by Karin Shah
She scrubbed her heating face with both hands as the memories flooded back. Roan had been the star of her own personal porno. First, he’d been in a strange room that looked like a lab. A hospital of some sort, maybe?
His huge form was strapped to a table. She’d approached him and called his name. His eyes opened, but they were completely human, albeit brilliantly green in his scaled face.
“Help me.” The pain in his voice jabbed directly at her heart.
She’d immediately scrambled to his restraints and found them to be thick, metal chains. Part of her tried to wake up at that discrepancy.
The restraints she’d seen in hospitals in movies and TV were usually thick leather with some kind of soft backing. These looked more like the shackles inmates might wear, but the links were heavier, more suited to an elephant than a man.
Her brain seemed to be working on two levels. She was present in the dream as if it were really happening, but a part of her was separate. That part knew she dreamed and was actively trying to alter the circumstances.
A key, the conscious part of her brain instructed. There must be a key. She turned to the counter full of test tubes and packaged syringes and tubing.
“The guard,” Roan said. His words almost too airy to decipher. “He has the key.”
As if the words had called him, a large man lumbered in. His size should have intimidated her, but her mate was in trouble. She didn’t hesitate, snatching a rolling stool from under the counter, she threw it at him. It shouldn’t have gone far. She wasn’t a weightlifter or anything, but this was a dream.
The stool flew across the room as if she were an Olympic shot putter, nailing the man on the shoulder. She didn’t wait to see if she’d done any damage, grasping a rectangular metal piece of equipment from the counter and bashing him on the head. He slumped to the ground. In real life, she might have worried that she’d killed him, but in the dream there was only grim satisfaction. She searched him for the keys. A wire reel attached them to his belt. She ripped the reel off and lunged back to the table. Others would be coming.
Roan’s shackles fell away quickly. She slung his arm over her shoulders. He should have been too heavy to lift, but as with the stool, she seemed to have superhuman strength. He struggled to his feet, leaning on her, stumbling at first and then gaining his balance as they neared the door.
A stream of running and fighting followed with the strange leaps and jerks of dream logic. They found themselves in a room. The details were sketchy. Her brain told her it was her dorm at college, but it didn’t look like it and her rational mind fought the idea, since it had been years since college.
But she tumbled onto the bed with Roan. He stared down at her. Those human eyes were wrong, but so compelling. She couldn’t glance away. Goosebumps burst over her skin. Heat pooled in her abdomen.
His hand came up to cup her cheek. He lowered his head. Her breath caught. Was he going to kiss her?
His lips almost brushed hers, but something seemed to hold him back. She couldn’t stand the suspense and surged up. His mouth was rigid for a moment, but then softened. His hands plowed into her hair. His fingers electrified the places he touched. His lips turned hot.
God, she felt the kiss to the tips of her toes. He pulled away, and she made a tiny whimper of protest. A hint of a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. She didn’t need to worry—he wasn’t done.
He stroked her hair back and laid stinging kisses down the arched cord of her neck. Each rake of his mouth sent her higher. Her head spun. She gripped his massive shoulders for purchase, and he groaned against her throat. The sound buzzed through her, melting her bones.
He slid his large hands under the hem of her T-shirt. Every muscle constricted with excitement. The tender flesh beneath his fingers rippling in reaction. His hands slid upward, closing on her breast. She’d leaned in for another kiss and . . .
The damn alarm.
She sighed into her hands. He didn’t even pretend to like her. Though, there had been that moment beside her car. She’d been sure he’d been going to kiss her then. Ugh, cold then hot. If she saw him coming, she should run for cover. Why couldn’t she seem to follow her own advice?
Because, only part of her believed it?
His overt actions said “go away,” but his body language and expressions didn’t quite send the same message. And despite his keeping his distance, he always seemed to show up when she needed help. That wasn’t the behavior of someone who wasn’t interested.
Still, she was an adult. Mixed messages notwithstanding, she had to take him at face value. He didn’t want a relationship with her.
Fine. She accepted that, but avoiding him hadn’t seemed to do more than fan the flame of her infatuation. What was that old saying? Absence makes the heart grow fonder? Then the opposite should be equally true.
Maybe if she got to know him, she’d get over this ridiculous fascination?
She nodded at her reflection in the microwave window as she got up to get some tea. There, decision made. Operation desensitization underway.
~ ~ ~
Roan gasped against Sofia’s neck. Her fingers clawed at his shoulders. His hands found her silky soft stomach under her shirt. The lush pliancy of her flesh felt delicious under his palms. Her moans encouraged him to push higher. The thought of her full breasts filling his hands sent a thrill through his veins.
Knock, knock, knock.
He rocketed into a sitting position under the sheet. Shit, another dream. As clarity eddied back, he stared unseeing into the shadows. Another dream, but this time the woman’s details hadn’t scurried away with consciousness. He’d been dreaming about Sofia. He inhaled deeply. He had always been dreaming about Sofia.
