After the Storm (32 page)

"Amazing, isn't it?" she said. "And totally weird."

He had no idea who she was talking to, but he answered anyway. "Yes."

She whirled around and their gazes met.

He knew about time. It didn't really stop, not without help from a multibillion-dollar power source within a containment field the size of Rhode Island. But time
stopped for him without any technological help as he looked into her dark brown
eyes. Wicked eyes, a mouth made for kissing, a body meant to be caressed. And a
slow smile that was probably identical to his lifted those magnificently kissable
lips as she looked him over as thoroughly as he did her.

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

He'd forgotten what he'd come for. He took a step forward. "I'm Bas. You must be

—"

He found himself looking into those wicked, brown eyes once more. Time was still playing tricks on him, whirling around in circles instead of standing still this time. No, not circles, but a horrible downward spiral that reached out to engulf him. She was there, one sure, solid thing in the center of a black, hideous whirlpool. He reached out, desperate for a lifeline. He called out.

"Olivia!"

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

Chapter 17

Olivia Elizabeth Wolfe Bailey
held her husband in her arms and was delighted with her given name for the first time in her life. Everyone called her Libby, everyone but Bas. Her Bas, who was holding her so tightly she thought her ribs might crack. She didn't mind. She held onto him as tightly as he clutched her.

She desperately needed the contact. It was still wonder-ously new to her that he was real and alive. And she loved him so much she would be glad if they held each other so close they melded completely into one another.

She rocked him in her arms and made stupid, soothing noises and tried not to be terrified that he'd fallen into incurable madness instead of finding his way out of it.

"Please," she whispered. "Please be all right."

After a long time he said, in a dead voice, "I played God, and got punished for it."

He let her go. The world went cold when they stopped touching. She reached for him, but he was already on his feet, removed from any comfort she had to offer.

She watched as he turned and walked away. Her throat tightened with tears as she got up and followed. She didn't think he knew where he was going. She wasn't sure he cared. She only knew she couldn't let him out of her sight ever again. So she trailed behind, desperate with worry, but not knowing what to do.

When branches whipped at him as the path narrowed she flinched. The defensive, defeated slope of his shoulders made her own hurt. When he made a Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

stifled sound something like a sob she could no longer keep the tears that nearly blinded her from spilling down her cheeks.

Eventually he stopped walking. It seemed like hours before he turned to face her.

He didn't meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, Olivia," he said. "Desperately sorry and ashamed."

Libby saw that they'd reached the clearing by the river where they'd watched the herons. How long ago had that been? One day? Two? The journey back to being Bas and Olivia had gone on far too long. She wiped her face with the embroidered edge of her sleeve. She sniffed. "What? What have you got to be sorry for?"

"Designing the TDD. Insisting you be part of the Lilydrake team. Worse." He pushed up his right sleeve to show a faint line of scar, an ugly white mark on his already pale skin. He came closer. "Look at this."

She ran her fingers along the puckered skin. He shivered beneath her touch. "A knife wound?"

He nodded. "I cut myself." His other hand reached out to grasp her chin in a tight grip. He pulled her face up so that his furious, green gaze bored into hers. The fury was directed inward. "I nearly bled to death, but it worked."

She blinked rapidly, refusing to give in to tears again. "What did you do? What worked?"

"Don't you know what I did, Olivia?" His voice sounded far too calm. "Don't you know why I wasn't transported back to headquarters with you and the others?"

"The medical sensor? You cut out the sensor implant?" He nodded. "Why?" she shouted. "What the devil did you do that for?"

"I had to," he said, and let her go.

He started to turn his back on her again, but she grabbed his arm—his sore left Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

arm—and refused to let him move. While he winced she said, "I'm sick of enigmatic bullshit, Sebastian." She pointed a stern finger under his nose. He looked down at it, cross-eyed. "You've had an hour to feel sorry for yourself.

Time's up, babe. Just tell me what happened and we'll work it out."

His bitterness and anger with himself was almost palpable. "You don't understand what I did."

"Then explain it to me."

"You'll hate me."

"I won't."

"How can we work out what I—"

Since it didn't look like he was going to be reasonable she did the only thing she could. She kissed him. With such force that they tumbled backward onto the grass together. He grunted as he landed on his back, but she didn't let his lips escape hers.

Olivia Wolfe Bailey did not do personal demons. Well, she'd often told him she did do one demon, and it was him, Bas might hate himself for all his wretched faults, but she wasn't likely to let him get away with it for long. She never did. A woman of action was Olivia Bailey. Light to his dark. He supposed he might as well relax and let her work out the devils that plagued him with her sweet, hot touch.

