural world in an attempt to pay some bills? Hadn’t there been another way? Had he even looked for it?
She finished her shower with a sense of gloom replacing the glow from their loving. This wasn’t a relationship destined for any kind of success at all.
They were just too far apart, too polarized in their views of what mattered most.
And she refused to believe that the moisture in her eyes was anything other than steam from the shower.
*~~*~~*
Ned’s temper was percolating as efficiently as the coffee and becoming equally as strong.
How dare she? How dare she accuse him of selling out? That was disrespectful and downright wrong.
Wasn’t it?
Angry at both Gaia and himself, Ned pulled on his jeans, zipping them with a harsh jerk and nearly slicing his cock off in the process. She’d managed, with unerring accuracy, to find the one area of this whole trip to DC that had bothered him. She’d taken it out like an insect from under a rock and turned it into the messy slug it was.
He’d needed money. He’d done what he felt was right for himself and for the company which employed him. Everybody there would go to work on Monday and get paid at the end of the month, thanks to this contract.
And he had not presented any information that was false. He’d done a thorough job, researched every damn twig and tree trunk in a pretty big section of the Northwest and he’d stand by his report to the death, if necessary.
Of course, Gaia—with her emotionally colored view of the environment—wouldn’t understand that. All she could see, from her narrow-minded perspective, was that Greenwood Resources were species-killers.
And she’d accused him, Ned Harper, of passing them a fully loaded M16 rifle to assist them in their task.
After they’d slept together.
Ned poured himself a cup of coffee and winced at the harsh burn in the back of his throat as he took a sip. Hotel coffee sucked the world over.
Staring from the window as the sound of Gaia taking a shower filled the suite, Ned asked himself some difficult questions.
Would he have had sex with her if not for their dreams? Would he even have asked her to dinner if not for this strangely freaky undercurrent that had yanked at both of them and twisted their lusts into a Gordian knot?
The answer was…maybe…maybe not.
Ned was seriously attracted to Gaia and probably would have been even if she hadn’t been the heron woman featuring in a series of erotic dreams. But he might not have pursued the interest if he hadn’t had a head filled with images of some weird place where they were both hot, sweaty and naked. He certainly wouldn’t have rushed into bed with her on the first date.
After all, he was a solid, practical scientist. Gaia was an emotional, colorful protagonist for the environment. A warrior for the world who probably didn’t use hairspray and despised those who did.
Ned couldn’t see that, couldn’t see the use of screaming one’s beliefs loudly at people in an attempt to get them to understand and change course. Life didn’t work that way. He was grounded in the science, knowing that, eventually, the science would prove far more effective in convincing the world it needed to rethink its attitude about the environment.
No, he and Gaia were definitely on opposite sides of the fence when it came to approach, attitude and—well, probably not passion.
The sex had been—Ned couldn’t find the words. He felt his cock stir at the vivid memories of their night together. A time that had surpassed any sexual experience he’d ever had.
It was the dreams. It had to be the dreams. Gaia was a woman, he was a man. Tab A fit Slot B very nicely, thank you. Sex was sex, in Ned’s opinion. There were things that would enhance the whole business and having a bunch of erotic dreams nesting in one’s brain worked damn well.
But, when it all came down to the fundamentals, it was just sex. Asking whether there was, or could be, anything else between them, Ned found himself on shaky ground. There was a void there, a chasm separating their beliefs.
He didn’t know if it could be bridged.
She came out of the bathroom as he reached that conclusion, a sad look on her face. “I’ll pass on the coffee. Thanks, anyway.”
Ned watched as she gathered her belongings. She was going to leave.
“Look, Gaia…”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “I understand. I’m sorry if I offended you, I really didn’t mean to. I’m too honest for my own good sometimes.”
“Honesty isn’t a failing.”
She turned, something dulling the glow of her brown eyes, pain perhaps—Ned wasn’t sure. “Between us, it might be. We do well together in bed, Ned. No question. This night with you has been—well, I don’t know how to describe it.”
Ned found himself nodding. That was something he could agree with, wholeheartedly.
“But…” she paused and lifted her purse onto her shoulder. “We both know there’s more to being with someone than sex. You and me view life differently. I can’t change who I am, how I feel, or the beliefs that make me Gaia Jackson, any more than you can change who you are. Neither of us should have to change, or even be thinking about it.”
She walked to the door and put her hand on the knob. “The dreams brought us together, Ned. I don’t understand why or how, but we’ve fulfilled them. You made my dream a reality and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope I managed to fulfill a couple of yours along the way. We probably won’t have ‘em anymore now that we’ve done…this…”
She waved a hand at the bedroom and sighed. “But our dreams were all about the sex, weren’t they? They didn’t take into account the rest of life, the reality of it all.”
“Look, I’m sorry…” Ned found his voice. “I hate to see you leave like this…”
“Don’t be sorry.” She opened the door. “You gave me a night I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Thank you for that. And take care of yourself.” Gaia paused. “I’ll never forget you, Nohnohsot, although I doubt I’ll see you in my dreams again.”