The dreams were different in another way too. He’d somehow mixed up the past with the present. She had been there in the laboratory with him. She’d rescued him. His subconscious was obviously having a field day with the whole mate thing.
Knock, knock, knock. Lu. There was no mistaking that knock. For a second the temptation to yell “I’m busy” and try to recover the dream tugged at him, but he shook his head and curled his knees into his chest to hide the evidence of his arousal. “Come in.”
His front door opened and a second later, “Wow, that sounded welcoming.” Lu entered and sat at the end of his bed. “How are you?”
“Healed.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
He glared at her from under his brows and flipped back the sheet just enough to display the nearly invisible scar.
She ran her hands through her hair, the brilliantly red strands looking even redder against the contrast of her pale skin and black tattoos. “Holy shit.” She exhaled and blinked at him for a moment. “I guess magic is real.”
He grimaced. “You don’t say.”
He slid his legs off the mattress, wrapping the sheet around his waist for privacy.
“Whoa, whoa!” Lu held her hands up, painted palms out. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get dressed and get to work. I overheard Dino saying his tire was flat when Slim brought it back from town.”
“Yeah, no.” Lu lifted her eyebrows. “You’re forgetting something.”
He sank back onto the bed, glaring at the ceiling.
He was. He restrained the temptation to drum his heels on the bed like a frustrated toddler. “Damn, I guess if people see me up and around, they might think it’s strange.”
Lu’s face puckered. “Most definitely. You’re stuck in this trailer for at least a week. And I can’t keep Sofia away forever. Plus, you think she’s your mate, right?”
He nodded and cleared his throat, conscious of both the remnants of his erection and his revelation about his dreams. “I know she is.”
“Then when she comes to
check on you, you’re going to have to find a way to be charming.”
He dropped his head into his hands. “Charming? I can barely manage surly.”
She patted his shoulder. “I’m aware. But for now let’s at least try for pathetically injured. Maybe you’ll get lucky and she has a Florence Nightingale complex.”
“I guess we’ll find out in a second.”
“What?”
“I can hear her coming up the path.” He’d recognize the sound of her footsteps and her pattern of breathing if he were blindfolded underwater.
Sure enough, a few seconds later, there was a gentle knock.
Lu sent him an appreciative glance. “Fuck, we could have used you in the army.” Her brow wrinkled. “Come to think of it. Your voice reminds me of a pair of scary-ass Rangers I used to know.”
Before she could elaborate, Sofia knocked again. Lu wagged her eyebrows. “Eager, isn’t she?”
He could only wish.
As Lu opened the door for Sofia and greeted her, Roan arranged himself back in bed against the pillows and tried to appear to be in pain. Sofia knocked again on the bedroom wall before entering. In the distance he heard Lu let herself out.
“Hi.” The greeting was as thin as a butterfly’s wing and absent her usual throaty quality. She was unsure of her welcome, and why not?
He hadn’t exactly been Prince Charming since they’d met. Still, her presence recalled the heat of his dream, and he forced himself not to fidget.
He tried a smile. “Hi.”
She took that as an invitation, gliding into the room. He couldn’t stop his gaze from tracing her ripe curves. She wore a rich purple shirt with a square neckline that made her skin like gold. She had a couple of books in her hands. “I, uh, thought you might be bored being stuck in bed.”
She eased forward by inches as if she were feeding a feral cat, her hands outstretched to place their cargo on the built-in table on the wall beside the bed.
Damn, she was going to drop off the books and take off. He needed her to stay.
He fisted the sheet as he fumbled for a plausible excuse. Strange as it seemed though the details of his life before he awakened in the alley were slippery, he still remembered movies and information he must have learned earlier.
A scene from The Princess Bride suddenly came to him. The grandfather reading to his grandson. If he could convince her to read to him . . .
“Thanks, but lifting my arms is painful,” he said, stopping her action midway.
“Oh.” She pressed the books to her chest, and he was abruptly jealous of inanimate objects.
He licked his lips. Here went nothing. “I know you’re busy, but would you mind reading to me?”
She looked uncertain and he added, “I think it would take my mind off the pain.”
Chapter 13
Sofia tried not to gawk at Roan. His sheet was folded at his waist and the bare perfection of his chiseled, lean-muscled chest was on full display. The picture of a 1940’s era cartoon wolf flashed into her head. It howled, eyes bulging, long, red tongue unrolled on the floor. She babbled her prepared speech to stall for time to collect herself.
His invitation to stay disrupted her plan. She’d intended to drop off the books and come by to talk about them tomorrow. One, because she didn’t want to tire him. He was still recovering after all, and two, because she’d planned to start small. Wasn’t that how immunity worked? Or was that how to tame a wild animal? Her head felt muddled.
Now, she tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear and inspected the room for someplace to sit. There was no furniture in the bedroom except the huge bed and the glorified shelf beside it.
