Some Enchanted Dream: A Time Travel Adventure (Seasons of Enchantment Book 2) (25 page)

"Let me," he whispered in a rough voice tinged with desire. Slowly, he peeled the last barrier between his hands and her skin away, and she stepped out of the garment. Next, he focused on removing her white high-heel granny boots. He lifted her right leg behind the knee, propped her foot against his thigh and unlaced the boot. Adrian removed it. He did the same to the other boot, making it a sensual game of lifting her calf at the back of her knee and stroking the inside of her thigh with one hand whilst unlacing the boot with the other.

Once he had her boots set aside, he sat back on his heels and gazed up at her with a potent smile. "You are ravishing from this angle, darlin'. A veritable Venus."

A man kneeling in front of a nearly naked woman with pure lust in his eyes was a marvel Tara had never experienced before. The exquisite feeling of power mingling with the suggestion of being completely vulnerable to those sensuous, smoky gray eyes was more than she could endure.

She reached down, determined to bring him up to her level by tugging at his wrists.

"No, my sweet, let me look at you." His sultry gaze inched up from her knees to her torso, pausing here and there to admire the curve of her hip, the dip of her navel in an unhurried pace. His fingers traveled at a leisurely pace over her stockings--from ankle to calf, past the back of her knee and thigh to the garter that held her stocking in place. "We'll buy black silk stockings for your lovely legs, too."

Tara sighed. She was unable to speak as her heart whispered one word to her brain.
Yes
.

"If they were silk, I would leave them on." His hand rolled the garter down her leg, and with it the plain white stocking. Light fingers traced the back of her thigh as he pushed the bunching fabric down to her ankle. As the skin of her thigh met the air, his lips brushed over the newly revealed flesh in adoration.

At last, her foot was bare, the heel cradled in his strong hand.

Tara nearly swooned when Adrian's moist tongue touched the top of her foot, just past her toes. She cried out in surprise at this new, sensual touch. As he set her naked foot on the floor, his hand snaked up the back of her other leg to capture the remaining garter. The second stocking was rolled down in a torturously slow motion as he christened her exposed flesh with a moist trail of kisses.

Her knees grew weak. Tara sank down onto the bed and lay back with her knees parted, her body open with invitation to him. He came up from kneeling on the floor and started kissing the insides of her thighs.

Tara giggled and squirmed, refusing to let him go where he wanted as she sat up and held his head in her palms.

With a heavy sigh, Adrian stood and unfastened his trousers. Tara reached out for him to come to her, to lay over her and possess her fully. He just stared down at her with dark, sultry eyes and a expression somewhere between ecstasy and pain.

"Love me, now," she whispered, holding out her arms to him.

"I do love you." His trousers slipped down, and then his small pants. The shirt was cast off. He was naked in front of her, completely nude with his cock saluting her proudly.

The bed dipped as he climbed onto the soft silk coverlet between her pale thighs. Tara was surprised when he did not bend down to remove his shoes. He'd been barefoot when she came home, and by all the saints in heaven, she had never noticed his bare feet.

Tara reached out to him, urging him to descend like a god from above to claim her.

He started to creep around her, as if he meant to lie on his side next to her and continue his potent seduction. Tara grasped his arm and his waist, urging him to move between her upraised thighs. He resisted, appearing surprised by her eagerness.

"What's this, my darlin' lass?" His brogue was more pronounced when he was tired or agitated, adding another irresistible layer to this beguiling spell he'd cast over her soul. "We're just getting started."

"No, come to me,
now
." The words were powerful on her lips, bringing an erotic rush of excitement born of need. Tara tugged at his shoulder and curled a leg about his hip to pull him down on to her. "Don't dally
,
Lord Dillon, I
need
you inside me."

Surprise registered as his eyes widened, and then that sexy, self-assured smile made Tara's heart soar with delicious anticipation.

It had been far too long since they made love. At least a couple of months due to his injury after being shot. After his seductive undressing moments ago, Tara couldn't wait to feel his flesh invade her with the promise of completion. 

Adrian's weight covered her. She welcomed the feeling of being pressed beneath him as his hard cock slid into her with one deep, penetrating thrust.