Ned’s heart thudded as she stepped into the hallway and he spoke the only two words his brain could produce.
“Goodbye, Gandewitha.”
Chapter Eight
Gaia tried very hard to banish all thoughts of Ned Harper from her mind as she returned to pick up the threads of her previously semi-organized existence. It had been a wonderful, magical interlude of sexual pleasure—and that was all.
Now she had to go on to new adventures, new challenges and new male love interests.
Although not, she allowed herself, right at this moment.
Not while the taste of Ned, the scent of Ned, the feel of Ned’s hands lingered someplace deep inside her. Not until she could fully banish these memories and bury them where they belonged—in her mental basement, filed under “good times past”.
For the first couple of days, she was relatively successful too. Work was busy, tiring her out very quickly, and then there was all of Maxie’s adventures to hear about, along with the potential for a budding romance with Charlie.
Skillfully, Gaia managed to gloss over her time with Ned, fending off Maxie’s questions with a skill that would have made an indicted politician weep with envy. She’d almost convinced herself by Wednesday that her weekend was completely over and done with. She knew Ned had flown back to Boston, not that she was thinking about it, of course.
Then the dreams began once more.
This time, they were shockingly intense, made even more so by the knowledge that Gaia’s mind could now bring to her sleeping visions.
&nb
sp; The feel of the grass beneath her knees as she wantonly thrust her ass up into the air in front of her warrior, the warmth of his body as he pressed himself against her, all these things were magnified now, mixed in with the warmth and the scent of Ned.
The two were apparently indistinguishable to her subconscious mind.
And the blend of lovers resulted in dreams of unimaginable ecstasy. The first one caught her completely by surprise.
“Gandewitha…”
He called to her, a quiet voice that she heard nevertheless. Not even the wind soughing through the rain-soaked trees could have prevented her from hearing him. As if the storm prodded her spine with sharp spears, Gandewitha rushed on, desperate to reach him on this night, more desperate than she could remember.
There was more behind her rapid steps than a desire to lay with him. There was fear, a simmering chunk of cold aching within her that only Nohnohsot could melt.
And there he was, waiting for her, naked and aroused. The sight of him brought tears of joy to Gandewitha’s eyes and she ran into him, colliding hard against his flesh, reaching out to hold him tightly. “Nohnohsot…”
She squeezed, hard, relishing the heat of his skin, the contours of his body as she flexed her fingers over his back, gasping for breath at their impact even as she tried to get even closer.
“I’m here. I need you. Now.”
“Yes, oh yes…” She didn’t want to step away, although he was fumbling with her clothes, trying to free her, to get her naked and where she needed to be.
There was something she had to tell him and the words burst free. “I’m to be wed. The clan mother has chosen my mate. Hadentheni, a warrior from the Wolf clan. Nohnohsot. I cannot bear it…” She sobbed out the cry of agony. “I cannot be parted from you.”
He stilled then, face hard and set in lines of anger. “How dare she? Did you tell her…?”
“How could I? We are both Heron, Nohnohsot. We know this is not permitted. We must wed outside our clans. We have always known this.” She shivered in his embrace as he pushed away the last of her clothing. “If we are going to escape and be together, we must do it now.”
“Ah, Gandewitha—” He held her, an embrace both fierce and tender, crushing her breasts as he pulled her body snugly into his.
All thoughts fled her mind at the feel of him. “Love me. Love me now. Take me, please, Nohnohsot. Know that I shall never belong to anyone but you…”
They tumbled together, limbs tangling, ending on the grass beneath them, a heated muddle of arms and legs and lips, touching, kissing, grasping at each other like starving eagles on prey.
Nohnohsot’s mouth found her breasts even as Gandewitha’s hands reached for his cock, two lovers caught up in a maelstrom of need, twin desires unleashed that could only be sated by the most passionate of caresses.
His fingers sought and found her sex, stroking, delving past the wet and swollen lips to the moist passage within.
It was not enough.
Gandewitha moaned her pleasure, still shivering with a craving she could not name, a need she could not even begin to express. Her hands replaced his lips as Nohnohsot slithered down her body to lick and suckle. She grasped her breasts, pinching her nipples roughly, letting the delicious pain augment the movements of his tongue against that tiny seat of ecstasy he found so easily.
His fingers wandered, squeezing and kneading her buttocks, then lingering between them in a place where the sensation turned her body white-hot and trembling. “Oh yes, my love. Yes. Tonight. Make me yours, every inch of me.”
Eager and shaking with desire, Gandewitha scrambled to her hands and knees. “I want your cock, every part of you, inside me. Great Gods, how I need to feel you…” Her voice was hoarse, a gasp of lust and desire and passion that rolled around them on the wind.
“I need you too. More than life, more than air…” Nohnohsot was already behind her, spreading her thighs wide and rubbing the head of his cock in her juices, slick and heated as they showered her skin with ribbons of passionate excitement.
She moaned once more as she felt his hardness against her sensitive ring of muscles and relaxed, wanting to feel him take her in this new way—deeply—sending her to a realm of madness she was so desperate to lose herself within.