She eyed the white sheet over his long legs and the corner of the mattress below. If she sat on the bed, it could dip and put strain on his wound.
She remembered a folding stool in a corner in the kitchenette. “Just a minute,” she said, and retreated to fetch it.
Returning, she cleared her throat as she set it up and perched on the seat. She’d been here for almost five minutes already. She should be feeling more composed, but her heartbeat was doing the cha-cha in her chest.
She squared the edges of the pile of books on her lap, then made the mistake of looking at him again.
She hadn’t expected to be alone with him in the trailer. Nor for him to seem so vibrant on the bed. He didn’t appear fevered and if he was in pain, he hid it well.
It was as if he, out of everything in the room, was the only thing in three dimensions. She couldn’t look away.
Propped up on pillows against the headboard, his hair spilled onto his shoulders, the light from the small high window picking out blue and white highlights, practically begging for a hand to discover its texture.
She clenched the fingers that twitched to try.
Her gaze returned to the torso and chest still on exhibit, and so they should be—in a museum. His sleek, muscular arms, broad shoulders and diamond-cut chest and abs belonged on a statue not a man, and her pulse wouldn’t be careening like bumper cars with a tween at the wheel if they were.
The miniature scales tattooed on his pale bronze skin didn’t detract in the least. Whoever had inked them had been a master. She noted again that each one appeared to have an iridescent sheen when the light hit it. What had the artist used? Some space-age metallic pigment?
He cleared his throat and her gaze snapped back to his face.
She must be acting weird. Truth be told, she still wasn’t feeling herself. Probably shouldn’t have left her RV. It was like she was under some magic spell that wouldn’t let her rest until she’d seen him.
His scent had hit her at the door. Most of these old trailers came with the chemical smell of plastic outgases and years of cooking greases, mildew, and sweat, that wasn’t the case here. His trailer smelled like him.
She wasn’t sure she could describe it, sandalwood and citrus, maybe, with a hint of musk, but it was like catnip to her. She wanted to curl up in his lap, bury her nose in his neck, and just breathe it in. The idea quickened her pulse further and coiled in her abdomen.
Ugh! This visit was intended to be both a courtesy and an opportunity to build up an immunity to whatever it was about him that had her so captivated. It wasn’t supposed to make things worse.
If she wasn’t twenty-nine, she’d think she was going crazy in her old age.
“What do you have?”
Damn, Roan’s voice was deep and rich. Snared in the feelings it engendered in her body, she had to catch up with the meaning of his words.
The books, he referred to the books. “Oh, I didn’t know what you would like. I don’t have many physical books left, but I brought an assortment. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Starship Troopers.” She had a collection of romances, as well, but she couldn’t imagine reading a love scene out loud.
A smile lit the bronze surface of his face. “Those are some of my favorites.” His teeth were brilliantly white behind the darker scales and her stomach fluttered. She smothered the dopey grin she could feel threatening.
He liked the books she liked.
Quit it, Sofia. You’re acting like a twelve-year-old with your first crush.
A crease tugged at his brow.
Had he strained his wound? Was he in pain?
His features smoothed. “The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorites, but it’s such a brick. How about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?”
The novel by C.S. Lewis was the shortest and easiest read. She set the other books on his shelf/nightstand, settled onto the stool and opened the cover.
Reading was soothing and as she knew the book well, allowed her to examine him further without being conspicuous. He had long ebony eyelashes.
They fluttered down as she spoke the first few lines.
She grinned. “Are you falling asleep?”
He shook his head, but didn’t open his eyes. “I just find it easier to imagine this way.”
Her smile grew. A likely story.
She turned one page and then another. It rained in the book and Lucy ducked into the wardrobe, leaving the door open, and discovered the evergreens, making her way into Narnia for the first time.
She turned the page again and Roan, who she’d assumed had dozed off, asked, “How old were you when you first read this?”
She took a moment to examine her memories. “Oh, I think I was ten. They were going to show the movies at the library, and I wanted to read the books first. How about you?”
His features which had been smooth, crinkled. Funny how in the short time she’d known him, the unnatural angles of his face had started to appear ordinary.
Maybe ordinary wasn’t the word. Familiar?
“I don’t remember much before I came here, so I’m not sure.”
She dropped her hands into her lap, the book going with them. “Really?”
He nodded, eyes still closed. “Really.”
Though he’d answered, the tone of his reply said he wouldn’t welcome more questions on the subject, so she lifted the book and read another chapter.
As Mr. Tumnus betrayed Lucy and then regretted it, she clicked her tongue. “I always hate this part.”
He opened his eyes at that. The brilliantly green gaze landed on her face. “Why?”
She shrugged, looking down at the yellowed pages. “Well, I was a pretty streetwise child and she shouldn’t have gone off with a stranger to begin with, and then I started to like him, so . . .”
“I guess I always identified with him myself.”
