ON EDGE (Decorah Security) (6 page)

He touched her and kissed her, tasted her, lifting his head to watch her face and judge her readiness as he continued to stroke his fingers through her most intimate flesh.

He saw passion mold her features, felt her hips lift restlessly against his fingers.

He slipped his finger into her, then out again, stroking up to her clit.

“That feels so good,” she gasped.

“There’s more. Do you know the pleasure a woman feels when she reaches sexual climax?”

“No.”

“I’ll show you. Just with my hand.”

“How is that possible?”

“You’ll see.”

He continued to stroke her, dipping into her, pressing against her swollen sex, sliding up to her clit as he rocked his hand, his finger plunging in and out of her, feeling her inner muscles tremble, then convulse.

He felt her climax against his hand, felt her whole body clenching. While pleasure still gripped her, he levered himself over her and plunged his cock inside her.

She cried out, staring up at him, and he went still above her, overcome by emotions. “The painful part is done. I’m in you,” he whispered, in a choked voice, bending to kiss her. He rolled to his side, taking her with him so that he could kiss her and touch her when he began to move his hips.

He felt tiny tremors in her sheath as her arousal built again. Then, as he moved, she began to match his rhythm. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she climbed toward orgasm with him. Summoning every ounce of self-control he possessed, he held himself back, waiting for her to reach the peak of her pleasure again. When he felt the spasms of her climax bloom to full force, he let himself go, crying out as his own orgasm rocketed through him.

He rolled to his side, cradling her in his arms, overwhelmed with the joy of making love with her— and the trust she had given him.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“I should be the one to say that. You gave me something I never knew about—never expected.”

He stroked her arm, turned his head so that he could kiss her cheek. He had so many questions, but he understood that he might not get the answers he wanted—or any answers at all. And as he lay in this woman’s bed, enjoying the feel of her head resting on his arm, he felt a profound peace and happiness—which he was afraid he would never feel again.

He was sure he could prolong the sweet respite by keeping his questions locked in his throat, but he had never considered himself a coward.

“Ariel, who are you?” he asked in a voice that he couldn’t quite hold steady.

She stiffened in his arms, then scooted away from him, putting a foot of space between them. “I can’t talk about that.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“I want to.”

“But?”

“But this is very new to me, and I think I may already be breaking the rules.”

“What, you lose your powers if you’re not a virgin?”

“I don’t think so.” She raised her hand, and a television screen appeared on the wall across the room. Not bulky but perfectly flat like a picture hanging in a gallery. As he watched, it flicked on and he saw Bernard Shaw reporting on the situation in the Middle East.”

“I guess I can still do it.” she murmured.

“You can get CNN here?”

“If I want. And channels from other countries.”

Instantly the channel changed to a women commentator speaking what sounded like Russian.

“Movies?”

“What one do you want to see?”

“
Coming Home
with Jane Fonda and Jon Voight.” He could identify with that one.

This time the change took a few moments. As the movie showed on the screen, he reached for her hand, knitting his fingers with hers.

“He’s injured in a war. Like you.”

“Worse.”

“Yeah, turn it off and get The 1812 Overture. Not too loud.”

She did it, pulling up a recording the Boston Pops had done on Public Broadcasting.

He listened to the music, wanting answers, but he wanted this time with her, too. She had given him something he hadn’t expected. Not just the sweetness of making love with her. In this place, he was whole again, and he was pretty sure that wouldn’t be true when he went back to the Naval Medical Center. He didn’t ask about that. Instead he asked, “How long can I stay here?”

“I don’t know.” She dragged in a breath and let it out. “No one from your world ever came here before.”

“Why me?”

“You possess something other men lack.”

“What?”

“The only thing I can think is that your mind is open in an unusual way.”

“Or the two of us have a connection that neither one of us can explain.”

He waited for her to say it could be explained, but she only nodded.

“Show me your house,” he said, wondering if he’d find any clues. If she had a TV, maybe she had a computer connected to . . . what? The universal mind?

When she climbed out of bed, he saw the blood on the inside of her thighs and drew in a ragged breath.

She followed his gaze and flushed. “That happened when you entered me?”

“Yes.”

“I should wash.”

“Let me wash you.”

Her flush deepened.

“There should be no secrets between us. At least physical secrets,” he said. “Where’s the bathroom?”

She gave a little nod but picked up the sari and draped it over her body before leading him down the hall to a huge bathroom with a marble tub as big as a Jacuzzi, a large shower enclosed on all sides by glass and a marble sink counter. One wall was tiled in a mural that looked like it could have come from ancient Greece, and the toilet was in a separate room that was modeled on a Roman general’s campaign tent.

“You like to mix your decor.”

“I change it when I want.”

He turned on the water in the shower, adjusting the temperature to steamy. Come on in.”

“With you?”

“Yeah. You need to learn that it’s not just for washing.”

He stepped under the water, which turned his skin instantly slick and hot.

He held out his hand, and Ariel stepped in with him. He reached for a peach-colored washcloth hanging on a small rack and wet it under the water, then bent to wash the blood off her thighs, watching it run into the drain and swirl away.

When he was done, he pulled her close, absorbing the feel of her wet body plastered to his.