A gasp of pleasure escaped her lips as he slid home and sent her hurtling closer to the edge. Adrian's answering moan as he buried himself inside her was the loveliest sound in the world. Her passage was tight, but it brought more intense pleasure, not pain. She clutched him and imprisoned his hips with her legs in a tight embrace.

In that instant, he was all that mattered in the world. Adrian, her lover, her fierce protector, her soul mate. His rapid breath told her he was close to coming too. His teeth nipped a her ear, pushing her over the cliff with him as they came in unison. Tara gasped aloud. He shoved his granite cock into her in one last primitive thrust as waves of shivering ecstasy brought a delightful feeling of soaring high above the earth clutched in this intimate embrace.

Chapter Twenty

Dan stumbled home from the dwarf's lair. He'd joined the fellow in his lodgings on the better district just beyond Montmartre hill after the second dance ended. Henri invited two other men to his home. The three of them watched with fascination as the little man created a new cocktail drink, something he called an
earthquake
. It was absinthe, mixed in a shaker in equal parts with cognac. 

It was a weird mixture. Dan had sipped his drink to be polite, but didn't care for the blending of two strong elixirs. He much preferred a clean, pure glass of whiskey or brandy. Absinthe was unique, as a drink went, but he wasn't as in love with the stuff as many of his new companions seemed to be. So, he laughed with them, and at them when they made asses of themselves under the sway of Henri's new drink. As he watched the others, Dan thought about returning home. After the two men began to crawl on all fours and allow Henri to ride on their backs as if they were horses, Dan decided it was time to wander home.

The fellows were fun, and yet he couldn't help but long for the company of a pretty Frenchwoman with rich, dark brown curls and soft sapphire blue eyes.

Perhaps he was just feeling his age. And yet, the blokes he'd spent the night drinking with at Henri's crib were of an equal age with himself and didn't mind getting stupid faced drunk and stoned. Yeah, there was that, too. The old Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the nineteen-sixties had nothing on this wild Bohemian settlement. Henri's friends were not only mixing alcohol in their drinks, but they were eating strawberries soaked in ether, something Henri had called a 'smart dessert'. Dan shuddered at the thought of those men come the morning, and their putrid retching after ingesting not one potent substance but a mixture of three. All they were missing was an opium pipe, and he didn't doubt for a minute that the little Frenchman might just pull that out of his sleeve to round out the evening.

Absinthe was not fermented for a long period of time like whiskey or brandy. He learned from his new friends who were devoted to the green drink that the herbs giving it a distinct taste and the vibrant green color were merely steeped in alcohol for about twenty four hours. Nevertheless it was still made up of 60 percent alcohol, and was 120 proof.

Dan pitied the men who seemed to think it possessed some kind of magical quality that made them wittier or more enlightened under its sway. In his opinion, it didn't lend creativity to people; they either had it initially or those who lacked it were just plain deluded into believing the drink could make them a better poet or artist.

As the smoky pink dawn crept over the narrow cobbled streets of Montmartre, Dan felt an uncomfortable presence in the alley. A white cat scurried down the street, away from him as he walked due east in search of his lodgings.

A skittering of footsteps behind him warned him that he was not alone in the deserted street. There were two of them, he guessed, two street toughs hoping to make an easy mark of him as he stumbled home, more than a little drunk himself.

Before Dan could turn to confront them, a hard thwack echoed around him. He'd been struck in the back of the head. The cobbled stones rose up to meet his face. His cheek screamed as it slammed into the hard surface of the stones beneath his face. He called out, and tried to grab at the hands sliding over his jacket in search of his coin pouch. His hand caught a thin, near skeletal wrist, and he held on tight.

His assailants were barely more than adolescent boys. Pick pockets. They were kicking at him, and punching his head trying to get him to let go of his quarry as they cursed in French.

"
Arretez
!" A harsh voice stilled the street vermin.

Both looked up and behind Dan's prostrate form. The one he didn't have shackled at the wrist with his fist ran off. The one he'd caught struggled to be free as he kept looking at the phantom-like figure near Dan's feet. The dark, inky cloak swirled about the tall figure. Pistols were leveled at the waist, and a red scarf concealed the toff's face.