“I would not hurt you…” Nohnohsot’s words were harsh, a rough mutter as he pressed between her buttocks.
“You will not. You could not. I want you so badly, like this…please…”
He eased himself past her taut opening, stretching her in a way that sent shivers of pleasure rippling through her. His fingers grasped her hips, squeezing her, adding even more sensations, driving her higher along the path to her peak.
She groaned and dipped one hand between her legs, rubbing gently around her clit, keeping her body trembling with passionate desire as he entered her more deeply. Gandewitha barely heard his moan of joy, so involved was she in the strange intimacy of this penetration.
“Gods, my love. You are tight, so tight…”
He slid all the way inside her, a hard, filling weight within her ass, stroking places that burst into flame at his touch. It was almost painful, this stretching pleasure, but coupled with the caresses she gave herself, Gandewitha knew she was close to coming in a harder and more explosive way than she’d experienced before.
Her senses swam, her body soared, and when Nohnohsot gently withdrew only to sink back once more, she cried out to him, to the heavens, to the storm that gathered around them.
“Now, Nohnohsot. Now. I am going to fly. Be with me, my love…”
He thrust rapidly at her command, pounding against her without a check, his balls slapping her skin and forcing her over the edge into oblivion.
She screamed, a high wail of desires fulfilled, of pleasures unimagined. Her body surrendered to fiercely savage spasms of completion, grasping Nohnohsot’s cock in strange and wonderful ways, soaking her fingers with a rain of joy.
She sobbed and whimpered, feeling the storm within her body rage in endless waves, shocks of magnificently brilliant orgasmic release washing over her, battering her flesh and her spirit.
As they subsided, Gandewitha felt something else—a throbbing pulse, deep and strong, followed by Nohnohsot’s harsh cry as he followed her into the abyss. His cock, moving with the force of his climax, stirred her passions, making her sob with delight as he released his seed.
Hot and full, he spurted endless streams, overflowing her tight places and spreading down her parted thighs to mingle with Gandewitha’s liquids in a stream of blended fulfillment.
She was barely aware of the rain which had begun to dapple their skin with raindrops, so lost was she in the madness of their wild fucking.
When it increased to a steady downpour, Nohnohsot eased himself from her and they both collapsed, letting the skies cleanse them and cool their flesh.
Gandewitha shivered at the emptiness she felt with his cock no longer part of her body. “I love you so much. Little words for such a mighty passion.”
“I cannot begin to even find the words, my life. Without you, I am not even a drop of rain in the lake that touches the clouds.” He gathered her close.
“Let us leave. Tonight. Now, while it rains and there will be little chance of our leaving tracks behind.” She gripped his arms, unwilling to face a future without Nohnohsot in it.
Instead of agreeing, Nohnohsot held her tight. “I have news as well.” He sounded—agonized. Like the words were coming from a throat that did not wish them to pass.
“What?” She lifted her head from his shoulder to stare at him, brushing at the rain spattering them as they lay beneath a few branches offering little protection from the storm.
He swallowed and reached past her for his clothing, grabbing his hunting knife and leaning back once more.
“Nohnohsot?” Gandewitha frowned at him, shivers of apprehension chilling her more than the weather.
He lifted the knife and hacked off a long piece of his hair.
“Here, my love. Keep this safe.”
“Oh no…” Gandewitha’s hand went to her mouth. She knew what the gesture meant.
“Tomorrow, we leave for the north. Tomorrow, I shall wear my hair as a Seneca warrior. I cannot part from you without pain, but you know I must go.” He offered her the dark slick of black silk, a part of him she was loath to accept since it would mean…
“You go to fight the Huron.” She whispered the words, blindly letting the agony flow through her. “Why, Nohnohsot? Why must men fight? Why must they die?”
“It is our duty to our nation, precious one. We both have a duty. Our feelings have to take second place.” He stared at her, a steady gaze from his heart—a request that she understand his nature, his place in his tribe, his honor.
She took the lock of hair, words choking in her throat. Already she could see him with his head shaved, only a tall tuft of hair marking him as the Seneca warrior he was. All she could do was breathe a silent cry of grief that tore at her soul…
…And was echoed in Gaia’s throat as she wrenched herself from her pillows, a scream of sorrow erupting from her lungs to mingle with the tears that had already soaked her cheeks.
She simply could not deal with this, not this pain, not on this level.
Not alone.
Slipping from the bed, Gaia went to her laptop and pulled up her email screen. Quickly, she typed in an address—one she’d just happened to come across yesterday, strictly by chance, of course—for one Ned Harper.
Her message was short and concise.
“The dreams are back. Different now. I don’t know how to cope with them.” With a click, it was gone, winging its way through cyberspace to its intended recipient. Whether he’d answer or not, she had no clue, but she felt better after sending it.
When she came home that night, the response was waiting.
“I know. I’m having them again too. Please come up to Boston if you can get away. I may know someone who can help us.”
*~~*~~*
For Ned, the dreams had begun as soon as his flight touched down at Logan Airport.