Reaching behind her, he found a bar of soap in a wall niche and slicked his hands, running them up and down her back, playing over the curve of her butt, wringing a small exclamation from her.

Bending his head, he nibbled on her ear, sucked on the lobe, stiffened his tongue and probed.

Tipping her head up, he brought his mouth to hers, playing with her lips and then her teeth and the sweet territory beyond as he brought his soapy hands to her breasts, gliding over them, loving the way her body quivered in his arms.

She sighed and dipped her head so that he couldn’t see her face as she walked him in a little circle. She’d moved him so that the soap dish was to his back, and when she played her soap-slick hands down his back to his butt, he grinned. She was a fast learner.

Very fast, he realized when she slipped one soapy hand into the crack between his butt cheeks and closed the other around his aching erection, imitating the motion of intercourse.

He gasped as she played with his ass and his butt crack. “Don’t do too much of that.”

“You don’t like it?”

“I like it too much. You’ll make me come.”

“That’s what it’s called?”

“Yeah. Or orgasm. Or sexual climax.”

He moved her hand to safer territory, then went back to her taut nipples, using a circular motion to skim their edges, alternating that with flicks of his thumbnails across the very tips, wringing a sob from her.

“We could use a little shelf in here. For you to sit on,” he muttered. About at the height of my hips.

The requested shelf materialized in back of her, and he lifted her onto it, spreading her legs and moving between them so that he could thrust his cock into her.

He saw her look down at the place where they were joined.

“You can’t tell where one of us starts and the other ends,” she breathed.

They both watched as he moved slowly in and out of her, his hands on her breasts again, tugging and twisting at the nipples.

They had satisfied each other not long ago, but neither of them had quenched their thirst for the other. The water beat down on them in torrents now, matching the torrents of pleasure coursing through him. Again he held back, waiting until he felt her spasm before following her into ecstasy.

She collapsed against him, her head drifting to his chest, then turning so that she could nuzzle her lips against him.

He reached to turn off the water, then grabbed a fluffy towel which he used to dry her off as she did the same with another towel she must have conjured out of thin air. A very useful talent.

Scooping her up in his arms, he cradled her against his chest, intending to carry her back to bed.

Then from one moment to the next, she was gone. Vanished. And then he was gone, too.

Chapter Six

Frank wasn’t sure how long he was nowhere. It could have been minutes, hours, years or a century. But he awoke with a gasp, his body jerking painfully as his eyes flew open.

In pain and confusion, He looked up into the faces of two nurses and a doctor standing over him. The doctor was Southwell who was in charge of the internal medicine program on the trauma floor.

“Wha. . .?” Frank tried to ask.

“Take it easy.”

Frank wet his dry lips and waited a moment before trying again. “What happened?” he managed to ask.

The doctor’s face was strained.

“You were dead. We got you back.” Southwell gestured toward the crash cart beside the bed. On it was a defibrillator, and the doctor was holding the paddles.

“My heart stopped beating?” Frank clarified as he struggled to wrap his mind around the situation.

The doctor nodded.

Frank tried to square the information with his previous memories—starting when he’d finally gone to bed the night before. He’d put himself into a trance, forced himself deeper, and ended up in the jungle where Ariel lived. He’d been attacked by her guards. She’d saved his life, and they’d made love.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Southwell asked.

Unwilling to say anything that would get him transferred to the psych ward, he said, “Going to bed.”

“And you were here in bed all night?”

“As far as I know.”

“What does that mean?” Southwell demanded.

“I suppose somebody could have moved me. Like if I were unconscious,” he said, wishing he’d just kept his mouth shut instead of coming out with that last speculation.

Before the doctor could ask another question, an orderly came in. “Dr. Southwell.”

“Excuse me.” The physician detached himself from the group gathered around Frank and went over to the orderly, where they conferred in low voices. Finally Southwell returned.

“What?” Frank demanded.

The doctor hesitated.

“What?” Frank said again, his gaze drilling into Southwell’s.

“Gordon is recovering.”

Frank felt everything inside himself clench.

“From what?”

“He had a heart attack. We managed to revive him.”

Frank turned his head toward the window, seeing the first glimmer of dawn, then looked back at Southwell.

“You’re saying both of us had heart attacks tonight.”

“You didn’t have a heart attack. We believe you suffered a cardiac arrest, but we’ll have to run some tests.”

“What’s the difference?”

Southwell went into a technical explanation that Frank couldn’t follow very well. But the bottom line was that Gordon’s heart had been damaged, and his had not.

“Why did it happen to me?” he asked.

“We don’t know, but we’re going to check you over, starting with some blood work.”

One of the nurses stepped forward with a blood-draw tray.

“What, you think I’m on something?” Frank asked as she inserted a needle into his arm.

“We’re checking every possibility.”

“Just us—me and Gordon—nobody else?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“So I guess it’s not something like Legionnaires’ disease infecting the hospital.”

“Legionnaires’ causes respiratory distress and possibly mental confusion.”

Frank sighed. “I was just using it as an example of a disease that sweeps through a confined population.”

“Yeah.”

When the nurse was finished with the blood draw, Southwell listened to his heart, had him cough, and other stuff you’d expect in a routine physical.