"You're one hell of an exorcist, woman," he said, when she let him up for air.

She leaned over him and stroked her fingers down his nose, traced his cheeks and lips. Her smile was full of sensual promise. "Welcome home, wizard."

He touched her face, gently, tentatively as he memorized her all over again. He touched her collarbone, the base of her throat, skimmed his hands over her Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

shoulders and her back. She arched into his touch, bent her head forward so that her thick, dark hair brushed across his cheek. His fingers worked at the cord fastening the top of the dress she'd been given at Blackchurch. When he was done she pulled the gown off her shoulders and down her arms.

Bas looked at her for a few moments before he said, "You know what I like about the Middle Ages?"

She tilted her head to one side. "No bras?"

"No bras."

She got to her knees, undid her belt, and worked her dress down over her hips, slowly, teasing like the best stripper, while he watched with growing arousal.

"No underwear, either."

" How—convenient."

She was not one of those flat-chested, hipless supermodel types. His wife was wonderfully curved in all the right places, with long, long legs, and muscles like steel under the satin smoothness of her skin. He loved watching her move. He loved her stillness as well, he loved the feel of her body as she curled around him in her sleep. He loved looking at her, touching her, making love to her. He loved her.

"Oh, lord," he said, throat and groin both tight and aching from wanting her.

He held out his arms for her. She moved into the circle of his embrace and helped him out of his own clothes. She caressed his naked skin in intent silence, but her hands made urgent demands that his own explorations mirrored.

Libby reveled in rediscovering her husband, in the tactile memorization of the changes in his muscle and flesh. She wanted him with a need so sharp it was painful. Every part of her ached for his touch, and when he touched her her senses raced, fire spread through her. Where she touched him she found delight Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

and wonder.

She discovered that he was the same man she loved to make love to, and subtly different. He'd always been lean and wiry. Months of hard living had pared his already beautiful body into taut strength. The man was definitely buff.

Strong or not, he still had an injured arm. She remembered that just in time when he lifted himself over her to enter her. As urgent and ready as she was, she still pressed her hands against his dark-furred chest. "Bastien, wait," she said. "Let me."

He gave a ferocious growl, then a ragged laugh when she rolled him onto his back; the sound held need as well as frantic amusement. She straddled his erection and paused to savor the barest moment of anticipation. His green eyes flashed at her, command more than entreaty. She obeyed, and joined her body with his. Soon she lost track of the way their bodies moved together. She became aware only of the fast, hard rhythm that raced through her heart and blood and being. Details simply blended into pure, white-hot sensation. Sensation that eventually, beautifully, inevitably—as inevitable as her love for Sebastian—

peaked and brought her the completion only he could bring her.

"I love you," she told him, and happily collapsed on his sweat-matted chest. She didn't rest for long, though. "So," she said when she had her wits back about her,

"just what were you so upset about?"

He ran his hands up and down her spine. It tickled. As he helped her to sit up he said, "And here I thought you were using sex to divert my attention."

She looked him in the eye. "Would I do that?" Sebastian nodded. "Not divert, defuse. Besides, we have six months to make up for."

"I've missed—my wife—so much." Bas cupped her cheek with his palm. "It was the only thing that kept me going."

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

Libby wished she could say the same. She hadn't missed him because she hadn't known he existed. At least not consciously. She wondered if her coming back looking for outlaws had been some subconscious quest to find the man she'd lost.

Outlaws were the ultimate outsiders in the ordered society of the Middle Ages, and Sebastian Bailey trapped in the past would be an outsider indeed.

"I'm just happy you survived at all. You don't have to be guilty because you did, you know."

"That's not it." He looked away. It disturbed her to realize that none of his tension had been dissipated by their making love. He was gazing up at the sky when he went on. "No, that's part of it, I suppose. I did feel guilt for surviving when I thought my wife had died. I still feel guilty. I am guilty."

She didn't shout this time. She asked sympathetically, "For what?"

He looked back at her, expression carefully schooled to stillness. His voice was flat as he said, "You don't remember my leaving you, do you?"

Actually, she did. Not in detail. "It was all very confusing. There were people everywhere, and the fire. Then there was this horrible whining, screeching, howling, piercing noise that made my head feel like it was being twisted off from the inside. Was that your prototype being switched on?"

"No," he answered. "It was not."

"That's what we were told at what little debriefing we had. The shrinks told us that the amnesia was probably caused by the prototype not working properly. If they had any other explanation Joe, Ed and I obviously didn't have a high enough clearance to hear it."