What was this, a hierarchy among thieves? Did the youths run off because a bigger, more threatening thug had arrived on the scene to claim Dan's purse.

The cloaked, black figure spoke again. "Get off him, you pox-faced little snipe or I'll blow your lack-wit brains out the back of your head."

Damn it, he knew that voice. It was Lord Dillon, or rather, his alter ego, Captain Midnight. "Son-of-a-bitch," Dan spat and let go of the scrawny little punk's wrist. "What the hell are you doing lurking in the street at this wretched hour?"

"Saving your arse," Adrian's voice leaned close as he bent and offered a hand to Dan to help him up.

"Does she know about this?" Even as he asked, Dan knew the answer. Hell no. Tara would be livid if he told her. They'd pulled Lord Dillon from one time because he was playing at being a superhero, complete with a black sheath to conceal his face--and here he was, trying to get himself arrested in a new time period by playing vigilante on the streets.

"Are you injured?" Adrian brushed at Dan's coat, ignoring the question.

"No, not much." He cradled his cheek in his palm as the stinging became a hive of angry bees. Had he broke a bone? It felt like his cheek was a raw piece of meat. When Dan pulled his hand away, he saw blood on his fingers. "Again, what's the story here? You escaped the hangman once, you want to try for a second chance to dance on the air?"

"I'm not attacking soldiers." Adrian's billowing cloak swirled about him, making him look almost like an incarnation of death as he walked in step with Dan to their lodgings. "There are no constables patrolling here in the night as there are in Paris proper. No one cares what happens on these mean backstreets above the city."

"I see." Dan didn't, but he'd give the fellow the benefit of the doubt. "You're doing what, chasing street scum away from honest folk like me?" It was sort of endearing, knowing the man beside him had such a passion for the afflicted and neglected souls on the poor end of town.

"I'm making a difference, trying to, as Tara said I should."

"Uh-huh." Dan stopped, and turned to the smaller man. "And she told you to do this?"

"No, not in so many words. She told me to stop complaining about the neighborhood and try to make it better, make a difference in the lives of those who are forced by circumstances to live in the poor district. The dance hall girls come home at this time, before daybreak."

"You couldn't just open up a soup kitchen," Dan groused, and then spat blood on the pavement. "But, thanks. You did stop me from being mugged. Hey, where'd you get that?" He fingered the edge of his cloak. "That's
mine
."

"You weren't using it," Adrian replied in a tight voice.

They were at their building. Adrian opened the door for him and waited for him to go in first. Dan turned to look about them. They were being watched by a man in the shadow of the door arch, just across the street. A man whose face reminded him of a vampire from a movie. The eyes were electric green, not red, and the skin was like pale, grey stone. Nosferatu, but with hair and stylish clothes. A white collar stood out from the shadows that hid the figure, and a vest of bright green iridescent silk seemed to flicker and shimmer as the fellow shifted to avoid the reaching rays of the sun.

He saw that costume before, but with his throbbing head he couldn't recall just where.

Adrian turned, noting his lingering gaze at the shadowed stoop across the street from them. The creepy guy with bad skin seemed to evaporate into the shadows, leaving Dan with a sick feeling in his gullet. That thing wasn't human, not by a long shot.

*   *   *

Tara was in the courtyard of dreams again. The fairy bower where translucent glowing flowers undulated like neon butterfly wings in the darkness. It was a place where iridescent fish swam in a gazing pool of glowing water lilies, a pool lit by a strange green light deep inside the earth.

"Tara, sweet lady, please, help me find the Dark Ones."

It was the Green Lady. She was standing before Tara again.  Her eyes were soft green orbs, glowing slightly. And her diaphanous gown was also green, a vivid spring green, like leaves that had just emerged all dewy and new from the buds of May. The gown shimmered with glints of light, despite it being night in the garden. The stars were above them. The moon was no longer full. Still, the flowers bloomed and waved as if their delicate petals were made of pure, transparent light. Two of the flowers lifted from their moorings, and floated about the Green Lady. They were tiny little creatures, like the Ni'all-Iraiser who served the fey in Ireland.